Ask Me Anything - Paganism, History and Genetics

It is time for the annual Jive Talk AMA session in which fans can ask me any question they like. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Is it a jive talk looks like it is surprise flex.
This one's for the Golden one my friend in Sweden.
It's another AMA. I do this once a year and
it was never meant to be an annual thing, but
it's just I only get around to doing it once
a year, so that's why it is an annual thing.

(00:40):
Last time was eleven months ago, but it's close enough
to a year. Basically. Before I start with the questions,
I just want to say something. Survived the Jive began
as a blog before it was the channel, or the
channel existed before the blog. The channel was called Thomas Rausel.
It's the same channel that you're watching while you're not
watching that you're watching my second channel drive or or

(01:00):
you're watching on X. But the main channel survivor Jive
was called Thomas Raussel. Then I started a blog in
two thousand and seven called Survive the Jive and it
was all about opposing the IDs cards that the Labor
Party was trying to impose on us. And when the
Labor Party was voted out, it was all canned. In
twenty ten, we got rid of the whole thing. We
scrapped the whole scheme. There was a lot of campaigning,

(01:22):
not just the right wing, it was the left wing
and the right. A lot of people in Britain believed
in the liberty and did not want to be subjected
to a totalitarian state like Chinese style governance, and so
we you know, to defend our forms of British liberty,
opposed it and successfully had it removed. And as soon
as the Labor came back into power last year, they've

(01:42):
started to try and get this thing on them back
on to us and now they're calling it digitalized d
and they're calling it brit Card, and they are desperate
to get it in before the next election, so they
really want to make sure it's a permanent fixture in
British politics, even if they lose, although of course it
could be removed, but it would just mean we wasted
loads of money on it. But absolutely implore any British

(02:04):
citizens watching to assign the petition to oppose the so
called brit Card digital ID scheme that is being imposed
upon us. It is bad news and it will not
reduce immigration as they say it will. They have no
intention of reducing immigration. Now to the main questions, please
be aware, will I do in order. What I do

(02:27):
is first I go through these pre questions sent in
by my patrons, and once I've read through them, I
go through some of the super chats on YouTube, and
if I have not finished an hour of streaming, when
all the superchats are dried out, then I'll start looking
at other questions on YouTube and maybe on x as well.

(02:48):
But if you really want to guarantee that I answer
a question in the next hour, then I recommend you
send a super chat, because I'm not checking any of
the patron questions now. Otherwise, okay, let's begin on Patreon.
I have two Patreon websites, Patreon and subscribe stuff. Houton
Hollerin says a bit of a broad question, but thoughts
on Western occultism. Is it at odds with paganism? Just

(03:12):
another perspective. Thanks for all your hard work, no problem
at all, and thank you for your support. I was
interested in Western occultism when I was like initially getting
into paganism because it was just like an interesting thing
to learn about different forms of magic and how people
had done it in the nineteenth century. And I mean,

(03:32):
certainly it has roots in Hamaticism, which can be linked
back to neoplaganism. So there is a kind of chain
from paganism to Western occultism, but Western occultism is mainly
based on what I would call non European forms of paganism,
and also just Abrahamic religions, including in magic from like

(03:53):
the Middle Eastern traditions and things like that. But also
more another critique is that it's kind of just mixed
and matches things as it pleases, So it isn't like
a vigorous discipline or tradition in any of the sense
that I would respect. But it has some interesting things,
like the idea of like people at that time in

(04:15):
the West recognizing the need for a challenge to the
dominant ideology of empiricism, you know, the rational scientism and
things that was interesting, and it's you know, it's a
kind of a revival of a form of an earlier
form of spirituality that wasn't present in like typical acceptable
Christianity in Britain, for example, So someone like al Sa

(04:35):
Crowley was just popping out of that. And it's also
important to remember that spiritualism and like use of mediums
was actually extremely popular in Victorian England. A lot of
people tried to communicate with the dead. That was quite normal.
Arthur Conandor was an ocultist. I mean a lot of
really prominent Victorian figures were basically what we would call

(04:56):
a cultist now. So that's quite interesting to think because
it's the time we all think of science and reason
and progress. Is that everything they believed in? But they
had another side as well. You know, societies are complicated
and there are different channels within each sort of going
in different directions. T someone named only T. Regarding the
goddess of Vor in relation to marriages, do you believe

(05:18):
that Vor is a goddess in her own right? Or
that her name Beloved is a Kenning as I thought
Beloved was also associated with frig I wasn't. I'm not
sure of that etymology of Or, but I mean she
seems to be whenever she's It's compossible, of course, it's possible.
There's many Kenning there's many God's reference that we don't
know if a name is just a Kenning or a

(05:39):
nickname for another god, because we know that God's had
many names, and we can't tell for sure which ones
are just different names for gods we already know about
not always. But Vor is the only name given to
the goddess for the oath between lovers and marriages. So
that is what I swore my ice, my wedding oaths

(06:00):
to Wor. But there are other rituals that could be
reconstructed in terms of marriage from North Pagans, such as
the idea that the use of Thor's hammer was important
to bless the lap of the bride based on a myth,
which I think is a reasonable interpretation of that of
the what the occur in that myth? So Thor could

(06:23):
potentially be involved in a marriage ceremony. Also see also
us What resources would you suggest to find descriptions of
Germanic marriage rights? Yeah, I've already answered this in a
private thing and just nar here, Joey ass, have you
been able to read Norse and Germanic Religion, a source
book God's Deities and Spirits by Thor from Norse magic

(06:47):
and beliefs, and then so what are your thoughts on it? No?
I have not read this book that you just mentioned
by Thor, but he's just sent it to me. It
just came in the post the other day. He sent
me a copy, but I haven't read it. I can't
tell you if it's good or our, but yeah, it's uh.
I guess if you like Thor's channel, then you'll probably

(07:08):
like his book. And this is it. Ellis ware asks
is hand fasting a real historical Heathen custom or is
it a modern invention. I'm trying to do research into
Heathen wedding customs as this is another person everyone's getting married.
That's wonderful, as I'm getting married soon and often find
this coming up, but have not found any historical evidence

(07:29):
to back it up. Ellis, you should take note of
what I just said about the use of Thor's hammer
to bless the lap of the bride, and also the
swearing of oaths to vore. But hand fasting is not
attested as a marriage ceremony in any pagan context whatsoever.
As far as I know. It shows up first in
the early modern period in the Hebrides or in like

(07:51):
Gaelic speaking regions of Scotland, and it is thought, because
of the name itself, the word itself hand fastest Germanic,
that it has a Germanic origin, possibly Nouse. There were
vikings in the Hebrides, of course, but if it was,
we don't know anything about it being a pre Christian
wedding thing. It's not mentioned in any of the Norse
sources as such. It's become a very important part of neopaganism,

(08:16):
mainly because people just wanted, like a lot of neopagans
as in the modern people inventing paganism, they just wanted
to not say wedding. But wedding is an ancient pagan word,
so I don't see any problem with using it. The
word wed is of Indo European origin, so yeah, I
wouldn't say hand fasting is attested as an ancient practice.

(08:41):
I mean, it's very one hundreds of years old in Britain,
but yeah, I don't think it's attested as a specifically
pagan thing. It's just an informal way of what people marry.
So when people wanted to get married but they couldn't
get married by the Church for whatever reason, they would
have a hand fasting, which is like an informal British
form of wedding in for peasants and whatnot. Well, that

(09:03):
was all the Patreon questions. Now for subscribe star it
says subscribe star Chat has the I think his name
is Theodita Son says how many confirmed kills do you
have with your Bronze age dagger? Do not say it
is for ceremonial purposes only. He's referring to this up here.

(09:30):
If you don't know what this is. It's a replica
of a Bronze Age dagger from four thousand years ago
here in Devon, and I made a video about it recently,
a documentary about it, and how important Devon and Cornwell
worth of supply of tin to all of Bronze Age Europe,
and how they made tim bronze the main metal in Europe.

(09:50):
I had it made to specifically sacrifice virgins. So yeah,
I will have to attend one of these groper meetups
so that I can put it to some good use.
Beowulf asks my question, the universalist values of Abrahamic religions
have led to the main problems of today, i e. Globalism,

(10:13):
mass immigration, the ills of liberalism, loss of autonomy over
one's land. These are ideological struggles and cannot be challenged
without providing an alternative belief structure religion. Do you think
it's in our interest to make paganism great again throughout
the West and eventually revert back to pagan states If so,

(10:34):
what do you think needs to be in place for
this to happen. Well, belf, I've said all this a
million times already, but you know, new people might not
be aware that. I'd say that Paganism is not a
proselytizing religion. Is not required of us to make other
people pagan. But you know it's fine to do it
as well. I can introduce other people to paganism, and
I try to help those who want to be pagan

(10:55):
to be a pagan. But it isn't well disposed in
the day to being a religious a mass ideology. It
isn't unlike communism, socialism, Christianity, Islam. It's not been designed
for mass appeal. It hasn't got any consoling fictions which
it relies on to seduce people. It doesn't have any

(11:17):
The gods probably don't care about you that much, and
there's no guarantee of global of eternal paradise. There's none
of the things that like that religion provides that console
like the people who get nervous about death and mortality
and the meaning of life and things like that. It's
not intended to do that. It's that it provides explanations

(11:39):
for things, but not. It's not a salve for emotional wounds,
and therefore it will always be less popular. It doesn't
feed on emotions like envy like communism has like this
idea of your entitlement that you get to feel this
sense of like you are part of the global proletariat
rising up against the evil ones. Take what your back on.

(12:02):
The bourgeoisie will tremble. This kind of thing. That's that
people very excited and makes them feel better about themselves,
and that is always seductive. So paganism doesn't have any
of that. So it's actual efficacy in the global marketplace
of ideas will probably be inferior to those kind of

(12:23):
those people who are willing to lie. If you're willing
to lie, then you can always tell people what they
want to hear. Paganism isn't about lies. It's about truth,
and that makes it much less popular. Will never be
as popular as lies. But the pagan belief is that
the world is going on a downward trend, and we
accept that and that we we're just trying to hold

(12:45):
the golden Age in our hearts. We don't expect the
whole world to become pagan because most people aren't even
capable of perceiving the gods. Hence they won't be pagans
who made me, who converted me to paganism. The gods
not some guy with a book wearing a dress in
the street or knocking on my or it was the
gods themselves. Most people can't even perceive them because people
are in and now in an age of decline that

(13:07):
are losing their capacity even perceive the divine, even laugh
at the idea of the divine. You can tell people
who actually claim to be theists like about hirophonies, and
they just think it's crazy because they don't even believe that.
And that's not new. I'm not talking about like something now.
The same would be happening if it was living in
eighteen sixty. In eighteen sixty, people were kind of, like,
you know, quite content to think that, like the spiritual

(13:32):
realm had imparted everything it was ever going to impart
to mankind two thousand years ago, which is a funny
way of thinking. But basically you're to think of paganism
as a revolutionary ideology is to distort paganism. It isn't
that it'd be very hard to make it into that,
but it is revolutionary in the sense that it is

(13:52):
completely opposed to what the modern world is about, but
it isn't designed to oppose modern world, so it has
a limitation in that respect. Bof also asks another question,
easy one, Oh good, are we on track to start
rebuilding heathen temples and in person community everything just feels online. Well,

(14:14):
there are loads of Heathen communities. That's literally hundreds, maybe
thousands in the world. So of course that's been the
case since I was born. There have been many probably
a lot of people who think like that haven't really
been looking or trying very hard to meet them. And temples, Yes,
there's temple's being built all over the place. There was
a temple in Britain in the nineties called Orum something

(14:36):
like Wormhall in Surrey, I think, and it got burned
down by vandals. And there is now a new temple
since the last eleven years in England which is an
old Tudor church run by the Odiness Fellowship charity, which
is called the Newark Odernist Temple. There are also temples
owned by the az A True Focus Assembly across America.

(14:57):
There is a Temple of the Gods in Denmark. The
Azreel belief in Iceland has at least one and is
trying to get another. There are temples and also other
types of pagan religions like Hellenism. They've got a temple
in Ukraine that they've just opened a new temple in Greece.
So yeah, this is already happening, right. How is the stream?

(15:19):
Is it lagging at all? I have some questions another
one large group of questions from liquid Oxygen, my main patron.
He asks me the following, right, what is your understanding
of fate? Do you adhere to a vision of double determinism,

(15:39):
double motivation, with room both for man's agency as well
as for the preordained forces of destiny? Or do you
believe in a deterministic and resign sort of fatalism with
a complete absence of free will? What about the theories
put forward by some respected scholars. The Germanic view of
fate was essentially that man, while man had agency, natural occurrences,

(16:01):
or to use Christianized parlance, acts of God outside of
his control, will nevertheless manifest themselves and impact and shape
the course of his life, and that is fate properly understood.
In other words, while man cannot control the world, he
nonetheless had a capacity to govern himself within it. To
illustrate with an example, a man board a plane with

(16:21):
a faulty crucial part, which, given the predictable aerodynamic stresses
of a routine flight, could be predicted if someone were
aware too, for fail at the given moment in the
journey and cause the plane to slam into a mountain,
killing all on board. In accordance with the laws of
physics as we understand them, there is nothing in the
cascade of contemporaneous events which will prevent the flight from

(16:42):
taking off or deviating from its course. As such, the
plane is doomed to crash, and indeed does so. Are
the minute thoughts and actions of everyone on board the
plane set in stone and fatalistically determined as the cause
in effect physics of plane in the world around it. Deterministic, resign, fatalism,
or can be fate be understood in terms of understand

(17:02):
everyone having free, unpredictable will on the plane, even though
the plane is doomed to crash and kill them all.
I passenger is free to order water or coffee or
nothing at all, to try to sleep, a stay awake
et cetera. Okay, I got the yeah, going to delay
the point the yeah, you've basically got it, like it's
a mixture of the two, like you have some agency

(17:25):
within the guidelines of weird. It's like a tapestry of events.
It literally is liken to threads and you can like
jiggle around the threads. But they get they're always going
to end at a predestined ending. But you have like
some wiggle room within it. And I don't want to
go like into the exact details of what exactly is

(17:46):
and isn't wiggle room because it's not that kind of
It's not like a doctrinal religion where something like that
is is written down and is not really that easy
to to philosophically reason what is and isn't within the
realms of will. But we know will is an extremely
important part of Germanic heathenry because Will vially is owner's brother,

(18:07):
is one of the essential creative creators of the world
of universe. Will is an essential prerequisite for the creation
of the universe. But we also know that everything is
governed by wort, so fate is important too. So you
answered the question for me. There's long questions, so I
think you kind of covered it all, but yeah, but

(18:29):
I could answer it with this. In this world is
the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law?
Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At
least it is true that no man, that man has
no control even over his own will. Man takes up
the sword in order to shield the small woundness heart
sustained in a far off time beyond remembrance. Man wields

(18:54):
the sword so that he may die smiling in some
far off time beyond perception. Only ones we'll get that reference. Oh,
a couple of a couple of super chats are come
in one from Flan thank you for the twenty pound donation. Flan.
Flan asks thanks for your videos on Indo European cultures.
It got me back into history as a whole. Are

(19:17):
you aware of the channel sphere Punked? Yes, I am.
I watch it sometimes. He mostly makes military history, but
I enjoy his videos on Indo Europeans also. Yes, I
can't remember. I recently watched a good video by sphere punk.
I can't remember what it was, but I remember the name.
It was something to do with Germanic people. I think. Yeah,

(19:38):
it's cool. It's a cool one. Spear punked is hard
to to if you're not if you're not the German speaker,
I guess it's a German. I don't know what that
word means, but that's written there in the super chat
if you want to know how to find that channel.
The other superchat is from Apocalypsis Historia two dollars thank you.

(19:59):
Thoughts on the etymology etymological link between God, Goth Galter, uh, well,
they're plausible. God definitely means like it's thought. It comes
from in the European root meaning to pour out as
into poorer libation, and the origin of Goth and God
is also etymologically cognate with the word good. And it's

(20:24):
quite likely that Goth has some link to it, because
there's like a few tribes in Sweden that spelled the
Gutara and stuff earlier that become Goth. Gauter is a
name for Odin that could likely be cognate to Goth.
I know that Guter is meant to be cognate with gapped,
which I think is the Gothic word for Guter, but

(20:48):
I don't know how Guter becomes gapped or whatever. Their
common linage. But yeah, there is a plausible etymological link
between them all, but don't read too much into it,
because skirt and shirt are different garments. That's that's my
way of summarizing the fact that words changed meaning. And
just because shirt and skirt used to mean the same thing,

(21:09):
that doesn't mean you can turn up to work wearing
a skirt. Another one from liquid Oxygen. Many ancient Pagan
sources seem to belie a notion that if ancestor worship
were to cease, or that worship with the gods and
whites were to cease, or if we failed, in the
courses of our lives to act in accordance with ancient

(21:30):
more's ethics and traditions, then the souls of the dead
would languish and suffer in the afterlife. I think it's
talking mainly about the Greek thing. I think some stuff
like that anyway. But both the long dead from Pagan
times sustained so long as filial piety was constant and unbreaking,
and the newly dead from Christian times, who did not
worship the gods or ancestors and who followed the dictates

(21:50):
of a new morality, often contrary to the commands of
the gods and the expectations of tradition, who might be
expected to be punished accordingly. I find these expectations reasonable
for a civilization which is well in touch with it's
ethnic faith. He's just saying, Okay, I'd summarize it could
quite a lot as like a mini essay here. But
what he's saying is he doesn't think is reasonable for
Christians to uh be punished for not understanding the afterlife.

(22:16):
But it isn't. I think the problem is you're thinking
that it's a punishment not being able to navigate the underworld.
You needed all these things to be buried with you,
and you needed to know all about how to navigate
the underworld so that you could navigate the underworld. That is.
That's it. It's not like, oh, you know, it doesn't
matter whether what you think or whether you think it's

(22:37):
just or not. That's just how it is. You have
to be able to navigate the underworld. If I don't
know how to get from A to B in this world,
it doesn't matter like if oh, I wasn't born with
no one gave me a map. Therefore, it's not fair
that I can't get there, It doesn't make any difference.
You either get there you don't. The same as in
the other world. You need to know how to get
to navigate the other after other world, and if you're

(22:58):
given fake instructions, you won't be able to And that's
why he Dons believe that Christians often become ghosts because
they get lost they don't understand death. But that doesn't
matter how long. It's how all this stuff you've written
is about your opinion that you're imposing onto how things
ought to be, which is just not sorry, it's just
not relevant to how things are. Like you start with

(23:20):
a feeling of what you believe would be the just
order of things and then complain if that isn't the case.
We're sort of like backward thinking instead of thinking, how
can I understand the other world? That would be a
better way of going about it. But he thinks that
God's care and understand and are willing to help us.
But then also, it's not actually the gods who send you.

(23:40):
Like the process that which makes you go to the
underworld isn't necessarily the gods. This is just like a
function of the universe. It's how things are that Gods
judge the dead and can send them to certain punishments
in the afterworld, but it can't prevent them going to
the other world. Can't prevent you going to hell. You
have to go all day go to hell, even though
sun go to hell. So it doesn't make sense to

(24:03):
I don't understand that. It's kind of like this liquid oxygen.
Was also had a big problem for a year or
so with the idea of reincarnation, but it was more
to do with like he had preconceived notions of how
things ought to be, and he was concerned that they
didn't fit the reality didn't fit those which I think
is a you're taking it from the wrong angle. So

(24:26):
my opinion is that it doesn't matter how noble you
are or how whether the gods like you or not.
I don't think the gods do like everybody. I think
they're just like some people. You're not guaranteed anything in
the afterlife other than like what you can what your
nature guarantees everything is, everything goes in its proper place.

(24:47):
I believe that everyone ends up where they belong, and
not much more can be said on the subject than that. Really,
there are many destinations for the souls of the dead,
and each one is the right one for the ones
that go there. But I also think like there is

(25:08):
a bit of a Platonic idea of the gods being
absolute goodness, so it's not possible for the gods to
not represent this benign force. And I think that the
gods are good, but I don't think that they are
always this benign like Platonic ideal of godhood, because I

(25:30):
don't think they would intervene in that way to change
the nature of existence to make it more fair according
to like a Platonic idea of what fairness should be.
I am reminded though, of a medieval tradition of Christians
are called the Harrowing of Hell, where they kind of
thought the same thing, like the reverse of what you think,

(25:51):
where they're like, it's not really fair that all our
ancestors for thousands of years who were pagan have to
go to Hell because they didn't worship Jesus since Jesus
didn't even exist yet and they hadn't been introduced to
his doctrine so they had no way of knowing about it,
so why should they all be in hell? So they
invented this story that Jesus went to Hell. It's called

(26:12):
the Harrowing of Hell. He went to Hell, and he
took all the noble, good pagans who didn't have the
choice to not be pagan, and he rescued their souls
and took them to Heaven. And that was pretty much,
as far as I'm aware, canon in the Western Church
for a lot of the medieval period. I don't remember
how long or to what extent, but eventually they decided
it wasn't canon anymore because it's not actually anywhere in

(26:34):
the Bible and doesn't say Jesus goes to Hell and
rescues pagans, So it isn't there. It's just not part
of Christianity. It should be if you were like applying
the Christian morality consistently to the laws of the universe
that the Christian mythology presents, there should be a harrowing
of Hell. But it isn't there, so they just had
to I think they thought, to be consistent, we have

(26:55):
to remove it because we can't just invent law. But
I asked Muslims about this once and they said, I
like Muhammad's parents in Hell because they were pagan. And
they said, yeah, so it's like, actually even the parents
of the prophet that you worship is in hell according
to you. At least they're consistent. They don't make any
exceptions for like family, which is unusual in the Middle East.

(27:16):
Isn't it anyway more super tat to come through? Thank
you two pounds from Burnsey. What is the heaven view
on tattoos body markings? There's plenty of evidence. I posted
about this on my telegram a lot. If you go
on telegram and search my telegram and search tattoos, you'll
see there's evidence among the Anglo Saxons and other Germanic

(27:39):
people that they probably were tattooed, although it's always a
little bit sparse. A lot of the sources that are
used a lot mostly to talk say the Vikings were tattooed,
are a little bit ambiguous. So we know that. For example,
even Fadlin said the Vikings were tattooed nectar nectar finger,
but some people like did that mean painting or tattooing?

(28:00):
And also was that just the russ And was that
from Slavic influence and the Slavs took it from the
Scuffians and it wasn't a native in Germanic practice. The
fact is there is some good There are some good
source material for a ritual in the Germanic world before
the Viking Age, where people would mark their flesh for
the dead, so permanent markings on the body were made

(28:23):
to remember the dead buy and this was something that
Christians banned to try and stop pagan's doing it. But
we also have to be a little bit cautious about
what exactly these markings were. Not really certain exactly what
they were, but they sound like tattoos anyway, ten dollars
from fural poeticus. What truth is there to what I've

(28:45):
been seeing on Heathen telegram channels about Happler Group I
being the source of Germanic culture. Well, first off, Hapler
groups aren't the source of cultures. Hapler groups don't generate cultures.
Hapler groups are only carried by men anyway, So only
half like you're talking about why Happer groups? What only
why only men have? Why happy groups? The I think

(29:06):
that is it's stupid to say a Happler group I
is the source of Germanic culture. And think also Happler
Group I, for a start, is so distant in time
that has absolutely nothing to do with Germanic culture. I
think you mean I one. I one is not I.
I is the ancestor of I one and I two,
I one and I too, presumably we're kicking about. In

(29:28):
Europe in the in the late in the Middle stone Age,
we know I too is the dominant Happa group hunger
gatherers in this in this Western Europe, in the Stone Age,
in the Middle stone Age. I one we presume to
be as well, because it's a brother clade. It's related
to the descents from I as well, which is an ancient,
very very ancient Ice Age clade, Happera group, but we

(29:51):
don't have any evidence of it. But it really becomes
popular in Bronze Aid Scandinavia, and it pops up and
it becomes very dominant among elites in an Indo European culture,
which is definitely uh the source of what later became
the Germanic culture. So in that sense, I one is
very clear marker of the rise and spread of the

(30:12):
Germanic people. However, the Germanic people were always carried a
mix of quite diverse paternal lines, including R one A,
R one B and I one almost in equal measure.
So it's just stupid to say Germanics what I one,
because they were as much I onon as they were A,
R one A and R one b, even in the
Bronze Age, when actually that language wasn't even technically Germanic

(30:35):
yet it was called like pre Germanic or something like that.
But yeah, there is some truth to it. I one
is certainly an extremely useful marker for determining this for
measuring the spread of Germanic people in archaeogenetics. It's very
useful for that because R one b and R and
a are shared with non Germanic people, but I onan
is exclusively of Germanic origin from Bronze Scandinavia. What's next,

(30:58):
new guy? Old paganism often ten pounds thank you. Old
pagan has often featured prophecy, oracles, sears, etc. As a
modern pagan, have you experienced such things? How would you
determine the authenticity of, say, a vision from yourself or
a fellow pagan. Can't talk too much about this in
public because it's a private manter, but yes, we evens

(31:18):
do this all the time. We have to use various
forms of prognostication to determine things like whether the blood
was done correctly. Or also whenever you have an important
decision in life. I every single important decision I've made,
I have can use prognostication, including whether I accept a
job offer, whether I get married, whether I buy this

(31:41):
house that I'm in now, everything I put one hundred
percent faith in prognostication. Methods of ancient times have done
so for more than a decade, so it's definitely that's
how a real heathen actually lips they use. They always
consult one or other of the main prognosticated forms, so
in the ancient times they could often they relied on women,

(32:03):
sometimes because women were thought to have especially good powers
of prognostication, with the aid of consulting the dead very often.
But most women who call themseuff witches don't know how
to converse with the dead. They're not. It's funny, actually,
I said earlier about Victorians. The typical Victorian high Street

(32:25):
would have spirit some spiritists to offering the service of
speaking to the dead, and that was not even considered pagan.
But now like the modern witch, you should probably just
put a curse on you with the tampon or something
like that. But then I don't use witches very I've
never been able to consult the witch, but I have
used augury. I use the prognostication with animals, various kinds

(32:50):
of animal prognostication, and on rare occasions I've used runic
prognostication divination, if you will. Some other Pagans put a
much bigger focus on runic divination than I do. I
actually have only done it a couple of times. I
very rarely need to consult runes. It's something that you
do when you have a very important decision to make

(33:11):
or something. But there are some people who are much
more run inclined to using runes in magical ways than
I am. I don't. I certainly don't do it as
part of the bloat, as some people would do. For
some people, runes are a regular part of what they
consider Pakan practice. For me, they're not. There's something quite
separate from regular practice, a form of magic or divination

(33:36):
that can be employed in special circumstances. Two pounds from JD.
Do you think there's an Anglo Saxon equivalent of Vishnu.
I think it might be a bit wrong to think
in those kind of terms. I've said before that like
comparative mythology is a great discipline, and I definitely agree
with it, but it should really be you shouldn't. I
don't agree with people who say stuff like thought is

(33:58):
Jupiter or thought is Indra, you know, because what you
mean to say is, in this myth, this myth of thought,
there is a clear parallel in this myth of Indra.
And you can show that the stories have clear parallels
to each other, and sometimes the mythological attributes of the characters,
namely gods also have clear parallels based on you know,

(34:20):
their weapons or their new nature. And then you can
say that these gods are related in some way and
probably have common origins or something like that. But that
is not the same thing as saying they're exactly the same.
There are ways that different gods mix and combine, so
one god can become several gods in one pantheon, whereas

(34:42):
several gods in another pantheon can become one god. So
it gets a bit you get You're gonna get messed
up if you keep on presuming there's a one to
one relationship with gods in unrelated pantheons, because that's not
how it work, that's not how it's happened, and how
the rights, they don't keep them discreete. It's very very unusual.
I mean, I'm pretty much unheard of not seeing it

(35:03):
actually happen in recorded history that a people inventor God
out of whole cloth. But they do change gods, and
the nature of the understanding of the whole changes based
on changes in the cult, changes in which myths are
popular about that god, et cetera. Whiskey brick. So how
are we doing? Well, We're about halfway through and I've

(35:25):
done all the questions. Oh, I've done that one, done,
that one done. Oh, here's another one. Ten dollars from
Platinus fan. Can runes be carved from any wood or
must it be from a specific tree? Asking as an americanoid. Well,
runs can be carved on anything. You can carve runs
on plastic if you want, But it depends what you're

(35:45):
trying to do. Runes have In case anyone wants to know,
I'm drinking Cardo gold reserve. I don't know that's the
correct Gaelic pronunciation because I can't speak Gaelic. So all
the people who can speak Gaelic coming really in the comments? Yeah, well,
I guess you're meaning in the context of Runic divination. Well,
if you, like I do, accept Taketus' description of special

(36:09):
symbols used and carved on wood, and that those symbols
are runes, then you will believe that him that he
says that it must be a fruiting tree or a
tree that produces nuts, so something like an apple tree.
Or we know that for a fact from Norse sources
and other and also from like old Norse pagan sources,
and also from much later folklore in Germanic countries, hazel

(36:31):
has a protective and warpower Hazel producers nuts. Of course
to hazel would would be good, but I think other
trees are also acceptable. Different trees also have relationships to
certain gods. So if you were invoking a god somehow,
then obviously as a specific tree that was a sympathetic
material substance to that divine personality would be a wise choice.

(36:55):
And I think you should know about that. Since you're
a Platinis fan, you'll know about the idea of so
sunf the mata in Greek, the idea that certain substances
are more proper for certain gods. This kind of thing
you want to make the right to choice for they
have resonance with a certain divine power material substance. So

(37:18):
Lionel paces Habla group I and J have the same
origin before diverging. That divergence is really far back. You're
talking so far back like that, it's like from the
days when humans were still on the process of diversifying
from out of Africa. So it's not really relevant to

(37:40):
the modern if you're making it. If you're thinking that
I one is people with I one now are related
to people with jallien needs is you're well off, well
well off like that's not how happy its work, very
tactical with a twenty dollars donation asks I'm going to
move over here so I can read closer to the mic,
no question head empty. Also just wanted to say I

(38:03):
got one of your hoodies last fall with the Danish
horse and boat petroglyphs in green, and it's a good
fit and I can't wait to wear it this winter.
Keep killing it, brother, Thank you very much mate. I
hope that the hoodie keeps you warm. Cheers. That's all
Bronze age petroglyphs by the way, from Sweden. Those images

(38:23):
they're like three and a half thousand year old. Who
works of art carved by the ancient Bronze Age people.
Here's one from Platinus. Lover again, he asks if R
one B L four seven is in the European or not. Yes,
it is in the European, but I mean R one bee.

(38:44):
This particular part of R and B is associated with
the Belbeaker culture, but it's a later on. It's associated
with people in Western Europe. It's a European paternal lineage
associated with Germanic people. Yeah, who inherited it via the
Belbeaker culture. So yeah, it's in the European. You're not cooked,

(39:10):
as Azumas say you're cooking. Is that right? Context, It's
just a ride. Gives me five quid try Shackleton whiskey
recipe from the Antarctic Expedition. Chees for your work. Jive
honestly helped a lot. Also, refresh your Patreon comments. I'm sorry.
I have a rule I say. I just say you have.

(39:31):
I say every year you have to send the comments
in before the stream. I don't refresh them after the stream.
So you had a week to send all your comments there.
But yeah, I can't. Am not doing that, but thank you.
I will try Shackleton Whiskey. I respect the Antarctic Expedition,
great thing. I want to watch that silent the silent

(39:51):
fitted from the thirties of an Antarctic expedition of a
film with that. I haven't watched it, but I have
last night I watched The footage was really used in
a kind of found footage mockumentary thing about like an expedition,
and it's a film for nineteen ninety three where it
uses the silent footage from the thirties to tell a story.

(40:11):
I think it's called Forbidden Journey, Forbidden something. Anyway, they
go to Antarctica and then they find a portal in
Antarctica that leads to the North Pole, so you can
go through the center of the world. And so they
find like eskimos and polar bears at the South Pole.
And it's actually not very good. It sounds a lot
better than it is, but yeah, interesting. Premisre pigeon Chase

(40:37):
three thousands, gives two quid and says you are so beautiful. Well, okay,
thank you, thank you. I'm going to assume that you're
an attractive young lady and that will that's great. Thank you.
Apparently grouse is the national favorite of Alba. Famous grouse
is a blended whisky. This is a single malt, my friend,
not messing around with any blended stuff here and blended

(41:00):
come on, no, I'm mixing it with Coca cola Rookes.
Roke says, are the Franks considered more Germanic or Celtic?
The Franks were Germanic people, But if you're talking about
their history in terms of like genetics, it's quite interesting.
Initially they were a Germanic people from northern Germany, related

(41:21):
to the Saxons. In fact, probably indistinguishable from the Saxons.
At first, they definitely got confused with the Saxons. One account,
Roman account says that the Saxons agreed to help the
Lombards in a fight, and while the Saxons went there,
the Franks occupied the Saxon land and that's how they
acquired their that so initially they were basically what's now Saxony.

(41:42):
The Franks were one of the tribes in Saxony, an
enemy of the Saxons, or maybe not, maybe they were Saxons.
And then at some point they become distinct and they
moved westward, and that's when they start becoming really distinct
from Saxons because they have this you know, connection with
going all the way across the Netherlands and the Frisians
become subject to them. The Flemish areas are under Frankish control,

(42:05):
and finally they take over Gaul at which point what
we call Frankish is really a culture, and the Gauls
are adopting the Frankish culture, and a lot of the
people at that stage, when you look at them genetically,
they're just Gauls, but they're culturally Germanic speaking probably you know, Frankish,
which is pretty much like Old Saxon or Anglo Saxon,

(42:27):
Old English, and they have Germanic material goes. But because
also they converted to Christianity early, and because they have
these contacts with Western Europeans. I don't want to say Celts,
because at that stage none of these people spoke Celtic anymore.
They were all speaking Latin or vulgar Latin that became French,
so it's more like they were being Frenchified rather than Celtified.

(42:51):
But anyway, in terms of blood they did a lot
of them are more Celtic in terms of Gaulish blood.
You know what I mean, Lucas asked you you think
do you dislike Latin French influence on English. I'm not like,
I wouldn't say I dislike it. I kind of. I
think it's like annoying at times. It's good in a
way that English is like a schizophrenic language because you

(43:14):
can there's always two ways of saying everything. You can
always say use the like then earthy, straightforward down, you know,
like straight to the point, real talk Germanic Anglo Saxon words,
or when you want to sound clinical or ecclesiastical, or
you know, scientific or lofty or intellectual, you can use

(43:37):
these Southern loanwords, which mean that they kind of mean
the exact same thing, but they don't because they have
this cultural meaning that put portrays. It puts up a
barrier between you and the person you're speaking to, and
that's its function and it has always been its function,
whether it's a doctor giving you a diagnosis, and you know,

(43:58):
using using Latin eight words helps to ease the thing
because if someone says, like, you know, if someone like
if a doctor diagnosed your problems with all Anglo Saxon language,
it would be like shocking, it would be more shocking
because the way that English people English speakers experienced words
of Anglo Saxon origin is much more direct. It's more

(44:19):
moving because words like love and mother like, words like real, real,
important earthly words, those are like, you know, different. Also
when we talk about your body, if you talk about
an arm, or if you talk about hand Anglo Saxon words,
but if you use something like plant fascistics or whatever,

(44:40):
like or your cloacula or whatever, these things you don't
really know as well what it means. But yeah, I
have mixed feelings about it. It has some poetic potential actually,
and it has been used by English speaking poets to
great effect. Having these multiple ways of saying things is
a good option. It's good to have those options. It
almost means that English speakers are naturally bilingual in a way,

(45:04):
but it also is irritating at times, especially when people
don't know how to use the English language properly, and
they and they and they rely too much on the
Latinate words. Anyway, for all poeticas gives ten dollars, thank
you very much. Been talking to Will and others about
a Wodanic demiurge. Seems to us that what Plato describes

(45:25):
as the demiurge is similar to Wodin and how he
shapes the cosmos. Yes, I mean Woden shapes the world
the cosmos with his brothers. A demiogic role is fulfilled
by Wodin, absolutely, But I mean some of the baggage
of the demiurge in Gnostic context absolutely no relevance to
or even at all, because we're not gnostics. Like gnostics

(45:47):
think the demiage is bad, well, it doesn't matter. We
don't share any of their beliefs. Gnosticism comes out of
like Jewish and Christian mythologies. I know a lot of
people Pagans who I like and friends with think of
as a Pagan thing. And definitely there were some Pagans
who were influenced by Gnosism, specifically in the Platonic academy.

(46:09):
Even though Platonism and Narcissism were opposing schools, they influenced
each other to sun degree. But yeah, it's got nothing
to do with with with Heathens. We don't believe in
an evil demioge and we don't resent Odin for creating
the world. But that's an interesting thing to talk about.
I'm sure context it's just a ride gives another two quid.

(46:30):
Any communal bloats non hippie in around London. It's been
a long time since I used to blow in London.
That was in that ten years ago. I used to
attend Blitz in London. But there used to be a
group called the London Blood which was not woke. But
I think it's kind of morphed into a reading club now.

(46:53):
I'm not sure if they still perform Blood, but look
it up. I think it has a Facebook page and
you checked the London blo But there are other groups
in London. I believe there was one called the Trough
and it had a bit. It had one foot in Wogan,
one foot in non Wog and it wasn't quite clear
which way it was going to go. But yeah, I'm
sure you'll find in a city that large some people

(47:16):
doing bloats. Just do some research. Sud No ss Archive
gives me two euros and any primed projects for the
Channel in the near future. Well. In July I filmed
a documentary in Germany about the Anglo Saxon homelands and
I've been editing it and I've come to the conclusion

(47:38):
that it can't really be there's too much to be
a documentary. It has to be too So I'm going
to divide it into Saxons and then angles. So they'll
do the Saxon lower Saxon. He need a Saxon in
one film for about an hour, and then I'll cross
the Alba, and then the second film will be angaing
the land of the Angles, and I'll try and make

(47:59):
it all theme that are two part series. It's like
all about the ancestral homelands of the English, and the
archaeological evidence for that are definitely you know, because I
think some people, like even with the genetics and all
the other stuff, the linguistic evidence and all that, some stuff,
really they're really dragging their heels on, like how huge
the Anglish the Germanic influence on Britain was in the

(48:21):
fifth century, and how utter complete the Germanification of Southern
Britain was. But like I think some if you see
some of the like that the very obvious. It's the
same artifacts, the same earns, the same practice. The women
are all wearing the exact same jewelry, the same necklaces,
the same brooches, everything, the exact same same burial types,

(48:43):
same reverence for bronze age barrows, same reuse of bronze
age barrows. Like everything that happens in Nita Saxon is
happening afterwards in Kent and Sussex, and what happened You're like,
it's just really obvious when you look at the archaology.
And I wanted to show some of the archaology and
just show what the old the old lands look like
as well, because a lot of the British people have
Most British people have never seen footage of North Germany,

(49:07):
let alone been there. They've got no idea what it
looks like. They've got no idea how similar it is
to England. It looks so much like England. The houses
look like houses in Surrey sometimes, and the landscape is
like Norfolk or something. And the woodland is just like
English woodland. It's exactly the same. It's not like a
Scandinavian forest or an Alpine forest. It's like an English forest,

(49:28):
lots of oak and beech and ash. It's beautiful, lovely.
I had a really lovely time there. It was very
great effort, though I've suffered from exhaustion from it filming
so much. Had a very busy schedule. There Platina's fan
again with four dollars? Is it five dollars? Is it
necessary to read the dders and such before beginning a
regular theatic practice. I admit I haven't read much and

(49:51):
learned mostly through videos. I said, suppose it isn't, but
I would I think it's. I mean, obviously most the
editors are just the poet togethers are the important one.
I mean, the poet together is so important. You should
have heard. If you haven't read all the poetic da,
you should have heard it read to you. You should

(50:12):
know all the myths inside out from the pet together.
The prose Edda is different, I don't. I certainly think
the prose Eddit contains sacred knowledge from the Heathen times,
but it has to be interpreted because it is a Christian,
embellished and embellished Christian text. The poetic Gether is not.
It's just this are just pagan poems, and you should
just know them. I mean, they're so valuable, like they're holy,

(50:35):
so why why wouldn't you know them? You should know them.
And also, like the theatic, if you're talking about theat
like you're going to be using words of power, you're
going to be using ancient prayers and you're use you're
using the poetic ether for that. You can't really do
heathen ring any heathen equivalent of theaty without the poet together.

(50:56):
So although like reading has nothing to do with he
read traditionally because most people were literate, of course, they
would know the poems that contained the myths, and they
would know more than those contained in the poet together,
because some of them aren't surviving anymore, of course, So
you should certainly learn these or not learn, not learn
them necessarily off by heart, but just read them. It

(51:17):
doesn't take that long, and it's very rewarding, very very
rewarding use of your time. On on with five dollars, asks,
is it right that Northern European paganism has more modern
adherents than Southern European paganism. Why do you think that? Is?
There are more people in Northern Europe, that's probably it.

(51:39):
Not sure people realize I think a lot of people
even in Europe and America as well, like kind of
think of like each European country representing a person or
something like, like Sweden has more people than all the
other Nordic countries combined pretty much. And Sweden's population is
the size of one English city. It's like, it's not London,

(52:01):
admittedly is a huge city. But the bulk of the
bulk of Europe's population is in this band, a bent
band called the Blue Banana that goes from northern Italy
up through western southwestern Germany into northern Germany and then
bends and goes west across the Netherlands, Belgium and into

(52:22):
south east England and covers some of the midlands of
England and part of northern England, and that's where the
bulk of Europeans are. Of course, Russia has a fair
population in some of the cities as well, but like
Western Europe, is not that many people in Scandinavia, not
that many people in Spain, not that many people in
Greece and the Balkans. They're not very large populations, like

(52:46):
compared to the bulk of the main bulk of people.
So naturally, if you consider that the Dutch and the
Germans and the English are Germanic, can they constitute like
a huge amount of the population of Europe. I don't
know what percentage, but a massive one. So of course
Germanic paganism is going to be a massive one. Also,
Americans speak English and are of mainly English and German descent,

(53:09):
so they're going to have a natural inclination towards that too. Well,
we're coming to the end of the stream. Before I
go just finish off with them. Let me go on
X quickly and see what it's like there, because I
can't actually see the chat here of the ex chat
new guy. Oh God, did it not? Maybe it didn't

(53:31):
work on X. Oh it's live, it is live. There's
only like one comment underneath of interest by poor, thank
you poor. Anyway, I've got a couple of a couple
of I'm trying to find someone. I'm trying to find
someone to translate some nineteenth century German Swedish mythological works.

(53:53):
Do you know how to find a translator for this
type of thing? Translation agency? There's loads of translation agencies
that can that, but you might not get a good price.
Your best but otherwise is to publish to us someone.
I mean, have just this comment is a good thing.
Anyone listening. I want to translate some Swedish mythology or

(54:14):
German mythology. Help this user, Dorodan seven seven seven, Please
Gary McMillan with twenty pounds. Thank you. I really enjoyed
your documentary in Iceland, your best work yet in my opinion,
really looking forward to the Germany documentaries Stay based and
stay on work. Thank you, Gary. I was really pleased
with the Iceland how it came out, and it was

(54:35):
thanks in large part to the help of Matt eng
who was a great filmmaker I think, and I like
his other films too, But also it was obviously a
topic that I have loved since I read started reading sagas,
like back in twenty eleven or twenty ten, I think
I first read a saga and it's like, why haven't

(54:59):
I done a video just on the sagas, and perfect
time to do it, perfect place to do it, Iceland,
And I want more people to read sagas because I
think they're so fun. Obviously, the adders are important for
Pagans and also people who like mythology, but the sagas
are something else and not just for Pagans. They're just
really interesting stories and insights into medieval people in Europe.

(55:19):
So yeah, definitely recommend reading them. And if you want
to know about the sagas without reading them, watch Sagas
of the Ravenland on YouTube. It's free and it's going
to be in a film festival in Naples in Italy
in a couple of weeks, the fab Film Festival in Naples.
If you live in southern Italy, you can go there
and watch it there with Italian subtitles. What Burnsey two

(55:45):
ten your advice so that we may all survive the
give watch survivor give watch my journal and watch all
the videos where I've talked about that kind of thing
in the past and not so easy to summarize so
quickly at the end of a stream. But I thought
there was another chat? Did I miss it? Did I
miss one? Is it one about the Did I miss
another super chat? I don't think I did. Yeah, well,

(56:07):
I hope you do all survive the jive. But the
jive of what's going on. You have to keep within
your heart the vertical orientation towards the heavens, towards the gods,
and also towards the gods beneath. And remember always that
this world is, like Shakespeare said, the stage, and this

(56:28):
is an opportunity for you to show your ancestors and
the gods what you're made of. Never give up, never
give in, never blackpill, never goon what else they say?
Just you know, don't forget who you are, and don't
forget to keep on keeping on every day, and don't
ever try to just be normal. Don't be afraid of

(56:52):
being ridiculous, because the world is ridiculous in this day
and age. It's time for me to stop the Thank
you all so much for watching. Are you interested in
worshiping the gods of ancient England and Scandinavia but you're
not sure how to do it? Starting Heathenry is a
ritual focused online course which will furnish you with the
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(57:15):
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Starting Heathenry assumes you're interested in Germanic paganism, know about
the gods and myths, and want to begin practicing this religion,
but require guidance on how to do so. It is
based on a micro learning structure which has proven to

(57:36):
improve knowledge attention by up to eighty percent in students
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