I’m afraid I can’t. Jan is not really the guy of internet. He doesn’t have any. Yeah, that’s weird in a really weird way. I can’t understand that. Jan wrote letters (not e-mails!!!) to me! Try his publisher.

Best,

Matt.

Yes, I meditate often on the ravens – hoping that some will bring me good things, and that others will take away the bad things: healing and cleansing at the same time.

I would like to expand a bit more on my comment. What is absent in folkish discussions is a realistic regard for basic but important concepts such as culture, community and education. It is important for heathens to go beyond the almost “cultish” conceptual tools that trap one in dualistic opposites, a good example being “folkish” vs “universalist”, “modernist” vs “postmodernist”, etc. Both “race” and “folkish” are in fact modern constructs! (And the ideological notion of “folkish” has its origin in recent Austrian and German history – I need not say more about this.) A healthy embracing of ancestry is rooted in culture – whichever one that a person is born into. There is no one formula for it. (One cannot appeal to genetics because the science of the genome project shows that we are all of mixed ancestries – e.g., a high incidence of north European genes in northern China at one stage.) With the increased migration of people, the diversity is now almost impossible to chart. For many migrants and their descendants – I am the son of refugees – culture and ancestry involve a lifelong process of negotiations and reflections. Racial essentialism is a myth to us and stops us from growing as persons. We cannot function in society if we are trapped in some mythical past of our ancestors. For me personally, moral issues override the aesthetics of “ancestor worship”.

I have been looking with great interest at the online photos of the 176th Oktoberfest in Munich. They now clearly show the presence of non-European Germans. Actually everyone looks great in the Trachten and the Dirndl! I have met a few in Australia myself – Germans of Asian and Middle Eastern backgrounds.

What I find most appealing about the northern European tradition is its purported emphasis on personal and community ethics.

It looks like Jan Fries was applying Socratic dialectics in your interview of him to force people, and especially those in the “heathen scene”, to think critically about the issues at hand. A similar critical spirit (Geist; esprit) – in fact a hallmark of the Western civilisation that endures and is universally admired in the world – is displayed in Sweyn Plowright’s “True Helm”. The Vikings were an innovative people, and approached issues with a critical mind. My continuing study of the sagas show that as a general rule they evaluated people and situations based on merit. Is a similar spirit reflected in the heathen scene? Hopefully this blog is a forum for it.

Ultimately, living in a democracy we have the right of the freedom of association. People who call themselves heathens can form any group they see fit as long as they are not in contravention of the law of the country they live in. By the same token, heathens have the right to hang out with other heathens who have similar orientations and can work together in magic, etc.