"Just don't think too deeply and everything will make sense."
(Herman Finkers)
Ok, time for some less serious stuff: on this page I shall try to explain some of the possible meanings behind the Germanic myths; I have chosen two of the most important myths of Germanic religion; the creation myth and the war between the Aesir and Vanir gods. The information on this page does not necessarily have to be the truth, it's just speculation!
In my studies of ancient lore I have often been confronted with texts that had a symbolical meaning; it was a message or moral packed in a normal story, and yes, I know that if you try really hard and search a lot you can always find some kind of semi-symbolical meaning but in some ancient texts the symbolism is really there.
Keep in mind that I do not support most of the things that are written on this page, it's just a collection of wild theories and alternative ways to look at things, though symbolism can sometimes be the key in interpretating the meaning behind ancient texts.
The Germanic creation myth:
I once had a very interesting conversation with two women about the Germanic creation myth and they told me some interesting things about the possible meanings behind this myth that I have included in this alternative version.
The following story is purely hypothetical and only serves as a possible scientifical explanation of the events that occur in this myth:
In the beginning there is Ginnungagap, the void of potential power... an empty dark space filled with a "cloud" of energy, then something causes that void to go into duality and form fire and ice, the two elements of fire and of ice (water) collided together, forming an enormous amount of self-concious energy (Ymir the Giant)
The collision of the two forces of fire and ice did not only create Ymir; another cloud of energy (Audhumla) was created that was slowly consumed by Ymir, and the energy giant reproduced by forming smaller energetical beings by sacrificing parts of itself, these became the smaller "Frost Giants".
After some time the still colliding forces of fire and ice created a third being; Buri (or Tuisto), he reproduced himself with a Frost Giantess and formed his son Bor (Mannaz), and then Bor melted together with the Frost Giantess Bestla, who was also created by Ymir; this fusion created 3 new beings who grew rapidly; Odin, Vili, and Vé.
The newly born gods were mortal like everything else in the universe and did not have a materialized form, this three divine forces collided with the destructive force Ymir and destroyed it; this was the Big Bang; 9 universae were created, our universe (Midgard) is the one in the center of Ginnungagap, and to quote one of the women I was talking with; "Science and spirit combine here to form a scientific yet spiritual explanation of an event so great as to overwhelm the human mind."
According to Albert Einstein's theory (E=MC2) energy equals mass times the square of lightspeed, so energy and mass are equal and are nothing more than different appearances of the same matter, just like human bodies consist of mass while the bodies of spirits consist of energy, the energy (Ymir) became mass (the universe), thus the belief that the stars were created from the sparks of the battle between Ymir and the gods may be based on a real event.
The heavy mass that was created by this reaction (the death of Ymir / the Big bang) was pushed into balls by the electromagnetic pulling force (gravity) they generated and were slowly consumed by chemical reactions, this billions of balls became suns (which we often call "stars" instead), lighter mass and debris from the formation of the suns was caught in their orbits and formed planets, all of those planets consist of mass (whether solid, fluid, or gaslike) in varying amounts but they have all been made out of energy (the "body" of Ymir).
One by one the other gods came into existence; all of those gods were composed of divine energy and consciousness who could take any form (inluding physical ones) to manifest themselves to other beings (to humans Wodan/Odin took the form of a human with a grey beard for instance).
The "Frost Giants" were forces of chaos and destruction and could take the form of destructive giants to manifest themselves.
The three oldest gods (Odin, Vili, and Vé) formed billions of small, self-conscious energies by sacrificing a part of themselves; this were beings, the "souls" of living creatures, this beings can incarnate into a humans or any other creature living in the universe; the stronger the "soul energy" is, the more advanced the creature in which it will incarnate and reincarnate, thus the soul of a human will always reincarnate into another human body, preferably one of the own bloodline (family), because according to Germanic belief a soul also posesses emotions that it keeps in every life, so related souls are connected and will remain like that during their physical life, non-related souls that fall in love with eachother will often find eachother back in a new life because of a spiritual link that is created between them, which gives the concept "soulmates" a whole new meaning.
The body in which a soul incarnates is only a biological container of the soul that was created by a process called "evolution", without a soul a body can not function and will die, without a body a soul will return to the afterlife, though some of them can stay behind and become what we call "ghosts", some types of souls can also live without a body and do not incarnate, this beings are what we call "spirits" or "Alfen".
When a being dies its physical form is deformed and gets "recycled", the soul then travels to another universe or dimension that we call "the afterlife" or "Helheim".
But what is the meaning of this all? well; during its life the soul learns and experiences which causes spiritual growth, when the soul has ended one of its lifes it returns to its origin (the gods), the part of the soul that has grown during its last physical life is removed and given back to their source of origin (the gods), this allows the gods to grow and become bigger and stronger, which allows them to postphone the destruction of the universe (Ragnarök), souls that have grown more than others are allowed to stay with the gods personally, like the Einherjar, after the part of the soul that has grown has been given to the gods the soul moves on to the afterlife to rest and until it chooses to reincarnate again.
But why do the gods go through all this trouble to prevent the destruction of the 9 worlds? its continuation probably serves a higher purpose, or maybe they just choose existence over non-existence.
The nine worlds may be worlds of different vibrations, ranging from the highest form of consciousness which is Asgard to the lowest form which is Hel, that is, stasis.
The nine universae are "carried" by Yggdrasil, which may be a tree structure that binds them together or perhaps a very strong gravitational energy, when it is destroyed the entire vaccuum in which everything exists will collapse (Ragnarök).
Another theory I've heard is that the nine worlds are present within our Solar system;
1.Mercury, 2.Venus, 3.Earth, 4.Mars, 5.Saturn, 6.Jupiter, 7.Neptune, 8.Uranus, 9.Pluto
I know that this story sounds very speculative and far-fetched, but it would complete a lot of pieces of the puzzle if it was true wouldn't it? after the conversation with the two women (which brought me to ideas) I have created this theory in which I added many basic aspects of the Germanic religion and then filled up the gaps by looking at related religions like Celtic religion and Hinduism, so the above story is a (very theoretical) reconstruction of the basic Germanic religion.
Most parts of Germanic mythology have been added later which makes it look a bit incredible but if you just follow the basic line it starts to make sense and even has many similarities with the various scientifical creation theories that exist.
The above explanation is purely hypothetical of course, but who knows what truths it hold? I find it very interesting that so many ancient religions share the same beliefs while many of them have never even encountered eachother.
The fusion of the Aesir and the Vanir:
Another enigma is that the Germanic religion has two families of gods; why did the Germans believe there were two families of gods? is there a historical reason for that?
According to the Heimskringla, the Aesir came from the east with an army and attacked the Vanir, the Aesir were military superiour to the Vanir but both families saw the benefits that could be gained from the other, and therefor they decided to sign an armistice.
Hostages were exchanged and from that day forward there were two families of gods; the Aesir and the Vanir.
It is often believed that this myth symbolizes the fusion of two peoples; the Indo-Europeans coming from the east, and the peaceful farmer communities that inhabited northern Europe.
The Indo-European warriors saw that they could benefit from the farming communities that allowed them food and shelter while the farmers realised that they could benefit from the protection of the new warriors from the east; the two groups learned from eachother and blended together, combining the strenghts of both factions; military strenght and economical strenght.
This "marriage" also took place in their religion; the militant Aesir, who are sometimes believed to have been the gods of the invaders blended together with the Vanir, the peaceful fertility gods of the farmers.
This theory is nowadays very outdated and not supported by most modern historians, in my opinion the myth in which the two families join up into a new divine hierarchy symbolizes the marriage between heaven and earth, which is supported by the fact that most Aesir gods were associated with the sky while most Vanir gods were associated with fertility and the earth.
Other mysteries:
I have already written so many serious pages for this site that I find it time to pay some attention to the mysteries, wild speculations, and other "shady" stories that are somehow connected to our Germanic ancestors, everytime I find something I shall put it on this page:
The European gods of ancient America:
Who doesn't know them; the mysterious Inca's, the ingenious Mayans, the bloodthirsty Aztecs, and all those other ancient peoples of central and south America who lived there in their isolated jungles without knowing there are people on the other side of the ocean, or did they?
It has been argued that the peoples of America did have contacts with cultures on the other side of the ocean, the people who believe in this theory point to the fact that the American pyramids look much like those in Egypt and southeast Asia, they also mention that the stone heads of the Olmecs are depictions of Africans instead of native Americans and that many native American cultures worshipped white, bearded gods.
Some of these gods are Quetzalcoal in Cholula, Votan in Chiapas, Wixepechocha in Oajaca, Zamna and Cukulcan in Guatemala, Viracocha in Peru, and Sume in Brazil. In February 2006 I even received an interesting email from a missionary in Guatemala who mentioned a visit to Mayan ruins and spoke the following words; "We went to see some huge stone statues of ancient kings of the Mayans in this one ruined city and the statues were carved with beards! You see, the Mayan people are beardless people..."
Another bearded god was the Incan god Viracocha; who was tall, white, and wore a beard, something that is very weird because it is genetically impossible for native Americans to grow a beard, so how did they knew about beards? some people argue they must have seen them on European visitors, or maybe even European settlers, since after all the center of the bearded god's worship was Tihuanaco, a mysterious city in the Andes mountains of which the Incans later told the Spaniards it was built by an unknown culture, the building style of this city is different from those of the native Americans and the architecture is so advanced that even modern builders can't copy the buildings of Tihuanaco, the stones fit so well that it is even impossible to get a piece of paper between them.
According to Incan legends the god Viracocha created humanity and brought them civilization after which he sailed eastwards over the ocean where he returned to his home, it was also believed that Viracocha would one day return and when the Spaniards arrived in America the Incans were very happy and thought they were dealing with reincarnations of their god Viracocha, a small mistake that later proved to be disastrous for them.
In central America a similar god like Viracocha was worshipped, his name was Quetzalcoatl ("Feathered Serpent") and just like Viracocha he was believed to be the creator of humanity and the bringer of civilization, Quetzalcoatl was also believed to be a tall, white, bearded man who lived in a land east of the ocean.
Now why did the native Americans worship European-looking gods? are we dealing with a local worship of the Germanic god Wodan, who was also the creator of humanity and was also associated with knowledge and civilization? or perhaps Nordic settlers who arrived in America just like the Vikings did? some people believe (or want to believe) this, but I think both theories should not be taken serious, and although there is some evidence that supports contacts between ancient America and the rest of the world we should not overreact by coming up with all kinds of fantastic theories, the native American cultures are already interesting enough without us making up fantastic things about them, though I do think that some aspects of this cultures are so mysterious that they need some extra research to solve the enigma.
Thule:
The most famous mysteries are those of lost civilizations like Atlantis, Mu, and Thule.
Recent discoveries of tropical plants and animals in Alaska, Svalbard (a.k.a. Spitsbergen), and Greenland have astonished geologists all over the world, this findings did not date from millions of years ago when this areas were still located near the equator, but from only a few thousand years ago!
This means that thousands of years ago the climate was much milder in those areas, one of the theories some people came up with to explain this is that the poles have shifted, it has even been proven that the north pole has shifted its position several times for thousands of miles (1 mile = 1.6 kilometers).
The reason those people gave for this "pole-shifting" is the wobble in the Earth's rotation that would make it unstable and that the polar caps on the south pole are too thick which periodically causes the Earth to "tumble" over, causing massive floods and continents to disappear under water or ice.
Personally I think this is a bit too extreme, though it may be possible that some smaller shifts of the earth's crust have occured sometime in history, for instance; the northpole is located in the Northern Ice Sea but the magnetical northpole is located in Canada and is still moving towards its "new" position, therefor it may be theoretically possible that certain areas of land that are now located under kilometers of ice were once fertile and habitable lands, there are even ancient maps of Antarctica showing rivers and human habitation (Piri-Reis map) and the Scandinavians once had colonies in Greenland that they suddenly deserted at a certain time in history.
On the Piri-Reis map it is mentioned that humans and weird animals inhabited the coasts of Antarctica; "They (the Portugese sailors) threw anchor and went to the shore in boats. They saw people walking, all of them naked. But they shot arrows, their tips made of fishbone. They stayed there eight days. They traded with these people by signs."
Another text about the southern part of the Antarctic peninsula says; "This country is a waste. Everything is in ruin and it is said that large snakes are found here. For this reason the Portuguese infidels did not land on these shores and these are also said to be very hot." (vulcanic activity?)
Some people have based entire theories on this facts that are (at least in my opinion) sometimes a bit too far-fetched, if you want to read some examples of this theories I advice you to read the works of Robert Temple, Maurice M. Cotterell, Erich von Däniken, or other writers of this caliber, most of it is total nonsense but I must admit that I have really enjoyed reading it and there may be some truth behind some of their theories.
An interesting site with all kinds of this controversial theories can be found at: http://www.survive2012.com
If Atlantis ever existed it may have been located in a place near the poles that is now covered with ice, Greenland and Antarctica come to mind, though the German island of Helgoland has also been mentioned by some people since it used to be much bigger in ancient times and was later flooded by the Northsea, personally I am kind of sceptical that any archeological proof supporting the Atlantis myth will be found at those spots but I must admit that I will be very interested if they ever decide to start digging there, it never hurts to have your little dreams does it?
Well, enough chatter; let's continue with describing the Thule mystery:
A German archaeologist named Jurgen Spanuth deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics in which a lost empire in the north was mentioned, the Eskimo's have similar legends and the Greek writers Diodorus, Plinius (Pliny), and Virgilius (Virgil) also mention an ancient civilization called Ultima Thule that was located in the cold north, the land had a warm climate and was surrounded by high mountains, it was inhabited by tall blonde people with blue eyes and they were known for their beautiful women, they were once ruled by people with a violet skin and golden hair but they were believed to have died out at the same time as the dinosaurs.
According to ancient writers this people managed to stay young forever and posessed telepathical powers, the Greeks named those people "Hyperboreans" (meaning:"behind the northwind"), some people believe that the Hyperboreans were extra-terrestrial colonists and in recent interviews with people who believe they have been abducted by aliens there are also stories of tall, blonde, humanoid beings who came from the Pleiades, a star constellation that is also depicted on Cro-Magnon cave paintings and northern European starmaps.
Supporters of this theory point to the evidence that has been found, which is said to prove the existence of advanced prehistoric civilizations and is still puzzling scientists, historians and geologists today;
A fossilized human-like handprint has been found in limestone that is dated 110 million years old (the Cretacious Era, just before the extinction of the dinosaurs).
In the Canadian artic a fossilized human finger has been found that is also believed to be 110 million years old.
In the United States a fossilized human footprint that was possibly wearing a sandal has been found that is believed to be 300 to 600 million years old, if that is true then it means that civilized humanoids existed during the Paleozoic Era.
A chalice made of zinc and silver with flower designs has been found in solid rock that was millions of years old.
An iron nail has been found in Austria that is believed to be 12 million years old.
Structures have been found on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean that look like ruins of advanced cities and piramids.
Almost every ancient culture and religion believed in Giants, they were told to have inhabited the Earth before humans did, scientists have proven that most organisms were at least 3 times bigger before the Earth's climate changed some thousands of years ago and actual skeletons have been found of humans who were 8 to 12 foot tall (1 foot is 30 cm so that means that an average 10 foot giant would have been 3 meters tall) this skeletons have been found in the Middle East, America, Asia, and many other parts of the world, but most of them have mysteriously disappeared. (from "Giants; the myth and the legend" of Discovery Channel)
The above findings are the most mysterious that have ever been found and there are still no satisfying explanations for them.
Personally I don't really believe all this fantastic stories but I must admit that some findings are very interesting, I think that it may have been possible that an old civilization existed before the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians, advanced civilizations like that don't just spring out of the ground; they must have had a "predecessor", but I find the idea of modern humans in the Paleozoic Era totally laughable because it is evolutionary impossible.
Any normal person would think about this information and say;"this is a very interesting theory but without good scientifical proof it is not credible" right? wrong! in the 1930's an insane man with a little mustache came into power in Germany and he invented his own theory; he believed that the Germanic peoples have originated from this extraterrestrial "super race" of legendary Thule and that they were therefor destined to rule the world, the nazi's even sent SS agents to the Himalayan Mountains to search for traces of their so called "super race", and they even resorted to occult powers in their effort to win the war, after defeating the nazi's the allies found serious documents about the results of those tests but never made them public, I do not believe the nazi's gained any results though; the only thing those results have probably proven is the insanity of the ones who gained them.
Conclusion:
Symbolism can sometimes be used as a key in understanding many myths, although this sometimes results in highly controversial interpretations and plain ridiculous theories we must not forget that some of the more sober interpretations can be very helpful in understanding the mind of ancient peoples.
Ancient mysteries are very interesting but also dangerous at the same time; I think that there is nothing wrong with scientifical research of this mysteries but we must be vigilant against madmen who invent their own variations of them and use them for totally unscientifical purposes.
Again, I would like to say that the information on this page is purely hypothetical and that I do not believe most of it, I'm just trying to provide you with the different views that exist.
Personally I am very fond of alternative theories, ancient mysteries and the secrets of the universe, I'm a real dreamer, but I think we must not forget to distinguish between fact and fiction, keep an open mind and learn from eachother but remember that there is a difference between what you believe and what you want to believe.
After some time the still colliding forces of fire and ice created a third being; Buri (or Tuisto), he reproduced himself with a Frost Giantess and formed his son Bor (Mannaz), and then Bor melted together with the Frost Giantess Bestla, who was also created by Ymir; this fusion created 3 new beings who grew rapidly; Odin, Vili, and Vé.