The religion with no name

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

1. One of humanities largest, oldest, and most influential traditions

2000 years ago, a set of closely related spiritual traditions existed in the northern plains of India, the Persian empire, central Asia, and practically all of Europe. It was the native faith of the Roman Empire and the Greeks, and when they encountered their neighbors to the north, they realized that they were worshipping the very same gods.

This is what Tacitus had to say about the gods of the germanic people: Of all the Gods, Mercury is he whom they worship most. To him on certain stated days it is lawful to offer even human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with beasts usually allowed for sacrifice. Some of the Suevians make likewise immolations to Isis.

A likely interpretation is that Mercury refers to Odin, Hercules to Thor, and Mars to Tyr.

Pliney the Elder (historia naturalis, ca. 66 ad) made another fascinating connection. He connected the word druid to the Greek word dru, meaning oak. The Celtic cognate would've been draur. Both these would again been derived from the proto indo european word deru - the root word for both the English words tree and true. Originally it seems to have meant firm, solid and steadfast, but also tree or wood (3). In all likelihood, Pliney the Elder was correct. While dru meant oak, the second half of the word, id, might come from vid, essentially meaning deep knowledge. Druid can therefore be interpreted as "those with deep knowledge of the oak." Oak likewise has importance in norse, greek and slavic mythology. There is so much that could be said about the indo europeans relationship to the oak, to evergreen plants and trees, and I might come back to this, but for now, the point was to illustrate a common tradition in Europe that the Europeans themself recognized and wrote about.

The question of the origin of these beliefs is naturally a hard nut to crack. There are truly loads of striking similarities. Although I believe most of these stems from a common root, there have certainly been instances of borrowing as well. Another issue is dating these beliefs. A little silly undertaking in my opinion, as these are organically developed folk beliefs: a totally different beast than the religions of the book. In my opinion, you can not date ideas: they do not appear in a vacuum, but build upon older ones. I belive the safest and most accurate way to date these is to look at where and when this spectrum of closely related people once roamed. This would've been the proto-indo-europeans (by definition). The question is not fully settled, but we can say with a fair amount of confidence that they lived on the Pontic-Caspian steppe around 6,400–3,500 BC +-.

Extraordinary successful as they were, half the world now speaks an indo european language as their mother tongue, making it the largest language family by a long shot.

So what can we say about the beliefs of these people? Very much as well as very little. There are several things to consider here. One of them being their oral nature. Indo european poetry has certain characteristics, such as (1) Use of Fixed Phrases and Epithets, (2) Metaphorical and Symbolic Language, (3) Hero Cult and Concepts of Honor, (4) Oral Transmission and Collective Memory, (5) Distinct Poetic Forms and Rhythms. When you find poetry/epics/myths containing many or all these techniques and structure, you have found something truly indo-european. Being the largest culture on the planet by a long shot, both in terms of geography but also number of people, there are naturally countless examples of these. To mention some of them, we have the Iliad and odyssey, the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and the Eddas.

 

2. Thou shalt have no other gods before me

 

While the chosen people supposedly were walking the desert in search of the promised land, they grew anxious that Moses would not return. To pass the time and calm their nerves, they constructed a golden calf and made sacrifices to it. But as we all know, Moses did return. He returned with the law of the self-proclaimed angry and jealous god. The first three commandments goes like this:

 

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.

2. You shall not make idols.

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

 

The phillistines were in all likelihood a Greek people who settled in the holy land. The Israelites called their god, possibly Zeus, Ba'al-Zebub (this form is used in 2 Kings 1:2). It translates to "lord of the flies," likely referring to flies flying around the filthy people not chosen by LORD Yahwe. In the new testament, it is written as Beelzeboul, literally "lord of shit." Beelzebub is also used to refer to the devil. David desired to marry the kings daughter. The brideprice was set at 200 pieces of philistine foreskin. David murdered a couple of hundred philistines, mutilated them and gave their foreskin to the king in exchange for his daughter (1 Samuel 18:27).

Why am I telling you this? It is important to be very clear here. I am doing it for the following reasons:

1. To demonstrate judaisms and Christianities hatred and intolerance for anyone of a different faith.

2. To show how so many deities have been demonized.

3. The militant nature of the faith

 

The Devil' is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes…
Aleister Crowley

 

3. The twilight of the gods

The old tree sighs
when the giant shakes it—
Yggdrasil still stands,
but it trembles.

 

Fenrir howls terribly
before the doors to Hel;
the wolf will break its bonds
and run.

I know much wisdom,
I see deep in the future,
all the way to Ragnarok,
a dark day for the gods.

 

Excerpt from Völuspá, translated by Dr. Jackson Crawford

 

With the help of legislation outlawing the native faith of a people, persecution, mass execution, burning of literature, destruction of temples, pressure, the burning of "witches" and centuries of indoctrination, the Abrahamic religions did everything in their power to utterly destroy any native wisdom tradition of not only Europe, but everywhere they went.

"And so she opens her book with a potent description of black-robed zealots from 16 centuries ago taking iron bars to the beautiful statue of Athena in the sanctuary of Palmyra, located in modern-day Syria. Intellectuals in Antioch (in ancient Syria) were tortured and beheaded, as were the statues around them. The contemporary parallels glare. The early medieval author known as Pseudo-Jerome wrote of Christian extremists: "Because they love the name martyr and because they desire human praise more than divine charity, they kill themselves." He would have found shocking familiarity in the news of the 21st century.
Nixey closes her book with the description of another Athena, in the city of her name, being decapitated around A.D. 529, her defiled body used as a steppingstone into what was once a world-renowned school of philosophy. Athena was the deity of wisdom. The words "wisdom" and "historian" have a common ancestor, a proto-Indo-European word meaning to see things clearly. Nixey delivers this ballista-bolt of a book with her eyes wide open and in an attempt to bring light as well as heat to the sad story of intellectual monoculture and religious intolerance. Her sympathy, corruscatingly, compellingly, is with the Roman orator Symmachus: "We see the same stars, the sky is shared by all, the same world surrounds us. What does it matter what wisdom a person uses to seek for the truth?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/books/review/catherine-nixey-darkening-age.html

To demonstrate with a concrete example:
St. Lucia is celebrated at 13th desember in Italy, and in… Scandinavia, and nowhere in between. Lucia comes from latin lux, meaning light. The scandinavian word for light is lys or variations of it. In the Julian calendar, the 13th december was belived to be the darkest night of the year. Legends of women going around checking If people have prepared for christmas, and either showering them with gifts or punishing them If they fail to do so, are found all across Europe (frau holda, lussi, baba yaga). Notice the similarity between Lussi and Lucia by the way. She takes one of two forms: either demonic, ugly, devil-like, child eating witch, or a friendly women dressed in white carrying a light.

(Lussi, demonized version)

 

Saint Lucias day in a scandinavian elementary school, clearly illustrating the evil nature of the pagan ritual involving children celebrating the return of the sun.

 

Ending words
I am not sure whether I should write a disclaimer or not. I do not want appear apologetic for talking about the native traditions of Europe, and the fanatics who tried to erradicate them in the most gruesome way imaginable. On the other hand, I do not want to attack jews, christians and muslims. I have no problem with you whatsoever. So now, what do I want to communicate?
…

I want to communicate that the image we have of the European, pagan tradition is as twisted as can be. I want to show how the most innocent of practices got persecuted by the people who viewed themself as righteous. I want to keep the fire alive. In upcoming essays, I will focus solely on the beliefs, practices, legacy, and wisdom of the Indo Europeans themself.

To be continued!

[Sir Darius the Clairvoyent]

Feedback appreciated. So many interresting possibilites to explore. The mysteries, the nature of the gods, relationship with nature, values, after life... 

 

Hope it is of interest for some of you as well!