Round the Herne

 The Ipswich Pagan Council is hosting an afternoon seminar/discussion to introduce interested newcomers to the different varieties of paganism that can be found in Suffolk. This will take place on Saturday 4th December, 12.30pm at the EEFA Centre on St Helen's Street, Ipswich. It is free to attend, refreshments will be provided (if you want to bring some lunch with you, feel free). We will look at the different traditions, theology, festivals, and moral codes found within various types of paganism. For further details see  Facebook Event for Intro to Paganism

 I have been mulling over the issue of religious writings within ancient paganism for a while now, and finally have the time to get some thoughts down in the hope of starting a conversation that others will chip in on. Whilst it was going on in Judaism well before, Christianity has become prominently associated with the practice of hermeneutics - the study of sacred scripture. Originally it was essentially the same thing as exegesis, but since the concept has secularised hermeneutics includes communications outside of the written text (spoken conversations, political speeches etc.) whilst the term exegesis is retained in the Church for the study of the written word. I want to keep the focus here on the books, poems, and other writings of significance to ancient polytheist cultures more so than modern writings or non-textual sources. That said, there are some works (such as the Havamal) which I strongly believe are best thought of as lyrics or scripts - that is to say, they were per...

 Every year I coordinate a programme of open lectures ad seminars on various topics for the college. Due to covid-19 restrictions we have started to combine live attendance from students with the virtual presence of outside guests. When the technology works, we record them and I will share some of them here. If any blog-readers would like to join events virtually, let me know and I will post the links for Microsoft Teams. The recording here is from a lecture on Carl Jung's use of alchemical imagery to explain the development of the human psyche. The rest of the 2021-22 programme is given below - email me at robin.herne@wsc.ac.uk if you want to receive the links to join in (the time are for the UK, just in case you are tuning in from more distant regions). Tuesday 16 th November, 2pm to 4.30pm (TG1.15) – The Big Three. Robin Herne leads a discussion of the explanations of Life offered by major thinkers in early psychology – Freud, Fromm, & Jung. Monday 29 th November, 2pm...

 A few years ago I recorded Christina Rossetti's 1862 "Goblin Market" poem from an anthology I have. Yesterday a graduate gave me a beautifully illustrated copy of the poem from a 1977 edition of the work, and so felt like recording another version of it. The illustrations, shown in the recording, are by the famed Arthur Rackham - to make it easier to see some of them in full technicolour, I have posted some images into this blog post.  My earlier recording of the poem is actually the most popular post (in terms of viewings) that has gone up on this blog - nobody ever leaves a comment, so I am not sure if there is a big Rossetti fan club out there or if it is people who just really like goblins (or maybe they are goblins who like hearing about themselves). Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy this hauntingly beautiful poem and learn from to be careful of what overly ripe temptations you succumb to in life!      

 Another story to mark Halloween 2021. This is my reading of E F Benson's short story, "The Temple" in which holidaymakers end up regretting their choice of accommodation. It reminds me a little of a holiday cottage I once stayed in. The obsession of earlier centuries with shattering standing stones in order to use them for building projects - much like the soulless Puritans who destroyed large swathes of the Avebury circle - has resulted in quite a few buildings have chunks of defiled temples worked into them. I've not heard off any of the inhabitants of such places having the experiences of Benson's characters, but who knows?

 With Halloween around the corner, this is my reading of Robert Bloch's atmospheric story about 'The Skull of the Marquis de Sade' in which the earthly remains of the infamous libertine exert a corrupting influence on all around. Whether the real de Sade was guilty of half the things he was condemned for is a matter of debate, with some conjecturing that he was mostly just sweaty-minded but spent so much time in prison he probably had few opportunities to indulge his fantasies (which is probably just as well). Bloch is best known for writing the story which became Hitchcock's 'Psycho' film about Norman Bates and his ghastly mother. This short story was made into a film in 1965, starring the wonderful Peter Cushing as Maitland the collector and Christopher Lee as his rival collector of ghoulish curiosa. The film sticks closely to the original story, though Lee's character is renamed. I hope to record a few more stories and perhaps poems between now and Hallow...

  My reading of the final story from Ruth Manning-Sander's book "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974). The last tale is a German one, 'Elsa and the Bear'. It is a variation on Beauty and the Beast, a trope that riles and inspires people in equal numbers. Those who get irked by it often do so because they interpret it as a moralistic story that encourages young girls to marry abusive monsters (of the more human sort) in the naive hope that they can transform them into handsome princes through patience and compassion. Those with a more upbeat view are sometimes just romantics who believe in the power of redemption (as do billions of Christians, of course, though I think it would be stretch plausibility a bit to see Elsa as emblematic of the Holy Spirit or the Shekinah bringing a lost soul back from its bestial state). Others take a more Jungian view that Beauty and the Beast are two sides of the same person - Higher and Lower Selves and that the one can eventually transf...