Monotheism is Imperialism in religion........patriarchy and sacrifice... And our patience and endurance Through the Burning Times and now Have given us the strength to keep our vow

Monotheism is Imperialism in religion........patriarchy and sacrifice... 

 

 

We won't wait any longer, we are stronger than before
We won't wait any longer, we are stronger

We have trusted no man's promise
We have kept just to ourselves
We have suffered from the lies
In all the books upon your shelves
And our patience and endurance
Through the Burning Times and now
Have given us the strength to keep our vow (chorus)

You have grazed away the heather
And have razed the sacred grove
You have driven native people
From the places that they love
Though your greed has been unbounded
You have felt the pangs of shame
Every time you trod upon the Mother's name   (chorus)

Though you thought you had destroyed the memory of the Ancient Ways
Still the people light the bale fires every year on Solstice Day
And on Beltaine Eve and Samhain, you can find us on the hill
Invoking once again the Triple Will (chorus)

Through the ages many races have risen and have gone
But dispersed among the nations of the world we linger on
Now the time has come to take the sacred Cauldron of Rebirth
And fulfill our ancient pledges to the Earth  (chorus 2x)

I was listening to Leonard Cohen`s the story of Isaac. Its an interesting story and I began thinking about its implications. It deals with one patriarchal elderly man prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac to the one true God. Its key therefore to fundamentalism, the power of elderly men over women and young children. In the Biblical story there is no mention of what Abraham told his wife Sarah as he took Isaac to the mountain, it does not say what Abraham said to Isaac and last of all it does not say what he said to Isaac after the convenient finding of the ram caught in the thicket.
What would Isaac have said to his mother on his return/ What did Abraham say to Isaac after the event of being placed on the altar? What would Abraham say to Sarah about the trip and the events that happened? This story bothered me greatly as a child, it bothers me now.
It seems to me that its all about the establishment of monotheism, of old men not talking, relating or explaining. Not granting power to others. Its a distasteful story and leads to the idea of the one true God. Its a foundation for women and children to be seen as possessions and not people, its a beginning for persecution because one old man has a personal relationship with God. Whether it is Abraham or Stannis Baratheon . Of course Abraham did not go through with it but the implication is that he would have had not an Angel intervened.

Cohen's words are powerful when he states that the song is for those who would sacrifice one generation on behalf of another. The word sacrifice means to make holy but that's not for me there are many other sacred and holy events that patriarchal society denies. I have been one who has believed perhaps for the last twenty or thirty years that monotheism is Imperialism in religion.
I am still convinced that all faith is “Mythos”. I do not use this as a pejorative term but recognise now that we are all animals of varying abilities and talents. Our spirituality must reflect this if we are to have true understanding and a means to live spiritually and passionately. What follows is part rant and part passion. Perhaps the mixture of rant and passion still explains my ambivalence even now to organised religion

If they want me to believe in their god,
they'll have to sing me better songs.....
I could only believe in a god who dances.
Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and
believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks--those who write
new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and
fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the
harvest.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche,
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra",

No polytheist ever imagined that all humankind would come to live in the same way; for polytheists took for granted that humans would worship other deities. Only with Christianity did the belief take root that one way of life could/should be lived by all.. If only one belief is true, every other is wrong. For polytheists, religion is a matter of practice,not belief, and there are many kinds of practice. For Christians , religion is a matter of true belief, and therefore every way of life which does not accept must consequently be an error..

While many polytheists may vigorously defend their deities, they never perceive themselves as missionaries. It is certain that without monotheism humans would still be violent unstable beings ; yet history would have spared us from wars of religion. If the world had been spared monotheism we would not have developed communism or indeed global democratic capitalism. It is possible to dream of a world free from militant faiths religious or political.
Yet it is also true that unbelief is a move in a game set by .believers. To deny the existence of a God is to accept the categories of monotheism. As these categories fall into disuse, unbelief becomes uninteresting, and soon is meaningless. Many humanists say they want a secular world, but a world defined by the absence of the Christian God is still a Christian world. Secularism like chastity, a condition defined by what it denies.. If atheism has a future, it can only be in a Christian revival ; and it is true that both Christianity and atheism are declining together.
Atheism is a late bloom of a Christian passion for truth. No Pagan is ready to sacrifice the pleasure of life for the sake of mere truth.. It is an artful illusion, not unadorned reality that they prize. Among the Greeks, the goal of philosophy was happiness or salvation, not truth. The worship of Truth is effectively a Christian cult.

The old Pagans were right to shudder at the uncouth earnestness of the early Christians. None of the Mystery religions of the late Roman Empire would have claimed what the Christians claimed- that all other faiths were in error. For that reason non , none of their followers could ever become an atheist.. When Christianity alone claimed they possessed the truth they condemned the rich and lush profusion of the pagan world with damning finality.
In a world of many gods, unbelief can never be total It can only be a rejection of one one practice and gods and acceptance of others or else as Epicurus and his followers the conviction that gods do not matter since they have long ceased to bother about human affairs. Christianity struck at the root of pagan tolerance of constructed interpretation. In claiming that there is only one truth faith, it gives truth a supreme value that it has not had before. It also made unbelief in the divine possible for the first time. The long delayed consequence of Christian faith was an idolatry of truth that found its most complete expression in atheism. If we live in a world without gods , we have Christianity to thank for it. Iamblichus of Chalcis commented
"You Christians have driven the Gods from the world and made it a lonely place".
Read Cohen`s Lyrics and reflect

The door it opened slowly
My father he came in
I was nine years old
And he stood so tall above me
His blue eyes they were shining
And his voice was very cold
He said, "I've had a vision
And you know I'm strong and holy
I must do what I've been told"
So he started up the mountain
I was running, he was walking
And his axe was made of gold
Well, the trees they got much smaller
The lake, a lady's mirror
We stopped to drink some wine
Then he threw the bottle over
Broke a minute later
And he put his hand on mine
Thought I saw an eagle
But it might have been a vulture
I never could decide
Then my father built an altar
He looked once behind his shoulder
He knew I would not hide
You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children
You must not do it anymore

Racism is the bread and butter of the far-right, ..listen to what Corbyn says......

 

 

I quote from this blog and seek to remind you of the historical anti semetism..shown by the right and of the Daily Mail.

The slaughter of 6 millions Jews in the 1930s at the hands of the Nazis is testament to the fact that racism is a scourge wielded by the right. Painting Corbyn and the left as antisemites is disingenuous and undermines the real fight against racism.

 

 

This is the owner of The Daily Mail in 1930 advising Hitler

 
ctober 5, 1939

London (Oct. 3)

Advising Adolf Hitler, leader of the German Fascists, to follow the example of the founder of Fascism and eliminate anti-Semitism from program because “Jew-baiting is a stupid survival of mediæval prejudice.” Viscount Rothermere, publisher of the Daily Mail and sponsor of universal Fascism “as an antidote to Bolshevism” attacks British Jewry and the Jews throughout the world in a long signed article in yesterday’s Daily Mail. This article is considered to be the definition of the attitude of British Fascists toward the Jewish question.
In a previous article, favoring the National Socialists, published immediately after the Hitlerites’ election victory, Viscount Rothermere carefully avoided any mention of the National Socialists’ anti-Semitism, which led Edgar Wallace to comment in the Daily Mail that Viscount Rothermere disagrees with the National Socialists on this point. The sharply worded criticism levelled against Viscount Rothermere by the German Democratic press and the entire English press, which generally does not treat him very seriously so fas as politics are concerned, led him to publish this second article on the Hitlerites in the course of which he attacked the Jews.
He said, “I freely admit that the Jewish race has shown conspicuous political unwisdom since the War. Prominent British Jews have brought great unpopularity upon their community because of clamorous persistence in pressing for maintenance, at the expense of the hard-driven taxpayers, of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, which no Jews above the charity line want at all.
“Those on the inside of public affairs feel furthermore a good deal of resentment against the activities of wealthy Jewish individuals and organizations who try by every means—financial, social, political and personal—to influence British Government Departments and members of parliament for ends serviceable to Jewish interests.
“Tactlessness always has been one of the outstanding defects of the children of Israel. British Jews do not err in this respect nearly as much as their kinsmen of the Continent. Nevertheless, they would do well to remember that the fact of leadership of the Bolshevist campaign against civilization and religion being almost entirely in the hands of men of their blood has done inevitable and incalculable harm to the reputation of the Hebrew race in every country of its adoption.”
Viscount Rothermere’s article has created a storm in Anglo-Jewish circles because his advice to the Hitlerites to eliminate anti-Semitism from their program is believed to be more than overbalanced by his vigorous attack on British Jewry. While the Daily Mail was known as not very friendly to the Jews such an outspoken attack was entirely unexpected.
+

This is the Daily Mail campaigning in favour of the Aliens Act in 1905 

The latest attempt to smear Corbyn as a racist antisemite reached a crescendo on Monday evening, when national Jewish organisations led a protest outside Parliament alleging Corbyn is not doing enough to tackle antisemitism inside the Labour party.

Antisemitism must be opposed in all its ugly manifestations, be it at the football stadium when fans chant the ‘Y’-word, when synagogues are attacked with swastika graffiti, when the leader of a fascist group from Hungary is invited to speak in the UK, or when a Conservative politician dresses up as a Nazi for a stag party whilst hailing the ‘Third Reich.’ Curiously, there was no chorus of condemnation targeting then-Prime Minister, David Cameron and the furor died as quickly as it began.

Interestingly, in 2013 David Cameron defended Tottenham football fans’ right to chant the ‘Y’-word at matches. No protests were organised by the right in the wake of his commentary. No Conservative and right-wing Labour MPs standing shoulder to shoulder opposite the House of Commons condemning this blatant defence of antisemitism.

On that note, it is bewildering to see accusations of antisemitism leveled at Corbyn, especially when you measure them against his unaltered position of opposing racism for over 30 years. It was only last year, where he described his mother opposing Mosley’s fascists alongside members of the Jewish community in an emotional speech commemorating Cable Street.

Skepticism arises not because of a dogged attachment to Corby the man, but on reviewing the evidence presented as confirmation of Corbyn’s tolerance of antisemitism. Examining the Board of Deputies of British Jews accusations in full provides some illuminating insight:

This comes from Evolve "
Contrary to the narrative portrayed by the media furore surrounding Labour’s reported ‘problem’ with anti-Semitism, data curated by YouGov actually shows that since Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party in 2015, anti-Semitic views amongst Labour party voters have actually reduced substantially.

Not only does the data show a marked decrease in the number of Labour voters in 2017 agreeing with anti-Semitic statements compared to those in 2015, the statistics show that all other political parties (apart from the Lib Dems whose results are comparable to Labour’s) have a far bigger problem with their voters agreeing with anti-Semitic statements.

In August 2017 YouGov asked 1614 adults from across the political spectrum whether 5 different stereotypical anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish people were either ‘Definitely true’ ‘Probably true’, Definitely not true’ or ‘Probably not true’.
And, when comparing the responses to those given by 3411 respondents to almost identical questions in 2015, the results were profound.
Analysis of both surveys shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters had declined amongst every single statement from 2015 until 2017.
In 2015, 22% of Labour voters agreed with the statement that ‘Jews chase money more than other people’, whilst in 2017 the number of Labour voters agreeing with the statement had declined to 14%.

These results compare with 31% of Conservative voters who agreed with the statement that ‘Jews chase money more than other people’ in 2015, whilst in 2017 this had declined slightly to 27% who still agreed with the statement.
The answers given for YouGov’s first statement show that not only are anti-Semitic views amongst Conservative voters significantly higher than Labour voters in general, the rate of decline for anti-Semitic views amongst Labour voters is more than double the rate of Conservative voters – falling 8% in two years for Labour voters compared to a 3% decline in anti-Semitic views among Tory voters.
Furthermore, the stark difference in results between parties from the first statement holds firm throughout the comparison.
In 2015, 16% of Labour voters agreed with the statement that ‘Jews hold too much power in the media’, compared to 11% in 2017.

This compares with 17% of Conservative voters agreeing with the statement in 2015, with a 2% reduction to 15% in 2017.
In 2015, 11% of Labour voters agreed with the statement that ‘Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy’, declining to 8% in 2017.
This decline from Labour voters is in stark contrast to Tory voters who actually saw a rise in their supporters agreeing in this statement – with 12% agreeing with it in 2015 compared to 13% in 2017.
You can view YouGov’s dataset for 2015 here.
You can view YouGov’s comparable dataset for 2017 here.
Fellow Independent Media website, The Skwawkbox, has conducted its own analysis from the data and drawn similar results, showing that whilst anti-Semitic views are clearly still held amongst Labour voters, the problem appears to be more prevalent amongst Conservative voters, and also looks to be declining at a slower rate amongst right-wing voters compared to Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing Labour Party.
The facts are that anti-Semitism is clearly still a major problem across all of Britain – not just in the Labour Party as the current deluge of media coverage would seem to elicit.
However, anti-Semitism, like all other forms of racism and discrimination, needs to be stamped out entirely across the globe – and, if the new left truly wants to succeed in its aims, we must ensure as a priority that all forms of racism and discrimination are completely eradicated within our own movement.
And, despite the contents of this article, it is not good enough for our movement to simply point to the Tories and say ‘look over there – they are worse than us!’ – because, whilst this may well be true with regards to all forms of racism, there is absolutely no excuse for anybody, in 2018, to hold racist or discriminatory views of any kind – least of all amongst ourselves on the left.

One year from brexit...a Bombshell.......

I was sent this information by some old friends who live in Italy. I have no idea on its validiity  but I think its very interesting. I respect scholarship and evidence. I leave the rest to you. With thanks to Renaldo and Clara Balsamo of Venice for thinking of us in Brexit island.

Vatican in Wales EU Bombshell

A report published recently on the history website site Medieval.org. suggests supporters of Brexit in Wales may have started celebrating too soon. The article draws attention to an ancient and obscure text which might mean Wales can remain in the EU even if British prime minister Theresa May triggers article 50 at the end of the month.

Dr. Miriam Goldstein author of 'The Unknown Scrolls' and senior researcher at Medieval.org. writes "A Papal decree 'Sicut Cambria' (Thus to Wales) which was issued in 1135 by Adrian IV the only british bishop to ever occupy the papal throne not only recognised Welsh independence under the rule of Owain Gwynedd - considered by historians to be the first Prince of Wales - but also links Wales and the Vatican 10 centuries later”.

“This is because the Treaty of Rome signed in the Italian capital's Palazzo dei Conservatori 50 years ago this week, and which created the EU, included in a subsection of its founding articles - at the insistence of the Italian government - the Acta Apostolicae Sedisin. A document which comprises the entire body of vatican law and papal decrees and among which was Sicut Cambria”.

“Many of these Vatican statutes however were soon removed from the treaty by a special work group created by EU commissioners, as many of them referred to ancient european states and provinces no longer in existence or conflicted with member states laws. But it appears that 'sicut cambria' was not among those to be removed from the Treaty of Rome's subsection and it remains in force to this day".

Vatican texts Historian Professor Sheldon Lloyd-Williams who has spent the last 12 years working at the Vatican library told Medieval.org."Sicut Cambria is definitely an authentic document. It's got the Papal Seal and the inks and parchments used correspond to those that were in use in Europe in the 12 century. And it means that unless both the Vatican and the people of Wales through their elected government - which would be the Senedd these days i guess - annul the decree Wales would remain in the EU even after the British government has completed the process of brexit”.

“Yes it could be revoked. The Welsh government could indicate it wanted to do so or there could be a referendum held in Wales to revoke it by a vote of the people but there is no certainty Pope Francis would do so as it would be almost unprecedented for a Pope to revoke a decree issued by one of his predecessors".

The Vatican office and the Welsh Government were unavailable for comment.

Subscribe to Medieval.org

http://www.liberhistoriae.com/learn-latin-online-free-easy-latin/

Ystradgynlais Folklore and legends, for Easter 2018

Ystradgynlais Folklore and legends

These are some legends and folklore I have tracked down about the area I have been living since November of last year. My favourite is the one about the treasure stored  atMynydd y Drum summit. I have been looking but no luck aas yet........

The first legend found is a 16th Century farmhouse. We discovered it on our epic walk from Ystradgynlais to Coelbren and back via Ystrad Fawr

Site Description 1. 16th-century origins with many additions and alterations. Addition note: Fully storeyed gentry house of ca. 1600 with peculiarities of planning discussed by Jones and Smith in Houses of Breconshire (see sources). RF Suggett 12/10/1999. 2. Ystrad Fawr is an L-shaped manor/farmhouse, lying at the Southern end of Ystradgynlais. It is a stone house of two storeys throughout. From the front project two two-storey blocks, one a porch, the other a small wing, and between them lies a staircase. At the back is another original small square wing. There appear to be three chimney stacks, one on the back wall, one on an end wall, and one in the middle. The thickness of its walls indicate the porch is part of the original design. The house includes a double silled window, a doorway on the other side of the large oak-beamed fireplace, and a spiral staircase from one bedroom leading to a high, timbered loft. Oliver Cromwell is reputed to have stayed at the house. It appears a floor was added to the East side of the house in the early nineteenth century, together with the re-fronting of the house and the creation of a centralized plan of rooms and passages internally. It is possibly the earliest gentry house in the district and is unique for its combination of porch, staircase and oriel. (Sources: Jones and Smith, 'The Houses of Breconshire', pp. 43-7, Brycheiniog, xvi, 1972; Article in the Western Mail from c.1971). Ian Archer, RCAHMW, 4th February 2005

Ghost Of Elizabeth Gething

The following tale concerning a haunting in Ystradgynlais was printed in British Goblins (1881) by Wirt Sykes. 'In the parish of Ystradgynlais, in Breconshire, Thomas Llewellyn, an innkeeper's son, was often troubled by the spirit of a well-dressed woman, who used to stand before him in narrow lanes, as if to bar his passage, but he always got by her, though in great alarm. One night he mustered up courage to speak to her, and ask her what she wanted with him. To which she replied, 'Be not afraid; I will not hurt thee.' Then she told him he must go to 'Philadelphia in Pennsylvania,' and take a box from a house there, (which she described,) in which there was a sum of 200l. But as he did not know how to go to that far-off place, he said as much. 'Meet me here next Friday night,' said the phantom; 'meet me, I charge thee.' She then vanished. The young man went home and told this story to his neighbours and friends. They held a consultation with the curate of the parish, who promptly appointed a prayer-meeting for that Friday night, to which the young man was bidden, and by which it was hoped the purpose of the ghost to spirit him off to Philadelphia might be circumvented. The meeting continued until midnight, and when it broke up the young man's friends stayed with him; but they had no sooner got beyond the parson s stables than he was taken from among them. His subsequent adventures are thus related by himself: 'The apparition carried me away to a river, and threw me into it, chiding me for telling the people of our appointed meeting and for not coming to meet her as she had charged me; but bade me be not afraid, that she would not hurt me, because she had not charged me to be silent on the subject; nevertheless I had done wrong to go to the parson's house. Now, said she, we begin the journey. I was then lifted up and carried away I know not how. When I came to the place,' (in Philadelphia,) 'I was taken into a house, and conducted to a fine room. The spirit then bade me lift up a board, which I did. I then saw the box, and took it. Then the spirit said I must go three miles and cast it into the black sea. We went, as I thought, to a lake of clear water, where I was commanded to throw the box into it; which when I did there was such a noise as if all about was going to pieces. From thence I was taken up and carried to the place where I was first taken up. I then asked her. Am I free now? She said I was; and then she told me a secret, which she strictly charged me to tell no person.' Extensive and ingenious guessing was indulged in by all Ystradgynlais, as to what this secret might be; and one woman made herself popular by remembering that there was a certain Elizabeth Gething in other days who had gone from this neighbourhood to Pennsylvania, and the conclusion was eagerly arrived at, that this was the woman whose phantom the young man saw, and that the secret she told him was her name when alive. They questioned him as to her appearance, and he said she was largely made, very pale, her looks severe, and her voice hollow, different from a human voice. This was considered by the Ystradgynlaisians, with many nods to each other, as a most accurate description of what Elizabeth Gething would probably be, after having shuffled off this mortal coil. The time occupied in this mysterious transportation and ghostly enterprise was three days and three nights; that is, from Friday night to Monday night; and when the voyager came home he could scarcely speak.

Welsh Fairy Book: John Gethin and the Candle

The town Ystradgynlais is located in southwest Wales on the river Tawe and it is a center for ironmaking and coal mining. The wizard in this story, however, is in search of greater treasures than just iron and coal! The wizard spouts a good deal of mumbo-jumbo as he chants his spells, but one word is worth noting: Athanaton, which is a Greek word meaning Un-Dying, i.e. deathless, immortal.Explore: For another story about treasure hunting, see Arthur in the Cave. For another story in which the devil makes an appearance, see The Devil's Bridge. [notes by LKG]

---

This story is part of the Welsh Fairy Tales unit. Story source: The Welsh Fairy Book by W. Jenkyn Thomas with illustrations by Willy Pogány (1908).

THERE once lived at Ystradgynlais a wizard with an iron hand. By means of his magic he discovered that there was a great treasure hidden in Mynydd y Drum, and that he could secure it if he could only get some plucky fellow to spend a night with him on the mountain near the rock under which the gold and silver lay.

For a long time he could not secure a companion. He approached all his friends and acquaintances in vain: they were afraid and refused to have anything to do with such a perilous adventure.

At last, however, John Gethin, who was a reckless youth and said that he cared for nothing in heaven above, or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth, said he would accompany the man with the iron hand on condition that he received half the treasure.

One dark night the twain went to the mountain and took up their stand on a greensward near the rock under which the wizard said the treasure was concealed. "Now," said the magician, "I am going to call upon the spirit which guards the treasure to present himself before us." He put on a robe of black covered with talismanic characters, girded himself with snake-skins tied together, and placed on his head a cap of sheepskin with a high crown bearing a plume of pigeons' feathers. In his hand he had a whip, the thong of which was made of the skin of an eel and the handle of bone. With this he traced two circles on the sward touching each other like the figure 8. After that he took a great black book and lit a candle and stepped into one of the circles. "Stand in the middle of the other circle," said he to Gethin, "and whatever happens, do not step out of the ring." Gethin did as he was told.

The wizard opened his book and read: "I adjure and invocate thee by the silence of the night and by the holy rites of magic and by the number of the infernal legions, that without delay thou present thyself here and answer my demand by the force of the words contained in this book." This he repeated thrice.

First there appeared a monstrous bull, bellowing dreadfully, but the plucky Gethin held his ground, and the bull vanished. Then a gigantic goat came and rushed full pelt at Gethin, but as he did not move the goat also melted into thin air. Next a huge bristly boar charged at him, and an immense fire-breathing lion crouched and leapt at him, but Gethin stood motionless, and as soon as these fearful apparitions crossed the circle drawn by the magician they vanished into space.

Then a great fly-wheel of fire, blazing brightly and roaring loudly, made straight for poor Gethin. For a moment he lost heart and swerved out of the ring. No sooner had he done this than the fly-wheel of fire assumed the shape of the Enemy of Mankind, and began to haul Gethin away. The man with the iron hand seized hold of him and tried to get him back. Poor Gethin nearly parted in half in the struggle between the two.

The Enemy of Mankind was getting the better of the tug of war, when the wizard said, "By the power of the East, Athanaton, of the West, Orgon, of the South, Boralim, of the North, Glauron, I charge and command thee to suffer this man to live while this candle lasts." The Evil One let go his hold of Gethin and vanished.

Thereupon the wizard immediately blew out the candle and gave it to Gethin. "Had you not swerved out of the circle," he said, "all would have been well, but as you disobeyed my command, this is the utmost respite that I can secure for you. Put the candle away in a cool place. As long as the candle lasts your life will be safe."

Gethin went home and preserved the piece of candle very carefully, stowing it away in the coldest place he could find. But as time went on he found it was wasting away, although it was never lighted. Gethin was never the same after his fearful night on the mountain, and when he found the candle was wasting away he took to his bed. As the candle wasted away he did the same, and after some years both came to an end at the same time.

The wizard attended him during his last hours, and those who carried the coffin, which was supposed to contain Gethin's mortal remains, found it very light. The story went that Gethin's body disappeared out of the coffin before it was nailed up, and that the wizard put a lump of clay there instead to save appearances, but no one was bold enough to open the coffin to find out the truth.

 Mynydd y Drum summit

Type: LegendDate / Time: Unknown

 The hoard of treasure hidden under rocks on the top of this mountain is protected by demonic entities which attack anyone close to discovering the gold.There was a conjurer living at Ystradgylais at the beginning of the present century, who had an iron hand; and there is an old tradition that a treasure is hidden at the Garngoch, the highest point of the Drim mountain. The "Iron-hand" conjurer made the acquaintance of one John Gething, a farmer's son, who lived at Werngynlais farm, and gave him some books to study, with a view of teaching him the black art. John is reported to have made great progress in a short time; and, being a very courageous man, his teacher was able to perform in his presence many things which few mortals can withstand.One day John Gething was working at the hay on his father's farm, when two men appeared before him. John said to them, "Hei!" And one of the men said to him: "Well, is it for thee that thou hast spoken! Thou must come with us to the Garngoch to seek the hidden treasure."John went, and on the way he found out that he who spoke to him was his old teacher: but the other being disappeared, and John never saw him again. On arriving at Garngoch the conjurer told John that he was not, on the peril of his life, to divulge anything that he would see or hear that night on the top of Garngoch. When night came on the conjurer opened his books, lit a candle, and began to read, with strict injunctions to John not to be afraid of anything he saw. While the conjuror read spirits appeared and surrounded them with great noise; and then great light shone on Garngoch, and John saw three pots full of gold. Nothing more happened that night; but the conjurer gave John strict instructions to meet him there another night which he named. When the appointed night came John met him to time. The first thing done by the conjurer this night, after giving John the same instructions as on the previous night, and that he was not to be frightened, was to make two rings joined like the figure 8. John stood in one ring and the conjurer in the other, and neither of them was to step out of the ring, or fear, at the risk of losing their lives or being carried away by the devil! The conjurer lit his candle and began to read his books; and the spirits appeared with great noise. Then came a fiery bull, and ran at John Gething; but John stood in the ring fearlessly, and the bull and all the evil spirits vanished. The conjurer was very pleased with John Gething's courage, and told him one night more would be sufficient for them to fight against the spirits to secure all the hidden treasure and gold he had seen on the first night. The conjurer, before leaving, told John on what night he was to meet him again. On the third night the conjurer had brought more books, and told John before he opened them that it was a matter of life or death to im how he acted that night, that terrible things would appear, but there would be no harm if he stood fearlessly, and did not move out of the ring; but first he must have a drop of John's blood to give to the devil to satisfy him before the spirits appeared, and John gave a drop of his blood to the conjurer to give to the devil.The conjurer then made to rings as before, lit his candle, and began to read his books. The spirits came with greater noise than before, and surrounded them, and a large wheel of fire came towards the ring in which John Gethin stood, and John was so frightened that he stepped out of the ring. The devil immediately took hold of him, and was going to carry him away in such a terrible storm and heavy rains as no one before witnessed in the district, but the conjurer implored him not to kill John, as he had displayed such courage before; and there was a hard fight between the devil and the conjurer for John's life, and the devil at last gave in, and permitted John to live as long as the candle lasted which the conjurer had to read his books, and the devil told them that neither of them should ever have the hidden treasure, but a virgin not yet born would some day own the same.The conjuror gave John Gething the candle, and told him not to light it, but to keep it in a cool place. John did so, but the cndle wasted, though it was never lighted, and John Gething from that night became ill, and worse and worse, until he died. The candle also was found to have wasted completely at the time of his death.

 During John's illness several doctors attended upon him, but no one understood the cause of his sufferings or death, except a few persons to whom he divulged what had transpired on the Garngoch. John was buried at Ystradgynlais church.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

The Treasure on the Drim
E. Sidney Hartland 
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2. (1888), pp. 125-128.

One year to brexit the Movie.......

 They sold you a dream of Brexit
They sold you a silent night
And they told youb a fairy story
'till yoy believed in the ukipite
And you believed in Nigel Farage
And you looked to the sky with excited eyes
'till you woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And yousaw him and through his disguise

One year to Brexit day. I reflected on Mozart's opera reformed for us as we joined some 45 years ago. It was a celebration of peace and hope I was 14 at the time.i new that day i was an emotionally a citizen of Europe. I loathed the narrowness of the little Englanders I met at prep school. The problem is at nearly 60 they are still there . They are just the same now I remember their prejudices and their outlook . They are as intolerant now as they were then. i see the same types aping an English outlook of the 20s . The racist words are back, the attitude of superiority returns. Theresa May apes a European outlook but we know it's a ruse, a pretense of understanding and we leave ourselves vulnerable, class ridden and on the outside. Brexit is an excuse for the right to settle it's scores. It's been long planned and they are looking at us all right now....And i tell you now there will be no unity offered by them , they are not interested . They offer a grim future and such ilk as this will not experience any desire to unite with them from me.....

Yesterday I heard a celebration of 100 years of the RAF. The Air Marshal being interviewed was clever he linked Salisbury

. Syria and space. He talked of a Russian threat ..he talked of a narrow Britain but most of all it was Brexit Island talk ..and the same discourse of a Russian threat that gas existed for over 200 years. He made no mention of the arms trade if the military industrial complex. Taking back control is in fact a return to the imperial fantasy discourse ...the military personnel recruited are largely from areas of high unemployment. The working class of one nation state is set against the working class of another..Ten per cent of the prison population is if a service background. The old lie is resurrected. Virgil lied as did the Air Vice Marshal ..delce et decorum estt pro pattia mori...the old lie is used over and over and the clock ticks on...one year to go .. and the methods are the same.

This is  the message of  the old, the bitter, the inward looking . There is no celebration today, no celebration of our diversity, our multicultural , multiethnic society that has been like that for 10,000 years. It is not a letter that celebrates the languages spoken on this island Welsh, Gaelic, Urdu, Kernow and Yiddish, amongst many others. There is no coming together..There is a moving apart. Scotland, Northern Ireland , Wales even Cornwall look at ways to get themselves from this 'kipper paradise' we have become. The fog in the channel is cutting off Europe from us. The Mail's headline ,'Freedom" is the freedom of blandness, sameness and intolerance, the freedom to be prejudiced , xenophobic and narrow. Long ago i heard the song by Emerson, Lake and Palmer it ended with the line " the CHRISTMAS WE GET WE DESERVE" the problem is that today we are getting the Brexit that the hard right has given us .Bit it is not what we deserve or need. The sack left at the end of the bed by a purple robed Santa Farage.In that sack is a society doomed to the market economy, poor services, lousy civil rights and privatisation. We do not deserve these gifts.....Adam Smith put it this way he said we are putting the clocks back 70 years he is right....

On Maunday Thursday... Of dying Gods and Gods reborn .... I could only believe in a God who could dance........when Easter Sunday is April Fools day.......

Of dying Gods and Gods reborn ....It's  Easter Week  and after 2000 years of the Judeo Christian world view so few understand the original let motive of god's slain and gods reborn. Osiris in Egyptian myth bears so much resemblance to the Christian myth , in Norse mythology Odin hangs on the tree and conquers death and learns the wisdom of the runes. Buddha sits below the bodhi tree and learns enlightenment. The tree the cross, the sacrifice to learn and transform the world. But to transform into what...I am tired of the Sky Father's the celestial dictators who insist that there is only their truth. Without the insistence of only one truth we would avoid the wars of ideology, the wars of forced conversion of the heathen, the infidel and the heretic. If there is ever a need it is for a saviour to free us from Saviours. Theresa May lectures us on Christian values and yet she takes to Saudi Arms dealers and supplies arms around the world.

 Give me Marcus Aurelius anytime with his insistence to ask not what someone says they are looking instead at what they do. Do we survive death? I don't know but I turn back to Homer when he says that the gods envy us because we are beautiful as we will never be again as we are at this moment. They envy us because each of us are unique, our experience varied our soulless original. Do the gods die with us killed by gas in Syria,? shot to pieces by the arms trade that our leaders pedal? Do we die condemned by the universal soldier who just obeys their orders who has been taught to confirm. Do we die by hunger and neglect or do we end the rule of the dark gods we create be they human or divine...Perhaps the death of the gods is long overdue and we must see the divine within all of us, the sacredness of ourselves and put original sin back with St Augustine and the celestial dictators of the monotheistic faiths. Perhaps the gods once dead should stay that way..I am with Homer and the Pagans ......

The female spirituality, Isis, Freya ignored. The definition of an Apostle in Christianity is someone who has seen the risen Christ. Yet it was Mary and Martha who saw him first and yet they are not Apostles. You only rise again if a masculine language tell you so, Christ rises to become the medieval celestial dictator, Osiris is give a new golden phallus,,yep its men who tell the stories of these celestial dictators and of the only truth there is. What a surprise. Give me the divine feminine any time......

"It is only the gods who taste of death. Apollo has passed away, but Hyacinth, whom men say he slew, lives on. Nero and Narcissus are always with us."
-- Oscar Wilde

(This painting by Gary Copley Artist hangs in Oscar Wilde's fomer home in Dublin's Merrion Square. Copley is an Irish natural contemporary artist, influenced by the early 20th century movements, particularly Cubism and Art Dec

When I was five my father began to read mythology to me . I found a great tension between the religion I was taught at school and the tales of the Greeks, Romans and ancient Egyptians. I remembered asking at school why the Christian stories we heard at school were true and the mythologies of the ancient world were false. No teacher ever adequately convinced me . The best they did was to tell me I was foolish or indeed odd.

If they want me to believe in their god,
they'll have to sing me better songs.....
I could only believe in a god who dances.

Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and
believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks--those who write
new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and
fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the
harvest.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche,
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra",
No polytheist ever imagined that all humankind would come to live in the same way; for polytheists took for granted that humans would worship other deities. Only with Christianity did the belief take root that one way of life could/should be lived by all.. If only one belief is true, then every other is wrong.

For polytheists, religion is a matter of practice,not belief, and there are many kinds of practice. For Christians , religion is a matter of true belief, and therefore every way of life which does not accept it must consequently be an error..

While many polytheists may vigorously defend their deities, they never perceive themselves as missionaries. It is certain that without monotheism humans would still be violent unstable beings ; yet history would have spared us from the wars of religion. If the world had been spared monotheism we would not have developed communism or indeed global democratic capitalism. It is possible to dream of a world free from militant faiths religious or political.
Yet it is also true that unbelief is a move in a game set by .believers. To deny the existence of a God is to accept the categories of monotheism. As these categories fall into disuse, unbelief becomes uninteresting, and soon is meaningless. Many humanists say they want a secular world, but a world defined by the absence of the Christian God is still a Christian world. Secularism like chastity, a condition defined by what it denies.. If atheism has a future, it can only be in a Christian reviva ; and it is true that both Christianity and atheism are declining together.
Atheism is a late bloom of a Christian passion for the truth. No Pagan is ready to sacrifice the pleasure of life for the sake of mere truth.. It is an artful illusion, not unadorned reality that they prize. Among the Greeks, the goal of philosophy

was happiness or salvation, not truth.The worship of Truth is effectively a Christian cult.
The old Pagans were right to shudder at the uncouth earnestness of the early Christians. None of the Mystery religions of the late Roman Empire would have claimed what the Christians claimed- that all other faiths were in error. For that reason non , none of their followers could ever become an atheist.. When Christianity alone claimed they possessed the truth they condemned the rich and lush profusion of the pagan world with damning finality
.
In a world of many gods, unbelief can never be total It can only be a rejection of one practice and gods and acceptance of others or else as Epicurus and his followers claimedthe conviction that gods do not matter since they have long ceased to bother about human affairs.
Christianity struck at the root of pagan tolerance of constructed interpretation. In claiming that there is only one truth faith, it gives truth a supreme value that it had not had before. It also made unbelief in the divine possible for the first time. The long delayed consequence of Christian faith was an idolatry of truth that found its most complete expression in atheism. If we live in a world without gods , we have Christianity to thank for it. Iamblichus of Chalcis commented
"You Christians have driven the Gods from the world and made it a lonely place".
Algernon Charles Swinburne writing in the late 19th century felt the same . In his poem Hymn to Proserpin he bold states

"You have conquered O Pale Galilean, the world has grown grey from thy breath".......
In D H Lawremce`s story “The man who died” Jesus comes back from the dead only to give up the idea of saving mankind. He views the world with wonder and asks himself; “ From what ? and to wha , could this infinite world be saved ?”

Humanity considers itself as perfectible beings superior to all other non human animals upon the planet and yet at the same time we never cease to escape from what we consider ourselves to be. Our religions are attempts to be rid of a freedom that we never perhaps have had.. In the last two hundred years the utopias/dystopias of right and left have served the same function. Today when politics is bland and unconvincing even as entertainment, science has taken on the role of humanity's deliverer..
I believe that we need a teaching that stresses that there is nothing from which to seek deliverance, a teaching whose aim is to free humanity from the yoke of salvation.

Nikos Kazanantzakis states my belief clearly “Whoever says salvation exists is a slave , because he keeps weighing each of his words and deeds at every moment. Will I be saved or damned? He tremblingly asks.......salvation means deliverance from all saviours...now you understand who is the perfect saviour. ..it is the saviour who shall deliver mankind from salvation.”or indeed Nietzsche once more claiming,

"Man is a rope, tied between beast and mg-back, a dangerous
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under.”

Many people today think that they belong to a species that can be master of its destiny. This is faith and not science. We do not speak of a time when whales or gorillas will be master of their destinies. Why then should we humans?

Science today has an authority that common experience cannot rival, jet let us remember that Darwin tells us that species are assemblies of genes, interacting at random with each other and their shifting environments. Species cannot control their fates. Species do not exist. This applies to us as humans. Yet it is forgotten whenever people talk of the progress of mankind. . We have now put our faith in that which originated in Christian belief and in the last hundred years it has been been taken over by scientific rationalism.

I believe that at heart humans and other animals are kin. By contrast, arising from Christianity humans are set beyond all other living beings, and have triggered a bitter argument that rages to this day. In Victorian times this was a conflict between Christians ans unbelievers. Today it is fought between secular humanists and those who believe that humans can no more be masters of their destiny than any other animal. This is the hope of rational science today for although human knowledge will very likely continue to grow and with it human power, the human animal will stay the same; a highly inventive species that is also one of the most predatory and destructive.
Darwin showed us that humans are like other animals, humanists claim they are not. Humanism insists that by using our knowledge we can control our environment and flourish as never before. In affirming this they renew one of Christianities most dubious promises -that salvation is open to all. The humanist belief in progress is only a secular version of the Christian faith.
Perhaps is is therefore impossible to describe an adequate definition of real progress. To anyone reared on humanist hopes this ls intolerable. As a result, Darwin'steachings have been stood on their head. Christianity`s cardinal error-that humans are different from animals- has been given by science a new lease of life.

Many Green thinkers like myself realise that humans can never really be masters of the earth. Our spirituality must recognise that we are mere stewards of the biosphere and therefore must except a neo -pagan or pantheist belief For much of our history and all of prehistory humans did not see themselves as being any different from the other animals among which they lived. Hunter gatherers saw their prey as equals, if not superior and animals were worshipped as divinities in many traditional culture.



The humanist sense of a gulf between ourselves and other animals is an aberration. It is the animist feeling of belonging with the rest of nature that is normal. Feeble as it may be today the feeling of sharing a common destiny with other living things that is embedded in the human psyche.
Those who struggle to conserve what is left of the environment are moved by the love of living things, a "biophilia" a frail bond of feeling that ties humankind with the earth and that should form the basis of our spirituality./political activity.

"We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

Friedrich Nietzsche