/asatru/ - Asatru / Heathenry / Paganism

>>12870

I think instead of asking how to revive paganism we should ask, how would our great ancestors view the modern world and navigate it wisely? What "eternal truths" resonate throughout the ages? Strip the truths from their cultural or temporal baggage and apply them to your life. You don't have to dance around a camp fire or put warpaint on your face, but figure out what those things symbolize, what mental space they engender, and engage it.

Basically just ask "what would [insert alpha ancestor] do?"

Alexander the Great, Marcus Aurelius, Ragnar Lodbrok…hell you could even use fictitious archetypes like Thor or Hercules.

I dont think its possible to revive paganism on a mass scale, many attempts were made in times were this would have been easier during the 20th century and driven by some serene and virtuous men.

(nooo not Himmler)

Hell, there are some monotheists who usually have greater mass appeal who had a solid chance to establish themselves but failed in the end. Im thinking of a certain bulgarian mystic among others.

Now, small but stalward and integretive groups which can achieve a more profound and solid theology with lasting meaningful traditions may emerge over time.

If you wonder how a modern society with a lot of socially accepted and organised polytheists looks like, see India.

>>12870

>revive paganism

But it never died.

With every elf created for fiction or whatever. Paganism is kept alive.

With every Christmas (which is Yule) celebrated, it is kept alive.

With every child named after a dead relative, it is kept alive.

With every mistletoe kiss, it is kept alive.

With every circle behind a cross, it is kept alive.

With every Halloween celebrated, it is kept alive.

The list goes on and on.

People have been keeping the flame alive for milennia.

And just because you put the label of "ambrosia" on a water spigot (aka relabelling pagan things as christian) you will still get water every time you turn it on.

But to be more direct.

If you see the world as an organism, where everything works together, live and death, a circle, all interlocked.

Then it's not hard to do things like "worship the light that shines through the gaps of the pine trees on the morning after the darkest and longest night of the year" because it signals that from now on the lifegiving sun will shine more and more again.

Warmth will return, joyfulness, etc.

(This is why people put lights on the "christmas" tree, its these very sparkles of sunlight going through the needles)

(and the star up top of the tree, which is actually a pentagram, resembles the striving toward enlightenment and growing in character and wisdom)

When you sit down on a bench on a beautiful day and you see the birds playing and hopping in some bush. You can ponder how they fly, what they see, what they might think.

If you feel the warmth of sun on your skin and feel good about it.

If you a hunter and you take the physical things from the prey, hide, sinew, bone but respect the "spirit" of it by not killing or harming needlessly, you are basically doing pagan stuff.

"Thank you, brother deer. I will come again and again to take your meat, but I will never harm you needlessly, and I will never defile or imprison your spirit" So to speak.

It shouldn't be hard at all, but people cling stockholmed to their christianity and co.

They probably think they have to be druids or something.

They don't. What matters is getting rid of the poison first and foremost.

Anything else is a bonus.

In fact. I usually give "newcomers" no direction, no talk about specific gods or spirits, and merely tell them to go out and think about the world, observe the stars, the sun, the moon.

Try to take in the "machine", the circle of life, the interconnectedness and let them figure out things on their own.

There is a chance that someone might go"Well this is just a fucking tree", but if someone really thinks about the significance of a tree, how it houses animals, how it gives shelter, how it can be a scary shadow in the forest, how it can give light.

Things like that.

Really think about the significance of natural things.

Then a certain sense of "reverence" will usually be instilled in anyone, even if they're fully secular.

This reverence is one of the greatest power sources we have. You can be dry cut scientific about it.

I prefer that much more about someone trying to fit into some Odin myth, or something.

But once the veil is taken off and people are connected to the land that nurtures them, they begin the research on their own, they will fall into place all on their own.