Our Past Is Being Rewritten

And how to know whether we are reading fact or fiction.

Our past is being rewritten. This is not a recent phenomenon but something that has been worming its way into every aspect of our culture for hundreds of years. Whether it is a New Age author's innovative interpretation of a certain spiritual tradition, an age old scholar under the patronage of a king or even a film portrayal of a historical event; everyone has a bias and often an agenda too.

By reinventing our past to suit our needs we are not harmlessly changing a little detail here and there to attain maximum effect in the retelling of an event or tradition. Whatever is changed, no matter how seemingly insignificant, it will eventually end up influencing our future. We are not playing an innocent game of Chinese Whispers. If one inaccuracy is placed on top of another inaccuracy then we will arrive at a point where we would have completely reshaped who we are, which in turn means everything that connects us to our roots. If enough people repeat the same lie it becomes the truth. 

Literature and cinema that portray ancient history, mythology or spirituality are gateways of inspiration for those who wish to return to a more meaningful life without the trappings of the fast paced world we live in today. However, due to these gateways being easily accessible and a huge part of popular culture, many people accept these portrayals as fact, when more often than not this could not be further from the truth. The Assassin's Creed franchise and the Vikings' television series are both good examples of this tweaking and twisting of the truth for sensational effect. To make our European history more palatable to modern day audiences, lies have even crept into organisations such as the BBC. The historian Tom Rowsell’s Youtube channel called ‘Survive The Jive’ has many excellent videos debunking mainstream narratives such as ‘Stonehenge was built by black people’. I highly recommend his work. We cannot just place a modern day lens over an ancient people who possessed a completely different worldview to our own.

The victories of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius over the Germanic and Sarmatian peoples whose despair and terror are immortalised on his commemorative column that was completed in 193 AD.

It is interesting to note that it is not just about what is being said but also what is not being said when it comes to our past. Over the last decade there has been a resurgence in popularity in the ancient Roman philosophy of Stoicism; the main premise of which is to accept what one can or cannot control in life. The selling of this popular and lucrative ‘lifestyle’, which is spearheaded by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his book of ‘Meditations’, allows us a peek into the mind of this ‘gentle and contemplative’ philosopher. However, Aurelius’ modern day admirers conveniently leave out the fact that he brutally crushed the Germanic peoples and proudly portrayed their torture on his commemorative column that still stands in the centre of Rome today. Carvings of bound German prisoners can be seen lining up to be executed along with the decapitated head of a man lying next to his body. I do not think that this imagery would sell many books or courses. There are many more examples of inconvenient truths being omitted as I am sure you are well aware.

I fell into the trap of believing everything I read when I first began researching pre-Christian faiths and traditions. Thankfully, the phrase 'Heathenry is the religion with homework' saved me. By diligently doing my homework I began to realise that the more I read the more I was able to see discrepancies between different sources and this taught me early on to be more discerning when it came to what I was consuming. 

So how can we be sure that the sources we are using are the real deal? How can we sift through the lies to reach the truth? In this article I will solely be concentrating on written sources and I am going to be sharing some of the things that I do to ensure, to the best of my knowledge, that I am reading facts not fiction when it comes to European history, spirituality and traditions. 

So much of our history has been lost or destroyed.

Second hand shops, car boot and garage sales are excellent places to find old books, especially ones published before 1945. I say this because it is important to understand that after World War II, particularly with the arrival of Wicca, a lot more disingenuous information began being published. Of course, I am not saying that everything you read before this date can be trusted either; just look at how Roman and Greek writers portrayed the Celtic and Germanic tribes for example. However, despite censorship being a thing back then as well, it was still easier to access original sources than it is today because so much has now been lost or destroyed.

When it comes to older history books, be aware that some of them will have a heavy Christian bias and if you are reading books that are translations of other texts, do your utmost to find the original translation as it will be the most accurate. For instance, a modern translation of 'Eyrbyggia Saga' that I have come across replaced the word 'Yule' with 'Christmas'. That is definitely not the same thing.

It admit that it is getting harder and harder to find old books, especially ones that are reasonably priced. I rarely buy a book now unless I am confident of its integrity and instead I either borrow books from the library, some of which can be very old, or I make use of books that are in the public domain. I have slowly been buying books for the past decade and looking at my collection I have not even read a quarter of them yet. If you are wanting to build your own personal library, I suggest that when you find a book that you want even if you are not going to read it straight away, buy it. If I had waited to buy a book, only after reading the ones I already owned, then I would not have been able to have purchased even five percent of them because book prices keep going up and up. I own many books that I bought for under ten pounds years ago and that are now being sold for silly money. 

I love the smell of old book. Do you?

The following websites have a wonderful array of free books and articles to read. 

gutenberg.org 

jstor.org 

sacred-texts.com 

forgottenbooks.org 

archive.org

You will need to register for some of these sites first, but they are all free. I guarantee that you will have several lifetimes of reading material at your fingertips. These are great resources and I have read many fascinating books on them. Another way of finding free books is to see if there is a pdf online. By typing the title of the book and the author’s name, along with the words’ pdf file’, you will be surprised at how many, even modern titles, you can find. Recently I found a pdf of Barbara Freitag’s book ‘Sheela-na-Gigs' as I was not prepared to pay thirty pounds for a physical copy. 

If you are wanting to buy more recently published books then I would encourage you to lean more towards history books rather than spiritual ones. You can learn much more about the spiritual practices of our ancestors from a history book based on historical evidence. A decent sized bibliography is a must and a red flag if there isn’t one. I have found that Neo-Pagan books are more likely to be fanciful and biased towards the author's own personal views. These types of books can guide us along a disingenuous path that has no links to our heritage whatsoever. Some contemporary authors that I have read and recommend are Kathleen Herbert, Stephen Pollington, Eleanor Parker and Barry Cunliffe. If you would like more European history or spirituality recommendations from the period of Neanderthals and the Ice Age to Germanic and Slavic Europe then please do not hesitate to get in touch and I will see if I can help you. 

Lastly, I would like to add that there is nothing wrong with using the internet for information, but only as a springboard for getting a broader overview of a subject before diving more deeply into other sources.

Sadly, the skill of independent critical thought is becoming a thing of the past and I encourage you to question everything that you read and watch, even my articles. This lesson would serve us well in all aspects of our lives. 

I hope that I have inspired you to approach your reading and research with a critical eye because it is our responsibility to protect our ancestral knowledge and history for future generations to come. Please let me know what you think about this topic and please share any tips when it comes to finding good resources. I would love to know what you do.

Brightest blessings,

Elissa