By Heimlich A. Laguz

Review: Days in Midgard: A Thousand Years On (Steven T. Abell)

Days in Midgard: A Thousand Years On by Steven T. Abell
2008, Outskirts Press
268 pages

Open The Poetic Edda at a random page – particularly Lee Hollander’s canonical and nigh-unreadable translation – and you might find Norse mythology to be altogether too bizarre and cryptic to connect with. Such a reaction would be very understandable – Icelandic poetry is insanely complex and the stories seem to have been composed for an audience that already knew the background to the situations and characters. How, then, can we moderns find our way in? How can we translate the connection in our hearts into a form that permits speech and words?

As if attempting to solve this conundrum, some authors have attempted to retell the myths in a more modern vernacular. This has produced mixed results – some of these attempts are very successful, but even the best of these is vulnerable to well-intended but disappointing simplifications and distortions. Blunders such as painting Loki as one-dimensionally “evil” or Freya as a simplistic love goddess really fail to do this complex and subtle mythology the credit it deserves.

Thankfully Steven T. Abell has found a nigh-on perfect solution, and he presents this solution with wit, wisdom, and a knowing wink in the form of Days in Midgard: A Thousand Years On.

This book is an anthology of short stories which Abell originally composed for oral performance (and it would be quite a treat to see him perform I suspect). The stories are mostly set in modern times, or at least fairly recent times. They’re stories of human beings living all sorts of different lives, and Abell is brilliant at conjuring their different universes like a chameleonic insider.

The fulcrum of each of these stories is that somehow the protagonist of each tale needs something to shift or to change in their lives. And that, obviously or not, is where the mythological figures – gods and goddesses – get involved: guiding, provoking, tricking, healing, challenging, and just being themselves.

The image of Thor and Loki walking into a diner (that gets held up by a robber with darkly comedic consequences); or Frigga hanging out at a beach-side resort; or Tyr as a biker who guides folk onto the way they need to go – well, this is potent stuff. Abell taps right into the beating pulse of Norse mythology and lets the red life of it gush out into a form with which almost anyone could relate.

Of course, the human protagonists have no idea that they are dealing with forces divine, and this adds to the subtle hilarity of the pieces. This is exactly how it is when gods walk the world, and Abell throws us right into the deepest heart of what Heathenism is at its best: a sacred bewilderment, a source of hope, a profound love of life, even in its miseries.

There’s a deeper point that Abell makes with this book, perhaps not entirely explicitly: that form and essence are not identical. This book, though it ceaselessly echoes and references the forms of Germanic mythology, nevertheless strikes out in all manner of creative and original directions. And yet, by expressing the ancient creative spark – rather than, idiot-savant style, attempting to create a brittle simulacrum of old traditions – Abell demonstrates that authenticity is just as much about intention and innovation as it is attention to tradition.

Because truly I believe that the experience of these stories in the present is the closest thing we can have to what the original stories must have been like for the original Heathens. I occasionally talk about something called psychological reconstructionism – the idea that evoking the spirit of the ancient ways sometimes brings them into manifestation more powerfully than if we merely copy them slavishly. This book is potent evidence for the value of this idea.

The book is not only written for Heathens, and though it might seem cryptic and maddening at times to those not familiar with the mythological references, I suspect these quirky tales might also seduce the Heathen tendencies to the surface of many a reader or listener. Instead of the idiotic chest-beating that some Heathen authors adopt when trying to spread the word, this book entices and intrigues and delights. Such an approach is much sexier, in my opinion.

And there is something truly, truly sacred about reading stories of the gods and goddesses presented in this fashion. Abell deeply grasps the power and vulnerability of Tyr; deeply grasps the complex machinations of Odin’s mind; deeply grasps the many-shaded richness of Loki’s character (which is very welcome, given how confused so many people, even Heathens, are about this profoundly beautiful, profoundly flawed being).

Interspersed with the main stories are a string of short vignettes evoking scenes from the Icelandic landscape, always with a historical or mythological angle. This is a clever stratagem, because it situates the stories in strong supportive context, particularly for readers who are not familiar with Germanic Heathen traditions and myths. These intermissions help the reader to connect to their own sense of curiosity and wonder, and this serves to heighten the sometimes bewildering magic of the narratives on offer.

I think it is really telling that the gods in these stories appear as agents provocateurs in the cause of needed change. In Abell’s vision they help us heal, let go, ripen, explore, and find our courage in the face of adversity. There is a powerful object lesson here about polytheism: these beings after which we are made deeply understand the fragility and beauty of our mortal predicament, and in their generosity are moved to act for our benefit (though some of the characters in these stories experience this generosity as hardship, being forced as they are to answer for the ill or cowardly decisions they have made).

Steven T. Abell truly is a skald, a word-magician, a galdor-master. He imbues these tales with a light-hearted gravity, weaves narratives that are exquisitely captivating. I really hope that this book penetrates deeply into modern Heathen consciousness – it has the power to help us all transform for the better. For life and myth are not separate, hermetically sealed realms, the one dismal and the other shining. The two are deeply entwined, the necessary condition for one another’s sacredness. And in this book we find a beautiful, marvellous, magical invitation to roam the mysterious road that the old stories of northern Europe shelter so impeccably. Here and now the gods are vital and active and alive…and always with us, their mortal travelling companions.

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Review: Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered (Peter S. Wells)

Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter S. Wells
2008, W. W. Norton & Company
204 pages

I’ve always pined for the Dark Ages of Northern Europe, and never been able to justify it – let’s face it, the “barbarian” tribes have been brought into thorough disrepute by the dour Roman commentators of the late Empire. What a pleasure, then, to discover a book that dismantles those jaded opinions with wit and clarity.

Peter Wells is a prominent archaeologist, and in this book he presents – in a fascinating and very readable way – an argument that the Dark Age German and Celtic groups were actually cosmopolitan, creative, innovative, and worldly. The basis of his argument: rather than relying on Roman opinion he relies on the actual archaeological evidence left behind by the supposed barbarians.

The archaeological evidence – settlement ruins, burial finds, sacrificial finds, and so forth, reveals peoples who were anything but backward. They created exquisite new art forms, opened up expansive trade networks (strongly disconfirming the notion that the old Heathens were somehow hermetically sealed from other cultures), and lived largely peaceful lives despite living in a time of great (but, argues Wells, much more gradual than previously understood) change.

Wells’ writing is crisp and bracing and his obvious enthusiasm for the minutiae of archaeological finds is infectious. This book is a powerful antithesis to the dry excesses of so many history texts.

Wells also puts some big dents in the myth that premodern Europeans had terrible nutrition and dental health. Actual examination of the bodies from this period show that they were mostly well fed and had good teeth – one more example of the ways in which the triumphalism of modern medical and dental science is often so much self-justificatory grandstanding.

Indeed, the only real flaw in this book is that Wells seems to gently argue that the Dark Ages peoples should be celebrated as a stepping stone to Charlemagne and modernity – as opposed to simple appreciating their achievements on their own terms.

He also fails to reflect on the extent of the violence and cruelty that Charlemagne utilised to consolidate his Christian powerbase – Wells is right to point out that the conversion was less sudden and simple than some folk would like to think, but I think he leans too far the other way in the process. On the other hand, he does make the important point that many pagan traditions lived on quite happily after the conversion.

On the whole, and despite my ultimately very minimal criticisms, it is deeply refreshing to read such a thorough, detailed, and thoughtful book about European history. Wells grasps both the importance of details and the importance of the big picture, and on the whole this book is a must-read for anyone who has an interest in Northern European history.

There are many brilliant quotes throughout the book but I think I might end on this very thought provoking question that Wells poses on page 201:

“[W]hich people drive change? Is change brought about largely through the actions of leaders, or by the majority of people? To read traditional text-based history of the first millennium, we could think that the persons named in the texts were the decisive factors – emperors such as Constantine and Julian, Germanic leaders such as Alaric and Clovis, other barbarian rulers such as Attila. These individuals and their actions were the subjects of the writers’ attention; hence they form the focus of the textual accounts. But battles were won by armies, not by generals. Surplus production by farms in villages all over Europe enables the thriving trade in amber and glass beads, grindstones, fine pottery and glassware, and other desirable goods. Growth in manufacturing at centres such has Helgö and Southampton, and at inland settlements such as Mayen, fuelled the desire for manufactured goods and trade items throughout Europe. Expansion of specialised industries, such as that in pottery in the middle Rhineland, had no obvious elite component as a driving force. So which group played the greater role in causing the changes during these centuries – the elites or the majority of the people?”

You’ll have to buy the book if you hope to be able to venture an informed answer to this question…

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Take the Elhaz Ablaze 30 Day No Sugar Challenge!

I’ve been reading a book called Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter Wells, and it is brilliant (I’ll review it when I’m done). He reports some fascinating information about the health of ancient Londoners (gleaned from extensive examination of their bodies):

“The bones indicate that overall nutrition was good. Remains of foods recovered through archaeological excavation indicate the extraordinary variety of foods available…Dental health was generally good, corresponding with the good diet and some degree of dental hygiene.”

This point about dental hygiene is notable. We have a modern myth that prior to scientific dentistry human beings – unlike every other species – had terrible teeth. Yet again and again in my reading I seem to find that the evidence  indicates that the only premodern Europeans who had bad teeth were the rich.

Why the rich? Well, take Elizabeth I for example, who reputedly had terrible teeth. England was raking in the cash partly through the sugar trade. The rich therefore had access to vast quantities of the stuff and it ruined their teeth. This is rather analogous to the Roman nobility who got lead poisoning from their water pipes – their privilege ended up working against them.

If we didn’t eat so much sugar in modern times the dental profession would probably shrink dramatically. They’re an inadequate intervention against a problem that is nutritional first, a question of hygiene only second. Weston Price found in his survey of traditional cultures that not only was their teeth excellent but, for example, their jaws even had enough room to comfortably accommodate their wisdom teeth!

The fact that we moderns have to get our wisdom teeth removes reflects the poor quality of our nutrition compared to various supposedly backward peoples, including our own ancestors.

In that vein, Price also found that when isolated traditional cultures started eating modern processed food their good dental health declined dramatically and almost instantly (and in fact their health in general).

All of this just reinforces my argument that being Heathen should probably mean being anti-refined sugar. I mean, everyone should be anti-sugar regardless of their spiritual affiliation really, but for Heathens it seems especially important because of our emphasis on reconstituting the old wisdoms of Europe.

Despite how strongly I feel on this subject, I still find it very hard to overcome my sugar addiction – even knowing how bad the stuff is I still get tempted, for example in situations where I don’t expect to be offered some evil sugar-based substance.

I worked out that I need to have a blanket no-sugar policy established in advance. So a couple of days ago I set myself a dare – for the next 30 days, no refined sugar. I can assuage my addictive voices with the promise that this isn’t a permanent break, just an experiment.

At the end of my 30 days I’ll be able to take stock. Already my allergies are getting less severe (though this is also due to high consumption of Eyebright, Camomile, and Licorice root teas, and rubbing them on my eyes and forehead, which is incredibly effective against even the worst hay fever migraines). I seem to have more energy and be less irritable, too.

It is quite likely that after 30 days I’ll choose to keep going for another 30 days, and keep doing that ad infinitum. Sounds good to me! 25 months ago I quit smoking cigarettes and that was hard – it took years and years of struggle and effort. But now I know I can overcome any addiction, because nicotine is powerfully scored into my personal and family orlogs as a deadly foe. I’m sure many readers could find similar sources of inspiration to fire up the anti-sugar quest.

Here comes the part where I lay down the challenge: join me on the 30 day no-sugar challenge! Think of it as an act of devotion to your body, your life, your spirituality. I’ve already managed to inspire two people to commit to a similar project and I want to spread the no-sugar disease!

It takes a little advance preparation, and you’ll find it necessitates a few big changes, for example only eating very high quality bread (or none at all) – because most white bread is just sugar; and also you might want to cut back on fruit juice (actually, orange juice is much nicer when cut with water anyway – smoother and more refreshing).

Trading white rice for brown is also a part of “no sugar”, because this extremely simple carbohydrate is basically sugar. You’ll never get over your chocolate and candy cravings if a third or a half of every meal is white bread or white rice.

When I first tried to move away from a carbohydrate overloaded diet I couldn’t imagine what I could eat instead. Then I discovered vegetables! The less white bread, white rice, and refined sugar you eat, the more you realise that vegetables actually taste really good.

Also, traditional cookery offers a myriad of creative ways to make them even more mouth-watering than they are in their natural state. My homemade sauerkraut is so good that people ask for second helpings when I serve it to them. Note that I am not advocating an extreme anti-carb diet, just a balanced diet with “real” carbs rather than refined wheat and sugar poison.

If you want to Take the Elhaz Ablaze 30 Day No Sugar Challenge then please, post a little comment to that effect, and let us all know how you are going with it. This has to be one of the most constructive and fun ways to express our Heathenry that I can think of. See you at the other end of the big Three Oh!

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Sugar: The Other White Christ

Warning: any resemblance to anti-Christian sentiment in this is article is purely coincidental.

One of the distinct impacts of Christianity has been the unilateral and wholesale destruction of cultures. Wherever missionaries have gone traditional ways of life, traditional knowledges, cuisines, religions, and material cultures suffer and dissolve. The blinding light of Jesus disintegrates everything before it, like a noxious cosmic bleach.

The Old Norse referred to Jesus as the “White Christ,” and he stood in particular conflict with blustery, red-beared Thor. The Christians of the day presented their religion in terms that would make sense to the Heathens, with the intention that they could then change everything around once they had power.

This still goes on today with Bible revisions and retellings tailored to specific audiences. Such duplicity, such slimy legerdemain, was the antithesis of straight-shooting, honest-to-the-root Thor.

The Heathens didn’t even have a word for themselves, let alone destructive designs. Indeed, new research suggests that even the Viking raids may have been little more than self-defence (of course, the Christian kings also got up to the same sort of behaviour, but to the Christians of the day it seemed that rape and murder was only verboten if you happened to worship more than one god).

There you go though: in place of the rich and subtle constellation of spiritual flavours afforded by decentralised polytheism comes the bland, one-size-fits-all model of Christianity (of course the reality is that there are infinite versions of Christianity, too, but none of them seem willing to acknowledge the extent of their de facto and abstract polytheisms).

In recent times the White Christ has taken on a new form: refined sugar. Refined sugar is the enemy of traditional cuisine and cooking. It is the enemy of healthy eating, the product of a worldview uprooted from the sacred interconnections of all things. This worldview might be nihilistic, but it borrows its contempt for the world from Christianity.

Don’t believe me? Here is an example of a good, respectable Christian opinion on the matter, from Robert Boyle in 1686:

“[love of nature is] a discouraging impediment to the empire of man over the inferior
creatures of God.”

We might as well say “reverence is a discouraging impediment…” or, given I am here writing about sugar, “good taste is a discouraging impediment…”

As I understand it, refined sugar causes massive health problems: obesity, diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, hypoglycaemia, depression and mood swings, and probably cancer. It contains no nutrients of its own, and apparently to process it the body needs to strip mine itself of existing minerals and nutrients. Eating sugar makes you fat and malnourished at the same time.

In my case sugar also exacerbates my allergies terribly, making my body attack itself. I won’t labour that particular analogy to Christianity, it should be perfectly obvious.

You could say that sugar is like monotheism. Instead of the endless subtle tastes and nutriment of polytheism – which has something for everyone, and acknowledges the sacredness of all things – we get the White Christ of the dinner table, White Sugar, which is poisonous, ruins the palate, and reduces human beings to a low ebb.

Trying to get White Sugar out of one’s life is not easy. Almost all processed, mass market foods have sugar added – regardless of what the food actually is, and even if it is meant to be sour or bitter. Don’t believe me? Have a good look. Oh, “high fructose corn syrup” is like the Pope of refined sugar, in case you were wondering. It isn’t just Jesus that gets rammed down our throats as children.

So not only is sugar very addictive, but it takes a lot of effort even to get food that doesn’t predestine you to sugar addiction. Imagine trying to quit smoking in a world where tobacco was put in everything in the supermarket!

I don’t know if Christianity is addictive but it is “the opiate of the masses,” and really, I think that it can be very hard for folk to disentangle themselves from Christian mentalities, even if they have formally rejected the religion. The apparently widespread presence of dualistic thinking in some Heathen circles attests to this in particular.

Keeping off the sugar once you are on your way is no easy feat either. I am at a point of getting onto and falling off the wagon at the moment. Last year I managed to stay “clean” for six weeks. I have never felt better in my entire life. Then one night I decided to indulge in an elaborate dessert and the next day fell into a rock-bottom depression, just like that.

All that said, as I eat less sugar I crave less sugar. Tastes are relative so the less we expose ourselves to the junk, the less our palate will require distorted and exaggerated flavours. We begin to appreciate richness, subtlety, the delicious tang of sweetness in its natural flavour context of bitterness and all the rest. I am getting there, slowly but surely.

If latter day “capitalism” (I use the inverted commas to distinguish from the thing that Clint would call capitalism) wants anything, it wants to present a seamless veneer of fixed-white—teeth-and-a-shiny-new-car happiness, the kind of shallow happiness that is utterly empty, like having a priest absolve one’s sins so that one is ready to recommit them for the rest of the week.

Much better is the honesty of vulnerability and depth, putting aside the ridiculous shining ideals (I use the word loosely) of capitalism and (particularly evangelical) Christianity. When we pass through the fake happiness of refined sugar (and its attendant ideologies), we give ourselves a chance to shoot for something much better: well-being.

Well-being isn’t necessarily happiness (sometimes happiness is an irrational and unhelpful emotion), although it does include a good deal of happiness. But rather than this happiness being the product of endless consuming, or the bloody death of some distant messiah, it comes from setting things right between you and the world.

How to do that? By adopting an attitude of reverence, by working to cultivate and deepen the living memory of the sacredness of all things – including our own bellies. Christianity tends to devalue the spirit of all things but their distant messiah (pantheistic Christianity is ok though), and capitalism sees only opportunities to cash in, sees no forests or people but merely resources and consumers. Units of exploitation.

So just as quitting refined sugar in our sugar-saturated world is hard, so is quitting irreverence. I think perhaps that if I make my battle against sugar a twin to my battle against the nihilistic amnesia that can so easily sweep over me (and most of us) then I might get just the boost I need. After all, if there is only spirit…then eating right is a spiritual practice of great sacredness.

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Take the Elhaz Ablaze Traditional Food Challenge!

I’m very proud of myself: I spent the evening chopping, pounding, and mashing cabbage mixed with salt and whey into glass jars so that they can rot for a few days and turn into that super-nutritious wonder-food known as sauerkraut.

Not only that, but the whey I used I made myself just a few days before that, along with some delicious cream cheese (now all eaten). Ohh, and I’m getting déjà vu as I write this, always a good sign.

Yes! 2010 is the year of the Healthy Chaos Heathen! I have several goals for this year, but one is to make good on my Substitute Living rant from last year. I have this vision of Heathenry as being a movement which incorporates traditional food, organic farming, and a rejection of industrialised agriculture with all its iniquities, environmental destruction, capitalist greed, and shocking malnourishment.

But you know what they say: be the change you want to see. So there I was, bits of juice-flecked cabbage flying up around my mallet, as I joyously got to work.

I feel more and more strongly all the time that Heathenry really needs to get its sleeves up and get serious about nutrition. If we abandon the miserably conveyor belt diets that cause heart disease, cancer, and diabetes then we’ll be well on the way to demonstrating why faith in old ways is a winner: we’ll be the healthiest, happiest – and maybe even most attractive – fringe group of weirdos around!

I made a lot of sauerkraut and I spent about an hour working away, doing the simple, repetitive, hypnotic tasks that were involved. There is a real magic in preparing one’s food from the ground up, especially when fermentation – which unlocks incredible nutritive powers in food – is involved. I wandered into various gentle trance states, connecting deeply with my simple sense of lived, embodied being.

Next week when I get a chance I’m going to hit a local farmers’ market (not literally) and see what lovely organic treats I can lay my hands on; and soon I’m going to be creating all kinds of delicious, nutritious foods. It is easy to dream up the notion that its too hard or I haven’t got the time or whatever, but I suspect that the better we eat, the more energy we have, and the more energy we have, the less convincing these excuses will seem.

So here are some proposals for what Heathenry applied to food would look like:

A rejection of refined flour and refined sugar, surely the two biggest enemies of good health that there are;

A rejection of the (now debunked scientifically anyway) crazy idea that fats are bad and that food made from synthetic chemicals such as margarine is better than the natural foods that humanity has been thriving on for millennia;

A celebration of localised food production, the idea that you get to meet the person who makes the ingredients for your meal, that food buying is more than just the anonymous and mechanised task of collecting plastic-wrapped, sorry looking morsels from the sickly-lit supermarket shelf;

A celebration of slow food, taking time to treat one’s body right. As I say, I suspect that the more time one expends on such worthy endeavours, the more time one ultimately gets back in good spirits and energy;

A recovery ultimately of the social essence of cooking and eating, rather than miring ourselves in TV dinners and fast food gorging.

I’m dead serious, Heathenry has to be about our bellies first and foremost. I don’t care what else you believe, say, or do. If you aren’t serious about reconnecting to traditional, genuinely nutritious food, then I strongly question whether you are actually serious about Heathenry.

Hey, we don’t all have to be perfect, or build our personal gustatory Rome in a day! Just taking small, methodical steps is enough. Having the courage to question and experiment.

Of course, this process isn’t necessarily easy, mostly because of our brains. Even after I read the research showing that the “fat is bad” hypothesis pretty much never had any sound empirical basis (except for those deadly synthetic trans fats that you get in the margarine that was supposed to “save” us from butter), well, I still struggled to free myself from the spell. It has been beaten into us all so thoroughly, this vile propaganda.

But folks, eating a lot of fat doesn’t mean overeating. A diet can be low in calories and high in nutrients, and part of that is all those lovely fat-soluble nutrients like Vitamin A, and Vitamin D, and all that. I read somewhere that body fat is so essential that when we starve our body will break down brain tissue to survive on rather than touch certain types of fat stores.

One of the bad things about fridges (apart from the greenhouse gases) is that we stopped doing all the food fermentation tricks we used to use all the time to preserve food, not realising that those tricks serve to make the food easier to digest and more nutrient-dense. But now, in this best of both worlds scenario, I can leap headlong into my fermentation and use my fridge to make my efforts easier and more efficient. No one said you have to do this whole food renaissance thing the hard way, just the right way.

Anyway, these are issues that need more than my rapid-fire, scattergun opinions in order to be compelling. I strongly, strongly recommend that everyone who reads this buy copies of In Defense of Food and Nourishing Traditions. These two books will set you unerringly on the right path. Michael Pollan and Sally Fallon are absolutely honorary Heathens for their efforts to open the minds and bellies of our jaded 21st century culture.

Anyway, I have some beans on slow simmer I need to check, and some big tall jars of sauerkraut-to-be to marvel at (all it takes is time to ferment, how brilliant is that?). Have a joyous and maybe even inventively healthy new year, and – go on! Take the Elhaz Ablaze Traditional Food Challenge! Sure beats dressing up in ye olde clothes or giving yourself stupid, grandiose Old Norse titles!

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Review: Visions of Vanaheim (Svartesól)

Visions of Vanaheim by Svartesól
2008, Gullinbursti Press
566 pages

It is no secret that the modern Heathen revival has tended to be very Aesir-centric; even the term Asatru refers specifically to Odin, Thor, and their ilk, to the exclusion of their sibling family of gods, the Vanir.

The time is therefore more than ripe for the Vanic current in modern Heathenry to be given its due, and with Visions of Vanaheim Svartesól and a host of contributing authors have laid the foundations for the theological imbalance of contemporary Heathenry to be redressed.

The book is simply huge, and ranges widely over its subject matter. It provides detailed historical background on European cultures; explores a range of theories about the relationships of the two families of gods to history and one another; provides in depth discussions of a dizzying range of Vanic figures; offers extensive practical ideas for the realisation of what might be termed Vanatru in everyday life; and offers insightful and heart-felt accounts of Vanatruar and their relationships to their deities.

Svartesól sails a tight ship, and by and large this book gets a big tick for making it clear what claims are grounded in empirical evidence or mythological texts and what claims are speculative. This clarity is a considerable strength for the text, because it both enables the reader to draw their own conclusions (or launch into further research), and also affords an insight into the lived experience of a relationship with the Vanir.

In all honesty, this book almost certainly exceeds any equivalent text written for the sake of the Aesir, and Svartesól and her allies have thrown down a serious challenge in terms of quality and dedication. Anyone who had previously dismissed the Vanir will have to reconsider their careless attitude after reading this book: it is a wide-ranging, detailed, rigorous, and heart-felt presentation of the case for Vanatru.

I can’t say I agree with every opinion presented in this book, but in general Svartesól and her contributors are quick to clarify the terms of their perspectives so that if one disagrees, one at least feels that they are not trying to impose their views on the reader by means of misdirection and obscurantism (as some rather less honest authors in the area of Heathenry, and especially runes, have been known to do). As such, this book also represents a valuable contribution to the maturing and deepening of Heathen theology and spiritual thought.

Complaints? An index would have made it a lot more user-friendly – there is so much information packed into this book that it could easily be used as a reference text, but the lack of index impairs that somewhat.

I consider this book to be essential reading for all modern Heathens: for those drawn to the Vanir, this is the foundational text for modern Vanatru; for the rest, this book goes a long way to redressing the strong imbalance in emphasis between Aesir and Vanir in contemporary Heathenry.

Available in digital download, softcover, and hardcover editions.

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Odysseus, Odin, and Euhemerism

Clint recently made the point that we Heathens can learn a lot from the Indo-European traditions that are cousins to our own. In support of that potentially controversial claim, I intend to explain how one can deepen one’s understanding of Odin by reading the Odyssey.

The Odyssey is Greek myth, hence, like the Germanic myths, part of the Indo-European tradition. Odysseus as a figure shares many common features with Odin. Both are kings, but also vagabonds. Both are eternally in the beginning of their twilight years, though still possessed of great power.

Both are brilliant warriors, but more powerful still are their wits and wisdom, and it is for these that they are most celebrated. Both are ardent lovers, with many subtle and complex relationships with women. Both have vulnerability of feeling, and are not merely armoured caricatures of masculinity (though many of Odin’s followers seem to not understand this about him).

Both are exiled: Odysseus because Poseidon prevents his return from Troy; and Odin, according to Saxo, is exiled for a time, too.

Reading about Odysseus in Homer’s peerless writing gives one a deep and joyous appreciation of the subtleties of Odin’s character, too.

Of course, there are many differences, the foremost being that Odysseus is not a god! Clearly they are not identical figures, but they do both broadly partake of what might be loosely termed the Hermetic Current (which runs, achronologically, something like Thoth-Vishnu-Hermes-Mercury-Woden-Hermes Trismegistus, and probably includes others).

Is this shameless universalism? I think that so long as we have our faculties about us there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by comparing and contrasting different mythologies and figures. Surely it would be a very unimaginative and rigid dogmatism to argue against this. Just because I think the Odysseus-Odin comparison yields sweet fruit doesn’t mean I have to subscribe to some naïve idea that they are identical.

Turning to a theme that somehow feels related – though I’m not sure how – I have recently been reflecting on the Euhemeristic theories of Norse mythology, namely the theory that the gods were actually once mortals who were deified after death, and therefore that the mythology is more or less a load of empty hogwash.

This idea mainly stems from three sources: Saxo Grammaticus’s History of the Danes; and Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda and Heimskringla. There was also Sophus Bugge’s much later attempt to claim that Heathen mythology was just a really bodgy corruption of Christianity, but Bugge’s Christian agenda was blatant and his scholarship filled with implausible speculation and systematic ignoring of evidence that contradicts his ideas (yep, a great example of RAW’s “the prover proves what the thinker thinks”).

While we cannot be certain, I think there are many sound reasons to reject Euhemerism in relation to Germanic Mythology.

1) The Euhemeristic sources were written by Christians; what sources we have that seem to likely be genuinely Heathen (e.g. material in the Poetic Edda) only ever present the gods as being mythic. In other words, as far as we know, there is no continuous tradition of native Germanic Euhemerism. This suggests that the medieval and more recent Christian authors mentioned above almost certainly are the originators of the theory.

It is a purely Christian theory about Germanic mythology, conceived in isolation from actual Heathenry, and seems designed either to excuse writing about paganism at all (in the case of Snorri), or else explicitly as an attempt to undermine paganism (Saxo, Bugge).

Are we also to believe every other derogatory claim that Christians have made about other religions, particularly when there is no independent evidence for their views? I hope not.

2) The Germanic mythic corpus is very similar to the other Indo-European mythic bodies (Hinduism, Greek, Celtic, etc). It therefore seems far more likely that the Indo-European groups who became what we now call the Germanics brought the essential seeds of Germanic mythology with them into Europe. This is as opposed to the Euhemeristic theory, which says that Germanic mythology was only fabricated after they arrived, since it is based on their deeds on arrival.

It seems highly implausible that, if such a Euhemeristic scenario were true, this newly created mythology, based on arbitrary historical events, would accidentally bear such incredible similarity to the other traditions that, if we are not Euhemerists, we can declare with the precision of Occam’s Razor to be organic cultural cousins.

3) Heimskringla presents the gods, such as Odin, Njordr, and Frey, as a succession of kings. Of course, we know from Tacitus that for the early Germans Odin was more of a Mercury figure than a Zeus figure, so Heimskringla’s supposedly historical portrayal of him in the style of his late Norse Heathen manifestation seems like a bit of an anachronism!

It appears likely that Tyr was a more central ruler god in the earlier mythology, but Snorri’s euhemeristic dynasty doesn’t accord him much chop at all. This suggests that even on Snorri’s account some of the gods are actually gods, since again he is caught out in anachronism by seeing Tyr only in his late Norse form as a more minor god. If Snorri is stuck with some of the gods still genuinely being gods then I’d say that starts to make the whole Euhemerist aspect of his account look pretty limp.

4) Other historical accounts: Snorri says the Aesir came from Asia (on the basis of ultra-dodgy folk etymology), and they specifically came from Troy. From memory though, there are other nutty theories that say that the Trojans founded not a Scandinavian dynasty but rather a British one!

They can’t both be true, and neither theory has any evidence other than the say-so of its promulgator. Healthy scepticism induces me to reject both until such time as they can furnish more than the opinions of their promulgators (who were writing centuries after the fact) as evidence. It seems that at various points it was fashionable to claim that any exotic northern culture was descended from Troy, and such a fad should not be confused for a sincere attempt at recounting history.

5) If the Norse gods were a historical dynasty descended from Troy then the anachronisms get even worse! That means by the time of Tacitus, Odin has lost has his power to Tyr, only to get it back just in time for Snorri to write Heimskringla. Only Heimskringla mentions nothing of these back and forth shenanigans. Another blow to the Euhemeristic thesis.

6) Euhemerism doesn’t take anything away from the gods’ divinity or specialness anyway. Many important Hindu deities were living people who were deified for their amazing spiritual achievements and no one considers them less “godly” than those Hindu gods of non-human origin. Similarly, it seems likely that Bragi actually was a deified human, and no one thinks less of him for it (actually, I’m bloody impressed by his efforts)!

7) Spiritual experience. Given the vast range of truly intense experiences I have had with Odin (and other gods), and the vast age and power of this being as I have experienced it, I just don’t see how he could be “merely” a big-noted human. That is no more substantial a piece of evidence, of course, than the opinions of Saxo or Snorri, but at least it isn’t riddled with inconsistencies, coheres with the genuinely Heathen mythological corpus, and isn’t part of a blatant religious-ideological assault. Oh, and it is way more parsimonious to suggest that the mythology is mythological in my humble opinion.

8) Finally, how can the Euhemerists counter the possibility that the gods simply chose to manifest as avatars with their actual personalities at play, but that they nevertheless predated these historical manifestations? That general sort of thing seems to happen in other mythic contexts (e.g. Hinduism, Greek myth). In other words, even if the Euhemerists were right, there is still plenty of room to suppose that they might be wrong nonetheless. Such a theory does fall afoul of Occam’s Razor, but if the Euhemerists make that criticism then they’re totally throwing stones from a glass house.

I know, that was a quick and dirty little opinion piece, and I haven’t bothered to reference my ideas (I’m 99% sure they’re all based in sound academic research and actual primary sources though, I promise)! I think we all get the point though. I might be wrong, but it seems to me that the Euhemerists have a much harder job of making their case than I do.

One thing is for sure: to understand history you have to make a bit more of an effort than just taking one or two sources at face value without trying to grasp their context. Otherwise you’ll end up subscribing to all kinds of ideas without really having informed yourself at all. If you are lucky you might still get it right, but it is a pretty shabby way to proceed.

Oh, and none of this is to say that I have any idea what the true nature of the gods actually is. Honest perplexity beats smug dogmatism any day (I just hope I don’t start believing that dogmatically).

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Review: Runes: Theory & Practice (Galina Krasskova)

Runes: Theory and Practice by Galina Krasskova
With contributions by Raven Kaldera and Elizabeth Vongvisith
2009, New Page Books.
223 pages.

I have enjoyed what I have read of Galina Krasskova’s writings, so I was quite excited to review this book. Having devoured it, I have come to the conclusion that, although there are some discordant notes that did not sit comfortably with me, it is on the whole a valuable contribution to contemporary runic lore.

The book is not really for beginners, and for the most part assumes the reader already has (or is capable of acquiring) a grasp of the history of the runes, and indeed of Heathenry more generally. It focuses more on explaining Krasskova’s ideas and experiences pertaining to rune work, derived from her many years of experience.

Krasskova is one of those admirable Heathen/runic authors who is open about which of her claims have an historical basis and which come from her own invention or experience. In a world where many authors on runes present themselves as being historically/academically sound – only to then promulgate all kinds of fabrications as “authentic” – this is very welcome.

The book begins with some general comments on rune magic, including Krasskova’s thesis that the runes are sentient spirits; moves to a discussion of each rune (including the Anglo-Saxon runes, a rare inclusion); and then discusses theory and technique for applying the runes to various purposes such as magic, galdr (song magic, which she correctly notes as not necessarily being a runic practice), and divination.

The discussion of the runes themselves is thought-provoking and Krasskova has some fascinating interpretations and ideas. She accompanies her thoughts with translations of the three Rune Poems that history has bequeathed us – essential for anyone who has an interest in the runes – and her discussion is also accompanied by some evocative modern rune poems composed by Elizabeth Vongvisith.

Krasskova’s ideas on divination and singing the runes are very useful. Some authors on rune magic, being addicted to the vice of over-complication, leave the reader feeling overwhelmed and discouraged, whereas Krasskova makes one feel inspired to experiment and explore.

Despite my generally very positive impression, I did have a few raised eyebrows when reading this book. Krasskova’s ideas about runes as spirit allies are very unorthodox, but she pretty much presents the notion as though it were simply a matter of fact. I think a little more transparency with her readers would be appropriate on that score. I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea personally, but there are plenty of very experienced rune workers out there who do not adopt this notion and seem to have no difficulties at all.

Similarly, her claim that runes inevitably and necessarily like to feed on blood offerings is very unusual. I have known many experienced rune workers – and indeed, I am one myself – but I have never before encountered this notion. Again, Krasskova presents this idea as a simple matter of fact, whereas in truth it is quite unusual. I think for something potentially so controversial it would have been in good taste to have explicitly noted that many rune workers would disagree with this idea.

Perhaps Galina has simply assumed that, given her audience are likely to have some familiarity with runes already, they will know that these ideas are unorthodox. Nonetheless, I think that a simple acknowledgement or qualification would have been easy enough to include. Certainly such an inclusion would have been more consistent with her general openness about the difference between historical lore and personal innovation/experience.

Some of the book’s initial remarks on ordeal magic and spirit allies feel like introductory comments, but unfortunately the book does not really return to flesh these themes out. I rather wish the book had been longer; it ends rather abruptly and I felt like she had more to say. This is especially relevant given that this is a book for those who are no longer beginners and who are willing (and able) to dive deep.

I would hesitate to recommend this book to a beginner, but it certainly has given me pause and some fresh ideas for exploration, as well as inspiration to re-examine my own spiritual/magical practice. I still think that Jan Fries’ Helrunar remains unsurpassed as the best modern book on rune magic, but nonetheless Runes: Theory and Practice represents a considerable contribution to esoteric runic literature and offers many refreshing insights and reflections.

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Deconditioning Reflux

After my last post on this theme I suffered a difficult reversal. A bout of intense hay fever struck me down with the one-two punch of overwhelming headache and severe lethargy. In that state my eating habits tend to suffer, which is a problem because nasty processed carbohydrates are exactly what exacerbate my allergic reactions!

Somehow, though, I fought through the discouragement that goes with these states, looked after myself, and pulled clear of the allergy. I decided to seek out a sales job in earnest. I pursued a few leads aggressively, and within the week I had me a potentially very exciting and lucrative job in sales.

After a week, I quit. Why? I discovered something. You see, a week in this job proved to me that I had totally overcome my fear of attempting the kind of inter-personal imposition that cold telephone sales involves. I discovered I could handle the numbers game of the process, accepting 100 “no thanks” responses for every one “yes please”.

What I found though, is that the company I was working for ran things on a short term, strip mining kind of model. No networking, no relationship building, no attempts at cultivating repeat business. Consequently many of my sales calls failed because of the irritable person on the other end who had been repeatedly pestered by my co-workers in recent weeks.

Furthermore, I quickly discovered that, desperate for the whiff of money, sales people are willing to say all kinds of rubbish. One gentleman (I use the term loosely) in particular would attempt to invoke a battery of racist stereotypes in order to induce fear in his mark as a motivator to buy.  After a few days of endless racial slurs wafting through the room I found myself very repelled by a work culture willing to consider such behaviour to be acceptable.

The breakthrough happened on my last day. I figured out “how to do it” that morning, and voila – a slew of sales. That one morning was very lucrative for me personally. And then? I felt the gears shift inside me and I couldn’t do it any more. So I walked out.

What I realised is that there is a difference between fear and aversion. If you fear to do something you are less able to sense how you actually feel about doing the thing you fear. You might feel adverse to it, but that aversion seems like excuse making to justify fear, that is, weakness, and this makes it hard to trust your own feelings.

The other thing I hadn’t expected with a sales job was the boredom. SO boring. Hour after hour of having many almost identical interactions, staring at the same cubicle wall. Seeing as how I recently got my results back from this year’s studies (GPA of 4.0, thanks very much), I felt especially, well, wasted on such a role.

Having conquered my fear and proved I could do the job well, I found a knot of intense aversion. Not necessarily to sales, but to the short-sighted and destructive business model my employer utilised. And so, no longer with anything to prove, I heeded the ethical sense that I could now cleanly hear, and quit.

A couple of days earlier I had met with Donovan and we performed a beautiful blot in honour of Midsummer. All the good stuff that can happen with ritual happened – the environment around us responded to our calls, brilliant poetry came to us both, we chanted and swayed like loonies, and the mead took on that extra-special-delicious flavour that ritual mead sometimes gets.

I invited the “way” to open before me at that ritual, and from the moment I walked out of my sales job it did just that, spreading like a blossoming flower.

Having walked out of my job, I decided to go to the art gallery and take  in some of the Hindu devotional statuary there (I like paying my respects to Vishnu and Ganesh).

On the way, I get a call for a job interview.

Next day, I do the interview. It is a very sweet job.

And today I get the news that the job is mine! It doesn’t involve sales or anything like that, but it is interesting, the hours are good, it is close to home, and it is well paid. Perfect!

Lessons about deconditioning:

The most important thing I have learned from this experiment is that even when you consciously construct a plan for doing some deconditioning, you have to be open to the unexpected. A program of conscious deconditioning can confuse you into thinking that your way – your limited understanding of how things “should” unfold – is the way.

I suspect that if one gets too caught up in such a mentality one risks not having the necessary sensitivity for distinguishing between fatuous fear and appropriate aversion. I’ve known people who have bent themselves into ugly shapes by trying to force themselves to fit self-images that run contrary to their true natures.

Having the self-honesty to be able to separate out fear from aversion is a valuable skill and if deconditioning exercises can lead you to blur the distinction, my own experiment shows that they can also help you to refine that distinction.

I have also learned about the importance of being open to the unexpected when deconditioning: witness my growing public-singing habit. This has been the best discovery I have made in the process, and it is reaping all sorts of obvious and non-obvious rewards. I am determined now to maintain this habit and explore it. Curiously, after a day of telesales I found myself unable to sing: a strong message from my unconscious!

So I think I can conclude this deconditioning exercise on a note of cautious triumph (caution being adopted so that I do not devolve into tilting at windmills). This experiment has expanded my idea of what is possible, of what kinds of action and ways of being I can comfortably include within the domain of my personality. It has also given me more trust in my practical commitment to growth and  magic, and underscored the value of documenting one’s personal/magical experiments, since these articles have definitely helped refine my focus and bolster my motivation.

We are headed now into 2010: and perhaps onto bigger and better magical evolutionary efforts! Tonight I will make another sacrifice in thanks for my good fortune and my victories.

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More Song Magic

My last article on Galdor Without Runes brought to mind a number of magical experiences I have had that have involved singing and, as a further inducement to my reader to explore the magical art form of singing, I have decided to share a few of these experiences.

1) Galdor Made Me Into Road Runner

One day some years ago I was attempting to make my way to a friend’s home. It was a hot summer’s day and the train system had broken down, leaving me in the unenviable position of having to walk from Central Station to Stanmore (Sydney-siders will know what that means; the distance involved is about five kilometres). Oh, and I had something like twenty minutes to get there in time.

Despite the fact that normally I might have just called and cancelled, I felt it important at the time to connect with my friend, who had experienced a recent break up. One of my Odinnic poems came unbidden to my lips as I steeled myself to run the distance, knowing that I certainly was not fit enough to make the distance in the time available, particularly since I had a backpack with me.

As I began to chant the poem over and over, its rhythm taking a hold of me, I began to be filled with a stern vehemence. It was like a kind of berserkergang keyed to movement rather than violence. Swept up in my own roaring chant, I fairly flew the distance.

Strangely, I didn’t actually run, I just walked, albeit at a cracking pace, reciting my poem over and over. I covered the distance in exactly the time available, and not only that, but I was overflowing with energy when I arrived: not in the least bit tired. A totally bizarre display of physical power. I really should try to tap into that trick more often.

Less dramatically, I have found that I can get more energy to walk faster by simply increasing the tempo of my singing when I am out and about. Not exactly a new discovery – music has been used to synchronise rowers and marching soldiers for thousands of years – but I hadn’t realised that I could manipulate my own body into a swifter mode of action just by varying the tempo of my song.

2) Galdor on StageIronwood With Spirit Orbs

Things often get pretty intense when my band Ironwood performs: here is a photo from a gig – you can see the incredible proliferation of spirit orbs attracted by our magical music! Of course, a big part of our mojo is our vocals.

I often get possessed when I am on stage – in fact I think we all do – and my singing tends to take on a life of its own. Prior to our first gig, I had never been able to sing “extreme” vocals – the screeches, bellows, howls, and roars typical of extreme metal music. That was generally fine because mostly I sing “clean” in Ironwood, but sometimes I wished  could add just that extra layer of intensity to our performances.

On our first gig, after a while, I noticed a tremendous roaring voice coming back at me through the monitors. It seemed to sweep up the entire room and certainly drove me into total ecstasy. Then I realised: the voice was me! Presented with the immediacy and risk of performing for an audience had unleashed a wild and powerful new range of vocal expression for me, one that established a positive feedback loop with my trance states.

In recording settings I struggle to replicate these vocals, though my efforts for the next Ironwood album came out quite well in the end.

I think the magic of that first (and subsequent) gigs came from the fact that I didn’t recognise my own voice, and that dissociation sent me into a whirl of trances and altered states. Since then I’ve experimented a lot with exploring unorthodox ways of vocalising, and they can indeed send you into a huge range of worlds. Sometimes this practice will get me shivering spontaneously – classic Jan Fries-style seidh.

3) Galdor Duets

Apart from my time spent chanting within the Illawarra circle of the Jerrahi Sufis, in which I experienced an incredible array of magical states (not least because so many members of the circle were musicians and we’d really explore tonal chaos in our chanting), I’ve also spent a lot of time chanting with Donovan (which inspired this article from a while back). Donovan and I don’t get to do this together as much as we like, but it is always awesome.

I’d particularly like to share a recent, and quite bizarre, experience I had while rehearsing Ironwood vocals with my band mate Matthew. Matt and I were practicing a particularly beautiful but tricky duet passage that will be featured on the next Ironwood album. It is only a short span of music so we’d just sing it over and over again.

Something strange began to happen. I felt an intense sensation of electricity or energy moving up and down my limbs, through my body, my head, etc. It was like a powerful energetic vibration streaming through my body.

Then I had this intense impression that there was a third person in the room, forming the third point of a triangle with Matt and I, watching us as we sang. This presence seemed shadowy, hard to pin down, but benevolent. It was the most uncanny thing to be sitting there, singing with Matt, consumed by strange energetic sensations, watched by some ineffable but intense presence.

We stopped for a minute and I told Matt what I was experiencing.

First, he tells me that he is experiencing exactly the same energy sensation or whatever it was.

Then he tells me that he also can perceive the third person watching us…and that it is him! Matt’s perception, thanks to our singing, somehow has expanded beyond his body, and incredibly, I could sense the presence of his consciousness without any prompting or clue!

Neither of us can make any sense of the experience, but it was very empowering for us both. I chalk it up to the power of shared singing, the beauty of galdor and vocal-induced seidh-like consciousness. I am curious to see if we can replicate the experience: I wonder where it might lead?

Convinced yet that singing should be an essential part of most any magical practice? If not, give it a go and persevere. You’ll thank yourself for the effort.

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