Goden & Joten - Part One

 Goden and Joten - Part One

That which existed in the be-ginn-ing was known as Ginnungagap, consisting of Ice in the North and Fire in the South. 'Ginn-unga' means 'Offspring of Ginn' and 'Gap' is the Gaping Chasm, the Void, the Abyss. It is thus wrong to state that everything enfolded from The Void, since this was not in itself the original form. The original form is 'Ginn' which relates to a 'Divine Power' and also to a kind of 'Cosmic Joker'. Thus we have a 'Magically-charged Void' which is in itself not a 'nothingness' from out of which everything emerges - there was already a Primal Consciousness. 

The Primal Ice and Primal Fire were separated by the 'Gap' and Ginnungagap was 'loft vindlaust' - 'air without wind'. It was thus through the 'setting into motion' (wind) that the Primal Ice and the Primal Fire came together to start the creative process that leads to the creation of a Cosmos. This process was never that of a 'God' who created the Cosmos, nor was there a 'God' from which everything emerged, and to which everything returns. The only thing by which we could refer to a 'God' is in the name Godan - Woden - who, with Will and Weoh, officiated over the First Sacrifice in which the Joten - Ymir - was cut into pieces to form the Cosmos. Woden-Godan is one of the 'Elder Gods' from out of which emerged the other Gods and Goddesses. 

The lineage of the Elder Gods starts with Buri who is born through Audhumla (The Cosmic Cow or Cosmic Mother) licking the Ice-Rime, and he is the First Divine Being. We are told of no female being here, so Buri is presumably 'asexual' in the sense of being able to reproduce through Divine Thought. From Buri comes Bor, from whom we get the title 'Boreans' - those 'Beyond the North Wind', and Bor married Bestla ('Best Blood), one of the Joten. Thus the Elder Gods were fused with the Joten, but we have to assume here that these were the 'Sweat-Born Joten', born from the armpits of Ymir. A second Race of Joten were born from the feet of Ymir, and were thus the 'Low-Born Joten', a far different race of beings, Beings of Darkness & Chaos. 

We can see here how this split into two of the Joten-Race can cause problems in understanding our Ancient Mythology, but this is not restricted to Norse Mythology. In the Aryan Mythology of Persia (Iran) we find a very similar thing, in that  Shaedan Shaed is that which emerges from AHU, and the Dark Power that opposes this is 'Shaitan', a corruption of a very similar name to Shaedan Shaed. In a sense we are here given a challenge in that we have to distinguish between the 'Light' and the 'Darkness' for ourselves. AHU forms the base of AHURA - Ahura Mazda, the 'God of Light'. With the Info-European letter-swap we have AHU - ASU and AHURA - ASURA, but in Hinduism the original Asuras became the demonic powers, no doubt through the mixture of races in the area. Asu - Asura - Aesir - Asen are all variants of the Divine Powers of the Arya. 

The terms 'Goten' (Gods) and 'Joten' (Giants) are so similar as to be a challenge to us to sort out for ourselves. The term 'God' can be found in the Gothic name for Woden - Goden - but again we find that this name can be varied by certain logical letter-changes. We have the 'Goths', but we also have the 'Jutes' which is a variant name for the 'Goths'. In Old English the 'Eoten' are the same as the 'Joten' but in Beowulf the term 'Eotenum' is used for the Jutes, as well as the Giants. It was thus quite easy for the Low-Born Joten to claim that they were the 'Chosen of God' when this really applied to the 'Goths' whose name derives from the term 'God'. In this case Godan or Gaut, a title of Woden, spelt 'Geat' in Old English. 

Those who have looked at the WF Telegram site and read through the works of Richard Barrett on there will have become aware of the pitfalls in taking up the esoteric ideas of the Eastern Martial Arts, since these invariably base themselves on 'The Void' and 'Nothingness' or 'Formlessness', an alien idea to the Aryan Mind. Ice and Fire exist in the be-ginn-ing, and the Creative Power arises through the 'setting into motion' of a Divine Thought (movement of air, wind); Divine Consciousness (Ginn) also exists as a 'Magical Charge within The Void, i.e. this is certainly not 'nothing' since this is 'something' within the Void. Audhumla - the Cosmic Cow or Cosmic Mother - also appears and she brings into being the first 'Elder God' - Buri. It is here interesting to note that in some Info-European Tongues the word 'Buri' is applied to the Wolf; it is certainly where we get the terms 'Bear' and 'Boar' from, but was probably originally any wild beast. 

In one passage in the Eddas we find that All-Father 'lives throughout the ages', which rather contradicts the idea that Woden is slain at Ragnarok. But we are told that the immortality of the gods, and their ability not to age, is entirely down to the Golden Apples of Idunn, or more precisely, to Idunn giving the apples to the gods. I say this because when Idunn is taken by the Joten her Apples of Regeneration are not taken (we assume), so this power has to have Idunn 'gifting' these to the gods. And when Idunn was taken, the gods started to age, thus telling us that they are not quite 'immortal' in that way. 

Also, Baeldaeg is 'slain', as is his brother Hoder, so here again we have the same problem in that this does not make them 'Immortal'. But Woden, Baeldaeg and Hoder are 'resurrected' after Ragnarok, or at least we are told that Baeldaeg and Hoder arise again in the Golden Age. Since Woden is 'swallowed' by the Fenris Wolf, and his son Wid-Ar rips open the Wolf's Jaws, this leads to the conclusion that the 'Spirit of Woden' is released by Wid-Ar. In this sense All-Father 'lives throughout the ages', going through the very same Birth-Life-Decay-Death-Rebirth process outlined by Guido von List. Thus, the Gods as well as Men are subject to Becoming if this is right, so there has to be a 'Being', something that is there, unchangeable and unknowable - that which is, or that which exists - the immovable mover. 

In 'Armanen Runes and the Black Sun' Aelfric Avery mentions that Gimle, the brightest heaven and dwelling of All-Father, is the only world the exists beyond Ragnarok. This itself suggests that 'All-Father' is more than a 'Racial God' of our Folk, and that Woden, maybe, is a 'projection' of the 'All-Father' who creates a 'Chosen People of God' to act out the Creative Will here on Earth. And these seems to be the important words - Creative Will - since Woden-Will-Weoh are that Creative Will, either as separate entities or a Three-Fold God which is quite common in the Aryan Mythology. 

It is most likely that the Abrahamic Religions - Judaism, Islam and Judaeo-Christianity - took the idea of a single 'God' from the Religion of Zarathustra which arose in Persia, originated, it is said, in the 'Land of the Aryans' in the Far North - Airyana Vaeja. Certainly, the Religion of Zarathustra was never the same as the worship of a vengeful and jealous 'God', the basis of the Old Testament, where his 'Chosen People' are constantly driven to destroy anything and anyone that stand in the way of their drive for world domination. And to utterly destroy the Gothic Nation, the true 'People of God', and to do so break their Ur-Religion and replace it with the worship of Jahu-Shaddein - the 'Lord of Shadows'. 

Howard Philip Lovecraft wrote a series of horror-stories based upon horrific dreams that he had during his short life. These dreams are based around a race of entities known as the 'Great Old Ones' or 'Forgotten Ones' who existed even before mankind. These are clearly forces of Chaos and Darkness, and are sometimes known as 'The Formless Ones', since they appear to have no real form and order. Although these are 'fictitious' beings, this theme has been taken up by certain Satanic Occultists, and also seems to have been worshipped throughout the ages by secret groups working in the shadows to keep this whole theme alive. The one dominant theme throughout the tales given to these, and similar Dark Beings with different names, is that they arise from out of the 'Abyss' - the 'Gaping Void' Clearly, what we have here is Beings of Chaos that are evoked into manifestation here on Earth at certain times when they can be in evoked. Lovecraft hints that this happens every 26,000 years, or at the end of a Great Year Cycle. 

There has been speculation as to whether the fall of Atlantis was due to the appearance of these 'Formless Ones' who were evoked by certain Dark Sorcerers, and who thus brought upon the land the great catastrophe that sank these lands. Through study of some of the occult ideas centred around these islands there is some evidence to suggest that at one time Dark Forces arose here in ancient times. Throughout history we find that certain 'Gods & Goddesses' undertake a drastic change in their roles and forms, sometimes reversing completely their form, suggesting that their Archetypal Image was used  to reverse their form in order that their worshippers were thus worshipping a Dark Form. 

After reading some of the old horror tales of Howard Lovecraft, and watching some stuff on YouTube about these 'Formless Ones', I had a vivid and realistic dream in which one of these entities appeared. This was a jet-black formless mass, which is all that can be said of it, since it was a formless, changing mass - a shapeless mass. Some of the appearances of Woden (in his Dark Side) are quite 'scary' in a sense, so this no doubt helped to make this more 'palatable', and I even tried to get back to sleep to see what would happen next - nothing! But this does go to show that these 'Dark Entities' are not just something without but, like our Gods and Goddesses, are also within - hence the need to recognise that this Cosmic War is fought within ourselves too.

Of course, the majority of people will completely dismiss the dream here as coming from a 'vivid imagination', but this is not meant for the 'majority of people', only for those who have an inkling that there is far more beyond this world of matter, and that there are other worlds of being that impinge on our world. And that there are Divine Powers and Demonic Powers, Light and Darkness, Order and Chaos. Woden, and some of the other Gods too, is recorded as going to the 'Land of Giants' or to 'Utgard' (Out-gard), especially (in the case of Woden) to find Hidden Knowledge, or to regain the means of gaining this Hidden Knowledge - the Sacred Mead, for instance.