Pagan Traditionalism

Polemos: The Dawn of Pagan Traditionalism is a book by Russian author Askr Svarte which attempts to describe how European pagan religion can be practiced in a way consistent with the philosophy of Radical Traditionalism aka Perennial Philosophy. This episode of the Jive Book Review looks at its strengths and weaknesses. 

 Condense lengthy texts into 25 min summaries with Liegent. Sign up now with code 'STJ10' to get 10% off! https://liegent.com

Polemos: https://pravpublishing.com/product/polemos-the-dawn-of-pagan-traditionalism/

Starting Heathenry: https://startingheathenry.thinkific.com

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Welcome to Jive Book Review. I'mTom Raussell, and in this program I
review books about esoterism, history,and pagan religion. Today we're going to
be talking about a book that coversall three of these topics. Very interesting
one. Pauly moos By ask ifSvart the books, because actually it comes

(00:26):
in two volumes, Part one andtwo were sent to me by the author
himself, and I said that oneday I might review them. That was
a year or two ago, andI have only read the first one of
the two, so I can't givea proper review of the entire thing because
although it is two separate books atthe publisher's request, the author had never

(00:47):
intended it to be two separate booksthat were meant to be one. And
the first is less than half ofit. So the first book is a
good read. I enjoyed it.It's a fascinating topic. Tries to marry
the radical traditionalist philosophy, or forauthors like Reneganon, with the pagan religion

(01:07):
that is a native European religion,and that's a difficult thing to do.
I should know because I actually triedto do it, and I was offered
a publishing deal several publishers over tenyears ago now, and I tried to
write the book, and I wrotequite quite a lot of it, but
then I abandoned the project because Ithought it was too difficult and there were
too many inconsistencies, and I startedto wonder about whether it was worth doing.

(01:30):
Ascus Far has accounted many of thesame problems I have, and he's
tackled them in similar ways that Itried to. But he's also stumbled in
the same way as I did.Although I think it's a good book and
a great effort, I have somecriticisms of it, which i'll go over
today. Ascus fat that means blackash is in the tree. He is
a Russian of German ancestry, andhis russianness is inseparable from his worldview.

(01:57):
He is influenced by the main authorslike Julius Evlo and Rene going On,
but also by the contemporary Russian philosopherand a theorist who is himself influenced by
traditionalism, Alexander Dugan, and thathas a very strong Eurasianist perspective which is
sort of woven into this a bit, although he does stop short at some

(02:21):
of the sort of Eurasianists, andspecifically Russian versions of traditionalism are popular because
of Dugan. I'll talk a bitabout that today as well. And Dugan
is not a pagan at all,unlike Askus Spark, so they're obviously very
different too. Spart addresses the Imean Sarta I'll just call in Swart for

(02:42):
this. Sparta addresses the legitimacy ofcontemporary pagan practice from a traditionalist perspective.
Most traditionalists were explicitly anti pagan,and by traditionalists I mean the twentieth century
authors associated with the traditionalist school,and that was partly due to them being
ill informed and prejudiced. In myopinion, even Evela, who was more

(03:04):
sympathetic to pagan religions, was againstso called neopaganism. Spart does not really
take these authors to task properly,in my opinion, Although this problem is
addressed, the book focuses instead onsome of the practical and philosophical obstacles that
modern pagans face and the errors manyhave made. He devotes a lot of

(03:29):
space to criticizing various pagan groups andauthors in Russia and America, many of
the ones in Russia, most Westernershaven't heard of, so that's quite interesting
in a way, but I thinkhe devotes a bit too much space to
that the details of neopaganism in Russiaover the past forty years aren't particularly relevant
to most modern pagans in the worldtoday. He has successfully integrated the anti

(03:53):
modern and revolutionary aspect of radical traditionalismwith a pagan religious perspective, detailing on
cyitrical time, the Golden Age,the question of initiations and legitimacy of tradition,
and other traditionalist talking points. Hisattempts to conflate the forces of modernity
and technology with the Titans, Greekmythology, and the Jutner was very interesting

(04:17):
and it centraled to his call fora religious war against modernity and also inbused
the modern world with a kind ofmythic narrative, which is quite appealing.
However, he does not address thefact that no such religious opposition to technology
can be seen in these cultures inthe form that he's advocating. He ought

(04:39):
to have specified exactly what kind oftechnology is classed as Titanic, since evidently
swords, chariots, books, sewagesystems, and many other technological breakthroughs in
the ancient world, were never seenas a spiritual threat or rarely were,
and were frequently integrated into sacred mythologyin rituals. They do sympathize with a

(05:00):
philosophy which opposes technofilia, but theattempt to refer to technology itself as a
manifestation of the chaotic anti gods requireda stronger argument than spart provides in the
first volume of Polymers. Maybe hegoes into greater detail in part two.
I'm not sure. As far asI'm aware, he is the only author

(05:21):
to seriously attempt a traditionalist treatise onpaganism. I myself attempted this ten years
ago and abandoned the project. Therefore, this book, part one of two
is valuable and his efforts are commendable. However, the book is not focused
on the crucial questions of how topractice and overcome the numerous obstacles of traditionalist

(05:44):
pagan practice, nor the reconciliation ofsaid religion with a philosophical school which has
conventionally opposed it, but rather focuseson criticizing various counter traditional currents within the
numerous revivals of paganism that have occurredaround the world. These are interesting to
read about, but this amounts toa form of trivia which is not essential

(06:09):
for practicing or understanding paganism from atraditionalist mindset. It spark contrasts manifestationism as
he calls it, with creationism andcreationism being a cruder form of understanding the
universe from his perspective, whereas manifestationismis a fundamental belief of ancient religions as
he sees it. And also hetalks about the notion of the cyclical time,

(06:31):
which is definitely there in many IndoEuropean religions and is important for the
traditional school. It's actually something thatdefinitely the two hold in common. Despite
the traditionalist school being very Islamophilic andmonotheistic in general, quite Abrahamic in many
respects, it's extremely tied to thevery Indo European idea of cyclical time as

(06:55):
well, and that's something that paganismcan easily be reckoned with traditionalism, and
he focuses therefore on that strong point. There are also comparative studies among the
nature of the different peoples within youknow, different religions and their gods.
A brief and accurate analysis of theVarna system of India, which is the
casts the correlation between them and equivalentsin other India European traditions, which I've

(07:21):
talked about on my channel quite alot. And he compares, you know,
the Indian yoga system with the hesiodicperiod of ages, something I've done
on my channel, and also Evelahad already done quite a lot. I
think the best way to proceed isfor me to just go through some of
my favorite quotes from the book andalso look at some quotes from the book
that I don't agree with, andI'll talk about them and why I agree

(07:44):
and disagree with the different things thatI've looked at. We argue that the
primordial route of all traditions is theindivisible unity Sun, theema of the sacred,
the dutiful, and the hierarchy,which are manifest in different forms in
the social and human being of differentpeoples. We argue that the reality of

(08:07):
the metaphysical tradition of the transcendental levelof being is superior to the modern,
profane, degenerate world. Man,his individual and social life in society and
the state itself ought to be arrangedin clear agreement with the sacred order Julius
Eveler wrote for us, tradition isthe victorious and creative presence in the world

(08:28):
of that mystic force which is notof this world, i e. That
of the spirit, understood as apower that is mightier than any merely human
or material one. He starts offvery well, This articulates a worldview that
is mine. Also. I'm someonewho was very influenced by Gunnon and Evela,
especially like about ten years ago ormore teen to fifteen years ago,

(08:50):
I was reading a lot of traditionalistauthors and it informed my paganism because I
converted to paganism at the same timeI was reading traditionalist authors. The pomacy
of the spiritual order over any materialconcerns is what typifies the traditionalist school,
and I think that's really important forpeople to understand when I'm trying to read
about any ancient religion, because that'spretty much how all religious societies worked,

(09:13):
and our modern perspective is so different, in the modern Western perspective, so
it helps to take another view.But there are problems with traditionalism when you're
a pagan, partly because the hostility, as I mentioned, of certain traditionalist
authors towards paganism and an assumption thatthe primordial religion of mankind was actually some

(09:35):
kind of monotheism equivalent to what Abraham'spractice. The founder of this modern traditionalist
school went on converted to Islam,and that's obviously very problematic from a pagan
perspective because it's completely irreconcilable with thereal perennialist philosophy, which actually, and
I'm not sure Spartan realizes this becauseat one point he says that the foundations

(09:58):
of the tradition school are in theCorpus emeticum. Even if that's true,
like the Traditionalist school is generally consideredrenegon on the nineteen twenties onwards, so
it's about one hundred years old,and it's very much a twentieth century phenomenon,
but it is not in any waythat original, because yes, the
corpus cinemetics, the Hermetic tradition hasprecedents, but the Hermetic tradition came out

(10:18):
of the Platonic tradition, and therewere Platonist writers two thousand years ago talking
about the perennialist philosophy. The perennialphilosophy is definitely something that was invented by
pagan authors. So perennialism has itsroot in paganism and the idea then that,
like later forms of perennialism seen inthe Islamic world and articulated by Islamic

(10:39):
philosophers that later influenced the so calledperennial school or in the traditionalist school,
is just wrong because that later monotheisticversion of perennialism is a corruption of it.
The true perennialism is pagan and tryingto reconcile a version of perennialism which
is hostile to polytheism is not necessarybecause the real perennialism is polytheistic. It

(11:03):
has to be he does. Ithink he agrees with me in that respect
because he is a polytheist. Hehad the same problem of wanting to try
and reconcile these two almost sometimes opposingviews. But I don't really think Everla
was a monotheist. I think hewas a pagan, even though he had
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(12:30):
sum up the book. Man nolonger sees things as symbols. Referring to
the higher dimension and loses the kernelof divinity. This view of time and
history as endless quantitative development, thefragmentation of quality corresponds to the iron age
of the Cosmos, the Black ageof Karli time. An even denser view

(12:50):
of history, and such unbearable ductilityof time found its conclusion in the notion
of the end of history. Heis referring to Francis Fukuyama's nahneteen ninety two
book The End of History and theLast Man. Pierre Schoner remarked on this
matter, the rejection of history isa temptation for civilizations that have emerged from
the Judeo Christian tradition. This endof history is not an eschatological finale in

(13:16):
the likes of Parlaya, Ragnaruk orthe Apocalypse, but entails the maximal uniformity
of life is solidification in place.This is the endless today prolonged into tomorrow.
This view does not contradict the quantitativemultiplication of material things, but rather
crown such as the absolute senselessness andhardening of the Khali Yuga. So I'm

(13:41):
very much in agreement with his criticalview of the modernist Fukuyama view of history,
and also of the idea that someof the you know, like Christianity
and the linear ideas of time,lend themselves towards a kind of quantitative development
of history, like to a progressiveview of history. The end of the
Golden Age is frequently deemed to bethe Neolithic Revolution, i e. The

(14:03):
transition to settled life in agriculture,with the increasing role of culture the Latin
cultura from the verb colo coolere meaningcultivation and later upbringing or education, and
the emergence of an even greater contrastbetween culture, man, community, and
nature. The duration of the NeolithicRevolution is estimated to be close to seven

(14:24):
thousand years, ending approximately in thethird century BC. According to this dating
and its correlation to known times ofthe formation of spiritual heritage, material artifacts,
and the texts of great civilizations,we can suggest that the latter were
created either during the time of transitionor after the Golden Age. The emergence

(14:45):
of writing and books on the territoryof modern Hindustan was regarded by the ancient
Hindus and Tibetans to be signs ofdecline, which is to say that they
had already reflected on the diminution ofsacralty in the world and saw the need
to and so to record, preserve, and transmit sacred knowledge, teachings,
and philosophy. Yet the consensus onthe Golden Age is the fact that it

(15:07):
will necessarily come again in a newfuture cycle. This certainty has nothing in
common with the perversions of the GoldenAge of progressives and the Enlightenment, but
it's entirely organic to the doctrines ofthe cyclicality of time and the changing of
epochs. So here he's sort oftalking about the possibility that the notion of
the Golden Age in the cycles oftimes, the Yugas in the Hindu tradition,

(15:31):
and that the equivalents in the Norsetradition and Hesiod and of it,
they all have like this ancient goldenera which goes progressively worse, and usually
that's a cycle of return, althoughin some traditions that cycle isn't properly articulated,
but it's hinted at. I personallythink it's a mistake to try and

(15:52):
date that, because the different traditionsdate it differently, and trying to place
it in an actual historical timeline sortof ends up corrupting the overall message.
It's similar. I believe Plato's inthe critis and is talking about Atlantis.
I think that the purpose of thatstory Plato told is to warn people about

(16:17):
the fragile and ephemeral nature of civilizationand that it can go not to say,
not to give you a history lesson, just about an actual place that
existed called Atlantis. And similarly,the cycle of ages is an ancient wisdom
that communicates that this cycle the returnof cultures, and they come and they
go, and that's born out wellthrough all the evidence we have a history

(16:41):
from archaeology and DNA and stuff.Cultures rise and fall. I don't think
the Golden Age can be made tobe equivalent to the Neolithic or something like
that. I think that's a simplificationwhich reduces its allegorical value. But the
part about Hindu's seeing the introduction ofwriting as a degeneration of sorts is very

(17:02):
interesting because it's true and something similarseems to be the case for the Druids
in northwestern Europe. Will come backto this topic of technology as a sign
of decline because it's central to thethesis of Polemos historically in Europe, Plato
already recorded a definite decline in thereligiosity of his fellow citizens and attempted to

(17:23):
breathe new life into rituals and toreform society in accordance with his ideal state
and philosophy. The Greek's increasingly pessimisticview on life and the afterlife and the
underworldly realm reflected an increasing distance betweenthe transcendent and the imminent, as the
light of the gods slowly surely beganto fade. Mircher Iliard cited on this

(17:45):
note the statements of Fiognes, Pindar, and Sophocles that man is better off
not being born, and if hehas been born, then to die as
soon as possible. Homer saw theafterlife as painful and miserable, and a
similar view of Helheim, one ofthe lower worlds of the dead, was
common among the Scandinavians. Herodotus toldof a case in which a devout Greek

(18:07):
woman implored Apollo to reward her childrenwith the highest gift, and Apollo fulfilled
her wish. Her children died instantlywithout torment. The Greeks also more acutely
felt the predestination of destiny and fateas in the threads of the Three Moirai
the Norns Inodinism, and such viewsof fate as suffering were widespread and even
more dramatic developed in Hinduism's doctrine ofKalma and suffering. In Late Rome as

(18:30):
well, the degeneration of tradition reachedthe levels of reducing the gods to legal
figures who could be called as witnessesto courts, thus rendering the god's elements
of republican law. That's enough ofthat quote. These things that he gives
as evidence of the decline of thecore true tradition in the ancient world and
in pagan religions, I don't thinkthat they are that, because there's no

(18:53):
evidence that this belief in fate wassomething a degenerated force of an earlier religion
where fate wasn't important. In fact, the fact that these various Indo European
traditions all have these important spinners offate's pretty good evidence that it was there
from the primordial form of Indo Europeanreligion practice six thousand years ago. If

(19:15):
you go earlier back in time,then then you're just talking about their ancestors
were just hunter gatherers in Seiberia,in Russia or whatever, and we don't
really know that much about what theirreligion was, how much they believed in
fate. There's no actual, written, or other ever kind of evidence that
can talk about what religion was likeprior to six thousand years ago. The

(19:36):
furthest back we can go in thisrespect is reconstructing the proto Indo European religion,
and that's by comparing the extent sourceson Indo European religion, and all
of them are very fate heavy.So I can't see any evidence that you
can talk about this as being asign of a decline from an earlier religion
that we don't actually know existed.So I just don't like that part of

(19:56):
the traditionalist school as well, theidea that that belief in hell is this
like the bleak view of Hell that'sso well attested in so many sources.
I've talked about that in my videoon the Underworld, and it's not just
Indo European. I think that's goingto go back right to the Ice Age,
because there's also similar equivalence of thisidea of hell and fate in Native
American religions rediverged from the ancestors ofthe Indo European in the Indo Europeans,

(20:22):
which were hunt gatherers in Russia inthe Ice Age more than twenty thousand years
ago. So I think it's it'sreally really old, And to talk about
these things as a sign of declinein in you know, two thousand years
ago, it just doesn't. It'sjust not borne out by any evidence.
So I just don't. I can'tfollow on that man is always profarnum with

(20:45):
regards to something, to some givenspace of spirits or gods, but he
is simultaneously always within a farnum templeor space of some other god or spirits.
Thus we have a picture of saturatednatural space, sacred mountains, rivers,
forests and fields, and saturated sacredsocial space mysteries, cults, cast

(21:08):
rituals, the myths of guilds orcraft, artelles, et cetera. In
paganism, the world is one thorough, continuous hierophony, a manifestation of the
sacred in essence. This is sacredgeography, the landscape of mountains and valleys,
chasms and peaks, forests and seas, and different currents and nuances within

(21:30):
at once a given tradition and traditionas a whole. Well, that's grand.
I love that quote. Yeah,that he typifies they're the very much
influenced by nurture iliada as I amtoo. On the idea of the pagan's
conception of sacred space. That's quitea wonderful little passage. Interestingly, despite
him being a traditionalist, he likeme, has read Allen de Bernoir,

(21:52):
who was very very much not atraditionalist, very much more modernist of the
French New Rite. But it's interestingto hear someone try and integrate de Benoir's
quite modernist perspectives on paganism and religioninto a traditionalist perspective. Elenda Benoir on
the difference between the martyr as aChristian hero in comparison to the pagan hero,

(22:12):
whose worth lay in his prowess inattaining and holding onto power, and
he gladly died on the battlefield inthe moment of victory. So these kind
of sentiments are quite popular with acertain type pagan adjacent philosopher and the online
space today, but those kinds arenot traditionalists. So it's interesting that he's

(22:33):
very happy to integrate non traditional,even untraditional authors into his work. The
problem of initiation is a huge onein modern paganism, especially because of the
influence of the traditionalist school. Thetraditionalist school holds that all traditions require initiations
and a chain of tradition to makethem legitimate, and this prerequisite has somehow

(22:56):
become extremely influential outside traditionalism, tothe extent that it's used by Christians in
general as a polemic against modern paganism, saying, you haven't got that change
of tradition. But the thing is, it's never actually said anywhere in paganism
that you need that. Certainly,initiations were necessary for priestly priesthoods. You
know, you don't need you don'tneed initiation into paganism, but you need

(23:19):
an initiation into the preachure if youwanted to conduct the rights, and of
course you need the rights to beconducted, so there is still an issue
of initiation anyway, he addresses it. By the way, this was the
main problem I tried to address foryears. I tried to address it myself,
and I come to the conclusion thata lot of the problem is just
not as big as people think itis. Because the presence of the gods

(23:41):
is always there. And the actualtraditionalist perspective is that the legitimacy of any
initiation is its vertical origin. Itultimately comes from the gods. But the
gods are always there, They're alwaysaccessible from paganism. There is no,
you know, need for like aprophet or someone to Muhammad to link everyone
to the God. It's always there. So this initiation thing is rather overblown

(24:04):
in my opinion. But let's justhear what Fart has to say on the
subject. If tradition is a chainof transmission, which, according to Guanon,
originates outside of man on the metaphysicallevel, then initiation is that which
it once binds and is transmitted throughthis chain. As an action, initiation
means that a person transitions to adifferent mode of existence. All coming of

(24:27):
manhood rights for boys or womanhood writesfor girls mean transitioning from one form through
dying to another form of life.In society, the initiation of a person
makes them complete into a real humanbeing. Before initiation, a person exists
merely on the natural level of existence, is not independent, and does not

(24:48):
participate in the affairs of society.On equal footing, there's a long quote
Familiada. I won't go into it, but one of the examples of initiation
he gives it's fart talks about inthis and from a Russian perspective, it's
the fact that there are extant shamanictraditions in Siberia among you know, Mongolic

(25:11):
and Turkic peoples and such. Needtalking also later on about the potential for
transmitting the initiation of from one traditionto another, and whether shamans have a
role to play in this for IndoEuropean pagans. But the thing is,
like the actual shamanic if you readabout actual shamanic traditions. The difference between
a priest and a sharman is thatpriests are initiated through a priesthood or a

(25:34):
chain of command, but shamans canbe initiated directly through via supernatural beings,
through or through the process of beinghealed. So a shaman who heals someone,
that other person who is healed bythe shaman can in the process become
a shaman, can start to haveshamanic voyages in their dreams, can start
to interact with divine beings, andtherefore be initiated directly, so that problem

(26:00):
of initiation isn't the same in shamaniccontexts, and I think that there's something
very interesting there to be considered forIndo European pagans practicing today, because unlike
others, we don't have a traditionof go theis. By the way,
despite being Russian, he practices manyGermanic paganisms far to usk the same as

(26:21):
me. But he's very much influencedby Greek and Hindu and other Indo European
traditions. Not to say he's entirelysyncretic, but he's just using them as
inspiration and thinking about the phi philosophicalimplications that they present. Increased attention and
reverence of the gods and goddesses ofdeath and wisdom on the part of the
upper cast in the Cali Yuga isalso related to the problem of initiation,

(26:44):
which we will examine further. Inthis regard, it is noteworthy that in
Hinduism, the god of wisdom Ghanish, appears as the son of the god
of destruction Shiva in Odinism. Odinsearch for wisdom leads to his frequent encounter
with death, such as the headof whose wisdom is honored by the All
Father and which is in a certainsense dead. In the words of volks

(27:07):
Velislav, the path to wisdom isthe path to death. Very much in
agreement with the Velislav here that wisdomand death are connected in the Indo European
tradition. And I don't think,however, necessarily, that this increased attention
to death and wisdom on the partof the upper state in the Karli Yuga
is something to do with the clinof the ages. I think it's always

(27:27):
been there, because it seems tome the primordial tradition is centered on the
Indo European tradition has always been aboutthis wisdom associated with the death. The
underworld is a source of wisdom andalways has been from the beginning. I
don't see that as in any waydecline. More on the subjects of initiation,
he talks about Baron Eveler, whodisapproves of so called self initiations.

(27:48):
So self initiation is something that somepeople would argue is a suitable path for
people today, but some traditionalists considerthat to be a whireh he washi and
new age. And he addresses thishere, agreeing with the Baron in his
conclusions. The Baron Evely, inhis conclusions that self initiation is often the

(28:10):
fruit of delusions and enthusiasm for fairlysimple miracles, accidents, or simply unusual
states of mind, and the discoveryof new facts. Let us dwell on
the two aspects, which, ever, are considered key to self initiation.
So self initiation here is considered alegitimate potential path, although also fought with
danger. The first factor is theintervention of a higher force, without which

(28:33):
there can be no initiation. IfGuenar saw this expressed in the earthly continuity
of chains of initiates, then wecan point to this chain as in fact
consisting of one link, that ofthe divine with man. The Divine is
on the top link of the chain, while man is on the bottom.
The matter at hand is the directinitiation of man from God, the bestowing

(28:53):
of insight or epiphany. This isknown in Kashmiri Shaverism as liberations spontaneously bestowed
upon the adept by Siva. Themetaphor of one link directly hints to the
unity of the nature of the godsand people, as well as to the
fact that there exists between them merelya difference of levels. Such forms an

(29:14):
obvious example of direct vertical initiation.The second aspect is existential trauma, which
ensures the inner readiness of a personand the rupture of levels which the adept
might not suspect himself. A mostglaringly evident illustration of this principle can be
seen in the alchemical metaphor of acquiringthe philosophical fire. The first means of

(29:37):
attaining this fire is the immersion ofa substance into a fire of such force
that it burns everything, even thedampest of wood. This is the society
of tradition, in which the sacredis absolutely everything, and every soul drawn
to it is also sacrilzed. Thesecond means is immersion into absolute ice,

(29:59):
into the var In this case,the fire burns within as a radical divergence
with the identity of the surrounding environment. This is the consciousness of oneself within
the thickest of ice, in thedarkest of nights, in the heart of
hell, and consciousness of one's differencefrom their surroundings. As Heraclitus said,
what night sets in man lights afire. So a very interesting idea of

(30:25):
potential here for self initiation, whichis still vertical. More on the same
he he quotes velluslav True tradition isthe transmission of living fire, not the
preservation of ashes. True wisdom isspiritual insight here and now, not a
memory of the past, no matterhow great and glorious it was. And
a similar thought on the individual pathwas expressed by Evela. Therefore, those

(30:48):
who, once they have assumed thecalmer of this civilization in which they wanted
to be born, being most certainof their vocation, want to move forward
by means of their own power,to seek to reach metaphysical contents, instead
of making mere horizontal attachments to organizationswhich claim to offer them support in their
search. Those are naturally on adangerous road, something which we want to

(31:10):
underline explicitly here. They will betraveling in wild country, without credentials nor
an exact geographic map. But basically, if in the profane world one considers
that it is natural that a personof noble origin risks his own life when
the goal is worthwhile, there areno grounds for thinking differently with respect to

(31:30):
the one who, given the circumstances, has no other choice. When it
comes to the conquest of initiation andof liberation from human bonds. So the
individual path, even from the perspectiveof everl can be a noble and in
fact the obvious path for a nobleseeking liberation spiritual liberation. Going on the

(31:55):
exclusivity, this is smart. Nowon the exclusivity and rarity of initiated individuals
representing an elite, Gunon issued thefollowing remark. In the final analysis,
we could say that the elite,as we understand it, represents the totality
of those who possess the qualifications requiredfor initiation, and who naturally are always
a minority among men. All menare, in a sense called by reason

(32:19):
of the central position the human beingoccupies among all the other beings found in
the same state of existence. Butfew are chosen, and in the conditions
of the present age that are indeedsurely fewer than ever. The existence of
initiatic societies, as Gunon saw them, seems to us to be either dubious
or possible only in remote areas ofAsia, or perhaps among the Shamanic peoples

(32:42):
of Russia. As I was sayingearlier, he talks about the potential of
the Shamans. This absolutely excludes allso called New Age groups it would be
a great blessing of a pagan communityor association where headed by an initiated person
capable of guiding others on their ownpaths. But this is a rather optimistic
view. Unfortunately, many stop ona certain far from highest level achievable through

(33:07):
horizontal initiation, and in their correspondingin a work. Yeah, I agree
with some of what he says here. Obviously, I don't think that this
initiation from existing tradition is possible forPagans, because I have many colleagues who
have attempted this, and I wasthinking as well. I know, for
example, Borgia Villiona was initiated firstby both in the Jewish and in the

(33:31):
Catholic tradition, and those priestly initiationsare not transferable to his current tradition.
He's a pagan now. He obviouslythought that there might be, but I
don't think he thinks that now alsopeople who have been initiated into some Eastern
tradition. Finnish author Archie Ciderbird hewent to India and did all this,

(33:53):
and then he realized afterwards that hecould not be transferred properly to his tradition
of Germanic Paganism. He like askAs Fat and myself practiced Germanic Paganism now.
But although he said he learned alot in India and he could learn
from it, that he couldn't takean initiation from one tradition and transfer it

(34:13):
to another. I do know somepeople who claim that they have, often
their Buddhists, some Buddhists who believethat having been initiated into some Buddhist tradition
or other makes them more qualified asauthorities within the Germanic pagan tradition. But
there's absolutely no evidence for that.I think they're wrong. In fact,
I think they've deluded themselves, becausethe mixing of traditions is quite new age.

(34:37):
In fact, trying to escape thenew age trap of self initiation by
being initiated into a foreign tradition isanother new age trap. Although it's not
new age to be Buddhist. Theidea that Buddhist authority can be transferred in
a Germanic pagan context is just nottrue or any other. And I completely

(34:58):
sympathize with people who tried it,because I was thinking of myself the problem
of their not being an initiatic traditionof Germanic priesthoods leaves us to try other
things, including these kind of transferenceof traditional side grays. But as he
said that the shamanic traditions in Asiamight be more transferable because you're learning skills

(35:19):
then, rather than it's not aninitiatic tradition. You're learning skills for interacting
with the other world, and thoseskills are transferable. And Ghermanic activities were
included in the Germanic pagan tradition,although they're not central to the main activity
of blood. There are other waysto learn how to interact with the divine

(35:42):
and directly from the gods. Ithink is the best. It's an interesting
passage here about the debaptizing then washingoff the former initiation into another tradition.
Some Russian Native faith priests distinguished oneof the main significances of right to be
the withdrawal of the person from thependulum of Christianity and anti Christianity, which

(36:05):
is to say, the lifting ofinner tentions and fanatical conflictedness, their liberation
from spiritual burden for the sake oftheir further path. One historical example of
such was cited by Henry of Latvia, who observed mass cases of debaptizing among
the populations of the Baltic states inthe late seventeenth century, where Christianity had

(36:25):
been the religion of the Saxon conquerors. Quote law, the treacherous Livonians,
emerging from their customary baths, pouredthe water of the Divina River over themselves,
saying we now remove the water ofbaptism and Christianity itself. With the
water of the river, scrubbing offthe faith we have received, we send
it after the withdrawing Saxons. Sothat's very interesting because it talked about the

(36:52):
importance within the native European religion ofBaltic paganism to wash away the initiation into
the foreign religion of Christianity. Prettygood evidence for at least one European tradition
that a sideways initiation from another traditionis not possible for Pagans. So that
I think most of my colleagues whohave attempted that in the past have now

(37:14):
abandoned that idea. It was dueto the influence of the traditional school considered
the legitimate potential path, but Ijust don't think so anymore. But its
legitimacy with so counts in the ideasof perennialism and the fact that all traditions
lead to one truth, which canvery well be true. But that doesn't
mean like, just as you usethe metaphor of a mountain with many paths,

(37:36):
if you start going up one,that doesn't mean that there's a path
going from one to the other.It probably means that you're going to fall
down if you try and go fromone path to another path, So don't
try it. Vulk Veloslav has proposeda simple and in this simplicity incredibly pure
and strong right of purification and namingthe initiatives to go out into the field
in the morning, wash themselves withdew from the grass, greekney and the

(38:00):
sun, and introduced themselves by theirnew Russian name. In this variant proposed
by Vedoslav, we at once seereferences to self initiation, openness to nature
during this simple rite, and tothe importance of one's native language for communicating
with the gods, a point onwhich we have dwelled in the preceding.
So here he is, I thinkhe's agreeing with me sart saying that you

(38:22):
know, this is a good wayto initiate self initiate with your native tradition
using a native language and your nativename. I'm not familiar with the works
of Vedislav, the Russian pagan whohe's sites In this context, A much
more complex question is the relation betweenone tradition and another. Is a foreign

(38:45):
faith dignified or not? In ancientGreece and Rome, we can find examples
of historians, travelers, and philosophersdescribing the traditions of other peoples and finding
analogs within their own, determining matchesbetween, for instance, Egyptian and Greek
gods featuring the very same estate,characteristics, functions, and attributes to recognize
the dignity of worshiping them as theirown gods, albeit under different names.

(39:07):
Attributing absolute counter initiatic quality to anothertradition is right only within creationism that scenes
talking about, like the exoteric christianand Islam. Just as Christianity rejects Judaism
as old no longer valid testament andMuhammad as a false prophet, Islam in

(39:29):
turn recognizes genuine initiatic quality only foritself, considering Judaism and Christianity to be
preceding distorted versions. Judaism does notrecognize Christ to Muhammad as pphets at all,
and considers Christianity and Islam to besex All three of the Abrahamic religions,
for their part, deny any initiaticquality on the part of the non

(39:50):
Abrahamic traditions. The situation is overallthe root of the purely creationist phenomena of
religious wars. Colourful confirmation of thiscan be seen in the following likely quotes
from the Bible. Pagan traditions,on the other hand, postulate a fundamental
plurality of paths qualitative by virtue ofpolytheism. The veneration and serving of one
or another god is not a contradictionin relation to other gods. The imagination

(40:14):
of counter initiation becomes most lucidly irrelevantin the case of the veneration of light
creator gods and dark gods of death. It may seem that Tantrists and allegory,
meditating in symmetriies and eating raw meatare far removed from divine initiation in
comparison to Brahmins and Chatrius, butin reality this difference is a gross illusion.

(40:34):
The Russian traditionalist philosopher Alexander Dugin,commenting on the notion of counter initiation
in relation to Abrahamic traditions declares asimilar view of heresies. More often than
not, religious nonconformists, heretics,Satanists, etc. Are seeking the totality
of saqul experience, which the representativesof Orthodoxy cannot offer them. On this
basis, it can be concluded thatintra traditional differences, currents, and sets

(41:00):
can be understood, for instance,by Hindus without negative connotations and not as
counter INITIATI. I think there's sometruth to that. There is certainly not
the same hostility towards other traditions forPagans as there is for the Abrahamic traditions.
But I think, for example,we know the Druids were sent to
places like Greece to learn about thewisdom of the Greeks and other cultures.

(41:22):
And I'm sure those kind of peopleexisted. They weren't completely blind to the
wisdom of their neighbors. But there'squite there's one thing to learn about and
appreciate the wisdom and perspectives of othercultures, and it's quite another to claim
that there is a cross initiation potential, because we don't see any actual evidence
of that. In the ancient world. I don't see people who were saying,

(41:45):
like, you know, the mysterycults in Greece didn't accept Oh,
you're already initiated as a druid inBritain. Oh that means you can just
come straight in as a hierofant.You can be a high priest here.
That doesn't happen. So there's veryseparate initiation traditions. And also he's sort
of glossing over in India. Theconflict between sects, philosophical and theological difference

(42:07):
is a big thing in India,so that there are some counterpoints to be
made there. Here's an interesting wayhe talks about making the traditionalist perspective current
and the pagan religion like integrated intoa narrative of modernity. When we characterize

(42:30):
our time as anti traditional or secular, as a time in which all that
is archaic has supposedly been overcome asinfantile human delusion, then we are depriving
ourselves of the right to call thisera by its name in terms of tradition,
the Karli Yuga, the Iron age. If we speak of modernity as
the age of Kolshai, the Chostniage, as the epoch of Ragnaruk,

(42:53):
then we impart it with traditional characteristicsand a traditional description. If it is
the iron age that indeed surrounds us, then this is no mere matter of
anti traditionality. We are within traditionhere and now we always have been.
The surrounding situation of collapse rather fullyfits into traditional eschatological prophecies. Metaphysical laws

(43:15):
are still in effect, and thewheel of the Celtic Cross continues to turn.
We are in the very heart ofthe night. We live in a
traditional world in which the gods haveretreated and been concealed. We live in
a traditional world in which the Titansand catonic material monsters are gaining the high
ground in the battle with the gods. The Titans, Tonic and their great

(43:36):
mother are always antagonistic to the gods. This is a continuation of the very
first War, as a result ofwhich the victorious gods organize space into an
ordered cosmos. The Greek tradition namedthis war Titanomachia. Spart returns frequently in
the book to the idea of theintegration of modern technologies as a manifestation of

(44:01):
the Jutna or the Titans in ourmodern world. Chaos against the gods.
From the point of view of paganthought, the assumption that it is possible
to support science in debunking Christianity andthe latter's authority is one of the greatest
misconceptions for science. As understood inthe illustration of modernity, there is no

(44:22):
difference between the gods of manifestationism andthe god of creationism. Science as an
instrument, as one of the weaponsof the Titans, is aimed against any
and all hierarchies and divinities. Theprinciples of physics, mathematics, and positivist
rationalist science are transplanted into the sphereof the humanitarian and social sciences, into

(44:45):
ideology and politics, and thereby infectthe active estates alah Plato of auxiliaries,
warriors, heroes, and all passionarypeople, realizing their nature as rulers.
As follows, the use of technologyis pure black magic, the deceptive gifts

(45:06):
of the subterranean dwarfs, which shouldbe used within a whole complex of protective
magic and verbal determinations through the demonicelement. The value of linguistic purism can
be called into question if one merelyquotes words and does not pay attention to
the importance of negative interpretations of thetranslations of new terms. Here he's referring

(45:28):
to the translation of the term internetas nitti, meaning threads, which he
is concerned that some Pagans talk aboutthe Internet as if it was a traditionalist
conception of something equivalent to some paganconcept, So he wants to see the
Internet as entirely bad. It isnecessary to think of traditionalism and modernity in

(45:49):
a different perspective. Not in thedia chonic view, which he supposes the
tradition was that within it Ragnaric alreadyhappened, and thereafter came modernity, and
which that are neither gods nor Titans. But in this synchronic view, in
which Ragna Ruk has been fulfilled hereand now in order to reveal that the
phenomena of modernity are the new facesof the Titans the Asuras. In this

(46:14):
regard, we believe that the insightthat we are living in precisely this era
and situation today is without a doubtan important and necessary step which every pagan
seeking the divine in our days musttake. I certainly agree with a pagan
perspective that views all the phenomena ofthe modern world as part of the same

(46:35):
world of the tradition that the ancientcontests between opposing forces continue in the world
as it is now. And Ialso agree that technology is dangerous, and
I think that technophilia is a dangerousphilosophy, and that certain technologies should be
viewed with caution or even potentially seenas forces of evil in the world.

(47:00):
Represent representative of then in that sense, like he says, but not to
the extent he does. The factof the matter is he talks earlier about
how the ancient Hindus viewed writing asa degeneration. Yet within our tradition,
the written form of the our tradition, the runic writing system, is a
gift from the gods, from Odin. That technology is a gift from Odin,

(47:22):
and there are many other examples ofGod's gifting technology or technology have been
associated with gods, and the dwarvesaren't. Then they're not just all evil
things. How do the gods respondto the technology of the dwarves and myths?
Thor accepts the hammer, Thor acceptsthat Odin accepts throughout near these are

(47:44):
not things that the gods reject.The creation the wondrous creations of the dwarfs.
So technology therefore could be a Idon't agree, obviously, I'm talking
to you now through the Internet technology. I obviously don't agree that these forms
are inherently opposed to us. Theycan be used to our ends as well
as against them. The idea thatthe youth make themselves known in this world

(48:09):
exclusively for technology, or that technologyis exclusively a manifestation of the jar in
this world, in this mid yachtmid guard, I don't agree with that.
I think it could just as wellbe a manifestation of the divine,
that they provide opportunities for the divineto manifest itself. So many people are

(48:30):
only aware of askers fight because ofthe Internet, because of these technologies.
Right now you are one of thosepeople. So it kind of undermines what
he's trying to say in that respect. But I am sympathetic with his general
view that, you know, technologyis a force of corruption in the world,
and that these technologies need to bePagans need to view these technologies with

(48:52):
suspicion. I've already articulated this fullyin my speech at the Pagan Futures Conference
in twenty twenty two. In thefollowing plassages, he talked about the rejection
of the modern world from Pagans.For pagans, the situation of modernity,
there is no such force capable ofspiritualizing the whole space of the West.

(49:15):
Today's pagan communities are incapable of this. The important step to be taken is
recognizing that modernity did not appear ina vacuum, but that its mythological background,
its hidden escence, is the titanCathonic element, opposed to the world
and gods of myths. In thisoptic man lacks the solar capacity to spiritualize

(49:36):
the Promethean legacy. In other words, with the growth in the number of
black gifts and Titanic miracles, mandescends into the lower states of being and
regresses to the strictly rational or inmost cases, animalistic element. For the
pagan who takes the side of theancient gods, the consistent rejection of such
Cathonic gifts is the ascetic path ofascent from the worlds of hell to solar

(49:59):
olympic to the gods. The Europeanpagan, the pagan of modernity, must
give principled and firm answers to thesedilemmas. So yes, I think it's
probably true that rejecting a lot ofthe aspects of the modern world will bring
you closer to the gods. He'susing here a Volian language that somewhat distorts

(50:22):
the nature of the Norse Germanic traditionthat he follows. Hell being negative or
opposed to a solar olympus. Alittle bit of a problem there when you
mix these terminologies. I've seen thisbefore. Like Ovola also talks about the

(50:42):
solar is the masculine principle, whichis of course the opposite of what we
believe as evens the solar is feminine. Here's his claim of the hemetic origins
of perennialism. In order to moreaccurately analyze the nature of modernity and its
constructs in relation to pagan traditionalism,an important digression and reflection on tra traditionalism

(51:06):
itself is in order. Modernity beganits active advance in the Renaissance era,
and it is to this period thatMark Sedgwick has traced the roots of the
philosophy of traditionalism back to the Italianthinker Marsilio Ficino's translation of the Corpus Ometicum,
the authorship of which was attributed toAremis Trimegistus. Thus unfolded the notion

(51:28):
of Philosophia Perennis, the eternal philosophyor eternal wisdom, which would later be
developed with the rediscovery of the philosophyof Plato and the Neoplatonists. In the
early twentieth century. Traditionalism would beenriched by the discovery of Indian Vedanta and
the correlation of Philosophia Perennis with Sanatanand Dhanama, and would come to be

(51:50):
expressed openly in the works of Mattiguioi, Renegnon, Julius Evela, Titus,
Burkhardt and others. Sidism appeared simultaneouslywith modernity in the periphery of the latter
and came out into opposition to modernityin the twentieth century. So yes,
I agree with that narrative, butit's important to recognize that it was the

(52:13):
Platonism was rediscovered, it was alwaysthere, and that the very Islamophilic perspective
of Buanan is anathema to anything Celestiouswrote. You know, people were a
lot of the Platonists were extremely againstChristianity, for example, and so you
can't possibly think that they would considerIslam and Christianity as valid paths as Guenon

(52:38):
did. Evela didn't, and herejected Christianity in Islam. Despite what Frank
Kelly might say, he did notconvert to Islam. He was only for
self initiation like me. The authorask of Swart opposes the posthuman and the

(52:58):
transhumanist philosophies of the current era.The translator sometimes translates the posthuman as posthumanism,
which is incorrect. Posthumanism is somethingvery distinct from posthuman in English,
so that was a problem, butlittle criticism of the translation. The title

(53:19):
of this chapter is the posthuman,but then it talks about post humanism,
meaning posthuman. The human of postmodernityis the rampant desire machine of Deluze and
Guatari, one who derives pleasure andsatisfaction from the process of change itself,
not from the result of or goalswhich are not intended at all. Under

(53:42):
postmodernity, the very biological constitution ofman is declared a fascist dictatorship of the
freedom of organs and joints to actas they will. The vertical posture of
man and the tension of organ systemis seen as a dictatorship of consciousness over
organs. In corporeality, the internalpart of the human have the right to
organize their own administration, their ownparliament, and to make decisions. That's

(54:05):
very interesting to apply leftist thoughts tobiology itself. In this quote he criticizes
the obsession of the transhumanists and suchwith artificial intelligence and robots and these kind
of things. A being that doesnot come from out of a mother's womb
and thereby is similar to kin andfellow tribesmen. Who does not die and

(54:25):
is not borne over the course ofinitiation, and who does not go into
the earth or the fire after deathis not a human being. Perhaps similar,
but below such are creatures of thelower world, devoid of the breath
of the gods. Robots and robotizedbodies are like the columns of Jewish mythology,

(54:47):
whose lives and meaning are contained ina piece of paper placed in their
mouths. In this case, programcodes of algorithms for actions and the interpretation
of a controller's I agree with thatvery much, and it's nice to see
a pagan attack on posthuman philosophy.On the dangers of the New Age infiltration

(55:12):
of paganism. He writes, newage is claiming of traditional forms and the
infiltration of recertained paganism by modernist andpostmodernist ideas pose a great problem. The
scholarly community has construed all manifestations ofthe revival of pagan traditions to be part
of this neopaganism and new age.Here we can confidently parry such with the

(55:35):
fact that paganism, existing in fullforce thousands of years ago and having passed
through history in different forms of transmission, cannot be related to quasi spiritual teachings
invented within the last century or less. Otherwise, Paganism is held hostage by
this scholarly approach. In Russia,the complexity of classifications of religious movements and

(55:58):
distinguishing between traddditional and ancient and thefictional and modern is frustrated by the strong
position of the Russian Orthodox Church,which the facto dictates the scientific apparatus in
this field and has been actively involvedin the operations of state religious studies commissions
under the Ministry of Justice. Overall, to summarize, new Age currents represent

(56:20):
the direct continuation of postmodern strategies applyto the sphere of spirituality with all the
accompanying and resulting dharmic relations. Soyes, he doesn't agree with this idea
that many people would say, includingsome traditionalists and also many scholarly academics talking
about Neopayian religions, that all ofthem are somewhat classified as new age,

(56:45):
and nor do I. Of course, I don't think what I'm doing is
new age at all. But weare reviving the essential spirit of the original
religious impulse, and doing so withthe aesthetics of an archaic he calltes Alene
de Benoit. It is not aquestion of returning to the past, but

(57:06):
of connecting with it, and also, by that very fact, in a
spherical conception of history, to connectto the eternal and cause it to surge
back, to have consonants in life, and to disentangle itself from the tyranny
of the logos, the terrible tyrannyof the law, so as to re
establish the school of the mythos andlife in ancient Greece. Jean Pierre Varnand

(57:28):
observes the effort to remember the primarypurposes of everything is not the construction of
the individual past of a man whoremembers the construction of his individual time,
but conversely it is what allows himto escape time. In the same way,
it is a question of referring tothe memory of paganism, not in
a chronological way so as to returnto an earlier time, but in a

(57:51):
mythological way to seek for that which, through time, surpasses time and still
speaks to us today. It isa question of connecting to something that cannot
be surpassed, rather than to somethingthat has been surpassed. On the dangers
of trying to transfer the wisdom fromone tradition to another, as I previously
discussed, Sparta writes, a wellknown but simultaneously most controversial and risky practice

(58:16):
is that of translating the elements ofone tradition into the language of another,
with the aim of restoring or coveringgaps. The experience of translation requires sensitive,
attentive contextual immersion, both in thetradition out of which the translation is
being made, as well as thetradition into whose language the translation is being
introduced. In this process, itis important to convey the structure and meaning,

(58:42):
sometimes at the expense of external forms, but to the benefit of organic
embedding and restoration. On this matter. Nigel Pennic has quoted the words of
Antonio Goudi, which reflect our owncomments. Those who look for the laws
of nature as support for their newworks collaborate with the creator. Those who
blindly copy do not whids wise wordsthere In the following passage, Spart criticizes

(59:12):
those who attempt to integrate technology intomodern paganism. And this is a part
that I am less in agreement with. The most disastrous and marginal resolution of
the problem of the interrelations between traditionand modernity is represented by those attempts at
conceptualizing the technological achievements of modernity andpostmodernity, as well as their corresponding social

(59:32):
and global changes, in a positivespirit of development and reconciliation with the gods.
In this practice, mobile phones,computers, and virtual networks are declared
to be blessings of the gods bestowedupon humanity. Spirits and gods are introduced
as the patrons of social networks,technology and the IT sphere, and technological

(59:53):
devices are actively used in ritual practice. The priest reads praises not from the
high art, but from the screenof a mobile phone. The forest is
consecrated not by fire but by electricalillumination, and all sorts of technology are
employed to create a theatrical effect forparticipants. Thus the right is leveled down

(01:00:15):
to a spectacular quasi ethnic setting ofspecial effects. Hand in hand with this
practice precedes the syncretism of traditions,or the assertion that there is no need
to belong to one tradition alone,that anyone can praise any gods in This
can be seen distinctly and without adoubt, the postmodernist post religious syncretism,
which excludes any initiative dimension and authenticity. Well, certainly I do oppose many

(01:00:43):
of the things he opposes, thequasi ethnic esthetics used to sort of dress
up a modern write or postmodernist ideas, and post religious syncretism that don't really
value the component parts that are beingsyncretized. Those are things I all oppose
as well. But for example,he gives reading from the phone. If

(01:01:07):
one reads writes a prayer, traditionalprayer and read it from the phone,
how does this offend the gods andprevent propitiating them in comparison to reading the
same prayer from a piece of paper. How the only decent argument I've heard

(01:01:28):
from anyone to respond to This isthat they require certain esthetic stimulations which evoke
for what they consider to be anenvironment that is like that of the ancestors,
in order for them to achieve thenecessary mindset to engage with the divine.

(01:01:52):
Well, in that case, that'sfine. If you need, if
you actually absolutely need to write downyour prayers on a piece of parchment or
vellum, then do so. Butwhat if others don't? And this,
to me also is a sign ofdegenerate, This is a sign of decline,
of degeneration. When you are sodependent on esthetics that you are your

(01:02:14):
actual ability to engage with the divineis hampered simply by the presence of a
technological device that is not in anyway distorting or imposing itself onto the tradition
or the right. So we knowthat the introduction of runes was preceded by

(01:02:36):
earlier forms of magic which were spokenlike galdre and the same in India before
the vader was ever written down.It was only the earliest version of the
Vada's only about a thousand written down. The Big Veada's written down only a
thousand years ago. It was probablywritten down more like three thousand years ago,
or something like that two and ahalf thousand years ago, but the
early manuscript we have was only athousand years old. But it was spoken

(01:02:58):
from at least three and a halfthousand years ago. And this form of
technology of speaking it by heart didn'tmean they made it up. It means
that they had to memorize it fromchildren. And you'd spend twenty years of
your life, every single day memorizingthe prayer so that you didn't make them
wrong. Obviously, the importance ofmaking the prayers saying the prayers exactly in
the same way necessitated the introduction oftechnology that helped them to do this by

(01:03:22):
writing it down. At this stage, the edders have to be written down
for us because we can't remember theedders, and not everyone can know thet
I don't know anyone who knows theentire edders off by heart. So naturally
many people read the edits. Sometimesthey read it from a book. If
they read it from their phone insteadof from a book, it would not
make any difference to the gods atall. There is absolutely no theological argument

(01:03:44):
I can come up with. Itried to where I could argue that the
gods would be offended from someone readingfrom a phone screen rather than from a
piece of paper. Paper wasn't evenused in those days. It was written
on vellum, So even the paperitself is an introduction. The printing press
didn't exist. So you have allforms here in a printed word of technology
that did not exist, but they'reacceptable and a phone screen isn't. This

(01:04:05):
needs to be elaborator if he wishesto make this argument, it needs to
be articulate exactly how the screen ofa phone is offensive to the gods,
but the printing press in book isn't, because that isn't made clear. So
this is something I don't appreciate,because Evella even says, you know,

(01:04:26):
the traditionalist can be happy in anyenvironment, whether he doesn't have to be
on a mountaintop. He could justas well be in a busy city.
So the environment, like a reallydifferentiated man, can make any can feel
differentiated and can feel the presence ofthe divine in any environment. So it's
not strictly traditionalist to say this,and it's not strictly pagan to say this.

(01:04:48):
So in his marrying of traditionalism andpaganism, where does he come to
the conclusion that the presence of aphone screen corrupts the right because it needs
to be. It's not enough tosimply assert it. I think he needs
to go in a bit deeper thanthat. But I do understand the need
that some people have to create anenvironment that feels pre modern. And if

(01:05:11):
the phone, for you is asymbol of the corruption of the modern world,
then the presence of that symbol maybe disruptive to your experience of the
divine. That's that's something that youneed to also work through because those symbols,
the presence of these technology, thesetechnology is going to increase, and
therefore your ability to experience the divinewill decrease unless you find a way to

(01:05:35):
not be so easily distracted by thesesymbols. But that in that case,
it's the phone as symbol, it'sthe problem, rather than the phone is
any actual active participant of disruptive participant, antagonistic to the ritual. But yeah,

(01:05:55):
I might come across as needlessly criticalof this work, but I I
think it's a good book and Ido recommend that you read it. Try
and get the camera to focus onthe type on the cover now, But
Polemo's Dawn of Pagan Traditionalism by AskerSwat You can get a copy online from
Praft Publishing. Thank you for watchingthe Jive book review. Are you interested

(01:06:20):
in worshiping the gods of ancient Englandand Scandinavia, but you're not sure how
to do it? Starting Heathenry isa ritual focused online course which will furnish
you with the knowledge and confidence topractice the Heathen religion alone or with others.
The course teaches you how to constructHeathen prayers for yourself, not according
to the established rights of any moderngroup, but according to what historical sources

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show. Starting Heathenry assumes you're interestedin Germanic paganism, know about the gods
and myths, and want to beginpracticing this religion, but require guidance on
how to do so. It isbased on a micro learning structure, which
has proven to improve knowledge attention byup to eighty percent in students compared to
other learning methods. You get morethan five hours of learning material bit by
bit as you please, a modernmethod of learning about an ancient religion.

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Your path to knowing the God's throughritual starts here.