“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

“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.

“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

"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

“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

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.

“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

“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

“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

“I worship impersonal Nature, which is neither ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and who knows neither love nor hatred.”
―Savitri Devi, Pilgrimage

Image: Sacred Rebels by Autumn Skye Morrison

“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

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.”
―Phillip K Dick

Image: Phillip Dick by Nicolas Rosenfeld

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

“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

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

“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

"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

"I believe that legends and myths are largely made of ‘truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear."
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Image: Felagund among Beor’s Men by Ted Nasmith

“Their fruit is a poison without cure and their promise is a living death. And as for their design for life, their implant that falsifies the true design, I shall teach you about the mystery of their ways. It is their counterfeiting spirit (antimimon pneuma), the hoaxing power within them, that leads them astray. So they in turn lead us astray, deviating the true potential of the Anthropos (genomic template of humanity) in order that you may not know your own fullness, your infinite gift.

The tree of their design is bitterness and its branches are darkened by death. Its leaves are hatred and deception, and its aroma reeks of evil (poneria).”
—Apocryphon of John, Nag Hammadi Codex

Image: Martin-Georg Oscity

Additional commentary

Commentary on Apocryphon of John extract

The Lord Archon is referred to as the antimimon pneuma, "counterfeit spirit" multiple times within the Apocryphon of John and occurs several times in various Gnostic texts.

Antimimon pneuma—the "counterfeit spirit," imitates something but with the intention of making the copy serve a purpose counter to that of the original. The simulation, substitution or ‘archontification’ denies, perverts and reverses the values of what it has co-opted.

It is a maleficent force which tries to seduce us so as to lead us astray; it is effectively an inversion of value, transforming truth to falsehood and falsehood to truth, leading us into forgetfulness and delusion.

The psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung refers to Antimimos, which he describes as "the imitator and evil principle.” When we fall for the ruse of this snake oil salesman of the spirit, we become disoriented, losing our sense of spiritual vocation, our mission in life, and even our sense of ourselves.

Writer and poet Max Pulver has said that "the antimimon pneuma is the origin and cause of all the evils besetting the human soul." The revered Gnostic text Pistis Sophia says that the antimimon pneuma has affixed itself to humanity like an illness.

The illness of the ‘counterfeit spirit’, spreads like a virus (or at least what is commonly understood as a ‘virus’). Just as a virus cannot replicate itself the archontic plague instead uses hosts as means of replication, like a form of psychic vampirism.

The plague described and warned of within this passage from the Apocryphon of John turned into a global pandemic, that ravaged the world for roughly the past 2000 years. The archontic infection through its power of mimicry can conceal itself in a range of different ways and has undergone many mutations. In a world ravaged by such a plague, we would expect to see; education that makes you stupid, health care that makes you sick, religion that destroys spirituality, environmentalism that destroys the planet, sex that results in sterility etc.

The archontic mind virus reinforces and feeds off our unconscious blind spots, which is how it non-locally propagates itself. To the extent we are unaware of this virus of the mind, we are complicit in its propagation. The most horrifying part is that it ultimately involves the assent of our own free will, as we willingly, though often unknowingly, subscribe to a distorted vision of reality and subsequent enslaved condition. As horrific as this might sound it does however restore our agency as there is no one other than ourselves who is ultimately responsible for our situation.

The ‘counterfeit spirit’ is the greatest danger that threatens humanity and life on earth, pulling them deep into unconsciousness together, reinforcing one another's madness in such a way that they become unwittingly complicit in their own self-destruction.

“It isn't a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state's goodness and its concern for our well-being.

The real explanation is less flattering. If the government's propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They'll fasten the chains to their own ankles.”
― Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

Image: Countercurrent by Miles Johnson