What's the deal with neo paganism and right wing ultra

I think you are basically right yeah. So much of the folk culture of Europeans has been lost, especially in America. I think it's a desire to feel connected to history.

>>383447
>What's the deal with neo paganism and right wing ultra nationalists? Is it the aesthetics or the actual beliefs? Seems like more of the former especially among the edgy people. The heavy metal, the imagery that inspired the Nazis - it all is something inspiring for the young white man that feels disenfranchised and wants to be apart of something bigger than himself, but rejects mainstream religion.
Ten to fifteen years ago, that question would rarely if ever be typed outside of very isolated Asatru circles.

Judging from the conversations I hear around the new right, it seems mostly to be aesthetic. Nobody I know from that column of paganism is really going through Galdrabok or any given Svartkonstböcker.

>>383469
Paganism in America definitely seems more connected to the aesthetic than the actual ideology. You have the right wing white males going for the nordic paganism, while the quirky hipster girls become wiccans. It is a lot cooler imo than mainstream Christianity. The idea of Odin, and some of the Nordic ruins looks more appealing than Jesus and the cross. Then you Eastern Europeans and paganism. That seems a bit more serious, but just a way to legitimize neo nazi beliefs.

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>>383507
>You have the right wing white males going for the nordic paganism
>just a way to legitimize neo nazi beliefs

/pol/ in a nutshell

>>383507
Girl and the Wiccan religion has always interested me. What draws them to it? Is it the connection to nature, similar to druidism. There's rarely a political element, but the girls I've known who are interested in Wicca have always been weird. Paganism in general seems to attract both the autistic and the artistic due to the aesthetic.

>>383483
The internet I presume has contributed to a rise in neo paganism. Like you said 10-15 years ago it would be rare since the religion would be largely isolated to communities that weren't part of the mainstream. Nowadays anyone can read a wiki summary about the norse gods, order some idols off amazon, a few heavy metal records, and start proclaiming their new religion. Mom I swear my worship of neopagism isn't a phase. It just speaks to me more than traditional Christianity.

>>383567
Don't get me wrong, heathenry appeals more to me than most modern Christist institutions, or I wouldn't have been practicing for over ten years.

I just think a lot of it's entirely aesthetic. On the other hand, there's a difference between neopaganism and pagan reconstruction; most of the actually serious folks I see these days fall into the latter sphere of outline. Anyone can get some amulets idols and albums, only a handful are going to integrate the old grimoires into a modern working praxis.

>>383601
Care to elaborate more on how the serious folk approach it than the ones doing it for the aesthetic? I don't practice any religion myself but have always been interested in how someone who actually practices heathenry operates.

Also what are some surefire ways to know whether someone is practicing for aesthetic/political reasons or for actual faith?

>>383447
Irish neo-pagans are mostly English hippies who got chased out of England in the seventies so they live in the West of Ireland where they can get in touch with their "inner celtic goddess." They're nice people but complete fucking weirdos and they fetishise our culture so much it's ridiculous.

>>383637
I imagine that's similar to the people in Wales. All a bunch of hippies thinking they are hobbies of the shire, out of some Tolkien fantasy.

>>383447
To be honest, there's so much overlapping. I've seen ultra-Christian NatSocs, and I've seen pagan NatSocs, and I've seen atheist NatSocs.

I think the pagan NatSocs are more likely in America, because they are surrounded by consumerism, so they think they are escaping it by adopting some weird out of place cultural signifier.

>>383637
I wonder if Harry Potter has led to an increase in pagan hippies. It is an interesting fantasy world, and someone whose taken a lot of psychedelics might be inclined to want to live in that world as close as possible. Alchemy, nature... all that stuff. Wouldn't be surprised if some girls who are self proclaimed wiccans are big Harry Potter fans.

>>383633
I'd say it'd be hard to tell without getting to know the practitioner in question. A huge red flag is if their knowledge of anthro/historical paganism is derived from the B&N New Age shelf. Lack of knowledge of actual rites and religious law. Looks probably play a role in this, but it's a harder judge; I've seen people who look normal and well adjusted practicing garbage, and dudes who look like they crawled back from a Goth concert giving ceremonials a run for their money.

Actual praxis of heathenry's going to vary a lot depending on tradition and how you've evaluated source materials and reconstructions.

In short, I'd say the serious folks are going to know the exact difference between Lemegeton and Goetia, those sorts of little details, and keep up with what's being translated/synchretized. If someone says they're reconstructing Euro paganism and doesn't know the names of dudes like Jake Stratton Kent, I'd say they're probably just along for the ride.

I spent a lot of time in "the pagan scene" and I can't comment now but will later, but tl;dr if they believe non-Whites* can be heathens then they aren't real heathens

*"white" being what the individual considers to be "the folk". It can be all Europeans, Germanics only, Scandinavians only, etc.

>>383734
>if they believe non-Whites* can be heathens then they aren't real heathens

Why?

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Paganism has always been "right-wing" in it's own historical context. In the Early Middle Ages, for example, the Church were the "progressives" who wanted to unify the world in a brotherly vision of universalism, under the tutelage of a global government headed by intellectuals. Pagans were rural people and landowning aristocrats who quite didn't knew how to react to this.

>>383690

I actually got first interested in paganism through magic, as a result of Harry Potter. I researched spells, and then I eventually found Wicca. Then I stopped calling myself Wiccan because it didn't seem authentic enough, so I started focusing more on praying to actual Celtic gods and deities from other pantheons. Honestly though, I still take a lot from Wicca. I pray to the Horned God and try to celebrate the Sabbats.

>>383723

Not the guy you're responding to, but this line

>If someone says they're reconstructing Euro paganism and doesn't know the names of dudes like Jake Stratton Kent, I'd say they're probably just along for the ride.

Fills me with some doubt. I don't pretend to know anything really about European paganist movements, either now or the historic versions, but from what I see among Jews and Christians, whom I do have a lot of contact with, I see very little correlation between knowledge and devoutness of belief.

I don't think I'd have much of a leg to stand on if I said someone was just "aesthetically" Jewish if they thought you could purify eating vessels by burying them in dirt for 3 days, or someone was only a cultural Christian if they didn't know who Augustine was. I'm not sure why a different set of standards should apply for pagans, neo or otherwise.

>>383447
There are different approaches.

>Christianity is a Semitic religion
>Paganism has stronger ethnic connotations
>Christianity was falsely imposed
>Christianity is slave morality
>Martial culture
>General ancestor worship
>Christian society was despotic and unenlightened unlike the Greeks and Romans (more liberal approach)

I know a lot of people are going to react incredulously to this, but I really feel that liberal pagans like Wiccans and liberal reconstructionists take their religion more seriously than folkish pagans. There's just so many more covens and real-life groups out there for liberal pagans to really grow their faith and maintain it over the years of their life.

>>383768
Is it apt that I read this in John Oliver's voice?

>>383812
Here's the thing, though:
You can have serious Wiccans (as in Initiatory BTW Wiccans who are working on Lemegeton) as there are aesthetic Wiccans (the girl who read 'Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner' and went out for a bunch of necklaces and tattoos).

On the other side of that, community is zero substitute for like actual discipline and curiosity.

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The movie Black Death was a great movie involving Paganism. Has one of Sean Beans best deaths.

>>383794
But can anyone cast spells? It's a shame Nazis have made being a pagan socially unacceptable. If I told my grandpa I worshipped Odin instead of Jesus he would have a heart attack and my family would disown me.

Why was Himmler so obsessed with Paganism? Was it because he was genetic garbage and hoped to find the answer to his problems through the occult?

>>383988
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/himmler.religion.htm

>88
kek

>>383957

Well, yeah, anyone can cast spells.

You've got "Low Magic", which most spellbooks on the Internet or for sale in book stores will teach you. They generally don't call it "low magic", that's a term created by the Ceremonial Magicians. But that's most of what you'll see, especially in the Wiccan milieu. Most of what you'll get when you google "spells" is low magic. Then there's "Ceremonial" magic, which you can find in say, "Modern Magick: Twelve Lessons in the High Magickal Arts", among other books. Googling "Ceremonial magic" would be a good start.

Ceremonial magicians, like the guy who was talking about Lemegeton and Goetia, generally look down on Low Magic, but I think either is good.

And by the way, Odin-worshippers and other Norse pagans don't generally cast spells. You can, it's just not something they do for some reason.

>>384131
If you're going to go for DMK's Modern Magick you may as well just start with Magick in Theory and Practice because that's where most of Kraig's material comes from.

I don't have a problem with low magic and my definition is pretty far of of the one you mentioned.

>>384131
What kind of magical spells can you cast?

>>384163

I don't use magic. Never worked for me and I've thought about picking up some books again but too lazy.

>>383447
Nationalist neo-pagans are of the belief that Christianity is weak in comparison to European pagan religions.
This doesn't make much sense though, since Europe was at it's most dominant when it was strongly Christian.

>>383734
Okay, I'm here.

First you have to differentiate between Asatru and Neopaganism. Neopaganism for our purposes are things like Wicca. They have absolutely no historical basis and are quite literally made up. We know exactly who came up with Wiccan beliefs (Gerald Gardner is the founder of Wiccanism) because it didn't exist before 1936. Asatru is a polytheistic reconstruction of the religious system adhered to by the Germanic (Specifically Scandinavian as it is the best attested) peoples that itself is a descendant of the belief system of the Proto-Indo-European people. It is impossible to pin down who created Asatru because no one did. It's the evolution of a belief system over thousands of years.

Far right ideologies like Paganism because it puts one's people first (Austrians putting other Austrians before, say, Danes). The proper term is "folk", which is somewhere between family and ethnicity. If you are from Austria, the Austrians are your folk, for example. It is not merely blood but also culture and shared heritage. Austrians should be Austrian. This is not because being Austrian is the best thing in the world and everyone should strive to be Austrian, but because if you are Austrian then you are Austrian. You being Austrian is a fundamental facet of you, and you are just as much a part of Austria as Austria is a part of you. From a purely pragmatic point of view you will be happiest when you are Austrian (Which is not conformity so much as accepting reality and understanding it).

This is a fundamental facet of all "Far right" ideologies; "We" aren't the best because we excel at everything, "we" are the best because "we" are "we". This leads to an ideological arms race to be as "Austrian" as possible. To go back to what you consider the "proper" thing to do as an Austrian.

>>384187

But if you're asking what kinds of spells are there, well, there's love spells, money spells, protection spells, health spells, etc. In terms of more wacky stuff, I've heard of some serious practitioners achieving occasional telekinesis or things like that, but I haven't tried it for myself. You'll also occasionally come across "invisibility" spells that just make you generally less noticeable by people around you and won't actually make you untetectable by the eye.

>>384206
So you end up with people going farther and farther back to find the most quintessential Austrian attributes. This usually lands people, religiously, at "Traditional Christian". They will then proclaim "Traditional Christianity" (Usually pre-Vatican II Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy for extra TRADISHUN points) is the proper European religion. This however has a problem: Ignoring the fact that the majority of Traditional Christians are not White, Christianity also involves the worship of a Jew (Bad for obvious reasons) and his father, the chief Jewish deity (also bad). So clearly we aren't Austrian enough if we're worshiping a Jew whose cult was violently opposed on us by Italians. Plus, said Jew's cult is to this day is often conceived as a "degenerate influence".

Which, of course, leads to Paganism, which is by definition the most native religion you can possibly have. You cannot have a religion more Japanese than Shinto, and you cannot have a religion more Jewish than Judaism. These are ethnoreligions and the religious aspect is deeply intertwined with the heritage and culture of the people in question. They are not universal and are not meant for everyone. They are meant for a specific group of worshipers. It's not that everyone else deserves to go to hell or something, it's that the religion is fundamentally tied to the worshipers and their identity as a member of the group.

>>384245
But while the Germanics did have a writing system, it wasn't used much (or if it was nothing that wasn't carved on stone or metal survives). Ergo, it needs to be reconstructed, hence the "reconstructed polytheism".

And this is, ultimately, where you get the "Do they let non-whites in? Yes? Then they're Wiccan larpers" thing I mentioned in >>383734. Asatru is fundamentally folkish (Roman Paganism is too, but differently). There is argument about just what that entails, but all the sources (Sagas, Eddas, etc) are very clear on the "Put your own people first" part. Asatru is fundamentally an ethnoreligion. People who think of it as "Christianity with more gods" are doing it wrong. It's not a proselytizing religion. You don't (And arguably can't) "convert". People who think of it as some kind of old age hippy cult of nature and love are also doing it wrong (Which is stupid because when you think Asatru you think vikings who were fucking pirates and murderers, how is that "love and happiness and Tolerance™"). All these people (Derided by Folkish Asatru as being "universalists") are doing is using the beliefs of their/our ancestors as a cover to give legitimacy to their political beliefs.

The "Far right" of course does this but they're slightly more correct in doing so (if simply because a broken clock is right twice a day).

But all of what makes Paganism so attractive to the "Far Right" is exactly why Paganism can never be done.

>>384206
>First you have to differentiate between Asatru and Neopaganism. Neopaganism for our purposes are things like Wicca. They have absolutely no historical basis and are quite literally made up. We know exactly who came up with Wiccan beliefs (Gerald Gardner is the founder of Wiccanism) because it didn't exist before 1936. Asatru is a polytheistic reconstruction of the religious system adhered to by the Germanic (Specifically Scandinavian as it is the best attested) peoples that itself is a descendant of the belief system of the Proto-Indo-European people. It is impossible to pin down who created Asatru because no one did. It's the evolution of a belief system over thousands of years.
For what it's worth, Andrew Chumbley was working toward his Ph.D. trying to establish academic evidence for the witch cult that Crowley, Spare, Gardner, and Chumbley himself claimed contact with. He died before completing the dissertation. If I recall correctly, bits and pieces got published in ONE: Grimoire of the Golden Toad.

>>384293
Paganism is intimately connected to the culture (and, arguably, the geographic location, ethnicity, and language) of the worshipers. Barring the obvious "We have no fucking clue how most of this religion actually worked" portion which is why it's reconstructed polytheism in the first place you can physically never be a "Germanic Pagan". There is no continued Pagan tradition. It died out hundreds of years go. The only authentic fully pagan Europeans left are some patches of Finnish reindeer herders (Who aren't even Indo-European!). The culture that went with this tradition is also dead. You can never be a BROUD VIGING WARIOR :DDDD. The largest attraction to Paganism, the mystical connection to one's ancestors, doesn't exist.

Now, of course, there's nothing saying some dude can't simply say "Fuck that, we'll make up what we don't know and work from there". This is actually a growing trend in Pagan circles. However, no one wants to dive head first into paganism for the simple fact that they're all atheists. You can usually see this with the common insult of "LMFAO DO YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN A MARVEL COMIC CHARACTER XDDDDD" being responded to with "N-no, they're J-Jungian archetypes" or some such thing. Likewise, anything related to magic will be relegated as being some kind of metaphysical motivation rather than actual spell casting.

The actual Germanic pagans believed the gods were quite real and quite physical (The Romans apparently had some whacky ideas about the gods being dispersed over a large area and as such they needed to be concentrated in order to talk to them, but that's besides the point). They also believed that magic was quite real and that runes weren't just for motivation.

>>384334
The majority of Western Christians (especially online) are atheists. That guy posting about "Orthodox Feels" doesn't actually believe Yahweh exists, he's just enchanted with a romanticized aesthetic that he glorifies as somehow being more "pure" than what exists today. This is, ultimately, what many pagans are in for and want. The simple fact is that people are more religious when it benefits them. When you don't need to go to Church so Yahweh makes it rain, you won't. When you don't need to sacrifice cattle to Jupiter to make it rain, it won't.

I'm not saying Paganism (Or, for that matter, Christianity and any religion) is stupid. I'm saying that history is cyclical and we're at the natural point where religion becomes less and less about interface and connection with the divine and more and more about identifying with a group for profit and social standing/status. I'm also not saying I'm Austrian, I just used that as an example (Broud red blooded Amerigan :DDDD)

For what it's worth however, the "Far Right" pagans are the most likely to actually sacrifice goats to Thor, gather their family and friends around a fire, and pour out home made mead while singing praises to Odin. So sure. They're failing in believing in the gods. They're not resurrecting some long lost tradition. But they are connecting with other people of like minded ideals and (in their eyes) making the world a better place. They're improving their folk, or MAKING a folk in an era when the nuclear family and social connections are highly fractured. Is Paganism a failure? I wouldn't say so in the slightest. And quite frankly, if some guy were to setup a Pagan city out in Wyoming or whatever, I personally wouldn't be against joining them. But until then, I'm not going to go around advertising myself as a Pagan.

I'm sorry this turned into some huge wall of text by the way, I didn't expect it to be this long.

>>384390
>history is cyclic
What's your take on Huxley's Perennialism?

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>>383690
>JK Rowling writes a book series inspired by Christianity
>Makes Neo-Pagan faggots

>>384461
The handwringing about Harry Twatter is a recent phenomenon.

A generation back it was saturday morning cartoons and their toys, or Pokemon, which cause children to turn their back on Christ. Before that it was D&D.

People will generally scapegoat anything within arms reach.

>>384390
>I'm sorry this turned into some huge wall of text by the way, I didn't expect it to be this long
You should be more sorry that it's all bullshit too

>>384409
I honestly hadn't heard of it until I googled it just now.

But, I would say that, tangentially, it's entirely correct. All religions, philosophies, belief systems, etc, are trying to find truth and meaning in the world. All have some variant of the golden rule, and I would dare say there is no religion/belief system that does not ultimately desire happiness for those who follow it.

But that's ultimately where I'd say the idea of a universal truth ends. In the most literal sense, many religions do not spring from each other (Shinto and Asatru share no common heritage except by going so far back as to be meaningless). Other religions cannot be reconciled in any meaningful way. The Abrahamic religions cannot coexist for any extended period of time without someone giving way, and Pagan religions run the risk of being irreparably altered by prolonged contact with other pagan religions. Buddhism tends to avoid this pagan-dilution phenomenon but can still get altered.

So no, I would not say I agree that all religions spring from a universal truth. I would however say that there is nothing wrong with "Let's agree to disagree" which is entirely inline with the bizarre mixture of National Socialism and Libertarianism that Asatruar (The proper term from an adherent to Asatru) advocate.

>>384508
>But that's ultimately where I'd say the idea of a universal truth ends. In the most literal sense, many religions do not spring from each other (Shinto and Asatru share no common heritage except by going so far back as to be meaningless). Other religions cannot be reconciled in any meaningful way. The Abrahamic religions cannot coexist for any extended period of time without someone giving way, and Pagan religions run the risk of being irreparably altered by prolonged contact with other pagan religions. Buddhism tends to avoid this pagan-dilution phenomenon but can still get altered.
Vajrayana's like half Kashmiri Saivism.

I don't have much of an opinion, you seemed well informed and I was curious about your take on things.

FWIW I'd tend to agree with your analysis. The various faiths are all looking at the same mountain summit but from different angles, positions, and lighting.

>>383734
Why get hung up on whether people subscribe to völkisch ideals when nearly all contemporary paganism is just a reconstruction for edgetards who want to be part of a religion but not a mainstream one.

>>384544
For the same reason people get hung up on anything, I'd wager. Autism? A chance to sperg? Seeking some kind of meaning? Being an autist seeking meaning? You're ultimately entirely right of course, but then if people didn't sperg about little things what would be the point of 4chan?

That post was also more of just a litmus test for how seriously someone was about it (Which, of course, ranges from holding blots to just being an edgelord). There are however, serious folkish pagans. There are no serious universalist pagans.

>>384618
>There are no serious universalist pagans.
It would only take one to show that assertion to be wrong. I'd posit Jake Stratton Kent would qualify but he's specialized almost entirely into using Greek Magical Papyrus at this point. He did some stuff on Grimorium Verum but I don't think I've heard him talk about it near as often recently as GMP.

>>383447
Former germanic pagan here:

Much nationalist and racialist rhetoric draws on early 20th century uses of Nietzschean philosophy that explicitly strives towards becoming the uebermensch, whillst also denying Christ as being a childish weakling of Jewish character.

Much modern right-wing pagan philosophy is basically rehashed Nietzsche, dressed up in spiked helmets and given a hammer. Christ's Philosophy is the antithesis of Nietzsche's philosophical end-game, and so Christ's religion is incompatible with ultra-nationalist rhetoric that is based on Nietzsche. Thus the ultra-nationalist, who is basically a racist nietzsche, adopts paganism because it's philosophy is compatible.

To ultra-nationalists who aren't keen on philosophy, Christ is a jew and thus the enemy, and so they adopt a religion that has no jews or foreigners in it.