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Hello friends how are you? My name is Arith Häger and today I’m going to talk about Rökkatru
On the previous video I’ve talked about Asatru
and I was only concerned with the understanding of that religion
so I was completely impartial as much as I could so that my own perspectives wouldn't diverge from the concept of that religion
I wanted to show you what Asatru was all about, the basics,
and giving you a glimpse of the modern understanding of northern European pagan traditions,
through the modern reconstruction - religious reconstruction - which is Asatru
Today I will take a different approach
I will tell you what Rokkatru is but I will also share with you my own understanding of that spirituality,
precisely because it is a spirituality and not a religion,
so in its essence it’s free from a religious structure and becomes something more personal and something we can reflect upon
Rokkatru isn’t just a spirituality but it’s also highly philosophical
So with no more delay, let’s get started
As you might have noticed the word Rokkatru sounds somewhat familiar
because it’s very similar to the word Ragnarok
I've talked about Ragnarok before
Rök meaning Doom
but somehow there was a certain confusion with the word Rökkr which means Twilight
so Ragnarok wrongly became translated as Twilight of the Gods
but on the other hand, surprisingly, that wrong translation actually applies pretty well to the entire concept of Ragnarok and Rokkatru
Here’s why:
In Rokkatru, the main focus of the word is in the concept of Twilight, Shadow and Darkness
Twilight represents the coming of darkness, the end of a day, light fades and night covers the world
which metaphorically represents the fading of the power of the gods of Asgard
which are gods linked to light, the power of the sun, order,
the manifestation of the social life in a society and the need to maintain order or everything falls into chaos
The twilight itself is that very moment of the day between two realities
something that links two worlds, two phases of the day, day and night
so twilight is very much like dawn, it is the time for a lot of activity, a lot of life
because nocturnal animals awake, while diurnal animals are still around and begin to retreat to spend the night resting
so in this moment both nocturnal and diurnal creatures meet
and are active before the world is consumed by total darkness
it’s the time of the day of the meeting of two very different worlds
Perhaps in our modern view of the world it is difficult to understand this
but nowadays for most of us the day begins at dawn, it makes sense
We wake up, go to work, go about our business and when night comes it’s time to sleep
so twilight in a modern perspective means the end of the day
and between being asleep and then awake, there is nothing
and at dawn with the breaking of a new light, the day begins
But to our pagan ancestors twilight seemed to be precisely the opposite from our modern perceptions
The day ending with the sunset, and beginning with the twilight
The night came before the day, but night was already the new day
The first calendars where moon calendars
in prehistoric times our ancestors moved during the night, in darkness
to avoid being seen by their worse predators, other humans
The pagan festivities began at night before the day of the festival, and so on
So Rokkatru is much more focused on a primitive view of the world
rather than the concept of the world from the point of view of civilizations
when the mind of our ancestors started to change
our daily routines based on the sun and light
when we progressively started to shut ourselves from the natural world
The night became distant, the world of wild beasts, unseen dangers
We have shut ourselves in our civilized centres and abandoned the primitive instincts
we have abandoned our connection with the natural world
and order became the main priority
because in our civilized cages our raw primitive instincts still pulse and hunger for freedom
so we have built for ourselves a civilized order to maintain the beast within
and so we started to worship the gods of order and light and the gods that in their Might they seemed to bring balance to the world
but such gods are in their essence the personification of an order we have imposed ourselves ,
so we do not stray from the course of the civilized world
so we don’t go back to our primal instincts
This is twilight, Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods
because it’s the end of order, the end of the power of the gods
and the power is given to the first gods that were here before the gods of order
The power goes back to the first primitive beings before the Aesir came and imposed their own power over the other races
The power returns to the primal beings who predate the more familiar Aesir and Vanir pantheon of deities
These beings are often the spirits of primordial concepts of the elements
and the other side of reality which in our modern societies became a taboo
such as death for instance
But more of that later
trust me, you will understand this point of view, when I start to compare this spirituality with other philosophical understandings
such as Satanism
Oh yes, you heard me, Satanism
but don’t step back just yet, stay till the end before you jump into conclusions and start your judgment
You will understand what I’m saying further ahead
There are the Aesir, war-like gods, but also concerned with law, justice, poetry, and other activities of a society
Gods of the society
concerned with maintaining order by all means necessar
The gods of mankind and the social activities within the community
There are the Vanir, gods concerned with agriculture, the natural world that can be tamed to our own benefit
Gods concerned with food in general, hunting, fishing, agriculture, what a society needs to be alive
it's not about the survival of a single individual but the preoccupation with the survival of the entire community
And of course, gods concerned fertility, love, sex and with magic
And then, there are the other gods
Now, I'm well aware that in archaeological terms we have no evidences whatsoever of shrines, temples, cults to these gods
especially Loki, Hel, Angrboda and so on
But this doesn't mean that there weren't people to worship them
Temples and cults are imposed by the political order of a society and they dictate what people should do in religious terms
Take the case of the god Odin for instance
In Scandinavia there was no Odin before the invading Germanic tribes introduced his cult
The first to be converted to the new cult of Odin were Kings, nobles, and the people around them in the great urban centres
in the centres of power
while the people from remote areas maintained their older gods
This also happened with Christianity
The first to convert to the new faith were the kings and nobles and so on
while in the countryside and remote areas people maintained their older gods
So just because we don't find archaeological evidences of temples to certain deities,
doesn't mean they were not worshipped as well
Besides, much of these deities such as Loki, Angrboda, Hel, etc. are still the representation of prehistoric spiritualties which have survived
Primitive gods and goddesses that somehow survived in a very orderly world
survived in a very civilized perspective of the religious and the spiritual
but of course, primitive gods had no place in a civilized world
in a world where greater political powers tell you what to worship
But somehow, these gods survived
characterized as evil beings to diminish their importance
which made no sense in the new world
but still they survived, and why is that?
Because secretly there were still people worshiping the old gods
maintaining the old ways
Sometimes we speak of paganism as a universal spirituality before Christianity
and Christianity being the new faith, and paganism the old ways
But just remember, when people were still pagans and Christianity didn't even existed
there were older ways, old religions, and old spiritualties before the pagan ones we are so familiar with
What we have to understand in Rokkatru, is that the spiritual concept is extended to other fields
In our modern society we have the tendency to focus our spiritualties in what seems to be beautiful to us
what seems to be a perfect paradise
Our collective consciousness was greatly influenced by Christianity and other such religions
so it's very hard to let go of that
The Norse mythology itself suffered great changes and great influences from Christianity during medieval times
and we often find patterns between the Norse and the Christian
Asgard became the Christian equivalent of paradise
Odin seems a lot like the Christian God
Baldr is the Norse god of Light, very similar to Jesus and thus by Christian hands he became the son of Odin, the son of the Alfather, the king of the gods
see this pattern here?
Baldr wasn't the son of Odin, did you know that?
This concept, and many other realities within the Norse mythology, were greatly influenced by Christianity
What I'm saying here, is that in our collective consciousness we have a predisposition to follow the same ideas over and over again
and in different religions we try to see patterns that perfectly combine with our already familiar perceptions of the spiritual world
This is why we have the tendency to completely put aside the underworld in our religions and spiritualties,
because the underworld was compared with the infernal realm where souls suffer for eternity
a place of darkness and evil and fire
In Rokkatru the underworld is also included in the spiritual sphere because it’s part of it
it has always been part of it
It’s not a place of evil, it’s just another place of the afterlife
Listen, as I’ve said, we have the predisposition to focus on what’s familiar,
and most people call themselves pagans but unconsciously they still cling to the Christian world-view
The Norse pagan reality is much different than the one we read in Norse mythology
in the medieval works composed by Christians
The Norse afterlife wasn’t as simple as to divide it in two sides – good and evil
When you see duality in Norse mythology, you can be sure that is a Christian influence
Duality doesn’t fit into a pagan perspective
To our Norse ancestors, and other pagan religions of old,
the afterlife and everything in our world, our lives, the universe itself,
wasn’t simply explained with good and evil
There was order and chaos, but Order doesn’t mean it was a good thing and Chaos a bad thing
on the contrary
The pagan view was much more focused on a balance,
on the importance everything has in the process of life, death and rebirth
And when speaking of the Norse Afterlife, people seem to focus much more on Valhalla, sometimes Folkvangr
both places in Asgard
and people have this tendency, focusing on Asgard as the equivalent of paradise
and a beautiful place to spend the rest of eternity in the presence of the bright gods and goddesses
To our Norse ancestors there were more than 50 possible places in the Afterlife
actually, I’m pretty sure it was more than 60 or 70, now that I think about it
All according to social differences, religious differences, and the remnants of prehistoric spiritualties
So in Rokkatru the underworld, the realm of Hel and other realms,
are included in the concept of the afterlife
and in the entire spirituality because they are not evil places
they are just places of the afterlife
where the spiritual self can travel, reside, spend a little time in a sort of vacations and move on to another place
In Rokkatru darkness isn't seen as a bad thing or the opposite of light
nor the underworld deities as evil deities
As I've said, having a dualistic perception of the world is a Christian concept that has infiltrated some modern interpretations of Norse cosmology
Chaos isn't evil, in fact, there isn't Order without Chaos
For what good was Order if there was nothing else in the cosmos?
Nothing would exist without chaos
Chaos isn't evil, it is a force of nature, a flow of energy that runs through the universe creating and destroying life
Why does fire has such a destructive force? It burns the ground, it destroys everything,
but with it, comes new life, because fire and the ashes left behind will fertilise the soil
With does death exist? In a non-pagan world-view, death is the end
but the pagan concept of death is just another phase of life
because there isn't a linear progress of life
it doesn’t have a beginning and an end,
rather, there is birth, life, death and rebirth and on it goes
Death gives way to new life
Death is not evil; it is part of life
So is rot and decay, and loss, and the passing of all things
So is chaos, so is the destructive parts of Nature that we humans find inconvenient, scary, "evil"
but they must exist in order to continue the balance
The chaos part of nature is also sacred, and our ancestors knew that
they worshipped and respected that
They respected this flow of energy that is completely impartial and it's concerned with maintaining the balance no matter what
And we actually see this even with the god Odin before he was Christianised
and with all the other gods for that matter
The gods can be both good and cruel
they do things to achieve their objective without majoring the consequences
because balance needs to be maintained and if that means some things must perish, then it must happen
People have the tendency to criticise Loki, naturally, because he comes in the sources as the representation of the Christian consciousness
he comes as a trickster, evil
but doing both good and harm to the gods, not majoring the consequences
In here we can still see the glimpse of a Norse pagan understanding
Loki being the representation of the neutral force that is concerned with maintaining balance
What seems to be evil or good,
it's actually what must be done in order to maintain the balance
People only see the evil side in Loki, but what about Odin?
How many tales we have of him killing others?
being a trickster, shapeshifting and trick others, stealing, murdering even raping,
everything he does is for his sole benefit
Odin doesn't care who he hurts, how many lives he destroys, as long as he achieves his goals
Odin is as cruel as Loki, and all the other gods,
because they are representations of the continuous forces of order and chaos working together to maintain balance
Most people see Odin as the Alfather
the king of the gods
Read the stories again, because you are reading them as they were written, in a Christian perspective
You are watching the words but you are not seeing
Behind these stories you can still see the glimpse of a pagan past, a pagan world-view
Who in his right mind accepts a deity who murders, ruins lives and even rapes?
Who accepts such a deity as the king of the gods and as the Alfather?
You are absorbing the Norse myths in a Christian religious interpretation,
with a hierarchical structure
To our pagan ancestors, before the Viking Age, before the introduction of the Cult of Odin in the north,
there wasn't this hierarchical structure among the gods
No god was more important than the other
Each god has his own importance
So why shouldn’t we worship Loki, Angrboda, Hel, Skadi, Heid, etc.?
We are not in medieval times, and most of you who want to be pagans and leave the Christian world-view behind
well you should start to work on your pagan world-view rather than continue to follow the same patterns
the same collective consciousness of our society
built on the very fragile foundations of Christianity
We are in the XXI century, our spiritual consciousness is expanding, and that’s a good thing
We are leaving behind religions and focus much more on spiritualties
We are leaving behind what people tell us to worship and how to worship
and we are starting to see for ourselves the true nature of the cosmos
the true essence of the natural world
The gods often manifest themselves through nature and nature is as cruel as it is beautiful
but don’t fantasise about it, don’t create a romantic view of the world
There is a darker side, but that doesn’t mean its evil, just like a brighter side, sometimes it isn’t good
The Gods are not divided into categories of “good” and “bad” Gods
They are all worthy of honour
Let me explain that in a better way
Yes, now I’m about to make comparisons with Satanism, let me just breathe a little
Rokkatru in its spiritual form is focused on a more primitive aspect of the world
It’s not just about the gods of the underworld,
it’s about all the gods, but seen as a crucial manifestation of balance
Of course, while others prefer to focus much more on the Aesir and Vanir
in Rokkatru people focus much more on the other gods which are manifestations closer to the chaotic side of the universe
Now, chaos doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing and Order a good thing
This is when a more philosophical approach is needed to explain things on another perspective
Mind that throughout this entire video I’ve been showing you what Rokkatru is in my own perspective
Many people who have this sort of spirituality may not agree with me,
others will agree with a couple of things
and as such, what I’m about to say, a lot of people may not agree
In my own perspective, and in philosophical terms, I would compare Rokkatru with Satanism
Not worshiping the Devil, the dark side, eating children at breakfast and sacrificing to goats
No! Please, you are starting to know me. I do not make videos for little children
What I’m saying here is that there are a lot of similarities between Rokkatru and Satanism in philosophical terms
Let me explain . . .
In a lot of religions, including the Norse pagan one,
the material creation of the cosmos is the work of a single powerful deity
Yahweh, God, Zeus, Odinn, and so on
It is the same view over and over again
A Single powerful god, doesn’t matter if other gods exist or not
but this single deity is responsible for creation, the shaping of the world, the creation of the human beings
But there is another side to the story
What if this deity is actually the evil one?
This deity is associated with light, the giver of light and life
but this light can be a metaphor for a lie and an illusion, something so bright that blinds us
The message that this deity spreads is that it is a kind of saviour
I’m not just talking about Odin, also Zeus and the Christian God, Yahweh etc
This seemingly saviour can be a tyrant in disguise
This god enslaves souls, imprisons them, blinds them and feeds them illusions, illusions of light, of salvation, and creation
We see this with the Christian god
people are bound to his will, like sheep they follow blindly the words of god and he forces people to worship him only
we have a variety of accounts of god being cruel, vengeful, forcing people to praise him and no other gods
because he is the true god and the one bringing salvation
On the other hand you have Lucifer, the morning star, the bringer of light
a character who frees himself from god and comes to mortals with knowledge, with words of freedom
In Greek mythology we have Zeus,
who imposes his own order, makes himself king of the gods,
destroys the titans who were there before him
the mortals fear Zeus
Greek mythology doesn’t [didn't] turn around the love people have for the gods
but the fear they have of them
especially of Zeus and his wrath if people don’t worship him
and the Greeks praised the gods out of fear
they even had a temple for the Unknown god
which was dedicated to any god out there people might forget to praise,
and to avoid the wrath of said god, they worshipped the Unknown god to cover all the praises for all the gods
to be in good terms with all the gods and avoid repercussions
On the other hand there was Prometheus
who created humans without the knowledge of Zeus
he tricked him, and Zeus in his wrath took away fire from mortals
took away light, warmth, knowledge
Prometheus stole that fire again and gave it to mortals, gave them light, knowledge, and freedom
Zeus punished him severely
Does this remind you of something, or someone?
We have Odin in Norse mythology, and the giants lived before him
there was creation already,
there was creation already, there was chaos, but chaos to the Norse, as well as to the Greeks,
wasn’t something bad, it was just something, a state, a force in the universe
Odin came, killed the giants, transformed everything and imposed a new order, his order,
he made himself King of the Gods
Loki on the other hand was so very similar to Prometheus and he too was wrongly judged and tortured
So we see a variety of characters here being the powerful deities of creation imposing order over the already existing creation
Destroying, killing and punishing those who stray from the path
those who give knowledge to mortals and act in disguise against the will of this cosmic powerful entity whose very existence is the law of the universe
a law created by the cosmic entity himself
and every other being who doesn’t concur with this law, this order, is severely punished
In Norse mythology we have ginningagap
It’s not just a void, darkness, the everlasting chaos
It is a formless eternity
with a nature which isn’t bound to the limitations of a universal law
Being lawless, without restrictions, it’s something that continues to evolve in freedom, with multiple possibilities
It’s from this void that everything originally comes from
creation starts here, in chaos, in cosmic freedom
From this chaos comes the first creatures
and in the case of the Norse mythology comes the ancestor of the gods, Ymir
From Ymir is actually said in Vafþrúðnismál that maid and man grew from him
It doesn’t say it’s Ymir, but at this point he was the only being around, aside from the cosmic cow Audumbla
But it says under his hand grew both woman and man, and he also reproduced a son
Ymir is the father of the giants, from him came the first beings before the gods, and also a woman and a man
Is this the remnants of an old prehistoric Scandinavian past when there was another entity linked to creation before the cult of Odin was introduced in Scandinavia?
perhaps . . .
The point is, there was creation from chaos, there were beings around who reproduced and gave birth, created life in this chaotic cosmos
Things were evolving in its own way
But then, from the same beings, came Odin and his brothers
They killed Ymir and from his body parts they created the world and eventually the first humans
They have settled a new order, they gave order to chaos, or in other words, they imposed their own order
and what for them seemed to be order, it wasn’t so for the others who were there before living in their own ways
so obviously the giants started a war with the new gods
Odin is seen as the wise-one, the god of the gods, the creator and ruler of all
This concept has been misunderstood through time and heavily twisted by monotheistic religions,
which ended up creating loads of similarities between Norse mythology and these monotheistic beliefs
It’s because of these twisted understandings that Norse mythology became what we know today
Old Norse mythology and religion was polytheistic in nature, not at all dualistic
There were different rulers in different realms
one god wasn’t better or greater than another
there wasn’t one single god being a god of all
and King of the Gods
There are in fact poems that demonstrate that Odin wasn’t in fact the wisest of all
There are others as wise and wiser than him
Odin himself in the poem Vafþrúðnismál recognizes that the giant Vafþrúðnir to be wiser than him
Mimir was also wiser for instance. Odin was excited to meet these giants and have their knowledge
This is why I think Rokkatru philosophically is very similar to Satanism,
because it tries to focus on another aspect of the tales, another world-view away from the Order which was forced upon us
This idea of a cosmic entity forcibly imposing an order and all must follow or die
In the case of the Norse mythology, if any other god or any other being didn’t fit into this new order, new rule, under the law of Odin,
it was destroyed, or tortured, or tortured and destroyed
It’s not about following the wise-one, who deals out justice as it suits him
It’s about freeing ourselves, thinking for ourselves, understanding the gods within us and not the imposing ideas of the outside
This is why Lucifer, Loki, Prometheus, are the metaphors for spiritual freedom and knowledge
because they suffered trying to give us that freedom and knowledge,
so we could be free and do things for ourselves and not blindly follow this cosmic law forced on us
This is also why Rokkatru focuses much more on the chaotic aspect of nature
Because these Christianised gods are the symbol of order, justice, mercy, compassion, fairness
but that is an illusion
look around you, do you see fairness and mercy and justice in the world, in your life, in the life of anyone?
Where exactly is fairness and mercy?
There isn’t in the natural world
there is no such thing
The rat is eaten by the owl, the owl is eaten by the fox, the fox eaten by the wolf and on and on it goes
There is no mercy or fairness, there is only a cycle and a balance must be maintained
There is birth, life, death and rebirth
Nature is beautiful and it seems so perfect but it lacks these things, mercy and fairness and justice and other things
Why?
Because those are human traits
That’s when you realise why on earth we are here. In this world
Because what nature lacks, we give
Now justice . . . justice is another matter . . .
there is no justice, no true justice
How do we know we are being just?
What if we deal out justice to cover our own fears?
The justice we give today may not my just at all to other parties
What exactly is being just?
When someone murders another, often our justice is to take away freedom, or worse, to execute the ***
So a person takes life and our justice is to take life as well? What kind of twisted cycle of justice is that?
There are certain things in nature that simply do not exist but we can give it
but on the other hand, there is a lot of illusions
and as soon as we understand that, we understand how the world works, we accept the changes and we make our own changes
we struggle to change things and instead of waiting for the goodness of the gods, we will do things for ourselves,
and wait no longer upon certain illusions that do not free our mind and our spirit
Understanding and accepting chaos, is to understand the way things are and must be to keep the balance
Fewer disappointments and frustrations and more action
With this being said, I think you start to realise that the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda ,
are actually chains that prevent your mind from reaching an higher understanding if you keep reading those sources in a Christian consciousness
This is a problem in the spiritual understanding of Norse mythology
These great sources, the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, I said this before and I say it again,
are works greatly influenced by Christianity and we see Norse mythology and religion in a Christian perspective
So it’s time to re-read the poems and the stories and actually see the big differences between what’s Christian and the remnants of the pagan world-view
It’s not just about the influences of Christianity upon these works
it’s also the influences of that new faith upon people
For instance, these works were tempered with by poets who lived off their poetry and performance
they recited such poetic works in courts, for kings, nobles, for great families
The original sagas and poems and tales were very dark, with a lot of chaos and strange creatures and also black magic
with a very pagan essence and understanding of the natural world and the cosmos
All of these aspects were purposely taken out, because no one would hire poets to tell such dark horrid stories
because people were starting to be Christians, some had already converted or in general people began to share a collective Christian consciousness
Poets couldn’t bring the pagan past to the poems
they had to make alterations, they had to improvise and add Christian ideas to the works so such works would be accepted
This is what happened with Snorri Sturluson, the author of the Prose Edda
He was a Christian, and deliberately took out the dark aspects
dark in a Christian perspective
and even added many Christian aspects to the old sagas
So this is what Rokkatru is
Most of what I said it’s my own perspective about this spirituality, and I know I said a lot so it’s perfectly normal if you feel a bit confused
In conclusion, Rokkatru is a spirituality based on the northern European pagan Traditions
and much more focused on the tribal and primitive aspects of Norse mythology
All gods are included in this spirituality
although there is a great emphasis of the worship of the so called underworld gods, such as Angrboda, Hel, etc
but also other gods, for instance, Ullr, a Aesir god but whose essence is very primitive, very much connected to the wilds
Rokkatru is a spirituality much more focused on the shamanic work within the pagan frame of northern Europe
It’s not just worshipping the gods but trying to reach them in a more personal manner
so unlike most of pagan religions and spiritualties, it’s not turned to the community
rather to the development of a single individual, which makes Rokkatru a very solitary spirituality
I’ve also compared Rokkatru with Satanism as a modern philosophy and not blood rituals and nonsense to scare children
There are a lot of similarities with Satanism, because yet again, it’s a spirituality focused on the development of the individual
focused on setting our minds free from the belief of a single all-powerful deity which force us to accept its own order
So instead of following the usual perspective of an orderly universe, everything is beautiful
in Rokkatru people prefer to focus on the other side of all things
precisely on what most religions put aside which ends up blinding us from reality
We usually put aside the ugly, the inconvenient and what seems to be evil,
and then we have created a single collective consciousness that things such as death and destruction are evil aspects of nature
We have this tendency to have a very dualistic perspective of the world,
where somethings go into the bag of good stuff and the other go into the bag of evil stuff
Rokkatru helps to let go of that collective consciousness
It helps to let go the illusion that everything is dualistic, everything is a fight between good and evil
What we usually don’t like, we don’t like because the society decided it was wrong, but it isn’t, it’s just part of nature
Death for instance, it became a taboo, something horrible that we have put aside
Yes it is horrible but precisely because of the fact that we have put death aside, we will never truly understand it
and we will always be afraid of it,
because it’s there, it exists, but we have put it aside, and as such we haven’t given a proper value to death,
we haven’t bent our minds to that subject in order to understand it
We dear the unknown but if we know death, if we accept it as something that it isn’t personal, it’s just part of nature, we stop fearing it
Alright friends thank you so much for watching
and I know this is a very long video, almost a documentary
but I hope you have enjoyed it
so . . . thank you so much for watching
see you on the next video and . . .
tack för idag! (Thank you for today!)