On Knowing Ourselves

 

 

 

Click here for my personal website - for what I love in animism, shamanism and gnosticism, and for Wicca and Druidry - be warned, this is a BIG site..

What is New Here

On Carl Jung - Myths and his Gnosicism - May 2004 (from my new book "The Seven Days:tales of magic,sex and gender")

Margaret Murray urray and the Professor - - added in June 2004 (a large file as it includes photostats of Professor Hutton's responses)

Introduction.

On this Spirit and Religion website, spiritual material may appear in many diferent place - there is much now up available on the 'Gender and Spirit' button - and more on the poetry button.

At the heart of our being is our consciousness and our quiet sense of inner identity. This place of self-awareness is where we become aware of the world beyond us, of the greater world of Nature. This inner place can be called the place of our Spirit. Around this our inner life flows - the life of our Soul - of passions, thoughts, decisions. This was known by the Greeks as the world of the Psyche. When Carl Jung learnt of this ancient wisdom, he exclaimed to Freud that he had only re-discovering what the ancients already knew.

Beyond the soul is the world of the Physical, of our bodies. Soul vitalise the body - and the body adds beauty. It radiates out, revealing the inner reality, the sounds of a song we sing, the steps that make up our dance, the notes that make up our music.

In the physical world the scientist measures and tests -but deeper he or she gets, the more the underlying pattern manifests itself. The partlicle of light behaves as a physical reality and as a wave-form of a dance. Is life waiting to manifest itself, immanent in nature, throghtout the universe? Are we children becoming consciouis because nature holds consciousness at its heart? Is this what some call God? Is there a Consciouisness in Nature that brings each of us into being, that holds us, sustains us.... is there a parent within the stars and the ants and the winds who dreams us into being? Who is this person that is there in my dreams, in my cosciousness, who seems to hold me?

Is there a unified 'theory' not just of matter, gravity and energy but also of spirit and soul? The great Greek philosophers would argue yes. Pythagoras, Plato - the great thinkers that lived before Europe entered its Dark Age - were also Mystics and weavers of myth in which they expressed realities that were hard to encompass in words.

The same is true of the wise man and woman of Aboriginal peoples, of Bushmen, of the ancient cultures of the world. The Aboriginal 'Dreamer' knew the vast observational and experimental knowledge of their people as well as their songs and myths. I was privileged to spend many years living and working with Aborigines in Australia - in their struggle for social justice. With their elders I found I shared a love of nature, of seeing the scared in nature, and a common language of the spirit.

Here are some words that Carl Jung, a mystic as well as a great scientist, had to say - the words of Jung...

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On the 'Witchcraft' of Medieval Europe - an introduction to 'Margaret Murray and the Professor'

The academic world today is divided over whether some of the women (and a few men) accused of witchcraft during the Middle Ages and 'Early Modern Period' represented among themmselves an alternative older religious path, one that pre-dated Christianity). These trials were often fully recorded - and in their records we thus have the statements of the victims of the trials. No doubt sometimes they said, or were forced to say, the things the court wanted them to say. But often they spoke out and described beliefs and practices that did not arise out of Christianity - nor originated from the suggestions of court officials. They sometimes declared these beliefs with pride even when to recant would have saved their lifes. Were they telling the truth - or was what they said a product of their imagination?.

For a long time, established historians disregarded their statements, treating them with no respect, depicting these victims as hapless hags, as victims of gossip.

But Margaret Murray, an Egptologist, treated the testimony such women gave with unusual seriousness and respect - and concluded, after some analysis, that some aspects of it had continued from pre-Christian time - but with a great degree of change since then, including the introduction of a male domination of the practice (through the 'men in black' (as were the clergy of that time) or of honouring a God rather than a Goddess)..

Other academics completely deny any validity to the accounts of these women. Norman Cohn of 'Europe's Inner Demons' and Professor Ronald Hutton of 'Triumph of the Moon' argue that these accounts were entirely the product of a 'vivid medieval imagination.' Hutton further explained why there is a remarkably uniformity in trial records across Europe( after discounting elements imposed by the court officials) - saying it is not because there these women represent a widely spread belief but solely because they all shared a vivid medienval imagination.

But is this a fair assessment of the evidence? Is it fair to those who are recorded as speaking with pride of their beliefs? Why should their stated beliefs be summarily and disrespectfully dismissed as imaginary - and not the beliefs of other established religions?

My personal observation is that an animism survives in Europe especially in the countryside - with aspects of nature symbolising the sacred and being honored as such. People spoke with great respect of 'Mother Nature'. I do not see such observations as imaginary. Animism is widely recognised as a genuine religion. Nor do I see as imaginary the sincere honouring in other religions of other symbols of the divine or sacred.To me the face of nature is also the face of God.

Among the influential historians of our time is Professor Hutton of Bristol University. He frequently speaks on television - and at Pagan conferences - of his belief that absolutely all pagan religions died out in the British Isles by the 11th century, and were reborn afresh only in modern times. He thus maintains that such rites as workings at sacred trees and wells, which he acknowledged did continue, were from the 11th century Christian acts. I disagreed - I thought animism continued. I also thought that Margaret Murray had received remarkably short shift in his books. He claimed that Murray had been totally discredited by Norman Cohn, an historian that he enthusiastically endorsed. When I went to read Norman Cohn, I found that his attempt to discredit Murray was totally based on misquotes from Murray. This surprised me and alarmed me - for not only Hutton but a whole school of mostly British scholars had also expressly presumed on Cohn's accuracy in dismissing both Murray and the women accursed of witchcraft whose testimony she had quoted. They said Cohn had proved all these women unreliable. I now knew Cohn had done nothing of the sort - he had, as far as I could see, deliberately falsified his quotations from her. It seemed that a whole school of historians had latched onto his work witihout testing it for accuracy - and thus maligned Murray, destroying her reputation - and those of the women she quoted, put on trial for the Craft.

I don't think Murray was always accurat. She tried much too hard to frame the beliefs she found into a structured cult- and thus went seriously awry - but her faults were not those of which Cohn, Hutton and others accused her. She did not misquote, she was not unduely selective. She did not miss out discrediting evidence. I think she was if anything over inclusive, respecting also evidence that most probably reflected the views of the court. She was also not looking at animism and at if there were posssiblely other surviving belief structures. But I respect her reporting of trial evidence. I found in the words she reported a symbolic shamanistic language and much about the sacred folk-beliefs of the time. What she started other historians have followed - such as Carl Ginzburg and many mostly European scholars.

When I came to live in Bristol in 2000, I resolved to discuss this with Ronald Hutton - and went to see him at his home. We had an amiable meeting. I told him that I had found his main source, Norman Cohn, had gravely misquoted Margaret Murray. It was easly for this to be checked but to my surprise, this did not lead anywhere - he did not check Norman Cohn but continued to endorse Cohn's attack on Murray - throwing his own considerable reputation behind that of Cohn - so I decided to write up my findings and have them published in order to protect Murray's name. (I have always been tried to protect the 'under-dog') As a courtesy, I sent Hutton my draft - and this to my surprise lead to a flood of the most extraordinary emails from him. . Finally, at Hutton's suggestion,this led to my writing two articles for a magaxzine called The Cauldron - with Ronald Hutton agreeing to write responses. This debate was pubished in 2003- with the publisher entitling it as "The Great Debate"

Hutton in the course of his first response to me, made use of some of the contents of the email we had exchanged. then, when I put his quotation from my email into its full context, he replied by publicly accusing me of revealing private emails by revealing the content of my own email! I was dumb-founded. I was even more surprised to discover that in his responses he had totally ignored the evidence I presented on how Cohn had gravely misquoted Murray and thus had gravely and widely damaged her reputation. Hutton simply ignored this - and insead threw irrelevant insults at me.

Murray was a feisty woman who deserves better. When she reached the greaet age of 100, she published a book entitled "My first 100 years". Her colleagues referred to her as Ma. She was honoured as an Egyptologist. No doubt she made many errors in her writing - but of deliberately misquoting - the charge levelled against her - she is completely innocent.

So - it is about time that Hutton and my correspondence about Murray was put into the public arena so that people can judge for themselves the nature of this debate - and discover what happens when a person dares to challenge the conclusions and conceit of an otherwise distinguished professor who is frequently in the public eye. It was really odd - and even funny. There is nothing much in these emails, I should add, that deals with intimate or otherwise truly private matters.

I hope by pubishing this, Cohn's attack on Murray is finally discredited - and that scholars in future will take as seriously as she did the testimony of those women or men put to death for daring to disagree with an established religion.

Please click here for this debate - read "Margaret Murray and the Professor"