On Representation: Icon and Allegory

Julian Betkowski in Featured Voices, Walking Through the Inhuman Hour

It is a fairly common misrepresentation of the Ancient Greek understanding of the Gods to claim that they were thought to be completely anthropomorphic in body and mind. Indeed, depending on the context, the Ancient Greeks had a wide variety of representations at their disposal, as Zaidman and Pantel (1992) describe in Religion in the Ancient Greek City:

 The Greeks employed a large number of different words for representation of the divine: xoanon, bretas, andrias, palladion, agalma, kolossos, eikon and eidolon, among others. This variety corresponds to the multiplicity of the divine in figural form. (p. 215-216)

We are simply most aware of the stately Hellenistic Period sculpture that has come to represent the entirety of Greek civilization, and so it is easier to reduce what was in fact a quite complex and varied culture to only the most dramatic examples of its plastic arts.

We may be most familiar with the naturalistic, anthropomorphic statues that decorate our museums in marble originals and plaster reproductions, but these representations do not constitute the total picture. Zaidman and Pantel (1992) continue:

 The bretas and xoanon, for example, were virtually aniconic, making no attempt at likeness. They were thought of as having dropped out of the sky, like the xoanon of Athene Polias eventually housed in the Erekthion on the Athenian Akropolis (p. 216)

Many of these aniconic representations served vital functions, and would have been quite familiar to the Ancient Greek populace, as they were used in processions, ritually dressed and bathed, and employed for various cultic purposes (Zaidman & Pantel, 1992, p. 216).

There is a further misrepresentation that occasionally pops up, suggesting that the Ancient Greeks, in an inversion of the evolution of religion narrative that is often employed to support modern monotheism, eventually progressed from a fully abstract understanding of Divine Beings and forces to a completely anthropomorphized conception. As anyone who is basically familiar with the works of Homer can attest, though, this is simply not the case:

 It is false to claim that there was a development from aniconic representation to naturalism. For in Homer the gods were already completely anthropomorphized, whereas in the Classical era, some three centuries later, pillars and stones could perform a very potent symbolic function and constitute the living heart of rituals. (Zaidman & Pantel, 1992, p. 218)

It was during the Archaic Period, after all, as well, that the production of kouroi, stylized statues of youths, abounded, “Some of these sculptures were funerary in function, being placed over the tomb of a dead man or youth; others were votive, dedicated to a god in a sanctuary” (p. 216). This form had a variety of uses, and so demonstrates the plasticity of Ancient Greek representational ideas: the same sort of sculpture could be used as a grave marker, a votive offering, and even as a dedication honoring some heroic act. However, “They were in no way likenesses of either the deceased or the dedicator, or of the recipient deity. Modelled in the form of a human body, they represented rather attributes and values of the divine” (p. 216).

We can see, then, that for the Ancient Greeks, the simple image of a man was not necessarily understood to directly portray the God that it stood in for:

 The fact that the Greeks sculpted such statues of their gods does not imply a belief that the gods were in every respect human; what the Greeks did believe was that the beauty, youth or perfect proportion of a real human body evoked qualities of the divine. (Zaidman & Pantel, 1992, p. 217)

Representations of the Gods can be understood as a sort of allegory, a means of orienting toward the Gods that places them along of continuum of familiarity and mystery. The representation is not the being-in-itself, it simply serves to direct the viewer toward an encounter:

 The special characteristic of all religious representation is to endow the divinity being figured with a presence without obscuring the fact that it is not actually there. The cultic image must at the same time be thoroughly  material – it can be touched, moved, manipulated – and yet leave no doubt that it stands for something which is not actually present. (p. 215)

We do great harm when we lift the icon out of its greater context, and consider it as an object devoid of history and use. As Zaidman and Pantel (1992) observe, “It is clearly impossible, for example, to study a statue in isolated abstraction from ritual use to which it was put” (p. 228). By doing so, we strip away the mystery of the representation, and reduce it to mere thing, taking the surface appearance of the object for the totality of its function. The icon is an icon by virtue not of its form, but of its usage and religious contextualization. The representative power of the icon does not constitute the totality of its significance.

The icon persists as a representation of only the leanest qualities of the God. Just as the portrait requires our willingness to enter into it, so too the icon requires our own willingness to seek through it an encounter. As Sargent created in Madame X a beguiling emptiness into which we flow, so too the icon provides us with a vacuous space to draw us into Divine relation.

Thus, whomever is represented in the figure of the icon is not simply present in the icon itself, but alluded to, just as a portrait presents us not with the person, but with the opportunity for encounter. As Martin Buber (1996) describes, “It is in encounter that the creation reveals its formhood; it does not pour itself into the senses that are waiting but deigns to meet those that are reaching out” (p. 77). Representations of the Divine invite us to reach out toward the Gods, to meet them in encounter, facilitated by the greater context of the religious practice that encloses us.

In order to make sense of the Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, one needs to have an understanding of the political situation that enclosed the production and usage of the image. So too does the icon rely on its religious surroundings in order to truly speak of the Divinity toward which it points. The language of the icon is learned through the practice of religion. To those who do not gaze upon the icon seeking encounter, only the thing will manifest, no matter how beautiful the object itself, nothing of the God will emerge before their gaze. “Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation” (Buber, 1996, p. 55). Unless encounter is sought through the icon, it remains inert before our gaze.

The icon performs allegorically, perhaps informing us about some characteristics of the divine being, or associating certain qualities with divinity in general, but ultimately stands as distinct from the being toward whom it points. “Whether one speaks of God as He or It, this is never more than allegory. But when we say You to him, the unbroken truth of the world has been made word by mortal sense” (Buber, 1996, p. 147-148). The icon provokes us to recognize the You of the Deity, to stand in relation, and not to take the presence before our eyes as a complete presentation of the God.

The logic of representation, of the equation of the simulacra with the original, which is already fractured by the portrait, is completely undone by the icon, which always points to a being that dwells solely within the realm of pure presentation. Understanding the icon as a broken representation, we can say that it leads us toward encounter with a God in the realm of pure presentation, where the God emerges, becomes real in our lives. The icon, like the portrait, is an autonomous and separate creation from the original being after which it is patterned. A portrait is not understood as composing the body of the person whose features it mimics. In the same way, the icon is not, in itself, the body of the God.

The icon is a deliberately contrived gateway to encounter, however it cannot be exchanged with the encounter, or the being, the You that drifts behind it. There is no law of equivalence that can penetrate the realm of pure presentation. Just as the portrait cannot be equated to the person, its representative power will always fail, so too the icon can in no way be equated to the God. Encounter with the God, though facilitated by the icon, cannot be reduced to icon, or represented in the icon. So too the God eludes representation, abiding within pure presentation, where representation cannot penetrate.

We enter into relation to Gods, and this act is beyond representation, beyond mediation. We appear under the gaze of the Gods, and they, reflexively, appear under ours. This relation is completely exclusive, unique, and unrepeatable. There can be no equivalence or exchange, no substitution of representation for the pure presentation we encounter. Speaking You to the Gods, we place ourselves into a relation that sets both ourselves and the Gods beyond representation, and recognizes within both terms the irreducibility of pure presentation.

 

References:

Buber, M. (1996). I and Thou. (W. Kaufman, trans.) New York: Touchstone. (Original work published 1970)

Zaidman, L. B., & Pantel, P. S. (1992) Religion in the Ancient Greek City. (P. Cartledge, Trans.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. (original work published 1989).

 

Polytheism and Metaphysics (III): Divine Relation (2): Justice

Edward P. Butler in Noēseis

Plato’s conception of justice is another point at which we can see the fundamentally polytheistic nature of his thought.1 What is justice, for Plato? Without much effort, of course, we could say that it is the state of participating in the form Justice; but why do Platonists answer a question in this unhelpful fashion? In fact, this answer’s value is precautionary. In the Phaedo (100d), Socrates explains that the safest answer to a question such as “What makes a thing beautiful?” is to say that “Beautiful things are made beautiful by beauty.”2 Such an answer is safe in light of what Socrates has already explained about his youthful intellectual vagaries (96a sqq.), because it avoids any reductionism, such as when somebody would explain Socrates’ sitting by talking just about his bones and sinews and joints (98c-d), rather than about his decision to undergo the capital sentence ordered by his fellow citizens, instead of fleeing (98e-99a). There’s nothing wrong with bones and joints, but such an explanation doesn’t answer the question we’re probably asking about why Socrates is sitting in just the situation he is.

The value of an answer in terms of ‘forms’ is that, precisely in its emptiness, it holds open a space within the account about how, e.g., beauty or justice comes about, so that nothing in that explanation ends up eliminating what it was seeking to explain in the first place, so that explaining something doesn’t turn into explaining it away. Here we see again a characteristic basic both to Platonism and to polytheism, as I have argued previously: non-reductionism.3 So the just is just in the first place because of Justice, but that still leaves us to explain everything about how justice works, and in that explanation, we encounter again the impulse against reductionism. The Republic, which is primarily concerned with the nature of justice, basically arrives at the answer (443d-e) that justice is the situation in which each of the forces in the soul, where Plato thinks justice primarily is for us, does what it peculiarly does, and doesn’t usurp the function of any of the others. How many and what forces there are in the soul, and what specific relationship Plato argues they ought to have with one another, is less important than that the soul will be in a just state when its parts have a relationship among them that allows each of them, and the soul as a totality, to flourish. Justice is the relation among several things allowing each to flourish as what it is, given that this requires acknowledgment of the whole field in which these things operate.

A key issue that arises in such a field of forces is at what point, if ever, a force reaches a limit in its ability to govern itself and needs to submit to the authority of another force. This is the moment of ‘sovereignty’. There is a paradox here, however. Insofar as an agency could recognize such a need, it is already governing itself, and arguably needs no other; whereas if it cannot recognize such a need, then the authority imposed upon it has dubious legitimacy, if any. In light of this aporia or impasse, the sovereignties established by the Gods amongst themselves within the diverse pantheons can only exist on an ontological plane subordinate to their autonomous agencies. A paradox, an impasse, establishes a new space, because its ‘solution’ is in one respect no solution at all, but in another, it is solved, albeit only on different terms. In this way an ontology of ‘levels’ or ‘planes’ is produced.

Different polytheistic theologies exhibit different models of order among the Gods, different ways of carrying forward the formal principle of a just disposition of forces into the aporetic territory of sovereignty, where no discrete solution without remainder is possible. Instead, there will always be contestation. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Zeus is able to establish a stable Olympian order by recognizing each God’s timē, ‘honor’ or prerogative, the domain in which He recognizes Their authority, so as to minimize conflict.4 Hence, unlike the divine sovereigns who came before him, Zeus operates frequently by persuasion. And yet His reign is marked by conflict, including revolts on the part of those closest to Him. This level of conflict is actually built into Zeus’ model of sovereignty: if it weren’t, it wouldn’t happen, because things don’t just happen to the Gods.

The sovereignty of Ouranos, by contrast, was—and is—force. It remains true that persuasion is not effective in the case of destructive natural forces, but only a greater force. There would be no justice in failing to recognize the autonomy and reality of such natural forces on their own terms, that the physical world, for example, is real and has its own laws. Justice would also require recognizing that there is something that speaks for these forces in a language we may speak as well. Taking a wider perspective, everything may be regarded as a force of some kind (as I have, indeed, already done in this essay), including reason, without overt reduction, and in this regard Ouranos’ sovereignty is uninterrupted. The sovereignty of Kronos is calculation, and its breadth is not to be underestimated. Whatever is done for any other reason can also be understood as the product of calculation; and indeed, what else do we mean when we say that something occurs for a reason, as we have done in the case of Socrates sitting in jail? Kronos, too, is more than this, He is also the dreamer, as in a beautiful passage from Plutarch (The Face on the Moon, 941f-942a), and calculation and dreaming make a totality in Him.5 Each of these sovereignties has that which they successfully comprehend, and that which passes through their net.

Part of the stability of Zeus’s model of sovereignty, which consists in balancing and harmonizing the diverse timai of the Olympians, is that it incorporates its own future, in a certain respect, and even its own failure. Zeus has, in addition to co-sovereigns such as Poseidon and Haides, and a sovereign Queen in Hera, a successor, Dionysos, who never reigns—or does He, sovereign of revolution and transformation? In another sense, Zeus’s reign is stable because it never begins at all, since Aphrodite continues to wield the sovereignty She inherits from Ouranos throughout the Olympian realm, and over Zeus Himself. Zeus’s sovereignty includes the transgression of His authority. He is stolen from and defied, and there are consequences, but myth is not the plane of approximation and compensation, but the plane of law in itself, and therefore the thefts and transgressions against Zeus are themselves part of His law, that which by slipping out of His hands returns, in another sense, to His grasp.

Since Olympian sovereignty is aporetic from the very top, why should we be surprised that Hellenic myths involving human kings virtually always concern their downfall? The Persian Epic of Kings, the Shahnameh, is likewise full of stories of kings falling from grace, losing the xvarenah (or farr) that once shone upon them, and the revolutions that follow. The Chinese Feng Shen Yen I concerns the establishment, in a massive cooperative effort transforming large numbers of humans and Gods, of the principle of the ‘mandate of heaven’ (tian ming) by which human political institutions acquire legitimacy and are deprived of it.

Polytheistic theologies from cultures with stronger institutions of state power than the Hellenic poleis (city-states) still recognize an aporetic quality to sovereignty. The ways in which they work out the problem of sovereignty, however, resemble the way in which these themes play out in Hellenic theologies only as much as they differ. In Egyptian theology, for instance, we see this sort of moment when the cosmic sovereignty is awarded, not to the strongest, Seth, who secures the cosmos itself against entropy, but to the weaker, to Horus, the child of mortality. We may say that this is because this weaker principle will not survive under the reign of the strongest, whereas the strongest will survive under the reign of this weaker force. It would be far too easy to regard mortal beings as merely things that wear out and break down and are washed away by time, and this would be all there was to say under the reign of the strongest, as hitherto defined. Hence a new kind of strength is recognized, and a new form of authority in addition to the old, not replacing it. Once again, Socrates does sit on account of having bones and joints, but also for reasons.

Reaching further, if sovereignty is aporetic in itself, then it is the crisis of systems of governance that most embodies that aporetic character of the principle itself. This may be one way to articulate the virtue systems of governance such as democracy possess over those which are superficially more harmonious. There were in antiquity, of course, already peoples who would have no kings among them, and this is a kind of sovereignty we need to inquire into most particularly. Another line of inquiry which should be a priority for further research, lies in better understanding the theologies of stateless societies. What forms of order exist among Gods, when They form no state?

Justice, then, is ultimately that system of relations within a plurality that preserves the plurality in operation, a harmony in which no voice can be silenced. Justice demands a harmony within ourselves, a harmony among ourselves and all the other mortals, a harmony among ideas, a harmony between ourselves and the Gods, and is itself established first and foremost by the Gods as a harmony among Themselves. And there’s not just one harmony, obviously. Diverse tonalities incorporate elements that are dissonant to a differently trained ear. These elements would be present in the other tonal systems, but as accidents, or as differences below whatever threshold the system sets for what is significant.

The examples I’ve given of theological justice are of justice established within a pantheon. But what is the nature of justice between pantheons, and hence between the human cultures of which pantheons form the theophanic infrastructure? There is no pantheon of all the Gods, albeit this is what ‘pantheon’ means, because there is no theophanic relation incorporating them all, as opposed to the taxonomic classification of being-Gods. Hence there is not a justice existing among Them of the kind They have established in the spaces of myth and through language and symbol and rites. Where are all the other Gods, within a pantheon? In a sense, They are outside its justice, as its ‘matter’, the remainder relative to the works of formation constituting it. But there, too, are the Gods belonging to that pantheon, insofar as They transcend their role in those works.

A culture, a pantheon, is not a narrow place; unbounded by time and space, each encompasses all things. Polytheists know well that there is nowhere they could go where they cannot find their Gods, and that They do not need to take on different identities to do so, though They can. To the degree that they have borders, the borders of pantheons are porous, and given time and worldly circumstances, every kind of encounter and alliance occurs.6 Indeed, it could be that the very reason why pantheons have borders is so that there can be these spaces of encounter. The space between pantheons is not the property of the kind of totalizing synthesis that determines a priori that the many, many Gods are just masks or aspects of whatever number seems suitable to all recognized purposes, usually a baker’s dozen or so, but rather the space of encounters which have no overriding goal. Justice between pantheons seems to depend in some sense therefore upon us, insofar as it lies in our power to recognize the existence of Gods other than our own, and to be the place where these encounters occur, for just as the Gods are not mere parts dependent upon the whole each pantheon embodies, so too we are not merely the products of a given culture or nation or historical line, but the possibility of something never seen or imagined.

1 Cf. http://polytheist.com/noeseis/2014/09/03/polytheism-and-metaphysics-i-divine-relation/, where the relation between Gods fundamental to the Timaeus cosmogony was read as such a case.

2 Trans. H. N. Fowler.

3 http://polytheist.com/noeseis/2014/11/04/polytheism-and-metaphysics-ii/

4 Zeus’ balancing of timai should not be reduced to a division of labor. The accomodation arrived at by the Olympians in the Theogony is in the first place an intersubjective recognition among Themselves of who They are, and not an assignment of tasks or a designation of roles.

5 I am grateful to my colleague Sannion at The House of Vines for calling this passage of Plutarch to my attention recently (http://thehouseofvines.com/2014/11/30/dead-and-dreaming/).

6 http://polytheist.com/speaking-of-syncretism/

On Representation: The Frailty of Images

Julian Betkowski in Featured Voices, Walking Through the Inhuman Hour

Portraiture is a notoriously difficult art form. The portraitist is charged with luring us into perceiving, within the It of paint and canvas, of stone or plaster or wood, a majestic You. Though this alone is the drive of any artist, to winnow down all possible forms until only the alluring It remains, an It that beguiles us over and over again into finding something like a You within it.

The essential deed of art determines the process whereby form becomes work. That which confronts me is fulfilled through the encounter through which it enters into the world of things in order to remain incessantly effective, incessantly It—but also infinitely able to become again a You, enchanting and inspiring. It becomes “incarnate”: out of the flood of spaceless and timeless presence it rises to the shore of continued existence. (Buber, 1996,p. 65-66)

The portraitist must carve out a space for a You that vibrates in tandem with, that echoes something of the style of, a You already resolved and thrumming along. The true portrait is thus an empty space, an intimate kingdom awaiting the return of its monarch – in nothingness we find You.

A portrait need not tell us anything about the person it represents. If we seek to learn about a person, gazing at a portrait will tell us very little, save that there once stood a person who, in some moment, resonated in time with this image. We should remember, though, that, just like all art, the portrait is contrived, and intended to serve a purpose. Consider the famed Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth the First, wherein the monarch is not only depicted much younger than her age at the time of painting, but also clutching a rainbow, and adorned in a robe embroidered with eyes and ears. The Rainbow Portrait is full up with symbolism for those who would read it, and it serves a political function. Yet, despite that, in all of its contrivance, allusion, and propagandizing, the Rainbow Portrait still presents us with the image of a woman gazing out upon us.

The setting, dress, and symbology may all speak to us if we understand their language, those elements may all answer some of our questions. Indeed, they may tell us a good deal about the position of the sitter in society, their rank, their importance, their economic status. A portrait may tell us something about the daily life of the sitter, of their most basic relation to the world around them, and yet… What the portrait truly does is ask a question, is always asking, “How am I?” Falling into the You within the It, we live the answer. While all of art beguiles in some similar fashion, with the portrait we are constantly reminded that here, in this case, a being was, not simply imagined, or deduced as some theoretical potential, but present. The better the portrait, the more forcefully the question is asked, the more intensely the confrontation between the incessant It and the enchanting You is realized through our gaze.

Touch pencil to paper; record the image of a tree. Now gaze upon your transcription. What have you recorded in your image? “I can accept it as a picture: a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splashes of green traversed by the gentleness of the blue silver ground,” (Buber, 1996, p. 58). Something of the manner of the form is revealed to our gaze, a simple assemblage of form and light.

 I can overcome its uniqueness and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the law—those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and separate. (Buber, 1996, p. 57-58)

The tree becomes an image, a series of shapes, the expression of natural laws. It falls into representation and remains fixed there. “Throughout all of this the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition,” (Buber, 1996, p. 58).

Yet, of course, it is possible for something else to occur: “it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has seized me,” (Buber, 1996, p. 58). Through the It, we have apprehended, suddenly, a You. “The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination; it confronts me bodily and has to deal with me as I deal with it—only differently” (Buber, 1996, p. 58). Has any of that fallen into the paper you have before you? Have your lines drawn forth a confrontation?

 Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself. (Buber, 1996, p. 58-59)

Have you produced an encounter? Have you transcribed it into lines on paper? Such is the portrait.

The portraitist is charged with representing the unrepresentable, for nothing of the You can be captured through the It, though the world of It is the gateway. “The It is the chrysalis, the You the butterfly. Only it is not always as if these states took turns so nearly; often it is an intricately entangled series of events that is tortuously dual,” (Buber, 1996, p. 69). The image, the portrait, oscillates before us and must always fall back into the world of It. Yet, if there is in it something of an encounter, a You may flicker through, and we will find ourselves again in relation. “All actual life is encounter,” (Buber, 1996, p. 62). The portrait presents us over and over again with an encounter, a very precise and incisive encounter.

Consider John Singer Sargent’s famous Madame X. The composition is simple, a central figure in a dark dress looks over her left shoulder. Her right hand grips the edge of a table, in her left hand she holds a fan and gathers a few folds of her dress. Her expression is vague, almost neutral, save for a slight tightness of her lips and the curve of her brow. Pause a moment, though, and examine her more thoroughly, notice the sinews of her neck, just sharp enough to cast a pale shadow, then return again to her right hand and notice its position, and the twist of the arm. Stand up and replicate the pose. Place your hand upon the surface of a table and turn your arm to match hers. Look over your left shoulder. That moment, preserved in the portrait, of seeming repose, is transformed in your flesh. Tension arcs through your chest, coiling up your arm and through your throat. Look again at the portrait. Notice the flush of red in the figure’s ear. What are we looking at in this image? What has Sargent transcribed to canvas in this portrait?

Do we glimpse something of this woman, something of her manner? What has happened out of frame that has caused her to ripple with quiet tension? The cool, pale, serene expanse of her breast slides into the sudden blackness of her dress. In Madame X we encounter something hidden, something that slips from view, and lingers somewhere beyond the edge of the frame. Yet, the portrait is cavernous. It draws us in and we strain to fill it. How clever of Sargent to present us with an image so perfectly vacant, hollow. How can we help but take up residence, fill it out with all of our muscularity? Out of the confrontation with an undeniable It, we burst forth with an effulgent You.

In 1500, Albrecht Durer completed his Self Portrait at the Age of 28. Again, the composition is quite simple. The figure is centrally placed, he stares straight ahead at the viewer , his shoulders squared. His right hand gently holds the fur collar of his coat closed, his left arm indicated by the edge of his sleeve just peaking over the bottom of the frame. The painting relies heavily on chiaroscuro, the figure emerges from a dark ground and is indicated in planes of light carving out a narrow, angular face with large, widely spaced sloe eyes under arcing brows. His lips are full and dark, and framed by a carefully styled mustache and beard. A birthmark or blemish sits on his right cheek, under the corner of his eye. The face is not entirely attractive, an effect which is compounded by the odd rendering of his tightly curled hair. Yet, even though the expression is impassive, meeting the gaze of the portrait (if it is sensible to speak of a thing of paint and cloth and wood as having a gaze) it is near impossible not to see something twinkling within it. The rendering of the eyes, with all of their precise highlights, certainly pushes us toward seeing something profound within the image yet we can cannot deny that however beguiling, the portrait remains an It.

Again, this is a painting of an encounter. The viewer enters into a relation by gazing at the portrait, and comes to encounter a You, however briefly, flashing from within an interminable It. Perhaps this portrait no longer looks audacious to us, as it would have when it was painted. The figure meets our gaze, which in the time and place that it was painted, was an act reserved only for images of Christ. Notice, too, the awkwardly positioned right hand: Durer has, in that odd pose, echoed the gesture of benediction. Durer created a self-portrait that was designed to challenge the viewer, and assert that by gazing upon his own face, one was gazing upon a figure as important as Christ’s. It is a prideful image. Do we see that pride today? Do those arcing brows and angular planes tell us of the self-assurance of the man who drew them forth into being?

Even if it remains vague, there is an immediate sense of understanding when we allow ourselves to enter into an encounter. Sargent’s Madame X and Durer’s Self Portrait of the Artist as the Age of 28 may tell us very little about the actual beings after whom they are patterned, yet, if we encounter them, and fall into them, and find within them a hidden You, we have in ourselves some kind of knowing. We come away with a knowledge, however unstructured, of a being, or a way of being, that we encountered. We establish a relation through encounter, a positioning of ourselves in correspondence with something else.

Within the basic representation of the portrait lurks a fundamental abstraction: the You can never be represented, nor the encounter, nor the relation. The You, and everything that it entails, can only be given abstractly, obliquely, vaguely. We, through encounter and relation, transform the abstraction and recognize something like an interior life. Opening ourselves up to encounter, we move through the simple It of representation, into the exclusivity of the You. We orient ourselves toward the apprehension of the You, we go in search of it, and it is an act both of will and submission to find it. For though we must both seek out the You and acknowledge it, we, in turn, submit ourselves to the You we encounter and transform under its gaze.

The being of the You can never be represented. It defies the logic of representation, that would equate and exchange the simulacra for the original object. Representation only functions as an extension of the It-world: it serves as a deliberately contrived point of entry into encounter, but it itself can never equate or exchange itself with the encounter, or with the You that drifts behind it. The encounter remains outside of representation, and the immersion into the You is beyond its reach. The You cannot enter into a system of exchange or equivalence because it remains always exclusive, outside of the realm of value. Attempts to commodify any you are the product of the failure to recognize the You, and force it back into the It-world.

As the successful portrait demonstrates, the You stands outside of the reach of representation, it stands instead within pure presentation. We apprehend the You fully in its majesty without any mediation: it is an act of relation, one to one. “Persons appear by entering into relation to other persons” (Buber, 1996, p. 112), we appear under the gaze of the other, as the other appears under ours. The act of relation defies representation, and can only emerge through pure presentation itself.

 Whoever stands in relation, participates in actuality; that is, in a being that is neither merely a part of him nor merely outside him. All actuality is an activity in which I participate without being able to appropriate it. Where there is no participation, there is no actuality. (Buber, 1996, p. 113)

Form itself, shape and image and light, is the mere assemblage of objects. By entering into relation, we move beyond form and participate in actuality, in the reality of being. Representation may present us with the image, but it can never present us with the relationship. We ourselves must recognize the You and enter into relationship with it: only then do we know.

 

References:

Buber, M. (1996). I and Thou. (W. Kaufman, trans.) New York: Touchstone. (Original work published 1970)

 

Roman Sewage

Tess Dawson in Spring and Stone

There was a marvelous movie-event at the local cinema earlier this night—a documentary about Pompeii sponsored by the British Museum and in support of one of their current exhibits. Please ma’am, just take my money and hand me a ticket now, thank you! I want to see the sweeping silver screen present Roman history, artifacts, ancestors, deities, and polytheism.

Pompeii and Herculaneum were the two small Roman towns devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August of the year 79. The documentary had a team of experts covering different parts of Roman culture: a chef and scholar of Roman cuisine shared his knowledge of Roman diet and cooking while the viewers got a look at cookware and carbonized remains of food and artifacts. A botany and gardens expert led us through the flora and fauna of a lush fresco and what was available in Roman courtyards, and so on. For the most part, I enjoyed the documentary and I enjoyed listening to what the experts had to say. But there was one glaring part that soured the experience. One part that I found wounding to the core: disrespect for the deities.

One of the hosts of the documentary asked if the Romans “actually” believed in these many deities, or if the ancient Romans were “just superstitious.” At a different point in the documentary, they make reference to Bacchus being little more than an amusing “character.” They also showed a household shrine for just a few seconds, only to point out the painting of it and the flat area where offerings went, before swiftly moving on to an extensive discussion about sewage and drains.

They were more fascinated, respectful, and interested in the shit in the drains than they were about discussing and being respectful of the deities. I’m not exaggerating about the contents of the drains: I’m speaking of fecal matter, leftover food, and tossed out broken pots. Don’t get me wrong: the stuff found in sewage drains can yield a wealth of information about daily life, diet, plants, animals, what’s considered trash in a culture, and many, many other things—things that are useful and worthwhile to know, things that are indeed fascinating, and things that require studying. But there is also here evidence of a deep, deep wrong: sewage was met with more dignity than the gods themselves. The documentary didn’t bother to ask the irrational question “Did the Romans actually believe in a sewage system, or were they just germophobes?”

The question of whether the Romans “actually” believed in these many deities or if they were “just superstitious”—is a faulty question from the get-go. It’s a question designed to make you fail. It’s a question designed to force you into accepting and defending bad assumptions first before choosing an “answer” from only a few defective options. For instance, if someone asks you “Which spoiled milk do you like, whole milk or two percent?” This question assumes you can drink milk, and that you like spoiled milk to begin with. It leaves you only with the option of having spoiled milk of some sort: it doesn’t matter if the milk is whole or two percent because there’s the bigger problem of it being spoiled and you probably don’t want spoiled milk at all—the matter of it being whole or two percent isn’t even a factor. And if you are intolerant or have an allergy, then the question is even more nonsensical and inappropriate.

There are numerous unspoken assumptions permeating this question of either-“actual”-belief-or-superstition. The word “actual” in this context already sets the question in a biased way, as if polytheism were some kind of ancient foolishness, as if our ancestors were somehow of befuddled wits and overactive imaginations that could accept such a bizarre and faulty concept as having multiple deities. Using the word “actually” in this context already sets up the question to assume that polytheism is bizarre, exotic, faulty, and silly. The question presupposes that “the gods don’t exist” and “polytheism is wrong and foolish,” as well as “polytheism is irrational and unenlightened,” and “we are enlightened now that we ‘know better’ than to believe in many gods,” “we are smarter than our ancestors” and “our ancestors are foolish for honoring many gods.”

In answering the question with one of the two choices given—either “the Romans ‘actually’ believed,” or “the Romans were just superstitious”—the answerer has been led down a primrose path of putrescence. It doesn’t matter which way the answerer responds because the end result is still the same. Either way, the answerer ends up tacitly agreeing that the gods don’t exist, polytheism is wrong and foolish, polytheism is irrational, none of us modern people honor many gods, we modern people are rational and enlightened now that we don’t honor many gods, and our ancestors are idiots. One assumption, leads to another, and another, and another. The assumptions, the disrespect, and the filth just keep accumulating. Talk about a pipeline of sewage!

Disrespect for the deities is so pervasive in many of our modern surrounding majority cultures that the disrespect passes as normal and standard. We’ve heard it so many times that we’re often deaf to it. It’s like a foul stink we’ve become so accustomed to that we just don’t smell it anymore and our noses are burned out. Often times, we hear this sort of thing and it just washes past us unnoticed, although it washes past like filth in a sewage line. We need to take notice of when we’re wading in it, even though—especially though—it is not easy because we’ve been born in surrounded by a majority culture that has forgotten, ignored, and eschewed polytheistic ways. When all you know is sewage because you’re born in it, your parents and their parents were born in it, and everyone else around you is born in it, you grow up thinking this is “normal,” and it’s difficult to realize that there’s something wrong about wading in it. It’s even difficult to realize that you are wading in something gross. You can even have trouble distinguishing what is gross from what isn’t, or even knowing that not-being-gross is a state you could be in.

This disrespect is the model which is expected, it is the model against which polytheism and polytheists are judged as being aberrations. We’re surrounded by a culture that belittles polytheism for fear of looking foolish otherwise, but it is this disrespect of the deities is profoundly both foolish and dirty. I could hang Roman penis wind chimes from my head, sing crusty tavern songs while my breath reeks of garlic, confess naughty brothel secrets and make helpful diagrams of those ‘secrets’, invent creative swear words, make obscene gestures, and prance barefoot in that so-fascinating sewage…and still be cleaner to the deities than this modern disrespect, these attitudes and assumptions, are. That this disrespect, these attitudes, and these assumptions often go past us unnoticed, ignored unremarked upon, excused, or even accepted, makes the problem more insidious, contagious, and self-propagating. When I say “excused” what I mean is “oh, it’s not really that bad,” or “that person didn’t mean to be disrespectful, so it’s ok,” and so on. These excuses are not helpful, not to humans, not to ancestors, and not to deities.

This culturally pervasive disrespect has me often in tears—sometimes tears of sorrow, sometimes tears of anger, often both—because this disrespect to the deities is rampant, mainstream, and expected. It has actually become expected and socially “appropriate” to treat the deities foully. Even as it would not have occurred to our ancestors to treat the deities so callously, it does not occur to most people today just to avoid disrespect. At this point, I’m not talking about respecting the deities—I’m talking about simply avoiding active disrespect. Even this remedial standard, this lowest standard possible, has not been reached yet. The bar has been lowered so far that the sewers are a step up. Treating the deities with honor and respect in modern life is deemed silly and superstitious in the majority cultures we find ourselves surrounded with. As polytheists, we have a Vesuvius of work ahead of us in doing what we can to remedy this situation within ourselves and in social situations that we find ourselves in.

This is where we are today. Sewage is more respected than our gods—even in documentaries sponsored by credible, respected folks such as those from The British Museum. We need to shift the paradigm and we need to do it with burning urgency—for the sake of our deities and our ancestors, for honoring them, for making up for past atrocities, for getting into right relations with them once again. It helps to make offerings to the deities and the ancestors to make amends for these many generations of compounded disrespect. Bringing awareness to this matter helps; talking about this matter with each other helps; talking with other people about this matter when they’ve knowingly or unknowingly crossed that boundary into disrespect helps.
It can help to remember, honestly assess, and talk with each other about past events where we didn’t respond as well as we could have—and we can consider ways in which we will do this better next time so that we can become more practiced and comfortable in confronting these matters.

It is also important to pay attention to our own thinking when these culturally-pervasive assumptions flit around in our own minds and wear the masks of respect, social awareness, intelligence, rational thought, or education when these assumptions are not respect, social awareness, intelligence, rational thought, or education. If ever these assumptions do come into the mind wearing these masks, refer back to the list of assumptions above that come with a question like “Did the Romans actually believe in all these gods or were they just superstitious?” Either way you attempt to answer that broken question, the result is the same.

Evidence of Loki’s Worship?

Dagulf Loptson in Ørgrandr Lokean

One of the most pervasive (and unfounded) arguments against Loki’s worship in American Heathenry, is that we have no physical or written evidence to suggest he was ever worshipped in the past. This has often been used as “proof” that he was reviled in Scandinavia, since he was seemingly so hated that nobody would want to worship Loki or name anything after him. However, there is a similar lack of evidence for the worship of Heimdallr, Sif, and many more of the Norse deities. It seems that Loki has been singled out in this long list of deities without evidence of an organized cult, in an attempt to defend his image as a malignant figure in modern Heathenry. However, no hard evidence that Loki was absolutely reviled has ever been presented either, and the idea that Loki never had place-names or people named after him has become such a parroted statement in modern Heathenry, that many people have no longer bothered to question it. For the record, the statement that Loki never had anything or anyone named after him is provably false. Despite these criticisms, I have researched what I consider to be valid evidence to suggest that Loki was an object of worship in Scandinavia, and at the very least was an object of affection as a folk-hero in at least one country.

Útgarða-Loki

The Gesta Danorum (“Deeds of the Danes”) was written in the early 13th century by the Danish priest and historian, Saxo Grammaticus. Saxo’s work is composed of 16 books that chart the history of Denmark from prehistoric times to the late 12th century. The object of the book was largely to glorify the Danes.1 Scholars such as Axel Olrik have suggested that Saxo received his knowledge of Scandinavian mythology and folklore largely from Norwegian sources, and much of his information may have been collected by an Icelander who traveled the Norwegian coast.2

Because Snorri and Saxo were writing at approximately the same time, scholars are unsure which one of them should be considered the earliest collection of Norse mythology. It is possible that Snorri was following a purely Icelandic tradition, whereas Saxo primarily relied on sources from continental Scandinavia. It is notable that Loki appears nowhere in Saxo’s account of Baldr’s death, which might reflect the beliefs of Denmark.3

Though both Snorri and Saxo should be regarded as sources for the study of Heathen mythology, Saxo is often overlooked by modern Heathens. Part of the reason for this may be because Snorri is both more easily accessible and more entertaining to read. Perhaps it is for this reason that the strange interlude I’ll be examining first has never been mentioned by modern Heathens or Lokeans in discussions about Loki.

Saxo’s Gesta Danorum provides us with a familiar, yet at the same time unusual image of Loki. In part II of Book VIII, it becomes evident that King Gorm of Denmark is a fervent worshipper of a god he refers to as Útgarða-Loki. According to Saxo, while King Gorm was making a voyage, his ship was buffeted by bad weather and few of his men survived. Gorm’s men began offering sacrifices to appease a multitude of gods, but Gorm prayed to his favored deity, Útgarða-Loki, and received the fair weather he had prayed for.

“…he was tossed by bad weather; his men perished of hunger, and but few survived, so that he began to feel awe in his heart, and fell to making vows to heaven, thinking the gods alone could help him in his extreme need. At last the others besought sundry powers among the gods, and thought they ought to sacrifice to the majesty of diverse deities; but the king, offering both vows and peace offerings to Utgarda-Loki, obtained that fair season of weather for which he prayed.”4

The king finally returned home, took a queen from Sweden, and resigned himself to live a peaceful life from then on. However, near the end of his life, we learn that certain unnamed men persuaded him that his soul was immortal, and he wanted to learn what kind of afterlife he would receive as a result of his zealous worship of Útgarða-Loki. The men in question advised the king to seek out a heavenly oracle, and claimed that Útgarða-Loki must be found and appeased in order to gain a satisfactory answer from him. The enemies of a hero named Thorkill (whose name appears to be derivative of the god Þórr) volunteered him to go on the mission to find Útgarða-Loki, and ironically were sent with Thorkill on the perilous journey.5

Their ship sailed into a sunless place, and after suffering many hardships and nearly starving to death, they saw the twinkle of a fire in the distance. When they reached shore, they came to a cavern guarded by two giants who were feeding the fire, and one of them gave Thorkill directions to reach Útgarða-Loki’s cave. After four days of rowing, Thorkill finally reached the cave of Útgarða-Loki, and found him in a position that closely resembles Snorri’s treatment of Loki in Gylfaginning:

“Then he made others bear a light before him and stooped his body through the narrow jaws of the cavern, where he beheld a number of iron seats among a swarm of gliding serpents. Next there met his eye a sluggish mass of water gently flowing over a sandy bottom. He crossed this and approached a cavern which sloped somewhat more steeply. Again, after this, a foul and gloomy room was disclosed to the visitors, wherein they saw Utgarda-Loki, laden hand and foot with enormous chains. Each of his reeking hairs was as large and stiff as a spear of cornel. Thorkill (his companions lending a hand), in order that his deeds might gain more credit, plucked one of these from the chin of Utgarda-Loki, who suffered it. Straightway such a noisome smell reached the bystanders that they could not breathe without stopping their noses with their mantles. They could scarcely make their way out, and were bespattered by the snakes which darted at them on every side.

Only five of Thorkill’s company embarked with their captain: the poison killed the rest…”6

In Saxo’s Gesta Danorum there is no mention of Loki, but only of Útgarða-Loki, who bears the same name as the mysterious giant Útgarða-Loki from Snorri’s Gylfaginning. However, because Útgarða-Loki is depicted as bound by chains and surrounded by venomous snakes, it is possible that this figure is actually the same Loki as the one in the Eddas, with a slightly different title. It should however be noted that where Snorri places Loki in an imprisoned state because he claims him to be the murderer of Balder, we are given no explanation from Saxo as to why Útgarða-Loki is in his predicament. Scholars such as Oliver Elton and Anna Birgitta Rooth are in agreement that the Útgarða-Loki of Saxo’s account is the same as Loki Laufeyjarson from Snorri’s account. With this in mind, the rest of the account becomes particularly interesting.

Thorkill and his men returned home with the hair plucked from Útgarða-Loki’s face. Upon hearing Thorkill’s account of events, the king’s reaction was surprising.

“He listened eagerly to his recital of everything, till at last, when his own god was named, he could not endure him to be unfavorably judged. For he could not bear to hear Utgarda-Loki reproached with filthiness, and so resented his shameful misfortunes, that his very life could not brook such words, and he yielded it up in the midst of Thorkill’s narrative. Thus, whilst he was so zealous in the worship of a false god, he came to find where the true prison of sorrows really was.”7

This passage is significant for a variety of reasons. First of all, it is obvious that King Gorm had a special devotion to Útgarða-Loki (i.e. Loki?), and when he heard Thorkill’s account he was so upset by the description of his god’s circumstances that he died of grief on the spot. It is also notable that a story of a bound Útgarða-Loki was news to King Gorm, and that apparently he had never heard of this development before. This seems unusual if we are to believe that there was a widespread belief that Loki (or Útgarða-Loki) was imprisoned underground. Thorkill is obviously using this tale to shed an unfavorable light on Gorm’s favorite god, which implies that Útgarða-Loki did not have an unfavorable character to begin with. It is notable that Thorkill is a Christian hero in Saxo’s account, so it isn’t unimaginable that this story demonstrates the negative light that was cast upon Útgarða-Loki (Loki?) in particular with the coming of Christianity. I am also inclined to believe that Saxo didn’t completely fabricate the devotion held by the Danish monarchy to Útgarða-Loki. Útgarða-Loki seems an unlikely candidate for a king’s devotion, and defaming a better known god such as Óðinn or Þórr in this situation would have been more logical if the story were entirely fabricated.

As I have already mentioned, Saxo and Snorri were writing during the same century and it is difficult to tell which of their accounts was written first. This leaves the reader to choose between two logical conclusions:

1. Saxo was not writing about Loki, but was writing about Útgarðr-Loki, who is a separate figure that also appears in Snorri’s account in Gylfaginning. If you agree with this theory, then there is a reasonable doubt that it was Útgarðr-Loki, not Loki Laufeyjarson, who traditionally came to be bound underground, and Snorri either botched his account, purposefully changed it in order to devise a more compelling and cohesive story of Balder’s death and how it tied into the end of the world as imagined in Völuspá; or perhaps the identity of the bound figure differed depending on the region. This would also mean that the obscure giant from Snorri’s account was actually considered a god and an object of worship in Denmark.

2. Saxo was writing about Loki Laufeyjarson and referring to him as Útgarða-Loki. This would mean that there is a record of Loki being worshipped in Denmark (by royalty, no less), which invalidates claims that Loki was never worshiped in antiquity. Due to King Gorm’s surprise at Thorkill’s account, it is also possible that the bound, tortured Loki was a myth which was not originally known by the Danes.

I am more inclined to agree with the second theory, and believe that this account in the Gesta Danorum is an intriguing piece of evidence for Loki’s worship in Heathen times. The fact that he was being worshipped by a king could also signify that Loki was at one time held in much higher esteem than is usually believed, and perhaps he even possessed a cult of his own.

The Nordendorf Fibula

Nordendorfspange
(Nordendorf fibula, public domain image found at Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nordendorf-brooch.jpg)

That there may be evidence for Loki’s worship in Germany has been suggested by the discovery of the Nordendorf fibula (a gilded silver brooch found in Nordendorf, Germany that dates to the beginning of the 7th century). The fibula’s inscription reads:

logaþore

wodan

wigiþonar

(Then, at a 180 degree angle from this inscription):

awaleubwini8

The second and third names on this inscription are self explanatory. “Woden” is the god (aka, Óðinn), while Wigiþonar has been translated to mean “Battle-Þórr”. The first god name has been interpreted by some as an alternative (and perhaps older) version of the name Lóður/Loki. According to Simek, the name Logaþore may be connected to the Old English words: logþor, logþer, logeþer and logðor, all which imply “malicious”, and could be tied to Loki in his trickster guise9. Loki is also a likely suspect for identification with Logaþor, in that he is the only god that appears as the traveling companion of both Óðinn and Þórr.

The last part of the fibula inscription (awaleubwini) is comprised of the female name “Awa” and the male name “Leubwini”, and it is speculated that the purpose of the inscription was a magical one: the three gods are being called upon to bring happiness to the man and the woman10.

A charm that may bear a resemblance to the Nordendorf Fibula was recorded in the 19th century by a clergyman from Lincolnshire, England, who supposedly heard it spoken by an old countrywoman as a boy. This alleged charm is a more enigmatic source that also places Loki, Óðinn and Þórr together in a triad for a blessing:

“Thrice I smites with Holy Crock,
With the mell [hammer] I thrice do knock,
One for god, one for Wod,
And one for Lok.”11

This seems to be a reference to Óðinn, Loki, and Þórr (possibly the god of the hammer). However, the odds that the clergyman correctly remembered this obscure poem that he heard by chance in childhood are rather small. We cannot be certain this small piece of folklore is authentic, but at the very least, we can conclude that even in the 19th century, there remained a link between Óðinn, Þórr, and Loki in the minds of the English populace, and Loki was included in prayers for blessings.

Loki in names of people and places

Many sacred locations in Northern Europe bear the names of gods and goddesses. It is also common for god names to appear as elements in the names of common people, such as “Þórr” as part of many names in Iceland. Many modern Heathens have claimed that Loki doesn’t have any historical people or geographical sites named after him, which apparently proves that he was reviled in his native countries. However, this argument is hardly viable, as there actually were people, places, and even stars that were named after Loki.

Axel Olrik provides a list of Scandinavian names which he believes contain Loki’s name in Loke in the Younger Tradition. In 12th century Northumberland, England, there is a record of a man named Locchi. In Småland, Sweden, Locke has been preserved as a hereditary surname. On a rune stone in Uppland, Sweden, the name “Luki” (Loki?) appears. It has also been traced to the place names Lockbol, Luckabol, Lockesta, and Locastum.11 Jacob Grimm also tells us that there is a giant’s grave in Vestergötland, Sweden, named Lokehall.12

There was also a settler in Norway called Þórbjørn loki, and a man called Þórðr loki.13 Another name for Loki also prominently appears in the biography of Snorri Sturluson. Snorri’s foster-father was named Jón Loptsson (“son of Lopt”), Lopt being one of the most prominent bynames for Loki. Ironically, Lopt, Jón’s father, was a priest from a well-to-do family. It isn’t hard to imagine that at least someone from heathen Scandinavia was granted the name Lopt or Loki. Loki was considered to be the most cunning god of the Norse pantheon, and surely at one time it would have been considered auspicious for a clever man to bear his name.

Though it is a common statement in the Heathen community that Loki has no geographical place names within Scandinavia, there is at least one in the Faroe Islands called Lokkafelli (Loki’s Fell). It is noteworthy that the Faroe Islands are also the country of origin for the folk tale Lokka táttur (or “Loki’s Tale”), which was first recorded in the late 18th century. Loki stars as the hero of this story, who is the only one who is clever enough to rescue a farmer’s son from a giant when Óðinn, Hönir, and Loki are all petitioned to help him. Because of the lateness and obscurity of this poem it seems to have been largely ignored or overlooked in the Heathen community, but it seems uncharacteristic that a mythological figure who was traditionally reviled in Scandinavia would possess a story that casts them as an clever hero. That Loki has a landmark in the Faroe Islands named after him could also demonstrate that Loki received some degree of affection from this populace in particular.

The most famous landmark from heathen Scandinavia that bears Loki’s name is Sirius, the “Dog Star”, was known in Scandinavia as Lokabrenna (“Loki’s Torch”).14 According to the Spanish Aarab At-Tatuschi, this star was an object of worship to the town of Schleswig (Hedeby) in Denmark15. Sirius became known as the Dog Star in Ancient Greece and Rome, as it first appeared on the horizon during what they called the “dog days” of summer. These were the hottest days of summer (falling between early July and early September in the Northern Hemisphere) and the bright star’s close proximity to the sun at dawn was believed to be responsible for the heat. It is thus appropriate that this star was regarded to be the “torch” of the fiery Loki (and before you ask, no, Loki has nothing to do with dogs).

It is interesting that in Denmark, the location of Útgarða-Loki’s worship according to Saxo, there is early testimony for the star Sirius having been worshipped by the Danes. 

Conclusion

Hopefully I have been able to demonstrate that the idea that there is no evidence of Loki-reverence in Scandinavia is little more than a Heathen urban legend. It could be assumed that the theory that Loki is and was a reviled figure has been defended in order to uphold the most popular mythic narrative within modern Heathenry: that of Snorri Sturluson. The insistence that a lack of evidence for an organized cult of Loki somehow proves that he was a hated figure is likewise pure speculation, and can be categorized more as a popular, modern UPG than as a proven fact.

Bibliography:

Saxo Grammaticus. The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus. Tr. Oliver Elton. Forgotten Books, 2008

H.R. Ellis Davidson. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Penguin Books, 1990

Jacob Grimm. Teutonic Mythology: Volume One. Tr. Stallybrass, James Steven. Dover Publications, Inc., NY, 1966

Axel Olrik. Loke in Younger Tradition. Tr. Eli Anker. Saertryk af Danske Studier 1909. http://www.northvegr.org/secondary%20sources/folklore%20and%20fairy%20tales/loke%20in%20younger%20tradion/index.html

Rudolf Simek. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S Brewer, Cambridge, 2007

Consulate General of Denmark in New York. Factsheet. http://web.archive.org/web/20060113013845/http://www.denmark.org/about_denmark/factsheets_articles/factsheets_vikings.html

Endnotes:

1Turville-Petre, E.O.G. Myth and Religion of the North. 23

2Ibid, 29

3Ibid, 33

4Saxo Grammaticus. The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus. 332

5Ibid, 333

6Ibid, 335

7Ibid, 336

8Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. 191

9Ibid, 191

10Ibid, 236

11Davidson, H.R. Ellis. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. (Penguin Books, 1990) 180

12Olrik, Axel. Loke in Younger Tradition.

13Turville-Petre, E.O.G. Myth and Religion of the North. 21-22

14Grimm, Jacob. Teutonic Mythology: Volume One. 242

Death and Syncretism

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus in Speaking of Syncretism

My title on this column echoes the phrase often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, from a letter of 1789, which read (in full): “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” (emphasis mine). However, Daniel Defoe said it even earlier than Franklin, in 1726: “Things as certain as Death and Taxes, can be more firmly believed.” There have been many clever and not-so-clever variations on this phrase over the years, though it must be said that it is a very “first-world,” capitalist statement, because there are many indigenous societies that did not (and still don’t) have anything like taxes.

But–and I’m sure you’ve guessed this by now!–I think we can add something to the relatively short list of the inevitables of life, which mostly consists of “death,” with the concept of syncretism. Whether you like it or not, chances are some of the religious practices, theological concepts, deities, or other matters of a spiritual nature are probably the results of syncretism; indeed, with several cultures, it is only via people outside of a certain religion documenting myths of earlier cultures (which they inevitably shape based on their own cultural biases and interests, languages, and so forth) that has given us any information at all about certain deities or narratives, and thus even looking at them now presumes syncretism to some degree or another. It is a reality that one should either accustom oneself to, or give up the endeavor entirely if one thinks that some sort of cultural, linguistic, or theological “purity” is desirable, or even remotely achievable.

However (or, yet another ‘but’!), my purpose today is not to expand upon the inevitability of syncretism, it is to instead discuss how death and syncretism can actually go together and can become factors in each other’s functioning. It is probably not surprising that I have some thoughts on this topic, given that Antinous’ death is what made him into a hero and a god; and furthermore, the Irish tradition is full of individuals (both human and divine) who, even if they are important ancestors after their deaths, often became spirits of place to an extent, tying their own genealogies to the genealogy of the landscape and its varying names and identifications and histories over the course of being inhabited for ages upon ages. It was Antinous’ death that made him a god, and that allowed him to be syncretized to other deities in turn. In wider Egyptian tradition, though, syncretism to Osiris for any of the justified dead was commonplace, as anyone familiar with the Book of Coming Forth By Day is aware.

It is not just gods, heroes, or land spirits that one might become syncretized to in death, though. In fact, in certain remarkable cases, death itself might be the locus of a particular syncretism for some individuals. The Greeks had a concept not only of the keres, spirits of fated violent death (often in battle), but of the Goddess who oversees all of these, Ker. An individual’s death may be long-fated, and thus the one among the keres who will be the spirit of that violent death may be waiting for a long time, and the Greek gods are often said to keep them at bay for some period of time during difficulties for the individual encountered; but, at some point, that violent death will arrive, and the ker of that individual’s fated violent death will no longer be distant, and will in essence “join” with them at the moment of death, bringing about their death. What happens to that individual ker at that point is never specified, and whether these get “recycled” or repurposed, under the direction of Ker, after bringing about the violent death of the person thus fated seems a likely possibility, just as the souls of that person who has been fated to a violent death then go onwards to whatever lies after their life for them, simply as ancestors, heroes, enduring torments, or having another existence (and none of these possibilities invalidates the others also happening, particularly if there are multiple souls or soul-parts involved).

It may also be possible that the keres and other afflicting spirits or daimones may persist with the individual involved, and might even become linked to them for a longer period. Some of my own experiences suggest this might be the case, and that a particular affliction in life and its accompanying spirit might persist with a person after their death, causing them pain and torment. Removal of that afflicting being from the soul or soul-part of the person would have been accomplished by observing the correct burial and funerary practices in many other cultures, and still does go on in indigenous cultures today, but most of our so-called “Western” funerary customs have shifted away from even considering that they may have an impact on the dead person, and instead are shifted in emphasis for remembering the person’s life, and making their living friends and relatives feel better now, rather than ensuring the continuation and spiritual health of the person in their afterlife. This is one of the reasons that practices falling under the most broad and culturally-inclusive rubric of ancestor elevation are both useful and necessary to take into consideration, not only for our ancestors who have already died, but which should be done for anyone and everyone in the modern polytheist communities at their deaths.

Indeed, planning and arranging for this should be a priority for all of us, so that whatever family complications or apparent obligations might arise for a person when their death arrives, there is someone (or, preferably, a community of someones!) who is looking after their spiritual health once they have died. It might even be useful to start some sort of registry or listing in this regard, giving permission before one’s death for polytheist colleagues, known and unknown, near and far, to perform rituals like ancestor elevation and other similar processes for one after death. The issue of whether or not a particular ancestor wants to be honored or venerated or elevated has been raised recently in relation to the Trans* Ancestors Ritual of Elevation, and consent in every area of life (and death) is an extremely important matter to pay attention to and actively seek, certainly. Having a kind of “standing order,” however, on this matter for the wider community, as modern polytheists, might be very useful indeed in making sure that people’s wishes are not only observed, but known in the first place. Why have a lot of guesswork at some later stage when clarity and a large degree of certainty can be achieved now?

With the notion of death and syncretism, it becomes the responsibility of one’s community, family, friends, and loved ones, as well as any well-wishers who did not know someone, to help ensure that the negative forms of syncretism that can occur with death do not happen, and to encourage some of the positive ones via the spiritual technologies each has at its disposal, or which have been (respectfully!) borrowed and adapted from another culture to one’s own context. Life is very short, and the fame and accolades one might be able to enjoy during life are also fleeting; but death and one’s existence after it lasts much longer, and doing all possible to ensure that one’s existence after death is positive should not solely be thought of as in the hands of oneself. Our communities, our own ancestors, and perhaps most importantly, our Deities, are intimately involved in the process, and doing everything possible to strengthen positive relationships with each of these groups (and others as well) while we are still alive is extremely important as far as one’s overall outlook as a modern polytheist.