Purpose of Yggdrasil and the Runic Tarot

 

 

The objective of the online course Yggdrasil is to provide

• tools for the exploration and development of Jungian archetypes and the collective unconsciousness.

• tools and a map for ritual magic. Where ritual magic should be seen as a system of practical psychology like psychodrama.

• tools and exercises for personal development and to obtain spiritual enlightenment.

 

Not an attempt to go back

Many times I have encountered people, who thought that I longed for primitive times and a primitive life-style. I do not. Yggdrasil and the Runic Tarot are not about 'going back to the old Teutonic ways', 'to live like a Viking' or 'to restore the old Germanic mythology and cosmology'.

 

Not about 'White supremacy' or Nazism

According to DNA-research, all 'out-of-Africa' people descended from a tribe that left Africa about 65.000 years ago. Caucasian people are not much different from other people throughout the world. The color of the skin is coded by a few genes and is not important. The idea of 'races' is an evil root of racism.

I do not believe that Caucasian people are superior or better than other people. Yggdrasil and the Runic Tarot are not instruments to promote such a believe.

 

Not an attempt to explain the old Germanic cosmology

I believe, that the worldtree Yggdrasil was a central idea of old Germanic mythology and cosmology. But we should not believe, that all people believed the same things during a period of over 5.000 years. See also Truth about the Germanic people

I believe that Yggdrasil was a central idea. But I do not believe, that everyone had the same ideas. When astrophysicists talk about their ideas of the universe, they have very different ideas. It would be wrong to take the ideas of one person and then say, that every astrophysicist believes that. And it would be wrong to state, that all Germanic people had a cosmology as described by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda. And I do not believe, that Germanic people from 2.000 years ago had a cosmology remotely like my cosmology. I grew up with ideas of a universe with many galaxies, each galaxy with billions of stars. Heathen people lived in a completely different world.

So this is not an attempt to correct the Prose Edda or to show what Germanic people believed. I have never met a tribesman or tribeswoman from Europe from 1.000 BC. So I can not know what these people believed.

 

Jungian archetypes

Jung got the idea, that humans are born with a nervous system with some basic instincts hard-wired in it. And not only humans are born with such a nervous system. All mammals and birds are born with such a system. That is why a kitten is not afraid of the mother cat and why a mother cat does not eat her kittens as if they were rodents. What a novel idea. Entirely unscientific. LOL.

When we are born we know how to behave towards our mother. We are born with a neural circuit, that controls our behavior towards 'Mother'. This neural circuit is the Mother-archetype of Jung. But we can not directly access this circuit. Tools to influence this circuit are images of archetypical mothers. Like 'Mother Earth', 'The Great Mother', 'Mother Mary'. et cetera. And mother goddesses like Isis or Frigg.

See wiki Jungian archetypes or What Are the Jungian Archetypes?.

 

Yggdrasil the world tree

In Jungian psychology the world tree is a central idea. Search on Jung worldtree.

In western culture there are two well known world trees:

• Yggdrasil, the world tree of the old Icelandic Edda's.

• The tree of life from the QaBalAH. See Tree of life (Kabbalah).

 

When I was about 15 to 17 years old, I read a lot of books about the QaBalaH. Some of them I found disgusting. Christian writers that took their idea of Jesus and put it on the QaBaListic tree for the glory of their idea of Jesus. Many books were written without serious knowledge of Jewish culture. Later I learned, that some orthodox Jews are offended, when you claim that the QaBaLAH is Jewish.

Since I do not know much about Jewish culture, I do not use the tree of life from the QaBaLaH. Not because I dislike Jews, but because it is a completely different culture. And then I discovered the old Germanic mythology and the Edda's. And I learned about Yggdrasil. The advantage of Germanic mythology is that it is a very primal mythology. It is rough and close to the archetypical source.

The main part of old Germanic mythology is written by Christian writers whose parents or grandparents were real primitive heathens. They wrote down what they remembered, without polishing and refining. Because of this, we find in the old Icelandic writings treasures, that are not tarnished by sophisticated people. The old Germanic mythology is really useful for Jungian psychology and for the development and exploration of archetypes. But some Christian writers have written texts to undermine the pagan faith. So you should not assume, that the old texts are accurate.