Can you still believe in the Germanic gods?

Answer

Dear Jonathan,

Your question appeals to me because I think I recognize the experience: I used to be very interested in the mythology of Ancient Egypt. By reading a lot about it, the gods came to life in my imagination, as it were.

Now I want to note an analogy. When you immerse yourself in fiction, the characters come to life for you. For example, if you like fantasy, you will be able to vividly imagine a unicorn and probably list some of its characteristics. Yet a unicorn doesn’t really exist. So being able to imagine something vividly isn’t enough to believe in it, but it does resemble the experience you describe. In philosophy there are a number of interesting questions and paradoxes associated with this. A first is the question of how it is possible that we react emotionally to something that does not exist (namely to the stories of characters in fictional stories). A second is whether (for example) the statement “Sherlock Holmes lived in London” is true; at first glance it is true, but since Sherlock Holmes does not really exist it is not clear whether these kinds of statements about him can be true… These questions are usually asked about fictional literature, but when you apply them to ancient mythological stories and religious texts you get similar puzzles.

Furthermore, as you learn about other religions, you may begin to notice patterns. This is done in comparative religions: this is outside my own field, but I can tell you something about a Greek philosopher who was already thinking about this. With the Greeks, gods were actually like people: they acted out of friendship or hatred and experienced love and deceit. The Greek philosopher Xenophanes, who lived from the sixth to the fifth century BC, also noted this: gods are born, wear clothes, have a voice and a physique just like humans. Xenophanes also observed that the gods were depicted differently by different peoples. He gives as an example the Ethiopians who depicted their gods with dark skin and flat noses and the Thracians (who lived in southeastern Europe) who depicted their gods with blue eyes and red hair. He speculates that if animals (such as oxen, horses, or lions) had hands so that they could create works of art, then they would also portray their gods as animals (horses like horses, oxen like oxen).
Perhaps by reading about Germanic mythology you can learn something about the ancient Germans: about how they saw themselves and what they thought was important. In this way you can also explore what attracts you to it: the mysteriousness of a past culture, the stories themselves, or what they suggest about the values ​​that were important at the time.
You may find this website interesting: www.godchecker.com. It is a database with more than four thousand gods, demons and other spiritual beings from many world religions (only in English). Germanic mythology is – of course – also on the website.

Finally, I would like to point out that for many people religion also has a social component: attending a religious service connects you with others. That is of course something that you will miss if you as an individual rediscover an old religion or if you pick your supreme being(s) from a large database. This reminds me of living history: people who get together on weekends to relive a period of history, by dressing and behaving as befits that period. This often takes the form of a LARP (live action role-playing game), in which the people who participate play a character and have to complete an assignment while improvising. Whether this also exists for the ancient Germans and whether mythology plays a major role in it I don’t know, but if you are still interested you might want to look for it.

You notice I didn’t answer your question directly, but hopefully my response will give you some food for thought!

Regards,

Sylvia Wenmackers

Image: Frigg as Ostara. Wagner, Wilhelm. 1882. Nordic-Germanic Götter und Helden. Otto Spamer, Leipzig & Berlin. P. 124.