A paradox is a self-contradictory state of affairs, a set of circumstances that should not be possible because it either breaks logical norms, is physically impossible, or creates a disruption in what we understand by the laws of cause and effect.
Some examples here may be useful:
- ‘This statement is false’ This quote creates a paradox in which if the statement is true it must be false and if it is false it must be true
- ‘A man goes back in time and impregnates his grandmother thus becoming his father’s father and his own grandfather’ This creates a paradox because at the point the man impregnates his grandmother he has not yet been born and so the existence of people prior to his birth is dependent on someone who does not yet exist
- ‘Someone travels back in time to assassinate Stalin before he comes to power’ the paradox here is that should this be successful then the events that would stimulate the decision to assassinate would no longer take place and so there would be no reason for the assassination to take place, which in turn would mean that those events would take place thus creating the motive for assassination, which in turn removes the motivation and so on ad infinitum
What is compelling about these paradoxes is that while they create contradictory outcomes, they are not impossible in the strictest sense. The first paradox is perhaps the simplest since it can be performed without access to a time-machine. It might be suggested that this isn’t a genuine paradox because it is a paradox of language rather than a phenomenal paradox. However, since much of how we experience ourselves and the world is through language, this paradox is nonetheless powerful.
What does all this have to do with the Gild? Well, the idea that drives the work of the Gild (and most other Mystery Traditions) is itself paradoxical: We are all seeking Runa and one of the reasons we are driven to seek Mystery is precisely because it can never be finally grasped. We search for that which can never be found, not because it is so well hidden but because its very nature means that it is constantly shifting while paradoxically always remaining infinite and perennial.
You will find many paradoxes when you start working with the Runes and almost all experiences of non-ordinary consciousness contain at least some element of the paradoxical. For example, in Galdor magic one must have the absolute focus and concentration mythically represented by the Hawk at the top of Yggdrasil, while at the same time being absorbed in and by the wode-energy driving your working, thus you are paradoxically maintaining a singular focus and a state of dissolution at one and the same time.
Within the rune-row, it is Dagaz that best represents the nature of paradox, its centrality to our Work as Odians and the transformative power that the internalisation of paradox has on the individual. If you look at the rune stave Dagaz, it comprises two triangles facing each other and meeting point to point. This visually represents the liminal space in which paradox plays with us; each triangle represents a contrary position (light and dark for example) and at the point at which those two triangles meet, we find both and neither and something which is a synthesis of the two – connected to each and yet fundamentally different.
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J. Sharp, Norwich, GB