The Mystic Isle of Avalon
the creation of a contemporary place of pilgrimage
A Master thesis by:
Oskar Kroes, 10243364
oskar.kroes@gmail.com
Western Esotericism & Mysticism Universiteit van Amsterdam
26-06-2014
List of contents
Introduction 3
Research question and purpose 4
Theoretical framework 5
Overview of definitions 6
I. Setting the scene: The town of Glastonbury 7
Glastonbury Tor 7
Wearyall Hill & Bride’s Mound 8
Gog & Magog 9
Town centre 9
The Glastonbury abbey 11
Red & White Spring 11
The Glastonbury Zodiac 12
On the whole 12
II. The weavers of myth: Glastonbury’s mythmaking 13
Dion Fortune 13
Marion Zimmer Bradley 15
Many others 17
III. Beyond the mists: An academic review of Avalon 20
The conceptual environment 20
Construction of ideas 23
The personal experience 25
Summary 28
IV. Within the Mists: Qualitative approach 29
Motives 30 Conceptions of Avalon 33 Personal philosophies 34 Epistemology 36 Practices 40 Experiences 40 Identities 43 Miscellaneous 45
Conceptual model & conclusion 46
Conclusion 48 Bibliography 50 Methodology 56 Online sources 57 Appendices A. List of codes 59 B. Coded interviews 62
Introduction
This thesis will take the reader to a mysterious realm best known from the legends of King Arthur. These are magnificent tales of magic and wonder. And though magic is far from an
uncommon commodity in the stories, within them there is one place where magic is especially prevalent: the Island of Avalon, which will be the key topic of this thesis.
It was in Avalon that Arthur’s sword Excalibur was forged. And in the end it would become the King’s resting place. After the epic battle of Camlann, King Arthur was felled at the hands of his kinsman and nemesis Mordred. Mortally wounded, he was carried off in a barge to Avalon by his half-sister Morgan-le Fay. It became rumored that he rests there to be healed from his wounds and come to the aid of his people in their time of need. There are many historical sources at the base of these legends: medieval historians, hagiographers and romancers wrote documents. None of which are very trustworthy as it comes to historical accuracy, of course. Countless books have been written in an attempt to either prove or disprove King Arthur's existence. Did he live for real? Was he even human, or is he some kind of assembled deity? There is practically no
trustworthy historical evidence at the matter. And after many years of research, there is still no consensus. Not on King Arthur's existence, not on his identity and not on his whereabouts.
So this then will not be a topic of discussion within this thesis. My scope will be the Avalon of legend, which is believed to be manifested in and around the town of Glastonbury in the southwest of England. In early times, it used to be an island in a swallow inland sea, but through efforts of Romans, Saxons and commissioned Dutch engineers, the land has been reclaimed for some centuries now.
Glastonbury is probably best known for its Glastonbury Festival, which is Europe’s second largest festival. Nonetheless, this is of little consequence for the mystical aspect of Glastonbury: Avalon. And as such is of no concern for this thesis. Glastonbury is a very interesting place by itself. It is rich in history and legends, which have become incredibly interwoven. The small town has an extremely high density of sacred sites of a diverse nature. The sites are sacred to people of various religions, and attract a great number of different pilgrims.
Marion Bowman, who has published dozens of works on the religiosity around Glastonbury, describes this town as: “one of the most popular and multivalent pilgrimage sites in the UK, exerting an attraction for a variety of spiritual seekers
Arthur Rackham, How Mordred was Slain by Arthur, and How by Him Arthur was Hurt to the Death, 1917.
(and scholars) on account of the many myths that surround it and the myriad claims made for it. In response to this interest in Glastonbury, a unique spiritual service industry has arisen which includes ‘alternative’ bookshops; workshops, conferences and courses; a huge variety of healing; galleries selling ‘inspired’ and ‘inspirational’ art and artifacts; ‘physic services’ such as tarot reading; bed and breakfasts offering meditation and assorted therapies; shops selling goods to enhance people’s spiritual practices, and so on.”1 This thesis will focus on pilgrimage, and especially this
phenomenon is very colorful in this town; Bowman sums up: “Because a variety of people come to Glastonbury with assorted interests, aims and expectations, a spectrum of pilgrim activity can be seen here, from more traditional Western
Christian models, through interfaith pilgrimage, Goddess pilgrimage, Celtic calendar-related activity, conference/symposium attendance, earth energy-inspired
journeying, one-off instances of spiritually significant co-presence (...) and virtual pilgrimage.”2
The first chapter is merely descriptive and its purpose is to set the scene. It will visit the sacred places of Glastonbury, in a somewhat literal sense. It will function as a travel guide, which end is to introduce Glastonbury and its magic atmosphere to an unfamiliar reader. I will mention some of the local or popular beliefs as well to give a bit more elaborate sketch of the situation.
The second part will be about the Glastonbury mythmaking and epistemology. First I will describe two women from different generations. In my opinion, they have been the most influential weavers of the modern myths of Avalon: theosophist Dion Fortune and bestselling popular novelist Marion Zimmer Bradley. And I will briefly introduce a few other important Avalonians.
After that I will be analyzing this and the cult of Avalon from a more academic perspective.
In the final chapter I’ll put some theory to practice by analyzing a set of interviews I have taken among Dutch pilgrims headed for Avalon.
Note that Glastonbury is sacred and a place of pilgrims to Catholic and Anglican Christians as well, but this thesis will mainly investigate the Avalon’s implications upon new religious movements and spirituality. It will focus on the non-confessional pilgrimage.
Research question and purpose
What I want to research is this non-confessional pilgrimage to Glastonbury. To be able to understand this, first the ideas, beliefs and mythmaking need to be
understood.
Initially if formulated the research question very simple as: “What is Avalon?”, because I wanted to understand how such a legendary concept is so very important today. But this question definitely needed refinement, and is now phrased: “How has the mythical concept Avalon been turned into a contemporary place of pilgrimage, and how is this pilgrimage experienced?”
1 Marion Bowman, Learning from Experience: The Value of Analysing Avalon, in: Religion, p. 162.
2
Bowman has written an article on the value of studying Glastonbury’s spirituality. She is often concerned with the relation of between ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ religion, phenomena that are par excellence represented in Glastonbury. She argues that a place-centered study will help to map the constant renegotiation between the two.3
That is one good reason to study Glastonbury. My thesis does have a bit of a different scope. Bowman’s approach is quite sociological, while mine’s more anthropological in trying to understand how the mythmaking within the cult of Avalon affects
experience by and impact on pilgrims.
Theoretical framework
For this thesis I have read a great lot of historical sources, that have stood at the cradle of the Avalon mythmaking. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and Vita Merlini are currently regarded as the first written sources mentioning the island of Avalon. They have been sold as works of history, but they are obviously full of fantasy. This goes for practically all of the pre-modern sources, among them legal documents supposedly signed by legendary kings or annals of the Glastonbury abbey, which’ purpose seems to have rather been to create history than truthfully record it.
Also very important are the works of the medieval romancers: the tales of King
Arthur and his knights - Sir Thomas Malory (whose identity and existence is open for debate) wrote Le Morte Darthur, which is the best known work in this genre.
Historians Geofrey Ashe and Ronald Hutton have written very fine works on the to this thesis relevant history of Southwest-England.
Little of this historical framework is expressed in this final version, but still it has been important for me to understand the long-lasting mythologizing of Glastonbury. Chapter II deals with modern and contemporary primary literature. It is about Avalonians: individuals that have actively contributed to the (re-)creation of Avalon. Two authors, Dion Fortune and Marion Bradley are highlighted and others are introduced.
Topics of Avalonian works vary from earth mysteries to goddess cults, Pagan festivals and (Celtic) shamanism. Although these authors tend to employ some historical and academic sources (almost every book in this genre includes Sir James George Frazer's The Golden Bough and Mircea Eliade's Shamanism in its bibliography), most of their work seems composed largely intuitive. The Avalon-books often have a neo-Pagan perspective, or at least a point of view sympathetic to that. Also, Avalon has become a focus point of feminine spirituality.
Much more of the further theoretical background is discussed in more depth in chapter III. In analyzing Avalon, it can be categorized in concepts of sociology of religion. What happens in Glastonbury can be brought under the umbrella of the New Age movement, also neo-Paganism is important here. A more specific descriptor is Colin Campbell’s cultic milieu. Also Marion Bowman cannot be missed out; her most used tool in Glastonbury is the concept of vernacular religion, devised by her mentor Leonard Primiano.
3
The mythmaking of Avalon also requires brief investigation in regard to pseudo-history. Ronald Fritze and Olav Hammar have written about this in regard to
mythmaking. Popular epistemology is what is studied in this thesis. Since it turns out that written material is only of secondary importance and personal experience is what generates knowledge of Avalon, this context also needs to be studied. Spirituality and religious experience are significant descriptors here, and are adequately theorized by respectively Flanagan & Jupp and Marianne Rankin. The matter of personal
experience can be further examined in the context of psychology of religion and some neurology, for which I employed the APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion and Spirituality, as well as the works of Paloutzian et al. on spiritual transformation. Finally, like Marion Bowman does4, I’d like to hedge myself by noting that when no specific reference for a claim is given, that this is based on fieldwork experience: talking to locals and pilgrims, following certain spokespersons on social media,
reading statements of sites and so on. Since I first undertook this thesis, I have visited Glastonbury thrice, partly for research purposes.
Overview of definitions
I think it is very useful in any kind of scholarly work to include a central overview of the applied definitions. Below are those employed in this thesis:
• Cultic milieu: “Belief systems and practices and their associated collectivities, institutions, individuals, and media of communication.”5
• Avalon: The cultic milieu encompassing the mystic dimension found in and around Glastonbury spirituality.
• Avalonians: Individuals that have actively contributed to the (re-)creation of Avalon.
• Vernacular religion: “Religion as it is lived: as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practice it. Vernacular religious theory involves an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the religious lives of individuals with special attention to the process of religious belief, the verbal, behavioral, and material expressions of religious belief, and the ultimate object of religious belief.”6
• Spirituality: Personal religious beliefs and practices regardless of tradition. • Spiritual experience: “An experience which points beyond normal, everyday
life, and which has spiritual or religious significance for the person to whom it happens. Whatever form it takes, such an experience gives an indication of a greater reality underlying the physical world of senses.”7
• Mystic experience: An experience of an unity exceeding the boundaries of the individual self.
• Pilgrimage: A ritual journey to a sacred site.
4
Bowman & Valk, Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life, p. 346.
5
Colin Campbell, Cult, in: Encyclopedia of Religion and Society.
6
Leonard Primiano, Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklife in: Western Folklore, Vol. 54, No. 1, (Jan., 1995), p. 44.
7
“... To the island-valley of Avilion, Where falls not hail, or rain or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”
-King Arthur to Sir Bedivere in Idylls of the King, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
I. Setting the scene:
The town of Glastonbury
When travelling through the British province of Somerset, one is likely to follow
winding roads along gentle hills, small patches of woodland and old villages. When closing in on
Glastonbury – which will be the destination of this thesis – the eye will inevitably first be drawn to an iconic
landmark, a steep hill crowned with a single unattached church-tower: the Glastonbury Tor.
Glastonbury Tor
This high hill towering above the Somerset levels is a prominent feature in the
landscape indeed. It has a curved form; a steep and a soft slope. Its flanks are covered with terraces. And on its top stands the Saint Michael's Tower, which is all that
remained of a church, that collapsed in an earthquake in 1275.
Many tourists and pilgrims from various strands can be found climbing the Tor. The windy top offers a great view over the lands. On one of the many misty days, it can look as if Glastonbury is an island yet again.
The terraces on the slopes are more often than not considered to be a huge and ancient labyrinth, designed for spiritual purposes. And even though the National Trust, which takes care of the hill, tries to prevent this, many pilgrims stray from the concrete path to observe the diffuse course of the labyrinth.
The Tor has traditionally been endowed with all the aspects of a hollow hill or fairy mound, an is as such associated with the underworld. It is sometimes suspected that there is an extensive network of caverns running through the hill, hiding significant secrets, and are as such purposely shut off for the public by the government or some other suspicious authorities.
Taken from the short movie A Glastonbury Experience, which gives a rather striking image of Glastonbury, featuring a healthy sense of self-consciousness and -mockery.
It is also widely accepted by spiritual seekers that the Glastonbury Tor is a focal point for many ley-lines – alignments over the land. These ley-lines are thought as energy nerves, covering the surface of the earth. More about this later. One of these ley-lines is of special interest to the Tor: the St. Michael's Line. This line crosses Europe and
touches various places related to either St. Michael or dragons.8
The dragon imagination is not uncommon in earth mysteries9. Dragons can represent the raw force of the earth.10 By some of the more neo-Pagan
inclined pilgrims, it is felt that the dragon-slaying St. Michael symbolizes Christianity subduing the
‘Old Religion’; the Paganism of old. It is popularly believed that the Tor had been a Pagan shrine in the days of old, and that a stone circle was built upon it, which has been demonstrative been replaced by the church.
On the east flank of the Tor, at some may-thorn bushes, there is a hollow, wherein there is a so-called egg stone to be found. Though by some it is felt to be an attribute of ancient goddess spirituality, it is sometimes also seen a relic from Atlantis or as the egg of a dragon.
Although the Tor is regarded as a highly magical and very special place, connected to Atlantis, flying saucers and what not, the name 'Tor' is Cornish and means quite pragmatically 'hill'.
Wearyall Hill & Bride’s Mound
The second most prominent hill can easily be spotted from the Tor. It lies south at the other side of Glastonbury and is called Wearyall Hill. According to legend, Jesus’ uncle Joseph of Arimathea took twelve companions after the crucifixion with him to the British isles. While in those days the Somerset lands around what now is
Glastonbury were still a shallow sea, the first land they set foot upon was Wearyall Hill (and all of them were weary, hence the name). Joseph planted his staff into the soil, into the isle of Avalon, and it instantly miraculously turned into a thorn tree, that blooms at Christmas: it was the Glastonbury Holy Thorn. The original Glastonbury Holy Thorn was destroyed by the puritan Roundheads, the Cromwellian troops, during the English Civil War. Still, a few scions were saved and offspring of the tree is still to be found around Glastonbury. The most prominent of them was on top of Wearyall Hill, but it had become a target of vandalism a few times during the past decade. The trunk is still standing and is decorated with lots of ribbons, ritually tied there by large numbers of pilgrims. The tree is significant both to Christians and neo-Pagans. To the first, its legendary history is important; while to the second the may thorn is a magic and sacred tree by itself.
8 John Michell, New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury, p. 40. See also: Paul Broadhurst & Hamish
Miller, The Dance of the Dragon, Mythos, 2007.
9
Esoteric ideas about a meaningful layout of the land and earth energies, such as ley-lines.
10 See Graham Harvey, Listening People, Speaking Earth, pp. 152-153.
Super full moon behind the Tor (no Photoshop!). Taken from the Daily Mail Online, 21 March 2011.
Behind Wearyall hill, there is another small hill, which is important mostly because of its perceived history. In first half of the Middle Ages, while there was still a sea, this hill was a little island with an auxiliary branch of the abbey on it, also known as Beckery. It was a nunnery, in which St. Bridget (better known as St. Bride in Southwest-England) was supposed to have resided for at least some time in the 5th century. As Bridget is also Ireland’s Mother Saint, this location became also known as Little Ireland.
In the early 13th century Grail romance Perlesvaus, King Arthur finds himself in the presence of Mary and Christ, whom she calls both her father and her son.11
Afterwards, King Arthur replaces the red Pendragon for the image of the Holy Mother and Her Son on his shield. This story has been localized here.12
Presently, both stories have contributed to the image as Bride’s Mound as a locality of manifested feminine spirituality.
Gog & Magog
Not far north from the Tor, in the countryside, there are two oaks to be found. They are exceptionally big and certainly very old. Like the Holy Thorn, these trees are also covered in ceremonial ribbons. Their hollows are full of small offerings.
Among the residents, it is believed that the trees are between five hundred and two thousand years old! And even that ashes of King Arthur and his spouse Guinevere were hidden within the trees.
In popular belief it is often felt that the bigger oak, Gog, channels masculine energy, while Magog is more representative for the feminine.13 This polarity is a common and important notion within spirituality of Avalon.
Dion Fortune wrote that the trees are the last remnants of a ceremonial lane of oaks from Camlnann (Camelot) towards the Tor. This idea is still being in circulation.
Town centre
Upon arriving in town, one might look for accommodation. The wealthy visitor might want to stay at the George and Pilgrims hotel, which has been there since the 15th century in order to accommodate pilgrims. Back in that day the pilgrims would be Catholics headed for the Glastonbury Abbey. In the present, its main patronage comprises of tourists and pilgrims of various strands of faith.
In the high season the streets are buzzing with people, many wearing velour dresses in a wide variety of colours, garlands of flowers in their hair, crescent moons on their brows and all kinds of other remarkable accessories and attributes, such as fairy wings. In the High Street they are shopping for a variety of goods and services offered in a scene of New Age, Paganism, occultism and matters best described as neo-hippie. There’s a variety of stores with names respectively ranging from Yin Yang, The Goddess and the Green Man, Abracadabra and Hemp in Avalon. The goods and services offered have mostly been illustrated by Bowman’s description accurately, already mentioned in this thesis’ introduction. There are also various centres of
11 Nigel Bryant, The High Book of the Grail, pp. 25-26.
12 William Nitze, The Glastonbury Passages in Perlesvaus, in: Studies in Philology, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1919, p. 9. 13 See for example: http://www.hedgedruid.com/2009/06/glastonbury-solstice-the-opening-of-the-chakras/
various religious institutions present, such as a Sufi house and a Hare Krishna ashram.
Behind some shops, there is a highly decorated square known as Glastonbury Experience. Among other shops and the Avalon Library of esoteric works, here the Goddess Temple can be found, which is an officially recognized place of worship. The largest church in town is the Church of St. John the Baptist. It is an Anglican parish church, but is has a very open attitude. Its presents itself as “A Christian Spiritual Centre at the Heart of the Town for everyone”14. Its churchyard open at day times for the public, and is consequently being used as a public park. The churchyard also sports a descendent of the Holy Thorn and a ground labyrinth. This labyrinth was laid in 2003 to celebrate the three-hundredth year since Queen Ann gave Glastonbury its Town Charter. The church distributes a folder, with information on labyrinths and mazes. It is multi-religious; it speaks of ones “Deity of choice” and “God/dess”, which is very typical for this town, which harbors so many religions. Of course the St. John’s is not the only church in town, but it is physically the most prominent. Other Christian communities are described by Bowman in the following way: “A variety of Christian denominations and groups coexist in Glastonbury. There are Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, United Reformed, and Evangelical
churches and the ecumenical Quest Community (inspired by the Iona Community). There is also a representative of the Celtic Orthodox Church, which believes that the Celtic Church de facto would have been Orthodox, and that its mission is to restore Orthodoxy to the countries where Celtic Christianity flourished.”15
The Glastonbury abbey Glastonbury used to have a splendorous Catholic abbey, which rivalled the Anglican cathedral of the nearby Wells. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 the abbey was violently plundered. Afterwards it became derelict and functioned as a local quarry.
In 1908 the abbey grounds were auctioned. They
switched ownership a couple of times and finally came in the hands of the Glastonbury Abbey Trust. Presently, the abbey is a very prominent tourist trap.
14
http://www.stjohns-glastonbury.org.uk/
15
Marion Bowman, Procession and Possesion in Glastonbury, in: Folklore, p. 276.
George Arnald (1763-1841), The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, with figures and livestock in the foreground, and Glastonbury Tor beyond.
The abbey has been very important for the development of Christian legends. It was supposedly home to some semi-legendary saints, among them St. David, St. Dunstan and even St. Patrick.16
But the abbey’s greatest asset is the grave of King Arthur and Guinevere. Although the actual grave did not survive the Dissolution, and its authenticity is extremely dubious at best, it connects King Arthur even more to Glastonbury.
Furthermore there are at least three objects of interest present on the abbey grounds: Another offspring of the Glastonbury Holy Thorn and a spring beneath the Lady’s Chapel. Behind the well-preserved Abbot’s kitchen, is another egg stone to be found. By many new spirituals it is felt that the stone is a pagan relic and that it is purposely hidden from obvious sight by the Christian caretakers of the terrain.
Red & White Spring
From beneath the Tor, water bubbles up. Some of the water is bottled and sold by the Glastonbury Spring Water Company. Another portion of it is directed to the western flank, at the White Spring. Once, the Wellhouse Lane was a spot where two natural springs flowed together, the Red Spring and the White Spring. The Red Spring has been captured within the Chalice Well Gardens and a portion of the flow is lead to the Wellhouse Lane, where it can be publicly tapped. The White Spring has been conducted to a building, and a portion flows to the Lane from there as well.
The well-house is accessible to public. It has had various functions, such as a shop and a pub, but at the present it has turned into a Pagan sanctuary, a water temple. The interior is candle-lit, the stone walls echo the falling water and occasional chanting and
drumming of pilgrims. And there are shrines dedicated to Celtic deities, namely Brigid and The King of the World of Faeries, commonly identified as
Herne the Hunter. On the website the house-rules can be found. The rules forbid any electronic devices to be taken inside in order to preserve “the very special
atmosphere”, and even more interestingly, they warn visitors for naked flames, deep waters and faerie portals.17
The Red Spring emerges in the idyllic Chalice Well Gardens, which are on the flank of its source: The Chalice Hill.
The water of the Red Spring is red indeed. It contains a high amount of iron. The spring used to be called the Blood Spring. According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea buried the Grail (either a vial with the blood of Christ or the nails of the Cross) in the Chalice Hill, which is what caused the water’s redness.
16
St. Patrick, Ireland's patron saint. A chapel still stands in his honor on the abbey grounds. St. Patrick was originally Briton, that's quite sure. However, the Glastonbury tradition holds that he returned there and was even abbot for some time and ultimately was buried there, which is clearly contradicted by the Irish records of the saint.
17 See http://www.whitespring.org.uk/
Chalice Well. The lid was designed by Frederick Bligh Bond.
Since 2001, the garden is a World Peace Garden. And in it, the Silent Minute is observed every day. The Silent Minute was introduced by the garden’s founder Wellesley Tudor Pole and is now an internationally accepted and performed ritual.18 An important symbol in the Chalice Well Garden is the Vesica Piscis. This is often understood as two intermingling circles, although technically, only the oval space were the circles overlap each other, is the actual visica piscis. Literally it means fish bladder. It is originally a Christian symbol, but in more contemporary (feminine) spirituality, it is seen as a yonic symbol.19
The symbol is found in the lid of the well, on a large fountain in the lower garden and it has become the logo of the Trust itself. The symbol is open to interpretation, and is most often seen as a symbol of duality in harmony, or creation out of opposites. For example: the 'old' and the 'new' religion, the feminine and the masculine, the Red and the White, the material and the spiritual world, etc.
The Chalice Well is closely connected to the Holy Grail, trough the aforementioned tale of Joseph of Arimathea, but also through its founder, who also believed to have found a holy grail; a dish still in possession of the Chalice Well Trust.
The garden portraits itself as a living sanctuary. And though Tudor Pole felt himself a Christian, the Trust also hosts Pagan festivals, such as Beltaine may pole dance.
The Glastonbury Zodiac
In 1934, Katharine Maltwood published her most famous work A Guide to
Glastonbury’s Temple of the Stars, in which she described the layout of the landscape around Glastonbury as a reflection of the zodiacal signs, which would have functioned as a huge temple. Even though her theory was widely criticized, it still echoes through in the present day. The ideas have been refined by various others, and dowsers can still be found examining the sites. The very existence of this idea strengthens the ongoing sense of sacredness to the whole area around Glastonbury.
On the whole
Both Glastonbury’s history and present form are in religious sense twofold: There is both a vast Christian claim and a (neo-)Pagan or New Agist claim. Glastonbury is reputedly the cradle of Christian faith on the British isles, while at the same time it is believed to have been a Celtic Pagan sacred site.
Most of the town’s sacred sites are holy to Christian and Pagan alike. And henceforth, the town draws pilgrims from both strands. The co-existence occurs harmoniously most of the time, although occasionally there can be a feelings of competition and strife.
Glastonbury is often regarded as the New Age capital of the United Kingdom and the heart chakra of the world.
18
See http://www.thesilentminute.org.uk/ 19 Kathy Jones, In the Nature of Avalon, p. 68.
A clouded dream on an earthly night Hangs upon the crescent moon A voiceless song in an ageless light Sings at the coming dawn
Birds in flight are calling there Where the heart moves the stones It's there that my heart is longing for - Loreena McKennitt – The Mystic's Dream, opening theme to The Mists of Avalon movie.
II. The weavers of myth: Glastonbury’s mythmaking
Now that physical Glastonbury and its many sites of interest are introduced, it is time to explore its (re)mythologizing.
This chapter will be a humble introduction to the literary construction of mystical Avalon. In the first half I will introduce the two most prominent authors already mentioned in the introduction: Dion Fortune and Marion Bradley. I will also briefly introduce a few more important characters. But I will not be speculating who
influenced whom and to which extent, because that would be an extensive study of little consequence for the focus this thesis.
Dion Fortune (1890 – 1946)
Violeth Mary Firth was born in 1890 near the Welsh town of Llandudno. From an early age on, she was inclined to psychic matters. Reputedly, at birth, her soul was exchanged with one of a fey origin, a story which was believed within her inner circles.20 At the age of four already, she reported visions of Atlantis.21 Her parents were close followers of Christian Science. In her twenties, she followed courses in psychology and psychoanalysis, after which she became a
practicing lay psychotherapist. This became an important background for her, as she saw “occultism in the light of psychology and psychology in the light of occultism, the one counterbalancing and explaining the other.”22
She felt so inspired by the esoteric writings of Dr. Theodore Moriarty that she sought him up and became his pupil. She joined the Christian Mystic Lodge of the
Theosophical Society and a branch of Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: the Alpha et Omega (and some years later also the Stella Matutina order). Within the esoteric societies, she adopted the magic name Dion Fortune, which was a contraction of her family motto ‘Deo Non Fortuna’. As a result of internal quarrels within the Golden Dawn, she became more and more disappointed with it and acquired permission to
20
Patrick Benham, The Avalonians, pp. 251-252.
21
Gareth Knight, Dion Fortune and the Inner Light, pp. 14–15 & Patrick Benham, The Avalonians, p. 252.
22
found her own branch out of the Alpha et Omega. Over the years it changed names a few times, but ultimately became known as The Society of The Inner Light.
The Inner Light was first located in Glastonbury, and later on acquired premises in London.
Throughout her life she practiced mediumship. She claimed to have channeled all kinds of knowledge, from past lives or through Secret Chiefs (more commonly known as Ascended Masters). She was versatile and a productive author. She wrote on
diverse occult topics: kabala, ritual magic, occultism related to psychology and so forth. She wrote both textbooks and novels to illustrate them under the motto “In jesting guise, but ye are wise, Ye know what the jest is worth”.23
Her novel Sea Priestess has served as important inspirational matter. It is about the character Vivian Le Fay Morgan, initiated in hermetic secrets, who is able to
magically project Morgan le Fay, who is portrayed as Merlin’s step-daughter and priestess of Atlantis, residing in Avalon. The book includes many motives that decades later still can be found anywhere in the Avalonian scene: initiation, Merlin and Morgan, priestesses, Atlantis and so on.
For this thesis, Dion Fortune’s most significant book is Glastonbury: Avalon of the Heart, which holds her personal view of Glastonbury, and inspired many later authors. In opens the book by noting there are several ways to Avalon. According to her, these are the high-road of history, the path of legend and the secret path of the Mystic Way.24 With this, I think she implicates that the historical approach is the most mainstream and obvious, while studying the myths might unveil esoteric secrets. But the true pilgrim opens up for the experience of Avalon.
In the book she names important characters from the Arthurian legends and localizes them in Glastonbury: in the valley Merlin, who she calls Arch Adept and High Priest of the Old Gods, tied to Atlantis, initiated Arthur in the ancient wisdom; the Chalice Hill is home to the Fisher King and might house the Grail; and the Chalice Well is Morgan le Fay’s scrying pool.
In the book she also proposes the popular idea of the stone circle at the Tor and Gog and Magog being the first oaks in a processional lane towards the spiral path - the Pilgrim Path - on the hill. She sees the Tor as an ancient sanctuary and calls it the most Pagan of Hills. She tells the stones of the circle ended up in the foundations of the abbey, but mentions the Old Gods would not suffer the Saint Michael’s church on top of the Tor and bought it down with a mighty earthquake.
In her thought both Christianity and Paganism are very important. In the book she writes of Avalon of the Cup and Avalon of the Sword, the first representing the Christian tradition, while the other represents the Pagan Avalon.25 Although she considers herself Christian, the book slightly seems to favor a Pagan claim for Avalon because it is the older tradition and supposedly free of the blemishes that tainted the churches.
Of course hardly anything in the book is based on anything else than intuition and imagination. At least Dion Fortune admits modern myth-making and that many a tale may be a mere fable viewed from the standing point of history, however from the
23
Dion Fortune, Sea Priestess, p. 8.
24
Dion Fortune, Avalon of the Heart, p. 1.
25
standpoint of inner life, they are spiritual fact. And Avalon is at the heart of men’s spiritual life.26
She spent much time in Glastonbury, which she considered to be ‘the holyest erthe in Englande’ and the New Jerusalem.27 In the Great War, she physically enlisted the Land Army. In the Second World War, she took pains to assist her country magically. She felt the Nazis dabbled in occult warfare as well, and had thus to be countered likewise. She mobilized the Society of the Inner Light to join her in ritual to safeguard the islands.
The war took a great toll on her: a few months after the war had ended, she died of leukemia at the age of 56. She was buried in Glastonbury. She had thought that she was the last Avalonian, but she definitely wasn’t.
Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930 – 1999)
Ironically, the most famous Avalonian was not one on purpose. Neither was she British, nor did she ever live in Glastonbury. She was born in Albany, New York as Marion Zimmer.
Writing was her life-long passion – even before she could write, she dictated her stories.
Her stories were mostly within the genre of fantasy and science fiction, although she has under pseudonym written a few titles on gay and lesbian relations in a time this was a tentative topic. She wrote a great number of novels. Her most extensive series are those of Darkover: science fiction on far away planets. An important fantasy series she edited is Sword and Sorceress, which counterweights the already existing Sword and Sorcery, she felt was male-dominant. She wrote more books, highlighting the roles and
perspectives of women, for example Firebrand, which is about the women in the Trojan Wars.
In 1979 she finished The Mists of Avalon, her best selling book. The book is inspired upon the Arthurian legends, especially Sir Thomas Malory’s collection. It draws heavily from Dion Fortune’s ideas and adopts the perspectives of the women that are present, but not so prominent in the legends.
The book's main character is Morgaine, who is Arthur's older sister. She has inherited magic abilities from her bloodline, which traces back to the Old People. She is trained in Avalon as a priestess to the Mother Goddess and in the Old Ways, under tutorage of Viviane, who serves as Lady of the Lake. When she and Arthur come of age, the both of them are initiated in a fertility ritual, in which they are masked and tricked into making love to each other, unaware of each others identity. In this, Mordred, who will be the end of Arthur, is conceived. Now king, Arthur gains the political support of Avalon. Gradually, under the influence of his wife Gwenhwyfar, Arthur sheds his Pagan heritage for allegiance to the Christians. Due to the ever growing influence of the Christian religion, the magic realm of Avalon starts to disappear from the physical world, and the mists that separate it can only be passed by those
initiated.
26
Dion Fortune, Glastonbury: Avalon of the Heart, pp. 45 & 87.
27
Cover of
The Mists of Avalon
© Braldt Bralds
At the point that Arthur uses the shadow of Excalibur, the sword that has been given to him on behalf of the Old Ways, as a Christian cross, Morgaine summons the Regalia of Avalon and shows them to all present at the Pentecost mass. All see
something different; one sees the Chalice of the Last Supper, while the other sees the Goddess. The Companions of the Round Table embark on the Quest to reclaim the Holy Grail. Not long after, Mordred challenges Arthur and mortally wounds him. Morgaine takes Arthur to Avalon, but he dies just when the shores are within sight. The tone of the book is overly feminist; the events of knights of Camelot are only of secondary importance. Also, Christianity is portrayed ad masculine and suppressive, while the Paganism of Avalon (though slightly tainted by Viviane's relentless political fervor) is shown as ancient, pure and harmonious.
Bradley had first wanted to name the book Mistress of Magic, but her publisher feared that a title bearing
‘mistress’ would not sell well, so a gender neutral title was chosen. The book won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and was an international bestseller for a few years. In 2001 a movie and a TV miniseries were produced by director Uli Edel.
In the global line of Bradley’s imagination The Mists of Avalon is not so unique; she has written more historical fantasy novels featuring women and dealing with
religious elements. But in the reception, The Mists is quite separate from Bradley’s other works. Many of its readers are probably not even aware of the existence of Bradley’s other science fiction opuses. To many a reader, The Mists was not merely a book of entertainment, but it
appealed to the imagination, and supposedly backed up by historical research (the foreword of the book mentions this), it made its way into popular belief. As I will try to point out in this thesis, The Mists inspired a cult-like phenomenon around
Glastonbury. In a reflection on Bradley’s life, her colleague and friend Ann Sharp recollected that when readers were convinced that Bradley must have had channeled her stories downright from the ancients, she used to joke that she was not a
“Medium”, but a “Large”28, dissociating herself from mediumistic claims.
Later on, Bradley wrote prequels to The Mists of Avalon together with Diana Paxson. Ancestors of Avalon, written by Paxson after Bradley’s death, links the realm of Avalon to the lost continent of Atlantis, by interweaving the scene with that of Bradley’s early work The Fall of Atlantis.
The empowerment of women is very profound in Bradley’s works. Even though throughout her writing career she was called feminist very often, she denied being this, because she held that this would require being politically active.
Bradley was raised in an Episcopal milieu. On her seventeenth she was baptized. Still, she professed a lifelong interest in the occult and in the early 1980s described herself as "neopagan," explaining her faith as one that "rejects the Christian belief in man's dominion over the earth."29 But by 1997, Bradley told an interviewer: "I just go
28
Ann Sharp’s reflections at: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/his/bradley-mzb-reflect.htm
29
Taken from an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, September 30th of 1999, located at: http://articles.latimes.com/1999/sep/30/news/mn-16625
regularly to the Episcopalian church. . . . That pagan thing, I don't object to it, but I feel that I've gotten past it. I would like people to explore the possibilities."30
In 1999 Marion Bradley died. Her ashes were scattered on the Glastonbury Tor.
Many others
Marion Bradley may unintentionally have been the most influential Avalonian, while her book was chiefly inspired upon the works of Dion Fortune. But there have been many other Avalonians whose achievements have contributed to the new mythos. Some of them deserve at least short mention here.
For starters, there’s Major Wellesley Tudor-Pole (1884 – 1968) who founded the Chalice Well Gardens in 1959. A few decades before this, he was involved in the retrieving of what was momentary thought to have been the Holy Grail. Supposedly through psychic intuition, Tudor-Pole was instructed to have a triad of close female friends dig up the vessel out of Bride’s Well. The glasswork bowl they had uncovered became directly associated with Jesus. It played an important role in their newfound Church of the New Age in Bristol, in which women officiated, contrary to general Christian custom at the time. It was reputed to have miraculously performed healings. At one point, the find received national attention. It became closely
examined, but it was found that it was not so ancient at all. It turned out that occultist Dr. John Goodchild had bought the cup in an Italian antique shop and had thrown it in the well a few years before it was found. The whole matter was surrounded by claims of psychic powers. And it empowered the relation of the Holy Grail with Glastonbury. The bowl is currently kept under the custody of the Chalice Well Trust and although its ancient Graal claim was debunked, the bowl continues to have spiritual significance. Patrick Benham, who has recounted this story in his widely praised The Avalonians, observed about it: “...recent scientific testing has
demonstrated that it is not ancient. While this may seem to undermine everything that has been done in its name, there is still a sense that on another level the ideas and actions it has fostered as a potent symbol remain valid as before.”31
An early contemporary of Tudor-Pole was Frederick Bligh Bond (1864 – 1945). This versatile city architect was commissioned to oversee the excavations of the
Glastonbury abbey. He also quickly lost the job when it was found out that he carried out much of it using psychic abilities. He claimed that he got his instructions from a long-dead monk. He first theorized that gematria was used in the design and
dimensions of the abbey.
Historian Geoffrey Ashe (1923) has also been important in consolidating the Avalon myths. In 1957 he published the first edition of King Arthur’s Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury. The book is an erudite study of Glastonbury’s history. Over the years Ashe adopted an agenda of proving King Arthur’s existence, and making him a
national hero. His efforts included the excavation of Cadbury Hill, some fifteen miles northwest of Glastonbury in order to identify it as King Arthur’s Camelot.
30
Taken from an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, September 30th of 1999, located at: http://articles.latimes.com/1999/sep/30/news/mn-16625.
In 1973 Ashe published a novel, The Finger and the Moon, which is about a magic society located near the Tor. Eventually in the book, the very landscape takes the form of a giant goddess – an idea that has popularly become wide-spread.32
In 2012 Ashe was appointed member of the Order of the British Empire for his efforts in charting English heritage. It is noteworthy that among academics he is seldom regarded as a colleague, but that for the rest he is seen as a scholar – or even the Arthurian scholar.
John Michell (1933 – 2009) has written some forty books, mostly on earth mysteries. His New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury he addresses many of the legends of origination of the place and interprets many of its history in an esoteric and symbolical fashion. Part of his work expands the gematria-related ideas of Bligh Bond to the whole of Avalon.
Over the years Michell has written about ley-lines, flying saucers, Atlantis and other Fortean matters, making these even more commonplace in Glastonbury.
Nicholas Mann (1952) has also written many books that have further established a re-enchanted Avalon. His works include a variety of topics; the myths concerning
Avalon, sacred geometry and reconstructing the Celtic druidic tradition. He has also been very influential in popularizing the topic of interplay between femininity and masculinity, and implementing this to Glastonbury.
Last but not least, there is Kathy Jones (1947). She was co-founder of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple in 2002. She has been very influential in expanding goddess
spirituality and giving this a firm base in Glastonbury. She has been working along with others, such as Caithlín Matthews, to identify the Goddess within existing traditions.
In The Ancient British Goddess, first published in 1991, she addresses the topic of goddess worship. She thinks and works very syncretic, but in this book she forms and concretizes local British goddesses, which she felt were missing out in the common imagination at the time. In her belief, there is one goddess, an universal feminine principle, which has many faces. The most important faces to Kathy Jones are Bridie (Bridget) and the Lady of Avalon, whose physical shape is expressed in the very landscape of Glastonbury.
Apart from these Avalonians, there are countless others striving to bring magic Avalon back from the mists. There are many more authors, artists, therapists, foundations, travel guides and so on.
So there is quite a great number of literary contributors to the cult of Avalon, some adding new influences, others expanding existing ideas.
Dion Fortune has confidently introduced many images, inspiring some sort of new tradition: Some have taken it upon them to fulfil the prophesy of rebuilding the Glastonbury abbey and create the New Jerusalem in England. It is in any case important to note that most of those who visit Glastonbury are not familiar with the origin of the ideas about the place, they seem to believe that they have been around within living memory. Ideas are often formulated as: “it is said that Gog and Magog were the first trees in a ceremonial avenue of oaks”, or “according to tradition, there
32
James Archer, The Death of King Arthur, 1860.
This painting shows the shores of Avalon, Morgan le Fay and three queens, Merlin and the Holy Grail.
has been a stone circle at the top of the Tor”, while this “tradition” is probably not older than Dion Fortune’s works.
Both Dion Fortune and Marion Bradley wrote novels, the big difference between them is that Dion Fortune’s novels articulate her true beliefs. She wrote them to illustrate her textbooks.33 Bradley may have embraced Paganism at the time she wrote The Mists, but she does not purposely convey religious views in it, despite that its imagination of priestesses in Avalon has caused countless women to travel to Glastonbury or even enlist in priestess trainings.
33
Avalon - mystified island, heart of Britannia Place of my childhood, core of my memory Avalon - beloved sisters, waiting for me Forget all my sins, renew virginity Lunatica – Fables and Dreams – Avalon
III. Beyond the mists: An academic review of Avalon
The previous chapter has been about the sources that have led to the construction of Avalon. This chapter will be more of an analysis what can be said about Avalon.
The conceptual environment
The Mists of Avalon gives an impression of history. But it clearly is not history – at best it is pseudo-history. Many readers fail or refuse to acknowledge this. This is not an unique occurrence. It also happened, for example, with H.P. Lovecraft, who also (unintentionally) managed to convince many of his readers thatthe Necronomicon34 existed for real, even as Lovecraft had openly admitted its invention.35
More similar to Bradley's case would be Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Even though Dan Brown admitted his work to be a fiction, many of his fans refused to believe this.36
Even though Glastonbury mythologizing has been done for over a thousand years, in the context of this thesis, using a sociological perspective, the case of Avalon is best to be placed within the area of the new religious movements. More specifically, it
especially bears characteristics of both neo-Paganism and the New Age movement. The core of neo-Paganism is grossly the spiritual relation between man and nature. Neo-Paganism has different faces in Glastonbury. One reveres an earth-mother goddess, while another wears the Druidic gown and a third one proudly practices witchcraft. But almost at every occasion, neo-Paganism claims a continuation of an ancient tradition, albeit a restoration. However looking at it from a positivist
historical perspective, there is little evidence to be found for an ancient tradition. What happens mostly is re-creation of tradition. For example, of the literature surrounding Pagan modes of view, are deeply influenced by the works of Robert Graves. He was a mainly a poet, but his book from 1948, The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth surely helped in establishing feminine
spirituality and giving body to (neo-)druidic lore. For example, two important ideas developed by Graves are the notions of an ancient matriarchal society and the triple goddess: the maiden, the mother and the crone, and the “ancient” Celtic
tree-calendar. Outside the academic world, Graves' work has been taken very seriously, and his works inspired a tradition in its own right.37 Many authors, for instance Kathy Jones, have taken up ideas from The White Goddess. But most of these are not aware
34
The Necronomicon is an entirely fictional book within Lovecraft's opus.
35
Carol Cusack, Invented Religions, p. 101.
36
Ronald Fritze, Invented Knowledge, p. 9
37
of – or do not care about – the fictionalization and historical inaccuracy of the work. Graves himself wrote in 1955 about it: “It's a crazy book and I didn't mean to write it.” But to illustrate the common interaction with the work: In The Paganism Reader, Graham Harvey discusses Graves' excerpt The Triple Goddess as follows: “we might reject the historicity of his scheme while being inspired by the passionate devotion to a deity who is sufficiently like us to enchant our everyday lives and sufficiently
different to inspire us to improve on the present.”38
Whereas neo-Paganism tends to emphasize the ancient past, the New Age movement focuses on, well - the new age; the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. This new age seems to have started in 1960’s on. The ‘New Age movement’ is an umbrella term, used to describe this wide variety of 'new' spiritual ideas and practices. Discussing the whole field of New Age could require half a library’s worth, so I will briefly touch the matter, in the degree in which I think it is relevant for spiritual tourists or non-confessional pilgrims headed for Avalon.
A typical description of New Age is given by Michael York: “The major difficulty in assessing anything about the New Age is that the movement comprises a disparate and, at best, loosely co-ordinated confederation of contrasting beliefs, techniques and practices. There is no central authority of speaking for the movement as a whole. There is likewise no central register which can supply membership for the overall movement. And there is no central co-ordinating agency able to ascertain who is and who is not New Ager. The New Age is largely a perpetually shifting and ad hoc
alliance of exegetical individuals and groups, audience gatherings, client services, and various new religious movements that range between the cultic, sectarian and
denominational. Even when viewed from 'outside', as in sociological observation, there is little agreement concerning what constitutes the New Age and who is not to be included.”39 This view on New Age is indeed clearly a sociological one. It is very much concerned with membership and labelling the forms of organization: cult, sect and denomination, which is a much used typology by Roy Wallis.40 And it is clear that it is shown in the context of traditional institutionalized religion, since it mentions (lack of) central organization. Of course part of the New Age movement is organized in some kind of movement, ad hoc or more permanent. But what I think is most important – especially in the case of this thesis – is the mix-and-match aspect of New Age. Individuals read some books and maybe attend some workshops or courses, and take some of the available knowledge or experience to add to their set of beliefs. In more classic study of religion to the end of the twentieth century, the New Age phenomenon is most often regarded in relation to secularization, especially with regard to the decrease of traditional Christianity. I think in the meantime that the process of secularization has thus far progressed that the New Age can be observed in its own right and that Christianity in this light has become of little consequence. Wouter Hanegraaff called this shift the autonomization of spiritualities from
religions41 and Paul Heelas observed that the religious (for God) is giving way for the
38
Clifton & Harvey, The Paganism Reader, pp. 128-129.
39
Michael York: New Age Millenarianism and its Christian Influences, in: Christian Millenarianism: From the Early Church to Waco, ed. Stephen Hunt (Indiana University Press, 2001: pp. 224-238
40
Roy Wallis: The Road to Total Freedom : A Sociological Analysis of Scientology, Heinemann, London, 1977, p.13. In this classic typology, Wallis sets the external conception (respectable or deviant) against internal conception (uniquely legitimate or pluralistically legitimate), The fourth form of religious organization is a church.
41
spiritual (for life).42 Marion Bowman discusses the emic replacement of the negatively perceived “institutionalized, hierarchical, patriarchal and oppressive” religion with spirituality, which is “personal, intuitive, experiential involvement with the divine, the supernatural or the Universe.”43 So for this thesis ‘spirituality’ is definitely a more adequate descriptor than religion. The study of spirituality is relatively new and very broad. Peter Holmes admits that scholars find it quite intangible44 and “no one academic discipline seems equipped to meet this emerging diverse challenge, within so many fields.”45 The study of spirituality opens up new terrains of research, such as a supra-sensible reality. Kenneth Pargament wants to define spirituality as “a search for the sacred.”46 I have mentioned the term
sacredness a number of times already, and sacredness is a very important
characteristic of and draw to Avalon. But there is a great number of different claims of sacredness for the place. It can be holy, for instance, because of its perceived history and tradition, because of the earth energies there or because the Holy Grail-archetype is an seen as an integral part of it; and there are many more claims. But even though Pargament differentiates between theistic and nontheistic sacredness, I’d rather not go for his description. Sacredness, although significant, might not be the pilgrim’s ultimate concern. According to Pargament, one of the qualities of nontheistic sacredness is transcendence. But as Graham Harvey has often pointed out, to those with a worldview inclined to Paganism, there is little difference between the transcendent and the immanent.47
To prevent further digression in this huge domain, I will just distillate that core aspects of spirituality are personal religious beliefs and practices regardless of tradition.
Marion Bowman suggests employing the term 'vernacular religion' for the study of Glastonbury's spirituality. Bowman uses it clearly distinguished from the term 'folk religion', which is used in more classic religious studies. The definition of folk religion she gives is put by Don Yoder: “Folk religion is the totality of all those views and practices of religion that exist among the people apart from and alongside the strictly theological and liturgical forms of the official religion”48 This definition, she holds, implies that the 'official' religion doesn't have the same status as debased forms, such as folk and individual forms.49 Therefore, she'd rather employ the notion 'vernacular religion', as argued by Leonard Primiano: “Vernacular religion is, by definition, religion as it is lived: as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practice it. Since religion inherently involves interpretation, it is impossible for the religion of an individual not to be vernacular. Vernacular religious theory involves an
interdisciplinary approach to the study of the religious lives of individuals with
42
Paul Heelas, The Spiritual Revolution: From Religion to Spirituality, in: Woodhead, Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations, 2002, p. 358.
43
Marion Bowman, Going with the Flow, in: Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World, p. 243.
44
Peter Holmes, Spirituality: Some Disciplinary Perspectives, in: A Sociology of Spirituality, p. 23.
45
Ibid., p. 27.
46
Kenneth Pargament, Searching for the Sacred: Towards a Nonreductionistic Theory of Spirituality, in: APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion and Spirituality, Vol. I., p. 259.
47
Graham Harvey, Discworld and Otherworld: The Imaginative Use of Fantasy Literature among Pagans , in Popular Spiritualities, p. 48.
48
Don Yoder,, Toward a Definition of Folk Religion, in: Western Folklore, Vol. 33, No. 1, (Jan., 1974), p. 14.
49
special attention to the process of religious belief, the verbal, behavioural, and material expressions of religious belief, and the ultimate object of religious belief.”50 This definition is mightily broad and diffuse; at first sight it includes practically everything that has anything to do with religion. But then again, it deals with all the non-doctrinal aspects of religion, which are those that matter in Avalon. In general here, religious beliefs differ from individual to individual. Basically everyone can have an own set of beliefs. Since there is such a wide variety of beliefs available, of which most are not so empirical verifiable, the value of ideas and beliefs are inflated and hardly yield any status. What does count is the personal experience, the religion as it is lived.
Now that the spiritual direction of Avalon has been pinpointed, it is time to sketch the modus. This is best described as cultic milieu. This concept was first introduced by Colin Campbell.51 It describes “deviant belief systems and practices and their associated collectivities, institutions, individuals, and media of communication.”52 And it includes “the worlds of the occult and the magical, of spiritualism and psychic phenomena, of mysticism and new thought, of alien intelligences and lost
civilizations, of faith healing and nature cure”.53
Bowman's critique on Yoder's concept of folk religion is that it implies that there would be inequality between traditional religion and deviant forms of it. Campbell's cultic milieu exactly accentuates the debased forms. And those forms are the ones that embrace Avalon. The matter of status seems quite irrelevant in the context of this thesis. Therefore, the concept of vernacular religion is very useful because it is so all-encompassing, and it also includes the belief and practice within the cultic milieu.
Construction of ideas
The most significant beliefs, institutions, individuals and media of Avalon have already been introduced. Furthermore, all of the other aspects (occult, magical, etc.) of the cultic milieu can be found around Glastonbury. The cultic milieu is also
characterized by the possibility of support from unrelated or even mutually
contradictory beliefs54, which is certainly true for Avalon: there are roots in Atlantis, it is the holy realm of goddess worshiping noble savage Celts, it is the realm behind the mists, etcetera. Therefore it is important to observe that within the cultic milieu, individuals adopt beliefs with varying degrees of commitment.55 And to note the general anti-associational individualism of the seekers of Avalon: here the personal experience is paramount.
Certainly, there are a number of spokespersons to the cult of Avalon. But there is a multitude of them, all having a different portfolio. For example: Kathy Jones writes about the goddess, while John Michell specializes in sacred geometry. It is not
crystal-clear which author is a major one and which one is of only lesser influence. To
50
Leonard Primiano, Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklife in: Western Folklore, Vol. 54, No. 1, (Jan., 1995), p. 44.
51
Colin Campbell, The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization, in: A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, Vol. 5, 1972, pp. 119-136.
52
Colin Campbell, Cult, in: Encyclopedia of Religion and Society .
53
Colin Campbell, The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization, in: A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain, Vol. 5, 1972, p. 122.
54
Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, p. 28.
55
the seekers, there is a multitude of works to choose from, and the possibility to dedicate themselves to any degree to. And as such the beliefs function like a personal mix-and-match cocktail of religiosity.
According to Olav Hammer, movement texts within the cultic milieu are rejected in mainstream society. Adherers of them would therefore end up in an minority position.56 On a national scale, this might be true. But in Glastonbury, belief in Avalon is both mainstream and multivalent.
Among the seekers, most of the Avalonian authors are respected to some degree because they have the status of experts, who have carried out research very well. From an academic vantage point, much of the Avalonians' research would be
considered flawed at best and based upon pseudo-history and pseudo-science. But it is exactly this rejected knowledge that is prevalent in the cultic milieu of Avalon. Here, personal experience of the seekers outweighs knowledge of any kind. Avalon is of the heart. In fact, much of what is written or thought about Avalon is based upon the experience of certain individuals instead of upon known fact. And scholarship is not in high regard in Avalon, for it is felt that its positivist attitude relies solely on intellect and therefore fails to observe matters of the heart and recognize matters unseen. Science is often felt to be a cruel debunker of ideas. Take for example the scientific analysis of Goodchild’s cup, which turned out to be way to modern to possibly be the Holy Gail: at first it was a disappointing disillusion, but afterwards shoulders were shrugged and another meaning was sought and found. Note that this is quite similar to Harvey’s aforementioned commentary on Graves’ The White Goddess.
However, in case some scientific research does propose an idea contributing to the cult, it is suddenly welcomed as an ally. For example, when archeologists found a north-south aligned grave and an ceremonial axe on the Tor and uttered these findings might indicate that the hill could have had a religious connotation in Neolithic times, this became much embraced in the cultic milieu and expanded to a conception of: “archaeologists have pointed out that the Tor must have been a sanctuary, from Neolithic times on.” In such cases, there is not much room for nuance.
Hammer remarks about movement texts in cultic milieus that they “hover in a
strange borderland between factual and fictional narratives.”57 Dion Fortunes Avalon of the Heart is just that. Fortune presents everything within as given fact, while nothing of it really is. Patrick Benham warns: “for all its real value and poetic appeal, [it] is chock full of charming inaccuracies and simplifications, we must take this account with a fair pinch of salt”58, or in other words, as a textbook of history, the book is absolutely useless. It is Dion Fortunes personal experience, and as such, to a seeker of Avalon, it all the more valuable. The Mists of Avalon can also be seen as such. Although being a novel, it is clearly a fiction, but at the same time, it is perceived as based upon scrupulous historical research. Bradley in the prologue of her book informs the reader that she has done such research, and many a reader tends to overlook the very fact that the story is made up anyway.
Ronald Fritze, writes quite harsh about pseudo-histories. To him, they create a false image of fact. And he has in mind many occasions wherein belief in pseudo-histories
56
Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, p. 28.
57
Ibid., p. 38.
58
has led to bad things, such as the American Civil War or holocaust denial.59 He blames pseudo-historians for mistaking possibility with probability.60 According to him, differentiating between pseudo-history and real history “is a tricky question with elusive answers cast on the shifting sands of scholarship, taste and fashion.”61
This shifting can clearly be seen in the development of Arthurian history. In his book Witches, Druids and King Arthur, Ronald Hutton sketches the (insular) trends of dealing with the material. The years around 1970 were a time for 'the Second
Romantic Movement', as he calls it.62 During these years, many efforts were made to put King Arthur in a broader daylight, making him a brave national hero. One main challenge was to conjoin the literary figure of Arthur with archaeological findings. But after publications of professor David Dumville, who in many eyes 'disproved' King Arthur the whole character of the king came into academic contempt.63 Avalonian Geoffrey Ashe is an interesting figure in this process. His early works are historically sound, but over the years, Ashe becomes more and entangled in the magic of Avalon, and his bibliography starts to include books of personal experience, a novel and works on fringe topics like Atlantis.
But whatever critique might be had on the historical basis of Avalon's cultic milieu, it is what it is: a realm of inspiration and healing. And even though much is based on pseudo-history, for seekers and pilgrims it has significant meaning. Believing in a romantic past, helps to bolster Avalon's enchantment. Indeed, mythmaking plays a crucial role in the vernacular religion of Avalon.64
The personal experience
As stated before: in the cultic milieu of Avalon, the personal experience is felt to be the most significant. So what can be said about this personal experience?
Their nature is almost always spiritual; so spiritual experience is the coinage of Avalon.
Sir Alister Hardy defines it as: “a deep awareness of a benevolent non-physical power which appears to be partly of wholly beyond, and far greater than, the individual self.”65 But I do think that definition somewhat problematic, at least not in the domain of this thesis. Mostly because the word benevolent seems to imply some sort of personality of the power and because it implies that the experience is always
pleasant. Also the definition states that the experience is of something external to the individual, while I think that it can also be an experience of the self expanding to boundless proportions.
Therefore I prefer the description offered by Marianne Rankin: “A spiritual
experience may be thought of as an experience which points beyond normal, everyday life, and which has spiritual or religious significance for the person to whom it
59
Ronald Fritze, Invented Knowledge, pp. 7 & 9-10.
60
Ibid., p. 15.
61
Ronald Fritze, Invented Knowledge, p. 11.
62
Ronald Hutton, Witches, Druids and King Arthur, p. 50.
63
Ibid., pp. 52 & 54.
64
See Bowman & Valk, Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life, p. 344.
65
