Heathenry
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Apollo-Dionysus Polarity and Teutonic Mythology..
I've been off wondering about things again..
In my “Loki thread” I came across the notion that maybe Odin and Loki are the Alci. Tacitus equated them with Castor and Pollux, one of which is immortal and the other mortal, like Odin and Loki can be with chaos and order. I can point out many things that show my reasoning, but that is not what I am concerned with here so much. As even if there is no traditional basis to my reasoning there could certainly be a creative one and that is where I'm coming from right now.
Then Psychonaut came up with his “The Divine Twins thread” and I fancied the notion that with Vidar avenging Odin the pendulum stops swinging and the still point of creativity pours forth.
Then I found this book called Nietzsche and Jung: The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites. The title says it all. Chaos and Order, Odin and Loki, Ragnorok inside one's self makes them whole.
I have looked everywhere for anything paralleling Teutonic Mythology with Nietzsche's notion of Apollo and Dionysus, and I've not found much ( I thought I said I wasn't concerned with tradition but creativity )..
and this ..The mythological dualism, of Aesir and Vanir, inherent in Nordic mythos is a puzzling one. The orthodox account has it that the split represents the gods of two cultures, an ancient indigenous one, worshipping the Vanir, and 'new comers' who brought the Aesir mythos. But while there is no doubt some truth to this it is not a satisfactory explanation. This kind of cultural sedimentation occurs in all cultures, and usually results in mythic synthesis rather than dualism.
An alternative theory put forward by Nietzscheans has it that the Aesir-Vanir polarity represents a northern version of the Apollo-Dionysos polarity. This makes sense, the Vanir are wild forces of nature, worshipped communally, an essentially Dionysian mode of myth, while the Vanir are atomic personalities (often originating in ancestor figures), representing domains important to humans in a highly culturally specific way (often bearing laws) related to on a purely personal level, an Apollonian mode of myth. The figure of Kvasir produced by their fusion, is remarkably like Orpheus, the great mediator between the Dionysian and the Apollonian, his Aesir equivalent Mimir, even loses his head in the same way as the Greek seer.
This thesis is very convincing, though it has some problems, for one, Woden last ruler of the Aesir, whose name means 'fury', is very Dionysian (as are some other Aesir), also many Aesir represent impersonal forces of nature. Secondly, the Vanir are just as Germanically culturalised as the Aesir and share many features with them. So the distinction is not entirely clear. However given the power of the Nietzschean interpretation these problems might be explainable in terms of later mythic synthesis on top of the dualism (perhaps after the significance was lost). On the other hand any synthesis does appear to be quite ancient. Woden for instance is held by some to be a fusion of the (Vaniric) storm giant Wode, with an ancestorial shaman archetype, who later merged with the Aesiric Sky Father and his cultural order.
Then again perhaps the originators of the mythos were more sophisticated than commonly thought and recognised that every pole of a duality contains its opposite. We shall never know.
http://everything2.net/title/Aesir
..and this..There is an *indigenous* Aryan shamanism.
I
In the Aryan division of functions, only an 'elite' would be permitted to indulge in the dangerous calling of shamanic experience.
They would do this for the good of the Folk whether they knew it or no.
Amongst the Teutonic peoples, the arts of seidr and galdr would provide a window through which the other orders could peek - but only *vicariously*!
In the strict Order of Rank, there are no dabblers!
Only those *born into* a long line of seers may practise seership!
The masochist view of intoxicants:
From the Nietzschean perspective [what doesn't kill me makes me stronger ] - one goes 'under' in order to resurface and go 'over'.
From a counter-cultural stance [I believe that Graham Hancock's book 'The Supernatural' deals with this very issue, describing how the shaman intoxicates himself to this point of self-torture in order to ride the spirit world of visions, which are given full vent in the
cave-paintings of Old Europe etc.,] - certainly Jim Morrison was an Aryanosophist [whereas his peers such as Manzarek believed in the internationalist mixing of races, Jim himself rejected it claiming that this will lead to the decline of higher types] - albeit self-destructive - shaman.
Also from the point of view of Northern heathenism, Odin or Wotan has many shamanic features.
We need to examine all the related concepts; the Anglo-Saxon word 'lybb' is of interest as a starting point;
Lybb: drug, poison, charm
Lybbestre: sorceress
Lybcorn: a medicinal seed, wild saffron?
Lybcraeft: skill in the use of drugs, magic, witchcraft
Lybesn [also lybsin, or lybsn]: charm, amulet, knot
Lyblac: occult art, use of drug for magic, witchcraft
Lyblaeca: wizard, sorcerer
Note how drug use and magic are continually linked [also the compounding of blaec ['black', which originally meant 'pale'!] with 'lybb'. This must be wrong; the word must rather be a compound of lybb+lac. Lac: sacrifice, offering, gift, present, booty; message.
May be related to the following, as I mentioned earlier;
The Anglo-Saxon word for 'doctor' survives in 'leech', which is ... from Old English 'laece': physician [IE root is *leg].
So the Lybbestre [sorceress], and the Lyblaeca [sorcerer], are 'bestowers', and 'sacrificers' of Lybb, respectively.
'Lyblac' then, is very close to the job-description of 'shaman'.
A shaman is described as;
"A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a medium between the visible world and an invisible spirit world and who practises magic or sorcery for purposes of healing, divination, and control over natural events".
Its synonym is 'priest-doctor'.
Its etymology is;
Russian, from Tungus 'saman', Buddhist monk, 'shaman' from Tocharian B 'samane', monk, from Prakit 'samana', from Sanskrit 'sramanah', from 'srama', religious exercise.
This suggests to me that shamanism is Aryan in origin [remembering that the Tocharians were Aryans], although I could be wrong.
The Anglo-Saxon word for 'doctor' survives in 'leech', which is perhaps from the Germanic *'lekjaz': enchanter, one who speaks magic words, from Old English 'laece': physician [IE root is *leg-].
What is a man 'cured' of here?
Is he to be cured if his being bound to the world of the non-Aryan?
Is Lybb both the rope and the 'knot' towards the Ubermensch?
If Hancock is right, then it was lybbcraft which originally opened and expanded the consciousness of the ape-man, so that he became a thinking-man; this must have been the beginnings too of Aryandom, not with the warrior caste, but with the Lyblacks.
Let us refound that ancient order of Aryan Lyblacks and Lybstrewers.
It is often said that shamanism was something 'non-Aryan', and that it was acquired *from* non-Aryans by the Aryans after they had conquered non-Aryan peoples who had shamanism.
This is said on the basis of the Norse mythology which has the two tribes of gods known as the Aesir and the Vanir.
The latter are depicted as teaching shamanism [actually 'seidr'] to the Aesir [specifically the Vanic goddess Freyja teaches seidr to Odin].
It is therefore assumed that the Aesir are Aryan, and the Vanir non-Aryan.
While this is an interesting hypothesis, I think it an assumption too far. I have no reason to think that the Vanir are non-Aryan; indeed, I take it that the Aesir and the Vanir are both Aryan tribes.
It is said that Aryan migration went in waves over periods of time, so there would have been certain overlapping of Aryan tribes, and no doubt some conflict between them.
Edred Thorsson suggests that seidr was Aryan, and that it melded with the shamanism of non-Aryan tribes conquered by the Aryans.
To me, the tale of Freyja teaching Odin sedr has more to do with gender roles than tribal ones, seidr being associated mainly with women or seidkona.
Here is what Thorsson has to say;
"Seith [ON 'seidhr'] may be compared to a form of Norse shamanism. The mythology relates that Freyja taught this kind of magic to Odhinn ['Ynglinga Saga', chapter 7] ... It is also likely that Odhinn shared his knowledge of galdor with Freyja. If this is considered, a picture of balance emerges. Originally seith was the magic of the farmers and herdsmen, of the craftsmen and smiths, of the musicians and entertainers ... As the Aryans moved into Europe ... this branch of their magic quickly became assimilated to the local forms of magic native to the folk of Old Europe ...."
[Northern Magic, E. Thorsson]
This seems far more likely than the rather literalistic and formulaic Aesir = Aryan, Vanir = non-Aryan, ergo seidr is ... etc.,
That shamanism itself is Aryan is suggested by the ultimate Aryan origin of the word itself as I have already outlined elsewhere; in other words, non-Aryans early adopted the word from Aryans [and possibly fed it back to them].
The brilliant writer on Seidr and the Runes, Jan Fries, acknowledges this;
"Let us consider the Tungusian word 'shaman' ... it comes from various words designating the ascetic, the healer and the priest, but deep down at the roots we encounter the Sanskrit 'shram', which in a religious context meant austerity or bodily toil to the point of exhaustion ..."
[Helrunar, J.Fries]
Freya Aswynn is something of a modern seithkona and understands these things through the blood. She notes that seidr includes 'sex magic', and mentions the veneration of a horse phallos [described in the Saga of St. Olaf'] as "an aspect of seidr magic". ['Northern Mysteries and Magic', F. Aswynn]
Aswynn too notes that "the word 'shamanism' derives from the Vedic word 'sram', meaning to 'heat oneself' or to 'practice austerities' ". [ib.,]
Of course, seidr is related to the word 'seeth', and refers to the *boiling* of plants and herbs in a cauldron. Here we are back to the connection was hallucinagens - or lybbcraft;
"Intoxicating substances, such as certain herbs and mushrooms, are often boiled in order to induce trance states. Trances were used [by the shaman] for communicating
with other entities such as dead ancestors ..." [ib.,]
Aswynn notes an Anglo-Saxon name for a 'seidkona' was 'haegtessa' [hence the word 'hag' which is completely derogatory now].
Guido von List also mentions this, associating the haegtessa with the rune 'Hag' or 'Hagal'.
Aswynn says that 'Hagedis' is the Dutch word for 'lizard'; "lizards symbolise hidden feminine wisdom ... lizard-like creatures can live in more than one element (in water and on land). Likewise, a haegtess, like a shaman, can move in more than one element ... the astral plane, the upper world or the underworld ... multidimensional ..."[ib.,]
Hancock, when talking of his 'Supernatural' book, said that the lizard was one of the archetypal images that surface frequently in stoned trances; and who can forget JDM's 'Celebration of the Lizard', with its mantra: 'I am the Lizard King, I can do anything' [Morrison talked of repeating such phrases to himself endlessly until he went into a trance].
It is not for nothing that the Norse myths speak of there being Nine Worlds; also Yggdrasil itself suggests that shamanism is central to the Norse beliefs, rather than just an add-on.
"A shaman is one who works with one or more helping spirits, be they beasts, plants, fungi, crystals, gods, angels, ancestors, archetypes or whatever; who falls into fits of inspired possession, enjoys ecstatic visions, travels into the underworld by ritual and astral projection and has a range of magical techniques that involve ritual, dancing, song, music and visual symbolism. The same goes for the people who practice Seidr".
[Freis, ib.,]
The mushroom [OE swamm] or fly agaric [amanita muscaria] is thought by some to be the basis of the Vedic Soma;
http://deoxy.org/mushman.htm
Unsurprisingly, the mushroom itself has its own symbolism;
Mushroom: Life from death ... personifies souls of the reborn ... Their magical sudden appearance, and ... the use of some varieties as hallucinogens, may account for the folkloric associations with the supernatural, leading to the notion of pixie houses or witches' rings. The shape of the mushroom is linked with phallic potency. [Tressider Dict., Symbols]
The mythology relates that Freyja taught this kind of magic to Odhinn ['Ynglinga Saga', chapter 7] ...
http://omacl.org/Heimskringla/ynglinga.html
II
In his 'Life Against Death', Brown suggests that Shamanism is Apollonian, not Dionysian, and makes a link between the shaman and the Platonist philosopher. The crux of this is the separation of the Soul and the Body effected by the Shaman and continued by Western Philosophy.
Conversely, the Dionysian is Body all told. Brown sees the heirs of Dionysianism in certain Romantics, in de Sade and in Adolf Hitler.
The Dionysian [whether you call it Greek or Barbarian] is not shamanism.
While there may be some common elements between the dionysian and the shamanic, the differences are too great for them to be completely assimilated.
As Jim Morrison said, the shaman was a member of the tribe who [using intoxicants of some kind], took a 'trip' on behalf of his tribe.
He was also a healer of bodies and souls - he was a seer and a doctor.
From this trip he traversed/rode the worlds/snake and gave forth prophecies/visions.
This is comparable to the Norse Seidr, of course.
The Dionysia is rather different, it being an orgiastic rite in honour of the dead god Dionysos.
The point is that the shaman is *not* ostensibly an actor; he is primarily a doctor and a mystic.
He is no god either.
It is the part of the god *Dionysos* that is played; from the acting-out of Dionysos [and also other gods] does drama derive.
Again, we must not keep mixing up the shaman [a tribal functionary] and Dionysos [a god]. The erect penis of the satyr does not go with the doctor's medicine bag; how would it be if your doctor offered you an ithyphallic hard-on when you went to him [or her - strap-ons are available] for a cure of sickness [watch that enema!]?
Surely the shamanic role as a healer has nothing to do with the wanton lust of the satyr!
III
This aspect of Aryandom - the intoxicant - is found in all branches, whether it be Soma, Mead or Mushrooms. It is not exclusively 'Asiatic', although Asiatic influences may graft onto it, as we have seen.
To Master Order, we must also Master Disorder.
The Rightist conception of Aryandom is too narrow, too puritan, too Christian, too ... Jewish.'Jewish' in the sense of the monotheistic and the tendency to militate against polysexuality and against the senses, particularly the visual arts.
To the Aryan, to be wise is to 'see'; the Jealous God of the Jews decries images of the gods.
So I am not aking a swipe at the Aryan priesthood, only the Semitic.
The arts of galdr and seidr are non-priestly.
There are 'mysteries' which are indigenous to the Aryans - the runic galdor and the shamanic siedr being among them.
This is why I take shamanism to be Aryan.
I no longer accept that rightist view [which is Christianised through and through] that intoxicants and sex-magic are 'un-Aryan', 'dusky', 'perverted' and so forth. Rather, this 'left-hand-path' *is* Aryan.
It is not the Mysteries that are the 'root', but rather the worship of gods that is the root.
While it is taken as read that drama developed out of the worship of Dionysos, I would say that the Mysteries were another, parallel, development from out of the worship of other gods.
The Dionysia branches out into into drama, while another cult branches out instead to the Mysteries.
Drama is inherent in the worship of Dionysos, but it is not inherent in the worship of other gods.
The distinction is this;
The drama is *public* - the Mysteries are *secret*.
McLeish defines the Mysteries thus;
"Mysteries were religious or magic cults which arose from the worship of specific gods, particularly *healers*. Devotees conducted *secret rites*, often based on *myth-stories*, designed to help them pass freely between the natural and supernatural worlds. Often these rites were embodied in *coded-writings*, supposedly bequeathed by the god who inspired the cult and containing the secrets of immortality and universal order".
[Dictionary of Mythology ib.,]
The cult of Odin fits the bill here perfectly, particularly in its Eddaic outline.
IV
Of course, Nietzsche touched often on the notion of life being an 'act', a view derived no doubt from the Renaissance cynicism which has men being players upon the "world's stage" [after all, he loved Montaigne as much as Shakespeare did].
Morrison too says in 'Riders on the Storm' that we are "actors out on loan".
Morisson told Lizzie James;
"I see the role of the artist as shaman and scapegoat".
Notice the "and"; the shaman isn't a "scapegoat" - although the sacrifice of the goat *did* presage the Great Dionysia, the drama festival in honour of Dionysos [notice that Morrison holds a lamb while onstage at the infamous Miami concert].
So I maintain that Morrison combined these two aspects; the shamanic and the dionysian, which are not one and the same.
His "group" was 'the Doors'; they were his tribe [he had disowned his blood relatives]. It was to this intimate Circle of Four that he 'surrendered'.
But then he was a shamanic performance poet, who was *also* influenced, it is true, by Nietzsche's conception of the Dionysian/Apollonian in The Birth: but as I have already said, the shaman and the dionysian are not the same.
All representations of the dead god *have* to be an act: Jim was *not* Dionysos.
As Nietzsche suggests, tragic Drama evolved from the *acting out* of Dionysos.
All the [live] footage I have seen of Morrison underlines my impression that he was the most *interior* of performers; he was also one of the most honest.
As a 'shaman' he was genuine.
And as Dionysos he was an actor [which is to say 'genuine', because everything Dionysian *is* dramatic. The whole concept of the Dionysian is a dramatisation of life [and death, and rebirth].
V
To talk of 'binding' [ligio] introduces the symbolic. And is it possible to talk of a "primal reality" which is not mediated by human interpretation and therefore not rendered symbolic by man?
When we try to desribe it we are re-presenting it. The rites of The Mysteries describe the so-called mystical experience by use of symbol, metaphor, dance, drama, music, language etc.,
All experience is interpretation and perspective.
That there might be 'mysterious experiences' which are "primal reality", and therefore 'untouched', as it were, is already an interpretation.
We have to use metaphors and symbols to describe our drives. We call them 'feel-ings', and 'drives', which is short-hand for saying these things are something 'like' a 'feeling' [implying touch], or they are something 'like' 'drives'[implying movement].
We cannot call them by anything other than metaphors.
VI
Odin's self-initiation was certainly a near-death experience. Guido von List suffered an eye disease which led to a period of temporary blindness prior to his own initiation in the runes; Hitler too was blinded by mustard gas in WWI which may have opened his third eye.
The story that Morrison tells is of coming across a car crash which killed some Red Indian workers; he was a child, and confronting fresh death shocked his 'fragile eggshell mind'. He subsequently believed that a soul from a dead Indian 'leapt upward' from the loam and entered his own body. Hence his affinity with shamanism.
Some may regard Morrison's identification with Indians as being racially suspect, especially as he describes them as "our ancestors".
But by this he means that as inhabitants of those lands, more recent arrivals [such as Morrison's Keltic forebears] must go back into the lore even of their adopted homelands.
This is not to say that European shamanism is descended from Asian shamanism, anymore than Americans of European descent are descended from the Inuit.
Why imply that there is a single point "origin" of shamanism?
I distrust singlepoint origin theories as they often betray a monotheistic perspective.
And is not the search for origins itself somewhat doomed?
Again, do we not see here a *linear* outlook, rather than a cyclical one?
Let us at least say that there is evidence of an indigenous Aryan shamanism - one that is Aryan through and through.
http://m-o-o-dy-l-a-w-l-e-s-s.blogspot.com/
I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this..?? Anything along these lines to read..??The Wotan/Odin archetype
"Mythology and religion (in the strict sense of the word) are two
distinct things that have become inextricably entangled, though
mythology is in itself almost devoid of religious significance ....
"Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting
strangeness. But ... many people dislike being 'arrested'. They
dislike any meddling with the Primary World [i.e., 'reality'], or such
small glimpses of it as are familiar to them.
They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously confound Fantasy with
Dreaming, in which there is no Art; and with mental disorders, in
which there is not even control: with delusion and hallucination".
[JRR Tolkien, 'On Fairy Stories']
This 'Odin' too is like Nietzsche's later Dionysos; i.e., a Dionysos/Wodan which has incorporated and sublimated the Apollonian/Tiwaz.
And does the perpetual strife now rage only within Himself, who is the eternal Androgynous One?
This is illustrated by Odin's practice of the female Seidr and Dionysos's hermaphroditism.
While I think the *origin* of Odin is Nordic/Aryan, it is possible that the later treatment of Odin in the Eddas is partly un-Nordic.
As Joseph Campbell wrote;
"There is the figure ... of Othin [Woden, Wotan], self-crucified on the World Ash as an offering to himself, to gain the occult wisdom of (the) runes, which is clearly a Hellenistic motif".
[Campbell, 'Creative Mythology', page 111]
So Wodan was a Nordic god, and that together with Tiwaz, in a kind of composite form, he gave birth to the Odin of the Viking age.
A well respected book by Ellis-Davidson says;
"The Germanic name Woden, that which relates it to 'wut', meaning high mental excitement, fury, intoxication, or possession... The Old Norse adjective, 'odhr', from which 'Odhinn', the later form of his name in Scandinavia, must be derived, bears a similar meaning: 'raging, furious, intoxicated', and can be used to signify poetic genius and inspiration".
['The Gods and Myths of Northern Europe', by H. Ellis-Davidson, p 147]
The name seems to suggest an indigenous deity then.
"We have good reason to believe that Odin as god of war has developed out of earlier conceptions among the Germanic peoples on the continent of the god who ruled the battle-field.
The god Wodan or Wotan, had the same type [i.e., as Odin] of sacrifice associated with his name.
The Heruli [Gothic tribe associated with the runes], for instance, worshippers of Wodan, practised a double ritual of stabbing and burning ...
According to Procopius, writing in the sixth century ['The Gothic War'], they were accustomed to lay such men [i.e., those chosen as victims] on the funeral pyre and to stab them to death before their bodies were burned ...
Jordanes, also in the sixth century, wrote ...
'The Goths ... devoted the first share of their spoil to the god of war, and in his honour, arms stripped from the foe were suspended from trees' ". [ib.,]
So the aspect of a god of war, of ritual stabbings and hangings is already there in Wodan, even if he was not originally the ruler of the gods [that was still Tiwaz].
"At the time of Tacitus [1st century AD], however there is reason to believe that the Roman god of war, Mars, was indentified not with Wodan [who was identified by them with Mercury], but with ... Tiwaz. Odin in fact appears to be the successor of both Wodan and Tiwaz, retaining some of the qualities and attributes of both these gods ..." [ib., p 56]
So it seems that the qualities of Odin are derived from these two Germanic gods, Wodan and Tiwaz;
"Since the Romans equated Wodan with Mercury, we may assume that simularities between the two deities existed as early as the days of Tacitus ..." [ib., p 140]
Perhaps it is this synthesis that makes Odin seem 'strange' to some.
Therefore;
"Odin was also the god of the dead and supreme practitioner in magic, with the ability to inspire his followers and grant them the ecstatic, trance-like state of intoxication. The ecstasy of battle, which inspired the berserks and filled them with such madness that they knew neither fear nor pain, was naturally viewd as a gift of the same god". [ib., p 70]
It is easy to see that Odin's shamanic qualities derive from these battle-trances, and the animal associations of the bear-serks, wolf-heads, swine-arrays etc., Combine this with his connection with dead warriors and visitations to the land of the dead [via his Valkyries], the ritual stabbings [being the background to the discovery of the runes], his eight-legged steed [typical of the shamanic] and the world-tree Yggdrasil [which means literally 'steed of Odin'], and we have a very Nordic god in Odin.
When Odin displaces Tiwaz [Tyr] as the ruler of the gods, his power is complete.
The mythology has him being the father of red-bearded Thor [with Fjorgynn], blond Baldr [with Frigga], of Tyr himself [with Saga] and of Hemdall [via the 9 wave maidens].
How could a non-Nord give father a Baldr or a Thor?
That he slept with 9 wave maidens shows that Odin was a god of prodigeous sexual appetite - and no 'puritan'!
He also is on record as fathering Hoder, vali, Bragi [god of poetry], Vidar, Hermod and Sigi.
I see little reason to impute a non-Nordic [let alone a non-Aryan] origin to Odin.
Concerning the Aryan-ness [or, I should rather say, Nordic-ness] of Wotan. This is an important qualification ['Nordic-ness', rather than 'Aryan-ness'].
Alfred Rosenberg [Myth of the 20th Century] is not coherent here; despite the overwhelming evidence of Wotan's participation in shamanism, he describes "Odin as the eternal mirrored image of the primal powers of Nordic man". [AR Myth, p 447]
He refuses to see Odin as he really is, and so skews his argument.
This is reminiscent of some National-Socialists [N-S] who have to try and prove that someone like Napoleon was 'Nordic'.
Another N-S writer, Hans Gunther ['Religious Attitudes of the Indo-Europeans'] puts forward the very thesis that Odin is an alien god: he is at least coherent here.
But even if we explore such lines of thought, as we must, is 'non-Nordic' really tantamount to 'non-Aryan'?
I think not.
"Mysteries were religious or magic cults which arose from the worship of specific gods, particularly *healers*. Devotees conducted *secret rites*, often based on *myth-stories*, designed to help them pass freely between the natural and supernatural worlds. Often these rites were embodied in *coded-writings*, supposedly bequeathed by the god who inspired the cult and containing the secrets of immortality and universal order".
[McLeish, Dictionary of Mythology]
The cult of Odin fits the bill here perfectly, particularly in its Eddaic outline.
The arts of galdr and seidr are non-priestly.
http://m-o-o-dy-l-a-w-l-e-s-s.blogspot.com/
Later,
-Lyfing the Pioneer
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