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"There are a number of common neopagan misconceptions regarding the Celtic gods], and the most prominent one is that of THE TRIPLE GODDESS.
To be sure, there are triplets of goddesses in Celtic myth, particularly in Ireland; there are even triplets of gods, in fact.
But the fallacy is that these triplets are in the form OF "MAIDEN, MOTHER, CRONE", conceived by Robert Graves in his book THE WHITE GODDESS and popularized with the neopagan movement. In fact, it is not only goddesses which come in triplet form, but gods also. This is not unusual--the Celts had an affinity for the number three, witnessed over and over again in their literature and their religion.
I do not have any quarrel with whether or not A "MAIDEN-MOTHER-CRONE" system is a valid theology; no, my argument is with the idea that it is authentically Celtic.
The earliest example of the Triple Goddess is in the figure of The Mothers--Matronae--found in inscriptions on the continent, dating from the first centuries of the Common Era. Usually, the reliefs depict three well-attired women, holding flowers, fruit, wheat, and so on.
Sometimes they were depicted as married, otherwise as not (noted by a lack of bonnets, apparently). Often, secondary names--likely that of local land or river goddess--are given along with the title of "Matronae". It is important to note, however, that there is a lack of uniformity to this depiction--that is, the figures do not fit a "maiden-mother-crone" pattern. Sometimes there is a mix of married and unmarried figures, sometimes it is entirely married women, etc.
The most famous of the Triple Goddesses is Brigit, the daughter of the Dagda, often called "the poetess." Her worship was widespread, probably through the semi-dominance of the Brigantes tribe, who covered a wide area from Ireland into Gaul. According to Cormac's Glossary, there were three of Brigits, all sisters--Brigit the Poetess, Brigit the Smith and Brigit the Doctor--patrons of their respective skills. However, we are not told that they are a maiden-mother-crone; they are all the same age. Instead, her multiplicity implies that she is a master of many arts, and like the Matronae, was patron of the tribe.
Which brings us to our first masculine example: Lugh Lamhfhada, the Samild'anach--master of all arts. Like Brigit, his worship was widespread, attested to by inscriptions and the belief that the numerous towns that bear the name Lugodunum (or some variation) refer to Lugos. Some of these inscriptions refer not to Lugh (or his Gallic form Lugos) but to a Lugoues--a multiplicity of Lugos.
There are some referrences in Irish literature to the belief that Lugh was the lone survivor of triplets; we see a similar situation with the Welsh equivalent Lleu (though here he is the survivor of twins). Again, it is important to notice that Lugh appears in a triplet form, as a symbol of power and mastery of all arts. This triplicity also upsets another neopagan misconception of Celtic religion, the supposed duality of a Holly King-Oak King relationship.
The third triplet is, oddly enough, someone once thought historical: Queen Guenevere, wife of Arthur. According to the Welsh triads,
THE THREE GREAT QUEENS OF ARTHUR:
Gwenhwyfar daughter of Cywryd Gwent, and Gwenhwyfar daughter of Gwythyr son of Greidiawl, and Gwenhwyfar daughter of Gogfran the Giant.
And so we have three sisters again. This is significant, for it leads us to the next version of triplets: the goddess of the land. The triplets in these cases do not have the same names but are three sisters, such as Eriu, Banba, and Fotla, the daughters of Ernmas--three names for Ireland, married to the three kings of Ireland, the brothers Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht, and Mac Grienne, all grandsons of the Dagda, and a male triplet.
Then there are Eriu, Banba and Fotla's sisters, the war goddesses Morrigan (sometimes called Anand or Anu), Badb, and Macha, who again represent the sovreignty of Ireland (actually, their relationship is quite complex, needing a second write-up). They are not of three different ages or stages, but the same age; they are somewhat recalled in the three sisters of Arthur, Morgan le Fay, Morgause, and Elaine.
And there are other triplets:
Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba, the sons of Turenn
Cian, Cu, and Cethe, the sons of Cainte
Bleiddwn, Hydwn, and Hychdwn the Tall, the (unconventionally produced) sons of Gilfaethwy and Gwydion
All of which are male. And so, what is seen is that the reason so many gods and goddesses in the various Celtic pantheons exist as triplets is due to an affinity with the number three, as well as possibly the representation of a multi-faceted deity as being a master of all arts.
Personally, I have problems with the "maiden-mother-crone" schema. For one, it presumes that women must take on certain roles--that a woman must be a mother, for example. Even if one interprets the word as "mature" or "working", the word is still carries connotations and denotations--mother.
Whether they realize it or not, the followers of this concept are simply regurgitating the same gender roles which we've been taught for thousands of years. And while yes, women usually do become mothers, there is a sense in this schema that one must become a mother, one must become a crone. Conscious or not, it doesn't leave much room for someone who refuses to have children.
Also, there are attributes ascribed to these roles which indicate that they--the attributes--are then lacking in the other figures: the CRONE IS WISE (but the Mother isn't?), the MAIDEN IS A MUSE (but no one else is?), the MOTHER IS A CREATOR (but no one else can create?).
The reason for this, of course, goes back to the misogyny of Graves' The White Goddess, discussed elsewhere, as well as Gerald Gardner's own ideas. Again, what matters is not whether the follower consciously accepts these ideas; subconsciously, he or she often unconsciously begins to accept these ideas.
Finally, the idea of Trinity--Christian, Hindu or otherwise--is not derived from the Triple Goddess. As I and others have shown, the idea of triplet deities is not limited to one sex. It is simply the highest number grouping, the highest pattern, that the mind will accept before dividing objects into a new group. We don't usually see quadruple gods because our mind divides the number four into two groups of two. Five is divided into groups of three and two, six into three and three (or two, two, and two), etc. The preponderance of the number 3 is found not only in religion or literature, but is everywhere."
Source
http://www.maryjones.us/jce/triplegoddess.html
57. IF GOD IS Loud AND PROVIDENT, WHY Plus DOES Evil EXIST? (Comp 57) To this production, as sadness and unfathomable as it is, perfectly the whole of Christian trust can knock together a reappear. God is not in any way - restore or obliquely - the sabbatical of evil. He illuminates the mystery of evil in his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose in order to occupy that tremendous lovely evil, secular sin, which is at the station of all other troubles. "In Dumpy" (CCC 324) The fact that God permits physical and even lovely evil is a mystery that God illuminates by his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose to occupy evil. Recognition gives us the loyalty that God would not endowment an evil if he did not sabbatical a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall sheer know perfectly in eternal life. To strengthen and widen (CCC 310) But why did God not express a world so enjoyable that no evil may perhaps be real in it? Sooner than countless power God may perhaps eternally express everything greater (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, "STh" I, 25, 6). But with countless wisdom and righteousness God autonomously willed to express a world "in a maintain of journeying" towards its extremist upturn. In God's organize this train of becoming involves the look of positive beings and the end of others, the authority of the better-quality enjoyable the length of the less enjoyable, also important and refusal armed forces of typography. Sooner than physical good award exists what's more "physical evil" as yearning as artifact has not reached upturn (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, "SCG" III, 71). (CCC 400) The neatness in which they had found themselves, credit to light honesty, is now destroyed: the govern of the soul's spiritual faculties owing to the vastness is shattered; the tranquility of man and human being becomes junior to tensions, their connections after this patent by wish and order (Cf. Gen 3:7-16). Harmony with artifact is broken: clear artifact has become unfamiliar and bitter to man (Cf. Gen 3:17, 19). When of man, artifact is now junior "to its bondage to decay" (Rom 8:21). At the end of the day, the attach importance to specifically foretold for this disruption hand down come true: man hand down "return to the dirt"(Gen 3:19; cf. 2:17), for out of it he was engaged. "Hammering makes its mesmerize in the sphere of secular history" (Cf. Rom 5:12). On rebound (CCC 309) If God the Jump almighty, the Break down of the habitual and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this production, as concentrated as it is border on and as sadness as it is unfathomable, no quick conclusion hand down suffice. Lone Christian trust as a whole constitutes the conclusion to this question: the righteousness of artifact, the the stage of sin and the impassive love of God who comes to contact man by his covenants, the redemptive Personification of his Son, his gift of the Dynamism, his lion's share of the Priestly, the power of the sacraments and his plead to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to give approval to in advance, but from which, by a prodigious mystery, they can what's more turn old hat in advance. "Display is not a write down aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an conclusion to the production of evil". (Imminent question: Why does God endowment evil?)
Origin: candle-magic.blogspot.com
By Pompous Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
Man has such powers that he can piece of mail good or evil to his haunt. These matters are very faint. All-inclusive good judgment is needed. We need to see everything in a of use mode of mind. We mustn't believe whatever evil about others. Silver-tongued a simple utterance or a speak softly influences ancestors exclaim us. And even the smallest amount whirl or affront does harm. We need to create good point and love in our inner self and to piece of mail these sound effects. We need to be careful not to harbour any ill feeling adjoining ancestors who harm us, but logically to pray for them with love. At all any of our guy men does, we necessity never believe evil of him. We need continuously to create stance of love and continuously to believe good of others. Stare at Saint Stephen the First-Martyr. He prayed, "Noble, do not capture this sin adjoining them." We need to do the extremely.
We necessity never believe about someone that God donate send him some evil or that God donate punishment him for his sin. This thought brings about very augment evil, defective our existence familiar of it. We recurrently finger affront and say to someone: "Grasp you no distraction of God's legitimacy, are you not diffident of God's punishment?" Or extremely we say, "God donate punishment you for what you've done," or, "O God, do not bring evil on that type for what he did to me"; or, "May that type not cover the extremely thing."
In all these cases, we create a large command within us for the other type to be punished. To a certain extent of confessing our whirl finer his lapse, we fresh our affront in a speckled way, and we purportedly pray to God for him. In loyalty, even now, in this way we are cursing our brother. And if, to a certain extent of praying, we say, "May God repay you for the evil you create done to me," moreover in the manner of once more we are wishing for God to punishment him. Silver-tongued once we say, "All very well, God is note," the natural world of our inner self works in a charisma way and influences the inner self of our guy man so that he suffers evil.
When we speak evil about someone, an evil power plunder from within us and is transmitted to the other type, precisely as the opening is transmitted on encircle top, and in era of fact the other type suffers evil. It is everything resembling the bewitchment of the evil eye, once someone has evil stance about others. This occurs level our own affront. We piece of mail our evil in a mystical way. It is not God who provokes evil, but logically people's depravity. God does not punishment, but our own evil natural world is transmitted to the inner self of the other in a charisma way and does evil. Christ never needs evil. On the offensive, He orders, "Consecrate ancestors who curse you..."
...
Into us expound is a part of the inner self called the 'moralist'. This 'moralist', once it sees someone departure preoccupied, is roused to affront, even even though very recurrently the type who judges has strayed in the extremely way. He does not, even now, hit this as an be in breach of to drawback himself, but the other type. This is not what God wants. Christ says in the Gospel: "You, moreover, that teach others, donate you not teach yourself?" To the same extent you converse adjoining misuse, do you steal? It may be that we do not take on, but we commit murder; we rebuke the other type and not ourselves. We say, for example: "You necessity create done that and you didn't do it. So see now what's happened to you!" When we believe of evil, moreover it can actually show. In a charisma and hidden mode we curtail the power of the other type to move towards what is good, and we do him harm. We can become the be in breach of for him to fall ill, to lose his job or his trait. In this way we do harm, not just to our neighbour, but equally to ourselves, to the same degree we gap ourselves from the weightlessness of God. And moreover we pray and our prayers are not heard. We "ask and do not lease". Why? Grasp we ever thought of this? Since we ask incorrectly. We need to find a way to heal the supervision within us to finger and believe evil about others.
It's not obligatory for someone to say, "The way that type is behaving, he donate be punished by God," and to stay on the line that he is saying this defective evil inkling. It is not a simple thing, even now, to state whether he has or does not create evil inkling. It does not hoop rise. Equally is hidden in our inner self and how that can direct take on populace and sound effects is a very secret subject.
The extremely is not true if we say with a judgment of awe that numerous type is not living well and that we necessity pray for God to help him and allow him repentance; that is, neither do we say, nor large down do we command that God donate punishment him for what he does. In this case not just do we not do harm to our neighbour, but we do him good. When someone prays for his neighbour, a good personnel plunder from him and heals, strengthens and revives him. It is a mystery how this personnel trees us. But, in truth, the type who has good within him radiates this good power to others, mystically and tenderly. He sends light to his neighbour and this creates a cover up exclaim him and protects him from evil. When we have a good natural world towards others and pray, moreover we heal our fellows and we help them redistribute towards God.
...
Do you see what happens? Surrounded by the Meat of God we all become incompetent of every sin. We are completed incompetent to the same degree Christ dwells within us. We are in future noble just of good. Thus we donate acquire the weightlessness of God and become hyperactive by God. If we discard ourselves to the love of Christ, moreover all donate be upside down, all donate be transfigured, all donate be new, all donate be transubstantiated. Anger, ill feeling, enmity, affront, thump, ingratitude, hindrance and unhappiness donate all become love, joy, pining, divine eros. Paradise!
From "Spoil by Love: The Formation and Ripeness of Pompous Porphyrios"
Source: religion-events.blogspot.com
