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Monday 17 May 2010

His Beard Streamed with Tears



Hero Worship

'Every Great Man is the missionary of Order'. (Carlyle)



Carlyle is not saying so much that religion begins in Hero Worship - that would be a mere reductionist euhemerism - unheroic in itself.


But Hero Worship is certainly present in most religions [more so than the worship of god - Buddhists may not worship a god, but they certainly hero-worship the Buddhas etc.] Carlyle is saying that religion should be hero-worship; hero-worship is healthy. The rejection of hero-worship ['No More Heroes Anymore' say the Punks], nihilism, absolute scepticism, are unhealthy. And of course, egalitarianism is just as unhealthy as it rejects the heroic as the hero is superior, elite.


It is out of this very disbelief in the heroic - The Last Man - that Nietzsche's Zarathustra arises. The Uebermensch is the Hero once more. Odin is the Hero as god - the heroic in its purest form. The Hero as Leader or King is the final form. It is followed by the anarchic levelling of the communism of the Last Men. Out of the ashes of this Ragnarok comes the Uebermensch - Odin, Beowulf et al.



***


Carlyle - and the value of the heroic



The way that Carlyle, after making Odin the most primal type of divine hero, then refers to Odin throughout the other lectures. As the hero concept evolves, it has the effect of suggesting that Odin may encompass this whole heroic spectrum. Odin is a divinity, a prophet, a poet, a man of letters and a king.


Odin is also a god of places - as Julian Cope, a true Odinist if there is one, says - we need to validate the locality. This is because Odin's spirit is in Ymir's Body - the Earth, the Trees, the Clouds ... everything: but local to us.


***


Carlyle, Nietzsche, Jung



Nietzsche rails against Carlyle with spiteful ad hominems, but as Bertram demonstrates, Nietzsche tended to do that against those who were closest to him.



"I liken common languid Times, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their languid doubting characters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently crumbling-down into ever worse distress towards final ruin; all this I liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of Heaven that shall kindle it. The great man, with his free force direct out of God's own hand, is the lightning ..."


[Carlyle Hero Worship Everyman edition p. 250]



Compare this to Nietzsche;



"I love all those who are as heavy drops, falling singly from the dark cloud that hangs over the human: they herald the coming of the lightning, and as heralds they also perish.


Behold, I am a herald of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Overhuman - "


[TSZ Prologue 4]



The above is from Parker's translation [Oxford 2005]. He notes that Nietzsche's use of 'lightning' "alludes to the god Dionysus, who was born after his mother Semele was consumed by a bolt of lightning, and perhaps also to the famous fragment of the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus: 'A lightning bolt steers all things' ..."



Carlyle's image of the Great Man - the Hero - as a lightning bolt who can ignite the fuel of the Times is similar to Nietzsche's Overhuman as the lightning from the dark cloud.


And Carlyle's view of the 'fuel' to be ignited is like Jung's archetypes awaiting their revivification - in relation to Wotan!


Jung uses the image of the riverbed/water, rather than fuel/fire - but both fire and water have a Heraclitean connection.


The fuel is 'the Time' and the lightning the Great Man for Carlyle; just as the riverbed is the archetype which is filled by the water of the god.



The fuel, like riverbeds, can dry up and moulder without fire or water.



Here line up Dionysos - Heraclitus - Odin - Zarathsutra - Superhuman.



***


Artist-Hero



The artist as hero is important because he combines Beowulf and the Skald - he not only lives the myth but he writes about it too: ambiguously autobiographical - he is Self/Other - killer and victim.



***


The 18 Charms of Odin - Julian Cope


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56G8tuyez5s




***


Chant



'You ravaged the runes of my tunes.' (Bolan)



Disenchantment is the enemy. From here spins depression. Therefore one must re-enchant the world: chant its magical charms.



***


The safety of Nothingness



Calling everything into questioning - a questing.



But life is Something: it is fleeting and frail. Yet we want to protect it from the overmighty forces of Nothingness.



***


Man Myth



"Every man his own myth."


[Ferlinghetti 1967]



***


Wolf-haunted hills



Beowulf is Odinist even if he isn't mentioned. It's a Christian Odinism where Odin is no longer named, but is there behind every sword clash; just as Weland is mentioned as the maker of mail-shirts and so on.



***



Disabled by death



To the Anglo-Saxons of the Beowulf era the tale of Cain and Abel shocked as it told of a man killing his own kinsman.



***


Yggdrasil



Odin's victim rides the tree gallows just as Odin rides his steed.



***


Odinism



Odin always spoke in poetry - of the hard, riffing, alliterative, kenning kind.



One worships Odin by being a kenning poet.



***



His beard streamed with tears ...



To the Beowulf audience, tales were the vehicles for history, philosophy, theology and the rest. They are are not only tales then - they can also be sacred scriptures too.


Just as the Sword, Ship, Shield, Helm, Spear and Mail-Shirt are sacred too.


Just as Viking Metal Music is sacred.


The Spiritual is carried by the Material Vehicle.



***


I outlived storms of strife in my youth (Beowulf)



weapons, songs, stories - this is where we worship.



***


Conservative Metal Head



"I have actually been listening to quite a bit of heavy metal lately, and Metallica, I think, is genuinely talented. ‘Master of Puppets’ I think has got something genuinely both poetic – violently poetic – and musical. Every now and then something like that stands out and you can see that people have got no other repertoire and have a very narrow range of expression, but they’ve hit on something where they are saying something which is not just about themselves. Pop music is so concentrated on the self and the performer that it’s very rare that that happens, I think. It never happens with Oasis or The Verve. It did happen much more of course with the Beatles, and in the old American songbook, Hoagy Carmichael and Cole Porter and all that. That was a popular music which was about communication of often quite gentle feelings. So I’m not as prejudiced as I seem. I would like to be more prejudiced because it would prevent me from listening to this stuff.” [Roger Scruton 2009]


Source: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=1058



***


Being is Will of Power



" The expression ... The Will to Power names what characterises the basic character of all beings ... it provides an answer to the question 'What is being?' Since antiquity that question has been the question of philosophy."


[Heidegger, Nietzsche, (lectures 1936-7) trans. Krell pp. 3-4]



***


Roots



A 'fact' is something 'made' [Latin facere, to make].


'Reality' is a 'thing' or 'things' [L. res, thing or fact - cf. Sanskrit rai, property].


'Truth' from Old English treowe, faithful - cf. Sanskrit daruna, hard - daru, wood cf. tree from OE treow, also derived from Sk. daru.



Back to the pre-modern roots before Slave Morality had devalued thinking.



***


Words



We have no right to the old words, the old cliches, the old concepts ... but we atill use them ... 'we' ... hah! This torrid way of telling lies to ourselves ... 'we' 'our'.


Nietzsche got to that place of deep questioning in his mid-forties, then was snuffed out as far as work was concerned ... we have to go on from where he left off - 'we' ...


As if 'I' wasn't bad enough [Guenon apparently avoided the personal pronoun not only in his work but in his conversation]. The very basics need to be looked at very closely before any farther things - Indeed, the reason that the far things are so wrong is due to the mess of the immediate -




***


Contagion



"the contagion of the world's slow stain."


[Shelley, Adonais]



***


Death to Consciousness



If emotions are derived from consciousness, from 'thought' - and if we are not our 'thoughts' - not our consciousness ... Stop there; we are not our consciousness - What! Is consciousness over-rated? Do we then step back and question the validity of all those who wish to 'expand consciousness' [in whatever 'direction']?


What we are is deeper than consciousness; more real than consciousness - consciousness is a disease, just as emotions are. One is only healthy when one is beyond consciousness, beyond thought, beyond emotions ...


Thought and emotion are not opposite: they entail one another. They must both be lessened. Thought is the leading factor; thoughts atmosphere, that of consciousness, must be reduced - starved of its oxygen. Then emotion too will dry up.


The 'historical sense' too is an aspect of thought - that constant looking back. Continually re-running the past; the source of remorse, regret, disappointment, hang-ups etc.


The ogre 'it was' - catch thought here; the demon thought which then engenders the emotion which came in its train ...



***


Which Way Time



Time is a construct, they say - but what about day and night? That is not time but change; but is it change ... any particular direction? Does day follow night, or night follow day? At most we can say that there is change ... flux - But why shouldn't time go backwards?



***


Pagan Christian



Just as Wotan became Christ in Western religiosity; so in Nietzsche does Dionysos become Zarathustra: from the paganistic to the monotheistic.



Carlyle says in 'Hero Worship' [Hero as poet: Dante]that the main difference between Paganism and Christianity is that the former divinises Nature, while the latter divinises the Moral Law.



***


Infinite Influence



"By virtue of infinite time, every end to be attained would necessarily have been reached long ago."


[Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, II, 1:19]



Repeated by Nietzsche when formulating his Eternal Recurrence doctrine].



***



Preserve the Black Sun Tradition



That tradition will eventually re-surface after the very bottom of the abyss has been reached.


It needs its own jealous custodians meanwhile to nurture it, even in its darkest days.



***


Remember



"The Anglo-Saxon poet was the living memory of the tribe."


[Kevin Crossley-Holland, Pagan Dawn #123]



***



Dionysus



Victor and victim seek a common goal.


By virtue of my sensitising pain


My destroyers shall recreate me whole.


[Dionysus Zagreus, P. Constantine 2000]



***


More Truth



I am not interested in personality - I am only interested in the Truth ...


And there he condemned himself to oblivion.


For nothing is harder than the Truth - nothing more despised.


Indeed, a Truth-Seeker might as well search out everything hated and align himself with it - he is bound to have chanced upon the Truth thereby.



***


Dead God



There is no God but the Dead God



***









Stele 666



"The official motto of the Fraternitas Saturni [FS] is:


'Do what Thou wilt is the whole of the Law, there is no Law beyond do what Thou wilt. Love is the Law - Love under Will - Compassionless Love.'



"... Zarathustra preaches 'all great love is even above all pity, for it still wants to create the beloved' - love without pity. A 'pitiful' love is one in which the lover is annihilated by the beloved, love without pity is where the lover - or magician - creates his beloved out of his own self ...



"the FS addition of these two words [Mitleidlose Liebe] to the whole Thelemic formula put a whole new perspective on the philosophy. Rather than seeking self-annihilation beyond the threshold, the Saturnian Brother seeks to become his own god. Crowley never tired of calling those who endorsed ... this path of non-self-annihilation 'Black Brothers' (or 'Brothers of the Left-hand Path') ..."


[Fire and Ice, Flowers pp. 67-70]



***


Hate



"... the fundamental potentiality for hate ... in the interests of self-preservation, leads to the formation of gangs, societies, associations, groups, and, and in relation to nations, pacts, alliances or treaties."


[A History of Torture, Scott]



***



Thinkers



Schopenhauer says that we should only read when we have run out of thoughts. Why then do so many self-proclaimed thinkers spend their lives reading the thoughts of others?



***


Moment's Death



Rain-soaked forest,


dark-night,


dank.


Beneath moonlit,


prismed,


sky.


; ;


Rain


caressing the canvas


skin.



Sopping.


Unsealing


the wet,


pervading


all,


save the


unstoppable


blue.



The Moment of Death.


A Monument built to Moment.


How Time


spits


tears


onto the Grave, with its cursory


oblivion.



The past is all


Dead Moments,


scattered into Nothingness.


Shedding into the


imponderable


green.



****


Contradictions



"There is a contradiction in every word that Zarathustra utters."


[Nietzsche EH]




***


Silent Empire



"Let us honour the great empire of Silence once more!"


[Carlyle, Hero as Poet]



***


Optimist or Pessimist?



"The optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist."


[Nietzsche, EH Fatality 4]



***


Moral Interpreter



Yes - morality is merely a human interpretation of phenomena. However, that is not to deny the possibility of a profound evil beyond all human interpretation - given that all language is human interpretation ... however ...



***



The Road of Excess



"Excess is the path to the overhuman."


[Nietzsche, Salome p. 116]



Lou Salome describes TSZ as Nietzsche's "mystical work". [ib. p. 91].



From a letter of Nietzsche to herself she makes the following interesting observations. Nietzsche wrote to her;



"What does knowledge matter? I treasure nothing except impulses, and I would dare say that we have them in common."



- To interject here - when he talks of having these 'impulses in common' - he could mean 'humans' as 'we' - another implication towards a 'private language' type of argument.



Nietzsche goes on;



"Look straight through the phase in which I lived during these past years - and look behind them! Do not let yourself be deceived about me. Surely you don't believe that 'the free spirit' is my ideal?!."



- Salome interprets this letter (written in between GS and TSZ) to mean that Nietzsche is turning away from the 'Free Spiritedness' of the Human-All-Too-Human era, with its emphasis on logic and 'knowledge' ('the phase - past years').



Moreover, that Salome must 'look behind' the works of this phase. Salome says this suggests that Nietzsche is returning to the outlook of his "first phase of philosophical development, before his positivistic 'free spiritedness', namely, to the metaphysics of Wagner's and Schopenhauer's aesthetics and their teachings about the superhuman genius."



One might say that this is the Dionysian, albeit in a higher stage of realisation having absorbed the Apolline - the Zarathustrian, the Wotanian.


Salome says that Nietzsche turned away from "negating criticism" and rather pursued "the psyche's impulses as a source for revelations."


"As tool and toy of inner dictates and hidden drives and into the profoundest depths .... into a labyrinthine wilderness, dark and impenetrable, which surrounds the intelligible world. In the labyrinth are no discernable paths and no masters and laws, but the will has room to assert itself with every type of creativity. Such a dangerous adventure seemed to assure Nietzsche of a direct path into the power of an inner life ..."


Nietzsche "newly adapts the motto 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted' (GM III 24) and praises the value of illusion - the deliberate fiction of the alogical and the 'untrue' - as the essentials of life-creating and will-supporting powers. He conceived a representation of the world built and created by us and which contains our psychic idiosyncrasies; and he began to feel that our knowledge ultimately is nothing more than a 'humanisation of things'."



Salome says that "the central kernal of the new philosophy of the future is crystallised" by "the mystery of a tremendous self-apotheosis" which states that "I, Nietzsche-Zarathustra, am the world; it exists because I am, it exists as I will it."


"In the aesthetics and ethics of Nietzsche's last philosophising, we find again the pervasive theme that a decline through excess is the necessary precondition for a highest and new creation."(Salome pp. 95-9)



"The first and only moral injunction engraved on the new tablet of values: Become hard!" [ib. p. 118]



***


Salome on Zarathustra



"The Zarathustra figure represents Nietzsche's own transformation."


[Salome p. 123]



"The twin representation by Nietzsche, through which he observed himself as his double, is embodied in his Zarathustra; they walk in the same shoes."


[ib. p. 124]



***


The Perspectivist Nietzsche



It is astonishing that Salome has the Perspectival understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy - but then she did study under him. Only in Perspectivism can we get at the complete Nietzsche.


Only Perspectivists do not feel the need to reject the Eternal Recurrence, the Uebermensch, the proto-fascist politics and the Contradictions in general.


The 'thereness' that Danto talks about in Nietzsche's concept of 'the world' - is also that of the 'Innocence of Becoming' - it is Salome's mysticsm in Nietzsche - Nietzsche can only be understood in this light: the Dionysian poet of the Labyrinth.



***



Bronzed Beast



With his Sun Eye


he transforms the


swarming street into a


classical frieze.


Movement trapped in a


cubist phrenzy,


transformed into


physique perfect,


pure limbs crisply drape


tonal bronze;


crisp glint of white light,


surrounded by browns,


black


blent


.


He is the king because he is the cause of this transformed kingdom.


He is the great enchanter,


King and Mage in


One.



***


Evil



My tongue,


its tongue insatiable,


has licked at every good and evil thing,


dived down into every depth


[Of the Poverty of the Richest Man, Nietzsche]



"I think of Nietzsche as a philosopher of evil. For him the attraction and value of evil, it seems to me, gave significance to what he intended when he spoke of power."


[Bataille On Nietzsche]



***


Bataille and Nietzsche



Bataille's 'On Nietzsche' somehow exemplifies the notion, found in Nietzsche, of the multiple self, the self as multiplicity - all fragmented and fractured - going out and coming back in again [Morrison's 'cellves'] like a kaleidoscope.


He attempts to write a book on Nietzsche in 1944, the centenary of Nietzsche's birth - but he is in occupied Paris, and the Americans are about to enter Paris - all around is chaos and confusion, death, bombs, dislocation.


How can he write under such conditions?


What emerges is a shattered reading of Nietzsche - shards of his works, and remarks on his ideas litter Bataille's book - all these embedded in a diary of those days - self observations, some observations of his surroundings - all pell-mell. But it works on a deep level: it gets beneath the superficial level of a scholarly work - it works like a poem; it is a poem in affect, if not in form.



***


Media



Create media, do not consume it.



***


Nothing



"Perfect blasphemy negates nothingness."


[Bataille p. 64]



***


Perspectives



"The human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself under its perspectival forms, and solely in these. We cannot look around our corner."


[Nietzsche GS 374]



Most basically; an interpretation - a personal interpretation.


religious systems, ideological systems, philosophical systems etc., are more sophisticated Perspectives (cf. de Bono's metasystems).


http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/METASYSTEM.html
METASYSTEM


a system acts according to its own nature and for the purpose defined by that nature. A child is playing: he attempts to poke scissors into the electric power points; he makes interesting ink-patterns on the carpet; he attempts to drink from the liquid detergent container. All of these activities arise directly from the nature of the system: child - exploration -environment. Fortunately there is another system which lies outside the child system. This outside or meta-system operates according to its own nature which is child care. Primitive tribes quickly establish a system of beliefs, taboos and laws. Without this meta-system everyone would act according to their own individual systems which might be based on immediate gratification, self-indulgence and impulse. The meta- system lies outside these individual systems and overrides them in favour of society and a longer time base. For example, an individual may only collect enough food for his immediate needs but the meta-system may require him to collect enough to store for the winter as well. To some extent, the success of societies has depended on the strength, and the nature, of the meta-systems they have set up. An individual goes to see a psychoanalyst and is told that his troubles arise from the way his mother treated him when he was young. This explanation or 'story' becomes a meta-system for the individual and can explain or guide his actions independently of his mood of the moment. Religion is the prime example of a meta-system that has served to override man's small view of himself and given him aims and values he might not otherwise have developed. The internal logic of the religious meta-system is based on its own nature,and not on the needs of man. Outside religions, strictly so called ideologies, philosophies and moral concepts have also served as meta-systems. (De Bono)



Do all metasystems begin with a particular personal interpretation? But then such do draw upon 'group perspectives' - out of these, individuals can create new personal perspectives.


Nietzsche's own Perspectivism draws upon the Presocratics/Schopenahuer, mainly. So the personal interpretation draws in Group perspectives which themselves began as Personal Perspectives and so on, ad infinitum.


Alongside we have a general Cultural Perspective which includes Group and personal Perspectives, all under a general Cultural Perspective - e.g. Western Culture - Eastern etc.


So the world displays a variety of Perspectives (culture clash - East vs. West - Polytheism vs. Monotheism). In human terms we see that the world is the sum total of a variety of Perspectives. From this we notice the tendency towards creation of a single World Perspective from some quarters; and conversely the tendency towards diversity etc.



"You must grasp that the value of life cannot be estimated ... judgements and valuations of life, whether for or against, cannot be true; their only value lies in the fact that they are symptoms; they can be considered only as symptoms - per se such judgements are nonsense." [Nietzsche]



Incompatible Perspectives? Isn't incompatibility the result of Perspectivism?


Take Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence and Uebermensch. This may point to the meaning of this 'contradiction' in Nietzsche's work. Those who feel the need to dismiss either ER or the Superhuman to make things consistent, or to 'modify' one or the other to the same ends, are missing the point. The two grandly contradictory/incompatible Perspectives of ER/Suoerhuman proclaim loudly the need for contradiction at the very heart of life: it is a full-on rejection of the Law of Non-Contradiction. A massive contradiction is at the heart of Zarathustra's teaching, and so it should be.



"The wisest man would be the one richest in contradictions."


[Nietzsche WP 259]



"This philosophy of Nietzsche is just a maze of contradictions."


[Bataille]



"Nietzsche's perspectivism fast isolates and then dissolves the individual."


[Nietzsche and The Politics of the Soul, Thiele p. 37]



***


Heroic Perspectives



In GS Book 2 Nietzsche mentions perspective in relation to the arts, where playwrights in particular treat the hero figure.


Here we can be "taught the art of regarding oneself as hero, from a distance and as it were simplified and transfigured - the art of 'putting oneself on stage' before oneself. Only thus can we get over certain lowly details in ourselves. Without this art we would be nothing but foreground, and would live entirely under the spell of that perspective which makes the nearest and most vulgar appear tremendously big and as reality itself."



Our language is unsuited to Perspectivism. Clearly, language is the product of the Universalising norms, and to speak normally is to evoke the ghosts of The Good and of God. To use language perspectivally would mean to load everything with qualifiers, ironic quotes and to put phrases 'under erasure' - as is the PoMo practice.


This leads to 'difficult' expression ... bad communication.





***


Perspectivism



In Perspectivism - how can some values be privileged over others?




***


Lizard King-Doom



The rock god that the Lizard King was is Odinist - cf. Cope's 18 Charms of Odin - it could be The End: the Poetic Edda set to The End.



Morrison's Celebration of the Lizard - juxtapositions of horrific scenes and idyllic fantasy - juxtaposition of extremes: tied together by the image of the reptilian - the snake involved in horror and terror is also the Lizard King: he who can lead the gentle hill-dwellers in their Arcadian bliss where 'reptiles abound'.


Like Dionysos, the Lizard King affirms life in all its extremes - from blood-letting to peace-bliss.


The Lizard King, like the Electronic Poet, leads his people on a shamanic dance from the heights to the abyss and back again. As in Zarathustra, the abyss is plumbed again and again - down-going/up-going/over-going. In the Celebration of the Lizard the transitions are sudden - they shock.


The Electric Poet transforms his surroundings in his vision. His own journey is heroic enough, but he must perform transformations. His own transitions feed the transformations he thrusts upon 'reality'. In The New Creatures the unnamed Lizard King character presides over a splendid and barbaric court. The Electric Poet's audience become akin to the royal hunt - the electronic technology becomes the hunted - Snakeskin Jacket leads the throng. Brando was said to have been inspired by Brando's Snakeskin Jacket character in the Fugitive Kind (1960). The Hunt is bloody and spectacular - Altamont prefigured.


Ultimately though, the hero must be sacrificed - torn apart - in order to live eternally ... twenty-seven is too old to be an unsacrificed Lizard King.


Therefore the sacrifice must be enacted, performed. Miami becomes the Sacrifice of the Lizard King - the God is Dead. In this transformation, Snakeskin is reborn as the Bearded Bard of LA. Other Lizard Kings appear in the Land, pretenders to the crown. The Bard goes into self-exile and takes up the mantle of the old philosopher.


Old Philosophers live long and die ironically.



***


***


'Every Great Man is the missionary of Order'. (Carlyle)



Carlyle is not saying so much that religion begins in Hero Worship - that would be a mere reductionist euhemerism - unheroic in itself.


But Hero Worship is certainly present in most religions [more so than the worship of god - Buddhists may not worship a god, but they certainly hero-worship the Buddhas etc.] Carlyle is saying that religion should be hero-worship; hero-worship is healthy. The rejection of hero-worship ['No More Heroes Anymore' say the Punks], nihilism, absolute scepticism, are unhealthy. And of course, egalitarianism is just as unhealthy as it rejects the heroic as the hero is superior, elite.


It is out of this very disbelief in the heroic - The Last Man - that Nietzsche's Zarathustra arises. The Uebermensch is the Hero once more. Odin is the Hero as god - the heroic in its purest form. The Hero as Leader or King is the final form. It is followed by the anarchic levelling of the communism of the Last Men. Out of the ashes of this Ragnarok comes the Uebermensch - Odin, Beowulf et al.



***


Carlyle - and the value of the heroic



The way that Carlyle, after making Odin the most primal type of divine hero, then refers to Odin throughout the other lectures. As the hero concept evolves, it has the effect of suggesting that Odin may encompass this whole heroic spectrum. Odin is a divinity, a prophet, a poet, a man of letters and a king.


Odin is also a god of places - as Julian Cope, a true Odinist if there is one, says - we need to validate the locality. This is because Odin's spirit is in Ymir's Body - the Earth, the Trees, the Clouds ... everything: but local to us.


***



Carlyle, Nietzsche, Jung



Nietzsche rails against Carlyle with spiteful ad hominems, but as Bertram demonstrates, Nietzsche tended to do that against those who were closest to him.



"I liken common languid Times, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their languid doubting characters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently crumbling-down into ever worse distress towards final ruin; all this I liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of Heaven that shall kindle it. The great man, with his free force direct out of God's own hand, is the lightning ..."


[Carlyle Hero Worship Everyman edition p. 250]



Compare this to Nietzsche;



"I love all those who are as heavy drops, falling singly from the dark cloud that hangs over the human: they herald the coming of the lightning, and as heralds they also perish.


Behold, I am a herald of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Overhuman - "


[TSZ Prologue 4]



The above is from Parker's translation [Oxford 2005]. He notes that Nietzsche's use of 'lightning' "alludes to the god Dionysus, who was born after his mother Semele was consumed by a bolt of lightning, and perhaps also to the famous fragment of the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus: 'A lightning bolt steers all things' ..."



Carlyle's image of the Great Man - the Hero - as a lightning bolt who can ignite the fuel of the Times is similar to Nietzsche's Overhuman as the lightning from the dark cloud.


And Carlyle's view of the 'fuel' to be ignited is like Jung's archetypes awaiting their revivification - in relation to Wotan!


Jung uses the image of the riverbed/water, rather than fuel/fire - but both fire and water have a Heraclitean connection.


The fuel is 'the Time' and the lightning the Great Man for Carlyle; just as the riverbed is the archetype which is filled by the water of the god.



The fuel, like riverbeds, can dry up and moulder without fire or water.



Here line up Dionysos - Heraclitus - Odin - Zarathsutra - Superhuman.



***


Artist-Hero



The artist as hero is important because he combines Beowulf and the Skald - he not only lives the myth but he writes about it too: ambiguously autobiographical - he is Self/Other - killer and victim.



***


The 18 Charms of Odin - Julian Cope


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56G8tuyez5s




***


Chant



'You ravaged the runes of my tunes.' (Bolan)



Disenchantment is the enemy. From here spins depression. Therefore one must re-enchant the world: chant its magical charms.



***


The safety of Nothingness



Calling everything into questioning - a questing.



But life is Something: it is fleeting and frail. Yet we want to protect it from the overmighty forces of Nothingness.



***


Man Myth



"Every man his own myth."


[Ferlinghetti 1967]



***


Wolf-haunted hills



Beowulf is Odinist even if he isn't mentioned. It's a Christian Odinism where Odin is no longer named, but is there behind every sword clash; just as Weland is mentioned as the maker of mail-shirts and so on.



***




Disabled by Death



To the Anglo-Saxons of the Beowulf era the tale of Cain and Abel shocked as it told of a man killing his own kinsman.



***


Yggdrasil



Odin's victim rides the tree gallows just as Odin rides his steed.



***


Odinism



Odin always spoke in poetry - of the hard, riffing, alliterative, kenning kind.



One worships Odin by being a kenning poet.



***



His beard streamed with tears ...



To the Beowulf audience, tales were the vehicles for history, philosophy, theology and the rest. They are are not only tales then - they can also be sacred scriptures too.


Just as the Sword, Ship, Shield, Helm, Spear and Mail-Shirt are sacred too.


Just as Viking Metal Music is sacred.


The Spiritual is carried by the Material Vehicle.



***


I outlived storms of strife in my youth (Beowulf)



weapons, songs, stories - this is where we worship.



***


Conservative Metal Head



"I have actually been listening to quite a bit of heavy metal lately, and Metallica, I think, is genuinely talented. ‘Master of Puppets’ I think has got something genuinely both poetic – violently poetic – and musical. Every now and then something like that stands out and you can see that people have got no other repertoire and have a very narrow range of expression, but they’ve hit on something where they are saying something which is not just about themselves. Pop music is so concentrated on the self and the performer that it’s very rare that that happens, I think. It never happens with Oasis or The Verve. It did happen much more of course with the Beatles, and in the old American songbook, Hoagy Carmichael and Cole Porter and all that. That was a popular music which was about communication of often quite gentle feelings. So I’m not as prejudiced as I seem. I would like to be more prejudiced because it would prevent me from listening to this stuff.” [Roger Scruton 2009]


Source: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=1058



***


Being is Will of Power



" The expression ... The Will to Power names what characterises the basic character of all beings ... it provides an answer to the question 'What is being?' Since antiquity that question has been the question of philosophy."


[Heidegger, Nietzsche, (lectures 1936-7) trans. Krell pp. 3-4]



***


Roots



A 'fact' is something 'made' [Latin facere, to make].


'Reality' is a 'thing' or 'things' [L. res, thing or fact - cf. Sanskrit rai, property].


'Truth' from Old English treowe, faithful - cf. Sanskrit daruna, hard - daru, wood cf. tree from OE treow, also derived from Sk. daru.



Back to the pre-modern roots before Slave Morality had devalued thinking.



***



Words



We have no right to the old words, the old cliches, the old concepts ... but we atill use them ... 'we' ... hah! This torrid way of telling lies to ourselves ... 'we' 'our'.


Nietzsche got to that place of deep questioning in his mid-forties, then was snuffed out as far as work was concerned ... we have to go on from where he left off - 'we' ...


As if 'I' wasn't bad enough [Guenon apparently avoided the personal pronoun not only in his work but in his conversation]. The very basics need to be looked at very closely before any farther things - Indeed, the reason that the far things are so wrong is due to the mess of the immediate -




***



Contagion



"the contagion of the world's slow stain."


[Shelley, Adonais]



***



Death to Consciousness



If emotions are derived from consciousness, from 'thought' - and if we are not our 'thoughts' - not our consciousness ... Stop there; we are not our consciousness - What! Is consciousness over-rated? Do we then step back and question the validity of all those who wish to 'expand consciousness' [in whatever 'direction']?


What we are is deeper than consciousness; more real than consciousness - consciousness is a disease, just as emotions are. One is only healthy when one is beyond consciousness, beyond thought, beyond emotions ...


Thought and emotion are not opposite: they entail one another. They must both be lessened. Thought is the leading factor; thoughts atmosphere, that of consciousness, must be reduced - starved of its oxygen. Then emotion too will dry up.


The 'historical sense' too is an aspect of thought - that constant looking back. Continually re-running the past; the source of remorse, regret, disappointment, hang-ups etc.


The ogre 'it was' - catch thought here; the demon thought which then engenders the emotion which came in its train ...



***


Which Way Time



Time is a construct, they say - but what about day and night? That is not time but change; but is it change ... any particular direction? Does day follow night, or night follow day? At most we can say that there is change ... flux - But why shouldn't time go backwards?



***


Pagan Christian



Just as Wotan became Christ in Western religiosity; so in Nietzsche does Dionysos become Zarathustra: from the paganistic to the monotheistic.



Carlyle says in 'Hero Worship' [Hero as poet: Dante]that the main difference between Paganism and Christianity is that the former divinises Nature, while the latter divinises the Moral Law.



***



Infinite Influence



"By virtue of infinite time, every end to be attained would necessarily have been reached long ago."


[Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, II, 1:19]



Repeated by Nietzsche when formulating his Eternal Recurrence doctrine].



***




Preserve the Black Sun Tradition



That tradition will eventually re-surface after the very bottom of the abyss has been reached.


It needs its own jealous custodians meanwhile to nurture it, even in its darkest days.



***


Remember



"The Anglo-Saxon poet was the living memory of the tribe."


[Kevin Crossley-Holland, Pagan Dawn #123]



***



Dionysus



Victor and victim seek a common goal.


By virtue of my sensitising pain


My destroyers shall recreate me whole.


[Dionysus Zagreus, P. Constantine 2000]



***



More Truth



I am not interested in personality - I am only interested in the Truth ...


And there he condemned himself to oblivion.


For nothing is harder than the Truth - nothing more despised.


Indeed, a Truth-Seeker might as well search out everything hated and align himself with it - he is bound to have chanced upon the Truth thereby.



***


Dead God



There is no God but the Dead God



***










Stele 666



"The official motto of the Fraternitas Saturni [FS] is:


'Do what Thou wilt is the whole of the Law, there is no Law beyond do what Thou wilt. Love is the Law - Love under Will - Compassionless Love.'



"... Zarathustra preaches 'all great love is even above all pity, for it still wants to create the beloved' - love without pity. A 'pitiful' love is one in which the lover is annihilated by the beloved, love without pity is where the lover - or magician - creates his beloved out of his own self ...



"the FS addition of these two words [Mitleidlose Liebe] to the whole Thelemic formula put a whole new perspective on the philosophy. Rather than seeking self-annihilation beyond the threshold, the Saturnian Brother seeks to become his own god. Crowley never tired of calling those who endorsed ... this path of non-self-annihilation 'Black Brothers' (or 'Brothers of the Left-hand Path') ..."


[Fire and Ice, Flowers pp. 67-70]



***



Hate



"... the fundamental potentiality for hate ... in the interests of self-preservation, leads to the formation of gangs, societies, associations, groups, and, and in relation to nations, pacts, alliances or treaties."


[A History of Torture, Scott]



***




Thinkers



Schopenhauer says that we should only read when we have run out of thoughts. Why then do so many self-proclaimed thinkers spend their lives reading the thoughts of others?



***


Moment's Death



Rain-soaked forest,


dark-night,


dank.


Beneath moonlit,


prismed,


sky.


; ;


Rain


caressing the canvas


skin.



Sopping.


Unsealing


the wet,


pervading


all,


save the


unstoppable


blue.



The Moment of Death.


A Monument built to Moment.


How Time


spits


tears


onto the Grave, with its cursory


oblivion.



The past is all


Dead Moments,


scattered into Nothingness.


Shedding into the


imponderable


green.



****



Contradictions



"There is a contradiction in every word that Zarathustra utters."


[Nietzsche EH]




***


Silent Empire



"Let us honour the great empire of Silence once more!"


[Carlyle, Hero as Poet]



***


Optimist or Pessimist?



"The optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist."


[Nietzsche, EH Fatality 4]



***


Moral Interpreter



Yes - morality is merely a human interpretation of phenomena. However, that is not to deny the possibility of a profound evil beyond all human interpretation - given that all language is human interpretation ... however ...



***



The Road of Excess



"Excess is the path to the overhuman."


[Nietzsche, Salome p. 116]



Lou Salome describes TSZ as Nietzsche's "mystical work". [ib. p. 91].



From a letter of Nietzsche to herself she makes the following interesting observations. Nietzsche wrote to her;



"What does knowledge matter? I treasure nothing except impulses, and I would dare say that we have them in common."



- To interject here - when he talks of having these 'impulses in common' - he could mean 'humans' as 'we' - another implication towards a 'private language' type of argument.



Nietzsche goes on;



"Look straight through the phase in which I lived during these past years - and look behind them! Do not let yourself be deceived about me. Surely you don't believe that 'the free spirit' is my ideal?!."



- Salome interprets this letter (written in between GS and TSZ) to mean that Nietzsche is turning away from the 'Free Spiritedness' of the Human-All-Too-Human era, with its emphasis on logic and 'knowledge' ('the phase - past years').



Moreover, that Salome must 'look behind' the works of this phase. Salome says this suggests that Nietzsche is returning to the outlook of his "first phase of philosophical development, before his positivistic 'free spiritedness', namely, to the metaphysics of Wagner's and Schopenhauer's aesthetics and their teachings about the superhuman genius."



One might say that this is the Dionysian, albeit in a higher stage of realisation having absorbed the Apolline - the Zarathustrian, the Wotanian.


Salome says that Nietzsche turned away from "negating criticism" and rather pursued "the psyche's impulses as a source for revelations."


"As tool and toy of inner dictates and hidden drives and into the profoundest depths .... into a labyrinthine wilderness, dark and impenetrable, which surrounds the intelligible world. In the labyrinth are no discernable paths and no masters and laws, but the will has room to assert itself with every type of creativity. Such a dangerous adventure seemed to assure Nietzsche of a direct path into the power of an inner life ..."


Nietzsche "newly adapts the motto 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted' (GM III 24) and praises the value of illusion - the deliberate fiction of the alogical and the 'untrue' - as the essentials of life-creating and will-supporting powers. He conceived a representation of the world built and created by us and which contains our psychic idiosyncrasies; and he began to feel that our knowledge ultimately is nothing more than a 'humanisation of things'."



Salome says that "the central kernal of the new philosophy of the future is crystallised" by "the mystery of a tremendous self-apotheosis" which states that "I, Nietzsche-Zarathustra, am the world; it exists because I am, it exists as I will it."


"In the aesthetics and ethics of Nietzsche's last philosophising, we find again the pervasive theme that a decline through excess is the necessary precondition for a highest and new creation."(Salome pp. 95-9)



"The first and only moral injunction engraved on the new tablet of values: Become hard!" [ib. p. 118]



***


Salome on Zarathustra



"The Zarathustra figure represents Nietzsche's own transformation."


[Salome p. 123]



"The twin representation by Nietzsche, through which he observed himself as his double, is embodied in his Zarathustra; they walk in the same shoes."


[ib. p. 124]



***



The Perspectivist Nietzsche



It is astonishing that Salome has the Perspectival understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy - but then she did study under him. Only in Perspectivism can we get at the complete Nietzsche.


Only Perspectivists do not feel the need to reject the Eternal Recurrence, the Uebermensch, the proto-fascist politics and the Contradictions in general.


The 'thereness' that Danto talks about in Nietzsche's concept of 'the world' - is also that of the 'Innocence of Becoming' - it is Salome's mysticsm in Nietzsche - Nietzsche can only be understood in this light: the Dionysian poet of the Labyrinth.



***



Bronzed Beast



With his Sun Eye


he transforms the


swarming street into a


classical frieze.


Movement trapped in a


cubist phrenzy,


transformed into


physique perfect,


pure limbs crisply drape


tonal bronze;


crisp glint of white light,


surrounded by browns,


black


blent


.


He is the king because he is the cause of this transformed kingdom.


He is the great enchanter,


King and Mage in


One.



***


Evil



My tongue,


its tongue insatiable,


has licked at every good and evil thing,


dived down into every depth


[Of the Poverty of the Richest Man, Nietzsche]



"I think of Nietzsche as a philosopher of evil. For him the attraction and value of evil, it seems to me, gave significance to what he intended when he spoke of power."


[Bataille On Nietzsche]



***


Bataille and Nietzsche



Bataille's 'On Nietzsche' somehow exemplifies the notion, found in Nietzsche, of the multiple self, the self as multiplicity - all fragmented and fractured - going out and coming back in again [Morrison's 'cellves'] like a kaleidoscope.


He attempts to write a book on Nietzsche in 1944, the centenary of Nietzsche's birth - but he is in occupied Paris, and the Americans are about to enter Paris - all around is chaos and confusion, death, bombs, dislocation.


How can he write under such conditions?


What emerges is a shattered reading of Nietzsche - shards of his works, and remarks on his ideas litter Bataille's book - all these embedded in a diary of those days - self observations, some observations of his surroundings - all pell-mell. But it works on a deep level: it gets beneath the superficial level of a scholarly work - it works like a poem; it is a poem in affect, if not in form.



***


Media



Create media, do not consume it.



***



Nothing



"Perfect blasphemy negates nothingness."


[Bataille p. 64]



***


Perspectives



"The human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself under its perspectival forms, and solely in these. We cannot look around our corner."


[Nietzsche GS 374]



Most basically; an interpretation - a personal interpretation.


religious systems, ideological systems, philosophical systems etc., are more sophisticated Perspectives (cf. de Bono's metasystems).


http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/METASYSTEM.html
METASYSTEM


" ... a system acts according to its own nature and for the purpose defined by that nature. A child is playing: he attempts to poke scissors into the electric power points; he makes interesting ink-patterns on the carpet; he attempts to drink from the liquid detergent container. All of these activities arise directly from the nature of the system: child - exploration -environment. Fortunately there is another system which lies outside the child system. This outside or meta-system operates according to its own nature which is child care. Primitive tribes quickly establish a system of beliefs, taboos and laws. Without this meta-system everyone would act according to their own individual systems which might be based on immediate gratification, self-indulgence and impulse. The meta- system lies outside these individual systems and overrides them in favour of society and a longer time base. For example, an individual may only collect enough food for his immediate needs but the meta-system may require him to collect enough to store for the winter as well. To some extent, the success of societies has depended on the strength, and the nature, of the meta-systems they have set up. An individual goes to see a psychoanalyst and is told that his troubles arise from the way his mother treated him when he was young. This explanation or 'story' becomes a meta-system for the individual and can explain or guide his actions independently of his mood of the moment. Religion is the prime example of a meta-system that has served to override man's small view of himself and given him aims and values he might not otherwise have developed. The internal logic of the religious meta-system is based on its own nature,and not on the needs of man. Outside religions, strictly so called ideologies, philosophies and moral concepts have also served as meta-systems." (De Bono)



Do all metasystems begin with a particular personal interpretation? But then such do draw upon 'group perspectives' - out of these, individuals can create new personal perspectives.


Nietzsche's own Perspectivism draws upon the Presocratics/Schopenahuer, mainly. So the personal interpretation draws in Group perspectives which themselves began as Personal Perspectives and so on, ad infinitum.


Alongside we have a general Cultural Perspective which includes Group and personal Perspectives, all under a general Cultural Perspective - e.g. Western Culture - Eastern etc.


So the world displays a variety of Perspectives (culture clash - East vs. West - Polytheism vs. Monotheism). In human terms we see that the world is the sum total of a variety of Perspectives. From this we notice the tendency towards creation of a single World Perspective from some quarters; and conversely the tendency towards diversity etc.



"You must grasp that the value of life cannot be estimated ... judgements and valuations of life, whether for or against, cannot be true; their only value lies in the fact that they are symptoms; they can be considered only as symptoms - per se such judgements are nonsense." [Nietzsche]



Incompatible Perspectives? Isn't incompatibility the result of Perspectivism?


Take Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence and Uebermensch. This may point to the meaning of this 'contradiction' in Nietzsche's work. Those who feel the need to dismiss either ER or the Superhuman to make things consistent, or to 'modify' one or the other to the same ends, are missing the point. The two grandly contradictory/incompatible Perspectives of ER/Suoerhuman proclaim loudly the need for contradiction at the very heart of life: it is a full-on rejection of the Law of Non-Contradiction. A massive contradiction is at the heart of Zarathustra's teaching, and so it should be.



"The wisest man would be the one richest in contradictions."


[Nietzsche WP 259]



"This philosophy of Nietzsche is just a maze of contradictions."


[Bataille]



"Nietzsche's perspectivism fast isolates and then dissolves the individual."


[Nietzsche and The Politics of the Soul, Thiele p. 37]



***



Heroic Perspectives



In GS Book 2 Nietzsche mentions perspective in relation to the arts, where playwrights in particular treat the hero figure.


Here we can be "taught the art of regarding oneself as hero, from a distance and as it were simplified and transfigured - the art of 'putting oneself on stage' before oneself. Only thus can we get over certain lowly details in ourselves. Without this art we would be nothing but foreground, and would live entirely under the spell of that perspective which makes the nearest and most vulgar appear tremendously big and as reality itself."



Our language is unsuited to Perspectivism. Clearly, language is the product of the Universalising norms, and to speak normally is to evoke the ghosts of The Good and of God. To use language perspectivally would mean to load everything with qualifiers, ironic quotes and to put phrases 'under erasure' - as is the PoMo practice.


This leads to 'difficult' expression ... bad communication.





***


Perspectivism



In Perspectivism - how can some values be privileged over others?




***


Lizard King-Doom



The rock god that the Lizard King was is Odinist - cf. Cope's 18 Charms of Odin - it could be The End: the Poetic Edda set to The End.



Morrison's Celebration of the Lizard - juxtapositions of horrific scenes and idyllic fantasy - juxtaposition of extremes: tied together by the image of the reptilian - the snake involved in horror and terror is also the Lizard King: he who can lead the gentle hill-dwellers in their Arcadian bliss where 'reptiles abound'.


Like Dionysos, the Lizard King affirms life in all its extremes - from blood-letting to peace-bliss.


The Lizard King, like the Electronic Poet, leads his people on a shamanic dance from the heights to the abyss and back again. As in Zarathustra, the abyss is plumbed again and again - down-going/up-going/over-going. In the Celebration of the Lizard the transitions are sudden - they shock.


The Electric Poet transforms his surroundings in his vision. His own journey is heroic enough, but he must perform transformations. His own transitions feed the transformations he thrusts upon 'reality'. In The New Creatures the unnamed Lizard King character presides over a splendid and barbaric court. The Electric Poet's audience become akin to the royal hunt - the electronic technology becomes the hunted - Snakeskin Jacket leads the throng. Brando was said to have been inspired by Brando's Snakeskin Jacket character in the Fugitive Kind (1960). The Hunt is bloody and spectacular - Altamont prefigured.


Ultimately though, the hero must be sacrificed - torn apart - in order to live eternally ... twenty-seven is too old to be an unsacrificed Lizard King.


Therefore the sacrifice must be enacted, performed. Miami becomes the Sacrifice of the Lizard King - the God is Dead. In this transformation, Snakeskin is reborn as the Bearded Bard of LA. Other Lizard Kings appear in the Land, pretenders to the crown. The Bard goes into self-exile and takes up the mantle of the old philosopher.


Old Philosophers live long and die ironically.



***

Monday 3 May 2010

Wodens Folk


Folk-Greetings
Folk-Greetings and Sun-Hael! 
As Founder and Folk-Warder of Woden's Folk I would like to welcome you to our Movement. Woden's Folk was founded on April 23rd 1998 after a profound mystical experience that I undertook; this experience led to the creation of this Folkish Movement aimed at reviving the most ancient Ur-Religion of the English Folk in a new form suited to the New Age - the Age of Ing. For nearly a decade now we have grown into one of the foremost Folkish Heathen Movements here in England, and we have gathered together a formidable group of activists who promote this English Faith and who have created a number of groups (WF Hearths) around England and overseas too.



Over the past 20 years or so I have come to realise that the English have a unique destiny within the Northern Folk, and that it is here in England that the Last Avatar will arise. This is a Folk-Deliverer who will wage war against the Forces of Darkness and Matter, and who was prophesied to appear in the White Island by various different traditions around the world - all stemming from the Folk-Wanderings of old. Woden's Folk was set up to prepare the way for the coming of The Hooded Man who is the Crowned and Conquering Son who will incarnate when the Hanged God is swallowed by the Wolf. This astronomical event will take place at the Winter Sunwend of Year 12 : Age of Ing (2012).

For the past few years it has become obvious that this land will be rocked by natural catastrophe and a breakdown in society that will create chaos, disorder and anarchy on a large scale. Catastrophic events such as flooding and earthquakes would make this society collapse into lawlessness, and it is our aim to prepare ourselves for such times, and to warn others of these so that they too can prepare themselves. United we stand - divided we fall! Where our warnings fall on stony ground there is little we can do, since the vast majority of the masses are little more than sheep being prepared for their fate as lamb chops!
What we need, as the English Folk, is a new religion based upon our most ancient Ur-Religion of the North; only a religion will override political differences and will unite the English as a Folk-Community once more. By the term "religion" we refer more to a way of life - where every act is a religious act. Our gods never left us, for it was we who cut the communications to them. All that is needed is for that line of communication to be remade and the gods will come back to us once more. This is done through ritual work and through our Folk-Moots.
When we talk of religious activities this is a far different concept than the dreary old stone buildings in which worship was made to an omnipotent "God" who ruled by fear. Our work is done around the Sacred Groves and the Ancient Sites of England, where we gather around a Holy Fire to do blot to our Gods and Ancestors. These blots are done around the camp-fire where we drink mead & ale and make boasts and toasts to our Gods and honour the Ancestors of our Folk. In short we enjoy ourselves in our worship, and we drink with our Folk-Comrades as a Folkish Brotherhood around the Holy Flame of our Folk. The Sacred Fire represents the Sun at the centre of the circle around which the Folk gather in blot. This is a religious rite followed by a social gathering around the camp-fire. It also prepares us for later struggles when we shall need to huddle around a fire to keep warm, and to gather with like-minded kindred in order to survive in a hostile world that collapses around us.
This land - England - has changed beyond belief in the last 60 years. Today we are "blessed" with the multi-racial society, made up of different "communities" all vying for a slice of the cake, and all claiming their own "rights". Outside of this - and completely left out - are the English who have prior claim to this land. We cannot blame anyone but ourselves, for had the people of this land had the guts (and the intelligence) to oppose this imposition, then today's England would be vastly different. Today the flood-gates are open and anyone seems to be able to get in; there are no checks on criminal gangs, on disease and virus-carriers which means a future of crime, vice, and epidemics unknown to us before. We can see signs of this right now. The false rulers of this country seem to care not one jot about the welfare of its people - "votes" are much more important, for they can only hold on to their lucrative jobs through this system of government.
In such a wasteland we see the final decay of a once great land and empire; we are at the end of this cycle, and thismeans that the future holds nothing but collapse and final destruction. This is the inevitable result of today's society based upon false ideas. For so long this land - and this world - has been held up by debt & credit; somewhere - and sometime - this has to come to an end - a final collapse. Together with the natural disasters we face (due to our being cut off from nature and the cosmic cycles) we face a future of disorder, anarchy and chaos in which everyone will be fighting for their individual survival. Such a result is inevitable in a land where society is based upon self-interest, egoism, and self-gain. The only antidote to this is the formation of Folkish groups founded on the principle of self-sacrifice for the whole, and for a healthy co-operation between blood-kin that will ensure the survival of our Folk at some level. This is the aim of Woden's Folk.
Wodenism is a Nature-Religion in that we uphold the Eternal Laws of Nature and hold our Folk-Moots outside at the ancient sites around England. Our All-Father is the Spirit of Nature and the ultimate force that pervades the multiverse; his is the animating force of the Cosmos. We are also a Warrior-Religion in that we recommend that our Folk take up some form of the Warrior Arts in order to defend themselves in a land fast falling into violent disorder. The figure of Woden as the One-Eyed Hunter-God (Herne the Hunter) is that of the God of Battle and the Virile Male Warrior Ethos which has been suppressed in our society - and which will eventually erupt in stark opposition to its suppression! To call Wodenism a "patriarchal" religion is to miss the point; there has been a total unbalance for some 1500 years or so since the Virile Male Warrior archetype and the Spirit of Nature were deemed to be "The Devil". The meek and weak religion of the past 2000 years was hardly that of the archetype of the Virile Male Warrior! Behind the facade was a lunar religion that was a mere reflection of the true Solar Religion of the Ancients - just as the Moon is a reflection of the Sun!
The true and original English Religion is based upon a balance of opposites - male & female polarities - which is the basis of The Hooded Man Prophecy. This prophecy was given to me on October 31st 1993 and is based upon the ancient Prophecies of Gildas but is in a slightly altered form, a form whose alterations prove it to be the new form for the New Age. This has as its basis the balance of Light & Darkness which is held in the individual and in the Folk as a group. This is the aim of our work at one level. Not only is Wodenism a religion but it is also a Spiritual Discipline for the individual, but as part of a wholeness - the Folk. This Spiritual Discipline centres around the Ar-Kan Rune-Lag system which is my own runic system based upon the 33 English Runes, and worked around the idea of the Wera - The Solar Warrior. This system is in its early development but in the years to come it will be forged into a true and unique runic system for the English Folk and eventually for the Northern Folk as a whole. This is part of the Inner Order of Wodenism - the Cult of Woden.
Woden's Folk offers an all-round religion and spiritual discipline to the English Folk, our aim being to restore the English Identity and to take the fate of the English back into our hands so as to ensure our survival as a Folk. On January 1st 2007 the English Movement was formed within Woden's Folk so as to restore the English Identity, and to preserve English Culture and English Tradition - see www.englishmovement.org.uk. This is a vital part of the growth of our Movement.
We welcome like-minded kinfolk into the Movement, either as WF Supporters (who subscribe to our magazines) and WF Activists (who get fully active within a WF Hearth or as Lone-Wolf Activists). There is room for anyone who is English, proud and who upholds the values of English Heathendom. Too long have we suffered under an alien yoke; it is now time to regain our own - our identity, our ancient religion that binds us, and our land that has been stolen from us through the work of traitors within our midst!
Honour & Loyalty!
Wulf - Founder & Folk-Warder : Woden's Folk.


Woden's Folk : BCM Woden : London : WC1N 3XX : ENGLAND

The Ancient Runes 
There are patterns of Wyrd contained in the rune-row, so much so that these are more often overlooked. These patterns can be interpreted in very different ways, of course, since there are many different levels within the rune-rows. Here I am going to develop one particular theme which is the basis of the work done through Woden's Folk, and concerns the subject of the Last Avatar and the Age of Ing. As I have stated, this is just one particular interpretation of which there will be numerous interpretations for the same sequence.
Tir - The god Tiw, the Sky-Father or the Shining One.
Beorc - The Birth-Mother who is the giver of life and who can also be seen as the Northern Mother.
Eh - This rune represents the Divine Marriage of the Sky-Father and the Birth-Mother, and also the Divine Twins or Horse Twins, who are born of their pairing.
Man - The Manu, the first-born of the Divine Twins who brings the Laws of Caste or the Laws of Race to mankind; this is an aspect of Hama/Heimdall who first brought the Divine Order of the Gods to mankind, and who incarnates at various times of the Great Cycle to reinforce these Divine Laws when they lapse.
Lagu - This rune can mean many things and it here refers to the Great Flood which precedes the advent of the Last Avatar. It also refers to the area called Logres which is England, where the Last Avatar will appear. The Lagu-Rune is the Tiw-Rune with his right hand missing, and thus there is a link here to Woden who is a more sinister god whose role leads along the Left-Hand Path too. When the Golden Age ends and Tiw loses his right hand, this role is taken up by a god more suited to lead the Folk out of the Dark Age - Woden. The Lagu-Rune is also a rune of the virile, male warrior since its shape shows the phallus and flow of semen - i.e. it also refers to the virulent warrior ethos that is renewed by the Last Avatar.
Ing - This rune has the meaning "god" or "hero", the latter being misunderstood by most interpreters. This is the Rune of Ing (obviously) who is the Hero-God and the Last Avatar in this next incarnation. He is the Son of Man(nus) and associated with the constellation of Bootes which follows the Waen (Great Bear - Woden's Waen) around the Pole Star. This is the "Saint Cuthman" of Christian legend whose legend holds the secret of the God of England. On August 11th 1999 there was a Solar Eclipse (the Sun turned black) and the next day the Perseid Meteor Shower (the hots stars fell from the sky); at the same time as the Solar Eclipse the Sign of Ing (Sign of the Son of Man) appeared in the skies through a planetary conjunction. This heralded the conception of the New Age - the Age of Ing. The Ing-Rune is also the Rune of the Blood and is thus linked to the Sacred Blood Struggle of this era.
Daeg - This is the rune of the balance of opposites - Light & Darkness - which are contained in the figure of The Hooded Man who is the Last Avatar. It also symbolises the hour-glass which, when emptied, is turned around in order to start time once more. It is a timer. This tips once more to start a new Cosmic Cycle. When something reaches its totality it will flip into its polar opposite; here the Global Order will fall into tribalism and a New Order.
Edel - This is the Rune of the Racial Homeland, for the IE Root * At-Al means "race"; this is the ancient Island of Thule or At-Al-Land which "sank" beneath the waves and which is prophesied to rise once more. This "sank" into our Racial Unconscious and will arise as a herald of the restoration of the Ur-Time. The rune also contains a Germanic Ing-Rune and a Gyfu-Rune combined, and is another variation of the Gift of Ing and thus linked to the Gar-Rune which has the same meaning.
Here we see a sequence in which the recent cosmic events are found to be contained within our rune-row. The "marriage" of the Sun and Moon which occurred at the Solar Eclipse heralded the conception of the Age of Ing. This is underlined in Norse Mythology where we find the incarnation of Hama/Heimdall prophesied, followed by a Great Flood, and then the appearance of Widar the Avenger when Woden is swallowed by the Fenris Wolf. This is a cosmic event that takes place around the Winter Wunwend of 2012 when the "Wolf's Jaws" swallow the Hanged God at the Galactic Centre - the Dark Rift - as our Sun aligns with the Galactic Centre. The constellation of Cygnus the Swan is a marker for the Galactic Centre and is symbolised by the Wilmington Giant in the South of England. There is a further sequence of runes added to the Common Germanic Futhark, making up the 33-Rune English Rune Row.
Ac - The Oak-Tree, symbolic of the centre of the House of the Wulfingas - the Branstock Oak. Woden pushed the Sword of Need into this Oak-Tree, which was taken out by Sigmunde the Waelsinga. This sword is the Broken Sword of legend which was reforged and used by Sigurd the Waelsinga to slay the Dragon and to take the Gold-Hoard. This rune also represents the enegry-matrix of Albion since the central point of this island is the Beran-Byrig where the Island Dragons meet - the Red Dragon and the White Dragon. This is the Ancient Power that resides in the Land of Albion.
Aesc - The Sacred Ash-Tree (Iggdrasil) upon which Woden hangs in order to gain the Wisdom of the Runes. This is the First Man created by the gods Woden, Willa, Weoh whose form is animated by the gods and who are thus Sons of the Gods. This rune is linked to the Os-Rune which has replaced it in the First Aettir; it is also related to the term Oski which is the same as Wunsc and refers to the Wish Lord and the Wish Hounds - The Wild Hunter-God and the Wild Hunt. The IE Root * ansu means spirit and refers to the Ancestors and the Ancestral God - Woden.
Yr - Yr has two distinct meanings from which we can decifer its meaning. The first is gold decoration which can refer to the ancient Gold-Hoard which symbolises the Solar Knowledge of the ancient Solar Race. This is the Solar Wisdom that Sigurd gains when he slays the Dragon and becomes a Dragon-Lord. Here he slays the dragon, eats the Heart of the Dragon (Soul) and drinks the Blood of the Dragon (Spirit) to become a Dragon-Lord. The second meaning is that of Primal Being which refers to Ymir who is "slain" by the gods to create the Cosmos. The name Ymir holds a secret, for it refers to the Sound of Creation YM which is the OM or AUM of the Aryan Hindus. This is sounded like the French "lune". Ymir is the Sound of Creation (the name Ymir can mean The Sounding One) that brings the worlds into being, and Hymir is the Sound of Destruction that brings the cycle to an end - this is the role of Hama-Heimdall who sounds the Giallarhorn. The names Ymir-Hymir-Gymir are all related and they could well be seen as Primal Sounds - YM - HYM - GYM that have certain roles in the Cycle of the Ages. This rune is also that of the Yew-Bow and the symbolism contains an Ur-Rune with the Irminsul or Ur-glyphic Irminsul within it - thus symbolising the primal state of the galaxy - the Milky Way (the Irminsul is the Milky Way).
Ior - The Serpent. This can be the Serpent that enters the house to destroy Man, and who is slain by Woden who uses the Nine Glory-Twigs to do so. The Nine Glory-Twigs are the matrix from which all 33 runes can be drawn. In other words Woden uses the Power of the Runes to destroy the Power of the Serpent. When the points of this rune are joined it makes a 6-pointed star which symbolises the fusion of opposites - chaos. This is the Power of the Serpent. It can also represent Jormungandr - the Midgard Serpent - who is the enemy of Thunor and in this era represents Globalism.
Ear - This rune is the rune of the Way of the Ancestors (Straw-Death) whose bodies return to the Earth to be reborn anew into their family or tribe. Here we see the arms are bound - earth-bound - and thus this is the way back to rebirth upon Earth. This is a rune of burial and the earth-grave. This is the death which is not the way of the Aethelinga. The IE Root * er can mean "earth" but it can also mean "water" and "eternity" - these are in fact linked since the Way of the Ancestors is the eternal return in which the rebirth of the individual is eternally bound to the tribe.
Cweorth - This rune represents the Way of the Gods and is the transcendent rune which transcends this eternal cycle of birth-rebirth in order that the Initiate becomes a god-like figure that is reborn at will, as and when needed or summoned to help the Folk. This is why cremation is used for the Solar Way which is linked to the Cosmic Fire (Kan) and Kingship (Kon) through the Ken-Rune. Cweorth is the Fire-Twirl - the Fire of Cremation that transforms the spiritual body at death. This is the Rune of Valhalla where the Einheriar feast with the Gods. This transcendence is through the overcoming of the Serpent within us (S-elf) that transforms the Initiate into the Elf - The Shining One, and to immortality, as the Gods. This is the secret contained in the Myth of Knit Mountain where Woden enters the mountain as a Serpent (Earth-bound), sleeps for three nights with Gunnlod (Tantric Love-Rite), wins the Mead of Inspiration (becomes enlightened) and rises as an Eagle (Heaven - Home of the Gods). This is exactly the same symbolism as Iggdrasil where the Serpent lies at the base of the tree (spinal column) and the Eagle sits in its branches with the Hawk between his eyes (Third Eye). Cweorth is also the rune of the Hidden God who waits his return when the Cosmic Cycle has ended. Perhaps the most important meaning of this rune relates to the One-Eyed Hunter-God seen in the figure of the Wilmington Giant and Herne Giant, as well as in the shape of two arms of Shiva the Destroyer. This is the One-Eyed Hunter-God as leader of the Mannerbund - the Wild Army.
Calc - This rune means both chalk and cup - together with the next rune (Stan) this makes chalk stone or white stone, the White Stone referring to the ancient Stone of Ing which lays in the South Saxon Mark. The term cup is one related to the Grail Mythos which must have been known to the English who settled here; it is likely that their Initiates took over these mysteries. The cup (Calk), stone (Stan) and Spear (Gar) are all related to the Grail Mythos, and it can be no coincidence that these can be found at the end of the English Rune-Row. At one level this is a rune of Kalki (HelgiH) as the name Calc suggests; the glyph is that of a Bow and Arrow which is related to the Wild Hunter-God. Rune of the Death Mysteries.
Stan - Rune of Being in that this represents stability, stillness, static, state, and other words beginning with st - the Immovable Centre around which the Wheel of Becoming turns eternally. This symbolises the anvil out of which the Sword of Need is taken. The Aryan Root STAN means thunder, so this rune is associated with Thunor the Thunder-God. The hammer of the Thunder-God may once have been the blacksmith's hammer used to forge the ancient swords. It has been suggested that this rune represents the White Horse Stone (Inga-Stone) which is near Aylesford in Kent. This is in fact a complex rune which is a bind-rune of various other runes, but this would be too complex to deal with here.
Gar - This rune is the first and the last and is outside the Four Aettir (4 rows of 8 runes); this is the Spear of Woden (Gift of Ing) which represents the Cosmic Axis and the Immovable Centre again. This is a bind-rune of the Gifu-Rune (Gift) and the Ing-Rune (of Ing) and is also the crossed spears upon the English Symbol. Here the "X" marks the spot - England. This also represents the Spear of Destiny.
These last 9 Runes (9 being a Sacred Number of the North) were added to the Common Germanic Futhark; there are 29 rune-poems in the Old English Rune Poems, the last 4 runes being left out. This is simply because they are transcendent runes and the key to the rest of these nine runes. The Ear-Rune represents the Dying God (Hanged God) whilst the Cweorth-Rune represents the Avenging Son that takes his place at the start of the Age of Ing.
For more information on the Ancient Runes look up the Ar-Kan Rune-Lag system devised by the Wulfinga Gemoot of the Hearth of Heruli in the South Saxon Mark.
English Religion
The English are a specific Racial Group whose origins lie within the Germanic Race which itself is part of the White Race. As such they need a unique religion suited to their origins and their destiny upon Earth. This religion is Wodenism. The term religion means "to bind" and it is this meaning we need to take up in order to bind the English together as a Folk-Community. The English need a religion suited to their racial make-up, one which will bind them together to fulfill their destiny upon Earth. No political change will regenerate the English, nor revival of culture, tradition and heritage without some form of binding force - i.e. a religion.
Woden's Folk promotes the ancient religion of Wodenism, but in a new form suited to this era in our history. This era is one of decay and disintegration, and one in which the world is in a state of chaos. No matter how much we try to hold on to what is gone, the forces of disintegration will prove more powerful at this time. But things are changing, and a new era is dawning. The only way to oppose these forces of disintegration is to go against the flow of time, which is downwards towards decay and death! We have to build a movement of regeneration within the falling world in which we live today - the seeds of a New Order upon Earth.
What we need to start with is to understand that the English are a kind of being that exists with its own particular Race-Soul; this is part of the Race-Soul of the Germanic Race. The English are an integral part of a whole. It is thus futile to break ourselves from our Germanic Roots, no matter what two devastating world wars have done to cause a great split with our own kinfolk. These two world wars, caused by forces seeking the total destruction of our Folk-Group, have caused the English to deny their true roots - a form of "guilt" imposed upon us like the "Original Sin" of Judaeo-Christianity. This type of guilt complex causes a distortion in the Folk-Soul, and thus the decay of a people.
The prime religions of today are inorganic, for they are "international" or "global" in their form, and they have no links to the origins of any one Folk-Group. Religions we shall term organic - such as Odinism, Wotanism, Wodenism, Shintoism etc. arise from the origins and the essence of a particular people. They grow from within a people, and are not imposed upon that people, as are the "global" religions. Organic religions do not "convert" nor "preach", for they are within the particular group from which the religion arises. Wodenism must be looked at in this light. It is the Ur-Religion of the English and the only religion that is right for this particular Racial Group. This is why we do not "convert", nor do we "preach". Those who come to us do so because they feel the Call of the Blood.
Wodenism is an English Religion for the English Folk; but it is part of the world-wide struggle for the freedom of the Northern Folk, and for the freedom of the world from the Dark Forces that control the world today. Nature is unity in diversity, but a mighty force today wills the destruction of this diversity and to impose a global uniformity upon the Earth which is contrary to Natural Law and Cosmic Law. This is why Woden's Folk will co-operate with all peoples aroud the world who seek to break free from this world domination by the Dark Forces. We seek to rebuild the most ancient religion of the English in order to fulfill the English Destiny, but we recognise the world-wide struggle that our Folk has taken up, and that the future lies with co-operation between all peoples who uphold the Eternal Laws of Nature and Cosmic Law.
Mysteries of Woden 
The Hooded Man - Mysteries of the Hooded Man as "The Fool" and the Last Avatara  and Folk-Hero of England. Incarnation of Thor, Parsifal, Perseus, Peredur - the Pure Fool (Der Rhein Thor).
The White Dragon of England  - The supreme symbol of the English Nation and the Saxon Nation. Revived by Woden's Folk. This is the symbol of the spiritual Revolution - the English Revolution.
The Helgi Mysteries - Helgi Thrice-Born, the Wulfinga Hero. Helgi is here equated with Kalki Avatara (Hinduism) who is the last incarnation of Vishnu (Woden) in the cycle of the ages.
Three Crowns of Anglia - The Three Royal Lines of East Anglia - the Wolsungas, Wulfingas and Heardingas.
The Sword of Hengest - The Sword of Attila (the Hun) who Wyrd is passed to Hengest as the new "World Ruler" (Emperium) as stated in the Beowulf Saga.
Guardian-Goddess of England - "Britannia" is the Guardian-Goddess of England, seen in a dream by a Viking Invader. She is the "Wif-Earn" (Eagle-Woman - Wyvern) who symbol is the White Dragon.
The Secrets of the Stars - The Solar Eclipse of August 11th 1999 with the meteor shower in the Constellation of Perseus ("The Fool") and the Ing-Rune alignment (Circle-Cross) with Venus (The Virgin) in Leo the Lion, prophesied in the Eddas and foretelling the coming of the Hooded Man and the birth of the Age of Aquarius. Nine months later (May 4th 2000) came a seven star alignment in Taurus the Bull (or Aries the Ram using the Sidereal Zodiac) which herald the "birth" of the Avatara-Force. May 2001 saw yet another important star-alignment, and the cattle-slaughter of the "Foot and Month" epidemic here in England was linked to these signs in the sky. Put together these herald the Coming of the Hooded Man.
The Grail Mysteries - The true meaning of the Holy Grail (Sang Real) with the christian dogma removed; through an understanding of the Grail Mysteries we can understand what is happening in England today, and see how things are changing and moving towards an English Awakening.
The Divine Twins - Hengest and Horsa, Romulus and Remus, Attila and Bleda - the meaning of the Horse Twins and the relevance to our struggle for freedom in England. Creation-Destruction in terms of Empire.
The Wulfinga Mysteries - The Ur-Tribes of the Wolf. The Wuffinga Royal Dynasty of East Anglia. The Sceptre of the Divine Emperor and the Wulfinga Line descended from Caesar.
These and many more mysteries form the foundation of the Cult of Woden at an esotric level. Work is continuously being done to update these Woden Mysteries, and more are coming to light as this research goes on. There is plenty of interest here for those who seek knowledge of the Ancient Mysteries and those interested in esotericism and hidden lore. The also form part of the Woden Mystery Religion and Magico-Mysterical work within the Cult of Woden. The meaning of the "Signs of the times" are vital to an understanding of what is happening today, and of how to look for signs of change in an Age of Darkness and Ignorance. As the stars unfold, so does the history of our folk.