Julian Cope presents Head Heritage | The Modern Antiquarian Forum

morfe

2992 posts

Re: Real Deal

Jan 13, 2006, 10:20

"It's just people's values have changed."

I do admit to having an enormous problem with finding bits of plastic hanging in trees. And the litter at the foot of Mount Everest etc. However, I would stop far short of declaring every Well wisher to be 'fake' or every Catholic to be 'real'.

My point is not to prove that every ritual or festival *is* 100 % the real deal. My point was to refute that *everything today* is 'fake.'

It simply doesn't make sense to declare that throwing pennies in a wishing well is any more 'real' than another ritual. Such activity may have it's roots in in offering enormous wealth (as per Llyn Cerrig Bach) to the Gods/Spirits, yet it could be literally argued that today it is mostly just another form of superstitious custom, hardly 'ritual' in the traditional sense.

The key, I feel, is that every person who ever threw a coin, tied a rag, lit a candle at lourdes etc is a *different individual* with different emotions and strength of belief. Some (many) of whom exhibit, no doubt, follow-the-leader behaviour.

Amongst these people maybe also many obssessive-compulsives, or people playing at being 'believers', but no brush need ever be so wide as to paint every single ritual or festival with the dystopian hue of the cynical observer, or in fact be declared on the whole as having no 'meaning'. That would be the same as saying every football fan was a mindless nationalistic thug, or a cheap shirt-seller.

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Re: Real Deal (FourWinds)

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Re: Real Deal (Moth)

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