Description
By Askr Svarte (Evgeny Nechkasov)
Translated and Edited by Jafe Arnold
520 pages / Released August 2021 / Available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook.
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Polemos II: Pagan Perspectives is the much-anticipated sequel to Polemos: The Dawn of Pagan Traditionalism. In this wide-ranging study and compelling manifesto, Askr Svarte endeavors to rediscover and reinvigorate pagan philosophy and spirituality amidst the uneasy realities of the (Post-)Modern world. From exploring ancient myths and rituals to confronting contemporary socio-cultural dilemmas, few stones are left unturned in this panorama of the pagan worldview for the twenty-first century. Titled after the ancient Greeks’ divine representation of war, whom the philosopher Heraclitus deemed “the father and king of all”, Polemos maps paganism’s positions and possibilities on the multi-dimensional battlefield of ideas between paradigms, polemics and trends.
In Polemos II: Pagan Perspectives, Askr Svarte invites the reader to delve deeper into the most complex and controversial questions facing the past, present, and future of paganism. The histories and nuances of the monotheistic religions, theories of sexuality and gender, the temptation of pagan politics, the fateful choice between the Right-Hand Path and Left-Hand Path – these and other arenas are radically addressed head-on through the perspective of Pagan Traditionalism. Polemos II: Pagan Perspectives completes the English translation of Askr Svarte’s groundbreaking two-volume work, Polemos: Pagan Traditionalism, originally published in Russian in 2016.
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Table of Contents
From the Translator and Publisher
Author’s Preface to the English Edition
I: Paganism and Creationism
The Nuances of Creationism
Traditionalism and Creationism
The Legacy of Plato
Judaism
The Emergence of Creationism
The Pagan Element in Judaism
Goyim
In Anticipation of a Positive Future
Christianity
History and Doctrine
Denominations
The Pagan Elements of Christianity
Modernity
Islam
Sunnism, Shiism, Sufism, and Salafism
The Culmination of the Rift
Dar al-Harb
The Contemporary Condition
Our Relation to Creationism
The Principal Novelty of Creationism
The Source of the River
Oedipus as a Paradigm
II: Sex and Sexuality
The Metaphysics of Sex
The Androgyne and the Origin of the Sexes
Eros
Profanation
Post-Sexuality: Inversion and Parody
Feminism
Playing with Gender
Eros in Contemporary Paganism
Paganism and Taboo?
III: The Political Dimensions of Paganism
Preliminary Considerations
Plato’s Utopia
Eternity through Modernity
Tribe or Empire?
Liberalism and the Abruption of Democracy
Race, Nation, and their Myths
From Bigger to Smaller to Older?
Chauvinism
Ethnocentrism
Paganism “from the Left”
Primitivism
Anti-Globalism
Conclusions to be Drawn
IV: Right-Hand Path and Left-Hand Path
The Semantics of Hands
Peering into the Abyss
Stepping into the Void in Place
The Three Sacrifices
The Left Path
Sanātana Dharma and Vāmamārga
Chöd
Odinism
The Shuynyi Path and Chernobog
The God Dionysus
Creationism
The Path without a Path
Darkness and Shadow
Magic
The World Egg
The Titans Again
The People of the Forest
The Road for All and None
Conclusion
Bibliography
Excerpt II – The Legacy of Plato
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Askr Svarte (Evgeny Nechkasov) is a Russian Traditionalist philosopher, pagan activist, and the founding head of the Svarte Aske community. Descended from Bessarabian Germans exiled to Siberia in the early 20th century, since 2009 he has been a practicing pagan in the Germanic-Scandinavian tradition and an active voice in the rebirth of paganism in Russia and Europe. Nechkasov is the founding editor of the journals Warha and Alföðr and since 2017 has been a featured guest in Russian media as an expert and defender of paganism. He is the author of numerous works in Russian and English, such as Gap: At the Left Hand of Odin (Fall of Man Press, 2019) and Gods in the Abyss: Essays on Heidegger, the Germanic Logos, and the Germanic Myth (Arktos, 2020). He lives in Novosibirsk, Russia. PRAV Publishing has published his Polemos: The Dawn of Pagan Traditionalism, Polemos II: Pagan Perspectives, and Tradition and Future Shock: Visions of a Future that Isn’t Ours. Nechkasov is a member of the editorial board of PRAV‘s series Passages: Studies in Traditionalism and Traditions.
