58 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
58 lines
2.8 KiB
Plaintext
COG Newsletter
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c/o Dave Norman 19 December, 1986
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PO Box 60151
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Chicago, IL 60660
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Gentlefolk:
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I reject the Thomas Morton Alliance's declaration of injustice for the
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following supremely important reason: SHAMANISM DOES NOT BELONG TO THE
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ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF THIS CONTINENT, ANY MORE THAN IT BELONGS TO ANY
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ONE PEOPLE.
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How, therefore, can there be theft involved? In Mr. Gustafson's
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accompanying letter, he urges witches to seek their own roots. Our
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earliest roots ARE shamanism. The Ice Age caves of the Pyrenees are
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evidence, as well as the partnership with nature spirits, work in
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trance, and ecstatic dancing that have LONG characterised Wiccan
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practise. The stories of Lleu, from ancient Wales, and Odin on the
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Tree, from Scandinavia, are depictions of shamanic initiation and
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vision-questing.
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Shall we say that because our Ice Age ancestors were practising shamanic
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techniques before the ancestors of the American aboriginals got to this
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continent via the Bering land bridge, that they stole the techniques
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from us? Not hardly. It is as ridiculous a supposition as the
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Alliance's that we stole from them. The techniques of shamanism have
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never been limited to any one people, any one continent. They are as
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old as humankind, as universal as the spread of humanity. The
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World-Tree's scions are seen not only in the posts and poles of the
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Pacific Northwest, the pole of the Sun-Dance, the Chilean machi's REWE,
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but also in the Siberian cosmic tent-pole, the Norse Yggdrasil, the
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druid's oak (whose name in Gaelic means "door"), the Maypole.
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I agree that the "tuition fees" for many "shamanic workshops" are
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excessive. But if the Alliance will take a few moments to examine the
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clientele, the people who most often attend such workshops, the Alliance
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will find that the audience is composed primarily, not of Wiccans, but
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of up-scale new-age dilettants (dare I say yuppies?). This is
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reinforced by the cost of the workshops; only the up-scale sorts can
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afford them. How many wealthy Witches do you know?
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I resent the Alliance's association of witches with theivery and
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oppression. Witches were oppressed in Europe centuries before European
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contact with this continent, and continue to suffer persecution in this
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country; the Alliance certainly has no corner on the oppression market.
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And in the end, the spirits will speak to and deal with whom they will,
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irrespective of race. The Alliance's self-righteous recriminations get
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nobody anywhere. I suggest that if the Alliance is interested in
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preserving the purity of their traditions, that they work with and
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correct those sponsors of classes with whom they have difficulty, rather
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than slinging politically-correct but ineffective mud.
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Blessed Be.
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Siobhan
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(of Firestar, Berkeley)
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