The Seething Unconscious

In my last piece I had a bit to say about the conscious and unconscious minds. Specifically, I suggested that the unconscious mind is much more powerful, more creative and generally wiser than the conscious (ego) mind. I also suggested that trance – be it seidh related or something else – helps us to disable the conscious mind so that the unconscious mind can run the show for a while.

But I didn’t exactly define what I mean by unconscious mind, and this term is not exactly something which I’ve prized from historical seidh lore.

Before I answer this question I want to take a moment to reflect on various authors’ attempts to reconstruct a map of human psychology using old Heathen terms. Folks talk about the fetch, the hyde, önd, ödr, the hamr, and so forth. There is hugr (mind), related to Old Norse hugrunes, and it is tempting to speculate about Old Norse minni (memory) too.

Edred Thorsson even constructs a whole model in his book Runelore that is based on Jungian ideas. This approach gets some flack from other Heathens for quite shamelessly crossing different traditions/ideologies, but you have to admit it has a daring ambition to it – and some of Jung’s ideas are not so far from Heathenism, either.

Bearing all this in mind, I am personally hesitant to speculate on what a full ‘Heathen psychology’, cobbled together from old words/concepts, might look like. There are a few reasons for this, but the main one is that in modern Western cultures there are a vast number of ‘psychologies’ and often they use the same terms in different ways. Given how varied the religion and culture of old Europe was I am a little hesitant to say “this is how these old psychological terms fit together”. I’d rather give myself the freedom to be a little open-ended.

You find a useful analogy with the runes. We talk about Elder, Younger, and Anglo-Saxon Futharks as though these were very clear, discrete scripts. Nevertheless, no two Futhark carvings from days of yore that I have seen have been exactly the same. There are general trends over time and space of course (e.g. Younger Futhark scripts appearing in the latter Dark Ages in Scandinavia), but not the tight delineations that only really make sense if you are used to a mechanised and fairly abstract modern world.

As a result it’s easy to spot modern rune authors (or modern speculators on Heathen psychology) who are just making up a load of codswallop – but very hard to decide who is right about specific details when comparing authors who have done their homework. I don’t want to spend my time splitting hairs, I want to spend my time doing rune and seidh work!

In any case, all reconstructed systems are likely to fail sooner or later. There is almost always going to be some kind of exception or ambiguous circumstance and we easily risk trying to force reality to fit our (more or less) abstract model if we only have one set way of understanding things. Of course, it is very helpful to learn about as many different models as you can – you’ll have access to lots of different perspectives. This goes for both modern psychology and for reconstructing Heathen psychological ideas.

So having cleared the ground, what do I mean by the unconscious?

I’m using the term unconscious in a very broad way. It can refer to any of the following, and lots of other things
too:

* Autonomic nervous system
For example regulating breathing and heartbeat.

* Immune system
Did you know that hypnosis can significantly improve your immune response? Its been clinically proven over and over again.

* Sympathetic nervous system
For example the fight/flight reaction which can put you into some very interesting states in which you can do things you normally wouldn’t be able to.

* Digestive system
In fact I’ve read that the area around your gut lining has the most neural connections of anywhere in your body other than the brain. This might be why constipation and other stomach problems are often associated with depression or (in my and a few other people’s subjective experience) with magical/spiritual ordeals.

* Subterranean reasoning
I sometimes solve answers to rational problems by asking my unconscious to figure it out. When it is ready I just get an ‘aha!’ moment and there’s the solution. This might not work for everyone; and for some, such as my brother who is a mathematician, the conscious mind might well be able to get to the answer easily enough without deeper assistance.

* Subterranean skill development
When I want to learn new musical techniques, for example, I rarely practice much. I instead strongly intend for the skill to develop, then forget about that intention. It tends to organically emerge in the course of my usual jamming and rehearsing of existing material. In this way I’ve learned to do quite a few things as a bassist and guitarist that at first seemed impossible.

* Root source of inspiration
That part or aspect of my brain and body which can make me see new wholes out of fragments, new angles on old problems, or synthesise music in ways that I can subsequently analyse to see how it works but which I could never have consciously invented

* Intuition
For example, when I was younger I had several very bad experiences with manipulative magical demagogues. I started to realise that each of these people caused a sense of unease in my mind when I first met them. Since then I’ve learned to listen to these kinds of messages. Sometimes they’re wrong; other times they’ve given me valuable fore-warning and I’ve been able to avoid or minimise a lot of pain. Also, people that emit these warning signals tend to recognise if you’re picking up on them and that can also help keep you safe because they can tell you are onto them.

* A source of meaningful or prophetic dreams

* The parts of me that don’t over think things and are therefore much better at designing and activating magic spells (with runes this is assisted also by spending many years chanting runes, meditating on runes, memorising rune poems, etc, so there are plenty of seeds buried in my mind).

* The part of me which dips into the web of Wyrd and provides a rope up which gods and spirits can climb; and which can interface directly with the imaginal realities of the world around me while my ego just spins around in a stew of its own garbage.

* The part of me that can draw strange non-rational (as opposed to irrational) patterns in the shape of my life at times, and which helps me therefore to understand my place in the web of Wyrd.

Ok, so it’s evident that some of the things in this list I could refer to by archaic or mythological names if I wanted to, and that in fact might be an interesting way to make richer magical practices. But I am resistant to just labelling these various aspects of my unconscious for fear of limiting myself and for the reasons already discussed above.

I do think about and seek out experiences characterised by önd and/or ödr – but I wouldn’t declare these to be the only real or true experiences of such things because there is no unbroken tradition for me to draw upon to make such a claim. There’s just my subjective experience which seems to fit with what these words might have meant to my ancestors.

Laterally-minded (a sign of a well-fed and active unconscious!) readers will be wondering how all of this fits with the debate over whether gods and the like ‘really’ exist as independent beings with their own agendas or whether they are part of some kind of collective unconscious, archetypal structuring principles of human experience.

I think this whole debate misses the point personally.

The thing is that archetypes in Jungian and post-Jungian theory seem to have independent wills of their own, just like gods. Conversely, gods affect the individual psyche in a way very similar to the way archetypes do.

Jung offered various definitions of “archetype” but I’m sure that at least once he suggests that they are not just structures of human consciousness or experience, but indeed are inherent structures of reality (or if you are a transcendental idealist, perhaps they are some kind of formal structure which comprises enabling conditions for the existence of consciousness in the world). In any case saying that the gods are inherent structuring principles active throughout reality seems like a pretty ‘hard polytheist’ description to me. So the debate could well be just a dispute over arbitrarily assigned names.

Jan Fries wins the prize for me (he often does). Considering that even recently invented deities can have a good deal of power (witness the Wiccan Goddess), he suggests that things are much more complicated that we can really understand and that while the gods might in fact be illusions, we humans are nevertheless still more illusory. Actually I should clarify – Fries attributes this point of view to something Loki suggested to him. It does sound a lot like something Loki would say. I think Fries is less interested in virtually irresolvable abstraction and more interested in spending time going to meet the gods, whatever their ontological status might be. What a great role model!

One of the richest explorers of ‘polytheistic consciousness’ I have encountered is the post-Jungian psychologist James Hillman. Hillman’s writing is astoundingly deep. I daresay he understands and feels the character of divine beings much more deeply than most hard polytheists (or even most theists), despite the fact that from his point of view he is ‘just’ taking about archetypes.

The lesson on this front is once again that belief is cheap (see my previous post)! Do your opinions help you
understand and relate to the gods, or hinder you? Learn all you can about archaic Germanic psychological lore and learn all you can about your own seidh/magical/trance experiences. Explore your consciousness and unconsciousness. But make sure you spend more time practicing than you do theorising (at least once you have sufficient grounding in the mythology and history). You’ll have a lot more fun, and frankly our ancestors probably spent more time practicing than theorising too.

Jan Fries has popularised the term Deep Mind. This can refer to any of the aspects of the unconscious I have suggested above, plus it can refer to the imagination, to spirits, to gods, indeed to the Axis Mundi itself. It is a psychological term which opens up into things that are far beyond the merely psychological. I think this is a really helpful concept. It keeps us on the path of opening into magical experience and new horizons of consciousness.

Given the extent to which I’ve been assassinating the reputation of the conscious or ego self, I feel I should mention something about this. Its not that I think the conscious ego self, which finds itself in its feeling of subjective separateness and language-bound narrative, is all bad. Following Nietzsche, however, I regard it as the more recent part of human conscious and consequently the least well developed. I think the only way to develop it is to get it into a harmonious relationship with both the unconscious and the world around it (remember that natural world thingy outside our smoke-choked cities?).

This will eventually lead to the conscious/unconscious split dissolving. At that point we might get to dial direct to the well of Mimir via the graceful branches of Yggdrassil (see Bil Linzie’s amazing writings for more on this). Sounds good to me.

Also, your unconscious is sensitive to what you feed it. If you feed it a steady diet of bad TV, fast food and consumerist “I want it yesterday” mentality then it will get sick and your conscious ego will suffer too. It might be helpful to treat it like a high-maintenance and very loving pet which can nevertheless eat you if you mistreat it.

Well this has been a lot of pontificating now and I really should be practicing what I preach. I’m going to try to discipline my garrulous mind and make the next few posts specifically practical in character. Of course for me writing can easily slip into a flowing, inspired consciousness in which one word leads to another word. So even this pulpit sermonising silliness is a kind of magical experience and practice. Jormangand, I suspect, likes to gnaw on his own tail when he gets the munchies.

Til next time!

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Seidh and Trance

There is healthy debate in modern times about what exactly seidh is, or how best to construct some kind of modern seidh practice from the paltry historical evidence available.

What seems beyond debate, however, is that seidh is about altered consciousness.

If we consider the various powers it is attributed to provide (shapeshifting, prophecy, cursing), the trance-like descriptions of its uses in the sagas and even the ergi references in the lore to be somehow related to individuals behaving in socially unacceptable or at least uncharacteristic ways, then it seems inescapable to me that seidh magic in what ever form is about attaining altered consciousness, about trancing.

What is a trance? From the point of view of modern hypnosis, a trance is any state of consciousness which has a degree of focus. Right now as I type away I am entranced by the task I am engaged in. Particularly common trances folks find themselves in are while driving, while reading, while exercising, while having sex or in meditation. Berzerkergang, insofar as it is a very dramatic altered consciousness state, is also a trance. Depression, shock and elation are all trances.

If we are in trances all of the time, what is so special about hypnosis, meditation, and so forth? I would suggest that trances which bring positive change are preferable to those induced by, say, television. Hypnosis and the like are basically techniques for using trance to seed positive ideas, feelings, beliefs and so forth. In fact, I would go further and suggest that hypnosis can be a tool for shutting up the endlessly nattering conscious mind so that the unconscious, which is always going to be a lot bigger and more powerful than the conscious, can get on with doing its good, creative work.

Just as you are what you eat, you are what you experience in trance. I haven’t owned a television for years for this very reason. Television exerts a compelling trance fascination, particularly if you aren’t often exposed to it and therefore aren’t used to its effects. The scary thing is that the people who decide what is on the TV have all kinds of agendas. These agendas are unlikely to have your individual needs and well-being at heart – and that is a grand understatement.

Anything I can do to develop my ability to trance-form I consider to be good grist for the seidh mill. Here are several propositions to consider if you agree about the place of trance in daily life and/or seidh magic:

1) Your conscious mind is less important than it wants you to think.

All the really good stuff gets done by your unconscious anyway, often via the doorway of a trance state. This holds for the basics of life such as having a regular heartbeat. This holds for having the co-ordination to confidently move your body. This holds for the eccentric fusion of reason and intuition that produces both
scientific breakthroughs and brilliant art. When I am dancing or composing or improvising my conscious ego self – shrunk by trance into a tiny speck – can sit back and marvel at the endless possibilities for creative expression that the rest of my being produces so easily but which daunt my ego completely.

2) Belief is cheap.

Folks argue endlessly over which ideology or belief or theory is correct, particularly in the worlds of psychology and religion. Truth matters in questions of physics or politics, but I would suggest that it becomes much more complex when we examine our own psychophysical nature. An important question to ask other than “am I right?” is “does this belief help me or others?”. If I believe I am worthless and doomed to failure then this belief is likely to shape my decisions and actions and become self-fulfilling. Fortunately the reverse is also true. To shift from a negative loop to a positive loop we have any number of options. I intend to explore some of these options in this journal.

3) Perfection is overrated.

Many people involved in spiritual pursuits, personal growth, psychotherapy, etc, are interested in becoming better or different to the way they perceive themselves being prior to getting interested in these things. This can have unfortunately consequences. I have met many people who shackle themselves with a perfect image of how they would like to be and flog themselves mercilessly when they inevitably fail to meet this ideal. The fact that they may have actually improved themselves a great deal despite their failures goes unnoticed.

A much better attitude is simply to accept that each of us has positive and negative potential. If I am less concerned with perfection and more concerned with learning how to change the consciousness state I am in at a given moment then it doesn’t matter if I am perfect or not. I can get quicker and quicker at recognising when I am in a bad way and more and more competent at interrupting the pattern I am in so that I move into a more beneficial state.

My point is not that trying to improve oneself is a waste of time. My point is that we are likely to be more successful if we abandon the dream of a perfected ego self and instead work with the far more powerful tides of trance and deep mind – forces which can take us to far richer and more beautiful (and often more humourously humbling) places than we could consciously imagine anyway.

4) Change wins.

Whether we imagine the vast complexities of a quantum universe or the endlessly cycling patterns of wyrd, change wins. The effort it takes to keep ourselves unchanged is monumental. This is even true if one is stuck in a pattern that seems immovable. If you are feeling depressed or anxious you might like to experiment with consciously trying to be depressed or anxious. Many people find it hard to voluntarily keep doing something that they started doing involuntarily or unconsciously. There is no point trying to defend eternal borders, because they never existed. Things can be unique, specific and localised. But they cannot be utterly isolated, unchanging, from everything else. The trick to surviving and prospering, therefore, is not to attempt to rigidly fight the inevitable eddies and flows of change,but rather to ride them.

From these four premises I propose to explore seidh magic as a vehicle, inspired by my Germanic ancestors, for getting better and better at altering and exploring my – and other beings’ – consciousness. Seidh can present an opportunity to take responsibility for my life as a being perpetually entranced – and indeed, I believe that Odin makes an excellent, if flawed, model and guide for this taking responsibility.

One of the main areas of interest I have in trance at the moment is rhythm. Although drumming is far from my speciality as a musician, I have been exploring the worlds of percussion in strange ways. For example, it is very difficult to play in two time signatures or two tempos or indeed to purposefully play out of time with oneself when one normally plays in time without effort. As soon as one hand is drumming in a 4:4 rhythm and the other in a 7:8 the conscious mind becomes quiescent. The task requires more than you can manage with surface will.

As I say, I am not a skilled drummer, although as a bassist I do have very good rhythm. So while exploring seidh consciousness and firing off rune sigils I have been drumming myself into very odd states. The drumming that I have been doing would not sound particularly interesting to an audience (unless they were interested in strange experimental improvisation!) – but it gets me wide open to some very positive trance spaces. I find it very hard to play out of time with myself, my conscious mind strenuously resists this – but when I get there I go far and deep and quickly, too.

As I develop better drumming skills in these specific areas I will perhaps post some recordings.

Of course the use of drums by historical Germanic magicians is also debated. I know there is no real evidence either way – although I’ve read that some really old European drums (I think circa 3000 BCE) have been found by archaeologists, so it seems on that basis quite plausible that the old Germanic tribes knew about these things. Also the Saami shamans use drums and since it seems likely that their practices were an influence of the development of historical seidh I think this adds further circumstantial support to the use of drums in seidh. Of course the ways in which I am exploring drumming has no precedent except that of my own musical imagination, which in turn flows from divine forces (IMHO). It does make for more intense trance experiences however.

Another aspect of rhythm I have been exploring has been in drawing. When I design my bind runes I work with my materials as rhythmically as possible, keeping the pastel movements regular and cyclical in motion as the rune images sink deep into my mind. In this way even the preparation of the bind rune for magical purposes serves as a kind of magical rite, and helps to bring together the practices of galdor (rune magic) and seidh. Indeed, all of this leads me to believe that galdor and seidh are much more closely related than some folks opine. Since the lore is pretty much silent on their relationship (and even exactly what these magical practices were), I think my opinion is just as good as the next person’s, with the added bonus that it helps me do better magic (see proposition number 2 above).

So what about this unconscious I’ve been talking about? Stay tuned for more…

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Western Martial Arts Part Seven: Fencing

“I have formal training in Fencing and informal training in Broadsword and Kendo. I have fought Kali/Escrima and practiced against it as well. In practice only, I have gone up against Okinawan and Iaido. I have seen Hindu and Shaolin forms in action. But in my opinion, the best way to learn basic stick-fighting technique is through Western Fencing. It’s easy to learn and it’s a bitch to get around.”
Marc “Animal” MacYoung.

If there’s one thing all us Heathens have in common, it’s our love of history. A little while ago, I expressed my opinion that “Martial Arts training is the ideal form of Yoga for Heathenism.” Now let me take that thought one step further…

Historical Western Martial Arts are the most natural choice for a Heathen Combat Discipline.

The first thing anyone should do in the Martial Arts is go out and learn some basic, no-frills Self Defence. You should not even consider the “art” side until you’ve learned how to stay out of trouble…and what to do when trouble comes looking for you.

The second step anyone should take, in my opinion, is to go learn the basics of whatever full-contact combat sports are common in their geographical area. This sets the bar high. I look at the combat sports as a barrier test for the serious martial artist. This is not something you need to devote your entire life to, but if you want to become an “expert fighter” you’ll at some point need to step up and do some actual full-contact fighting.

But, strictly speaking, once you’ve gotten past the first step of learning basic self defence…after that your time is your own. There’s no reason why we can’t have a little fun in the gym. A little bit of wrasslin’ and some sword/cudgel/dagger play sounds like my idea of a good time. If it sounds like yours, you may just be a Heathen Martial Artist.

And who knows? Researching the ways of our ancestors…we may actually learn something.

Clint.

If you don’t understand the distinction between Martial Arts, Combat Sports and Self-Defence, you need to read this article: http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/four_focuses.html

Now for the fun stuff!!!

The Society for Creative Anachronism

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts

Some great articles…

A Filipino knife instructor with some nice things to say about Western Fencing.
(I wouldn’t mind taking some lessons from him, either.)

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Western Martial Arts Part Six: Close Quarters Combat

“The Ultimate Fighting Championship is the closest thing to real fighting I’ve seen the martial arts world involve itself in, but until they include guns, knives, beer bottles and do it on concrete, it’s still not there yet.”
Marc “Animal” MacYoung.

Geoff says the defence systems that work in war generally work in reality fighting: the pre-emptive and deceptive strike, and the killer blow. “Things that they used in the First and Second World Wars, such as the single and double foot stomps to the head: gratuitous, ugly and very workable. Punching people so hard that they go back in time, and when they wake up their clothes are out of fashion. Its all very basic, very ugly and very workable. Biting, butting, blinding and anything that will win the fight and save your life.”
Marc Wickert from an interview with Geoff Thompson.

As much as I’ve learned from the full-contact fight sports, my first choice for serious self defence is still old-school WWII Close Quarters Combat.

Originally developed by W.E. Fairbairn for use by the Shanghai Municipal Police, this system incorporates elements of Boxing, Wrestling, Fencing, Judo, Kung Fu and La Savate. With the outbreak of WWII, Fairbairn returned home to become chief Hand-to-Hand Combat instructor to the Commandoes, the SOE and evetually the OSS.

Despite it’s oriental origins, the method remained quintessetially western in character in every way but one, this is not a sport. Stripped down to the bare essentials, the “Shanghai Method” represents the simplest, most efficient means yet devised for turning average, untrained fighters into vicous, all-in brawlers.

If you want to learn the “inner secrets” of the Martial Arts, then this is the place to start. Deadly, dirty, devious…this is as brutal as it gets.

Clint.

Get Tough” by W.E. Fairbairn

Kill or Get Killed” by Rex Applegate.

Shooting to Live” by W.E. Fairbairn and E.A. Sykes

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Recent Rune Magic Adventures

Last night and tonight I performed some rune magic. The two spells were quite different so I will describe each in turn. Questions of UPG are fairly irrelevant to this post except to say that the techniques used are only loosely inspired by historical evidence and a knowledge of general magical techniques.

recentrunemagicadventuresimage1
The first ritual I performed with my wife. We both have had struggles with certain personality traits which tend to get in the way of getting on with working towards one’s goals, so we decided to do something about it. Here’s what happened.

While Annalise smudged the house, tidied it up a bit and got the ritual space ready, I worked out a bindrune based on our conversations about the concept of the ritual.

We set it up on the ironing board amid lots of unironed clothes as this seemed very appropriate. I played an old, very flammy and out of tune floor tom, both to alter our consciousness and also as an additional vehicle for channelled communication.

Then we personified the habit we wanted to change as a separate being. First I asked her lots of questions about its effect on her life and what she would prefer, which helped to summon it. We spoke in quite hypnotic… repetitive … ways, which really helped shift us into trance. Then she quizzed me about its affects in my life and what I would prefer and it possessed me.

She then bargained with it. In exchange for getting to wallow in the cat’s laziness it would leave us alone so that we could develop new, better habits and ways of being. It was shifty and sneaky, but I think Annalise did quite well with reaching an accord with it.

I think a day later we are both feeling the difference already. The sigil is now on the wall in the lounge room. I won’t analyse the rather complex bind runes and other symbolism because a) forgetting about it makes it more effective and b) some of it came straight from my unconscious mind and I don’t know what it means.

recentrunemagicadventuresimage2

The second bit of rune magic I did was just tonight. It had a specific goal which I’ve already forgotten (read up on your chaos magic or Jan Fries’s books if you need to get some basic understanding of how sigil magic works).

I chose the runes for the bindrune by looking at a picture of the Elder Futhark and letting the relevant runes choose themselves. It was hard to resist my conscious mind’s desire to pick out what seemed like the most obvious runes, but I trust my instincts. I am not a big fan of the Rune Gild approach to rune magic, but when I was in the Gild I spent a lot of time chanting and meditating on runes as per their ‘curriculum’ and all those hours of effort have definitely paid off.

Anyway, I drew the bindrune, then prepared for the ritual. I turned off all the lights and the room was lit by a single candle in front of the bindrune on the floor. I then played that old floor tom and chanted and stared at the bindrune, letting my mind wander, slowly pouring off the endless pointless, petty random thoughts of the
day, then letting my mind sink in and out of trance, touching the bindrune, taking it into the deeps. I chanted the names of runes, I chanted gibberish, and I even found myself chanting “Woden, Vili, Ve” over and over again. After some indeterminate time (and hour?) I fel the urge to wet the image with my saliva and then I knew it was done. Now that bindrune is on the lounge wall too :) Let’s see what results come of it!

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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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Western Martial Arts Part Five: Pankration

“People often ask me what art I would select for a physical confrontation if I could only take up one discipline, and I tell them it would be Boxing. If I could choose two arts, then I would say Boxing and grappling, but I would never choose just one discipline.”
Geoff Thompson

648 BCE and more than two hundred years before the birth if Socrates, Greek Olympic athletes fought bare-knuckle and no-holds-barred in a contest they called Pankration.

Since the coming of Christianity, Pankration has been persecuted, banned and driven underground countless times, only to re-emerge each time as the ultimate test of one on one, hand-to-hand fighting ability.

Today Pankration, by a dozen other names, is again reclaiming legitimacy. Fighters require a minimum foundation in the basics of Boxing, Wrestling, Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu to have any hope of success in competition. Ironically, while western fighters have flocked to learn the Judo/Wrestling hybrid known as “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu”, the Japanese have been quietly refining Catch-As-Catch-Can Wrestling into an extremely well rounded style they call Pancrase or Shootfighting.

Clint.

The Historical Pankration Project

Boxing, Wrestling and Shootfighting in the Sydney city CBD.

My “fifteen minutes of fame” as a cage fighter

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Evidence, Sources, and Gnosis

Because this journal has a primary purpose of documenting magical and mystical explorations, I feel a word is in order regarding my views on what in Heathen circles is called Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis (UPG).

Heathens are generally trying to reassemble some kind of set of traditions from cultures which once lived. There is a lot of literature calling for authors to be clear about which of their claims are supported by some kind of archaeological or textual evidence; which of their claims are speculative; and which of their claims are actually ideas imported from some other body of mystic, religious, or cultural tradition.

I believe it is very important that this sort of clarity be encouraged. If we are unclear about which of our claims come from evidence and which of our claims are invented (in good faith one hopes), then our readers are at risk of treating our opinion as though it were fact.

Furthermore, I think we need to be honest about how we interpret the evidence of Heathen belief and practice that is available. Every person has biases and these will invariably affect the way they interpret sources. Historiography is a sub-branch of history which looks at the “history of history”, the way in which researchers at different times and places have interpreted the same evidence differently on the basis of their own biases. It is also interesting to note the ways that a researcher’s bias affects which evidence they rely on more heavily in forming and presenting their opinions.

A classic example of this is the interpretation of gender in European burial sites. Archaeologists used to just assume that if a buried body had weapons or armour then it must be male; if it had domestic equipment it must be female. Advances in bone analysis, among other things, now reveal that a good number of female corpses from Heathen Europe were buried with weapons and armour, and many male corpses went to the afterlife with domestic gear. All of this suggests a much more complex picture of how the sexes were organised. It seems the gender politics of the researchers led them to make very inaccurate assumptions about the gender roles and gender politics of the Heathen Germanic peoples (or at the very least, about their burial practices). You can read more about this here, or in a fantastically speculative article in issue two of Hex Magazine.

So where I do personally stand?

Well I am a big fan of UPG, so long as it doesn’t obviously and blatantly contradict the evidence available and so long as it is presented honestly. So for example I am happy to entertain the notion that Odin as the Wanderer or as Grim might have walked with a limp, even though nothing is said in the sources about this either way. Whereas the Rune Gild idea that Odin survives Ragnarok is transparently (for good or ill) a load of UPG. The Poetic Edda clearly states that he is killed by Fenris Wolf.

This latter example conjures a related issue. Some recent authorities on Heathenism have presented themselves as being far more strict about sticking to the lore than they actually have been. Edred Thorsson, as the leader of the Rune Gild, is a great case in point. There is stacks of very wild speculation in his books but there is also lots of solid research. Unfortunately he doesn’t make it clear which is which, leading many readers to take some way out ideas as being academically sound and unquestionably self-evident! you can read more about these issues in Sweyn Plowright’s Rune Primer.

There is one more area of interest with these issues and debates. Folks who argue for the primacy of historical evidence rarely spend much time delving into the possible spiritual or psychological meaning of, say, the Eddic poems. Whereas folks who prefer a preposterous hypothesis to an ugly fact are quite keen to reflect on the deeper meaning of the old lore, no matter how unfaithfully they do so. I would like to see people who take the historical evidence seriously start to also reflect on its possible significance as metaphor and symbol. Perhaps I might even do this myself in these very pages.

You can expect me to present a lot of UPG material in this journal, but I promise to try to always be clear about what I can support with evidence and what my imagination has furnished. That’s a much better promise than you can expect from many of the self-proclaimed lore-masters in the world of Heathenry – its a simple promise that I will be as honest as is possible.

Til next time!

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Western Martial Arts Part Four: Wrestling

“If you don’t know how to Wrestle, you don’t know how to fight. Wrestling is the prerequisite to fighting”
David “Tank” Abbott

“Very often one looks at a technique in the course of a class and you think, would this do the job on a maniac in the street? With Wrestling you were thinking, how can I tone this stuff down so that I don’t kill the maniac on the street?”
Geoff Thomspon

Wrestling is the core, the foundation. Wrestling is the pre-requisite to fighting. All other combative skill grows out of this.

Wrestling is so vastly under-rated as a martial art. The first class I took in Wrestling, I got thrown around like a rag doll. That’s in spite of the fact that I’d already been through some serious Ju-Jutsu training and a few years working as a Bouncer. Oh…Did I mention that the guys throwing me around were half my size. Anyone who tries to tell you Wrestling is “just brute strength” has clearly never done any real Wrestling.

What amazed me most about western Wrestling was how simple and natural the techniques are compared to Japanese Judo and Ju-Jutsu. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take Judo, however. Any form of grappling sport where you get to test yourself against a live, resisting opponent will do the trick. Even if you just wrestle “rough ‘n’ tumble” with your buddies you’ll still pick up a lot of useful skills.

The Berserker motto for Wrestling ought to be…
“Any where, any time, with rules or without.”

Clint

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