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Perceived Heathenism & Odinic Prayer: A Book of Heathen Prayer and Direct Contact with Our Living Gods
Wyatt Kaldenberg, author of The Religion of Our Germanic Ancestors In the Modern World and Odinism In the Age of The Dark Age Before the Return of Our Gods, has come out with a third book, Perceived Heathenism And Odinic A Book of Heathen Prayer and Direct Contact with Our Living Gods. Mr. Kaldenberg writes, “Prayer is spiritual communication with Our Gods. The most crucial detail you can say in a prayer “Thank you!” We must thank the Gods for the gifts we have already both known and unknown. Look at the earth, the sun, and the moon. Look at the oceans, rivers, lakes, and forests. What wonderful gifts the Gods have already given us. They have given us gifts we will never know of in this lifetime. Don’t beg the Gods to help you. Why should they help you even more? They have given you everything, and what have you done for them? Nothing. Thank them for what they have already given you, and if you are lucky and fulfill your Wyrd, perhaps they will do more for you.” In this book Kaldenberg deals with Perceived Heathenism, which the author tells us is the act of feeling and experiencing the Living Gods here and now in today‘s world. A Perceived Heathen uses prayer, blessings, chanting, shamanism, omens, dreams and other tools to make direct contact with our Gods today. A Perceived Heathen is different than a Reconstructionist Heathen, who believes they have to turn to the past to find our Gods. Wyatt Kaldenberg’s Perceived Heathenism And Odinic Prayer, contains a theory of Heathen prayer, how not to speak to the Divine, runic chants, 24 runic prayers, sacred tree associations, prayers to the Norse Gods and Odin, Frigga, Thor, Heimdall, Eartha, as well as to Kin-Fetches and House-Wights, thoughts on the CIA’s LSD experiments on American university students, the phony War On Drugs, Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, and the 1960s drug culture, Carlos Castaneda and The Teachings of Don Juan, Heathen prison ministry, why certain Heathens are drawn to specified Norse deities, Christian mysticism, and much more. Shamanism is an important part of the Odinist religion. The ancient Mani ceremonies of the Diegueño and Luiseño Indians of San Diego County, where young braves drank jimson weed tea, then were led on a vision quest in order to discover their animal spirits, are examined to show how these cultures have made direct contact to their own Gods and ancestral spirits. The chapter entitled, Drugs, Shamanism, and Experiments in Time Travel Through Genetic Memory Recall, discusses many topics that are fairly taboo in modern Heathenism. What place if any does the shamanic use of alcohol, LSD-25, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline, marijuana, datura tea, red cap mushrooms, pain, and extreme sleep deprivation have in the Odinic religion. The Jungian idea of using genetic memory to recall our ancestral religion is explored. The difference between genetic memory, racial memory, and cultural memory are explained. The themes of genetic memory in Jack London’s novels The Call of the Wild and Before Adam are revealed. Wyatt Kaldenberg tells us, “Shamanism is part of the Odinist religion. Odin was the great shaman. Nevertheless, many Odinists and Asatru people disapprove of shamanism. I don’t know why. It’s clearly part of the Odinic tradition. I am a Perceived Heathen. I believe you have to have direct contact with the Divine. Shamanism is about as direct as you can get.”
184 pages, Paperback
First published July 7, 2011
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August 2, 2011
A good bulk of this is Wyatt points out the differences between Heathens who try to re-create Heathenry using texts that ironicly were mostly written by Christians and what he calls "Perceived Heathens" who actively seek to communicate with the Gods. He makes a great point when he states that modern Heathenry is the only religion to base its faith on the writings of non-believers. Personally I believe you should not throw the baby out with the bath water. The old texts can and probably should be used as a base but I also believe there has to be room for Odinists to use intuition and inspiration from within or from the Gods themselves. Odinism should not be approached and practiced like its a re-enactment group. Our Gods live within us. They aren't dead so don't treat them as such.
Another topic that takes up a good portion of this book is prayer to the Gods. Both how to pray to them and how not to pray to them. He uses a Christian neighbor who he overhears praying sometimes as an example of how not to pray. This guys begs Yahweh for stuff, doesn't get what he wants, then curses Yahweh. He also uses Wiccans and even some Asatru people as examples citing how one Wiccan group would invoke Goddesses like Freja and Dianna, then disrespectfully try to order them around like they were dogs and of course demand things from them like a spoiled child demanding a toy from their parents. Wyatt makes a good point that not only is this disrespectful you might just piss the Gods off by doing this! When he talks about this stuff I couldn't help but be reminded of an online exchange I had with a former new age kook who was now humping the Atheism trend and I remember this person saying they just couldn't worship any God that didn't give them things. Personally I am not as hard on the Wiccans as Wyatt but no doubt most of these people don't feel Frejas love. They just want to attempt to use her to gain petty materialistic favors. I don't think Freja is listening to them though.
But besides talking about how he thinks people should not pray there are chapters with some very nice prayers to Odin, Frigga, Thor and Heimdall that you can use as a base as well as chapters on runes with runic prayers. You also get transcripts of chats between Wyatt and other Heathens. I disgree with a few things he says, especially about Celtic belief systems being totally lost. The Celtic sources really aren't much worse or unreliable than the Germanic sources. Also I don't see Baldur as a Jesus knock off inserted into the Eddas by Christians. I see Jesus as a made up knock off of Indo-European solar dieties and Balder is obviously a Nordic version of the Indo-European solar diety as well as the death of Baldur story from the Eddas being an obvious allegory for day/night, sunrise/sunset. But the "chat" chapter makes for very interesting thought provoking reading.
Wyatt also has a habit of going off on tangents in his writings. Normally this could be a bad thing but with him you get some interesting stuff. He has been an Odinist since the 1970s so there is a lot of history of the Odinist/Asatru scene and interesting stories along those lines in these pages also. His reflections on the Odinist/Asatru prison ministries is one thing that comes to mind. He is actually the first person to start recruiting people from inside the prisons and he came to the conclusion long ago that its a total dead end, in all but a few cases has been a negative and regrets ever doing it. He gives some first hand accounts as to why he regrets it. Personally I wouldn't turn my back on someone just because they are in prison but I also don't see the logic of going out of your way to recruit from that demographic. But yet for whatever strange reason there are still Odinist/Asatru organizations that still persist in pushing the prison ministry thing.
The last chapter is his thoughts on the use of psychedelic drugs in Odinic shamanism. I have to say I probably disagree with 70% of whats in this chapter. I would agree that Timothy Leary was a creep working for the CIA. Its also undistputable that the CIA was pushing LSD. The biggest LSD seller in the world at one time was a Jew CIA spook named Ronald Starks who was later linked with the CIA false flag terrorism operation in Italy known as Operation Gladio (read Acid: A New Secret History by David Black) and The Brotherhood of Eternal Love who manufactured huge amounts of LSD was probably a CIA front and was certainly infiltrated by them. So I do agree with his conspiratorial viewpoint on the late 60s drug culture. I even have questions about Ken Kesey who had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that was later put in charge of the CIAs MKultra mind control program. For that matter I am even highly skeptical of the story of the Swedish chemist Hoffmans alleged accidental LSD ingestion "bike ride" story for that matter. But the thing is the CIA later abandoned the LSD pushing because it had backfired on them because it also made a lot of people think outside the box and question authority even more. I don't think that it was an accident that the hippy scene in its late stages was flooded with hard drugs. The CIA of course later did nice things like smuggle Heroin from southeast Asia into America, create the crack Cocaine epidemic (read Gary Webbs Dark Alliance)and I'm convinced they are bringing Heroin in from Afghanistan in the present day.
I did find what was written about Amerindians using Datura tea in Shamanism to be very interesting. Also while I don't condemn people for using LSD I would also agree with him that its a very dangerous drug to be using. Some, if not most people that do it get a lot out of it but a lot of people who have no business taking it whether they are mentally unstable, uneducated and unprepared for what they are in for or idiots that treat it like a party drug. While (contrary to what Wyatt seems to think) LSD does not cause any actual organic brain damage there are a lot of people that did acid and never quite came back. And just for the record I am personally gainst using chemical non organic psychedelics in Odinic shamanism.
Wyatts stance on using organic psychedelics is while not totally condemning them he strongly discourages their use in Odinic shamanism. Some of his justification is that its not part of the European tradition to use Mushrooms or Marijuana in shamanism but the thing is there is actually a long history of both being used in Indo-European religion. I'd reference people to German named Christian Ratsch who has written extensively on the subject. The Greeks used Cannabis ritually and medicinally. There was a Hemp festival dedicated to Freja in Norway. Hashish traces were found in Halstatt, one of the biggest finds of the ancient Celts. There was even a 5000 year old "blue eyed shaman" found with Cannabis. Just google "oldest Marijuana stash totally busted" to read about it. Also on the Mushrooms there is a long history of the Amanita Muscaria mushroom being used in shamanism in Russia and northern Europe. For that matter don't you think that those victorian era British artists doing paintings of Faeries dancing around mushrooms may have been unwittingly tapping into something in the Jungian sense? Or even now the most common decoration people put on their Yule trees in Scandinavia are Amanita Muscaria mushroom ornaments. There have even been feasable theories put out there by various people including respected scholars like Gordon Wasson that Soma from the Vedas was either Amanita Muscaria mushrooms or Marijuana.
Two other things I don't fully fully jibe well with is while it is true that the Psilocybin mushrooms (not to be confused with the Amanita Muscaria that I have discussed) are not native to Europe I still do not think that that should mean they can't be used by our people for shamanic purposes. Thats almost like saying white people shouldn't eat bananas because they are native to central America. Also I couldn't believe when he said "alcohol is safe" when millions have died from it. I would add that no one in recorded history has ever died from Marijuana or Psilocybin mushrooms and the Amanitas are only dangerous at extremely high doses. My personal advice is if you have to use something use Marijuana which is totally safe, non toxic and the worst thing that may happen to you is you might get a little "paranoid" or weirded out. Then MAYBE later after you have experience if you are educated on them and in the right frame of mind try Psychedelic mushrooms. These things can be used but must be treated with the utmost respect. But Shamanism is a tricky thing and you have to be careful no matter what your methods of "getting there" are. You have to have a strong mind and have a clue as to what your doing or you can end up flirting with insanity. In other words tread lightly.
The last thing I want to mention thats in Pereived Heathenism and Odinic Prayer is Wyatt talks about the deeper esoteric/Odinic meaning of Jack Londons Call of the Wild (also Londons Before Adam and Londons philosophy is discussed) I have said for many years that Call of the Wild is a deep multi-layered book. It makes me happy that other Odinists can see the allegorical meaning of this great book.
But areas of disagreement aside this is a great book and most importantly, while this is not an introductory book for beginners, its the type of book that Heathens need to be reading and writing.
Another topic that takes up a good portion of this book is prayer to the Gods. Both how to pray to them and how not to pray to them. He uses a Christian neighbor who he overhears praying sometimes as an example of how not to pray. This guys begs Yahweh for stuff, doesn't get what he wants, then curses Yahweh. He also uses Wiccans and even some Asatru people as examples citing how one Wiccan group would invoke Goddesses like Freja and Dianna, then disrespectfully try to order them around like they were dogs and of course demand things from them like a spoiled child demanding a toy from their parents. Wyatt makes a good point that not only is this disrespectful you might just piss the Gods off by doing this! When he talks about this stuff I couldn't help but be reminded of an online exchange I had with a former new age kook who was now humping the Atheism trend and I remember this person saying they just couldn't worship any God that didn't give them things. Personally I am not as hard on the Wiccans as Wyatt but no doubt most of these people don't feel Frejas love. They just want to attempt to use her to gain petty materialistic favors. I don't think Freja is listening to them though.
But besides talking about how he thinks people should not pray there are chapters with some very nice prayers to Odin, Frigga, Thor and Heimdall that you can use as a base as well as chapters on runes with runic prayers. You also get transcripts of chats between Wyatt and other Heathens. I disgree with a few things he says, especially about Celtic belief systems being totally lost. The Celtic sources really aren't much worse or unreliable than the Germanic sources. Also I don't see Baldur as a Jesus knock off inserted into the Eddas by Christians. I see Jesus as a made up knock off of Indo-European solar dieties and Balder is obviously a Nordic version of the Indo-European solar diety as well as the death of Baldur story from the Eddas being an obvious allegory for day/night, sunrise/sunset. But the "chat" chapter makes for very interesting thought provoking reading.
Wyatt also has a habit of going off on tangents in his writings. Normally this could be a bad thing but with him you get some interesting stuff. He has been an Odinist since the 1970s so there is a lot of history of the Odinist/Asatru scene and interesting stories along those lines in these pages also. His reflections on the Odinist/Asatru prison ministries is one thing that comes to mind. He is actually the first person to start recruiting people from inside the prisons and he came to the conclusion long ago that its a total dead end, in all but a few cases has been a negative and regrets ever doing it. He gives some first hand accounts as to why he regrets it. Personally I wouldn't turn my back on someone just because they are in prison but I also don't see the logic of going out of your way to recruit from that demographic. But yet for whatever strange reason there are still Odinist/Asatru organizations that still persist in pushing the prison ministry thing.
The last chapter is his thoughts on the use of psychedelic drugs in Odinic shamanism. I have to say I probably disagree with 70% of whats in this chapter. I would agree that Timothy Leary was a creep working for the CIA. Its also undistputable that the CIA was pushing LSD. The biggest LSD seller in the world at one time was a Jew CIA spook named Ronald Starks who was later linked with the CIA false flag terrorism operation in Italy known as Operation Gladio (read Acid: A New Secret History by David Black) and The Brotherhood of Eternal Love who manufactured huge amounts of LSD was probably a CIA front and was certainly infiltrated by them. So I do agree with his conspiratorial viewpoint on the late 60s drug culture. I even have questions about Ken Kesey who had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that was later put in charge of the CIAs MKultra mind control program. For that matter I am even highly skeptical of the story of the Swedish chemist Hoffmans alleged accidental LSD ingestion "bike ride" story for that matter. But the thing is the CIA later abandoned the LSD pushing because it had backfired on them because it also made a lot of people think outside the box and question authority even more. I don't think that it was an accident that the hippy scene in its late stages was flooded with hard drugs. The CIA of course later did nice things like smuggle Heroin from southeast Asia into America, create the crack Cocaine epidemic (read Gary Webbs Dark Alliance)and I'm convinced they are bringing Heroin in from Afghanistan in the present day.
I did find what was written about Amerindians using Datura tea in Shamanism to be very interesting. Also while I don't condemn people for using LSD I would also agree with him that its a very dangerous drug to be using. Some, if not most people that do it get a lot out of it but a lot of people who have no business taking it whether they are mentally unstable, uneducated and unprepared for what they are in for or idiots that treat it like a party drug. While (contrary to what Wyatt seems to think) LSD does not cause any actual organic brain damage there are a lot of people that did acid and never quite came back. And just for the record I am personally gainst using chemical non organic psychedelics in Odinic shamanism.
Wyatts stance on using organic psychedelics is while not totally condemning them he strongly discourages their use in Odinic shamanism. Some of his justification is that its not part of the European tradition to use Mushrooms or Marijuana in shamanism but the thing is there is actually a long history of both being used in Indo-European religion. I'd reference people to German named Christian Ratsch who has written extensively on the subject. The Greeks used Cannabis ritually and medicinally. There was a Hemp festival dedicated to Freja in Norway. Hashish traces were found in Halstatt, one of the biggest finds of the ancient Celts. There was even a 5000 year old "blue eyed shaman" found with Cannabis. Just google "oldest Marijuana stash totally busted" to read about it. Also on the Mushrooms there is a long history of the Amanita Muscaria mushroom being used in shamanism in Russia and northern Europe. For that matter don't you think that those victorian era British artists doing paintings of Faeries dancing around mushrooms may have been unwittingly tapping into something in the Jungian sense? Or even now the most common decoration people put on their Yule trees in Scandinavia are Amanita Muscaria mushroom ornaments. There have even been feasable theories put out there by various people including respected scholars like Gordon Wasson that Soma from the Vedas was either Amanita Muscaria mushrooms or Marijuana.
Two other things I don't fully fully jibe well with is while it is true that the Psilocybin mushrooms (not to be confused with the Amanita Muscaria that I have discussed) are not native to Europe I still do not think that that should mean they can't be used by our people for shamanic purposes. Thats almost like saying white people shouldn't eat bananas because they are native to central America. Also I couldn't believe when he said "alcohol is safe" when millions have died from it. I would add that no one in recorded history has ever died from Marijuana or Psilocybin mushrooms and the Amanitas are only dangerous at extremely high doses. My personal advice is if you have to use something use Marijuana which is totally safe, non toxic and the worst thing that may happen to you is you might get a little "paranoid" or weirded out. Then MAYBE later after you have experience if you are educated on them and in the right frame of mind try Psychedelic mushrooms. These things can be used but must be treated with the utmost respect. But Shamanism is a tricky thing and you have to be careful no matter what your methods of "getting there" are. You have to have a strong mind and have a clue as to what your doing or you can end up flirting with insanity. In other words tread lightly.
The last thing I want to mention thats in Pereived Heathenism and Odinic Prayer is Wyatt talks about the deeper esoteric/Odinic meaning of Jack Londons Call of the Wild (also Londons Before Adam and Londons philosophy is discussed) I have said for many years that Call of the Wild is a deep multi-layered book. It makes me happy that other Odinists can see the allegorical meaning of this great book.
But areas of disagreement aside this is a great book and most importantly, while this is not an introductory book for beginners, its the type of book that Heathens need to be reading and writing.
July 19, 2011
In this book Mr. Kaldenberg helps release some misconceptions about Odinism. His primary approach,as is mine, is direct contact with our Gods. He coins the new term which I now claim as my religious title:Perceived Heathen.As usual he dives into a more taboo subject, this time more detail about Shamanism.All too often many good potential Odinists/Heathens are intimidated by the large amount of information to even approach our following. Thick books with multiple translations written by Christians who hated heathens is not to be seen as 'gospel'. Wyatt doesn't pull a single punch in telling you why in this edition. He explains in great detail why it is best to use lore as a guideline but to rely on direct connection with the divine as means of fulfillment. It has many good prayers to follow as well as some seasoned rune chants to practice. If I could only have one book to bring in travel to help me along spiritually,it would be this one. Mr. Kaldenberg takes you into his own seasoned practices to help you grow personally. It doesn't fill you with intellectual psycho-babble that makes you feel inferior because you haven't forced yourself to remember volumes of things that don't really matter in the scheme of things. It empowers you to take charge of your own spirituality and ignore the pissing contests of intellectual lore discussions aka bollocks.This is my favorite from this author thus far and I think this one should actually be read first.Look forward to his next.
June 11, 2018
This book is a wild ride. This book is a trip unto itself. I picked it up and enjoyed it (to a degree) because it is a perspective I don't read (or hear) a lot of within Heathenry. It is a collection of rants and prayers, essentially. The pros: The author emphasizes the importance of applied practice and trusting personal gnosis over unreliable historical references. His stories of his approach toward his practice of heathenry are at times touching and beautiful. His respect for the gods and the wights of the land are admirable, salient and mirror in many ways my personal practice. I feel like I would enjoy sharing a beer with this guy and talking about how great Odin is for about 30 minutes, but if we went any deeper than that, I think our divergent politics would make him see me as one of his enemies of man and of Odin. The cons: The sheer amount of contradictions in this book is staggering. The author will say one thing and then in the next chapter will contradict it. Some of the language is blatantly racist and horrible, but he also claims to be not racist, and even goes on a rant (in the book) about how much he dislikes racists. If I'm reading his views correctly, he seems not only folkish (claiming that non-whites cannot have a meaningful connection with the Norse pantheon) but also homophobic. It's clear that while he has read the Eddas and Sagas many times, he hasn't read a lot else (with the exception of Jungian philosophy.) His research into many areas of heathenry, science and biology are sorely, sorely lacking. There is also language in this book that makes me think this man might actually be dangerous to society. It seems like it would be very easy to to get lumped into his vision of a demonic "Loki's army" and to be declared an enemy of him and his very narrow view of Odin-- and some of his prayers talk about smashing those allied with the dark side (which I'm assuming includes liberals and anyone outside the straight conservative "ideal" judging from his own rants.) Think of a baptist fire-and-brimstone preacher who is one step away from calling for the witchburnings, only replace his God with Odin. That's the impression the book gives, and that's really unfortunate. There are also numerous formatting and grammar errors. This book really should have passed the eyes of a proofreader before it was published.
All in all, Kaldenberg has written an opinion piece emphasizing his personal views of Heathenry and the realness of it is what makes it interesting. I gave it three stars because of all the cons. I'm glad that Heathens of all kinds are getting their ideas out there, but this book was gross energetically and judgmental in so many ways that I really have no interest of reading anything of Kaldenberg's ever again.
All in all, Kaldenberg has written an opinion piece emphasizing his personal views of Heathenry and the realness of it is what makes it interesting. I gave it three stars because of all the cons. I'm glad that Heathens of all kinds are getting their ideas out there, but this book was gross energetically and judgmental in so many ways that I really have no interest of reading anything of Kaldenberg's ever again.
September 1, 2011
Perceived Heathenism and Odinic Prayer by Wyatt Kaldenberg
From “what is” to a broken down yet simple “how to” on how Mr. Kaldenberg goes about his prayers to the Divine daily, to giving examples of Prayer and a way of speaking to our Beloved Deities. Mr. Kaldenberg has given us all a great volume and resource for blooming young(relative to your experience) Heathens such as myself looking for a “Why, How, When, Where?” to speak with our Gods. He even touches on controversial topics such as drugs, and genetic memory.
Most articles cover on WHAT you NEED to study in order to be a “competent” Heathen, and that detracts from exactly what Mr. Kaldenberg writes about here. He shows us that we must strive to feel our Gods, as they are still with us, still helping guide us to their glistening halls through our own hard work. He also goes to inform us that we do need to be careful in our ways, most Neo-Pagans are, as he points out, VERY demanding of our Gods... Who seriously demands a Giant Destroyer to give them their powers or whatever... We are their product of sacrifice and work, we need to show them we are worthy!
I loved every aspect of this book, it shows his clear dedication to furthering our peoples through studying not the books and words of those who were killing our people a few hundred years ago, but in the aspect of “We need to modernize what we have”. I will gladly recommend this book to every Heathen/Odinist/Asatru that I know!
August 28, 2011
This is one of the best books on Heathenism that I have read in a long time. Mr Kaldenberg focuses on Heathen practice from the point of view of a modern, experienced Heathen instead of the view of a reconstructionist. There is no need to dwell on the historical writings of Christians and foreigners on our faith. Instead, we should focus on our connection to the Gods and our Folk, as it relates to us in the present. He also explains that we, as descendents of Northern Europeans, should practice shamanism in the ways of our ancestors, rather than try to adopt the practices of other cultures in order to connect to our Gods.
Some of the info is a little advanced for a new follower of Heathenism, but it's definitely information that would be beneficial for all Heathens. I definitely recommend this book. I'm not a big reader, but the way he writes really grabbed me. He also has me interested in reading several of the books he has mentioned throughout this book.
Some of the info is a little advanced for a new follower of Heathenism, but it's definitely information that would be beneficial for all Heathens. I definitely recommend this book. I'm not a big reader, but the way he writes really grabbed me. He also has me interested in reading several of the books he has mentioned throughout this book.
February 16, 2017
Decent
Not the best, not the worst. The first half is useful knowledge about the structure of prayer, purpose and intent, along with some useful dates and holidays. Yet the tone changes pretty heavily about half way. The whole thing is covered in fairly negative overtones about other religions, so the best way to describe the book is a majority opinionated piece. I think it's a good read to get another perspective on Heathenism and to help formulate your own opinion. But not recommended for people just starting out.
Not the best, not the worst. The first half is useful knowledge about the structure of prayer, purpose and intent, along with some useful dates and holidays. Yet the tone changes pretty heavily about half way. The whole thing is covered in fairly negative overtones about other religions, so the best way to describe the book is a majority opinionated piece. I think it's a good read to get another perspective on Heathenism and to help formulate your own opinion. But not recommended for people just starting out.
October 12, 2011
This was the only book with a practical and non-academic approach to honoring the gods with ritual, that i've read on the topic of asatru and odinism. Wyatt's methods on how to talk with Aesir and Vanir with common prayer structure was in my opinion more direct and easier to implement in Blot and ritual that the methods presented by those influenced by Edred Thorrson. I'll just refer to it a great book for practial heathen prayer.
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