respue quod non es

“There is nothing noteworthy about these tribes individually, but they share a common worship of Nerthus, or Mother Earth. They believe that she takes part in human affairs, riding in a chariot among her people. On an island of the sea stands an inviolate grove, in which, veiled with a cloth, is a chariot that none but the priest may touch. The priest can feel the presence of the goddess in this holy of holies, and attends her with deepest reverence as her chariot is drawn along by cows. Then follow days of rejoicing and merrymaking in every place that she condescends to visit and sojourn in. No one goes to war, no one takes up arms; every iron object is locked away. Then, and then only, are peace and quiet known and welcomed, until the goddess, when she has had enough of the society of men, is restored to her sacred precinct by the priest. After that, the chariot, the vestments, and (believe it if you will) the goddess herself, are cleansed in a secluded lake. This service is performed by slaves who are immediately afterwards drowned in the lake. Thus mystery begets terror and a pious reluctance to ask what that sight can be which is seen only by men doomed to die.”

“'Spirit models’ are often, in modern occult discourse, harshly contrasted with ‘psychological models’: conceptions as magic as endopsychic phenomena explainable by materialist or otherwise atheistic unspirited philosophies of mind. In these magic circular arguments, in which the circumference is tread but never entered, effects are so often divided into either the result of a spirit or of a psyche or body. There is little room for that which is made subtle; of embodied practice, of mindful presence, the evocative augury of smoke and bird and falls, of the flavour of watery words upon a forked tongue.”