Guest

I Have a Dream

By special guest contributor MichaElf Allson

—

The night I dreamt a dream that altered my mind forever, was a night like any other.

The young’uns were in bed and I had spent the morning at an accountant in the city, processing the contents of a brown shoebox full of my year’s worth of receipts.

Nothing odd, whatsoever. But as the years roll on, I consider it to be one of the weirdest days of my life.

I will describe most of the dream but not in its entirety.

I found myself on a dark strip of road in the bush at night. There were dim yellow lights of homes in the near distance. My daughter Freyja was standing besides me and she was holding an open shoebox with a small hare cuddled up inside on a piece of warm fabric. Its eyes were huge and black. Shining in the darkness. We both looked at it fondly and Freyja replaced the lid of the box as we walked along the path through the bush. As we were walking and talking, my parents drove past us in their sedan. Both of them saw us and acknowledged our presence but kept on driving into the night. I yelled out to them, wondering why they would have left us out here with hours of walking between us and the next township.

We finally came across a tidy brick home that was occupied by a couple in their early seventies. They were very welcoming and very soon we were all enjoying a warm conversation in addition to a light meal and some much needed drink.

Freyja opened the shoe box again to proudly show the couple her pet. The hare was in the process of changing into some kind of sea creature with stumpy tendrils or tentacles perhaps, it was squirming around in the shoebox with the same moist cow eyes staring silently back at us. Before we could utter our surprise, a small opening appeared on its underside and a stream of clear liquid pissed out of the creature, splashing onto the polished white tiles of the old couple’s kitchen floor.

The room then became filled with brightness and a washing machine appeared in full swing vibrating on a spin cycle in the middle of the room. Was it the same room?

On top of the buzzing machine was a light grey bird-like animal. It had the appearance of an owl or a hawk and I noticed that its head was turning from left to right in a kind of happy rhythm. Out of the sides of its head sprang two long feathery horns, like a kind of Muppet monster, and it was shrugging its fuzzy shoulders in a very contented fashion. The animal was vibrating at an incredibly rapid rate, and as it did so, emitted waves of what I could only describe to you as love towards me. More love than I thought I could bear. I remember almost weeping with joy and fear, as the power that this thing possessed obviously was well out of my range of experience and I could do nothing to slow the vibrations running through my heart and soul.

As I concentrated on its face, I could make out three black dots where two eyes and a mouth should have been. The dots were hollow and solid, like black plastic beads. Behind the dots, swirling in the creatures bristling grey fur was an endless streaming of beautiful women’s faces in ecstatic expression. These faces were representative of all ethnicities and they all appeared to be on the brink of orgasmic climax.

It was at this point that I asked the creature its name (standard practice I suppose).

It replied in an English speaking women’s voice with a recognizable Australian tone. Its voice was the loudest sound I had ever heard, or could ever imagine hearing.

She calmly answered my question as I asked it. Her reply completing itself simultaneously in the space of time I spent finishing my shocked enquiry. She said “My name is Chardakiel, and I’ve known you forever!”

She then held out her left hand to me. It was a petite white hand with beautiful tapered fingers. She was reaching out to me with all her love, all at once. I fell away in terror and found myself wide awake in bed with my heart about to leap out of my chest. I was drenched in sweat and very confused indeed.

I had always been in the habit of writing down as many dreams as I could. They always made for good reading at a later date, and this dream was no exception. I began at once to document everything I could recall. I was soon to discover that this dream was totally different to every dream I’d experienced before.

The next morning I made a phone call to my Beastianity band mate Richard Horner. He was a most knowledgeable chap (he still is), and I knew that he had a couple of dictionaries in his possession that listed demonic entities in alphabetical order. He told me that according to his books, the Enochian demon Chardakiel was known to be the ‘Guardian of the South Winds’ and was also described in another dictionary as ‘The spirit of Libra’.

Now I thought to myself…’I haven’t studied anything remotely Enochian since I was a child’, but then I thought…‘Australia is really about as South as it gets’ and even Richard knew that I had been born under the sign of the scales. I continued to “go hmmm”…

I went about my day off as usual, but found it difficult to organize my dream into the back of my mind with any efficacy. I received a telephone call in the late morning from the principal of Freyja’s primary school. She reported that Freyja had injured her shoulder playing silly buggers in the school grounds, and requested that I come and pick her up.

When I arrived at the school sick bay I found Freyja lying on a stretcher bed in the company of her little friend Danielle (Danielle?). She was a little upset and in a great deal of pain. We found out via an X-Ray that Freyja has broken her clavicle or ‘collar bone’.

The shrugging shoulders of the grey and vibrating hawk entity flooded back into my memory as I equated my daughters name with the symbol of the hawk in the knowing that the two were inseparable.

This was just the beginning of the journey that my children and I were to embark on. I remember speaking of this dream to many friends. Some had tears after hearing it.

The years played out in big and dangerous ways. I found myself in the process of planning a brutal homicide close to home. There were scores of sad junkies blasting away in the streets around our inner city home. The insulin syringes would crunch under my boots as I walked Freyja and Otto to their schools each morning. I experienced numerous break-ins to my home. Chasing stray teenagers out of my house in the middle of the day as they were sprung rifling through our kitchen drawers. And without going into too much detail it got much, much worse.

I escaped the city, never to return. I brought with me the kids and the dogs, and returned to my childhood home up North. We settled in a tiny beachside settlement called Blackhead Beach Village. Our daggy little wooden beach house was nestled in a thick rainforest atop a high rocky headland. To walk to the ‘back beach’, we would start down a single lane road that was only partially tarred. The road was covered by a thick canopy of shade trees and at night would silently remind me of the place where ‘the dream’ began.

We met some amazing folk in Blackhead. Wise women taught Freyja and Otto about the animals that lived in the surrounding bush.

There were Possums, Gliders, and Goannas that stretched as long as my two ton truck. There were also families of hares living there. We now dwelled within a community that knew us and respected us and would look out for Freyja and Otto at all times. The spirit of place extended it’s peace and it’s freedom to us. There were no fences dividing properties, no letter boxes and plenty of kindly couples in their 70’s (or so I guessed). No more danger, no more needles for us.

Four years passed before I met my Melinda. We found ourselves at a pact meeting for many of Australia’s underground magic groups held in a bush camp on the outskirts of Sydney. Sweyn and Kara Plowright of the Rune Net were the organizers every year I attended. It was always a very special event, and I thank my man Mark Morte for introducing me into it so many years ago. Melinda attended due to her deep knowledge of the Runes, and hoped to meet someone there who could share her magical life. When she first put her hands on my naked chest it was like receiving a shock from a defibrillator attached to a power station that had been attached to two more power stations. To me it was an unmistakable sign that I’d found a girl who truly knew about magic and that my painful wait was over.

I asked Melinda to be my bride six months down the track and Lokily for me she said “yes”.

Our first ‘date’ was on ‘Imbolg’, or The Feast of St Brigit and we though it would be a grand idea to go out dressed as the elderly. I had my grandfather’s deerstalker hat, a walking cane and a crappy old tweed jacket with fawn elbow pads. The ensemble was topped off with a pair of horn rimmed spectacles. As we discussed our ideas to surprise our friends with our ingenious disguises, we researched the feast of Imbolg only to discover that it was the ancient custom to wear old clothes for the entire day and beg for alms. Melinda donned a huge woolen cardigan that came down to her mid-calf and it was made of a mohair blend. It was light grey in colour and was shaggy and furry and reminded me again of my beautiful and terrible female guardian. We were smitten and married to each other in a beautiful private ceremony on a quiet grassy headland near the ‘back beach’ in Blackhead Beach Village not long after that.

The love I receive from Melinda is comparable to that of the spirit in my dream. The same can be said of the love and patience that my Freyja bestows on me.

I can also say that the love and support that I have received from practically all of the women in my forty odd years of living is unconditionally astonishing.

My dream continues to unfold in beautiful ways throughout my life and may it continue to do so…

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Superstition VS Tradition

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.

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Asatru/Asafalse

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.

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Hammer Forged

I was fortunate to meet Tony a few years ago and I must say his deep wisdom has had a huge influence on my heathenism. Hammer Forged, along with its companion essay Asatru/Asafalse by Sweyn Plowright, represents a shining clarion for heathens and Asatruar worldwide.

– Heimlich A. Loki

Hammer Forged: Fabricating a Tradition

© Copyright Anthony Looker, March 2001

Mission Impossible

It is presumed that many of the readers are concerned with the revival and restoration of Odinism, also known as Asatru, or the northern tradition. This refers to the practice of the religious and magical system of beliefs found in Northern Europe and Scandinavia before the onset of Christianity. Clearly, some feel that they have a vocation or mission to fulfil in this respect. Undoubtedly, it is a deeply challenging exercise, which is occasionally rewarding, but is it worthwhile too? All those who are genuinely and honestly engaged in this endeavour deserve our wholehearted support and appreciation. However, it is a task that is doomed to uncertainty at best and contains numerous pitfalls for the unwary at worst. For most this will probably amount to no more than wasted time and effort. However, for a few it may lead to psychological problems, or recruitment into New Age cults masquerading as Odinist organizations, or possibly both.

The Underlying Problem

There is considerable uncertainty involved with recovering our ancestral beliefs and wisdom, assuming it is viable at all. It is not how far we can go in our efforts, nor even should we attempt to do so. Quite simply, it is knowing if we have succeeded to any extent. The underlying problem, facing those striving to reconstruct the lost pagan religion of the North, is that it disappeared long ago and no comprehensive record of it remains. There is, of course, a wealth of material in the form of the Eddas and Sagas, as well as contemporary accounts by Christian clerics and so forth, which provide us with a glimpse into the lost world of the North. Unfortunately, regardless of how much we may be able to glean from these sources we cannot know for certain that we have arrived at an accurate understanding of the tradition, as it once was. The reason for this is that none of them represent personal accounts or testimonies by actual exponents of the elder faith; they were all written up either by rank outsiders or else hundreds of years after the people and events which they describe. For example, no matter how sympathetic and sincere Snorri Sturlusson may have been with his rendering and melding of oral tradition we cannot be certain of its accuracy; indeed, we may wonder if Snorri himself was entirely sure of his facts. Even runestones, although primary source material in some cases, turn out to be of limited help to us here. The vast majority of these inscriptions are either very simple or banal statements, such as: “So and so put up this stone in memory of his father”, or else they contain information so obfuscated and cryptic as to be quite unfathomable or meaningless. This may all be very fascinating and certainly helps to fuel our imagination but is useless as far as providing us with any clear information.

The Living Dead

Supposedly, a careful examination and interpretation of runic inscriptions and early texts underpins the present-day northern tradition. The impression conveyed is that Odinism is authentic and historically accurate; when it has in fact been cobbled together from a variety of sources, both ancient and modem. History is after all more of an art than a science, no matter how well crafted. It is subjective by nature and in the absence of a transcendent, overarching, objective viewpoint that we can refer to – with the possible exception of that contained within the allegory of myth – there is only the version according to individual historians. And, unless you happen to be Adolf Hitler standing on trial, there is no eternal court of history we can make an appeal to, either. Incidentally, it is worth recalling that the German messiah considered the ancient Germanic gods unsuitable objects of worship for the modem age, as related by Hermann Rauschning. The wonderful tapestry of make-believe history conjured up by the image-makers of the Third Reich was, it seems, intended to herald the advent of a new spiritual order and not the triumphant return of the old heathen gods. Essentially, all history is reconstruction no matter how truthfully it may relate the story of past events. History cannot bring back the past, it can only convey an impression of it for us. Just as marshalling the facts in sequential order, alone, does not constitute history; so, methodically exhuming elements of past practice is not enough to reanimate a dead tradition. Unfortunately, some Odinists’ own forensic analysis has come to resemble pathology: more concerned with the fate of the dead than that of the living. They may learn a lot about the nature and world of the deceased but that does not necessarily help us to gain an understanding and mastery over our own lives. In answer to those who might say that the dead are worth more than the living – on the basis that most of the living are worthless – that may be so but alas for us their tradition died with them.

Restoration Project

We may well ask why anyone would want to revive a dead religion, in the same way we might question the merit of restoring an old car. Drawing on this analogy, the response might be that just as mass-produced vehicles do not appeal to everyone, so established religion has failed to satisfy all spiritual needs. Accordingly, many of us profoundly alienated and dissatisfied with what is available have sought solace elsewhere. A few have turned to the venerable faith of our Anglo-Saxon and Norse ancestors for inspiration. However, in the case of Asatru, there is no book of heathen common prayer, no manual of shamanistic practice, no magical grimoire even – at least not until several centuries later – to guide the modem adherent. Likewise, for anyone attempting to forge a ‘Philosophy of the Hammer’ there is no ‘Treatise or Reflections on the Nature of Asatru’ to provide them with a lead. Unlike ancient Greece, the northern world never made the transition from mythology to philosophy. Anyway, who is qualified to lead such a project and what authorization have they to do so?

False Prophets?

There is no monopoly on the truth and no individual or group is the fount of all wisdom where the (northern) tradition is concerned. Although some seem to suggest just that and others appear to be gullible enough to believe it. Anyone conceited enough to argue that his is the definitive version of Odinism will soon find that he has made a rod for his own back. This will invariably tend to be controversial and divisive, especially amongst the Odinist community which is notorious for its endless feuds, rifts and schisms. Ironically, those same hierophants who have forged ahead with reinstating the northern tradition, scornful of Christian dogma, have ended up propounding an equally hidebound and dirigiste creed of their own. A few vainglorious characters have added insult to injury by arbitrarily arrogating authority to themselves. But, they face a constant struggle to convince even their own followers, let alone anyone else, of the legitimacy of their usurpation. Further, their claim looks hollow and threadbare in the absence of the sanction that an unbroken, living, tradition could confer upon them. In any case, the self-appointed prophets and cult leaders of neo-Germanic paganism do not know, any more than the rest of us, exactly what constituted this lost faith.

A Hidden Agenda

Some might say that it does not matter if certain people have appropriated the tradition for their own ends and that it is not really suitable for modem man anyway. Further, does it really matter if we don’t relate to the runes in exactly the same way as the runemasters of old? After all, people consult the I Ching quite happily without having to abide strictly by the method used during the Sung dynasty. Ralph Blum has managed to do very nicely indeed out of (mis)casting the runes, having tossed aside the time-honoured fashion of doing so! We may regard him, in our own opinion, as a charlatan and his system as being completely bogus but – unlike certain others – he has never made any pretence to authenticity. Since traditions constantly mutate and renew themselves anyway, a conscious reconstruction may turn out to be little different from the product of spontaneous and natural evolution. The concern is not that certain individuals have hatched up Odinism but that they have exploited their knowledge and skills in order to establish something akin to a personality cult, with all the dubious qualities which that term implies. It seems that no matter how much they try to deny it, those who take on the trappings and status of a guru or grand master – either by accident or design – almost inevitably will come to be regarded, and come to regard themselves, as such. The more that people claim they are specially gifted with some unique spiritual insight and occult powers, the greater the suspicion grows that they are merely false claimants operating a hidden agenda. They can end up as complete characatures of themselves, negating any genuine abilities and spiritual qualities they may have once possessed.

Reconstruction or Fiction?

A number of so-called revivals of Odinism have been started in recent years. Undoubtedly some of them have been carefully and tirelessly researched with apparent skill and dedication but no matter how great the effort expended and the resources deployed, they are all flawed in one important and fundamental sense. In order to reconstruct something, anything in fact, there has to be an accurate model or original design to work with. For instance, to enable an engineer, architect or archaeologist to effect a valid reconstruction of something they must have a clear and complete example of the original artifact, blueprint or plan, ideally. Failing this there can be no accurate reconstruction, an exact replica true in every detail. What there will be in its place is either an approximation or else an artist’s impression – in other words a construct or fiction. This also applies to any reworking of Odinism. Whatever else they may have left to us, what we do not possess is a full and complete exposition – a mission statement – with regard to our forebears’ worldview.

Stone gods

There is a distinction between dreaming the myths onward and attempting to duplicate a vanished tradition. The key to unlocking the secrets of our pagan past rests with our mythopoeic imagination, where the archetypal currents, which generate the myths are constantly at work deep within the psyche. The myths ebb and flow through individual lives and the lifetime of nations like the changing seasons. Traditions follow the same pattern, sometimes undergoing a dormant phase whilst at other times enjoying a high summer after a prolonged absence and winter hibernation. However, their mysterious reappearance is seldom if ever in quite the same form as before. As with any organic system, a degree of metamorphosis accompanies their life cycle. The outer trappings may have faded beyond immediate recognition but the framework remains the same, embedded in the northern psyche like the molecular structure of a crystal. In this uncertain and haphazard way a tradition may survive indefinitely with greater or lesser degrees of continuity. The challenge for us is to find a way to integrate these potent archetypal elements and symbols, without being psychologically overwhelmed by them in the process. This paradigm has been outlined before: Jung’s essay on Wotan likens the Odinic stream to a dry riverbed awaiting the waters of irrigation; a century earlier the poet Heinrich Heine alluded to the old stone gods slumbering in the dust of history, awaiting their moment to reawaken and cast off the slough of a millennium of Christianity.

An Insurmountable Obstacle

Despite these various seemingly insurmountable obstacles one or two pioneers have forged ahead with a revamped northern tradition based upon a vague and speculative notion of the past. It is a heroic attempt to satisfy a deepseated desire; as clearly there is considerable nostalgia for the old Germanic faith and a yearning to regain a symbolic cosmos based on the Norse myths. Curiously, the absence of the restraint and check that a prevailing, extant tradition might otherwise impose affords us boundless freedom of opportunity: the scope to innovate and experiment to our hearts’ content. In this way, we may arrive at something close to the lost tradition; equally, we may end up inventing an entirely new one. We will never know. In the end, short of abandoning this particular path altogether, we are left with no choice other than to follow something that is largely unsubstantiated and of questionable validity.

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