“Today, the term 'weird' means something strange, bizarre or supernatural. But in its archaic and original sense, it meant that aspect of life which was so deep, so all pervasive and so central to our understanding of ourselves and our world that it was inexpressible. Wyrd refers to our personal destiny. It connects us to all things, thoughts, emotions, events in the cosmos as if through the threads of an enormous, invisible but dynamic web. Today, through a deep connection with wyrd, we are inspired to see our lives in a new and empowering way. It restores our experience of the healing power of love, nature and creativity. It is about letting into our lives the guidance of an extended universe of spirit.”
― Brian Bates, The Way of Wyrd
Image: The Norns by Alois Delug
― Brian Bates, The Way of Wyrd
Image: The Norns by Alois Delug
The Gnostic understanding of the Sun
Within The Apocryphon of John, the Sun is called by a name from the Mystery Schools: Sabaoth, pronounced SAH-buy-ot. The Gnostic cosmological treatises describe how, early in the evolution of the solar system, the Sun-star becomes aligned in a special way with the emergent Earth. In the idiom of the myth, this event is called the conversion of Sabaoth. This occurs in a three-way interaction between the Aeon Sophia, Yaldabaoth, and Sabaoth.
As the scaffolding of the planetary system arises, a newborn star emerges from the nebula where the Anthropos is embedded. Owing to its superior mass, the star causes the emergent planetary system to cohere around it. It becomes the central sun of the Archontic heaven, a realm of celestial mechanics dominated by blind, inorganic forces. Sophia shames the Demiurge by declaring to him that the Anthropos (Child of Light), though yet unborn, surpasses the Archons in intelligence, for humanity is an emanation of the Pleroma, whereas the Archons arise outside the cosmic core, without an act of emanation. Witnessing this reprimand, and shocked by the arrogance of the Demiurge, the newborn star undergoes a conversion: it chooses to align with Sophia against the realm of Archontic forces.
“Now when Sabaoth, the son of Yaldabaoth, heard the voice of the Aeon Sophia, he sang praises to her and condemned his putative father [the chief Archon]…. He praised Sophia because she informed him of the Child of Light [the immortal man / Anthropos schema] and its radiant Power. Then the Aeon Sophia stretched out her finger and poured upon Sabaoth some of her own radiant Power, to be condemnation to Yaldabaoth. When Sabaoth was illumined in this way, he received great authority against all the Archons, the forces of chaos. Since that day he has been called “Lord of the Vital Forces.”
– On the Origin of the World 25-27, Nag Hammadi Codexes with paraphrases
This mythic cosmology asserts that the Sun stands with the Earth (the living body of the Wisdom Goddess) against the Archontic realm of the inorganic planetary system. The Sun is nurturing to life on Earth. It provides prana, vital force, in a constant stream delicately filtered by the terrestrial atmosphere, so that the lethal elements in sunlight are eliminated.
The myth tells us that the life-supporting properties of solar radiation were invested in the Sun by the Aeon Sophia, “who poured upon Sabaoth some of her own radiant Power.”
This mythological cosmology is beginning to be supported by alternative cosmology theories such as plasma cosmology and the work of the Thunderbolts Project. Scientists operating outside of the current dogmatic paradigm recognise the nature of plasmatic surges from the galactic core. Therefore it might be theoretically conceivable that such a current, engaged frontally with an emergent sun, could alter the chemistry of the nascent solar orb. Stars are continually being born in the nebular regions of the galactic limbs, but not all of them are frontally affected by a raw plasmatic surge. This appears to be the unique cosmic event described in the conversion of Sabaoth.
-Excepts with elaboration sourced from John Lamb Lash, Sophianic Cosmology.
Within The Apocryphon of John, the Sun is called by a name from the Mystery Schools: Sabaoth, pronounced SAH-buy-ot. The Gnostic cosmological treatises describe how, early in the evolution of the solar system, the Sun-star becomes aligned in a special way with the emergent Earth. In the idiom of the myth, this event is called the conversion of Sabaoth. This occurs in a three-way interaction between the Aeon Sophia, Yaldabaoth, and Sabaoth.
As the scaffolding of the planetary system arises, a newborn star emerges from the nebula where the Anthropos is embedded. Owing to its superior mass, the star causes the emergent planetary system to cohere around it. It becomes the central sun of the Archontic heaven, a realm of celestial mechanics dominated by blind, inorganic forces. Sophia shames the Demiurge by declaring to him that the Anthropos (Child of Light), though yet unborn, surpasses the Archons in intelligence, for humanity is an emanation of the Pleroma, whereas the Archons arise outside the cosmic core, without an act of emanation. Witnessing this reprimand, and shocked by the arrogance of the Demiurge, the newborn star undergoes a conversion: it chooses to align with Sophia against the realm of Archontic forces.
“Now when Sabaoth, the son of Yaldabaoth, heard the voice of the Aeon Sophia, he sang praises to her and condemned his putative father [the chief Archon]…. He praised Sophia because she informed him of the Child of Light [the immortal man / Anthropos schema] and its radiant Power. Then the Aeon Sophia stretched out her finger and poured upon Sabaoth some of her own radiant Power, to be condemnation to Yaldabaoth. When Sabaoth was illumined in this way, he received great authority against all the Archons, the forces of chaos. Since that day he has been called “Lord of the Vital Forces.”
– On the Origin of the World 25-27, Nag Hammadi Codexes with paraphrases
This mythic cosmology asserts that the Sun stands with the Earth (the living body of the Wisdom Goddess) against the Archontic realm of the inorganic planetary system. The Sun is nurturing to life on Earth. It provides prana, vital force, in a constant stream delicately filtered by the terrestrial atmosphere, so that the lethal elements in sunlight are eliminated.
The myth tells us that the life-supporting properties of solar radiation were invested in the Sun by the Aeon Sophia, “who poured upon Sabaoth some of her own radiant Power.”
This mythological cosmology is beginning to be supported by alternative cosmology theories such as plasma cosmology and the work of the Thunderbolts Project. Scientists operating outside of the current dogmatic paradigm recognise the nature of plasmatic surges from the galactic core. Therefore it might be theoretically conceivable that such a current, engaged frontally with an emergent sun, could alter the chemistry of the nascent solar orb. Stars are continually being born in the nebular regions of the galactic limbs, but not all of them are frontally affected by a raw plasmatic surge. This appears to be the unique cosmic event described in the conversion of Sabaoth.
-Excepts with elaboration sourced from John Lamb Lash, Sophianic Cosmology.
“Perhaps the single most important thing that we can do to undo the harm we have done is to fix firmly in our minds the thought: the earth is alive.”
― James Lovelock
Notes: James Lovelock was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system. The hypothesis was formulated and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Lovelock named the idea after Gaia, the primordial goddess who personified the Earth in Greek mythology.
Image: Napping Hill by Dan Craig
― James Lovelock
Notes: James Lovelock was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system. The hypothesis was formulated and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Lovelock named the idea after Gaia, the primordial goddess who personified the Earth in Greek mythology.
Image: Napping Hill by Dan Craig
“I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”
― Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast
Notes: Here we see Conan’s life-affirming rejection of the anti-cosmic ‘prison planet’ illusory Archontic deceit. The Gnostics did not teach that the world, the planet itself and the realm of the senses, is an illusion or deception. They taught that it is a deep and beautiful mystery, but we are blocked from entering the mystery in depth and in a lucid way by factors in our own minds. The Archons can insinuate their alien intelligence into our minds not through domination but through the abdication of our own consciousness. Be as Conan, live your life to its full potential.
Image: Conan the Indomitable by Kirk Reinert
― Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast
Notes: Here we see Conan’s life-affirming rejection of the anti-cosmic ‘prison planet’ illusory Archontic deceit. The Gnostics did not teach that the world, the planet itself and the realm of the senses, is an illusion or deception. They taught that it is a deep and beautiful mystery, but we are blocked from entering the mystery in depth and in a lucid way by factors in our own minds. The Archons can insinuate their alien intelligence into our minds not through domination but through the abdication of our own consciousness. Be as Conan, live your life to its full potential.
Image: Conan the Indomitable by Kirk Reinert
“Clear detection of the presence of the Supernatural is key to human sanity.”
― John Lamb Lash
Image: The Hermit by Scott Murphy
Notes: The Hermit card in Tarot is the ninth card in the major arcana. The number 9 can signify accomplishment, wisdom as well as the search for truth.
The number 9 also holds great significance within Nordic Paganism with this number intricately weaved throughout its mythology. In Nordic Pagan themed Tarot decks the Hermit is represented by Heimdall who guards the rainbow bridge Bifröst who was born to nine mothers. He is attested as possessing foreknowledge and keen senses, particularly eyesight and hearing.
Greek pagans hold 9 to be sacred because to them nine symbolised the 9 Muses or daughters of Zeus and Mnenosyne, who are believed to preside over mankind's activities on earth.
In the Mystery language, the Ninth is code for the Earth as an organic planetary body distinct from the inorganic planetary system, called the Hebdomad or the Seventh.
― John Lamb Lash
Image: The Hermit by Scott Murphy
Notes: The Hermit card in Tarot is the ninth card in the major arcana. The number 9 can signify accomplishment, wisdom as well as the search for truth.
The number 9 also holds great significance within Nordic Paganism with this number intricately weaved throughout its mythology. In Nordic Pagan themed Tarot decks the Hermit is represented by Heimdall who guards the rainbow bridge Bifröst who was born to nine mothers. He is attested as possessing foreknowledge and keen senses, particularly eyesight and hearing.
Greek pagans hold 9 to be sacred because to them nine symbolised the 9 Muses or daughters of Zeus and Mnenosyne, who are believed to preside over mankind's activities on earth.
In the Mystery language, the Ninth is code for the Earth as an organic planetary body distinct from the inorganic planetary system, called the Hebdomad or the Seventh.
“When one undertakes such a purging and uprooting of the human consciousness, when one snatches away from man the mythological and ideological illusions which justify his choices and, more often, his fantasies, it is perfectly obvious that one is exposing oneself, first of all, to every kind of misunderstanding and, still more surely, to every kind of retaliation. Idols cannot be cast down with impunity, and we can see quite clearly where the task of a contemporary Gnostic would lie: in attacking the new idols, the new Churches of our time, in short, the new faces which evil is forever putting on and which today we call ideology.”
― Jacques Lacarrière, The Gnostics
Image: Blind Obedience by Seb McKinnon
― Jacques Lacarrière, The Gnostics
Image: Blind Obedience by Seb McKinnon
"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps.”
― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
Image: Rites of Passage by Susan Seddon Boulet
― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
Image: Rites of Passage by Susan Seddon Boulet
“There is an occult concept of the “egregore,” a term derived from the Greek word for “watcher.” It is used for an immaterial entity that “watches” or presides over some earthly affair or collectivity. The important point is that an egregore is augmented by human belief, ritual, and especially by sacrifice. If it is sufficiently nourished by such energies, the egregore can take on a life of its own and appear to be an independent, personal divinity, with a limited power on behalf of its devotees and an unlimited appetite for further devotion. It is then believed to be an immortal god or goddess, an angel, or a
daemon.”
― Joscelyn Godwin, The Golden Thread
Note: It is suggested that the rise and fall of nations are intimately bound up with their relations with their gods. It is therefore prudent to acknowledge their existence, every civilisation has done so in the past and often their downfall can be associated with neglecting or abandoning their gods.
Image: Athena by Robert Auer
daemon.”
― Joscelyn Godwin, The Golden Thread
Note: It is suggested that the rise and fall of nations are intimately bound up with their relations with their gods. It is therefore prudent to acknowledge their existence, every civilisation has done so in the past and often their downfall can be associated with neglecting or abandoning their gods.
Image: Athena by Robert Auer
Forwarded from The Fyrgen • ᚫᛚᚢ:ᚢᛚᚫ
The Fyrgen Podcast - Episode 17: Working with Wyrd
▶️ Listen on Telegram here
Is 'Wyrd' simply another word for 'fate'? In this episode I explain the difference between the two, and advise on how we can use our understanding of Wyrd to create a better society and greater worth for ourselves.
Music featured: 'The Fyre-Bough' by Wolcensmen.
Visit fyrgen.com for past episodes and info on how you can support this podcast. Merchandise pre-orders have just been launched on the shop page.
Also available on Odysee.
▶️ Listen on Telegram here
Is 'Wyrd' simply another word for 'fate'? In this episode I explain the difference between the two, and advise on how we can use our understanding of Wyrd to create a better society and greater worth for ourselves.
Music featured: 'The Fyre-Bough' by Wolcensmen.
Visit fyrgen.com for past episodes and info on how you can support this podcast. Merchandise pre-orders have just been launched on the shop page.
Also available on Odysee.
“In antiquity, every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own genius loci, its guardian spirit. These spirits were accessible to men, but were very unlike men; centaurs, fauns, and mermaids show their ambivalence. Before one cut a tree, mined a mountain, or dammed a brook, it was important to placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation, and to keep it placated. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.”
―Lynn White, The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis
Image: Veda by Aleksandr Uglanov
―Lynn White, The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis
Image: Veda by Aleksandr Uglanov
“The most fundamental concept in heathenry is wyrd. It is also one of the most difficult to explain and hence one of the most often misunderstood. … The Anglo-Saxon noun wyrd is derived from a verb, weorþan, "to become", which, in turn, is derived from an Indo-European root *uert- meaning "to turn”…
Wyrd literally means "that which has turned" or "that which has become." It carries the idea of "turned into" in both the sense of becoming something new and the sense of turning back to an original starting point. In metaphysical terms, wyrd embodies the concept that everything is turning into something else while both being drawn in toward and moving out from its own origins. Thus, we can think of wyrd as a process that continually works the patterns of the past into the patterns of the present.”
― Arlea Æðelwyrd Hunt-Anschütz, What is Wyrd?
Notes: If you would like to learn more about the concept of wyrd - check out the latest Fyrgen podcast on this topic here.
Image: The Norns by Nataša Ilinčić
Wyrd literally means "that which has turned" or "that which has become." It carries the idea of "turned into" in both the sense of becoming something new and the sense of turning back to an original starting point. In metaphysical terms, wyrd embodies the concept that everything is turning into something else while both being drawn in toward and moving out from its own origins. Thus, we can think of wyrd as a process that continually works the patterns of the past into the patterns of the present.”
― Arlea Æðelwyrd Hunt-Anschütz, What is Wyrd?
Notes: If you would like to learn more about the concept of wyrd - check out the latest Fyrgen podcast on this topic here.
Image: The Norns by Nataša Ilinčić
“The hero in the Greek religious sense is a person whose virtue, influence, or personality was so powerful in his lifetime or through the peculiar circumstances of his death that his spirit after death is regarded as of supernatural power, claiming to be reverenced and propitiated.”
― Lewis Richard Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Immortality
Notes: Heroes often embody their societies’ contradictions and traumas and open the possibility of transcending them. Every heroic legend affirms human freedom in its dialectical relationship with divine power. Heroism glorifies the man who surpasses his limits, transgresses the established human rules, and sometimes even goes so far as to defy the gods.
Heroism is the affirmation of the presence of divine gifts granted to humanity, which is why the heroic paradigm is the cloth from which the great tapestry of mythology is woven. Through great action, the hero has escaped death-as-annihilation and becomes immortalised in myth.
Image: Clash Of The Titans by Bruno Napoli
― Lewis Richard Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Immortality
Notes: Heroes often embody their societies’ contradictions and traumas and open the possibility of transcending them. Every heroic legend affirms human freedom in its dialectical relationship with divine power. Heroism glorifies the man who surpasses his limits, transgresses the established human rules, and sometimes even goes so far as to defy the gods.
Heroism is the affirmation of the presence of divine gifts granted to humanity, which is why the heroic paradigm is the cloth from which the great tapestry of mythology is woven. Through great action, the hero has escaped death-as-annihilation and becomes immortalised in myth.
Image: Clash Of The Titans by Bruno Napoli
“The idea that we are ‘stewards of the earth’ is another symptom of human arrogance. Imagine yourself with the task of overseeing your body's physical processes. Do you understand the way it works well enough to keep all its systems in operation? Can you make your kidneys function? Can you control the removal of waste? Are you conscious of the blood flow through your arteries, or the fact that you are losing a hundred thousand skin cells a minute?”
― Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution
Image: Erosion by Michael Whelan
― Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution
Image: Erosion by Michael Whelan
Forwarded from The Fyrgen • ᚫᛚᚢ:ᚢᛚᚫ
Here's a good example of why I enjoy learning from teachers outside of my Germanic Heathen tradition:
In this talk, Gnostic teacher John Lamb Lash offers an incredibly compelling argument about the importance of self love. I know that sounds New Agey, but bear with me...
I've said that I believe creation is one of the greatest acts of worship; to put those talents granted by the ancestors, gods and nature to full use. In a similar way, as we are the creation of the gods and ancestors, what greater respect can we show them than to appreciate that which they have given us: our own selves.
It's not easy. In this modern world where most of us (Europeans especially) are taught to feel existential shame, it can be an uphill struggle finding a sense of pride and self-love, but it's the first major step towards collective dignity.
Illustration: ‘How They Met Themselves’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, c. 1860-64
In this talk, Gnostic teacher John Lamb Lash offers an incredibly compelling argument about the importance of self love. I know that sounds New Agey, but bear with me...
I've said that I believe creation is one of the greatest acts of worship; to put those talents granted by the ancestors, gods and nature to full use. In a similar way, as we are the creation of the gods and ancestors, what greater respect can we show them than to appreciate that which they have given us: our own selves.
It's not easy. In this modern world where most of us (Europeans especially) are taught to feel existential shame, it can be an uphill struggle finding a sense of pride and self-love, but it's the first major step towards collective dignity.
Illustration: ‘How They Met Themselves’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, c. 1860-64
“The Magician archetype in a man is his ‘bullshit detector’; it sees through denial and exercises discernment. He sees evil for what and where it is when it masquerades as goodness, as it so often does.”
― Robert L. Moore, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
Image: A Spy In Isengard by Angus Mcbride
ᛈᚩᚾᛞᛖᚱᛁᛝ ᛗᛁᚾᚾᛖ ᚩᚱᛒ
― Robert L. Moore, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
Image: A Spy In Isengard by Angus Mcbride
ᛈᚩᚾᛞᛖᚱᛁᛝ ᛗᛁᚾᚾᛖ ᚩᚱᛒ
Select Notes on Shodashi
Shodashi is the most beautiful or physically perfect of the Mahavidyas. Her other name, Sundari, means ‘beautiful’ in Sanskrit.
Goddess Shodashi is also known as Tripura Sundari. Tripura in Sanskrit means ‘three cities.’ and in this context indicates that Her power of beauty (Sundari) rules and animates the three realms of gross, subtle and sublime awareness.
She is portrayed carrying a bow (representing concentration), five arrows (the senses), a goad (aversion) and a noose (attraction).
Not to be mistaken for physical beauty, she is the beauty of pure perception when awareness finds delight and joy in perception itself. The highest beauty does not lie in any object, though it is not apart from objects. The highest beauty is of perception. This is part of the revelation of Sundari.
Use Shodashi to enhance your sense of Beauty, to enhance your innate aesthetic abilities.
Dakini Instruction: “You cannot become anything but more beautiful.”
Image: Lalita Sundari by Ekabhumi
Shodashi is the most beautiful or physically perfect of the Mahavidyas. Her other name, Sundari, means ‘beautiful’ in Sanskrit.
Goddess Shodashi is also known as Tripura Sundari. Tripura in Sanskrit means ‘three cities.’ and in this context indicates that Her power of beauty (Sundari) rules and animates the three realms of gross, subtle and sublime awareness.
She is portrayed carrying a bow (representing concentration), five arrows (the senses), a goad (aversion) and a noose (attraction).
Not to be mistaken for physical beauty, she is the beauty of pure perception when awareness finds delight and joy in perception itself. The highest beauty does not lie in any object, though it is not apart from objects. The highest beauty is of perception. This is part of the revelation of Sundari.
Use Shodashi to enhance your sense of Beauty, to enhance your innate aesthetic abilities.
Dakini Instruction: “You cannot become anything but more beautiful.”
Image: Lalita Sundari by Ekabhumi
“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society… Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual’s internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.”
―Ted Kaczyński
Image: Still from ‘In Shadow: A Modern Odyssey’ by Lubomir Arsov
Check out the short film (13 mins) here
―Ted Kaczyński
Image: Still from ‘In Shadow: A Modern Odyssey’ by Lubomir Arsov
Check out the short film (13 mins) here
Forwarded from European Heritage
"Modern man does not understand how much his "rationalism" (which has destroyed his capacity to respond to numinous symbols and ideas) has put him at the mercy of the psychic 'underworld.' He has freed himself from 'superstition' (or so he believes), but in the process he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this break-up in world-wide disorientation and dissociation." - Carl Jung