Documentary: Bells From The Deep - Вернер Херцог

 Werner Herzog film about native spiritual and shamnic customs in Russia

Lord of this World and his Pagan Temple at Uppsala

Documentary: Ernst Jünger

Make Red the Runes

Thunor and the Axe-Hammer

Documentary: Buddhist Monks of the Forest Tradition

Dragon Slayers in Germanic Cultures

The Ridgeway Path Public Information Film.

Documentary: Robinson Jeffers

Documentary: Kenneth Clark's Civilisation: Grandeur and Obedience

Catholic and pagan cultures of obedience vs Semitic cultures of the will. The former appreciate the balance of male and female in the order of the universe, the latter do not and are therefore incapable of producing art of a standard anywhere near as impressive.

A Simple Explanation of Martin Heidegger

Contemplating the Stones: Neolithic Mysteries of Britain

Documentary: Kenneth Clark's Civilisation

Clark explains how he thinks Europe managed to survive the invasion of the Germanic barbarians and flourish again.

Hyperborean Hallucinogens

Did our European ancestors take magic mushrooms as part of spiritual rituals?

 

Since I made a YouTube video seven years ago explaining how to identify hallucinogenic mushrooms in England, I have been contacted by all manner of pseudo-spiritual dropouts convinced that their habitual use of hallucinogenic drugs somehow marks them out as spiritual crusaders of the 21st-century. I was even asked by the editor of a psychonautic magazine to write about the history of psilocybin mushroom use in Europe but I declined due to the fact that there is no conclusive evidence of Europeans using them before the end of the 18^th century.

Having given the matter more thought, I’ve decided to reconsider the possibility of the deliberate use of psilocybin mushrooms by the pagan peoples of Northern Europe. Psilocybe semilanceata, known in England as the liberty cap, is the principal indigenous hallucinogenic mushroom of Europe. It contains several hallucinogenic substances, the most famous being psilocybin. There is a great deal of evidence to indicate psilocybin mushrooms were eaten in Central America by the Aztecs and Mayans. The tropical equivalent of our European liberty cap is psilocybe cubensis, and its prevalence in India as well as the Americas has provoked plausible theories about its use by the ancient Hindus.

It stands to reason that the ancient civilizations of Mexico and India would come in to contact with psilocybe cubensis because it grows directly on the droppings of livestock. Our liberty caps, however, are much smaller and feed on rotting grass roots. They are often hidden in long grass and don’t look particularly appetising, so they may have escaped the notice of our ancestors. The first confirmed use of magic mushrooms in Europe was by an unfortunate family who had picked them by accident in London's Green Park back in 1799. It wasn't until the 60s, when the hippies got their dirty paws on them, that deliberate use became popular.

It isn’t totally absurd to suggest that the Nordic or Anglo-Saxon peoples might have made use of such a powerful and widespread mushroom. They can be found all over northern Europe, even in inhospitable Viking retreats such as Iceland and the Faroe islands. They pop up on front lawns, golf courses and cattle fields across the continent each autumn. In mediaeval times people were very conscious of their natural surroundings and devised all kinds of folk remedies to cure common ailments using herbs, roots and fungi. Liberty caps are far more potent and common than the magic mushrooms used by the Aztecs, so it's perfectly conceivable that our ancestors were aware of their effects.

In the ancient cultures of the Persians and the Hindus we find references to an intoxicating drink bestowed on man by the gods. Known as Soma to the Hindus and Haoma to the Iranians, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the sacred mead described in Norse mythology.

“The link between Soma, Haoma and the Old Norse mjǫðr [mead] is powerful and cannot be doubted. Etymologically they are connected, as Soma is often called madhu [honey, mead], whereas the Avesta calls the intoxication of Haoma itself by the related word mada, from the same root as the Norse and Iranian words, originally meaning honey, an important ingredient in mead. Furthermore, all three cultures describe their sacred drinks as golden and bright, bringing illumination, wisdom, eloquence, and poetry - and as having to do with immortality. Reading the Indian Vedas and the Iranian Avesta, there can be no doubt that the drink was strongly associated with intense, personal mystical experiences, a state of trance and a passionate union with the divine.” Kvilhaug, ‘Seed of Yggdrasil’ (p.272).

The Old Norse for mead is mjoðr, and meodu in Anglo-Saxon, from the ancient Germanic medu which is in turn related to the Sanskrit medhu, which was used to describe Soma. But Soma was not the honey based alcoholic drink we call mead, or even if it was, what does that have to do with mushrooms?

There are countless theories concerning the real ingredients of Soma. Many speculate that it contained a hallucinogenic substance, perhaps a rye mould or even cannabis. Gordon Wasson (1971) thought that Soma was the red and white mushroom called fly agaric, while others believe that both Soma and Haoma were made from harmaline, a psychotropic substance which is found in wild rye. In her book ‘The Seed of Yggdrasil’ Maria Kvilhaug argues that Soma, Haoma and the ritual mead used by Norse pagans, all contained Amanita muscaria (fly agaric).

“In the Oseberg ship burial in Norway, which happened in 834 A.D., two priestesses belonging to a religious cult associated with the Vanir, seiðr and sacred marriage were buried with a pouch filled with cannabis seeds, which when part of a drink could produce hallucinations. Also, the burial revealed a tapestry with a sacrifice scene, where we see numerous serpents, as well as depictions of the fly agaric just around the image of the three Norns or priestesses.” Kvilhaug, ‘Seed of Yggdrasil’.

Cannabis was certainly present in ancient India too and may well have been an ingredient in Soma. Cannabis was also found in a Tocharian (or other Indo-European) shaman burial in the the Tarim basin associated with the Jushi culture. Fly agaric is thought to be another ingredient because it grows all over Northern Europe and also in the Hindu Kush. There is evidence that the shamanic peoples of Northern Siberia drank the urine of people or animals that had eaten the horrible mushrooms. Their proximity to the Nordic peoples has led to speculation about whether the Norse also consumed the iconic red toadstool. As long ago as 1784, the Swedish professor Samuel Ödmann argued that Vikings used fly agaric to work themselves up into a berserker fury.

I don’t think the Norse ate fly agaric nor do I believe that the Vedic proto-Hindus put it in Soma, for the same reason that I wouldn’t touch the stuff. It’s bloody poisonous! It may be psychoactive, and deaths are quite rare, but the effects don’t match up with the descriptions of Haoma, Soma or Mjoðr found in ancient sources. You’re more likely to vomit or fall asleep than to enter a higher state of consciousness. Fly agaric looks pretty, but it won’t make you a better fighter nor invoke a mystic experience. In his book "The Food of Gods", Terrence McKenna argued that it was more likely that Psilocybe cubensis was used in the creation of Soma, because psilocybin invokes mystical and religious experiences in those who ingest it. This also sounds much more like the kind of substance the Zoroastrians called Haoma.

"And the holy spirit... Took Zoroaster's hand and filled it with all-encompassing liquid knowledge and said "drink it". And Zara Westra drank it, and all-encompassing wisdom was blended within Zoroaster... And he was in the Holy Spirit’s wisdom for seven nights." – ZandWahmand Yasht III 6-12.

Consider also this excerpt from the Rig Veda (1500–1200 BC).

“I have tasted this sweet drink of life... All the gods and mortals seek it together, calling it honey mead (madhu). The glorious drops that I have drunk have set me free in wide space... The drop that we have drunk has entered our hearts; an immortal inside mortals...” Rig Veda 8.48.

It sounds far more like the spiritual experience of psilocybin than the disorientating inebriation of fly agaric. This same connection to the divine is present when we consider the sacred mead of Valhǫll which is served to the Einheriar (fallen heros) by Valkyries and which grants immortality and regeneration to them. Julius Evola identified the spiritual quality of divine intoxicants in ancient cultures.

“The Iranian term Haoma corresponds to the Sanskrit Soma, the so-called potion of immortality. In these two ancient Aryan ideas we have an association of different concepts, partly real and partly symbolic, partly material and partly translatable into terms describing spiritual experience. Hindu traditions, for instance, describe the Soma both as a god and as the juice of a plant that is capable of inducing feelings of exaltation. These feelings were highly regarded and were induced during rituals of inner transformation to provide a taste of immortality.” Evola, ‘Meditations on the Peaks’.

The Nordic pagans used mead in rituals and their mythology connects mead with the divine. Divine mead is not just a literal substance; it is poetry itself and is sought after by men and gods in both this world and the next. Clearly we are dealing with something other than a mere alcoholic beverage. I suspect that the Norse pagans combined a kind of magic mushroom tea with honey mead for sweetening, and that this was the substance used in their sacred rituals, granting divine visions to the participants.  

It was only this year that scientists finally learned how psilocybin effects the human brain. Scientists analysed brain imaging data of people under the influence of psilocybin and discovered pronounced activity in the more primitive brain, with other parts such as the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex also active at the same time. This is the same sort of brain pattern which is observed in those who are dreaming. The researchers also noticed uncoordinated activity in the brain network that is associated with self-consciousness. While under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms or other alkaloid based hallucinogens such as LSD, mescaline or ayahuasca, you revert to a primal dream like state. This is the same state that ancient cultures achieved through chanting, meditation or sweat lodges (sauna), but which modern Westerners can arrive at through a chemical shortcut.

The chief god of the Nordic pantheon was Óðinn whose name is related to ōðr, meaning "fury” or “frenzy". Followers of his cult would attempt to reach a state of divine frenzy and psilocybin was the only intoxicant available in their environment that could help them to achieve this, except perhaps for cannabis. 

The recent History Channel drama ‘Vikings’ depicts the ritual use of hallucinogens at a pagan religious ceremony in Uppsala, Sweden. So the idea that hallucinogens were used by ancient Germanic peoples has entered popular consciousness and is supported by a bit of, but far from conclusive, evidence. But just because the followers of Óðinn went into a divine frenzy, doesn’t mean they always needed drugs to do so. Indeed, such substances are not always conducive to positive spiritual experiences. It depends a great deal on one’s temperament, as the philosopher Colin Wilson discovered.

"I hated mescaline. It opened me up so much — gave me this wonderful feeling of oneness with the universe — but at the same time made me feel completely helpless. I'm at my best when I'm concentrating so hard that my mind narrows to a laser — that's when I get the real mystical experiences — while mescaline diffused me all over the place." Wilson in an interview with Abraxas unbound.

Although Wilson admitted that the altered perspectives attained through hallucinogens were a means of shaking oneself free from the complacency of humdrum modern existence, he thought it was wrong for him to take them. While on mescaline, he would revert to a childlike state of innocence which he had deliberately abandoned on his path to knowledge. He asked himself “What right do I have to be in this state when I have a wife and child to care for?” He was able to attain what he called a “peak experience” simply through intense concentration, so drugs were not necessary for him although he saw that they might be for others.

"The effects of mescaline or LSD can be, in some respects, far more satisfying than those of alcohol. To begin with, they last longer; they also leave behind no hangover, and leave the mental faculties clear and unimpaired. They stimulate the faculties and produce the ideal ground for a peak experience.” Wilson, ‘Introduction to the New Existentialism’.

Hallucinogenic drugs pose a problem for the differentiated type in the modern world. They can be a means to transcend the material realm and achieve a higher state of consciousness, following in the footsteps of our pagan ancestors. In this sense they are a means of addressing the existential crisis by which so many of our generation are grievously afflicted. A drug which illuminates the natural world, imbuing all of creation with a sacred significance is deeply consoling for those condemned to exist in an era when existence itself has been stripped of all higher meaning.  It is this retreat which poses the problem. For an undisciplined spirit, drugs are merely an escape, a coward’s retreat from the challenge of existence. Even those in pursuit of heightened consciousness are unlikely to take anything useful from a chemically induced experience unless they are spiritually prepared for it.

There are myriad paths to spiritual discipline, but only a minority in any culture will pursue them. Despite Western preconceptions, few Buddhists or Hindus actually adhere to all the prescribed privations of their disciplines; instead they are content in the knowledge that somewhere a monk or an aesthete has taken this path. Those who do seriously practice meditative techniques constitute a spiritual elite of sorts. The Buddhist pursuit of nirvana is different from the Hindu’s desire to be free from karma, yet the outward manifestations of their respective spiritual disciplines are similar. I am sure that Buddhist enlightenment through meditation is akin to the peak experiences achieved through Hindu dhyana or by the Catholic monks and anchorites of medieval Europe who removed themselves to the wild fringes of the land to fast and pray in solitude and receive divine visions from God.

No doubt Northern European pagans had a similar means of achieving peak experience without the use of psilocybin or any other chemical. The medieval Icelandic text Íslendingabók reveals the story of a pagan priest and chieftain named Þorgeir who spent a whole night and a day sat in silent meditation beneath a fur blanket so that he could decide whether his people should convert to Christianity. This reminds me of the story of the Norse god Óðinn / Anglo-Saxon god Woden, who hung from a sacred tree for nine nights in order to learn the secret of the runes. Óðinn is a god of wisdom and he pursues knowledge through a kind of sacrificial meditation. Archaeological evidence also indicates that Nordic pagans practiced meditation. A statue of Buddha was found at Helgo, Sweden and a bucket from the Norwegian Oseberg ship burial is mounted with a meditating figure in the full lotus position with four swastikas on his chest. There are even bronze figurines from Iceland and Sweden which are thought to be depictions of the gods, depicted sitting cross legged or on thrones, clutching their beards in contemplation. Even if psilocybin was used in some pagan ceremonies, there were also non-chemical routes to heightened consciousness available.

"Let us look each other in the face. We are Hyperboreans – we know well enough how remote our place is…Beyond the North, beyond the ice, beyond death – our life, our happiness." Nietzsche, ‘The Antichrist’.

We are indeed Hyperboreans, and as such we must consider a spiritual path that is suited to our temperaments. I am reluctant to endorse the use of any kind of hallucinogens, simply because drug use is already far too prevalent in our culture and has wrought little but misery and degeneracy. If you are able to achieve the peak experience through concentration, meditation, art or prayer then you really have no need for hallucinogens. At a lecture at Berkeley 1988, Colin Wilson said that no matter what peyote does, none of that matters as much as having control of the “poetic experience”. The poetic experience is the frenzied state in which all of the world’s beauty becomes absolutely apparent, and the mind intensely lucid. The poetic experience is an Odinic state which can be achieved more effectively without chemical intoxication because it can then be controlled and harnessed for a creative purpose.

 Peyote cactus

According to Nietzsche; in this world without (the Christian) God, it is the free spirits, unrestrained by herd morality, who will shape a new approach to spirituality. These “free spirits” are those who can say yes to eternal recurrence, who would willingly relive their entire lives over and over again. Those for whom the world is good and who can therefore easily say yes to all of life. Likewise, it is those for whom the world is good, and who feel as though everything that they do is good because it is their will, that are incapable of having a bad experience on hallucinogenic drugs. The bad trip is the effect of the man at odds with himself. Tripping turns one's eyes into oneself which can be an unbearable experience that tears apart the sense of self. The free spirit has less to fear from a hallucinogenic experience, but he also has less to gain since self-discipline should enable him to achieve the poetic or peak experience without chemicals.

Even reading about and thinking about peak experiences can inspire them in others. All that is required is a meditative discipline which might involve remembering previous poetic experiences or the contemplation of symbols which evoke the experience. Those who enter such a state can immediately recollect memories of previous peak experiences which they cannot normally recall. This makes it sound very easy, but in fact, due to the vacuous, meaningless nature of modern existence, many will never achieve the poetic experience. I call the materialistic way of looking at the universe “the dead world”. It is the dominant world view of all Western people today, all would-be Hyperboreans. Young people are especially desperate to escape from the dead world and, as Julius Evola identified, try to do so with drugs. 

“…young people who have more or less distinctly perceived the emptiness and boredom of modern existence, and are seeking an escape from it. The impulse can be contagious: drug use extends to individuals who did not have this original impetus as a point of departure, and in such people it can only be regarded as an avoidable bad habit. Once starting on drugs to fit in or be in vogue, they succumb to the seduction of the states caused by the drug, which often wrecks their already weak personality.

 

    With drugs we have a situation similar to that of syncopated music. Both were often transpositions onto the profane and "physical" plane of means that were originally used to open one up to the suprasensible in initiation rites or similar experiences. Just as dances to modern syncopated music derive from ecstatic [African] dance, the various drugs used today and created in laboratories correspond to drugs that were often used for "sacred" ends in primitive populations, according to ancient traditions.” Evola, ‘Ride the Tiger’.

I have seen the commercialisation of such primitive ceremonies during my travels in South America. I came across Ayahuasca retreats in Bolivia where lost souls of the West pay to be administered large quantities of an hallucinogenic concoction, said to induce spiritual visions. The transactional nature of these so called “spiritual” retreats reveals them as a vulgar and mercantile perversion, a reduction of the divine to commodity. Shrewd Amazonian peoples have recognised the spiritual destitution of the white man and have sought to exploit this lack by selling him their own ancestral heritage. No amount of vomiting and hallucinating in the jungle will ever deliver the wretched from the dead world. I hope that some bored young people may find a path to differentiation by being made aware, through the use of psilocybin or something similar, of a world beyond the dead world. But they then risk falling into the trap of habitual drug use, being acted upon by the substance rather than imposing their own will on the drug and harnessing its effects for spiritual purposes.

“The blocked existential situation of the great majority of our contemporaries considerably restricts the possible range of reactions to drugs.

    However, the "personal equation" and the specific zone on which drugs, here including alcohol, act, lead the individual toward alienation and a passive opening to states give him the illusion of a higher freedom, an intoxication and an unfamiliar intensity of sensation, but that in reality have a character of dissolution that by no means "takes him beyond". In order to expect a different result from these experiences, he would have to have at his command an exceptional degree of spiritual activity, and his attitude would be the opposite of those who seek and need drugs to escape from tensions, traumatic events, neuroses, and feelings of emptiness and absurdity.” Evola, ‘Ride the Tiger’.

Psilocybin mushrooms are a part of the Hyperborean spiritual landscape; they were important in our ancestors’ religious rituals and can have positive effects when used correctly. A differentiated individual, free spirit or Hyperborean in pursuit of the poetic experience of Odinic frenzy need not necessarily denounce the use of such substances, although they pose a great risk in the hedonistic climate of the 21^st century. One must first prepare spiritually through meditation and physically through fasting, in order to effectively exert the power of the will so that the substance works as an extension of it rather than an obstacle to profound realisation and heightened consciousness. 

   “An effective use of these drugs would presuppose a preliminary "catharsis", that is, the proper neutralization of the individual unconscious substratum that is activated; then the images and senses could refer to a spiritual reality of a higher order, rather than being reduced to a subjective, visionary orgy. One should emphasize that the instances of this higher use of drugs were preceded not only by periods of preparation and purification of the subject, but also that the process was properly guided through the contemplation of certain symbols.” Evola, ‘Ride the Tiger’.

References

Doniger O' Flaherty, Wendy, ‘The Rig Veda: An Anthology’, (1981)

Evola, Julius, ‘Meditations on the Peaks’, (1974).

Evola, Julius, ‘Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul’, (1961).

Grønlie, Siân, (trans), Íslendingabók. Kristni saga. The Book of the Icelanders. The Story of the Conversion, Anthony Faulkes and Alison Finlay (eds), (Viking Society for Northern Research: University College London, 2006).

Ibn Faḍlān, Aḥmad, Ibn Fadlan's journey to Russia: a tenth-century traveler from Baghdad to the Volga River, Richard N. Frye (trans), (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2005).

Orchard, Andy, (trans), The Elder Edda, (Penguin Classics: 2011).

Kvilhaug, Maria Christine, ‘The Seed of Yggdrasil: Deciphering the Hidden Messages in Old Norse Myths’, (2013).

McKenna, Terrence, ‘The Food of Gods’, (1993).

Nietzsche, Friedrich, ‘The Antichrist’, 1895).

Wilson, Colin, ‘Introduction to the New Existentialism’, (1966).

Wilson, Colin, Lecture on the Occult at Berkeley University, USA.

Colin Wilson - The Occult

'Survivors' BBC Series 1975

This television drama from the seventies tells the story of the survivors of a deadly plague which wipes out most of the world's population.

Meditations on the Peaks

Also available on Bitchute

Documentary: JRR TOLKIEN:The Maker Of Middle-earth

Why Barbarians Won’t Go Away

This article was originally published in 2014 on Medievalists.net but was deleted in 2019.

If you're one of the handful of people who doesn't watch Game of Thrones, then I’m sure you’re fed up with all this talk of dragons and knights in shining armour, but let me explain the secret of its appeal. It’s the same thing that attracts audiences to the popular Vikings drama on the History Channel, the second series of which coincided with the British Museum's recent Vikings exhibit which was also hugely popular. It seems barbarians and medieval fantasy just won't go away. There have been Dungeons & Dragons obsessives hidden away in their Mothers’ attics for decades, but in recent years it seems medieval fantasy, like other geeky things, has transitioned to the mainstream. It's still quite suspect to while away your evenings as an orc in MMORPGs like The Elder Scrolls or World of Warcraft, although not quite as socially repulsive as working in Games Workshop.

One might offer predictable explanations about escapism but people get that from all comic books, sci-fi movies and video games. Why is it specifically the medieval era, or fantasy equivalents of it, that captivate the masses?

We’ve all heard the clichés about how we’ve never had it so good; how we’re privileged to enjoy the marvels of scientific discovery and social progress, yet still we choose to fantasise about an era when life was brutal and short, identities were fixed and determined by birth, superstitious people lived in fear of both nature and the supernatural, wealth disparity was great and food was sometimes scarce for the lower classes. Progressive ideals are challenged by the persistence of this popular fascination with medieval antiquity. These days the values which we hold up as exemplary of Western morality are tolerance, diversity, equality and innovation, but in times gone by we were more like the East, favouring honour, nobility, beauty, courage and tradition.

I’m sure many would explain this phenomenon as a knee jerk reaction to a changing society by those who inhabit conventional positions of power and privilege. Perhaps maladjusted males, searching desperately for a sense of purpose in the 21st-century, do look back to an age of chivalry when the role and function of men was clear, in the hope of digging up an identity. Or maybe, as ethnic identities are fractured beneath the ever-increasing influx of economic migrants in an era of globalisation, Westerners are reaching back to the roots of their nations in an effort to get in touch with their ancestors like Eastern cultures do.

Truth be told, this macabre fixation with iron-clad barbarians and bearded Vikings raping and pillaging, is nothing new. The repressed Victorians also found medieval imagery and culture inspiring so it influenced everything from the poetry of the Romantics to the art of the Pre-Raphaelites and the music of Richard Wagner. Thomson's “Rule Britannia” is an effort to strengthen British identity by evoking the grand exploits of the Anglo-Saxon King, Alfred the Great. But while Thomson used medievalism to drum up patriotic fervour, William Morris, who simultaneously hated modern civilisation and dreamed of a socialist utopian future, used the medieval world as the model on which to base it.

Whichever side your political bread is buttered, history serves as a deep well of inspiration from which to draw up imagined golden ages to be held up in contrast to the failures of modernity. When I interviewed LARPers (fantasy role players) and historical re-enactors in my recent film From Runes to Ruins, I asked why on earth they spent their weekends swinging axes at each other in muddy fields. One thing that was consistent in their answers was a belief that the West had become decadent and that something was lacking in modern Britain which could be recovered through celebration of our medieval past and the pagan mythologies of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons.

The psychologist Carl Jung thought that man is born incomplete and that it is through the mythology and legends of his ancestors that he comes to understand himself. After studying the religion and cultures of peoples and tribes from around the world, he realised that many archetypal characters seemed to reappear independently of one another in different times and places. His theory of archetypes holds that the characters in the myths and legends of our ancestors lay dormant in our collective subconscious and reappear in different forms over the ages. One example of this is the ‘wise old man’, who manifests as Nestor in the Iliad, Odin in Norse mythology and Merlin in the legends of King Arthur. This same archetype is a recognisable cliché in modern films and books, such as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, Dumbledore in Harry Potter or even Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. 

Jung thought the problem with Western man was his lack of reverence for myth, but he was wrong. Throughout the twentieth century, popular media has overflowed with new adaptations of medieval and classical myths. The BBC’s Merlin series, for example, has kept King Arthur alive in the hearts of yet another generation of Britons. While J.R.R Tolkien, an expert in Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature whose translation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf has just been published, said that in writing the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, he had intended to create a mythology for England.
Myths are fluid, they change and grow and are adapted to suit contemporary tastes. According to Jung, only the archetypes are consistent. While we place many of our modern myths in medieval settings, the issues raised in them reflect modern concerns. So does Game of Thrones owe its success to escapism or to the fact that audiences relate to the dynastic power struggles and political deceptions of Westeros? I suspect it’s a bit of both. 

There is a political perspective that regards the religions, myths and ethnic identities which distinguish the peoples of the world, as their greatest enemy. Its proponents argue that as long as such things endure, we shall ever bear witness to the resurgence of nationalism, hatred and genocide. They argue that the values which emerged during the European enlightenment must be incrementally spread to all corners of the earth, in order to deliver mankind from the dark and bloody struggle of history to the final end of progress. Just as the romantic fantasy of a golden age echoes the biblical belief of innocence in the Garden of Eden, so too does progressive utopian fantasy mirror the biblical promise of paradise.

While thinkers like Heidegger, Dostoyevsky Nietzsche, Scruton and many others have sought to criticise the idea of progress intellectually, the general public, whether consciously or unconsciously, seeks relief from the mundane monotony of homogenous Western materialism in valiant medieval fantasies. Some choose to get in touch with their roots by dressing up in chainmail on weekends, while others are content to watch Game of Thrones with a cup of tea and a biscuit. The barbarians aren’t going anywhere, and I’m glad of it. 

Survival in the Amazon Rainforest

Animals of the Amazon Basin

Documentary: The Tribe that Hides From Man

Documentary: Ways of Seeing in Publicity, Advertising and Media

Documentary: Carl Jung: The Wisdom of The Dream

This is part 1 of 3.

Folded EU Ballot Paper Hides UKIP Option - Tower Hamlets

True oxlip and other ancient woodland flowers

Folk Use of Agrimony - Digestive Remedy with Yellow Flowers

Following on from my previous post about old English folk remedies. Agrimony is another plant you should know about. Agrimony flowers are said to represent gratitude. Their bright yellow petals appear from June to August and produce a sweet, spicy odour like apricots. The perennial herb is related to the rose and can be found along the margins of woodlands, in meadows, pastures and banks.
 

The earliest mention of Agrimony as a folk medicine in Britain comes from Bald’s leechbook, written in the 9^th century. It recommends that Agrimony be used as a medieval form of Viagra. The recipe states that the plant must be boiled in milk before being administered to a man who is “insufficiently virile". Strangely, it was said to have the exact opposite effect when you replaced the milk with Welsh beer, but I suspect this may have nothing to do with the Agrimony and a lot more to do with the strength of the beer! As time passed, Agrimony was no longer used as a cure for impotence, but was still employed in numerous other folk remedies. 

Later folkish beliefs held that the pretty yellow flower was capable of healing musket wounds and warding off witchcraft. In Finland the plant was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, probably because it had previously been used in pagan rituals and therefore needed to be cleansed of its un-Christian cultural associations. 

While the flowers brighten gardens and bouquets, the leaves can be added to teas in order to aid digestion. It has also been used to treat liver and bile duct troubles. Its tannins tone the mucus membranes in the gut, helping them to secrete and absorb. Being a mild herb, it works well for the treatment of digestive irritation in children. Colitis sufferers and people with peptic ulcers have also found it helpful. The bitter tasting plant can aid the proper functioning of the liver and gall bladder; the Germans still use it to treat gallstones. There are some simple external uses too. You can apply it to wounds as a salve, or mix it with water and use it as a mouthwash to help heal sore throats and inflamed gums. 

The slender spikes of flowers have earned them the nickname of church steeples and the plant itself can grow as high as 60cm tall. You can easily find Agrimony growing in the English countryside and in other parts of the world with similar climates, but it is scarcely found in the barren hills of Scotland.

May Day and Hal an Tow

Today is May Day! a very important day in the English calendar. It was three years ago that I wrote an article about the threat posed to May Day by squabbling political groups. Well May day hasn't been lost yet! Whatever Cameron and the Communists might be doing, sensible folk should be joyfully celebrating the coming of Spring.

As well as the famous Maypole, based on pagan fertility cults, there are many other folk traditions in England which welcome in the May. One such tradition is found in the ancient Cornish song "Hal an Tow" It has been sung on May Day as a part of the May celebration in Helston, Cornwall for centuries. The Watersons sang Hal-an-Tow in 1965 on a BBC TV documentary called Travelling for a Living. See the video below.




 The video below shows how the song is integrated into the May Day celebrations in Helston.



The lyrics vary and are sung differently by various groups. Here are the lyrics to the Waterson's version sung in the video.

 Since man was first created
 His works have been debated
 We have celebrated
The coming of the Spring  

Chorus

Hal-an-tow, jolly rumbalow
We were up long before the day-O
To welcome in the summer,
 To welcome in the May-O
The summer is a-coming in And winter's gone away-O

What happened to the Spaniards
That made so great a boast-O?
 Why they shall eat the feathered goose
And we shall eat the roast-O

Take no scorn to wear the horn
It was the crest when you was born
 Your father's father wore it
And your father wore it too

 Robin Hood and Little John
 Have both gone to the fair-O
And we will to the merry green wood
To hunt the buck and hare-O

God bless Aunt Mary Moyses
 And all her power and might-O
And send us peace to England
Send peace by day and night-O

Folk use of Betony – The Healing Herb with Purple Flowers

 In early medieval England, plants and flowers were used as ingredients in folk remedies and magic spells. The main sources for spells from the Anglo-Saxon era are Lacnunga and Bald’s leechbook. These two “leechbooks” are books of spells and medicinal recipes which were used by medieval doctors. They were compiled in the ninth and tenth centuries. The most famous Anglo-Saxon charm is called “The 9 herbs charm”; it includes a spell invoking the pagan god called Woden. The charm makes mention of 9 different plants, all of which can easily be found in the English countryside. One of these plants, betony, has remained popular in folk medicine and magic for centuries.

Betony (stachys betonica) is also known as heal-all, self-heal and woundwort (due to widespread belief in its healing qualities). Betony grows in sunny meadows and shady woodlands where it brings forth beautiful purple flowers in July and August. It is easily grown and adds a splash of colour to a wild bouquet or herb garden. Not only was it regarded as a healer, it was also thought to have magical properties.
 
Macer’s herbal is a Medieval Latin poem which was translated into English in the early 12^th century, it describes betony as powerful against “wykked sperytis” which means wicked spirits.

There are many extraordinary superstitions regarding betony; a very old one says that if you put two snakes in a circle of betony, they will kill each other. Another says that beasts of the wild knew how well it healed and would therefore seek it out and eat it when wounded. Even as recently as 1666, the Medicina Britannica says:

 'I have known the most obstinate headaches cured by daily breakfasting for a month or six weeks on a decoction of Betony made with new milk and strained.'

Over the years, betony related folklore has endured to the point where it is still recognised as a nervine and a tonic. It is also alleged to be an astringent, and is used in alternative medicines to treat rheumatism, scrofula and impurities of the blood. Even if you’re not interested in the magical stuff, the flowers are beautiful and the herb itself makes a lovely cup of tea.