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Mysticism and Personal Practice

In Heathen and Norse Pagan practice there is an ongoing debate over the role of mysticism, folk magic and other similar practices in modern spirituality. The revival of the arts of seiðr and runic mysticism have gained a lot of momentum in the wake of the modern resurgence of Norse Paganism. For some these occult arts are a vital part of their understanding of spirituality. They provide a doorway to the Powers and greater understanding of the world around them. For others their use undermines the authenticity, seriousness and gravitas of the broader movement. One of the best discussions of these dynamics, along with a strong argument for using these mystical practices, is Dara Grey’s recent essay available on academia.edu titled, “Wiccatru, Folk Magic and Neo-Shamanism: Reconstructing the historical roots of magic and mysticism in Nordic pagan traditions”. The questions that will be discussed here are those of authenticity and guidance for how to best handle mystical practice regardless of if you incorporate it into your personal spirituality.

The best place to start in this discussion is history, the wellspring for all forms of Norse Paganism and Heathenry. There is little debate in the ancient days that runic magic, seership and other forms of folk magic were practiced by many members of society. Probably the most famous example are the well-documented völur, also known as völva when presenting as women or vitki when presenting as men, who were said to be versed in the arts of seiðr. They were reported, in many sources, to see visions of the future, interpret omens, speak to the dead and perform acts of sorcery. The völur were frequently consulted for guidance and assistance. Their works were also not uniquely the province of a specific group of individuals but could be done by others as shown by Thorgeir the Lawspeaker “going under the cloak” to seek a solution to the challenge of Christian missionary activities in Iceland. There is also evidence in the sagas of multiple individuals, including great heroes, using runes for magical workings and runic divination is a common practice in the present day.

Unfortunately, even though we know these practices existed, there isn’t much in the way of documentation or description of how such actions were performed or their metaphysics. Yet despite this limited information one consistent factor among the ancient practitioners is they seem to have employed some form of altered state of consciousness, also known as a trance or ecstatic state, as part of their workings. This piece of information is incredibly valuable for the modern spiritual seeker thanks to recent breakthroughs in the young yet growing field of neurotheology, the science of studying what happens to the brain during religious and mystical rituals. This research, pioneered by Andrew Newberg, has uncovered rather surprising results.

Newberg’s research, which was based on neural scans performed on Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns engaging in meditation and prayer, found the brain responds to such practices in unconventional and unexpected ways. Subjects who were engaging in meditative practices during these tests registered brain patterns showing a shift away from the parietal lobes, the regions of the brain responsible for tracking objects in three-dimensional space, a response which the subjects described as feeling one with the world around them. Chants and prayer saw increased activity in areas of the brain associated with regulating behavior and directing attention. Participants engaging in mediumship, channelling and other forms of possessory work saw the thalamus, the region of the brain responsible for processing information, increase while activity in the sensory lobes drop suggesting they were receiving something from an unconventional source. Subjects who felt moments of profound religious ecstasy registered increased activity in the same parts of the brain association with sexual arousal.

To be clear none of this research proved the existence of any specific entity, Power or divinity. What it does, however, show is such practices are certainly doing something that is engaging the brain and human consciousness is ways that are outside of the ordinary. Such experiences, according to Newberg’s research, were accompanied by flashes of insight, understanding and intuition in the participants. This strongly suggests that people who engage in mystical practices, regardless of their specific form of spirituality or religion, are experiencing reality in a different way than is normally the case and their experiences are providing them some sort of guidance for their daily lives.

Between the historical evidence, research on modern adaptations of these practices and the scientific research into brain activities during these periods there is little doubt that mystical practice can be rewarding for those who engage in it. This is not to say that such practices are a required or necessary part of modern Norse Paganism or Heathenry yet it does show there is a place for such mysticism for those who feel it has value for them. Whether or not you pursue such mysticism is, ultimately, a personal matter. Just as you have the right to engage in or refrain from seiðr or the more occult aspects of the runes you should also respect other people’s choices to pursue these paths.

The question of the validity of mystical practice and whether to incorporate it in your spiritual work is far from the only one that must be wrestled with. Mysticism carries with it more than just personal insights and spiritually fulfilling experiences. It also poses challenges to how we understand reality, the potential social power mystical workers can wield, the harm they can do and what these mean for all practitioners. These are problems that must be confronted regardless of your take on incorporating mysticism into your spirituality since they could directly impact your life regardless of the particulars of your personal practice.

When it comes to knowledge, reality and mysticism there are many potential pitfalls to be aware of. Mystical insights, while at times profound and potentially earth-shattering, are filtered through the pra0ctitioner’s understanding and experiences just like any other information is. This is further complicated by the vast gulf in capacity between humans and the Powers. Personal biases, assumptions and desires play as much of a role in interpretation as mystical prowess. All these factors pose serious problems for using mystical insights regardless of their source.

The best answer to these problems is to consistently apply critical thinking. Mystical knowledge is, at the end of the day, another form of information that must be processed using the same skills that apply to any other source. Any assertions or discoveries should be checked against available sources and extraordinary claims must be supported by additional, extraordinary evidence. This, of course, depends on the nature of the insight and its significance. There is a world of difference in impact between a seiðworker claiming Loki’s favorite color is purple and depending solely on runic divination for guidance on your mental health. When in doubt seek a second opinion that ideally should come from a different source. The same is true of any magical workings. If, for example, you cast a bindrune for getting a meaningful job it won’t do very much if you don’t actively seek work.

On the flip side of the coin from critical analysis is the question of power. Mystics of all kinds in the ancient world wielded enormous social power in their communities and the same is true, to an extent, in modern Norse Paganism. There are some consistent warning signs to watch for when it comes to mystical abuse of power. If a person is claiming their skills grant them special authority over others, such as claiming they are the chosen voice of a certain Power, you should correct them if possible or avoid them for two reasons. The first is such claims of authority are very difficult to challenge since there is no way of consistently verifying what has been claimed. The second is anyone making such a claim is creating a foundation for power that is prone to abuse. When someone asserts they are only answerable to the Powers then anyone who is caught up in their orbit will, sooner or later, face abuse thanks to the total lack of accountability to those around them.

The same is true of people making other difficult to dispute claims such as the all too commonly invoked, “ancient family secrets” line. Such groups or individuals have the problem of usually impossible to verify claims wrapped up in a veneer of respectable, indisputable authority. One notorious example of this is the Odin Brotherhood, an organization whose founder claimed his works were the product of a surviving line of Nordic practice that was secretly passed down completely unaltered within his family for nearly a thousand years. Such claims are usually very different from people who focus on working with surviving folk practices, such as folk magic or folklore, as those who genuinely work with folklore treat their sources as another form of information and not indisputable gospel truths. People making assertions of ancient, totally authentic secrets are just as prone to abuse as those claiming to be specially chosen by the Powers thanks to the total lack of accountability that comes with their claims to unimpeachable authority.

Ultimately the question of mysticism, if it is right for you, what it means and how to approach potential abuses of it is one that will remain in constant debate as long as modern practice exists. What matters most is answering if these practices are good for you and what practices you choose to incorporate. Whether or not you find mystical work useful incorporating it into your practice always a highly personal choice that should be respected so long as the practitioner is not using their skills as a tool for gaining untouchable authority over others. Regardless of your choice the information obtained by such means should always be treated critically, just like any other source, and never used as a tool for abusing or ruling over others. Such insights are a guide for practice and must never be a scepter for lording over others.

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Give No Ground: Reclaiming Culture and Faith From the Right

The following is a guest post from an anonymous contributor and follower of this website. The views represented here are strictly their own and do not represent the views of On Black Wings.

From when I was incredibly young, I remember being told stories about the exploits of the Norse gods; of Thor’s brave conflicts with Jotuns and the children of Loki, of Odin’s silver tongued guile, of Idunn’s magical fruits that sustained the gods in Asgard, and our place on the world tree and cosmic cycle (albeit in less grandiose terms). These were bedtime stories, anecdotes and entertainment whilst going on walks and explanations when things didn’t quite make sense. I remember being given my first (and to date only) hand-made, iron Thor’s hammer pendant when I was around 4-5 years old by my father and loving it to bits as something both from him, and incredibly nerdy, cool and badass. We were a very poor family at that point, barely being able to afford food at times, so in hindsight this must have been a hard bought and meaningful gift. I remember running around my nursery playground showing it off, and mischievously demonstrating its power by using it to scrape away mortar from between the bricks that made up the school building, hoping to pry one free. The hammer I still wear daily bears these marks and is easily the one thing I have owned longest. It did, and still does, bring me great joy and a sense of connection with my family, my own past and a sense of strength going into an often difficult and dangerous world.

Unfortunately, the Norse paganism I grew up with also came intertwined with a toxic melange of white supremacy, sexism, homophobia and, essentially, outright fascist politics. My father, modelling himself as a “benign” despot, ruled our household with an unwavering iron fist; hammer pendants and tales of Norse sagas were for only for the men of the house, my father, younger brother and I. My younger sister and mother were actively discouraged from taking an interest, and at best were considered unimportant when it came to this male-centric spirituality. Any kind of spiritual practice that interested them was discounted as childish, silly or “women’s things”. Worse yet, phrases like “Hitler was a great and misunderstood man”, “we should round the Muslims up and bomb them” were commonplace, as were the standard fascist tropes of “the great replacement ” of “ethnic northern Europeans” by ethnic minorities under the oversight of a Jewish cabal, as well as that “Jewry” had somehow impoverished the German people after the first world war through pawn shops and predatory lending, and that the holocaust was an entirely justified form of righteous retribution against an oppressor of the German people. The fact that many of these Jews were themselves German never factored in. I never questioned these beliefs whilst I was young, because frankly I didn’t know any different.

My father, and by extension family, passively supported the BNP (British National Party) in Britain and the NPD (Die Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) in Germany. I grew up with these belief systems, Norse-paganism and fascism, being inextricably intertwined and the consequent valorisation of violence and ethnic supremacy having justification in pagan spirituality and the Norse history associated with it. In this fascist mindset, the sagas are tales of heroic white men defending “their” women and lands from dangerous, deviant, unknown outsiders. Jotuns, trolls and the children of Loki became metaphors for the ethnic other threatening the established (and positively charged) white supremacist, patriarchal order. Keeping “our” lands safe from “them” was an obvious truth reflected both in lived experience and spiritual practice. Women, in both the tales and in my household, were secondary, precious things to be protected and ruled, not people with agency, lives and spiritual and political worth of their own.

After leaving home and making a radical break with my fascist upbringing to embrace Anarchist Communism, I rejected and left behind Norse Paganism as a guilty accomplice to the violent bigotry I had experienced first hand. I was angry that such a dictatorial and destructive philosophy had ruined all the stories and history I’d come to value so much and felt like a part of myself had been lost never to be recovered. Without a strong connection to family and past, I felt somewhat adrift and threw myself into direct action politics and the upsurge in radical left organising. I accepted at face value that fascism and neo-Nazism had an unchallenged ownership over the history and spirituality I had grown up with and that rejecting and fighting bigotry must necessarily involve fighting their spiritual underpinnings. I was ashamed I owned a Thor’s hammer and was sure (probably at least partially rightly) that people in my new political scene probably wouldn’t understand or sympathise with where I’d come from. I didn’t know anyone else who’d grown up in such a right-wing environment and felt very alone in my experience of political and spiritual transition.

It was an understandable simplification to make, that Norse Paganism “belongs” to the right and unfortunately fascists and Neo-Nazis have done a remarkably good job of infiltrating and usurping various neo-pagan scenes, whose unwillingness or inability to articulate explicitly antifascist politics leaves them vulnerable to being used as recruiting grounds. This represents a part of the shift in focus on the far right from politics, to culture as the primary arena of struggle. Similarly, the “Fascist Creep”, the insidious drift towards the far right and their takeover of previously neutral spaces, can be found alive and well in many other subcultures, especially the metal scene for example. I wasn’t entirely wrong in lumping together the brand of neo-paganism I grew up with, with fascist politics, the two were pretty closely tied, but my rejection missed out some key facts and strategic ideas.

Firstly, while that particular brand of Norse Paganism, the one which valorises violence for it’s own sake and focuses on the exploits of strong men to the exclusion of all else, is largely tarnished by white supremacy, it’s far from the only vision of what Norse Paganism is, or can be. Religion and spirituality, like any social space, is open to being contested. Much of the fascist fixation with Norse-paganism rests on their fetish for a distorted version of the societies that would have practised it in pre-Christian northern Europe. Whoever, there’s a fantastic point to be made that the kinds of ethnically homogeneous northern European culture and religion that fascists base their Viking fetish on never really existed.

I won’t go into that particular point in depth, as there’s a tonne of academic work in this field, but to summarise; Scandinavian “dark age” society was incredibly diverse and definitely would not have recognised any kind of “European” or “white” shared identity between a diverse set of ethnic and linguistic groups. What’s more many were well travelled and societies were often connected by trade over vast distances to massively different cultural groups in the middle east and the Russian steppe for example.

Furthermore, Norse society was very open to incorporating “external” beliefs and social practices into their own, as well as incorporating (albeit limited) democratic social structures, female enfranchisement and a less hostile environment to various contemporary non normative gender identities and sexualities. Further, this is all reflected in more progressive and radical readings of what few texts we have left, such as the Prose and Poetic Eddas. There’s also a fantastic point to be made, that the fascist obsession of recreating a fictionalised and idealised past had little do with what actual Norse-pagan practice should be concerned with now. Spirituality should reflect the lives and needs of those practising it, not seek to conform to the exact blueprint of a long-gone age.

The myth of the proudly independent, white, northern European, heterosexual warrior elite separate from the world, which suddenly popped into global renown at the start of the Viking age with the raiding of Lindisfarne in 793AD is exactly that; a myth, a fairytale, a fantasy. What’s more, it’s one that reflects the fascist world view back at itself, as an almost self-justifying truth – they argue that that’s how “Viking” society was because that’s how society IS and must be to survive, and the evidence be damned. Norse-paganism as espoused by fascists relies in on historical reconstruction of a bygone era and its belief system. So when they blatantly ignore historical evidence, this provides us an angle of attack on the far right trying to claim cultural ground. By removing the basis of this sham spirituality, we can show that the Norse Paganism of these fascists is merely window dressing to their shabby politics and by exposing and demolishing their fictional history, we can drive a wedge between them and spiritual practices that they are attempting to hijack.

Secondly, whilst it’s important to be careful we don’t slip into the tropes and ways of thinking the right try to creep into the political mainstream, it’s also important to remember that the fight against the far right is a strategic, as well as a moral one. Ceding ground to the right, whether that’s the metal scene, Neo-Paganism, or even the furry fandom, gives them just what they want; uncontested, free, sympathetic ground in which to recruit and build support for their movement. Why should they be allowed to have metal? Who said Norse Paganism belongs to them? Fuck letting the far right have absolutely anything nice or anywhere to feel safe or at home. We need to kick them out of every scene they try to crop up in and, unfortunately, refusal to do that in the past has resulted in that being a somewhat uphill struggle in some cultural spaces at present. Metal and Norse-paganism are now heaving with the far right (and vice versa) largely because the left have historically abdicated its responsibility to out organising them in these spaces. If we are not talking to people in these scenes, make no mistake, the right will be.

Mistakes of the past aside, our job now is to bring our politics into these spaces and make them hostile to the right, something which is encouragingly already happening. If radical liberation and left politics are to win (and we should always be trying to win), we can’t keep barricading ourselves behind comfortable and familiar cultural boundaries; our politics can’t be just restricted to punk, hip hop, atheism, wearing black and squatting (not to oversimplify the diversity on the left, but still). None of these spaces are an issue in themselves, but we have to go above and beyond them, culturally and politically, to bring the fight to the right. The left needs to be in Norse Paganism, it needs to be in metal, in the fantasy genre, in boxing gyms, in gaming, in all the spaces we’ve previously conceded without much of a fight. That’s not to say we should uncritically engage with their less desirable qualities, like being very macho and male dominated, but we need to create alternatives to and within these spaces.

Lastly, even outside of reclaiming Norse Paganism as some kind of target with strategic value in antifascist struggles (which it is, but not just), it’s worth reclaiming because it can, should and *must* belong to everyone. Radical left and liberation politics are about shared ownership and collective power if they are about anything at all and we can and must apply that not only to politics, but to culture, religion and spirituality too. Norse Paganism is a part of many people’s history and present, whatever their background, and we need to create space for that to form a part of people’s spirituality and spiritual practice if that makes sense to them. The world and contemporary society is, quite frankly, a bit of a nightmare to traverse as I’m sure we can all agree. Having the spiritual tools and ways of understanding the world that Norse Paganism can provide as an unrestricted and inclusive option for more people can only be a good thing.

Although I’ve focussed very heavily on the political dimension to Norse Paganism, the spiritual dimension is no less important. Exerting control and agency over our own spirituality and spiritual practices as both individuals and communities is a vital part of a human experience that is empowered and liberated from doctrines and canons imposed from on high, whichever institution or group they come from, secular or otherwise. One of the fantastic aspects of Norse Paganism that appeals to this notion, is that there is no central authority, no established canon and no overriding, logically codified way of understanding or engaging with it. Sure, there are core elements that are important to recognise, but Norse Paganism is primarily a spiritual practice made by and for its adherents, not some elite of one stripe or another.

For me, coming to the realisation that opposing fascism doesn’t have to mean throwing the baby out with the bath water has meant embracing that my spiritual beliefs and practice are mine to shape regardless of what fascists or others might have to say about the topic. That’s an incredibly empowering prospect, and reclaiming spiritual beliefs I had thought lost or taboo to me has been both rewarding and nourishing. As of last year, I wear my hammer again, the shrine in my home has Óðinn at its head, I celebrate important seasonal events with my friends and comrades, and I’ve started focussing more on the things that matter to me on a spiritual and not just political level. I feel strongly like I’ve regained a core part of myself, my past and the way I relate to the people and world around me, and I feel better and stronger for it. What’s more, I’m determined to make this a part of not only my personal and spiritual life, but also my political one. When I smash fascists now, it’ll be as a Pagan!

There’s an unfortunate tendency, not exclusive to, but prevalent on the libertarian left, to reject or dismiss wholesale things that are murky, messy or difficult to engage with. I strongly suspect this is particularly the case with Norse Paganism, which hasn’t received nearly as much attention on the spiritual sections of the left as other brands of Neo-Paganism with less of a jarring association. However, if we want to take back hold of the things worth reclaiming, we are going to have to realise sooner or later that our hands are very likely to end up dirty in the process and that we’ll be fighting on unfamiliar ground. If there’s one thing that Norse Paganism teaches, it’s that the world is a complicated place, fraught with contradictions, tensions and unknowns, and that navigating it is a tricky business even at the best of times. Who wouldn’t want some help along the way, even if it might come from unexpected places?

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Tearing Off the Mask: Revealing the Gulf Between Fascist Spirituality and Pagan Practice

The presence of white nationalist and fascist groups in modern Pagan, Norse Pagan and Heathen communities is a serious challenge. Their constant claims of being a part of this broader movement and assertions of common ground have seriously muddied what should be otherwise crystal clear waters. At the heart of their arguments are constant claims that, regardless of political disagreements, they still honor the same Powers as other Norse Pagans and Heathens. Yet when one digs deeper into the historical sources used as inspiration in the Way of Fire & Ice, most Norse Pagans and Heathens along with the generally accepted practices in Paganism it becomes clear their ideas have almost nothing in common with what much of the modern movement follows.

For some this may seem like a rather esoteric concern. Debating the nature of the Powers and what this means may sound more like a purely academic matter than something that impacts the way people live, how they view the world and face the challenges of life. Nothing could be further from the truth especially when it comes to drawing a line between the fascist creep in our community and everything else. Viewing the Powers as autonomous beings with independent capabilities, wisdom and their own agency leads to viewing the world through a very different set of core assumptions than the fascist, neo-Volkisch view that enshrines blood above everything else.

The best place to start is with what the generally accepted views in Paganism, Norse Paganism and Heathenry are of the Gods, spirits of place and the dead. Generally speaking all of these groups are polytheistic. This means there are many Powers, ranging from the humblest spirit and deceased ancestor to the mightiest Gods, instead of just one all-powerful deity. These Powers have their own unique goals, associations, stories and agency. They are complicated beings who have their good aspects, mistakes and their own fair share of bad deeds. Regardless of the specifics they are independent from humanity and without exception existed before we did.

What follows from these core ideas is pretty straightforward. When Powers are independent entities with their own goals and means to pursue them practitioners need to work with them on a basis of building a respectful, equitable relationship. Working in such relationships reinforces the need to do the same with other people and ideas within your life, showing that life is something you live in conjunction with everything in the world around you. Their external, autonomous nature also means they offer a unique perspective that isn’t filtered through the realities of human existence. Sometimes this means their wisdom may be a bit confusing or difficult to understand but it also means they offer a fresh perspective.

Fascist theology, as much as it can be described as that, is even more distant and opposing to any form of polytheism than monotheism, pantheism or atheism. Regardless of which sources you point to, ranging from Stephen McNallen’s metagenetics to the Odinic Rite and David Lane’s Wotanism who also came up with the Fourteen Words, all neo-Volkisch, white nationalist and fascist forms of stolen spirituality draw their ideas from the writings of Carl Jung’s notorious 1936 essay “Wotan.” In this essay Jung, drawing on his broader theories on archetypes, claimed that Adolf Hitler’s rise was because Hitler had successfully awakened the archetype of the God Wotan in the collective blood-borne unconscious of the people of Germany. He claimed this awakening was turning Germany towards transformation and strife that was driven by hereditarily encoded imperatives they were powerless to resist.

In the hands of McNallen, Lane and others this idea has been taken to even further places from the polytheism of the ancient and modern practice. According to them the Gods are merely blood-based reflections of an ancient culture and nothing more. They have no existence outside of the psyches and tissues of the people they are allegedly associated with, an idea that has absolutely no basis anywhere in the ancient lore. The best expression of this is in the Asatru Folk Assembly’s Declaration of Purpose which states, in their second point, the demise of people they define very loosely and incoherently as “ethnically European” would lead to the demise of the Gods they claim to revere, leaving the prospect of “race war” looming foully yet unstated in the shadows. For fascists the Gods are mere playthings of their warped egos used to validate their darkest desires with only the barest of lip service paid to their passions and guidance.

There is little doubt these ideas are intrinsically at odds at every level. You cannot claim the Gods are only archetypal reflections of some sort of genetically mandated commandment while also citing the very sagas, like the Voluspo, which clearly show them as cosmic beings who created humanity free of decrees and gave us minds, life and breath to find our own way in the world to validate hatred. For those who follow the polytheistic norm practices by most Pagans stating the Gods only exist because of us and will cease to be without us is both at odds with what is in the lore and actively lessens their true potential. On the personal and moral level it encourages people to live in selfish arrogance, viewing the world around them in terms of what it can do for them instead of on its own terms. Such folly has been proven the swiftest path to destruction multiple times in history and most painfully in the present by a world that is dying thanks to the fruits of heedless greed. In reducing the Powers they diminish themselves and anyone they lure into following their twisted ideology.

Theologically and morally this makes the fascists who call themselves Pagans nothing more than shameless thieves. That said we can’t simply dismiss the problem they pose by saying, “they aren’t real Pagans or Heathens!” Their wholesale seizure of the lore, icons and Powers we revere is meant to camouflage their true intentions from broader society and unwary seekers they prey on for recruits, funds and as fodder for their hideous crusade. What makes this worse is some spaces, though not as many as there once were, openly welcome them and treat them the same as any other Pagan or Heathen even though what they practice is worlds removed from what the rest of the community does.

What this shows is there is no reason for anyone who honors the Powers to give any sort of space to these hate-filled bullies. They harm the innocent, attack any who dare oppose their cruelty and in their heartless march to domination trample on the very things they claim to be fighting for. For fascists the Powers of Norse Paganism are convenient tokens for justifying their actions and hiding their true intentions. There is no space in their ideology for compassion and no fascist should be given hospitality or safe haven in our communities unless they have conclusively, unquestionably and totally renounced their former affiliations while also making a genuine effort to heal the harm of their actions and former associates.