Rasp
Senior Editor
[From: The Odinist, no. 46 (1979)]
Exsternsteine
Is Odinism the oldest religion of the world?
If we are to believe Dr. F. J. Los, writing some years ago in the Dutch publication, 'The Northlander', the German cult site of Exsternsteine, near Detmond and the Teutoburger Wald where Varus's Roman legions were defeated by the German leader Hermann in 9 C.E., may be far older than Babylon, Jerusalem and the Pyramid of Cheops. Professor Los, a German archaeologist, believes that as far back as 40,000 years before Christ, the Cromagnon, ancestors of modern European man, had their main cult or religious center for all of Europe and Asia in this area. Prof. Los relates that about 2000 B.C.E., when the Indo-Europeans conquered the area, they killed the three priestesses, or 'Mothers' who had been the heads of the matriarchal Cromagnon religion. These three 'Mothers' remind us of the three 'Mothers' of Goethe's 'Faust' whom Mephistopheles directs Faust to go to, in order to obtain the 'keys' to Greco-Roman antiquity and summon Helen of Troy. Mephistopheles explains that he has no power over antiquity, only the 'Mothers' control that! Possibly, Goethe was acquainted through his arcane Freemasonic and Rosicrusian associates, with an ancient tradition such as described in Robert Graves's 'White Goddess'.
Anyway, Prof. Los explains that Exsternsteine was the most sacred area of the Germans, in particular the Saxons, until the year 772, when it was destroyed by Charlemagne, 'Der Sachenschlächter' (Exterminator of the Saxons), who also stole the sacred 'Irminsäule', representing the world axis or the holy Yggdrasil.
Thus was most likely destroyed a religious temple and cult site far older than the pyramids.
Savitri Devi, in her books 'Souvenirs et Reflexions d'une Aryenne' and 'Pilgrimage', recounts in greater detail the history of Exsternsteine and its religious and racial significance for us today, including initiation rites, similar to the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece that were practiced by the Hellenes.
Professor Friedrich Cornelius, a German archaeologist with whom I met in Munich in 1973, told me personally that he had proof that the 'One-eyed God', Odin, had been worshipped as far back as 4000 B.C.E. at Exsternsteine and that he had found statues there from this or earlier times of a 'One-eyed God'. - Could it be that Odin, the god who hung on the World Tree for 9 days and 9 nights, is the precursor of Orpheus, Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas and other gods and semi-gods who acted as 'psycho-pomps' and were crucified on a tree?
Prof. Carl Gustav Jung, in his psychological works, such as 'Psychology and Alchemy' and others, relates the traditions of European 'racial memory' which Jung calls the 'archetype', preserved from medieval alchemy of Mercurius who was crucified as a snake on the 'Tau-Cross' during the 'marriage of opposites'. Mercurius, relates Dr. Jung, represents 'the fully individuated personality', a modern equivalent to the fully 'illuminated' initiate of ancient mystery religions, such as Mithraism and the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries, etc.
Could the Exsternsteine with its great age of over 40,000 years have been the origin of ALL these mystery religions? - The Church Fathers, such as Justin the Martyr and others, thought of Orpheus as the precursor of Christ - and no wonder!!! Orpheus, in his mysteries, was suspended on a cross-tree and acted as a psycho-pomp who led the Initiate (as examplified by Eurydice) through the Lower World of the Dead and then brought him to the 'Light' after days of rituals.
Albert Pike in 'Moral and Dogma' relates this of the Yule Feast, later to become Christmas, that the Goths worshipped Thor: "Thor was the Sun, the Egyptian Osiris and Kneph, the Phoenician Bel, or Baal. The initiations were held in huge intricate caverns, terminating as the Mithraic caverns did, in a spacious vault where 'the candidate was brought to Light'.
Is Odinism the world's oldest religion? Many facts discovered in the last decades point to an affirmative answer. - We have for so long been misled by the idea 'Ex Oriente Lux' that we have come to believe the northern Europeans of a thousand years ago wore animal skins and were crude barbarians with no civilization until 'culture' was brought to them from the East. But more and more archaeological fact finders are showing that northern Europe undoubtedly had sacred stone structures and a store of religious beliefs long before the pyramids were built.
The wisdom contained in Odinism thus goes back far beyond the time of the Vikings, which is only the latest manifestation of our racial, traditions and folkways. Odinist beliefs have been the possession of our Folk from its earliest existence. They may have been known under different names, but the contents were essentially the same, coloured only by the level of knowledge and insight our forefathers had reached at that specific time and place.
When we some day get all these bits and pieces of information put together and presented as a cohesive chronicle of our Folk, we shall see that the Folkways, living as traditions from generation to generation, go back in time many thousands of years.
[C.S.]
Exsternsteine
Is Odinism the oldest religion of the world?
If we are to believe Dr. F. J. Los, writing some years ago in the Dutch publication, 'The Northlander', the German cult site of Exsternsteine, near Detmond and the Teutoburger Wald where Varus's Roman legions were defeated by the German leader Hermann in 9 C.E., may be far older than Babylon, Jerusalem and the Pyramid of Cheops. Professor Los, a German archaeologist, believes that as far back as 40,000 years before Christ, the Cromagnon, ancestors of modern European man, had their main cult or religious center for all of Europe and Asia in this area. Prof. Los relates that about 2000 B.C.E., when the Indo-Europeans conquered the area, they killed the three priestesses, or 'Mothers' who had been the heads of the matriarchal Cromagnon religion. These three 'Mothers' remind us of the three 'Mothers' of Goethe's 'Faust' whom Mephistopheles directs Faust to go to, in order to obtain the 'keys' to Greco-Roman antiquity and summon Helen of Troy. Mephistopheles explains that he has no power over antiquity, only the 'Mothers' control that! Possibly, Goethe was acquainted through his arcane Freemasonic and Rosicrusian associates, with an ancient tradition such as described in Robert Graves's 'White Goddess'.
Anyway, Prof. Los explains that Exsternsteine was the most sacred area of the Germans, in particular the Saxons, until the year 772, when it was destroyed by Charlemagne, 'Der Sachenschlächter' (Exterminator of the Saxons), who also stole the sacred 'Irminsäule', representing the world axis or the holy Yggdrasil.
Thus was most likely destroyed a religious temple and cult site far older than the pyramids.
Savitri Devi, in her books 'Souvenirs et Reflexions d'une Aryenne' and 'Pilgrimage', recounts in greater detail the history of Exsternsteine and its religious and racial significance for us today, including initiation rites, similar to the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece that were practiced by the Hellenes.
Professor Friedrich Cornelius, a German archaeologist with whom I met in Munich in 1973, told me personally that he had proof that the 'One-eyed God', Odin, had been worshipped as far back as 4000 B.C.E. at Exsternsteine and that he had found statues there from this or earlier times of a 'One-eyed God'. - Could it be that Odin, the god who hung on the World Tree for 9 days and 9 nights, is the precursor of Orpheus, Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas and other gods and semi-gods who acted as 'psycho-pomps' and were crucified on a tree?
Prof. Carl Gustav Jung, in his psychological works, such as 'Psychology and Alchemy' and others, relates the traditions of European 'racial memory' which Jung calls the 'archetype', preserved from medieval alchemy of Mercurius who was crucified as a snake on the 'Tau-Cross' during the 'marriage of opposites'. Mercurius, relates Dr. Jung, represents 'the fully individuated personality', a modern equivalent to the fully 'illuminated' initiate of ancient mystery religions, such as Mithraism and the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries, etc.
Could the Exsternsteine with its great age of over 40,000 years have been the origin of ALL these mystery religions? - The Church Fathers, such as Justin the Martyr and others, thought of Orpheus as the precursor of Christ - and no wonder!!! Orpheus, in his mysteries, was suspended on a cross-tree and acted as a psycho-pomp who led the Initiate (as examplified by Eurydice) through the Lower World of the Dead and then brought him to the 'Light' after days of rituals.
Albert Pike in 'Moral and Dogma' relates this of the Yule Feast, later to become Christmas, that the Goths worshipped Thor: "Thor was the Sun, the Egyptian Osiris and Kneph, the Phoenician Bel, or Baal. The initiations were held in huge intricate caverns, terminating as the Mithraic caverns did, in a spacious vault where 'the candidate was brought to Light'.
Is Odinism the world's oldest religion? Many facts discovered in the last decades point to an affirmative answer. - We have for so long been misled by the idea 'Ex Oriente Lux' that we have come to believe the northern Europeans of a thousand years ago wore animal skins and were crude barbarians with no civilization until 'culture' was brought to them from the East. But more and more archaeological fact finders are showing that northern Europe undoubtedly had sacred stone structures and a store of religious beliefs long before the pyramids were built.
The wisdom contained in Odinism thus goes back far beyond the time of the Vikings, which is only the latest manifestation of our racial, traditions and folkways. Odinist beliefs have been the possession of our Folk from its earliest existence. They may have been known under different names, but the contents were essentially the same, coloured only by the level of knowledge and insight our forefathers had reached at that specific time and place.
When we some day get all these bits and pieces of information put together and presented as a cohesive chronicle of our Folk, we shall see that the Folkways, living as traditions from generation to generation, go back in time many thousands of years.
[C.S.]