LadyEllen
Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline
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Ladies, please! History and the New Age are related, but not the same thing at all.
History is only what we think we know, from interpretation of the evidence; evidence which is often fragmented in time and place, selectively left to us and open to the interpretations of the time. Nevertheless it is all we have to know anything about the past, and is therefore invaluable to us.
But in reality the past does not really exist as a separate entity; rather, everything which has happened and is happening now, is in a continuous present which stretches back and forward in time. There is no event, whether human, animal or natural in its origin, which is not still with us in its effects, however distorted the consequent acts from those initial effects, have become in making the initial act almost irretrievable for us to know. Cause, act, effect, cause, act, effect and so on.
Where we are now, is the result of countless such causes, acts and effects. They have made us and are within us, and are all around us, the root origins of our present circumstances lying buried in the deepest past, genetic, psychological and environmental.
We can and should treat the past as a separate study, in order to be as certain as possible of the origins of our present circumstances. But at the same time, we should also recognise, that all of us and everything around us, are products of that past, and more importantly that the future is only the continuing progress of the continuous present in which we live. Just as the present is the product of the total sum of historical acts and events, so the future grows in the same organic way from the present.
With historical study we can also trace the evolution of ourselves and our circumstances from then to now. This is important, as it shows that however slowly, we and our circumstances evolve. We can study the history of the Roman Empire, but in doing so we must consider close on a thousand years' period, at the end of which the Empire was very different to the way it was at the start, socially, legally, genetically and in every other way. The best which history can tell us therefore, is how things probably were, at a certain time and at a certain place, giving us clues as to the preceding and following situation which we can link to evidence of the former and following times to demonstrate the veracity of our theories.
What the better New Age books (such as the Llewellyn) try to do in my opinion is to take what is known from genuine historical study, and force the evolution of that into the modern day - force, since actual history went very differently in most cases - in order to bring what is perceived as valuable from the past into the modern world. In the end, they are only as powerful in the modern world, as the number of people who read them and find lasting benefit in them, and then enable their sources and circumstances to become part of the modern world, and to continue to evolve within it.
Thus, a New Age writer can take, for the purpose of this thread, historical evidence pointing towards a matriarchal society existing in a certain place at a certain time, and use that evidence to portray a matriarchical society today, and describe its benefits, in the hope of preaching those benefits and having as much as society as possible, undertake such an organisation in the modern world. Such a publication, by its very nature, requires a certain degree of imagination in transposing its subject matter - but the sole means of validation for it, is whether it is practical, desirable, coherent, and most importantly for it to re-enter history as a social influence, it must be followed by enough people and be passed on to the descendants.
In this way, historical study is valuable to the degree that it is true, just as New Age publications are valuable to the degree that they reenter history in the modern world. They are related themes, but distinct, and equally valuable - in a similar way to the relation and distinction inherent in scientific cosmology and spiritual cosmology; both are valuable, both are true because each deals with a different human need, which the other cannot meet.
Hope that makes sense
E
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