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(This is an expansion and continuation of a comment that I made on somebody else's LJ. Yes, I recycle.)
Recently, in the world of Witchcraft (as opposed to World of Warcraft) there have been a goodly number of folks writing books about witchcraft traditions, which has led to a far off cry of "OATHBREAKER!" from distant quarters.
This sort of business goes back a ways. In the 1980s Janet & Stewart Farrar published The Witches' Bible, and oh the hollerin' and howlin' and chants of "OATHBREAKERRRRRR!" and the curses were flyin' and what not. The General Public ignored all this and bought the book. Now of course it's practically a Required Text if you're looking into becoming a witchy-type.
You go back to Wacky Uncle Al (eister Crowley) and when he published his books after having had enough of the apparently insufferable A.E. Waite and company in the Golden Dawn, the holler of OATHBREAKER! was also heard ringing throughout the land. The big secret of initiation in the Golden Dawn which that awful Aleister Crowley revealed to the undeserving unwashed masses? The Hebrew Alphabet. (Note: Thanks for reminding me of that, Vee.)
I can hear you gasp in horror from here. Again, hootin', hollerin', curses flyin', witch-wars a-blazin' and it made not a bit of difference. The people yelling "Oathbreaker!" are forgotten and Uncle Al is on T-shirts. When was the last time you saw an S.L. MacGregor Mathers T-shirt? My point is made.
All of the good witchy books I've seen consist of exercises and ways to stretch your mind and your consciousness. Even if we go outside of my trad and look at all the other recent Witchcraft books of the past 30 years or more, they pretty much consist of exercises to stretch your mind and consciousness. You have a few grimoires and spellbooks out there, but for the most part they are exercises and play meant to expand your consciousness and help you think differently.
A lot of the exercise material in these Pagan and Neopagan books is not original with the author. Much of the time it isn't even original with the sources that the author got the material from. It's been available to everyone with a library card for yonks, even before the Internet. In the Internet world, http://www.sacred-texts.com is what it says on the tin, and can be accessed to reveal The Various & Sundry Secrets Of The Ages. Before the internerd you could find all this stuff via interlibrary loan.
So, a lot of "oathbound" material was already out there. So if this is true, when we hear about oathbound material, who exactly bound it with oaths? Was it the originator of the material? or was it people who acquired the material through interlibrary loan - and then suddenly made it "oathbound," in order to make themselves look all Woo Woo, like they were...The Keeper O' The Kozmik Key Baybay! Me and Me Alone, I Me Mine, King/Queen 'o' The Occult World!
Personally I believe in Oaths and oathboundness - in very certain situations. I think that in situations where you are initiated, it is perfectly apt to keep secrets about a tradition, because to me an oath implies that you take it seriously . You take it to heart. That's what the secret is; you have taken it into your heart, the most holy temple of them all. It's unspoken, because it's unspeakable. The real truth of the initiation is in the transmission of the energy. That's not something that can be talked about. THAT is oathbound. And should be. And that can never, ever be found in any book.
When you take an oath in any witchcraft tradition, you're becoming part of a continuity, a fellowship (and a family. And you're being vouchsafed something mystical and beautiful that is at the heart of the tradition from their heart to yours, the holy of holies. And that's part of the reason that oaths are still needed, and should still exist. The oath is, in most pagan traditions that I know of, part of the transmission of the energy, the is-ness, that lies at the heart of the tradition. That , my friends, is utterly sacred and unspeakable, because there are no words that can even come close to encompassing it.
But most mystical exercises (please note that emphasis) have been published since medieval times, or written down since before then. I have definitely noted that a lot of stuff that was formerly considered "oathbound" in many Neo-Pagan or Pagan traditions is cribbed, part and parcel, hook-line-and-sinker, from places as far afield as medieval Europe, Kabalistic studies, Tibetan Buddhism, the Catholic mystical traditions, the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, etc. Which were all out there. Emerson read the Gita.
So, why do people write secret stuff - or allegedly secret stuff - down?
Part of the reason for writing things down is that without that, the material will entirely disappear. It will.
For example, we don't know anything solid about the central aspects of the Eleusinian Mysteries (unless some archaeologist has unearthed something that I don't know about). Nothing, the last time I checked. It wasn't ever written down and the secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries dissolved under the ravages of persecution and time.
Now the Greeks believed that the Eleusinian Mysteries were so important that they were not revealed under pain of death. Many Greek writers also stated openly that the Eleusinian Mysteries were the very thing that made the Greeks great, and many of them felt that it was their greatest contribution to the world.
But we have no idea what it was. It's gone. Lost forever. Speculations abound, but that's all they are.
Second example: the Druids. We have fragments of stuff about the Druids, fragments that were collected contemptuously by the Romans, who often put their spin on them to make the Druids look like a bunch of headhunter cannibal barbarians. Or we have bitsy bits written down by monks centuries later, or little pieces that we have to tease out from poems, also written down by monks centuries later. But what the Druids actually did and believed? Zip, nada, zilch, nothing again, just like the Eleusinian Mysteries. We know they were there, but...the rest is guesswork.
Since ole Gerald Gardner made the scene, there has been a lot of Noble Savage Error kind of thinking in Paganism in general. I have heard people say things like, "In the old days, the Bards MEMORIZED all their poetry and sayings and rituals! Our ancestors had such memories, us puny modern humans, pah! We have to have (insert disgusted sniff here) books ! Shame on us!"
Well, my viewpoint - they had to memorize everything because they couldn't write. Historically and archaeologically speaking, the minute they could write it, they did. That is NOT to denigrate the power of memory and memorizing things.
However, there are drawbacks to having a Bard who memorizes everything.
The bard could get things wrong. The bard could also forget things. They weren't infallible by any means.
And in those days, the bard or wise one of the tribe could also get killed before they had a chance to transmit anything to anybody. That was a very real and present danger.
The Druids are a very obvious example. The Romans put them all to the sword, and none of them could write because they didn't have a written language. Christianity, whether enforced by the sword or willingly chosen (and a lot of Pagans in those days did, willingly, choose Christianity) destroyed the Eleusinian Mysteries. They got less popular, and fewer people went through the Mysteries. Then, when the last of the Eleusinian priesthood was put to the sword by Christian rulers...well, it was too sacred to write down. And so when the last person died, the Eleusinian mysteries were gone. So we know pretty much nearly absolutely nothing about the Druids, or the Eleusinian mysteries. Lots of speculation, no good accounts.
Okay. The argument comes up: well, you can't reveal secrets without violating the interior experience of the person undergoing the Eleusinian Mystery or the Druid Initiation. I'll give you that one. I think that deeply sacred experiences shouldn't be shared with the public at large. I definitely agree. Look what I said above. Truly sacred experiences can't be shared in their final essence. They are heart to heart, spirit to spirit, god to god. Those things should be kept secret as one would keep a priceless diamond secret against thieves.
However, the techniques - the mental and spiritual exercises that get you to the point where you can go into the cave and experience the mysteries - shouldn't those be written down, so you at least have "a finger pointing at the moon," to quote the Buddha?
So yeah, writing things down is Important. Okay, yeah, like the man said, don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon. BUT...if you don't have any fingers pointing...ya might miss the whole thing entirely.
(ED. NOTE: Now if you made it this far, please go back and note the part where I said I believe in the power and necessity of Oaths, and please note the part where I said I thought memorization of things is very important, OK? Because I already said all that and just in case anybody wants to debate with me over it, I'm gonna refer you back to those parts, and I hate repeating myself, you know?)
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