![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
causticusI’ve been steadily working my way through (what I can only hope is) a broad survey of the Germanic Pagan Revival (GPR). My interest in this has ebbed and flowed over the past couple years, but once I got over the initial hurdle, my interest has seemed to only intensify. So what was that hurdle? I’d call that the Asatru problem. By this, I’m referring to the fixation much of the GPR has had on the Viking Age Norse/Scandinavian culture, due to the obvious fact that most of the surviving source materials we have on the pre-Christian Germanic religion comes from the medieval Icelandic sources anyone today even somewhat familiar with the GPR already knows about quite well.
The main issue for me is that I don’t find the Viking Age stuff to be the least bit appealing. I have zero desire to LARP as a Viking or pretend I even have a slight clue what it was like to be part of a harsh warrior culture from 1000 years ago in a far off land. Search anywhere on the internet for Germanic paganism and nearly everything that comes up is saturated with Viking themes and sources. I think this leads many to conflate “Germanic” with Norse/Viking; when in fact Germanic culture is magnitudes more broad and expansive than that. I think this problem is due to a problem inherent in all of Neopaganism; namely that the whole edifice is build on a seething aversion to Christianity and Europe’s long Christian past. So here we have a religious paradigm that defines itself by what it is not, as opposed to what is it. That’s never a good way to start things off, in my view.
No need to cut out the Middle Ages
I recently read a fascinating book which challenges the “Pagan Germanic = Viking” trope. In the book, “The Northern Dawn” by Stephen E. Flowers, the author provides lots of compelling evidence that “Heathen” culture survived quite deep into the post-Christianization of Northern Europe. He shows many examples of how this culture actually shaped the Christian Middle Ages of Europe in many ways. We could say that this overall culture was roughly 1/3 Germanic Heathen, 1/3 Catholic, 1/3 Classical (Greco-Roman). Some of his examples seemed to me a bit far-fetched, and others quite intuitive and logical. All in all though, it becomes quite apparent that “Germanic” means a lot more than the small handful of inscriptions, medieval manuscripts, archaeological finds, and outside contemporary accounts (like Tacitus) we have of the pre-Christian culture. Flowers even brings medieval German mysticism (a la Meister Eckhart) into the equation, which I find to be a fascinating angle, despite its nominal Christian overlay. I would take it a step further and throw late medieval and early modern German / Central European occultism into the mix, but that would be something for a whole serious of articles, and thus well beyond the scope of what I’m getting into here. And then finally there is the topic of medieval German folklore, which is heavily influenced by the old Heathen ways, but that too is another topic for another day. Flowers does touch upon that in his book.
Mining our own past for clues
Yes, English
Next is the obvious fact that English culture is deeply rooted in the Pagan Germanic past. Yes, English that language we speak today! Yet few native speakers today are aware of its linguistic and cultural roots. So then why go full-Viking when our own cultural (and blood, for some of us) ancestors hailed the same deities and followed similar customs? Here we get to the almost-forgotten branch of the GPR, the so-called “Anglo-Saxon Heathenry.” Few might be aware that this branch, known as Theodish Belief, rose quite independently of Asatru! It would take me way too many words and too much time to go into the history, but I shall say I find its backstory to be most fascinating. I vaguely recall being somewhat dismissive of Theodism in some past posts and comments (on the surface it seemed like yet another cosplay party), but since doing more research on it, I’ve come to be far more sympathetic to its core concepts, not to mention its raison d'être. But again, this is a topic whole a whole serious of posts. Lets just say, the founder of Theodish Belief may have actually received guidance from the Allfather himself. This to me seems like a far more compelling religious impetus than pretending one’s bookish antiquarian hobby is itself a religion.
Pennsylvania Heathery: As American as Apfelkuchen
Finally, the other almost-forgotten branch; that is, the wealth of Germanic folk culture that has been long-established here in the US. It was the so-called “Pennsylvania Dutch” (err, Deutsch) who, during the 18th century, came over here as immigrants and brought with them an extensive body of lore and practices from their mother country. Just look up “ Pennsylvania Dutch art” in your favorite image search engine and you’ll get a crystal-clear idea of what I’m getting at here. As far as I know, most of these immigrants came from Southern Germany and nearby regions. When thinking of Germanic Paganism we seldom factor the Southern reaches of Greater Germania into the equation. We know the Germans of Pennsylvania were all nominally Christian. Some of them very very piously so, and others had quite eclectic beliefs and practices (see JMG’s main blog posts on early American occult traditions for some great insights on this topic). But yes, it’s not far-fetched to say that these people brought over folk practices which very likely go back to the old Heathen days. And from that, there is a modern Heathen denomination called Urglaawe which orients itself around these folk traditions. Think: Amish-style wagons clad in runic art, stars, and hexes. Yes, that. Very homegrown, very American; no fakery necessary. Even if their backstory doesn’t quite check out in the empirical sense (they say that the goddess Holle guided the PD out of Europe and overseas to Pennsylvania), there still seems like something very organic to what this group has been attempting to create. We’ll see if it lasts.
Wagons of Peace; No Longships necessary
To save myself from droning on too much longer, I’ll wrap this up with a one sentence recap. Essentially, Germanic Paganism can and should be thought of as something that goes far beyond Viking costumes and drinking horns. Actually, I think I made a good case above that it shouldn’t be that at all.
The main issue for me is that I don’t find the Viking Age stuff to be the least bit appealing. I have zero desire to LARP as a Viking or pretend I even have a slight clue what it was like to be part of a harsh warrior culture from 1000 years ago in a far off land. Search anywhere on the internet for Germanic paganism and nearly everything that comes up is saturated with Viking themes and sources. I think this leads many to conflate “Germanic” with Norse/Viking; when in fact Germanic culture is magnitudes more broad and expansive than that. I think this problem is due to a problem inherent in all of Neopaganism; namely that the whole edifice is build on a seething aversion to Christianity and Europe’s long Christian past. So here we have a religious paradigm that defines itself by what it is not, as opposed to what is it. That’s never a good way to start things off, in my view.
No need to cut out the Middle Ages
I recently read a fascinating book which challenges the “Pagan Germanic = Viking” trope. In the book, “The Northern Dawn” by Stephen E. Flowers, the author provides lots of compelling evidence that “Heathen” culture survived quite deep into the post-Christianization of Northern Europe. He shows many examples of how this culture actually shaped the Christian Middle Ages of Europe in many ways. We could say that this overall culture was roughly 1/3 Germanic Heathen, 1/3 Catholic, 1/3 Classical (Greco-Roman). Some of his examples seemed to me a bit far-fetched, and others quite intuitive and logical. All in all though, it becomes quite apparent that “Germanic” means a lot more than the small handful of inscriptions, medieval manuscripts, archaeological finds, and outside contemporary accounts (like Tacitus) we have of the pre-Christian culture. Flowers even brings medieval German mysticism (a la Meister Eckhart) into the equation, which I find to be a fascinating angle, despite its nominal Christian overlay. I would take it a step further and throw late medieval and early modern German / Central European occultism into the mix, but that would be something for a whole serious of articles, and thus well beyond the scope of what I’m getting into here. And then finally there is the topic of medieval German folklore, which is heavily influenced by the old Heathen ways, but that too is another topic for another day. Flowers does touch upon that in his book.
Mining our own past for clues
Yes, English
Next is the obvious fact that English culture is deeply rooted in the Pagan Germanic past. Yes, English that language we speak today! Yet few native speakers today are aware of its linguistic and cultural roots. So then why go full-Viking when our own cultural (and blood, for some of us) ancestors hailed the same deities and followed similar customs? Here we get to the almost-forgotten branch of the GPR, the so-called “Anglo-Saxon Heathenry.” Few might be aware that this branch, known as Theodish Belief, rose quite independently of Asatru! It would take me way too many words and too much time to go into the history, but I shall say I find its backstory to be most fascinating. I vaguely recall being somewhat dismissive of Theodism in some past posts and comments (on the surface it seemed like yet another cosplay party), but since doing more research on it, I’ve come to be far more sympathetic to its core concepts, not to mention its raison d'être. But again, this is a topic whole a whole serious of posts. Lets just say, the founder of Theodish Belief may have actually received guidance from the Allfather himself. This to me seems like a far more compelling religious impetus than pretending one’s bookish antiquarian hobby is itself a religion.
Pennsylvania Heathery: As American as Apfelkuchen
Finally, the other almost-forgotten branch; that is, the wealth of Germanic folk culture that has been long-established here in the US. It was the so-called “Pennsylvania Dutch” (err, Deutsch) who, during the 18th century, came over here as immigrants and brought with them an extensive body of lore and practices from their mother country. Just look up “ Pennsylvania Dutch art” in your favorite image search engine and you’ll get a crystal-clear idea of what I’m getting at here. As far as I know, most of these immigrants came from Southern Germany and nearby regions. When thinking of Germanic Paganism we seldom factor the Southern reaches of Greater Germania into the equation. We know the Germans of Pennsylvania were all nominally Christian. Some of them very very piously so, and others had quite eclectic beliefs and practices (see JMG’s main blog posts on early American occult traditions for some great insights on this topic). But yes, it’s not far-fetched to say that these people brought over folk practices which very likely go back to the old Heathen days. And from that, there is a modern Heathen denomination called Urglaawe which orients itself around these folk traditions. Think: Amish-style wagons clad in runic art, stars, and hexes. Yes, that. Very homegrown, very American; no fakery necessary. Even if their backstory doesn’t quite check out in the empirical sense (they say that the goddess Holle guided the PD out of Europe and overseas to Pennsylvania), there still seems like something very organic to what this group has been attempting to create. We’ll see if it lasts.
Wagons of Peace; No Longships necessary
To save myself from droning on too much longer, I’ll wrap this up with a one sentence recap. Essentially, Germanic Paganism can and should be thought of as something that goes far beyond Viking costumes and drinking horns. Actually, I think I made a good case above that it shouldn’t be that at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-19 01:09 am (UTC)I'll admit that my own interest in Germanic polytheism started out as interest in the Norse Myths, and early on the reconstructionist case made sense to me. As I think we discussed over at Sane Polytheism, I suspect that a lot of the "Viking Era Uber Alles!" (joke intended) sentiment is not only the revulsion for the Protestant Christianity most Americans going to Asatru were raised with, but also a weird revisting of it - the same discomfort with direct mystic experience and desire for a rationally-comprehensible (preferably "scriptural") basis for belief and practice that underlies mainstream American Prostestanism can be seen in folks who think all Germanic polytheism must be directly traceable to the Eddas and/or the archaeological record of pre-Christian Scandinavia/Iceland. For myself, this whole line of reasoning lost pretty much all of its appeal once I took up a regular spiritual practice and had some religious experience of my own. It's encouraging to see some others doing the same thing.
I'll have to check out The Northern Dawn - Flowers is very good about tracing Germanic folk practice and intuiting links with polytheistic/Runic practice, even if he might be a bit, erm, "enthusiastic" in inferring direct, unbroken cultural transmission for every example. Northern Magic (under his pen name, Edred Thorsson) has a nicely practical take on these eclectic traditions, including some instructions on making your own Pennsylvania Dutch-style hexes. Also, in terms of linking the tradition with central European Occultism, Flowers/Thorsson has dipped his toes in this a bit, in terms of publishing, though it seems to have been pretty formative for him - Rune Might goes into the Armanen system of Runes, and again under Flowers, Fraternitas Saturni apparently describes the structure and rituals of an early 20th century German fraternal occult society (though from what I've heard, it's apparently pretty light on Germanic polytheistic influence).
As for Theodism, I've had a profoundly mixed reaction that I'm still working on sorting out. For one thing, Anglo-Saxon/English flavored Heathenry speaks to me more than other kinds, and its where my own worship is grounded. They've done some outstanding research and have "walked the walk" of grounding it in actual regular ritual practice. On the other hand, the focus on Sacral Kingship rubs my American sensibilities the wrong way, and their focus on "authentic" pre-Christian worship goes against the more syncretic/updated approach you talked about.
In terms of recognizing the religious value of the traditions of the times between the Viking Age and the modern era for Germanic polytheists, I've found Rune Rasmussen pretty helpful (the fellow behind the "Nordic Animism" youtube channel). One example is his "Nordic Animist Calendar", which is an adaptation of a Swedish folk calendar based on the Younger Futhark.
Lastly, this post made me realize something I ought to have looked into a long time ago - the folk traditions of the Texas German community and their potential value for modern American Germanic polytheists (especially the Texan variety!). It's not super well-known outside of Texas, but there was a large migration of German-speakers to central Texas in the mid-to-late 1800s, and a lot of towns were primarily German-speaking up until WWI made it not so cool to be teaching in German in primary school. As you might imagine, a lot of their distinctive culture has been getting homogenized away, but I ought to look into the preservation efforts to see if there're any interesting folk practices to check out.
Thanks as always for a thought-provoking post, and if you have any specific sources to recommend on any of the above, I'd love to hear about them.
Cheers,
Jeff
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-19 03:10 pm (UTC)Great point on the Protestant element wrt Asatru. I agree we definitely see a lot of Prot. themes and impulses still lingering under the surface (or, the "shade soul" part of the self, as Flowers/Thorsson would put it). "The lore" = "The Bible"; "That's not in the lore!!" = "That's not in the Bible!", ect. So funny. IIRC, there's even one American Asatru guy with his own publishing outfit who created his own composite "Edda" chock full of his own creative liberties and redactions of Icelandic sources, in a seeming attempt to create a singular Bible-like lore corpus. Of course, in practice it doesn't end up working out like they might want it to. One can't really extract concrete moral precepts from pagan myths and tales (like skaldic poetry and sagas), much less clear instructions on how to maintain a community, which is a good thing IMHO....we've had more than 1500 years of people trying to use religion for that purpose and I don't think it's worked out so well, to say the least.
I certainly agree that Flowers/Thorsson does often make some rather obvious leaps and stretches that aren't all that convincing. And some of his takes I just flat out find to be strange. From what I can see he tends to mix his scholarship with a hefty-dose of narrative-building; though on an intuitive level it does seem to work much of the time, even if it something ends up being not so empirically-correct. There's no denying that he's definitely a polarizing figure within the Germanic Pagan community, through little fault of his own, in my view. I find it silly how his detectors love to constantly bring up his past involvement with LHP groups and practices (like the Temple of Set). I think these people just plain don't like him and what he's doing to begin with, therefore they'll use the cheap and easy attack to try and discredit his work as a whole. A few years back I used to interact a bit with Flowers on FB and I found him to be nothing but a stand-up guy, a rare combination of wisdom and kindness; he's one of the very few occult scholars living today today I have great respect for, right up there with JMG. Having said all of that, I'll have to check out his Northern Magic. What you described sounds quite fascinating.
On Theodism I have the same sort of mixed reaction, though I've warmed a bit to its overall purpose. I recently read Garman Lord's own accounts on how he founded Theodism and how it evolved over the years (what a wild ride that was!). What's unique about this branch of Heathenry is that it's core claims rest entirely on the purported instructions of a deity, in this case Woden. I won't get into that here, as it would take way too long to explain. But I will say that the concept of Sacral Kingship became very clear after I read Lord's account. Most importantly, it's not at all to be confused with Secular Kingship, especially our modern understanding of Kingship, which is been shaped by many centuries of Papism and Feudalism working in tandem (Rule "by Divine Right" is a Catholic Christian concept). On top of that, the original word for "King", Cyning, underwent a major semantic shift after Christianization. In the pagan Anglo-Saxon era, a Cyning would have been more equivalent to what we today understand as a top-level Chieftain (like a Jarl among Jarls), and one who was elected by his peer group of elders. The Secular Cyning was basically a Chief Magistrate, and we can say this corresponds to Tiw's role. The Sacral Cyning would more or less match up with our modern understanding of a High Priest or Hierophant, which corresponds to Woden. So we see in the "proper order" there are two different leaders. The Sacral King would be elected by the Witan (Council of Wise Men), after much discussion and divinations. This was not a leader for life, nor was he infallible. Rather earning this "Kingship" meant he was granted a piece of the deity (in this case Woden's) Luck/Hamingja, and this gift would remain in place so as long as the "King" performed his duties properly. A corrupted or incompetent leader would one day find that Luck to be removed and his own conduct would start manifesting negative omen's and his peers would notice this and then see an obligation to overthrow/remove him from power, lest the Luck of the group/tribe become tainted as well. Anyway, this is going on way too long and is something I should probably make a whole post about some time. One last thing I'll say on the mater is that through other research I've done, it seems like Sacral Kingship was the norm throughout much of Ancient Europe (and many other parts of the world). The Etruscans likely practiced this to its true form and the Romans inherited from them some aspect of Sacral Kingship as far as how they ran their own priesthoods. Finally, I think it's quite clear that this concept is quite alien to our modern culture. And that Garman Lord's attempt to recreate this has been a trial-and-error process and has yielded rather mixed results. I see the same problems with other reconstructions in general, where too much focus is places on small aesthetic details and not enough on the overall picture of how this system should adapt to the society we actually live in today. Too much detail-orientation means the endeavor becomes a fringe antiquarian hobby and only really appeals to people with that sort of interest. People with more spiritual, magical, and mystical inclinations are left scratching their heads and not so likely to get involved with something that seems like a pointless exercise in historical reenactment.
Lastly, it sounds like investigating the folk practices of the Texas German community sounds like a fascinating little side project. Hopefully that folk culture hasn't completely died out. Am I correct that those Germans came over during the late 19th century? If so then they may have had a lot of cultural similarity with the many other German immigrants to the US of that time. Much of the Northern half of the US has German as the most common ancestry in many counties and this was almost wholly due to 19th century immigration.
As always, great discussion. I do wonder if I've bested you on textwall length here ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-19 05:52 pm (UTC)That being said, on the Texas German bit (which I'll hit first, as it's the shortest), yes, a lot of the migrants came in the wake of the revolutions in the 1840s, just after Texas was admitted to the union (1845), though I think some might have showed up in the Republic days (1836-1845). As far as I know, they did not make up a significant portion of the original Gringo settlers that came in with Austin and up through the revolution. I'm also not sure if there was a predominant area from which Texas Germans emigrated - some prominent towns of Texas German settlement are Weimar, Fredericksburg, and New Braunfels, if that helps (need to do some research). Being able to look at other late 19th century German immigrants might help fill in some gaps, though! The folk culture hasn't totally died out, but it's in trouble. The University of Texas has been putting together an archive of the Texas German dialect (best word: stinkkatze = "stink cat" = skunk), but I'm not sure about associated cultural elements. My mother in law is from New Braunfels, and when she was growing up, there were still folks who learned German at home as kids, and most of the businesses in town were German-owned. These days it's mostly a far-out exurb of San Antonio.
As for Thorsson/Flowers, I largely agree with you - he was my main introduction to Germanic religion/magic and for a long time one of the only sources in the field I felt I could consistently take seriously. He's still my "go to" resource on the Runes, for one thing. I also think that a lot of the denunciation of his LHP stuff is likely over-the-top, but I also think that some of his take on the "Odian Path", such as emulating Odin rather than worshipping him, might be the result of the same worldview that made such endeavors attractive to him. It doesn't make me dismiss his material, but it does inform the amount and quality of salt I take it with.
Okay, now the big one: sacral kingship. Thank you for the summary of the key points - you hit on a lot of stuff that I had left out for the sake of "brevity" (hah). I also recently read Lord's accounts of the early days of the movement (as collected in the "Gesitha Handbook" - I haven't checked out "From the Giftstool" yet), and part of what I summarized as the idea of sacral kingship "rubbing my American sensibilities the wrong way" was the uncomfortable feeling that he maybe has some very good points, precisely as you point out - Sacral Kingship was the norm in many societies, it likely was essential to the religion from which I'm drawing my own practice, and it may be heavily embedded in the myths (to say nothing of "maybe the Gods want us to do this"). Also implicit in my statement is that I'm also wrestling with how to feel about my "American Sensibilities" since JMG and Curtis Yarvin have been forcing a lot of reevaluation of political thought I've taken for granted since high school or so.
All of which is to say, I find the suggestion that some kind of sacral kingship is at least religiously helpful, if not necessary, a possibility I have to take seriously, but I'm not sure I like that. I also have some doubts about what that would look like - for example, even if "sacral kingship" in various developed forms split apart from secular kingship, I think that it might be important that they are at least somewhat linked - maybe you only really carry the luck of your tribe if you have the responsibility of making major decisions for the tribe. If that's the case, then setting up a voluntary association with no secular power might not achieve the goals of a sacral kingship, even if having a real sacral kingship would be great.
Whew, that was a lot, and I didn't even get into how their system of oaths and social ranks leaves me feeling uncomfortably like they're onto something else I'm not sure I like.
Cheers,
Jeff
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-20 02:26 pm (UTC)To touch more on the Sacral Kingship issue, according to GL's account, the whole essence of a "Heathen" society revolves around the Gift Cycle. Or as he reports Woden saying to him during their first meeting, "My religion is gift-giving." Of course, gifts here means gifts in the context of reciprocal giving between "tribe" members, and this is cemented through each participant pledging an oaths. Thus the "social contract" here is the web of oaths.
Yeah I agree this system is rather alien to the type of society we have now in the modern age. Probably also the reason why GL's experiment nearly failed many times over and actually went dormant for about a decade and a half; the "Winland Rice" was only revived in recent years. With regard to implementation, it took his and his group decades to finally figure out that the "war band" motif is way too far divorced from the reality on the ground, thus the recent shift to calling their organization a "holy guild" instead.
Finally, yeah I agree that our "American Sensibilities" today tend to make us recoil whenever the word "king" is used or the concept of monarchy is brought up as far as being a workable social organizing principle here in the states. Though I think it could be easily argued that Democracy is just as "un-American" if we're to take an originalist view of the country's founding. And lo and behold, GL's experiment schism'd at least several times due to a few members wanting to "democratize" Theodism. This is why I personally take a middle ground and err toward the Roman model of how a "Holy Guild" might exist in our society. Anyway, I'll probably touch on some of these themes in upcoming posts. Otherwise if I keep going on it's gonna be another epic textwall.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-20 03:35 pm (UTC)Rhineland Mystics
Date: 2022-10-21 11:45 pm (UTC)In my recent looks at Christian sources on prayer as inspiration for developing my own prayer practice, they're a group that I've found referenced favorably multiple times, but a bit of a different path than what I am currently working on, so I set them aside. Maybe I need to bump them up higher on the list?
Cheers,
Jeff
Re: Rhineland Mystics
Date: 2022-10-22 02:59 pm (UTC)So basically Flowers is suggesting subconscious cultural influences from the distant past shaping a distinctly-Germanic Christianity in the Middle Ages. Though, Oswald Spengler would simply call this the "Faustian Spirit" or something along those lines.
Anyway, though definitely not pagan, I have no problem including these influences and motifs in a holistic picture of what "Germanic" means today. Though of course, both the pedantic reconstructionists and folkish types are quick to exclude anything from their respective versions of the "religion" that has the wrong historical or ethnic pedigree attached to it. Very myopic in my view, but to each their own.
Re: Rhineland Mystics
Date: 2022-10-22 04:43 pm (UTC)Also, yeah, I agree about the myopia you mention - perhaps a cheerfully "melting pot" point of view is part of the distinctly American contribution to the ways of practice taking shape, or at least we can hope so.
Re: Rhineland Mystics
Date: 2023-02-17 12:25 am (UTC)Re: Rhineland Mystics
Date: 2023-02-18 05:06 am (UTC)What you said sounds a lot like the Gnostic/Hermetic Divine Spark concept. Which I imagine just of landed Eckhart in some hot water after (maybe after his death) whenever it was his writings were put into circulation.
Re: Rhineland Mystics
Date: 2023-02-19 03:13 am (UTC)