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[Main Blog Post] Thoughts on The Well and the Tree
I've put together my first stab at talking through what I learned from The Well and the Tree by Paul Bauschatz, but it's a bit long, so I'm only going to post a link. I'm still experimenting with how best to get folks attention, solicit comments, and so forth, but I may have some other approaches in the future.
So, comment here or email me and I'll add it to the post there!
So, comment here or email me and I'll add it to the post there!
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As I said in the post, I found this book interesting and helpful, but I'm not totally happy with my understanding of it, most of all not my try at summing up my thoughts on it. If you (or anyone else) ends up reading it and has thoughts to share, especially thoughts that might help me adjust mine, I'd very much welcome them.
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"Nobody picks up a manual and does perfectly. Take heart, you are learning the most difficult, most noble art—that of being more than you seem. The rest of my readers have gained an undeniably cool-looking book for their shelves (thanks, Destiny Books!). Some of my readers will cherry-pick methods or thoughts, and I sincerely wish them the best. But a very few will get in this ship and row with all their hearts without getting out of the boat. Those few, my Sisters and Brothers, will meet on a wondrous shore."
(I do intend to get to following JMG's, and some others', instructions exactly at some point, but probably shouldn't say I'm there already. Regarding Webb's book, I'm not thinking about doing all of that as written, but I'll be damned if I don't execute a bunch of ideas found in it - yes, I'll get to that in my blog.)
I do have a relatively firm intent to read The Well and the Tree and The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity - maybe this year? And particularly having someone known to be interested, I assume I'd write something about them - thanks for the interest!
(You don't happen to have any idea about where I could find a book list half as good as yours about other Indo-European branches?)
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That's quite nice - it strikes a nice balance between encouraging you to do it "for real" and being welcoming to folks who might find something useful by picking and choosing.
(I do intend to get to following JMG's, and some others', instructions exactly at some point, but probably shouldn't say I'm there already. Regarding Webb's book, I'm not thinking about doing all of that as written, but I'll be damned if I don't execute a bunch of ideas found in it - yes, I'll get to that in my blog.)
I look forward to hearing about it!
As for JMG's harder-lined advice, if I may share the reasons why I've chosen to follow it in more detail, I hope some of those details might help cast light on why/how a similar decision may or may not be right for you.
I had a realization about a few years back that came as a surprise to no one who knew me but myself: I am most comfortable with intellectualized/abstracted things, and I try to treat non-intellectualized/abstracted things the same way, and when that doesn't work, I devalue/disengage with those things. In the elemental terms I've been shoving into my head for not quite as long, I'm very comfortable with air and some manifestations of fire, but not so much with water and earth. Some part of me is frustrated that I can't just "get" exercise, or grieving, or meditation the way I can "get" a philosophical argument, new way of looking at historical evidence, or an economic theory. The fact that the answer is "just keep doing the thing, there's no aha moment, it just adds up slowly" is very hard for me to swallow in many areas of life.
And then along came occult training! Sneakily, it offered symbols, abstractions, and intellectual rationales that made sense to me, that I could get that "aha!" moment from, and so I proceeded along my way. Fairly early on, though, I came across JMG's advice to pick an established system and do it exaclty as presented. It quickly became apparent to me that this went exactly against my airy tendencies - I want things that are new! that are quickly grasped! that are just so to what I think is my liking because I "understand" it. I soon realized that might be the very thing I needed to work on. That and not skipping ahead because I'm "advanced."
This has been intensely frustrating. I know that Winnifred Hodge Rose's Heathen Soul Lore work will be incredibly valuable and wholly in-keeping with my beliefs and aesthetic tastes (I've skimmed enough to be sure) - but I'm setting it aside until I can give it the meditative focus it deserves. That's a bitter pill to swallow, but one that I think my particular spiritual journey needs right now.
As a result, though, I am slowly, oh so slowly, Gods, why is it so slowly? waking up to the parts of myself that I've been more numb to for the past, oh, ever. Stuff like my feelings and my body and my intuition. So, I'm starting to see the reason for it, even if it still mostly sucks.
I do have a relatively firm intent to read The Well and the Tree and The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity - maybe this year? And particularly having someone known to be interested, I assume I'd write something about them - thanks for the interest!
Nice, you may beat me to The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity - it's been on my digital bookshelf for years now, but I haven't gotten to it yet. In some ways, I'm glad I didn't read it before Spengler, as I imagine it will be interesting to have his thesis on the origins of Faustian culture in mind. Also, I suspect that it will nicely complement The Well and the Tree, as much of it necessarily deals with the transition from the proposed worldview of the pre-Christian Germanic folks to the Christian one.
(You don't happen to have any idea about where I could find a book list half as good as yours about other Indo-European branches?)
Hmmm, in terms of extensiveness, at least, the bibliography of The Four Branches of the Mabinogi by Will Parker is fan-freaking-tastic for Celtic, though with an obviously Brythonic slant (Gaelic stuff is brought in more for comparison). There's a version available online here, but it doesn't look quite so extensive as the printed one. As an aside, if you're at all interested in the Mabinogion as part of your spiritual practice, especially if you plan to meditate on it, this book is phenomenal.
Let's see, as for some others:
Greek(o-Roman)
- this list of resources from "Hellenic Faith", which seems like a fairly sane reconstructionist take on late Greco-Roman Neoplatonist inspired religion: https://hellenicfaith.com/books-links-and-resources/
- r/Hellinismos's list of resources here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Hellenismos/comments/r04llx/useful_links/
- r/Hellenism has a list of resources on the right down a bit (and apparently a whole community wiki): https://www.reddit.com/r/Hellenism/ . (Aside: The existence of those two subreddits as separate thing likely implies some dreary drama that I know nothing about, and I've done nothing to vet those lists)
- On the other hand, I can speak positively of Kaye Boesme's The Soul's Inner Statues, which is meant for any polytheist to develop a devotional practice, but she is coming from a primarily Hellenic background, and her book has a chapter on working up your own list (cheating, I know!): https://kayeofswords.github.io/soulsinnerstatues/lifelong-learning.html
- Also on Greeks, but maybe harder to find, I found a book from my Classics major days called Sources for the Study of Greek Religion by David G. Rice and John E. Stambaugh. It's a collection of excerpts from primary sources organized by topic, and with commentary by the authors. It has an index of the ancient sources used, but any recommendations for modern books commenting on them are in the descriptions, not gathered into a bibliography. Also, as the way I got it might indicate, it has zero intentional connection to modern practitioners.
Hinduism
(Aside: which is apparently an exonym coined by Brits in the Raj when they were like "we know those guys are Muslims, but what are you?" and the answer was "Hindu" (meaning "Indian"), and the Brits were like, "yeah, but what's your religion, though?" and they were like "uuuhhh, Hindu?" It seems followers these days either just go with the name of their particular sect, or else prefer something like Sanatana Dharma, but that one might also have some political connotations)
- Anyhow, I asked for suggestions on a MM and, uh, huh, apparently never gathered them together into a post on Sane Polytheism like I intended to. Crap. Too late to do that tonight, but I'll try to put that together soon, especially if this is an especial field of interest for you.
Comparative Indo-European
- Arya Akasha has some very interesting stuff, but it's rambly and doesn't have (that I can see) a gathered together "book list". Still, as comparative Indo-European practitioners, when they do cite stuff, it has a high likelihood of being the kind of thing you're looking for. Most grounded in Hindu sources, second most Germanic, other stuff seems a distant third
Hope these help!
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Reegarding the advice: thank you very much! And I've had quite similar thoughts at all points (except for a lack of urge to skip stages, due to never even considering the hypothesis I might be advanced at this stuff), and therefore do intend to follow exactly some set of instructions, but I don't imagine myself doing it even regarding some occultists I do like, such as Webb (the ones, still, I'm sure I consider being Greer, Miller, Flowers, and Corrigan, as per https://goldensectionforum.boards.net/thread/4/kete-moi-nt ); for now, it looks like I'll go from the Golden Section Fellowship to other John-Gilbert-descended work for some time.
I also think Hodge Rose's work would be useful to me, though I think it *didn't* match my aesthetic preferences (too ... "fluffy" isn't quite the right word) - but still, will read later, see what I can do with it.
Beating you to The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: a challenge!
Regarding the book lists: thanks, I'll have to check more thoroughly later, but it seems they contain great stuff - unfortunately, the 2 interesting sites *not* expected (Mexica Reconstructionism and Polytheist Zoroastrianism) are defunct.
On "Hindu", it started as a geographical expression by pre-Muslim Iranians, and that as self-designation and Hinduism are older than the European arrivals: https://hareesh.org/blog/2015/7/15/what-is-shaivism (note the "turaka dhamma" part, BTW). The previous religions (e.g. Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Buddhism, which had religious conflict between them) had institutions smashed by Islam (though Buddhism was losing ground before), and in that lost distinctiveness, leading to Hinduism (and Shaivism had been becoming less countercultural and converging towards Vaishnavism for some time - as far as my limited knowledge goes, both the Mahabharata and Ramayana are Vaishnava - the former seems to be clearly about (among other things!) the replacement of Vedic worship with Vaishnava bhakti).
"Too late to do that tonight, but I'll try to put that together soon, especially if this is an especial field of interest for you." - please do do it but do not hurry; you've been doing quite enough for me already, and a scale of months won't make things any slower than I can follow anyway in this case!
Arya Akasha: will definitely read more, and - hey, you were already reading nearly-LHP stuff! (The "draconian/ophidian" parts.)
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That seems like a solid plan - as I might have mentioned on the forum, I kind of wish I had started there, but it came out about half a year after I got into the Druid Magic Handbook. I think it's a phenomenal place to start, and it's a brief enough starter course that you could do the material in Way of the Golden Section pretty quickly, then decide to pivot into something else related, or else go right into the Occult Philosophy Workbook, so it's nicely flexible.
I also think Hodge Rose's work would be useful to me, though I think it *didn't* match my aesthetic preferences (too ... "fluffy" isn't quite the right word) - but still, will read later, see what I can do with it.
Mostly I've been fascinated by the Germanish "multipart soul" thing since I first ran into it in an Edred Thorsson book (maybe Northern Magic?), so seeing it get a two-volume treatment is really exciting to me. It's also one of the few cases of a Germanish-flavored meditation-based practice I've run across, besides Nine Doors of Midgard.
Beating you to The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: a challenge!
May the race go to the fastest!
Regarding the book lists: thanks, I'll have to check more thoroughly later, but it seems they contain great stuff - unfortunately, the 2 interesting sites *not* expected (Mexica Reconstructionism and Polytheist Zoroastrianism) are defunct.
Ah, that's too bad. If you're looking for stuff on indigenous Mexican religion,
On "Hindu", it started as a geographical expression by pre-Muslim Iranians, and that as self-designation and Hinduism are older than the European arrivals:[. . .]
Thank you for the correction!
please do do it but do not hurry; you've been doing quite enough for me already, and a scale of months won't make things any slower than I can follow anyway in this case!
Fair enough, but I'm glad I got reminded to put together what I've already got.
Arya Akasha: will definitely read more, and - hey, you were already reading nearly-LHP stuff! (The "draconian/ophidian" parts.)
Hah, yeah, I hadn't been to the site in a month or two and saw those when I went to get the link and thought you might appreciate it. I found out about them from a guest appearance on Survive the Jive Podcast. I haven't fully decided how I feel about their stuff, in part because the main dude makes me look laconic, and so there's a lot to wade through. They seem to take reconstructionism more seriously than I do these days, but they do it from a place of piety, rather than as a substitute for doing what works.
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"the main dude makes me look laconic" - true; from a brief look, I thought he overdid it, while you're well-calibrated (for my taste; but then I'm sure you know how to be briefer in other contexts).
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"'the main dude makes me look laconic' - true; from a brief look, I thought he overdid it, while you're well-calibrated (for my taste; but then I'm sure you know how to be briefer in other contexts)."
Hah! Thanks - I sure hope I do, considering "be concise!" is one of the main things I teach my students. That'd be awfully embarrassing if I'm actually terrible at that.
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"That'd be awfully embarrassing if I'm actually terrible at that." - quite funny to anyone else, but that wouldn't be of much help to you!