Book Review: Understanding Indo-European Cosmology, Theology and Metaphysics from Hammer & Vajra
Book Review: Understanding Indo-European Cosmology, Theology and Metaphysics from Hammer & Vajra
Vikings in Tibet
Understanding Indo-European Cosmology, Theology and Metaphysics - from Zachary Gill, part of the Hammer & Vajra project.
It is an interesting project assuming unity of Indo-European religion in the past, around the Vedic period. This book is a second part of the Hammer&Vajra cultpunk project, the first being ‘Hammer & Vajra: a Syncretic Indo-European Faith’. I picked this for this series because of its online origin and themes popular among many circles of twitter.
On the descriptive level this book takes the Indo-European set to be: Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Greco-Roman, Persian and Vedic Indian. Contrary to the title there’s not as much metaphysics, the first half is mostly about the theology of Sky Father.
The second part is a bunch of essays on various topics, including history of Scythians, kind of random.
The main normative idea here is that syncretism in traditions “preserving the flame” since that epoch is the way, and that Western Pagans should go for training and learning in the unbroken sister traditions of the East, these being Hinduism and Buddhism.
Hammer & Vajra Ontology
The book starts with a brief FAQ that I’ll summarize here:
reason for creation - creation necessary as a higher function of dignity
Why were humans created? to worship and partner with God
Why a specific place for a message? the line goes back to 1 tradition in old the past (Indo-European). What other peoples’ link to the divine is is uncertain.
Why specifically some book or prophet? The response is that “God is there for those who seek” and contingent means are employed to reach them.
What happens to people who have never heard of it? Karma does not go bad just for not believing specific interpretation of the Sky Father
individual souls of animals? similar spark of divinity as humans, ned to respect, though not necessarily vegetarian
God eternal? Kind of (response not clear)
The theology here is certainly quite unique and hard to pin down. There is a hefty dose of cultural relativism, superimposing Celtic, Germanic, and even Zoroastrian figures
Mihra as the son of Goddess Anahita and mediator between Ahura Mazda and darkness of Angra Mainyu
[…]
the most supreme is the aspect of divinity you are hailing during the time you are hailing them
(page 24)
There is a bunch of positions the author puts himself in opposition to. One of these is the Abrahamic memeplex
the Indo-European approach to God contains much less of an arbitrary punishment than the Abrahamic understanding of “believe, serve” or burn” as one is expected to have a walk with the Gods, as their ancestors would, only taking it further, via servitude, when called to. (page 29)
Another position referenced is that of Varg Vikernes, rejecting mythical literalism, leaning closer to Neo-Platonist-ish emanationism:
it is in this , and possibly only this, that I will agree with the likes of Vaerg Vikernes, in saying that if one literally believes their God is a hammer wielding bearded man in a chariot, pulled by goats who fly in the sky, they are believing in something that is a fallacy, is easily proven incorrect and doesn’t have enough depth to stand up to deeper forms of theology. (page 68)
Multiple inspirations
As we see, the Hammer & Vajra project does not shy away from syncretizing multiple memes together. There’s a chapter “Chivalry is European. A study on chivalric rules and the nine noble truths) where the archetype of a medieval knight - from Templars, Teutons and Arthurian lore is examined.
A sample list of commandments is taken from Leon Gautier ‘s 1891 Chivalry, translated by Henry Frith. These contain 10 injunctions on the personal and social level.
Page 100 witnesses a listing of readings approved as Indo-European sources:
Havamal (words of Odin)
Plato
Dharmic
Buddhist Sutra - “Aryan 8 fold path”
Zoroastrian 3 Goods
Military Ethos
Humans - deity relation
This hinges in this view on a mystical concept called ‘Womb Realm’, quite ethereal but also biological. Page 108 contains this exposition
This does not mean that Gods are just our ancestors, DNA, or archetypes, as that leads towards Promethean style atheism. Instead they are our DNA, ancestors, archetypes, divine functions, and being within the Cosmos of the Womb Realm / Matrix. Through meditation, prayer, exposure to one’s ancestral connections and heritage, and devotion to the Gods, one can awaken the archetypes of the Gods within them, and traverse to join the divine in reincarnation.
Mushrooms are praised as entheogens: (page 234)
When one consumes a mushroom, they are writing their physiology, and psychology, as well as spirit , to the Earth Mother, jacking into the web, and allowing themselves to attune to the frequency, and merge with it, and even rise above it. While this could be said about various plant life, and plant-based medicines, or substances, the case for mushroom s is very strong
The Call to Retvrn
The author has one main call, which is quite unique among neo-pagan groups. The classical divide is between reconstructionists and ‘neopagans’. His approach is for Occidental believers to travel to the East, learn and borrow from Eastern practices and finally return to their homelands with the knowledge, to remix it with what is known about the religion of their ancestors.
Still an balanced view is taken, with page 124 proclaiming balance between practices known to be good and obsession over details from the past:
Do you praise the Gods? Do you honor your ancestors? Do you do self-improvement? Do you care about your culture? perform rituals? pray? Read philosophy? meditate? it not then bug off
The WOO element
Page 132 is about “Odic Force”, a concept invented by Baron Carl von Reichenbach, a German chemist behind paraffin and phenol. That theory tries to unify electromagnetism, heat and energy. Hammer & Vajra sees this as similar to Rita Guido von List, then also to “Vril, Qi of China, Ki of Japan, Prana of India, Aether”.
The book has a lengthy “Hammer and Vajra official book recommendation list” that I won’t repost here.
Conclusion
This a brave attempt in the idea-sphere. The memeplex is fun, maybe the disperse nature of the corpus is disrupting the cohesion of the message slightly. I’d expect the next books in the series to cover spiritual paths as the idea of individual progression isn’t really touched on, while that is very important for many people in spirituality. However unlike books I reviewed before this one is quite specific for a certain angle, so if you don’t see the appeal of Hindu-Norse synthesis you probably won’t find this too interesting.
6.5/10.
This terminates this chunk of book reviews, the next post will be about re-enchanting the world - a theme that has been reccurring throughout the books reviewed recently.
I'm sure they're already part of the roadmap, but just in case: independent inprint Sophia Perennis has started publishing the opera omnia of Guénon in practical and inexpensive paperbacks.
Particularly relevant to this: East and West; Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta; The Crisis of The Modern World.
There's also the later Studies in Hinduism, plus Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles, neither of which I have read yet but might be of interest?