Honourable companions,
Language is an excellent way in which to make discoveries. But the current trend in certain American Celtic groups to assume that language is the only means to obtain a Celtic spiritual consciousness, a trend which has been so exclusive as to earn the label "fundamentalist linguisticism", may be in part misinformed. It is misinformed partly because it assumes that there is nothing else that survived history that can be used as material with which to build a Celtic spirituality, which is false, and partly because the nature of the study is misguided.
I preface by saying that it is important for Celts everywhere to learn their Celtic languages again, as one instrument of removing the imperialism of former British occupation that in large measure we still live with. Reclaiming one's own culture is absolutely praiseworthy.
However, The Voice does not speak Irish, nor English, nor any ordinary language: The Word is the wind from across the sea.
What are we doing in this religion? If in religion what we are doing is re-linking with something ultimate, as we might infer from the origin of the word "religion", then re-learning an old language is not religion, because it is not ultimate: it is bounded by its context of the time and place where it was used, and people who used it, and their purposes. Language may re-link one to distant places and long-gone times so that one can live again the way people lived there and then, but if this is the project that Celtic Paganism has set out for itself, then it is no different from archaeology or history or anthropology, and really does not deserve to be called religion.
Nevertheless, within language there is something very profound and spiritual to be grasped, if only we approach our study of it a little differently. I have this suggestion: forget about the words themselves, or the grammar, or the idiosyncrasies of local dialect. Find out what speaking is. Find out what happens when you speak. Find out what speaking does to you.
To that end I strongly recommend a close study of the works of the Irish Literary Revival, including the renowned 20th century Irish mystic, George Russell ("A.E."), in whose writings you will not only find glorious exhortations to turn back to the heroic Gods of old Ireland, but also an extraordinary study of the formal principles of language in order to unearth the formal principles of consciousness itself and thereby get us closer to the Mystery.
Consider the Sacred Truth, which is one of the most important principles of Druidism. The pronouncement of Fírinne , the "Sacred Truth", is the force of the speaker's spiritual energy and purity, and particularly the force of the speaker's conviction in matters of right and wrong, transformed into the physical force of sound by the mantra-power of the spoken word. It is the inner reality of a visionary in trance, made manifest in the material world by the vibration of the voice. The voice is carried on the breath, which is the life-force, the spirit, as the origin of the word "spirit" indicates. The Sacred Truth is distinguished from ordinary talk because the vibration resonates harmoniously with the "music of what happens". For it is not the speaker's own power which causes the world transformation to occur, but the world energy itself responding to the spiritual authority of the Truth. But even the distinction between Sacred Truth and ordinary speech may prove false: there is no spoken expression which does not call a thought into being as a physical presence. Every spoken word is an ontological movement from unmanifest possibility to concrete reality; every ontological movement is a spell. The pronouncement of Truth is an active event, and a dangerous and revolutionary event. It can cause the overthrow of old prejudices, sustained bad habits, and nonfunctional ways of being. It can dispel ignorance. It can destroy illusion. It can empower the powerless. It can pierce the mist.
Cathbad
