Counter-Currents
Religion & the Right
The Merits & Futility of Paganism
Christian Secor
1,731 words
Part 1 here
In Part 1, I laid out the historical significance of Christianity to European Civilization and the ultimate shortcomings that it undoubtedly has in retrospect. While this may have suggested a sort of anti-Christianity on my part, this could not be farther from the truth. The issue with Christianity was never that it could not produce a functioning society as a general system. The issue was the veracity of its historical claims- more so for the Old Testament than the New Testament, though both are dubious, from a historically unaccounted for Egyptian captivity to obviously ex post facto prophesies- and the problems that arise in a society where everyone is a saint, taking the Bible to its logical conclusions. But pagans have certainly taken a greater issue with Christianity than I, going so far as to see Christianity as an enemy no less sinister than Islam or Judaism. In Part 2, we will examine the pagan position.
The pagan position is simple: Christianity is a foreign religion created by Jews that has subverted the ancient spirituality of European man. Therefore, if we are to truly return to tradition and revolt against the modern world, Christianity must be seen as an enemy and defeated. In its stead, the original pagan practices, rituals, and modes of belief of all European peoples should be studied, reconstructed, and reenacted. Pagans are often instrumental in the study of prehistoric migration patterns, historical genetic testing though haplogroups and mitochondrial DNA, and the reconstruction of ancient languages and customs. Their very short amount of time in this field, to their full credit, has provided much more knowledge about ancient Europe, our roots, and the context of what has made us us, than the last century of Christian apologetics and bickering about the Bible. To this, it can safely be said that the pagans (at least the rightist pagans as opposed to the progressive posers) are a positive force in the fields of archaeology, philology, and ethnology.
There are a few issues with paganism, however. For one, at least in its exoteric form, it suffers from the same issue as Christianity: it’s simply unbelievable to modern man. This is less of an issue than with Christianity because paganism doesn’t take itself as seriously and doesn’t have a rigid dogma, though this opens up other issues. Perhaps the ancients really did believe in the literal gods but today most self-described pagans see them in a much less literal sense.
Paganism is much less theoretically demanding on the religious . In Christianity, it is necessary to believe that the entire universe was created for the moment that Jesus was crucified. Christians mean this in the most literal sense. If you don’t believe this, you are irredeemably evil for some reason and cursed to the lake of fire. Anyone who knows anything about the first-century Christians knowns that this was the epitome of resentment, that is in the French sense as used heavily by Nietzsche. Over two millennia this has evolved from a cope for the minority to a scare tactic for the majority.
In contrast, paganism is in a way irrefutable, for if we are to define “gods” to be superhuman forces, we see gods all around us. Yahweh-Jesus is obviously a god, perhaps the most powerful god to ever live, as he continues to have followers to this day, perhaps a quarter of the world in fact. Parties are gods, countries are gods, philosophies are gods, and so on. In this sense, perhaps the ancients were more intellectually advanced than we give them credit for. Their in-group was physical but its spiritual Dasein, their collective conscious within space and time, was the god, then personified with a mascot to add a visual effect. If a Roman legion’s Aquila, which they saw as a literal god, was captured in battle, it would be killed. And this is quite accurate as a legion would in all likelihood be totally wiped out by the time the Aquilifer was slain in battle and the Golden Eagle taken as booty.
There is something within folk religions that speaks to each of the respective nations or ethnoi that a late coming universalist religion such as Buddhism or Christianity simply cannot replace. The Catholic Church has understood this for centuries. Obviously before the Great Schism there was an Eastern Rite which was still within the Catholic Church though wholly Eastern in aesthetic and spirit. These rites still exist both within the official Catholic Church in the form of Byzantine Catholics, Maronites, and others within the traditional Christian world, as well as the numerous Orthodoxies which, from my understanding, are still accepted by the Vatican, though they claim their sovereignty and independence. Even further are the Chinese Rite and the various cultural oddities that are tolerated in Latin America.
Christian authors such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien wrote fantasy books which deeply touched the folk spirit of European (and especially Anglo-Germanic) man while incorporating Christian elements. Aslan’s representation of the Jesus of another realm didn’t prevent him from slaying the White Witch. Love for thy enemies surely didn’t stop Gandalf and his forces of good from genociding the orcs and their interlopers. While there was incidental Christianity which ended up saving the day in both stories (Aslan’s sacrifice and the sparing of Gollum so that the mission would be fulfilled), the reality is that both were stories of European warrior/aristocratic culture with some blending of the Norse culture found in the Sagas in the case of The Lord of the Rings (take the influence of the Volsung Saga on The Hobbit or the incorporation of crafty but often nefarious Dwarfs in both authors’ stories). The pagan god Bacchus even makes a momentary appearance in Prince Caspian.
The pagan tradition, even what little that survives in the Greco-Roman classics and the preserved Sagas of the Norsemen, is a rich one that everyone, especially Europeans, can and should enjoy. Perhaps the worst attitude that can be taken by extremists is that of the pseudo-messianic-Jew. This person can be of any race but tends to be an evangelical or otherwise protestant white person. The attitude of the pseudo-messianic is to label anything that is not strictly Biblical within sola scriptura as “heathen” or something of the sort. This can get completely out of hand with some Christians attacking things deep within the European tradition such as Christmas trees, fertility imagery during Easter (eggs, rabbits), and in some cases even celebrating Christian holidays themselves is out of bounds. They’ve all but thrown the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.
The folk ways of Europe cannot be erased from the collective unconscious of European people as long as they walk this Earth. Some hardcore fundamentalist Christian extremists, along with malevolent ethnic interest groups, might wish to erase it, but this seems highly unlikely. It speaks to both left and right, Christian, atheist, and neopagan.
With all of this said, there should be some caution if the future Western civilization is going to continue to hold to its primordial Dasein. The great issue for modern man in relation to the Bible is that it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, leading to multiple reactions including deism, atheism, doubling down into fundamentalism, a search for esoteric meaning, cherry picking, or interpreting some or all passages in a non-literal/metaphorical/symbolic way. The same folly can happen with the pagan motifs within European culture. For example, the Ragnarok episode in Norse mythology is one of cyclical history which bears great fruits in describing reality, as opposed to the linear history of Abrahamic mythology whose only fruits are the messianism and progressive cancer which the modern world is afflicted with.
But to believe in a literal Ragnarok has led to arguments resembling that of Christian literalists, arguing over whether we are in the Ragnarok now or if it was the fall of paganism. In reality, true traditions exist in a plane of existence beyond our own, beyond time. The answer to the aforementioned question is “both” and there will be ever more. Julius Evola called this “superhistory.” A story can never have happened, yet parallels are persistent through the ages.
The Grail King, Hyperborea, David and Goliath, and Jesus as an avenger of the weak are all superhistorical in that they likely never literally happened, yet are in a way “more real than real.” This is, in fact, the greatest defense of Christianity. Unfortunately, Christianity is an inherently exoteric tradition that cannot stomach such a proposition. Rather than an extremely significant, albeit allegorical, story that touches on the human psyche in a way that rivals any other, Christianity must hold that Jesus was literally God and that the entire universe was created for that moment to happen in first-century Judea. Paganism is more immune to this literalism but there are still those contrarians who wish to replace one literalist god with another. To put it simply, to believe there is a literal giant wolf named Fenrir who is going to eat the moon is just as silly and fanciful as believing in a literal Second Coming.
The world of ancient paganism is fruitful if it is understood within the context of the philosophical discoveries of the past century such as C.G. Jung’s collective unconscious, Heidegger’s existentialism, the Traditionalism of Schuon, Guenon, and Evola, and Nietzsche’s affirmation of life. This will make a fruitful project for the next generation of philosophers and theologians to work on. Some such as Jordan Peterson and Jason Reza Jorjani, though taking radically different views on these subjects, are essentially asking the same questions. There is also the fact that Vedic scholarship and modern biochemistry have opened doors that were never possible before a mere decade ago.
Paganism and its lingering spirit within us will play a major role in a successful reemergent religious system for Western man to conquer the planet, and then the stars. But it cannot be the paganism that many think of (either a crass religion of fanciful stories told by illiterate barbarians to their reindeer-skin-clad children and today espoused by criminals in prison, or an edgy alternative for lesbian couples who like to draw pentagrams) but a growing system which not only explains, but can facilitate the expansion of science, philosophy, art, theology, and indeed territory.
It calls for something radically new, so new in fact that it does not yet exist.
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18 comments
Christianity is antiwhite and supports White genocide. This results from Jewish influence, particularly during and after Vatican II, but it is also compatible with biblical Christianity, in which the Jewish founding fathers and mothers are important and Whites are nothing.
When you weigh something against nothing, something wins and nothing loses. Our race entire is a nothing in the eyes of Christianity, a worthless nullity that can be eradicated without pity or regret if it pleases the Jews, which it does. Modern Church policies, particularly regarding mass immigration and anti-racism, support this.
We are not in the position of perhaps replacing Christianity if we are disposed to do so; Christianity has set its face implacably against us, and we cannot survive under that dispensation.
The big problem with reverting to paganism is that the gods of the pagans also have no regard for us. Zeus would have had done with humanity entirely, never mind having regard for Whites.
That religious feeling that the Jews have, and that does so much to strengthen their race, that their god is with them and has a special regard for them alone, and that he has a loving and protective relation to them, is unavailable to us because we have no gods of that nature.
It would be nice if we could feel that we Whites as a race were in harmony with the divine order and that by doing right by our race we were also doing our best to keep things sweet in some supernatural sense. It would be nice but that’s not how paganism worked.
We will move on not because we want to but because we have to.
We must choose to live, with gods if we can but without gods if we must, for the sake of our posterity.
Another issue with paganism is how cut off and distanced we are from its rituals. I found Evola’s explanation of Indo-European mythology to be the most compelling so far. I interpret it as: the Godhead is a supernatural energy. It is real and there for the taking. It can if you embrace it through a hero’s journey infuse you and grant you massive power. The allegory and presence of parricide and incest in so many stories is a map: you can seize the power for yourself, but you must have the courage and skill to destroy the all-consuming forces that prevent you from doing so. It can’t be easy. It must be earned.
In that sense of the energy of the Godhead, Judaism and its covenant with the Jews fulfills that extremely powerful energetic function. It does so not individually, but for the entirety of a people.
Circumstances are dictating that we are seen and thus will see ourselves as a single people across continents. As that happens we will construct a means to seize that Godhead both as Alexander and a combined and high functioning inter-continental legion.
the Godhead is a supernatural energy.
I don’t wish to criticize you or your ideas, but the above is an abstraction (for some of us). I’ve read similar statements here and there over the years, and I haven’t got a clue what it means. AFAIK it’s not a crime to need an easier introduction to these kinds of matters.
That is a fair point. I believe there is an energy, a force. I call it the Godhead. It isn’t really a belief either. It is something verifiable when you get that energy and it gives you power to be higher functioning in some manner in the world. An artist would call it inspiration; an athlete or warrior a flow state; a people a galvanizing will.
That is the best that I can do. Glad that 1John liked the Pan European idea. My word is the Pan European Imperium. Wouldn’t it be great if our foreign policy and military adventures and expenditures were not in the Levant but safeguarding and protecting the Afrikaaners/Boers/Anglos in South Africa? A man can dream and it became closer to a possibility this week.
Yes, you are correct – christianity is anti-White. We need something else to replace it. An idea to ensure our survival in perpetuity:
Our Race Our Religion,
Our Religion Our Race (OROR).
Others I’ve found:
-“Cosmotheism” William Pierce.
-“White Man’s Bible” Ben Klassen.
“What is good for the White Race is of the Highest Virtue;
What is bad for the White Race is the Ultimate Sin.” Ben Klassen
-“Christian Identity”.
John: February 13, 2025 Yes, you are correct – christianity is anti-White. We need something else to replace it. An idea to ensure our survival in perpetuity: …
Cosmotheism William Pierce
Yes, John. We already have it: https://cosmotheistchurch.org/product/cosmotheism-religion-of-the-future-by-william-pierce/
Bumped to keep Cosmotheism in the conversation about Religion on the Right, though Cosmotheism is far removed from any definition of the so-called right wing, even the NANR. There’s no question that John is right to say christianity is anti-White and that our people need something to replace it. Among serious racial nationalists that is settled.
But Paganism? Talking about its futility, it’s important that we study pre-Christian European spiritual roots that fit our people’s character: heroic, conforming to Nature’s laws rather than slave-like, worshipping the Jewish god, — but how did Paganism stand up to Christianity, much less will it stand up to powerful organized Jewry? About like the chance a fart has in a whirlwind, as my daddy used to say.
Though the Cosmotheist Bible, linked to below, is selling well, I do not expect those at C-C to pay $35 for it. Instead, I offer the 1982 piece by Dr. Pierce from five years ago, here: https://nationalvanguard.org/2010/10/on-christianity/. We’ve advanced from 43 years ago with “On Christianity,” as conditions have greatly worsened for our race. It is in a comment below the piece by Wolf Stoner when I was first introduced to him. His comment is worth revisiting. His final sentence in that comment:
Doctor Pierce had found the best approach to this topic. We should be religious but not Christian. We should worship Our God, not their Jehovah.”
A definition of neo-Paganism I’d found and posted in my own comment under that same piece by Dr. Pierce. I don’t recall where I got it:
Neo-Pagans are a community of faiths bringing ancient Pagan and magickal traditions to the modern age–including mostly Wicca but also Druidism, Asatru, Shamanism, neo-Native American, and more. Neo-Pagan is an umbrella term for various and diverse beliefs with many elements in common. Some Neo-Pagans find no incongruence practicing Neo-Paganism along with adherence to another faith, such as Christianity or Judaism.
Oddly enough, Counter-Currents posted Dr. Pierce’s “On Christianity” 15 years ago, here: https://counter-currents.com/2010/10/on-christianity/, introduced thusly:
Editor’s Note: In this 1982 article, William Pierce gives a beautiful demonstration of intellectual leadership on the Christian Question. The North American New Right, of course, is not a membership organization but an intellectual network/movement, so questions of membership criteria do not arise. Naturally, in the political realm, we are willing to cooperate with white people of all faiths to attain our common aims. But as a metapolitical and intellectual movement, it is the duty of the NANR to address all questions of vital importance to the survival of our race, including the role of Christianity in our racial decline and what role, if any, it might play in our revival.
—
Will Williams: February 14, 2025
John: February 13, 2025 Yes, you are correct – christianity is anti-White. We need something else to replace it. An idea to ensure our survival in perpetuity: …
—
Yes, John. We already have it: https://cosmotheistchurch.org/product/cosmotheism-religion-of-the-future-by-william-pierce/
Pagans are often instrumental in the study of prehistoric migration patterns, historical genetic testing though haplogroups and mitochondrial DNA, and the reconstruction of ancient languages and customs. Their very short amount of time in this field, to their full credit, has provided much more knowledge about ancient Europe, our roots, and the context of what has made us us, than the last century of Christian apologetics and bickering about the Bible. To this, it can safely be said that the pagans (at least the rightist pagans as opposed to the progressive posers) are a positive force in the fields of archaeology, philology, and ethnology.
Huh? And here I thought actual academics, from places like Harvard, were doing this work.
“Huh? And here I thought actual academics, from places like Harvard, were doing this work.”
There is crossover and that’s a problem. People with the appropriate doctorates enjoy prestige and influence, and certain doctoral theses are wise purchases, and so on. The problem arises because the universities are antiwhite hives of feminism and subversion. This poison leaks into pagan communities through prestigious people who owe their credentials and their prestige to their acceptability in a bad environment.
There are good academics. For example, I have nothing bad to say about Jan Assmann. But there are bad ones, and that’s a problem.
You made patently ridiculous claim about “pagans” performing valuable research into prehistoric migration movements and haplogroups. It’s scientists at the Reich lab, Max Planck Institute, etc, who deserve the credit here, none of whom likely identify as pagan, though surely more than a few identify as Jewish.
If history is cyclical, then as the intellectual vanguard we’re really behind the curve!
In all seriousness, another great piece. I hope there will be a part 3.
The ‘pagan intellectualism’ (or at times anti-intellectualism) is one thing, the demographics another. There is not a single country in Europe where pagans amount for more than 0.1% percentage of the population. One exception is Russia, where they make up 2%. Of those, about 1% are those belonging to the Turkic peoples of Asian Russia, and the rest the Slavs. Posts on X do not move mountains, no matter how passionate worded.
But again, as the work of imbuing the Christian faith with positive values, traditions and rites begun centuries ago, and reached the point where, for instance, Alchemists, Hermetists and Kabbalists were to be found even among the clergy, the question is, what is pagan intellectualism attempting to accomplish that already hasn’t been accomplished with the help of valid doctrines handed over throughout the centuries by veritable masters. Were the obstinate Church to yield on certain minor issues like permitting marriage for the priesthood, there would be very little remaining to fuss about, other than the purely rhetorical points of no practical value, such as whether Jesus was a Jew or whether King David was a war criminal.
Addendum – several commentators on social networks began to advocate the restoration of the original Brahmanic faith of the Hindus, ‘corrupted’ as it is by the latter trimurti variety. I can only assume that the goal is to eventually get this debate started in India.
“The ‘pagan intellectualism’ (or at times anti-intellectualism) is one thing, the demographics another.”
Yes.
If paganism was a good idea for us Whites (and I argued that it is not) it could not be preserved; it could only be reconstructed.
Paganism would have to be reconstructed on the basis of the output of the universities, which are antiwhite and sources of cultural subversion. This is not a smart idea.
Having a religion is not a matter of ideas, but of rites. You either believe in their efficacy, or not. The modern form of paganism denies wholesale the function of religion as it is normally understood. According to them, if not a matter of mere identity (let us set aside the question of what is the value of an ‘identity’, if it has no distinguishing positive aspects vis-a-vis another identity, i.e. if it is only a type of clothing), religion is a mythologized narrative of man’s existence in nature from the point of view of pure ecology.
Politically, it cannot be denied that paganism, if it exists at all, is deeply divisive. It is also parasitical, a waste of energy on something that doesn’t make things better or nobler. I would be more impressed to see a spirited effort at, say, making Latin once again the Lingua Franca of Europe – if resurrecting the past were something to aspire to. Now that would require love, dedication, hard study, campaigning, creativity, organization, grass-roots effort, networking. It would connect European nations and cultures. It would also have an authentic foundation, not speculative. That would also make Europeans *more* united, not less. Being a ‘pagan’ requires a profile on X, which frankly, goes for every other similar pose, including being a ‘trad cath’.
A paradigm shift has presented itself – PanEuropean. Afterall, we’re being attacked as a race & the coming together is logical. Historically, we competed & warred against each other & look at all the amazing advancements. Imagine what we can achieve by working together. Let’s face the truth, we are disliked at best & hated at worst. We don’t want to end up like the Boers/Afrikkans. Time to come together & embark on our breakaway civilization.
XIV VERBA
Somebody give Varg Vikernes a call. He may be able to straighten some of this out.
He states that he follows a “modern scientific worldview resting on a foundation made up of the Pagan values and ideals: loyalty, wisdom, courage, love, discipline, honesty, intelligence, beauty, responsibility, health and strength. (somebody on Reddit quoting Varg)
For those who have some feeling or loyalty to indigenous White spirituality, the word ‘pagan’ is not much different in effect than the word ‘nigger’ is to the American Negro. It’s an insult.
But ‘pagan’ is also inadequate in may ways to understand indigenous White spirituality. Most of what passes for ‘pagan’ religious express or understanding is backward-looking and relies on scholarly reconstruction not active engagement with indigenous White spirituality.
Here’s some places to look
The spirituality of AA
The ‘religion’ of chiropractic
Theosophy, Thelema, New Age
Spiritualism
‘Communing with nature’ (among hiking and camping enthusiasts)
‘Taking a drive to look at the autumn leaves’
Unlike the Abrahamic religions, ‘the Holy Spirit’ isn’t over there, it’s right here, accessible to anyone prepared to set aside their preconceptions and egoism (if just for a moment) and let the edges of one’s ‘self’ get a little bit ‘fuzzy’ and allow it to blend (ever-so-slightly) with the non-human aspects of the world.
The Abrahamics have waged war on White people and their native spirituality for over a thousand years, but indigenous White spirituality will not die.
Or at least, it won’t die until the last White has been killed or blended out with non-Whites.
Edgy lesbians drawing pentagrams are at least practising religion while you are simply writing about it.
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