Erin Lale Launches New Blog On PaganSquare

Henderson, NV, July 17, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Erin Lale, author of Asatru For Beginners, has launched her new blog, Gnosis Diary, on PaganSquare. PaganSquare is the website of Witches & Pagans Magazine, and other pagan magazines by BBI Media. Lale will be telling her story of life on a heathen path, and her personal gnosis. In the heathen and pagan communities, Unverified Personal Gnosis, or UPG, is the term for spiritual or religious experiences of an individual and the information contained therein. When applied to someone else's experiences, the term is sometimes used as an insult, which Lale wants to change. She says, "I want us to reclaim this word as a neutral term, which is why I used it in the title of my blog."

Lale participates in online forums and social media when she is not writing fiction and nonfiction or editing books. She has noticed the heathen community having a mixed reaction to the recent news about how one of their major gods, Thor, is portrayed in the media. Lale says, "The heathen community has had mixed reactions to the news that Marvel Comics announced its new Thor will be a woman. Most Asatruars and other heathens in online heathen forums are expressing humor or indifference, but some are offended, or afraid it will confuse children. The humor reactions generally run to reminding everyone that our own lore says Thor once wore a dress when it was part of a greater plan, and several of our gods have assumed female form, including Odin and Loki. The indifferent are reminding fellow heathens that Marvel Universe Thor is already unlike god-Thor in several important ways and that the comics are only loosely based on our gods and should not affect our worship. The usual expressions of approval of the comics include that they are good entertainment and that their popularity, especially the popularity of the movies, is making people seek to read the actual mythology and perhaps come to heathenry, just like people have come to heathenry through seeds planted by Lord of the Rings or by music. The offended express that it is not acceptable in society to mock other religions, and wonder if a major American publisher would treat Mohammed in such a cavalier fashion. Those worried for the children express that heathen children might be subject to bullying for attempting to correct other children's comics-based statements about Thor.

"So, what does Thor himself think? I realize how arrogant it sounds when any human being attempts to speak for a god. There is no Asa-Pope, no religious authority in heathenry. Not all heathens even believe the gods can speak to us, or do things in the real world, or even exist as anything but archetypes or personifications of nature. There are atheist heathens, just like there are atheist Jews and atheist Buddhists. That is what can happen in a religion that is also a folkway, where there is no notion of being personally saved through belief. However, over the course of this year as I've been writing a novel based on heathen mythology, called Some Say Fire, I've gotten used to hearing the gods talking to each other in my head in exactly the same way my fictional characters have talked in my head as I was writing my other fiction. Hearing characters talking is a really common experience among fiction authors. A few times-- perhaps a few minutes out of a year of 12 hour days listening to this talk and writing-- I have felt that I've connected with the actual gods behind the characters and gotten what heathens and pagans call Unverified Personal Gnosis, UPG for short. Recently, I was listening, and lightning flashed in a clear moonlit sky, and I believe I was given a message for humanity: "Stop poisoning the Earth."

"So, assuming I'm not just a crazy novelist, that's what Thor cares about. The Earth is his mother. Jord, also called Fjorgyn, is the Earth Goddess or possibly an earth giantess; the line between the two is rather fuzzy. Either way she is the Earth. He wants us to stop hurting her. If he cares about Marvel Comics at all, it isn't what shapes they make with their ink; it's that they cut down trees to make paper. There are all kinds of assaults on the Earth going on, and new things like fracking and microbeads are not the whole story. Just plain litter is still a big deal, especially when it's plastic. We've made some progress on industrial pollution, but not evenly all over the world. Thor's special blessing to humanity is rain, to grow natural things like forests and also to grow crops. Thor is married to Sif, the goddess or wheat or grain. Commercial agriculture in our modern world is not kind to either the Earth or even to the crops themselves. GMOs, pesticides, herbicides, monoculture, the replacement of human and animal labor with mechanized labor that runs on fossil fuels or electricity which is often generated in a way that is not good to the Earth either-- these are the concerns of the gods. Not what sort of silly stories humans tell about them.

"Because I've been given messages like this while writing a novel that is not finished and may not be publishable at all, I've decided to get these messages to a wider audience by writing a blog. I've just started a new blog called Gnosis Diary in the heathen paths section of PaganSquare, the website of Witches & Pagans Magazine. I am first telling the story of how I came to heathenry and my personal experiences on my path, and then I will be telling about my UPG of messages like this one."

Lale has been a gythia, meaning priestess, since 1989, when she took her oath to Freya. Because heathenry has no paid clergy, the priests and priestesses either support themselves with outside jobs or through selling heathen related books, art, crafts, and services. Lale is the author of Asatru For Beginners, American Celebration, and other books.