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Author Topic: Books: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes  (Read 4650 times)

Gore

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Ok, i know what most of you are thinking. THE Varg of Burzum put out a book on heathen ways of life? Oh, it must be full of racist/nazi garbage! I know those of you that know of Varg will be skeptical, and even i am a little bit. He has many good points however that aren't neccesarily exclusive to his more racist views.
Should i buy this book? Should YOU buy this book? Let's hear some thoughts.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2019, 11:23:01 am by RandallS »

Lund

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2012, 09:48:30 pm »
Quote from: ToddGrove;64299
Ok, i know what most of you are thinking. THE Varg of Burzum put out a book on heathen ways of life? Oh, it must be full of racist/nazi garbage! I know those of you that know of Varg will be skeptical, and even i am a little bit. He has many good points however that aren't neccesarily exclusive to his more racist views.
Should i buy this book? Should YOU buy this book? Let's hear some thoughts.


I too am interested in what Varg has to say on our ancestors. I hope someone here has read this book so that they can give an explanation on it.

Apollodorus

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2015, 03:14:35 am »
Quote from: Gore;64299
Ok, i know what most of you are thinking. THE Varg of Burzum put out a book on heathen ways of life? Oh, it must be full of racist/nazi garbage! I know those of you that know of Varg will be skeptical, and even i am a little bit. He has many good points however that aren't neccesarily exclusive to his more racist views.
Should i buy this book? Should YOU buy this book? Let's hear some thoughts.


Does anyone own it? Should i consider it? I've watching his YouTube channel and he has some great thoughts about religions. I don't know if he is still racist or if he has some other issues but from his videos i sense a more pacifist person rather than most of Christians i know.

carillion

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2015, 03:30:50 am »
Quote from: Gore;64299
Ok, i know what most of you are thinking. THE Varg of Burzum put out a book on heathen ways of life? Oh, it must be full of racist/nazi garbage! I know those of you that know of Varg will be skeptical, and even i am a little bit. He has many good points however that aren't neccesarily exclusive to his more racist views.
Should i buy this book? Should YOU buy this book? Let's hear some thoughts.


Hitler painted pretty pictures *and* he wrote a book! I can think of a number of reasons I wouldn't buy a book (thus help support the author) written for profit by a white supremacist, arsonist, convicted murderer......
And I'm pretty sure whatever his *for profit* tales may be, someone else who has a cleaner slate and doesn't require me to support their severely askew moral compass has written a better book. Really. And I'd rather support that person or persons.

Weatherwax

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2015, 05:11:27 am »
Quote from: Apollodorus;179169
Does anyone own it? Should i consider it? I've watching his YouTube channel and he has some great thoughts about religions. I don't know if he is still racist or if he has some other issues but from his videos i sense a more pacifist person rather than most of Christians i know.

 
He definitely is very much a racist. Do check out his Odalism ideology/path. He stopped calling himself a Nazi at one point but he has always supported white supremacism, purity of the white race, and related agendas. Not to mention his past.

I also read some reviews on that book and it looks like he's dismissed almost all modern academic research and bases his theories on the Golden Bough. I mean, really. :) I think it'd be a waste of money both because of the writer and the actual content.

Allaya

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2015, 08:09:32 am »
Quote from: Weatherwax;179173
He definitely is very much a racist. Do check out his Odalism ideology/path. He stopped calling himself a Nazi at one point but he has always supported white supremacism, purity of the white race, and related agendas. Not to mention his past.

I also read some reviews on that book and it looks like he's dismissed almost all modern academic research and bases his theories on the Golden Bough. I mean, really. :) I think it'd be a waste of money both because of the writer and the actual content.

 
I wish I could endorse this comment harder than just pointing out that it's pretty much spot-on.
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.  — Shirley Chisholm
No doubt the truth can be unpleasant, but I am not sure that unpleasantness is the same as the truth.  — Roger Ebert
It is difficult to get a person to understand something when their livelihood depends upon them not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair (adapted)
People cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into. — Fisher Ames (adapted)

Apollodorus

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2015, 01:18:29 pm »
Quote from: Weatherwax;179173
He definitely is very much a racist. Do check out his Odalism ideology/path. He stopped calling himself a Nazi at one point but he has always supported white supremacism, purity of the white race, and related agendas. Not to mention his past.

I also read some reviews on that book and it looks like he's dismissed almost all modern academic research and bases his theories on the Golden Bough. I mean, really. :) I think it'd be a waste of money both because of the writer and the actual content.

 
So i've searched for this Golden Bough and found quite a few editions.
http://www.bookdepository.com/search?searchTerm=the%20golden%20bough&search=Find+book

Jenett

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2015, 01:56:06 pm »
Quote from: Apollodorus;179232
So i've searched for this Golden Bough and found quite a few editions.
http://www.bookdepository.com/search?searchTerm=the%20golden%20bough&search=Find+book

 
Some context might help here - the Golden Bough is a (multivolume) series of books collecting folklore from a variety of places, done by Sir James Frazer.

However, it suffers from a lot of problems of folklore collections done by English people in the late 1800s - it combines a lot of things that really shouldn't be combined, it draws conclusions that aren't supported by the actual evidence, it puts the collector's viewpoint on the material, sometimes in really weird ways.

The Golden Bough is now out of copyright, and is available in various editions for free online (see here) but it is not a reliable source for all sorts of reasons, and even 'hey, this is how they looked at it a hundred years ago' should be done with a lot of critical thinking and a big grain of salt.
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catja6

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Re: Sorcery and religion in Ancient Scandinavia by Varg Vikernes
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2015, 03:25:24 pm »
Quote from: Gore;64299
Ok, i know what most of you are thinking. THE Varg of Burzum put out a book on heathen ways of life? Oh, it must be full of racist/nazi garbage! I know those of you that know of Varg will be skeptical, and even i am a little bit. He has many good points however that aren't neccesarily exclusive to his more racist views.
Should i buy this book? Should YOU buy this book? Let's hear some thoughts.

 
There are actual researched books on these topics, using up-to-date scholarship, written by people who aren't disgusting racists. Try the work of Jenny Blain, John Lindow, or Valerie Flint.
 
As Jennett said, The Golden Bough is late-Victorian armchair scholarship (first edition 1890). Frazer grabs a bunch of random uncontextualized data from a bunch of completely different locations and cultures, and smushes them all into his Grand Master theory. In the early 20th century, it was super-popular among non-scholars (esp creative writers and artists), but it was never taken very seriously among actual trained scholars of folklore, religion, and anthropology (except in certain very limited ways). Frazer's theories have been completely debunked for the past, like, 50 years.

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