Saturday, February 16, 2008

Raidho Rune

Raidho Rune Cover Raidho is the Rune of travelling. In the days of yore it was used as a lucky charm for the journeys of the living and the dead, and it was also connected to Thor. The Nordic word “raid” means a vehicle with wheels (like a cart), but also thunder. As we know, Thor made thunders by travelling in his chariot across the sky, like the Slavic God Dazhbog. This is the Rune of cyclic journeying, whether it's the Sun's journey across the sky, or the journey of man into himself. As an internal journey Raidho represents the next level of psychological development coming after Ansuz, a level in which a person only starts to know the world and him or herself, in which one shows the will for further learning and advancement. So, Raidho can signify a journey or a change in any shape or direction. It can be the change of understanding or an expansion of consciousness, as well as a journey in the physical world. Since Raidho is connected to movement, change and progress of all kinds, this Rune can be used to enable progress and making easier the circumstances that cause change.

Divination:

Positive meaning: journey, evolution, establishing life's rhythm, possible journey.

Negative meaning: crisis, stagnation, disrupting life's rhythm, danger on the journey.

Recommended reading (pdf e-books):

Marian Green - A Witch Alone
Karl Hans Welz - Armanen Runes
Samael Aun Weor - Magic Runes

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Gods Of The Blood The Pagan Revival And White Separatism

Gods Of The Blood The Pagan Revival And White Separatism Cover

Book: Gods Of The Blood The Pagan Revival And White Separatism by Mattias Gardell

Nazi skinheads and other groups proclaiming white supremacy represent a disturbing and frightening challenge to those advocating toleration and equality for all races. Historian of religion Gardell (In the Name of Elijah Muhammad) draws on interviews with white supremacist leaders to provide a startling and revealing view of many of these groups and their religious motivations. He contends that the increasing multiculturalism in the United States has led these groups to seek a racial purity that can be found only in pagan cultures. According to Gardell, individuals in these groups become religious racists when they claim that the Divine created the elements of an ancient, pure race. Gardell shows that pagan Nordic culture provides white supremacists with a model of legendary times in which the Aryan race was uncontaminated by the evils of modern global society. Thus, groups such as Wodan's Kindred, the Odinist Fellowship and the Church of Jesus Christ, Christian/Aryan Nations, see themselves as heroes whose task is to restore the lost purity of this bygone era. Gardell argues that members of these groups cannot be dismissed as hopeless dreamers; he calls them "romantic men armed with guns and determination" who have been throughout history a "dangerous species." Although Gardell's academic tone and sometimes torturous prose make for slow reading, his well-researched book offers never-before-seen glimpses of the visions and goals of racist pagans.

Mattias Gardell, a swedish religious historian proffesseur at Uppsala University writes in this book about his meetings with the american rightwing odinist communities. Since many rewievers here discusses Mattias Gardell as if he wasn't asatruar/heathen himself I would like to point out that he is. There seems to be a big difference in the american and scandinavian asatruar communities since in USA there is a significant part of that community that has some race ideologies.

I've read the book in swedish, and I couldn't put it down when I started reading. It is not a dry academic language but a flowing and exciting story. It is also a good Description of what you as a scandinavian pagan will bump in to when you surf the web for asatruar in US, as I have. When I started getting more involved in the pagan communities it was in the asatruar part. The american litterature and the people online came from such a different viewpoint that I really couldn't take it serious at first. With this book the ideologies behind their take on Sed/Asatru will be put in it's right context.

The book is also a good read for anyone interested in what racism can be.

Buy Mattias Gardell's book: Gods Of The Blood The Pagan Revival And White Separatism

Free eBooks (Can Be Downloaded):

June Johns - King Of The Witches The World Of Alex Sanders
The Troth - Gods Of The Heaten Way A Brief Guide
Basil Crouch - The Darkside Of The Moon A Complete Course In Magic And Witchcraft
Helene Adeline Guerber - Myths Of The Norsemen From The Eddas And Sagas

Thursday, February 7, 2008

The Delusion Of Gods And Goddesses

The Delusion Of Gods And Goddesses Cover "The Gods and Goddesses have sex with all sorts of beings - dwarves, giants, and the like. This is more evidence that discrimination, particularly in the realm of relationships, sex, and marriage, has no basis in Norse culture!"

The stories of our Gods and goddesses are written down in the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. The Eddas are valuable resources, but they are symbolic, not historical. Their contents were subject to all sorts of factors that affect the way we use them religiously - human
Interpretation and bias being the main ones!

Nothing in our lore suggests that the Eddas are meant to be taken literally, and to do so puts us in the same category as those fundamentalist Christians who take the Bible, word for word, as the exact and infallible word of their God. To take the tales of our Gods and Goddesses as lessons urging us to mate outside our kind (or outside our species!) is as wrong as the Christian who argues that the Genesis creation story should be taken as scientific truth. Myth is bigger than that.

Books in PDF format to read:

Phil Hine - Devotions And Demonesses
Irv Slauson - The Religion Of Odin
Michael Jordan - Dictionary Of Gods And Goddesses

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Feminist Spirituality

Feminist Spirituality Image
Last Sunday at the Unitarian-Universalist fellowship in Beckley, the presenter talked about earth-based religions. In the discussion that followed, someone suggested that "earth-based" was not necessarily a good label or an accurate one for Wicca and for other self-styled pagan or alternative groups.

We know now that pagan comes from the label in Latin for a division--a political ward or a district--of Rome. Thus we can say that, in the loosest sense, pagan does indeed equate to land. The question is, though, whether the spirituality of the Community's current religious revival is genuinely earth-based. Yes, of course you'll find many groups who are ecologically aware, doing all those good things that help conserve the planet; but are they earth-based?

When you look at the spiritual side of their belief system, you will find that most of them have quite advanced ideas about God/Goddess and about Self and the First Cause.

The more the physicists try to explain the purported Big Bang and the time before its purported occurrence, the more inextricably they tangle themselves in their own underwear.

If E = Mc2, then energy is everything; the solid wall you look at isn't really solid; it is just a bunch of energy units that seems to us to be solid. If energy is everything, then perhaps we can equate it to God/Goddess... or perhaps not.

"Earth-based" certainly does not fully describe our spirituality. Sure, we're eco-conscious; but we're also spiritual-conscious and conscious of the movement of the planets and stars in our universe. They're a good excuse for pleasant get-togethers. But there's more.

So what the Community needs is a new descriptor for our spiritual path or religion.

How about some suggestions?



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