by Sean Jobst
Without any conscious thought, something in my soul has stirred me towards the magical, liminal night of Walpurgisnacht: 30th April. Sure, there is the ethnic connection I have to a night rooted in German folklore and traditions, but I know from my initial deep analysis that began this yearly tradition for me, just how scattered the knowledge (much less the awareness) is around the entire subject of Walpurgisnacht. This path of solitary Gnosis, seeking the mysteries within as much as those outside, is a path of intensive studying and piecing together from scattered resources - and an even-greater level of intuition.
It was in that first article that I developed my firm conviction that Walpurgisnacht is a unique German celebration rooted in the hybrid Celtic/Germanic regions of Germania - thus it being on the eve of Bealtaine (1st May) - overlaid with certain "Christian" imagery to preserve this auspicious night under the watchful eyes of Church and State.(1) "We know that our forefathers very generally kept the beginning of May as a great festival, and it is still regarded as the trysting time of witches, i.e. once of wise-women and fays [fairies]; who can doubt that heathen sacrifices blazed that day?"(2)
Sacrifice is simply to be understood as the Animistic understanding of reciprocal exchange (also known as the "gifting cycle") with various spiritual beings and energies. It has always been accepted as a basic fact worldwide that we cohabit this world with various unseen spirits and spectres at different dimensional levels. It was the same for Germanic and other ancient Europeans, despite the tendency to only see Animism within distant tribal "others", whether from a dismissive or paternalistic lens depending on the observer's intent. Walpurgisnacht has many supernatural elements, with the veils thinnest between worlds.
One example abounds when we study the Hexentanzplatz, a plateau in the Harz mountains surrounded by many Walpurgisnacht legends about "Frau Holda and her witches dancing away the snow." This marked the changing of the seasonal tide, as one of the rites was washing one's face with the morning dew of May - an homage to the Spring Goddess Ostara, whom I view as the seasonal counterpart of Frau Holle. The local Saxons honored the spiritual energy of those forests and mountains, whom they named Hagedisen, especially around the night leading into 1st May. Then there is the German tradition of Ankenschnitt, an offering of bread covered in butter and honey, left out on Walpurgisnacht as a offering to ensure that the "howling hounds" of the winds would not damage one's homestead during the year.(3)
Bonfires were ritually lit that night - the physical fire being a reflection of the internal spiritual fire (a subject for a future article). Jacob Grimm made a priceless contribution to keeping alive those fires of German folklore that speak far more to me personally than the Eddas or other Norse sources ever could. As if to kindle my own internal spiritual fire, I have also been able to see the Heathen soul amidst the outwardly "Catholic" traditions practiced in my ancestral regions. In the process, I navigated through Abrahamism in general back into the calling of my ascended Ancestors that reside within my blood down to the cellular level.
Each year I learn more about Walpurgisnacht which reflect other aspects of my life, so these articles are also a way of taking stock of life, my personal tradition of spring introspection although that is most saved for journaling. 2020 was a year of darkness but for many of us it was a great opportunity for growth and introspection, as I deepened my spiritual studies and became very productive in writing. As if to signal my initiation through this Hermit phase, my Walpurgisnacht 2021 article coincided with another contribution for the excellent Black Front press: "Evola: Initiation and Transcendence of the Pagan Anarch".
This came a full decade after I wrote another article for Black Front about Evola and other Traditionalist ideas from a Sufi perspective(4), so my journey has come full circle back to the primal Pagan and Animist which is the Natural State of Being. Likewise, truly grounding my Anarchism within Natural Law, Occult knowledge, and the decentralism of tribes and local communities. If the events these last few years haven't made the case for building parallel societies - all based on free will, non-coercion, and mutual agreement - than I don't know what can. Taking it away from merely discussing economic theory, just as Paganism is moribund if not grounded and activated by the necessary Animism.
So the 2021 revision was then followed up in 2022 with more research into the folklore and etymology of Walpurga, and a basic introduction to true Magic vis-a-vis what's often termed "Dark Occult".(5) I devote this current effort to the magical power within each of us and the necessity to demystify the mental shackles that bind people under the spell of the Narcissistic and Psychopathic control-freaks who presume their "right" to dominate others. I know only too well from my personal life that spiritual awakening is closely bound up with cutting off the Narcissists surrounding us. Because its all about energy, there are naturally some humans of various mind viruses who feed off the energies of others.
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Top: North America as the Turtle Island of Cree and
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| "Gaia" by Colombian visual artist Dora Alis Mera |
(1) This is not to deny there were specific traditions lost with the centuries, or that Christianity didn't leave some traces on
how Walpurgisnacht is perceived. Yet I cannot stress my guiding principle along this journey: The Pagan/Heathen tradition of a people is not completely lost but survives even
after their conquest/conversion in various residual forms through folklore,
folk magic and folk medicine; as well as unconsciously through archetypes and
symbols. Each of
us first need to reclaim our Indigeny and Animism to decode the various layers
built upon these traditions over centuries of imposed social conditioning.
(2) Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Vol. II, p. 614.
(3) A direct connection with the Wild Hunt, about which I wrote a series of articles from late 2020 onward. The last article of that series will be upcoming later this summer.
(4) Just within the last couple of months, an article which has suddenly been brought to my attention again by some interested people who discussed it. Learning as I have to read the language of synchronicity, a dialogue between the unconscious mind and the higher self, and with the spirit world, I know this is no coincidence.
(5) An important distinction that has nothing to do with the simplistic division between "white" and "black" Magic. Rather, its more about an illusion of power vs. authority - which is why Dark Occultists want to keep knowledge for themselves since that knowledge would empower others against their mental control over others. Mental because the mind is inseparable from consciousness. Mind should also be distinguished from the cognitive processes of the brain, including the presumption that every thought allegedly comes from us.
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