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07/11/2006: "CR FAQ asks "How can you claim to be a Celtic tradition if you're not immersed in the Culture?""
Our CR FAQ asks "How can you claim to be a Celtic tradition if you're not immersed in the Culture?"
Our two Faq writers Erynn Laurie and Kathryn Price NicDhana give us some interesting information, but never answer the question.
You can read their thoughts at http://www.paganachd.com/faq/basic.html#culturalimmersion .
In a nut shell they say
people with CR are "deeply involved in modern Celtic cultures". They list these involvements as: language study and preservation, Celtic music, physical disciplines like dance or various Celtic martial arts forms, political struggles of the Celtic Nations, studying traditional recipes and householder traditions like weaving and traditional dyeing, Irish festivals, seisions and Highland games.
However, because of the diversity of CR, there are followers under the CR umbrella who do not "immerse" themselves in these activities.
All of this is very nice. But let us get back to the question: How can CR call itself a Celtic tradition if you're not immersed in the culture?
The question first infers or leads us to accept the premise that Laurie and NicDhana call CR a Celtic tradition. Is this premise true?
Our CR FAQ writers say:
"We are developing a polytheistic Celtic tradition as it might have looked if left mostly to its own devices over the centuries..."
http://www.paganachd.com/faq/basic.html#era
So it is safe to assume that our writers accept that premise that CR is in fact a Celtic tradition. So our question then continues with: How can followers of CR make this claim of being a part of a Celtic tradition without immersion into Celtic cultures?
Laurie and NicDhana beat all around it but never answer it. Some people study and do this and that, others don't. That's all nice, but how can CR claim to Celtic tradition in any case?
Laurie and NicDhana don't answer the question because its based on a false premise. CR can't legitimately claim to be a Celtic tradition, because it isn't one. It is a spiritual movement that did not originate in living Celtic cultures, its founders do not and have not lived in living Celtic cultures, they cannot read or speak the Celtic languages, hence the founders do not have a Celtic worldview and cannot have "immersed" themselves into Celtic culture. Moreover, CR in actuality is an American neopagan spiritual movement whose methodology is to create what its founders believe pre-Christian Celtic spirituality might look like today if Celtic culture had not accepted Christianity. That is not a tradition of any of the living Celtic cultures. It is one step up from re-enactment because it is all based upon "what if". At best, it is a pseudo-Celtic subculture of American culture.
I personally have no problem with Laurie and NicDhana creating their own spiritual path and calling it Celtic when their goal is trying to create in a scholarly way what might have been if things in the Celtic cultures had turned out different in regards to Christianity (though I do know people who do have this problem). People are free to develop the spiritual paths they wish, as long as they do so in a respectful matter regarding any other spiritualities whose paths they may cross in the process. I do have a problem when they attempt to pass it off as what it is most certainly not: a Celtic tradition with its basis in living Celtic culture. Here again I use the Sioux test: One could not claim their spirituality to be a Sioux tradition unless it was Sioux. You could not claim to be living in a Sioux culture unless you were on the reservations with the Sioux. Creating a spiritual path from outside a living minority culture, then appropriating its name, and calling it a living tradition of that minority culture is not right and it is disrespectful to the living culture involved.
It appears once again that Laurie and NicDhana have some primal need to wrap up their American neopagan creation and sell it as a product of living Celtic culture, a Celtic tradition, when in reality, this packaging is mislabeled and certainly misleading to any newbie coming along wishing to learn about the spirituality of living Celtic cultures, which has nothing in common with the stated goals of CR.
We would strongly encourage Laurie and NicDhana to consider deleting this question from their FAQ, or at least answer it honestly, while also dropping all references in their CR FAQ to CR being a Celtic tradition. This would go along way to restoring a good deal of the intellectual honesty that has been missing with this project. Those interested in discussing this point with the CR FAQ writers can email NicDhana at webgoddess@paganached.com.