Rasp
Senior Editor
[From: The Odinist, no. 38 (1978)]
PAGANISM
It has been said that a man's religion is the essential thing about him; it determines his thoughts and therefore his actions. By religion we do not here mean the church creed he happens to support, but what he actually believes — his general outlook on life, how he sees his role in the world, his duty and destiny, and his relationship to the universe. In short, the way in which he spiritually feels related to the 'unseen' world. If we know a man's religious philosophy, we know a great deal about what sort of a fellow he is, what he will, or will not, do. Exactly the same holds true for a nation of men, so it therefore becomes important to look at the religious concepts it has, to get an insight into the true soul of the nation, for out of its collective spirituality grow attitudes and thoughts which are the deep-down basis for the conduct of the folk. The religious outlook of a person, a tribe, or a nation, thus determines the actions, or non-actions, they may take.
Let us therefore, with this in mind, look at Odinism, the religious beliefs of our forebears, to see what were their notions about life and the part they played in the general scheme of things. The fact that they were pagan beliefs has, at least during the Christian centuries, been one stroke against them right from the start. All paganism, not just the beliefs of our fathers, has been proclaimed to be quackery, evil priestcraft, or the work of the devil by zealous Christians. Some religious cults undoubtedly are mostly quackery, but that does not justify putting all branches of paganism down as humbug and charlatanism. Quackery, for one thing, appears rather in the decaying stages of a civilization than in the creative phases, and, sadly, we must admit that in our own time such cults are popping up everywhere (vide the recent Jim Jones' cultish mixture of religion, marxism and despotism). Quackery does not have positive qualities, it is a cultural disease. But pagan ideas cannot be shrugged off as quackery, or the work of the devil (accepting the Christian notion that such a personage does exist!).
Neither can paganism be relegated entirely to the realm of myths and allegories. Although this may be closer to the truth than the cult-theory, it is hard to believe that our ancestors, who in all other matters were very realistic and down-to-earth, would let allegories or poetic mysticism represent their spiritual concepts regarding life and death, or their general code of conduct.
This indeed does not ring true to character at all. European man of yore did not live or die believing in allegories; life was serious business in those days, and an earnest, realistic spiritual guideline was what he would want. So, however strange it may seem to our contemporaries who cling to the Judaic-Christian faith, let us here state that our forefathers, being of sound mind, and with their eyes open did, in fact, believe in Odinism, and start from there.
Of course Odinism, as paganism in general, symbolizes what men thought they knew about the universe. All religions as a matter of fact do, including Christianity. But symbols, or allegories if you wish, cannot be considered the origin or the moving cause of these thoughts, they are rather the result of such stirrings of the mind. Our forebears wanted to clarify and express their ideas about their natural surroundings; they needed to know what to do, which course to take. The symbolic myths, therefore, express rather the things they felt certain about according to their level of knowledge and insight, and those are the notions that are of special interest to us.
The first pagan thinker was open-minded; the world around him, of which he felt an integral part, was all he knew; the enormous variety of sights, sounds and shapes that we collectively call nature, was not yet classified and labeled; all these wonderful or terrifying impressions were crowding him - beautiful, awesome, unspeakable. Although we now lecture learnedly about the universe as if we knew all about it, we must admit that despite all our scientific studies, [and we have come a long way since the first pagan thinker] we still don't know exactly what we are talking about. We can describe many universal phenomena, we can manipulate a fair number of them, but we still can't tell exactly whence the cosmic energies come, or whither they go - the universe remains a miracle - wonderful, inscrutable, magical.
The first pagan thinker did not know much as compared to us, and indeed, we must still ask how far are we and, how much more can we learn? That there is a force, a thousandfold complexity of forces, an eternal, cosmic energy, a life-force governing the minutest organism as well as the galaxies of the blue yonder. Even the atheists agree to this, whereas, the Christians will postulate that it is the work of their god Jehova. But the natural sense of man, if he will be honest, experiences it as a living thing, a hallowed force toward which the natural attitude is awe and worship, if not with rites and rituals, then with respect and reverence. The world was, and still is, to the pagan thinker, mysterious and sacred, for it is the holy force that gives life to all of nature. This is the central theme of all paganism, a reverence for and love of the god-like life force - this magical, wonderful power; for, as Carlyle says, worship is transcendent wonder, wonder for which there is no limit or measure.
Our present day materialistic and scientific approach to nature has blurred, if not completely obliterated, this feeling of awe and admiration; a tree to modern business means so and so many feet of board or pounds of paper, an acre of land so and so much real estate. But early man, looking at himself as part of the whole, was more readily able to feel the divinity in nature. And the first pagan thinker naturally transmitted his ideas to his fellow men; he was the seer whose thoughts awakened in other men the capability to think and understand. He was the spiritual hero who said out loud what others had only dimly felt in their hearts, but never articulated. And, as Carlyle remarks, thoughts once awakened, do not again slumber, they grow and generate notion upon notion, finally developing into a system of thought, a philosophy.
Odin is the central figure of Scandinavian paganism, the hero god as divinity, the oldest form of hero-worship. However, Jacob Grimm, the German expert of Teutonic mythology, maintains that Wuotan, the German name for Odin, does not signify a man or a hero; the name, he says, is etymologically connected with Latin vadere (English wade) and means movement, or source of movement, power, a manifestation of the highest god as 'the mover of things.' If we accept this explanation, and it seems reasonable to accept the word of such a highly competent expert, Odin thus becomes the Aryan name for the cosmic life-force, the eternal energy which is the original and only source of movement.
The original 'Odin,' is then to be considered the impersonal life-force, and not a hero-god. But this does not mean that no hero by the name of Odin ever lived; on the contrary, it would seem quite natural that in any time period one particular individual, the outstanding spiritual hero, would be the 'mover of things,' and therefore, as an expression of honour and respect, may be called Odin. It is wel1 known that if a person was extraordinarily gifted or accomplished when alive, there is hardly any limit to his skills and exploits after his death; the folk would accord to him all sorts of powers and wisdom and, eventually build their myths around such a hero-mover of all things: he would: naturally develop into All-Father Odin.
This would fall well in line with an example from Heimskringle, a saga written by Snorre Sturlasson in which Odin is pictured as a hero-king from the Black Sea region who with his twelve warriors travelled to northern Europe; this Odin is said to have founded the Danish town Odense where he lived for many years; he later moved to Sweden and eventually died near Upsala about the beginning of our Common Era. Similar stories are told by other historians such as Saxo.
The concept of Odin as the expression of the life-force and also as a hero and the father of gods and men has caused some confusion and made the Eddas difficult to understand, which has partly been the reason
for putting Odinism down as so much garbled nonsense. But, as Carlyle notes, the Eddas are not one coherent system of thoughts, they must be looked at as the summation of several successive systems, built one upon the other, over many centuries, each generation adding to the existing organic order. Also the vast land areas involved must be taken into consideration. Odinism was the main religious belief over all of northern Europe and part of the central regions as well as the British Isles.
In addition we must not forget either that not only was the hero-god a 'mover' but the attitude of the whole folk was to move things as well as themselves; and they spread out over the known world, abundantly proven through archaeological finds in many faraway places.
These early Europeans who mostly have been stereotyped as uncouth and vicious warriors were in fact, besides being excellent swordsmen, also organizers, homesteaders and settlers. Carlyle mentions that we can find titles such as 'wood-cutter' or 'forest-feller' indicating that these heroes were interested in other things than raping the women and killing the children. And wherever they went, they took with them their religious concepts; without contact with the homeland, and exposed to new influences, it should be expected that some changes took place over the years. This would be a very natural reason for any lack of cohesiveness or contradictory stories and notions found when we, for example, compare the Baltic myths with those of Scandinavia or Germany. Ireland was christianized very early, if not in the first century C.E. then at least in the second; many Irish monks travelled the length and breadth of the Isles as well as the continent, and the British myths, therefore, at an early stage became strongly influenced by Christianity, which further added to the difficulties in understanding some of them.
The essence of Odinism, as of all paganism, is the acceptance of nature as divine and of man as belonging in nature and therefore partaking in this divineness. A natural communion existed between man and the mysterious, invisible powers of nature; how these feelings were expressed depended on the level of intelligence and understanding of the folk concerned. Our ancient ancestors looked at nature with open eyes but were not cowed by these mighty forces; they did not fear the gods, but rather looked at them as powers to be loved and respected - gods who might be harsh but impartial - and if you followed the rules, so to speak, you would benefit from these forces; however, if you stepped over the line, consequences would follow swiftly, and sometimes be deadly.
But exactly this concept is one of the most remarkable characteristics of our forefathers, one that is sorely missing today: this unquestioning willingness to take full responsibility for one's actions, a voluntary accountability, totally absent in our present religious and political leaders. In fact nothing could be farther from their minds than to accept the responsibility for their actions. Just look at the recent economic mess in which the City of Cleveland finds itself. After the politicians have run the city's economy aground, who do they dare suggest should pay for their incompetence and mismanagement? - The citizens -- either by losing their jobs as city employees, or by higher taxes, or both, - the citizens whose only 'crime' was trusting their elected representatives to take care of the city; this, of course, may be judged rather naive, but even so one wonders what sort of 'men' these politicians are.
Such an attitude cannot be more in contrast to the pagan way of thinking; any adult person, man or woman, must accept the responsibility for his or her actions, and even children must learn to do so, according to their level of understanding.
We are well aware that 'responsibility' is a dirty word in today's world. But nevertheless, we would suggest that the sooner we get back to the pagan concepts and accept the responsibility for our own actions and demand the same from others, especially the leaders of our communities, the better off we would be. It is not up to any third party, god or human, to be responsible for what you do, or fail to do, it's strictly up to YOU and nobody else to be accountable for your actions; this was the way of our fathers, and it should again become our code of conduct.
[C.]
PAGANISM
It has been said that a man's religion is the essential thing about him; it determines his thoughts and therefore his actions. By religion we do not here mean the church creed he happens to support, but what he actually believes — his general outlook on life, how he sees his role in the world, his duty and destiny, and his relationship to the universe. In short, the way in which he spiritually feels related to the 'unseen' world. If we know a man's religious philosophy, we know a great deal about what sort of a fellow he is, what he will, or will not, do. Exactly the same holds true for a nation of men, so it therefore becomes important to look at the religious concepts it has, to get an insight into the true soul of the nation, for out of its collective spirituality grow attitudes and thoughts which are the deep-down basis for the conduct of the folk. The religious outlook of a person, a tribe, or a nation, thus determines the actions, or non-actions, they may take.
Let us therefore, with this in mind, look at Odinism, the religious beliefs of our forebears, to see what were their notions about life and the part they played in the general scheme of things. The fact that they were pagan beliefs has, at least during the Christian centuries, been one stroke against them right from the start. All paganism, not just the beliefs of our fathers, has been proclaimed to be quackery, evil priestcraft, or the work of the devil by zealous Christians. Some religious cults undoubtedly are mostly quackery, but that does not justify putting all branches of paganism down as humbug and charlatanism. Quackery, for one thing, appears rather in the decaying stages of a civilization than in the creative phases, and, sadly, we must admit that in our own time such cults are popping up everywhere (vide the recent Jim Jones' cultish mixture of religion, marxism and despotism). Quackery does not have positive qualities, it is a cultural disease. But pagan ideas cannot be shrugged off as quackery, or the work of the devil (accepting the Christian notion that such a personage does exist!).
Neither can paganism be relegated entirely to the realm of myths and allegories. Although this may be closer to the truth than the cult-theory, it is hard to believe that our ancestors, who in all other matters were very realistic and down-to-earth, would let allegories or poetic mysticism represent their spiritual concepts regarding life and death, or their general code of conduct.
This indeed does not ring true to character at all. European man of yore did not live or die believing in allegories; life was serious business in those days, and an earnest, realistic spiritual guideline was what he would want. So, however strange it may seem to our contemporaries who cling to the Judaic-Christian faith, let us here state that our forefathers, being of sound mind, and with their eyes open did, in fact, believe in Odinism, and start from there.
Of course Odinism, as paganism in general, symbolizes what men thought they knew about the universe. All religions as a matter of fact do, including Christianity. But symbols, or allegories if you wish, cannot be considered the origin or the moving cause of these thoughts, they are rather the result of such stirrings of the mind. Our forebears wanted to clarify and express their ideas about their natural surroundings; they needed to know what to do, which course to take. The symbolic myths, therefore, express rather the things they felt certain about according to their level of knowledge and insight, and those are the notions that are of special interest to us.
The first pagan thinker was open-minded; the world around him, of which he felt an integral part, was all he knew; the enormous variety of sights, sounds and shapes that we collectively call nature, was not yet classified and labeled; all these wonderful or terrifying impressions were crowding him - beautiful, awesome, unspeakable. Although we now lecture learnedly about the universe as if we knew all about it, we must admit that despite all our scientific studies, [and we have come a long way since the first pagan thinker] we still don't know exactly what we are talking about. We can describe many universal phenomena, we can manipulate a fair number of them, but we still can't tell exactly whence the cosmic energies come, or whither they go - the universe remains a miracle - wonderful, inscrutable, magical.
The first pagan thinker did not know much as compared to us, and indeed, we must still ask how far are we and, how much more can we learn? That there is a force, a thousandfold complexity of forces, an eternal, cosmic energy, a life-force governing the minutest organism as well as the galaxies of the blue yonder. Even the atheists agree to this, whereas, the Christians will postulate that it is the work of their god Jehova. But the natural sense of man, if he will be honest, experiences it as a living thing, a hallowed force toward which the natural attitude is awe and worship, if not with rites and rituals, then with respect and reverence. The world was, and still is, to the pagan thinker, mysterious and sacred, for it is the holy force that gives life to all of nature. This is the central theme of all paganism, a reverence for and love of the god-like life force - this magical, wonderful power; for, as Carlyle says, worship is transcendent wonder, wonder for which there is no limit or measure.
Our present day materialistic and scientific approach to nature has blurred, if not completely obliterated, this feeling of awe and admiration; a tree to modern business means so and so many feet of board or pounds of paper, an acre of land so and so much real estate. But early man, looking at himself as part of the whole, was more readily able to feel the divinity in nature. And the first pagan thinker naturally transmitted his ideas to his fellow men; he was the seer whose thoughts awakened in other men the capability to think and understand. He was the spiritual hero who said out loud what others had only dimly felt in their hearts, but never articulated. And, as Carlyle remarks, thoughts once awakened, do not again slumber, they grow and generate notion upon notion, finally developing into a system of thought, a philosophy.
Odin is the central figure of Scandinavian paganism, the hero god as divinity, the oldest form of hero-worship. However, Jacob Grimm, the German expert of Teutonic mythology, maintains that Wuotan, the German name for Odin, does not signify a man or a hero; the name, he says, is etymologically connected with Latin vadere (English wade) and means movement, or source of movement, power, a manifestation of the highest god as 'the mover of things.' If we accept this explanation, and it seems reasonable to accept the word of such a highly competent expert, Odin thus becomes the Aryan name for the cosmic life-force, the eternal energy which is the original and only source of movement.
The original 'Odin,' is then to be considered the impersonal life-force, and not a hero-god. But this does not mean that no hero by the name of Odin ever lived; on the contrary, it would seem quite natural that in any time period one particular individual, the outstanding spiritual hero, would be the 'mover of things,' and therefore, as an expression of honour and respect, may be called Odin. It is wel1 known that if a person was extraordinarily gifted or accomplished when alive, there is hardly any limit to his skills and exploits after his death; the folk would accord to him all sorts of powers and wisdom and, eventually build their myths around such a hero-mover of all things: he would: naturally develop into All-Father Odin.
This would fall well in line with an example from Heimskringle, a saga written by Snorre Sturlasson in which Odin is pictured as a hero-king from the Black Sea region who with his twelve warriors travelled to northern Europe; this Odin is said to have founded the Danish town Odense where he lived for many years; he later moved to Sweden and eventually died near Upsala about the beginning of our Common Era. Similar stories are told by other historians such as Saxo.
The concept of Odin as the expression of the life-force and also as a hero and the father of gods and men has caused some confusion and made the Eddas difficult to understand, which has partly been the reason
for putting Odinism down as so much garbled nonsense. But, as Carlyle notes, the Eddas are not one coherent system of thoughts, they must be looked at as the summation of several successive systems, built one upon the other, over many centuries, each generation adding to the existing organic order. Also the vast land areas involved must be taken into consideration. Odinism was the main religious belief over all of northern Europe and part of the central regions as well as the British Isles.
In addition we must not forget either that not only was the hero-god a 'mover' but the attitude of the whole folk was to move things as well as themselves; and they spread out over the known world, abundantly proven through archaeological finds in many faraway places.
These early Europeans who mostly have been stereotyped as uncouth and vicious warriors were in fact, besides being excellent swordsmen, also organizers, homesteaders and settlers. Carlyle mentions that we can find titles such as 'wood-cutter' or 'forest-feller' indicating that these heroes were interested in other things than raping the women and killing the children. And wherever they went, they took with them their religious concepts; without contact with the homeland, and exposed to new influences, it should be expected that some changes took place over the years. This would be a very natural reason for any lack of cohesiveness or contradictory stories and notions found when we, for example, compare the Baltic myths with those of Scandinavia or Germany. Ireland was christianized very early, if not in the first century C.E. then at least in the second; many Irish monks travelled the length and breadth of the Isles as well as the continent, and the British myths, therefore, at an early stage became strongly influenced by Christianity, which further added to the difficulties in understanding some of them.
The essence of Odinism, as of all paganism, is the acceptance of nature as divine and of man as belonging in nature and therefore partaking in this divineness. A natural communion existed between man and the mysterious, invisible powers of nature; how these feelings were expressed depended on the level of intelligence and understanding of the folk concerned. Our ancient ancestors looked at nature with open eyes but were not cowed by these mighty forces; they did not fear the gods, but rather looked at them as powers to be loved and respected - gods who might be harsh but impartial - and if you followed the rules, so to speak, you would benefit from these forces; however, if you stepped over the line, consequences would follow swiftly, and sometimes be deadly.
But exactly this concept is one of the most remarkable characteristics of our forefathers, one that is sorely missing today: this unquestioning willingness to take full responsibility for one's actions, a voluntary accountability, totally absent in our present religious and political leaders. In fact nothing could be farther from their minds than to accept the responsibility for their actions. Just look at the recent economic mess in which the City of Cleveland finds itself. After the politicians have run the city's economy aground, who do they dare suggest should pay for their incompetence and mismanagement? - The citizens -- either by losing their jobs as city employees, or by higher taxes, or both, - the citizens whose only 'crime' was trusting their elected representatives to take care of the city; this, of course, may be judged rather naive, but even so one wonders what sort of 'men' these politicians are.
Such an attitude cannot be more in contrast to the pagan way of thinking; any adult person, man or woman, must accept the responsibility for his or her actions, and even children must learn to do so, according to their level of understanding.
We are well aware that 'responsibility' is a dirty word in today's world. But nevertheless, we would suggest that the sooner we get back to the pagan concepts and accept the responsibility for our own actions and demand the same from others, especially the leaders of our communities, the better off we would be. It is not up to any third party, god or human, to be responsible for what you do, or fail to do, it's strictly up to YOU and nobody else to be accountable for your actions; this was the way of our fathers, and it should again become our code of conduct.
[C.]
