Gangleri – book reviews

It has been quite a while since I investigated the interesting Swede Johannes Bureus. There seems to be quite an interest in the man, since my articles and book reviews are relatively popular and I even got two comments in a few days time on an article speaking about Bureus. One of these comments notified me about this book. I guess I missed it, otherwise I would have bought it earlier, but if I remember correctly this is the dissertation of Karlsson and was only available in Swedish in the time I wrote my articles. Karlsson is one of the founders of the Dragon Rouge order and this German translation is published by the Edition Roter Drache. It is good that this little book has been translated to a language that is mastered by more people. First of all Karlsson is more extensive and in-depth than Stephen Flowers, but mostly, Karlsson has visited all the libraries that have writings of Bureus, so the information about for example Adalruna is not based on one version, but on all seven. Then, of course, there is quite a lot of material about Bureus and his system available in Swedish and Karlsson used all these sources too, so now we have more insight in what has been investigated already than when a non-Swedish author picks up the subject. Having written this book on college, Karlsson dived into the current scholarly field of the investigation of Western esotericism, of course including our Amsterdam chair and the Sarbonne in France.
Karlsson wanted to put Bureus in a larger perspective and therefor he starts with information about Western esotericism and the scholars in this field and he continues with a rather long chapter about gothicism and what is meant and what it means. There is little information about the life of Bureus himself, but all the more about his Kabbalistic use of his runes and his shady figures such as the cubic stone and the rune cross. What I mostly enjoy about the larger perspective is that Karlsson says a thing or two about Bureus’ predecessors and how and why his system had such little influence on later generations. Indeed, Karlsson’s book definately adds something to the subject and I would suggest an English edition to expand the readership a bit more.
2007 Edition Roter Drache, isbn 9783939459040
See here for my Bureus articles.

Subtitled “gift-giving, memoria, and conflict management in the medieval Low Countries” I wanted to read this book since I hoped to learn about ‘the glue of society’ in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately the subject mostly concerns the relation of people with the Church, how they give land or gifts for salvation of the soul and such. There seem to be quite a few scholars in different fields who work with… Continue reading Do Ut Des * Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld

“The Heathens. Rites, cults and religion in the Low Countries. From primeval times to Christianity.” The title and the cover of this Flemish book are quite pretentious. A history of paganism starting in times immemorial. Actually, and of course, the book is mostly about religion and not necessarily of what nowadays usually receives the term “heathenism”. Janssens indeed starts in primeval times. The first 100 pages are about prehistory, Great… Continue reading De Heidenen * Ugo Janssens (2009)

The sixth volume of the Flemish “Odalist” group Werkgroep Hagal (click on cover) periodical contains about 80 pages and 17 articles (including poems and songs) with a variety of subjects. From the always interesting “etnobotanical corner” to an article about blood and “Alvermannen” to the tower as bridge between our world and the world above, an article against the use of drugs and a critical article about living in a… Continue reading Wende 6

I got this book as a holidays-present. Good, because I would probably have never heard of it otherwise. It is a philosophy book about modern politics and society, not really my subject. Wijnberg is a young man, seven years younger than myself, but with an impressive carreer already. This book is his third and the copy I got is 7th printing only half a year after the first publication. Wijnberg… Continue reading Nietzsche En Kant Lezen De Krant * Rob Wijnberg (2009)

In 2009 Nederlands Heidendom” (“Dutch Heathenry”) has been around for 9 years, an anniversary to celebrate. This 2009 “yearbook” is already the 7th and is for a large part dedicated to the anniversary. “Boppo Grimmsma” who is not one of the founders, but an early member who more or less acts as chairman, gives a story of the 9 year history and tells how a small group became mostly a… Continue reading Heidens Jaarboek 2009

I noticed this small book in the overstock pile, so new, but cheap. It speaks partly about the same period as the recently reviewed In de Marge van de Beschaving: the early Middle Ages. This is not a very well documented period for the common man. Faber is a valuer of old coins, a former teacher of history and a Frisian Protestant. The book is said to be mostly based… Continue reading De Eerste Koningen van Nederland * K.P.H. Faber (2007)

This book is formed by the texts of lectures that were given at a 1967 congress about the study of comparative folklore and mythology at the University of California. The congress was led by Jaan Puhvel who was also editor of the book. Puhvel is a Dumézilian scholar and that fact and the title of the book led me to get myself a copy. The book is fairly easy to… Continue reading Myth And Law Among The Indo-Europeans * Jaan Puhvel (editor) (1970)

A series of book is planned about the history of what nowadays are the Netherlands. This is the second publication and the following are planned for the coming years. Marco Mostert speaks about the years 0 to 1200. As a historian he mostly works with written sources, so he took the invention of bookprinting as the end of his period since a lot changed for his approach after that. The… Continue reading In De Marge Van De Beschaving * Marco Mostert (2009)

So I decided to look for non-Scandinavian sources about the prechristian faith, since I want to learn more about the faith of the region that I live in. There appears to be quite some books about Anglo-Saxon heathenry and this book has a very promising title. The book is of 1957 and is not particularly good. There is quite a bit of information about place-names in England, quotes from Anglo-Saxon… Continue reading The Lost Gods Of England * Brian Branston (1957)

Not a new subject, comparitive mythology, but a new approach; to me of course. Contrary to the Dumézilian approach, Oosten uses the cultural anthropological angle to look at things. However he refers to Dumézil quite a bit, he sees problems with the tripartite structure (see here). Whereas Dumézil compares different myths and characters and structures therein by comparing the functions of for example Gods, Oosten uses “the social code” (cf… Continue reading The War Of The Gods * Jarich Oosten (1985)

In several regards this German publication is like the Tyr Journal. An anual publication with three issues available in the form of a 450 page well-printed book with essays of different authors about paganism and related subjects and book and music reviews at the end. Those are the similarities, because there are of course more differences. The nice thing about the Heidnisches Jahrbuch is that is deals with contemporary paganism… Continue reading Heidnisches Jahrbuch 2007 (2006)

I bought this book when I was ‘in between literature’. It is not really a book by Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), but rather the written result of a series of interviews by his former student Bill Moyers that were broadcasted on TV. My Dutch translation has a title translating as “myths and consciousness”, I think the original title fits the content a lot better. Campbell might have had ideas that I… Continue reading The Power Of Myth * Joseph Campbell / Bill Moyers (1988)

I had not heard of this book, nor of the author before I noticed a reference to it in a book that I read recently. Apparently it was first published under the title Forgotten Truth: the Perennial Tradition, was reprinted under this title a couple of times and later republished under the title Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions, because the “Perennial Tradition” in the title would… Continue reading Forgotten Truth * Huston Smith (1976)

This translation of the famous Cavalcare la Tigre (1961) is from noone less than Joscelyn Godwin (1945-) the famous scholar on paganism, music and Renaissance occultism. The name of Godwin might remove the sharp edges of this book, which is a good thing in my opinion. The translation is very well readable and Evola’s writings are again an interesting read. I might not agree with several things Evola says and… Continue reading Ride The Tiger * Julius Evola (2003)