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I've been reading some of Montague Whitsel's stuff lately after coming across one of his books (The Fires of Yule: A Keltelven Guide for Celebrating the Winter Solstice - more later about that peculiar word "Keltelven") by chance in a Campbell bookstore a couple of weeks ago, and I'm having mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand he has some nice poetic ideas, but on the other he seems to be (consciously or not) presenting elements of the fictionalized/mythical history his own system has (see "Ross County, Pennsylvania, Imaginative Landscape of Montague Whitsel") as regular this-world fact, and I come away with a feeling of "I want to like this, really I do, but what the hell are you talking about???"
Talking in terms of what "the Celts" believed in one broad stroke does not help matters. I don't mind if someone wants to synthesize a pan-Celtic path a la The Apple Branch, but sometimes he seems to trip over it in jarring ways. Take "The Triple Goddess in Celtic Tradition" for example. I think he's being disingenuous to imply that the ancient Irish thought of Anu, Danu, and Tailtiu (of all figures!) as a single triple goddess, but if one wants to arrange those three together as three faces of a goddess of sources and waters and abundance and whatnot, sure, fine. He goes along merrily being Irish, moving on to "the Celtic Lunar Goddess" (um, ok), who apparently has the three faces of Boann, Brighid (wha?), and -- Ceridwen. I mean I wish he was going to mix it up more if he was going to do that at all, and then be clearer about how this is his own modern arrangement of things! I can fully accept that the Gods are coming to us differently now, but, just, graaah. (And this in spite of how elsewhere in the same piece he says very sensibly that the Celtic tribes were very polytheistic, had local deities attached to the tuath or equivalent, and in no wise worshipped a single "Great Goddess" or anything like that.)
In other places I get pretty frustrated with his vocabulary. "The Nemeton: Celtic Sacred Space" has some examples of this. His basic thoughts in the piece of what a nemeton is and how to make use of one seem fine to me. But as far as I can tell he is entirely making some words up, and not marking them out as such (or as being UPG). To make matters more frustrating he mixes in Anglicized forms with non-Anglicized ones, and I don't have enough knowledge of Gaelic to try to render them back the other way and try to search them to see if they're real words or not. Nemeton is of course a documented word; he uses it to mean naturally-occurring sacred groves or such woodland spots, which may not be strictly right, but sure, I'll go along with it. Draíocht ("magic") and taghairm ("divination") also seem to mean pretty much what he uses them to mean. But I can't find any cites for thiscorrugine ("herbalism") edit: sorry, that ought to be spelled corrguine, which I can find defined as "magic, sorcery," corrguinech a "sorcerer", although not with this specifically herbal connotation. continuing:
...shunnache ("earth energy", virtue, power, Spirit; seanachie is the only word I know that might be pronounced that way, and it means something totally different. Although for all I know he might be intending this to be pronounced "shun-ake" or "shun-AH-chee" or something bizarre like that; he doesn't specify), and manred ("patterns of natural energy"). All of these, of course, are again painted with "the Celts" using this or that word, and it sounds to me like he's mix-and-matching his language families - draíocht is Gaelic and shunnache (at least the way I want to pronounce it) sounds like it should be, but manred comes off Brythonic to my ear. Again I have no problem with pan-Celticism as a construct, but he should just say "we use this Welsh word for X, this Irish word for Y, this random-looking word I got from my spirit contacts for Z..." Shaktareen meaning "the eight seasonal festivals" (sic) is a cherry on top there. It's a pretty-sounding word, but leaving out the problem of "the Celts" not doing our modern "wheel of the year", I just can't fathom what the word might be. I tried seachtarín or something like that but the closest I can find is seachtain and its derivative forms (seachtainiúil...), which means "week" (seven days).
edit: Elsewhere I found a statement that shunnache is in "the ancient language of the Sluagh-Sídhe". I am not going to take up an argument with what may be personal transmission (although it seems historically impossible that "the Celts" [what, all of them?] used the word) but please label your UPG, thanks much.
As for "Keltelven", the derivation of that is, um. In the "Ross County" history it apparently is that with the advent of Christianity, the Celts allied with the surviving indigenous British peoples to jointly preserve a "new pagan path" of their spirituality, which survived underground. Um. That in itself, well, Mists of Avalon did no worse (probably better). It's not horrible as a mythic history although that they would self-consciously call it pagan rings hollow to me. But then he went and called those indigenous peoples Elves. I'm well aware of the theory of origin of faery legends that says it is a memory of a small people who were there before whatever invaders, but calling them the Elves really left a bad taste in my mouth, especially since in other places he links up these Elves with the "elves" attached to the legend of Santa Claus.
(Yeah, you heard me:
Okay, I'm with you.
Sure, okay. I don't know if this is really the story on record - but whatever, it sounds nice. This is the mythic history of a saint, after all.
Wait. What?
Here I was wondering if he was ever going to bring up that term and conflate it with Elves. Who are also the dead or an immortal/long-lived race and the indigenous peoples of the islands. I guess. *sigh* (yes, I know the origin story of the faery races is quite convoluted itself, but man, pick a term and a definition and stick with it. Sluagh-sídhe would have served nicely although this questing for wisdom business... I dunno.)
Which he needed because the Greeks had no such thing, obviously.
All this from a starting point about legends of an "unexpected guest" or "mysterious stranger" who may show up at one's door at winter or liminal times. Uh. I just. What. I mean, I can appreciate him trying to incorporate both modern and ancient elements into a single contemporary path of celebrating Yule season. But did he have to slam the pieces together in quite that way? It seems ill-fitting and lashed together with the spiritual equivalent of duct tape.)
Anyway. I don't really mean to harsh the man's spiritual buzz. There is definitely an interesting Something in what he's created. The everything-mixed-togetherness has an air of a personal poetic journey about it, something like The White Goddess, meant to be read with the heart and not taken too literally. In its own context it works fine. It's especially too bad that all the books written by his fictional characters are themselves fictional, because some of them sound fascinating. I would love to read them and take them on their own terms. But the articles on Isis often set my teeth on edge because they were presented much more as "fact" rather than being straightforward about where adaptation and sometimes fantasy (not that that's inherently bad) had taken place.
Talking in terms of what "the Celts" believed in one broad stroke does not help matters. I don't mind if someone wants to synthesize a pan-Celtic path a la The Apple Branch, but sometimes he seems to trip over it in jarring ways. Take "The Triple Goddess in Celtic Tradition" for example. I think he's being disingenuous to imply that the ancient Irish thought of Anu, Danu, and Tailtiu (of all figures!) as a single triple goddess, but if one wants to arrange those three together as three faces of a goddess of sources and waters and abundance and whatnot, sure, fine. He goes along merrily being Irish, moving on to "the Celtic Lunar Goddess" (um, ok), who apparently has the three faces of Boann, Brighid (wha?), and -- Ceridwen. I mean I wish he was going to mix it up more if he was going to do that at all, and then be clearer about how this is his own modern arrangement of things! I can fully accept that the Gods are coming to us differently now, but, just, graaah. (And this in spite of how elsewhere in the same piece he says very sensibly that the Celtic tribes were very polytheistic, had local deities attached to the tuath or equivalent, and in no wise worshipped a single "Great Goddess" or anything like that.)
In other places I get pretty frustrated with his vocabulary. "The Nemeton: Celtic Sacred Space" has some examples of this. His basic thoughts in the piece of what a nemeton is and how to make use of one seem fine to me. But as far as I can tell he is entirely making some words up, and not marking them out as such (or as being UPG). To make matters more frustrating he mixes in Anglicized forms with non-Anglicized ones, and I don't have enough knowledge of Gaelic to try to render them back the other way and try to search them to see if they're real words or not. Nemeton is of course a documented word; he uses it to mean naturally-occurring sacred groves or such woodland spots, which may not be strictly right, but sure, I'll go along with it. Draíocht ("magic") and taghairm ("divination") also seem to mean pretty much what he uses them to mean. But I can't find any cites for this
...shunnache ("earth energy", virtue, power, Spirit; seanachie is the only word I know that might be pronounced that way, and it means something totally different. Although for all I know he might be intending this to be pronounced "shun-ake" or "shun-AH-chee" or something bizarre like that; he doesn't specify), and manred ("patterns of natural energy"). All of these, of course, are again painted with "the Celts" using this or that word, and it sounds to me like he's mix-and-matching his language families - draíocht is Gaelic and shunnache (at least the way I want to pronounce it) sounds like it should be, but manred comes off Brythonic to my ear. Again I have no problem with pan-Celticism as a construct, but he should just say "we use this Welsh word for X, this Irish word for Y, this random-looking word I got from my spirit contacts for Z..." Shaktareen meaning "the eight seasonal festivals" (sic) is a cherry on top there. It's a pretty-sounding word, but leaving out the problem of "the Celts" not doing our modern "wheel of the year", I just can't fathom what the word might be. I tried seachtarín or something like that but the closest I can find is seachtain and its derivative forms (seachtainiúil...), which means "week" (seven days).
edit: Elsewhere I found a statement that shunnache is in "the ancient language of the Sluagh-Sídhe". I am not going to take up an argument with what may be personal transmission (although it seems historically impossible that "the Celts" [what, all of them?] used the word) but please label your UPG, thanks much.
As for "Keltelven", the derivation of that is, um. In the "Ross County" history it apparently is that with the advent of Christianity, the Celts allied with the surviving indigenous British peoples to jointly preserve a "new pagan path" of their spirituality, which survived underground. Um. That in itself, well, Mists of Avalon did no worse (probably better). It's not horrible as a mythic history although that they would self-consciously call it pagan rings hollow to me. But then he went and called those indigenous peoples Elves. I'm well aware of the theory of origin of faery legends that says it is a memory of a small people who were there before whatever invaders, but calling them the Elves really left a bad taste in my mouth, especially since in other places he links up these Elves with the "elves" attached to the legend of Santa Claus.
(Yeah, you heard me:
Imagine, if you will, a mystic of Christ in the 4th century CE named "Nicholas" living in what is now Turkey, along the Mediterranean coast.
Okay, I'm with you.
As he grows in spiritual awareness, he finds himself inspired to help the unfortunate, disowned children in his town. He begins to beg money from merchants to help feed and clothe the young who are living in the streets without means.
Sure, okay. I don't know if this is really the story on record - but whatever, it sounds nice. This is the mythic history of a saint, after all.
At one point – and here comes the Pagan element into the story – a troop of Sluagh-Sídhe from Ireland, on quest for wisdom out in the wide world, join up with Nicholas to help him distribute food and clothing to abandoned and needy children.
Wait. What?
These Faeries [...]
Here I was wondering if he was ever going to bring up that term and conflate it with Elves. Who are also the dead or an immortal/long-lived race and the indigenous peoples of the islands. I guess. *sigh* (yes, I know the origin story of the faery races is quite convoluted itself, but man, pick a term and a definition and stick with it. Sluagh-sídhe would have served nicely although this questing for wisdom business... I dunno.)
...find fulfillment of their quest in this work of charity, and so they remain in Turkey until Nicholas dies. Then – by way of their Celtic magic and mysticism –
Which he needed because the Greeks had no such thing, obviously.
they help him to cross over into the Otherworld. Once on the Otherside, they travel "North" in search of the place of their discarnate dwelling beyond the sídhe. Now, "north" in Celtic mythology is the direction of mystery and darkness. "Out of the north have we come, and back into it we shall go," the ancient Celts would have said. Thus it is extremely significant – from a mythical point of view – that Saint Nicholas (now Santa Claus) has his "workshop" at the "North Pole." Once in the wild northlands, the Sluagh-Sídhe and Nicholas set up a ráth (Faery hut) as a "home base" from which to carry on the saint's work. Using Reindeer – a manifest form of the Celtic god Cernunnos from more northerly lands – to drive a magical sleigh, they come back across the veil each year during the Yule, hoping to inspire mortals with the kind of generosity and hospitality that once characterized Nicholas's incarnate life.
All this from a starting point about legends of an "unexpected guest" or "mysterious stranger" who may show up at one's door at winter or liminal times. Uh. I just. What. I mean, I can appreciate him trying to incorporate both modern and ancient elements into a single contemporary path of celebrating Yule season. But did he have to slam the pieces together in quite that way? It seems ill-fitting and lashed together with the spiritual equivalent of duct tape.)
Anyway. I don't really mean to harsh the man's spiritual buzz. There is definitely an interesting Something in what he's created. The everything-mixed-togetherness has an air of a personal poetic journey about it, something like The White Goddess, meant to be read with the heart and not taken too literally. In its own context it works fine. It's especially too bad that all the books written by his fictional characters are themselves fictional, because some of them sound fascinating. I would love to read them and take them on their own terms. But the articles on Isis often set my teeth on edge because they were presented much more as "fact" rather than being straightforward about where adaptation and sometimes fantasy (not that that's inherently bad) had taken place.
no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2011 12:54 am (UTC)From:There's nothing wrong with inventing a new tradition, nor with syncretizing pieces of older traditions and even outright fictional sources. But when one begins to lose sight of the divisions, I'd have to strongly question whether they can remain effective as either a magical practitioner or a mystic of any stripe.
no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2011 01:40 am (UTC)From:His blog (the first link in this post, http://montaguewhitsel.blogspot.com/) is a lot less given to flights of fancy. You can still see some of his own constructed tradition in it, such as his idiosyncratic names for the summer and winter solstices, Summerwood and Winterwood, but it seems a lot more grounded as a journal of personal mystical explorations.
no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2011 02:08 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2011 02:26 pm (UTC)From:I just about burst out laughing at that point...it's hilarious, if nothing else. :D
no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2011 04:59 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2011 09:53 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Sep. 14th, 2011 10:51 pm (UTC)From:Like I said above, his blog seems more grounded and is rather interesting to read.