Cheq, mate

 

If Labrador Retrievers are real, why are there still Newfoundland dogs? Can you answer that, evolutionista, huh huh? 

The Second Religiosity

John Michael Greer sounds angrier than usual in this reflection on magic, religion and the end of the "Age of Reason". 

Here are some extensive quotes:

>>>You know that an age of reason is coming to an end when magic escapes from these marginal environments and begins to find a home in pop culture. That inevitably faces savage pushback from the managerial caste and their hangers-on, and understandably so; the rise of magic is an exact measure of the failure of reason, since people turn to magic when the officially approved options of their society don’t work. Since no managerial caste anywhere seems to understand that their pushback just makes rejected ideas more popular, that guarantees the spread of magic through the crawlspaces of society.

>>>The revival of religious institutions comes a little later in the process. What drives that revival is the terminal collapse of the claims of rationalism to provide meaning and value to human life, and that collapse is driven in turn by the failure of the managerial caste to follow through on its grand promises. In the wake of that failure, people left adrift by the collapse of the rationalist promise look for other sources of meaning and value, and a great many of them find it in the old religious institutions of their society. Oswald Spengler, who studied this process carefully in half a dozen civilizations, referred to it as the Second Religiosity.

>>>Thus there’s a real point to Naomi Wolf’s concern about the presence of supernatural evil in our lives. The Unseen responds to human actions, for good or ill, and a significant number of people in recent years have been going out of their way to invoke malign influences in the mistaken idea that they can use those forces to benefit themselves and hurt the people they don’t like. The law of magical repercussion—or as I called it two weeks ago, the raspberry jam principle—remains in force, as relentless and impersonal as gravity. It will play its usual role in sorting out the very mixed bag of operative occultists in the wake of the age of reason. While that process works itself out, however, there’s going to be an unusual amount of noxious spiritual influence around.

>>>You can deal with that by practicing a traditional religion—and the operative word here is “practicing,” not merely believing; the rites, sacraments, and everyday practices of traditional faiths have as one of their benefits the attunement of the individual to positive spiritual currents, which drive off the noxious influences just mentioned. You can also deal with it by practicing some form of traditional occultism. Ethics won’t do the job by themselves but they’re a necessary ingredient in either path. Pretending that the Unseen does not exist, though, emphatically won’t cut it any more.

Beyond Thaumatophobia: The End of the Age of Reason

Home invasion Christmas time

A bizarre Christmas tradition from Newfoundland and Labrador. Can we start a little culture war over this? Or no?  

"Any Mummers Allowed In?"

A demonic entity

“The Entity” is a scary documentary about the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. Or perhaps the phenomena thought to be caused by sleep paralysis! The traditional explanation is that demons are attacking people in their sleep. The legends about incubi, succubi, the Old Hag and similar malevolent creatures are based on these frightening nocturnal experiences. (In Sweden, the Entity is known as “mara”).

One woman interviewed has been under constant attack by the Entity since she was a child. A man interviewed wonders why his brother had the same experiences of nightly terrors while sleeping in the man´s bedroom, but not after moving out. Could the explanation be more than just sleep paralysis? Or is the paralysis induced by something objective in the environment? There is also an interview with a person who exhibits an extreme form of sleep walking and memory loss, making the whole episode look like demonic possession!

And speaking of possession, “The Entity” follows a Catholic exorcist who is convinced that the phenomenon is indeed of the Devil. In the commentary section on YouTube, many people claim that the nightly tremors can be made to seize by simply calling on the name of Jesus. On the island of Pemba close to Zanzibar, the locals (who are Muslim) protect themselves against a nocturnal demon-attacker by talismans inscribed with the name of Allah…

One scholar shown in the documentary is David Hufford, author of an anthropological survey of Old Hag traditions, “The Terror That Comes in the Night”. Hufford experienced demonic attacks (or whatever they are) as a young man, and was surprised to learn years later during a field trip to Newfoundland that the people there had traditions about similar experiences. Interestingly, Hufford doesn´t believe that sleep paralysis can account for all reported cases – the experiences are just too varied.

Not for the faint of heart, and hardly as fun as Halloween, but nevertheless relatively interesting. In fact, I was surprised that a documentary about this strange topic even existed!

Where have all the fairies gone?

“Explore Fairy Traditions” by Jeremy Harte is a book about British and Irish fairy lore. Unlike other books on these traditions explored by me lately, Harte (who is a folklorist) takes a skeptical tack on the subject. He simply doesn´t believe in the Other Crowd. They are purely imaginary, in the everyday sense of that word. Fairies are not real, sorry.

Many Irish and British stories about fairies are strikingly similar to tales found in other parts of the world, from ancient Greece to contemporary Korea. There are a lot of recurring motifs: the stolen chalice of gold, the injunction not to eat while away in fairyland, the idea that you can trick a fairy by introducing yourself as “Myself”, etc. A surprisingly large amount of fairy stories are borderline fakelore rather than folklore. The 1976 “Dictionary of Fairies” by Katherine Briggs is considered a solid source by many, but according to Harte, Briggs got much of her information from one Ruth Tongue, who made up scores of “real” fairy stories. Thus, we are not dealing with real tradition but with Tongue´s very own version of fantasy fan fiction. Marie Balfour is another big time forger, this time from the late 19^th century. Diffusion of real folklore also causes problems for the collector, as when Irish fairy stories (known from printed books) found their way to 19^th century Cornwall and were recorded by folklorists as “real Cornish tradition”. As for fairies being distinctly Celtic, Harte points out that fairy belief was once widespread all across Britain, including the non-Celtic portions inhabited by descendants of Anglo-Saxons, Normans or Scandinavians. Somebody might object that the British Isles were once all-Celtic, but I think the point of the author is to criticize the Celtic national romanticism of Walter Evans-Wentz or W B Yeats, which was expressed through the medium of fairy lore. The non-Celts were just as comfortable with the fairy faith, and nobody really knows where the tales originally come from anyway. 

In Britain, the lore died out in the urban congregations first, was considered entertainment in the more modern parts of the countryside, and taken deadly seriously only in the wilder and more isolated parts. In North America, fairy belief is particularly strong in Newfoundland, where it combines British and Irish traits. Why would real fairies in North America act like a combination of British and Irish ditto? Perhaps because the White settlers came from those parts of the world…

The author wonder why fairies are always connected with places where they can´t possibly live unless you postulate that they are indeed invisible most of the time (such as “fairy forts” in Ireland) whereas large caves are not associated with the fairy folk, despite such locations being a more natural hideout for a race wishing to avoid humanity. It´s as if folklore wants to emphasize the supernatural character of the fairies, while simultaneously also tying them to the world of humans – something impossible if they are said to live in remote caves.

Harte points out that the fairies are strikingly similar to humans, too similar in fact. To the author, “fairies” are really metaphors for human social conventions and restrictions. The belief in changelings is connected to disabled children, who were often killed by their parents. To claim that the child was really a fairy was a way of coping with the psychological (and perhaps legal) burden of infant murder. The author claims that similar legends didn´t exist in pagan Scandinavia, where killing disabled children was socially accepted. (Legends of changelings *do* exist in Scandinavia, too, but I suppose it´s possible they are from Christian times, when infanticide had been declared illegal. From the top of my head, I don´t really know.)

The killing of adults could likewise be justified by claiming that the victim was really a fairy substitute for the real person (courts seldom bought this explanation, however). Fairy women who leave their male husbands strikingly often do so according to local human divorce customs – thus, a fairy wife might take the animals (which as dowry belong to the wife´s kin) while leaving the children (who belong to the husband). Fairies are often said to clean the house and leave it in impeccable condition – a house-owner´s dream…and something his servants never do!

Many stories are obviously warnings to children and teenagers about not going out late at night, avoid the seaside, and so on. Other stories seem to warn the listener not to get entangled with the rich folk, not to put too much trust in money, or not to brag about whatever riches you might have hidden away – all good advice in relatively poor peasant communities. Another example: the local "wise women" were said to know their herb lore "from the fairies", which gave them added authority, although it could also make them liable to literal witch-hunts!

At least sometimes, the social function of the fairy stories was obvious to the locals who pretended to believe in them. The 18^th century Irish vigilantes known as the Whiteboys were known as “fairies”, dressed in white garb and carried out their attacks in the dead of night. When horses were mysteriously found extremely tired in the morning, as if ridden during the night, fairies were conveniently blamed. In reality, they had been borrowed by the local smugglers. Sometimes, the line between otherworldly fairy and local vigilante or Viking raider is unclear even in the original stories.

Is there anything real at all underneath all this social and cultural construction? Very little, if Jeremy Harte is to be believed. Stories of actual meetings with the fairies are said to emphasize the fleeting nature of the encounter. This seems to be a common position taken by folklorists. It doesn´t seem to have any support in the actual material, though, which often contains first-person stories of non-fleeting meetings, but this is simply embellishment to the modern scholar. Thus, Harte simply doesn´t believe the elaborate fairy stories collected by Eddie Lenihan and published as “Meeting the Other Crowd”. Interestingly, he does reference Patrick Harpur´s seminal “Daimonic Reality”, which argues that fairies are at the very least “daimonically real”…

Perhaps the Little People still have a few surprises in store for us. I mean, there are many socially constructed stories about humans, animals and planets, too, and yet they are actually out there... 

Getting to the bottom of a mystery

"Lake Monsters of the North" is an episode of "MonsterQuest", a never-ending "scientific" series on unknown animals and paranormal creatures originally aired on History Channel.

According to local legend, Lake Crescent at Newfoundland in Canada is the home of a lake monster nicknamed Cressie. "Lake Monsters of the North" features several teams of researchers attempting to get to the bottom of the mystery (pun intended).

Perennial skeptic Joe Nickell fails (for once) to trick the eye-witnesses into misjudging the size of a log in the water, while the MonsterQuest investigators fail (as usual) in finding a monster. The best they can come up with this time is a swimming beaver!

That being said, Cressie is nevertheless more believable than other lake monsters, since it supposedly looks like a gigantic eel. Some eels are very large, and could conceivably come into the fresh water lakes of Canada from the sea. One biologist speculates that perhaps a sterile conger eel might become substantially larger than the fertile variety, since it doesn't need to dispense with any energy for reproduction.

Most episodes of "MonsterQuest" are available on DVD collections or even at Youtube, so you don't really have to invest in this single-episode DVDs, which is unavailable anyway.

Personally, I consider "MonsterQuest" to be quite boring and dragging (pun intended again), but if you are a crypto-zoology geek, you might find this particular episode somewhat interesting. I therefore give it three stars.

The basic bear

A review of "Newfoundlands" by Joanna Kosloff.

The first time I saw a Newfoundland, I assumed it was a Black Saint Bernard. I mean, the similarity is striking. So is their size. The Newfie looks like a circus bear! Or black bear?

Actually, the Newfoundland is a breed of working dogs from Canada, famous for their large size, swimming ability and good-mannered temper. They used to help fishermen howl in the nets, pulled carts and even served as "nannies" to children.

According to popular legend, the Viking chief Leif Eriksson had a Newfie with him on his journey to Vinland, while another Newf saved Napoleon from drowning during his daring escape from Elba. Even the American Indians had large dogs similar to Newfoundlands. Indeed, nobody knows where the breed originally comes from.

While most Newfoundlands are black, a few are black-and-white. Known as Landseers, they are named after the British painter Sir Edwin Landseer, who often painted portraits of this particular dog. (I've seen the paintings on art websites, but never understood what breed it was!)

"Newfoundland" is a basic introduction to the breed, and to dogs in general. Some of the other customer reviewers found this objectionable. Personally, I think even a short, general book for $ 9 fills a niche. (I liked the Boxer, Irish Wolfhound, Great Dane and Giant Schnauzer books in this series, as well.) People who never owned a dog before, or whose only experience with dogs is a poodle, might do well to look through this little booklet in case they fall in love with a Newf. We're talking a 130-pound dog that can be 28 inches tall...

The book contains information on puppy training, where to buy a puppy, feeding, grooming, potential health problems and suitable activities. The latter include swimming, hiking, cart pulling and tracking. This little doggie isn't a couch potato!

An extra star for the superb and sometimes humorous photos.