“The next day, the ninth from Soaring Woodhelven, Atiaran told Covenant about the Unfettered One in a voice as flat as crushed rock, as if she had reached the point where what she said, how she exposed herself, no longer mattered to her. ‘There are those from the Loresraat,’ she said, ‘who find that they cannot work for the Land or the Lore of the Old Lords in the company of their fellows – Lords or Lorewardens, the followers of Sword or Staff. They have some private vision which compels them to seek it in isolation. But their need for aloneness does not divide them from the people. They are given the Rites of Unfettering, and freed from all common demands, to quest after their own lore with the blessing of the Lords and the respect of all those who love the Land. For the Lords learned long ago that the desire for aloneness need not be a selfish desire, if it is not made so by those who do not feel it.

“’Many of the Unfettered have never returned into knowledge. But stories have grown up around those Ones who have not vanished utterly. Some are said to know the secrets of dreams, others to practice deep mysteries in the arts of healing, still others to be the friends of the animals, speaking their language and calling on their help in times of great need. Such a one saved us – ’ […]

“’Some are dreamers, some healers, some share the life of animals. Some delve the earth to uncover the secrets of the Cavewights, others learn the lore of the Demondim – whatever knowledge guides the One’s private prophecy… Never before have I seen one of the Unfettered. But I have heard the Rites of Unfettering. A hymn is sung.’

Dully, she recited:

Free
Unfettered
Shriven
Free
Dream that what is dreamed will be:
Hold eyes clasped shut until they see,
And sing the silent prophecy
And be
Unfettered
Shriven
Free

(From Lord Foul’s Bane, The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R Donaldson. I am aware of the risk to the mystic of not being embedded in the rhythms and rituals of a community.)