Re: Deathteaching TopazOwl Fri Aug 28 11:11:30 1998 *br*Taliesin_2 wrote,*br*: While in IRC last night talking about Druidry, the topic of *br*: something called Deathteaching came up. It was said that *br*: Deathteaching is a Druid practice( rather new too ) from *br*: what the person said. Appearently you do the process of *br*: Deathteaching at most four times.*br*: I am wondering if there are any web sites with data on this. *br*: Anybody got any ideas? Thoughts?*p*Tal:*p* That sounds like a word directly out of Morgan Llywellyn's novel, "Druids." While Ms. Llywellyn did an excellent job recreating what she perceived as Gaulish Druidism in the time of Vercingetorix (and it is an entertaining story), it is still a fictional work.*p* But it brings up some interesting ideas nevertheless, and actually some that we touched upon in the Celtic Roundtable the other night.*p* Anyway, from the novel, the author has the "deathteaching" looking like a classic shamanic initiation, in which the subject is given a drug while surrounded by chanting Druids, and then the subject journeys to the Otherworld (with the aid of the drug) to discover that death and life are merely two aspects of the same condition.*p* This *might* have actually been the way of it, and, then again, it might not have. Anyway, I have to wonder over the term used to identify the concept.*p* Whether or not this is the concept referred to in your chat is anyone's guess. :-)*p*Leigh Deathteaching Taliesin_2 158 Wed Aug 26 19:59:18 1998