Spirituality

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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Spiritual and Philosophical Development

I sat down this morning with the intention of updating my bio in honor of the new website. What I’ve come up with is perhaps a little too long to be appropriate on the bio page, so I think I’ll post it here instead. I hope this helps put a few things in perspective.

 

I consider myself an Occult Philosopher rather than a religious man. I love learning, I love reading and I love thinking for myself. As a result, my ideas and opinions are constantly changing, growing and evolving. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My primary philosophical influences to date come from three major sources.

  1. Western Mythology
  2. Eastern Mysticism
  3. Neo-Pagan Occultism

Christianity was never a major part of my upbringing. I was raised on primarily on myths and fairy tales, with just a few Bible fables thrown in. As I learned to read, I ravenously devoured the Hellenic and Arthurian classics. I did not have the great pleasure of discovering the Norse myths until my early twenties, but they instantly became an important part of my life and inner psychological landscape.

I might add that I have also always been a total sci-fi geek. I consider science fiction to be modern mythology and I consider classical mythology to be primal sci-fi.

From the East, I have absorbed much of the Mystic Philosophy. Buddhism and Taoism, I first encountered through the Martial Arts. Hindu philosophy became a part of my life much more recently, but I now consider Hinduism to be the ideal living role model for Heathenism and Neo-Paganism.

From within the Neo-Pagan scene, my influences can also be traced to three primary sources.

  1. Reconstructionist Heathenism / Asatru
  2. Chaos Magic / Discordianism
  3. Satanism / Luciferianism

I was introduced to both Heathenism and Chaos Magic by my spiritual brother Henry almost ten years ago. My predilection for the Left Hand Path, however, seems to come from somewhere much more basic and instinctual.

Politically, I identify as a Libertarian and a Transhumanist.

I’ve come to refer to myself as a Pagan or Heathen as a shorthand way of explaining that I believe in a whole mess of weird, unpopular and apparently crazy ideas. Barbarian or Savage would probably get the point across just as well.

Deciding on a more specific label is difficult for someone who changes his mind as often as I do, but there are two which seem loose enough to fit me for some time to come.

Indo-European Pagan describes the philosophical milieu from which my Path has been born.

Chaos Heathen describes the only fellowship I need. We are an odd group, but we are true to our selves and that is what makes all the difference.

 

Hail Chaos

Viva Loki

Aum Wotan

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Midsummer in Paris

This year, my wife and I spent midsummer in Paris. It was her third trip, but my first. Believe me when I tell you, in all sincerity, there can not be many experiences more romantic than seeing Paris for the first time with the love of your life. All the more so when she’s six months pregnant!

The trip was not just my first to Paris, but actually my first to Europe as well. Needless to say, the whole experience stirred up some interesting feelings on multiple levels.

I’ve always felt a strong appreciation for history and I have a special love for old buildings and old trees. The EiffelTower I found unbearably boring, but in the oldest segments of the Louvre I felt a sense of throbbing power. In the Cathedral of Notre Dame I felt a sense of undeniable awe and in the cobble-stoned alleys of Montmarte I felt an eerie sense of déjà vu.

Though I lack any known French ancestry, the trip did give me a feeling of being in touch with my European cultural heritage. Many of my memetic ancestors walked these streets, even if my genetic ancestors may have not. It was not lost on me that Catholicism and Greek Mythology ranked equally as the most common themes in art and sculpture.

Catholicism always stirs mixed feeling in me. I find the aesthetics of the tradition almost irresistibly appealing and even if the moralism is pretty hard to swallow. My fascination with Voodoo and related traditions is due in no small part to the skill with which the practitioners have managed to absorb the power and aesthetics of Catholicism, without compromising too much of their own worldview. If Voodoo can make use of Catholic iconography, why can’t Heathenism? There’s plenty of evidence for historical syncretism.

Our neglect of the Greco-Roman tradition is less understandable. Through the intermediary of Rome, the Greeks have become the cultural ancestors of all of western civilization. We may not necessarily be in love with civilization, but we cannot deny who we are.

A study of early Greek philosophy quickly proves that mysticism was never exclusively eastern and an exploration of modern Hellenismos reveals a tradition that is highly compatible with Heathenism, to say the least. Besides, the Iliad and the Odyssey are such ripping good yarns that it’s a shame to exclude them.

If you’ll join me in a moment of selective fundamentalism I might propose that we accept Snorri on face value. There, now we’re all descended from the Trojans and the Iliad is, at least, an important clue to our heritage. For those who care to notice, the Trojans of the Iliad speak Greek and worship Greek gods. We all get to be Greeks, too!

And so we come to the end of this, one young Heathen’s rambling reaction to his first footsteps on European soil. It’s taken me a long time to digest what I learned about myself in Paris. But, in the end, the lesson is simple and obvious. In order to truly understand ourselves as Germanics, we must understand ourselves as Europeans as well.

Viva Europa!

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Liber OZ

Aleister Crowley is an interesting subject of study to magicians. He is both: a failure and a success. Those who strive for the Divine within know that ‘Homo est Deus’. I hereby declare that EVERY HUMAN IS FREE, if (s)he accepts the resposibilty of being a human. But then again, Man is God, as it were. Affix this to every church and every governmental building. Absorb this ‘Zen Dogma’: YOU ARE FREE!

“the law of
the strong:
this is our law
and the joy
of the world.” AL. II. 2

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” –AL. I. 40

“thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay.” –AL. I. 42-3

“Every man and every woman is a star.” –AL. I. 3

There is no god but man.

1. Man has the right to live by his own law– to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will:
to play as he will:
to rest as he will:
to die when and how he will.

2. Man has the right to eat what he will: to drink what he will:
to dwell where he will:
to move as he will on the face of the earth.

3. Man has the right to think what he will: to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will.

4. Man has the right to love as he will:– “take your fill and will of love as ye will,
when, where, and with whom ye will.” –AL. I. 51 5. Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights. “the slaves shall serve.” –AL. II. 58 “Love is the law, love under will.” –AL. I. 57

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Interview with Jan Fries

I’ve been busy with my studies at university, so that little time remained for this blog. Lastly I’ve been very involved with a paper on Seidhr (unfortunately in German). In this context I have interviewed three people involved in these practices of our ancestors. One of them has been Jan Fries (the two others were Diana L. Paxson and Freya Aswynn [Elizabeth Hooijschuur]). He’s not the main  influence to my approach to Rune Work, but his general approach to magick is of relevance and his books Visual Magick: A Manual of Freestyle Shamanism and Helrunar: A Manual of Rune Magick have opened important doors in my mind and soul.

However, the occultnik should become familiar with the objective facts concerning Runology first before engaging in esoteric Work, regardless of how ‘dry’ or ‘boring’ the academic study seems to be to him or her. The objective study of the Runes (academic Runology) should precede subjective study. Otherwise totally subjective systems of the Runes will be the result that must remain without any meaning to others. To put it in other words: you should become familiar with that which is known (exoteric) before you engage in the quest for that which is unknown (esoteric) – not the other way around ;). This approach has been called the Polarian Method by Dr. Flowers / Edred Thorsson formulated.

It’s obvious that Jan Fries’ postmodernistic, relativistic approach supports basically the development of a subjectivistic system. (Even if I don’t know if it’s possible to establish an objective system. But we can at least study what is known.) His refusal of the value of solid academic research and an intellectually ambitious approach to the Runes doesn’t make his work more individualistic, as he somehow seems to believe (at least in my interpretation of our private correspondence). But his “practical pantheism” is very inspiring nevertheless. A certain knowledge of the way our ancestors thought and what they believed could be helpful. The sagas and Hilda Ellis Davidson’s books come to my mind. The dedicated German speaking seeker should study Jan de Vries’ Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte. (I think Jan has used that work too.) First then the esoteric works should be taken into account. Subjective meanings will appear at this stage and they will very likely contradict with (some of) the interpretations of other magical authors. Here Jan is absolutely right: follow your intuition! Noone can help you here except your ‘Deep Mind’ (Jan Fries) or, to say it in a more traditional way, your Fylgja. The only rule is: don’t universalise your own intuitive realisations. (Here Jan’s take on the Runes is again creditable as he always emphasizes that his Rune interpretations are subjective and only of personal meaning.) It is this subjective stage most of us are engaged in. Some say, there is no other stage to reach (than a subjective one), others are convinced that there is a level of meaning that is reflecting a traditional, objective knowledge. It’s not for me here to decide for you what take is the right one, but consider that there exist Vitkis and Rune Masters who have been studying this magical tradition for decades and could possibly teach you a lot, if your mind is open to it. There’s no disgrace in being a beginner. We all remain Learners all life long. Hasn’t once a wise old man said that he knows that he knows nothing? For Socrates all wisdom began with wondering, thus one must begin with admitting one’s ignorance. This certainly applies to the Runic seeker. His search will begin with an irrational, mysterious flash of inspiration, which will cause him / her to seek after the Runes and/or other Mysteries. Jan Fries’ work has its place in the renaissance of Runic Wisdom and will be of use to the practioner of modern magical techniques. I consider Jan’s techniques are worth studying and can be applied in the process of subjective synthesis, when the ancestral Runic wisdom in the seeker’s Soul is reawakening and the life waters are returning to the ancient and dry riverbeds of our forefathers and foremothers.

But get a picture of Jan Fries’ approach and ideas on the magical practices of our ancestors yourself by reading his own words. Though we talked about (postmodern, neo-shamanistic [!]) “Seidhr” you can apply these statements to his take on the Runes, too. Ok, I think I said enough for an introduction to this interview. Here are Jan’s answers to my questions:

Matt Anon: This interview is part of an academic investigation of the practices of Seidhr in the postmodern world. Could you tell me a little bit about your background in the area of magic(k) and/or Neo-Paganism and how you came to practice Seidhr?

Jan Fries: Magic is central to my life. I had my first dreams of Kâlî, Medusa, Lilith etc when I was a child (they usualyy scared me out of my head), learned basic self hypnosis, breathing exercises and vowel singing at the age of eleven from a friend of my grandmother, Dr. Gisela Eberlein, started to meditate in various ways around the age of fifteen, began with Yijing divination, astrology and martial arts at sixteen, rituals at eighteen and so on. My orientation has always been eclectic, I do not believe or subscribe to any tradition apart from ‘find out for yourself’. I respect and appreciate aspects of a number religious, shamanic or magical systems, such as Huang Lao Daoism, early Chinese Wu shamanism, Tantric Kaula, Krama, Mahâcina, Haitian Voudou, non-Crowleyan Thelema, Ma’at Magick and reinterpret the local European pagan religions as I like. If forced to define the whole thing I would call it practical pantheism. However, I believe that the individual is a lot more important than any system, religion, cult or school. And if you have to stick a label to yourself to do your thing you ain’t good enough yet.

As to getting into seidhr, well, I never did think about it. I simply noted that in a number of interesting trance- or obsession states, boddy tends to shudder, sway and shake. More so, it turned out that excitement increases the shaking and shaking can increase excitement. Both of them improve visualisation and produce a state of mind that may look uncontrolled or strange from the outside, but is actually quite focused and lucid from within. As I researched shaking trances worldwide, I found examples in Siberian, Napalese, Chinese, Korean and Japanese ‘shamanism’, in Indian Kaula, the Vedic vipra-seers, Haitian Voudou, a lot of African sorcery, the Mesmeric movement, the medieval Welsh seers and so on. And in one of the trances I had the insight that body is the cauldron while awareness is the seething fluid within. By changing the ‘heat’ (the excitement induced by imagination), the ‘seething’ of awareness can be controlled. It connected neatly with Simrock’s translation od seidhr as Sudkunst, so I began researching ‘shamanic’ elements (or really techniques) in Viking literature. There are some very close parallels.

As I keep emphasising, my identification of seidhr with shaking or trembling trances is hypothetical.

Nor do I claim to teach seidhr, for the simple reason that I don’t know what seidhr really is. After all, Nordic literature on the topic was composed by people who were usually Christian, badly informed or even hostile to the art. And the sources contradict each other. There is not a single statement by anyone who actually practiced seidhr. While we all may guess what seidhr was really all about by emphasising one source and ignoring another, I believe the main thing is not the word seidhr but how people can change their consciousness. The Nordic mystique is just one frame of reference, a useful metaphor if you like. The fact is that seers and healers have used shaking, swaying and rhythmic body motions at least since the Rig Veda was compiled, and regardless whether we call it seidhr or anything else, it happens work.

Matt: Where does Seidhr come from? What was Seidhr in the past and what is Seidhr today?

Jan: Where my impression of seidhr comes from was outlined above. Historically, Viking seidhr seems to have counterparts in the skohsl dances of the Goths and the ‘shamanism’ of the Sami. Not to mention a number of ecstatic trance elements in medieval Island Celtic lore, such as Theo awenyddion which Giraldus Cambrensis daw in Wales, or the frenzied bards at king Maelgwynn’s court (according to Gildas). Such matters are discussed at length in Seidways.

What seidhr is today? I have no idea. All I know is that a number of people do things they call seidhr. You better ask them.

Matt: Why do you think Seidhr should be practiced? What does result from practicing Seidhr?

Jan: Why I think seidhr should be practiced? I don’t. Do you think mountaineering should be practiced? Do you think everybody should go diving?

Look, trancing is not suited to everyone. I don’t know about seidhr, as I don’t know what reidhr really is, but I do know that some people get along perfectly with shaking trances and others don’t. It’s an advanced trance requiring good health and sanity and I would suggest before anyone went into it, a couple of years of regular meditation and daily physical exercise are wise. Nor do I think that shaking trances are a must. There are so many ways of changing consciousness. People do it all Theo time. They get excited or angry, they fall in love, worry or feel sad. The human nervous system has an enormous abilitx for developing and maintaining highly unique consciousness states. You can use ‘shamanic’ methoda, including dancing, shaking, drumming, chanting etc., or maybe Yoga, using posture, breathing, mantra, visualisation, or you could just sit down, induce a deep trance and change your brain rhythms, chemistry and the flow of energy in your body. It’s easy. All of these are conveniences. They produce different states of consciousness, but what happens in them, and how you use (or abuse) them depends entirely on you.

The only thing which I would recommend for other people is to learn how to think and make good feeling. We could do with more happy feelings in this world. When you are happy you make better decisions, and that leads to being even happier. Fellings don’t just happen, they can be learned and made.

Matt: What sources have inspired you to take up the practice of Seidhr? What sources have you studied / read?

Jan: The sources that inspired me can all be looked up in my bibliographies provided one isn’t too lazy.

Matt: Do you think one has to speak Old Norse or has to study the original sources to be able to practice Seidhr?

Jan: I don’t think one has to learn specific languages to practice any sort of magic or consciousness changing. A couple of hundred words of special terminology, sure. Learning languages is fun, but not essential. It’s different when the literature happens to be untranslated. I learned bronze age Chinese as most of the inscriptions have not been translated into European languages. Now some people need old languages for the feeling. Others dress up in costumes, or redecorate their homes. Well and good. Anything that works is fine.

As to the practice of ‘old seidhr’ well, even with Old Norse you won’t be sure what thaz really was about.

Matt: Despite the fact that the term ‘shamanism’ is itself controversial outside the context of Siberian shamanism, do you believe that Seidhr is a kind of ‘Northern Shamanism’? Does Seidhr feature shamanistic elements?

Jan: If we use ‘shamanism’ in the common, Eliade-type definition (which I am not too happy about) as a loose term for ecstatic consciousness changing healing trance ritualism, sure, there are parallels. Read them up in my books. Personally, I am not too fond of the term as it was used in such a sloppy way by a few anthropologists and a lot of fakes. So if we have to use it, then only in want for a better term. I prefer to speak of shamanic techniques, which you find in many cultures, than of shamanism, which is such a wide (or narrow) field of cultural activity that I wouldn’t like to define it at all. Instead of looking for what people call themselves (or others) I prefer to learn what they do, how they do it, how it works and what it is good for.

Matt: What are the differences between shamanism and Seidhr? What are the specifics of Seidhr?

Jan: We had these questions earlier. You tell me what these two things are. What is ‘shamanism’ and what is ‘seidhr’? One term is too vague and the other refers to a phenomenon we don’t know much about, and that is questionable. So please tell me. When you’ve done that you can look for differences and similarities. Or do something worthwhile for a change.

Matt: Do you consider Seidhr as part of the ‘Northern Tradition’ / Teutonic-Germanic Religion?

Jan: I don’t know what you or anybody else understands as ‘Northern Tradition / Teutonic-Germanic religion. In my opinion there are wide differences between the beliefs of various Vikings (about which we know far too little), the prehistoric so-called Germans (about which we know even less) let alone whatever you consider ‘Teutonic’. As I recall the Teutons spoke a Celtic language. So just what are you talking about?

Matt: What is the role of women in Seidhr? Is Seidhr somehow more connected to women?

Jan: Yes, we all read that bit about Odin teaching seidhr to Freya and Theo goddesses. So what? There are a number of seidhrwomen in Theo sagas, just as there are women in many forms of ‘shamanism’. And sure, Tacitus also had his say. Well and good, but I really don’t care. I don’t believe in gender or race, I believe in individuals. As far as I’m concerned, souls don’t have a gender. They get one when they are born, but may have a different one in Theo next life. So Theo only thing I can say is that when it comes to shaking (which may or may not be part of seidhr), in my experience women tend to learn it faster. Simply because of gender roles. Males usually learn to freeze their hisps (to use a metaphor courtesy of Wilhelm Reich) in western cultures, and this can make shaking more difficult. But what does this amount to? Tension can be relaxed and shaking is possible regardless of gender. Just like any other trance state.

Matt: Is it ‘unmanly’ to practice Seidhr? What does that say about the role of men and women in (ancient) Germanic culture? How is this seen in (post)modern Neo-Paganism / Ásatrú?

Jan: I don’t know anything about modern, postmodern or postmortal Asatru, as I don’t belong to any such organisation. I know that some people got quite excited discussing the meaning of argr-, you can find my interpretation in Seidways and Helrunar. And I’ve heard people mixing the matter with trans-sexual behaviour and getting carried away discussing whether homosexuals could be pagans or whatever. Frankly, I don’t care. For me, the whole issue isn’t what any organisation says. It’s about you, on your own, experience in your contact with the divine, whatever you call it and however you contact it. And how it improves your life. Cults, organisations, churches, dogmas etc. only get in the way of true experience.

Matt: Germanic Neo-Heathenism has been often accused of being racist / right-wing? Why do you think that is the case? Can descendents of non-European cultures be part of Ásatrú?

Jan: I believe that (at least some people) get reborn (unless they don’t want to), and that any capable sorcerer should live in several distinct cultures. I don’t believe that the concept ‘race’ means anything. ‘Culture’ or ‘subculture’ may be slightly more meaningful, as you can join or leave them as you like. We are talking categories here. This is a long way from real life. And regarding politics, I cannot say anything about groups I don’t belong to. I can only say that politics and religion are usually a bad combination, as they make people even more stupid than they already are.

Matt: Why do you think so many people feel attracted to Neo-Paganism today (including Wicca, Druidry & Ásatrú)?

Jan: One major reason for the increase of new faiths is that people are not satisfied with the old ones any more. But then, it has always been that way. There has always been an urge to commune or unite with the divine (no matter how you call it), and whenever people organised to do so they defined themselves, they included some and excluded others, and as we happen to inhabit mammalian bodies, they also organised group behaviour in terms of territory, hierarchy and finally power poltics and money. By then, other people got fed up and invented their own faiths. It happens all the time.

Matt: Finally, what answers does Heathenism / Paganism have to the condition of the modern world (including modern challenges like climate change, overpopulation, financial crisis etc.)? In which way does it help to improve the conditio humana? (I would also like to ask in this context: Why is it ‘better’ than the monotheistic cults?)

Jan: In a world which is steadily becoming more integrated regarding communication, travel, trade, work, culture, art etc., poly- and pantheism make communication with other faiths and cultures easier than a monotheistic attitude does. Especially a narrow-minded monotheistic attitude, as in the first commandment. But that’s really all. I don’t believe ‘Heathenism / Paganism’ have any answers to anything. There ain’t such thing. It’s just two words you put together as if they were meaningful. Words, words, words. We are not talking churches or politics, we are talking people. And we don’t talk them either. They all have their own answers. Ask them. And listen.

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How to Meditate Effectively

Since I returned from my travels I’ve meditated almost every day. It’s a fantastic practice and I thought I’d describe what I do and how it helps.

The practice is simple enough. I set a timer for 20 minutes. I lie down in a secluded space – under the shade of trees is good, or if it is cold then I just get under the covers of my bed.

I try to focus on my breath. I turn my attention to the physical sensation of inhaling… and then the physical sensation of exhaling. I let my breathing slow down and become more regular. It can be helpful to think the word “in” as I inhale and “out” as I exhale.

Now the thing about trying to focus your attention on one place is that if your mind is undisciplined – well you’ll be all over the shop. All sorts of thoughts are likely to flood your mind – about your shopping list, the book you are reading, the arguments your friends are having, your plans for the day.

These thoughts will pull your attention away from attending to your breathing. So here comes the key to effective meditation.

Your only task when your mind wanders is to notice that your mind has wandered and tell yourself “back to the breath” and return your focus. That’s all. The thing is, it is totally ok for your mind to wander: that gives you the opportunities you need to practice noticing your own thoughts and redirecting them.

In other words, effective meditation doesn’t make some lofty goal of stillness or oneness the goal – though my method certainly enables me to achieve such a state sometimes. Rather, the goal is just to notice that your mind has wandered and return to the breath.

Sometimes, often, you won’t stay focussed for more than a breath or two before you get distracted, no matter how experienced you are; or sometimes thoughts will quietly worm away under your breath focus. This is good – you are learning the landscape of your mind at the same time as you train the beast. Sometimes valuable insights might even come from this, though the time to dwell on them is after your 20 minutes is done.

There are various Zen stories about the important of coming back to your focus point no matter where your mind goes: “Master, I was meditating and the Buddha appeared and told me that I am the anointed saviour of mankind”, says the student. “That’s nothing to worry about. Keep returning to your breath and it will go away”, replies the master.

This is a good attitude to have. If you really must, you can still entertain your megalomania later. But when you are meditating, meditate.

You don’t have to focus on your breath for this general principle to work. Sweyn Plowright, in his book True Helm, offers a very effective meditation practice utilising the rune Isa, with a similar approach to the one I’ve outlined here. I recommend it, in fact. It’s very classy.

I should also add that I didn’t invent the meditation method described here. It is loosely adapted from various different traditions and modified by my experimentation.

Now, you might be wondering how I know that the meditation method outlined here is effective.

Well it definitely takes a while to get the more dramatic results, but here are some of the benefits I have been experiencing since I renewed my daily meditation practice a month ago:

I am more alert; I think clearer, I’m more able to understand things around me and even my sensory perception seems clearer and more detailed;

I need less sleep; sometimes I can use a meditation session to totally recharge my batteries during a busy day;

I feel much less anxious – more confident and relaxed;

I pay much less attention to the kinds of unconstructive self-critical voices most of us fall prey to at times;

I have become less dogmatic, more open to different points of view, and much less emotionally provoked when I encounter views that contrast strongly with my own (this has been a goal for a little while now, as discussed elsewhere in this journal);

I am more focussed – when I really need to get something done, I can do it;

I’m becoming more disciplined but also less up-tight about maintaining my discipline – I’m more comfortable with resting and taking time out yet I think I’m just as productive.

The real litmus test came over this last weekend, when I recorded all the bass for the next Ironwood album. I usually find recording to be stressful, unpleasant, emotionally taxing and, all in all, something to be feared.

This time around though I felt so calm and relaxed. When my emotions started to get away from me I could see it immediately and respond. I noticed that I tend to hold my breath when I’m feeling under pressure and that if I consciously let go of that armour then I become both more relaxed and more competent.

The consequence was that despite this being the most complex and technical material I’ve ever recorded I finished up right on schedule, didn’t rush, pulled out the best studio performances of my life, was totally chill and relaxed, and basically had a monstrously enjoyable time.

Instead of an onerous task, recording was a pure joy. I particularly enjoyed watching myself skilfully manage my own behaviour, thoughts and feelings, gently steering myself along the path.

And folks, that is after only a month of meditating daily, 20 minutes a day. I’m really, really hooked now. I’ve written before in this journal about the distinction between heart and will based living; how the former is so much more powerful yet is so hard to access for those of us raised in a more or less nihilistic modern context. Well meditation is really opening the gates of my heart and unleashing some serious power.

Oh, and to top it all off, on the weekend I also wrote a really cool poem about Odin and my ancestors.

It can be hard, of course, to get into a groove with meditation, but really to do it effectively you need to keep up the practice. Sometimes you might have to skip a day, but believe me, it gets easier to discipline yourself the longer you do it.

If you think you don’t have time – trust me, you’ll start to function so much better after a while that those 20 minutes spent meditating will end up saving you at least that much, maybe a lot more, out of the rest of your day.

And I’ll say again – it doesn’t matter how much your mind wanderes. It doesn’t matter if you don’t reach some transcendental state. Just keep doing it and you’ll find it hard to stop yourself from deriving benefit from the practice.

I’m laying down the challenge folks. Meditation – get into it!

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More on my Extremism

Following on from my last post I had a curious realisation. You see, at various points I’ve felt that the myths of Siegfried/Sigurd provide for me some important clues into my personal evolution. Yet I’ve never been able to find my way into applying them in my life.

Certainly Jan Fries’ interpretation of the myth of Sigurd in Seidways has been a helpful stepping stone. Fries sees Sigurd’s discovery of the speech of birds after tasting the heart of Fafnir as symbolic of an attainment of expanded consciousness, a kind of enlightenment, an initiation into the Big Picture. I find this a very helpful interpretation, and relevant to many of my own interests and concerns, but somehow until now I’ve stopped at that point.

Recently the next step opened, however: I noticed that the meaning of the name Siegfried is “Victorious Peace” or more specifically, “Victorious Frith”. Sigurd means “Victory Guard” – presumably a guardian of the peace. This seems inescapably parallel to the Sufi moniker Ali Salaam that I wrote about in my last post: a fusion of fury and tranquillity. Rather Odinnic actually.

The old word frith bears some consideration: frith is a time of fruitful, ordered and harmonious activity. It is bountiful. It is a very active, creative peace. There might even be some conflict mixed into it, however it’s a constructive conflict rather than a gratuitous one. The idea of such a state being victorious in my life is very enticing.

So, hilariously, I find my Sufi interests providing the perspective I needed to advance in my understanding of my Heathen path. I love the fact that the tapestry of wyrd is always more subtle and complex than we expect or might like to think!

What does this ideal of Victorious Peace mean for my life? I’m taking it in two directions – and folks, really this article provides a model for how we can use mythology as a tool and vessel for our own growth so please take what you read here and put it to good use … and feel free to tell me about how that goes for you, too.

Acknowledging Harigast

Harigast is one of the names of Odin and means something like “Ruler of the Host”. It goes deeper than this, actually – Harigast is a provoker and inciter, spurring the war band up into paroxysms of berserk fury. As such he is capable of achieving tremendous things, but potentially also capable of causing terrible things. To me this is a very primal aspect of Odin.

In my reflections I’ve come to see this aspect of Odin as coming through me when I get on my furious, self-righteous high horse. I find something about which to feel outraged, something about which I am free to adopt a self-justifying posture, and then I scythe contemptuously through any and all dissent. Yet as I explained in my last post, allowing myself to give fuller vent to this tendency has not been nearly as satisfying or helpful as I expected. You need more than just brute force to make your way in the world.

Yet it would be false of me to deny this part of myself too. I cannot just repress this Righteous Destroyer – as Phil Hine says, “a god denied is a devil created”. I think that this Odinnic force causes all kinds of problems when repressed into ugly, twisted shapes – indeed, one of the problems of Christianity is that it encourages us to ignore this aspect of our Heathen heritage, allowing it to become subverted and twisted and vile.

To that end I have decided to adopt the name Harigast as a creative pseudonym. The purpose of doing this is not to conceal my identity (I’m happy to publicly declare that Harigast is a literary vehicle). However in doing this I can (when appropriate) explicitly disclaim responsibility for the opinions expressed and/or the manner of their expression. I can allow Harigast expression in a contained, safe form by doing this. This allows me to cleanly acknowledge this aspect of my nature without causing monumental trouble.

Sometimes permitting something you have struggled with causes the need to express it to abate. Giving oneself permission to transgress one’s ego is sometimes so satisfying that the need to transgress subsides. I’m not sure if this will happen with Harigast, but I certainly feel more at home with myself since I prepared his portrait and wrote him a short bio:

harigastHarigast is fury incarnate, a self-righteous proclaimer of violent truths and armoured dogmas, usually provoked by, and in opposition to, self-righteous proclaimers of violent truths and armoured dogmas. Self-appointed avenger of wrong-doing,

Harigast all too easily becomes the very breed of monster he seeks to demolish. His seething outbursts can be beautiful, but also disastrous – as much to Harigast as to his intended victim!

Harigast is a very forceful character and often sneaks hiddenly into Henry’s words… so while many opinions are expressed in his articles Henry, even if he wrote them, does not necessarily agree with them!

Harigast wrote a piece that will appear, Gods willing, in the next issue of Hex Magazine. I’m also making him my co-blogger for this journal; hence we now both have a little bio.

Being Present

While away travelling I realised that I rush terribly. I am rarely focussed on being where I am; I’m always running off into the arms of one thing or other. Extreme emotional trips – such as fury or vulnerability – can be a trick I use to avoid facing the realities of my actions and circumstances.

I’ve therefore started meditating regularly after not doing so for a long time. I’m working with Buddhist techniques of mindfulness to attend more to the automatic assumptions and attributions I make about myself and others (particularly the crappy negative ones).

And I’m trying to hold onto the notion that you have to “go slow to go fast”, as an old mentor used to tell me repeatedly. This last bit of wisdom is really potent. I think it is an essential ingredient for feeding frith. Holding to it is part of achieving victory in the task of building and guarding a victorious frith-stead.

It’s a slow process, bringing about this change. Nevertheless I am whole-heartedly committed to this ideal.

Sometimes I find myself writing about matters spiritual in order to avoid having to actually live in the endless ordinary dilemmas of the present moment (in fact a little bit of that is happening right now as I type this). Consequently it might be that in future I will put less energy into this journal and more into spiritual practice itself. I invite my readers to get more active with their commentary in order to make up the shortfall ;-)

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My Extremism

Well – I’m back from my travels. More to come on that soon I’m sure – and on the many reflections I’ve been gifted with while away. In the meantime, here is a piece I wrote while away:

***

I have two quite different, competing tendencies, two incredible extremes of personality.

One is reflective, compassionate, curious, gentle and calm. It tends towards a kind of oceanic rationality which is clear and logical without being alienated or over-abstract. This mode is also a source of great vulnerability and at times fear. It does not tolerate uncertainty, pain or the threat of suffering well. It is childlike and deeply mortal. It deals in the stock of uncertainty, complexity and ecology.

The other extreme I’ve come to refer to as my Righteous Destroyer. It’s distilled fury, rage, destructiveness and brutality but always through a lens of moral absolutism. It is convinced of its own point of view and no matter whether my point of view is sensible or not I lose access to my reason when this mode dominates.

I just want to tear apart all those I disagree with, refute them with a violence that does me no credit. I also see this extreme in many other people and hate them for it. I disown my violence and project it onto anyone I disagree with. This mode is overwhelming and transpersonal – a kind of raging blind deity pulsing through me.

This second mode does not activate in response to every issue or circumstance. It has specific triggers, usually in relation to my recurring feeling of being excluded or unrepresented in the communities to which I gravitate. Or else it reacts out of my perception of injustice, wrong-doing, ignorance, or poisonousness.

For example I’ve allowed it to show very slightly in my writings about the Rune Gild, Alain de Benoist and on matters political. But I work hard to tone my rants down because the seething, righteous hate that rises up in me translates very badly into articulated opinions.

I’ve come to be troubled by the rigid dichotomy I experience between these two modes. I’ve come to be troubled by how violently, destructively reactive I become, often in quite arbitrary situations.

In the last year I’ve experimented with holding back my rage less in various inter-personal situations because I felt I was wimping out by restraining myself. The results have been much less satisfying and productive than I thought they’d be, however.

I am learning that while Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot is one thing, in real life a measure of subtlety, wit, self-control and patience is necessary and not just a cop out.

Often the fury comes over so quickly that I don’t actually bother to check if my chosen target is actually promulgating a perspective I object to or not. I just decide they’re wrong and go for the jugular.

Of course the irony is that I hate those who adopt similarly absolutist and violent postures. And I’m troubled by my extremity. Even if I totally disagree with another opinion, my fury almost completely disables my ability to apply reason and reflection and hence disrupts my ability to challenge or oppose in any constructive or effective fashion.

Or at the very least, the fury overshadows the reasoned and considered aspects of my thoughts and words so that these are diluted in their impact. And I risk coming across like a jerk. All in all: not good!

My fury is a deep ego attachment and, hilariously, it’s an attachment I often unleash in the name of ego destruction! Somehow I doubt this is even the sort of thing ego-oriented magicians have in mind.

When I was initiated into the Al-Jerrahi Sufi Order I was given the magical name Ali Salaam by the then circle leader. I don’t know if she was conscious of the full aptness of the name when she selected it, but it seems highly relevant to this schizoid furious/gentle split.

Ali was one of Muhammad’s generals and really the Islamic version of a berserker; he was much feared. One day he found himself in battle with a foe. He disarmed his enemy but before he could manage the coup de grace his foe spat in his face. Ali stopped, stunned by the epiphany that he was consumed utterly by hatred.

So disgusted then was he with his own actions that he threw his sword aside and stalked from the battlefield. I don’t think that was the end of his military career, but it was the end of his use of linear, brutal fury to further his ends. He resolved to be more respectful of the nature of violence, to act from a more holistic point of view.

Hence the name Ali Salaam – a peaceful warrior or a warrior of peace. I think this name captures my divorced extremities and also articulates a way by which I might yet be able to negotiate a healthier relationship between them. Kalima sure had me figured out when she named me.

That I would mention this point about Sufism should underscore the fact that, for me, these extreme modes are a psychological and spiritual conundrum. I am less and less able to tolerate these contradictions and hypocrisies, the way that they limit me.

When I am in my gentle mode I risk becoming ineffectual and paralytic. When I’m furious I am not fit for human engagement. Insofar as I tend to suppress the latter I also sap my will, passion and courage. I need to bring the two tendencies into communication so that I can freely move between them, weave them together, become whole.

How to achieve this goal? There are several aspects to the challenge:

1) Not letting my Righteous Destroyer run away with me;
2) Not slipping into the shadows of my gentle self;
3) Bringing the two modes into communication and connection.

I’ve decided to try to expose myself more to things that might normally drive me mad, but with a mindful attitude, a determination to stay present and not be swept away. Both gentle, retiring passivity and all-destroying fury are means of avoiding being present.

Perhaps by making more of an effort to be present, to go beyond only seeking out evidence that supports what I already believe (a universal human failing), by choosing to act on my beliefs out of wisdom and confidence and not fury or fear – perhaps I can come closer to reaching a détente between my two extreme modes of being.

I want to emphasis that these comments only apply to me. They do not imply a criticism of how anyone else conducts themselves. I recognise in myself a limitation, a disjunct in my nature, along certain lines. These motifs might have very different meanings for others.

In a sense both gentleness and fury are expressions of my transpersonal channel and my ego. I’m coming into a more nuanced experience of these phenomena as I get beyond hard dichotomies around self and other. I believe reality emerges out of the middle; subjective and objective are post hoc abstractions we derive after the fact.

So around another rung of the crazy spiral of Being and Mystery we go. I hope I can detach from my attachments and reintegrate into a healthier way of relating to myself and to the world around me.

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Hinduism, Heathenism, and Indo-European Paganism

Hinduism and Heathenism are closely related. I argue the point on three levels…

1. Hinduism and Pre-Christian Heathenism (along with Druidism, Greek Paganism, Zoroastrianism etc.) evolved from the same basic source, Proto Indo-European Paganism.

2. Hindu and Buddhist philosophy has been hugely influential in the Neo-Pagan movement from which Recon Heathenism was born. (And for anyone who’d like to argue that Recon Heathenism is NOT a form of Neo-Paganism, all I can say is “grow up and stop kidding yourself”.)

3. The connection just makes a lot of sense to me personally, on an intuitive level. I’ve learned a lot from studying the eastern religions and clearly I’m not alone among Heathens in feeling this way.

So where does that leave us? Actually it gives us a fantastic new tool, an idea we can use.

The ordinary conception of Heathen history is as a broken line. If we accept the influences of Hinduism and Neo-Paganism on contemporary Heathenism, we can mend the break. Consider this…

We trace our history backwards from Pre-Christian Heathenism to Proto Indo-European Paganism.

We then trace our history forward from Proto Indo-European Paganism to Hinduism and then Buddhism.

From Hinduism and Buddhism, we again trace forward to Neo-Paganism.

From Neo-Paganism we trace forward to Reconstructionist Heathenism at which point we reconnect with our ancestors and realize our religious history is no longer a broken line. It has now been revealed as a circle.

Our tradition is a very ancient one. I find great comfort in that fact.

And, this idea can be used in other ways. Let’s see how we can apply this new knowledge to a common uncomfortable scenario. Someone from work asks you if you’re religious. You have a few different options. You could…

1. Lie.

2. Refuse to discuss the issue.

3. Explain to them honestly that you practice the reconstructed polytheistic religion of pre-Christian northern Europe (and deal with the fact that they now think you’re a raving loony).

4. Say something clever.

What I usually say in this kind of situation goes something like this…

“I feel a lot closer to Hinduism and Buddhism than I do to Christianity, though I’m not really a Hindu or a Buddhist. (Or, I am and I’m not.) I feel I get a lot out of studying philosophy, psychology, history and mythology. Personally, I really get a lot out of mythology, even more than academic philosophy.”

How’s that for magic? Just few simple words, nothing but the truth, and I’ve transformed myself from “potentially dangerous psycho” into “sensitive, intelligent and obviously well read”. This routine probably would not work if delivered to a Christian fundamentalist, but living in Southern California it tends to go over pretty damn well.

Let’s face it. Being part of a new minority religion sucks. Regular people think we’re crazy. They put our books next to the reptilian conspiracy theorists instead of in the religious section and we’re classified as “miscellaneous” on the census. Buddhism and Hinduism, however, are big. They’re old. By accepting ourselves as part of that family we gain a very healthy measure of social acceptance and respectability. And the best part is you don’t need to convert! You don’t need to change a thing! Heathenism is a form of Indo-European Paganism. It is a western variant of Sanatana Dharma. Our tradition is ancient and we are a part of a great and proud religious family.

Hail Chaos!

Viva Loki!

Aum Siva-Wodinaz Aum

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Storytelling as the Weaving of the Self

We moderns have nothing whatsoever of our own; only by replenishing and cramming ourselves with the ages, customs, arts, philosophies, religions, discoveries of others do we become anything worthy of notice.
Friederich Nietzsche

Exit all legends, enter the laws of magick.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge

“You got no love in your heart. When you got no dreaming, no story, you got nothing”, an Aborigine says to the hero in a movie called ‘Australia’ (the movie is crap, but I’m used to look for gold in shit). The aborigines have a very mysterious concept that they call dream time, this is the mythical & magical time, where the ancestors still live & sing and every thing has a ‘song’ attached to it: rocks, trees, bushes asf. – all have a ‘song’. And the initiated sorcerer of the Australian natives can communicate with these ‘things’ by singing their songs (a form of verbal magic, in Norse magic represented by Galdor). Here we are once again confronted with the holistic vision of a sacred landscape, where everything is interconnected & alive – a worldview that was also common to our European ancestors (or wherever your ancestors come from). This vision is contrary to the modern myths created by the visions of Descartes & ‘Newton’s sleep‘ (William Blake). Both of them had literally visions. Descartes’ thinking has been influenced, for example, by his dreams & Newton has been an occultist, who has received his vision of the mechanistic ‘clockwork universe’ from an ‘Angel’ of the Enochian system of magick ‘invented’ by Dr. John Dee.

Their visions are the stories about the universe we are brought up with. (If you have really bad karma you have been brought up with Kristjan stories about the universe :-). They do not stem from dream time, but from the modern myth of linear time. (‘Our enemies are material. Our enemies are direction and fact. Our enemies are Because.’ GP-O)

Anyway, what really strikes me is the idea how much power a story has over our lives and that – since nobody owes the absolute truth, if such a mysterious thing exists at all – all religions, philosophies, myths, histories, fictions and movies are essentially stories, stories we tell ourselves or that are told to us. Of course, this is a postmodern attitude that I am extremely wary of as it includes the risk of fundamentalist relativism and an ‘epistemological hypochondria’ (Geertz), where ‘anything goes’ and thus real knowledge becomes impossible anymore. But everything has two faces and there are also great advantages, when one uses POMO thought in a critical & self-conscious fashion.

“Post-modern research … embodies a critique of the conventional logical positivist discourse derived from rationalist Enlightenment philosophy, which privileges the European, male, individual subject and the indisputable authority of scientific explanatory frameworks.” (Robert J. Wallis 2003: Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans, p. 2).

I think this critique is a necessary step, if one really wants to understand the local knowledge of a native people, like the Aboriginal tradition (or our Heathen tradition). This means, too, that to select carefully a few essential tenets of postmodern philosophy can bring about changes in attitudes, values, perceptions, and worldviews that help us to heal the wounds between ‘whites’ and the peoples we have hurt (see Henry’s article Culture, Genocide and Whingers). More generally speaking, such a ‘paradaigm shift’ on a grand scale can help us to heal the wounds between humanity and the Earth Spirit (Anima Mundi).

Further, the positive effects of postmodernism can be, if used wisely, that we deny to follow ‘universal rules’ (of life, art, philosophy, or anything else). And those who have the will and determination can choose pathways to individual fulfilment & self-empowerment based on the story (‘paradigm’) chosen or created by themselves, instead of following the universal appeal or supposed authority of a story they were told to believe (be it religious metaphysics or scientific materialism, or whatever your favourite mental prison is). If something feels internally authentic & right, it’s the way to go. For us Chaos Heathens / Pagans this attitude makes it possible to liberate us to return to the trú traditions of our ancestors in new, exciting, and creative ways, in ways that adapt and apply the ancient wisdom to the circumstances and the Need – in the sense of :ᚾ: – of our times.

However, to me storytelling is a form of magick and a form of knowledge. Imagine a tribe 10,000 years ago in a dark forest at night. You can hear the wolves howl, and you hear the strange sounds of other dangerous animals, above you the stars and a full moon. Only a little bonfire enlightens the night and you sit there in a circle with your comrades, the shaman of your tribe – a miraculous man with special powers, who is treated with awe by all men of the tribe – sits with you there and tells wyrd stories of cosmic, uncontrollable and daunting forces, of Fire and Ice generating the events that created the universe. He tells you about Ymir, the bipolar Giant, dismembered by the mighty Gods, Odhinn (Master of Ecstasy), Vili (Sacred Will) & Vé (Hollowed Space), who made order (Futhark) out of the totality of existence (Ginnung) and shaped the first man & woman, Askr and Embla, out of trees (!), giving them the triple Gift (Gebo) of human shape (Lík), life-breath (Önd = Prana, Chi, Libido) and (divine) consciousness (Ódhr). His stories tell you about the adventurous journeys and brave deeds of heroes that are your direct ancestors, whom maybe your dead great-grandfather met personally, when he was a child. These journeys of those heroes turn into ordeals & initiations, where they gain insights into the mysteries and cycles of birth, life, death & rebirth. These stories are strange allegories that illumine your understanding of the world surrounding you. They give you heroic models of behaviour that help you to live in an honourable way. Our shaman from 10,000 years ago is a storyteller. He creates a sense of self, of who and where you are. He gives codes of meaning & an intelligence to your life that makes you aware of the interconnectedness that the Web (Wyrd) woven by the Three Norns originates. Magick is possible here – you are not alone, disconnected and alienated from the world!

But 10,000 years later these stories of old are not told to us anymore. They became myths in a negative sense, fantasies of stupid, uneducated, brutish barbarians. The modern stories describe such states of consciousness (as mentioned above) as being ‘primitive’, ‘infantile’ and ‘wishful thinking’. They are something that must be ‘overcome’ by logical & scientific thinking. The French ethnologist Lévy-Bruhl interprets such a healing and wholesome state of unitary consciousness in a negative sense as participation mystique and the Austrian psychoanalyst Freud called this ‘magical thinking’ (based on his idea of primary narcissism). ‘Magical thinking’ is the belief that a person can impact reality by wishing or willpower. Such a belief demonstrates a belief in the self as powerful and able to change external realities. To put it shortly, magical thinking is in many ways what I strive for! For many years now, I try to decondition myself from this vision of ‘flatland’ logic by psychedelic drugs, meditation and magick (more or less successfully until now :-). Though in the long run POMO thinking is not at all ‘magic-friendly’ and, though the whole POMO current has created in many areas a body of knowledge of rather dubious value, I still believe that on a philosophical level some POMO ideas are useful to regain ‘magical thinking’ in a positive, ‘enlightened’ way, namely by creating new stories. Don’t get me wrong, science is invaluable! But the scientific story – if not balanced by wisdom, if not shown where its authority ends, and if not shown where it failed (!) – has not much (interesting) to say about the most important questions of life: What is the purpose of life? What happens after death? What is wisdom? Or, if I may quote again my ‘Aboriginal friend’ (from Hollywood:-), his answer to science would be the same as to the white man: “You got no love in your heart. When you got no dreaming, no story, you got nothing”. This is not completely true, of course. Science has a story: it dreams of ‘eternal progress’ and a condition where all disease, probably even death, is cured. For those who haven’t been so optimistic, it has created nihilism. And what is the story of nihilism? It goes: “The story is pointless. It all makes no sense. End of story.” But we Need a story. A brighter story, a greater story, a hopeful story!

But what can a story do on an individual level? Isn’t a story just a story? Well, yes and no. For example, what is the ego? From a meditative point of view, my ego is just the stories I tell myself about myself. But some stories are charged with a very high emotive energy. So, before my ego would give up its ‘core’ stories, it would probably run mad & defend them from extinction like a religious fundamentalist would protect his belief in God, just because the ego consists of these stories. Probably that’s why it’s so hard to ‘Cross the Abyss’, as Crowley has put it. Probably that’s why most humans fear death! Probably that’s why it’s hard to change at all! Because, you know, ‘that’s just the way I am!’, so I won’t give up this-or-that habit or such-and-such a way of thinking or repetitive emotional pattern, even if it’s bad for ‘me’. Because ‘that’s me’! You get the picture… The ego will all-ways convince you with its stories, why you shouldn’t change, why meditating is boring, or why you have the right to behave angry, feel depressed or be xenophobic. So, in a fundamental way, it’s of great importance what story dominates you, what story you tell yourself about yourself. This, probably, is the reason, why meditative systems of the East have only little use for ‘developing a strong personality’ etc. and focus very much on developing ‘egolessness’, developing equanimity towards life, pain & death and fostering devotion towards the God/dess or the guru, who represents the God/dess and, ideally, works as a ‘mirror’ for the apprentice. Our Northern Tradition fosters instead the development of a strong Hamingja (cp. Sweyn’s True Helm) and of courage towards life, pain and death (cp. Dave Lee’s Bright from the Well: Northern Tales in the Modern World).

On a more profane level just consider what psychotherapy basically does to people. It just gives them a story, a meta-narrative, that makes sense out of all the shit that went wrong and by explaining why this shit has led the individual to feel ‘so-and-so’ about himself. By giving sense to that which seems senseless, by explaining the pain and giving it a meaning, and by telling the person that s/he is not defined by its past and that s/he can now choose to do better. Basically, it creates a better story and thus a better ‘self’ – the stories, of which the ego consits, are changed! (‘Change all memory. And change your ways to perceive.’ TOPY proverb) In a way, the therapist is a modern echo of the storyteller, as is, of course, the priest. But finally that’s not enough, because today, if you are a genuine member of the holiest of all holy orders, the COT (= Club Of Truth-seekers :-), the truth of someone else won’t suffice. The shamanic storyteller from 10,000 years ago is dead and gone. The only one who can ‘replace’ him today is not a politician, priest, psychotherapist or some self-proclaimed guru, but it is you. 

Remember You Are Made Of Star Dust

So creating your own story is a good starting point. The chaos magician Andrieh Vitimus suggests:

“The imagination is more powerful than merely the facts. An idea backed by emotional responses can be seductive enough to enslave many to its cause, whether the idea is a spirit, a piece of art, a cause, or a concept. The majority of people seem content to give away their imagination and creative power. Often, this manifests in letting other forces (advertising, religion, ideas, spirits, whatever) decide what they should do and what they can have and be. This is the power of imagination. It can free us or be our worst prison.” (Andrieh Vitimus 2009: Hands-On Chaos Magic , p. 365, my accentuation)

In days of yore Imagination was a natural part of daily life and regarded as valid as any other human faculty. Walliam Blake, whose Poetic Genius has created a unique poetry (see ‘The Proverbs of Hell’), embraced Imagination as ‘the Body of God’. Today our Imagination, our visualising asf., is ‘stolen’ by the story-sellers, who created the ‘Body of (Pavlov’s) Dog‘.  Advertising is a good example. It sells ‘imagination’. So you buy the ‘myth’ surrounding the package, not the content itself. You don’t buy a perfume, but the ‘imagination’ that it makes you more erotic, attractive, seductive asf. Today we have no genuine storyteller except, probably, the artist. For example, artists who sing about the way they experience truth, like this one: “Waking sleep, cocooned within a veil of fog, Sight no further than my hand, Tearing at this web spun through reality … Through the sacred dance I Awaken, Through faith in myself and my rhythm, Conscious for the first time…” (Ironwood – here’s a fantastic German review). But today such artists are rare. Because in these modern days even the artist has become a whore of capitalism and thus he turned from a genuine storyteller to a storyseller – a faker, a peacock, a good-for-nothing. Mehr Schein als Sein (‘More Appearance than Being’). And stories they sell, packaged in a ‘consumer-friendly’ form, devoid of meaning and any real depth. A true storyteller, shaman & madman, Jhonn Balance (now dead dead dead – may he be blessed by all horned animals!), has warned our culture by proclaiming that Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil! The German artist and shaman (of sorts), Joseph Beuys, has said once: Every human is an artist. I would like to add: …and a storyteller. At least s/he should be. POMO theory started out when it proclaimed that there is no ‘grand narrative’ anymore (that the ‘scientific myth’ of modernity of eternal progress & secularization has kind of come to an end – that’s why post-modern). So, after Nietztsche proclaimed that ‘God is dead’, now the ‘grand narrative’ is dead, too. But I believe that we, as individuals and as a folk, need a narrative again, a story. And, in this globalized world, we need also a story for the earth community – a story that makes us aware of the interconnectedness of everything on this green-blue and fragile planet. Because when I poison the air over here in Europe, your air will be finally poised over there in Australia, too. So what could this story be about? Well, I’m not wise enough to answer this question, but we can silence our minds and listen to what the voice of our hearts has to say (what our ancestors called ‘High Rede’). And surely we can look with confidence to the wisdom of our ancestors and apply it. If the climate catastrophe shall be anticipated in time, science must be part of the solution, I believe. As the Permaculture slogan goes: ‘The problem is the solution.’ Mid-gard – Middle-Earth must be guarded, and it can only be guarded by us humans.


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