The Kindle edition of this book has “Hammer & Vajra Book 3” in the title, so I suppose I read the books in the ‘correct order’ after all.
After a more Eastern centered book, this time Gill takes the path that we got to know in the first book of the series. It is mostly centered around Germanic and Vedic myth and religion, but the research spreads across all Indo-European religions and beyond.
I hope that this book unveils a deeper understanding of our faith through an apologetic defence.
Gill writes early in the book. This volume is mostly built on earlier shorter texts about a variety of subjects. Some chapters are better than others. Gill picks up specific themes with such subjects of the Sky Father, giants, eschatology, “on magics”, werewolves, the Kali Yuga, the left hand path, etc., etc.
Just like the previous two books of the trilogy, an alright read.
In 2021 I reviewed Gill’s Syncretic Indo-European Faith which I ran into by some accident at the time. Again by some accident, I now learn that that book was the first of a “Hammer & Vajra” trilogy. Amazon lists the present title as book two. The book itself says little about which book is which, but when I finished it, I had the idea that I accidentally read the third book before the second.
Anyway, “Onmyōdō” is a Chinese system from which both the Chinese Daoism, the Japanese Shinto and several elements of Buddhism come. In his quest for Indo-European syncretism, Gill dove into the far East.
He gives general history, tries to weed out Western misconceptions, points towards Indo-European similarities and aims at giving spiritual practices for daily life. Since I did not know all too much about especially the Chinese part of the story, the book is fairly interesting. It does seem to be quite a step aside from the Asatru/Vedic approach of the first book. Perhaps the other book Understanding Indo-European Cosmology bridges the gap. I am already reading that one, so await a refer in the future.
I ran into this book in the Amazon Kindle store and thought that I had been too long since I read anything about comparative myth. Why not try a writer I do not know?
I suppose I expected a scholarly work. I am not sure if the author is an interested layman or if he has education of some sort, but Syncretic Indo-European Faith is not a scholarly work of comparative myth of religion, but rather a personal exposition of a man describing his path and studious efforts.
The book appears to come from the group “Hammer & Vajra” which just might be a one man group (or a man with followers). Gill does appear to put some effort in his project with a website, a webshop and now a book.
It is not unheard that modern-day heathens look at other religions in the Indo-European family for inspiration, to fill gaps or because of general interest. Gill goes a few steps further. He seriously investigations all Indo-European faiths of the present and the past, elements of which seep into his worldview. Hence the term “syncretic”. The result he calls “Vedic Heathenism”, not because the Vedas are the basis of his faith, but because they are the oldest known Indo-European texts. It is more of an approach than a system, as Gill recommends everybody to investigate the faith of their ancestors to be the basis of ones own faith and then look at ‘family religions’ for a deeper understanding.
This syncretic approach may be frowned upon by some contemporary heathens, even more so will Gill’s view of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. He sees Indo-European roots and/or elements in these Abrahamic faiths and suggests filtering these out to see what can be “salvaged”. Also he recommends possible readers of these faiths not to go over to another faith, but to study their own, see where the roots are and understand their own religions better.
Gill says he is not in favour of mixing elements of different faiths (which he does do in a way) but I enjoy his open-minded approach. In some ways his approach is ‘folkish’, in other ways somewhat ‘universalistic’. It sure is an approach I have not ran into very often, In quite a few ways, the approach is like my own, in other ways not at all, but only agreement would be boring, would it not?
In his comparisons Gill is sometimes original, sometimes thought provoking, sometimes a bit too easy, but he sure made an effort to know a lot more about the different Indo-European and non-Indo-European religions and myths than many non specialists and practicing heathens. This makes a book a nice read. It is not that I learned a whole lot new, but it is interesting to read the thoughts of a contemporary heathen which interests similar to my own.
