Most related spiritual traditions to Frya tradition

[tatehiebert]

Hello all!

I was wondering what are the most related and closest spiritualities to the one detailed in the Oera Linda book?


I have a majority Frisian background, my mom being fully Frisian and my Dad being half Mennonite and Ukrainian. I always heard about Friesland now and again growing up but no one ever said much about it other than it had its own language, but I knew there was more to it.

Right before my Pake passed away, I got a copy of the OL for him to read because he knew how to read and speak Frisian and he was blown away by it and said it sounded and felt totally authentic. That was literally the last time I hung out with him one on one and he passed away about a month or two later.

Anyways somethings I have found potentially relevant and related to authentic Frisian spirituality:
- Mennonites stemmed from a guy named Menno Simons who was Frisian… perhaps there was some unknown Frya influence in his mind that started that movement that actually saved that group of people from being murdered and destroyed by various governments… Mennonites have a long history of escaping persecution due to their peaceful anti war nature. They’re based in Protestant Christianity but I find it very interesting.
- Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma is something I practice regularly and find deeply empowering and enriching… it is by far the most developed, intricate, complex and deep treasure trove of incredible spiritual, perception, consciousness, evolution based knowledge on the planet it seems… it is apparently the oldest religion in the world and has so many possible paths within it, there is no dogma like Christianity and the other ones… perhaps the Fryas were connected to some of these ancient practices as well… any follower of Hinduism knows that the many Dieties and forms that are worshipped in it are different representations of the ONE GOD/WRALDA, just in different costumes.
- Norse Germanic Mythology. In my searching for true connection to my ancestry, I keep running into this stuff and so far it is has never really resonated with me that much. Odin seems like a total asshole, the Eddas are interesting for sure but there is so little actual information and truly useful things available about this… it seems like it’s been completely destroyed and shattered beyond repair… Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma has been incredibly well preserved and has an unbelievably larger amount of deep knowledge that is similar to the multi deity type of framework found in the Norse mythology, but again it’s so well preserved and there are so many truly useful, accessible and powerful modalities of connecting with the deities, versus Norse and Germanic which seems mostly like people just make it up as they go along out of the tiny little scraps and crumbs that are left over.

What are other mythologies, spiritualities and religions that you find to be highly related, relevant or even basically similar to the spirituality practiced by the Fryas?

[Helgiteut]

Hello from Australia. My bloodline goes back to the British isles, and my mother's mother's forefathers where in the Society of Friends (Quakers). The "Quaker" worldview is like what you have said about Dharma (being non-dogmatic), although another thing is their opposition to Slavery, which they held to be wrong since the beginning. They also have no priesthood. Most Quakers were pacifist, but in the USA some actively fought for the revolution against the UK. They were expelled and became the "Free Quakers"
For those on this forum who don't understand Pacifism, I'll say this: not all Pacifists will allow themselves to be attacked, some do believe in self defense. But they won't join the military because an army has to occupy the lands of unwilling people. We read about Friso

He mocked our way of defending land and fighting sea battles.

[144]
When I read this I imagined that the Frya's army was a purely defensive force, staying within the borders of Frya's-land. Although I might be reading the text wrong, and could simply be speaking about the style of fighting.

[tatehiebert]

Interesting!

From what I know of Mennonites and the like, they all stem from the Anabaptist strain of Protestantism which was about letting people decide on their own to be baptized rather than at birth. Catholics and others would publically drown Anabaptists alive, which caused them to flee and reside other places, Prussia, then Russia then Canada and other places in the world.

I know that Amish and Hutterites came from this same strain of Anabaptists which also included the Mennonites and I’m pretty sure Quaker’s also were part of this strain.

I’ve been reading a few books on North European paganism and it details a ton of very horrifically violent things. So I’m not sure what to believe about it.

[Hille]

Hi Tatehiebert,

First related spiritual tradition to that of the Frya's I found, is the one I posted about the Oera Linda vs Daoism. Their Primal Teachings are very reminiscant of Laozi's writings.

I'll be on the lookout for more connections.

(Side note: I'm actually from Witmarsum, the village where Menno Simons was born and where the Mennonites stem from.)

[tatehiebert]

Awesome! Thank you very much.

I am a big fan and practitioner of Eastern teachings like that. They have far more useful applications for well being than Western religions.

That’s awesome you live there! I want to visit Friesland sometime in my life. Being in Germany a couple times was a very resonant experience

[Coco]

"Western" religions are considered to be Western in the sense that they have historically dominated the West. In fact, the Abrahamic religions have their origins in the Middle East. The OLB's account also indicates that the concept of gods was a foreign concept held in disdain by the Fryas.

[Myss]

"Western" religions are considered to be Western in the sense that they have historically dominated the West. In fact, the Abrahamic religions have their origins in the Middle East. The OLB's account also indicates that the concept of gods was a foreign concept held in disdain by the Fryas.

This is my biggest issue with the OLB religious narrative. It reads literally exactly like a christian's attempt to discard the old mythology.

Anyone who has studied Germanic mythology (or any European mythology for that matter) understand that the Gods can all symbolize various things, both raw nature and man. The Wr-alda concept implies that humans are imperfect and specks of this great unknowable being, which is the complete opposite of the traditional European/Aryan view that cultivates 'happy' warriors, where humanity is essentially elevated to the divine by their own prowess and nobility. Nature and the understanding of what reality actually is, is considered divine. The REAL world is divine. Odin is typically associated with the ecstatic frenzy of warriors (which seems at least somewhat consistent with the figure in the OL), but also wisdom in counsel and the honor required to prove your mettle. So he takes the form of the higher spirit, the mind. But also the consciousness, his name is related to the word for breath/spirit (åndedrag) and people are considered to be descendants of Odin (the spirit) because they take their first breath when they are born. Snorri was christian and seemed to enjoy the myth that Odin was just a man of asian origin, seemingly because it would be preferable to the lofty and fantastical concept of a real god or because some royal lineages traced descent from this figure. But this is the one major thing people simply don't seem to understand, there was nothing superstitious or idiotic about these religious traditions. We are talking about countless generations of knowledge building on top of itself, and the point is that you learn the 'poetry'. You're not supposed to read it literally, just like you're not supposed to take kennings literally. Its a way to describe something else in a colorful, human way. The gods often seem cruel because nature can be brutal, thats how it is. You take it at face value and its just a pointless tragedy. The myths and stories make it unique and easier to remember, but also harder for people who are not 'worthy' to take up the mantle. The idea that the divine is a singular, seperate entity that is somehow everything so it doesn't need any elaboration and can't be understood anyways bla bla basic wooowoo nonsense, is a semitic copout. It holds no water to the extensive and deep understanding that you find within our already existing religious material. And no, hundreds of sagas and poems, the Eddas, Håvamål, the Iliad and Odyssey, the Homeric Hymns, the Orphic Hymns, all the ancient writers + the fairy tales and folk tales from all over Europe and at least dozens of books from people who already researched this is not "tiny little scraps and crumbs". The amount of material we have available is actually quite insane all things considered.

Now could there originally have been a more simple religion with more focus on the skyfather/electric male deity and the earthly/receiving female deity or even just one entity? Sure. But the assertion here is that the last thousands of years of ethnic religion that we know of is just made up nonsense by a priestly caste, rather than the genuine thoughts and expressions of our tradition. The sentiment I find also in the book suggesting that many of their neighbors became "degenerate" or wicked seems farcical to me knowing the actual character of the peoples who lived here. My advice to people who don't resonate with their own actual heritage is, learn to understand how ancients thought or get help from someone who does. The most basic human religion is animism, which is just the understanding that everything around you has a living animated energy. The universe is electric and alive, I think this is something everyone senses at some point.

[Nordic]

This is my biggest issue with the OLB religious narrative. It reads literally exactly like a christian's attempt to discard the old mythology.

Plato the Greek author lived in 400s to 300s BC. Textual research suggests his book Laws and concept of singular major God was the very model for Old Testament beginning parts, along with Hindu-Buddhists source texts, a modified version of Sumerian King List and whatnot.

Long before Plato had been the Egyptian Atenism movement, again seeing a one true god. (Which made the actual sense that without father sun there would be no life and mother earth would be barren.)

Just as the OL Frisians have the Freyr ↔ Wralda the 'world', the Finns have Odin/Wodin/Untamo ↔ Oden the 'sun', both taking the respective main place; an issue of what theoretically came first versus what empirically attestable phenomena is the primary mover.

Odin [...] his name is related to the word for breath/spirit (åndedrag) and people are considered to be descendants of Odin (the spirit)

This is as if straight from Bock saga soul incarnation doctrine (video, a poetic echo of the same concept here).

[Nordic]

Myss your note on the similarity is correct, but it could be the other way around:

OL > Plato > Bible.

(Along with Sumerian, Assyrian, Buddhist, Finnish and local sources of Bible authors.)

A big clue on Frisian influence here is that, while Bible is in many ways direct descendant of Plato's Laws bk. 3, it uses the Frisian 6,000 year time chronology; it does not use the following despite using them as direct textual sources:

• Greeks: 10,000 year cycle unit (Plato, Laws, bk. 3, source for OT Genesis 1 worldview)

• Finns: 10,000 year cycle unit (Bock saga, source for correct OT "Reu"-Enmerkar-Kári substitute for Ra-Ilmarinen)

• Sumerians: 10 year sar cycle units (Sumerian King List, model for OT pre-Abraham genealogies, sar usage noted by me and before me by researcher Roland Harrison back in 1993.)

[Coco]

Myss, I beg your pardon for the personal remark, but your post evokes a sense of cognitive dissonance. It is possible that you possess a profound emotional connection to Norse Mythology, and consequently, the revelation that your primordial ancestors, preceding the Viking Age, harbored nothing but animosity towards the concept of gods (idols) may be distressing. Likewise, individuals with a strong emotional attachment to Celtic mythology and druids may find it disconcerting to discover that the druids originated from Sidon near the Golan Heights, that the Fryas harbored animosity towards the druids, and that the Gaelic languages are, in fact, Semitic languages.

Nordic, I acknowledge your reference to the notion that each spoke is 1,000 years, and given that the wheel comprises six spokes, this would imply a "Frisian" cycle of 6,000 years. I have not delved into Plato's Laws and therefore must undertake the necessary research to ascertain the interconnection between OLB, Plato, and the Bible.