From: oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Chivalry
Date: 16 Dec 92 16:32:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <BzBp1A.94u@acsu.buffalo.edu>, rmr@acsu.buffalo.edu (Richard M. Romanowski) writes...
> 
>	Thagi mentioned chivalry.  I try to make it a cornerstone of
>my existence, so I should be able to tell you all about it.  But I don't
>have all the answers, and indeed I doubt my own capacities considerably.
>I.E., there seems to be a lot more to chivalry tha what I can imagine,
>and yet the lack is palpable.  Am I speaking English>?
> 
>	I know quite a few GD folks like Mathers and Crowley liked the
>image of Magician as Knight.
> 
>(Making no sense whatsoever)

Try editing for a change.

>Luck
>(You might need it...)
>Rick


Anway,  here is an article I scarfed from the Camelot listserv.  
The writer is obviously not familiar with magick, and uses "new 
age" a lot, but I think its interesting anyway - especially the 
part about archetypes.

- Peggy -

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From: C Thornborrow <ct@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk>
Subject: unusual article
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Via: uk.ac.edinburgh.castle; Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:22:34 +0000

I have written a rather unusual article that attempts to address the
matter of the validity of "new age" research into Arthurian legends.
I have done this for a number of reasons :

1) To address the problem that some people feel the list is dominated by
in-depth historical articles.
2) To try to answer the question for myself after having read many books
on the subject.
3) Pendragon magazine had a call for such articles as history has
dominated their pages recently.

This is a first draft and comments are more than welcome ....

	The Arthurian Legends and "New Age" Research
	--------------------------------------------

In this article I will attempt to address the controversial issue of so
called "new age" Arthurian study and demonstrate that it is a valid
angle of approach to the legends of Arthur and his knights of the Round
Table. In particular I shall address the legends of the Grail,
associated with the vast body of Arthuriana. This subject seldom seems
to find a middle ground with scholars. They either hate the very notion
of any validity in such studies or subsume all other subjects in a
desperate quest for the "new age" truth behind the Grail. 

The "new age" approach to the myths of Arthur is derived from two
assumptions. The first is that the Grail legends are derived from old
Irish and Welsh tales which retain vestiges of Pagan belief systems and
that these then mingled with Christian belief systems. The second is
that we may learn about the psychology of a peoples by the stories that
emerge from their culture. Of course, when mixing psychology and
religion is a free manner, some outrageous ideas will occur. Let us
forget for the time being the associations of the words "new age" with
such, all too common, ideas and instead look at the core reasoning
behind this field of study.

The first of our justifications, that of celtic origins for the legends,
appears to be in little doubt. Certainly most scholars agree with this.
Some have suggested possible mixing of Eastern ideas, but even they
agree that at a basic level, the stories are celtic in origin. R. S.
Loomis compares searching for the origins of the legends in non-celtic
cultures to an old absent-minded uncle looking for his glasses in the
bin or the toilet but never checking his head. It is not my intention to
deal with this subject here. Surely if the best scholars believe the
first assumption to be true, then it is a fair basis for the "new age"
approach. 

If we can, then, justify the second assumption, that we may learn about
the psychology of a peoples from the myths of those peoples, then we
may say that by studying the Grail legends we can
better understand the psychology and beliefs of the celtic peoples. Many
of the readers of this article will be, at least partly, celtic people.

So what then is a myth? The late Joseph Campbell is perhaps the most 
famous scholar of myths. He claimed that a myth had two origins. It was
either an expression of a common human need or experience or an
attempted and generally acceptable explanation of such needs or
experiences. He gives many examples of such myths to justify this claim
and to my knowledge his work remains unchallenged. Surely then, an
explanation must be partly coloured by the psychology of the story
teller and so we must have vistiges of psychology in these myths. Even
the description of an experience might be likened to something thought
to be similar in the mind of the writer and those point to his or her
psychological make-up. In the context of myths we should note that it is
a common human experience or need. This means that for the description
or explanation to stand the test of time, it must also be common in some
sense. This means that the psychological elements within the story
should be common to the peoples whose myths these are. In our case, it
is the psychology of the celtic peoples we find within the Grail myths.

We seem to have validated our assumptions. Let us take a brief look 
therefore at the "new age" work that has emerged so far. The most
important aspect is that nearly all the psychological approaches so far
are based around the work of Carl Jung. Here again we find a problem.
Jungs psychology is regarded by many as, at best, poor work. WE shall
address each of the reasons here

Jung was a very bad writer, both dry and confusing. He often did not
fully explain his terms and left the reader guessing. Secondly, 
many of his theories are simply not acceptable, particularly those
formed later in life. His theory of personality is now regarded as next
to useless. His theory of the collective unconcious was never fully
explained and his theory of synchronicity si ridiculous and ill thought
out. For a reasoned explanation of these claims, the reader is referred
to _An Introduction to Jungian Psychology_ by Anthony Storr. The third
reason is that Jung was obssessed with religion and the occult. This
coloured his work and clouded his judgement. It has also meant that work
derived from Jung in the "new age" has had enough psychological rope to
hang itself, simply by accepting Jungs work as valid throughout.

However, much or Jungs work is valid and those that dismiss all of his
work are as wrong as those who dismiss none. His work on archetypes,
symbollism and mandalas are considered to have much worth. It is the
archetype that is of most interest to Arthurian studies. An archetype is
difficult to describe. It is a psychological mould for varying but
related images, ideas, symbols and characters that are inherent to the
human psyche. For example, cultures all over the world have "hero
myths". The character of the hero, Jung claims, is derived from a hero
archetype which has within it the raw psychological components that
enable any hero character to be created. It is very difficult to express
this concept in but a few lines, but we shall press on. 

An archetype, in our context, might be best describes as a proto-symbol 
(the celtic objects behind the Grail) or proto-character (celtic heros 
who became medieval characters). More than this though, becasue we have
justified the claim of psychology coming through the myths, then we must
deduce that the archetypes we are looking for were held within the
psyche of the cultures that created these symbols and characters. It is
this psychology, specifically when it relates to religion, that "new age"
authors investigate.

If we have shown that "new age" approaches to Arthurian legend can be
valid, we have equally shown that they can miss the mark completely by
assuming unacceptable works of psychology . The reader of "new age" work
must therefore take care to tread a carefully chosen route of research.
More than any other field of Arthurian research, there are dead ends and
misleading sign posts for the unwary. Do not dismiss one author because
some of their work is invalid, nor accept all the works of one author as
valid. Balancing the "new age" with history, comparative mythology,
literary studies and other fields is the key to succesfully navigating
the forest of Arthurian works and chosing a path that will eventually
lead to something meaningful within this forest.


Chris Thornborrow.


Further Reading 

_An Introduction to Jungian Psychology_	Anthony Storr
_Jung : Selected Writings_		Anthony Storr
_The Grail Legend_			Emma Jung, Marie Louise Von Franz
_A Grail Seekers Companion_		Marion Green, John Matthews
_Elements of the Grail Tradition_	John Matthews
_Elements of the Arthurian Tradition_	John Matthews
Newsgroups: alt.magick