http://edred.net/community/members/385/Blog_Isolate_Intelligence.php

“Edred here. Einhverfr asked “how and why” I would have equated Odin and Set. How this was done was a matter of looking at the intellectual constructs of the living master of Setian philosophy, Michael Aquino and comparing them to the insights of the father of philosophy as we know it, Zarathustra, who defined the part of the Indo-European pantheon we know as Odin-Lugh-Hermes-Mercury-Varuna-Ahura Mazda as the principle of divine intelligence separate and unique in the universe, the one and only true god, from whom all other gods are derived.”

To me for a Heathen leader of that level of profile to build a reputation on being opposed to syncretism…and then to promulgate such a deeply syncretic view of the CHIEF DEITY of Heathenry, without any academic or objective basis…I’m sorry but while I respect his acheivements, I’m really not down with this extreme “passing off opinion as fact” stuff, especially when the opinion being passed off as fact (though openly without academic basis at least) is so bloody out there…

I’m not really sure how to respond to your comments on Edred or his views – it is possible that he comes across very different if one has regularly personal experience oof him than the way he comes across in his writing. I can only assume that if someone writes certain opinions without qualifying them that they mean them…but I respectfully accept the possibility of my being mistaken ;)

I didn’t leave the Gild when Rune Net split from the Gild, incidentally. I stayed in both for a while but I wandered off from the Gild after I had the realisation that all the exercises of the Nine Doors had done nothing for me; it was when I embraced a more shamanic – for want of a better word – approach that sparks really began to fly both runically and in the deepening of my Odinnic connection. Basically it was a waste of money to remain a member. However he is in person, some of Edred’s writing seems to me so laden with “bubble pride” that I could not see how the author of such sentiments could have “the goods” spiritually speaking. This is sort of a digression – I should note though that I didn’t mean to suggest that Edred sees himself as influenced by New Age thought…merely that he seems to have more in common with this sort of thing than he might like to think, given how scathing he is of Blum, etc!

My point about people’s way of believing in the gods was not to suggest that no one literally belives in them…but more to point out the seeming arbitrary and ill-informed arrogance and ignorance of suggesting that the Gild alone is a custodian of more subtle understandings of the divine. I agree, we have to go beyond the obvious – but from the way Edred comes across to me, you’d think he thinks he invented this venerable notion.

Thanks for challenging me and calling my bluff. I have much to think about. During and since the time I wrote “Soft Monotheism” I have decided that my righteous fury sometims lowers me to the level that I perceive my target to be at. It is valuable to explore this way of doing things and I thank you for the opportunity to do just that.

So with that in mind, I guess I’m going to respond to a couple of points here that you might find productive to consider. In particular, I don’t personally use his concept of Germanic epistemology (my epistemology is structured very differently), nor do I find the second quote you mention to be uniquely true. I see where he is coming from and I think it’s a great idea to think about, but it’s not my approach.

I see all gods, without exception, as being both products and shapers of tradition, and while I’d consider myself a soft monotheist, my soft monotheism is closer to what’s described in the Upanishads. Namely if all the gods are aspects of something, that something is Yggdrassil, and, to me, Yggdrassil is ME. I also see a fundamental paradox and tension between looking at Hindu concepts of immortality as self-annihilation and self-deification. In reality it is both and in that paradox lies everything.

Having said this, I think there are some areas where I’d have to defend Edred a little here. I think he’s saying something different. Namely that many religious folk believe in the gods as real, distinct, physical entities. I’ve met plenty that did. I also see him saying that people can make a certain level of progress in understanding when they believe this, but that it’s something that one must eventually outgrow.

Also I think he is trying to say that, in essence, Odin is the All-father for a reason and that as creator of the world through the sacrifice of Ymir, and through being the progenitor of the gods, he can be seen as the incarnation of the pantheon as a whole. I don’t particularly agree with this viewpoint (nor do I find it particularly useful), but I don’t think it’s baseless either, particularly due to some more recent cross-Indo-European studies I have done which suggest that the sovereign was often seen as the embodiment of the tribe.

I also think he sees himself in this way as being far more influenced by studies of Zoroastrianism than by New Age thought (and has in some speeches compared Odin to Ahura Mazda in this specific way). I suppose I find myself more influenced by Hindu thought than by Persian.

Freya is an interesting subject, isn’t she?

Your point about a belief in reality or an acceptance of mythology was particularly helpful.

Thankyou!

I’ve been following this site for awhile and I have to say I find the perspectives here to be absolutely refreshing. You’re not Thorsson’s only critic (while I am Vanic-focused, I find “Witchdom of the True” to be… problematic… putting it nicely), and I absolutely love “you can’t even ask him because he’s a bloody liar, so UPG isn’t much help either”… that is very much The Old Man.

Anyway, cheers! Keep writing, it’s very needed.

-Sigrún Freyskona