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Cryptids are an endless source of fascination, and explanations for the phenomenon abound. My personal theory is that they are for the most part real, albeit in strange extradimensional, metaphysical ways. Regardless, whether they are real or not, and if so and in what manner, is a question of fact. Right now I want to deal with the question of their meaning.
One of cryptids’ meanings is that they are connected to white Americans’ quest to establish a relationship between blood and soil. As previously discussed, bridging the gap between blood and soil is a major hurdle standing in the way of overcoming our rootlessness.
Analyzing paranormal phenomena to explore deeper truths is nothing new. For example, in Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, Carl Jung thought that UFOs that were seen over medieval Nuremberg were due to natural causes, such as a sun dog, but that their interpretation by the people provided insight into deeper psychological truths. The border between the psychological and the metaphysical is as porous as the United States border, but one need not believe in metaphysics to conduct a psychological and cultural analysis of the cryptid phenomenon.
Additionally, Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West observed that the ways in which the ancient Apollonians and the Faustian West view the phenomenon of nymphs was indicative of their respective culture’s world feeling. For the Apollonians, the nymphs were literal rivers and vice versa. For us Faustians, nymphs live in rivers. This apparently small distinction is actually huge, as it is indicative of the Apollonian world feeling of perfect bodies and of the Faustian world feeling of a drive toward infinite space. The latter is due to the fact that “In things, we [Faustians] suspect other worlds,” given that we mastered invisible forces such as electricity and magnetism, while the literalist Apollonians mastered geometry.
Cryptid reports are therefore as informative of our people’s culture and psychology as they are of the cryptids themselves.
The cryptid phenomenon is occurring in both Europe and North America, but it is remarkably different. In Europe, at least in recent times, cryptids have generally been friendly or mischievous creatures such as gnomes and fairies. In North America, they are almost universally malevolent or at best neutral, yet extremely alien, ranging from the terrifying skin-walkers and livestock-killing chupacabras to the enigmatic mothman. The thunderbird of Indian folklore is the only major friendly cryptid reported in modern North America that comes to mind.
But if we understand the term cryptid broadly, those of old Europe more resemble modern American cryptids. Our ancestors told tales of fighting various monsters, many of which had a chthonic character, as for instance the cyclops, sirens, giants, the hydra, and the minotaur. There were also kindlier cryptids, such as nymphs. But one gets the sense that they were in the minority, much as the thunderbird is today. Stories of dark cryptids continued throughout the Middle Ages. For example, there was an uptick of werewolf reports in the late Middle Ages which bear some resemblance to modern American skin-walkers.
Furthermore, elves were originally not friendly peddlers of cookies as portrayed by the Victorians. They were strange but majestic beings, such as Tolkien’s elves or Skuld, a troublesome half-elf sorceress in the Hrolf Kraki Saga. Older elves could also be downright vicious, such as how elf shot was reported as causing sickness in humans and livestock from the Middle Ages through the early modern era. In modern Iceland, they are friendly creatures that simply don’t want their homes to be destroyed by construction projects.
Earlier European accounts of elves were very similar to modern American reports of UFOs and aliens. Both involve little green men. Seraphim Rose in Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future makes a strong case for alien activity being something demonic. Almost no alien encounter is physically or mentally positive, despite the strange obsession which the topic inspires in some. Many encounters result in physical infirmity which resembles radiation sickness, or how the legends describe elf shot. The strongest evidence that what some believe are aliens are not extraterrestrial is the fact that they usually appear to be lost or suffering a mechanical breakdown. Are we really to believe that an advanced species suffers this many technical difficulties? It seems more like a flimsy cover story for the gullible.
This brings us back to how reports of paranormal phenomena tell us as much about ordinary humans as about the phenomena themselves. It is possible that modern humans are so materialistic that they are epistemologically handicapped and cannot conceptualize the alien/elf/demon phenomenon as anything other than a metal vehicle of some sort carrying extraterrestrials. The harsh light of science has banished heavenly hosts, wild hunts, and dragons from our horizons. The reverse could of course be said of our ancestors: Perhaps they could not conceptualize a metal vehicle except as a chariot and so on. I personally prefer to favor the wisdom of the ancients over modern man’s shallow arrogance, however.
Even if one regards aliens/elves/demons as factually non-existent, they are undeniably beloved cultural motifs. The fact that they are now described as more closely resembling demons than friendly bakers who live in magic rocks in today’s America shows that we have become estranged from them — or rather, from nature. Although the fact that UFOs in modern Europe resemble the American phenomenon could be used as evidence against my theory, a likelier explanation is that the contagion of American rootlessness and materialism has spread back to the Old World.
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Besides providing a diagnosis for the estrangement between our blood and soil, the cryptid phenomenon also suggests solutions.
First, it would make sense that a people and their land need time to bond. When our ancestors were young and their environment wild, European cryptids were predominantly hostile. As time passed, they became friendlier. Americans need time to form a bond with the land. But Americans arrived only yesterday, from a historical perspective.
Additionally, any attempt to bond with the land will be hindered, if not prevented, by materialism: factory farming, pollution, strip mining, unbounded urbanization, and soulless consumerism. From the perspective of the natural world, modern man is an unnatural abomination. Thankfully, however, those who are inclined to such terrible acts are less likely to reproduce in the current genetic bottleneck, and we nationalists are branching off as a separate nation from them.
A silver lining to this situation is that we nationalists are in the same camp as — or at least de facto allies of–nature because we too are enemies of modernity. The overwhelming oppression of modernity tends to split humanity into two camps: those who wholly embrace it, and those who wholly reject it. Thus does the tyranny of the machine ironically drive blood and soil back together in its latter stages.
Other than waiting for time to pass, some ways to overcome the estrangement of blood and soil are through environmental political action, embracing natural living, and getting out into nature. Hiking is a revolutionary act. I can personally attest that former Boy Scouts are almost as common as veterans in the movement.
While the Boy Scouts were persecuted into becoming a shade of their former self, individuals and various nationalist groups such as Patriot Front and the Active Clubs have continued the process of bonding our blood with our new soil through outdoor activities. The Left may not be able to rationally articulate why happy white people enjoying nature is so triggering to them, but the fact that such a benign activity is seen as an existential threat to them suggests that not only are they unnatural abominations, but that going outdoors is an important endeavor — if not metaphysically, then at least culturally and psychologically.
Second, how did ancient European cryptids become tame? There is an abundance of stories about heroes conquering chthonic entities who were terrorizing the land, and then appropriating their power. Salient examples are Siegfried slaying the dragon Fafnir and bathing in its blood, and Heracles slaying the Nemean Lion and taking its pelt. While one aspect of these stories has to do with alchemical states of being in which a solar hero conquers a chthonic power and then wields it, another is that of a nation’s blood conquering their land.
Today, accounts of cryptids are generally filled with doom. We are helpless villagers being hunted by the skin-walkers within us. But we will know that the gap between blood and soil is being bridged once stories of heroes conquering cryptids begin to proliferate, and our imaginations instinctively see friends instead of foes in the deep wilderness. This process cannot be artificially rushed. We must wait for such stories to naturally resonate with our people, similar to memes. Anyone who claims to have literally slain a cryptid is probably lying, but one day — hopefully soon — gripping tales about them will spread across Twitter and Discord as they once did around campfires, and stories of dragon-slayers will eventually be replaced by tales of friendship, similar to the tall tales of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.
Then white men will truly dwell in these lands.
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12 comments
Part of scouting was very much telling supernatural stories and the like around a campfire, with no trappings of ultra-modernity other than perhaps the odd digital watch. Cub leaders’ titles – Akela, Bagheera, Kaa et al – were based on the talking creatures of Kipling’s Jungle Book. While the young boys were Cubs, girls were Brownies, little sprites whose actions and motivations remain mysterious to me to this day. It’s all derided now as a massive paedophile ring but I look back with deep affection and respect for the public-spirited and upright men I knew who made those experiences posssible.
The Scouts were a good thing and came from fascist Whites. That’s why it had to be destroyed.
Have you heard of the bizarre “staircase in the woods” legend? It, too, falls under the American “malevolent” being/presence motif. The image of creepy stairs left behind after the rest of their structures have disappeared, the inhabitants gone, might be a metaphor for the kind of “rootlessness” and nomadic lifestyle that haunts the American psyche.
Your article about werewolves/la Bete du Gevaudan belongs to the topic of cryptids too. Here there is tag cryptids, but only this article of Mr. Steuben is tagged with it. It would be nice to have your article about La Bete tagged alike.
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Our most known cryptid is of course Almasty/Albasly, a kind of Kaukasian Bigfoot. But traditionally those were female demons.
I just looked it up and it gave me chills. There is something intriguing about the idea of staircases to nowhere in the woods.
In a world where our ancestors are as real as ourselves, these abandoned artifacts would clearly be understood as ‘haunted’. But it’s also possible that the location was always disturbed and disturbing and someone built there and suffered the consequences. Just as there are ‘special’ good places, there are ‘special’ bad places as well.
The best American writer in American ‘cryptids’ and their relations to earlier (Old World) encounters is John Keel. For an interesting representation of rootedness and ‘alien’ ecumenism, see the lovely film ‘Bigfoot, UFOs and Jesus’. Keel shows how, over time, the reputation (and response) to ‘cryptids’ (what he calls ‘ultraterrestials) changed from hopeful to sinister. It’s worth pondering whether that was accidental or part of an intentional campaign.
Oh, John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies, a wonderful book! The film with Richard Gere is not bad, but in the book, which is definitely very informative, the story is told much more serious.
I’ve always liked Mothman because its certainly eldritch but not malicious. It had plenty of opportunity to hurt people but didn’t even though it disturbed them. I would have to guess that there was a cultural barrier which prevented understanding.
The UFOs in America were produced by SKUNK WORKS. Now we can say that the UFO of 1950’s was U-2, the UFO of 1960’s was SR-71, and the UFO of 1970’s was F-117, and later B-2.
The cryptid phenomenon is occurring in both Europe and North America, but it is remarkably different. In Europe, at least in recent times, cryptids have generally been friendly or mischievous creatures such as gnomes and fairies. In North America, they are almost universally malevolent or at best neutral, yet extremely alien, ranging from the terrifying skin-walkers and livestock-killing chupacabras to the enigmatic mothman.
That is a very interesting observation. In Europe cryptids are the neighbours of people, they are “natives”. For European colonizers in America the local cryptides were hostile, because the Europeans themselves were “aggressors”, invaders, and aliens there. I can compare the North American Bigfoot/Saskwatch with our Nort Caucasian/Steppe Albasly/Almasty. There are many (stupid) American horror films about Bigfoots, because for Europeans those cryptids are terrible, and Europeans are full of fear of them. However with Albasly we have different relations. Yes, we should not disturb them. We should avoid them. But we should not have fear of them. They would not attack us, if we do not meddle in their lives. We all know about Almasty/Albasly/Alamas (that are different names for the same thing). Earlier Almastys were seen as female demons, but now we regard them as very rare but real animals, something like big apes. The same can be said about Russian Leshiy, Ukrainian Chugayster, or Edil-Tatarian Shurale. They COULD be dangerous, but only if we people disturb them. Just leave them alone, and everything would be OK. Horror films about Almasty are impossible.
What a charming take on the subject, well done.
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