Category:
Paganism
£99.99
Limited Collector's edition hardback
Óðinn has been scandalised and deified in equal measure by medieval churchmen, demonising pre-Christian beliefs, and more recently by the romantic idealists and nationalists of the 20th Century, who glamorised them, to the extent that the genuine historical persona of this popular figure is saturated in complex, confusing mythology. Poetic kennings and riddles tease out our deductive processes, pushing beyond rational, logistic exploration to evoke our apprehension of the Other.
Yet the key to Óðinn’s real identity resides in the culture of the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples whose principle values, morals and ethics that maintained the health, welfare and well-being of the community, were in the gift of divinised spirits, ancestral and of the land or hearth. Óðinn, was never thus a ‘god’ of the people; conversely, he represented only the well-being of the lid or fyrd, a primary function for warriors as an elite cult. How that cult emerged, and from what sources and influences, is the quest this book seeks to fulfil.
Because those ideas and beliefs of the past were and are frequently altered to suit the needs of the present in which they are recorded and implemented, we must opt for genuine context rather than hyperbole. Spanning the Romanised Cults of Mercury and the Matrones and Slavic animisms, my research pushes past conventional boundaries into the totemic practises of Eurasian peoples while remaining faithfully aligned to stringent archaeological and anthropological discoveries.
These pages are nonetheless composed with passion, drama, heroism, romance and pathos.
We have so much to learn from distant, hidden voices whose words convey the values that relate to a different time, and of thoughts sculpted from the minds and skills of artisans and craftsmen whose incredible artefacts have much to teach us about tradition, ancestry, belief, sorcery and faith. Molded by politics and far-reaching world-turning events centred in trade and faith, Óðinn’s presence emerges from a surprising source that many will find challenging to the popular, but wholly false persona so familiar to us.
From Asia to east Anglia, the search for Óðinn is herewith concluded.
£65.00
Limited hardback edition.
Imagine a man who influenced the likes of Alan Watts, was a friend of Krishnamurti, whose work was lauded by Henry Miller, and had the audacity to challenge the great psychiatrist, C.G. Jung, during one of Jung’s own seminars. Also imagine that this very same man who authored thirteen books and countless articles on the relationship between psychology, psychotherapy, philosophy, spiritual practice, and Druidry was left out of the history books, and pushed to the margins of obscurity. Who was this man? This man was the early 20th-century British psychologist and Druid, E. Graham Howe.
Howe was a master psychologist but even more so a Druid, whom he described as being, “masters of the art of living.” He was a Druid in psychologist’s clothing, a psychologist who used psychology and psychotherapy to convey his secret Druidic doctrine. Like C.G. Jung’s Gnostically influenced Liber Novus (The Red Book), which was the secret foundation for all of his psychological writings, Howe’s Druidry was the secret foundation for his own writings. Howe’s Druidry had one primary aim, which was to heal psychological suffering. Whether he was referencing psychology, philosophy, or spirituality, Howe pointed to the art of healing in them all.
E. Graham Howe was one of the first psychologists to integrate spiritual practice with psychotherapy. Because he did so during a time when psychoanalysis was being established as a dogma, Howe was marginalized and even anathematized by the various psychoanalytic schools. This book will situate Howe within the history of psychoanalysis, showing his work in relation to Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, and Alfred Adler just to name a few. It will also provide a summary and reading of his metaphysical psychology, illustrating his views on depression, love, time, war, self-knowledge, psychotherapy as a way of being, and more. The book will also present some Druidic foundations of Howe’ psychology, in the spirit of the 18th – 19th century Welsh poet, Iolo Morganwg, whose own Druidry, like Howe’s, was inspired, emphasizing more of the Druidic soul rather than blind allegiance to any tradition or belief system.
Included in this book are forewords by author and Druid, John Michael Greer, and Jungian analyst and author, Stanton Marlan.
£26.99
Óðinn’s identity as the Ecstatic God of the Tethers of Law and Death, is least recognised through his Skin-Turning and Shape-shifting techniques as gifts of the highest craft he imparts to a shamanic warrior elite. Those themes are explored in this volume, alighting upon a wide range of magics and histories identified within the Óðinnic cultus. Medieval source materials yield a wealth of information relating to Totemism; Ritual Guising; the Berserkir and Úlfhéðnar as Óðinn’s True Wolf Warriors; Motifs of Magical Beasts in Battle; the Wælceasega as Carrion Host; the Law and Covenants relating to Wǽr-loga; Outlawry; She-Wulves; The Red Thread of Wyrd, Warding and Binding the Dead, Varðlo(k)kur - the call to spirit; Dragons, the Wyrm, and finally, to the malefic sorcery of the Dog Heads of War, The Zmei, The Roggenwolf and the Bukka, whose presence in the wheat, rye and barley knots of the blessed harvest grains, all wend a path through to the real St George, to Green George.
Enchanted thread, girdles, withies and staves, seiðr and the völur are woven through the time-honoured mysteries shared by Beowulf, Grendel and his brimwylf (‘sea-wolf’) mother. Nordic culture drew inspiration and influence from the magical and martial disciplines of the Sámi, Slavic, north-European and Eurasian peoples. Invoking the divine ecstasy of creation, Shamen priests and warriors, stand ‘outside’ time. Óðinn’s antinomian challenges generated considerable friction within societal ‘law.’ The dehumanisation of the skóggarmaðr (wild men of the forest) outlawed for following his rule, rendered them indistinct from the forest-wolf’s status, and were perceived as equal quarry. Transpersonal experiences shaped their realities, relating to identification through a clan totem, namely the wolf, and later the dragon, wyrm and raven, not merely as wild beasts of battle, but of ancestry, mind, of wit and wisdom. Couched in ambiguities, the role of the Valkyrjur,’ the ‘handmaidens of Óðinn is re-evaluated, leading to a new conclusion for their association with (battle) carnage and the ‘Cult of the Dead.’