B1.2) "I'm wary of overly-neat identifications like "the Danube-merger is where the Vanir came from, and the Nordic Bronze Age merger is where the Jotnar came from"." - Yes, even though I might be willing to believe that Germanic history only involved 2 major absorptions, I wouldn't even then try to assign to each a myth.
B1.3) "This also hits on the wider idea that I'm pretty sure our modern brains must handle categories differently than ancient Germanish folks did" - In Freyr's case, Van and Ás is relatively straightforward, and I - not knowing the "human baby" myth - don't think he was considered a human by the same people at the same time? (Like the Welsh and Irish deities demoted by Christian chroniclers? And just maybe, he *was* a human before being declared divine?)
B1.4) "my take on Revival Druidry in general has undergone a pretty big transformation from something like "that's silly, why would anyone do that?" to "Yeah, well, I guess I'm on my way to being a druid now, whatever else I might be or become"." - At the first point, you had a Germanic polytheism interest, but considered Revival Druidry silly?
B1.5) If Seed of Yggdrasil is the better-organized one ...
C2) "It's the degree to which the individual over-estimates himself and under-estimates the goodness outside of him that he shows the evil side of the archetype." - While I'm sure this is whhat JBP meant, I'd read something rather more specific - I, as a supposedly-recovering biophobe, have had a tendency to look at *gender characteristics* and only see negatives.
C4) "they/we just can't quite accept that the problem was in the trying to go as far as possible, rather than in the choice of which compass bearing to follow." - I think in this there's a difference between the nominal and factual: nominally, Western intellectuals have adopted ideologies calling for *not* trying to control things (see things like "Third-Worldism" or James C. Scott's works), but the generally seen in practice has invoved charging as aggressively as possible in different directions from the previous, yes.
C5) "(even "leads the armies of Hell against the rulers of the Cosmos" results in "rebirth and possibly new golden age" in Ragnarok!)" - I think you're quoting an argument by Violet Cabra I read as well; if yes I don't buy it, based on what I said about (what I think was) the opinion on jötnar: they're part of the cosmos, and can be useful to (say) humans, *as long as they aren't making a lot of decisions* so worshipping them's right out. (That said, of course, even if I'm correct about the historical opinion, that in itself places no restriction on current practictioners.)
"I think if you meditated on myths involving Loki with Peterson's understanding of evil in mind, or vice versa, you'd get some good insights." - Seems certain. For now I'll say that when JBP talked about reason unmoored from anything else, he used Set as an example, and the Temple of Set regards Set as precisely the cosmic principle of consciousness (that said, the Temple does value non-rational phenomena, as I understand)! (And I might need to listen to the first 4 JBP podcast episodes again - I'd been sleepy for quite some time in the bus ...)
C7) "I agree that almost no one in the Faustian west ever thinks of him like that." - Apparently not even non-Western Jews! (I'd thought that was Judaism's main/most formal opinion, but tried to check before writing the previous comment, and it seems neither religious Jews in general nor Cabalists do.)
"Even if you accept Hotel Concierge's interpretation that God's reaction was one of fear" - Absent horrendous translation error, I don't know how one can think anything else! (Also, see "they had iron chariots".)
"or because he wants to spite God?" - Well, is it established that that would be wrong? :)
"The Miltonian version is that he's trying to screw up God's new favorite thing, humanity" - Well, sure, but do you just trust his enemy? :) (Less facetiously: yeah, that's the version we have, mostly, and it does correspond to the comparison you made between Ódhinn and Loki, which had been your point.)
"his Genesis lectures went a long way to convincing me that there was something worthwhile in the Old Testament" - While I don't disagree with that in the meaning I think you intend, I'm actually pretty favorably predisposed these days towards it as historiographically relevant (the tragicomical angle being http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6791&IBLOCK_ID=35 )!
"Maps of Meaning lectures/the book (I tried starting with those in the first place, and that was a mistake)" - If the huge book is the more accessible version ...
"Briefly, the key insight I got from him is that a lot of what seems arbitrary or perplexing about the Old Testament Yahweh, what makes him seem tyrannical or what have you, makes a lot more sense if you think of that figure as the ancient Hebrew's best attempt at conceptualizing of "this is just what the world is like" and then thinking about how to deal with that fact." - That has merit for considerations in our time and may help explain later Judaism (which, like later Christianity, I might say involves rationalization before growing discomfort with certain parts of the books), but I think it smuggles in a real monotheism which I think didn't exist while at least part of the "Old Testament" formed. (Before, "the specific deity they worshipped is an unmitigated borehole [by *our* standards, notice]" seems ... pretty normal to me.)
no subject
B1.3) "This also hits on the wider idea that I'm pretty sure our modern brains must handle categories differently than ancient Germanish folks did" - In Freyr's case, Van and Ás is relatively straightforward, and I - not knowing the "human baby" myth - don't think he was considered a human by the same people at the same time? (Like the Welsh and Irish deities demoted by Christian chroniclers? And just maybe, he *was* a human before being declared divine?)
B1.4) "my take on Revival Druidry in general has undergone a pretty big transformation from something like "that's silly, why would anyone do that?" to "Yeah, well, I guess I'm on my way to being a druid now, whatever else I might be or become"." - At the first point, you had a Germanic polytheism interest, but considered Revival Druidry silly?
B1.5) If Seed of Yggdrasil is the better-organized one ...
C2) "It's the degree to which the individual over-estimates himself and under-estimates the goodness outside of him that he shows the evil side of the archetype." - While I'm sure this is whhat JBP meant, I'd read something rather more specific - I, as a supposedly-recovering biophobe, have had a tendency to look at *gender characteristics* and only see negatives.
C4) "they/we just can't quite accept that the problem was in the trying to go as far as possible, rather than in the choice of which compass bearing to follow." - I think in this there's a difference between the nominal and factual: nominally, Western intellectuals have adopted ideologies calling for *not* trying to control things (see things like "Third-Worldism" or James C. Scott's works), but the generally seen in practice has invoved charging as aggressively as possible in different directions from the previous, yes.
C5) "(even "leads the armies of Hell against the rulers of the Cosmos" results in "rebirth and possibly new golden age" in Ragnarok!)" - I think you're quoting an argument by Violet Cabra I read as well; if yes I don't buy it, based on what I said about (what I think was) the opinion on jötnar: they're part of the cosmos, and can be useful to (say) humans, *as long as they aren't making a lot of decisions* so worshipping them's right out. (That said, of course, even if I'm correct about the historical opinion, that in itself places no restriction on current practictioners.)
"I think if you meditated on myths involving Loki with Peterson's understanding of evil in mind, or vice versa, you'd get some good insights." - Seems certain. For now I'll say that when JBP talked about reason unmoored from anything else, he used Set as an example, and the Temple of Set regards Set as precisely the cosmic principle of consciousness (that said, the Temple does value non-rational phenomena, as I understand)! (And I might need to listen to the first 4 JBP podcast episodes again - I'd been sleepy for quite some time in the bus ...)
C7) "I agree that almost no one in the Faustian west ever thinks of him like that." - Apparently not even non-Western Jews! (I'd thought that was Judaism's main/most formal opinion, but tried to check before writing the previous comment, and it seems neither religious Jews in general nor Cabalists do.)
"Even if you accept Hotel Concierge's interpretation that God's reaction was one of fear" - Absent horrendous translation error, I don't know how one can think anything else! (Also, see "they had iron chariots".)
"or because he wants to spite God?" - Well, is it established that that would be wrong? :)
"The Miltonian version is that he's trying to screw up God's new favorite thing, humanity" - Well, sure, but do you just trust his enemy? :) (Less facetiously: yeah, that's the version we have, mostly, and it does correspond to the comparison you made between Ódhinn and Loki, which had been your point.)
"his Genesis lectures went a long way to convincing me that there was something worthwhile in the Old Testament" - While I don't disagree with that in the meaning I think you intend, I'm actually pretty favorably predisposed these days towards it as historiographically relevant (the tragicomical angle being http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6791&IBLOCK_ID=35 )!
"Maps of Meaning lectures/the book (I tried starting with those in the first place, and that was a mistake)" - If the huge book is the more accessible version ...
"Briefly, the key insight I got from him is that a lot of what seems arbitrary or perplexing about the Old Testament Yahweh, what makes him seem tyrannical or what have you, makes a lot more sense if you think of that figure as the ancient Hebrew's best attempt at conceptualizing of "this is just what the world is like" and then thinking about how to deal with that fact." - That has merit for considerations in our time and may help explain later Judaism (which, like later Christianity, I might say involves rationalization before growing discomfort with certain parts of the books), but I think it smuggles in a real monotheism which I think didn't exist while at least part of the "Old Testament" formed. (Before, "the specific deity they worshipped is an unmitigated borehole [by *our* standards, notice]" seems ... pretty normal to me.)