卍 The Black Order of Vinland 卐

In Aeons past man’s relationship with cosmic forces was mediated by a spiritual elite that was one and the same as their political, civil leadership. One of the core functions of the government in such civilizations was to rear a spiritual leadership who enacted certain rites that drew forth powerful Vril which could breathe life into society at large, giving their nation’s culture a certain numinosity. In such societies a monarch was at the top of the spiritual hierarchy and represented his kingdom’s very connection with the Gods, a station which existed within this Western Aeon in the twisted, perverted form of the Pope during the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church was still the dominating political force in Europe. Previously the cosmic forces—the Vril—which the spiritual elites unearthed were only understood unconsciously, irrationally, apprehended as they were in the form of mythology, with such mythologies describing the ethos, the spirit, of their respective civilizations.

Long gone are the days where communion with the Gods was the privilege of a political elite, for no government on Earth currently serves the role of mediating its peoples’ relationship with the Gods. Now, we are in a position where the individual who so desires may take their spiritual evolution—and thus the spiritual evolution of his species in general and his race in particular—into their own hands, journeying towards godhood by their own striving and their own achievements. Although the Church tried for centuries to suppress and destroy all esoteric knowledge whereby individuals could take control of their own spiritual evolution, at this point in the 21st Century—in this so-called “Age of Aquarius”—we have unprecedented access to all manner of alchemical mysteries so that whoever diligently seeks it will find it, and whoever seriously applies it will progress toward immortality, toward godhood.

Still further, we are in a position where rational apprehension of the cosmic forces responsible for our evolution is made possible by magickal symbolism, with such symbolism enabling one to make conscious those forces which were hitherto unconscious, thus leading to an integration, a synthesis, where the forces represented are understood as they are, as how they exist independently of the human psyche. Because of these two unique factors—individuals possessing the ability to consciously guide their evolution, and the symbolic representation of cosmic forces in a way that enables their conscious apprehension—the potential of the human race has been extended to new heights, and now for the first time in history we are able to approach the domain of the Gods. This is, in fact, the very destiny of our species, to journey beyond this Earth planet and make our home among the stars, where we will be worshiped by those very beings who we, in aeons past, looked up to as gods.

These new possibilities which distinguish the Western Aeon from aeons past are represented by the heroic figure Wotan (whose name stands for Vril Ov Thee Aeonic Nexion). According to the mythos internal to the BOV, Wotan was originally born a human man, mortal like the rest of us, but who, by his heroic deeds and his quest for wisdom, became immortal. More than simply possessing it, he was *possessed by* the Promethean/Faustian spirit which itself is the very spirit/ethos of the Western Aeon. Furthermore he not only achieved immortality; he contributed significantly to the spiritual knowledge of the human race by leaving us the Runes, a numinous symbolism which describes energies, processes, and methods universal to all human beings, and which enshrine all of the knowledge and power he acquired through his lifelong journey toward wisdom.

Whether these things are factually true or are merely intimations of Truth (that’s with a capital T), or are both or neither, is ultimately irrelevant here. What’s important is that Wotan exemplified an approach to spiritual ascension that is unique to this Western Aeon. Once upon a time it was the function of some kind of priesthood associated with some kind of government to connect the Folk with the Gods—we only have to look to the Pyramids of Egypt or the Ziggurats of Mesopotamia to get a hint of how deep this went. Now, however, there is no state priesthood to mediate our connection with the Gods. In fact, the very notion of worshiping cosmic forces and/or higher extraterrestrial beings is itself outdated. With the inauguration of the Western Aeon the script was re-written altogether, and now it is up to the individual to take control of their own connection with the Cosmos and the natural forces working within it, to the end that one day he or she will seize their rightful place among the stars and join the ranks of the Gods themselves. Wotan points us in the direction of this approach to spiritual attainment: the individual striving alone in Faustian defiance toward immortality, earning their place among the stars by their own efforts.

The ways and means whereby Wotan accomplished this were extreme and indeed superhuman, even if one views the mythos of his life as symbolic. Indeed, in centuries past the process of the Great Work involved great ordeals of suffering and bloody rites of sacrifice, as the methods available at the time were crude and primitive. Over time however the techniques were refined and the severity of the sacrifices (both personal and literal in the sense of blood offerings) were mitigated somewhat, as the development more effective methods took place and thus the extreme could be discarded in favor of the precise. Generation after generation, it has been the life’s work of a few reclusive Adepts to first enact these techniques and then to refine them further, making it a little easier for the next generation of alchemists engaged in the Great Work. Most of the ways and means were based off of mystical practices inherited from previous aeons, like the use of quartz crystals with sound vibration or the apprehension of the Cosmos in seven fundamental emanations. In more recent times, as significantly greater levels of Vril have saturated the Earth with the opening of new nexions, certain sincere seekers like Carl Jung or David Myatt have significantly updated old techniques or developed new ones altogether, making the Great Work still more accessible than it has ever been previously. By this slow refining of alchemical knowledge over centuries, and indeed millennia, the Great Work is now more accessible to the common man than ever before, the process from start to finish having been set forth sans all the sort of mystification and encoding that was so necessary in centuries past. To summarize, it all begins with initiation, and it ends at the time of or shortly before the death of one’s mortal body—in between the two, the alchemist prepares for themselves an “astral double” through which they will live on eternally in the acausal following the death of the material body. Unless one 1) significantly raises those acausal energies which animate them and give them life, and 2) gives a shape, a pattern with which to contain these energies; then the soul, the essence which makes one alive, will simply dissipate after the demise of the physical body. This is, in summary, the esoteric core of the Great Work as it relates to the individual alchemist (not including the supra-personal aspects of genuine alchemy).

-Bedwyr Thuban