From: evc@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Edward Van Cura)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Anti-Wotan Propaganda (was Hitler & Xianity)
Date: 31 Aug 92 05:13:50 GMT

An anonymous message which was spoken to me one night by a raven 
which was sitting in a tree as I walked past on my way back from...

Thorfinn
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               Anti-Wotan Propaganda Identified

Because the Troth and the worship of the old Germanic deities (and
especially, it seems, Woden) has such tremendous potential power in
*this* particular culture---much greater than any exotic
neo-religion---it is sometimes singled out among ``New Agers'' as
being somehow ``dangerous.'' This is at once a tribute to our power
and a challenge that must not go unanswered.

In a 1987 book, *The Search for the Beloved*, the author Jean Houston
says: ``The warning must be given, however, that the Beloved of our
spiritual reality determines our religious and human practice.'' She
then goes on to quote an Episcopalian priest and ``spiritual
counselor'' as saying: ``The love and celebration of Wotan can produce
Hitler and Nazism, the love and celebration of Christos, a St. Francis 
of Assisi.'' (p. 127)

Let's leave aside for the moment that St. Francis was a rather kinky
masochist who liked nothing better than to strip naked and have his
followers kick him and spit on him in public places, or the fact that
he and his whole movement were considered a heresy by the Roman
Catholic Church after his death, or the fact that the order founded in
his name was one of the two (with the Dominicans) orders which carried
out the Inquisition! Let's leave that aside, for now.

Is it wise to blame Jesus of Nazareth for every abuse practiced by the
Roman Catholic Church? For the Inquisition, the systematic persecution
of heretics, pagans, Jews, and Moslems---all amounting to a genocide
in Europe. Is it wise to blame Jesus, who preached ``turning the other
cheek'' for the holy wars of the Crusades? I think not. So that even
*if* Wotan *were* the God ``loved and celebrated'' by the Adolf
Hitler, it would not be wise to blame the All-Father for the crimes of
the Nazis.

The fact is, of course, the God loved and celebrated by Hitler was
*not* Wotan. When Hitler spoke of his own religious conceptions he
spoke entirely in terms of the Christian God. (See Manfred Ach and
Clemens Pentrop, *Hitlers Religion* [1977]). He tolerated---and
used---the widespread neo-heathenism in Germany because he thought it
provided ``unrest'' in the populace---unrest which he could use to his
own ends. ``...These professors and obscure men who found their Nordic
religions corrupt the whole thing for me.'' (See Hermann Rauschning,
*Gespraeche mit Hitler* [1940], p. 210) This is the *documented*
reality of the personal attitude of Hitler toward neo-heathen
religion. Hardly a ``lover and celebrator of Wotan''!

We are not dealing with *reality*, however. We are dealing with the
fears of those who see shadows on the walls of their own minds. The
realities that these ``shadows'' reflect are so awesome that many New
Age pundits must warn us away from them---because in them is the real
power. The new ``spiritual counselors'' want you to indulge in
shopping around for as many Gods and Goddesses as possible. As long as
you are shopping you'll be buying their books! When faced with a
tradition that has everything in *reality*, they warn us about it. We
no longer have time for those who cling to the familiar and the
commonplace so they will not actually have to transform themselves
back into what they *really* are.

*                              *                              *

Ms. Houston often travels and gives public lectures. Freya Aswynn, who
first told us about this passage in the book, plans to make her
objections known to the author when she appears in London. Other good
folk and true might want to follow Freya's lead.

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"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process 
 he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, 
 the abyss looks into you."  --- Nietzsche
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Newsgroups: alt.pagan