Sean Ciall

[angelak]

I would love nothing more than to post about FoL as soon as possible. But this post will have to wait, as something *ELSE* is deep on my mind RIGHT now.

I, like everyone else on or off the ritual team, has a unique and personal experience and story to tell. But right now--- it seems thwarted by a certain level of questioning that hit me directly after this weekend. It came from an outside source, and after all of the Saturday/energy/post ritual emotions....
....



Well, it’s really been the wrong time to ask my heart of hearts to explore some of these things. So many things to say, so little words to say them. So much hurt and discomfort I have felt in regards to any of this. Sean ciall itself, I still have faith in for regards of working magickal method--- it’s the publicity, the lousy web-page, the witchvox article, and documentation and connotation that has surrounded it. It all scares me now, because it’s all so close to my heart, the group, the methods, everything.

I had already thought to myself that I needed to re-write the way it was stated to something less wordy for web use. But now... I just don’t know if I want any of it on the web.

Criticism to me right now seemed impossible to bear and actually take it away logically. My head is so deep in the experience and the group that it is very hard to read the things I began reading last night.

Mostly--- a ton based off of THIS post.
Basically calling us a bunch of faking/cultists. Alright. So be it. I had personally agreed that none of it really was written in a way that most people could read and understand as truly OUR group. I don't feel that the writing out there, reflects sean ciall the way I think it should. It's not written with the feeling I get from our circle. The writing in all of Bobby’s documentation was kind of over the top. But there are now gaps on so many levels and disagreements from other people that seem to point towards lack of authenticity of some of the sean ciall claims. Suddenly our group is associated with a bunch of wanna-bes.
Joshua told me to take it as a grain of salt. My head wasn’t at a space where I could take much of anything as a “grain of salt.”
I want to bring these specific issues to the spell circle and discuss the specifics mentioned in these critiques. If a group can’t uphold scrutiny... where IS it’s validity?



While going through all this, a myriad of things went through me:
2 separate articles, opinionated editorials so to speak, I read one after the other, including this post, made me so angry, so hurt, so scared, and so confused, like I would have to lose my group because it was being associated with fools. Or that they were calling us fools.
I don’t know how I feel now. It’s a matter of sorting through all the crap and understanding my feelings. I wish I could talk with Cheryl.
*sighs*


Anybody offer any thoughts on this?
Where do we take these questions? How will people react to these questions?
How "ancient," is sean ciall?
Later I’ll post my ritual experiences.

I strongly recommend all sean ciall participants to read
THIS post.

-Angela

Comments

[violindaine.livejournal.com]

From what I remember in history class and from what we have talked about in circle and from what I can semi-figure out they do not know what they are talking about and are all a bunch of "MY FAMILY WAS GAELIC" freaks. I have run into so many people who say they come from the REAL Irish or Scottish people that it makes me sad. They are also the type of people who put others down to make themselves feel better and start talking without getting all of their facts straight first. For example how they say we're all just a bunch of ugly pagans screwing anything that moves. Ignore them, just because they're being stupid doesn't mean we have to pay the least bit of attention.

The truth?

[ithisia.livejournal.com]

My family is Gaelic too. My Grandma grew up in Scotland and knew Gaelic. She has long forgotten it now. She knows things here and there-- but the truth? You're looking at a true Scots-Gael, right here.

Does that mean I know any better than they know, or they know any better than I? I still want to discuss this with the circle. It gives me a very bad vibe.

-Angela

Re: The truth?

[kdana.livejournal.com]

First of all - Cheryls post seems to say that she's (amazingly enough) got her cell phone and it's charged.. so you CAN talk to her.

I agree that we should all discuss it. Damn it. That means we have to have this sitting over our heads for 2 weeks before we can. Gah.

Re: The truth?

[ithisia.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I'm willing to meet up with people ahead of time. I might contact Scully, you, Vicki, and have a partial-meeting with some folks to get this out of my heart and head. This is NOT something I can let wait 2-3 weeks over. Trust me.

I need the sounding board, support, and ideas of the group itself. If we need to meet in order to find ways to bring it UP to Bobby, so be it. I want a support group and I want it fucking fast.

That's what our group is about in a way, isn't it?

-Angela

Re: The truth?

[kdana.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea. and Ruthie. I don't know why but I feel that Ruthie should be there. Do you have her phone number? If not, we at least have her email..

Re: The truth?

[ithisia.livejournal.com]

Jeah. I'll begin making arrangements today as soon as I can get all contact information on everyone. I'll send out e-mails to the specific members. I should call Cheryl, but I'd really like her to read the article first and hear some of her overall thoughts.

I also don't think it'd be a bad idea to include Steve. Half of this came about because he is seriously in consideration of joining spell. Not as an observer, either. As a full fledged participant in the energy work.

Steve is very logical and methodical about his endeavors. He was systematically collecting data and one of the people he holds a lot of esteem gave him their own opinion on the group. Josh referred me personally to the post I indicate here. There are just all manner of strange feelings I have about it at this point. I want to sort this out.

-Angela

Re: The truth?

[kdana.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. I feel weird about the article too.. and we shouldn't just write it off as "They're dumb and don't know anything!" and be very smart-ass about it because that tends to happen a lot.

Re: The truth?

[ithisia.livejournal.com]

Saying "they're dumb," is not really solidifying any of our knowledge. It's not proving their statements incorrect in any way.

The issue is out there. There are people who are getting the wrong image.

How much do we care?
How much of what they say holds true to itself?
How much of what WE say holds true to ourselves and our work?

Seriously.
I don't want to do a whole "that sucks cause it's attacking us," mindframe. I want to do a "that sucks because their statement *here* can be dis-counted by *this*" or that sucks because they aren't understanding what our group is REALLY about.

It's hard to discount the things they when you ONLY read the web content, and you ONLY read the workshop list, or you look from the serious OUTSIDE of our community.

NO--- not everyone is a goddamned sex fiend. But it sure looks bad if I read all this from the outside.

Bobby didn't help it by saying at the workshop Saturday that the "reason we don't do sexual work," has something to do with the "participating MINORS," in spell. It almost felt like he was saying, "well, this is the only reason we don't do this kind of work."

Should we explore motive and goals on the "eventually," scale. Where are we headed? What's the intention? I trust Bobby very much-- but shouldn't we discuss this openly? I think so.

-Angela

Re: The truth?

[aroidan.livejournal.com]

I think it would be a good thing for you guys to meet outside of Bobby to discuss this stuff. Obviously it will need to be discussed with Bobby as well but since he is the author of the documentation he is probably going to be even more defensive then the members in the group. That could cloud and hurt any discussion on the topic. It would be best to figure out exactly where you stand.

As far as those people that made that post can go, most of their claims that it isn't scotts irish can be backed up from other works where it is quite obvious some of the themes were taken from.

As some of you may know I have been doing some research on Sean Ciall trying to figure out what it is all about. The fact that the only person on the Web and in the Seattle area that really knows anything about Sean Ciall is Bobby is another point of scrutiny. One would think that if the tradition that he brought here originated from the south(not sure which state) and there are plenty of people talking about it on the web out here about it that there would be atleast 1 or 2 people that posted something on the web about it. The fact is there isn't any other writings about sean ciall anywhere other then what Bobby and some of his students have written.

Anyway I found an interesting article on Lugh here. if you want to read it :)

http://www.leyline.org/cra/articles/lughnasadh.html
http://www.celticspirit.org/lughnasadh.htm
http://thunder.prohosting.com/~cbarstow/lammas.html
http://cyberpict.net/sgathan/essays/lghnsdh.htm

I perticularly like the last article as it has a bibliography at the end. One of the things that I found as a pretty common theme to these articles is that there is no "We need to kill the god so that we can live". While there is a death involved man does not perform the killing. Instead Lughs foster mother gives herself freely to help the harvest. Lughnasadh is when Lugh is in mourning over his loss and the festival is an attempt to appease him and make him happy so that he will not destroy the harvest.

Anyway thats enough for now.

-Steven

Re: The truth?

[vixenesque93.livejournal.com]

I'd agree, yeah. We support each other, both in magic practice and outside of that.