From: tmurphy@sun490.fdu.edu (T. Murphy) Newsgroups: alt.pagan Subject: Re: 21 leasson Date: 6 Dec 93 13:43:58 GMT Kamal Southall, ml343x@unix1.circ.gwu.edu writes: > Doug Monroes book _The 21 Lessons of Merlin_ has been out a year > now. What do most pagans think of his views and claims? the following was posted in the PODnet CELTIC echo by Airmid (whom, I believe is part of the ADF.. I could be wrong though..) here's what she said: D Area: Celtic DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Msg#: 3663 Date: 07-21-93 19:00 From: Airmid Read: Yes Replied: No To: Rowan Moonstone Mark: Subj: 21 Lessons... DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Ai> Yeah, the sad truth is that most books out there talking about Ai> Paganstuff and claiming to be Celtic aren't. But even those, the Ai> vast majority of them aren't the real dog vomit that this one is. :( Ai> Goddess knows, if there were really good Pagan Celtic books out Ai> there, I'd be thrilled to plug them! RM> Yeah, but Airmid, don't be too quick to condemn it all. There may RM> be some good stuff useable in there for some folks. JUst becaust it RM> doesn't suit your fancy doesn't mean it's ALL dreck! Perhaps 99.9% RM> Dreck, but maybe, jus MAYBE not all dreck, oh opinionated one! I will agree wholeheartedly that I am an exceedingly opinionated person, filled with hot air and the occasional jalapeno barb. My argument is not so much with whatever material may have been created (divination with bottle caps works if you do it right) but with the fact that the author claims he is revealing Real Live Gen-U-Wine Druidic Secrets straight from Merlyn Hizself. This, of course, is a load of donkey dung. I would have similar things to say if he were claiming that bottle cap divination was an Ancient Druidic Secret. Were he to have said (miracle of miracles!!) that he was presenting his own system which he had painstakingly created over the past ten years, I would have a hell of a lot more respect for his work. Saille of Keltria wrote a letter to Monroe, five pages worth (she sent me a copy), asking him to explain why a number of particular points in his book did not agree with those things which can be reasonably easily found in any basic book on the Druids (including Piggott, etc). She invited Monroe's response, and if he decides to pull his head out of his patoot long enough to answer her, she says she intends to publish both her letter and his response in one of the Keltrian newsletters. I think that's fair and reasonable. Some of Saille's notes included the following, with commentary by me: He states women could not be Druids. The Romans talk about woman Druids. The Irish had a specific term - ban drui - for woman Druids. He says the sun was male and active, and the moon female and passive in Celtic myth. Actually the word for sun is feminine, and the word for moon is masculine. Despite the popular Wiccan fantasy that Lugh is a sun god, there is no Celtic sun god identifiable in the mythology. Scottish folk poetry calls the sun a "young queen in flower." English folklore is the source of "the Man in the Moon." I need not remind you of the battle goddesses of Celtic mythology. Passive is the last thing that comes to mind when speaking of the Morrigan. He cites pumpkin as being a Druidic ogham tree. Pumpkin is (a) not a tree and (b) is a new world plant, so if for some reason it was included in any Celtic folklore, it would have had to have been added after Columbus made his discoveries, and not when his hypothetical Druids were writing his cherished book of mysteries. He claims the ogham was used only for religious writing. In truth, the surviving ogham inscriptions are almost all funerary inscriptions and boundary markers. There are a very few unintelligible inscriptions which MAY have been magickal or religious in intent, but that is highly debatable. He discusses how he got his secrets from "The Book of Feryllt." This is one of a number of forgeries by Iolo Morganwg. The Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids is also based in large part on Morganwg's writings, but they present the material without Monroe's woman-hating attitudes. He claims the Druids are the descendants of Atlantis. You know what I think of this theory. He claims that Easter was once a Druidic festival of Ishtar. Most people are aware that Ishtar is a Near Eastern deity. He should spend a couple of bucks and buy a map. He states that Druids were vegetarians. I'd like to see one single reference to a Druid in any book that doesn't show them eating meat. He talks about "traditional" Druidic healing herbs, like echinacea and goldenseal. Both of these, like the pumpkin, are new world imports. His recipes for seasonal brews call for things like pumpkin blossoms in October (!). Last time I looked, pumpkins bloomed in May or June, depending on when they were planted. He must have some hefty magick to be able to find pumpkin blossoms in Britain in the fall. Now, certainly one might find a sentence or two somewhere in his book that is both truthful and useful. But I would think that people who are interested in practicing a Celtic religion might be interested in finding out whether or not what they are reading bears any actual resemblance to anything Celtic. I don't know about you, but I think most folks would like to know a little something about a book before they spend nearly $20 on it, particularly if they find they are paying that money for a book that presents women as evil and weak, and that their $20 bucks is paying for maybe one page of useful information that they could easily have found in a dozen other sources, more cheaply, and without the misogyny. ! Origin: -= The Sacred Grove =- Seattle's Pagan BBS (206)634-1980 (93:9708/0) -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Untouchable by all without, Lost in the silken web youth may weave, Tangled threads seem a stronghold, but illusion can deceive." - Fates Warning `The Ivory Gate of Dreams