The Northern Dawn: Vol 1. By Stephen Edred Flowers
https://arcanaeuropamedia.com/blogs/arcana-blog/stephen-edred-flowers-on-the-northern-dawn
Stephen Edred Flowers is of course better known in the esoteric world as Edred Thorsson, highly productive author of books on esoteric runology and leader of the Rune Gild. Dr. Flowers has done an enormous amount towards getting the practice of Germanic magic on a sound historical and spiritual footing, partly by making use of the mainstream academy's research into runes, language and culture in the pursuit of initiation. So it is not hard to get the impression that before he did that, there was academic runology and occultizoid nincompoopery and ne'er the twain did meet, that nothing much of interest happened in the world of Germanic magic between the millennium-old suppression of the ancient ways and the recent runic revival.
But of course it is not as simple as that, as Dr Flowers points out in this excellent book. In the wake of the cultural destruction of the ancient world there wasn't just a yawning void, but some very interesting things happened in the world of Germanic culture.
Flowers sets the scene with a thorough exposition of the methods of study he will be applying in the book. He writes that the book 'concerns the most fundamental aspects of what we call culture, and defines 'the Germanic cultures as those that speak a dialect of the Germanic branch of languages.'
Volume 1, 'From the Twilight of the Gods to the Sun at Midnight' covers the history from the end of the ancient world to the peak of Christianity's ascendancy in the Middle Ages. Flowers lists the elements necessary for the current reawakening of Germanic cultural awareness and explores the religion, art and cosmology of the elder tradition via historical records and material culture. This volume then leaves us in the age of darkness that came with Christianity, the mediaeval period - which is actually astonishingly rich in Germanic culture; we can see clearly how the tradition never died.
This book was originally published in 2003 under Thorsson's own imprint, Runa-Raven Press. This is a revised, expanded and more robust volume. Strongly recommended for anyone who wishes to take a serious look at what the current reawakening of Germanic esotericism is actually rooted in.
Stephen Edred Flowers is of course better known in the esoteric world as Edred Thorsson, highly productive author of books on esoteric runology and leader of the Rune Gild. Dr. Flowers has done an enormous amount towards getting the practice of Germanic magic on a sound historical and spiritual footing, partly by making use of the mainstream academy's research into runes, language and culture in the pursuit of initiation. So it is not hard to get the impression that before he did that, there was academic runology and occultizoid nincompoopery and ne'er the twain did meet, that nothing much of interest happened in the world of Germanic magic between the millennium-old suppression of the ancient ways and the recent runic revival.
But of course it is not as simple as that, as Dr Flowers points out in this excellent book. In the wake of the cultural destruction of the ancient world there wasn't just a yawning void, but some very interesting things happened in the world of Germanic culture.
Flowers sets the scene with a thorough exposition of the methods of study he will be applying in the book. He writes that the book 'concerns the most fundamental aspects of what we call culture, and defines 'the Germanic cultures as those that speak a dialect of the Germanic branch of languages.'
Volume 1, 'From the Twilight of the Gods to the Sun at Midnight' covers the history from the end of the ancient world to the peak of Christianity's ascendancy in the Middle Ages. Flowers lists the elements necessary for the current reawakening of Germanic cultural awareness and explores the religion, art and cosmology of the elder tradition via historical records and material culture. This volume then leaves us in the age of darkness that came with Christianity, the mediaeval period - which is actually astonishingly rich in Germanic culture; we can see clearly how the tradition never died.
This book was originally published in 2003 under Thorsson's own imprint, Runa-Raven Press. This is a revised, expanded and more robust volume. Strongly recommended for anyone who wishes to take a serious look at what the current reawakening of Germanic esotericism is actually rooted in.
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