A fundamental tenet of Reconstructionist Heathenism is that we should honor our ancestors and practice traditions in line with our genetic heritage.
On the face of it, this seems a fairly reasonable suggestion. What’s always confused me, though, is why so many people then proceed to focus on just one aspect of their own ancestry, and one short period of history at that. And while we’re at it, why is this so often treated as a commandment and not just a helpful suggestion?
When I think of “my heritage” there are many different periods that come to mind. My immediate ancestors were Australian for several generations on both sides and my Australianness is something that I, predictably, feel much more connected to since having left that great land. Beyond that, there is much of history that I cannot help but find fascinating.
The Viking age has always caught my attention, for sure, but then so has the Renaissance. So has the stuff that came before the Viking age. More recently I find myself returning, again and again, to the period that came before iron, before bronze even before agriculture.
Honor your ancestors? Absolutely. Why not? But honor all of them, all the way back, from those within memory to the beginning of time.
This gives us a lot more tradition to play with.
Heh, I try to get people to reclaim their “Race and Value” in a neoplatonist sense, and get creamed for being a racist. So I always put “Divine Race and Eternal Value” in the phrase now, because people are stupid.
I got intro’d to your blog when Jack mentioned it on F.B., and I’m enjoying it immensely. This post reminds me, of an Asatru friend years ago when I was a budding Chaos Magician. He was a native american, and he had past life memories of being a viking, and felt a natural affinity to their beliefs. Big hulking man too, 6 ft tall and 275 pounds of mostly muscle. I didn’t know Iroqois could get that big. He’s 100% native, too. He carries an Iroqoi passport that I’ve seen him use to get into Canada on a trip for fine “Canadian” cigars and good Irish whiskey.
Being Asatru, he regularly ran into other Asatru with tattoos of swastikas and 88s. When he did, he made sure he backed up and ran over them again. Not too fond of the “genetic heritage” movement.
Another major flaw, in my opinion, is revealed by the recent announcements that Biden, Palin, and Rush Limbaugh are all related to Obama. You never know what you’re going to find on your genetic tree, but the global human genome project indicates most of us are descended from Genghis Khan or three of his generals. Does that mean we all should be Asian Steppe trasitional Shamans?
Hmmmm… Interestingly enough, almost everyone has a resonance with “shamanism.” Most conjure magic could be seen as a form of specialized shamanism. Interesting. Genetic predispositions may have something to it, but it’s probably cultural.
But anyway, I couldn’t agree more with you, you sum it up well. We have the traditions to play with going back as far as you let yourself look, and as long as you’re human, the only racial requirement for any belief system to work is the “Human” one, and even that has plenty of exceptions.
@R.O.: Screaming racism without actually processing what the author is actually trying to say seems to be a pretty widespread fad. In particular I’m thinking of some of the Western Esoteric authors of the previous two generations, who had plenty of ideas about “race”, and who nowadays catch a lot of flack for their writings, when simply reading the word “race” as “heritage” would strike a lot closer to most authors’ meanings, as well as kill any notions of racism in the text.
But people are stupid.
I believe affinity is as complex as the web of genetic variations and combinations: this is how nature is.
I am reading a bit about Okinawan karate, which has a strong esoteric component. There are now Western teachers who excel in it. Does this mean they have betrayed their European heritage? No! Their insights and contributions add to the richness of the Okinawan tradition. This is how civilisation as a whole develops.
Plato learnt from the Egyptians. Japanese learnt from the Germans in order to modernise themselves.
Ancestor veneration does not imply rigidity. it should mean continuous enrichment generation after generation. Under the sky, everything wholesome is permitted.
How could we not love your directness, Clint? Much wisdom in plain view. You know, I never knew anything about such “genetic” notions before I encountered Ásatrú. I’ve been into the folkish view for a while and I still believe that one can experience many interesting things, if one delves into one’s ancestors’s heritage. But, after all, our primal ancestors are the apes. Should we all worship Hanuman now? History lesson teaches us post-‘WW II’-Germans that mixing biology with politics leads to no good results. Mixing religion and genetics leads to a lot of wrong-headed conceptions that won’t make you spiritually more enlightened. Multi-culturalism on the other hand seems to lead to other problems. The question then is, how can we stay true to the good aspects of our own culture and simultaneously remain open to change and the wisdom of other cultures?
However, the perennial wisdom perspective transcends all other considerations, including genetic and cultural view points. But few have the courage, stamina, will and wisdom to encounter that “whirling void” that some call God, Dao or Chaos, where No-Thing is True and Every thing is trance-mitted. This is, maybe, the place where Odin, Mercurius and Shiva are all part of a trancendent Dance, where all cultural manifestations of the Divine are only “the masks of God” emerging from the Ur-Law / Örlog (you once were writing about).
Many good points there, Matt.
Coming back to Japanese and Okinawan martial arts. Their calligraphy often refer to “daiwa kon”, which literally means the “Great Japanese Soul”. Asatruars who are drawn to Japan have referred to it as the Japanese “folk soul”. Some Germans also talk about the “Volksseele”. So how come Okinawan martial arts can overcome the ancestral boundary of the folk soul and is evolving itself through “gaijin”, which means “outsiders” or “foreigners”? Okinawa is not Japanese – the Japanese masters themselves are technically “foreigners”. Okinawan karate originated in China and was brought to Okinawa by the 36 Chinese families who settled there centuries ago. So originally the Okinawans themselves who practised this art were “foreigners”. So why keep using the brush to write “folk soul” in dynamic strokes? Perhaps in essence it means a spiritual (and martial) belonging?