Greetings!
>Jez wrote:
>> Be grateful. I've seen shawoman and shawomen as well.
>I'm probably not the only list member who finds this sort of fake/folk
>etymologizing annoying.
I think the esoteric/occult is a living, indeed thriving, field.
Concepts and words will be imported, transformed and changed. This
process has a long history and that is the history of occultism. One
point of view is that these processes can be charted without value
judgement. Some occultists who are partisan to a particular system
sometimes think it is a bad thing. I often think it is a good thing, as
an indication of the vitality of the current.
I came across an example of this recently at a lecture about Odinism.
The lecturer, an Odinist, bemoaned modern representations of Odin upside
down upon Yggdrisil, apparently there is nothing in the source materials
suggesting he was inverted. He suggested the idea originated,
unconsciously, from a familiarity with the Hanged Man tarot card.
Ironically I thought this development of a new iconography though
unselfconscious cross fertilisation a signal that modern Odinism was
indeed a living faith. Rather more interesting than modern pagans asking
historians and archaeologists what they should adopt as their beliefs.
There is an idea that Cunning Men and Women are alive and well, they
just call themselves shaman nowadays.
With my best wishes
Ben
--
Ben Fernee
Caduceus Books
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Web page:- http://www.caduceusbooks.com
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