Gangleri – bookreviews

There are reasons to say that this is a book I should better not read/review and to say that I should. “The pagan revival and white separatism” is the subtitle and I would not want to raise the suggestion that these two have anything incommon. On the other hand it might be helpfull to know what certain people think and (ab)use so I know what to stay away from. But of course there always is the morbid curiosity. A book about extreme political right heathens. In his “few words on terminology” Gardell writes:

Some of the heathens categorized as “racist” in this study would probably object to the label due to the negative connotations associated with the concept in contemporary mainstraim discourse. [...] In this book, then, the term racist is detached from any moral assumptions and simply signifies a person who believes that mankind may be classified into any given number of “races” that “by nature” differ from each other not only in physical but also in mental and moral qualities [...]

p. 29
There we have it again, a scholar uses a term which has a certain meaning in the minds of the common man, applies it in his own way, but from the more common perspective the link with certain politics is already made. This will not be very helpfull for the ‘heathen community’. But Gardell shows himself realistic and clear in his classifications. An example:

While not a supremacist, Moynihan does see a connection between genetics and spirituality along the lines of the ethnic Asatrúers. To the extent that metagenetics is a racial philosophy, Moynihan may qualify as a racist, but, again, ethnocentric spirituality should not be confused with Aryan revolutionary activities. There is a world of difference between the Wotansvolk and Blood Axis projects, a lack of correspondence both parties readily acknowledge.

p. 303
Of course this is in a way a bad example, but I just took an often referred to person in the context, a person well known to people who frequently read my music reviews section. Moynihan is a bad example, because Gardell mostly describes a ‘path the other way around’.

The story we are presented here starts with a history of racism in the USA. It is only recently that racists are “considered public villains. Racism was long considered a divinely mandated order of nature and an important pillar of American society, protected by constitutional law.” (p. 29) Thus Gardell describes “the transforming landscapes of American racism”, continues with “the smorgasbord of the revolutionary white-racist counterculture” and only at page 137 he comes to “the pagan revival”. In these first 100 pages Gardell shows the width of ideas in racist communities passing the kind of groups that we (probably) first think of, but also speaks about the invention of populism and for example the current of separatism, supporters of which are best friends with similar groups of (for example) negroid persons in order to come to complete separate habitats. It is also in this line that you can see white racists having contacts with Arab groups, African groups, some even with Muslim groups since the goals are mutual.

What Gardell’s story works towards, though, is religious racism; racists who do not only have interest in biology and politics, but also want a religion to support their cause. Initially many of such groups were Christian, but as time passed, also Christianity came to be seen as a Jewish product which has to be rejected and in the 1970′ies slowly but surely appreciation for the old religion of Northern Europe rose. That is what I meant when I said “the other way around”, via politics to religion. Not enormously many, but quite a few groups and persons are written about at smaller or greater length. All people and groups that Gardell, as a good antropologist, visited, interviewed extensively and participated in their daily lifes.

Gardell describes three kinds of heathen groups: racist, anti-racist and ethnic. The first group are the ‘white separatists’ (to use a very global term), the second (of course) their counterparts, the latter are not political, but still of the opinion that religion has something to do with descent. The first group is treated most extensively, the last in as far as they initially seem to fit within the first cat

So here is the (weird) deal. The first volume of Grimm’s Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer is also available as printing on demand, but from another publisher that on their turn do not seem to have volume 2 in their catalogue. The good news is that this volume 1 and volume 2 are scans of the same printing, but somehow Nabu Press sells it in a larger book than the Michigan University… At least I have the work complete (for about $ 90,-…), but if you ask me, you better look for a complete set of two of the old printing or the 1955 reprint.
1899/2010 Nabu Press, isbn 1143501012

Frigga Asraaf (1960) has been involved in the ‘Dutch pagan scene’ (and abroad) for many years. She is involved in other circles than myself, so I do not know her, nor did I consciously hear of her before this book was published. The full title Asatru, een naslagwerk (‘Asatru, a reference book’) is quite pretentious. The book concerns a printing-on-demand and is quite expensive. Since there are close to none publications in this field in my country, especially not by practising heathens, I was curious enough to order a copy. However Asraaf treats Asatru in quite general terms, overall this book is mostly an account of her personal ideas and practises. Starting with some general information of the place of the Germanic faith in the past and the present and giving some scetches of the ‘mythological worldview’, the author happily mixes Icelandic sources with local folktales and fairy tales, Scandinavian Gods and Goddesses with local ones of which we often have but a name. The sources she refers to go form scholarly works to folklore, temporary and old authors and personal interpretations. Seeing Asatru as a faith of today, Asraaf if very loose with retelling the myths (she interweaves Goddesses in the Ragnarok story), tells of her own friendships with giants, dwarves and elves alike, comes to a slightly Wiccan circle of the year with celebrations and rituals and she writes extensively about a subject that modern pagans have opposital ideas about: Seidr. The book closes with symbolism on houses and objects. Sometimes refering to American authors such as the Wodening brothers (who keep their þheodism apart from Asatru) and Gundarsson, there are close to no references to contemporary heathen authors and publications in her own surroudings (safe for a few references to her own group Het Rad (‘the wheel’)). It all seems to come down to a mishmash of a lot of different sources and practices that are stirred to what is presented to be some kind of system that might work for the author personally, but which seems highly unconvincing for myself. As a reference-work I think I would not use this book either. For details I would go to more scholarly works with less free interpretations and translations, for inspiration I would turn to more likeminded people. I appreciate the fact that Asraaf has to navigate alongside the pitfalls of politics and New Age dabbling and the wish to present a modern faith for a modern person, but I do not know if this book will be the reference work for the modern heathen that she hopes it to be, nor would I recommend this book to a beginner, both because of the price and because of the highly personal interpretation of things. There are some nice ideas to be found and you may enjoy reading someone other’s version of the faith, but those are the only two reasons to spend € 35,- on this book.
2010 boekplan, isbn 9789490688011

The great work Lichaam, Eer en Recht, Han Nijdam refers a lot to this classic on Icelandic law, so I wanted to read it. William Miller has written a great book about “Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland” as the subtitle goes. Combining subjects in a very readable style and with many references to and lengthy quotes from Icelandic sagas, Miller portrays a society in which honor was the highest of goods and the workings of that society based thereon. Extremely detailed laws, the ways of þhings, the considerations whether to take revenge or walk juridical paths, when balance was restored, how people could be friends, even though feuding, groups involved in disagreements, Miller sheds a light on those highly interesting systematics that a ‘modern man’ might find barbarious. On the contrary I think that we can learn a lot from these dealings of old. “Honor” has become a hollow word and we would not even connect it to something else than an individual. As for justice and law, we (are) depend(ant) on third parties (police, judges) while there could be a lot to do ourselves and about individualism, in Miller’s book you will find a way of bonding people by exchanging gifts and different relationships. Of course, it is the violence that mostly found its way into the sagas and which is interesting for a historian as Miller, but as a historian of law, he is also very interested in the systematics of bloodtaking and peacemaking. A great view on the early Icelandic society.
1990/7 University of Chicago Press, isbn 0226526801)

What a bad joke! I have been looking for this title for some time. It is either unavailable or very expensive to get second hand. When I checked again a while ago, I noticed that the University of Michigan has a photographic reprint available. Excited I ordered the book from Amazon even though the book is not really cheap. When I received the book and opened it, my eye immediately fell on the words “Band II” on the title page… Neither the cover, nor the information on Amazon says that this is only the second volume, so my guess was that this book contained both volumes together. Now I have a book that is one-third index and bibliography, so I miss about two-thirds of this work. Looking further at Amazon to see if I missed something I cannot find the reprint of volume one of Michigan University. What could be the reason to republish half a book? After a bit more of searching I found volume one available from another publisher, again more expensive, but of course I ordered a copy. What is funny, by the way, is that this book is scanned by Google Books and available as printing on demand. With such a structure more old books might become available for personal libraries. I like that development.
And you wondered what this book is all about? As the title says, this work is about ancient laws of Germanic peoples, not the texts themselves, but Grimm made a relatively readable text of it all.
1899/2010 University of Michigan, isbn not available, asin: B0036MDAF6

When I read Stephen Flowers little book about the Germanic origins of Freemasonry in which he refers to this title, I figured I needed to look for it. I do not remember if I forgot or just did not find it, but the recent reminder (see the comment under the Flowers title) made me look (again). The book proves to be available in a Kessinger photographic reprint (1998). Not cheap (these Kessinger books never are) and of course also available online on a few places, but I decided to get myself a copy. Fort’s book is a quite typical Masonic history book of the late 19th century drawing all kinds of connections to antiquity, but a fresh angle is Fort’s idea that the ancient European North contributed to the history of Freemasonry. However he does not really respect the ancient barbarians, he gives them full credit for some important elements of Masonic symbolism. According to Fort the route was Christianity took over pagan elements and Freemasonry got them from there. In Fort’s view, paganism is one of the sources of Freemasonry. He details are not groundbreaking or completely new (nowadays) and do not really suggest continuity, but it is nice to hear this from this corner. Flowers’ little book mostly seems a summery of parts of Fort’s work now, by the way.
1884/1998 Kessinger publishing, isbn 0766101304

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 this subject, but inspite of the fact that the Low Countries have plenty of material to investigate, the focus of the scholars seems to lay at neighbouring countries. One of Bijsterveld’s reasons to write his book in English was to draw the attention of scholars in the field for our own parts.
What I personally hoped to find is how people within a community created bonds and solved their quarrels. Fortunately the last part is about honour and several things tell me about how certain things survived. When someone wanted to give something to a monastry (s)he had to have consent of relatives; things were given in order to be remembered; Bijsterveld says a few things about repercussions and feuding, so all in all the book is informative, but I would have like to get some more specifics about the prechristian period.
2007 Uitgeverij Verloren, isbn 9789065509581

“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 Mothers, enormous stone formations, etc. Janssens proves himself as a historian, not a historian of religion. He pays a lot of attention to archeological findings, large and small. Around page 100 things become more interesting when the focus shifts to proto-Celtic and proto-Germanic religion, but also here Janssens takes long sidepaths. After this follows a large part about Celts. Being a Belgian and of the opinion that the Belgae were Celts, I think maybe the author has a natural tendency to puts the magnifying glass on the Celts. Only a short chapter is dedicated to the Germanic tribes of the Low Counties and Janssens presents a strange mix of Icelandic and continental Gods and Goddesses. An exceptional number of pages is dedicated to foreign religions that were professed here for a short time: the mysteries of Isis, Mithras and Serapis.
“De Heidenen” is not really a good book. The author mixes his story with long lists of findings and his playfull chapter titles do not always cover the content all that well. The point is that he names so much findings and regardless the current border between The Netherlands and Belgium that he names plenty of new and interesting things to go and see and read more about, which indeed is very nice, but I feel that he might have better split up the story and the listings of findings and give a bit more information about the latter. You probably guessed that the book is written in Dutch and even though the book is not too good, I still recommend it to Dutch pagans or interested people. You might have to distill the valuable information, but there are clues for further investigations here. For the rest, an easy-to-read history of religion.
2009 Lannoo ISBN 97820983210

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 city. Werkgroep Hagal goes from practical heathenry to critique on modern living. This small and cheap publication is always a nice read for those who read Dutch, so I suggest you contact Hagal if you can.