Tyr Vol. 4 | Cover Painting by Benjamin Vierling
The year 2014 saw the long-awaited publication of the fourth volume of Tyr, a journal dedicated to the myths, culture, and tradition of pre-Christian, pre-modern Europe. The previous volume was published in 2007, so this latest comes with much anticipation from those interested in serious and scholarly study of Heathenry and European heritage. Volume 4 is likely to satisfy any such person, as it is quite lengthy (over 400 pages), and thus full of a diverse assortment of essays as well as interviews and reviews of books and music.
Tyr 4 opens with two substantial essays, “What is Religion” by Alain de Benoist and “What is Odinism?” by Collin Cleary. In the first, Benoist critiques the psychological, sociological, and biological explanations for religion. He examines the departure of religion from a prominent place in human life due to modernity. He also points out that “Christianity generated, in spite of itself, a society that can now leave it behind—a unique case in the history of humanity—and one that cannot exclude the possibility that by doing this, it has completed its historical course, has fulfilled its time.” Benoist does not provide an answer to the question of whether religion will return as a major factor in society or what will become of human life without religion, but ends with the enigmatic quotation from Martin Heidegger: “Only God can save us.”
Cleary’s essay is, in some ways, a response to the lingering questions that Benoist raises; not that this is its intention. Cleary provides a synopsis of key elements of the mythology surrounding Odin and offers an explanation for how this translates to tenets that can be applied by the individual Odinist. Drawing largely from the work of Edred Thorsson, the essay states that the purpose of the Odinist is to strive to become Odin, which means “to strive to know: to make the search for wisdom the ruling passion of one’s life. To become as ‘divinely mad’ as Odin was in his quest to unlock the secrets of the universe at any price.” Cleary ultimately describes Odinism as a difficult esoteric path that is not without its dangers.
Other essays in the journal do not stand out so much as these first two, but they are not without value. These include a piece on traditional time-telling by Nigel Pennick, and two essays by Claude Lecouteux, one on the lore of garden dwarves and house elves, and another on the legends of a “furious army,” or a march of the dead. The latter discusses the persistence of Pagan belief in Medieval Christian Europe, specifically in the context of a sermon given by Swiss priest Geiler von Kaiserberg on the legend in question. Another essay, “On Barbarian Suffering” by Steve Harris, is about the connection of human suffering to “the good life” and the question of to what degree suffering is caused by the divine or the supernatural.
There are two essays concerning visual art. The first, by Stephen Pollington, discusses changes in Germanic art found on decorative accessories and weaponry during the first millennium (0-1000 Common Era). The second is a fascinating profile by Michael Moynihan of the artist Rockwell Kent, whose illustrative style largely focuses on the features of terrain found in the northernmost parts of the world. It should be noted that all of the essays in Tyr 4 include illustrations and photographs (with the exception of some reviews), however, the work of Rockwell Kent is particularly stunning.
The world-renowned anthropologist and ethnopharmacologist, Christian Rätsch, contributes an essay entitled “The Mead of Inspiration,” which discusses the make and use of mead by pre-Christian European Germanic peoples. The mead of old was unlike that which is now available in that it was more similar to beer with a lower level of alcohol and often containing psychoactive ingredients. An addendum is included with a recipe for Henbane Beer, modeled after the one of drinks of old discussed in the essay.
The subject of mind-altering substances continues in an interview with Ralph Metzner, a protégé of Timothy Leary. The interview largely deals with his and others’ experimentation with LSD. While Metzner does discuss the ways in which European shamanic tradition is important to him, this addition to the journal is the one that feels most out of place. Metzner’s stance is reminiscent of progressives like Leary and Robert Anton Wilson, and he seems to view the use of psychoactive substances in the context of Traditional practice as a vehicle for progressive change in the materialistic sense rather than the sacred. This reviewer questions the wisdom of such an approach because most people with access to such substances do not have access to the shamanic guidance to understand the resulting experience, and as Julius Evola has noted, the danger of enslavement to drug-induced euphoric experience is a possibility under such conditions. Metzner, on the other hand, has no problem with the recreational use of such drugs.
Two more interviews are included in Tyr 4, both dealing with music. By this point, a noticeable pattern has emerged, that of a piece dealing with the old, contrasted by a subsequent piece dealing with the new. In the case of these interviews, the work of Benjamin Bagby, who reconstructs music of Medieval tradition is contrasted with the work of Sean Ragon, founder of the post-industrial folk band, Cult of Youth. Bagby, of the musical group Sequentia provides insight into the process of interpreting the sound and performance style of Medieval music, while Ragon explains his personal journey as an artist and how Paganism has made its contribution. The interviews are not explicitly complementary, but both are inspiring in their own way and serve as justification of the works of these individuals.
The last section of Tyr 4 is a series of reviews, first of music and then of books, all of which are valuable to readers of the Tyr journal who may desire to further explore the world of European Tradition in greater depth. The music reviews include descriptions of artists and their output, which fall under a wide variety of distinctly European styles and genres from folk to metal. Of particular interest is the lengthy review by Annabel Lee describing Kūlgrinda, a Lithuanian Pagan folk band that performs and records Heathen ritual music. Their work and their artistic process should be emulated by those who wish to rediscover the sacred life-ways of our ancestors.
Of the book reviews, one notable piece is a double review by Joscelyn Godwin of Julius Evola’s The Path of Cinnabar [which was recently reviewed by Heathen Harvest] and Dana Lloyd Thomas’ Julius Evola and the Racist Temptation: The Lure of Pan-Germanism in Italy [Julius Evola e la tentazione razzista: Linganno del pangermansimo in Italia], the latter of which has not been translated into English. Godwin’s review of Evola’s book is mainly a comparison to similar works by Carl Jung and René Guénon, while the review of Thomas’ book shows how Evola downplayed his own racialist views in the aftermath of World War II when they came under scrutiny by the victorious progressive hegemony. This review is certainly valuable to anyone who cannot speak Italian and is interested in Evola’s life and work.
All of the other book reviews in Tyr 4 are useful to those who are interested in European culture. Included are reviews of books about sacred geometry, early European-American folklore that has persisted to this day, and scholarly analyses of Pagan religions of old. The list of books reviewed will serve as a bibliography for anyone—Odinist or otherwise—who desires a better understanding of the values of their European ancestors. Indeed, this is the chief accomplishment of the Tyr journals: to provide a resource that increases our ability to resacrilize the world and to reject the mistakes that have led our society into its current state of materialistic depravity.
The current condition of modernity makes it easy to criticize the role that Western Civilization has played in world history, but the Tyr journal gives us the ability to identify positive expressions of European ethnic identity and convey them to those who feel lost, to those of our own people who feel they have no ethnic identity at all. Finding the truth embedded in our past is an important step in rejecting flaws in our thinking that have resulted in a disruption of the balance of human existence as it relates to the natural world. The Tyr journal can help us to isolate these flaws and drive them out. May it be so.
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Written by: Nathan Leonard
Publisher: Ultra (United States)
Publication Date: 2014
File Under: Mythology / Metaphysics / Cultural Studies
Language: English
ISBN: 9780972029247
Pages: 430
Format: Paperback
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