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Le Beannachdan,

With Blessings,  

Geo
www.celticshamanism.com

Lugh of Many Skills, an Oxford Harry Potter Conference of Many Delights and Reflections on Participating in a Continuum 'Beyond the Work of One'

Lughnasadh Greetings!

The sun is shining, the grain is ripening and I've just gotten back from an idyllic conference at Magdalen College, Oxford — but more on that later. The festival of Lughnasadh was said to have originated when Lugh, an ancient Celtic deity, set up the event to memorialize his foster mother Tailtiu. Some children in early Irish culture were 'fostered' to other families to strengthen tribal bonds. In fact the more intimate 'mummy' and 'daddy' terms in Old Irish were for foster parents, not biological parents.

Lugh was worshipped widely in Celtic lands. Caesar equated him with Mercury, who was patron of all the arts, including magical. (Also of pickpockets!) There's a good overview of Lugh's various forms at http://www.celtnet.org.uk/gods_l/lugus.html.

In the tale of the battle of Moytura he appears as a radiant hero with all skills and arts. In one version when he first appears, the people say, "Look, the sun is rising in the West!"

The story concerns the war between the Tuatha Dé (aka Tuatha Dé Danann, the Tribes of God or the Tribes of the Goddess Danu) and the Fomoire, forces of chaos and fertility. King Bres (who had a Fomoire father and Tuatha Dé mother) was deposed for his stinginess. However often the Tuatha Dé visited him, their knives were not greased and their breaths did not smell of ale. Nuadu took over as king of the Tuatha Dé camp and Lugh arrived to seek admission. Here's an excerpt that tells how he got his title 'the All Skilled One.'

After Bres, Nuada was again in sovranty over the Tuath Dé. At that time he held for the Tuath Dé a mighty feast at Tara. Now there was a certain warrior on his way to Tara, whose name was Samildánach. And there were then two doorkeepers at Tara, namely Gamal son of Figal and Camall son of Riagall. When one of these was there he sees a strange company coming towards him. A young warrior fair and shapely, with a king's trappings, was in the forefront of that band.

They told the doorkeeper to announce their arrival at Tara. The doorkeeper asked: 'Who is there?'

'Here there is Lugh Lonnannsclech son of Cian son of Dian-cecht, and of Ethne daughter of Balor. Fosterson, he, of Tallan daughter of Magmor king of Spain and of Echaid the Rough, son of Duach.'

The doorkeeper asked of Samildánach: 'What art dost thou practise?' saith he; 'for no one without an art enters Tara.'

'Question me', saith he; 'I am a wright.' The doorkeeper answered: 'We need thee not. We have a wright already, even Luchtae son of Luachaid.'

He said: 'Question me, O doorkeeper! I am a smith.' The doorkeeper answered him: 'We have a smith already, even Colum Cualléinech of the three new processes.'

He said: 'Question me: I am a champion.' The doorkeeper answered: 'We need thee not. We have a champion already, even Ogma son of Ethliu.'

He said again: 'Question me', saith he, 'I am a harper.' 'We need thee not. We have a harper already, even Abhcán son of Bicelmos whom the Men of the three gods (chose) in the fairy hills.'

Said he: 'Question me: I am a hero.' 'The doorkeeper answered:' 'We need thee not. We have a hero already, even Bresal Echarlam2 son of Echaid Baethlam.'

Then he said: 'Question me, O doorkeeper! I am a poet and I am a historian.'. 'We need thee not. We have already a poet and historian, even En son of Ethaman.'

He said: 'Question me', says he, 'I am a sorcerer.' 'We need thee not. We have sorcerers already. Many are our wizards and our folk of might.'

He said: 'Question me: I am a leech.'

 'We need thee not. We have for a leech Dian-cecht.'

'Question me', saith he: 'I am a cupbearer.' 'We need thee not. We have cupbearers already, even Delt and Drucht and Daithe, Taé and Talom and Trog, Glei and Glan and Glési.'

He said: 'Question me. I am a good brazier.' 'We need thee not. We have a brazier already, even Credne Cerd.'

He said again: 'Ask the king', saith he, 'whether he has a single man who (possesses) all these arts, and if he has I will not enter Tara.'

Then the doorkeeper went into the palace and declared all to the king. 'A warrior has come before the garth' saith he. 'His name is Samildánach, and all the arts which thy household practise he alone possesses, so that he is the man of each and every art.'

This he the king said then, that the chessboards of Tara should be fetched to him Samildánach and he won all the stakes, so that then he made the Cró of Lugh. But if chess was invented at the (epoch) of the Trojan war, it had not reached Ireland then, for the battle of Moytura and the destruction of Troy occurred at the same time.

Then that was related to Nuada. 'Let him into the garth', says Nuada. 'for never before has man like him entered this fortress.'

Then the doorkeeper lets Lugh pass him, and he entered the fortress and sat down in the sage's seat, for he was a sage in every art.

(This excerpt comes from the edition online at the invaluable CELT: The Corpus of Electronic Texts. The Battle of Moytura is here:  http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T300011/index.html. The main site is http://celt.ucc.ie/index.html. You'll find loads of Old Irish sources here.)

The title Samildánach is akin to the title of Lugh's Welsh counterpart, Lleu, called Llaw Gyffes, 'of the skillful hand.' The story also shows Lugh's mercurial quality — he has all qualities, and, like the alchemical mercury, could act as an intermediary between various polarities of identity and experience. Lugh, like Bres, had one Fomoire parent and one parent of the Tuatha Dé. Unlike Bres, he resolved the difficulties this presented within himself for the benefit of his tribe. He even used a Fomoire-type magical technique to defeat his own grandfather, Balor of the Evil Eye. (The Fomoire were said to be one eyed and one legged in some accounts, representing the primordial unity of chaos, and Lugh hexes Balor standing on one leg and covering one eye.)

Alchemy has been a bit of a pre-occupation of mine of late for various reasons. Besides being Lughnasadh eve, the 31^st of July is also associated with another young male mythological / alchemical figure. It's Harry Potter's birthday. If you don't fancy Harry, look away now. I've just returned from the Accio 2008 Harry Potter conference at Magdalen College, Oxford, so I just can't avoid talking about him in this newsletter!

You may be puzzled as to why Harry is of such literary, spiritual or academic interest. We'll be setting up a section on my website to answer some of those questions shortly. In a nutshell, I believe that the Harry Potter phenomenon tells us a lot about the sense of meaning and magic that's missing from many people's daily lives, and the books tell us a lot about how to restore it. They are crammed with mythic themes, symbolism, and layered meaning that give academics plenty to 'academicize' about.

In my new book, The Seeker's Guide to Harry Potter, I touch on Harry's similarity to other mythic figures. For example, the young male Egyptian deity Horus avenges his father, Osiris', murder. Set, who killed Osiris, sometimes appears as a serpent. Horus' symbol at Edfu was the winged disk. (Note the golden snitch resemblance?) In other traditions the winged disk came to symbolize the choice to live a righteous life and in alchemy, it can represent the end of the alchemical process, the transformed alchemist as the philosopher's stone — the title of the first novel. This novel tells of the beginning of Harry's career as the Seeker who tries to catch the golden snitch — the luminous alchemical goal of transcendence and illumination.

The one who attains it can transmit it. In the last book a number of people drink a potion with Harry's hair in it to transform them into likenesses of Harry. Of course, the sludgy grey potion turns a beautiful gold when his hair is put into it. On the spiritual level it also called to mind a saying from the Gospel of Thomas, an early Christian Gospel that has Christ saying "He who drinks from my mouth shall be as I am and I shall be he." JK Rowling's novels are packed with alchemical and spiritual symbolism, and I was far from the only one to discuss this at the conference.

I was fortunate enough to recruit Hans Andréa and Ronald Hutton to my roundtable discussion on Pagan and Christian themes in Harry Potter. Hans runs the Harry Potter for Seekers website www.harrypotterforseekers.com. Go there for much more information on all sorts of alchemical and Gnostic symbolism in Harry Potter. I'm also a member of Hans' Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/harrypotterforseekers/. (I'm shaman scholar.) I'm particularly impressed by Hans' comparison of Harry and The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rozencreutz, a fascinating text. 

During the roundtable, Hans pointed out the relationship between Christ and Sirius, noting that Sirius' three best friends are James, John and Peter, Christ's companions in Gethsemane. Of course, James was described as Christ's brother and James Potter and Sirius are like brothers, Remus John Lupin is the second, and Peter is the one who betrays Sirius / denies Christ three times. There was a collective 'Oooooh!' in the room when Hans pointed this out. Tricky JK Rowling snuck in the second name John for Lupin! Of course, Sirius also passes physically 'through the veil' leaving behind no body, and returns from the dead to comfort Harry. And people say she's anti-Christian! Of course, one of the beauties of the books is that their message isn't limited to Christians. Part of me thought she'd end the series as an unambiguous Christian parable, but she didn't. She even chose to begin the final book with a Pagan and a Christian quote. Of course, there were people at the conference who thought she was a purely Christian author. They made some good arguments, and JK Rowling's personal Christian faith is far from incidental to the books. However, as my co-panelist, Ronald Hutton, pointed out, themes of noble sacrifice, love and repentance were profoundly expressed long before Christianity.

Ronald Hutton is the Professor of History at Bristol University and is one of the foremost authorities on the history of magic, ancient and modern Paganism and Neo-Paganism, and the interface between Paganism and Christianity in early times. (He's written such books as Stations of the Sun: a History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination, and Witches, Druids and King Arthur. The latter has a fascinating discussion of the Inklings, an Oxford writer's group that included JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. (The authors of Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books.) He mentioned the way that both their books contain substantial Pagan elements which haven't been nearly as thoroughly scrutinized or questioned as similar elements in JK Rowling's work.

Magdalen College is only a brief stroll from the spot where Tolkien converted Lewis to Christianity. It's marked with a plaque about a fifteen minute walk away from where we were speaking along the river. The first night in Oxford I went for a pint at the Eagle and Child, the Inklings favorite pub, another short walk away. All this brought a wonderful vividness to these reflections. Ronald is a brilliant and entertaining speaker, and I was most grateful to his charming lady Ana (a big Harry Potter fan who also teaches) for getting him to attend the conference.

Of course there were numerous excellent presentations. Phyllis Morris' was entitled "From Gred and Forge to Fred and George: Character Transformation in Harry Potter" looking at how and why characters changed — or didn't — in the novels. She looked at Neville's transformation from a bullied and incompetent lad to a worthy heir of Gryffindor and on the Malfoy's shift of focus from power to family bonds as the novels wore on.

Pip Downs led a roundtable "Dumbledore: Hero or Machiavellian." She argued that he was a Machiavellian figure — which is quite hard to disagree with! Ronald Hutton had a good take on this at our roundtable, however. He made the point that Dumbledore could be both a hero and a Machiavellian leader. He acted in a typical medieval king fashion, giving Harry the chance to 'win his spurs.' I have both audio and video recordings of this talk that I'll put online. I'll let everyone know when they're available.

Diana Patterson gave a talk on translating Harry Potter from English to American. My personal favorite change was when Sirius Black sneaks into Gryffindor tower and Ron wakes to find him standing over his bed holding a knife and Ron screams the place down. The British version has Sirius 'scarper,' that is, flee in disarray, from the scene. The American has him 'scamper' like Bambi!

Another talk was by Lauren Berman, 'Impaled on its own sword': The Self-destructiveness of evil in the Harry Potter Series. This was at the same time as a talk I really wanted to see by Susan M. LaFleur on Dementors and depression. Now, how often do you get to say, "I'm torn between self-destructive evil and depression."? On arriving, Ana said, "I'm glad you chose evil!" to general amusement. Evil certainly is depicted as self destructive in the Harry Potter novels. Ultimately, most evil does seem to do itself not so very much good, at least internally. However, it doesn't always handily off itself. I mentioned this to Lauren at the end of her talk. I have to say she handed me a rather good joke given the capture a few days before of a suspected notorious Serbian war criminal. She said, "Many evil leaders do self destruct." "Either that or they retire and go into holistic health." I said.

Anyway, that's just a taste of what was an amazing weekend. I imagine that the proceedings may be generally available in future. The website is http://www.accio.org.uk.

The Accio conference at Magdalen College was one of the most magical mixes of a sense of continuum at all levels I've ever experienced. There were fans as well as academic heavy hitters (who were also fans!) Many there were concerned with the spiritual resonance of Harry's story. The setting itself was magical. Magdalene College has a deer park and I could begin and end my days (at about 5am and after midnight) chanting prayers in the Chapel there which has the most amazing acoustics with a candle lit before the Magdalene. (A virtual tour of the college is at http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/looking_around/ and you can get music recorded in their chapel at http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/purchase/.) (I'll post some of my own pictures along with video and audio of the roundtable. I'll let everyone know when these are available.)

After the conference feast a few of us went in the chapel for a chant and it was just incredible. And of course the feast gave me a chance to dress up as I love to in a sympathetic context! There was a profound sense of community on so many levels, and a sense of so many times overlapping, which I've seldom felt to that extent anywhere.

On a final note, this was something that struck me about Oxford in general, though the conference intensified it for me. The first day of the conference some of us toured the Bodleian library (http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley). A current exhibit there is called 'Beyond the work of one': Oxford College Libraries and their Benefactors. The title is taken from a sermon delivered on St Mark's Day 1879 in Keble Chapel, Oxford, on the first anniversary of the opening of the Library, by Dr Edward King, Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology, who commended the Colleges' rich inheritance of benefactions, saying '...the accumulation of a library of books is obviously beyond the work of any one, and yet it is a work in which all may unite. This is the way our libraries have grown up, by separate individual gifts, some greater indeed, some less...'

Those words really resonated with me throughout the trip and conference. Arriving at any understanding about anything, creating any project, or any family or any group, engaging in anything worthwhile is invariably more than the work of one. At some places and times you feel that sense of being part of a continuum more than others. I had a very personal reason for being aware of it at Oxford.

My Dad, Professor George Mueller, was there exactly seventy years ago. He was involved in chemical engineering for the war effort at that time. "Making bombs to throw at Mr. Hitler" as he put it. As a Hungarian Jew, most of whose family was still in Hungary, he had good reason. But his main concern was always philosophy and the origins and purpose of life. He went on to study meteorites and moon rocks for NASA investigating life's origins. In short, his concerns were very much my own, though he chose different avenues to explore them. He asked me to continue his work before he died, and as my journey leads me towards physics as well as metaphysics I feel that I'm doing as he asked. I couldn't resist getting a picture taken in the same spot as my favorite picture of my Dad standing at Christ Church College, Oxford, seventy years on. (He was at St. Catherine's, another Oxford College, at the time, which used to be in what's now the Music Faculty building nearby.) I'd never been to Oxford before, and being invited to speak seventy years after Dad was there was just too good an opportunity to miss.

People talk about academic life as if it's divorced from real, lived experience. Yet there's a sense of being part of a continuum of human understanding in academic life that's hard to match. My family tradition makes me feel part of a continuum and so does contributing to scholarship. At places like Edinburgh and Oxford Universities it just really comes home how important a sense of continuum is, particularly as one gets older.

It's an antidote to self absorption and fear. It feels good to participate in something that will stand after you're physically gone. That's a lesson we can take on wherever we are. Think about what you can do today that will continue beyond your life, what you can contribute to. Think about the continuums you're already part of, whether you think about them a lot or not. It's like looking at themes in literature. What themes can you see continued from your parents' lives into yours? What about your more remote ancestors? Think more broadly to tribes, nationalities. Mythic heroes and heroines you identify with. Ultimately we're all in it together, at Oxford and Stonehenge and everywhere. How can you participate in a good way in the continuum today?

July 3rd through 5th 2009, Cavan, Ireland
Weekend workshop (details TBA)
Contact, Tom Hoebbel, tomhoebbel@gmail.com