Aki Cederberg’s Holy Europe

2,655 words

Aki Cederberg, photography by Justine Cederberg
Holy Europe
North Augusta, SC: Arcana Europa, 2024

Several years ago, a curious incident occurred at Rennes-le-Château, the mysterious church in Southern France that partially inspired the bestsellers Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The DaVinci Code. A young Arab woman dressed in a cape and mask used an axe to behead a statue in the church and to hack at the holy water font sitting on its shoulders. After placing a Koran at the foot of the statue, complete with underlined passages popular with Jihadists, she knocked a hole in Mary Magdalene’s head on the altar relief. When finally restrained by a passerby, the woman cried “You are all unbelievers!” Then, curiously, she added “I am home, you are not!”

What could she have meant by this? Only one conclusion seems possible: the woman meant that she, a Muslim, is truly at home in France, and that the French (at whom she was yelling) are not. We must ask the difficult question of whether the woman is right – or at least half right. Are Europeans still “at home” in Europe? If so, how? If not, why not?

It is effectively in search of answers to these questions that Aki Cederberg undertook the series of journeys that he recounts in Holy Europe. From his native Finland, Cederberg and his wife travel to Sweden, to Old Uppsala and to the Anundshög burial mound; to Copenhagen and Odense, Denmark; to Riga, Latvia and an encounter with the neo-pagan religion of Dievturība; to Sacred sites in Estonia; to Wewelsburg, Germany, and a visit to Himmler’s infamous “SS Castle,” with accompanying reflections on Karl Maria Wiligut and Otto Rahn; to the Externsteine site in Northwest Germany; to Haus Atlantis in Bremen; to the Nibelungenhalle on the mountain Drachenfels where, according to legend, Siegfried is said to have slain the dragon; to the Black Forest; and to Questenberg and its Queste, a sunwheel pillar, celebrated by the annual Questenfest.

Then it is off to Montsegur, the Cathar fortress in the Languedoc region of Southern France, rumored to be the Grail Castle of legend; to the aforementioned Rennes-le-Château; to Villefranche-sur-Mer, and a chapel decorated with murals by Jean Cocteau; to Iceland and meetings with modern, woke Asatruar and a visit to the Þingvellir, historic site of the Alþing; to Gardone Riviera, Italy, and Vittoriale degli italiani, the lavish hillside estate of Gabriele D’Annunzio; to Venice and memories of Ezra Pound; to Spain and the Benedictine abbey of Monserrat, Catalonia, another reputed location for the Holy Grail; and then, finally, back to Cederberg’s native Finland. It is a long, strange trip.

Remarkably, Holy Europe was a bestseller when originally published in 2020 in Finland as Pyhä Eurooppa. It received a good deal of attention from mainstream media and positive reviews appeared in newspapers and other periodicals (as well as a few inevitable hit pieces). Two limited hardcover editions quickly sold out and a third edition was published in paperback. When you read the book (and, really, you must) you will be surprised that this was possible, for Holy Europe is an openly nationalist, pro-European work. However, as a friend of a friend put it, someone who has had more dealings with the Finns than I, “Finland is a little different.”

It is possible to frame Holy Europe as a sequel to Cederberg’s 2017 book Journeys in the Kali Yuga. Both books are spiritual travelogues in the tradition of Paul Brunton’s Search in Secret India, or Alexandra David-Neel’s Magic and Mystery in Tibet. In Holy Europe, Cederberg says the following:

Throughout my journeys I have found myself more at home with abstract truths – such as holiness, spirit, and beauty – and in the places which embody them. It is the modern world and its endless noise that remains foreign to me. I have come to realize that I do not belong to this age, which is ruled by merchants and consumers instead of priests and holy men. My life has been a long pilgrimage through deepening valleys on my way to ever more elusive heights. (p. 308)

Repulsed by modern, Western civilization, Cederberg travels to the exotic East looking for a sense of “spiritual place” – the subject of Journeys in the Kali Yuga. As I put it in my blurb for that book, “There he is an outsider as well but is allowed something close to an insider’s participation in a living pagan religious tradition. Instead of satisfaction, he finds only more yearning – for the largely forgotten traditions of his own people. Cederberg’s journey . . . is a journey home.”

Holy Europe is this journey home. It is a journey “back” to Europe, in the sense of an expedition in search of the true Europe, that lies concealed beneath the surface rot of liberalism, globalism, and consumer culture. As we shall see, however, it would be an oversimplification to describe Cederberg’s journey as a search exclusively for Europe’s past. To be sure, he does explore the past, or the remnants of it that continue to exist in the form of places and living traditions. But Cederberg is also in search of Europe’s future – a better future than what current trends might predict. In order to realize such a future, we must re-connect not with the past, per se, but with the deepest, creative well-springs of the European spirit.

Europeans have lost touch with that spirit in part through the siren song of mass consumer culture. But it is also the result of deliberate efforts to undermine European identity. Cederberg writes that in recent times we have been witness to “never-ending attempts at subverting the Nordic peoples’ understanding of themselves, their connection with their native soil and ancestors, as well as attempts to dismantle their traditions, history, and spiritual world” (p. 15).

Cederberg is referring to multiculturalism, at which he takes aim throughout the book. Ostensibly, multiculturalism is the ideal of the co-existence of multiple cultures and multiple peoples within one geographic location, with all peoples free to practice their cultures, unmolested by any of the others. In fact, however, as Cederberg points out, “Countries that aggressively advocate for multiculturalism often stifle the culture of the native population” (p. 15).

I would make one small correction here: countries that aggressively advocate for multiculturalism always stifle the culture of the native population, i.e., the native European or white population. And it is only white populations on which multiculturalism is pushed. This has led many on the Right to draw the obvious conclusion that “diversity” and “multiculturalism” are code words for “anti-white” or “anti-European.”

Cederberg writes:

Whether we like it or not, Europe is under assault in a spiritual war. Against it are positioned external forces, which seek to undermine, weaken, and finally vanquish the spiritual landscapes and traditions of Europe, and to subjugate both Europe’s inner and outer world to serve its own ends. Europe is also occupied by an inner enemy, which does not even recognize the existence of its own spiritual soil. . . . In the shadows of cathedrals marking the beating heart of Europe, we allow our daughters to be disgraced. We let every natural truth be turned upside down. We watch as every tradition is uprooted. We allow it all in the name of progress and multiculturalism. (p. 189)

One should be careful here in understanding Cederberg’s distinction between “external” and “inner” enemies – as careful as he was in choosing these words. The “external enemy” is not necessarily an enemy outside Europe – though, to be sure, Europe does have enemies outside its borders. The external enemy is rather those groups that are in Europe, but not of Europe. Needless to say, he has in mind Muslims. He may also have in mind some other group or groups, but I have no wish to put words in his mouth.

The “inner enemy” that “does not recognize the existence of its own spiritual soil” refers to Europeans who have become deracinated and, especially, to those who actively and consciously seek to promote deracination. This means, of course, the political Left and also the cowardly center-Right, who would rather lose to the Left than be thought “racist.”

“We are told repeatedly,” Cederberg writes, “that a harmonious multicultural utopia is just over the next horizon, but we must get used to an ever-increasing violence directed at our native population and culture. Terrorism and crime are simply growing pains on our way toward a more tolerant future” (p. 212). And, earlier in the book: “We are told time and again that the multicultural transformation of Europe is inevitable and that this is our future. Is it?” (p. 157).

The answer to this last question is “yes”: the multicultural transformation of Europe seems inevitable – unless it is resisted. But how should we resist? Cederberg states, correctly, that Europe’s demographic and cultural decline – indeed, its apparent will to self-immolation – “cannot be solved on a merely political level.” Europe’s problems are “an internal, spiritual issue” (p. 336). It is no use blaming external enemies. Afterall, “We can only be conquered by external forces [if] we have been internally defeated” (p. 339).

Even if remigration is successfully carried out – and, make no mistake, it can be and must be – Europeans will still be left with the rot in their souls that allowed them to succumb to mass migration in the first place. Fundamentally, Europe’s problem is not demographic or economic or ecological; it is spiritual. Cederberg’s book is going to be misunderstood as calling for Europe to return to its pre-Christian, pagan traditions. In truth, his point is nothing so facile.

Though much of Holy Europe explores the continent’s past, Cederberg continually calls for the new. For example, he writes at one point, “We need new sacred places, new temples, new holy flames. Instead of historical re-enactment, we should search for new, distant horizons. When all eternal principles have been turned upside down, every act of beauty is defiance against the soullessness of our age” (p. 106).

Cederberg’s substantial discussions of Cocteau, D’Annunzio, and Pound may puzzle readers who have decided to take Holy Europe as a neo-pagan travelogue. In fact, these discussions are key to understanding the book. Cederberg is arguing that the way to revitalize the European spirit, including its sense of the holy, is through beauty: through art and imagination. The true focus of Holy Europe is not paganism or neopaganism, but the aesthetic. Religion and the holy are inextricably tied to art. It is the poets, after all, who have given us our myths.

At one juncture, Cederberg writes:

The seemingly insurmountable problems that we are faced with today, from ecological to economic disasters, are not fundamentally a result of emissions or consumption, but stem from a lack of values of beauty and holiness. The external world is a reflection of our inner world. As long as our soul is lost, so shall our creations be void of depth and direction. We do not need new religious cults or political ideologies, with their false prophets and statesman. They will not save us. We need our true soul and spirit; we need beauty and the holy. With them, everything is possible. (p. 247)

Europe’s pagan past is explored in this book not as an end-in-itself, and certainly not as a model for Europeans to slavishly copy in a bid to revive long-dead cultural forms. Instead, the pagan past is explored as a means to kindle the imagination so that something new can be brought forth – something new that nevertheless has some continuity with the old, with tradition, and with the “spirit of place.”

Cederberg confesses what many of us would-be pagans have felt from time to time, but generally refused to admit: that much of the bygone pagan European world is “unrelatable.” “The customs associated with the peasantry of the past are alien to me,” he writes, “and I am not concerned with reenacting history or ‘ancient faith.’ But even more alien to me is the degraded state of the contemporary Finnish (and European) people and their culture. Their souls are like a clearcut forest, full of felled trees and departed, homeless spirits.” (p. 317)

Cederberg mentions his impressions on seeing a photograph of the old Rouen cathedral in Normandy, capturing a moment when a light installation projected runes onto the exterior of the church. (The photograph is reproduced in the book, and it is a truly striking image.) This leads him to make a daring suggestion:

The spiritual landscape of Europe is shaped by the tension between Christianity and paganism. Perhaps we need to embrace this tension, instead of seeking to resolve it in favor of either side. Both traditions have their place in Europe. Can the Westerner transcend the dichotomies that [suspend] him between Christianity and paganism, science and religion? Could Christianity and paganism form some kind of new vital synthesis, or could an esoteric form of Christianity grow to have more influence? Can paganism turn its gaze from the past to the future, to the most distant guiding star, and be reborn in a new form? (p. 203)

The suggestion is a daring one for it will surely arouse the ire of both Christians and neo-pagans. Nevertheless, it is reasonable. If there is to be a revival of the European sense of the holy, it will likely not come about through deliberate attempts to promote either a return to paganism or to Christianity (which also now seems, to many, “unrelatable”). Such a revival will, in all likelihood, be the result of an organic process, probably “bottom-up” rather than “top-down,” and the form it takes will be impossible to predict. It is entirely reasonable to expect, however, that it might involve some kind of synthesis of Christian and pagan elements. (A synthesis with Islam is scarcely even imaginable, because the Muslims would wage holy war against anyone suggesting it.)

Rouen Cathedral illuminated by runes.

It is useless for neo-pagans to argue that Christianity is alien to Europe when it has been a part of the European experience for two thousand years. Cederberg writes that “There is something profoundly beautiful and truly human about a person rooted in his land, his ancestors, and his tradition. He is part of a continuum, a chain that stretches from the mists of the past toward the future” (p. 41). But to be rooted in Europe and its traditions means to be at home not just with our sun wheels and runestones but also with our cathedrals and with the glorious art and music inspired by Christianity.

Cederberg is optimistic about the future of Europe. For Europeans, and their white American allies, who sometimes despair over the continent’s future, Holy Europe provides a much-needed shot in the arm. Cederberg writes early on in the book:

The old gods may slumber, but nothing slumbers forever. When one attempt after another seeks to dispossess the Nordic people and deprive them of their holy world, when the modern world turns ever more vacuous and devoid of spirit, the old gods awake. The war-god Odin will reclaim his high seat in our soul, and Thor will bring down hail and thunder against the giants and forces of chaos that have set themselves against his people. . . . Let there come a time when the world of man falls and sinks into the waters, let there come a time when thought and memory are lost, let the twilight of the gods commence; northern man will rise again, and give life to his internal primeval forest. (pp. 16-18)

This is an excellent book. The foregoing has emphasized its philosophical and political message, but, in the main, Holy Europe is an engrossing travelogue. Readers will undoubtedly be inspired to recreate Cederberg’s pilgrimage and visit the locations described in the book. Arcana Europa are to be commended for making Holy Europe available to the English-speaking world. The translation is readable and even eloquent. The layout of this large-format book is also very attractive, and it is lavishly illustrated with photographs – most of them by Cederberg’s wife, Justine.