Welcome to Gangleri.nl. I will first tell you a bit about this website and its predecessors, then a little something about myself.
How time flies!
In 1999 I started my first website. It was called “Sententia” and contained music reviews and articles (“dark music and philosophy”). Sententia was located on a free webhost and moved two times because the free server moved to another provider.
In March 2002 (so only after a year) I registered Monas.nl. I wanted to get descent hosting and a domain is a logical choice in that case. In that time I had a huge interest in Western esotericism and took the name of the magnificent “monas hieroglyphica” of John Dee (see articles section).
Monas.nl grew slowly and a bit more rapidly when I changed the site structure and Google started to ‘like me’. It was a lot of work to maintain, completely built of html pages, so especially archiving reviews was a pain as I cut them from the index, pasted them on the right place on the right archive page and then these grew too large, so I had to redistribute over more pages in order to limit their lengths.
My host of the time was not cheap and when I decided to give a go at a database-driven website, I registered another domain at a much cheaper host. This was May 2007.
I discovered WordPress and started to experiment with it. When I think back how much handwork the html website costed, how relieved I was with a database website, it is hard to imagine how much handwork it was to ‘tweak’ WordPress in these days. I had to learn myself CSS and PHP to do almost anything. Updates were handwork too back then! This became much better as WordPress grew in number of users and in adulthood. Back in the day I was an active and knowledgeable member of the WordPress forums, nowadays most of the technique is way over my head.
My interest has shifted from Western esotericism to Northwestern heathendom, so the new domain name became Gangleri.nl. When I had it up and running, I just abandoned Monas.nl (of course I forwarded the domain).
For 10 more years I kept the old domain only using it to forward it to Gangleri.nl and a few failed experiments. As of March 2017 the domain is no longer mine and even though I was asked if I was interested to sell it in a time that I was not, nobody has picked it up as of 2020.
As WordPress developed I had other new challenges. One time I had to completely redo the website when I had to switch to a new version of PHP. Another time (2010) I again had to completely redo the website. When I changed hosts around the turn from 2017 to 2018 I went from six separate installations (each with their own updates, plugins, plugins updates, etc.) to a “multisite” that nowadays is called a “network”, several websites in one installation.
Even though much less so nowadays than before, a WordPress website brings work. A plugin is abandoned and has to be replaced, a new function interferes with something I have used for many years. In the beginning I often wanted more, different, better. That has not been the case for many years.
Me
Ever since I started making a website, I had the idea that this should be relatively anonymously. I do not care for ‘personal glorification’, nor do I need to be recognised, neither in ‘the virtual world’ nor in the real one. There are only a few people who know me and this website and the link between the two. That is how I like it.
As you can see, my interests are varied, as are my music and film tastes. Also it looks like I am more ‘tolerant’ or ‘open minded’ than some people, so much even that this annoys people. Indeed, I see no reason why I could not read the works of Julius Evola, even though he had ideas that I do not agree with. Neither do I see a problem in writing about ‘heathenry’ one day and about Islam the next, or review a power electronics album one day and a pop album the next. I do not like tags and cabins and probably fit in none. I see much in the ways of thinking of ‘the Traditionalist school’, but I pursue paths looked down upon by Traditionalists. My ‘religion’ could be regarded as ‘heathen’, but I have no problem studying wildly different traditions elements of which may or may not find their ways into my worldview (and I still do not regard myself “eclectic”). I do not mind that when I listen to certain kinds of music, read certain kinds of books, some people may think that I ‘cannot’ listen to or read certain others. I do not limit myself this way. Perhaps my ‘borders of tolerance’ lay elsewhere than your own and here and there I cross a line that you would not, but believe me when I say that I may be a bit weird, but I am much more tolerant and open minded than many of my contemporaries with their narrow views.
Of course in 20 years things have changed in my life some of which reflect on the website. I still read roughly the same books, listen to roughly the same music, but focal points shift. ‘Spiritually’ I have gained and lost a ‘guru’, became active in groups and again less so to no longer at all. Of course in general I am growing older, but just a 20 years ago I do not care about a career or having children so in basis my situation changes little.
Partly because of the former, I have recently picked up some ‘other projects’, things I find unfit for Gangleri.nl. This mostly simply because I aim at other audiences.
To the website
All very interesting of course, but it is high time that you used the navigation on top or on the right to get you somewhere really interesting. I have five parts which I call “sections”, being “articles”, “book reviews”, “film reviews”, “music reviews” and a news section which automatically shows what is new all over the website. Also on the right you can see the latest additions in the different sections.
This intro was last updated on 8/4/2020