Pagan Resurrection

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Pagan Resurrection

Pagan Resurrection, subtitled A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality?, is a 2006 book written by anthropologist and broadcaster Richard Rudgley regarding the increasing interest in Odinism across Europe.

1 Synopsis
2 Book details
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

"Pagan Resurrection" puts forward the controversial idea that it is the pagan god Odin and not Christ who is the single most important spiritual influence in western civilisation and that far from being just a New Age fad, neopaganism is fast becoming a major spiritual, intellectual, ecological and political force across the globe.

Rudgely is an Oxford trained anthropologist and critically acclaimed author of "Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age", who has since presented three series on Channel 4. He explains the allegedly ancient idea of the "Web" (Wyrd) - a cosmic field of energies that encompasses time, space and the hidden potentials of the human organism, and shows that this is a pagan equivalent to the eastern tradition of Tao. Rudgely claims that our civilisation, our belief systems and attitudes and indeed our psyche have been formed by Odin. The influence of Christianity, he says, has been relatively recent and shallow.

Rudgley throughout the book concentrates on the dark and violent side of Odin, according to the Independent's review "committing the ultimate sin of any anthropologist or historian, back-projecting from highly selective examples of unpleasantness today and photo-fitting them to a distorted image from the mythological past", concluding that Rudgely's book is "a catalogue of racist individuals and organisations whose only connection with Odin, through very dubious links, is by assertion rather than argument."