Magical correspondences and social values

Dr Brendan Cathbad Myers is the author of several books on radical Paganism and Druidry, his latest, The Other Side of Virtue: Where Our Virtues Come From, What They Really Mean, and Where They Might Be Taking Us, will be published by O Books in July 2008.

A spiritual path is, among other things, a way of seeing the world. That is to say, a spiritual path is a way of understanding or interpreting our relationships with the many things, events, people, and places in the world.  In most cases, the path will be expressed or configured by a logic of correspondences. In accord with this logic, the appearance of a certain animal, or plant, or weather event, or whatever, signifies realities beyond itself. Similarly, every spiritual path will have meditations, rituals, techniques, practices, and so on, designed to help the practitioner recognise those signs and read the messages they convey. The co-ordinates of the correspondences will vary in accord with language, culture, climate, geography, and other factors. They can grow ever more complicated and intricate, in order to accommodate an ever growing range of things and events in an ever-changing world.  Continue reading »