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Erotic Dream. Anybody Got Any Ideas As To Its Significance?

AndroMan said:
JerryB, I think we're starting to post at cross purposes. How 'real' does a belief system have to be to meet your high standards? Admittedly, it's very annoying when one comes across the use of terms like 'celtic' and 'wiccan' in contexts, where they quite obviously do not belong and really are being used erroneously. But, as far as the person using them is concerned, that's what they mean and they may well believe it too.

Yes, they may believe it, but one could argue that it's a fantasy if the basis for such a belief comes from an imagined or assumed version the past. It gets even more confused if that individual then asserts that what they believe has a basis in historical reality.
 
Not being as erudite as some on the boards, I'm trying to formulate a way of saying I disagree with a lot of what's been said here without it sounding like a flame....*takes deep breath*

Of course people have the right to invent religions based on reinterpretations of old beliefs, but that doesn't mean they have the same theoretical integrity the older religions can claim. If the dead sea scrolls present a threat to the dogma of xtianity and the "first drafts" of the quran found in Yemen to islam, how much more damaging is the fact that a religion is based on the theory that a raven goddess is a spider, and was invented by a bearded bloke in 1982?

The appropriation of elements of an ancient belief system, taken in isolation and completely out of context, is an example of transgenerational cultural imperialism. When people take "personalities" out of a religion, which once was the life-force of a people, and graft them onto new-age spirituality it makes my teeth itch. The arrogance and disrespect of it stuns me. It's like watching someone pissing on a longbarrow.

Granted it doesn't harm anyone, but can it really be taken seriously? Or at least any more seriously than the church of the matrix or a self proclaimed jedi?

Androman argued very coherently that the fact of continuity is not the be all and end all of a religion's validity, if this is the case then why are pagans so keen to claim continuity with an (imagined) "celtic" past? Continuity means that a religion needs to produce less evidence for it's sanctity, xtians don't need to produce daily miracles as they can claim plausible continuity from the risen christ. I personally don't believe their claim but I can see it has a coherent internal logic, the same can't be said of many modern pagan creeds. If a religion is invented in my lifetime I want to see proof of it's supernatural content or there is no reason to consider it anything more than play-acting.

I'm sorry if this is not as tolerant and broadminded as the majority of posts on this site, and I'm also sorry if I have caused offence to anyone, but I believe that if we are going to discuss this subject it is worthwhile having a non-relativist p-o-v.
 
example said:
EDIT: JerryB, I just re-read your recent posts, and I am truly sorry for misunderstanding you. You're not criticizing the structure of modern paganism so much as you are dismayed by the way some pagans misrepresent ancient history; not ancient pagan lore, but actual history. Have I got it right this time? :oops:

Partly yes, partly no - it depends what you mean by 'ancient pagan lore'.
 
boynamedsue said:
If a religion is invented in my lifetime I want to see proof of it's supernatural content or there is no reason to consider it anything more than play-acting.

I presume some modern pagans do have experiences which proove the veracity of their beliefs to them.
 
JerryB said:
Partly yes, partly no - it depends what you mean by 'ancient pagan lore'.

By "ancient" I mean prior to the regional advent of Christianity, Islam or Buddhism. If I missed a religion it's because I'm not a scholar, but I tried to get the big ones.

By "pagan" I mean the religious beliefs and practices which belonged to people in a given region prior to their conversion to one of the above religions or philosophy.

By "lore" I mean the surviving knowledge of traditional pagan beliefs and practices.

So, by "ancient pagan lore" I mean: a contemporary body of knowledge which represents what people believed before they were converted to one of the religions I mentioned above.

Apologies to the English language if I have misused a word or words. Apologies to human history for not knowing all of it.
 
example said:
JerryB said:
Partly yes, partly no - it depends what you mean by 'ancient pagan lore'.

So, by "ancient pagan lore" I mean: a contemporary body of knowledge which represents what people believed before they were converted to one of the religions I mentioned above.

No need to apologise - cogent definitions offered.

As Jerry B isn't online i'll jump in and guess he may object to the 'Lore' bit - How much 'surviving knowledge of traditional pagan beliefs and practices' is there in truth. Much is an invention of imaginative folklorists tainted by Victorian manipulations and the politically useful invention of the notion of 'Merrie England'.
 
Hi Yith ~ I hadn't realized that. Maybe the lack of knowledge about the ancient Britons spiritual beliefs is another reason modern pagans appropriate from other cultures.

:?:
 
example said:
I presume some modern pagans do have experiences which proove the veracity of their beliefs to them.

exactly my point, xtians and muslims can claim italicised proof and I'll go "on an avocado you say? hmm maybe...". But if a religion like scientology or modern paganism claims proof of its beliefs, I want to see proof in bold.

Experiences which are used to justify a world view should be treated with more caution than those which aren't. If a man who believes he is beloved of the bat god claims to see a giant bat the sighting is less credible than a sighting of a giant bat by anyone else.[/b]
 
example said:
Hi Yith ~ I hadn't realized that. Maybe the lack of knowledge about the ancient Britons spiritual beliefs is another reason modern pagans appropriate from other cultures.

Another pet theory of mine is that many modern pagans tend to draw their ideas from older religions about which we know a very limited amount. This is useful, because one could say that it gives more room to manouver as far as filling in the gaps with all sorts of invented stuff is concerned. Note, for example, how there seem to be alot more modern 'druids' about compared to those who follow the gods of Greek or Rome. One could suggest that this because we know alot more about religious practice in Rome and Greece than we do about 'Celtic' Europe... ;)

Thanks to Yith for hitting the nail on the head WRT to the 'ancient lore' thing. Altho' I'd go as far as to suggest that the 'lore' is even more recent than the Victorian era.
 
JerryB said:
example said:
Hi Yith ~ I hadn't realized that. Maybe the lack of knowledge about the ancient Britons spiritual beliefs is another reason modern pagans appropriate from other cultures.

Another pet theory of mine is that many modern pagans tend to draw their ideas from older religions about which we know a very limited amount. This is useful, because one could say that it gives more room to manouver as far as filling in the gaps with all sorts of invented stuff is concerned. Note, for example, how there seem to be alot more modern 'druids' about compared to those who follow the gods of Greek or Rome. One could suggest that this because we know alot more about religious practice in Rome and Greece than we do about 'Celtic' Europe... ;)

Thanks to Yith for hitting the nail on the head WRT to the 'ancient lore' thing. Altho' I'd go as far as to suggest that the 'lore' is even more recent than the Victorian era.
Ah! But, what's the point of following organised Religions, ancient, or modern, anyway? They're only the dead memories of older beliefs and observances pressed into the pages of volumes of dead words, like the pressed flowers of long gone summers, preserved in a book.

Any modern pagan, worth their salt, would go out and look for their own personal revelation and insight into the truths of the World, anyway. We know enough now to know how much of the past is simply approximation and guess work. It may not be possible to codify spirituality into a standard text. Isn't that why some witches keep their own Shadowbooks, a record of their own search for their own Way and nobody else's.

Like I say, beliefs may be based on dubious, erroneous, mistaken, even false facts and history. But, to a believer, what joins them up, validates and articulates them is what is Real for them, their own personal Revelations. Dreams, visions, coincidences, etc. shamen, poets, prophets and seers have being doing it for a very long time, long before priests and scribes decided to write some of it down and turn it into a set of rules and Laws, so that they could control it and didn't get any nasty surprises. From living beliefs to dead Religion.

However, I have to admit, proof through results would still be important. Is a shaman doing a good job and pointing their people in the right direction, or is the shaman leading them astray and into peril? Prophet and seer, or dangerous demagogue. Good poet, bad poet? Life enriching experience, or descent into madness, etc.

And the same rule of thumb would be usefully applied to books, beliefs and religions. Does it make sense? Does experience bear it out? "By their fruits you shall know them" etc.
 
Oh, I see, modern pagans shouldn't follow old organised religions? Why not? Even the (erroneous) point underpinning Murray's work and Gardiner's wicca is that there was some sort of organised belief system behind tales of witches and withcraft. This (in theory) may have been more ad hoc than the religions of Rome or Greece, but the implication is that even there there's some underlying structure. The religions of Rome and Greece were very varied indeed, so comparisons with more 'modern' religions (i.e. Christianity) are somewhat redundant.

Modern pagans can do what they want WRT 'personal exploration' - that's all fine and dandy, whatever floats your boat, etc.. Everyone does that from day to day anyway, unless they're robots. The point is that to back this up with spurious claims or links to some 'ancient lore' (or whatever) is an exercise in fantasy. Some try to solidify their outlook by claiming links to the past, but it seems that for the majority of the time that this past is simply an imgined construct.
 
JerryB said:
Oh, I see, modern pagans shouldn't follow old organised religions? Why not? Even the (erroneous) point underpinning Murray's work and Gardiner's wicca is that there was some sort of organised belief system behind tales of witches and withcraft. This (in theory) may have been more ad hoc than the religions of Rome or Greece, but the implication is that even there there's some underlying structure. The religions of Rome and Greece were very varied indeed, so comparisons with more 'modern' religions (i.e. Christianity) are somewhat redundant.

Modern pagans can do what they want WRT 'personal exploration' - that's all fine and dandy, whatever floats your boat, etc.. Everyone does that from day to day anyway, unless they're robots. The point is that to back this up with spurious claims or links to some 'ancient lore' (or whatever) is an exercise in fantasy. Some try to solidify their outlook by claiming links to the past, but it seems that for the majority of the time that this past is simply an imgined construct.
Well, that's nice, that's rich, that is. On the one hand, you're saying that Gardiner's work was largely made up and that much of the lore upon which pagans are supposed to base their claims is largely false. On the other, you seem to be insisting that modern pagans follow the likes of Gardiner and play by the same rules as members of organised religions. Why should they, says who?

I'm not exactly saying that what we know of ancient lore and other occult (in the original sense) traditions is entirely false, misappropriated, or faked either. I don't actually believe that to be the case, or at least not as bad as skeptics would like to have us believe. I also believe that the jury may still be out on the validity of Murray's work. I am saying that it should be in the very nature of a spiritual system to be actively interacting with some Living principle of Nature and Reality. Active, dynamic and alive. A Sentient Universe, if you will. If not, then unless it is a system similiar to Buddhism, where the acceptance of Negation and Nothingness appear to lie at the core of belief, then any amount of official books and historical confirmation, the authorised version, would be pointless.

Dead books, dead religion, dead laws, articulated only as a sophisticated form of social control. No Whys. No 'Wow!' factor, no sense of awe, or wonder. Simple the dead hand of time and some interesting mechanical illusions. A Universe filled with Robots.

I can't speak for any pagans, but myself on this one, by the way.

...

And when it comes to underlying structures a read of some of the literature of anthroplogy, folklore studies, or linguistics, Levi Strauss, or Joseph Campbell, for example, would certainly show that there is plenty of evidence for the structures of belief, perhaps in interchangeable, discreet units, which continually re-occur and are given from and substance by people, again and again. Hard wired, or potent virale memes, I know not.

Let's face it, unless there are aliens in our midst, we all share roots that go way back into the mists of antiquity.

Perhaps, coming up with anything genuinely new, would be a Wonder in itself. Maybe, that's what Fort was after? A New explanation for the Universe? :lol:
 
Androman - I can't speak for any pagans, but myself on this one, by the way.

I have the feeling the Pagans I've met would agree with you completely. If we are to rely simply on something written in a book by a religious authority centuries ago why not simply be a Christian or Muslim, and a fundamentalist one at that. Besides the Pagans I've met seem more interested in Greek, Slavic, African and Egyptian, than British gods. So what?

Speaking as someone with a pagan outlook (and not because I "choose" to have one) my attraction to the gods of old is because they are alive; I see them everywhere and in everything (not literally see). Many of the old myths were "contradictory" anyway. A god's role or personality might change slightly from one myth to the next, or it might have a certain mum in one myth and a different mum in another. The Gods aren't static.

I'd write more, but I have to make breakfast.
 
elcapitan said:
The only significance I see is that you had a weird erotic dream (which is all it was). If i were you i'd either stop smoking weed, or cancel my subscription to "Scary Pagan Gods Monthly" :p


Weed actually stops you dreaming or remembering them at least
 
As to the question of whether a religion has to be organized, what if a certain pagan such as myself is more interested in trickster gods like Hermes and Loki. They were masters of chaos, of disorder. How organized can a religion centered on one of these personalities be without becoming oxymoronic?!

Also keep in mind that the very word "religion" includes so many outlooks - Taoism, Islam, Buddism, Confucianism, the many "sects" of Hinduism - as to be all but meaningless. Perhaps it's best not to judge one (paganism) by the standards of another (Christianity) - that is, judging a Pagan based on how rigidly they adhere to a certain dogma just as Christians judge each other by how well they live by the Bible. The Pagans I've met have a completely different mindset than the Christians I know, valuing depth, directness, and freshness of experience over adherence to dogma. There's nothing relativist about that. It's primal, archetypal.

Btw, I don't know much about Wicca. I've never met a Pagan that considered themselves Wiccan, AFAIK.
 
AndroMan said:
Well, that's nice, that's rich, that is. On the one hand, you're saying that Gardiner's work was largely made up and that much of the lore upon which pagans are supposed to base their claims is largely false. On the other, you seem to be insisting that modern pagans follow the likes of Gardiner and play by the same rules as members of organised religions. Why should they, says who?

No, I'm saying that even Gardiner implied, or worked from Murray's inference, that there was some underlying structure to what they took to be behind tales of witchcraft and witches. This was in repsonse to you questioning why modern pagans should follow old structured religions.

I'm not insisting anyone follows Gardiner either, but as he invented wicca one assumes that some follow his lead. If not, and they follow their own way, well there you go. However, my main point, if you haven't got it by now, is that to claim that this way is a continuation of some old pagan ways, etc. is (for the most part) hokum. Those seeking to legitimise their outlook via some imagined or fabricated view of history are barking up the wrong tree. I'm sure if other people - for example, politicians, or a political party - decided to claim some rather shaky link to the past in the same way, it wouldn't be acceptable.
 
JerryB said:
... However, my main point, if you haven't got it by now, is that to claim that this way is a continuation of some old pagan ways, etc. is (for the most part) hokum. Those seeking to legitimise their outlook via some imagined or fabricated view of history are barking up the wrong tree. I'm sure if other people - for example, politicians, or a political party - decided to claim some rather shaky link to the past in the same way, it wouldn't be acceptable.
I do understand your point, JerryB and your welcome to go on believing that such beliefs are worthless, more worthless even than beliefs validated magically by the test of time.

And my main point is that it is not necessarily hokum at all, although you do not seem to understand how that can be, based on what you know of the sources, their interpretation and the fact that such beliefs do not have to come out of a book, to be valid.

My second point is that, as far as the effects of such beliefs are concerned, it is less important what the beliefs are, than what they come to be used for and how their effects manifest themselves or are made manifest.

Beliefs that promote death over life and are used to manipulate others, or to give some people power over others, are just plain bad beliefs, or peversions of belief, in my book. That goes for paganism, or organised religions.


:imo:
 
Aha - I think you may have missed my point.

People will believe what they want. However, some claim to have beliefs that are a continuation of 'old pagan ways' (or whatever you like to call it). Some also seek to claim legitimacy for their beliefs or belief system from such a continuation. But for the most part this is simply not true. This is what I have an issue with - and it applies to anyone; wiccans, politicians, etc.. Anyone who tries to imply a link to the past, when this link is based on a fabrication or fantasy, is attempting to rewrite history to suit their own ends.
 
JerryB said:
Aha - I think you may have missed my point.

People will believe what they want. However, some claim to have beliefs that are a continuation of 'old pagan ways' (or whatever you like to call it). Some also seek to claim legitimacy for their beliefs or belief system from such a continuation. But for the most part this is simply not true. This is what I have an issue with - and it applies to anyone; wiccans, politicians, etc.. Anyone who tries to imply a link to the past, when this link is based on a fabrication or fantasy, is attempting to rewrite history to suit their own ends.
I got your point, but I'm saying that it's not necessarily untrue either. If people try to reach out to make connection to the past, if they are following a traditions they genuinely believe to be true, then perhaps the past comes up to greet them.

And I continue to contend that not all that paganism lays claim to, in the way of past knowledge, history, traditions, or beliefs can be counted false, or is entirely based on false assumptions, or interpretations, however they may have been arrived at. Whatever we may have been lead to believe, by Professor Hutton, or whomsoever.

I also agree, falsification of the past, or wilfully misusing, or manipulating people's knowledge of the past is wrong. And that applies beyond just paganism.
 
'Reaching out to the past' and 'manipulating the past to suit one's own end(s)/agenda(s)' are two different things entirely. If much of their 'traditions' only extend back as far as last week (metaphorically speaking) then it's unlikely that the past will come and greet them. It may make an approach to see what the bloody hell they're waffling on about, and then retreat back ;) The past is much more likely to greet them if they make a concerted effort to find out as much as possible about what actually happned in the past, as best they can, rather than make up various things out of whole cloth and then profess that what they've invented has a historical precept.

If you '...also agree, falsification of the past, or wilfully misusing, or manipulating people's knowledge of the past is wrong' then I'm not sure why you let pagans off of the hook, as for the most part they're wont to messing about with this sort of stuff more than most.
 
JerryB said:
If much of their 'traditions' only extend back as far as last week (metaphorically speaking) then it's unlikely that the past will come and greet them.

But I hadn't read anything about the Virgin Mary when I had visions of her as a child. I had no traditions. I don't think I even knew her name. I simply thought of her as "that woman" in my mind. I had only seen her statue and perhaps a few paintings of her. It was only later in life that I learned visions of her had been occuring to others further back in time perhaps even before her incarnation as "the Blessed Virgin Mary" when she was known by other names.
 
The mods can alway snip the OT stuff into another thread... ;)
 
JerryB said:
The mods can alway snip the OT stuff into another thread... ;)

If you dropped a line into Re-Organisation with a suggestion, we probably would. ;)
 
The OT stuff has been there since page one. Comments to the effect of: "Modern paganism isn't even worth considering. ;) "
 
Spiders eh?

The British Library has a 1000 year-old manuscript called The Lacnunga.

It's mainly an Anglo-Saxon collection of medical remedies. Some are rituals.
One spell relates a jorney to the Otherworld by an apprentice wizard. In this, a wizard supervises, whilst the initiate is visited by a spider creature.
The spider creature entangles the apprentice in it's web, jumps on his back, and they fly off to a place of initiation.

The spellbook relates this as a 'Night Mare'...

Modern translation:-

Here a spider creature came stalking in.
He had his bridle-web in his hand.
He said that you were his steed,
He laid his bonds upon your neck.

Soon they began to set off from the land.
And as soon as they came off the land,
Then their limbs began to cool.

Then the sister of the creature came stalking in
She made an end to it, and oaths she swore
that never this one the sick should harm
Nor him who could understand this charm
Or understand this charm to sing.
 
Great find Gyrtrash. :D

Is there any more detail about what the spider creature was like? I mean, "spider creature" isn't exactly the same as "spider" or "giant talking spider". The first two stanzas of that spell excerpt remind me a bit of a contemporary 'alien abduction'.
 
The whole image reeks of new age paganism , which takes random threads of Celtic mythology and distorts them beyond all recognition . I grew up listening to tales from an oral tradition , passed down from generation to generation and am aware of the Morrigan (she features in a whole lot of them) . I have never heard her called Moria (that was in Lord of the Rings wasn't it?) .

The whole spider business is very Amerindian and as un-Celtic as can be . I have never came across the Morrigan transforming into a spider or of any Celtic 'clans' venerating spiders . We are more into creatures which are of more use to us in our daily lifes such as cows (we have an entire saga about a cow -Tain Bo Cuailgne (Tale of the Cooley Cow)).

You might think im narrow minded , but im sick to the back teeth of these new agers twisting our traditions into meaningless tat . Im sure the native Americans feel much the same .
 
Osborne records 'erotic dreams' message for BBC host

The chancellor has recorded a special - rather flirtatious - message for a BBC presenter after she admitted on air to having erotic dreams about him.
George Osborne wished Radio 5 live's Shelagh Fogarty well in her new lunchtime slot - and suggested she might enjoy the extra sleep.
"More hours for those dreams you've been having," he added - cheekily.

Fogarty said "for political balance", listeners should know she had also dreamt about Labour's Neil Kinnock.
The message will be played to Fogarty during her final breakfast show on Thursday.

The subject of erotic dreams was discussed on the programme earlier this year and initially, co-presenter Nicky Campbell referred only to a member of the team who had dreamt of Mr Osborne.
But when a dream expert was quizzed about the significance of it, he revealed that the person in question was Fogarty.

Amid much laughter, she admitted: "I'm rumbled, I'm going to come clean now.
"For political balance, you need to know that some years before it was Neil Kinnock.
"So I think the fact that it's been Neil Kinnock then George Osborne, but never a Lib Dem... what does that tell you?"

Mr Osborne agreed to record the message as part of the presenter's farewell from the rest of the breakfast team.
He said: "Well Shelagh. It's George Osborne here, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I just wanted to say it's sad to be losing you from the breakfast programme, but I know you'll do a great job on the lunchtime programme.
"It does give you, of course, more hours' sleep every day. More hours for those dreams you've been having.
"And so I'm sure you'll have sweet dreams and I look forward to being interviewed by you on your lunchtime programme."

Radio 5 live's expert told Fogarty that erotic dreams were "about becoming more intimately aware of your own characteristics".
"So dreaming about George Osborne, he's in charge of the economy, he's in charge of value... it's about how you value yourself," he said.
"It's got nothing to do with George Osborne." 8)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13214127
 
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