Submission from Geoff
Greetings all those who have found their way to this site. Welcome to a sharing space and my story.
I’ve always felt something was missing from the conventional word view we are socialised into, and I guess the main thing I missed in the human world was an attitude of thankfulness. Through seeking out ways of understanding, accepting and communicating my spiritual instincts on this matter, I’ve come to explore a wide variety of paths. At this point, I’m beginning to intertwine what I see to be the main points of convergence between Western, Eastern and indigenous world views. Last year I completed a Masters thesis that made inroads into this challenge. True to my heritage, it operates from an understanding of the world that is materialistic – in fact the protagonist of my tale is a business person – but it works to unravel some of the assumptions I see underlying this worldview. As a student of myth, I can’t help but note that the (post-) modern world seems to believe it has a handle on things that is in fact completely contextual; that is to say, it works for us, so we believe in it, but that doesn’t mean it constitutes any kind of deep or underlying reality. That, it seems to me, is another thing altogether.
In order to complete my project I had to spruce up my critical and analytical mind, while maintaining trust in my intuitive faculties. I really enjoyed this process and would like to encourage anyone of the wyrd/mystical persuasions to hone the way they think by maintaining deconstructive ways of thinking alongside their intuitive senses. I’ve noticed that sometimes us intuitive folk don’t trust critical analysis, and words like logic can just about get the ‘head spinning’ response. That’s understandable, i guess, when you consider the sorts of purposes that these kinds of analysis have supported in the past and today – witch hunts, pogroms, all kinds of extinctions, all in the name of some colonising fantasy of profane power. But learning proficiency in these ways of thinking allows them to be used for any purpose, including defending mysticisms, disentangling the myths of techno-rationality, and so on. When we discover for ourselves what critical thinking can do for us and our chosen way of life, we can dissolve some of the confusions that persist thanks to the fog of contemporary culture.
One of the reasons I wrote the MA was because I felt it was important that this kind of possibility was given some intellectual backup. I'm a practising mystic but also a competent intellectual, who has just now begun my next (academic) project, which involves writing a cross-cultural mythology of light (as a PhD). I never wrote the MA to be accepted in any popular fashion - just to prove a point. Such 'in-between' practices as this site is designed to network don't need to be demonised, and when they are (as they so often are) it's because they're not understood. Hopefully, the kind of work I’m practising can help us ‘in-betweeners’ to understand ourselves and our society better, but also – maybe, someday, in some way – help conventional thinkers to understand the edge of their own minds, and those who are prepared to cross (or at least explore) that line a little better.
In my opinion - and there's a fair bit of cultural criticism that can be brought in behind this, it's not just a personal rant - the idea of self-empowered individuals in touch with potentially non-human powers constitute a threat to conventional social mores. Specifically, they stand in the way of the uniformity demanded by consumer capitalist, global multi-national corporations. That is why paganism was decimated along the march of organized civilization, why witches were scapegoated by rival/dominant religious codes, why indigenous societies have been decimated in the wake of modernity, and why we still feel threatened to speak out today. Let's ask ourselves one question here - what kind of a society would wipe out its healers? I think we all know the answer - a very sick and bitter one.
What could lead to such a sorry state of affairs? A culture divorced from the nature within themselves, split by a psychic schism that has its roots in the way we treat the material world. When one takes technological control over nature, they place themselves above it. This stance becomes encoded in those people's mythology - a god of light symbolising their abstract dominance, a demonised earth spirit their repressed longing to be at one with their world. This yearning becomes a bitter memory of what has been given up on behalf of the new world order's comfort zone, and conventional society cannot face this sell-out; so it is rejected, instead, and forced down with the rest of its hatreds and fears. This is the kind of ailment that needs to be healed from within, and we are the agents of this healing.
Rise up, shining people. There is a convincing argument through the veneer of rationality we have inherited – the one that tells us that we cannot enjoy a deeply symbolic reality and mystic vision. This argument, or style of reasoning, is intimately linked to the healing traditions of workers who traverse spiritual realms. It’s vital that we, as a planetary race, relearn this imagination, as it intercedes in communication between human and non-human (or spiritual) realms, and between the human mind and nature... Or at the very least, it’s vital that we learn not to decimate this hope as it resides in the hearts and souls of so many beautiful, sensitive people.
Please Note: if you are interested in reading Geoff's Masters thesis you may email the site coordinator and your request will be forwarded to him.
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Please note: all articles and submission on Wyrd Haegtessa respectively belong in both copyright and intellectual property rights to the authors listed, whether in actual name or pseudonym. Due to a choice of privacy and nature of the materials contained therein, no contact information has been given for the authors. However, if you are interested in contacting an author or wish to submit to Wyrd Haegtessa, you may email the site coordinator and all correspondence will be forwarded to the respective authors.