Editor's note: this post was revised and updated on 9 April 2023.

In the heathen worldview, there are two important concepts that are often referenced: innangarðr (Old Norse "within the enclosure," pronounced "INN-ann-guard") and útangarðr (Old Norse "beyond the enclosure", pronounced "OOT-ann-guard"). "A place or a state of mind is innangarðr if it's orderly, civilized, and law-abiding. If, on the other hand, it's chaotic, wild, and anarchic, it's útangarðr."

Consider nature. We live on a planet – and likely in a universe – in which most everything exists to be food for something else. Males tend to seek dominance in the form of mating rights, and will kill other males – and sometimes the offspring of other males – to ensure that only their genes move forward. And for all life, survival is a matter of adapting to a changing world; failure to do so results in unceremonious extinction.

Editor's note: this post was updated for clarity and consistency with the theme of this site on 1 April 2023.

Once upon a time, I was a musician.

My musical development was stunted due to a fundamentalist Christian upbringing in which rock ‘n' roll was a "sin," so I was in my early twenties before I got around to seriously immersing myself into bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Those two bands were the opening of the musical heavens, a blast of blinding light like Paul on the road to Damascus or the Buddha under the Bodhi Tree. My life was forever changed.

There's no indication that the ancient heathens ever had priests; at least not the kind to which we're accustomed. Instead, heathens had leaders that also served in certain spiritual capacities.

Perhaps the best-known example of this is the Icelandic goði. "Usually a wealthy and respected man in his district," the goði served as a leader over the less-powerful landholders in his goðorð (the area over which he held sway), and he maintained "the communal hall or hof in which community religious observances and feasts were held."

Our ideas of "right," "wrong," "good," and "evil" have long been influenced by Christianity, and currently get perpetuated in the media based on our common understanding. If we are to know the culture of the ancient heathens, we cannot do so without ingesting their ideas about these fundamental concepts.

Eric Wodening's We Are Our Deeds – The Elder Heathenry – Its Ethic and Thew provides a strong basis for beginning such a study. Using linguistics, the author examines English words and their origins in an effort to determine what the ancients really meant when they used terms like "good" and "evil".

I firmly believe that no one but the presently-dead know about life after death. I do believe that consciousness transcends time and space, and because we experience consciousness, much of that which we consider to be "me" is not subject to temporal limitations.

"In Norse mythology, Valhalla (from Old Norse Valhöll "hall of the slain") is a majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin. Chosen by Odin, half of those who die in combat travel to Valhalla upon death, led by valkyries, while the other half go to the goddess Freyja's field Fólkvangr. In Valhalla, the dead join the masses of those who have died in combat known as Einherjar and various legendary Germanic heroes and kings, as they prepare to aid Odin during the events of Ragnarök. Before the hall stands the golden tree Glasir, and the hall's ceiling is thatched with golden shields. Various creatures live around Valhalla, such as the stag Eikþyrnir and the goat Heiðrún, both described as standing atop Valhalla and consuming the foliage of the tree Læraðr."[note]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla[/note]

I have an attachment to Óðinn for which I have no reasonable explanation. I will say, though, that my name – when translated to the tongue of the Anglo-Saxons – has within it the word for "king," and the Anglo-Saxon kings almost always traced their line to Óðinn. Would it be presumptuous for me to claim this as an explanation? Probably! There is a part of me, however, that cannot write this off as mere coincidence.

"In the religion of the Teutons, such terms as worship and adore, atone and propitiate in the Jewish and Christian sense are empty words, they slip powerlessly aside; the discrepancy between the fundamental need of religion and their meaning makes them empty and superficial. The worshipper went to his grove and to his gods in search of strength, and he would not have to go in vain; but it was no use his constantly presenting himself as receptive, and quietly waiting to be filled with all good gifts. It was his business to make the gods human, in the old, profound sense of the word, where the emphasis lies on an identification and consequent conjunction of soul with soul. Without mingling mind there was no possibility of union here in Middle-garth, he who could not inspire his neighbor with himself never became his friend, and no will could reach from the one to the other. The gods themselves could do nothing then, nay willed nothing before those who invoked them had rendered them living, as Floki blóted the ravens. It was men who rendered the gods gracious, not by awakening their sympathy, but by inspiring them with frith of their frith. This active co-operation is the origin of those epithets 'gentle,' 'mild,' 'good to the people' which we find in the Nordic as used of the gods, praises which are therefore at root different from the thoughts which ascend towards our gods borne by these words. But even more was expected of a man when he blóted — he made the gods great and strong. It called for more than manly courage, and more than common siegecraft to assail a city known to be a 'great blótstead' or a place where powerful blóts were commonly held. The gods who were much blóted were – according to Christian authors – worse to deal with than ordinary supernatural beings."

-Vilhelm Grönbech, The Culture of the Teutons (Volume II)

The Masks of God

In the first of his amazing "Masks of God" series, comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell spoke of shamans and their theatrics. For all intents and purposes, he painted a picture of these most ancient of spiritual leaders as being part illusionist (in the modern sense of the term), deliberately manufacturing a little hocus-pocus in order to better captivate and engage his or her audience.

He does not, however, suggest that these shamans of old we akin, say, to the modern evangelical faith healer who cold-reads his (or her) audience in order to trick the desperate and gullible into heaping cash into offering plates. Instead he proposes that the audiences were savvy to the shaman's tricks, but suspended their disbelief intentionally for the benefits brought about by the rites themselves.