Suebi Beer Libations to Wuodan: Esoteric Musings on Blot; and Accounts from Grimm, Columban, and the Matronae

By Sean Jobst

[The following article was originally published on my Swabian Heathenry blog, a project I officially title the Schwäbisch Heidnisches Glaube. Aside from some article ideas for this blog, I've mostly been working on that other project. Since its focus is more "niche" and specified, most of its postings won't be republished here. But this current article is an exception, since some of its points intersect with themes on this blog.] 

Sources confirm it was a common Suebi tradition to honor Wuodan (our original name for Him, later evolving into Old High German Wodan and modern German Wotan) with beer libations, so that a modern Swabian Heathen practice could incorporate a Giozan (Old High German “to pour” -> Proto-Germanic *Geutana, “to pour") with beer of a high quality befitting to Wuodan, preferably our own South German beers such as made with hops from the Bavarian Hallertau, where Wuodan and other Germanic Deities were honored and so their energies are imbued with the land. 

As we were animists like every other ethnic faith, our ancestors knew that through this ritual the drink itself would become imbued with a spiritual energy exchanged with the Deity. Blotar (Proto-Germanic *Blotana, “to sacrifice”) were specific offerings to the Gods or Goddesses. This included something tangible as part of the gifting and exchange cycle; but could also include words or a vow honoring the Deity, invoked by their unique kennings and qualities. As noted by two leading scholars, the Indo-European words for libation come from the same roots as words for “promise, vow.”(1)

The great German linguist and folklorist Jacob Grimm (1785-1863), himself descended from the Hessian lands of the Chatti (kinsmen of the Irminones along with our Suebi and Alemanni), rendered an essential service to continental Germanisches Heidentum by collecting the folklore of disparate regions and compiling them into a cohesive work documenting continuity to our ancient Mythology - despite all propaganda claiming everything was “lost” or broken. Grimm linked this Germanic practice to the broader Indo-European tradition:

“As it was a primitive and widespread custom at a banquet to set aside a part of the food for the household gods, and particularly to place a dish of broth before Berhta and Hulda, the gods were also invited to share the festive drink. The drinker, before taking any himself, would pour some out of his vessel for the god or house sprite, as the Lithuanians, when they drank beer, spilt some of it on the ground for their earth-goddess Zemynele. Compare with this the Norwegian sagas of Thor, who appears at weddings when invited, and takes up and empties huge casks of ale. I will now turn once more to that account of the Suevic ale-titb (cupa) in Jonas, and use it to explain the heathen practice of minne drinking [ritual toast], which is far from being extinct under Christianity. Here also both name and custom appear common to all the Teutonic races.”(2)

The concept of a sacred beverage is a defining feature of Indo-European cultures, whose various mythos are filled with stories of Gods or heroes seeking holy drinks which initiated them into higher consciousness of frenzy or gnosis, and beverages of magical qualities such as the elixir or haoma. This motif is also a defining feature of the pan-European Grail Mythos, which though outwardly “christian” reveals deeper Pagan origins, and was transmitted by Germanic Minnesänger, most notably the Bavarian Wolfram von Eschenbach. Its remnants are centered within the Celtic and Germanic worlds, but its linguistic and mythic correspondences also extend eastward to the Caucasus, and to Iran via the figure of Parzifal.(3)

Parzifal with Amfortas in the Grail Castle (1883), by
Bavarian painter August Spiess (1841-1923) for display
in Der Sängersaal of Schloss Neuschwanstein (Source)

Unfortunately, the exact format of an Alemannic/Suebi blot has not survived. For we who seek to revive our Heathenry, we can look to the formats provided by other continental Heathens, such as the Irminists or the Saxon Aldsidu, for clues on what our ancestors practiced. These sources about the beer libations to Wuodan are therefore even more valuable, for they describe a special offering vessel that contained the beer, made ‘sacred’ by the intentions of the participants and incantations uttered over it to honor Wuodan. But rather than the details, what’s most important is the overarching metaphysics of Blot, the divine purpose animating the ritual, as explained by the Finnish writer Aki Cederberg:

“Along with sumbel (meaning ritual libations of sacred drink raised in honor of the gods, ancestors, and the deeds of the living), blot is one of the central Germanic rituals of which we have historical knowledge. In a blot, an offering of drink or food was given to the gods, goddesses, spirits, or ancestors. At specific holy times, even animal and human sacrifices occasionally took place (the human sacrifices usually consisted of criminals or enemies of the community). The blot would be performed in a holy place or sacrificial grove, where a connection to the gods was particularly strong. In principle, this action was less about appeasing the divine and more about maintaining and strengthening a connection with the holy powers, which happened via sacrifice, offering, and gift-giving. The same reciprocal relationship that existed in human communities was thought to also exist between the human and the divine. Sacrifice was an expression of this principle. It was understood that by offering gifts to the gods, the latter would in turn bless humans with their gifts, such as luck, protection, fertility, love, or guidance – which, although intangible, are still at the epicenter of human life.”(4)

Generally, Abrahamics throw accusations of “sacrifice” against Heathens and Pagans, but rather than apologize about our ancestral traditions we can simply turn it back on them as projection. Their religions are centered around sacrifice, whether it be the salvationist “christ” story, the “divinely” ordered sacrifice of Isaac or Ismail (depending on which of the three iterations), Islamic Eid and halal sacrifices, the Hebrew scapegoat ritual or modern shechita, or the practice of circumcision whether against the male or female. There are biblical references to their god enjoying the “aroma” of “burnt offerings” (Exodus 29:18, Leviticus 1:9, Numbers 15:3), demanding strictly-defined sacrifices as central to his worship (Exodus 29:38-42, Numbers 15:1-29), and later extended to the sacrifice of christ (Hebrews 9:14 Ephesians 5:2). The way these verses and traditions are framed is one of a “divine” demand to be appeased by the sacrifices offered by “lesser” mortals.

In complete contrast, our Heathen or Pagan traditions viewed sacrifice as part of the gifting and exchange cycle – it was tied to Natural law. The Deities exist and as higher vibrational Beings, they don't “need” the sacrifices - its about the exchange and flow of energy as part of the Natural Order (Rita, related to rite). At least in the Germanic and Celtic worlds, sacrifice was done to those who would've already been killed such as certain heinous criminals or war captives. And when it came to animals, those would've been killed for food anyway – yet making use of all the parts and with due humane diligence to their spirit. Through sacrifice the more “mundane” acts of the world were elevated into ritual, raising the consciousness of the entire tribe or clan in the process. It should also be said that sacrifice is a general term that can be understood as including the intangible, such as sacrificing our time and work or making vows, creative acts and poetic words. Our traditions also evolve with us as peoples, so that the definition of sacrifice and exchange has expanded.

Ancient Germanic minne ritual. Illustration by German artist
Martin Wiegand (1867-1961) for Bildersaal Deutscher Geschichte
(Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1890). (Source)

Columban’s account of Suebi ritual

The source he references is the Italian monk Jonas of Bobbio, whose Vita Columbani (Life of Columban, circa 639-641) is a biography of “Saint” Columban (543-615), the Irish missionary sent by Rome and the Frankish archons to convert our Suebi/Alemanni volk to Christianity. That his mission occurred over a hundred years after our regions were conquered by the Christianized Franks (following Clovis’ conversion in 496) demonstrates how resilient our tribesmen were upon our ancestral Heathenry in the face of a Christian onslaught backed by overwhelming political and financial authority. 

Such accounts are a useful source for describing our ancestral traditions because these missionaries, desiring to convert a people to their foreign archonic religion, recorded traditions as they witnessed them, wanting to “refute” and ascribe them to the “demonic” (since it was related to Gods of ethnikos, gentilis “the nations” rather than to their own hebraic messianic egregore). These accounts can be easily discerned from their own commentary, as these were “supernatural” exaggerations obviously invented to fit their mythic hagiography, as well as to demonstrate the “truth” of Christianity and their own “miraculous” claims to sainthood. I now cite Jonas’ account in its original Latin, followed by the English translation:

“Ad destinatum deinde perveniunt locum. Quem peragrans vir Dei non suis placere animis aiet, sed tamen ob fidem in gentibus serendam inibi paulisper moraturum se spondit. Sunt etenim inibi vicinae nationes Suaevorum. Quo cum moraretur et inter habitatores loci illius progrederetur, repperit eos sacrificium profanum litare velle, vasque magnum, quem vulgo cupam vocant, qui XX modia amplius minusve capiebat, cervisa plenum in medio positum. Ad quem vir Dei accessit sciscitaturque, quid de illo fieri vellint. Illi aiunt se Deo suo Vodano* nomine, quem Mercurium, ut alii aiunt, autumant, velle litare. Ille pestiferum opus audiens vas insufflat, miroque modo vas cum fragore dissolvitur et per frustra dividitur, visque rapida cum ligore cervisae prorumpit; manifesteque datur intellegi diabolum in eo vase fuisse occultatum, qui per profanum ligorem caperet animas sacrificantum. Videntes barbari, stupefacti aiunt magnum virum Dei habere anhelitum, qui sic possit dissolvere vas ligaminibus munitum; castigatusque euangelicis dictis, ut ab his segregarentur sacrificiis, domibus redire imperat. Multique eorum tunc per beati viri suasum vel doctrinam ad Christi fidem conversi, baptismum sunt consecuti; aliosque, quos iam lavacro ablutus error detinebat profanus, ad cultum euangelicae doctrinae monitis suis ut bonus pastor ecclesiae sinibus reducebat. * Vadono (A1a), Wodano (A1b), Woda (A2)”

Columban among the "savage" Suebi/Alemanni,
portraying an obvious Christian bias

“At length they arrived at the place designated, which did not wholly please Columban; but he decided to remain, in order to spread the faith among the people, who were Swabians. Once, as he was going through this country, he discovered that the natives were going to make a heathen offering. They had a large cask that they called a cupa, and that held about twenty-six measures, filled with beer and set in their midst. On Columban’s asking what they intended to do with it, they answered that they were making an offering to their God Wodan (whom others call Mercury). When he heard of this abomination, he breathed on the cask, and lo! it broke with a crash and fell in pieces so that all the beer ran out. Then it was clear that the devil had been concealed in the cask, and that through the earthly drink he had proposed to ensnare the souls of the participants. As the heathens saw that, they were amazed and said Columban had a strong breath, to split a well-bound cask in that manner. But he reproved them in the words of the Gospel, and commanded them to cease from such offerings and to go home. Many were converted then, by the preaching of the holy man, and turning to the learning and faith of Christ, were baptized by him. Others, who were already baptized but still lived in the heathenish unbelief, like a good shepherd, he again led by his words to the faith and into the bosom of the church.”(5)

The “supernatural” element is obviously part of his mythic hagiography, contradicted by the historical resistance he faced trying to convert our kinsmen; and as it steals the qualities associated with the God he was demonstrating his alleged “power” over, as the modern German Heathen writer and artist ‘Iwobrand’ writes: “It is worth mentioning that the breath ascribed to the saint seems to point towards the very god that is supposed to be defeated by it: Wodan is the god of the storm-like spirit, Old English wōd (Germanic *wōdaz), which gets hold of the furious, i.e. the inspired.”(6) 

Jonas’ last sentence is closer to the truth, as it was only a centuries-long process of syncretism imposed by the church and its Frankish authorities, that converted the Suebi/Alemanni – notwithstanding the folklore we held onto since then which can now be a guiding light to Schwäbisches Heidentum, whose living flame was never entirely extinguished - it just went underground, often hiding in plain sight within the church, and embedded within the ancestral memories and archetypal symbols of the volk. As Iwobrand continues: “In the sixth century there was already a network of monasteries in the region, but since the fifth century a great number of Alemanni had fallen back into paganism. Especially the more remote areas, covered with thick woodland, would still be settled by a persistent pagan population.”

After arriving at the Merovingian court of King Theudebert II of Austrasia at Metz (Lothringen) in 611, Columban’s mission was “granted” land at Bregenz, in Vorarlberg (the Schwäbisch part of modern Austria). Following the route of the Rhein and Donau, he met with little success among our volk, further attesting to the Heathen resilience well into the 7th century. Accompanied by “Saint” Gallus to Bregenz in 612, Columban found an oratory outwardly dedicated to “Saint” Aurelia but containing three brass idols, which he destroyed and threw into Lake Constanz, and founded the Mehrerau Abbey.(7) Gallus remained as the conquerors' religious general over Schwaben, lending his name to St. Gallen and other Swiss toponyms.

 

Bregenzerwald in Vorarlberg (Source)

Heathen worship resisted Christianization in Bregenz

A similar account was given in the Vita S. Galli, written by the Swabian monk Walafrid Strabo sometime in the early 800s: “They also found in the temple some images of bronze, gilded and fixed to the wall, which the people, having abandoned the worship of the sacred altar, adored, and were accustomed to offer sacrifices to: these are the ancient and ancient gods, the guardians of this place, whose comfort both we and ours endure to the present day.” Given the earlier account of Tacitus about the foremost Gods of the Suebi, these three could possibly represent Ziu, Wuodan and Donar. After quoting this passage (in its original Latin), Grimm gives a lengthy analysis on whose idols they possibly were:

“A doubt may be raised, however, as to whether by these heathen gods are to be understood Alamannish, or possibly Roman gods? Roman paganism in a district of the old Helvetia is quite conceivable, and dii tutores loci sounds almost like the very thing. On the other hand it must be remembered, that Alamanns had been settled here for three centuries, and any other worship than theirs could hardly be at that time the popular one. That sacrifice to Woden on the neighboring Lake of Zurich mentioned by Jonas in his older biography of the two saints, was altogether German. Lastly, the association of three divinities to be jointly worshipped stands out a prominent feature in our domestic heathenism; when the Romans dedicated a temple to several deities, their images were not placed side by side, but in separate cellae (chapels).”(8)

He continues: “By this account also the temple is first of all Christian, and afterwards occupied by the heathen (Alamanns), therefore not an old Eomanone [Irminone]. That Woden’s statue was one of those idola vana that were broken to pieces, may almost be inferred from Jonas’ account of the beer-sacrifice offered to him. Eatpert’s cantilena S. Galli has only the vague words: Castra de Turegum adnavigant Tucconium, Decent fidem gentem, Jovem linquunt ardentem [‘The camp of the Turegians sails to Tuconium, They befit the nation's faith, They leave Jove burning’]. This Jupiter on fire, from whom the people apostatized, may very well be Donar (Thunar, Thor), but his statue is not alluded to. According to Arx, Eckehardus IV. quotes Joviset Neptuni idola, but I cannot find the passage; conf. p. 122 Ermoldus Nigellus on Neptune. It is plain that the three statues have to do with the idolatry on L. Constance, not with that on L. Zurich; and if Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune stood there together, the first two at all events may be easily applied to German deities.”(9)

Its significant these passages mention “saint” Aurelia of Strasbourg and not the “Christ” figure, suggesting the Christians used various “saints” who could easily be disguised as tutelary deities to convert our ancestors, otherwise repulsed by the “Christ” stories. Even the historicity of this fourth century “saint” was questioned by Alsatian historian Philippe-André Grandidier (1752-1787) who, despite being a priest, was committed to the scientific method. The account also attests to the resilient of Heathenry, as even the semblance of Christian worship was shed in favor of the open worship of our Gods. Missionaries were continuously sent, culminating in Columban and Galli. After a year of many of his abbots – who should be seen as religious invaders – being “murdered” in the woods by our Heathen tribesmen, Columban crossed the Alps where he died three years later in Lombardy.

The missionaries had an Abrahamic-induced fear of
our forests, mountains, lakes and rivers, knowing these
contained a primal spiritual energy. An illustration by
German Heathen writer and artist Iwobrand (Source)

Other accounts of beer libations across Deutschland

Beer has an ancient history in Germany, extending at least 3,000 years. Archaeological excavations from a burial site of a Celtic or Germanic chieftain near Kulmbach (Bayern) has uncovered ceramic amphoras containing beer residue. That he was sent off to the Otherworld with gifts of beer accompanying him underscores the sacredness of beer as a ritual drink in our regions. Nearby the Kulmbacher Mönchhof brewery was founded in 1349, suggesting that much like churches so too were breweries often constructed atop Heathen sacred sites. Around 98 CE, the Roman Tacitus also recorded both the popularity of beer and its ritualistic use among the Germanic peoples. One modern historian has mentioned the cultural implications between Germanic beer culture vis-à-vis the dominant Roman vinology:

“Although beer was a common beverage in practically all ancient societies, the wine-drinking Greeks and Romans mysteriously excluded it from their diet. It is too simplistic to state that they simply disliked the drink. For each negative trait imputed to beer there almost invariably exists some further testimony to the contrary. Thus it is variously described as a sour, foul-smelling, impure, cloudy, harmful, flatulence-causing, unmanly liquid made from rotten cereals, a divine punishment, but also as a sweet, good-tasting, nice-smelling, nutritious, healthful, useful, strong cereal beverage, a divine gift. The exclusion of beer from the Greek and Roman diet is essentially a manifestation of a deep-set vinocentricity closely connected to a disdain of the ‘other’. 

“The vinocentric outlook is obvious from the fact that beer was often simply known as barley wine or wheat wine, while barbarians were said to make intoxicating beverages in imitation of wine, and to have recourse to beer when wine was wanting. Wine and beer were also often considered polar opposites: wine was civilized and beer barbaric (in being undiluted with water, though it was, it seems, just as strong as wine, and in being drunk with filtered straws); wine was manly and beer effeminate; wine upper class and beer lower class. The very fact that beer was the drink of others was enough to condemn it, and the actual taste of the beverage probably had little influence on verdicts against it. Those who actually ventured to try some brew did not necessarily find it so bad.”(10)

Perhaps the most famous of the
Matronae votive altars, the Matronae
Aufaniae (circa 164CE), discovered under
the site of the Bonn Minster church.

We now continue our journey from the South into more North German regions, further attesting to the Heathen practice of beer libations. The first clue concerns the general use of beer for sacred purposes and not only to Wuodan. Spread across Deutschland are votive offerings to the Matronae, various feminine tutelary spirits associated with specific areas. These reveal the shared animism of the Celts and Germanen, upon which later Roman elements were also added, for these were all branches of the same Indo-European family and the Matronae are the matron energies tied to place. A list of Matronae compiled by the Norwegian scholar and historian Maria Kvilhaug includes a patroness of beer:

“Alusneihae (Beer Mothers)
Where: Inden-Pier, Kreis Düren [Nordrhein-Westfalen], West Germany

Meaning: From Gmc «aluþ» — «Beer», «Intoxicating Drink» — the second part of the name is uncertain, but is possibly the same as the mysterious ‘neha’ in the goddess name Nehallennia: Is it from LAT *nex, *necare – ‘To Kill’, or from the verb ‘helan’ – ‘To Hide’, or from Gmc *neu – associated with words for seafaring or approximation (‘Mothers of Beer Approaching’, ‘Mothers of Beer Ships’ or something along that line).”(11) 

Aside from the Suebi, Grimm traces beer offerings to Wuodan among the Northern folk customs of Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg: “He [18th century Mecklenburg historian David Franck] adds, that at the squires mansions, when the rye is all cut, there is Wodel-beer served out to the mowers; no one weeds flax on a Wodenstag, lest Woden’s horse should trample the seeds; from Christmas to Twelfth-day they will not spin, nor leave any flax on the distaff, and to the question why they answer, Wode is galloping across. We are expressly told, this wild hunter Wode rides a white horse….

“A custom in Schaumburg [Lower Saxony] I find thus described [By Munchhausen in Bragur VI. 1, 2134.]: the people go out to mow in parties of twelve, sixteen or twenty scythes, but it is so managed, that on the last day of harvest they all finish at the same time, or some leave a strip standing which they can cut down at a stroke the last thing, or they merely pass their scythes over the stubble, pretending there is still some left to mow. At the last stroke of the scythe they raise their implements aloft, putting them upright, and beat the blades three times with the strop. Each spills on the field a little of the drink he has, whether beer, brandy, or milk, then drinks himself, while they wave their hats, beat their scythes three times, and cry aloud Wold, Wold, Wold! and the women knock all the crumbs out of their baskets on the stubble. They march home shouting and singing.”(12)

Finally, preserved in the texts of our Norse cousins across the North and Baltic Seas are these pertinent words directly from the High One Himself: “66. To some feasts, I’ve come much too late, And to others, much too soon- either the beer was all gone, Or not yet brewed: The unlucky man can’t seem to get it right” – Hávamál: The Words of the High One(13)

So it is that I raise a libation to Wuodan. Prost und Hail Wuodan!

ADDENDUM: Scientific Findings and Esoteric/Shamanic Musings 

I recently listened to a podcast which on the surface has nothing to do with Swabian Heathenry, but a section of it was so pertinent that I added this new section. The information comes from the Gnostic visionary and comparative mythologist John Lamb Lash (hereafter named JLL), whose work has influenced me since late 2021. I’ve incorporated the wisdom he has distilled from the Pagan Mysteries, into my own spiritual worldview, with its base foundation of my own ancestral heritage.

Our ancestors knew the properties of certain plants within their own biosphere, a reality so innate and expressive worldwide that it’s a discipline called Ethnobotany. (A great source for this within our Schwäbisch/Alemannisch context is Wolf-Dieter Storl, originally from Sachsen but long resident in and acclimated to Bavarian Swabia). Our ancestors came to these realizations – only “discovered” by science many centuries later – through their instincts, intuition, and observation of the world and their minds and bodies. As Heathens, we never had a false dichotomy between spiritual and scientific.

Our weltanschauung and traditions are incredibly logical and rational, while still embracing the Mysterious. As a God of shamanic and ecstatic qualities, its an obvious conclusion that so too would there be an esoteric layer to the beer libations to Wuodan – not on every occasion or even to most people, but certainly in rituals by initiates of His Mysteries such as männerbünde (warrior brotherhoods) and trained Zaubermacher (magicians) or Runen-Meischter (Rune masters). This would also occur on auspicious calendar times of heightened awareness and perception.

JLL cited the 2001 work by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann, and Christian Rätsch (Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers), who observed how botanists discovered these plants to be nitrogen-bearing, expressing their surprise as to why since nitrogen serves no apparent benefit to these plants. But as he notes: “They’re a benefit to humanity and to human animals, that's why they have these entheogenous properties.”

“Nitrogen is a component of the biosphere, you breathe it, and it permeates your skin and pores.” Why is the atmosphere 78% nitrogen? Drawing on his Gnosis, JLL mentions “interaction with nitrogen, detection of the effects of nitrogen, and delving into the inner recesses of the nitrogen zone of the planet,” through shamanic practices which we can also experience as a living reality beyond the merely conceptual, in the same way we experience oxygen or hydrogen.

"The Sacred Grove of the Druids", painting from the Opera
Norma, by Italian artist Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835),
portraying the sky in much the same way as the telestic
method described by John Lamb Lash. The Druids were
the uniquely Celtic initiates of the Pagan Mysteries.

“Several things happen when you direct your awareness in a telestic trance, to a nitrogen zone.” The sky “turns green” and “fractalizes into hexagonal facets.” This isn’t hallucination but are related to Benard cells, related to “the activity of chaos and complexity out of which everything emerges.” So through this observation you go deeper into the cells and through gazing into these facets, you see the activity within like “a wild thrashing of tendrils.” (Could this be another layer of meaning to the Wild Hunt?). “If you look deeper, keep a gentle steady gaze, these rising tendrical forms inside each facet, will assume the form of a dakini, a sky dancer.”

JLL references Tibetan Vajrayana shamanic practices corresponding to those recorded of our own ancient European mystic initiates. He mentions experiments with fermented beer by the Tibetan Nyingma scholar-yogi Longchenpa (1308-1364). Similarly: “The chemical element of the drink at Eleusis was fermented barley.” (The Hellenic Eleusinian initiates’ barley drink kykeon, was known – after a nine-day period of fasting and purification – to induce profound visions and transcending fear of death, much like those of the Germanic initiates to Wuodan. The Greek state of thummos is very similar to our own Germanic state of wode).

“Longchenpa attested in some of the records attributed to him, about he and a group of eight apprentices – that’s interesting because Gnostics were in groups of eight and sixteen – and describes vividly how they see these dakinis dancing in the sky.” “And that’s one experience you can have at the nitrogen zone, when you’re actually feeling and processing nitrogen, these paranormal states come spontaneously.”(14) 

Notes:

(1) Douglas Q. Adams and J.P. Mallory, “Libation,” Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, London/Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997, p. 351.

(2) Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Vol. I, trans. James Steven Stallybrass, London: George Bell & Sons, 1882, p. 59.

(3) Among leading scholars of Grail and Arthurian literature, the English Jessie Weston (1850-1928) and American Roger Sherman Loomis (1887-1966) argued convincingly for pre-Christian origins of the Grail Mythos, particularly within Celtic mythology and folklore. See also the online lectures of John Lamb Lash, who gives a Sophianic Animistic description of the Grail journey and its meaning. For the Heathen origins of the German Minnesänger, see Guido von List's Das Geheimnis der Runen (1908) and Otto Rahn's Luzifers Hofgesind (1937).

(4) Aki Cederberg, Holy Europe, North Augusta, SC: Arcana Europa Media, 2024, p. 5.

(5) The Life of St. Columban, by the Monk Jonas, trans. Dana Carleton Munro, Book I, Chapter 53, < https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/columban.asp>.

(6) Iwobrand, “Alemannic Paganism in the Vitae Columbani & Galli,” Oct. 5, 2020, <https://iwobrand.wordpress.com/2020/10/05/alemannic-paganism-in-the-vitae-columbani-galli/>.

(7) See Columba Edmonds, “St. Columbanus,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. Online: <https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04137a.htm>.

(8) Grimm, op. cit., p. 109.

(9) ibid., p. 110. Later in his work, Grimm proposes that “Neptune” refers to either Wodan or Njord. But I place little relevance here, as there is obviously no attestations of Njord among our inland mountainous volk, although sometimes there is overlap between sea and chthonic Deities. I'm prone to chalk the account up to how far-removed these missionaries were from their own Germanic or Celtic ancestry, conceiving the pre-Christian generally in Roman terms. May the Truth be uncovered either way.

(10) Max Nelson, “The Cultural Construction of Beer Among Greeks and Romans,” Syllecta Classica, January 2003, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 101-120, < https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268871081_The_Cultural_Construction_of_Beer_Among_Greeks_and_Romans>.

(11) Maria Kvilhaug, “Ancestral Mothers and Goddess Collectives in German Iron Age Votive Altars and Inscriptions dedicated to the ‘Matrones’,” Jan. 21, 2020, <https://bladehoner.wordpress.com/2020/01/21/ancestral-mothers-and-goddess-collectives-in-german-iron-age-votive-altars-and-inscriptions-dedicated-to-the-matrones/>. 

(12) Grimm, op. cit., p. 156.

(13) From the translation by James Hjuka Coulter, Sewell: Hammerstede, 2^nd edition, 2002, reproduced in his book: Germanic Heathenry: A Practical Guide, 1^st Books Library, 2003, p. 261.

(14) From The Psychedelic Podcast, “John Lamb Lash – Telestic Shamanism: Gnosis, Cognitive Ecstasy, and Entheogens,” 25 June 2022.

Walpurgisnacht – Part 3: Runic Astrotheology, Meditations on Ancestral Memory, and the Germanic Mother Goddess

By Sean Jobst

21 May 2026

Illustration of the Mother Goddess Frija, by
the German artist Carl Emil Doepler (1882)

In Part 2 I compared etymology between the “saint” Walpurga and ancient seeresses, and decoded word-play alluding to various Germanic Goddesses. The magic inherent within these words manifest multiple layers of meaning – on the exoteric, denotations of sovereignty or geographical concepts; on the esoteric level, meanings related to magical processes and the otherworld. I also cited direct correspondences to qualities attributed in lore to the Mother Goddess known in Old High German as Frija. Readers accustomed to Norse lore might be confused by how I seemed to mention Frigg and Freya interchangeably. Generally, in continental Germanic traditions she is one and the same Goddess, whose name combines terms denoting “lady”, “beloved”, “beautiful,” “free” and “courtship” since she epitomizes the feminine in its various qualities:

“We gather from all this, that the forms and even the meanings of the two names border closely on one another. Freyja means the gladsome, gladdening, sweet, gracious goddess, Frigg the free, beautiful, loveable; to the former attaches the general notion of frau (mistress), to the latter that of fri (woman). Holda, from hold (sweet, kind), and Berhta from berht (bright, beautiful) resemble them both.”(1)

Our festivals expressed a sacred balance of feminine and masculine, so that for example folklore recognizes Wodan and Frija (in such regional manifestations as Frau Holle) as dual hosts of the Wild Hunt.  The close connection between words and magic is inherent within this balance, with Frija’s magical qualities in German lore largely transferred to Freya in the Scandinavian sources – but the animating spirit being much the same.(2) This sacred balance was about divine energies playing out at all levels of the magical process.(3) “Odin taught Freyja the runes, and Freyja taught Odin magic, healing magic (White-magic, herbology),” as noted by the American Heathen researcher, scholar and poet Scott Carlson, whose work I highly recommend. He continues:

“Odin has access to his runes (constellations) for extended periods of time. Freyja represents youthfulness, fertility, growth, the maiden; she represents spring through early-summer of Mother’s-time. Freyja does not have nearly as much darkness hours and therefore does not see the constellations (runes) as Odin does, just as Odin does not have access to all the herbs, plants, trees in bloom, and more, that Freyja does; but their times meet and overlap. Mother’s-time and Father’s-time overlap twice a year, spring and fall. Fall is when days begin to get shorter and things go dormant; the Northern Pagan year will end shortly (Samhain). So, it is in the spring that maiden Goddess Freyja and God Odin are presented the opportunity to teach and learn from each other.”(4)

"Freyja" (1905) by Emil Doepler, son of Carl Emil
Doepler and a renown artist in his own right. 

"Idise" (1905) by Emil Doepler. The Idisi are
the continental Germanic equivalent of the
Disir - described in the first Merseburg Charm.

Natural Healers Turned into “Witches”; and the Shamanic Qualities of Frija

When we meditate on these primal energies, joining animism with cosmic cycles, we reveal even more layers of meaning enlivening Walpurgisnacht and its connection to “witches”. We can meditate on the magic inherent within Nature, including the biofeedback loop it shares with our will and consciousness, its cycles manifesting inner and outer changes; the Runes as sacred mysteries encoded within the cellular level, to processes of the Mind, across all levels of human action, extending up to the most transcendent, primordial cosmic forces – the sacred law of correspondence. The magical gifts flowing from these complementary powers were especially feared by the Abrahamic archons, who fear-mongered about the folk healers and herbalists they slandered as “witches” with their alleged nocturnal flights:

“Freya comes from the family of the Vanir, the even older gods. Thus, Odin’s knowledge of magic is rooted in the female primal ground. The shamanic knowledge, which was supported by the myth of Odin and Freya, stood in the way of the declaration of the ‘true faith in the one God’ by Christian missionaries. Shamans, with their direct access to the world of spirits and gods, were and are the rivals of the priests and their book religion. Nevertheless, many shamanic elements have been retained in simple folk medicine.”(5)  

Frija expresses these magical and shamanic qualities in continental lore, “conjuring” a healing spell in the Merseburg Charms alongside Wodan and an otherwise unmentioned figure named Sinthgunt, identified as sister of the Sun Goddess Sunna (so likely some astral deity). Frija appears in her functions as “a caretaker of family, fertility and health.”(6) She is also associated with Urlag, the primal layer of action and manifestation governing fate and consequences across past, present, and future: “She knows all urlag, knows the unfolding of all Being, and what is to come – though never speaks of such dooms and wisdoms. In this, she is the matron of great and deep insight, and certainly linked to skills of cunning and ‘seeing’. So too, would it be that she is the proper patroness of the forasagin – the seer of natural, inborn ability, one particularly gifted with vision or what would be considered ‘psychic’ ability in New Age or mainstream thinking.”(7)

Shamans are healers who administer to the wounds of individuals and tribe, transmuting themselves in the process. Seeresses engaged in these shamanic rituals from a high place (atop mounds or other thresholds), seen as “floating away as geese or swans,” which is why Freya was regarded as “a guardian of the geese; as a goose-maiden, she is the guardian of all souls.”(8) With this we recall her association with the Walkuries. The figure of “Mother Goose” in German fairy tales is commonly accepted to be Frau Holle, Perchta, Berchta, Holda – regional variations who all share the same feminine qualities of Frija (who should thus be viewed as the Germanic Mother Goddess whose energies flowed into these folkloric representations):

“A being similar to Holda, or the same under another name, makes her appearance precisely in those Upper German regions where Holda leaves off, in Swabia, in Alsace, in Switzerland, in Bavaria and Austria. She is called frau Berchte, i.e., in OHG. Perahta, the bright, luminous, glorious (as Holda produces the glittering snow): by the very meaning of the word a benign and gladdening influence, yet she is now rarely represented as such ; as a rule, the awe-inspiring side is brought into prominence, and she appears as a grim bugbear to frighten children with. In the stories of dame Berchta the bad meaning predominates, as the good one does in those of dame Holda; that is to say, the popular Christian view had degraded Berchta lower than Holda. But she too is evident.”(9)

Milky Way Swan Panorama, from Wikimedia Commons

Free Cosmic Bear illustration, from StockCake

Milky Way as “Swan Road”; Orion’s Belt Stars; Cosmic Bear; and Othala Rune

The Milky Way is often called the “Swan Road” since its core sets from spring to early autumn is the constellation Cygnus, whose own etymology is from the Greek word for “swan”. Closely associated with the Northern Cross, highly visible in the northern skies this time of year, this constellation and its swan symbolism is embedded within Greek mythology.(10) Relating it to Germanic mythos, Cygnus’ wings span the “Swan Road”, whose “bridge” correlates to Frigga and the “Swan Maidens” as primal laws of all-knowing, all-consciousness. The Great Bear (Ursa Major) “awakens” to move up the cosmic axis: “and once our cosmic Bear is overhead (spring/rebirth), the rebirth of valiant ancestry takes place, the rebirth of Nature takes place.” “Mother Goddess Frigga is the giver of gifts; she gives fruits of the earth during Mother’s time,” relating to Spring.(11)

Expressing the animistic/cosmic balance of masculine and feminine, the Maibaum – as a ritualistic and folkloric representation of the Axis Mundi - honors both Frija, the Mother Goddess personifying Earth at full fertility, and Balder, the Shining God representing the sun’s life-giving rays at their pinnacle, as well as the soul’s resurrection into more incarnations – just like turning of the seasons. Both were encoded within folklore, heraldry and toponyms, as I have reclaimed from within my own blood memory.(12) As Balder’s mother, Frija is similarly “bright” and “luminous” as Perchta. In Sweden and parts of Germany, the three stars of Orion’s Belt were known as “Frigg’s distaff” or “Freya’s spindle”(13), so we could also relate it to the Norns. 

The same correlation is also expressed in Dutch and Flemish folklore - I recognize here my maternal heritage which is Vlaam. Louis de Baecker (1814-1896), a lawyer and scholar from the Vlaam region of northwest France, applied the folkloric methodology of Jacob Grimm to the Low Countries throughout his various works. In De la religion du nord de la France avant le Christianisme (1854), he noted how the pre-Christian Flemish knew Orion's Belt as Friggiarocken (Frigg's Distaff), but that it was later Christianized as Marienspinrokken (Mary's Distaff). And he added how they knew Ursa Major as de Woenswaghen, "the Chariot of Wodan", so we could theorize astrotheology as one of the meanings of the Wild Hunt.

Containing the North Star, the “Little Bear” (Ursa Minor) is allegorized as Freya’s high-seat or central “throne” around which the sky rotates. As such she has close correspondences to Venus, whose name survives in Romance language terms for “Friday” just as Freya’s does for Germanic languages.(14) The Mother Goddess’ cosmic “dance” around Earth appears in the form of the five-pointed star, regardless of how this visceral image has been co-opted by certain political or kitsch movements. This “dance” correlates to the Othala rune, expressing ancestral inheritance harkening back to the most primal creative energies. 

“The Proto-Indo European name of Mother Goddess Frigg is Priya (pronounced Pre-yu), and means to love. The 5 pointed star of Mother Goddess, seen in the seed pattern of the apple and pear (fruit associated with the feminine) is also attacked in Abrahamic mythos: Chiun (Amos 5:26) and Remphan (Acts 7:43) both relate back to the name Priapus, a Heathen deity with the ability to stand on it’s own, hence the 2 legs of the rune. The name Priapus (Priya+pus) relates to the swollen womb (pus), the sacred enclosure. Thus, Abrahamic lore, as in every other instance in their texts, attacks the feminine, the Mother Goddess and her 5 pointed star (Othala).”(15)

Pleroma, the Galactic Center

Paranatellon as Ancestral Memories, and the Ethno-Cosmic Observer Effect

One might naturally ask why the same cosmic phenomenon were conceived as different Deific forces by different people? For this a powerful solution is given by the Gnostic visionary John Lamb Lash, whose distilling the Sophianic narrative from the Nag Hamadi texts expresses the primal Myth common to all: Emergence of the Earth from the physical and dream body of the Aeonic Mother Gaia-Sophia, known by different names among the various ethnikos across the entire world. This is the primal Memory from whence the various tribal origin mythos emerge, to then tell the “rest of the story” of how each ethnikos arose in specific biospheres. Animism is the universal default without being “universalist”, for we each have an individual and a specific tribal/ethnic interaction with our shared Earth Mother, even if most have lost the conscious awareness and perception of that primal reality.(16)

Animism and Cosmic cycles are intricately woven together, with the Earth part of a three-bodied sentient cosmos along with the Sun and Moon (which is why those two celestial bodies specifically were always conceived as Deities by every indigenous culture), distinguished from the other planets or stars, and her cycles regulated by cosmic movements. Scattered in the various tribal origin Myths are the emergence of Earth and human beings out of the elements, referring to each people as truly autochtonous to specific biospheres (notwithstanding migrations across centuries) to which they form a biofeedback interactivity. Yet there are also fragments which speak of cosmic origins, of our relations to the stars. The narrative is that the Anthropos (human species) arose from a Divine Experiment and that from the Aeonic Mother’s ecstatic plunge from the Pleroma (Galactic Center) emerged the Earth. Our cosmic components then “seeded” into specific biospheres (as per the scientific findings of panspermia), shaped into materiality by the various metals, liquids, and minerals of the Earth.(17)

John Lamb Lash proposes not only observing but visualizing the sky. “The complete tapestry is the nine-episode Sophianic narrative, the Fallen Goddess scenario” from which the Anthropos emerged and later arose as distinct peoples. Earth as part of the three-body cosmos embedded within the celestial realm of eighty-eight starry constellations. “The Constellations are mythic images, to borrow a term from Joseph Campbell. As such, they are eternal entities whose habitat is human imagination, yet they are supercharged with the power of living creatures. They are animated and animating, for they embody ‘meaning’ as a higher form of vitality.” This active imagination of the observer expresses scientific findings about the double-slit experiment, which demonstrates that a particle changes through effects of an observer. Applying the law of correspondence, as occurs to the tiniest particles would also apply to the constellations. Rituals and agricultural events were often modelled after these images.

"Vädersoltavlan" (1636), by the Baltic
German painter Jacob Heinrich Elbfas.
It shows a "weather sun" phenomenon
in the skies over Stockholm, 1535.

While there’s an overall sky tapestry we collectively observe, the mythic images change with the observer’s biosphere. He cited two examples of such cultural anomalies as part of “the actual living, interactive perception of the cosmos.” First, how Inuit elders have recorded the Sun appearing at a different place in the sky for their people. And second, he observed at the latitude of Finland “a selection of the sky locally that reflected to them themes, images and heroes in the Kalevala.” Being that the stars are a “mirror of the psyche,” this is why Orion the Hunter is represented as “Átse Ats'oosí” (First Slender One) to the Diné (Navajo); the Pleiades perceived as “seven sisters” to some cultures but as a swarm of bees or flock of birds to other cultures; or, to bring it back to my original point, how Orion’s Belt and the Ursa Major were associated with Frija to Germanic cultures while the Romans perceived those same bodies as associated with Venus.   

Not only the mythic images, but the zodiac systems differing according to cultures reflect this unique ethno-observer effect, a biosphere’s specific connection to the cosmos – just as our various Pantheons reflect our distinct ethnic interface with the Divine. “If you go forward and approach the tapestry, bringing yourself up to it very closely which is comparable to the local being in a local setting, you'll see fine threads.” Those individual threads are the Paranatellon, those starry constellations “rising besides” the main constellations. These are neither fixed nor universal, but “change in interaction with the observer.” Deconstructing the Greek word reveals Para “beside, from, near, for” + (gen)na “birth” + teleos “aim, purpose”. Indigenous stargazers worldwide detected and derived an enduring purpose from observing these secondary constellations, whose specific images they read according to their distinct ethnosphere.

We can access “the phylogenetic memory circuits of the Earth, a membrane of the composition of the biosphere.” Just as iron is one of the crucial elements in the constellations: “The iron in the blood probably connects to the iron in the Earth. Somehow its in the bioelectromagnetic field of the Earth which we’re immersed in those memory circuits. It’s a blood knowledge.”(18) As the individual braids of the cosmic tapestry, through the paranatellon Mother Earth is “making accessible to the folk memory of all people the particular story of their origin, people, and race-romantic identity that they can revive because they remember it and can relive it now.” “She is distributing the local variant of that folk memory which applies to the people in all of these settings; rewriting and offering it now into the imagination and into the endopsyche of peoples all around the world….She's offering that braid of every indigenous folk memory to reawaken the sovereignty of the people.”(19)

"The Wild Hunt of Odin" (1872) by the Norwegian
painter Peter Nicolai Arbo

Wodan, Sacred ‘Grimnir’, and the Esoteric Symbolisms of Anointing

One other central feature to a Germanic astrotheology is the Bear as ancestral totem, whose terrestrial cycles also correspond to movements of the “Bear” constellation, and the seasonal symbolism we already related to “Walpurgisnacht”, the Maibaum, and Wild Hunt. Returning briefly to paranatellon, the Greek term for initiates of the Pagan Mysteries happens to be Telestai “those who are aimed, have purpose”. Every ethnikos had their own indigenous initiates of these Mysteries, such as Druids across the Celtic world or the various Männebünde (warrior initiates) and Seers and Seeresses across the Germanic world. Among the warrior initiates devoted to Wodan were those who wore bear skins to channel the “Wode” that also came through the ancestral “Bear” – the anima or spirit. (As we will see soon in an upcoming passage, Wodan was not simply a “war god” but warriors as one of the tripartite divisions of Germanic society, and with their own relation to magic and animism would obviously share devotion to Wodan).

Their processions later inspired the rich folklore about the Wild Hunt, as well as the nightly processions ascribed to “the undead” – a later Christian demonization of the masculine magic just as those ascribed to “witches” demonized the feminine magic. For the Abrahamics could only project their own literalism upon a lore that is so primal and transcendent it has multiple layers of meaning we can continuously discover across time and space. The bear's cycles were also symbolic of the folk and tribe, of the Othala Rune of ancestral inheritance which is encoded in the Mother Goddess’ cosmic dance. Other Runes encode various movements of the Great Bear, marking various occasions and seasons of the Germanic festival calendar:

“As we are told in Hovamol stanzas 139 through 145, the runes are Oðin’s, but the beginning Gods (ginnregin) made them. We are also told, in Alvissmol stanza 30, that night is called night by men, and grímu by ginnregin (beginning Gods). In the preamble of Grimnismol we are told that Oðin called himself Grimnir and wore a dark blue mantle, the color of the night sky. Later in stanzas 46 and 47 of Grimnismol it is revealed that Oðin is called Grímr, the same as he was called by ginnregin, and Grimnir. There is no doubt that Oðin is the ruling God of the night-sky. Furthermore, the fires of the first two stanzas, which Oðin (Grímu) was bound between, are the sunset of the year (fall) and the sunrise of the year (spring), as this is the time when winter-nights are upon the North, and that is the time of Oðin’s-time, Father’s-time. Oðin (Grímu) takes on all the attributes of that season from harvest (reaping-time), through Samhain, the feast of Ullr, Jul (Yule) and the fimbul-winter (three months of bitter cold and snow), up to spring when things begin to thaw and then grow. Modernity depicts a figure known as the Grim-Reaper; indeed, the Grim-Reaper is Oðin. However, the time after the crops in the North are harvested, and things remain dormant for several months is a Natural occurrence, not something commanded by Oðin; Oðin is the ruling night-sky God who puts on a dark blue mantle to preside over that time, when hunting and bloodshed must take place for survival, and there was a daily struggle for life for our ancestors, our folk. This time of struggle and bloodshed has led to the mistranslations, misinterpretation, (intentionally or otherwise), and a literalist interpretation of poetry (Poetic Edda) and lore, separated from Northern Nature, and erroneously declared Oðin to be a God of War. Knowing this, then, Oðin’s runes are the constellations of the Night-sky as viewed in the holy Northern lands; constellations our ancestors viewed. The runes, then, are Folkish, ancestral, depictions of the constellations, or portions of the constellations viewed in the night sky.”(20)

"Dezember" or "Wotan mit Wölfen" (1906),
by the German Symbolist painter Hans Thoma

Years before I knew about this passage or a lot of this knowledge, I cited a related word whose synchronicity is now revealing itself through this article. In one of my essays on mind-viruses and medical tyranny from 2021, I traced this Germanic word and its etymology (also with an homage to my Iberian side): “We return again to the ‘occult’ nature of words and their multiple meanings. Proto-Germanic *grimo ‘mask’ originated the Old English grima ‘mask, helmet’ and Old Norse gríma ‘mask, helmet’ and grímr ‘person wearing a mask, helmet’. Through Gothic derived Spanish grima ‘disgust, uneasiness’, Gallego grimo ‘fear, creeps, uneasiness’, and Portuguese grima ‘aversion, disgust, antipathy’. The English grim ‘fierce, cruel, savage, severe, dire, painful’ and French grimace ‘grotesque face, ugly mug’ are other derivatives of this word for ‘mask’. All stem from Proto-Indo-European *ghrey ‘to paint, streak, smear’ and *gher ‘to rub, stroke’, with their ritualistic connotations of anointing; and *ghremno ‘angry’, with social masks used to manipulate through fear and hysteria.”(21)

Relating these words back to this season of “Walpurgisnacht” and the Maibaum, while such words have been inverted via social masks or personas – the outer trappings of authority used now to control and manipulate – they express very primal truths. “Walpurga” and her anointing – or how churches were constructed atop our sacred wells and groves with their healing properties – could represent a natural yearning for a feminine counterpart to a masculine anointer. Yet the true ritual anointing was the hieros gamos, sacred marriage. The person performing the ritual is the “anointing agent,” and clearly “those who anoint must in some sense be more powerful than those whom they anoint.”(22) So one figure now becoming synonymous with “the anointed” inevitably means disempowerment of everyone else who mentally subjects themselves to this “salvationist” agent.

The Greek chrestos “anointer” – simply referring to the animistic ritual initiation of magic and empowerment, with its unique expressions across ethnospheres – was inverted into a “christ” which transposed the “messiah” mind-virus that arose in a specific corner of Levant, among a specific people, and then absorbed the traits of various Gods and coopted their Mythos so as to convert all “the nations” to this messianic hyperstition across a fabricated linear timeline. Meanwhile, the feminine was inverted into a devotion to local “Virgins” (a crude christianization of local fertility and Mother Goddesses consolidated into one “Mary” figure) and localized “saints”, complete with the imagery and healing qualities associated with the ancient nurturing, motherly Goddesses.(23)

"Germania in Ketten", by the great
German Heathen painter and mystic-
revivalist Ludwig Fahrenkrog

"Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer" (1818), by
the German Romanticist painter Caspar David Friedrich

German Idealism and the Wotanic Spirit

I end this article with some wisdom from a key figure of German Romanticism: Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801). As a true polymath, he channeled Wotan (as He was now known in the evolving Hochdeutsch), even if unconsciously. Fresh out of the Enlightenment, itself an aesthetic/philosophical return to the Classical Pagan world of the Greeks and Romans, Germania also found new enlightenment – yet there was something missing, a Sehnsucht unable to find its complete fulfillment. Many German philosophers arose proclaiming Idealism – the restless spirit of Wotan, for there is no end to attaining the Mysteries. They were unconscious Heathen revivalists, tapping into an ancestral memory nurtured across all German regions – bounded to unique tribes organically formed into länder, but also able to unite when necessary, such as with the liberator Hermann (“Arminius”) at Teutoburger Wald. This was also the real meaning behind the Sachsen poet August von Fallersleben (1798-1874)’s words “Deutschland über alles”, uttered in his 1841 poem.

Another polymath, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), expressed the Wotanic quest for continuous self-knowledge in Faust, with all that entails of adventures and overcoming any ordeal to seek Gnosis. Yet he channeled energies of the Wanderer within his own life – searching for knowledge and wisdom across Germania, travelling to Italy, hiking excursions to the Brocken where he found much inspiration. I am proud to say that Schwaben bore several of these Idealists. Schiller (1759-1805) evoked “die Götter”, acknowledged the enchantment of Nature, and proclaimed the aesthetic as morality. Hölderlin (1770-1843) personified mystical links between a transcendent Mind and the inherent magic of Words. Schelling (1775-1854) formulated a Naturphilosophie which is an unfolding Animism conceived within the Romantic philosophy transcending the strictly “logical” which forgot itself as Philo (“love of”) Sophia (“Wisdom”, the Earth Mother).

The Sachsen Novalis himself sought a synthesis between naturalism and theism into what he termed “Religion des sichtbaren Universums“ (religion of the visible universe), perhaps observing the skies as much as the Nature all around him. Others have termed his philosophy “magical idealism“. Yet no matter what term is given, his philosophy was very much Heathen – tapping into the indigenous wisdom of Deutschland. He perceived the external world as a “great runic script” with deeper magical meanings just waiting to be discovered. In the following passage, he tapped into a Wotanic spirit yearning for a higher awareness, related as much to the Gnosis within as to visualizing the constellations. Perhaps these words from around 1790 expressed his own timeless initiation into the Mysteries:

“The Voice must certainly have spoken of our Master, for he knows how to collect the indications that are scattered on all sides. A singular light kindles in his glance when the sublime Rune is unrolled before us, and he looks discerningly into our eyes to find out whether for us too the Star has arisen that shall render the Figure (of life-itself) visible and comprehensible. If he sees us sad, that our night is not breaking, he comforts us and promises future joy to the faithful and assiduous seer.”(24)

Notes:

(1) Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Vol. 1, London: George Bell & Sons, 1882, p. 302. .. It makes sense that in Scandinavia, with its harsher winters, faint summers, and more seasonal shifts in daylight than Germania, there would be greater divergence between the two and more significance given to Freya, who thus assumed more of Frija’s magical functions.

(2) Archaeological evidence, surviving folklore, and the secrets contained within etymology reveal many of the same central lore as the Norse Eddas, but also many distinct elements which should be acknowledged and can be used to build a distinctly continental Heathenry, especially in South German regions which absorbed much from the Alpine Celts. Its about celebrating what is truly within one’s bloodline and ancestral memory down to the most local level possible, striving for the authenticity and gnosis which most comes from the ethno-biosphere. While at some level recognizing an over-arching unity, especially when it relates to our worldview, cosmology, and common destiny, what we could call the “Faustian Spirit” to borrow a most pertinent phrase from Oswald Spengler.

(3) This is contrary to the imbalance of some modern neo-Paganisms, such as Wicca: founded by people with suspicious links to intelligence agencies and Kabbalistic occult groups, as well as a granddaughter of a Frankfurt School subversive psychoanalyst (Adler). Their imbalance is a henotheism which reduces the multitude of sacred feminine energies to one “goddess” whose origins they trace to the Levant, viewing them all as Astarte and turning the wild, horned gods of European forests into an Abrahamic-inspired description of Baal. Wicca started as an inversion of Celtic traditions but serves now as a confused syncretism designed to forestall a truly authentic return to the folk faith of every people, who are expected to subsume all their indigenous Pantheons into this Levantine henotheistic cauldron that can still only be defined by the same Abrahamic paradigm it pretends to oppose (but as any dialectical antithesis, that paradigm needs an “adversarial” spirit it holds within itself).

Another imbalance is expressed by self-professed “Thursatru/Rokkatru” groups, which worship Loki and the various forces of chaos and decay which were acknowledged but never venerated in any way, shape or form. Whereas Wicca is an imbalanced worship of the feminine, this current represents another imbalance: Worshipping and internalizing Loki as the androgynous spirit of self-loathing and envy. I have concluded that Loki is the same energy force as Yaldabaoth, the delusionary, pathetic imp who claims to be the “creator god” but is envious of the various ethnic Deities, whose powers and transcendence he can never achieve. Internalizing this energy only disempowers and is self-destructive to those who embrace it, contrary to how the delusionary imp inverts his role.

Yaldabaoth morphed into the “god” of Abrahamism, egregorized only by the collective energies and powers of human beings who call him different names according to Abrahamism’s three iterations. Yet while aspiring to be the “one god”, there are clues even within these “holy, revealed” scriptures where he recognizes the existence and powers of the real Deities, merely proclaiming himself “jealous” and demanding only he be worshipped. Likewise, there are clues within various mythologies about Yaldabaoth and the forces of decay and self-destruction he represents – the Archons, the mind parasites who intrude minds, working through mind-viruses and the various archonic programming it has spawned from that initial mind-intrusion.

(4) Scott and Billie-Jo Carlson, Northern Paganism: The Runes, 2019, p. iv. 

(5) Wolf Dieter Storl, The Untold History of Healing: Plant Lore and Medicinal Magic from the Stone Age to Present, Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2017, p. 98. .. My blog essays from 2020/2021 detailed how the same control system was behind the State, Abrahamic religion, and Big Pharma. I described its personification in King James, who presided over the most brutal and sadistic “witch” hunts in Scotland, wrote a manual on “demonology”, corporatized medicine while suppressing native healers of the Highlands, and later as King of England published his famed namesake Bible which still today is treated as sacrosanct and “supernatural” by many Christian groups. I also traced Big Pharma to pharmakos “sorcery”, also the name of a scapegoat ritual in ancient Athens, where Axial Age shenanigans began the gradual erosion of Hellenic folk-faith. This is the same scapegoating spirit which demonizes the human body’s own abilities to healing and immunity. There is obviously a place for modern medicine, guided by balance and discernment; but the coercive State-backed, profit-motive of Big Pharma owes more to Archonic mind-intrusion than anything truly healing.

(6) Tobias Wolfsberg, The Merseburg Charms: Ancient Spells and Germanic Magic, Nightfall Arcana Press, 2025, p. 34. .. The magical phrases of the Merseburg Charms are an indigenous German expression of a most-ancient tradition across the broader Indo-European spiritual traditions, from its farthest west – the Irish charm of “ault fri halt dí & féith fri féth” (“joint to joint and sinew to sinew”) Miach incanted for Nuada’s new arm (see the Cath Maige Tuired), citing nine days which has obvious correspondences to Odin/Wodan; to its furthest east branch, where a Vedic hymn of natural healing incants: “Let thy marrow unite with marrow, and thy joint with joint. Thy blood, thy bone shall grow, thy flesh grow together with flesh” (Atharva Veda, IV, 12).

(7) James Hjuka Coulter, Germanic Heathenry: A Practical Guide, 1st Books Library, 2003, p. 66.

(8) Storl, op. cit., p. 268.

(9) Grimm, op. cit., pp. 272-273.

(10) William Tyler Olcott, Star Lore Of All Ages, New York/London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911, pp. 169-176.

(11) Scott and Billie-Jo Carlson, Northern Paganism: Exposing Abraham, 2020, pp. iii-iv, 82-83.

(12) The name of one of my ancestral villages, Baldern (part of the larger town of Bopfingen), on the länder boundaries of Württemberg and Bayern, clearly indicates an ancient sacred site honoring Balder. This is especially with its overlooking hill dominated by Schloss Baldern, which even before Alemannic settlement was site of a Celtic hill-fort. Family memories passed down to me continuously cite this hill – weddings and masses in its former chapel (later moved downhill in town), and mein Ururgroßvater working as a groundskeeper, harkening back to the ancient Celtic and Germanic forest protectors. Such winding hills were used for shamanic purposes in ancient times, the primal meditation of a labyrinth procession later encoded into cathedral architecture, and indeed a “Catholic” shrine was placed along the hill much as it was around groves and healing wells.

More recently I discovered that the family crest of another of my paternal lines – the Neuners (from the Mittelhochdeutsch niun “nine”, meaning an ancestor was member of a town council of nine – the symbolism of nine preserved from Heathen times), from the Swabian part of Bayern – contains two swans. That was the family line of mein Urgroßvater, whom I always felt a strong personal connection to even though he died in combat as a Wehrmacht Gebirgsjaeger in the Caucasus, 1943 – more than forty years before I was born. His only child was my Oma, whose maternal side are my Swabian ancestors from Baldern and my Spanish side that settled in Ellwangen. I strongly encourage others to search and meditate upon ancient meanings contained within their own bloodlines and surnames, unlock the mysteries of your own Memory.

Among my oldest family photos is this postcard of
Schloss Baldern, overlooking the village, late 19th century

(13) Lewis Spence, Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology, 1913; New York: Cosimo, 2005, p. 70.

(14) Germanic: Freitag (German) [or Freidich in my ancestral Schwäbish], Friday (English), Vrijdag (Dutch/Flemish), Vrydag (Afrikaans), Freideg (Letzeburgesch), Fredag (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish), and Fostudag (Icelandic). Romance: Viernes (Spanish), Venerdi (Italian), Vendredi (French), Venres (Galician), Vienres (Asturian), Divrendes (Catalan/Occitan), Vineri (Romanian), Veneris (Latin), and Venderdi (Romansh); the only anomaly is Portuguese Sexta-feira, “sixth day,” although this too being feminine expresses the Venusian format. Just as interpretatio romana compared the Germanic Frija to Venus, so too was the indigenous Goddess Ataegina of the Celtiberians and Lusitanians compared to Venus. All are unique expressions of Mother Goddess energies connected to distinct biospheres.

(15) Carlson, Northern Paganism: The Runes, p. 16. .. Priapus is a Greek fertility deity related to the masculine generative power. The Hellenes portrayed him as perpetually erect but impotent, which could be symbolic that the masculine generative power is “impotent” unless joined in Hieros Gamos with the feminine generative power. Priapus also representing protection from the evil eye, demonstrates the masculine expression of magical power – just as Odin/Wodan “sacrificed” one eye to attain the Runes (Mysteries). Just some “unverified” speculative gnosis on my part.

(16) Perhaps this primal reality is why throughout both the Germanic and Celtic mythos, a “veil” is said to exist between this world and the otherworld, save for those auspicious times when its at the thinnest – “Walpurgisnacht,” Bealtaine, and Samhain. The “veil” could be an allegory for whatever obscures conscious perception of the living Earth, especially with how these festival times correlate to specific cosmic phenomena with close correspondences to nature cycles – As Above, So Below. It all points to Animism, the intrinsic interaction between Anthropos, Earth, and the Cosmos.

(17) See my article, “A Broad Overview of Cosmology. Towards a Gnosis of Earth-Cosmos,” 20 Oct. 2022, <https://sjobst.blogspot.com/2022/10/animism-and-lessons-of-earths-power-3.html>. Recognizing there is a cosmic material within us should not be confused with the New Age “starseed” and “galactic federation” drivel, which is nothing but a world-denying escapism - another iteration of the off-planet archonic salvationist mind-virus which hates the Anthropos and our sacred connection to a sentient Earth. No wonder then that such psyops are saturated with the imagery and symbolism of Merkabah mysticism, easily manipulated by the control system.

(18) Stressing this is again my own Gnosis, but this could be another layer of meaning to Donar’s Hammer: It was forged from iron by the “dwarves”, who also represent the lower self – that part of you that receives “commands” from the Divine (Ansuz/Aesir) and then shines as a “mirror” (through which we perceive ourselves, the “face” giving the personality) to project the things we want so long as its on one of the pathways our highest self has chosen in our current incarnation. Through ritual such as what we also “forge” with the iron within our blood and the Earth’s memory, we can also cleanse the lower self. One of the powers represented by Donar is the Earth’s electromagnetic field. In his Protector role, he battles Jormungandr, the “world serpent” who could also be allegorized as contraction which must be balanced and checked out by his force of expansion. I meditated upon this during one of my hiking excursions here in the Southeast US, comparing Germanic and Native American mythology and cosmology in my ensuing article: “Hiking Up the Serpent Mound, Autumn 2022 - Path of Souls, Kundalini, Gnosis, and Esoteric Meaning of the Serpent,” <https://sjobst.blogspot.com/2023/01/hiking-up-serpent-mound-autumn-2022.html>.

(19) The direct quotes and most of this section, while interspersed with some of my own observations, are my notes from three online lessons of John Lamb Lash: His 2018 talk “The Aeonic Earth Mother Guides the Native Peoples into Their Racial Memory-Lines”; the Nemeta.org course on “11 Skywatching,” <https://nemeta.org/course/11-skywatching/>; and his recent interview by Disco Orpheus, “The Man on the Stick and the Question of Suffering”.

(20) Carlson, Northern Paganism: The Runes, p. ii. I can only recommend this book again, for he exhaustively and conclusively reveals many correspondences with each Rune and the constellations, cycles of nature, the Deities, etc..

(21) See my article, “Addendum 2:0: On Death Pathology, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Occult Truths, and the Masks of Authorities,” 6 Nov. 2021, <https://sjobst.blogspot.com/2021/11/addendum-20-on-death-pathology-neuro.html>.

(22) John Lamb Lash, Not In His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of Belief, 15th Anniversary Edition, White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2021, p. 64.

(23) I examined this appropriation within two articles. First, resolving my previous interest in Mariology to my recently awakened Paganism in “Blessed Mother Goddess: Syncretism in Mariology and Marian Veneration Cults,” in The Real & The Illusory: Essays on the Perennial Philosophy, ed. Troy Southgate, Black Front Press, 2018, pp. 131-155. Second, my blog article on “Zisa, A Swabian Goddess,” 2 Oct. 2019, <https://sjobst.blogspot.com/2019/10/zisa-swabian-goddess.html>. In that second article, I examined Zisa as a uniquely Swabian Goddess, the consort of Ziu – the same God known to the Norse as Tyr and Anglo-Saxons as Tiw. She was a localized fertility Goddess who, as consort to Ziu the Germanic Sky Father, represents this “sacred marriage” of animism and the cosmos. Now adding another layer of meaning, Zisa can also be seen how the localized Alpine setting perceived (and received) the sky with its rich tapestry of constellations.  

(24) Novalis, The Disciples At Sais and Other Fragments, 1790; London: Methuen & Co., 1903, p. 92.