Sweyn – Elhaz Ablaze

Believing In…

June 25, 2010June 6, 2010 by Sweyn

I have always found the term “to believe in” rather annoying. I will try to analyse why.

Firstly, there are so many ways this term is generally understood. To believe in a principle or cause, is to have confidence in its value to society. To believe in an individual, is to have confidence in their ability to be successful in some way. To believe in X, is to have confidence that X is literally true or real, no matter what the evidence may indicate. It is this last sense that is most troubling, although many religious folk define religion by all three.

But is religion really about “believing in”? Certainly for Christianity, and Islam, this is the case. In our long domination by this influence, most Westerners define religion as something you believe in. More than that, it requires the third mode of belief, as faith in the literal truth of unprovable statements. I would contend that this view of religion is highly limiting, not at all universal, and somewhat dangerous.

For the majority of religions, belief has always been secondary. Individuals within a society tend to share similar beliefs, but it was never an explicit requirement for participants in most religions to believe in particular unprovable things. Most religions are more about celebration, symbolism, and social cohesion. The Abrahamic religions are unusual in requiring a belief in the unprovable. This view of religion as belief has unfortunately influenced many other religions that have, over time, become more inclined to place more importance on belief.

The negative consequences of belief-based religion are manifest. The requirement to “believe in” unprovable propositions opens the door to interpretations of those propositions, and the concepts of heresy, and blasphemy. These are essentially “thought crimes” historically, and in some countries still, punishable by death. Even where there are no longer official punishments, the questioning of orthodoxy is often met with social sanctions and even physical abuse.

Less extreme, but perhaps more destructive in the long run, is the tendency of those reliant upon revealed belief to ignore evidence-based knowledge. Denial is the most common position of religious and political groups who find some truths inconvenient to their cherished beliefs. Climate change denial, evolution denial, and holocaust denial, are just a few examples. These groups are not skeptics in the sense of being undecided and requiring more evidence. They have a predefined position, and are selective in their acceptance only of evidence that seems to support their beliefs. They create and exploit public confusion, delaying urgent action, or casting doubt and suspicion on the legitimate pursuit of knowledge.

A more insidious consequence of stressing belief in the unprovable, is that it is a short step to enforcing belief in the demonstrably false. Fundamentalist Christian, Muslim, and other religious cults discovered the power of coercive psychological techniques long before they were adopted by communist re-educators, or described in George Orwell’s “1984”. By immersing people in an environment where unquestioning belief and obedience are required, individual conscience and rationality can be suppressed. Cult survivors are often horrified at how easily they were lead into actions and ideas that were totally out of character.

It may be useful here to define the difference between a sect and a cult. A sect is merely a subgroup of a religion that may have unusual ideas, and may have intense hostility toward other sects, but is not necessarily a cult. A cult is a group, religious or otherwise, that uses coercive psychological techniques to control its members’ actions and beliefs.

The signs of cult behaviour in a group usually include; an authoritarian leadership, often with outlandishly grandiose titles, a hierarchical structure where promotion and status are rewards for adherence to the dictates of the leadership, psychological isolation of members from the wider world, often reinforced with physical isolation and a degree of paranoia, the insistence that members are special or better than the outside community, and particularly the enforcement of belief in unprovable dogmas involving punishments for doubt or questioning.

The key to getting a cult to work is the control of belief. This is most easily achieved if it is done in stages. Once the members have modified their beliefs sufficiently far from reality, they lose their ability to discern the difference between truth and fiction, or between what they would previously have seen intuitively as right or wrong. The process can produce profound changes in an individual’s behaviour, and lasting psychological damage.

By overstating the importance of “believing in” things, Western culture has really set itself up for the proliferation of cults. In the Islamic world religious cults are less tolerated, but belief can still be politicised and turned toward extremism.

The only antidote to our susceptibility to cults, is to stop defining religion as “believing in..”. Define it as a practice, a philosophy of life, a way of communing with the Universe, a tradition. Once we are free from the tyranny of “believing in”, we are able to accept evidence-based knowledge, or reject misinformation, without fear or guilt.

The problem of belief seems to have polarised society, with rationalist atheists on one side, and superstitious religionists on the other. In reality, there is a silent majority of rational and quietly religious folk, as there always has been. Many of the divisions and problems of religion and society would vanish if we just stopped “believing in …”.

Superstition VS Tradition

June 25, 2010April 9, 2010 by Sweyn

In previous articles, I have described the contribution of Germanic Heathen tradition to modern ideas of individual rights, reasonableness, and even evidence-based knowledge that really gave us the tools with which we can discover and describe the physical world.

One of the most ancient surviving Heathen institutions is the English Common Law, which provided a fair and reasonable approach to determining truth. The lawyer Sir Francis Bacon thought about applying the idea of cross examination to nature, and delineated the basic process of scientific investigation. Combining Bacon’s method with another English principle, Occam’s razor, the Royal Society tightened the standards of evidence and proof, resulting in British Empiricism which gave us the strict processes that enable us to conduct modern science.

Thus, as I have explained elsewhere, the modern world owes much to the survival of some ancient Heathen principles, and can be seen as a natural evolution of Heathen culture.

From this perspective, I have to look back to other aspects of our culture and ask once again, how do we reconcile the spiritual aspects of our heritage with the intellectual and material culture we have today? To answer this, it helps to first look at where other popular religions have gone wrong, and why they have been rapidly losing credibility.

The Church had put humans at the centre of the Universe, both figuratively and literally. When Copernicus discovered that the Earth was merely one of many planets orbiting the Sun, he was denounced as a heretic, and his book banned. When Galileo confirmed the discovery, he was placed under house arrest, and threatened with torture. Over the next century, the facts had been so well verified by astronomers, that the position of the Church had become laughable. In trying to maintain its authority over something completely outside of its expertise, it had made itself an anachronism and lost credibility among many educated people.

Likewise, when Darwin discovered and described the evidence for evolution, and put forward his famous tree of life, religious groups reacted with outrage. Like Copernicus, Darwin had removed humans from the centre of life, and shown them to be one of many branches on a tree in which all creatures had common ancestors. Although the Catholic Church has recently accepted Darwin, learning from their mistake with Copernicus, many other religious groups are still unable to come to terms with it.

Perhaps the most obviously ridiculous religious position, short of the Flat-Earth Society, is Young Earth Creationism, which proposes that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

What we see here is a repeating pattern of religion attempting to simply decree the facts about the physical world, in order to make them fit their mythology in a literal way. However, the physical world does not bend to the decrees of Popes or Gurus. Any religion making such claims will lose out to science, and damage its own credibility. Claims about the physical world that contradict, or are unsupported by, the observable facts are rightly called “superstition”.

The faith-based religions maintain their ability to prevent their followers from discovering the truth by early indoctrination, social penalties for those who question, and a regime of fear-inducing tales of supernatural punishments for those with insufficient faith (blind belief) in their dogmas.

The only way to avoid entangling religion and tradition with superstition, is to keep a clear demarcation, and avoid confusing the spiritual and physical worlds.

Unfortunately, humans are rather prone to superstitious thinking. We have a natural inclination to see patterns. If condition ‘A’ is often followed by condition ‘B’, we tend to assume a causal connection. Nine times out of ten, we will be correct, even if our explanation of the link is wrong. This has survival value, as it allows us to make predictions. The problem is that for common conditions, A will often be followed by B purely by chance. This becomes anecdotal evidence, which is then confirmed and perhaps given a fallacious but plausible explanation by a perceived authority (a priest or village witchdoctor). Even when the link has been shown to be bogus, the superstition can persist among otherwise educated people for a considerable period.

A good example of this is the recent anti-vaccination campaign. A large number of children are vaccinated, a large number also become autistic. Anecdotal evidence provided an abundance of examples of vaccinated children becoming autistic. Authority was provided by a researcher who prematurely published a paper on a possible link. People were rightly concerned, and stopped vaccinating. This gave the existing small anti-vaccination movement an enormous boost. In the meanwhile, it was obviously a priority for researchers around the World to test for the existence of the causal link. Many studies were done, and failed to find any evidence that vaccinated children were more likely to become autistic than the unvaccinated ones. Neither was any plausible explanation found for the claimed link. The original research paper has since been thoroughly exposed as flawed, manipulated, and agenda ridden. Yet the myth continues as hearsay or superstition, and is manipulated and politicised by interest groups.

This kind of causation fallacy is not obvious to the general public, but can be illustrated by an example: The anecdotal evidence is that most adults drive cars, most adults eventually have to go to the dentist. I could observe that every adult I know who has needed dental work, has first been a driver. All I need now is an authority figure to publish that vibrations from the wheel, up the arms, and into the jaw, will cause drivers to have dental problems. In the time it takes for reputable researchers to debunk the myth, there will already be a significant number of believers. The superstition is likely to persist for some time as it is spread by word of mouth, aided by the fact that everyone can think of examples that seem to confirm it.

Of course, it is not only fringe interest groups that manipulate and politicise information, or misinformation. Governments, churches, and corporations are notorious for covering up real indications of adverse effects, the tobacco industry being the most infamous. However, the good thing about science is that nothing is settled until many independent groups have tested the claims in question. The truth will always come out in the end, and bogus claims, or cover-ups, will eventually be exposed. Unfortunately, good science takes time, and many people are impatient and will just go with the popular trends, or the urban myths.

If we are to build a sustainable and credible tradition-based culture, we must become more science literate, not less. We must resist the temptation to take the easy way out, and mire ourselves in convenient falsehoods. Mythology provides a powerful symbolic resource for self knowledge and empowerment, not a means of escape from the real world.

Different Heathen groups have dealt with the problem of reality in various ways. The weakest and least credible approach has involved a kind of denial of reality. Aspects of the now discredited philosophy of post-modernism have been used to virtually dismiss reality from the equation by a kind of cop-out, claiming that reality is a social construction. Being able to sidestep the inconvenience of reality, these groups are then free to create their own. For xenophobes, it also justifies a reluctance to understand other cultures, as they can be dismissed as living in different “realities”.

Other groups have recognised the credibility and persuasive power of science, and resolved to invent their own pseudo-science. They put together scientific-sounding justifications for their positions, borrowing from the credibility of science, without the inconvenience of any actual research or evidence. McNallen’s racist “Metagenetics” is one that comes to mind, although New-Ageism abounds with other examples of pseudo-scientific fraud and charlatanry.

Neither do we need to deny the mystery and esoteric side of our traditions. We have perfectly good words to describe this side, Wyrd for one. We do not need to explain it away with peudo-science as Metagenetics tries to do, nor justify our Heathenness with voodoo linguistics and quasi-racist psychology as post-modernists like Thorsson are doing.

It is frankly embarrassing that some may associate Heathenism with these sorts of intellectual laziness and deception. If we are to avoid being duped by the snake-oil peddlers, or worse joining them, we must make the small effort necessary to attain a basic level of scientific literacy. At the very least, we need to avoid the anti-science agendas common in the New-Age movement. We also need to understand were these anti-science attitudes came from.

The first wave of anti-science was instigated by the churches during the 1600s & 1700s as they felt their authority over truth being challenged. Some religious groups still carry on this fight. The second wave was a romantic upsurge during the 1800s as a reaction to the perceived loss of mystery involved in discovering the real universe. The third wave is the reaction to the corporate greed and environmental damage that really started to become widely talked about in the late 1960s.

One of the major causes of the last reaction was the blatant hijacking of the notion of “progress” by unscrupulous developers. “Progress” had previously been the term used to describe a continual acquisition of knowledge and technical capabilities that are put to use for the benefit of humanity. Having too often been used by corporations and governments to justify large environmentally and socially destructive projects, by the mid 1970s, the word could not be pronounced without a note of cynicism. Different groups dealt with “progress” in various ways.

Again, post-modernists have the weakest and somewhat defeatist argument, that there is no such thing as progress. Things just change and go around in cycles. By any number of measures, this is demonstrably false. Even during the so-called Dark Ages, our ancestors were continually finding ways to improve their lives. It is human nature to accumulate knowledge and improvements in the way we do things. It is simply obtuse to deny the fact that over time, civilisation advances in numerous ways.

New-Agers and traditionalists, on the other hand, do recognise that progress happens, but many see progress itself as the problem. They would prefer to stop the clock, or wind it back. They long for a romantic vision of a simpler age. Many can not see a way to reconcile their dream with the advancing technology around them. They equate technological progress with the environmental destruction, and social disconnection that are real problems in the World.

As I have argued previously, science and knowledge are powerful but neutral, with the potential to harm or help. Blaming them for our problems is not helpful, or even rational. More than ever, we need them to help solve our problems. Sustainable energy and food production, and solving other of the World’s most pressing problems, will be impossible without highly technical research and solutions.

The answer is to recognise the different functions of the physical and spiritual realms. Just as religion can not inform us about the physical world, technology can not make us happier or more fulfilled in our lives. However, science does not make us less happy either. That is our own personal challenge.

For those of us interested in our cultural heritage, and keeping traditions alive, we must make our application of those traditions relevant and useful. If we withdraw into pseudo-science or superstition, we will fail to create a sustainable legacy. If parts of the tradition are shown to be at odds with reality, the whole tradition loses credibility. Like all superstitions, it will eventually die out, but in the meanwhile, false information leads to bad decisions. Superstition is disempowering, while tradition is a source of strength.

The Prime Directive: The Fallacy of Cultural Purity

June 25, 2010January 17, 2010 by Sweyn

Up until the mid 20^th Century, Christian missionaries felt it their duty to seek out isolated indigenous cultures, and effectively stamp them out. The missionaries often saw any customs and traditions, even language and modes of dress, as links to their old (necessarily evil) religions. Some governments also formulated policies to eradicate the language and traditions of indigenous peoples in order to expedite their assimilation into the dominant society.

By the 1970s anthropologists were alarmed at the rate of acculturation of tribal people in the Amazon and other remote areas of the World, and raised a new awareness of the importance of preserving and studying these cultures. By the 80s, some anthropologists were agonising over the fact that even the act of visiting an isolated society for study, would introduce unforseen changes in the very thing they were trying to preserve.

It was in this climate that the stories for Star Trek’s “Next Generation” were written. Many of these stories hinged around moral conflicts arising from the Prime Directive. This directive was their all important principle of non interference with less developed civilisations. In some episodes, anthropologists have to study their subjects from a hidden location. It is considered harmful for these societies to even learn of the existence of more advanced civilisations. This directive reflects the feelings of many in reaction to the previous injustices; that we need to hermetically seal isolated societies to save them from contamination from the modern world.

However, if we really take a good look at both of these extreme positions, the first assumes that the indigenous people have an inherently inferior culture, and are incapable of harmonising with their more numerous neighbours. The second assumes that the people are not even capable of dealing with the truth of their situation in the World. Both positions are patronising in the extreme. Neither of these positions give indigenous people any say in how they might prefer to deal with their futures.

Is there a middle way? If we discover a tribe that has never had outside contact, do we let the missionaries destroy their way of life, or do we quietly build a wall around them, so they will never know we exist? In reality, they can not remain unaffected by the outside World forever. Eventually, they will be forced to deal with the World. We have seen from historical experience, that culture shock nearly always leaves indigenous people vulnerable to the depredations of religious, political, or commercial exploiters. The only reasonable solution is to carefully prepare and inoculate the culture against the worst effects of outside contact.

The suffering and losses of indigenous culture have not been due to their inferiority or stupidity. They were merely caught unprepared, and at a huge disadvantage. If they had been forewarned and prepared, they would have been able to retain more of their original cultural heritage. Many governments are starting to see the value of this middle way, and now encourage their indigenous people to preserve their language and traditions while adapting to the wider society and its laws. Many indigenous groups are now turning back to their traditions for inspiration, and identity.

This adaptation does require change. Not all traditions should be preserved. A century ago, head hunting was common in remote regions around the World. Obviously, keeping some traditions would cause more harm to a culture as a whole, as outside contact increases.

In Star Trek’s early references to the Prime Directive, it was expressed merely as non-interference in the internal politics of other cultures. Later, it was expanded to express non-contamination of less developed cultures. This probably reflects the influence of some “postmodernist” thinkers of the time, whose version of “multiculturalism” saw a need to preserve cultural differences, even if it meant encouraging a kind of voluntary apartheid.

In the real world, cultures have always been changing. Complete isolation is a rare and temporary condition. Cultures change from within, as traditions are handed down and re-interpreted. Elements are constantly borrowed from neighbouring cultures and languages. There is no such thing as cultural purity, and therefore complete preservation is illusory.

Hopefully, most of us will have an interest in preserving, and even reviving parts of our own ancestral heritage. If we are to maintain these traditions, we must do so consciously. In the modern World, we have access to so much information, that we are free to choose what works for us. Many will don the trappings of various cultures as little more than fashion accessories. Others will be more deliberate and research their choices. In their search for connection, many modern individuals are emulating tribal customs, such as tattooing and piercing.

In former times, culture was absorbed unconsciously, enforced by the norms of society. Now, we have more freedom, but also more responsibility. However we decide to construct our own cultural background, we must do it in the context of the wider society in which we live, while still being respectful and knowledgeable about the cultures we draw from. To do less will merely result in an anachronism or eccentricity that will not really benefit anyone, and even trivialise or dilute the deep symbolism involved. If researched and applied successfully, it will be a source of pride and empowerment for ones self, and a benefit to the wider community.

Sweyn

Heathenry and Modernity: Some informal thoughts from a Heathen Technocrat

June 25, 2010September 2, 2008 by Sweyn

One of the most exciting parts of running Elhaz Ablaze for me has been curating our Guest Journal section. Sweyn originally wrote this essay in a Loki-like spirit for a very conservative (retro-)heathen journal which collapsed, as I understand it because of internal politicking, before it was able to publish his paper.

As such it was a surprise when he offered it to us here at Elhaz Ablaze but I knew immediately that we had to publish it.

I won’t say too much more by way of introduction – except perhaps that I hope to see a few sparks fly as a result of this little essay.

-Henry

Heathenry & Modernity: Some informal thoughts from a Heathen Technocrat

Sweyn Plowright

There has been much discussion in recent years of the negative aspects of the modern world. The very word “modernity” has acquired an almost derogatory connotation in some quarters. But what do we mean by “modern”? There are many variations, but essentially we understand it to mean the cultural current revolving around the technological progress following the “Age of Reason” or “the Enlightenment”, usually described as beginning roughly around three centuries ago.

There are also many variations in the way we define “Germanic Heathenism”, but we can broadly agree that it involves seeking spiritual fulfilment in the traditions and literature of our Germanic ancestors. The question now is whether these two forces are compatible. At the risk of sounding heretical to some, I would argue that they are not only compatible, but that modernity is in fact the most successful lineage of our ancestral culture.

Certainly, there are many things we can criticize in the modern world, but by rejecting it wholesale, we not only risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we also neglect our opportunity and responsibility to influence this world. We need to separate the positive key features of the Enlightenment plan from the commercialism, greed, and acculturation that has become a common, but not a necessary, concomitant of modern life.

The important elemental seeds of modernity can be found in the migration of Angles and Saxons to Britain. They brought with them their Heathen Common Law. This treasure of Germanic culture encapsulated the Heathen respect for custom, fairness, and the rights of individuals. Common Law was based on precedent, the accumulated wisdom of previous rulings, which could take local custom into account, while allowing judgements to evolve over time as customs and values changed.

If we look at Roman Civil Law, its focus is on protecting the State and the privileges of its citizens. It is set by legislation, and is relatively rigid. Any examples of fairness were really expedience aimed at keeping order. Citizenship was only granted to those who might be useful to the State, and this gave privileges, not rights. Many non-English speaking countries have legal systems modelled along these lines.

In much of Middle-Eastern history, laws were mostly based on religious strictures and superstitions. Harsh penalties were often inflicted for apparently victimless crimes, particularly for blasphemy. These laws were aimed at enforcing religious authority, and survive today in the Muslim Sharia law. A State practicing such laws will necessarily disadvantage individuals who do not practice the State religion.

By contrast, Germanic law had more focus on victim impact and compensation, redressing the balance or wyrd. English law even developed safeguards to protect individuals from the law, in the form of due process and the presumption of innocence. With the onus on the prosecution to prove guilt, there was a focus on evidence-based inquiry.

It is no accident that the person often considered the founding figure of modernity was an English lawyer. Around 1600ce Sir Francis Bacon was considering the question of the laws of nature. Academics had always approached this from a philosophical perspective. They thought that they could deduce the laws of nature by philosophical ruminations alone. Bacon could see the futility of this approach.

Bacon was also aware of the work of alchemists. They were trying another method to discover the workings of nature. However their experiments were fairly random, with no plan or framework to form and test ideas, they tended to collect unrelated facts by chance, without really understanding what they saw. They were another reason that academics rejected, and looked down upon, the idea of experimentation.

Armed with the pragmatic common sense and experience of the Common Law, Bacon realized that only by combining reason and experiment could the secrets of nature be discovered. He likened the investigation to the questioning of a witness in court. The questions could be framed in terms of experiments, and reason is employed to lead to further questions, to create a consistent and more complete picture. He saw this as the most effective way to free people from being completely at the mercy of nature. Ignorance was the cause of most suffering, and as he put it “knowledge is power”. He was specifically talking about the power to use the knowledge of the laws of nature to improve our situation. This was the beginning of the systematic development of technology based on directed research.

The word “law” comes from the same Germanic root as “to lay”, something that is laid down, or layered. There was a concept of a primal or fundamental layer “orlog”, which consists of those laws that, by definition, can not be broken. Some may think of this as a mystical concept. However, there was no such division between the physical and the mystical for our ancestors, even including Bacon. That artificial divide was a product of Judeo-Christian Gnosticism, which saw the physical world as unclean. Bacon saw natural law as an expression of the divine, much as most Heathens do. He is sometimes portrayed as advocating domination over nature, but if you read his works more fully, this is manifestly untrue. He clearly proposes that understanding, and working with, the laws of nature will allow us to live more comfortably and capably in this world.

If our ancestors lived a relatively tough life, it was not because they did not value material culture and its advantages. They were obviously proud of the skill of their smiths and shipbuilders. They made the effort to create fine homes and clothing if they could afford it, and traded or raided to create the wealth to do so. We can see this also in their description of the Native Americans as pitifully poor, because they did not possess steel weapons, or wear cloth. Germanic people generally have always been early adopters of technology, and their transition to creators of technology was very natural.

Another aspect of the Common Law and its culture was its sense of fairness and tendency to value the individual. This was kept alive in the stereotypical English expression “it’s just not cricket” if someone takes unfair advantage. We know that an almost fanatical love of fairness is an ancient part of the culture. At the battle of Maldon, the English Earl would not slaughter the Viking army as it crossed a ford. Instead, he waited until they were in a fair position on the field, even though he knew that the odds were against him. He died with all of his men, but became a shining example of English fair play in the epic poem. The idea has not diminished over the centuries. In a recent poll to determine the elements that define the Australian culture, the most popular item by far was the expression “a fair go”.

This concept of fairness is the true origin of the idea of individual rights, and the Western democratic idea of freedom. Because these are so deeply rooted in our culture, we tend to take them as self-evident and universal values, but some non-Western countries have argued that human rights are not self-evident, and that they are an example of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism. This argument is particularly heard from those countries under scrutiny for their mistreatment of ethnic minorities, or other groups with views different from those of the political authorities.

It seems that the Heathen notions of freedom extended to religion. Heathens did not recruit members, and they do not seem to have disadvantaged those of other beliefs. When Christianity came along, Heathens lived quite comfortably along side Christian neighbours, and even spouses. It was not until the Church gained the support of the ruling powers, and revealed their fundamental intolerance for other faiths, that Heathen resistance was aroused (alas too late).

Christianity suppressed alternative ideas wherever it could. It was not until the emergence of English Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, and his greatest Continental fan, Voltaire, that it was possible to argue that persons should only be prosecuted for their actions, not for their beliefs. These concepts of religious tolerance were held in high value by the creators of the American Constitution. The independence of the State from religious interference required the institution of secular government. It is this that gives Heathens the legal right to practice without persecution or disadvantage.

Thomas Jefferson saw the importance of this separation of Church and State, including the role of English Common Law as one of the few surviving ancient systems independent of Christianity. When Christians tried to claim a moral victory by stating that the legal system was based on Christian rules, he refuted this by pointing out its Heathen origins.

“ For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, …. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.” Jefferson, 1814.

In many ways, the values developed by the Enlightenment thinkers can be seen as a real renaissance of the Heathen Germanic culture of freedom, law, pragmatic reasonableness, and individual rights. The success of this culture is obvious in the way it has become that basis of the values of the free world. The English language spread along with it, and has become the language of international trade, science, and politics to a large degree.

So, while it is worthwhile connecting with nature and our ancestors, camping out and dressing in Viking gear at feasts, it is not necessary or productive to make that the major focus of one’s life. In the larger modern world, a world of our own making, we need to be participants. We need to be there to safeguard and carry forward the legacy and values of our Heathen ancestors as they have come down to us in the form of modern democratic freedoms. Something our ancestors were always prepared to fight for.

Having served in the military as a Combat Engineer in counter terrorist roles, having worked in various civilian security positions, and for the last couple of decades as a network engineer in large corporate and government IT environments, working in network security and network forensics, I have come to appreciate that there are many who seek to undermine our way of life, the Enemies of Freedom are not just a paranoid bogeyman invented by the Government to keep us in line.

We all know that governments have their own agendas, but they have a primary duty to protect their citizens. If the very measures they take to combat this threat should lead to a restriction of our liberties, it is up to us to us all to make such measures less necessary. Our own complacency and lack of involvement gives governments little choice. Do we accept the inconvenience of increased surveillance, or the inconvenience of occasional bombings in our cities, and in what balance?

Education is the key, both at home and abroad. Ignorance and complacency makes our citizens look frivolous and decadent. Our relatively easy lifestyle is envied by less fortunate people, and so becomes a threat to dictatorships and religious regimes, whose people may be tempted by ideas of democracy. We are painted as evil seducers, and the people are not educated enough to question that. This, in large part, motivates the hatred behind attacks by extremists.

Governments and corporations have much to answer for in the spread of mistrust and ignorance amongst their citizens. The UK played down the BSE threat. China did the same with SARS. The US & Australia until recently have largely ignored the evidence for global warming. The tobacco industry covered up the glaring evidence of a lung cancer link for years. This not only shakes public confidence in any kind of “authority”, a far more serious consequence is that it creates distrust and misunderstanding about evidence based knowledge itself. This encourages scientific illiteracy, and leaves people vulnerable to the various cults of unreason, pseudo-science, New-Age-ism, and fundamentalism.

It is a damning indictment that in the most powerful nation of the free world, nearly half the population does not accept the idea of evolution. After a century and a half of intense debate and observation, evolution much as Darwin described it, is perhaps the most solid, tried, tested, and easily understood process we can witness in nature. Yet ironically, most of these Christian Creationists are quick to label Muslim fundamentalists as backward for their unenlightened views.

The rise of these and other forms of irrationalism pose a real threat, not only to our Enlightenment heritage, but ultimately to our freedom to practice the older parts of our heritage. The plain fact is that we can not separate our Heathen heritage from its Enlightenment descendant. Our Enlightenment heritage is our connection with our ancestral culture, and the frame of modernity in which most of us must practice our Heathenry.

There is a line of thought that we must somehow erase the experience of the last few centuries, and regress to an idealized vision of tribal society. That we may somehow shut out the real world and form “Asatru Amish” type communities. As nice as it may be for the privileged few to use log fires for heating and cooking, this would not be ecologically responsible or sustainable on a larger scale, adding to deforestation and pollution. But apart from the practicalities, such isolationism is more likely to lead to an out-of-touch and cultish form of Asatru, against which our next generation is bound to rebel. This may be the right path for a minority of Heathens, but it is not one that is likely to be productive for most.

In reality, we can never escape the influence of the wider world. We just have to adapt to it, do our bit to change its less wholesome aspects, and lead by example in keeping to our own standards and traditions. The Enlightenment framework is one that can accommodate most cultures. Only those that actively discourage democratic freedoms will have trouble adapting. In this respect, there is no reason that we can not continue to value cultural diversity and tradition, within the overarching framework of modern democracy, our own Enlightenment heritage. This is particularly true for Heathens, who share the same Germanic cultural roots as the Enlightenment.

Having a science background, and working in a high tech industry, I used to have some trouble reconciling this life with that of the heroic ancestors I admire. However, in their pioneering spirit, and forward looking enthusiasm, I can now see a deeper resonance. In the founding of England, Iceland, and America, we can see distinct parallels in the aspirations of exploration, freedom, fairness, and a better future. While I treasure my own mail coat and axe as fully functional reminders of my ancestors, I am happy to offer my inherited attributes of tactical cunning, and implacable ruthless determination, using modern weapons to help neutralize the threats to the freedom of my descendants.

Most of us have used the Internet to make Heathen ideas more widely available. Few of us have ridden a horse to gatherings. Technology and secular government have allowed Germanic Heathenry to flourish, and we have our Enlightenment ancestors to thank.

In the end, there are many ways we can be true to our Heathen heritage, but for those of us like me, who happen to be Heathen technocrats, be proud in the knowledge that you are fulfilling an important part of our cultural heritage.

Asatru/Asafalse

June 25, 2010June 11, 2008 by Sweyn

Asatru/Asafalse is a companion piece to Tony Looker’s essay Hammer Forged.

Asatru / Asafalse: Fabricating a Tradition

Sweyn Plowright

My fellow ex-Steward Tony and I finally swapped views on our experiences recently, having both held our silence, even from each other, since departing the RG [Rune Gild]. We were both appointed Regional Stewards of the Gild by Edred around 1990, and both left the Gild after 10 years as regional leaders. Tony was Steward of UK, and I was Steward of the South Pacific Region.

Throughout that decade we communicated on a friendly level. During a few months in London in 1993, I had time to get to know him in person. Then in late 1996, we caught up with each other at Edred’s house in Texas for a few days. During this whole period we never discussed our deep misgivings. Although we left RG under different circumstances, and followed different roads since then, when at last we exchanged views frankly, we found them to be remarkably similar.

Tony had written Hammer Forged a year ago, intending to submit it for publication in an Asatru journal, but thought it best to withdraw it after realising that it would not be well received. He sent me a copy of Hammer Forged after receiving a copy of the Runic Primer. We both felt some relief to know that we were not alone in our conclusions.

At first reading, Tony’s essay may look like an attack on Asatru, but closer inspection reveals a fairly accurate summary of the state of things thus far. His tone is perhaps less optimistic than mine, but this is understandable as I have had the advantage of my positive experiences with Rune-Net, AET, and Northvegr. However, he makes the point that “All those who are genuinely and honestly engaged in this endeavour deserve our wholehearted support and appreciation”. He then goes on to question the health of much of Asatru in its current manifestation.

At the heart of the problem lies the fact that we are building on very tenuous sources. This is not necessarily a problem in itself. I am sure the early revivalists were quite aware of their limitations. However, after three decades, a great deal of questionable dogma has crept in. Worse than this, the leading personalities, having given themselves grand and outlandish titles, have come to believe their own press releases. I suspect that it started to go wrong in the early days of the revival when the focus was on creating a church-like hierarchy. I wrote on one of the early e-lists in 1992 that Heathens never had a church structure and I wondered why they wanted to go that way. Lew Stead replied that he could not see why I would even ask the question, as the whole point was to create a Heathen church.

After many alternative hierarchies, splits, alliances, and ideological battles, we are gradually moving toward a more satisfying tribalist model. This gives me cause for optimism, as we can now see a way to settle into a more natural network of groups, each with its own subculture inspired by the ancestral traditions. We need not descend into New Age eclecticism to achieve this, but we must be honest with ourselves. There are no real authorities, despite the self-proclaimed prophets still desperate for followers. As Tony points out, we must accept that much of Asatru as it stands is not verifiable as ancient, it can only ever be at best an educated and inspired interpretation of the limited sources.

In the early 1980s, I was roundly attacked by Wiccans for questioning their claims of being an old religion, let alone “THE Old Religion”. In the 1990s very few Wiccans were still pushing that myth. Unlike the Wiccans, we can argue that our chimera is at least cobbled together from a reasonably consistent cultural source, and that of our own ancestors. But, Asatru has not yet undergone the reality check served to the Wiccans in the 80s. Perhaps it is time to admit that there is more scope for variety in the Northern Traditions than the pedants would have us believe.

Another problem has been the influence of armchair philosophers and ideologues. Philosophy is perhaps good exercise for the mind, and formal logic is a useful skill, but it has been of precious little practical value to Asatru thus far. Too often philosophy has served to replace action rather than to inform it. Too often it has been little more than a tool to persuade the more gullible into rather distorted views of the world. This pseudo-intellectualism is another trend we must be wary of. It is doubtful that our ancestors would have been impressed with the bombastic conceits of the ideologues.

The issue of personality cults is undoubtedly that which both Tony and I find the most disturbing, having both had some experience with such. Some leaders give themselves outrageously grandiose titles and gather a group of followers around them. There is always an element of paranoia involved: “us against the world”, “they will not understand us”, etc. They set themselves up as prophets of a divine revelation of the elder gods, and demand complete authority. Any who question this insanity are themselves accused of having an unsound view of reality. Often the politics of personality are mixed with other unhealthy political agendas. Such groups, with their potential for extremism, are the greatest threat to the relationship of Asatru to the wider community.

No doubt some of those who read these essays will be outraged that we seem to cast doubt upon cherished notions. But if we want to claim superiority to the fantasy New Age “traditions”, we really need to take notice of how much fabricating is going on in our own camp. The problem is not that there is innovation, but that inventions are pushed by their authors as “authentic”, and often with their own agendas in mind. We need only take a look at the rubbish ranging from New Age escapism to Neo-Satanic mumbo-jumbo being peddled as “runic knowledge” today. I agree with Tony that we will never have a genuine reconstruction, too much has been lost. But we can have an authentic revival, provided we are honest, and apply the ancestral imagery to our modern lives. The only authentic tradition is a living one.

Some personalities will have more influence than others, but this should not be taken as authority. Perhaps it is time to break away from the self appointed gurus, and their narrow doctrinaire approaches. The traditions will evolve and adapt, or they will die out and return to the history books, but the ancestral symbolism will remain in the psyche to manifest naturally within our culture. Asatru has been through the construction phase. There is plenty of material to work from. Now we need to move forward and make it real, as individuals, as groups, and as a cultural movement. We can not live in the past, as such escapism will relegate us to a fringe curiosity. We need to honour the ancestors from where we stand now.