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09/01/2006: "07/25/2006: "Beliefnet.com Thread on CR FAQ Exposes Non-Celtic Neo-Pagan Agenda""

Beliefnet.com's Celtic Religion forum is the latest of several fora to expose the inconsistencies and disrespect the CR FAQ shows living Celtic cultural spirituality. It was a pleasure to read the thoughts of someone so in tune with the living cultures explaining the weaknesses of the CR movement as presented in the CR FAQ.

The proponent of living Celtic cultural spirituality for this thread is

Marban. It was refreshing to read the respectful and thoughtful expressions presented and how methodically each position was debated. Regardless of your position on the FAQ, this thread, currently over 30 posts in length is a "must read" if one wishes to see the viewpoint ont the CR FAQ from a true "Celtic" worldview.

http://www.beliefnet.org/boards/message_list.asp?boardID=3748&discussionID=518641

Kathryn Price NicDhana, on a recent Imbas-public post, gushes

that "99.9%" of the response to the FAQ has been positive. This is an obvious spin; our Google searches are finding that in most Celtic spirituality fora, it is either being ignored or openly debated by people who recognize the inherent spiritual beauty of the living cultures and don't feel the need to create an alien neo-Pagan.

Erynn Laurie, in the 31 post of the thread, laments the things "missing from current Gaelic culture after the arrival of Christianity" as a justification for attempting reconstruction by Pagan American outsiders. She mentions lost details of the imbas forosnai ritual and the tarbhfeis ritual, the lack of real knowledge of how the sweat houses were used and what rituals were used, details relating to poetic initiatory vision-seeking rituals that included sitting out on burial mounds and in other sacred places, the Cauldron of Poesy and the possible lost information concerning its relevance to meditation, as well as the lost knowledge of Celtic astronomy/astrology as things that are not a part of living Celtic cultural spirituality today justifying the need for CR.

Laurie sums up her views of the needs of American neo-Pagans and her CR agenda concluding, "This is why we can't say that the current folk tradition is a complete system that deals with all the various needs that Pagans today have."

The sad thing about this viewpoint is that all of the things Laurie lists are not necessary for the average person who is drawn to learn more about Celtic spirituality. There is no evidence that the average Celt had any of this specific knowledge, either, nor that it was necessary for a fulfilling relationship with one's Gods and spirits. Though a most regrettable loss of knowledge, NicDhana and Laurie never show how their "research and revisioning" make anything they do more "Celtic" or authentic. It is not a Celtic reconstruction; it is an American neo-Pagan exercise from outside the Celtic cultural continuum.

Kudos to Marban for the level headed, excellent breakdown of the CR FAQ's real agenda from the viewpoint of the living cultures!

Replies: 2 Comments

on Monday, October 2nd, CES said

Thanks so much for this, Tearlach! Anybody know where this guy is from and where else he posts?

It hit me this morning while I was replying to something over on Myspace, that all this CR FAQ is just a bid for validation from the Judeo-christian establishment. That of course is never going to come.

My path doesn't need validation from any human institution and neither should anyone else's.

cheers
ces

on Monday, October 2nd, Tearlach Roibeard Luder said

Don't know him or where else he posts. You can ask him though by posting a ? to him on the site.

I think there is a lot more to the reasons behind the CR FAQ than that, and many of those reasons being good ones.

My main problems with the FAQ are:

1. It tries to establish CR (Celtic Reconstructionism) as an authentic Celtic cultural tradition, when it is not. It is instead a modern (neo) Pagan creation based on a small group of Americans' worldview of what they believe pre-Christian Celtic spirituality might have looked like without the influence of Christianity on Celtic culture.

2. The two main contributors, Erynn Rowan Laurie and Kathryn Price NicDhana support and reject various spiritual expressions in CR based, not on a Celtic cultural worldview, but by their eclectic desire to develop, preserve, or reject interpretations as to what they feel to be correct and "Celtic', without any living experience at all in the Celtic cultural continuum. Laurie and NicDhana go further by piously questioning or outright rejecting the scholarship of respected writers such as Newton and Kondratiev who speak Celtic languages fluently, have lived and studied in the cultures themselves, and are in a far more knowledgeable position to open up the Celtic worldview to others than either of them.

CR, as described in the FAQ, is no more an authentic part of living Celtic culture than Wicca, where both Laurie and NicDhana evidently got their start.