The Movement-Messiahs, Mystigogues, and Messengers

Crane Brinton's work, "Anatomy of a Revolution", provides a great frame work for analyzing not just classic political revolutions, but also social movements. Natural horsemanship is not a fad. It is not even a "style" of training. It is a social movement. As such certain bumps along the road can be predicted and some problems can be avoided by stepping back and looking at where the movement is going.

History provides more than just analogies and  literary devices. It provides a road map to where leaders of a social movement need to direct that movement.

Call them clinicians, trainers, innovators, leaders, those who have made a name for themselves by teaching horses easily do things that others find difficult to teach horses fit into certain categories. The earliest proponents of proto-natural horsemanship were often self appointed "messiahs" who advanced the idea that they had talents that could be described as supernatural and that "gift" was  the key to their success.

 As the movement matured and expanded it was fueled by a small group of teachers who believed that they had learned of a great revelation that they wanted to share with willing listeners.  They thought that their methods were readily accessible by all who wanted to learn. These "messengers" teach with an evangelical zeal. Of course, the contrast between the messengers and the messiahs could not be more distinct.


The messiahs believed themselves to have unique power and the messengers believed that they had a technique that could be learned by anyone that cared about horses. The other extreme difference is that the messengers sought to improve the lives of horses and people. The ascendancy of the messengers inevitably forced the messiahs off of the screen.

It should be no surprise to students of history and social and religious movements that the acceptability of the teachings of the messengers, and most of all its claim of universal ability of all to practice these techniques would lead to the development of a different kind proponent of   natural horsemanship--the mystigogue.

To a certain extent the mystigogue  seeks to blend the most powerful teachings of both the messiahs and the messengers. He teaches that he is unique in that he knows a great "mystery" that he will share with his devotees. Not everyone is pure enough to be one of his devotees. He stands in strong contrast to the messenger in that he does seek to make his teaching simple. In fact, he creates his own vocabulary, his own ritual and his own system of levels of enlightenment.

In history the mystigogue is best exemplified by the Gnostic leaders in the early Christian Church. Those Gnostics were purged as heretics and their writings were suppressed until they were nearly blotted from history.   It is only with the discovery of the Nag Hammaddi scrolls that we have a complete understanding of their teachings and their view of their "secret" knowledge.

While Gnosticism certainly accomplished a great deal in spreading a version of Christianity, their methods and their beliefs came to be recognized as a threat to the very movement that it originally sought to advance.

Proponents of natural horsemanship have the most to gain by contrasting the messengers to the mystigogues of our movement. As long as the mystigogue remains in the broad tent of orthodoxy he does little harm to a movement.  It is when he moves into the realm of heresy that he threatens the movement.

We will look at these differences in future posts. Don't get lost on these points as we discuss them further. They matter to the future of natural horsemanship and they matter to all who care about horses.

History is worth learning because failure is worth preventing. Especially with something this important.