Panta Rhei (everythings flows)

[Helgiteut]

The following quotes represent what I believe to be a similarity between the pre-socratic philosopher Heraclitus, and the Primal Teachings said by Apollania to have been inscribed on the Burg walls in Texland.

Edited to add the last two quotes.

"Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river." (Plato Cratylus 402a = A6)

The sun ... as Heraclitus says, is new every day. (Meteorology 2.2.355a13).

Cold things become warm, and what is warm cools; what is wet dries, and the parched is moistened.(http://heraclitusfragments.com/files/en.html)

However, regarding our appearance, our characteristics, our mind and all our thoughts, these do not belong to the being. All these are volatile phenomena that appear through Wralda’s life, and that appear as such through his wisdom and not otherwise.Whereas his life is continually progressing, however, nothing can remain stationary. Therefore, all creatures change their position and their shape, as well as their minds. Therefore, can neither Earth itself, nor any creature ever say ‘I am’, but rather ‘I was’. Likewise, no man can ever say ‘I think’, but merely ‘I thought’. The boy is larger and different from when he was a child. He has other desires, passions and ways of thinking. The man and father is and thinks differently from when he was a boy. The same applies to the elderly. Everyone knows this. Since everyone thus knows and must acknowledge that one is continuously changing, one must also acknowledge that one changes every instant, also whilst one says ‘I am’, and that one’s thoughts change, whilst one says ‘I think’. (Apolania, Primal Teachings II)

[Nordic]

That is a good comparison and yes they reflect the same theme.

Godly power was often depicted as primaeval or cosmic sea like e.g. Ocean of Milk (connected to European traditions via the Samudra Manthana connection). The sea allegory implies some constant movement. The magus character in OL is comparable to cultural hero Väinämöinen (especially that in OL 082-086). His very name means 'river' (väinä).

Apollania's commentary on different life phases is found as theme also in Bock family saga, where is detailed how different ages or life phases meant different idols to follow in the heathen cultural system (from book Ior Bock, Bockin perheen saaga (1996), p. 31.; similar figures are in brackets):

• men in general: first human male Sampo or Frei (Mahāsammata, Wralda?)

• men who are not fathers: smith king Seppo Ilmarinen (Norse king Kári, prince Wayland the Smith)

• fathers: Lemminkäinen or Balder

• grandfathers: Ukko Väinämöinen or Per (Norse Ægir, Höfundr, Bergelmir)

• women in general: first human female Aino or Freia (Frya?)

• women before becoming mothers or not wanting to become one: queen Maija Ilmatar (goddess Ilmr of Nafnatulur 23)

• mothers: Swan (a swanmaiden)

• grandmothers: Akka or Ella (Norse Elli).

Thus a heathen had a model to follow in each life segment and these models were often literal dolls figures, statues or painted images. Mediterranean peoples must have had something similar, as seen in likes of Alexander the Great who also took different roles in his life as Kosmokrator, rainmaker and sun god etc.

[ott]

To add to this, the famous phrase is Panta rhei (Greek: πάντα ῥεῖ).

[Helgiteut]

To add to this, the famous phrase is Panta rhei (Greek: πάντα ῥεῖ).

That's right, Everything flows. I might change the topic heading to this, and have some other philosophers' writings added as well.

[Helgiteut]

That is a good comparison and yes they reflect the same theme.

Godly power was often depicted as primaeval or cosmic sea like e.g. Ocean of Milk (connected to European traditions via the Samudra Manthana connection). The sea allegory implies some constant movement. The magus character in OL is comparable to cultural hero Väinämöinen (especially that in OL 082-086). His very name means 'river' (väinä).

And by the man sleeping on the sea(Brahma, Manu, Vishnu) they mean the mind awakened to Maya (illusionary sight) So Vishnu reclines with his wife Lakshmi, who is the transformed Maya turned into a positive aspect. That's what I have gleaned from the Brahmanic tradition anyway.

[Helgiteut]

The following is from the dialogue between Krishna and Ajuna. Krishna explains the ever changing state of the world(s)
“Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both.”
Bhagavad-gita 2.16

[ernstnøgtern]

I find the connection between “The oldest Teachings” and pre-socratic philosophers very interesting!

Especially because there is a direct link to Ionian philosophy and Heraclitus through Minervas companion Jon, who might even have settled on the Ionian Islands, .

It is my personal opinion that the earliest traditions of the fryan people should not be described as a “religion” or as “monotheism”. It was more like a first leap towards physics.

They believed it to be TRUE, that a great majestic force exists, which drives life forwards in every moment. And the insight, that time was “returning” in the constellations of the stars above aswell as in the crops in the field, must have been extremely powerful. It was to them like a confirmation of a grand THEORY about life and the world we live in.
The theory that time was not just “now” but like a wheel being turned, things in life would return in cycles, as if driven by a force above and beyond time itself.
I think, this force bringing both time and order in every moment and in all events unfolding, is what they called WRALDA.

Now compare this, to a fragment by Heraclitus:

“The world, an entity out of everything,
was created by neither gods nor men,
but was, is and will be eternally living fire,
regularly becoming ignited and
regularly becoming extinguished. “

“Fire” like flux was to Heraclitus the very idea of constant change in time.

It is also remarkable that Heraclitus emphasized how Logos (speech) can find order and stability in the Flux of time. The fryan alphabeth is literally derived from the wheel of time and as the letters are symbols of our spoken sounds. One can almost see it as an illustration of the idea Heraclitus was trying to convey.

The Fryan concept of “Eewa” further indicate that their beliefs were early adventures into what the greeks would later call “physics” and even “psychology”.


This is all so very exciting to me. I have been searching for this connection many years, and I am very grateful to have found it.

If anyone knows any good sources (or any sources at all) on this topic, please let me know.

[rodenhuis2]

Also the connection between Wr/Oer with Arche might be there. Since fire was seen as the Arche. Arche being a later version of Wr Oer. They both have the same meaning as ancient as well as and arch is something you can walk across which is the other meaning of Oer. I didnt find anything on it on the internet Etymology dictionary. But I dont think its a big step. Prehaps Heraclitus knew about that connecion.?

[Nordic]

“The world, an entity out of everything,
was created by neither gods nor men,
but was, is and will be eternally living fire,
regularly becoming ignited and
regularly becoming extinguished.“

Am reminded here of Islamic concept of e.g. angels as made of fire, perhaps as some sort of pure godly beings made of same stuff the universe is made of.

The Fryan concept of “Eewa” further indicate that their beliefs were early adventures into what the greeks would later call “physics” and even “psychology”. [...] If anyone knows any good sources (or any sources at all) on this topic, please let me know.

The Aewa or Eeva/Eve (Nordic älv, å 'river', cf. ö 'island') was known as evam to Asians:

This central worship of the yoni has led to a situation in which nearly all tantra texts begin with the fundamental sentence, “I have heard it so: once upon a time the Highest Lord lingered in the vaginas of the diamond women, which represent the body, the language and the consciousness of all Buddhas”. Just as the opening letters of the Bible are believed in a tenet of the Hebraic Kabbala to contain the concentrated essence of the entire Holy Book, so too the first four letters of this tantric introductory sentence — evam (‘I have heard it so’) — encapsulate the entire secret of the Diamond Path. “It has often been said that he who has understood evam has understood everything” (Banerjee, 1959, p. 7).

The word (evam) is already to be found in the early Gupta scriptures (c. 300 C.E.) and is represented there in the form of a hexagram, i.e., the symbol of mystic sexual love. The syllable e stands for the downward-pointing triangle, the syllable vam is portrayed as a upright triangle. Thus e represents the yoni (vagina) and vam the lingam (phallus). E is the lotus, the source, the location of all the secrets which the holy doctrine of the tantras teaches; the citadel of happiness, the throne, the Mother. E further stands for “emptiness and wisdom”. Masculine vam on the other hand lays claims to reverence as “vajra, diamond, master of joys, method, great compassion, as the Father”. E and vam together form “the seal of the doctrine, the fruit, the world of appearances, the way to perfection, father (yab) and mother (yum)” (see, among others, Farrow and Menon, 1992, pp. xii ff.). The syllables e-vam are considered so powerful that the divine couple can summon the entire host of male and female Buddhas with them. (source: The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part I – 2. Tantric Buddhism (link)

This obviously carries an Adam-and-Eve-having-sex connotation and could in theory also have come as later idea based on already established Aewa concept: existence of the concept of holy word Aewa > eastern scribes ponder how to include it in their texts > scribes search for contextually sensible text that produces Aewa-like word via word spell magic > Evam as semi-hidden intro text in eastern mysticism.

Now that I come to think of it, no-one has studied OL or likes of Bock saga for such hidden clues. The closest we have is the Ár Var Alda (= 'Wralda'') that again spells out an intro text 'in days of yore' (link). This is of note to OL research because it spells out specifically the Frisian form "Wralda" and not the Norse form 'veraldar goð [Freyr]'.

[Kraftr]

love this thread and I think everyone is correct.
Maybe breaking this blessed full run, freely associating, it makes me think of this arch,.

arch.jpg (13.75 KiB) Viewed 1835 times

'Ar Var Alda', the fire/ancient travelling through everything, something discussed by presocratics, and indian mystics, the prereligious age where religion(awe, reverence) and filosophy(science/logic) were not seperated.
also Faroer islands, veralder, Ural, etc it seems use parts of the formula.
EWA is also laws of nature, and natural law. But so it could also be a different way to write AVA and WRALDA, wow.
AVA in Fryan is three 'arrows' and makes a waveform duality and threefold too. Nice symbol.

intriguing(it's sometimes hard to see a word connection is valid)
Latin reverentia "awe, respect," from revereri "to stand in awe of, respect, honor, fear, be afraid of; revere," from re-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see re-), + vereri "stand in awe of, fear, respect" (from PIE root *wer- (3) "perceive, watch out for").