Sacred Objects

In a sense, the object of life is the accumulation of spiritual force. This force is in Scandinavia called Hamingja, and accumulates through honourable behaviour in life. It follows you into death, and then can be re-claimed (again) in the next life. You can add to this Hamingja, or you can weaken it, by your own actions. The more Hamingja you have, the more luck you will have in life, the more successful you will be; the more brave, wise, intuitive, honest, kind, skilled etc. In the end, you will be so blessed by the gods, so to speak, that you in effect have become a superior being, a deity incarnates – and can use this sorcerous power for the betterment of your kin.

In order to re-claim your Hamingja (luck, spirit and sorcerous power), that you possessed in your previous life, you need to remember previous lives, as I have explained before. But today I will remind you of the fact that your Hamingja, your guardian spirit, is linked to events, peoples, locations, music, feelings, ideas and… material objects.

This time I will focus on the latter; the spirit in the material objects.

You see, we so often hear Orientalists talk about "spirituality" and about "rejecting materialism". They hold as an ideal that you reject material comforts, material wealth, material goods and even material life itself. In effect, they reject everything material, in favour of some vague and by them unexplained "spiritual existence" beyond matter. But in European Paganism (Animism), the spirit is in the matter itself. Like your spirit is in you, and when you die, your spirit can only be found again in the places you visited, the people you knew, the music you listened to, the ideas you had, the love others had for you and in your material possessions. In your bones. To regain your spirit, you need to collect the many pieces, and put them together, to rebuild you. To reclaim yourself. To become you again. Fully and wholly.

So you visit the sacred places, that you knew in previous lives. You hear about the people you know, listen to the same music, learn about your ideas and the love others had for you, and you take the material objects you used to own – and through this remember yourself. The more you reclaim, the merrier.

Yes, of course: this is the reason why our forebears buried their dead with their material belongings. These belongings possessed the spirit of the dead, that he could repossess when he returned to reclaim his belongings from previous lives. The more important these material objects had been to him, the more important they were when he returned to reclaim them, for his reincarnation as himself.

When you own something, an item, that you care about, this is not a bad thing at all. When you grow to love a possession of yours, with all your heart, this does not mean that you are a "materialist" or indeed a shallow person. When you do, you fill the item with your spirit, and make it a vessel for your own immortality. You enable yourself to re-connect to your Hamingja in your next life, through that very item. Treasure it… keep it with you, even into death!

On the other hand, when you reject all objects as "base materialism", and deem it lowly to develop feelings for any type of objects, you also cut off that link to your future self (and to your past self!). You close the door for yourself, to your own spiritual force. And instead of reincarnating in your next life, you leave behind all that you have accumulated of spiritual force through the time. You have to start anew… with clean sheets.

Well, you can still find back to much of yourself via sacred locations, music, etc., but you will always drop something, lose something, if you reject these (to you: sacred) objects. Why would you do that?

The (to him) sacred possessions of a dead man:

And let me remind you: only the honourable, the good (god/divine…) in you, is part of your spirit. The dishonourable is forgotten forever, cast into Hel ("hidden"), when you die. It becomes a shadow, that will be banished by the light – and thus vanish forever. We do not speak ill of the dead… we forget their flaws, and remember only the good about them.

So, dear reader, know that if you have an emotional tie to an object, perhaps a seemingly irrational love, then this object is actually important to you. Spiritually. Know also that you will find back to yourself much easier, in future lives, if you do learn to love and cherish items in this life.

But of course, the same applies to places, people, music and so forth too. Whatever matters to you, whatever you have appreciated in this life, will help you find back to yourself in the next. It will all help you reclaim your Hamingja. Your spirit.

Thank you for reading,
Varg Vikernes
05.09.2020