Heathenism

"While I find numerous points of contention with McNallen, he has proven a consistent spokesperson for his religious vision. McNallen’s authentic voice and personal charisma come through in this book, making it a clear and accessible argument for the folkish Heathen movement."

Данная статья является обзорным исследованием, раскрывающем основные вехи развития в изучении восточнославянского язычества. В работе описаны основные научные школы и методологические направления, сложившиеся за более чем 300-летнюю историю исследования языческих верований, культов и мифологии восточных славян.

This paper is a review study, reveals the main milestones in the study of Eastern Slavic paganism. The paper describes the main scientific schools and methodological directions, developed over more than 300-year history of the study of heathen beliefs, cults and mythology of the Eastern Slavs.

Any cursory read through the medieval Scandinavian literature pertaining to the Viking Age or earlier will demonstrate that alcohol played an important role in pre-Christian society.  Law-codes show that aristocrats used it in their political and religious rites, the mythic narratives of the Poetic and Prose Eddas are full of competitions between deities and monsters for the liquid or for the means to make it, and it’s prominent in the pseudo-historic accounts of the Scandinavian sagas.  The archaeological record has also demonstrated the importance of alcohol with an extensive catalogue of imagery, drinking vessels, and brewing equipment.  This article will overview some of the more prominent written examples of ritual drinking and put them into a model that demonstrates the role that alcohol may have had in heathen Scandinavian society.

The native English Heathen religion had a cult in which the pinnacle and most important deity was its Earth Goddess. Also, that cult was the most important in the religion, and many people continued to think of themselves as the Earth goddess' children even under Catholic supremacy. The conclusion is supported by Old English literature, archeological evidence, place names, and analogies from foreign religions, including Proto-Germanic religion.

O paganismo é um movimento religioso contemporâneo que acredita em vários deuses, sendo a natureza sacralizada e cultuada em ritos sazonais, com adaptações para a vida na sociedade moderna. Busca-se a inspiração e reconstrução das antigas religiões pré-cristãs europeias e/ou das tradições indígenas do país e origem dos praticantes. Nosso trabalho buscou compreender como é a realidade no paganismo e chegamos à tese de que a realidade Pagã é mágica. Diferente da tríade magia-religião-ciência, criamos o conceito de magia tríplice para representar a realidade Pagã, o qual se divide em magia ritual, magia simbólica e magia participativa. E tal sistema de pensamento pode ser chamado de magismo. Descobrimos que a magia é o elo fundador e aglutinador do paganismo. E que, portanto, a magia no paganismo é um recurso, ao invés de lixeira. As respostas diversas dadas por nossos 40 entrevistados nos revelaram que é o mito que desempenha o papel da crença e distingue as religiões Pagãs. Para chegar a essas conclusões, percorremos um longo caminho. Utilizamos os conceitos de “programas de verdade” e “imaginação constituinte”, de Paul Veyne; investigamos a religião como vida cotidiana, com Graham Harvey; e usamos a ética corpórea de Ian Jamison, em conjunto com os estudos sobre magia de Hanegraaff, Pasi, Thomas e Mauss. Então, fomos aplicando na investigação da origem de formação do paganismo no movimento romântico, que era nostálgico de um passado desaparecido (Pagão), buscando uma união orgânica entre pessoas, cultura e natureza; e na nova forma de magia que surge com a secularização, que busca uma união mística com o divino, combinado ao espírito de otimismo e fé no progresso e aperfeiçoamento humano. Tendo entendimento desse contexto mundial que comporta o mito e o rito Pagão contemporâneo, fomos para o Brasil. Investigamos oito religiões Pagãs: wicca, druidismo e recon, heathenismo, helenismo, xamanismo, espiritualidade da Deusa, bruxarias e piaganismo. Fizemos pesquisa de campo em quase todas as regiões do país, com exceção do Norte, visitando oito estados, pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e entrevistas, sendo quatro presenciais e 36 questionários abertos com 31 perguntas. Os entrevistados são de todas as regiões do país, distribuídos em 15 estados. Foram priorizadas pessoas com mais tempo de prática e com caráter significativo no desenvolvimento, divulgação e atuação do paganismo contemporâneo no Brasil. Todos os dados possibilitaram vermos a magia como o “processo” de Whitehead. Ela é a imaginação, o encanto, a magia que torna a vida real, que possibilita que a crença em um conjunto de mitos una um grande número de estranhos, que possibilita que a prática de um conjunto de gestos crie uma realidade e insira seus praticantes numa comunidade, que se perpetua pelo mesmo processo de experienciação dos sujeitos.

Onderzoek naar en reconstructie van de Friese dondergod 'Thuner'.
In het bijzonder naar zijn relatie met de conisch gevormde staafjes (Donars-knotsen / Thuners-gnodze). Dit zijn amuletten die ook in het Friese terpengebied gevonden zijn.
Ook onderzoek ik de zgn. ‘Wodans-sceatta’ die volgens mij omgedoopt moet worden naar  ‘Thuner-scaetta’.

(historisch en archeologisch onderzocht, comparatief en analogisch beredeneerd)

Trees have always been an integral part of human existence. So deeply embedded is this relationship between humanity and trees, that they are to be found at the heart of many religions and “spiritual” mysteries as sources for wisdom and structures for understanding. The cosmic tree stands at the centre of the world, (Yggdrasill) which it supports and nurtures. All the great and momentous occasions of our lives occur through the medium of the tree. We are born from it, it feeds and shelter us, gives us wisdom, and we make sacrifice to it.

The article brings to the attention of the scholarly world a hardly known medieval source Gesta Regum Anglorum written by William of Malmesbury. Who was an early 12th century English benedictine monk from Malmesbury in Western England. The article revolves around the outmost relevance of William of Malmesbury to the study of pre-christian Slavic religion, and provides two interpretations of William's account.

Considering his bad reputation in the medieval sources, the fact that the Frisian king Redbad (d. 719) is currently celebrated as a national hero in Frisian and Dutch novels, movies and metal music should be considered extraordinary. How can we explain this miraculous transformation from ‘God’s enemy’ to national icon? In this contribution, the consecutive ideological reinterpretations of the king – or his turbulent Nachleben – will be assessed in broad lines. Special attention will be paid to the pagan character of Redbad, and to the complex reception history of his ‘failed baptism’. I will argue that the major shift in the modern image of Redbad was caused by the advent of secular national discourses in the nineteenth century, in which pre-Christian heathenism became equated with national authenticity. This development is subsequently further clarified through comparison with other ‘pagan heroes’, from the troublesome saga hero Tróndur on the Faroe Islands to the chieftain Hatuey in Cuba. Taken together, the many faces of Redbad provide us with a good impression of the refined ways in which the past is ‘recycled’ in the present.

"This scholarship is immensely valuable, especially for readers who,
like some Americans, may be less familiar with these European sources
and history. Schnurbein details the work of numerous völkisch think-
ers and reveals the extent to which contemporary Heathenry has been
reliant upon these precursors. She approaches Heathenry as an inter-
national  network,  laying  out  the  sources,  personalities,  and  inter-
pretive methods that Heathen movements share across national and
cultural  contexts.  She  is  also  unequivocal  in  her  critical  framework 
and warns against lapses in critical analysis that gloss over or obscure
völkisch memes."

Now needs revision
A passage from the material published in 2021 as 'Arthuriad: Synopsis & Excerpts', depicting  the Winter Solstice in Arthur's Albion. This is to come towards the end (naturally as the whole narrates the Wheel of the Year) of the second part of the projected Albion Tetralogy: II. Interlude: The Island of the Mighty.
This is a passage that has undergone either no or very little revision since its most recent publication, and some of it is to appear again in Dennis Wilson Wise, 'Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology', alongside work by C.S. Lewis, Auden, Heath-Stubbs, Edwin Morgan, Poul Anderson, John Myers Myers, Paul Edwin Zimmer, &c, forthcoming from Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

Murphy Pizza (who self identifies as a “neo-Pagan practitioner”) gives a unique insider’s sociological account of the phenomena of the community self-identified as “Paganistan” in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota, USA.  Despite her involvement as an insider, Pizza takes care to recognize her biases and critically distances herself from the content of her research when appropriate.  In so doing, she traces her journey into this unique community and accounts for what eventually led her to “self-exile” for various reasons documented in the text (e.g., disintegration of community due to Social Media among other factors).  My interest in this work arose directly out of my professional position as an academic scholar of interreligious studies who was born, raised, and currently resides in Minneapolis.  In addition to teaching undergraduate courses in interreligious thought, I remain active in the local interfaith community through networking and collaboration.  In short, I hoped to gain insight into the local community of Pagans.  Pizza hopes that “encountering Paganistan’s travails and contradictions will open up new avenues for interfaith dialogue and intra-group conflict resolution” (6).  CLICK LINK ABOVE TO READ THE WHOLE REVIEW...

This volume contains the following works authored by Roger Williams:  Christenings make not Christians (1645 or 1646), Experiments of Spiritual Life & Health (1652), The Fourth Paper, Presented by Major Butler (1652), The Hireling Ministry None of Christs (1652), and The Examiner defended (1652).

The Great Deception of the AFA This paper started as researching the Odinist and Asatru Edda and trying to determine what, if anything could be salvaged from something a member of the AFA created. Because I thought it was a worthy pursuit to try to remove the Christianizing elements from Heathen lore. But lo and behold, I found to my despair, and shock, that their attempt was not to take them out, but to replace them with something equally as alien to Heathenism, and possibly more sinister. I found elements of it throughout their versions of the Edda, but to validate the purposes I also verified by purchasing a copy of Mark Puryear's, Nature of Asatru and the Asatru Study Guide. The title of the layman's book, Odinist Edda, should have been a warning to me. AFA is not an Asatru Org, it is an Odinist Org. To get you to understand why this difference should matter to you, I need to explain the difference between Asatru and Odinism. This starts with a history of how the ideas that shaped both Asatru and Odinism were created, and where they diverged in theory and practice. Both were born in Teutonic Romanticism (German, English, Norse, Swedish etc). I know Asatru is a recent name, brought from Iceland, but before then it did not have an ethno-centric name and was simply called Ald Wegen(in my native Frisian), the Old Ways. Both were based off of the lore Collection and Comparative theologies of men like Viktor Rydberg and Jacob Grimm. This started the divide, between those that regarded the Folklorist interpretation as a kind of Gospel, not to be disputed without hard evidence, and those who actively sought to authenticate their belief through research and later archeology. Until this point there had been no central authority, because the Old Ways focused on the spiritual needs of an individual, not on creation of a group belief. The first leaders emerged to defend the beliefs and opinions of the Teutonic Romanticists. But the same problem occurred for the new leaders, which had occurred for the Heathen Kings of old, a way to unite the laymen of their faith around the beliefs of their leaders. They had bits of lore, and stories of Gods, but no structure upon which to organize and defend their belief system (in truth there had been no structure in Heathenism in the past either as every Heathen nation, tribe and sometimes Family had their own separate beliefs). So the leaders sought a structure, a skeleton on which to base their new belief system. To create as " authentic " a tradition as possible, whose common origin they believed was the same origin as their people, they sought out the only surviving examples of Indigenous " Aryan " religious practice that had survived to their day, Vedic Hinduism and Persian Zoastrianism. They borrowed the Caste System of Hinduism, both societal and in the relationship between men and women, and its symbolism (to create their authority and their follower's racial superiority) and the basic religious structure and elevation of godhead of Zoastrianism(To create Fanaticism by dividing it between an us and them and to deceive their followers into believe they still had choice but it was in their best interest to follow the new godhead). They believed they were recreating the Odinic Cult, the cult of Leadership of the Heathen Kings, which resulted in them naming the new order Volkdom in German, or Odinism in English. The Deception worked and is still working. To fully understand the dangers of Odinism one must understand both the deception at face value and the secret reasons behind the deception. In Odinism Odin and Frigga are the central figures. At face value this dichotomy preserved the appearance of Heathenism, and created a Godhead that exemplified the Odinist belief in the roles of a Man and a Woman.