Rasp
Senior Editor
[From: The Odinist, no. 43 (1980)]
The Projected Mind
One of the qualities that man has traditionally hallowed as reserved for the gods is omniscience: complete, perfect knowledge of All. In his pursuit of knowledge man himself, alas, has been denied immediate illumination, and has had to muddle along perceiving Nature and Reality in general, through a filter - the totality of mind.
As a result, man's own subjectivity (that is, his emotions, his wishes and terrors, his undisciplined imagination, his wily subconscious) has always, to some extent, influenced his perceptions of the objective external world, and fallacious ideas about Externality and Self have been fabricated.
Nevertheless, throughout history when the rational and imaginative dimensions of the mind have been maintained in a condition of balance and health, in harmony with instinctive impulses and critically receptive to new inputs of information, the negative role of the subjective factor has been steadily diminished, and the system of thought vis-a-vis perception has undergone a progressive evolution, with simplistic and sometimes erroneous notions giving way to increasingly expanding appreciations of the complexities of Reality. In this positive process perceptions are validated or qualified, and reactions and outlooks are correspondingly adjusted.
But whenever the mind had been subjected to patterns of disruption (whether arising from basic incapacity, accidental physiological dysfunction, alterations along the lengthy road of genetic reconstitution, or subversion of ideation through infection by concepts alien to the indigenous mental operation) the results have invariably meant the domination of a chaotic subjectivity, conflict between rationality and instincts, and an unwillingness or inability to effectively relate to objective reality.
Thereupon the progressive evolution of thought has proceeded haltingly, at a retarded pace or in a disproportionate manner, - or ceased altogether as the mind both individually and collectively has become trapped in a closed system, feeding upon stocks of self-generated, self-sustained or infused falsity.
The impact o£ religion on Indo-European man is a manifestation of this evolutionary systemization of perception and thought in both its good and bad aspects. In Odinism, the ancient religion of the Aryan, the harmonious development and coexistence of intellectual and instinctive drives, and the will for continuous reorientation to external reality have been the stimuli for a limitless growth as a dynamic Weltanschauung. For Odinism from its very inception has been characterized by a profound reverence for the Natural Order.
From this reverence with its concomitant recognition of the necessities of Externality, Odinism has derived a remarkable flexibility and non-dogmatic attitude which have enabled it to evolve from a tribal religion to a modern philosophy acknowledging the very latest discoveries about man and the universe and providing answers to contemporary problems -- a testimony to progressive quality.
On the other hand, the emergence of that most ludicrous of metaphysical effusions, christianity, and its grafting onto the psyche of Western man are disquieting examples of chronic misperception and the descent of the mind en masse into confusion. We need not here rehash the history of this Judaic disease and its responsibility for suppressing knowledge, warping spirits, ravaging nations and decimating peoples. We need only consider christianity's current status as philosophical quagmire: its decomposition into hundreds of sects and countless interpretations; its utter failure to alleviate the current existential malaise of Aryan man or resolve his social difficulties; its doctrinal accomodations and material collaboration with the enemies of the West.
Facts brought to light about the Natural Order by the scientific-naturalist outlook have gutted christianity; christian dogmas, both theological and social, now dangle about its dying body like so many eviscerated entrails. Yet even though it has nowhere to go, the cross-carrying monster plods on, victimizing now generations in what must surely be its last soul-corroding foray.
Unfortunately, it must be stated that practically every religion has had an impact just as retrogressive and sanguinary as that of christianity.
One may therefore wonder how Odinism, in achieving a forward-looking clarity of thought, has accomplished what virtually no other religion has been able to do. One may further wonder if Odinism can even be considered a religion, since in both theory and practice it differs so radically from all others.
If religion is defined as the postulating of an Ultimate Concern, then Odinism is indeed a religion — although perhaps not a theology. But Odinism is distinguished by its methodology: by how it perceives or arrives at its fundamental truths.
Odinism apprehends its truths through an Openness to Nature. Odinism is in its entirety based on Nature - on Aryan man's direct experience of Nature - not on conjecture, wishful thinking, 'divine revelation' or faith in undecipherable mysteries.
Odinism is a process of constructing a comprehensive view of Existence and Being through the assimilation of Externality's objective facts - as opposed to those metaphysical systems which create their own 'truths' or select only those facts which can be used to bolster up subjectively-spawned preconceptions. This fearless objectivity in the face of the tumultuous, often puzzling circumstances of Reality is one source of Odinism's superiority.
Most significant of all, of course, is the fact that Odinism is the direct product of the mind of Nature's most highly advanced organism - the Aryan. This single observation is the premise for all secondary analyses.
Modern Odiniam has therefore emerged as not only the highest manifestation, but also the metamorphosis and supersedure of the religious impulse.
Valuable insights into just how Odinism relates to this religious impulse have been provided by Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), one of many underappreciated German philosophers. Feuerbach pointed out that ail metaphysical systems, religious or philosophical, are essentially projections of the mind, operations of the human consciousness; or as he himself put it, studies in 'esoteric psychology'.
Man's innermost hopes and fears, according to Feuerbach, are projected into religious concepts in acts of self-transcendence. Man objectifies his own essence in ideal terms, and these idealizations are then personified into "God" or gods, constituting a vision of what man wants to be: the embodiment of absolute knowledge and power.
In Feuerbach's own words: "... this God is no God in itself, but only the appearance of ourselves to ourselves ..." Angels, devils, immortality, an afterlife of joy and exultation for the just and eternal damnation and suffering for the iniquitous, are supplemental notions man likewise projects into divine 'realities'.
Man’s big problem arises when he fails to see his actual role in the genesis of religious ideas, and insists that his metaphysical fancies have independent existence - believing that 'God created man' in lieu of understanding that man created God. This situation, says Feuerbach, results in the alienation of man from himself, as man 'makes himself an object to his projected image of himself thus converted into a subject'.
Said in other words, man converts his god-image into a paramount reality, but in so doing is transformed into a mere concreted idea of his own idea - a terrifying act of inversion and self-negation. The consequences of this derangement, of this subjectivity gone wild, are a matter of historic record.
Feuerbach declares that man must rescue himself from the swamp of metaphysics by overcoming his superstitions and striving to realize his lofty ideals in this world. As Odinists we wholeheartedly agree.
Readily endorsing Feuerbach's perspectives on religious idealism, we recognize our Folk's gods as idealizations of human qualities superimposed on personifications of the creative, all-pervasive power, or Force, underlying the universe. These godly attributes we can see explicitly manifested on the human level in the lives and deeds of our heroes throughout the ages.
The key to victory over subjectivistic distortions of reality is knowledge - knowledge of the facts of the external world and of the origin and functioning of the Self (the internal world) within it.
Odinists have always regarded knowledge as one of the supreme values, and the seeking of knowledge as among the highest virtues: Odin himself sacrificed an eye in the pursuit of knowledge. Hence, our respect for science - not science as narrow-minded, dogmatic empiricism, but science in the broadest, most comprehensive sense of the term ('science' - from the Latin scire: 'to know').
Odinists welcome science not only as a tool for expanding awareness, but also as an iconoclastic force blasting away the toothpick and bubblegum foundations of metaphysics.
In fact, science has so undermined metaphysical epistemologies that today many defenders of these various pie-in-the-sky speculations feel compelled to enlist science itself in a last-ditch effort to legitimize their nebulosities to an increasingly skeptical world.
But the resulting mental contortions and contradictions simply make the 'supernatural' and its would-be saviors seem all the more ridiculous.
Thus, for example, we're told that God set in motion the mechanics now theorized by science to be responsible for the physical formation of the universe, of the galaxies, stars and our planet, and for biological evolution on earth; but we're not told why an omnipotent creator had to resort to such indirect machinations - much less who or what set God in motion.
Likewise, the champions of afterlife fantasies proclaim the existence of the soul as a form of immortal energy, an energy which, they remind us, science says cannot be destroyed; all the while forgetting (if they ever knew) that science also says that systemized energy spontaneously tends to deteriorate into a more disordered or randomized state.
Meanwhile, liberal humanists and Marxists who loudly scorn the illogic of theologies perform similar pseudo-scientific gyrations in attempting to validate their own pet insanities, all of which may be considered secular religions.
At least the ultra-reactionary religious fanatics who abhor all real science and build up their faiths through the power of sheer irrationality are consistent in their method!
The universe does not care what happens to Man. He is but a microbe inhabiting a speck of dust adrift in an endless void. If man persists in his infantile attachment to subjectivistic doctrines which offer contrived explanations of and impose artificial constructs upon Reality, he will never liberate those creative energies necessary to meet the challenges of existence, and he will surely face the consequences of his folly; at best, degradation into a leas sentient being; at worst, total destruction and oblivion.
Yet, if the danger of continued blindness is awesome, so also is the promise inherent in further enlightenment. Western Man's possibilities are as limitless as his imagination, and the future will be bright once he frees himself from the shackles of obscurantism and subjectivity.
The arsenal of knowledge required for the battle against darkness exists now; our struggle is in conjuring up the will to use it. Each new scientific and historical discovery strengthens our position while further discrediting the mumbo-jumbo of metaphysics. In a very real sense those mutations of the mind already lie collapsed in the dust, we need only lop off their slimy tentacles as they come groping for the hearts and minds of our kinsmen.
Odinists have attained the self-consciousness recommended by Feuerbach: our gods are what we ourselves long to become; our soul is the essence of our racial Being carried within our genes; our immortality is genetic, for we will live on in the community of our descendents if we shun dysgenic sin and avoid the hell of mongrelization; and we strive to follow the path of righteousness illuminated by Odin, the All-Father, the
Life-Force of the Cosmos!
But we will never be satisfied with any status quo. Although we may never fully realize that perfection we have projected into our gods, we shall certainly try!
We have identified the idealized fragments of our projected mind; now that mind, stripped of its illusions, must once again project itself, this time willfully in an ultimate quest for knowledge - and survival. It must project itself across the universe, into the biggest galaxy and into the smallest sub-atomic particle. And in seeking to probe the mysteries of infinite Externality, the mind will come to a better understanding of itself.
The Projected Mind
One of the qualities that man has traditionally hallowed as reserved for the gods is omniscience: complete, perfect knowledge of All. In his pursuit of knowledge man himself, alas, has been denied immediate illumination, and has had to muddle along perceiving Nature and Reality in general, through a filter - the totality of mind.
As a result, man's own subjectivity (that is, his emotions, his wishes and terrors, his undisciplined imagination, his wily subconscious) has always, to some extent, influenced his perceptions of the objective external world, and fallacious ideas about Externality and Self have been fabricated.
Nevertheless, throughout history when the rational and imaginative dimensions of the mind have been maintained in a condition of balance and health, in harmony with instinctive impulses and critically receptive to new inputs of information, the negative role of the subjective factor has been steadily diminished, and the system of thought vis-a-vis perception has undergone a progressive evolution, with simplistic and sometimes erroneous notions giving way to increasingly expanding appreciations of the complexities of Reality. In this positive process perceptions are validated or qualified, and reactions and outlooks are correspondingly adjusted.
But whenever the mind had been subjected to patterns of disruption (whether arising from basic incapacity, accidental physiological dysfunction, alterations along the lengthy road of genetic reconstitution, or subversion of ideation through infection by concepts alien to the indigenous mental operation) the results have invariably meant the domination of a chaotic subjectivity, conflict between rationality and instincts, and an unwillingness or inability to effectively relate to objective reality.
Thereupon the progressive evolution of thought has proceeded haltingly, at a retarded pace or in a disproportionate manner, - or ceased altogether as the mind both individually and collectively has become trapped in a closed system, feeding upon stocks of self-generated, self-sustained or infused falsity.
The impact o£ religion on Indo-European man is a manifestation of this evolutionary systemization of perception and thought in both its good and bad aspects. In Odinism, the ancient religion of the Aryan, the harmonious development and coexistence of intellectual and instinctive drives, and the will for continuous reorientation to external reality have been the stimuli for a limitless growth as a dynamic Weltanschauung. For Odinism from its very inception has been characterized by a profound reverence for the Natural Order.
From this reverence with its concomitant recognition of the necessities of Externality, Odinism has derived a remarkable flexibility and non-dogmatic attitude which have enabled it to evolve from a tribal religion to a modern philosophy acknowledging the very latest discoveries about man and the universe and providing answers to contemporary problems -- a testimony to progressive quality.
On the other hand, the emergence of that most ludicrous of metaphysical effusions, christianity, and its grafting onto the psyche of Western man are disquieting examples of chronic misperception and the descent of the mind en masse into confusion. We need not here rehash the history of this Judaic disease and its responsibility for suppressing knowledge, warping spirits, ravaging nations and decimating peoples. We need only consider christianity's current status as philosophical quagmire: its decomposition into hundreds of sects and countless interpretations; its utter failure to alleviate the current existential malaise of Aryan man or resolve his social difficulties; its doctrinal accomodations and material collaboration with the enemies of the West.
Facts brought to light about the Natural Order by the scientific-naturalist outlook have gutted christianity; christian dogmas, both theological and social, now dangle about its dying body like so many eviscerated entrails. Yet even though it has nowhere to go, the cross-carrying monster plods on, victimizing now generations in what must surely be its last soul-corroding foray.
Unfortunately, it must be stated that practically every religion has had an impact just as retrogressive and sanguinary as that of christianity.
One may therefore wonder how Odinism, in achieving a forward-looking clarity of thought, has accomplished what virtually no other religion has been able to do. One may further wonder if Odinism can even be considered a religion, since in both theory and practice it differs so radically from all others.
If religion is defined as the postulating of an Ultimate Concern, then Odinism is indeed a religion — although perhaps not a theology. But Odinism is distinguished by its methodology: by how it perceives or arrives at its fundamental truths.
Odinism apprehends its truths through an Openness to Nature. Odinism is in its entirety based on Nature - on Aryan man's direct experience of Nature - not on conjecture, wishful thinking, 'divine revelation' or faith in undecipherable mysteries.
Odinism is a process of constructing a comprehensive view of Existence and Being through the assimilation of Externality's objective facts - as opposed to those metaphysical systems which create their own 'truths' or select only those facts which can be used to bolster up subjectively-spawned preconceptions. This fearless objectivity in the face of the tumultuous, often puzzling circumstances of Reality is one source of Odinism's superiority.
Most significant of all, of course, is the fact that Odinism is the direct product of the mind of Nature's most highly advanced organism - the Aryan. This single observation is the premise for all secondary analyses.
Modern Odiniam has therefore emerged as not only the highest manifestation, but also the metamorphosis and supersedure of the religious impulse.
Valuable insights into just how Odinism relates to this religious impulse have been provided by Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), one of many underappreciated German philosophers. Feuerbach pointed out that ail metaphysical systems, religious or philosophical, are essentially projections of the mind, operations of the human consciousness; or as he himself put it, studies in 'esoteric psychology'.
Man's innermost hopes and fears, according to Feuerbach, are projected into religious concepts in acts of self-transcendence. Man objectifies his own essence in ideal terms, and these idealizations are then personified into "God" or gods, constituting a vision of what man wants to be: the embodiment of absolute knowledge and power.
In Feuerbach's own words: "... this God is no God in itself, but only the appearance of ourselves to ourselves ..." Angels, devils, immortality, an afterlife of joy and exultation for the just and eternal damnation and suffering for the iniquitous, are supplemental notions man likewise projects into divine 'realities'.
Man’s big problem arises when he fails to see his actual role in the genesis of religious ideas, and insists that his metaphysical fancies have independent existence - believing that 'God created man' in lieu of understanding that man created God. This situation, says Feuerbach, results in the alienation of man from himself, as man 'makes himself an object to his projected image of himself thus converted into a subject'.
Said in other words, man converts his god-image into a paramount reality, but in so doing is transformed into a mere concreted idea of his own idea - a terrifying act of inversion and self-negation. The consequences of this derangement, of this subjectivity gone wild, are a matter of historic record.
Feuerbach declares that man must rescue himself from the swamp of metaphysics by overcoming his superstitions and striving to realize his lofty ideals in this world. As Odinists we wholeheartedly agree.
Readily endorsing Feuerbach's perspectives on religious idealism, we recognize our Folk's gods as idealizations of human qualities superimposed on personifications of the creative, all-pervasive power, or Force, underlying the universe. These godly attributes we can see explicitly manifested on the human level in the lives and deeds of our heroes throughout the ages.
The key to victory over subjectivistic distortions of reality is knowledge - knowledge of the facts of the external world and of the origin and functioning of the Self (the internal world) within it.
Odinists have always regarded knowledge as one of the supreme values, and the seeking of knowledge as among the highest virtues: Odin himself sacrificed an eye in the pursuit of knowledge. Hence, our respect for science - not science as narrow-minded, dogmatic empiricism, but science in the broadest, most comprehensive sense of the term ('science' - from the Latin scire: 'to know').
Odinists welcome science not only as a tool for expanding awareness, but also as an iconoclastic force blasting away the toothpick and bubblegum foundations of metaphysics.
In fact, science has so undermined metaphysical epistemologies that today many defenders of these various pie-in-the-sky speculations feel compelled to enlist science itself in a last-ditch effort to legitimize their nebulosities to an increasingly skeptical world.
But the resulting mental contortions and contradictions simply make the 'supernatural' and its would-be saviors seem all the more ridiculous.
Thus, for example, we're told that God set in motion the mechanics now theorized by science to be responsible for the physical formation of the universe, of the galaxies, stars and our planet, and for biological evolution on earth; but we're not told why an omnipotent creator had to resort to such indirect machinations - much less who or what set God in motion.
Likewise, the champions of afterlife fantasies proclaim the existence of the soul as a form of immortal energy, an energy which, they remind us, science says cannot be destroyed; all the while forgetting (if they ever knew) that science also says that systemized energy spontaneously tends to deteriorate into a more disordered or randomized state.
Meanwhile, liberal humanists and Marxists who loudly scorn the illogic of theologies perform similar pseudo-scientific gyrations in attempting to validate their own pet insanities, all of which may be considered secular religions.
At least the ultra-reactionary religious fanatics who abhor all real science and build up their faiths through the power of sheer irrationality are consistent in their method!
The universe does not care what happens to Man. He is but a microbe inhabiting a speck of dust adrift in an endless void. If man persists in his infantile attachment to subjectivistic doctrines which offer contrived explanations of and impose artificial constructs upon Reality, he will never liberate those creative energies necessary to meet the challenges of existence, and he will surely face the consequences of his folly; at best, degradation into a leas sentient being; at worst, total destruction and oblivion.
Yet, if the danger of continued blindness is awesome, so also is the promise inherent in further enlightenment. Western Man's possibilities are as limitless as his imagination, and the future will be bright once he frees himself from the shackles of obscurantism and subjectivity.
The arsenal of knowledge required for the battle against darkness exists now; our struggle is in conjuring up the will to use it. Each new scientific and historical discovery strengthens our position while further discrediting the mumbo-jumbo of metaphysics. In a very real sense those mutations of the mind already lie collapsed in the dust, we need only lop off their slimy tentacles as they come groping for the hearts and minds of our kinsmen.
Odinists have attained the self-consciousness recommended by Feuerbach: our gods are what we ourselves long to become; our soul is the essence of our racial Being carried within our genes; our immortality is genetic, for we will live on in the community of our descendents if we shun dysgenic sin and avoid the hell of mongrelization; and we strive to follow the path of righteousness illuminated by Odin, the All-Father, the
Life-Force of the Cosmos!
But we will never be satisfied with any status quo. Although we may never fully realize that perfection we have projected into our gods, we shall certainly try!
We have identified the idealized fragments of our projected mind; now that mind, stripped of its illusions, must once again project itself, this time willfully in an ultimate quest for knowledge - and survival. It must project itself across the universe, into the biggest galaxy and into the smallest sub-atomic particle. And in seeking to probe the mysteries of infinite Externality, the mind will come to a better understanding of itself.