#nordic occultism

[witchrog]

Experimenting with digital over photos

[xphaiea]

KRAMPUS!

Two brand new Krampus dolls for the festive season. Now available on Big Cartel.

music: Laura Cannell & André Bosman

[joelchaimholtzman]

Painting from around a year ago I made as a private commission! An Elvish Hag. It was fun to create order out of chaos with the dress, cool to experiment with the shapes.

Hope you like it!

Best,

JCH

[witchboxco]

[fallbabylon]

Jorvik Viking festival finale- York, UK

[artschoolglasses]

Yes, nothing screams Christmas like books on witchcraft/occult history.🖤

(This is what I read for fun.)

[khulthuskaotika]

Aquele que Dependurado foi

Nove dias, Nove noites

Na Árvore da Vida

Existência

Para os Segredos descobrir

Sabedoria

Pelo Sangue derramado

Sofrimento

O Auto-Sacrificado

E lá, sobre sua poça de Sangue Real

Estavam os Símbolos Secretos

O Tesouro a ser descoberto

O Velho caolho

Andarilho das Encruzilhadas

Vestes em farrapos

Rei!

Não de outros ou terras

Mas de seu próprio Segredo.

[33-108]

Odin of Asgard, Supreme Ruler of the Scythians, 1st King of Scandanavia.

The Holy Grail Bloodline of Odin

“The Holy Grail Bloodline that emanated out of the Eden of Meru/ Kailash is that of Odin. Odin is a name for the ancient King of the World, Green Man, and Savior of Humanity who has been known by different names in the many divergent cultures and civilizations that have populated Earth. Odin was the "Serpent on the Tree" and Lord of Wisdom in the Meru/ Kailash Eden and assisted in the birth of the new humanity. One of his creations in the Himalayan Eden was Virabhadra, the greatest warrior to ever live, who became the patriarch of the tribes noted for their intrepid and indomitable warriors, the Scythians and the Norse.”

“The Norse left their Meru/ Kailash Eden as part of the Scythian migration west. They were Sakas - "those of power"- who flew the dragon banner and attached dragons to the prows of their ships. Eventually they settled in Scythia and honed their ship-building and sailing skills in the Black and Caspian Seas.”

“According to the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturleson, when an Avatar of Odin, who was also named "Odin," was born in Scythia he led his Norse people north to Scandinavia. The beginning of Odin's Norse Kingdom was founded in the area of Stockholm, Sweden and it then moved south and west into Denmark and Norway. To rule over his vast empire Odin founded the Yngling Dynasty of Kings to govern Scandinavia. These monarchs all shared the Dragon Force that flowed in the Holy Grail Bloodline from Odin.”

“Odin became the founder of the Old Norse Religion in Scandinavia that was focused around the Sacred Runes, each of which contained vast wisdom and power. He also taught rites to activate the inner Dragon Force of Kundalini. In fact, **Odin was himself an embodiment of the Dragon Force and his signature symbol was Gungnir, a spear whose shaft represents the human spine and whose blade symbolizes the Third Eye of Gnostic Wisdom that the Kundalini rises up and activates.”

From Mark Amaru Pinkham ~ Author

[saturninemysticthreads]

Tell us your first impression!

[01298283]

Assista a "Wardruna - Lyfjaberg (Healing-mountain) Official music video" no YouTube

[the-lost-kemetic]

Red Flags In Pagan Circles

I've seen a lot of younger, inexperienced members of the pagan (and witchy!) communities fall into some traps set up for them by people who wish to harm them. It saddens my heart to see this happen, as a lot of newer practitioners join these circles so they can learn! And because they're new, they often get taken advantage of.

So I'm creating this non-comprehensive list of some red flags in pagan and witch circles. Again, this isn't comprehensive. I will be updating this as time goes by, so I recommend checking in on this. For each red flag, I'll give a brief explanation as to why it's a red flag. As always, feel free to add your own in the replies and I'll add them to this post!

EDIT: 11/15/2022 - since there's been some people misunderstanding some of the things in this post, I've rewritten a lot of it so hopefully it makes more sense! Apologies to any confusion that's been caused. I also added some of the additions people have reblogged as well!

Usage of the terms "black" and "white" magic:

While this doesn't always mean someone is racist or xenophobic, within occult spaces there's this tendency to use this. The association of darkness/black things being evil isn't always a racist thing (we as humans are naturally afraid of the dark), but it did play a part in the Atlantic slave trade by associating dark skin with animalistic, evil ambitions and light skin as being pure and good. This isn't 100% a red flag, but it's good to keep an eye out when it is used! Another issue is that "black magic" was often used to refer to African traditional magic. It's why you'll often see hoodoo and voodoo portrayed as evil.

Argues that anyone can practice whatever they want, regardless of the status of it being closed or not:

Closed practices are closed for a reason, specifically because these practices have had their people murdered, their land stolen, and their practices made illegal for many years. The reason they are closed is so that outsiders cannot just come into their sacred spaces, take what they want, and bastardize it. The belief that you can join these closed practices without being initiated/born into them is rooted in colonialism and racism. This is one of the biggest red flags. Some examples of closed practices are hoodoo, ATRs, Native American beliefs, brujeria, and santeria. Some plants are closed as well, so please do your due diligence.

The belief in folkism/volkism: that open pantheons should only be worshiped by those with their blood:

This is the complete opposite of the above. Open pantheons are open because they have not been passed down to us in a single line, and they are currently being revived. As such, these practices can't really be "closed". People who argue that open pantheons should only be worshiped by those with their blood are partaking in the same beliefs as Neo-Nazis. Please watch out for this especially in heathen/Nordic spaces! These people ARE NAZIS. The specific dogwhistle here is "go back to your roots". (Thank you to @chrisasiaheartman)

Offers to teach advanced practices (baneful magic, deity work, etc.) to newcomers:

It's true that everyone is on different parts of their practice, and not everyone will progress the same way. However, there are certain practices that newcomers should not be doing until they have the basics down. This includes baneful magic and deity work, as you can open yourself up to disastrous consequences if you don't take the proper precautions. This isn't too much of a red flag as often the people doing this do mean well, but it's still something to look out for.

They use the terms "witchcraft" and "Wicca" interchangeably:

They are not interchangeable! Witchcraft is a practice, and Wicca is a religion. These types of people often believe you must be Wiccan to practice witchcraft, which you don't.

They refer to Wicca as an "ancient" religion:

This is false. Wicca was founded in the 1960s. If they do this, it could either be tongue-in-cheek, or it's just blatant misinformation. I would be careful.

They act as though baneful magic is evil.

It isn't. Baneful magic can be a form of protection and self-defense, it is not always a bad thing.

They act as though the "threefold law" is the end-all-be-all of practicing:

Not every witch believes in the threefold law, nor are you required to. This goes back into my point about them believing you must follow Wiccan teachings to practice witchcraft. You don't, period.

The use of racial or cultural slurs, even if they claim it's in a non-discriminatory way:

They are racist. If they're mentioning these slurs in an educational way, that's fine. But if a witchcraft space is just dropping these slurs casually in speech, it's a good sign of them being racist.

They push a specific diet:

You don't need to eat vegan or vegetarian to be a witch. No one has to. Some witches might think that's the best way to practice, and that's fine! Some witches might not subscribe to that idea, and that's fine too!

They push pseudoscience and/or anti-science ideologies (anti-vax, etc.):

This is extremely dangerous. Witchcraft and science can work together just fine. People have done this for so long, and pushing these ideologies can be extremely dangerous to peoples' personal health.

Enforcement of gender binaries:

This is things like the divine "masculine" and divine "feminine". Often times these people will also claim that the womb/uterus should be worshipped as well, and the people who do this are often TERFs/transphobic. Not everyone neatly fits into a gender binary. (Thank you to @hagstone-enthusiast for this!)

They promote the idea that only witches can be female, or that male witches are called warlocks:

Witches can be any gender, and the term warlock is actually derogatory as it means someone broke their oath.

Promotes the idea that mentally ill/neurodivergent witches that that way because they have a strong intuition:

This is very dangerous because being neurodivergent/mentally ill isn't a special thing, and it often is a detriment to many people. People who claim this often believe in indigo children/starseed children. In addition, look out for people to claim that neurodivergent people are that way because they "don't have a position attitude" (thanks to @urchinbeans5000).

[astriiformes]

hi! Sorry to bother--I am also graduating soon and I'm scouring my university library--I LOVED the list you made, do you have any other recommendations you wouldn't mind sharing? frankly you could throw a works cited page at me and I'd be happy

I've certainly got more papers I could recommend, though I can't claim they're all directly monster-related. My actual academic field is the history of science, with an emphasis on the early modern period and early print culture -- I just try to tie it to my other special interests however I can!

If you're interested in monster theory, I definitely recommend various readings on witchcraft and the occult as well -- there are significant links between the early modern witch trials/folkloric beliefs about witchcraft and some of our "modern" monsters like werewolves. Try:

Wolves, Witches, and Werewolves: Witchcraft and Lycanthropy from 1423 to 1700 by Jane P. Davidson and Bob Canino

The Saturnine History of Jews and Witches by Yvonne Owens

From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Later Middle Ages by Michael D. Bailey

Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages by Stephen A. Mitchell

The Specific Rationality of Medieval Magic by Richard Kieckhefer (who has written a LOT on magic and witchcraft in general)

Male Witches in Early Modern Europe by Laura Apps and Andrew Gow

If you're interested in monster studies from more of a sci-fi/fantasy angle and like reading about speculative fiction, consider:

On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre by Darko Suvin (really anything by Darko Suvin is a solid bet, he's a hugely influential scholar in the study of science fiction)

The journal Science Fiction Studies which has a lot of great articles and special issues (including a great one on Frankenstein!)

Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction by John Rieder

For a grab-bag of odd and unconventional papers and books I've found interesting recently, have a look at:

The Soul, Evil Spirits, and the Undead: Vampires, Death, and Burial in Jewish Folklore and Law by Saul Epstein and Sara Libby Robinson

Melancholy as a Disease: Learning About Depression as a Disease from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy by Jennifer Radden

A Case for a Trans Studies Turn in Victorian Studies: “Female Husbands” of the Nineteenth Century by Lisa Hager

Battling Demons With Medical Authority: Werewolves, Physicians, and Rationalization by Nadine Metzger

And, last but not least, I've only skimmed these last few, but as I'm currently on a huge Dracula research kick, here's a couple articles that have caught my eye:

Rethinking the New Woman in Dracula by Jordan Kistler (this one was especially refreshing to see, given the fact that many academic takes on the subject are.... bad)

Masculine Spatial Embodiment in Dracula by Julie Smith

Information in the 1890s: Technological, Journalistic, Imperial, Occult by Richard Menke

A ‘Ghastly Operation’: Transfusing Blood, Science and the Supernatural in Vampire Texts by Aspasia Stephanou

[folksaga-if]

S K O G S R Å ; MC ORIGIN

[ KEEPER OF THE FOREST | ++ DEC / WIS / PHYS ]

background elements taken from Nordic folk legends of the Skogsrå (Sweden) and the Hulder (Norway).

In the heart of the woods, between moss and pine and root, the hunter's unknowing prey lies in wait. How many lives, he wonders, have been stolen by the beast within these trees? Too many to count. There are those who would claim that the creature is merely the keeper of Hallormsstaðaskógur, that it only hunts those who would threaten its home, but the empty shells of men who have returned from its grasp — and the empty spaces left by those who have not returned at all — hint at something far darker.

None have been able to describe what it was that they endured in the forest, what it was that they saw. All that is known of the beast is what small details can be assembled from the fragmented words of those it spared:

It is quick.

It is clever.

It is deadly.

-

In the blackest depths of the forest lurks the SKOGSRÅ, a creature as cunning as it is merciless to those it perceives as a threat. The steadfast guardian of the woods will often appear at the tree line to offer travelers guidance through their home; many of these travelers will not be seen again.

The Skogsrå shares a deep connection with flora and fauna, and has a natural predilection toward the occult. Their back, resembling a hollow tree trunk, is the easiest way to discern one from a human, but they may also bear a cow's tail or eyes that reflect light in darkness.

WARNING: prolonged indoor confinement, artificial lighting, and lack of fresh air may cause the Skogsrå to become rabid. At-risk humans are reminded to follow a simple rule: lock yourself in, and lock the monster out.

[crowbraincoin]

Today's Study Plan/Setup

Study with me!

Playlist

nordic study session ~ chill lofi beats by Cozy Nordic

nordic workspace ~ chill lofi beats by Cozy Nordic

nordic cabin ~ chill lofi beats by Cozy Nordic

Time

Study With Me Aesthetic Pomodoro Timer > 25/5 with a 30 min break in between > will study as long as the playlists go

Study Topics

Folk cures for curses

Victorian occultism

Sympathetic magic

The goal is to study each topic for the duration of one of the videos linked above.

[antifainternational]

Yes Virginia, The Nazis Were Fascists - Part Two

(this is part two of a continuation of a discussion we've been having with an Anon who challenged us to define fascism. In our previous response, we provided Anon with a photo of a poster from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a bullet list from Yale professor Jason Stanley, quotes from William Reich, Ludwig von Mises, Harold Nicolson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace, Marcus Garvey, a link to a video breakdown of the subject by Philosophy Tube, and recommendations to read books by historians Mark Bray, Robert O. Paxton, Umberto Eco, and Hannah Arendt - all of whom have published key works on the topic. Anon did not do his homework and instead sent us an immediate reply, informed solely by the two images we included in our response, ignoring everything else we cited. His reply includes some, uhh, pretty incredulous claims. In this post, we crack our knuckles, get someone to hold our beer, and tee off).

ANON: Going by the first image, the nazis weren't fascists. They didn't have religion and government intertwined and Hitler actually talked about how he would eradicate christianity after judaism. AI: The nazis absolutely intertwined religion and government. Hitler's desire to eradicate Christianity stemmed from his desire to supplant the authority of the church with the authority of the state, believing that "political control could then be applied to make the whole Church an instrument of the nazi party." (John S. Conway, Nazi Persecution, p. 34). You're right about nazi repression of Christianity and Judaism (see Christopher Tatara, "Himmler, Hitler, and Christianity in the Early Third Reich"). But you miss the part where their intention was to replace religious devotion and authority with state devotion and authority. Many nazi leaders, contemptuous of Judeo-Christianity, sought to replace those religious traditions with occultism, Nordic paganism, nature worship, or even an "Aryanized" Christianity, worshipping a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus. But more than that, the nazis attempted to replace religious devotion with devotion to nazi ideology and worship of the state itself, positioning Hitler somewhere between a prophet and a god.

[magnetothemagnificent]

You made a comment on Feb 12 in regard to a goy being an ass and said the nazis were pagans. Which surprised me because I know theres a neo-pagan movement today and such but overall could you elaborate?

In order for Nazism to gain traction, Hitler, and Himmler specifically, needed a faith system in order to unite the German people. They took elements of historic Nordic and Germanic pagan belief and archaeology- Nazi archaeology relied on trying to convince the world that there was an indeed an ancient race of Aryans and that Germans were their descendents. They appropriated Nordic and Slavic sites, claiming they were in fact Germanic, and sometimes even faked discoveries.

Himmler especially wanted to impose his idea of "true Germanic paganism" onto the German people in order to distance themselves from Christianity and create more of a "unique" identity that seperated Germans from other Europeans, to unite them under a shared Volk identity. He also was obsessed with religious relics that he claimed were of German origin, or could at least give legitimacy to the Nazis by being symbols of power. One of the things he tried to popularize was the concept of Thingspiel, which he claimed was based on ancient Germanic pagan celebrations. The Nazis built amphitheatres on sites they claimed were the ancient sites of Germanic pagan gathering sites, although some sites were pure fabrications.

Most Nazi symbols are taken from Nordic runes or, in the case of a swastika, from symbols they found in archaeological sites that they believed was proof of a universal Aryan race. In reality, swastikas were just a simple symbol to draw and often depicted a star or the sun in archaeological finds. There's been swastikas found in archaelogical sites around the world. Neo-Nazis today rely on their idea of Germanic paganism, and the modern Norse pagan community is unfortunately rife with Nazis.

Further reading:

Producing the Volk community – the Thingspiel movement 1933–36

'Arierdämmerung': Race and Archaeology in Nazi Germany

The Past as Propaganda: Totalitarian Archaeology in Nazi Germany 

Hitler’s Monsters: The Occult Roots of Nazism and the Emergence of the Nazi ‘Supernatural Imaginary’

LUCIFER’S COURT: Ario-Germanic Paganism, Indo-Aryan Spirituality, and the Nazi Search for Alternative Religions

ASATRU FOLK ASSEMBLY

The Man Who Brought the Swastika to Germany, and How the Nazis Stole It

A LOOK AT RACIST SKINHEAD SYMBOLS AND TATTOOS

Runic Writing (racist)

Cultural Appropriation in Contemporary Neopaganism and Witchcraft