Bringing Forth the Gods of My Kin

Bringing Forth the Gods of My Kin:

A Heathen perspective on the Hamingja, the Gods, Manifesting the Family Soul, and the “Problem of Other People in the World”

Copyright 2011 by Alfarrin

The First Fire and the Hamingja

When I became Heathen in 1995, it was on the coat-tails of what still amounts to the most powerful blot and burnt offering to Odin I have ever attended. That pyre burned as the sun came up, and it was piled with food and precious, valuable personal offerings. We gathered, spoke our words, drank our mead, poured our mead for the Sacred Guest, and we never knew then what a powerful thing we had done until years later.

At the time, I had no concept of what "Hamingja" was. Years later, I know it as one of the most crucial concepts and pylons which holds up the entire edifice of the organic and Ancestral tradition. Without a well-developed understanding of it, the soul of Heathenry remains obscure and distant. Without an understanding of it, your family and kin and friends are just people related to you by chance of birth or meeting, and related to you by genetics. With an understanding of it, a great divine reality opens itself up to view, a reality that both unifies, and makes particular; a reality that holds men and Gods, and every living thing, in its lasting grip. Hamingja is a reality that surges forth from the dense darkness of the ancient past, manifests in the deeds and persons of the present, and stands behind all things that come to pass.

It sounds a lot like Fate, and it should; the Fate-women, those divine beings called "Disir" are part of Hamingja. They see to the fateful comings and goings in every person's life, especially those two supreme and fatefully-loaded times: birth, at which time the birth-runes are marked on the soul and life-force, and death, when the Fylgja-Dis departs and returns to take a man or woman to the beyond, to dwell in deeper unseen regions of this strange world, or onward to whatever place or condition their Fate may have in store for them. Hamingja and the maidens of Hamingja are tied up with the mysteries of causality, which are other aspects of Fate- or Wyrd, for those who know better.

Hamingja is luck-force, but it is not something so simple as some inherited determining factor that will influence a lucky lottery ticket or the possibility of a traffic accident for a person. It is the sum-total of all wealful and woeful deeds done in the family line before, and the power of countless incidents and happenings that have affected one's ancestors. It is the force of life itself, truly; always protean, always shape-shifting, and always surging forth, like a river.

It moves through each person, and through each family, and through any grouping of persons that bond themselves together in any permanent or semi-permanent manner, sharing life and experience. Hamingja is there, and it does, among other things, determine "luck" as most people know it. But it does much more; it is much more.

People who become Heathen to focus on the Gods are missing most of the point of the Old Heathen way- it wasn't focused on Gods primarily; it was focused on family, clan, deeds, and living daily life. It was focused on the implements of daily life- weapons, tools, treasures, boats, the beasts of daily life- cattle, horses, pigs, and the like. It was focused on relationships between men, between men and women, between groups. It was focused on the business of being human.

What modern people don't understand is that all of these things were tied up with Hamingja, the subtle and ever-present force that could express itself in all those forms, particularly when relationships were established in a manner of holiness.

The Gods come forth from Hamingja, in the same way Ancestors do- a portion of a dead man or woman's life and power went forth into future generations through Hamingja, and so they could (and did) emerge both as newborn children, and as Ancestral spirits. The Gods, however, always stand behind the human Ancestors in the position of Godly Ancestors, responsible for the arising of mankind- and through this ancestral conduit, the Gods are here, now, with us.

When my friend Grettir and I burned that sacrificial bonfire and drank our mead, we were joining Hamingja together, though at the time we only felt it- we didn't know it, consciously or intellectually. From our fire, from our joining, from our deeds, from that time, from that place, a God came forth. And the purpose of that fire wasn't just worship, it wasn't just to "give worth" to our Sacred Guest; it was for something that Grettir needed to aid his family. And within a day, his family was blessed with the fortune we had hoped for.

Hamingja- nothing could be more holy, because holiness, power, force, these things are waves that emerge from the river of Hamingja. No one walks through life alone, ever. This could not be so; in each person is a share of Hamingja from the family lines that converge in them, and inside them is a portion of the sum total of their Ancestors. Who they were, what they did, what they loved, what they fought for, what power they had, what insight they had, and in a way, even the Ancestors themselves: these things are inside of you and all people, physically and metaphysically, in every iota of your flesh, blood, breath, and the immaterial aspects of yourself. No part of you can be apart from these Ancestral powers.

And within you is also found the mysterious "residing" of the Godly beings. There, inside you, like Ancestral powers from a "further and deeper" time, they rest. In most people, they rest in an unexpressed, largely unconscious way. In the being of the nithing or in the wicked, whose Hamingja has become so blighted with weakness that the flame of their connection to humanity and the past burns low, the Gods and Ancestors cannot make a mead-hall or a home.

But in most people, they are present, appearing to rest deeply in us. They are the sources of dreams you have and don't recall or understand. Their presence leads to that feeling of basic dignity, of conscious goodness and the desire for peace in you. They are the motivators to greatness, to risk, and all the powers that are quite strange and mystical in us, and which give impetus to imagination and industry. In those people who feel the urge- buried deep in Hamingja- to become Heathen again, to raise the banner of the Old Ways (not just the Old Gods) again, those powers wake up. They come forth. Every line of Hamingja has its Gods, just as it has its Ancestors.

One can never grasp the full impact of this awakening reality, this "coming forth", but one begins to experience it in all aspects of life- sleep, at times, becomes a portal of dreams about the Gods, and the Ancestors. Waking life becomes full of a strange yet familiar and subtle presence that a person might not have noticed before. Events take on new meaning. A new vitality starts to rise up. Inspirations arise.

One becomes stronger, more energetic, more honorable, more motivated to greater things. One becomes less able to emotionally tolerate the unconscious, honorless antics of the hordes of mankind who express no strength of Hamingja, and yet, one goes forth again, alone if they must, to live better than what they have seen before. One begins to live closer in accord with the noble standards of the Ancestors who have become long forgotten in our forgetful, shallow, and materialistic world.

Hamingja can be in "things"- it doesn't need human breath and life; we humans have relationships that run very deep with many non-human powers, and even "things". The sacred tree of a grove, the sacred stone over the graves of the Ancestral dead, the sacred treasures made by our kin, infused with the Hamingja of their creativity, and passed down to us; the hall of drinking and feasting made holy by the gathering of a kindred or a family- in all these places and "things", Hamingja is found, filling, swirling, enlivening. Even in inspired songs and poems, Hamingja flashes forth. And in the combination of all these things, wed to human beings and the beasts around us, the Gods of our Ancestors can emerge.

What Hamingja needs to really "come forth" as it did in the days of old is conscious awareness on our part, an awareness of what it is, and at times, who it is: when it manifests as a gathering of kin or friends, as a child, a wife, a husband, or even a beast made holy in the rites of the faith. When we know this, the quality of the mind changes, and with it, perceptions; we create a wide open field within ourselves for the manifestations of the fullness of Hamingja, for its fullness can come forth from any part, if the mind is well-prepared.


The Gods, The Allfather, Blot, and True Family

And that is what the Gods really are- beings who know and express the Fullness of the World-Hamingja. Each of us, and our families, we are partial streams of it; they are the whole, or should I say, they have access to the whole. Odin, as we know, sacrifices "his self to his Self"- his lesser self to the greater Self, and that greater Self is nothing more or less than the whole of Hamingja.

Through his sacrifice, he has access now to the deep, bottomless resources and powers of everything. In a direct way, he is now present to everything, at every place, to every person. This doesn't make him some abstract figure only; he is both particulate, and whole, at the same time- he is the Odin of the sacred stories and myths, and he is simultaneously the “Allfather”, the divine consciousness of the whole of Hamingja that encompasses everything, and which fills us with the breath that we draw, a breath he breathed into man and woman back near to the beginnings of things.

And in that wholeness, the other Gods are to be found, emerging as they will... and most importantly, emerging as we make them able, through our deeds and our understanding. Unlike the Christian faith, which presents humans as sinful, fallen, and helpless without divine grace, able to do nothing without the church and the god of the church except be condemned to hell, the Heathen way tells us that humans are literally capable of the Gods, because we are all together in Hamingja. We are one through the combination of deeds, places, treasures, things, beasts, kindreds, families, emotions, songs, and our sacred histories- these things make us capable, at any time, of the Godly life and Godly activity.

And when I say "Godly life" and "Godly activity", I am not speaking with cheap symbolic talk- I mean it literally, just as literally as I mean the Ancestral powers live in the being of each one of us.

Vilhelm Gronbech writes:

"Between man and God there exists no difference of kind, but there is a vital distinction of degree, the Gods being the whole Hamingja, whereas men are only part. The boundary between Gods and men is permanent, but varying in place; it is shifted downwards when men go about on their daily rounds of business, and it may be pushed upwards when they assume their garments of holiness, or sally out in a body to fight or fish. Only in the blot is the boundary line obliterated, but then during the feast there are no men, because the Hamingja is all and in all. The divineness of men when in a state of holiness is revealed by the metaphors of poetry: when the warrior is called the God of the sword or the God of battle, the expression is nothing but a matter-of-fact description. This same reality appears in the naming of woman as the Goddess of trinkets, and still more significantly as the ale-Goddess, referring to her holy office in the drink offering."

-Gronbech, Culture of the Teutons, Vol. 2


A person who understands what I have been saying, and what Gronbech has said perfectly, understands the essence of the Heathen way, both historical and modern. And Hamingja is the key to this most sacred understanding. It may be the key to unlocking the modern world's impasse, our loss of the real sacredness of the man, the woman, and of our deeds, the sacredness of our lands and our kin. It may be the thing that surges forth to spare us for a while longer, as we move into a future that becomes stripped more and more of sacredness and depth.

When I stand with my family, dressed in my long white tunic and ceremonial tabard, wearing the sign of the Sunwheel (that equal-armed cross which symbolizes the life-spirit that all are a part of, and the golden sun that is the supreme symbol of life in the heavens) and when I am there in that manner, surrounded by my people, invoking the Gods, pouring mead and ale in blot, I am bringing forth the Gods. Those with me are doing it. Together, we are the Hamingja and we call forth the Gods and Ancestors in a way that we could never manage individually, even though we can and do experience the powers in an individual way, from time to time.

In the mead and ale of blot, in the pouring, the drinking, the blessing and sprinkling, the division between "these humans out here" on the one hand, and the depths of Hamingja, the presence of the Ancestors, and the persons of the Gods on the other hand, is totally eradicated. Hamingja can, on these mighty occasions- and at others- express itself fully among us.

I am the father of a family; my wife is the mother of a family. In our children lies the entire Hamingja-legacy of both our lines, and in us, the lines that came before us. In us gathers the whole family-soul to which our children belong, and in us gathers a tributary from the river of the families that gave us birth.

In the persons of Mother and Father, of House-Dis and Hall-Warder, is found the entire spiritual family identity. In their children, the joined Hamingja surges forth anew- new (and very old) ancestral powers come to the forefront and empower human lives again. We are all united in this convergence of streams, in this joining of Hamingja. In my family, it takes on a specific identity- who we are, who we were, and who we will be. All of these things come together as one, in the present. Through my wife and I, the Ancestors watch over our children and join us in raising them and imparting wisdom and protection to them.

Even the "things" of the blot- the horn, the hammer, the hlautbowl, the hlautein, the white garment, the statues of Gods and Ancestors that might be used, the table, the flickering fires, in all these things Hamingja gathers, and from them it comes forth in union, as they are used together.

This is what we mean by "a holy occasion." It is holy because Hamingja comes forth into a new tangible, powerful expression, unique each time to that particular moment and place and gathering. These occasions- and these emergences of Hamingja- come forth because we decide to come together to make the occasion what it is. And the call for us to make that decision comes from the depths of Hamingja in the first place.

It is a perfect circle, spread across time and space, self-contained, and singing with power. It gathers the persons it needs to itself, and in that true "Ring of Troth", the Gods make their appearance. The Gods are tasted, smelled, seen, felt; they are present, fully. Only those who have experienced this can really comprehend these words, but those who have know that they cannot fathom ever falling away from these expressions again. The emotions they bring forth stir something indescribable, but precious.

Further concerning the Gods, Gronbech writes:

"In their nature, combining the neutral state of power with personality, they (the Gods) evince no particular divine gift, for this is the nature of life in all its manifestations. They reside in the holy place and in the holy treasures, but they may at any moment come forth and reveal themselves to their friends either in dreams or in the light of day. As power or luck the Gods are in Old Norse called Radh, and Regin- Radh means "rede", or wisdom and will, the power of determining and powerful determinations; Regin simply expresses luck and power. In their personal aspect, the Gods are named Ases, or in southern dialects Anses. In shape the Gods are in some clans male, in other families and localities female; their manifestation as women is naturally founded in the fact that woman generally represented a higher form of holiness than the average man. The question whether the Gods did assume the shape of animals is scarcely to the point. True, the divine power of the Hamingja walked the fields in the herd and prominently in the holy heads of cattle that were consecrated and qualified to be leaders of their flock or mediums of blessing; and in the sacrificial hall the Godly strength filled the victim of the feast. "


One of the greatest blessings of the modern Heathen way is this: I have drunk and eaten at such a holy feast, and come to know the Gods. What great fortune- what great Hamingja- that I should have been born in these times, bereft of Ancestral Wisdom, and yet, still had the luck and joy to find my way to such a frithful table!





Hamingja, Identity, and the Problem of Others

One of the most important truths that emerges into the minds of those who really understand these matters is this: we are not like “others.” There is an identity that comes from the deep layers of the world and the unseen that we do not share with everyone else in some perfect homogenized vision of "equality".

Other people, other families, other cultures- they do have their own lines and streams of Hamingja, and certainly those are a part of the whole. But we are not them, and they are not us, not on the level of particulars- that level that we must live on every day, according to Fate. In the experience and understanding I am discussing here, we come to know, in a very deep manner, “who we are”, as kin, as families, as cultures- but also even as individuals.

I am like no other; this way of Hamingja which expresses itself as me has never been seen before. But I am also not a “fully separate” being who can be made sense of- or have any true place or strength- without the broader context in which I am situated. I am also something and someone that emerges from the past, from the family, the Ancestors, my land, my life-situations, my children, friends, and allies- without this world, the Gods, all the powers that collect themselves together, my situation of life would never have been possible, and I make no sense apart from it all. This is the soul of the clan-understanding, the kindred understanding among the Ancients, and among people of honor now.

Some of the other people in this world still know their Hamingja in ways that we descendants of the Indo-Europeans have long forgotten, due to a millennia-long program on the part of the Church to erode our emotional and intuitive connection to our Ancestral beings and our Hamingja.

There are peoples on the earth who still have connections that we largely lack- and when I say "we", I am not speaking of most true Heathens, as much as westerners generally. But in having those connections, they also have a strength we lack, at the cultural level. While we do not care much these days to defend our particular cultural contributions to the world, nor defend the honor of the great things we have done (both in pre-Christian and post-Christian times) in the name of some guilt or even "political correctness", other cultures surge forth with great pride in themselves, and an energy that we often seem to lack in the west.

While we no longer protect our inner or outer borders from being washed away by a tide of humanity that cares nothing for our specific cultural needs, other cultures take painstaking steps to preserve their languages, histories, and even their own populations from excessive foreign influences.

None of these things calls for some ridiculous militant solution or revolution. What will solve this problem at its core is a re-awakening of a sense for who we are- a sense that only comes from the emergence of Hamingja on the conscious level. We have a place in this world, as unique and important as anyone else, and our contributions have been legion, even crucial, to world civilization today. We have a right to be proud and to insist that our voice be equal to any other.

This brings me to the last point that I would like to cover, which is the "problem of others", if you will. While some would look at the world with rose-tinted lenses (or just with lenses painted opaque), those of us who can truly see and feel, can see and feel that this world is not as kindly as we would hope. It certainly never has been, and it is doubtful to what extent it will ever be, especially considering that competition and conflict is a Fateful part of the fabric from which this world is woven.

While the Gods battle giantish forces for the preservation of the world, and we men and women battle (with the help of the Gods) the unbalanced powers in our own souls for the preservation of our bodies and minds and our families, there will always be battles in other places, too. Conflict as an aspect of reality was a thing that our Ancestors all over the Indo-European world accepted as given, as unalterable, and for good reason.

And it is true that, in a previous World-age, our Heathen Ancestors, when faced with others, had to make choices about how to deal with these "others" they encountered. The ancients had to deal with other cultures and peoples in the few ways they really had available to them: if "others" were a threat, such as when others stood in a position of resource competition with them, they either had to incorporate those others through establishing relationships and bonds of kinship with them, or they had to defeat them at the physical level, in battle, and absorb them or drive them away. When two peoples or cultures meet- two surges of Hamingja meet, two waves of the ocean of Hamingja; and then, absorption, incorporation, or conflict follows. At certain other times, they merely pass by one another, perhaps to meet again later.

And this was the way it was, in the distant past- all of our families, distant clans, tribes- all of them, and their larger cultural context (what we today call "Germanic", with all its variations), and up to the level of the entire people, the whole "folk" (what we now call the "Indo Europeans")- they all rushed forth, in whole and in part, into this world, and they conquered as they went; they incorporated beasts, Gods, lands, other humans, other nations, towns, villages, stories, and treasures into their group Hamingja, thundering along as they went, over many ages. If they couldn't incorporate those things, they might be swept away by them instead!

But still, in some form, they continued. Every group, race, tribe, or nation of man was like this, caught in the same drama of the age- moving through a world of hostility and strangeness, of friendship and conflict, and moving desperately down through the ages.

But to what? To now. To this day, this very day. The sweeping drama of the past has come to reside in you, and in me. And there are still identities, powers and movements of fateful force buried deep in the Hamingja of each of us. And there is a Hamingja collected in our unifying culture (such that it is) and in our families, our subcultures, and in our friends groups, our kindreds, our sacred congregations, in our military units, in our armed forces as a whole, in our fraternities and brotherhoods, in our financial institutions, and it just never ends. It seems so large to us while we are within it, but it is even larger than we imagine.

There are other cultures out there, still. Countless smaller tribes and cultures have been swallowed up by larger ones that exist today, and before that, they themselves had defeated and incorporated others. Hamingja is still present and accounted for- our defeated foes are still here with us, living through us. Those we made friends with, married into, and bonded with, they are here, too. Everyone's here. Nothing is lost, but much is forgotten.

And now, what? Shall we continue trying to gain dominance over other cultures, over other people? Hamingja in every particulate or group wants to be dominant, truth be told- when it expresses itself in the patterns of culture, in tribal identities, in the patterns of sacredness, even in a single human body and mind, it wants strength, preservation, and honor. And it seeks it. It will scorn others and only be content when the others submit to it and call it superior, or when the others at least admit it as an equal, and when it admits the others as equals, and kinship is established there between them- kinship that comes with sacred obligations, and a sharing of Hamingja, such that both become stronger and better.

Does this mean that we can expect a culture war that will only end when one culture remains? Does this mean that peace between religions (to make another poignant example of group-Hamingjas that have caused so much conflict in our world) is impossible? Christianity and Islam won't be equal to any; they will have submission, they will change all others, and absorb them, destroying any traces of the former religions they encounter. Throughout their history, these religious ideologies have done just this. Islam still desires to do it with great energy. The zeal-laced spirit of Christianity has largely been lamed in the west, and now faces its accelerating extinction, its own Hamingja expended and weakened by too many underhanded and vicious deeds (a fate that awaits Islam one day, as well, Gods be thanked.)


The Surging Power in the Present Hamingja-Age

So how can we deal with other cultures, but also other religions? I will state only my own belief on this matter. I believe that the world-age, the Hamingja-age, if you will, has changed. We are not living in Ancestral times, though we are our Ancestors. The Hamingja that was then has moved down lines of life into us, and it is here, now. But other deeper changes in Fate have taken place, and the World Age is different.

We humans have surged out to every border, in every land, and crossed every ocean. There are billions and billions of us now. Conquest is no longer a true working solution in such a world. Submission through violence costs too much now, and births too many dangers. Only what I have been calling "incorporation" can be the way forward- and I don't mean "joining forces" in this sense, as much as I mean recognizing that others simply have their place, and, insofar as they are not threatening to destroy all that we know is sacred, letting them be who they are.

Because the time has come wherein the Hamingja of the whole has reached a point it never could have been at before: we have all collectively embraced, on the mental level, a conception of the world that has never existed before, a world that is much smaller than our Ancestors thought, and now intimately connected and made tiny by the digital sorcery of this age. Hamingja itself surged forth from the primal beginning with no "goal" other than to be what it was- a whole- and to manifest a cascading exuberance of life and power. And it has carried human minds and bodies to the limits of the world.

The circle of kindred and relationship was expanded by our Ancestors as they fought and pledged and explored through the world, a circle made larger and larger by the ancients, until it came to include plants, beasts, Gods, lands, and then other peoples. This is what Hamingja inclines towards- recognized relationship, and always towards a broadening of horizons until all is encompassed, and all particulates know themselves as the whole- and yet, still exist as particulates made noble through the recognition.

Of course, relationships must be based on just principles; it is not possible to have a relationship with another person or being who means you the worst form of ill- but in most cases these days, these days in which moderation and compassion are possibilities more so than they were before, "relationship" can take on new dimensions.

As much as it pleases the fiery and ancient souls in us to imagine fighting and destroying those we feel threaten us and our own ways, sadly, the World-Age now makes new demands on us, and the "others" out there can have any dangers they sometimes pose to us eliminated in ways that don't include traditional violence.

With the inspiration and wit of the Hamingja and the Heathen group-soul, arguments, cleverness and intellect can stop enemies in their tracks these days (mentally, legally, socially, and even physically), and can even go further and change their minds and the minds of their children to be more sympathetic to our cause. All can come to see the sense in our notions of liberty and the importance of the uniqueness of identity. In this way, there are many ways to still win glory, and turn foes into allies- or at least banish foes to a safe distance that never need be crossed.

It is true that sometimes physical confrontations are unavoidable, in places, occasions in which we must defend ourselves and our ways from those who cannot or will not understand who and what we are. At times like that, the Hamingja emerges in strength and it must be channeled in the oldest of ways to eliminate a threat, though always keeping in mind the need for justice in our acts. Every human being has a natural right to defend the Ancestral force inside them, which surges forth from the depths and manifests a sacred imperative to live and be well, free of the contempt or scheming of others. When conflicts come, between persons or even communities or nations- the stronger Hamingja will prevail, one way or another. This was a sacred truth known to the Ancestors.

Whatever the case may be, I am Heathen, and I know what the Hamingja in me looks like, who it is, what it is, and what it wants for me and mine. As father of a family, I speak for our Ancestors and the Disir that follow within us, and the Fylgja-Dis that follows within me. My voice is the voice of grandmothers and grandfathers long departed, so I choose to use it as honorably as I can. All Heathens in my world feel the need, the burning urge, to stand fast for the Ways of their Ancestors, and they will represent their Ancestors with every day and night of their present life. That must and will be, until the true end of all Ages, and the world-rebirth.

Were the Viking attacks self-defense against Christianity?

I found an excellent article, linked below, outlining a profound new perspective on the Viking raids on Christian settlements and monasteries during the Viking era:

http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2010/01/viking-attacks-on-europe-were-self.html

"A new theory about what drove the Vikings to raid Western Europe in the late eight and ninth centuries has been published. It suggests that the Vikings in Denmark were reacting to a threat from the Carolingian ruler Charlemagne, who was seeking to destroy their society and impose Christianity on them.

The theory was put forward by Robert Ferguson in an article for the December 2009 issue of BBC History Magazine. His book, The Hammer and the Cross: A New History of the Vikings, was also published in November.

Starting in the 790s, Viking ships began raiding throughout Western Europe and the British Isles, often targeting monasteries. Ferguson points out that peaceful contacts between the Norse peoples and Christian societies, such as trading with each other. He therefore asks why did the Viking attacks begin when they did?

But with the accession of Charlemagne in 771, the Carolingians began to implement a new program of converting their pagan and neighbors and promoting Christianity. Charlemagne launched numerous invasions of the Saxon peoples led by Widukind.

In a podcast interview, Ferguson adds the goals of Charlemagne were to force the Saxons "to abandon their culture, political system, beliefs and everything, and make them part Christians and part of his empire."

Ferguson notes an episode of "ethnic-cleansing:" when, in 782, Charlemangne's armies forcibly baptised and then executed 4,500 Saxon captives at Verden, a town close to Denmark. The Danes would have been well aware of what was happening with the Saxons anyways, as Widukind was married to sister of the Danish king, Sigfrid, and often took refuge in Denmark to escape the Carolingians.

Considering the situation, Ferguson writes, "Should the Vikings simply wait for Charlemagne's armies to arrive and set about the task? Or should they fight to defend their culture?"

But the Norse could not fight the Carolingian military directly - instead they went after soft-targets, such as monasteries, which were symbols of the growing Christian encroachment. Ferguson says, "everything points to a hatred that goes beyond just robbers who just wanted money."

The article goes on to describe these early Viking attacks, and how their raids expanded throughout Europe, with Viking kingdoms developing on the British Isles and elsewhere.

Several other explanations have been put forward for Viking violence, such as innovations in shipbuilding which encouraged piracy, and overpopulation in Scandinavia, which forced many of its people to leave their homeland in search of fortune.

The article, "The Vikings: Why did their violent raids begin?" is in the December 2009 issue of BBC History Magazine."

Who Really Abandoned their Duty to the Truth?

This is a five minute long video of a Catholic Priest, Father Robert Barron, and his comments on the "Danger of Turning Religion into a Toy".

The Danger of Turning Religion into a Toy

This is my response to him and his short talk.

* * *

This man has life and spirit, I can see that. But he also has the typical Christian narrow focus.

He begins with the assumption- which he takes as solid, literal truth- that humans are "hardwired" for "God"- and, in the place of God, he uses synonyms like "Truth", "Beauty", and "Good". That's very Neoplatonic of him, and I wouldn't mind that so much, except that the Pissed off God of Israel is not "Truth", "Beauty" and "Good". The God of Israel, which this man means when he says "God", is a being, an entity, not abstract universal qualities like "Truth", "Beauty", and "Good".

A being, an entity that gives laws and has a will and gets pissed off and floods the world to destroy sinners, is not a "quality". An entity- even a God- cannot simultaneously be a quality like "Truth", anymore than I can be a person and simultaneously a "happiness" or a "peace". It's like suggesting a square can be round. It's not possible. We're conflating qualities or aspects of reality that cannot merge without absurdity.

Now, let's drop the ancient Hebrew superstitions out of the equation, and give up on their hopelessly inane tribal theism. Let's give the priest, for one moment, the conclusion that "God" equates with "Truth" and "Beauty" and "Good". Now, we have something closer to the old notion of the Greek Philosophers, a notion of "The Good", or the "God of the Philosophers" as my professors once said- something distinct from the Hebrew "God of Revelations".

Let's say that the priest is correct and humans are indeed "hardwired" for finding the Truth, beauty, and the Good. His Christianity swoops in once more and prohibits him from allowing that people can discover Truth, Beauty, and Good in any way other than adherence to and agreement with his own dogmatic principles and beliefs. You can have "sorta" Truth, but it ain't "Ultimate Truth" unless you're proclaiming your faith in Jesus Christ, and (ideally) attending his church.

That's bosh. That's malarkey. Truth, Beauty, and Good are universal qualities that have countless manifestations in human lives, and a presence in all places, in all ages, worldwide. These qualities do not cluster exclusively around a single recent religion's triumphalist and exclusivist claims and mythologies. These revealed religions that want to stake total claim on Truth don't want to share, (it would certainly be financial bad business for them to share) but fortunately for us, their claims mean nothing. Truth was here long before them and will be here when their malignant organizations are washed away to dust by the tide of time.

But my critique of this man's message goes a bit further. I agree with him on some things that he says- people who give up on the natural quest for Truth and Goodness and assume the "who cares" stance that characterizes so many of the lost and degenerate of our age DO harm their souls- on this, the priest and I are in total agreement. He's also correct to say that people who repress this urge for wholeness and truth feel those repressed aspects of the soul "re-emerge" in harmful, twisted form.

But there's an issue here. He says that people who put aside "God" and the search for "God" see that repression re-emerge as addiction, or a lust for power, or what have you. He goes on to say that these things will never be enough, and indeed, I agree with him again. But how in the world does a person "have" God? Is he suggesting that the search for God actually ends, and that some blessed people have "found" God, and now, don't have addictions or lust for power, or lust generally, and none of the other false, shallow fixations that characterize so many people?

Precisely where are these saintly, happy people? I've known countless Christians, and they aren't all sitting around blissfully happy, "With" God, in lieu of all those other sorry alternatives that the poor unenlightened masses have.

This man talks a good talk about the benefits of "having" God in lieu of the shallow alternatives, but I've yet to meet anyone that appears to have seized on this holy state. EVERY Christian I've ever known- including pastors and priests- had one or more of the following: addictions, annoying personalities, troubles, rudeness, judgmentalism, depression, questions and doubts, greed, lust for power, pride, ego run amok, and any of the other issues that characterize Human Beings.

And, ironically, I don't truly hold these things against them- they are humans. But they are humans who make fabulous claims of having achieved some wonderful state above others, by virtue of their amazing Christian Truth. But it's bosh. Their own lives and minds and appearances don't verify their claims. All they really seem to have is a strong certainty that somehow, they "have" God, due to their "faith" or adherence to the dogmas and teachings of religion. Even when they can't "understand" God fully, or when things are hard for them, they have this "faith" that they've still achieved some great leap towards the Truth that others have not- but which others need to.

You'll forgive me for saying what's obvious to most, but I don't buy their claims, or his. Nothing I have experienced thus so far, and nothing I have read about Christian history and its impact on this world, leads me to believe that these people have a profound Truth that the rest of us lack.

They DO, however, have a disturbing and unwise story that they espouse, an aggressively evangelistic story of monotheism, anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, triumphalism, elitism, and absurd, unqualified eternalism that many of us lack, but which most of us have already seen through on a philosophical level.

When I see things like this, it makes me appreciate how wise my Ancestors were, and why the organic Heathen religion is so important and relevant today: it can spare us from this particular brand of madness.

The "Truth" is not a colossal idea or set of doctrines that describe how the universe works to people, and the "Truth" is not a single monolithic idea or even a being; the "Truth" is not hidden, despite how the Philosophers and later the Monotheists want to present it that way (the better to position themselves to be able to "reveal" to others how to find it, thus winning a great measure of pride, fame, and money for themselves). The "Truth" reveals itself from moment to moment through every day of our lives, in every experience.

To hunt, to shelter from cold and heat, to raise children, to grow food, protect your loved ones, create art, build buildings, explore, compose poetry, make music, seek excellence in your crafts - all of these human pursuits are the Truth about what we are. We come to know the Truth about man and this world by experiencing it, not having it taught to us with hopelessly absurd metaphysical claims that can't be verified until we've died. Truth about human life never hid from us; we became convinced that it was hidden because we sadly allowed ourselves to believe a story that told us that we were flawed and lost.

We became, like spoiled children, unwilling to accept that the most obvious things could be our Truth. We wanted angels with trumpets and eternal bliss, not the simple pleasures of life, the love of family and kin, the great joy of surviving and thriving in this world. No longer content to be humans, we have to be Gods ourselves, or eternal spirits living in heaven. The absurdity of these things have poisoned our history for 2000 years, and poisoned our societies, our world, and threatened our survival. May the Gods guide the new generations of Heathens on the right course!

May we never forget what happened the last time Christians were given the power to "teach their Truth" to people who were brave enough to resist it:

Snorri Sturluson in the saga of St. Olaf chapter 73, describes the brutal process of Christianisation in Norway: “…those who did not give up paganism were banished, with others he (Saint Olaf) cut off their hands or their feet or extirpated their eyes, others he ordered hanged or decapitated, but did not leave unpunished any of those who did not want to serve God (…) he afflicted them with great punishments (…) He gave them clerks and instituted some in the districts.”

The War for the West

PHOTO: A gang of patriarchal white racists from "The Lord of the Rings"

Are you ready? Strap in.


Racist Anti-Racists call Lord of the Rings "Too Eurocentric"

Here we go again- another case of me always being the last to know some things. Last night, I got a message through one of the many groups I belong to, which discussed the famous "Southern Poverty Law Center"- a group in Alabama that claims to be a "watchdog" for "hate groups."

In reality, as I have long known, but only now feel the need to say, the group itself is staffed from the top levels down by racist "anti-racist" African-Americans (formerly called "blacks" before the current tide of political correctness hit us.)

There was a time when I thought maybe the SPLC was doing some sort of good work as a watchdog organization- but as time has passed, I have become aware that their guiding ideology is nothing more than hatred of anything that casts Europeans or European-Americans (once called "whites" before the current tide of political correctness hit us) in a positive light, or celebrates the European and Western cultural values that have made our civilization as great as it is.

And the SPLC has rankled my last nerve by linking to an article that vilifies the Lord of the Rings trilogy- the recent hit movies made by Pete Jackson, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's great works- as "eurocentric", "patriarchal" and racist. They didn't do this recently; the article was written as the final movie in the trilogy was in theaters- but I didn't become aware of it until now. And well, when anger hits you, there's no time like the present!

In the past, I'd take a lot of crap without speaking up- the pervasive miasma of "White Man's Guilt" affected me like it affected most white males, owing to the programming I received at the hands of the media and the American radical left. But times, they are-a-changin', and they've been changing. My eyes are open now to what is happening in my life in a way they haven't been before.

This doesn't mean that I'm ready to start goose-stepping, but I am ready to say what I feel needs to be said, despite the fallout that may occur when the knuckle-dragging politically-correct morons catch a small wind of my rant.

Tolkien's Legacy

Let me start by saying that J.R.R. Tolkien's work was an amazing body of literature, winner of dozens of prestigious awards and declared by many in national polls to be the greatest work of fiction of the twentieth century. Although Tolkien was a devout Catholic, his knowledge of Old English and Anglo-Saxon literature and the mythologies of the Germanic peoples of Europe was profound (he was a philologist and professor, after all) and his work drew on some of the most enduring mythical and spiritual aesthetics that inform European civilization.

It is my complaint that his Christianity led him to create a world and worldview in which an over-simplistic and unqualified dualistic vision of "good vs. evil" exists (which in Tolkien almost always equates with "beautiful vs. ugly") instead of the more authentic Heathen worldview which underlies the mythologies- one where Gods and Giants do struggle against one another, representing forces of order and chaos, but with a clear notion that both sides are necessary to the cosmic wholeness and unfolding.

But we can overlook much when we look at the way Professor Tolkien's work regenerated so much latent power and imagination that was locked in the soul of the West! Thanks to his work, the entire field and genre of High Fantasy was born- bringing fresh imagination and enjoyment of its sacred realms to countless people.

To be fair, Tolkien's work has always had a bumpy reception- but the article linked by the SPLC crosses the line in a rather absurd way, in my view.

The Pale Patriarchal Penis People Strike Again

The article that inspired this response of mine was written by Andrea Lewis, a San Francisco based writer, who decided that the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy- "The Return of the King" needed to be called "The Return of the Patriarchy."

I couldn't find the original article at "tolerance.org"- the laughable name of the SPLC website- (their search feature really sucks) but I was able to find it easily enough through a Google search at another "tolerance" related website here.

What problems did Ms. Lewis have with the movie? What could have inspired the SPLC to link to her? I'll let her speak for herself:

"The "Rings" films are like promotional ads for those tired old race and gender paradigms that were all the rage back in author J.R.R. Tolkien's day. Almost all of the heroes of the series are manly men who are whiter than white. They are frequently framed in halos of blinding bright light and exude a heavenly aura of all that is Eurocentric and good. Who but these courageous Anglo-Saxon souls can save Middle Earth from the dark and evil forces of the world?"

...Because you know, we can't have anything that seems too white or "Anglo-Saxon" being portrayed as heroic. Why, we'd be pushing a harmful "Heroic White Guy Stereotype"! And the last thing we want young white males today seeing is a movie that might put it in their heads that they, too, can be heroes, fighting for good causes, being self-sacrificing and brave.

Could those "old race and gender paradigms" have a role in why Western culture survived and succeeded as well as it did? I believe that anyone who digs deep enough- and isn't a devoted ideological and racist enemy of European-born cultures- will see that similar "paradigms of race and gender" have existed across the globe; the idea that other "races" were of lesser value or equality did not begin or end with European cultures- that attitude is found, historically, in Asia, Native America, and Africa, too, throughout all ages.

The notion of "gender roles" has seen a lot of variance, but again, Europe wasn't the only place women were expected (in many areas) to take on motherly roles, and to avoid fighting. Tolkien wasn't being racist when he wrote the world of Middle-Earth the way he did; he was being true to an authentic historical tradition, to add realism to his setting.


Ms. Lewis apparently takes the "war on white" so seriously that even white hair is a problem:

"On the good side, even the mighty wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) is sanitized and transformed from the weed-smoking, rather dingy figure we first meet in the "The Fellowship of the Ring," into Gandalf the White, who, by the time of "Return of the King," has become a powerful military leader complete with pure white hair and an Eisenhower attitude."

It's amusing to me that a man like Eisenhower, who risked his life leading armies to help overthrow a true racist menace like NAZI GERMANY, has a name that is now used by an ethnic woman as a slur. And it's especially amusing that Gandalf should be a more appealing character to her when he was "dingy and weed-smoking." White characters that are too clean-cut are a menace!


...But the Rainbow Coalition is Here To Save the Day

Ms. Lewis continues her racist manifesto/movie critique by introducing us to a movie and a trilogy that she does enjoy: The Matrix. Since this is the best part of her article, I'll have to let her explain why she likes it so much more:

"Say what you will about the convoluted storyline of the "Matrix" trilogy. At least those films give women and people of color some characters they can relate to.

From its earliest scenes, "The Matrix" flips mainstream Hollywood's minority representation manual on its head. A multi-cultural group of hackers dressed in black leather and sporting funky hairdos are our heroes; Secret Service-type "agents" in suits and ties are the bad guys. Neo, the trilogies' central figure, is played by mixed-race actor Keanu Reeves. His savior and mentor is Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a powerful leader who also happens to be a black man. The wisest figure in "The Matrix" is The Oracle, a warm and witty African American woman. The films are also infused with a strong sense of Asian style and culture, exemplified by the character Seraph (Collin Chou), the Oracle's protector, who is both a martial arts expert and Buddhist meditation practitioner.

...Most of the really bad guys in "The Matrix" are Eurotrash, including the very snobby Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) with his French accent, the dread-locked, very British albino twins (Neil and Adrian Rayment) and the Oracle's evil counterpart, The Architect, (Helmut Bakaitis), a rather stuffy and pompous white guy with white beard and white suit who reeks of imperialism."

The message is clear: so long as the villains are all white, and the heroes are black or multi-racial, we have a real festival of wholesome goodness on our hands! And it always helps to have a smooth Asian theme, to take the edge off of that oppressive Western feel.

From top to bottom, this woman makes it clear that any positive portrayal of Europeans or white people is not desirable. Black actors were cast in movies early in the 20th century and often totally presented as caricatures of real black people, and presented as oafish or undereducated or criminal, or just servants of whites- and I'm willing to bet that Ms. Lewis has screeched about the deeply ingrained racism of this fact somewhere in her other writings.

Apparently, the hate-card doesn't have two sides in Ms. Lewis' mind. If I had to guess, I'd guess that she believes that the historical wrongs of European and American cultures against other races and cultures now gives those others permission to engage in the same rampant racism and discrimination right back, to "balance the scales a bit".

Unfortunately for her, and for all of the racists like her, it doesn't work that way.

Ms. Lewis spends a good deal of time complaining that Lord of the Rings presented few strong female characters, and praising the Matrix for presenting lots of hot female ass-kickers- and I noticed that a woman's race is unimportant. She praises Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity) for her role as a strong woman, even though Carrie-Anne Moss is certainly "whiter than white."

Lewis' war, it seems, is not just on white men, but on "patriarchy"- a catch term used to criticize deep patterns in European-born cultures these days, but which is a cultural feature found all over the world- very strongly in Asia, and also in Africa, where it has existed from the earliest of days. I'm not saying that "patriarchy is perfect"- but I am saying that the issue isn't so one-sided as radicals like to present, particularly not when they have their own agenda beneath it all. That agenda- held consciously and even unconsciously- is power- the same motivation they claim to hate in the "patriarchy."

The Will To Power

People reading me may wonder if I'm being a touch unfair. I don't see anything wrong with women or people of different ethnicities desiring to see strong, positive presentations of their own "kind". But must these presentations also accompany dismal presentations of other cultures or ethnicities? Why is the praise of one forever conflated with the detriment of another?

I think Nietzsche said it best when he discussed the "will to power" inside of cultures and even races- and individuals. When one person or group is repressed, their natural human will to power is not repressed; it simply seeks a new outlet. The capacity in human beings to twist and bend realities to suit their expression of power is amazing- our entire sense of "morality" in the west, he believed, was about that will to power emerging in ways that seem paradoxical.

I can't go into that here, but I can say with near metaphysical certainty that these "politically correct" movements are not movements that have everyone's best interests at heart. They have a certain, select group's best interests at heart- and that group is not the mainstream.

That group is the rag-tag union of all people who don't have the numbers and historical power to match the powerful mainstream, and their cries for "tolerance" (which are almost always a joke, bearing in mind their own personal intolerance) and their cries of "racism" and "insensitivity" are not as purely innocent as they seem.

These people are just as power-hungry and desirous of expressing their own personal power as the mainstream; they are every bit as racist and culturally elitist as the mainstream. There are no "good guys" in this game, just people who are better or worse at manipulating politics and opinions, stuck amid many people who are being marginalized for the crime of belonging to a majority group.

Why am I even making such a big deal out of this woman's article? Because an organization with the size and political power of the Southern Poverty Law Center linked to her and held her article up as representative of what sort of ideological thinking motivates them. The SPLC made this opinion piece into a piece of support for their perspectives and worldview, and that's when it came to my attention. And this is just the last in a long line of crap I've seen them pull, all in the name of "tolerance".

Their "tolerant world" has no place for white males like me. When I do well in life, it's not because I went to school and worked for years to get the good grades and advanced education I got- it's because I am riding on the back of the white male patriarchy that hands me the world. When a person from a non-white ethnicity does well, gets out and works, it's because they had drive, ambition, and bravery to face the deep hatred that the "man" has for them.

But no one handed me anything; I worked hard. Despite what these people think, there is no "white people club" out there, where all whites secretly share a bond of help and brotherhood. People with "white" skin have stood in my way on every level, in the pursuit of my goals. I'm just more competition for them, and for everyone.

World Culture War II

A deeper issue emerges here: what they call "culture war". That phrase means many things to many people, but now, I know what it means to me. Western culture- the culture designed and shaped by Europeans, in large part- is now marked for destruction, by forces outside of it, and by forces that are within it.

The forces that want to destroy it are not heroic avengers of "past wrongs"- they are not great "equalizers"- they are following the same blind urge to power that the "European villains" once followed to succeed as well as they did. They just aren't as good at it, outwardly, as Europeans were historically, so their tactics have intuitively evolved to continue the fight in a new form.

It's all the same thing- the justifications have just changed. There's a new tune of justification, a new battle-hymn, wrapped in notes of resilient sadness and the long-suffering "nobility" of the "downtrodden." The hymn sounds different, but it seeks to establish an empire all the same.

Some of the forces that now stalk the legacy of the West justify their assault in religious terms- they wish to replace the "Godless, satanic" West with true religion. The instruments are different, but the song remains the same.

In the same manner that the Pagan cultures of our Ancestors were undermined by forces from outside, but also by traitor converts from within, Western culture is being degraded in the same manner.

For me, this is not at all a racial issue- it is a cultural one. The people who still want to see this situation in terms of “race” are usually part of the problem. This is about something far greater than race- it’s about cultures of liberty versus cultures of tyranny, and both of those cultures contain many people of many different racial backgrounds.


The Old Crusaders went East; the New Crusaders come West

The force that threatens Western culture from the outside in these days is Islam; the forces that are within are people like Ms. Lewis, and the SPLC, and all of the radical left who, while enjoying the liberties that a bunch of dead white men bequeathed to them, seek to destroy the entire edifice, to replace it with one where they have power and authority. And their justification for this cultural genocide? The history of wrongs inflicted by some Westerners on others in the past.

When I was in my first year of college, I read "Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali", the story of a king of Mali who had to journey across his land fighting against evil sorcerers and monsters, to regain his birthright. I really loved the book- in the (very African-African) hero Sundiata, I saw the nobility of the Hero archetype from many cultures. Race was never a consideration for me. I found the same thing when I read the Iliad, and when I read other books that contained eternal visions of heroes.

It never would have occurred to me to criticize the Epic of Sundiata because it was too "Afro-centric." Sundiata's "manliness" never offended me or bothered me. I didn't think of Sundiata in my head as "blacker than black" and make some leap to this being a bad thing. Why? Because I love the hero, whatever his color- he represents the wall of safety that stands between his people (or her people, for there are female heroes from even early mythologies) and the cultural destruction of their people. Because the book "Sundiata", like the "Iliad" or "Lord of the Rings" isn't about race. It's about culture and cultural conflict.

The political correct-o's will say that I'm an enfranchised white male who has only reaped the rewards of Western white culture, and never had to endure its negative backlash. But they'd be doing precisely what they accuse "racists" of doing- judging me by my appearance.

Some of ancestors- Irish and Sicilian- endured the scorn of Americans when they came to this country. The Irish particularly were mistreated, and died poor, overworked, and malnourished in many places. No one denies that Western societies (in common with all human societies) have historically contained elements of unfairness and inequality, or that they continue to do so, in ways.

But we are more than our history, and we always have been more than our history. Western culture cannot be measured solely on the basis of what some government policies at some times have been.

In the day and age where an African-American man sits on the throne of the President, we have to consider that Western culture contains more than just a difficult human history- it contains VALUES that are crucial to the survival of liberty in this world. It always contained those values, for they could not have emerged from nowhere, and they didn't just emerge during recent civil rights movements.

Thank the Pagans for Liberty

The days of the Greeks and Romans, and the Celtic and Germanic peoples gave us a few things that some might consider important: democracy, government by the representatives of the people, pluralism and cultural/religious tolerance as a social cornerstone, the root of humanism, limitations on the powers of kings, trial by jury, and (in the case of the Northern Europeans) a woman's right to divorce her husband at will. A few other pesky things like the origins of natural and physical sciences come to mind- as well as the medical profession.

The age of Christian rulers and the power of the Church was a setback- women did lose the liberties they had enjoyed before in many societies- they lost many freedoms, and I think it's fair to say that the sciences (especially medical science) did take quite a vacation because of the Church. Tolerance for other religions was also shot to nothing.

But that age- that dark age which was directly created and maintained by Christianity (despite what some want to claim) didn't last- it ended, and a rebirth happened: a rebirth of the same values and spirit of liberty and seeking inquiry that made Europe great originally.

And these values are still with us- even the dark power of organized religion couldn't destroy them or stamp them out for good, and the fringe lunatic protestants that flowed from the church (many of whom today still oppose science and pluralistic tolerance) can't stop them.

As a culture- we westerners- we believe in Liberty. Our women aren't placed under long drapes of cloth, not able to feel the sun or wind in their hair. Our women aren't socially (or actually) killed when they have sex outside of wedlock, or just happen to be raped without enough witnesses to prove that they weren't being "immoral".

Our women don't have to have their brothers or fathers to escort them around in public. Our women can drive cars. They can own businesses, property, and go to school as much and as long as they like. We aren't jailed for having pictures of naked women, or executed by hanging in public squares for being homosexual.

We don't slice people's hands off for stealing, nor do we execute women for "witchcraft". Thanks to the Chrisitan phase of our history, we once did some idiot things, but we outgrew it- we evolved- we had a cultural and secular “enlightenment” that Islamic culture is yet to have.

We can all state our opinions in public. We can have any religion we want, or no religion. We can read whatever we want, write whatever we want. Our leaders have massive checks and balances on their power, and our political offices change hands constantly, to stop any one person or group from getting power and keeping it. Policies that we don't like can be voted down, or voted out within a few years time.

Shock Speech

THIS is what the West has done for the world- it has stood for, and achieved, liberty. Liberty, like Justice, is a high-level virtue and dream that must be fought for, and it is a powerful struggle to maintain it. But we've done it. And every Westerner has a right to be proud- whether you can claim the founding fathers of the Western world as your genetic ancestors OR your cultural ancestors (or both) they are still your Forefathers, and their legacy is yours, too.

But Islamic culture would, at a moment's notice, see this all wiped away. I say "Islamic culture" because even in the so-called "liberal" Islamic nations, some or all of the horrors I listed above are prominent. This isn't just over-generalization. The political correct-o's love to say "Islam" and "Radical Islam", as though there was a difference- but all Islam is radical, when compared to the secular and liberty-loving West.

Muslim radicals are not the "fringe" of Islam. When most Americans hear of disasters in Muslim countries, they are appalled. Our government always offers aid. When 9/11 happened, Muslims worldwide danced in the streets- as a surprising spokesman will mention at the end of this article. Some people will try to qualify what I am saying here as hate speech, but it is far beyond such a simplistic thing.

It's shock speech; it's the shock that everyone should feel when they realize that Western culture is facing a foe, a fierce and determined cultural foe that does not share its belief in liberty, and the West isn't doing too well right now- partly because we've had our "white heroes" taken from us, and seen those same heroes called "racist" or "patriarchal". Tolkien's "Heroes of the West" are not just fixtures from his stories. They are an almost prophetic call to stand up for what the West means, before it is lost.

We need to stop allowing people to be shamed and insulted just because their forefathers were white and successful. This is not "racism"- this is my culturally-ingrained sense of pride and fairness talking. This is me demanding that I be treated for my own merits, not just the fact that I am a descendant of these great men.

There is no shame being a part of Western culture, and especially no shame in being genetically related to the people who originally created it. They made a luminous light for the whole world, and without them, this world would not be what it is. The value of liberty would not exist as it does now.

Gimli Speaks

John Rhys-Davies, the actor who played "Gimli" in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, risked his career to speak out against the threat posed by Islamic culture to the liberty-loving West. He was very brave to do so, and very right. I end this rant/article by quoting him, for he says it best.


"I BELIEVE in racial equality not racial discrimination. All I was commenting on was that there are cultural changes taking place in Europe that I consider to be unacceptable. The fact that a minister of the French government has to fly to Cairo to talk with one of the religious heads in one of the mosques to get his approval for a ban on headscarves can be seen in two ways. One, is how wonderfully culturally sensitive. The other, it seems to give an authority to a wholly unelected figure well outside Europe's jurisdiction.

I am really proud to be living in a society that accepts women as our equals, that accepts civilized discourse that allows people to hold different opinions without coming to any act of violence.

Here in America when that earthquake happened in Iran the reaction of everyone I knew was horror and dismay, the reaction of everyone when they heard that the old woman had been brought out alive long after they thought there was anyone there was absolute awe at the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit to survive. Contrast that with people jumping up and down and clapping at the 9/11 disaster in certain countries.

I don't think that Western society is opposed to Islamic society at all. I think a very important part of Islamic society is opposed to Western society. It is time that ordinary Muslims stood up to be counted.

...When we are prepared to overlook certain things because we don't want to rock the boat, this is wrong. The greatest act of racism is to expect that other people will not behave according to your values and standards. Yes, I am for dead, (traditional) white male culture. It's pretty damn good, pretty damn marvelous, pretty wonderful. That's not to exclude other cultures, but it's not to diminish mine."

Pagans of Principle: The Path of Heathen High-Mindedness

A while back, I shared a link to a story about revivalist Polytheists in Greece who were enduring the unsurprising scorn of the Greek Orthodox Church. A quote from that story is with me today- a Bishop of the Orthodox Church mentioned that a "few" of the Pagans were "Pagans of principle"- his words. The rest, he said, were more involved in the recension of the Old Ways for (basically) pageantry and pedantics.

Over a thousand years of being the undisputed masters of the spiritual destiny of the West has made most Christians of any stripe very condescending; this is nowhere more apparent than in the way most devoted Christians automatically assume that one cannot be truly and perfectly principled and moral (or even truly at peace) without Christianity.

I don't have to tell most of my readers this; they've likely already experienced this attitude in people firsthand. But what the Bishop said inspired me today; I've been thinking about what it truly means to be a "Pagan of principle", and I've been just as inspired by how the Heathen path as I know it allows modern people to be just that- truly principled people- with what I feel is the most historically grounded, realistic, and visceral "code of morality" out there today.

Most Asatruar follow some variant of what they call the "nine noble virtues"- and many times blessed be these virtues, and all who take them as friends and guides to everyday life! Those who do, without a doubt, are good, honest, courageous people motivated by noble goals. When one examines (along with the many great authors and researchers who have examined) the seeds of historical reality to see what the authentic Heathen "code for living" was, one gains quite a reward. The nine noble virtues- in their many forms- serve well to approximate it, particularly in the universal insistence on guest-friendliness and loyalty to kin.

But I've thought long and hard on the "root" of the nine noble virtues, and the roots of the honor and social codes of the Ancestors; it is easy to see, if one is prepared to see, how the true origin of our Ancestors' behaviors in life-situations is the ancient and powerful notion of High Mindedness.

Let there be no doubt or obscurity on the matter: our Ancestors, and therefore all of us, are the People of the Sun. We are the descendants of the Ir-men, the people of the Tyr-pillar, the people of the Great Tree, the people who sprang from the blood of humans and the spiritual power of Gods. The solar disc- the glaring eye of Odhinn's triumphant Eagle, represents the victory of consciousness over the dim and dark powers that would drag all order and beauty down to Ur-chaos.

While we live, we live with the consciousness of the Gods in us. After we die, the Godly form bestowed on us by Allfather and his brothers, guided by the light we have preserved in this life, lives on. No greatness or nobility is ever truly lost. While we live, we are in possession of a precious gift, the most ennobling and precious gift that any wight or sentient being can have.

And it is this gift- this solar consciousness which has within it the entire conscious pattern of the Nine Worlds, and the possibility of unfolding into a direct and complete consciousness of wholeness- which is the best power any being can boast of having. It is this light of Gods and Men that gives rise to the notion of "High Mindedness"- the true human being, the true "Heathen of principle" is beholden to nothing but the highest principle in the Raidho-order of reality: the principle of constructive and beautifying cooperation and preservation.

It is stitched in the weave of Fate that we human beings were meant to apply our Godly consciousness, our minds, to the path of cooperation with one another, as the Gods cooperate to create and maintain and defend the great work of the Nine Worlds. There is no room for doubt here; we are creators like the Gods, by virtue of our gifts, and furthermore, our gift is not for us alone, but something that can and must be shared- the human "high mind" of solar-awareness is meant to protect and beautify this world, our lives, the lives of others, and to preserve what is good.

Co-creativity and Co-operation are part and parcel of the same mystery. No society worth the name ever arose on the merits of one man or woman; no society ever thrived or survived on anything other than high-minded cooperation and preservation. We have an enormous creative power and potential, and few understand that this luminous field of possibility, smoldering inside of most, but illuminating others, is the radiant presence of Allfather's spirit, which is the spirit of the Gods.

You feel it when you sense and appreciate beauty; it is why we feel so at peace when we arrange our homes in tidy ways, with beautiful, meaningful things displayed proudly, and welcome guests in. It is why we strive to build our lives around beautiful displays of nature, and neat, safe neighborhoods. It is why we create and appreciate art, music, poetry, and the like.

People talk much of "proof" for the existence of Gods or the Godly spirit, but no person who has experienced the power of creativity and orderly, beautiful aesthetics need worry over such proof. One moves in the current of Man's Fate and moves towards Man's highest intended destiny when one appreciates the beautiful things in this world and in other people.

People sometimes ask me why the "animals" (meaning "non-human living creatures") don't have this "high mindedness"- and accuse me of being "anthropocentric"; and to those people, these days I answer: they have it because we have it, and we humans are natural consecrators: we can consecrate non-human living beings, bless them, share with them, preserve and protect them, all because of our gift. We are in a web of connection and interaction- the divine light burst through fully consciously in us; it now flows from place to place and fills the web. The question becomes: will you become a willing channel?

We were meant to share our power, our special abilities. To beautify this world, preserve its many lives and forces, and live in harmony, in balance with it and with one another. When we violate this innate, Fateful directive, we see the emergence of the ugly, the destructive, and the perilous. We see and feel the difference. We know the face of the vicious wicked; we know it all too well. Only the insane can't see it and recognize it for what it is.

If there was a definition of "insanity" that I could accept, it would come down to this simple but profound thing: it would include those who have lost (or never had) the ability to sense and feel the difference between what is ennobling and what is degrading; between what is truly, spiritually healthy and what is baneful. What I am discussing is a feeling, something deep inside that guides and shelters and protects. Something innate guides the healthy people of this world away from the violating powers and the scourge of the horrid and perilous; something makes most people naturally resist the shackles of the unjust and the oppressive.

I love to think of the powerful values of the Ancestors: to have open generosity and undaunted courage; to be steadfast in friendship and uncompromising in enmity when facing the destructive and the ugly; to be faithful to kin, to one's lord, and faithful in love- to have family pride and pride in the Ancestors, keeping Troth with the sacred powers... such high-minded values rest within the ancient Teutonic belief in inexorable Fate, and the need to endure the needful and unavoidable challenges that will arise to any who stands for such high and noble values.

As I said, for me, all of these values go back to "High Mindedness"- which means to climb the rays of Odhinn's Sun-like mind and to come to understand the nature of one's own internal illumination, and to realize that we can rise above the destructiveness and greed and peril that characterizes the state of Nature's raw, red talons and which characterizes the state of the Thursic powers that still course through the deep places of the world and the cosmos.

We humans are the blossoms of the MANNAZ mystery, the vessels of and participants in the work of the Gods in our own world, with a duty to spread the light of the possibilities of the High Mind to all things. We begin with ourselves, celebrating the victory of light in us, and from there, we radiate it like the sun radiates light to all the world.

This is what freedom is: to be free of the darkness of the Thursic worlds is to be free of the selfishness that would prevent us from being generous; to be free of the unconscious drives to destroy and dominate that would prevent us from being loyal to friends and self-sacrificing for the family and community; to be free of the ignorance that prevents us from seeing ourselves as parts of a greater whole, and part of an ancestral line, allowing us to see with wisdom how the Web of Wyrd contains us all and to be proud of the greater story of which we are a part. The solar mind of the great Eagle of Odhinn has given this freedom.

We can be merciful; we are free from the unforgiving law of the talon unless we have no other recourse to it for the good of all. We can be compassionate; we can be thoughtful; we can be open-minded to many sides of many issues, weighing with wisdom the merits of what confronts us in life; we can be patient and we can be better than the bulk of those who seek only insipid self-glorification and wealth at any cost. We can see entire societies in this world based on fear, not high-mindedness; it is an eternal truth that fear is the polar opposite of the solar-minded attitude.

We see entire societies based on fear of sexuality and prudish, (sometimes violent) unthinking adherence to the words of dead scriptures; we see entire societies where the value of human life- especially female human life- has all but been lost. The way of high-mindedness is the way of life's value. Life is the seat of the solar force; it is the "high seat" of every possibility of beauty and power- and thus, no "tradition", no matter how venerable, can justify the wanton destruction of life, injustice, or the imprisonment and mistreatment of entire genders or types of people. Those who fight against these sorts of injustices fight with the righteous wrath of the Aesir- they are the true spiritual princes and spear-disir of our times.

A person who can be free in this High-Minded way of being, and increase and preserve the beauty and harmony of this world, that person is the most principled human- none can claim to be more so. And none will have a more honored seat in the Halls of the Gods when the Fate of death finally sends them to the Hel-way and then to the Doom-ring.

I do not offer promises of reward in the afterlife as some incentive; the Ancestors did not, and I do not- I offer only the truth that each person who engages the High-Mindedness that is Man's greatest gift will make him or herself into a sun in this life, and that light will shine beyond the boundaries of this life, because that is what suns and stars do. Those who remain in darkness will have only the darkness of the self when death closes their eyes and all other lights have failed.

This is not "reward for services rendered or obedience tendered"- this is "prepare your destiny now through your nobility- or lack thereof." No white Christ will let you off the hook for your own darkness- and no true "life of principle" is possible for those who have not taken full responsibility for their own light.

For those who imagine our Ancestors to have been violent, brutish people who allowed only warriors fallen in the act of battle to go to Odhinn's drinking hall, think again: it is well proven- at least to my satisfaction- that the ancient Heathens believed that men who were slain in combat and who died with the bloodstains of atrocity on their hands did not merit Valhalla. Those interested further in this point should see Rydberg's "Teutonic Mythology" for more information and evidence. Now, as in the distant past, the heavens are reserved for the stars- light for the light, and darkness for the darkness.

May the Ginnregin keep you all very safe. Let your minds join Odhinn's great victory, and be one of the heroes who helps keep the world safe until the end of Worlds.

Follow unwaveringly the course of Raidho-beauty and Wunjo-life.

The Wish-Fulfilling Horn

If I could find the wish-fulfilling horn
And drink the draught of miracles
This is what I would wish for myself:
That I would always act in such a way
That I regretted nothing later.
If I could wish something for you,
I would wish that you lived in a world
Where only things that mattered upset you.

If the horn were generous,
And I could wish again,
I would wish for myself a quiet home
On a quiet meadow, near a sheltering forest,
A place where my family would be safe
And have what they needed.
For you, I would wish that you would know
The path you should take through life.
That you would recognize your place in life,
Your task, your quest, and seize it.

If the horn's bounty were so great
That a third wish was offered,
I would wish to die knowing
That my family would be well always.
For you, I would wish
That you could know the wholeness
That is the truth about you.
I would wish that you accorded yourself
The same worth that I see in you.

When I had returned the horn
To the hands of the sacred folk who keep it,
I would go, without regrets, to my home
In the meadow, on the side of the forest,
I would be in joy with my family;
And there I would take you as my teacher
And learn all that I could from you.
I would need nothing else, ever again.

In the Dark Forests of our Deepest Minds

"In the dark woodland of the Northern European consciousness, a figure waits: an old man, wrapped in a blue-black cloak. His broad-brimmed hat hangs low, hiding one eye; a sharp metal point glints at the tip of his staff, and two ravens croak from the branches of the ash-tree above him. He beckons: in his hand he holds an ancient drinking-horn, and the scent that rises from it is honey and alcohol, strong enough to set the head spinning with a single whiff. He is a grim one, this old man; his spear is streaked with blood, and the hounds that crouch at his side look more like wolves than dogs. Yet the gift he offers is enough to overcome fear, for the brave . . . for those who are not afraid to die."

-Kveldúlf Gundarsson, from Wotan: The Road to Valhalla


I've been involved in the modern Pagan movement for the last 15 years of my life. I've seen a lot of people come and go through the harvest of those years: some people I knew to be good or even great; some people I considered pretty worthless, and a lot of people in-between- the bored and the indifferent.

At first, I didn't stop to consider what it was we were all doing; I don't know where it came from that I should have become a Pagan, or been drawn to these things. It was just what I did; I didn't like what I had seen before that passed as "religion", and I was drawn to the vibrant imagery and ideas of the mythologies that came from parts of the world that didn't include Palestine. There were strange figures alive in my imagination that needed to be more than just characters in fiction books; they needed to be worshiped for who and what they were before they were washed down the drain of "fiction". It was very mysterious to me, but I didn't question it.

Now I know that our lives and our desires to worship the old Gods and to resurrect the practices and beliefs of a very old way had little to do with us and more to do with the legacy that we are all a part of. At the beginning, when this legacy began to express itself through us, it was one that we were largely unconscious of.

We are all the sons and daughters of an ancient cultural tradition. No matter who we are, behind us stand older powers and tendencies than we can normally realize. The impact of the ancient layers of experience that stand behind our bloodlines are far from done with us, even today- we are still our Ancestor's offspring, affected and shaped by their holy rites, their sacred words, and their hopes and dreams.

Cultures don't vanish just because rapid changes in the world result in the transformation of the religious ideals or social structure of a people. Most people may think so: what is a "culture" if not a "cult" of people who all hold the same things up as sacred and valuable, and who practice similar and related life-ways? I used to keep that shallow definition of culture before I understood the spiritual dimension of culture, and how deep and persistent it is.

Many people today say that culture is determined largely by language. Others look to archaeological scraps dug out of the ground. I look deeper. I say that true culture is determined chiefly by the sacred powers that came together to create the root from which all of the branches of the culture grew from. Those sacred powers are timeless and resistant to age and death.

Later on down the road, it makes no difference what language the descendants of the original culture" begin to speak; it makes no difference what religion they all start to practice. It makes no difference if they leave small villages and move into big cities and become shallow, materialistic people, almost totally forgetful of their Ancestors' ways. Deep inside them, in the "dark woodland of their consciousness"- the unconscious layers of their minds- still live the originating powers. And these living powers influence them, even without their conscious knowledge.

These powers cannot be escaped. We do not have a choice over who and what we will be internally; we are born to an Orlog that was established in the time of the first Ancestors, and we'll die entwined in that Orlog. The cosmetic changes made by the vicissitudes of history are small matters compared to the sacred forces that fed the roots of each human tree.


I've seen a lot of people come and go over the years, and watched them try many things to satisfy the longing inside themselves to uncover their authentic spiritual roots. Many flashy and inviting paths exist today- but not a single one can ever satisfy a person if it does not bring them back to their own beginning.

And I'm not talking about the hospital room that we were in when most of us came screaming into the world; I'm talking about something that I can't find the words for, but which I can feel. I'm talking about the numinous "space" of origins wherein still live the potencies that our Ancestors rightly called "Gods" and where the Ancestral Women of every bloodline still work at their looms, weaving out the Fate of each individual and each family.

The experience of ultimate origins puts us back in touch with a community of sentience that includes not just Ancestors, but formative powers and layers of causality that make us who we were "then" and who we are "now".

As familiar as the various forms of modern Christianity may be, they cannot take us back the full distance; Christianity only goes back as far as the first time it ever collided with our grandmothers and grandfathers, when missionaries first wandered onto their far green shores and set about trying to destroy our foreparents' access to their true origins. All we find when we take the "Christian ride" back is a foreign institution coming and obscuring the sacred power of our origins, and trying to replace it with the strange, foreign symbols and myths of a new sort of worldview.

Many people, driven by the new unconscious patterns of long-term social programming, may take refuge in Christianity's promises and hopes, but at the end of the day (or the end of their lives) I am very confident that most people will feel the warm glow of those expectations fall cold; they will feel alienated or dis-satisfied on some level- a crisis that Christianity as a whole has always been familiar with, and which it has played off as "a crisis of faith." Worse yet, it has traditionally taken a "blame the victim" mentality, accusing people who can't explain their discomfort of lacking faith- and using guilt to keep them right where they are.

Always longing to find "home", as I believe all people do, some of these Christian folk will hope that the final promise of Christianity- that of "heaven"- will be a realization and fulfillment of that longing.

The "heaven" they really want isn't a sunny, sandy "New Jerusalem" with the Big Jehovah and choirs of angels; it is a green land of mountains, forests, and fields and blue rivers and oceans, full of game and fish and longhouses and roundhouses, villages with warm hearth-fires and sweet mead, wherein walk beautiful women and strong men, safe, happy, together with their own children and families. It isn't full of camels and ancient Iranian Magi draped in silk; it is full of horses and deer, of wolves and ravens and mystics draped in hide and fur.

Heaven is not a return to the paradise of another people, or to another people's myth of a great future; it is a return to our own origins. And in the Underworld of our Ancestors, in the Godly Realms of our Ancestors- sacred and powerful and totally unrelated to the "hell" of the Christians- that sort of completion awaits us. It is a long-sought homecoming, a long-awaited rest among our true kin.

This is not just a matter of the preferential aesthetics that we want to see for this life or even for our afterlives. I once let myself entertain the notion that the afterlife was something beyond our understanding, and only "dressed up" in symbols and words for our limited minds to grasp- but today, I know that this is wrong. The "afterlife" is no more beyond our understanding than this life is- or this room, this morning light, this music we hear today, these people we talk to and interact with now.

I'm not saying that we can understand the true roots of all reality in the way we usually understand things; I'm saying that we can understand as well as humans can who and what the things of this world are, and what the things of the afterlife are.

What we will "see" when we die isn't so different from what we "see" here- the emblems of the afterlife journey- the Hel-Road, the Ship that Crosses the Waters, the "Field of the Folk"- all of these things aren't just cheap descriptions born of a poverty of language; they are telling us what our minds will experience. The "language of the mind" doesn't suddenly change just because it can't use the eyes of the head to see- if that were the case, we'd never dream in the concrete terms of this world: we'd never dream about animals, houses, people, or places.

There are primordial forms of experience that dwell both in the mind and in this world- for these two things aren't so different after all. Having a "language for the mind" isn't a sign of some primitive limitation; it is a sign that these things are part and parcel of the deepest universal expressions.

And the primordial forms of experience- the forest, the mountain, the sea, the ship, the dwelling-place, the fire, the wandering God, the Rune, the spear, the sword, the witch, the warrior, all of these ancient forms that encapsulate so many cultural realities- they are not "romanticized" symbols of an over-imaginative former time; they are universal emblems of primal power. They were with us before; they are with us now, and will be with us again.

We lost a lot when we decided to shrug off the "trappings" of culture and tried to find some abstract "deeper meaning" for things that excluded the primordial forms. Those of us who attempted to do so were trying to conform to the ridiculous notions of some new "transcendental" learning or philosophy, trying to escape our roots in the soil and the earth, trying to transcend our ancient cultures. We were encouraged to believe that "progress" demanded such transcendence.

The call to betray the ancient root-cultures and the sacred originating powers came first from Christianity, and still continues in some ways in academia- academia, whose memory for some of the most important things of our past is either lost, or always in doubt, always non-committal, always serving the politics of the new world, and not the souls of human beings.

The call to be a "modern" person is still strong in many sectors- "modernity" apparently means getting excited about celebrity gossip, the drug-riddled lives and broken marriages of pop stars, getting the handbag of the season, and watching reality TV, and not getting too excited about what the "primitive" people of the distant past were doing or saying.

The call to be "modern" seems to be a call to give up on ever finding our unique identity, and instead submerging ourselves in a great pool of human flesh and blood in which identity is lost. It seems to ask that we accept that everyone's ancestors were all "trying to say the same thing" with their Gods and myths- and (somehow) the god of just one people was always the "real" one, and we should pray to it instead.

Of course, the religious complex that has sprung up around that particular "god" not only justifies being ignorant of our true origins, but continually upholds every sort of abuse of power, every orthodoxic invasion of other people's freedom of mind and will, every prudish distrust of the body and sexuality, every condescension towards womanhood and the feminine side of human life, and every sort of tyranny that still murders people today- it upholds regimes overseas that murder and oppress in the name of the Old Testament, just as surely as it upholds the local minister who oppresses the souls and freedoms of people in the name of the exact same book and its sequel.

We can ill afford to go on washing away our own originating traditions of sacredness into a pit of abstraction, safely removing these things from our concern so that we can comfortably replace them with new trends; our Gods are not just more "symbols of human longing for the divine"; they are more than just "archetypes"- they are Gods. They are some of those originating forces that live forever in the deep forests of our true selves, and that is where they will always be.

And until we find our way back to those woodlands within, back to the originating powers (of whom the Gods are some among many) we will never know who or what we are, and we won't ever have real peace.

We can chant like Buddhists, pray like Christians, drum like Native Americans, dance like Wiccans, or scoff at others like bitter atheists, but none of these things will bring us to the lasting peace, knowledge, and wisdom that we are naturally heirs to, and which we are naturally, fatefully inspired to seek out. We won't have peace until we resolve ourselves to the Ancestral powers that still live in us and work from the deepest places.