B1.3) 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?)
So, it's not 100% agreed that Scyld Scefing = Freyr, and I'm blanking a bit on where that equation is argued clearly (modern practitioner books have a bad habit of just presenting conclusions/interpretations without enough "showing your work"). Further complicating matters is exactly the issue you bring up, because I think Scyld Scefing is mostly spoken of in sources written down by Christians (like Beowulf and Saxo Grammaticus), but Freyr also maybe had some associations with human ancestor cult. All of which is to say "deified human", "being with both divine and human characteristics in different stories/places/times", and "euhemerized God" are amongst the possible explanations that would be reasonable.
B1.4) At the first point, you had a Germanic polytheism interest, but considered Revival Druidry silly?
So, it went kind of like this: when, via ESR, I started playing around with the idea that magic/religion might "work" without being "really real" (the all-in-my-head materialism I mentioned before), the arguments of strict reconstructionists made sense to me: if we're trying to get a procedure to work that we don't really understand, our best bet is to copy as best as we can what folks did who did seem to get it to work. Looking back, I also think I found the "authenticity" of trying to "get it right" emotionally satisfying as a substitute for belief/personal experience of the "there there". Also, ESR recommended Isaac Bonewitts, and I was likely influenced by his disdain for "mesopagans" (his term for revivalists prior to the late 20th century Neopagan movement). So, I saw Revival Druidry as something new, made-up, and not even "real Druidry". JMG's arguments that "it works" trumps authenticity, combined with his example led me to soften on Revival Druidry, but I still wasn't drawn to it. His credibility eventually got me to try daily magical practice as a test of the hypothesis "what happens if I do these things and try really hard to be open to the possibility it's not just in my head", but I didn't start with Druid practices (originally the Heathen LBRP, meditating on the Eddas, and a three-rune draw). After having a spiritual experience a few weeks in, I started taking things mighty seriously indeed, and prayer, meditation, and divination led me to the belief that the balance of the telluric and solar currents in the SOP was more what I needed, and that sucking it up and doing "not what I would pick for my special snowflake self" was actually an important part of it. So I started the Druid Magic Handbook kind of like "okay, I'll do this for a while, but it's not where my real spiritual home will be long term", but I've found more and more to like about Revival Druidry from the inside, and have found it more compatible with my developing understanding of what Heathenry means to me than I expected.
B1.5) If Seed of Yggdrasil is the better-organized one ...
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
C2) 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.
Ah, okay, I see what you mean now.
C4) - 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.
Yeah, exactly. Take my old favorite anarcho-capitalist libertarianism: "Wait, sometimes giving up top-down control and letting individuals work things out themselves leads to better outcomes and more freedom? Better get rid of ALL top-down control and let individuals work out EVERYTHING between themselves." Even when your school of thought is about the superiority of emergent complexity over individual rational understanding, you/we have to push it as far as it can be imagined going.
C5) 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.)
Ah, okay, I'm not actually sure where I would point specifically for that way of thinking/interpretation - I associate pro-Loki/pro-Jotnar worship with Raven Kaldera and friends (it's unclear to me if Galina Krasskova worships these beings, or is just willing to work with folks who do). I think that Ocean Keltoi on youtube has at least tried to share the point of view sympathetically. For my part, my read of historical practice is that I don't think Loki or the Jotnar were worshipped (maybe occasionally placated?), and for a while, for the reasons I mentioned above, that led to me not even considering it as a valid form of practice. Now, I'm much more open to the idea of non-historical forms of practice, but I'm still not convinced worship of Loki or the Jotnar is a good idea, in part because of comments like JMG's that all the Loki worshippers he's met have been jerks, and also because I am not at all happy with my understanding of what's going on with either Loki or the jotnar in myth. So my current take is to be respectful, but not to call on those Beings.
C5.1) 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 ...)
Yeah, JBP's reading of the core Osiris myth (killed by Set, put back together by Isis, fathers Horus who avenges/revives Him) seems like to really fit JBP's model. . . but I don't know Egyptian myth in enough detail to know if he's glossing over things, interpreting them to fit his framework, or what. If by "consciousnes" we mean "awareness", as in "the ability to pay attention to things", JBP associates that with Horus. But, of course, "consciousness" is one of those tricky words.
C7) 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.)
Huh, I didn't know that either. Interesting.
C7.1) " Absent horrendous translation error, I don't know how one can think anything else! (Also, see "they had iron chariots".)
I'm not saying I necessarily buy this, of course, but a potential reading would be the Snowcrash explanation: monoculture is overly susceptible to memetic infection, and so it was actually better for mankind to be scattered. Alternatively, the thought that getting everything you purpose, having nothing withheld, might be bad for you. But then, I also tend to feel like the motives attributed to Yahweh in the Old Testament are often weaker than symbolic/archetypal readings often get you.
C7.2) Well, is it established that that would be wrong? :)
Well, not necessarily, but the JBP answer would be that even if Yahweh deserves it, spite as a motivation is poisonous and bad for you, but it's addictive.
Yeah, ever since I read about Schliemann finding Troy by a careful reading of the Iliad and the discovery of the Tel Dan stela, I've felt like Western civilization over-corrected from a naive reading of the Bible/Homer/other legends as 100% accurate history, and my default position is that if folks went to a lot of effort to write things down that they thought were super important, they likely got more of it right than we might think.
C7.5) If the huge book is the more accessible version ...
Again, yeeeaaaahhh. In the book's defense, every chapter is divided into sections, and every chapter/section has a brief summary of the points being made within that chapter/section, so despite being massive and complex, it makes good use of organizational/layout tools to help understanding.
C7.6) 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.)
So, this actually brings up an interesting point that's been lurking behind a lot of the discussion of Peterson's analysis - despite his opposition to some of its political manifestations, he is firmly a believer in the myth of Progress, and it pushes a lot of his analysis in a more linear, teleologial direction than maybe it should. So, he looks at the likely historical henotheism of the folks who wrote/told the first bits of the Bible (or maybe outright polytheism for the reeeaaallly old bits) as a stepping stone on the way to a more sophisticated monotheism. He sees the development of myth and worship from polytheism (lots of separate little hierarchies of value) as leading conceptually to henotheism (yeah, all these different hierarchies of value exist, but unites them?) to monotheism (okay, okay, so what's the real highest-highest value). His (probable?) commitment to materialism makes him frame all this in psychological terms, and he doesn't have any more exciting/nuanced metaphysical explanations available to him(like Neoplatonism's carefully-worked-out, complex monism).
On the plus side, I think the habit of looking at such a weird, messy book as the Bible (or any other collection of myth) and approaching it as "whatever's in here is actually good, or at least a lesson about the good, no matter how much it looks like it's not" can lead to some really interesting and non-obvious insights (see for example JBP's take on how the flood-as-mankind's-fault gives insights into how the damage caused by real floods can at-least-kinda be our fault). The obvious danger here, of course, is becoming overly literalistic and dogmatic, and not looking for truth and wisdom anywhere else.
D) Maybe at this point I ought to just write a post on Peterson and how he's influenced my thinking about myth and we can take the discussion over there!
no subject
So, it's not 100% agreed that Scyld Scefing = Freyr, and I'm blanking a bit on where that equation is argued clearly (modern practitioner books have a bad habit of just presenting conclusions/interpretations without enough "showing your work"). Further complicating matters is exactly the issue you bring up, because I think Scyld Scefing is mostly spoken of in sources written down by Christians (like Beowulf and Saxo Grammaticus), but Freyr also maybe had some associations with human ancestor cult. All of which is to say "deified human", "being with both divine and human characteristics in different stories/places/times", and "euhemerized God" are amongst the possible explanations that would be reasonable.
B1.4) At the first point, you had a Germanic polytheism interest, but considered Revival Druidry silly?
So, it went kind of like this: when, via ESR, I started playing around with the idea that magic/religion might "work" without being "really real" (the all-in-my-head materialism I mentioned before), the arguments of strict reconstructionists made sense to me: if we're trying to get a procedure to work that we don't really understand, our best bet is to copy as best as we can what folks did who did seem to get it to work. Looking back, I also think I found the "authenticity" of trying to "get it right" emotionally satisfying as a substitute for belief/personal experience of the "there there". Also, ESR recommended Isaac Bonewitts, and I was likely influenced by his disdain for "mesopagans" (his term for revivalists prior to the late 20th century Neopagan movement). So, I saw Revival Druidry as something new, made-up, and not even "real Druidry". JMG's arguments that "it works" trumps authenticity, combined with his example led me to soften on Revival Druidry, but I still wasn't drawn to it. His credibility eventually got me to try daily magical practice as a test of the hypothesis "what happens if I do these things and try really hard to be open to the possibility it's not just in my head", but I didn't start with Druid practices (originally the Heathen LBRP, meditating on the Eddas, and a three-rune draw). After having a spiritual experience a few weeks in, I started taking things mighty seriously indeed, and prayer, meditation, and divination led me to the belief that the balance of the telluric and solar currents in the SOP was more what I needed, and that sucking it up and doing "not what I would pick for my special snowflake self" was actually an important part of it. So I started the Druid Magic Handbook kind of like "okay, I'll do this for a while, but it's not where my real spiritual home will be long term", but I've found more and more to like about Revival Druidry from the inside, and have found it more compatible with my developing understanding of what Heathenry means to me than I expected.
B1.5) If Seed of Yggdrasil is the better-organized one ...
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
C2) 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.
Ah, okay, I see what you mean now.
C4) - 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.
Yeah, exactly. Take my old favorite anarcho-capitalist libertarianism: "Wait, sometimes giving up top-down control and letting individuals work things out themselves leads to better outcomes and more freedom? Better get rid of ALL top-down control and let individuals work out EVERYTHING between themselves." Even when your school of thought is about the superiority of emergent complexity over individual rational understanding, you/we have to push it as far as it can be imagined going.
C5) 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.)
Ah, okay, I'm not actually sure where I would point specifically for that way of thinking/interpretation - I associate pro-Loki/pro-Jotnar worship with Raven Kaldera and friends (it's unclear to me if Galina Krasskova worships these beings, or is just willing to work with folks who do). I think that Ocean Keltoi on youtube has at least tried to share the point of view sympathetically. For my part, my read of historical practice is that I don't think Loki or the Jotnar were worshipped (maybe occasionally placated?), and for a while, for the reasons I mentioned above, that led to me not even considering it as a valid form of practice. Now, I'm much more open to the idea of non-historical forms of practice, but I'm still not convinced worship of Loki or the Jotnar is a good idea, in part because of comments like JMG's that all the Loki worshippers he's met have been jerks, and also because I am not at all happy with my understanding of what's going on with either Loki or the jotnar in myth. So my current take is to be respectful, but not to call on those Beings.
C5.1) 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 ...)
Yeah, JBP's reading of the core Osiris myth (killed by Set, put back together by Isis, fathers Horus who avenges/revives Him) seems like to really fit JBP's model. . . but I don't know Egyptian myth in enough detail to know if he's glossing over things, interpreting them to fit his framework, or what. If by "consciousnes" we mean "awareness", as in "the ability to pay attention to things", JBP associates that with Horus. But, of course, "consciousness" is one of those tricky words.
C7) 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.)
Huh, I didn't know that either. Interesting.
C7.1) " Absent horrendous translation error, I don't know how one can think anything else! (Also, see "they had iron chariots".)
I'm not saying I necessarily buy this, of course, but a potential reading would be the Snowcrash explanation: monoculture is overly susceptible to memetic infection, and so it was actually better for mankind to be scattered. Alternatively, the thought that getting everything you purpose, having nothing withheld, might be bad for you. But then, I also tend to feel like the motives attributed to Yahweh in the Old Testament are often weaker than symbolic/archetypal readings often get you.
C7.2) Well, is it established that that would be wrong? :)
Well, not necessarily, but the JBP answer would be that even if Yahweh deserves it, spite as a motivation is poisonous and bad for you, but it's addictive.
C7.4) 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 )!
Yeah, ever since I read about Schliemann finding Troy by a careful reading of the Iliad and the discovery of the Tel Dan stela, I've felt like Western civilization over-corrected from a naive reading of the Bible/Homer/other legends as 100% accurate history, and my default position is that if folks went to a lot of effort to write things down that they thought were super important, they likely got more of it right than we might think.
C7.5) If the huge book is the more accessible version ...
Again, yeeeaaaahhh. In the book's defense, every chapter is divided into sections, and every chapter/section has a brief summary of the points being made within that chapter/section, so despite being massive and complex, it makes good use of organizational/layout tools to help understanding.
C7.6) 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.)
So, this actually brings up an interesting point that's been lurking behind a lot of the discussion of Peterson's analysis - despite his opposition to some of its political manifestations, he is firmly a believer in the myth of Progress, and it pushes a lot of his analysis in a more linear, teleologial direction than maybe it should. So, he looks at the likely historical henotheism of the folks who wrote/told the first bits of the Bible (or maybe outright polytheism for the reeeaaallly old bits) as a stepping stone on the way to a more sophisticated monotheism. He sees the development of myth and worship from polytheism (lots of separate little hierarchies of value) as leading conceptually to henotheism (yeah, all these different hierarchies of value exist, but unites them?) to monotheism (okay, okay, so what's the real highest-highest value). His (probable?) commitment to materialism makes him frame all this in psychological terms, and he doesn't have any more exciting/nuanced metaphysical explanations available to him(like Neoplatonism's carefully-worked-out, complex monism).
On the plus side, I think the habit of looking at such a weird, messy book as the Bible (or any other collection of myth) and approaching it as "whatever's in here is actually good, or at least a lesson about the good, no matter how much it looks like it's not" can lead to some really interesting and non-obvious insights (see for example JBP's take on how the flood-as-mankind's-fault gives insights into how the damage caused by real floods can at-least-kinda be our fault). The obvious danger here, of course, is becoming overly literalistic and dogmatic, and not looking for truth and wisdom anywhere else.
D) Maybe at this point I ought to just write a post on Peterson and how he's influenced my thinking about myth and we can take the discussion over there!