Enemies of Wisdom

Enemies of Wisdom

"There are three things that spoil wisdom: ignorance, inaccurate knowledge, and forgetfulness."
    ___ ancient Irish triad



  Wisdom supports and maintains the universe in every place. Although we now feel that ignorance is largely conquered in our world by better education, it still holds sway in many areas, especially where people are purposely kept away from sources of spiritual wisdom by experts and professionals who prefer to keep them ignorant.

  We live in a world of easily coined and readily accessible facts, a world where true wisdom is contaminated by or mingled with wild supposition, doubtful hearsay, and poor research. Inaccurate knowledge arises when people are keen to get the meat but lack the patience to capture, kill, or cook it. A remarkable number of books appear yearly for example, claiming to teach the reader everything about a subject in a month or even a week! It is hard to know where most censure should be heaped; on the hubris of the writer and publisher or on the credulity of the reader. Inaccurate knowledge will not connect us with the living roots of wisdom; only precise knowledge wedded to practical experience can do that.

  But a far greater enemy of wisdom than either ignorance or inaccurate knowledge is forgetfulness. Wisdom has been warped by forgetfulness, because we have lost both wisdom's context and its application as our traditional guardians have virtually died off. Few alive now have access to anything more than the theoretical structures of spiritual wisdom. Now we must urgently bring wisdom out of its academic closet, putting theory and practice into harness together so that the living power of wisdom may be restored to our world once again.

"What are the characteristicsw of wisdom by which you steer your life? How are they manifest in your actual practice?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]