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Wotan, the First Hippie

by Tag Barbarason

Feb.2 1943 Russia: Germans surrender at Stalingrad. The benches at Valhalla are full to overflowing. Wotan turns his gaze elsewhere.

April 16 1943 Switzerland .Dr. Albert Hoffman accidentally ingests LSD-25 (a compound first synthesized in 1938) and takes the first acid trip. Midgard will never be the same.

As well his more familiar aspects of battle god and death god, Wotan (Odin, Woden) is also god of shamanism, magic and higher levels of consciousness. The very name "Wotan" is derived from Proto-Germanic for "ecstasy chief" or "fury chief". (Ecstasy and fury being pretty much the same thing to the Elder Kin) Although certainly not Odinist, the whole counter- cultural revolution was definitely Odian, and relishing the risk of offending both hidebound hippie and conservative Asatrurar I offer the following tidbits as food for thought.

"The wanderer on a never-ending quest for knowledge and poetic inspiration". An aspect of Wotan, for sure, but also a precise description of beat founder and proto-hippie Jack Kerouac ..who in "Subteraneans" had a highly charged relationship with a lady named Mardou (Mardoll).

Woodstock, the name instinctively given to the large counter cultural manifestation that actually happened in Bethel in 1969 is English for the Anglo-Saxon Wodensstoc...Woden's stake or boundary (Grimm's Teutonic Mythology p.154) In other words, Wotan is staking off some new turf.

The counter cultural revolution ushered in a new era of interest in non-mono religions, especially Hinduism, Asatru's closest living relative on the family tree of world religions. Coat-tailing onto this was an interest in mysticism, divination, and magic. Many people began to look at the natural world, with a much more heathen-like attitude, "tree huggers". Attitudes towards sex and sexual roles began to morph toward something more akin to those found in Germanic antiquity, and away from monotheistic patriarchy and puritanism.

From all accounts the Germanic Reawakening, the revitalization of the Æsir based religion, happened spontaneously in different parts of the world in 1972. Although the Germanic Reawakening was not ideologically in sync with the counter-cultural revolution, and may have been conceived in opposition to it, the Reawakening was definitely a product of the times, questioning the established truths, looking for alternative spiritual realities, and throwing off the shackles of the monothestic sexual guilt religion, etc.

The counter-cultural revolution brought the long hair and full beard style back into fashion..according to some the long hair and especially, the full beard are an essential part of the accouterment of the Vitkar (Wizards...Germanic Magicians) I don't need to tell you who is the greatest Vitki of all, do I? That's right... Wotan

Still skeptical? OK put on the Door's LA Woman album (arguably the single greatest artifact of the counterculture.) Listen to the song "Been Down So Long." You'll hear Jim Morrison sing, very plainly, "Woden Woden Woden won't you break your lock and key. I say Woden Woden Woden won't you break your lock and key. I say come along here mister, come on and set me free." So he sang, and thus did Wotan!

June '00

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