The Death of Earth Mysteries
A few years ago, Gyrus, editor of Towards 2001, and resident of Leeds, contrived to give a plug to every earth mysteries and related magazine except Northern Earth. When asked about this, he said he just hadn't come across us, though we were founded in Leeds as the first of the regional earth mysteries journals, have retail outlets in Leeds and elsewhere in West Yorkshire. Mind you, there have been some people in Leeds with a curious vested interest in doing down Northern Earth, for some odd reason!
At the ASLaN 2000 conference, archaeologist George Lambrick made untoward snide comments about earth mysteries in his opening address, despite the declared inclusive nature of the conference and organisation. One might presume this is just the face of knee-jerk archaeology finding it harder to embrace the well-informed neo-antiquarian interlopers on their fringe than the committed beliefs of neo-pagans, whose interest in the same places is of a different nature.
At the same conference, Philip Heselton, NE's first editor, ostensibly speaking there on earth mysteries, ended up giving a talk on how to work pagan ritual out of doors. At the same time, ASLaN's own earth mysteries delegate, Andy Norfolk, was wearing a Pagan Federation T-shirt. Christian or agnostic earth mysterians may be forgiven for thinking there's a pagan set-up going on (there isn't, honest)!
When Waterstones in Leeds readily agreed to stock Northern Earth, for the first year or so, before they could be persuaded otherwise, they placed the magazine in the 'Mind and Body' section, rather than, say, the 'Archaeology' section or in the far more appropriate magazines racks (they have now put us in with the magazines and are selling three times as many).
In 2001, Michael Howard, editor of the long-established pagan magazine The Cauldron, with whom we have been exchanging since our inception in 1979, somehow fails to mention NE magazine in his Sacred Earth Guide, although he does mention us as an earth mysteries group (also true, but more of a mag in these days of comfy chairs, home videos and supermarket off-sales, which is why we stopped field trips and meetings).
Belinda Whitworth published The New Age Encyclopaedia this year. Although primarily a New Age writer, she has a short but balanced entry for earth mysteries. However, her resources section misses out, among other things, Northern Earth, either as website or journal.
Around the same time, Pete Jennings, ex-president of the Pagan Federation, published Pagan Paths. In his chapter on sacred Sites, he states that most adherents of earth mysteries read The Ley Hunter, a magazine that has been defunct for a few years. His recommended websites once again manages to miss Northern Earth Online, though including one or two sites pretty inexplicable in the context. Earth mysterians in general may be forgiven for thinking there's a pagan set-up going on (well, I don't think there is…).
Once upon a time, there were The Ley Hunter, Northern Earth Mysteries, Meyn Mamvro, Mercian Mysteries, At the Edge, Markstone, Gloucestershire Earth Mysteries, Third Stone, Quicksilver Messenger, IGR Newsletter (and several other Nigel Pennick magazines), Lincolnshire Dragon, Earth, Touchstone, Essex Landscape Mysteries, Lantern, Caerdroia, Wisht Maen and other mags whose names I can't recall offhand. Now there are Northern Earth, Meyn Mamvro, White Dragon, Touchstone, The Dragon Chronicle and Caerdroia.
NE is now the world's longest established earth mysteries journal. It is also arguably now the only such journal, as with the possible exception of Meyn Mamvro other journals have located themselves in a pagan approach (e.g. White Dragon) or a more academic stance (e.g. Third Stone), or are topic-specific (e.g. Caerdroia). We could just say that the omissions we have paragraphed are the result of poor research, ignorance, misunderstanding or even bad-mouthing - and actually we'd be right. However, that doesn't really clear up the mystery of why NE and earth mysteries in general is getting such a poor deal from people who simply should know better.
But hey, we saw it coming! In 1993 we held a seminar at Bradford University and among the topics was 'is there any future for earth mysteries?'. The general mood was 'no' and two of the four panellists are now firmly within the neo-pagan fold. The other two are still in e.m. The chairwoman now manages an art gallery.
So where does the problem of omissions lie? Is it because
Let's just say a couple of things about ourselves. We
1) believe earth mysteries is an approach based in the freethinking tradition of the West, and particularly the British Isles. This approach is characterised by a simultaneous objectivity and preparedness to think outside orthodoxies, and has typified earth mysteries research since its inception.
2) reject belief-centred approaches, feeling that a true appraisal of our past requires an independence of thought (which does not of course negate personal beliefs). We have common ground with neo-paganism, other religious traditions relating to the land, academic archaeologists, folklorists, geographers, etc., New Agers, and so on, but we are not defined by any of them.
3) aim in NE to find the middle ground in language and discussion between the academic and the simplistic, neither to baffle nor patronise our readers.
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