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Sunday, June 1st, 2014
| Time | Event |
| 10:35a | Sorcerer & God A long time ago our forebears practised what we would call sorcery: they cast spells to influence the spirits of nature. Some where better at this than others were, and yearly contests were organised to make sure that the tribe at all times had the best suited to be their sorcerer-king and sorcerer-queen. The king was selected based on his skills, strength, intelligence and good health. The queen was selected based on her innocence, patience and beauty. We know this May couple and the May contests from both our fairy tales, mythology and traditional songs.
With time it became clear that the sorcerer’s spells didn’t always work, and some societies changed: rather than rely on the spell-casting skills of a sorcerer, they began to address the spirits more directly, and simply asked them to comply. When doing so the hermaphroditic spirits were athropomorphised and given a name and gender: so the spirit of lightning was called “Lightning”, in Scandinavia Loki (“lightning”, from the PIE root *luk-), the spirit of thunder was called “Thunderer”, in Scandianvia Þórr (“thunderer”), etc. The trees and animals these spirits had originally been associated with turned into the attributes of the deities. So Þórr’s temple was based around an oak tree, and his carriage was said to be pulled by goats. Freyja’s temple was based around a cherry tree, and her carriage was said to be pulled by cats. Etc. The society was still penetrated on all levels by the idea of sorcery (‘sympathetic magic’) though, so in order to gain the powers of the deities man – i. e. priests and priestesses – could simply impersonate the deities. E. g. by dressing up as a goddess, by impersonating her, by taking her name a girl became her, and thus also gained all her powers. The gods and goddesses of the temples were thus very much real: they were there themselves! Listening to the prayers of man, eating the sacrificed animals, healing injured men, and being pulled or carried around to the fields to bless them, etc. The deities were real! The sorcerer-king and sorcerer-queen were thus replaced by the god-king and the goddess-queen, but not much changed, really.
Yearly contests were still organised to make sure that the tribe at all times had the best suited to be their god-king and goddess-queen. The king was still selected based on his skills, strength, intelligence and good health. The queen was still selected based on her innocence, patience and beauty. The winners of these annual contests were given an apple. The aging man stood no chance of winning an Olympic games type contest against younger and stronger men, and the aging girl stood no chance of winning a beauty contest against younger and more beautiful girls. Thus the deities were kept young forever, by the help of Íðunn’s apples.   |
| 11:58a | Real Deities As explained here, our forebears didn’t believe in “gods” as we today often understand the term. The term “god” in English is an Anglo-Saxon term, and the original meaning is simply “good”, “good thing”, “good deed”, “benefit”, “goodness” or “welfare”. The good and beneficial spirits of nature were hailed as “gods”, and the harmful and some times even malevolent spirits of nature were naturally not. The European deities were (and still are) ideals, positive concepts such as “the spirit of honesty” or “the spirit of justice”, and unless impersonated by men or women, actors playing the role of certain gods or goddesses, these deities naturally never answered the prayers of men. So there was no pathological relationship between the Pagan European and his deities. He was not at all relating to his deities like the Judeo-Christians do in relation to their “god”. He did not hear voices, “the voice of god”, when there were in fact nobody speaking to him. He did not expect nothing to produce something. He did not address nothing. Who is this guy talking to?
His sacrifices were to real deities; he gave something to his deity and then got something in return. His prayers were addressed to real deities; he asked for something, negotiated with his deity, and then they agreed on something. He could see and touch and communicate with his deities: the deities were real! The deities were impersonated by men and women of flesh and blood. The deities were kept forever young, immortal, by the yearly selections. This was the case in Ancient Greece, Ancient Scandinavia, Ancient Gaul, Ancient Britannia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Persia etc., wherever men of European stock dwelled. A very much real deity
The spirits of nature are very much real too, and they are called spirits because they are not physicals. They are what we would call ideals: honesty, courage, justice, health, beauty, purity, innocence, kindness, love, etc. These ideals – spirits – were seen everywhere in nature. A particularly courageous animal would be an animal linked to the spirit of courage, a particularly kind animal would be an animal linked to the spirit of kindness, a particular strong tree would be a tree linked to the god of strength, etc. You an always argue that “there are no spirits”, but you would be as wrongs as if you argued that there is no honesty, courage, justice, health, beauty, purity, innocence, kindness, love, etc- Two more real deities
The European deities were thus very much real.   |
| 4:14p | Panem et circenses I A fairly objective news report has arrived from Norway in relation to the process. If you by any chance don’t know Norwegian you can always try Google translate. As stated in the news report I did not want to comment, but I was allowed to read through it and point out errors, which Mr. Skjærli, the journalist, kindly removed. PS. I am sorry for troubling you with these annoying egocentric and non-mythology related posts, but since I am under attack I use whatever legal means I have available to defend myself. Bear with me. Better times will come. Paris, the 17th of October 2013:
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| 8:11p | Metempsychosis First some music… As explained here and here, our forebears believed in reincarnation and the eternal existence of the honourable man. There was no “punishment” for the bad, and no “reward” for the good, other than rebirth – here on Earth, in the kin – for the honourable. What they believed was that when you died your body went to Hel (“hidden”), i. e. the burial mound/grave. This was a cold, dark and damp place, but it was really just a name for the grave. Our dead bodies return to earth, as simple as that. Your mind (called “soul” by the Judeo-Christians) was sent to heaven to be purified by the fire of the Sun. Again, like with Hel, there was no ‘punishment’ or ‘suffering’ involved. You just had to remove the bad parts with cleansing fire, to make sure they did not return when you were reborn into a new body. The amount of ‘you’ to be reborn was equal to the ‘amount of your mind’ that would be left after the cleansing fire had removed the bad parts. Thus the truly honourable could be reborn ‘in full’, so to speak. Others had only small fragments of their minds reborn, and of course yet others – the thoroughly rotten – were simply removed. They ceased to be, they ceased to exist. They passed into oblivion. The most honourable dead were buried in beautiful graves, and when the children grew old enough they could chose themselves whom they were to be reborn as. The more honour a dead person had, the more children would be interested in being reborn as him. Men often chose to bring their most valuable possessions with them into the graves when they died, to make sure that they could keep them in the next life as well – and possibly also to entice children to chose to be reborn as them, if their honour was not enough. So the more honour and the more wealth a dead person had, the greater the probability that a child would choose to be reborn as him. If a dead person was never chosen by a child, then he would never be reborn. So the honour itself was not enough: the honourable dead had to be chosen by a child as well, in order to be reborn. There was no automatic rebirth even for the most honourable. European Pagans also let the fire purify in life:
You might argue that there is no evidence to support the belief in reincarnation. You might claim that there is no such thing. Ok, but as I see it we will be better off if we live in societies where people believe in reincarnation than we are in societies where people believe in either nothing (atheists) or in some fictional “Heavenly Paradise” (Judeo-Christianity). It doesn’t matter if it is real or not: what matters is that people who believe that they are to be reborn here on Earth, in the same society, will do their best to ensure the happiness and health of their descendants! Will you catch all the fish in the ocean, kill all game in the forest, chop down all the trees or pump up all the oil and use it all in your lifetime, if you believe that you will be reborn here on Earth? Will you leave nothing for your future reborn self? Of course not. You will instead try to preserve all that is good, to create more good, and try to pass it on to those who come after you – to yourself in future lives. I care not if I actually am to be reborn or not, if reincarnation is real or not, but I see the value of such a belief system for my species, and understand that only such a belief system will ensure the survival of all that is good and just. Only such a belief system will enable the betterment of our species. No matter what you think, say or feel; all the alternatives are worse in all respects, because whether we like it or not: man is an egotistical creature. Rather than try to suppress man’s ego, we should use it to cultivate great societies. HailaR WôðanaR! The purifying fire of the Sun:
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