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
“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
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.
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
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
“Throughout Antiquity, most civilised peoples worshipped a great goddess and generally agreed to identify her with the great goddesses worshipped under other names by other peoples. From the third millennium BCE, the Sumerians worshipped the goddess Inanna, whose name may mean “Lady of Heaven”. She was associated with the planet Venus, the morning star, whom Greeks would call light-bearer, which, very significantly, was Latinized as Lucifer. She became known to the Assyrians as Ishtar, who was herself known as Astarte in the Phoenician city-states of Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos, and identified with the other Syrian goddess Asherah. No cult was more syncretic, and all these goddesses merged under the noscript of “Queen of Heaven”. It can be argued that the worship of the great motherly Goddess fostered the sense of the universal brotherhood of men, in a way that no male divinity could do. Perhaps that is why Yahweh hated Asherah so much.”
—Laurent Guyenot
Image: Goddess of the Universe by Kinuko Y. Craft
—Laurent Guyenot
Image: Goddess of the Universe by Kinuko Y. Craft
"What a tragic world this is, he reflected. Those down here are prisoners, and the ultimate tragedy is that they don’t know it; they think they are free because they never have been free, and do not understand what it means. This is a prison, and few men have guessed. But I know, he said to himself. Because that is why I am here. To burn the walls, to tear down the metal gates, to break each chain.”
―Phillip K Dick, The Divine Invasion
Notes: While Phillip K Dick didn’t directly portray the Archons themselves he was clearly deeply concerned within his work about Archontic substitution and counter-mimicry. Within his work, he often depicts people who are the living instruments of Sophia. His VALIS trilogy merges Nag Hammadi material with concepts drawn from the Dead Sea Scrolls. In ‘The Divine Invasion’, the second in the trilogy, two children are incarnations of divine Wisdom. VALIS is required reading for anyone interested in how Gnostic ideas can fertilise the literary imagination.
Image: Kent Bellows
―Phillip K Dick, The Divine Invasion
Notes: While Phillip K Dick didn’t directly portray the Archons themselves he was clearly deeply concerned within his work about Archontic substitution and counter-mimicry. Within his work, he often depicts people who are the living instruments of Sophia. His VALIS trilogy merges Nag Hammadi material with concepts drawn from the Dead Sea Scrolls. In ‘The Divine Invasion’, the second in the trilogy, two children are incarnations of divine Wisdom. VALIS is required reading for anyone interested in how Gnostic ideas can fertilise the literary imagination.
Image: Kent Bellows
“Even while claiming to be the Creator of the universe and humanity, Yahweh remains a national, chauvinist god; that is the basis for the dissonance between tribalism and universalism that has brought up the “Jewish question” throughout the ages. In fact, the Jewish conception of Yahweh parallels the historical process, for in the development of Yahwism, it is not the Creator of the Universe who became the god of Israel, but rather the god of Israel who became the Creator of the Universe. And so for the Jews, Yahweh is primarily the god of Jews, and secondarily the Creator of the Universe; whereas Christians, deceived by the biblical narrative, see things the other way around.”
― Laurent Guyénot, From Yahweh to Zion
Image: Kingdom of God by Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov
― Laurent Guyénot, From Yahweh to Zion
Image: Kingdom of God by Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov
The Gnostic View of Divinity
The Gnostic view of divinity is in sharp contrast to the ‘New Age’ conception of the ‘God Self’.
The idea that we are ‘all aspects of god’, and that we can ‘become gods’ or need to ‘reunite with the godhead’ shouldn’t be ascribed to Gnosticism. There is no ‘goddess within’ that you need to ‘unlock’, this is a Piscean exercise in narcissism, delusion and self-deception.
The Gnostic view of ‘human divinity’ is very simple. The Gnostics specified that there is a divine component within the human makeup which is called ‘nous’.
Nous: (Greek, "divine intelligence," "cosmic-creative mind," “intellect") In the Mystery idiom, the divine potential endowed in humanity, enabling it to know its true species-specific identity (Anthropos), and to coevolve with Sophia, the wisdom goddess. Root of metanoia, dianoia, pronoia, epinoia, ennoia. Source of the term noetic.
Therefore we have within the human species a germ of ‘divine intelligence’ and the role of our species is to develop that intelligence in harmony with the source from which it came. The source of this intelligence according to the Gnostic creation story is the Goddess Sophia who is now embodied in the Planet Earth.
The important distinction here is that the Gnostics did not mean that our identity is ‘divine’ and made no reference to a ‘divine self’. Instead, they point out that our intelligence is a germ of divinity, a divine gift from our cosmic parents. As with all gifts, they must first be acknowledged and then used and cultivated.
Therefore ‘divinity’ is not an element of our selfhood or identity but instead an element of our potential for intelligence. Due to the continued disinformation campaign surrounding Gnosticism, the divine gift of nous is often conflated or confused with the concept of the ‘divine spark’. Gnosticism does not teach that there is a ‘divine spark’ trapped within us, I will discuss this concept and its actual origins at length in a future post.
The Gnostic view of divinity is in sharp contrast to the ‘New Age’ conception of the ‘God Self’.
The idea that we are ‘all aspects of god’, and that we can ‘become gods’ or need to ‘reunite with the godhead’ shouldn’t be ascribed to Gnosticism. There is no ‘goddess within’ that you need to ‘unlock’, this is a Piscean exercise in narcissism, delusion and self-deception.
The Gnostic view of ‘human divinity’ is very simple. The Gnostics specified that there is a divine component within the human makeup which is called ‘nous’.
Nous: (Greek, "divine intelligence," "cosmic-creative mind," “intellect") In the Mystery idiom, the divine potential endowed in humanity, enabling it to know its true species-specific identity (Anthropos), and to coevolve with Sophia, the wisdom goddess. Root of metanoia, dianoia, pronoia, epinoia, ennoia. Source of the term noetic.
Therefore we have within the human species a germ of ‘divine intelligence’ and the role of our species is to develop that intelligence in harmony with the source from which it came. The source of this intelligence according to the Gnostic creation story is the Goddess Sophia who is now embodied in the Planet Earth.
The important distinction here is that the Gnostics did not mean that our identity is ‘divine’ and made no reference to a ‘divine self’. Instead, they point out that our intelligence is a germ of divinity, a divine gift from our cosmic parents. As with all gifts, they must first be acknowledged and then used and cultivated.
Therefore ‘divinity’ is not an element of our selfhood or identity but instead an element of our potential for intelligence. Due to the continued disinformation campaign surrounding Gnosticism, the divine gift of nous is often conflated or confused with the concept of the ‘divine spark’. Gnosticism does not teach that there is a ‘divine spark’ trapped within us, I will discuss this concept and its actual origins at length in a future post.