Girls Club invited Balderson to speak on their show and we're sharing this bonus audio with our feed listeners.
Girls Club, with our special guest, Benjamin Balderson talking Germanic and Nordic history. Ben shares his extensive research and personal experiences with pagan and animistic philosophies, offering insights into practical life wisdom derived from these ancient traditions.
Exploring Germanic Wisdom: A Journey with Benjamin Balderson
Living Off-Grid: Heathen Traditions and Modern Insights
Odin's Path: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times
From Alchemy to Ancestry: Unveiling Nordic Traditions
The Heathen Lifestyle: Independence, Honor, and Community
Girls Club, with our special guest, Benjamin Balderson talking Germanic and Nordic history. Ben shares his extensive research and personal experiences with pagan and animistic philosophies, offering insights into practical life wisdom derived from these ancient traditions.
Ben introduces himself and discusses his work as a laboratory alchemist and a practitioner of the heathen lifestyle, which involves living off-grid and following the old ways of Odin. He explains the significance of natural law and the teachings of cause and effect within these traditions, emphasizing the importance of personal responsibility and independence.
The conversation explores the historical and cultural aspects of Germanic societies, including the roles of gods like Odin, Thor, and Tyr, and the societal structures that valued independence, honor, and community. Ben shares his views on the misconceptions about heathen practices and the importance of understanding one's cultural roots.
We also delve into the practical aspects of living off-grid, such as self-sufficiency, sustainable living, and the challenges and rewards of maintaining a homestead. Ben shares his personal journey and the lessons he's learned from living a life closely aligned with nature and traditional values.
The episode wraps up with a discussion on the importance of integrity, accountability, and the role of family and community in fostering a balanced and fulfilling life.
The Girls Club #11 "Heathen Relationships, Philosophy and History"
In todays' show we are going to be discussing the heathen philosophy and the history of Germanic roots. Germanic/Nordic history and your understanding of pagan/animistic philosophy and practical life wisdom.
Leslie Powers
www.alivethrive.life
Sara Cross
https://rumble.com/c/SaraCross
https://substack.com/@saracross
https://linktr.ee/saracrossart
Brittany Ashby
https://linktr.ee/brittanyashby
Brittany Andersen
(00:00:00) Introduction and Guest Introduction
(00:00:52) Ben Balderson's Background and Interests
(00:02:00) Alchemy and Heathen Practices
(00:07:42) Heathen Lifestyle and Historical Context
(00:17:08) Living Off-Grid and Self-Sufficiency
(00:25:17) Traditional Roles and Family Values
(00:31:05) Religious Influence and Cultural Identity
(00:40:26) Host and Guest Rights in Heathen Culture
(00:58:00) Perception of Gods in Ancient Societies
(01:15:03) The Importance of the Tree of Life
(01:42:03) Cultural Heritage and Modern Misconceptions
(02:00:30) Summary and Final Thoughts
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
Alright. Cool. So so hey, guys. Welcome to another girl's club. This is episode number 11, and we're here this month with the whole gang. And our next guest, Ben Balderson, And he's going to be discussing with us today Germanic Nordic history and the, and his understandings and the of his history or of his research and the stuff he's found of pagan and animistic, philosophies and practical life wisdom that he has accumulated so far. So, Ben, if you'd like to just introduce yourself and talk about your work a little bit and, your interest and all that.
[00:00:53] Unknown:
Yep. You bet. Yeah. My name's Benjamin Balderson, and, currently, the shows that I'm on are Tuesdays. I'm on a show called deliberating dog faced dudes, which I feel kinda aligns quite a bit with what you guys are doing. And then, typically, I'm on a show Saturday. Saturday is called Weaving Spider's Webs. That's on hiatus right now because, 2 of the 4 people are getting ready to have a baby in December, so that's obviously a very important and time consuming thing. So we're on a break on that one. But if you type Benjamin Balderson into YouTube or anything, I'm basically everywhere.
I've been on pro 777, I think, 14 or 15 times, something like that, and, Freeman Fly and you name it. So, been all over the place, and I'm happy to be talking to you guys from Flats Overfest at that.
[00:01:53] Unknown:
Yeah. What would you say are your main topics that you, that you talk about?
[00:02:01] Unknown:
Primarily, I the thing I speak about the most is, I'm an alchemist, and I'm an actual laboratory alchemist. So when I'm speaking about it, most people speak, more on exclusively what they call a spiritual alchemy, which isn't even actually alchemy. That's a misnomer. Young was a brilliant psychologist, and some of the symbology and and this isn't his own writings. This isn't my this isn't me critiquing him. In his own writings, he found in some alchemy pictures things that matched his visions and dreams and, his understandings of society. And so he incorporated that into his understandings, but never actually performed alchemy.
So it was a very truncated understanding of of it. And so while I do appreciate that the psychology that he does has some very deep meanings, he was in no way an alchemist. I'm actually a laboratory alchemist that does that does the work. The second most, thing that I get talked about the most is is I'm a I'm a heath. Practice the actual heath, which means that I follow Odin. I live in the old ways. I actually live off grid. And I wouldn't call it religious because there's no priest or anything like that, but there are specific ways that the high one reasons for those recommendations.
And while there's no religious penalties for not following them, like, one of the simple ones is is the number of times Odin cautions against getting drunk and including listing a few stories of one where he got too drunk and ended up the prisoner of a giant in a a really bad situation that not would have not have come about at all had he kept his wits about him and not taking in too much alcohol. So this is so it is not, I'm gonna punish you. You're, I'm gonna send you to hell. It's, hey, man. You can do this if you want, but I gotta tell you, it's not gonna work out great. But
[00:04:37] Unknown:
I didn't Whoops. I know I was needed. I said it it sounds like natural law to me, the teachings of
[00:04:44] Unknown:
cause and effect. Right? Yeah. It's they're all they're they're all very, like, when I first and this is interesting because myself and my path, through this metaphysical and spiritual understandings. Before I ever came to Odinism, I even, attended Jewish rabbinical school for a while, not because I wanted to be a Jewish rabbi, but because what did they say again? What did they teach? And I don't know. And if I don't go look at their stuff, then I'll never know, and you can if you didn't tell me if you didn't go, you don't really know either. And I'm that person that if I gotta if I'm gonna judge something, I gotta go check it out for real. And so you know? And I've been to Native American ceremonies. I've been to Hindu ceremonies. I've been to you name it.
And for some reason and I have, some theories on this, and I'm not gonna air out with you guys for, you know, it's not the proper venue. But I have some theories why this is that Northern European people tend to wanna veer away from what was our natural culture. And, so it was the last thing I came to, but when I finally did read the Havamal, which is basically a consolidation of, Odin's words where there's numerous stories similar to, like, so many other, religious texts, it's actually a collection of books or stories, and it's no different in this. And so the have them all is a consolidation of just the portions where Odin is interacting and speaking.
And so that just consolidates down that specific part. And when I I read that originally, which most of it comes out more in the manner of, like, a proverb, like I was just saying with the drinking or, one of my favorite ones is if you have a a a a close friend, do not let the grass between your houses grow tall because we're tall grass grows, friendship dies. You know, simple things like that that, you know, it's like, well, I already live like this. Like, this is these were all things that did I write this book? Like, you know, so it wasn't I had didn't have to go through there was a couple things, not gonna lie, mostly around the the host rights and, the things that you need to do as a host. And I am not as and I think that's just our culture. I'm not as naturally giving. I am a generous person, but not as giving and as generous as is as close to required to you as anything is possibly required in in our culture.
[00:07:42] Unknown:
So do you do you identify that this study is bringing you back in time to kind of original pagan lifestyle? Is this, like, a historical, document in some way?
[00:07:57] Unknown:
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:07:59] Unknown:
That history. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:08:02] Unknown:
So and and this is for a lot of people, and this is where things get interesting, and this is part of why Marcus and I started deliberating dog faced dudes, is I'm gonna come off very or traditional. And so a lot of people then immediately, think I'm like some Republican and all of this nonsense, and and that's absolutely not the case at all. But so heathen lifestyle first starts. You have to remember, this is, in my opinion, the, kind of the opposite of civilization where and when I say civilization, I mean empire, where you have these overwhelming masses of people that all need to fit in this one uniform life, and there's very little variance in any way that they live.
Where heathen lifestyles were more of a tribal thing. And so and even inside the tribal things, they actually the the entire society surrounds itself around what they call a car. And so a carol is actually translates into free man. And so this was the the man that owned farms is really who this was. And as a person that could own your that did own your own land, and I know that in today's, woke world, they try to present these people as, like, landed gentry and things like that, but that was not at all the case. These people weren't overly wealthy. And in fact, if you ever take the time to listen to Tacitus' Germania, Even, Tacitus, when he's talking about the germ psyche, they don't particularly care about money at all. Okay? I don't understand it. In fact, in fact, one of the most amazing things for him was that they even preferred silver to gold. Why? Because it was easier to exchange for silver for useful things. Gold was hard, like and they didn't want it. Is well, this is okay. I want this cool thing over here. So the money in and of itself didn't mean anything to them.
So this wasn't a landed gentry situation. This was a competent person situation. And if you, as a competent willful person, were able to maintain a piece of land. And so here's where things get real funny with me because then people somewhat can take me as a socialist because then the people inside my land is because this is the way I live, personally. And I have people that live on my farm and sometimes they come and go. And everybody at the farm eats at my table, and that and that's a fact. I pay for every bit of it, but every bit of say on that farm is my say. And so nobody else there's no voting. It's nothing like that, which does not mean that I don't take into account the the words of the people that are living under me for not a, if you have a bunch of unhappy people, things don't work right.
And then, b, sometimes your people know more about certain subjects than you do or saw something in something that you didn't. So why wouldn't you take their opinions or their their advices into account? But at the end of the day, nobody gets a vote. There's times that nobody else wants to do a thing, and I'm like, no. This is the way this is going down. And it's because, again, as I explained, they didn't really care about money. So it's not like I'm trying to live gloriously above everybody else. I'm just trying to make sure our table always is well fed, all of us, because we all eat at the same table and eat the same food. So this is and even to the point where actually slaves that did exist in Germanic society would not be what you would consider a slave.
So even Tacitus admits this that he said slaves are the weirdest things in German society. They are basically a tenant. They have to pay the landlord a portion of what they make in order to stay on their land, and that's what slavery is. And most of them will get rid of their slaves at first chance. So this was because it was actually kind of embarrassing to own slaves. Like, dude. Dude, you're a slave. Like, come on now. Get your shit together. And so this was kind of an embarrassing thing for them in that society. They did not care for it.
So while that part of it socialist, then again, it's very traditional where, again, the man the man is the head of the society. And only the Carls the the Carls are the heads of each farm, and they're the only ones who get a say so in society at all. Like, the the, the Jarl, which is is close to a king is or they try is just a tribal leader. All the Carls have to agree with any given plan or else it doesn't work out. He doesn't they don't have to do it. They're free men. Like, okay. Your plan's good. We'll go do that. If it sucked, we're not doing that, bro. And so there was a lot of pride in in being with an advantageous Jarl who had good plans, and you could be a kingsman that was something to be proud of. And there was a lot of honor and pride in that, and including that most of these clans were all, you know, family clans. So it it these were not, until the Catholics came and created incest, you know, that was not a thing where you went out and got wives from all over. And despite, modern, portrayals, Vikings actually and this is again recorded in history rather than watching movies where Vikings are running off, grabbing women, and snatching them up, and taking them home. Actually, Vikings were super isolationist and almost refused to intermix with other people.
And that's why the first descriptions of them almost singularly were extraordinarily tall, broad people, striking blue eyes, typically, red hair, typically, you know, big red beards, typically. And then there's also descriptions that aren't so you know, there are great that aren't great, like, and this is part of what made them such great warriors, explosive, incredible strengths, can do insane things in a short duration, but they aren't gonna work Germans don't do that. And and in fact, they're they're they would make horrible slaves according to Romans because they don't do well in heat and are are thirsty all the time. It's so So you said you went out slave qualities. The guy's only gonna work for about an hour real hard and then yeah. He said, you know, the the Caesar's like, these aren't great slaves. They're gonna they're gonna work hard for an hour, want a bunch to drink, and they're done for the day. Like, hey. This is this is not great slaves.
So that it was just very interesting observations about the way these people work. They, again, they weren't empire driven either. So part of what keeps you at work 40 hours a week is because you're building empire. If you just want your food and your your shelter taken care of and have a family, well, that starts getting real cheap. That starts getting real cheap. And and in fact, when you if if anybody is ever interested in the off grid lifestyle, they actually typically go about it as backwards, where they will immediately start trying to take and save an extra large reserve of money in order to go set themselves up with this lifestyle. And, really, the first thing you need to do if you are gonna go off, live off grid, is start axing every need that you could possibly imagine that you can live without. Get rid of it. Be done with it. It's gonna be too hard for you to maintain.
It's not gonna be productive in your life. And when you start living off grid, you're gonna realize different things are now important to you. Like, you don't care about how pretty things are. You care you know, to some degree, obviously, nobody wants to live in a trash heap, but you're not doing things like very key sheet, little things like trinkety things and things that are gonna get broken and things that aren't gonna be useful and things that aren't durable. All those little, you know, fancy little toy things that, you know, that that are on at midnight on on TV and you shouldn't be up ordering stuff that they're trying to hawk. None of that stuff is gonna apply. Like, we make our own bread. My wife bakes bakes our own bread, and makes sourdough.
We grind our own wheat. And when you do it, you can't go and get this $250 grinder that works good for making one loaf every month if you're trying to actually live off these things. I had guided to get the $1,000 cast iron grinder, and it's gotta be that one because that one does double odd flour and can change. And if you wanna have nice little, like, pastries and things like that with the fine flaky crust, you need to be able to do odd double odd and and not just the big grainy grain. So all these things when you're starting to look at the way you're gonna try and live. But I went years it's only been about a year and a half I've even had Internet, and that's because Steve Poitkinen, from AM wake up and slow news days and, union of the unwanted.
He moved in with me for a while, and, he lives literally, he, like, he puts in so much work and effort into podcasting and doing shows that he that's his living. And so he had to have Internet, and that's the I I didn't have Internet. I don't have TV. You go outside and find other things to do. Animals are very entertaining, and all these things quit mattering. And at that point, when I go into the city, I get kinda sick. Like like, I've been ill for, like, 4 days, and that's just for me being in the city. I everything buzzes. At night, I can hear literally every sound on my farm. In the city, the whole city buzzes. If I go into somebody's house, it still sounds like a beehive in their house. All the electronics in the house make a buzz, and you don't notice it because you've never been out of it. But when you've not been in it, you're like, why is your house sound so loud?
That's really weird, man. And so all these things that you live without that you can and you don't even know it, you start learning to live without, and that's how you live off grid. When I first moved off grid, I pulled up with the Winnebago. I used to drive down to the river and fill a 55 gallon barrel up and drive that up top, and we'd run that through a a little recycling heater until the 55 gallon barrel was warm and then switch it from going into the little heater into going over and overhead, and that was the shower. And that's what you did dishes with and whatever.
And life was fantastic. And was it rough? Yes. But every time you upgrade, the appreciation that you have for it as opposed to this, you need to move into a premade, predone, this farm that you don't need to put any work into. The appreciation that you have for us is a 100 fold greater. And here's the other problem. That person that moves on to that farm doesn't know how to do any of the work. And so when they move on there and I promise you, if there's one thing on a farm, I can guarantee it's gonna break. What is it? I don't know. It's gonna break. Something today, something tomorrow, something later today, you know, it's gonna break. And so if you did not build it, you did not put it together, you think you can just move into it like a Barbie house and just start living this off grid lifestyle, which no plumbers coming out to fix my plumbing. No electricians come because I do have a generator, and I have electrical, and I have that a solar. Nobody's coming out to fix that. Nobody's coming out to do my roof. None of it. If if it happens on my farm, I have to fix it. I have to know how it works.
So if it's something somebody else made for me, that's much harder for me to try and fix and go backtrack the thing. And the thing Odin says, and this is what this all all of this is Odin's biggest first message to you, and that is it is better to live on your own land even if you live in a shack with nothing but a couple of goats than to be a slave in somebody else's system. So if you don't have it made yet, fine. Better to be a better to be that dude than a slave living rich here. And so that's what I did. And now my life is much easier, much nicer.
You know, we have full time running water that's gravity fed and into a nice water tank, and and, we're transitioning. We've been on propane, but we're transitioning over to, biogas where your toilet runs the the your poop from your toilet goes into a container, and then that gets pressurized and that feeds into your natural gas fittings. And, you're you can depending on the size of the bag, you can do 4 to 6 people for a water heater and a stove per day. And if you need more, I have I have a farm with pigs and cows, which is extremely methane heavy. And so you're just running off methane, which is actually despite what they are trying to present in the media, an extraordinarily clean gas. And I say this as a chemist and an alchemist.
I'm actually a very, well known in California organic chemist. And so when you look at the hydrocarbon gases, the two things that are involved are hydrogen and carbon. And so now the question is how many carbons and how many hydrogens? And methane, you're you're talking about, is methane too high 2 carbons as opposed to a lot of other gases where you're talking about a whole lot more carbon, which I don't believe obviously, I'm not with the whole carbon nonsense story. That's just insanity at its finest. But when you're just looking at the cleanliness of a gas, it is actually an extraordinarily clean gas. So to be able to just produce that on my own farm, now again, I'm not relying on once that's in in place, I'm not relying on the system at all. The more free I can be from the system, the more free I can be. But to try to live like a city person, impossible.
So, again, cut down your lifestyle, look at how roughing it would be, and then to do it successfully for a very long time. And so then you start doing things like your gardening and, like, right now. We put in our tomatoes and it's a calculation. And so I eat about 4 jars of tomato sauce of some form, big mason jars a week, whether it's spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, tomato paste, blah blah blah. So in order if I'm eating 4 week, at times 52 weeks a year, that means I need about, 200 a little over 200 jars of tomatoes. So I need to it takes this in to make one of those jars takes, about a pound about 2 pounds of tomatoes by the time all the you know, it's boiled down and everything's removed out. Takes a couple pounds of tomatoes, so now I'm gonna have to in order to fill that quote and start growing enough tomatoes for this, and that's gonna apply for all my different foods.
And then we don't start and, again, while I'm not gonna say the words of the things that happened in 2020, We all saw the supply chain problems that derived because of it. And so if you want to not suffer that again, and we all see it coming. We all do. We've all seen what's going on in the stores and and the way things are all of a sudden getting like that again. And, yeah, I realize there's been a recent because of the election drop in the fuel prices, but it's like any of us believe that's gonna last in any way. Like, we don't know that November is coming, and this is just a a a a quick shot for that. So if you don't want your food eating daily and eating nice food taken away, stock your own and grow your own. It starts again, this is Odin's words. Don't be a slave to that dude. Now instead of them deciding when I get to eat, I decide when I get to eat. And that's just a personal absolute responsibility.
And so one of the other giant variances in this is that I haven't brought in and and with the ladies here is then the relationship part. And so this is again gonna be very traditional because in my house, the man is the absolute head. It is an absolute patriarchy. But in saying that, my wife is the heart of my home and the heart of my farm. And so in heathen society, and this was very odd especially during the time period, women had full rights and which didn't mean that not the Wicca nonsense where they're shield maidens and blah blah blah. No. In fact, just the term shield implies defense. That's your defense. That's not a sword maiden.
It's a shield. She's staying home. She is taking care of the property. She is your best interest, and your best interest is taking care of the entire farm. And so this was where that came in. But in that, if you mistreated your wife, if you didn't make her happy, she had full right to divorce you. She had full right to lead. Also, specifically, it was a very monogamous society. And that's again a a thing that's misportrayed where it's these people are out raping and pillaging and having sex with whoever. No. In the actual histories, if you read them, highly monogamous and once again would not interbreed with other people. Like, I have a wife. I have a wife at home.
Keep to yourself. That's just a fact. I don't disrespect my wife. That is insanity at its finest. She is the one who's gonna take my children when they're small and instill them with my values and make them strong and healthy and make my and make our future together something that's real while I'm out taking care of her and I and that. And so for for me to not have that as somebody that's perfectly aligned on my team would piece stupidity at its finest. This is, I think, again, where I bring back in the Catholic church when they started make forcing the intermixing between people. Well, now instead of having somebody that has my beliefs and is gonna, you know, while, again, the incest subject is touchy, you know, which is not scientific at all at all, I I I'm a I choose organic biology all the time. It's it's insanity. It's just some stuff the per which doesn't mean that I think sisters and brothers and things like that. But, typically, your your cousins, second, third cousins in any village in any before modern travel was gonna any person in any village was gonna be your second or third cousin. But the thing is is then when you 2 intermarried, they both were gonna have a a a vested interest in the upraising of the family, the upraising of the village. They're gonna share values and traits. And so when you start bringing in, getting these wives from other places, like, they tried to portray it as which was actually a Roman culture because the Romans subsumed all the other cultures where he then isolated.
Now you have somebody raising your children without your values. And this is where you have a a a system that starts degrading very quickly because if the if 2 things, if you don't have a vested interest in the future because your children are something that is important, then you become very hedonist and he we all see hedonism. That's 90% of people today. I'm living for to to to the moment. YOLO. You only live once. I'm gonna burn it all right now to the ground because I'm gonna be dead and who cares. Like, that is not a lasting future.
And then if your children are not instilled with your values, the future you're gonna have is gonna be torn and and and and horrible because you're gonna have values again as we're seeing today where our values were not carried on and the values that have taken over are are very conflicting. And so you see in the especially in the Northern European people, even the ones that live in America, an extreme issue where so many of them have been pushed into the Abrahamic Pantheons. But you can see, like it's funny because I can you can say you're almost anything else and all the Christians will growl about it and you're a demon.
And they still some of them, I admit, absolutely still do that to me, but you can watch as soon as as soon as I say no. I follow Odin. You you can see all of a sudden a bunch of guys will sit up a little bit straighter and just like and you you just see it. Like, they there's a yearning for that responsible where you get to go prove yourself and you get to be your own man and be somebody and honor your ancestors and honor your children and family becomes everything. That life is something that we miss and that we need, and it's in them, and they want it, and it is something that's been torn away. And I I do have a hard time because some of the ortho more orthodox Christians that is they are more for the nuclear family type thing and then with that, you know, more traditional. So I have a hard time with some of those guys because they're producing a similar lifestyle to what I would promote. So when I say hard time, you know, I'm not as attackful to that group as as, a lot of your heathens or pagans would be because when, you know, while I don't agree with their particular religion and I think that the Christianity in and of itself only breeds weakness because you're asking immediately. You were never a good person. You have no ability to be a good person. It's only through the having somebody else let you in the back door. Hey. I'm with this dude. Cool. You can come in the party. That's but you're never cool. You're not really. You're just only in here because this guy said so.
And that's a that's such a self defeating. I I couldn't even imagine waking up every day and going, yeah. I'm just a piece of crap. And but thank god there's a dude that says I'm not. One dude says I'm not, so it's cool. I I I can't possibly imagine how you would think that a society rate with that mentality is gonna be a self responsible society. I I don't know. But the orthodox do seem to manage it to some degree, so I can't complain when I see the fruits of what they're saying. So I do have a hard time with them because, like I said, I would normally like to be very oppositional, and some of that I can't be oppositional because, again, they're they're the more traditional, and I do agree with that. But I also would state that that was a subsuming of the Germanic lifestyle.
Because if you look at the Abrahamic world, the Abrahamic world moved through Rome and through Greece and then into the Northern European worlds. And in the north and then if you look at the way things were in Rome and in Greece, they didn't act like us. And then it's only through the subsuming Alexander the great style, we'll kinda merge with your religious beliefs, let you keep your holidays as long as you pay taxes to us and follow our governors that you so that's where this, move of you see so many and celebrations pushed into the mixed into the Christian lifestyle that if you took all those out and went strictly with the original where it moved into Greece and Rome, it would not those two things would be completely, you know, different, I think. I think that the thing that we see today is already the dramatic influence on the on the Abrahamic Pantheon in order to make it acceptable for Northern Europe.
[00:33:41] Unknown:
Wow. Okay. Let's pause for a moment and just see if if our ladies have some questions so far. Well,
[00:33:49] Unknown:
I I actually wanted to respond on the part about kind of some of the Germanic values. I actually come from, like, a very Germanic family. Even the cemetery that my family is laid at is called and named Valhalla.
[00:34:06] Unknown:
Right.
[00:34:07] Unknown:
But seriously. And, it's very fascinating because now my great grandpa, and I'm not sure about his father, he was a freemason, but my grandmother, she definitely ended up going Christian. But it's been interesting because as I've reconnected with my ancestry, like, distant and then more immediate, I find, like, hard work is a value that has been passed down from generation to generation. Just hard work, consistency. And I just seen so many even, like, smoking meat, like, that's just a tradition that's been passed down from father to son and and so on in my family and family strong family values. And it's just very interesting because even though like, some of my family, they were raised Christian, like, for the last 85 years or so, they still have those very strong values that almost seem to I don't know if it's epigenetic or in the DNA, but it's just been really interesting to see how those older values and practices are still present even without our family having, connections to, I guess, the more ancient past before Christianity.
[00:35:36] Unknown:
Exactly. And actually, weaving spiders, one of our last episodes, it was just myself and Alan Marcus, and we had a gentleman named Christopher Macintosh, who is an occult mess. He's he was he's hung out with Bray ass when and he's hung out with every old name that you can imagine that everybody talks about. He's he's one of them. And we had talked about that, the Germanic yearning. And I believe that part of the problem that ends up is this this lifestyle carried through. But I think where we end up with a yearning and a need on on a more religious level is because we don't have our treats, and that's something they took away. And it was one of the very specific practices.
You can look at, Charlemagne. Charlemagne went and slaughtered, a whole legions of Danes, just went in and start piecemeal slaughtering people that didn't follow Christianity, and then cut down Irminsul, which was Odin's tree. I believe it's Saint Boniface that, cut down, Donar's tree, and that's actually, I talked about this with Christopher, is still celebrated by the church. They have a monument till we cut down Thor's tree. You know, that's Donar and Germanic is is the that's the the Thor god. They we cut down that tree, and they got a church right there, and and they have a plaque right there. And this is where our our, saint, you know, came here and wiped you heathens out and cut down your your sacred things.
And while they forced it on us, and I think that World War 2, I think a lot of the propaganda that, was post World War 2, I think a lot of World War 2 was transitioning in order to create the heavy, heavy white guilt and then the disconnect to their actual culture where they're almost scared to touch it.
[00:37:42] Unknown:
Like like told me. It's funny you say that. My family the only German word to be passed down in my family is Gesundheit, which is essentially like, hang help or bless you. Yeah. And, they stopped speaking it after the war because they were ashamed of being sermons and feeling associated with Hitler and stuff. Because they were never place keepers. Even like you said, place were weird over there. It was more of like an indentured servant than it was. Yeah. And, you know, even like the head son, like, he would be sleeping on the floor with the indentured service. Everybody starts from the ground, and they kind of work their their way up. And it's Exactly.
You do with your time, and it's what you do with the opportunity applies, essentially.
[00:38:34] Unknown:
Exactly. Yeah. They didn't even want you to be indentured. They they they, like, paid the debt off, bro, put being a slave. It's embarrassing for both of us. Like, if they didn't and and actually and this is written in the histories and documented that they did not the slaves did not do all the housework. The slaves didn't go run around doing all your work for you. You still did your own work. They gave you a portion like a rental, but they're living on your property. Why wouldn't why would you be able to live for free on my property and take from my resources and not provide back to the table you're eating out of? That's insanity. So it's not even a bad system, and it wouldn't fit under what in our western our western language would say, call a slave in any way, shape, or form.
[00:39:24] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:39:25] Unknown:
What are some of the other, like, social, lessons or guidelines, you know, that come from the heathen tradition?
[00:39:33] Unknown:
So if you ever go to read the Havamal and and so, again, understand, like, one of the first things that Tacitus said was, these people don't live by each other. They don't make cities. I'm not sure that they even like each other, like, because we would live so isolated away from each other. But in that situation, because of that, there's extreme host rights, where if somebody shows up at my at my doorstep, and it doesn't matter what color, what what country, what sex, if you show up at my doorstep, I am as close to obligated by law to feed you and put you by a fire if it's cold and give you something to drink as there is in that culture at all.
There's a specific story actually where Odin is having another is having an argument with another goddess, and Odin is is throwing all kinds of slurs about her son. And your son's lazy and he's ugly, he stinks and he's worthless and he's got no honor. And she looked at Odin and said and it wasn't his his son specific directly, but like a a a son heir later on down the road. Right? Like, he's a god, so he's not died in 1 generation. This is many generations down. Like, yours your son is a bad host, and that stopped the argument right there. Odin immediately left, went to go see went to this, you know, descendant's house and then hid himself as the traveler and got led into the house. Well, the first person he meets is the second son, and the second son is a good son, and he takes Odin and his horse in and he's like, don't worry about it. I got this thing.
You know, I got this horse taken care of for you, sir. Make yourself comfortable. And Odin says, no. I'm going up to the castle. I'm gonna go up there. He was you don't wanna go up there. They aren't real nice up there. He's like, no. No. That is where I'm gonna go though. So Odin goes up there and he disguised, and when he gets there, they were very nasty to him and rude and things devolve to the point where they tie him up to a post and start torturing him physically. And then eventually, when he doesn't die, they light him on fire. And Odin lets himself be tortured for 3 days. And during that 3 days, he watches every person that misbehaved to this guest that showed up at their door. And every person, when he left, the vac crew was dead. The second son now ran the entire thing.
So while it's not a law, oh, mistreat your guests. One of them might be Odin, see how it pans out for you.
[00:42:25] Unknown:
There's a similar a similar story and lesson in, Vedic. I think in in one of the Vedic texts, it's, you know, you don't never know who who's knocking at your door, and it might be God in disguise, you know, Krishna or something.
[00:42:42] Unknown:
Yep. Exactly. So the the host writes, even to the point where, also, if when you're at my house, you highly admire something, you can have it. And and this weirds people out a little bit, you know, because people are over generosity is, at this in our culture is such a narcissistic, trait where you're overly generous and then you've got some type of ownership over this person and they're indebted to you. And so a lot of people immediately, will have a little bit of a weird reaction if you're like, well, then have it. You know? And, but on the same token, in our culture, if I if you have something I wanted that I like, you need to give that to me too. So it's a very symbiotic. Or or if I put you up for a few days, you probably need to go out and chop up a quart of wood or 2 and help me put away some wood for the winter.
You know, something along that effect where you're not just the leech of a person because while there is a host, right, so there's also guest rules. And as a guest and and some of the guest rules even include things like, nobody likes somebody that knows everything in their house. You know, when you're in somebody's house, you you let them lead the conversation. You let them shine. It's not your you're not the king here. Let the king shine. Don't overshine the king. That's not a good plan. Things like that, you know, don't overstay your welcomes. Don't don't take too much and not give back.
The so it sounds and and again, which in this society, it's not. But to a normal person, you're like, well, these are all kind of very common sense things. This is just how you live as a decent person. What are you even talking about? How is this even almost a religion? Like, you know, like, what are we talking about here? But if that is ends up what it is, is just being a damn decent person and understanding that other people need to live. Other people are gonna make mistakes. Other people need to have their own freedoms. But, again, there is also a class that it's a class system, and a lot of people aren't gonna understand that. So, again, where we I we've talked about the Yarl and the Carl, the people who live on the Carl's farm are are thralls.
And so the thrall isn't really as a free man. He is. He could go live on another farm. But if you're going and living on a farm, are you a free on somebody else's farm, are you a free man? No. You're now his his dude. You're following his rules, his you're his responsibility. You're he you're gonna have to pay tribute to him because you're his responsibility. You're not a free man. Only thing we recognize as a free man is an independent man. So that whole word free and this is where I have a problem with a lot of communities where they wanna go on and bang on about being free. No. Free isn't the thing. You don't get freedom without independence. If you cannot be self sufficient, self independent, there is no such thing as freedom for you. You're at somebody else's mercy, and that means you get to and the further you get in that system and they do make it comfy to start. They sold they sold a nice package. You know? Hey. We'll we'll pay all your basic bills and your basic needs and your medicals, and and you can have cables and everything else. And now we're starting to see the decline of that. We're and and and they declined the money that was gonna even be available.
And pretty soon, everybody's gonna still have that equal amount in that system, but there's gonna be a whole lot less of that amount to be shared around. And that's gonna be a real problem. And so you don't even get a choice on whether you get to not be in part of that bad decision because you threw down your chips with that. You're gonna eat whatever you get. I'm not.
[00:46:50] Unknown:
So could someone, exit a farm and in attempt to create their own independence, you know, like, change class? 100%.
[00:47:00] Unknown:
Yeah. And that was that was the thing. This wasn't a family based or, again, a financial based, system. This was a competent based system. So if this if there wasn't somebody running this land, you wanted to go off and do your thing and you had enough gumption to do it, it's not easy. I would highly recommend there's a movie that's recently come out, and it's about, I believe, 1600 Danish life. It's called the promised land. And it's this guy that just goes out, and he goes and lives in this area nobody else is living in and starts farming it, and that's gonna expand the you know, he's doing it in the king's name. I'm not saying do it in the king's name. But, the idea is the king wasn't really helping him. And until he started succeeding, the king didn't help at all. It's only when he started going out, proving it could be done, proving I'm my own man. I can I can take care of land? Look. I can even take care of land and send you some bags of food. And the king's like, they said food?
They have extra? Well and now the king's now suddenly in in interested in investing into that land. And now this guy has a title, and they immediately give him a title and give him people underneath that that are working. But before you ever get to that point, you need to prove yourself as not only can and this is the thing as a husband, and this is part of where so many men are going wrong and young men, is your first step and as as a man, when you decide to become a man, is to become independent. And this is part of why in heathen villages, they would kick the boys out.
And if you can go live for a year out by yourself, there's a couple things that have happened. You come back and you're no longer a net negative to the village. You have become a man. You do not require things from the village. You can live all on your own. You are providing for yourself. Now you're a net positive for the village. We want you on our team. And so you are a man. You're on our team, bro. But then also with that, now that I'm an independent man that takes can take care of myself, maybe I don't like that village. Maybe I don't like the way you guys are living. I don't wanna be part of your team.
I've I've now been away from your team for a while, and I'm I'm doing pretty good. I don't really need to be part of that. And so we if you did join back in with these tribes, there was the tribe was gaining a benefit, and you were gaining a benefit because this was tribe was living in a way you wanted. And so you wanna be part of this system. You wanna be a beneficial, honorable person. And so then now that I've been providing for myself, if I can provide extra, now I can look at taking on a wife because I can feed me and somebody else. And so many of these young people today, and I know it sounds so wonderful, and we built it together. Well, don't expect her to treat you like the man then either, bro, because you built it together. She's just as much the man as you, and so don't expect her to give you that place that you didn't earn.
You'll never get it. You didn't earn it. And I don't know what to tell you about that. It sounds harsh, but it's just the way it is. And so if now at this point, though, I've become responsible and proven myself enough, competent and responsible enough to provide for not just a wife, but we're obviously gonna have children. And now I can have other people living on on my land, and now my land is producing much more, and all these people are living good. And it was a highly honorable thing to be in that system. And so these thralls, they were not even people that were, like like because our language today puts a a negative connotation on the word.
But it was a highly honorable thing to live under a good Carl and under a good Jarl. Like, we're we're successful. We eat what we want. We do what we we live good. How are you living? And, you know, so this was not the system that we're given today. Like, even at the independence of our country where they tried to make it out to be, oh, these were landed gentry. Well, then how is it that indentured servants work their way into having their own land, which happened a lot? In fact, people would sell themselves into indentured servant servitude in order to come here and earn that position. So all you had to do then when you decide to have your own land, who were you buying it from? The nobody?
Nobody owned it. You said that piece over there, that's mine. I'm gonna put some posts up. Inside those posts, that's mine, and I'm man enough to take care of it. And this is where, traditionally, in the United States anyways, we have been always been very heavy on homesteading laws. And even today, the homesteading laws have a lot more power and quirk to them than what people wanna understand. Because if you're living on a land and you're working that land, that's your land.
[00:52:25] Unknown:
Alright. Any any comments or questions, ladies?
[00:52:31] Unknown:
No. I was just listening, and I'm enjoying the history aspects of it because it's usually my favorite parts of it. But I would just like to add, like, the re you know, history I've read about that kind of stuff and the backgrounds of, like, all these different cultures, you know, whatever the culture may be, and whatever society that people agreed to live within, it always really depended on, like, whether or not you had, like, a good, you know, a good, community leader or a bad one always depends on the individuals, still at the end of the day. You know? So, I think, you know, with the way drama works with TV and movies, of course, they're always going to paint a dramatic and dark and negative light on many things, you know, because it's, you know, far more interesting because you're like, yeah. You know, now what's he gonna do? You know? And, yeah, it's just like what modern people love about TV is all that kind of stuff. But really, history, if you wanna know anything about it for real, you have to do reading, like, going to the library and researching and stuff, like, you know, and, like, you brought up Christianity and some of the problems with Christianity, which well, I wouldn't necessarily say it's Christianity on a large that's the issue. It's really I would feel the Catholic church is the issue on the large scale.
Because like with research that I've done with even that culture is that there is I found that there is a big difference between ancient Christianity, which follows more like natural law principles, morality, ethics, and more traditional values where then you have modern Christianity, which is anything after the emperor Constantine when they brought in, you know, they developed Catholicism as a a large institution, and it became a completely different thing. You know? So,
[00:54:51] Unknown:
I mean I I couldn't agree more. By the way, this is part of why I made that caveat of having a harder time with the orthodox community because, like you're saying, the Catholics there, whoo. I I I couldn't agree more with what you're saying.
[00:55:07] Unknown:
Yeah. So, like, you know, it's funny when, you know, we when we do end up talking about stuff like Christianity and other religions. Like me, personally, I don't care what belief or religion people want to be a part of because I know that the individual is not necessarily you know, how they live their life is not necessarily, like, based on whatever doctrine. So I'm pretty open that way. Like, the other everybody will usually will probably tell you I'm like that. Like, I work a lot with the community on a larger scale and they're of all walks of life. And what I found is as long as they live morally, ethically, they use care, they treat each other with common courtesy, they behave in a way where we don't allow violations to take place and we don't other people's rights. You know? These are, you know, I think the things that can really unite us Yeah. As a human race instead of letting all the nitpicky little details divide us into all these little factions where now we're, like, name calling and just being generally discourteous towards each other for the sake of whatever, you know, impulse or emotional trigger we wanna have. So, you know, I I think that's I think I always think it's encouraging that when different people who have this difference or that difference and everybody can come together and be like, well, we all agree on this one thing, and that's that's usually the most important
[00:56:51] Unknown:
aspect. Yeah. A 100%. Could again, couldn't agree more. That's why, like, when I say that the the more traditional you know, the Orthodox Christians that's the the people that they produce, I tend to align with much more than so many other people, including what most people would even call pagans, you know, like the Ostrue community and things like that. Like, some of the things that they're doing, like, where they're doing the Wiccan and the polytheistic or not the polytheist, the, polyam polyamory and things like that. And it's like, you guys are just you're not actually trying to be heathens. You're just doing the weird new agey thing, and that's fine too, but it's not it's not what I do at all. So I actually align more with the value systems of the orthodox Christians, which is a real hard thing to say in a lot of times, but it's it just is how it pans out. You know? It's the the fruit of the tree. You know? That's the way it works.
[00:57:54] Unknown:
I have a question about how the ancient societies perceived the gods. You know? Were they expressions, like, in part of natural phenomenon? That seems part of it. And then also, like, you know, it personify personification of right and wrong, you know, where and then there's where did they where they treated as actual people in a sense? Or what it what makes a god? You know?
[00:58:26] Unknown:
So the in the heathen pantheons, like, for starts, I'm an oldness, and that's part of why I I somewhat clarify this. And in today's comic book understandings of that, people think that that's kind of an obvious thing, but it's actually not an obvious thing at all. While he was king of the gods, there's a lot that comes with that, and a lot of people did not identify with Odin or the way Odin sees things. So when you're looking at the the pantheon in of itself, actually, the gods themselves were more popular. Depending on what class you were from, the upper class people tended to follow Tyr more, and Tyr was, what I would it it's more of a sky father figure type being.
Now I would have we could do a whole show on the contentions that I have with some of the positions that have been assigned to a lot of these different gods. In fact, I actually was even having that argument earlier today about Freya, where they put down Freya as a god of love and fertility. And I said, where in the stories does she represent love and fertility? Tell me that story, please. Because while I will say that she represents greed and lust and beauty and, you know, some things like that. War. And, I I even wouldn't even call her war because they don't situation that she actually goes to war.
She's really just kinda this pretty piece that doesn't do anything, throughout any of the stories, and the story that she does the most in is well, the story she's in the most is the one where she leaves her husband to go to these dwarves, and these dwarves want to do vaguely sexual things with her in order to give her information on how to get this necklace. And which she does all these things and then comes back with the pretty necklace, which the the infidelity, the the greed, the lust, those are all represent he and never comes back. And she actually spends substantial amounts of time trying to find him, but he's like, nah. I'm out. And so in no way do I see in the stories and, actually, her 2 daughters, when translated, can translate into lust and greed.
And so where these other connotations got put on to where I'm like and so, again, this happened with Odin in in many ways. So Tyr was typically your upper class followed Tyr more often, and he, a lot of times, is called the war god, and I can see why he would be called the war god. I can see why is called the war god in tour, obviously. Have a good one, Greg, and, why tour is. But Thor then was followed by the lower classes. And in fact, there's a a very famous story, where, Odin changes himself into a Bridgeman named Harbard and has and and has, has an argument and at the bridge, and Thor is trying to cut across this ferry, not bridge. And Odin wouldn't come over and get him, and so Odin starts talking crap. And when he talks crap, he's talking about the the farmers and the lesser people.
And Thor, you know, immediately gets mad because that's his people, and it was also reciprocated. So he was a he was a he was the protector of the realm. He was gonna make sure everything was okay for everybody. He's stability. We're on the opposite side, Loki is we don't have a good evil, as Leslie was asking, where we have things that happen in form chaos and things that happen from stability. And if you're always in stability, then it then things die because that's what winter is, is, where nothing moves, nothing changes. If you're always in chaos, that's fire. Everything burns up. You gotta kinda be in this little middle ground, you know, where you're kinda back and forth between a little bit of both.
But as far as god's win, so there was no evil, but the under people love Thor, or Donar, and then the the middle class more typically followed. Here, you had some mixing where then the Vanir come in. So the Vanir at one point in time was a separate pantheon and this was was before, Odin became king of the gods. So there are clans that followed Frey and Freya, which were Vanir before the great war brought them together and when Odin, that's where Odin became king. And, so people follow those and then were typically more wildish people. They are not for a heathen, they are less civilized than most heathens.
And then being an oldenist was typically for more of the priest class, the, you know, the things like that. Any questions. But, yeah. And then the gods were not seen in worship the way the they are today. So here's another few fun facts that, are historical. You can go through all the different, religious texts, all the different writings. There's no sacrifice of any human ever asked for or animal. There's one partial poem that talks about the sacrifice of a horse. And it you're not even sure exactly what's going on in the poem because the poem is very weird and very disjointed and broke and missing large chunks where you can't quite get a grasp on what's going on there.
And but there is inference where you could possibly say there's a horse. So if you imagine tribal life instead, you can imagine that, again, they didn't have refrigeration back then, obviously. And so when they would get together, well, throughout the week, you obviously if I slaughter a goat or a calf or something like that, I can't eat all that meat and I can't store it. You know, I can jerk some of it, sure, and smoke some of it. But what you're gonna do is then go, this week, I'm the one who brings the food, the cow to the feast. You bring this to the feast, blah blah blah. Well, then at the end of that, and this is where I have a bone to pick with archaeologists, little little, little pun with that one, because every time they find a pile of a pit of bones, they're like, oh, this was sacrificed to their guy.
Or maybe they didn't leave trash all over the place, and that's a trash pit for 3 stays. And so when you got a ton with your trash, you just threw it in the the the trash pit, and that's just how that works. You know, real reasonable. Right? But they as was already stated, they've the reasonable is not as, exciting for the entertainment industry. So those real reasonable things don't get said. But there's no sacrifice. The gods are not great to in the way and form that is current today, the way people understand it today. So with that with the entire pantheons of gods, you were able to align yourself with somebody that more naturally was the things that you were interested in. Not everybody wants to be a warrior.
Not everybody wants to be a farmer. Not everybody wants to and that's fine. And so you're gonna align yourself with the the beings that more suit your lifestyle, and they were treated as living beings. So, again, with that story of Harvard, and this is very interesting. So when you look at historians, the entirety of the reason that they call Odin a Flanderer, where he goes out and cheats on his wife outside if he did sleep with a giant test one time in in Earth, How that however that works. Right? But where they talk about him sleeping with human women, the entirety of that story comes from this take from the lay of Harbard, which is, a a fleeting.
And a fleeting was basically a rap battle before rap battles were ever even imagined or rap or any of those things where it was basically a a a crap talk. Home. And so in this, Odin, when he's talking to Thor and if you've ever been a man on a construction site, this is how dude's at. So Odin's like, well, what were you doing when this was going on? And Thor's like, well, I've went and bought the frost giants, and I defeated them all, and I killed this entire clan, and I kept, you know, I kept or I kept Asgard safe. What were you doing, old man? And Odin looks at me. He's like, I was banging your mom.
And, you know, and this is how the conversation and Odin keeps making more lurid and shitty claims, and Thor keeps getting more angry and presenting more honorable and glorious deeds to counter it of upon which Thor you know, Odin is just crap talking back to the point where Thor gets so extraordinarily angry. He can't even handle himself. And then but he can't get across this river for some reason. And or needs the ferryman, and he's and he's so mad he can't handle it. And Owen's like, yeah. Good luck. It's a 3 day walk that way. And so, he's got him so brought thing mad. And as a man, we've all had meathead friends, and this is the representation of Thor. He's the big I call him, I hit it with the hammer. I do it right.
And, this is, we've all had that friend, and you kinda make fun of their intelligence. You poke fun at him, and you do little games like he did to Thor there. But in the scholarly world, they don't understand that inner dynamic between very masculine men. That men Just general
[01:09:41] Unknown:
dude trash talking. I imagine that's always been the case. And, like, I just think it's funny when, like, politicians even do it. And you're like, dude, that's how dudes have talked for as long as I've existed. I mean, they all talk like that. Who are you kidding? But, you know, I thought think it's funny that people should go back and look if they're going to go and look into this topic that, they should understand because I've read the mythology behind Odin. I've read the mythology behind Zeus. I've read the mythology behind the, Irish and, Britannia and the Scottish. I I read all of that stuff. Like, I was very interested in that as a kid.
And when I went and looked back through them as an adult, you'll find that they're pretty much the same tenants, whether it's Hindu, Dutch, or, Viking or Germanic or any Irish. Yeah. A lot of these mythologies that go back so far, they they do come from generally, there there are a lot of the same stories, which, like, I have my own theories as to why, but, just to keep that in mind when you're researching this stuff, like Yeah. Have a broad view and under like, look at it all because all these stories are kinda the same. So in a lot of ways and it's just the little details that are changed because of cultural perception or
[01:11:20] Unknown:
whatever. There's a lot of stuff like that in history. Like environment a lot of times, I think. Like, the Abrahamic, you got desert compared to the Germanic, which is very mountainous. You're not gonna same rules aren't gonna apply. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's it's those kind of differences. Like, I think
[01:11:38] Unknown:
I think it's the what is it? Is it maybe the the Hindu? It might be Hindu, but I can't remember, so don't quote me on it. But the way they write about the beginning of existence, you know, when God created everything is a lot different in the way that, like, the Bible describes it. And, like, it all kinda sounds like the same process to me. To me, it sounds like people who don't understand science are describing terraforming on a new planet. That's what it sounds like to me when I read a lot of that that particular story across the board of all these different cultures when you pull out through mythology and try to research a lot of, like, history with mythology and find out what was actually what. So I I just think that I just wanted to add that in because I think that's really interesting for people to keep in mind.
[01:12:40] Unknown:
I I I I don't disagree at all. Most cultures, being a decent person is pretty much what they're getting at. Be a decent person. Like and and most of us have a fair grip on what that's gonna be. I mean, while I'm I'm not in the the the, natural law community and things like that, most of their tenants, you can understand. Nobody likes it when you steal from them. Nobody likes it when you go hurt other people. Like, we all we all get that. We all we all get it. And so that's where most those cultures and it's funny that even with that, we still have to have the understanding that there are a lot of people that just don't get it. That's why this had to be written down in practice. Like, you know, some of you, you're just you don't seem to get it. We don't like living with you that much. Hey. Here's some rules, bro.
You you don't seem to get it. But, yeah, they're all they're all be a decent person. And like you said, outside of, variances, which I would, you know, say again would from my perspective, a lot of that has to do with, regional living styles because that that's always incorporated into your religion, the different things that are gonna be important to living in that region. And if you're living in a arid region or if you're living out in the plains, you know, the Sioux Indians or, you know, the the Lakotas, they're gonna have different rules than people living up in the mountains and different cultural practices because they need to do different things.
But the then when you boil down to the philosophical part of it, it's all gonna be be a dis be a decent person. And and we've all been watching the same world in general or or system at play for however long our people have been, and so we've all been watching that same thing. So, yeah, we're all gonna kinda eventually come to pretty similar conclusions one would assume. We're all seeing the sun every day and the moon and, living the same life unless you're, like, in Puerto Rico and you have one season and you just live and everybody has food all the time and you don't have to do anything. I do agree with the tree
[01:14:53] Unknown:
then, the tree, how important the tree was. Can you expand on why and and the, myth the tree of life symbology and all that? Absolutely. And that's one of my very favorite,
[01:15:06] Unknown:
subjects because that was when I first truly got into Odinism. That was and where it was really sinking into me. That was when Odin came, and and I've only had one interaction with Odin, and the tree was what he showed me. And he didn't say a lot either. It wasn't, this grand visions and, exchanges and things like that. Three tree of lifes because the heathen tree of life is different than the, Kabbalistic tree of life. And but the heathen tree of life normally displayed is not complete either. And so when I had the vision, actually, 3 trees were floating in front of me, and Odin and Odin said to me, I'm 3 minds, not 1.
And that was what I got out of it. And then the only other thing he said to me is when I opened my eyes, there was a giant spider web, like, intricate, inch like an inch from my face, and there was a spider on it, like, pulsing. And I could see it as it was pulsing. I could see the whole web move with it and that the spider was, like, controlling this whole thing and and receiving all the information from it. And, and he said, you are the spider, and then that was that was the end of it. And so the main thing in their culture is gonna be, the Yggdrasil tree, which is the tree of life.
And the tree of life, in my opinion, breaks, and this is something where I'm gonna there's gonna be, contention between me and what a lot of your current, if you read about these symbologies and things, is broken then into 2 things. One of them is gonna be Irminsul. This is Odens tree, which you can see this is the top end. If you count, this is the trunk, and then this is the fruit end. And then the hammer, which is Thor, which is literally basically this symbol upside down almost. And so the center part would be the trunk, and then the root is Thor, and is Loki in in the trunk. And so that would be a complete Yggdrasil, but then also it needs to be locked into place by a carbon body, which is why the third mine's there, which the trinity in and of itself is that's a that's a a heathen thing. That is not a Christian thing, and there's actually a ton of contention because nowhere in Christian works do they mention a trinity. But, specifically, trinity is all about our our particular culture.
Odin started out as Odin Villain Vein, and then when it when Odin collapses that down and becomes the all father, then it's Odin then it's Loki Odonto. And and so there's always that trinity, and inside that trinity is is one thing. The trinity is 1 and, 3, and that's so that's something that has absolutely been borrowed from our culture and pushed over into theirs. And and a lot of their, like I said, there's a lot of infighting in between different Christian factions because there's no actual trinity, history for them. So they have so and then also anytime that they say pagan, they mean Roman pagan. So there's no, credentials for heathen society brought into these talks. And so the fact that they stole the trinity directly from it, it doesn't get actually recognized because they're matching themselves up against Roman Pagan, and Roman Pagan was super weird.
Super weird. Nothing to do with anything, from the Celtic or the, Britannia, the Anglo Saxons, none of that. They they were their own super anytime in on Facebook when they're like, oh, pagans used to do this practice. If you turn around and actually look it up, it's always Romans. Always Romans. He the the the heathens did not do weird crap like that. Most of the practices that you know, again, I still practice most of them today. The only one that I've ever found extraordinarily weird, and this is in, if you ever watched the movie 13th Warrior, that is based off of an actual historical accounting, where there's a Arab that mixed with, heathens for a while. And according to his accounting, because he was, supposedly, he could write, and heathens did not typically write, which I don't know if that's even true at all, in that if that wasn't something that just that one group maybe didn't write.
And I know it wasn't true because they tried for years, and I think based off of this accounting saying we didn't have a language and didn't have a written language. And since then, we all know about the runestones that are consistently being found with entire like, one of them just recently that was found. The story on it wasn't even like a an exciting story. It was this storm happens this many years in a cycle. Don't you know, beware of that. Like, good information. They carved it in stone, said, you know what? We should remember this. And so they had a a written language. So I think maybe based off of the accounting just specifically of, something Binthelin, a lot of Binthelin.
Because of his accounting, there's they they would try and claim we didn't have a language, a written language. And then because I think because we didn't leave a bunch of scroll work all were sacred to us. Man and woman were originally made from trees. So man so Oden, Billy, and Bay, and this is again where the trinity comes in, they went to the ocean and found 2 saltwater soaked logs that were bloated with saltwater. So this is very specific because when you look at your body, your body is all kinds of salts running it in all the water. This is what your the pieces of you. Then he made man the first man and woman out of an ash tree and an elm tree, ash and embla.
And then Odin gives them our our we'll start out with, Odin gives them their high mind, and so that's their thought, their higher thought, their ability to to remember things. Odin is the god of knowledge and wisdom, and in the stories, that's representative. Then his brother, Ve, gives the name. So they is your ego, and that's what other people need to call you because you don't really need to know your name. That's what other people need to know, and you kinda do because that's what they're gonna say. But if it's just you, you don't need that. This is an egoic thing. And then Vili, which we would pronounce vile, which is where I would count land with the most, where the religions that I do have a giant deviation from, most of them, it's because they are a duality religion where they have picked a light side or, you know, they will talk about descending and things like that. As as an alchemist, the the sulfur and the oi the sulfur and the salt are the same thing. Anytime you have, 2 things like, this is something that the cabalion was always supposed to teach you. You had 2 things and then you separate into a polarity. This is a polarity. And then when you rectify the polarity, it goes back into this. It goes into one thing. And so they're working off of a polarity and they're looking from the high side and being negative to the stable salt side, which is the villi or the vey, and that's your family side, which again, they're a very anti family, where heathens were known for worshiping rather than having the worship as the god is gods as heavily. It was more of a worship of the family and you that your ancestors and you were by honor, required, and obligated again as close though these are the two things that is close, the the being a host and living up to your family, living up to the greatness of your forefathers. You you don't wanna be less than them.
That that would be horrible. And how could you not be something that your kids are gonna need to work to get to work up to and look up to? That that this is a bad plan. And so this is the other thing that you you did not do. Family was super important, and the gods, it was more of a in alignment. And so, like, I myself, I don't pray to Odin. If I'm about to do something impressive, that's one of the only times I call Odin. Hey. Check this out. I'm about to do some shit. You might be impressed. And so this was the type of people he wanted. He didn't want beggars asking asking them to do their his, you know, come help me. Oh, come take care of my basic life. No. He wanted people that were that were strong, independent people that were like, no. Don't come over here because because you're because you're trying to help me out for charity. Come look over here because you're gonna be impressed.
You're gonna be proud. And so there's a path that he set forth in order to become who he was, and I try to follow that same set path. And so more instead of a worshipful, relationship, it's more of a relationship of a a a a very sacred elder that accomplished things that I also wish to accomplish and made himself into a being that I also wish to become and achieve.
[01:25:32] Unknown:
I like that difference. Yeah. It's really, you know, about becoming, you know, worthy that that focus on honorable behavior and that being the value so that your value is associated with honorable acts. Right? And being a responsible person and being independent and taking care of your commitments, being, you know, being self sufficient. It's really so far from where a lot of our modern culture seems to have gone.
[01:26:05] Unknown:
Oh, they seem to they seem to moved over in a little better light. They seem to glorify into where if they can live and live and not take care of themselves and just live off of a system, whether it's, somebody they're dating, whether it's the government, whether it's going to work and not putting in work. Like like, I can't even imagine. Like, part of the reason that I have a hard time with some of the younger employees, they have this idea that you that you hiring them and they're hanging out is apparently, like, the deal. Like, no, dude. I I you're getting this many dollars an hour to produce work for an hour. And if you aren't working for that hour, why would I give you money for that hour? It's I'm not you just hanging out here, and I don't even understand the mentality because at the end of a shift, you're gonna know I was there. Like, you're there's gonna be no question what I did, and that's a fact. And you're gonna and there's gonna be a a very good exchange that happens because of this, That your company because here's here's the other weird thing. Because if you even as an employee, and I'm not an employee, but, I'm, you know, but as an employee, you gotta understand that the company that you're working for has to make money also. You don't get to make all the money that they make. The thing and then you're not paying the risks that they're paying. You're not paying the taxes that they're paying. You're not surviving the ups and downs that they're making sure you are eating because this is the this is the thing that, and businesses do fail at this today. But this is the thing that they didn't understand where they started portraying these people as he's landed gentry.
Understand is a good caretaker of the land. I don't I know that the the thralls normal people aren't good at taking care of themselves. They don't they don't they will make bad choices. They will eat like gluttons. They will use things up when they shouldn't be using them up. They will live by you know, in all kinds of ways that are not a good will not set them up for a good and stable future. It's just how people are. And so as a good leader, obviously, I'm gonna make sure that, again, like I did with the calculation with the tomatoes, I know if I eat 4 jars a week and I have this many stocked up, I'm good for the entire year until I can harvest tomatoes again and start having fresh tomatoes, and I can start the cycle over again. And if you wanna eat 6 jars of tomatoes and start eating them because you decided that you put on some weight and you are capable of eating more and you start getting a little gluttonous.
Well, now our calculation has changed entirely because at 6 jar at 6 jars times 52 weeks is a little over 300 jars, not a little over 200 jars by the math. Well, that's a 100 jars difference. Well, jeez, that means that if you're eating them at that rate, I'm gonna go a substantial amount of time with no spaghetti sauce. And now I gotta buy spaghetti sauce or nobody's gonna get it or else I'm gonna have to ration it down, and now everybody's angry. And as I'm rationing it down, are you the one I'm putting in work? Were you the one eating the extra spaghetti sauce? Because I don't really wanna give it to you. And so all these things need to be mitigated by a good leader who's gonna make sure that every meal is a good benefit.
Absolutely. He's gonna have to fill his storehouses so that way in the bad times, that's what they're you're eating, buddy, is out of those storehouses. So you should definitely feel a vested interest in defilling them. And that's not at all what kids have any interest in today is every bit of their labor is is theirs, and you shouldn't make anything off of it. Like, well, then why do I have you here, bro? I I don't understand. So you can make money. Like, I don't even like you. Your attitude's bad. You don't do good work, and I don't like hanging out with you. Get out of here. Where this again, to just even if I did not like my employer for me to act in such a dishonorable way where I didn't keep up my end of the bargain, that's on me.
My honor is on me, which doesn't mean that I have to walk around. This is another weird variance where I don't understand. Like, if you're my enemy and we have got a problem, I don't need to act honorably toward you in any way. There there's no need for it. We're enemies. Like, you aren't gonna act honorably toward me. So that part of it is a weird Christian thing where they're like, you you hold this high honor with your enemy, and and you don't. Your enemy is gonna lie, cheat, steal, stab you in the back, do whatever he can to get you out of the way. That's what enemies do. It's it's it's that whole scorpion is a scorpion thing. And a scorpion is not necessarily bad, but just know what it is. It's gonna do this. It's gonna act like that. That's what you should you should act accordingly yourself. And so but when you're interacting with people that aren't your enemies, you absolutely need to carry yourself with honor, or else you're the bad person.
[01:31:14] Unknown:
I just hear a strong sense of, integrity and pride in self, these teachings that, of course, like, our children need. But as opposed to, like, woe is me and, I was born an original sin and these kinds of things. You know? So that's, like, the difference, and it and it really makes up the caliber of a good human. Right? Exactly. Hear. So I I I truly appreciate your your very powerful personal journey and truth, and all the things that you went through to get to where you are today. And, of course, you know, we all have our own way of how we've navigated and how we've learned, But I guess I can appreciate you, like, going through the rabbinic studies and all these things. Like, I went through all those religions, was raised Jewish, and, you know, trying to learn all these things. My kids go to Christian school, right, because they're learning Christianity.
Everybody's like, what? Your kids go to Christian school? But they're learning it, and they're walking through the fire literally in there. And they get a lot of pressure, because they don't necessarily subscribe, but they say things like, well, I'm I'm here to learn about it. Yeah. So they come home, and we talk about it. And, so I appreciate you today very much because it's given me another avenue to explore myself and then explore it with them and others. So you coming on and and talking about everything that you did today, it's not just for me and it's for everybody in this room, but it's gonna go out to a whole bunch of other people and what you're doing at festivals and going and speaking. And I encourage you even though you don't need me to, to keep doing it.
I do appreciate it, though. Absolutely. Missed some of it, but it's been it's been just lovely listening. Thank you so much.
[01:33:00] Unknown:
Yeah. And I would just add for anybody who is listening to understand that at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter the details of how you're choosing to live as long as it falls under the, you know, general moral and ethical guidelines. You practice, a courtesy in your everyday life. I'm a big advocator of practicing, which is really just what the trinity is, what we were talking about earlier, thought, emotion, and action. And every single culture or belief system I've ever read about, it really is just another way for people who don't understand every part of the picture to describe the process of thought, emotion, and action.
Yeah. So and mythology has it in modern day ideologies have it, but it it all really comes that's the backbone. And as long as people practice care, nonviolence, self defense, you know, these are really just the backbones and everything else is details. And I I I'm at I encourage people to further study and look at everything, but to understand that there's a backbone, which is why I get along with everybody. Like, it doesn't matter to me. Like, when because I when I work with a community, it's usually like a knitting group or something, and I've got homeless people and wealthy people and protestants and Buddhists and Muslims and Christians and Catholics and All of them in there.
There's everybody and, you know, the majority of them all come down to the same conclusion, excuse me, which is basically yeah. You know, practice care, show non or practice nonviolence and practice self defense of force when necessary. And that's what it comes down to, really. So, I wanted to know, Britney, do you have any thoughts as well you wanted to share?
[01:35:05] Unknown:
Okay. Me, Britney.
[01:35:08] Unknown:
No. I'm so sorry, guys. I'm so tired. It's not you. I've been, like, going on, like, 4 hours of sleep maybe. But I've just really enjoyed listening. Yeah. Because of my family, I'm very curious about stuff like that. I still have to read the book called The Darkening Age. My honey recommended it to me, but it kinda took from what I have been told, it really gets into, like, the dark history surrounding, like, Christianity coming through and kind of, like, wiping out paganism. I know my my last name, Ashby, is a hereditary last name, and so, it's essentially like of the ash trees or
[01:35:53] Unknown:
Yep. Of
[01:35:55] Unknown:
the ash trees. And so because of that, I've always kind of felt very connected with Yggdrasil. So I I'm just enjoying kinda kicking back and receiving some information and a little bit different in some ways, and I'm just a nerd like that. So it's been nice because I've been working a lot, and so it's good to connect with you guys. I love hearing everything, and and yeah. And I don't have a lot of sleepy proactive thoughts because I'm rushed for it.
[01:36:24] Unknown:
That's a that's a a good reference for a book we can add in there. So, I'll try and find a link for that. And I would encourage people when reading a book like that to understand, like, there's, I know because I lived in Ireland for many years and, in Ireland and the Scott, and the Scotlands and, Old Britannia. That's odd. You have, well, you had the what were called pagans, but, really, the pagans who were being called pagans in those regions, they called themselves Christians. And you have the Catholics, they practiced ancient Christianity, which is before Constantine muddied up the waters.
And they the people who were called pagans, they called themselves Christians. And then you had, which were essentially the Romans who came in, and, you know, they were in the phase of changing from the Roman ideologies because it wasn't working for the mass people anymore. People were, you know, buying it as they used to be, so they were tran you know, through history, you see a pattern of, ideologies transferring, you know,
[01:37:49] Unknown:
Protestant and at all the transition from, empire to the more, state where they had the more parliamentary? Is that is that that that time periods all the Right. And it's going from, you know, more Roman to Catholicism
[01:38:08] Unknown:
Right. Which was, helped a lot through the authorities, the state authorities, turning, you know, belief systems into a state business rather than a practice of life. And then they came in, and so, like, it's it's I think it's interesting. Okay. I think it's very interesting that you know, this is why I encourage everybody to go and look at everything because you're going to get both sides of it. And then I think because this is what I end up doing is you end up piecing pieces together. You're like, oh, okay. This is a a far more clearer picture.
And depending on who's writing the book, you're going to see the inconsistencies. And so this is why I encourage go and research and look into everything because you're going to have the the ancient more of the ancient pagan histories written down through that, and then you're going to have more of the pagan Christian religion or histories written through that. And but they're through the eyes of they're through the eyes of people who specialized in one thing or the other. And not everybody always remembers to look through a wide scope. So I think that's important to for people to remember too.
[01:39:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Good perspective. You know, I really, appreciated the term Germanic yearning. It's the first time I heard that, and I relate to that, especially over the last few years, really digging deeper into some of my own family history and really recognizing I am I am, like, all northern European. I'm every, you know, Scandinavian and Germanic, Dutch. You know? Ancestors in Iceland, you know, and, of course, England, Scotland, Ireland, very, like, sort of all that. And, in my with that came a very also, I think that most of my family who came to the United States originally were fleeing the Catholic church and were part of the Protestant reformation, but very disconnected from, I think, the pagan roots. Although, like, when you were talking, Britney, about that work ethic and certain spirit definitely most definitely was out there. And my family were farmers, and they owned land, and they started businesses, and they were, you know, very, you know, passing on land from family, you know, to their descendants, naming traditions, and things like that. And, but I I think for me, I I came into this world just automatically pushing back Christian religion as it as it was presented to me and really seeking, like, the truth underneath all of these religions, you know, back to the most organic sort of beginning of understanding of of living on this planet and interacting with nature. And so this is really you know, it it it feeds this need that I have to try to imagine and understand, like, what, our original relationship with life and each other and nature was. So, you know, and I appreciate, you know, helping me imagine that.
[01:41:42] Unknown:
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And and and Perfect. Honestly, like I said, when I did bring up Christopher, that was one of my favorite parts of his book. He wrote a cult Germany, and he talks about that that the German people just keep it seems like they just keep going after something, and it's Christianity is not filling that void for them, and it's because which which I'm with Sarah. I I I'm not saying that any religion is better than another one that they don't all contain the truce and things like that. But I do believe in epigenetics, and I believe that, again, there's a specific reason that work that the German people keep going. They they keep not finding answers in the spots that their ancestors weren't looking. Like, you need to maybe go back to where your ancestors were looking and and look at their kind of things, and then you wouldn't have this weird half where, like, even when you look at the the biggest Christian holidays like Christmas, there's obviously not nothing Christian about Christmas.
Like, it's it's the the time period doesn't match. If the baby's born in Israel, that time period is not winter for them. The the why would you even have a baby then? Like, it it doesn't it doesn't make sense. The Santa Claus figure that's, you know, obviously, an Odin figure. The the sleigh that he's riding, they literally called the great dipper, Odin's or the the dipper, Odin's wane, as it in which is Odin's wagon as it swings around Polaris. And the whole reason it's going around the tree, we have Yggdrasil, and I I we have Yggdrasil.
And the more that classic shape of pine tree, which they don't have in Israel. And I so that shape well, when he's going down, well, Christmas would happen at the the height of the year, and after that, you have an extension of the of the daylight. And so after that, so I would state that it was at the winter solstice, and so this was and then after that, your days get longer, and he starts going around, and it comes down in a wider loop. And then you look at the reindeer. There's no reindeer in Israel. There there just aren't. There never have been ever. And the the red and white motif is the, Amanita muscaria mushroom, which the reindeer are eating themselves and then drinking their own urine in order to get high because once their body processes it that second time, they really trip off. It's they pee in their mouth and just get lit up. And so these are flying ass reindeer. Right? And, and you're eating them too, so you're having a good time yourself. Like,
[01:44:29] Unknown:
and so All I can do is go,
[01:44:32] Unknown:
Oh, man. Yeah. Rough. I I gotta tell you. Last year at Flattoberfest, and one of them is a really close friend of mine, and it they're in the I call it the piss drinking cult, but there's a big shivam boo movement. And because I'm in a lot of alternative health talks and things because I'm an alchemist in some of the products I make, and I am not down with that. And at the last one, 2 people started having this thing and they're, like, talking about getting it straight out the tap and drinking it warm. I'm like, ugh.
[01:45:03] Unknown:
They're not sitting there. Off of the crunching on a stage and everything. That too. Yeah. Well, I heard that now it's like couldn't There's some medicinal purpose
[01:45:13] Unknown:
too. Yeah. You're inconvenient.
[01:45:15] Unknown:
Some people swear it's very healing, but I don't care.
[01:45:20] Unknown:
I learned my German stubbornness.
[01:45:23] Unknown:
I also learned that. So some societies have survived under really rough circumstances by after
[01:45:30] Unknown:
I believe I'm sure that there is. Us
[01:45:33] Unknown:
live in America. Yeah. That way unless absolutely necessary.
[01:45:40] Unknown:
Yeah. I wanted I wanted to comment a little bit about the thing that in the Germanic, are this you know, people of Germanic descendancy have there's a certain shame. Right? Like, you mentioned, Britney, that post World War 2 shame. Yeah. And, I think it it was in my noticeable in my family. And, there's also like you said, Ben, like, people are out there searching for things everywhere, but their own ancestral roots. Like, the new age communities out there looking at a lot of the Vedic stuff and the Native American stuff, but it seems to be everywhere. But, like, how about your own blood? You know? And, I think that must be have to do with some of that shame and, the cultural, almost like the masculine, you know, like, shaming masculine men and a lot of that. Yep. Gotta
[01:46:31] Unknown:
go into work. Stigma. And and, like toxic masculinity. Like Britney was explaining, I also grew up in a very Germanic area and because I'm from South Dakota. And, up in the upper Midwest, it was all just white people, and they separated according to their countries because it was very different cultures. And so despite what you're told today, white people have no culture of their own. But if you come from an area like that, like, specifically, there's certain things that the Polacks do. There's certain things that the Norwegians do. There's certain things that the Germans do. And and they're very different. Like, I'm not putting on no fucking I'm sorry. I'm not putting no dang, quilt on my barn out there. I'm not a Norwegian. Do I look Norwegian to you? I'm not, you know, I'm not I'm not only in Lena. I'm not in Polak. Don't get me over here. Like, we have our own very specific cultural things, like, as a German. Like, almost nobody, knows what cougan is. And cougan is a classic German dessert, you know, custard custard pie with fruit in it. And, oh, oh, yeah. You You wanna get you wanna get me going on some googan. I tell you what.
And so we had our own cultures. We had our own, very specific things, and that's all been lost because white people don't have culture. It's just white. And and that's not saying That's been what has been propagated in mostly, like, media and stuff. But,
[01:48:06] Unknown:
really, it's all regional. Like, I grew up where, you know, kind of in a gypsy fashion because just my mother moved around a lot. It wasn't for a specific reason, really. But I've lived all over the United States. I've lived in other countries. And, really, you know, people, I think, have always were operated in the same way where they can't separate themselves from their neighbor in a way where they can't accept the differences between them. And what I've learned is people are really all the same, and either you act like a dumb animal or you don't. And in different regions, you have slightly different traditions and cultural changes. And there's a lot of misunderstandings and and misconceptions as well. Like, one of the examples I tell people all the time and they're just like, no. No. That's not true. I'm like, yeah. It is actually true.
If you were to go like, here in America, right, and the people here who are American and have a strong Irish background, they have a strong Irish culture. One of the things that are that's very distinct here with the Irish culture is corned beef hash. Yeah. And they're, they're all about it. Right. And everybody would tell you, they'd swear up and down that the Irish eat corned beef hash. And I'm like, okay. So I lived in Ireland and I can tell you right now, not one of them. They that is not a normal Irish thing. They don't know what corned beef hash is. I went to the butchers. I had to explain it. I had to look it up online. He's like, that is absolutely not an Irish thing anywhere. I mean and this is like an old school butcher in Ireland.
He's, I mean, the kind of Ireland Irish that can still speak Gaelic.
[01:50:00] Unknown:
Oh, wow.
[01:50:02] Unknown:
So, like, he's been a butcher there for like, this was just one of the butchers I talked to. So he had that brought in for me for me, specifically. Because, like, I was, like, a community person, so people kind of knew me. So and even in the cities in Ireland, there's, like, small towns. So, like, you know, everybody's working together, you know, and, like, we're you know, everybody's kinda like homies that way. But Yeah. It was it was just a funny interaction. It was one of those things that's so stark that people just do not understand that culture doesn't necessarily have to do with this whole big religious attachment setup because you're white or black or you're from this religion or just because you live in this country or that or whatever. You know? Sometimes it's really just based on the region and the particular traditions that develop based off of whatever situation was going on in that particular region's past.
So the reason why American Irish people think that corned beef hash is such a staple in the, the general traditional Irish meal set is because when the Irish were immigrating to America, corned beef hash is a poor person's food.
[01:51:23] Unknown:
Yep.
[01:51:24] Unknown:
So that isn't everybody.
[01:51:27] Unknown:
Whatever it is. Irish person makes they make a really good roast and now we associate corned beef hash with that. That's it. That's all it takes is that kind of That's a good full man's meal.
[01:51:38] Unknown:
Yep. That's it. It's all it takes for you know, like, if you were to go to Ireland and get a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, they think that is, like, American rich people gold. And I'm like What? This is like dollar store. Like, I ain't got no money. And they're charging people craft macaroni and cheese that I would spend a dollar on here.
[01:52:05] Unknown:
There are You're not Americans.
[01:52:06] Unknown:
It's like €14 a box, and I'm like, it's
[01:52:12] Unknown:
Someone is telling me but I'm starting to sell. This is Someone was telling me that in Japan you know how anime is really big here? You know, we have to all the Yeah. I don't but, you know, in Japan, they don't watch their own anime, but they think that American culture is Family Guy. So there's they watch popularly Family Guy. Oh, wow.
[01:52:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Wow. That is so sad, though. I know. I can't think of a a worse representation
[01:52:43] Unknown:
of the American man. Couldn't we be American dad, not Family Guy? Yeah. Like, I mean, that's such a
[01:52:50] Unknown:
step up maybe. At least he's at least he's a at least he's more progressive. I can
[01:52:55] Unknown:
They're they're the they're the same writers, Britney. Like, they're all the same writers, and that's why I just came to that conclusion.
[01:53:03] Unknown:
Yeah. The artists and illustrators, they just look the same. So I my brain labels them the same.
[01:53:09] Unknown:
Yeah. And all English people and Irish people, they all think Americans dress like a stereotypical Floridian man with, like, a Hawaiian shirt and, like, socks and, you know, What?
[01:53:26] Unknown:
I have 4 seasons where I live. We don't like that. Hilarious.
[01:53:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And we're all, like, gun crazy. Well we are all every single one of us voted for Bush. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. It's it's these kind of things that people don't they forget that these details
[01:53:46] Unknown:
are just part of what humans do when we gossip about each other, and that's really I like stereotypes. They're my favorite kind of jokes. So it's very typical jokes. I make fun of white people. I make fun of agents. I make fun of everybody.
[01:54:01] Unknown:
No one's, you know, safe for himself. So much here. With the world's 60 days, low low brow comedy is the only good comedy. And everybody wants to be all correct and nice and nice. Dark differences. Funny anymore.
[01:54:17] Unknown:
Dark humor too sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fun intended. Fun of ourselves and and this crazy situations that we're in in life. Right? It's sort of like these stories that you're telling about Odin and stuff. It's like this exaggerated almost like they make themselves look kind of stupid, you know, in some ways, but the lesson is what's important and the humor. Right?
[01:54:40] Unknown:
Oh god. Okay to loosen up and have a little fun and maybe trash talk a little about your neighbor's room or whatever. You know? And then it's not not be so sensitive. Right? Not be so sensitive. That's it. You know, like, all the, that's, like, one of the bigger things that, you know, we see. Like, me and my husband, we see everybody's just triggered by everything, and it's like Yeah. We need to just, like, pull away all the cell phones and start giving our kids quarters so that they can make phone calls at a pay phone or something. And, like, give them a little bit anymore. I know. Like, I feel like buying one for the house phone.
[01:55:22] Unknown:
Like, in Ireland And then take all movies out of the movie stores except for for Blazing Saddles or something of that nature and tell everybody just quit being sensitive. Right? You you you Yeah. You you watch Blazing Saddles, like, 5 or 6 times. You quit being sensitive about things. You're like, alright. Alright. I get you. Because That's it. Why how is life you know, that's the, you know, free will kind of fun element where
[01:55:47] Unknown:
you can't take everything so seriously because what ends up happening and this is something I have to remind myself because, like, I can be a very hard line kind of person with certain things, and I get irritated when people don't do certain things, like like, when people are just being blatantly rude because they want they feel like they it's okay to just be obnoxious, but that's just, like, what they do all the time because they got, like, one reaction one time. Like, I think that kind of stuff is just, like, that's not how you conduct yourself, so I can get a little bit annoyed with stuff like that. But I even have to remind myself, and I think we all do, that you need to be able to loosen up and take a joke and be like, okay. And alright. It's okay to crack a joke about something and not, like Yeah. Just to have fun with, like, a group of people that you find are acceptable to you, like somebody you can people you can be comfortable with.
And every group is different. You know? That's why we have so many movies with, like, the dynamics of, like, the circle of friends, and they're the all the same kind of people, and they all function well together. But they're different from this group because Yep. That's just how that that forms. So it's okay to, like, loosen up and not take things so seriously and, remember that people really are just people. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what the details are of whatever they believe in or want to feel comfortable with.
The only thing that really matters is, are you a good person or are you a bad person? Are you gonna violate rights? Are you gonna respect people's rights? You know, a no. These these are the things that I find the most important with anybody that I come in contact with. So it's okay to it's okay to be friends with people who don't necessarily believe every single little detail you believe in. Or even, you know, bad people have a little bit. Yeah. Life would be boring, right, without scarcity.
[01:58:02] Unknown:
So let's, just kinda start to close-up. And, Ben, any anything you else you wanna share? Any thing that you feel like you left out that's important for us to take away today or summarize?
[01:58:16] Unknown:
I think just the summary of it is just that the basic heathen lifestyle is just a lifestyle of accountability, but it's also a lifestyle of symbiosis. So while you're accountable for yourself, you also have to fit in with other people, and that's part of why the host rights and the guest rights and the things like that are so important. That that as you guys are saying that being a decent person again, the the if somebody shows up at my door and needs food and and water, it doesn't matter what they believe or who they are, what's going on. That's a person. They need food and water. They're gonna die without it. Give it to them. Like, that it's it's the pretty it's pretty simple stuff.
And so but in order to achieve that, we have to be willing to let go of the free pass, in my opinion, accountability, and start being our own people. Because then when I choose that, it's it's I'm choosing to be a decent person. I'm choosing specifically to act in a specific manner. I'm not just some whim of fate or whim of the gods or or or following Christ or whatever. This is me, Benjamin Balderson saying, I'm going to be this person and then making that happen by living that out. And this is this is the basis of heathenism, and it's it's not gonna be for everybody. And that's the other thing. So as Sarah was saying, it doesn't bother me that other people believe other things, and they're and they're all good things because you don't see people going around proselytizing oldenism.
Like, have you, have you heard of our our of the all father? We've got a lighthouse pamphlet. Like, you know, that that's it's not something that we do, and it's honestly not a lifestyle for everybody. I would say, in all honesty that it's more of a rural person's lifestyle than, in in culture than a city person's, period. So, definitely, I'm not saying that that's the end all, beat all, but, I do think that the more traditional aspects of it compared to the world that we're living in now, We need to bring back the respect, the self accountability, the responsibility, the caring about your your future of the land and of your, people.
Because to me, I don't care about the and I also have a problem with the Red Pill guys who are going around and everything with them is about getting money and getting, a tail and things like that with no accountability on that. To me, the height of a man is a husband. And when I say that, I don't necessarily mean as in a marriage. I mean, the husbandry of I'm living on this land, this I'm responsible and accountable, and this is gonna be better land because I am here overseeing it. These animals on this land will have a better life and live and be healthier and better because I am overseeing it, because I make sure because that's what a husband does. My wife lives a better life and so did the people underneath me that are living on my farm because I make the right choices. And when I don't, we all we all suffer.
And so I best be that dude that's making the right choices, doing the right things, and living the life that I'm preaching. That's the one huge thing that you're gonna find in historically different between Roman style, Christian style leadership, and Germanic style leadership. Germanic style leadership leads from the front, which is part of why when Leslie asked, I said, yes. You can absolutely achieve more of a position if you prove dude doing it and doing it the best. You should follow him. And, Leslie and Britney, do you guys have any final thoughts on Ben's
[02:02:31] Unknown:
on Ben's, information or his history?
[02:02:36] Unknown:
I just well, I think it's a really powerful template for, everyone to consider, you know, a way to live in a way that's, I think, oriented to, from my perspective, an an an their natural law way of living. You know? So yeah.
[02:02:55] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm just happy to have, been present and been able to listen. So, yeah, I'm glad to connect you guys again for another month. The ladies, at least. Nice to meet you, Ben.
[02:03:07] Unknown:
It's very nice to meet you. Flintoclass has been awesome, and you guys have been excellent.
[02:03:12] Unknown:
Thank you so much for, you know, taking your time out and, working through the technology in the storm and everything to be here with us. Yeah. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the girls club.
[02:03:25] Unknown:
And that was episode number 11 and stay tuned for next month because that's 1 year. The girls club. So stay tuned and see what we've got going on. And it's gonna be another, great guest that we're gonna have on, and we'll see you next time, guys. Thank you. Bye.
Alright. Cool. So so hey, guys. Welcome to another girl's club. This is episode number 11, and we're here this month with the whole gang. And our next guest, Ben Balderson, And he's going to be discussing with us today Germanic Nordic history and the, and his understandings and the of his history or of his research and the stuff he's found of pagan and animistic, philosophies and practical life wisdom that he has accumulated so far. So, Ben, if you'd like to just introduce yourself and talk about your work a little bit and, your interest and all that.
[00:00:53] Unknown:
Yep. You bet. Yeah. My name's Benjamin Balderson, and, currently, the shows that I'm on are Tuesdays. I'm on a show called deliberating dog faced dudes, which I feel kinda aligns quite a bit with what you guys are doing. And then, typically, I'm on a show Saturday. Saturday is called Weaving Spider's Webs. That's on hiatus right now because, 2 of the 4 people are getting ready to have a baby in December, so that's obviously a very important and time consuming thing. So we're on a break on that one. But if you type Benjamin Balderson into YouTube or anything, I'm basically everywhere.
I've been on pro 777, I think, 14 or 15 times, something like that, and, Freeman Fly and you name it. So, been all over the place, and I'm happy to be talking to you guys from Flats Overfest at that.
[00:01:53] Unknown:
Yeah. What would you say are your main topics that you, that you talk about?
[00:02:01] Unknown:
Primarily, I the thing I speak about the most is, I'm an alchemist, and I'm an actual laboratory alchemist. So when I'm speaking about it, most people speak, more on exclusively what they call a spiritual alchemy, which isn't even actually alchemy. That's a misnomer. Young was a brilliant psychologist, and some of the symbology and and this isn't his own writings. This isn't my this isn't me critiquing him. In his own writings, he found in some alchemy pictures things that matched his visions and dreams and, his understandings of society. And so he incorporated that into his understandings, but never actually performed alchemy.
So it was a very truncated understanding of of it. And so while I do appreciate that the psychology that he does has some very deep meanings, he was in no way an alchemist. I'm actually a laboratory alchemist that does that does the work. The second most, thing that I get talked about the most is is I'm a I'm a heath. Practice the actual heath, which means that I follow Odin. I live in the old ways. I actually live off grid. And I wouldn't call it religious because there's no priest or anything like that, but there are specific ways that the high one reasons for those recommendations.
And while there's no religious penalties for not following them, like, one of the simple ones is is the number of times Odin cautions against getting drunk and including listing a few stories of one where he got too drunk and ended up the prisoner of a giant in a a really bad situation that not would have not have come about at all had he kept his wits about him and not taking in too much alcohol. So this is so it is not, I'm gonna punish you. You're, I'm gonna send you to hell. It's, hey, man. You can do this if you want, but I gotta tell you, it's not gonna work out great. But
[00:04:37] Unknown:
I didn't Whoops. I know I was needed. I said it it sounds like natural law to me, the teachings of
[00:04:44] Unknown:
cause and effect. Right? Yeah. It's they're all they're they're all very, like, when I first and this is interesting because myself and my path, through this metaphysical and spiritual understandings. Before I ever came to Odinism, I even, attended Jewish rabbinical school for a while, not because I wanted to be a Jewish rabbi, but because what did they say again? What did they teach? And I don't know. And if I don't go look at their stuff, then I'll never know, and you can if you didn't tell me if you didn't go, you don't really know either. And I'm that person that if I gotta if I'm gonna judge something, I gotta go check it out for real. And so you know? And I've been to Native American ceremonies. I've been to Hindu ceremonies. I've been to you name it.
And for some reason and I have, some theories on this, and I'm not gonna air out with you guys for, you know, it's not the proper venue. But I have some theories why this is that Northern European people tend to wanna veer away from what was our natural culture. And, so it was the last thing I came to, but when I finally did read the Havamal, which is basically a consolidation of, Odin's words where there's numerous stories similar to, like, so many other, religious texts, it's actually a collection of books or stories, and it's no different in this. And so the have them all is a consolidation of just the portions where Odin is interacting and speaking.
And so that just consolidates down that specific part. And when I I read that originally, which most of it comes out more in the manner of, like, a proverb, like I was just saying with the drinking or, one of my favorite ones is if you have a a a a close friend, do not let the grass between your houses grow tall because we're tall grass grows, friendship dies. You know, simple things like that that, you know, it's like, well, I already live like this. Like, this is these were all things that did I write this book? Like, you know, so it wasn't I had didn't have to go through there was a couple things, not gonna lie, mostly around the the host rights and, the things that you need to do as a host. And I am not as and I think that's just our culture. I'm not as naturally giving. I am a generous person, but not as giving and as generous as is as close to required to you as anything is possibly required in in our culture.
[00:07:42] Unknown:
So do you do you identify that this study is bringing you back in time to kind of original pagan lifestyle? Is this, like, a historical, document in some way?
[00:07:57] Unknown:
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:07:59] Unknown:
That history. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:08:02] Unknown:
So and and this is for a lot of people, and this is where things get interesting, and this is part of why Marcus and I started deliberating dog faced dudes, is I'm gonna come off very or traditional. And so a lot of people then immediately, think I'm like some Republican and all of this nonsense, and and that's absolutely not the case at all. But so heathen lifestyle first starts. You have to remember, this is, in my opinion, the, kind of the opposite of civilization where and when I say civilization, I mean empire, where you have these overwhelming masses of people that all need to fit in this one uniform life, and there's very little variance in any way that they live.
Where heathen lifestyles were more of a tribal thing. And so and even inside the tribal things, they actually the the entire society surrounds itself around what they call a car. And so a carol is actually translates into free man. And so this was the the man that owned farms is really who this was. And as a person that could own your that did own your own land, and I know that in today's, woke world, they try to present these people as, like, landed gentry and things like that, but that was not at all the case. These people weren't overly wealthy. And in fact, if you ever take the time to listen to Tacitus' Germania, Even, Tacitus, when he's talking about the germ psyche, they don't particularly care about money at all. Okay? I don't understand it. In fact, in fact, one of the most amazing things for him was that they even preferred silver to gold. Why? Because it was easier to exchange for silver for useful things. Gold was hard, like and they didn't want it. Is well, this is okay. I want this cool thing over here. So the money in and of itself didn't mean anything to them.
So this wasn't a landed gentry situation. This was a competent person situation. And if you, as a competent willful person, were able to maintain a piece of land. And so here's where things get real funny with me because then people somewhat can take me as a socialist because then the people inside my land is because this is the way I live, personally. And I have people that live on my farm and sometimes they come and go. And everybody at the farm eats at my table, and that and that's a fact. I pay for every bit of it, but every bit of say on that farm is my say. And so nobody else there's no voting. It's nothing like that, which does not mean that I don't take into account the the words of the people that are living under me for not a, if you have a bunch of unhappy people, things don't work right.
And then, b, sometimes your people know more about certain subjects than you do or saw something in something that you didn't. So why wouldn't you take their opinions or their their advices into account? But at the end of the day, nobody gets a vote. There's times that nobody else wants to do a thing, and I'm like, no. This is the way this is going down. And it's because, again, as I explained, they didn't really care about money. So it's not like I'm trying to live gloriously above everybody else. I'm just trying to make sure our table always is well fed, all of us, because we all eat at the same table and eat the same food. So this is and even to the point where actually slaves that did exist in Germanic society would not be what you would consider a slave.
So even Tacitus admits this that he said slaves are the weirdest things in German society. They are basically a tenant. They have to pay the landlord a portion of what they make in order to stay on their land, and that's what slavery is. And most of them will get rid of their slaves at first chance. So this was because it was actually kind of embarrassing to own slaves. Like, dude. Dude, you're a slave. Like, come on now. Get your shit together. And so this was kind of an embarrassing thing for them in that society. They did not care for it.
So while that part of it socialist, then again, it's very traditional where, again, the man the man is the head of the society. And only the Carls the the Carls are the heads of each farm, and they're the only ones who get a say so in society at all. Like, the the, the Jarl, which is is close to a king is or they try is just a tribal leader. All the Carls have to agree with any given plan or else it doesn't work out. He doesn't they don't have to do it. They're free men. Like, okay. Your plan's good. We'll go do that. If it sucked, we're not doing that, bro. And so there was a lot of pride in in being with an advantageous Jarl who had good plans, and you could be a kingsman that was something to be proud of. And there was a lot of honor and pride in that, and including that most of these clans were all, you know, family clans. So it it these were not, until the Catholics came and created incest, you know, that was not a thing where you went out and got wives from all over. And despite, modern, portrayals, Vikings actually and this is again recorded in history rather than watching movies where Vikings are running off, grabbing women, and snatching them up, and taking them home. Actually, Vikings were super isolationist and almost refused to intermix with other people.
And that's why the first descriptions of them almost singularly were extraordinarily tall, broad people, striking blue eyes, typically, red hair, typically, you know, big red beards, typically. And then there's also descriptions that aren't so you know, there are great that aren't great, like, and this is part of what made them such great warriors, explosive, incredible strengths, can do insane things in a short duration, but they aren't gonna work Germans don't do that. And and in fact, they're they're they would make horrible slaves according to Romans because they don't do well in heat and are are thirsty all the time. It's so So you said you went out slave qualities. The guy's only gonna work for about an hour real hard and then yeah. He said, you know, the the Caesar's like, these aren't great slaves. They're gonna they're gonna work hard for an hour, want a bunch to drink, and they're done for the day. Like, hey. This is this is not great slaves.
So that it was just very interesting observations about the way these people work. They, again, they weren't empire driven either. So part of what keeps you at work 40 hours a week is because you're building empire. If you just want your food and your your shelter taken care of and have a family, well, that starts getting real cheap. That starts getting real cheap. And and in fact, when you if if anybody is ever interested in the off grid lifestyle, they actually typically go about it as backwards, where they will immediately start trying to take and save an extra large reserve of money in order to go set themselves up with this lifestyle. And, really, the first thing you need to do if you are gonna go off, live off grid, is start axing every need that you could possibly imagine that you can live without. Get rid of it. Be done with it. It's gonna be too hard for you to maintain.
It's not gonna be productive in your life. And when you start living off grid, you're gonna realize different things are now important to you. Like, you don't care about how pretty things are. You care you know, to some degree, obviously, nobody wants to live in a trash heap, but you're not doing things like very key sheet, little things like trinkety things and things that are gonna get broken and things that aren't gonna be useful and things that aren't durable. All those little, you know, fancy little toy things that, you know, that that are on at midnight on on TV and you shouldn't be up ordering stuff that they're trying to hawk. None of that stuff is gonna apply. Like, we make our own bread. My wife bakes bakes our own bread, and makes sourdough.
We grind our own wheat. And when you do it, you can't go and get this $250 grinder that works good for making one loaf every month if you're trying to actually live off these things. I had guided to get the $1,000 cast iron grinder, and it's gotta be that one because that one does double odd flour and can change. And if you wanna have nice little, like, pastries and things like that with the fine flaky crust, you need to be able to do odd double odd and and not just the big grainy grain. So all these things when you're starting to look at the way you're gonna try and live. But I went years it's only been about a year and a half I've even had Internet, and that's because Steve Poitkinen, from AM wake up and slow news days and, union of the unwanted.
He moved in with me for a while, and, he lives literally, he, like, he puts in so much work and effort into podcasting and doing shows that he that's his living. And so he had to have Internet, and that's the I I didn't have Internet. I don't have TV. You go outside and find other things to do. Animals are very entertaining, and all these things quit mattering. And at that point, when I go into the city, I get kinda sick. Like like, I've been ill for, like, 4 days, and that's just for me being in the city. I everything buzzes. At night, I can hear literally every sound on my farm. In the city, the whole city buzzes. If I go into somebody's house, it still sounds like a beehive in their house. All the electronics in the house make a buzz, and you don't notice it because you've never been out of it. But when you've not been in it, you're like, why is your house sound so loud?
That's really weird, man. And so all these things that you live without that you can and you don't even know it, you start learning to live without, and that's how you live off grid. When I first moved off grid, I pulled up with the Winnebago. I used to drive down to the river and fill a 55 gallon barrel up and drive that up top, and we'd run that through a a little recycling heater until the 55 gallon barrel was warm and then switch it from going into the little heater into going over and overhead, and that was the shower. And that's what you did dishes with and whatever.
And life was fantastic. And was it rough? Yes. But every time you upgrade, the appreciation that you have for it as opposed to this, you need to move into a premade, predone, this farm that you don't need to put any work into. The appreciation that you have for us is a 100 fold greater. And here's the other problem. That person that moves on to that farm doesn't know how to do any of the work. And so when they move on there and I promise you, if there's one thing on a farm, I can guarantee it's gonna break. What is it? I don't know. It's gonna break. Something today, something tomorrow, something later today, you know, it's gonna break. And so if you did not build it, you did not put it together, you think you can just move into it like a Barbie house and just start living this off grid lifestyle, which no plumbers coming out to fix my plumbing. No electricians come because I do have a generator, and I have electrical, and I have that a solar. Nobody's coming out to fix that. Nobody's coming out to do my roof. None of it. If if it happens on my farm, I have to fix it. I have to know how it works.
So if it's something somebody else made for me, that's much harder for me to try and fix and go backtrack the thing. And the thing Odin says, and this is what this all all of this is Odin's biggest first message to you, and that is it is better to live on your own land even if you live in a shack with nothing but a couple of goats than to be a slave in somebody else's system. So if you don't have it made yet, fine. Better to be a better to be that dude than a slave living rich here. And so that's what I did. And now my life is much easier, much nicer.
You know, we have full time running water that's gravity fed and into a nice water tank, and and, we're transitioning. We've been on propane, but we're transitioning over to, biogas where your toilet runs the the your poop from your toilet goes into a container, and then that gets pressurized and that feeds into your natural gas fittings. And, you're you can depending on the size of the bag, you can do 4 to 6 people for a water heater and a stove per day. And if you need more, I have I have a farm with pigs and cows, which is extremely methane heavy. And so you're just running off methane, which is actually despite what they are trying to present in the media, an extraordinarily clean gas. And I say this as a chemist and an alchemist.
I'm actually a very, well known in California organic chemist. And so when you look at the hydrocarbon gases, the two things that are involved are hydrogen and carbon. And so now the question is how many carbons and how many hydrogens? And methane, you're you're talking about, is methane too high 2 carbons as opposed to a lot of other gases where you're talking about a whole lot more carbon, which I don't believe obviously, I'm not with the whole carbon nonsense story. That's just insanity at its finest. But when you're just looking at the cleanliness of a gas, it is actually an extraordinarily clean gas. So to be able to just produce that on my own farm, now again, I'm not relying on once that's in in place, I'm not relying on the system at all. The more free I can be from the system, the more free I can be. But to try to live like a city person, impossible.
So, again, cut down your lifestyle, look at how roughing it would be, and then to do it successfully for a very long time. And so then you start doing things like your gardening and, like, right now. We put in our tomatoes and it's a calculation. And so I eat about 4 jars of tomato sauce of some form, big mason jars a week, whether it's spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, tomato paste, blah blah blah. So in order if I'm eating 4 week, at times 52 weeks a year, that means I need about, 200 a little over 200 jars of tomatoes. So I need to it takes this in to make one of those jars takes, about a pound about 2 pounds of tomatoes by the time all the you know, it's boiled down and everything's removed out. Takes a couple pounds of tomatoes, so now I'm gonna have to in order to fill that quote and start growing enough tomatoes for this, and that's gonna apply for all my different foods.
And then we don't start and, again, while I'm not gonna say the words of the things that happened in 2020, We all saw the supply chain problems that derived because of it. And so if you want to not suffer that again, and we all see it coming. We all do. We've all seen what's going on in the stores and and the way things are all of a sudden getting like that again. And, yeah, I realize there's been a recent because of the election drop in the fuel prices, but it's like any of us believe that's gonna last in any way. Like, we don't know that November is coming, and this is just a a a a quick shot for that. So if you don't want your food eating daily and eating nice food taken away, stock your own and grow your own. It starts again, this is Odin's words. Don't be a slave to that dude. Now instead of them deciding when I get to eat, I decide when I get to eat. And that's just a personal absolute responsibility.
And so one of the other giant variances in this is that I haven't brought in and and with the ladies here is then the relationship part. And so this is again gonna be very traditional because in my house, the man is the absolute head. It is an absolute patriarchy. But in saying that, my wife is the heart of my home and the heart of my farm. And so in heathen society, and this was very odd especially during the time period, women had full rights and which didn't mean that not the Wicca nonsense where they're shield maidens and blah blah blah. No. In fact, just the term shield implies defense. That's your defense. That's not a sword maiden.
It's a shield. She's staying home. She is taking care of the property. She is your best interest, and your best interest is taking care of the entire farm. And so this was where that came in. But in that, if you mistreated your wife, if you didn't make her happy, she had full right to divorce you. She had full right to lead. Also, specifically, it was a very monogamous society. And that's again a a thing that's misportrayed where it's these people are out raping and pillaging and having sex with whoever. No. In the actual histories, if you read them, highly monogamous and once again would not interbreed with other people. Like, I have a wife. I have a wife at home.
Keep to yourself. That's just a fact. I don't disrespect my wife. That is insanity at its finest. She is the one who's gonna take my children when they're small and instill them with my values and make them strong and healthy and make my and make our future together something that's real while I'm out taking care of her and I and that. And so for for me to not have that as somebody that's perfectly aligned on my team would piece stupidity at its finest. This is, I think, again, where I bring back in the Catholic church when they started make forcing the intermixing between people. Well, now instead of having somebody that has my beliefs and is gonna, you know, while, again, the incest subject is touchy, you know, which is not scientific at all at all, I I I'm a I choose organic biology all the time. It's it's insanity. It's just some stuff the per which doesn't mean that I think sisters and brothers and things like that. But, typically, your your cousins, second, third cousins in any village in any before modern travel was gonna any person in any village was gonna be your second or third cousin. But the thing is is then when you 2 intermarried, they both were gonna have a a a vested interest in the upraising of the family, the upraising of the village. They're gonna share values and traits. And so when you start bringing in, getting these wives from other places, like, they tried to portray it as which was actually a Roman culture because the Romans subsumed all the other cultures where he then isolated.
Now you have somebody raising your children without your values. And this is where you have a a a system that starts degrading very quickly because if the if 2 things, if you don't have a vested interest in the future because your children are something that is important, then you become very hedonist and he we all see hedonism. That's 90% of people today. I'm living for to to to the moment. YOLO. You only live once. I'm gonna burn it all right now to the ground because I'm gonna be dead and who cares. Like, that is not a lasting future.
And then if your children are not instilled with your values, the future you're gonna have is gonna be torn and and and and horrible because you're gonna have values again as we're seeing today where our values were not carried on and the values that have taken over are are very conflicting. And so you see in the especially in the Northern European people, even the ones that live in America, an extreme issue where so many of them have been pushed into the Abrahamic Pantheons. But you can see, like it's funny because I can you can say you're almost anything else and all the Christians will growl about it and you're a demon.
And they still some of them, I admit, absolutely still do that to me, but you can watch as soon as as soon as I say no. I follow Odin. You you can see all of a sudden a bunch of guys will sit up a little bit straighter and just like and you you just see it. Like, they there's a yearning for that responsible where you get to go prove yourself and you get to be your own man and be somebody and honor your ancestors and honor your children and family becomes everything. That life is something that we miss and that we need, and it's in them, and they want it, and it is something that's been torn away. And I I do have a hard time because some of the ortho more orthodox Christians that is they are more for the nuclear family type thing and then with that, you know, more traditional. So I have a hard time with some of those guys because they're producing a similar lifestyle to what I would promote. So when I say hard time, you know, I'm not as attackful to that group as as, a lot of your heathens or pagans would be because when, you know, while I don't agree with their particular religion and I think that the Christianity in and of itself only breeds weakness because you're asking immediately. You were never a good person. You have no ability to be a good person. It's only through the having somebody else let you in the back door. Hey. I'm with this dude. Cool. You can come in the party. That's but you're never cool. You're not really. You're just only in here because this guy said so.
And that's a that's such a self defeating. I I couldn't even imagine waking up every day and going, yeah. I'm just a piece of crap. And but thank god there's a dude that says I'm not. One dude says I'm not, so it's cool. I I I can't possibly imagine how you would think that a society rate with that mentality is gonna be a self responsible society. I I don't know. But the orthodox do seem to manage it to some degree, so I can't complain when I see the fruits of what they're saying. So I do have a hard time with them because, like I said, I would normally like to be very oppositional, and some of that I can't be oppositional because, again, they're they're the more traditional, and I do agree with that. But I also would state that that was a subsuming of the Germanic lifestyle.
Because if you look at the Abrahamic world, the Abrahamic world moved through Rome and through Greece and then into the Northern European worlds. And in the north and then if you look at the way things were in Rome and in Greece, they didn't act like us. And then it's only through the subsuming Alexander the great style, we'll kinda merge with your religious beliefs, let you keep your holidays as long as you pay taxes to us and follow our governors that you so that's where this, move of you see so many and celebrations pushed into the mixed into the Christian lifestyle that if you took all those out and went strictly with the original where it moved into Greece and Rome, it would not those two things would be completely, you know, different, I think. I think that the thing that we see today is already the dramatic influence on the on the Abrahamic Pantheon in order to make it acceptable for Northern Europe.
[00:33:41] Unknown:
Wow. Okay. Let's pause for a moment and just see if if our ladies have some questions so far. Well,
[00:33:49] Unknown:
I I actually wanted to respond on the part about kind of some of the Germanic values. I actually come from, like, a very Germanic family. Even the cemetery that my family is laid at is called and named Valhalla.
[00:34:06] Unknown:
Right.
[00:34:07] Unknown:
But seriously. And, it's very fascinating because now my great grandpa, and I'm not sure about his father, he was a freemason, but my grandmother, she definitely ended up going Christian. But it's been interesting because as I've reconnected with my ancestry, like, distant and then more immediate, I find, like, hard work is a value that has been passed down from generation to generation. Just hard work, consistency. And I just seen so many even, like, smoking meat, like, that's just a tradition that's been passed down from father to son and and so on in my family and family strong family values. And it's just very interesting because even though like, some of my family, they were raised Christian, like, for the last 85 years or so, they still have those very strong values that almost seem to I don't know if it's epigenetic or in the DNA, but it's just been really interesting to see how those older values and practices are still present even without our family having, connections to, I guess, the more ancient past before Christianity.
[00:35:36] Unknown:
Exactly. And actually, weaving spiders, one of our last episodes, it was just myself and Alan Marcus, and we had a gentleman named Christopher Macintosh, who is an occult mess. He's he was he's hung out with Bray ass when and he's hung out with every old name that you can imagine that everybody talks about. He's he's one of them. And we had talked about that, the Germanic yearning. And I believe that part of the problem that ends up is this this lifestyle carried through. But I think where we end up with a yearning and a need on on a more religious level is because we don't have our treats, and that's something they took away. And it was one of the very specific practices.
You can look at, Charlemagne. Charlemagne went and slaughtered, a whole legions of Danes, just went in and start piecemeal slaughtering people that didn't follow Christianity, and then cut down Irminsul, which was Odin's tree. I believe it's Saint Boniface that, cut down, Donar's tree, and that's actually, I talked about this with Christopher, is still celebrated by the church. They have a monument till we cut down Thor's tree. You know, that's Donar and Germanic is is the that's the the Thor god. They we cut down that tree, and they got a church right there, and and they have a plaque right there. And this is where our our, saint, you know, came here and wiped you heathens out and cut down your your sacred things.
And while they forced it on us, and I think that World War 2, I think a lot of the propaganda that, was post World War 2, I think a lot of World War 2 was transitioning in order to create the heavy, heavy white guilt and then the disconnect to their actual culture where they're almost scared to touch it.
[00:37:42] Unknown:
Like like told me. It's funny you say that. My family the only German word to be passed down in my family is Gesundheit, which is essentially like, hang help or bless you. Yeah. And, they stopped speaking it after the war because they were ashamed of being sermons and feeling associated with Hitler and stuff. Because they were never place keepers. Even like you said, place were weird over there. It was more of like an indentured servant than it was. Yeah. And, you know, even like the head son, like, he would be sleeping on the floor with the indentured service. Everybody starts from the ground, and they kind of work their their way up. And it's Exactly.
You do with your time, and it's what you do with the opportunity applies, essentially.
[00:38:34] Unknown:
Exactly. Yeah. They didn't even want you to be indentured. They they they, like, paid the debt off, bro, put being a slave. It's embarrassing for both of us. Like, if they didn't and and actually and this is written in the histories and documented that they did not the slaves did not do all the housework. The slaves didn't go run around doing all your work for you. You still did your own work. They gave you a portion like a rental, but they're living on your property. Why wouldn't why would you be able to live for free on my property and take from my resources and not provide back to the table you're eating out of? That's insanity. So it's not even a bad system, and it wouldn't fit under what in our western our western language would say, call a slave in any way, shape, or form.
[00:39:24] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:39:25] Unknown:
What are some of the other, like, social, lessons or guidelines, you know, that come from the heathen tradition?
[00:39:33] Unknown:
So if you ever go to read the Havamal and and so, again, understand, like, one of the first things that Tacitus said was, these people don't live by each other. They don't make cities. I'm not sure that they even like each other, like, because we would live so isolated away from each other. But in that situation, because of that, there's extreme host rights, where if somebody shows up at my at my doorstep, and it doesn't matter what color, what what country, what sex, if you show up at my doorstep, I am as close to obligated by law to feed you and put you by a fire if it's cold and give you something to drink as there is in that culture at all.
There's a specific story actually where Odin is having another is having an argument with another goddess, and Odin is is throwing all kinds of slurs about her son. And your son's lazy and he's ugly, he stinks and he's worthless and he's got no honor. And she looked at Odin and said and it wasn't his his son specific directly, but like a a a son heir later on down the road. Right? Like, he's a god, so he's not died in 1 generation. This is many generations down. Like, yours your son is a bad host, and that stopped the argument right there. Odin immediately left, went to go see went to this, you know, descendant's house and then hid himself as the traveler and got led into the house. Well, the first person he meets is the second son, and the second son is a good son, and he takes Odin and his horse in and he's like, don't worry about it. I got this thing.
You know, I got this horse taken care of for you, sir. Make yourself comfortable. And Odin says, no. I'm going up to the castle. I'm gonna go up there. He was you don't wanna go up there. They aren't real nice up there. He's like, no. No. That is where I'm gonna go though. So Odin goes up there and he disguised, and when he gets there, they were very nasty to him and rude and things devolve to the point where they tie him up to a post and start torturing him physically. And then eventually, when he doesn't die, they light him on fire. And Odin lets himself be tortured for 3 days. And during that 3 days, he watches every person that misbehaved to this guest that showed up at their door. And every person, when he left, the vac crew was dead. The second son now ran the entire thing.
So while it's not a law, oh, mistreat your guests. One of them might be Odin, see how it pans out for you.
[00:42:25] Unknown:
There's a similar a similar story and lesson in, Vedic. I think in in one of the Vedic texts, it's, you know, you don't never know who who's knocking at your door, and it might be God in disguise, you know, Krishna or something.
[00:42:42] Unknown:
Yep. Exactly. So the the host writes, even to the point where, also, if when you're at my house, you highly admire something, you can have it. And and this weirds people out a little bit, you know, because people are over generosity is, at this in our culture is such a narcissistic, trait where you're overly generous and then you've got some type of ownership over this person and they're indebted to you. And so a lot of people immediately, will have a little bit of a weird reaction if you're like, well, then have it. You know? And, but on the same token, in our culture, if I if you have something I wanted that I like, you need to give that to me too. So it's a very symbiotic. Or or if I put you up for a few days, you probably need to go out and chop up a quart of wood or 2 and help me put away some wood for the winter.
You know, something along that effect where you're not just the leech of a person because while there is a host, right, so there's also guest rules. And as a guest and and some of the guest rules even include things like, nobody likes somebody that knows everything in their house. You know, when you're in somebody's house, you you let them lead the conversation. You let them shine. It's not your you're not the king here. Let the king shine. Don't overshine the king. That's not a good plan. Things like that, you know, don't overstay your welcomes. Don't don't take too much and not give back.
The so it sounds and and again, which in this society, it's not. But to a normal person, you're like, well, these are all kind of very common sense things. This is just how you live as a decent person. What are you even talking about? How is this even almost a religion? Like, you know, like, what are we talking about here? But if that is ends up what it is, is just being a damn decent person and understanding that other people need to live. Other people are gonna make mistakes. Other people need to have their own freedoms. But, again, there is also a class that it's a class system, and a lot of people aren't gonna understand that. So, again, where we I we've talked about the Yarl and the Carl, the people who live on the Carl's farm are are thralls.
And so the thrall isn't really as a free man. He is. He could go live on another farm. But if you're going and living on a farm, are you a free on somebody else's farm, are you a free man? No. You're now his his dude. You're following his rules, his you're his responsibility. You're he you're gonna have to pay tribute to him because you're his responsibility. You're not a free man. Only thing we recognize as a free man is an independent man. So that whole word free and this is where I have a problem with a lot of communities where they wanna go on and bang on about being free. No. Free isn't the thing. You don't get freedom without independence. If you cannot be self sufficient, self independent, there is no such thing as freedom for you. You're at somebody else's mercy, and that means you get to and the further you get in that system and they do make it comfy to start. They sold they sold a nice package. You know? Hey. We'll we'll pay all your basic bills and your basic needs and your medicals, and and you can have cables and everything else. And now we're starting to see the decline of that. We're and and and they declined the money that was gonna even be available.
And pretty soon, everybody's gonna still have that equal amount in that system, but there's gonna be a whole lot less of that amount to be shared around. And that's gonna be a real problem. And so you don't even get a choice on whether you get to not be in part of that bad decision because you threw down your chips with that. You're gonna eat whatever you get. I'm not.
[00:46:50] Unknown:
So could someone, exit a farm and in attempt to create their own independence, you know, like, change class? 100%.
[00:47:00] Unknown:
Yeah. And that was that was the thing. This wasn't a family based or, again, a financial based, system. This was a competent based system. So if this if there wasn't somebody running this land, you wanted to go off and do your thing and you had enough gumption to do it, it's not easy. I would highly recommend there's a movie that's recently come out, and it's about, I believe, 1600 Danish life. It's called the promised land. And it's this guy that just goes out, and he goes and lives in this area nobody else is living in and starts farming it, and that's gonna expand the you know, he's doing it in the king's name. I'm not saying do it in the king's name. But, the idea is the king wasn't really helping him. And until he started succeeding, the king didn't help at all. It's only when he started going out, proving it could be done, proving I'm my own man. I can I can take care of land? Look. I can even take care of land and send you some bags of food. And the king's like, they said food?
They have extra? Well and now the king's now suddenly in in interested in investing into that land. And now this guy has a title, and they immediately give him a title and give him people underneath that that are working. But before you ever get to that point, you need to prove yourself as not only can and this is the thing as a husband, and this is part of where so many men are going wrong and young men, is your first step and as as a man, when you decide to become a man, is to become independent. And this is part of why in heathen villages, they would kick the boys out.
And if you can go live for a year out by yourself, there's a couple things that have happened. You come back and you're no longer a net negative to the village. You have become a man. You do not require things from the village. You can live all on your own. You are providing for yourself. Now you're a net positive for the village. We want you on our team. And so you are a man. You're on our team, bro. But then also with that, now that I'm an independent man that takes can take care of myself, maybe I don't like that village. Maybe I don't like the way you guys are living. I don't wanna be part of your team.
I've I've now been away from your team for a while, and I'm I'm doing pretty good. I don't really need to be part of that. And so we if you did join back in with these tribes, there was the tribe was gaining a benefit, and you were gaining a benefit because this was tribe was living in a way you wanted. And so you wanna be part of this system. You wanna be a beneficial, honorable person. And so then now that I've been providing for myself, if I can provide extra, now I can look at taking on a wife because I can feed me and somebody else. And so many of these young people today, and I know it sounds so wonderful, and we built it together. Well, don't expect her to treat you like the man then either, bro, because you built it together. She's just as much the man as you, and so don't expect her to give you that place that you didn't earn.
You'll never get it. You didn't earn it. And I don't know what to tell you about that. It sounds harsh, but it's just the way it is. And so if now at this point, though, I've become responsible and proven myself enough, competent and responsible enough to provide for not just a wife, but we're obviously gonna have children. And now I can have other people living on on my land, and now my land is producing much more, and all these people are living good. And it was a highly honorable thing to be in that system. And so these thralls, they were not even people that were, like like because our language today puts a a negative connotation on the word.
But it was a highly honorable thing to live under a good Carl and under a good Jarl. Like, we're we're successful. We eat what we want. We do what we we live good. How are you living? And, you know, so this was not the system that we're given today. Like, even at the independence of our country where they tried to make it out to be, oh, these were landed gentry. Well, then how is it that indentured servants work their way into having their own land, which happened a lot? In fact, people would sell themselves into indentured servant servitude in order to come here and earn that position. So all you had to do then when you decide to have your own land, who were you buying it from? The nobody?
Nobody owned it. You said that piece over there, that's mine. I'm gonna put some posts up. Inside those posts, that's mine, and I'm man enough to take care of it. And this is where, traditionally, in the United States anyways, we have been always been very heavy on homesteading laws. And even today, the homesteading laws have a lot more power and quirk to them than what people wanna understand. Because if you're living on a land and you're working that land, that's your land.
[00:52:25] Unknown:
Alright. Any any comments or questions, ladies?
[00:52:31] Unknown:
No. I was just listening, and I'm enjoying the history aspects of it because it's usually my favorite parts of it. But I would just like to add, like, the re you know, history I've read about that kind of stuff and the backgrounds of, like, all these different cultures, you know, whatever the culture may be, and whatever society that people agreed to live within, it always really depended on, like, whether or not you had, like, a good, you know, a good, community leader or a bad one always depends on the individuals, still at the end of the day. You know? So, I think, you know, with the way drama works with TV and movies, of course, they're always going to paint a dramatic and dark and negative light on many things, you know, because it's, you know, far more interesting because you're like, yeah. You know, now what's he gonna do? You know? And, yeah, it's just like what modern people love about TV is all that kind of stuff. But really, history, if you wanna know anything about it for real, you have to do reading, like, going to the library and researching and stuff, like, you know, and, like, you brought up Christianity and some of the problems with Christianity, which well, I wouldn't necessarily say it's Christianity on a large that's the issue. It's really I would feel the Catholic church is the issue on the large scale.
Because like with research that I've done with even that culture is that there is I found that there is a big difference between ancient Christianity, which follows more like natural law principles, morality, ethics, and more traditional values where then you have modern Christianity, which is anything after the emperor Constantine when they brought in, you know, they developed Catholicism as a a large institution, and it became a completely different thing. You know? So,
[00:54:51] Unknown:
I mean I I couldn't agree more. By the way, this is part of why I made that caveat of having a harder time with the orthodox community because, like you're saying, the Catholics there, whoo. I I I couldn't agree more with what you're saying.
[00:55:07] Unknown:
Yeah. So, like, you know, it's funny when, you know, we when we do end up talking about stuff like Christianity and other religions. Like me, personally, I don't care what belief or religion people want to be a part of because I know that the individual is not necessarily you know, how they live their life is not necessarily, like, based on whatever doctrine. So I'm pretty open that way. Like, the other everybody will usually will probably tell you I'm like that. Like, I work a lot with the community on a larger scale and they're of all walks of life. And what I found is as long as they live morally, ethically, they use care, they treat each other with common courtesy, they behave in a way where we don't allow violations to take place and we don't other people's rights. You know? These are, you know, I think the things that can really unite us Yeah. As a human race instead of letting all the nitpicky little details divide us into all these little factions where now we're, like, name calling and just being generally discourteous towards each other for the sake of whatever, you know, impulse or emotional trigger we wanna have. So, you know, I I think that's I think I always think it's encouraging that when different people who have this difference or that difference and everybody can come together and be like, well, we all agree on this one thing, and that's that's usually the most important
[00:56:51] Unknown:
aspect. Yeah. A 100%. Could again, couldn't agree more. That's why, like, when I say that the the more traditional you know, the Orthodox Christians that's the the people that they produce, I tend to align with much more than so many other people, including what most people would even call pagans, you know, like the Ostrue community and things like that. Like, some of the things that they're doing, like, where they're doing the Wiccan and the polytheistic or not the polytheist, the, polyam polyamory and things like that. And it's like, you guys are just you're not actually trying to be heathens. You're just doing the weird new agey thing, and that's fine too, but it's not it's not what I do at all. So I actually align more with the value systems of the orthodox Christians, which is a real hard thing to say in a lot of times, but it's it just is how it pans out. You know? It's the the fruit of the tree. You know? That's the way it works.
[00:57:54] Unknown:
I have a question about how the ancient societies perceived the gods. You know? Were they expressions, like, in part of natural phenomenon? That seems part of it. And then also, like, you know, it personify personification of right and wrong, you know, where and then there's where did they where they treated as actual people in a sense? Or what it what makes a god? You know?
[00:58:26] Unknown:
So the in the heathen pantheons, like, for starts, I'm an oldness, and that's part of why I I somewhat clarify this. And in today's comic book understandings of that, people think that that's kind of an obvious thing, but it's actually not an obvious thing at all. While he was king of the gods, there's a lot that comes with that, and a lot of people did not identify with Odin or the way Odin sees things. So when you're looking at the the pantheon in of itself, actually, the gods themselves were more popular. Depending on what class you were from, the upper class people tended to follow Tyr more, and Tyr was, what I would it it's more of a sky father figure type being.
Now I would have we could do a whole show on the contentions that I have with some of the positions that have been assigned to a lot of these different gods. In fact, I actually was even having that argument earlier today about Freya, where they put down Freya as a god of love and fertility. And I said, where in the stories does she represent love and fertility? Tell me that story, please. Because while I will say that she represents greed and lust and beauty and, you know, some things like that. War. And, I I even wouldn't even call her war because they don't situation that she actually goes to war.
She's really just kinda this pretty piece that doesn't do anything, throughout any of the stories, and the story that she does the most in is well, the story she's in the most is the one where she leaves her husband to go to these dwarves, and these dwarves want to do vaguely sexual things with her in order to give her information on how to get this necklace. And which she does all these things and then comes back with the pretty necklace, which the the infidelity, the the greed, the lust, those are all represent he and never comes back. And she actually spends substantial amounts of time trying to find him, but he's like, nah. I'm out. And so in no way do I see in the stories and, actually, her 2 daughters, when translated, can translate into lust and greed.
And so where these other connotations got put on to where I'm like and so, again, this happened with Odin in in many ways. So Tyr was typically your upper class followed Tyr more often, and he, a lot of times, is called the war god, and I can see why he would be called the war god. I can see why is called the war god in tour, obviously. Have a good one, Greg, and, why tour is. But Thor then was followed by the lower classes. And in fact, there's a a very famous story, where, Odin changes himself into a Bridgeman named Harbard and has and and has, has an argument and at the bridge, and Thor is trying to cut across this ferry, not bridge. And Odin wouldn't come over and get him, and so Odin starts talking crap. And when he talks crap, he's talking about the the farmers and the lesser people.
And Thor, you know, immediately gets mad because that's his people, and it was also reciprocated. So he was a he was a he was the protector of the realm. He was gonna make sure everything was okay for everybody. He's stability. We're on the opposite side, Loki is we don't have a good evil, as Leslie was asking, where we have things that happen in form chaos and things that happen from stability. And if you're always in stability, then it then things die because that's what winter is, is, where nothing moves, nothing changes. If you're always in chaos, that's fire. Everything burns up. You gotta kinda be in this little middle ground, you know, where you're kinda back and forth between a little bit of both.
But as far as god's win, so there was no evil, but the under people love Thor, or Donar, and then the the middle class more typically followed. Here, you had some mixing where then the Vanir come in. So the Vanir at one point in time was a separate pantheon and this was was before, Odin became king of the gods. So there are clans that followed Frey and Freya, which were Vanir before the great war brought them together and when Odin, that's where Odin became king. And, so people follow those and then were typically more wildish people. They are not for a heathen, they are less civilized than most heathens.
And then being an oldenist was typically for more of the priest class, the, you know, the things like that. Any questions. But, yeah. And then the gods were not seen in worship the way the they are today. So here's another few fun facts that, are historical. You can go through all the different, religious texts, all the different writings. There's no sacrifice of any human ever asked for or animal. There's one partial poem that talks about the sacrifice of a horse. And it you're not even sure exactly what's going on in the poem because the poem is very weird and very disjointed and broke and missing large chunks where you can't quite get a grasp on what's going on there.
And but there is inference where you could possibly say there's a horse. So if you imagine tribal life instead, you can imagine that, again, they didn't have refrigeration back then, obviously. And so when they would get together, well, throughout the week, you obviously if I slaughter a goat or a calf or something like that, I can't eat all that meat and I can't store it. You know, I can jerk some of it, sure, and smoke some of it. But what you're gonna do is then go, this week, I'm the one who brings the food, the cow to the feast. You bring this to the feast, blah blah blah. Well, then at the end of that, and this is where I have a bone to pick with archaeologists, little little, little pun with that one, because every time they find a pile of a pit of bones, they're like, oh, this was sacrificed to their guy.
Or maybe they didn't leave trash all over the place, and that's a trash pit for 3 stays. And so when you got a ton with your trash, you just threw it in the the the trash pit, and that's just how that works. You know, real reasonable. Right? But they as was already stated, they've the reasonable is not as, exciting for the entertainment industry. So those real reasonable things don't get said. But there's no sacrifice. The gods are not great to in the way and form that is current today, the way people understand it today. So with that with the entire pantheons of gods, you were able to align yourself with somebody that more naturally was the things that you were interested in. Not everybody wants to be a warrior.
Not everybody wants to be a farmer. Not everybody wants to and that's fine. And so you're gonna align yourself with the the beings that more suit your lifestyle, and they were treated as living beings. So, again, with that story of Harvard, and this is very interesting. So when you look at historians, the entirety of the reason that they call Odin a Flanderer, where he goes out and cheats on his wife outside if he did sleep with a giant test one time in in Earth, How that however that works. Right? But where they talk about him sleeping with human women, the entirety of that story comes from this take from the lay of Harbard, which is, a a fleeting.
And a fleeting was basically a rap battle before rap battles were ever even imagined or rap or any of those things where it was basically a a a crap talk. Home. And so in this, Odin, when he's talking to Thor and if you've ever been a man on a construction site, this is how dude's at. So Odin's like, well, what were you doing when this was going on? And Thor's like, well, I've went and bought the frost giants, and I defeated them all, and I killed this entire clan, and I kept, you know, I kept or I kept Asgard safe. What were you doing, old man? And Odin looks at me. He's like, I was banging your mom.
And, you know, and this is how the conversation and Odin keeps making more lurid and shitty claims, and Thor keeps getting more angry and presenting more honorable and glorious deeds to counter it of upon which Thor you know, Odin is just crap talking back to the point where Thor gets so extraordinarily angry. He can't even handle himself. And then but he can't get across this river for some reason. And or needs the ferryman, and he's and he's so mad he can't handle it. And Owen's like, yeah. Good luck. It's a 3 day walk that way. And so, he's got him so brought thing mad. And as a man, we've all had meathead friends, and this is the representation of Thor. He's the big I call him, I hit it with the hammer. I do it right.
And, this is, we've all had that friend, and you kinda make fun of their intelligence. You poke fun at him, and you do little games like he did to Thor there. But in the scholarly world, they don't understand that inner dynamic between very masculine men. That men Just general
[01:09:41] Unknown:
dude trash talking. I imagine that's always been the case. And, like, I just think it's funny when, like, politicians even do it. And you're like, dude, that's how dudes have talked for as long as I've existed. I mean, they all talk like that. Who are you kidding? But, you know, I thought think it's funny that people should go back and look if they're going to go and look into this topic that, they should understand because I've read the mythology behind Odin. I've read the mythology behind Zeus. I've read the mythology behind the, Irish and, Britannia and the Scottish. I I read all of that stuff. Like, I was very interested in that as a kid.
And when I went and looked back through them as an adult, you'll find that they're pretty much the same tenants, whether it's Hindu, Dutch, or, Viking or Germanic or any Irish. Yeah. A lot of these mythologies that go back so far, they they do come from generally, there there are a lot of the same stories, which, like, I have my own theories as to why, but, just to keep that in mind when you're researching this stuff, like Yeah. Have a broad view and under like, look at it all because all these stories are kinda the same. So in a lot of ways and it's just the little details that are changed because of cultural perception or
[01:11:20] Unknown:
whatever. There's a lot of stuff like that in history. Like environment a lot of times, I think. Like, the Abrahamic, you got desert compared to the Germanic, which is very mountainous. You're not gonna same rules aren't gonna apply. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's it's those kind of differences. Like, I think
[01:11:38] Unknown:
I think it's the what is it? Is it maybe the the Hindu? It might be Hindu, but I can't remember, so don't quote me on it. But the way they write about the beginning of existence, you know, when God created everything is a lot different in the way that, like, the Bible describes it. And, like, it all kinda sounds like the same process to me. To me, it sounds like people who don't understand science are describing terraforming on a new planet. That's what it sounds like to me when I read a lot of that that particular story across the board of all these different cultures when you pull out through mythology and try to research a lot of, like, history with mythology and find out what was actually what. So I I just think that I just wanted to add that in because I think that's really interesting for people to keep in mind.
[01:12:40] Unknown:
I I I I don't disagree at all. Most cultures, being a decent person is pretty much what they're getting at. Be a decent person. Like and and most of us have a fair grip on what that's gonna be. I mean, while I'm I'm not in the the the, natural law community and things like that, most of their tenants, you can understand. Nobody likes it when you steal from them. Nobody likes it when you go hurt other people. Like, we all we all get that. We all we all get it. And so that's where most those cultures and it's funny that even with that, we still have to have the understanding that there are a lot of people that just don't get it. That's why this had to be written down in practice. Like, you know, some of you, you're just you don't seem to get it. We don't like living with you that much. Hey. Here's some rules, bro.
You you don't seem to get it. But, yeah, they're all they're all be a decent person. And like you said, outside of, variances, which I would, you know, say again would from my perspective, a lot of that has to do with, regional living styles because that that's always incorporated into your religion, the different things that are gonna be important to living in that region. And if you're living in a arid region or if you're living out in the plains, you know, the Sioux Indians or, you know, the the Lakotas, they're gonna have different rules than people living up in the mountains and different cultural practices because they need to do different things.
But the then when you boil down to the philosophical part of it, it's all gonna be be a dis be a decent person. And and we've all been watching the same world in general or or system at play for however long our people have been, and so we've all been watching that same thing. So, yeah, we're all gonna kinda eventually come to pretty similar conclusions one would assume. We're all seeing the sun every day and the moon and, living the same life unless you're, like, in Puerto Rico and you have one season and you just live and everybody has food all the time and you don't have to do anything. I do agree with the tree
[01:14:53] Unknown:
then, the tree, how important the tree was. Can you expand on why and and the, myth the tree of life symbology and all that? Absolutely. And that's one of my very favorite,
[01:15:06] Unknown:
subjects because that was when I first truly got into Odinism. That was and where it was really sinking into me. That was when Odin came, and and I've only had one interaction with Odin, and the tree was what he showed me. And he didn't say a lot either. It wasn't, this grand visions and, exchanges and things like that. Three tree of lifes because the heathen tree of life is different than the, Kabbalistic tree of life. And but the heathen tree of life normally displayed is not complete either. And so when I had the vision, actually, 3 trees were floating in front of me, and Odin and Odin said to me, I'm 3 minds, not 1.
And that was what I got out of it. And then the only other thing he said to me is when I opened my eyes, there was a giant spider web, like, intricate, inch like an inch from my face, and there was a spider on it, like, pulsing. And I could see it as it was pulsing. I could see the whole web move with it and that the spider was, like, controlling this whole thing and and receiving all the information from it. And, and he said, you are the spider, and then that was that was the end of it. And so the main thing in their culture is gonna be, the Yggdrasil tree, which is the tree of life.
And the tree of life, in my opinion, breaks, and this is something where I'm gonna there's gonna be, contention between me and what a lot of your current, if you read about these symbologies and things, is broken then into 2 things. One of them is gonna be Irminsul. This is Odens tree, which you can see this is the top end. If you count, this is the trunk, and then this is the fruit end. And then the hammer, which is Thor, which is literally basically this symbol upside down almost. And so the center part would be the trunk, and then the root is Thor, and is Loki in in the trunk. And so that would be a complete Yggdrasil, but then also it needs to be locked into place by a carbon body, which is why the third mine's there, which the trinity in and of itself is that's a that's a a heathen thing. That is not a Christian thing, and there's actually a ton of contention because nowhere in Christian works do they mention a trinity. But, specifically, trinity is all about our our particular culture.
Odin started out as Odin Villain Vein, and then when it when Odin collapses that down and becomes the all father, then it's Odin then it's Loki Odonto. And and so there's always that trinity, and inside that trinity is is one thing. The trinity is 1 and, 3, and that's so that's something that has absolutely been borrowed from our culture and pushed over into theirs. And and a lot of their, like I said, there's a lot of infighting in between different Christian factions because there's no actual trinity, history for them. So they have so and then also anytime that they say pagan, they mean Roman pagan. So there's no, credentials for heathen society brought into these talks. And so the fact that they stole the trinity directly from it, it doesn't get actually recognized because they're matching themselves up against Roman Pagan, and Roman Pagan was super weird.
Super weird. Nothing to do with anything, from the Celtic or the, Britannia, the Anglo Saxons, none of that. They they were their own super anytime in on Facebook when they're like, oh, pagans used to do this practice. If you turn around and actually look it up, it's always Romans. Always Romans. He the the the heathens did not do weird crap like that. Most of the practices that you know, again, I still practice most of them today. The only one that I've ever found extraordinarily weird, and this is in, if you ever watched the movie 13th Warrior, that is based off of an actual historical accounting, where there's a Arab that mixed with, heathens for a while. And according to his accounting, because he was, supposedly, he could write, and heathens did not typically write, which I don't know if that's even true at all, in that if that wasn't something that just that one group maybe didn't write.
And I know it wasn't true because they tried for years, and I think based off of this accounting saying we didn't have a language and didn't have a written language. And since then, we all know about the runestones that are consistently being found with entire like, one of them just recently that was found. The story on it wasn't even like a an exciting story. It was this storm happens this many years in a cycle. Don't you know, beware of that. Like, good information. They carved it in stone, said, you know what? We should remember this. And so they had a a written language. So I think maybe based off of the accounting just specifically of, something Binthelin, a lot of Binthelin.
Because of his accounting, there's they they would try and claim we didn't have a language, a written language. And then because I think because we didn't leave a bunch of scroll work all were sacred to us. Man and woman were originally made from trees. So man so Oden, Billy, and Bay, and this is again where the trinity comes in, they went to the ocean and found 2 saltwater soaked logs that were bloated with saltwater. So this is very specific because when you look at your body, your body is all kinds of salts running it in all the water. This is what your the pieces of you. Then he made man the first man and woman out of an ash tree and an elm tree, ash and embla.
And then Odin gives them our our we'll start out with, Odin gives them their high mind, and so that's their thought, their higher thought, their ability to to remember things. Odin is the god of knowledge and wisdom, and in the stories, that's representative. Then his brother, Ve, gives the name. So they is your ego, and that's what other people need to call you because you don't really need to know your name. That's what other people need to know, and you kinda do because that's what they're gonna say. But if it's just you, you don't need that. This is an egoic thing. And then Vili, which we would pronounce vile, which is where I would count land with the most, where the religions that I do have a giant deviation from, most of them, it's because they are a duality religion where they have picked a light side or, you know, they will talk about descending and things like that. As as an alchemist, the the sulfur and the oi the sulfur and the salt are the same thing. Anytime you have, 2 things like, this is something that the cabalion was always supposed to teach you. You had 2 things and then you separate into a polarity. This is a polarity. And then when you rectify the polarity, it goes back into this. It goes into one thing. And so they're working off of a polarity and they're looking from the high side and being negative to the stable salt side, which is the villi or the vey, and that's your family side, which again, they're a very anti family, where heathens were known for worshiping rather than having the worship as the god is gods as heavily. It was more of a worship of the family and you that your ancestors and you were by honor, required, and obligated again as close though these are the two things that is close, the the being a host and living up to your family, living up to the greatness of your forefathers. You you don't wanna be less than them.
That that would be horrible. And how could you not be something that your kids are gonna need to work to get to work up to and look up to? That that this is a bad plan. And so this is the other thing that you you did not do. Family was super important, and the gods, it was more of a in alignment. And so, like, I myself, I don't pray to Odin. If I'm about to do something impressive, that's one of the only times I call Odin. Hey. Check this out. I'm about to do some shit. You might be impressed. And so this was the type of people he wanted. He didn't want beggars asking asking them to do their his, you know, come help me. Oh, come take care of my basic life. No. He wanted people that were that were strong, independent people that were like, no. Don't come over here because because you're because you're trying to help me out for charity. Come look over here because you're gonna be impressed.
You're gonna be proud. And so there's a path that he set forth in order to become who he was, and I try to follow that same set path. And so more instead of a worshipful, relationship, it's more of a relationship of a a a a very sacred elder that accomplished things that I also wish to accomplish and made himself into a being that I also wish to become and achieve.
[01:25:32] Unknown:
I like that difference. Yeah. It's really, you know, about becoming, you know, worthy that that focus on honorable behavior and that being the value so that your value is associated with honorable acts. Right? And being a responsible person and being independent and taking care of your commitments, being, you know, being self sufficient. It's really so far from where a lot of our modern culture seems to have gone.
[01:26:05] Unknown:
Oh, they seem to they seem to moved over in a little better light. They seem to glorify into where if they can live and live and not take care of themselves and just live off of a system, whether it's, somebody they're dating, whether it's the government, whether it's going to work and not putting in work. Like like, I can't even imagine. Like, part of the reason that I have a hard time with some of the younger employees, they have this idea that you that you hiring them and they're hanging out is apparently, like, the deal. Like, no, dude. I I you're getting this many dollars an hour to produce work for an hour. And if you aren't working for that hour, why would I give you money for that hour? It's I'm not you just hanging out here, and I don't even understand the mentality because at the end of a shift, you're gonna know I was there. Like, you're there's gonna be no question what I did, and that's a fact. And you're gonna and there's gonna be a a very good exchange that happens because of this, That your company because here's here's the other weird thing. Because if you even as an employee, and I'm not an employee, but, I'm, you know, but as an employee, you gotta understand that the company that you're working for has to make money also. You don't get to make all the money that they make. The thing and then you're not paying the risks that they're paying. You're not paying the taxes that they're paying. You're not surviving the ups and downs that they're making sure you are eating because this is the this is the thing that, and businesses do fail at this today. But this is the thing that they didn't understand where they started portraying these people as he's landed gentry.
Understand is a good caretaker of the land. I don't I know that the the thralls normal people aren't good at taking care of themselves. They don't they don't they will make bad choices. They will eat like gluttons. They will use things up when they shouldn't be using them up. They will live by you know, in all kinds of ways that are not a good will not set them up for a good and stable future. It's just how people are. And so as a good leader, obviously, I'm gonna make sure that, again, like I did with the calculation with the tomatoes, I know if I eat 4 jars a week and I have this many stocked up, I'm good for the entire year until I can harvest tomatoes again and start having fresh tomatoes, and I can start the cycle over again. And if you wanna eat 6 jars of tomatoes and start eating them because you decided that you put on some weight and you are capable of eating more and you start getting a little gluttonous.
Well, now our calculation has changed entirely because at 6 jar at 6 jars times 52 weeks is a little over 300 jars, not a little over 200 jars by the math. Well, that's a 100 jars difference. Well, jeez, that means that if you're eating them at that rate, I'm gonna go a substantial amount of time with no spaghetti sauce. And now I gotta buy spaghetti sauce or nobody's gonna get it or else I'm gonna have to ration it down, and now everybody's angry. And as I'm rationing it down, are you the one I'm putting in work? Were you the one eating the extra spaghetti sauce? Because I don't really wanna give it to you. And so all these things need to be mitigated by a good leader who's gonna make sure that every meal is a good benefit.
Absolutely. He's gonna have to fill his storehouses so that way in the bad times, that's what they're you're eating, buddy, is out of those storehouses. So you should definitely feel a vested interest in defilling them. And that's not at all what kids have any interest in today is every bit of their labor is is theirs, and you shouldn't make anything off of it. Like, well, then why do I have you here, bro? I I don't understand. So you can make money. Like, I don't even like you. Your attitude's bad. You don't do good work, and I don't like hanging out with you. Get out of here. Where this again, to just even if I did not like my employer for me to act in such a dishonorable way where I didn't keep up my end of the bargain, that's on me.
My honor is on me, which doesn't mean that I have to walk around. This is another weird variance where I don't understand. Like, if you're my enemy and we have got a problem, I don't need to act honorably toward you in any way. There there's no need for it. We're enemies. Like, you aren't gonna act honorably toward me. So that part of it is a weird Christian thing where they're like, you you hold this high honor with your enemy, and and you don't. Your enemy is gonna lie, cheat, steal, stab you in the back, do whatever he can to get you out of the way. That's what enemies do. It's it's it's that whole scorpion is a scorpion thing. And a scorpion is not necessarily bad, but just know what it is. It's gonna do this. It's gonna act like that. That's what you should you should act accordingly yourself. And so but when you're interacting with people that aren't your enemies, you absolutely need to carry yourself with honor, or else you're the bad person.
[01:31:14] Unknown:
I just hear a strong sense of, integrity and pride in self, these teachings that, of course, like, our children need. But as opposed to, like, woe is me and, I was born an original sin and these kinds of things. You know? So that's, like, the difference, and it and it really makes up the caliber of a good human. Right? Exactly. Hear. So I I I truly appreciate your your very powerful personal journey and truth, and all the things that you went through to get to where you are today. And, of course, you know, we all have our own way of how we've navigated and how we've learned, But I guess I can appreciate you, like, going through the rabbinic studies and all these things. Like, I went through all those religions, was raised Jewish, and, you know, trying to learn all these things. My kids go to Christian school, right, because they're learning Christianity.
Everybody's like, what? Your kids go to Christian school? But they're learning it, and they're walking through the fire literally in there. And they get a lot of pressure, because they don't necessarily subscribe, but they say things like, well, I'm I'm here to learn about it. Yeah. So they come home, and we talk about it. And, so I appreciate you today very much because it's given me another avenue to explore myself and then explore it with them and others. So you coming on and and talking about everything that you did today, it's not just for me and it's for everybody in this room, but it's gonna go out to a whole bunch of other people and what you're doing at festivals and going and speaking. And I encourage you even though you don't need me to, to keep doing it.
I do appreciate it, though. Absolutely. Missed some of it, but it's been it's been just lovely listening. Thank you so much.
[01:33:00] Unknown:
Yeah. And I would just add for anybody who is listening to understand that at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter the details of how you're choosing to live as long as it falls under the, you know, general moral and ethical guidelines. You practice, a courtesy in your everyday life. I'm a big advocator of practicing, which is really just what the trinity is, what we were talking about earlier, thought, emotion, and action. And every single culture or belief system I've ever read about, it really is just another way for people who don't understand every part of the picture to describe the process of thought, emotion, and action.
Yeah. So and mythology has it in modern day ideologies have it, but it it all really comes that's the backbone. And as long as people practice care, nonviolence, self defense, you know, these are really just the backbones and everything else is details. And I I I'm at I encourage people to further study and look at everything, but to understand that there's a backbone, which is why I get along with everybody. Like, it doesn't matter to me. Like, when because I when I work with a community, it's usually like a knitting group or something, and I've got homeless people and wealthy people and protestants and Buddhists and Muslims and Christians and Catholics and All of them in there.
There's everybody and, you know, the majority of them all come down to the same conclusion, excuse me, which is basically yeah. You know, practice care, show non or practice nonviolence and practice self defense of force when necessary. And that's what it comes down to, really. So, I wanted to know, Britney, do you have any thoughts as well you wanted to share?
[01:35:05] Unknown:
Okay. Me, Britney.
[01:35:08] Unknown:
No. I'm so sorry, guys. I'm so tired. It's not you. I've been, like, going on, like, 4 hours of sleep maybe. But I've just really enjoyed listening. Yeah. Because of my family, I'm very curious about stuff like that. I still have to read the book called The Darkening Age. My honey recommended it to me, but it kinda took from what I have been told, it really gets into, like, the dark history surrounding, like, Christianity coming through and kind of, like, wiping out paganism. I know my my last name, Ashby, is a hereditary last name, and so, it's essentially like of the ash trees or
[01:35:53] Unknown:
Yep. Of
[01:35:55] Unknown:
the ash trees. And so because of that, I've always kind of felt very connected with Yggdrasil. So I I'm just enjoying kinda kicking back and receiving some information and a little bit different in some ways, and I'm just a nerd like that. So it's been nice because I've been working a lot, and so it's good to connect with you guys. I love hearing everything, and and yeah. And I don't have a lot of sleepy proactive thoughts because I'm rushed for it.
[01:36:24] Unknown:
That's a that's a a good reference for a book we can add in there. So, I'll try and find a link for that. And I would encourage people when reading a book like that to understand, like, there's, I know because I lived in Ireland for many years and, in Ireland and the Scott, and the Scotlands and, Old Britannia. That's odd. You have, well, you had the what were called pagans, but, really, the pagans who were being called pagans in those regions, they called themselves Christians. And you have the Catholics, they practiced ancient Christianity, which is before Constantine muddied up the waters.
And they the people who were called pagans, they called themselves Christians. And then you had, which were essentially the Romans who came in, and, you know, they were in the phase of changing from the Roman ideologies because it wasn't working for the mass people anymore. People were, you know, buying it as they used to be, so they were tran you know, through history, you see a pattern of, ideologies transferring, you know,
[01:37:49] Unknown:
Protestant and at all the transition from, empire to the more, state where they had the more parliamentary? Is that is that that that time periods all the Right. And it's going from, you know, more Roman to Catholicism
[01:38:08] Unknown:
Right. Which was, helped a lot through the authorities, the state authorities, turning, you know, belief systems into a state business rather than a practice of life. And then they came in, and so, like, it's it's I think it's interesting. Okay. I think it's very interesting that you know, this is why I encourage everybody to go and look at everything because you're going to get both sides of it. And then I think because this is what I end up doing is you end up piecing pieces together. You're like, oh, okay. This is a a far more clearer picture.
And depending on who's writing the book, you're going to see the inconsistencies. And so this is why I encourage go and research and look into everything because you're going to have the the ancient more of the ancient pagan histories written down through that, and then you're going to have more of the pagan Christian religion or histories written through that. And but they're through the eyes of they're through the eyes of people who specialized in one thing or the other. And not everybody always remembers to look through a wide scope. So I think that's important to for people to remember too.
[01:39:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Good perspective. You know, I really, appreciated the term Germanic yearning. It's the first time I heard that, and I relate to that, especially over the last few years, really digging deeper into some of my own family history and really recognizing I am I am, like, all northern European. I'm every, you know, Scandinavian and Germanic, Dutch. You know? Ancestors in Iceland, you know, and, of course, England, Scotland, Ireland, very, like, sort of all that. And, in my with that came a very also, I think that most of my family who came to the United States originally were fleeing the Catholic church and were part of the Protestant reformation, but very disconnected from, I think, the pagan roots. Although, like, when you were talking, Britney, about that work ethic and certain spirit definitely most definitely was out there. And my family were farmers, and they owned land, and they started businesses, and they were, you know, very, you know, passing on land from family, you know, to their descendants, naming traditions, and things like that. And, but I I think for me, I I came into this world just automatically pushing back Christian religion as it as it was presented to me and really seeking, like, the truth underneath all of these religions, you know, back to the most organic sort of beginning of understanding of of living on this planet and interacting with nature. And so this is really you know, it it it feeds this need that I have to try to imagine and understand, like, what, our original relationship with life and each other and nature was. So, you know, and I appreciate, you know, helping me imagine that.
[01:41:42] Unknown:
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And and and Perfect. Honestly, like I said, when I did bring up Christopher, that was one of my favorite parts of his book. He wrote a cult Germany, and he talks about that that the German people just keep it seems like they just keep going after something, and it's Christianity is not filling that void for them, and it's because which which I'm with Sarah. I I I'm not saying that any religion is better than another one that they don't all contain the truce and things like that. But I do believe in epigenetics, and I believe that, again, there's a specific reason that work that the German people keep going. They they keep not finding answers in the spots that their ancestors weren't looking. Like, you need to maybe go back to where your ancestors were looking and and look at their kind of things, and then you wouldn't have this weird half where, like, even when you look at the the biggest Christian holidays like Christmas, there's obviously not nothing Christian about Christmas.
Like, it's it's the the time period doesn't match. If the baby's born in Israel, that time period is not winter for them. The the why would you even have a baby then? Like, it it doesn't it doesn't make sense. The Santa Claus figure that's, you know, obviously, an Odin figure. The the sleigh that he's riding, they literally called the great dipper, Odin's or the the dipper, Odin's wane, as it in which is Odin's wagon as it swings around Polaris. And the whole reason it's going around the tree, we have Yggdrasil, and I I we have Yggdrasil.
And the more that classic shape of pine tree, which they don't have in Israel. And I so that shape well, when he's going down, well, Christmas would happen at the the height of the year, and after that, you have an extension of the of the daylight. And so after that, so I would state that it was at the winter solstice, and so this was and then after that, your days get longer, and he starts going around, and it comes down in a wider loop. And then you look at the reindeer. There's no reindeer in Israel. There there just aren't. There never have been ever. And the the red and white motif is the, Amanita muscaria mushroom, which the reindeer are eating themselves and then drinking their own urine in order to get high because once their body processes it that second time, they really trip off. It's they pee in their mouth and just get lit up. And so these are flying ass reindeer. Right? And, and you're eating them too, so you're having a good time yourself. Like,
[01:44:29] Unknown:
and so All I can do is go,
[01:44:32] Unknown:
Oh, man. Yeah. Rough. I I gotta tell you. Last year at Flattoberfest, and one of them is a really close friend of mine, and it they're in the I call it the piss drinking cult, but there's a big shivam boo movement. And because I'm in a lot of alternative health talks and things because I'm an alchemist in some of the products I make, and I am not down with that. And at the last one, 2 people started having this thing and they're, like, talking about getting it straight out the tap and drinking it warm. I'm like, ugh.
[01:45:03] Unknown:
They're not sitting there. Off of the crunching on a stage and everything. That too. Yeah. Well, I heard that now it's like couldn't There's some medicinal purpose
[01:45:13] Unknown:
too. Yeah. You're inconvenient.
[01:45:15] Unknown:
Some people swear it's very healing, but I don't care.
[01:45:20] Unknown:
I learned my German stubbornness.
[01:45:23] Unknown:
I also learned that. So some societies have survived under really rough circumstances by after
[01:45:30] Unknown:
I believe I'm sure that there is. Us
[01:45:33] Unknown:
live in America. Yeah. That way unless absolutely necessary.
[01:45:40] Unknown:
Yeah. I wanted I wanted to comment a little bit about the thing that in the Germanic, are this you know, people of Germanic descendancy have there's a certain shame. Right? Like, you mentioned, Britney, that post World War 2 shame. Yeah. And, I think it it was in my noticeable in my family. And, there's also like you said, Ben, like, people are out there searching for things everywhere, but their own ancestral roots. Like, the new age communities out there looking at a lot of the Vedic stuff and the Native American stuff, but it seems to be everywhere. But, like, how about your own blood? You know? And, I think that must be have to do with some of that shame and, the cultural, almost like the masculine, you know, like, shaming masculine men and a lot of that. Yep. Gotta
[01:46:31] Unknown:
go into work. Stigma. And and, like toxic masculinity. Like Britney was explaining, I also grew up in a very Germanic area and because I'm from South Dakota. And, up in the upper Midwest, it was all just white people, and they separated according to their countries because it was very different cultures. And so despite what you're told today, white people have no culture of their own. But if you come from an area like that, like, specifically, there's certain things that the Polacks do. There's certain things that the Norwegians do. There's certain things that the Germans do. And and they're very different. Like, I'm not putting on no fucking I'm sorry. I'm not putting no dang, quilt on my barn out there. I'm not a Norwegian. Do I look Norwegian to you? I'm not, you know, I'm not I'm not only in Lena. I'm not in Polak. Don't get me over here. Like, we have our own very specific cultural things, like, as a German. Like, almost nobody, knows what cougan is. And cougan is a classic German dessert, you know, custard custard pie with fruit in it. And, oh, oh, yeah. You You wanna get you wanna get me going on some googan. I tell you what.
And so we had our own cultures. We had our own, very specific things, and that's all been lost because white people don't have culture. It's just white. And and that's not saying That's been what has been propagated in mostly, like, media and stuff. But,
[01:48:06] Unknown:
really, it's all regional. Like, I grew up where, you know, kind of in a gypsy fashion because just my mother moved around a lot. It wasn't for a specific reason, really. But I've lived all over the United States. I've lived in other countries. And, really, you know, people, I think, have always were operated in the same way where they can't separate themselves from their neighbor in a way where they can't accept the differences between them. And what I've learned is people are really all the same, and either you act like a dumb animal or you don't. And in different regions, you have slightly different traditions and cultural changes. And there's a lot of misunderstandings and and misconceptions as well. Like, one of the examples I tell people all the time and they're just like, no. No. That's not true. I'm like, yeah. It is actually true.
If you were to go like, here in America, right, and the people here who are American and have a strong Irish background, they have a strong Irish culture. One of the things that are that's very distinct here with the Irish culture is corned beef hash. Yeah. And they're, they're all about it. Right. And everybody would tell you, they'd swear up and down that the Irish eat corned beef hash. And I'm like, okay. So I lived in Ireland and I can tell you right now, not one of them. They that is not a normal Irish thing. They don't know what corned beef hash is. I went to the butchers. I had to explain it. I had to look it up online. He's like, that is absolutely not an Irish thing anywhere. I mean and this is like an old school butcher in Ireland.
He's, I mean, the kind of Ireland Irish that can still speak Gaelic.
[01:50:00] Unknown:
Oh, wow.
[01:50:02] Unknown:
So, like, he's been a butcher there for like, this was just one of the butchers I talked to. So he had that brought in for me for me, specifically. Because, like, I was, like, a community person, so people kind of knew me. So and even in the cities in Ireland, there's, like, small towns. So, like, you know, everybody's working together, you know, and, like, we're you know, everybody's kinda like homies that way. But Yeah. It was it was just a funny interaction. It was one of those things that's so stark that people just do not understand that culture doesn't necessarily have to do with this whole big religious attachment setup because you're white or black or you're from this religion or just because you live in this country or that or whatever. You know? Sometimes it's really just based on the region and the particular traditions that develop based off of whatever situation was going on in that particular region's past.
So the reason why American Irish people think that corned beef hash is such a staple in the, the general traditional Irish meal set is because when the Irish were immigrating to America, corned beef hash is a poor person's food.
[01:51:23] Unknown:
Yep.
[01:51:24] Unknown:
So that isn't everybody.
[01:51:27] Unknown:
Whatever it is. Irish person makes they make a really good roast and now we associate corned beef hash with that. That's it. That's all it takes is that kind of That's a good full man's meal.
[01:51:38] Unknown:
Yep. That's it. It's all it takes for you know, like, if you were to go to Ireland and get a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, they think that is, like, American rich people gold. And I'm like What? This is like dollar store. Like, I ain't got no money. And they're charging people craft macaroni and cheese that I would spend a dollar on here.
[01:52:05] Unknown:
There are You're not Americans.
[01:52:06] Unknown:
It's like €14 a box, and I'm like, it's
[01:52:12] Unknown:
Someone is telling me but I'm starting to sell. This is Someone was telling me that in Japan you know how anime is really big here? You know, we have to all the Yeah. I don't but, you know, in Japan, they don't watch their own anime, but they think that American culture is Family Guy. So there's they watch popularly Family Guy. Oh, wow.
[01:52:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Wow. That is so sad, though. I know. I can't think of a a worse representation
[01:52:43] Unknown:
of the American man. Couldn't we be American dad, not Family Guy? Yeah. Like, I mean, that's such a
[01:52:50] Unknown:
step up maybe. At least he's at least he's a at least he's more progressive. I can
[01:52:55] Unknown:
They're they're the they're the same writers, Britney. Like, they're all the same writers, and that's why I just came to that conclusion.
[01:53:03] Unknown:
Yeah. The artists and illustrators, they just look the same. So I my brain labels them the same.
[01:53:09] Unknown:
Yeah. And all English people and Irish people, they all think Americans dress like a stereotypical Floridian man with, like, a Hawaiian shirt and, like, socks and, you know, What?
[01:53:26] Unknown:
I have 4 seasons where I live. We don't like that. Hilarious.
[01:53:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And we're all, like, gun crazy. Well we are all every single one of us voted for Bush. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. It's it's these kind of things that people don't they forget that these details
[01:53:46] Unknown:
are just part of what humans do when we gossip about each other, and that's really I like stereotypes. They're my favorite kind of jokes. So it's very typical jokes. I make fun of white people. I make fun of agents. I make fun of everybody.
[01:54:01] Unknown:
No one's, you know, safe for himself. So much here. With the world's 60 days, low low brow comedy is the only good comedy. And everybody wants to be all correct and nice and nice. Dark differences. Funny anymore.
[01:54:17] Unknown:
Dark humor too sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fun intended. Fun of ourselves and and this crazy situations that we're in in life. Right? It's sort of like these stories that you're telling about Odin and stuff. It's like this exaggerated almost like they make themselves look kind of stupid, you know, in some ways, but the lesson is what's important and the humor. Right?
[01:54:40] Unknown:
Oh god. Okay to loosen up and have a little fun and maybe trash talk a little about your neighbor's room or whatever. You know? And then it's not not be so sensitive. Right? Not be so sensitive. That's it. You know, like, all the, that's, like, one of the bigger things that, you know, we see. Like, me and my husband, we see everybody's just triggered by everything, and it's like Yeah. We need to just, like, pull away all the cell phones and start giving our kids quarters so that they can make phone calls at a pay phone or something. And, like, give them a little bit anymore. I know. Like, I feel like buying one for the house phone.
[01:55:22] Unknown:
Like, in Ireland And then take all movies out of the movie stores except for for Blazing Saddles or something of that nature and tell everybody just quit being sensitive. Right? You you you Yeah. You you watch Blazing Saddles, like, 5 or 6 times. You quit being sensitive about things. You're like, alright. Alright. I get you. Because That's it. Why how is life you know, that's the, you know, free will kind of fun element where
[01:55:47] Unknown:
you can't take everything so seriously because what ends up happening and this is something I have to remind myself because, like, I can be a very hard line kind of person with certain things, and I get irritated when people don't do certain things, like like, when people are just being blatantly rude because they want they feel like they it's okay to just be obnoxious, but that's just, like, what they do all the time because they got, like, one reaction one time. Like, I think that kind of stuff is just, like, that's not how you conduct yourself, so I can get a little bit annoyed with stuff like that. But I even have to remind myself, and I think we all do, that you need to be able to loosen up and take a joke and be like, okay. And alright. It's okay to crack a joke about something and not, like Yeah. Just to have fun with, like, a group of people that you find are acceptable to you, like somebody you can people you can be comfortable with.
And every group is different. You know? That's why we have so many movies with, like, the dynamics of, like, the circle of friends, and they're the all the same kind of people, and they all function well together. But they're different from this group because Yep. That's just how that that forms. So it's okay to, like, loosen up and not take things so seriously and, remember that people really are just people. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what the details are of whatever they believe in or want to feel comfortable with.
The only thing that really matters is, are you a good person or are you a bad person? Are you gonna violate rights? Are you gonna respect people's rights? You know, a no. These these are the things that I find the most important with anybody that I come in contact with. So it's okay to it's okay to be friends with people who don't necessarily believe every single little detail you believe in. Or even, you know, bad people have a little bit. Yeah. Life would be boring, right, without scarcity.
[01:58:02] Unknown:
So let's, just kinda start to close-up. And, Ben, any anything you else you wanna share? Any thing that you feel like you left out that's important for us to take away today or summarize?
[01:58:16] Unknown:
I think just the summary of it is just that the basic heathen lifestyle is just a lifestyle of accountability, but it's also a lifestyle of symbiosis. So while you're accountable for yourself, you also have to fit in with other people, and that's part of why the host rights and the guest rights and the things like that are so important. That that as you guys are saying that being a decent person again, the the if somebody shows up at my door and needs food and and water, it doesn't matter what they believe or who they are, what's going on. That's a person. They need food and water. They're gonna die without it. Give it to them. Like, that it's it's the pretty it's pretty simple stuff.
And so but in order to achieve that, we have to be willing to let go of the free pass, in my opinion, accountability, and start being our own people. Because then when I choose that, it's it's I'm choosing to be a decent person. I'm choosing specifically to act in a specific manner. I'm not just some whim of fate or whim of the gods or or or following Christ or whatever. This is me, Benjamin Balderson saying, I'm going to be this person and then making that happen by living that out. And this is this is the basis of heathenism, and it's it's not gonna be for everybody. And that's the other thing. So as Sarah was saying, it doesn't bother me that other people believe other things, and they're and they're all good things because you don't see people going around proselytizing oldenism.
Like, have you, have you heard of our our of the all father? We've got a lighthouse pamphlet. Like, you know, that that's it's not something that we do, and it's honestly not a lifestyle for everybody. I would say, in all honesty that it's more of a rural person's lifestyle than, in in culture than a city person's, period. So, definitely, I'm not saying that that's the end all, beat all, but, I do think that the more traditional aspects of it compared to the world that we're living in now, We need to bring back the respect, the self accountability, the responsibility, the caring about your your future of the land and of your, people.
Because to me, I don't care about the and I also have a problem with the Red Pill guys who are going around and everything with them is about getting money and getting, a tail and things like that with no accountability on that. To me, the height of a man is a husband. And when I say that, I don't necessarily mean as in a marriage. I mean, the husbandry of I'm living on this land, this I'm responsible and accountable, and this is gonna be better land because I am here overseeing it. These animals on this land will have a better life and live and be healthier and better because I am overseeing it, because I make sure because that's what a husband does. My wife lives a better life and so did the people underneath me that are living on my farm because I make the right choices. And when I don't, we all we all suffer.
And so I best be that dude that's making the right choices, doing the right things, and living the life that I'm preaching. That's the one huge thing that you're gonna find in historically different between Roman style, Christian style leadership, and Germanic style leadership. Germanic style leadership leads from the front, which is part of why when Leslie asked, I said, yes. You can absolutely achieve more of a position if you prove dude doing it and doing it the best. You should follow him. And, Leslie and Britney, do you guys have any final thoughts on Ben's
[02:02:31] Unknown:
on Ben's, information or his history?
[02:02:36] Unknown:
I just well, I think it's a really powerful template for, everyone to consider, you know, a way to live in a way that's, I think, oriented to, from my perspective, an an an their natural law way of living. You know? So yeah.
[02:02:55] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm just happy to have, been present and been able to listen. So, yeah, I'm glad to connect you guys again for another month. The ladies, at least. Nice to meet you, Ben.
[02:03:07] Unknown:
It's very nice to meet you. Flintoclass has been awesome, and you guys have been excellent.
[02:03:12] Unknown:
Thank you so much for, you know, taking your time out and, working through the technology in the storm and everything to be here with us. Yeah. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the girls club.
[02:03:25] Unknown:
And that was episode number 11 and stay tuned for next month because that's 1 year. The girls club. So stay tuned and see what we've got going on. And it's gonna be another, great guest that we're gonna have on, and we'll see you next time, guys. Thank you. Bye.
Introduction and Guest Introduction
Ben Balderson's Background and Interests
Alchemy and Heathen Practices
Heathen Lifestyle and Historical Context
Living Off-Grid and Self-Sufficiency
Traditional Roles and Family Values
Religious Influence and Cultural Identity
Host and Guest Rights in Heathen Culture
Perception of Gods in Ancient Societies
The Importance of the Tree of Life
Cultural Heritage and Modern Misconceptions
Summary and Final Thoughts
