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Print February 17, 2020 4 comments

Richard Rudgley’s The Return of Odin

John Morgan

1,427 words

Richard Rudgley
The Return of Odin: The Modern Renaissance of Pagan Imagination
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2018

Richard Rudgley is a British author who has published several books offering unconventional interpretations of the ancient and prehistorical eras of Northern European history, as well as works on psychedelics. In 2004 he presented two documentary serials, Secrets of the Stone Age and Pagans, for the UK’s Channel 4. In more recent years his interest has shifted towards Northern European paganism. The venerable publisher Inner Traditions has recently published his The Return of Odin: The Modern Renaissance of Pagan Imagination, which is a reprint of 2006’s Pagan Resurrection: A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality? — the latter of which more accurately reflects the book’s themes. The new edition is identical to the original apart from a brief new Preface by the author which attempts to show how the book’s thesis has been borne out in the intervening years.

The book begins with promise by discussing C. G. Jung’s famous “Wotan” essay from 1936, in which he asserted that the father god of the pre-Christian Germanic religion is a fundamental archetype of the German mind. In the ancient sagas, Wotan is full of contradictory impulses, being understood as both a deity of wisdom as well as of war and frenzy, among many other characteristics. Jung believed that Wotan was reintegrating himself in the German mind after having been buried and repressed by alien Christianity for millennia, as reflected in the rise of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism. Rudgley contends that this reintegration was genuine and that it persists into the present day.

In the first chapters, Rudgley offers a brief summary of the Norse pantheon and some of its myths, and its links to the Indo-European tradition more broadly, as well as the significance of the runes and other elements of what we know about how the ancient Germanic religions were practiced. Particularly notable is his discussion of útiseta, a practice which involved sitting on burial mounds to commune with the dead; some surviving evidence tantalizingly suggests that this might have been an ancient Nordic form of meditation.

Rudgley then proceeds to discuss how interest in Nordic religion slowly began to reemerge in Germany in the nineteenth century, particularly in art, literature, and philosophy. This soon led to the appearance of Germanic neopaganism in the early twentieth century, and such groups as the neopagan Ascona community in Switzerland and the Wandervogel youth movement in Germany are briefly surveyed.

It is in Chapter 9 that the book begins to go off the rails, however, by excessively focusing on the relationship between Nordic religion and Nazism and other forms of violence — and in some cases, on events that had nothing to do with paganism at all. Rudgley first discusses the rise of National Socialist ideology and anti-Semitism in Germany, despite the fact that he concedes that this had nothing to do with Odinism. Early Germanic neopagan figures such as Guido von List, Siegfried Kummer, and Friedrich Marby are briefly outlined, primarily in terms of how their ideas fed into some marginal groups that were affiliated with the Third Reich (which, it is important to note, never promulgated Odinism as its faith). This culminates in a chapter on Karl Maria Wiligut, a self-proclaimed mystic who was for a time an advisor to SS leader Heinrich Himmler, and who dubiously claimed to be descended from an ancient line of Germanic pagan priests whom he knew through ancestral memory. While these topics are relevant and shouldn’t be overlooked, it sets the narrow and negative tone for the remainder of the book — not to mention that these subjects have been dealt with much more thoroughly in other works, such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s The Occult Roots of Nazism, Stephen E. Flowers’ The Secret King, and Eckehard Lenthe’s Wotan’s Awakening (the latter of which has only recently been translated into English).

After this, following a brief discussion of the influence of Germanic mythology on J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of Odin essentially becomes a catalog of horrors which Rudgley contends demonstrate his idea that Wotan’s reintegration is ongoing throughout the Western world — although oddly enough, after 1945, he focuses almost exclusively on America and Britain to demonstrate this. Rudgley claims that Charles Manson, mass shooters, and serial killers are all part of this phenomenon, drawing on French sociologist Denis Duclos, who believed that such acts of apparently random violence reflect Wotan’s berserker quality. We then get many summary discussions of American neo-Nazi groups and figures such as Aryan Nations, the American Nazi Party, William Pierce and his Turner Diaries, Timothy McVeigh, and the 1980s terrorist group The Order — all of which, we are told, prove that Wotan is manifesting again in the Western psyche, despite the fact that none of these groups or individuals claimed to be Odinist.

Returning somewhat to his subject, Rudgley then spends a great deal of space discussing David Lane, the late Klansman and Order veteran who tried to establish his own Wotan cult while serving a life sentence in prison. We are also told about other marginal neo-Nazi groups which have professed Odinism, the nonsense about the alleged esoteric basis of National Socialism espoused in pulp tomes like Morning of the Magicians and The Spear of Destiny, and the “esoteric Hitlerism” of the Jungian Chilean writer Miguel Serrano. While these topics are interesting in and of themselves, they are all far too fringey to prove that the West is entering a new psychological paradigm, as Rudgley suggests.  It’s also not clear why Rudgley chose to focus exclusively on radical Right-wing groups; surely the much more widespread hippie and other countercultural movements which swept across North America and Europe in the 1960s and ’70s were even more indicative of a return of the pagan spirit in the West (something which Julius Evola also recognized)? They certainly more closely resembled the Wandervogel than any of the groups Rudgley brings in to prove his thesis.

After this long parade of monsters, Rudgley finally gets around to briefly discussing the more benign — and more interesting — forms of Germanic neopaganism that have arisen in recent decades, although only Stephen McNallen and his Asatru Folk Assembly, the UK’s Odinic Rite, Stav (a group based in Britain which holds that the worship of Odin should be open to all ethnicities and which understands the runes as tools for psychological counseling), and psychologist Ralph Metzner receive any detailed discussion. (The book, given that it was written in 2006, thus doesn’t cover more recent groups that have emerged, such as the Wolves of Vinland.) Strangely, post-war figures and groups of the Odinist revival from outside the Anglophone world, including Scandinavia, are ignored completely (Varg Vikernes, hello?), and even some major thinkers from within it, such as Stephen Flowers (aka Edred Thorsson), are only mentioned in passing. One can’t help but feel that this is the real meat of the book, given that if there is any “pagan renaissance” occurring through Odinism today, it is here — but unfortunately it is left as merely an afterthought.

There is the germ of an interesting book in the early and final chapters, but as it stands, they merely serve as bread between which the slices of processed Nazi baloney are sandwiched, which unfortunately forms the bulk of the text. It seems like Rudgley failed to resist the temptation to engage in sensationalism over substance. There are plenty of better books on subjects like Nazi occultism and Charles Manson already; of serious books on contemporary Odinism with depth, there are, unfortunately, very few. If a newcomer to the subject were to read The Return of Odin, he could be forgiven for concluding that Germanic Heathenry is nothing but a cloak for neo-fascism and murder — which is of course nonsense. This is particularly tragic given that the author clearly has the knowledge and sympathy to write an honest book on Odinism, as evinced in the occasional essays and interviews he has produced since this book was originally published in 2006.

Despite these serious flaws, Rudgley does make some interesting points here and there throughout the book for a reader already familiar with the subject, provided one is willing to wade through all the rehashing. It should not, however, be recommended to anyone as an introductory text (Stephen McNallen’s Asatru: A Native European Spirituality fulfills that function much more nicely). Nevertheless, there is enough of value here that I am hopeful that Mr. Rudgley will eventually be induced to write the genuine account of the Odinic revival that I am sure he has in him.

 

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Tags

AsatruAsatru Folk Assemblybook reviewsC. G. JungGermanic paganismGermanic traditionJohn MorganneopaganismOdinOdinismWotan

4 comments

  1. Fenek Solere says:
    February 17, 2020 at 9:55 am

    Dear John,
    I read this book in its original edition. My thoughts replicate your own precisely.
    Best
    FS

  2. Adrian says:
    February 17, 2020 at 10:01 am

    Thank you for this entertaining review. I might have actually bought this book otherwise.

  3. Desdinova says:
    February 17, 2020 at 10:41 pm

    A very useful review! Having delved into Nazi period occultism through some of the source material, it’s clear that the last thing scholars of traditional european religion need is another pro-forma whack at the Hitler pinata. We’ve already got ‘Morning of the Magicians’ and Peter Levenda’s book, which is useful insofar as it lays out the terrain, even if it takes the usual low road of ritual denunciation of the NS movement.

    1. John Morgan says:
      February 18, 2020 at 4:00 am

      I’m sorry, but “The Morning of the Magicians” is pure fiction, and probably did more damage to the serious, scholarly study of the influence of occultism on National Socialism than any other work. The standard serious works on the subject are Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s “The Occult Roots of Nazism” or Stephen Flowers’ “The Secret King,” as I mentioned in the review. Levenda’s book treads the line between serious scholarship and nutzism.

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  • Recent posts

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    • Correspondence between Gaston-Armand Amaudruz & Julius Evola

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    • Spencer J. Quinn Interviewed About The No College Club

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    • David Duke & Louisiana’s 1991 Gubernatorial Election

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    • Race War in the Outback

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    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 7 More of the Most Common Jobs for Psychopaths

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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 521 Daily Zoomer & Spencer J. Quinn Discuss The No College Club

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    • Opiates for America’s Heartland

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    • The Whale

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    • Bullet Train to Babylon

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    • A Woman’s Guide to Identifying Psychopaths, Part 6 The Most Common Jobs for Psychopaths

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    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 11, Part 4: “Multitudes” Against the People

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    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 11, Part 3: “Multitudes” Against the People

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      Greg Johnson

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    • Hitchcock vs. Visconti

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    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 11, Part 2: “Multitudes” Against the People

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  • Classics Corner

    • Remembering A. R. D. “Rex” Fairburn (February 2, 1904–March 25, 1957)

      Greg Johnson

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    • Denis Kearney & the Struggle for a White America

      Theodore J. O'Keefe

      1

    • Posthuman Prospects:
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      Christopher Pankhurst

      5

    • Earnest Sevier Cox:
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      Morris van de Camp

      15

    • Remembering Jack London
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      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Remembering Robinson Jeffers:
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      John Morgan

      3

    • Remembering Pierre Drieu La Rochelle:
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    • Remembering Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865-January 18, 1936)

      Greg Johnson

      10

    • Restoring White Homelands

      Greg Johnson

      34

    • Remembering Hinton Rowan Helper

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      11

    • What’s Wrong with Diversity?

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      10

    • Redefining the Mainstream

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      3

    • Edward Alsworth Ross:
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      Morris van de Camp

      8

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      19

    • Christmas & the Yuletide:
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      William de Vere

      3

    • Thanksgiving Special 
      White Men Meet Indians:
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      Thomas Jackson

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      Sir Oswald Mosley

      4

    • Dostoyevsky on the Jews

      William Pierce

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      Ezra Pound

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      Doug Huntington

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      Mark Dyal

      13

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      Émile Durand

      55

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 3

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    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 2

      John Morgan

      6

    • Columbus Day Special
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      9

    • The Politics of Nuclear War, Part 1

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      13

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      Alan Smithee

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    • Bring Back Prohibition!

      Alan Smithee

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  • Paroled from the Paywall

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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 517 Special Hangover Stream on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 516 The New Year’s Special

      Counter-Currents Radio

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      Kathryn S.

      4

    • The French Emperor, the German Nutcracker, & the Russian Ballet Part 1

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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 515 The Christmas Special

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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 514 The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, & Yet to Come on The Writers’ Bloc

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      Morris van de Camp

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    • PK van der Byl, African Statesman

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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 513 The Writers’ Bloc with Horus on the Implicit Whiteness of Liberalism

      Counter-Currents Radio

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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 512 Jim Goad on Answer Me!

      Counter-Currents Radio

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    • Cleese on Creativity

      Greg Johnson

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    • Death of a Gadfly:
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      Counter-Currents Radio

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    • The Problem of Gentile Zionism

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

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    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 7:
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    • The Populist Moment, Chapter 6:
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    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 507
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  • Recent comments

    • Kök Böri

      Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      Some interesting infromation you can got from the book Jewish Domination of Weimar Germany. 1919-...

    • Fire Walk With Lee

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      You made me recall this from Delirious… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rtt9daBt1RQ

    • Kök Böri

      Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      The Apollo program, like Sputnik and Gagarin before that, were great deeds, but at practical sight...

    • Kök Böri

      Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      I suppose the causes of a new German anti-Semitism of 1920-1930's were mostly invasion and behaviour...

    • Beau Albrecht

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      Q:  Why did chickens cross over into Africa? A:  To get to the other continent.

    • Dain Smocks

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      Demons is not similar to Crime and Punishment. You rebuke this article by saying that Demons is the...

    • Kök Böri

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      The well-known Russian detective Arkadiy Koshko (1867-1928) described (not on his own experience,...

    • Joe Gould

      The Eternal Fedora

      "Still, it seems religiosity has something to do with having kids." I agree with that. In...

    • James Dunphy

      The Eternal Fedora

      Something like Judaism would keep whites in mixed race nations from miscegenating, but Jews have 50...

    • James Dunphy

      The Eternal Fedora

      Religiosity is highly correlated with greater fertility rates globally. It's just that other things...

    • T Steuben

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      The RINO Orange County DA Todd Spitzer was soft on the black woman who ran her car into a stop the...

    • James Dunphy

      The Eternal Fedora

      Elevatorgate triggered the schism between the neurotic element and facet two psychopathy element of...

    • Scott

      Remembering Charles Lindbergh

      >> I also believe that it is highly probable that Pearl Harbour was an earlier 9/11, to force...

    • Walter E. Kurtz

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      Watch how quickly the bicycle doctor stabbing drops off the media’s radar as it doesn’t fit any...

    • DarkPlato

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      Beautiful thoughts, but I think it’s important to have some substance to support yourself and the...

    • Euro-American

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that this is not a country anymore, if it ever was, and it...

    • threestars

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      And Raskolnikov's guilt comes from the unplanned killing of the innocent Lizveta. For an accident of...

    • Beau Albrecht

      Why Crime & Punishment is Garbage

      My take from it was that it was a poke at utilitarianism.  The book does hit very close to home with...

    • James Kirkpatrick

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      Lol!

    • Shift

      The Worst Week Yet: January 29-February 4, 2023

      What's that old joke?  Abe Lincoln after tying one on the night before: "I freed the what?!"

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