Wotan/Woden/Odin represents the archetype of the questing and awakened Aryan man, in particular the questing and awakened Germanic man.

Whilst it is clear from our studies of Germanic mythology that Wotan was not the original primary God of the Germanic pantheon – that honour rests with Tiw/Tyr/Ziu – nevertheless, Wotan represents that questing and awakened part of the Aryo-Germanic soul more than any other deity.

In this article I wish to focus in particular on Wotan’s sacrifice of his eye and the way in which he has been presented as a wandering and questing God, especially in the Wagner’s music dramas contained within Wagner’s magnum opus, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Wotan appears in only the first three of these music dramas: Das Rheingold, Die Walkuere and Siegfried. He is conspicuous by his absence from Goetterdaemmerung. In Das Rheingold and Die Walkuere he is known by His primary name of Wotan, but in Siegfried, where the emphasis switches to the God-man Siegfried and the world of Middle Earth, He appears in His guise as Der Wanderer – the Wanderer.

It is in this human guise that he interacts with the world of men. Der Wanderer makes his appearance in Act One, Scene One and is described by Wagner as follows: “The Wanderer [Wotan] enters from the forest through the door at the back of the cave. He is wearing a long, dark-blue cloak; he carries a spear as a staff. On his head he wears a hat with a broad, round brim, which hangs down over his face.”

Clearly Wagner is drawing an association with Wotan as the Wild Huntsman who emerges from the forest. It is in the forest that we as His followers may more effectively communicate with Him. He is known in other forms and in particular in England as Herne the Hunter. His purpose as the Wanderer is two-fold: to obtain wisdom and to impart it.

“Much I’ve fathomed,

much made out:

matters of moment

I’ve made known to many

and many I’ve saved

from whatever irked them,

cares that gnawed at their hearts.”

[Stewart Spencer translation].

It is surely no coincidence that all the great advances in technology and learning throughout history have been made by Aryan man and in particular by Germanic man. Within the psyche of Aryo-Germanic man there is a thirst for learning and the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, not for the sake of acquisition, but in order that we may advance to the next stage of our development – the God-man. Aryo-Germanic man is the Sun Initiate who, having come from the stars, seeks to return there.

It is no coincidence that the modern space age is the direct result of the achievements of German scientists, many of whom were used by both the USA and the USSR after WWII to further their quests for the exploration of outer space. During the Third Reich, Germany experienced an explosion of knowledge and technological development which coincided with the Wotan archetype being unleashed in the collective mind of the German people through His avatar Adolf Hitler.

Germanic man is by his very nature an explorer, an explorer of new worlds, whether on this planet or in outer space, even the world of the human psyche and I think in particular of the Swiss-German founder of Analytical Psychology, Carl Gustav Jung, who has done more than anyone else to reveal once again the great Aryan soul-lore of our pre-christian ancestors, knowledge that was suppressed by the alien creed of Christianity.

Wotan represents for us the supreme Aryo-Germanic man [or woman]. He encapsulates everything that we are – or should be. Jessie L. Weston, in her Legends of the Wagner Drama, defines Wotan as “the embodiment of the spirit of the Germanic peoples.”

In order to obtain wisdom Wotan sacrificed his eye for a drink from Mimir’s well, which is where He resorted to to gain wisdom and knowledge. His eye now dwells in the depths of the well. The Eddas do not reveal which eye He sacrificed. By sacrificing His eye He gained wisdom and in many ways this should, like his hanging on the world tree, be viewed as an initiation. His sacrificed eye is associated with wisdom which cannot be acquired through personal experience but that which is granted to the individual, that which in a sense is inherited just as we inherit wisdom and knowledge via the Collective Unconscious from our ancestors. This type of wisdom is deep as represented by the depths of Mimir’s well and must be associated with the right side of the brain which is the storehouse of images and symbols – the means by which the Collective Unconscious communicates with us – whilst the left side of the brain is more analytical and concerned with the human Ego.

Christianity and its associated secular creeds have temporarily detached the Germanic peoples from the Wotan archetype. It is only by responding to His call, the Call of the Blood, that we can realise both individually and collectively our supreme destiny.

Originally posted at: Aryan Myth and Metahistory