Myths about Hyperborea
Myths about Hyperborea, the land of forefathers in the Far North, about the country that lies "beyond the north wind", are very deeply embedded in the collective unconscious and mythology of almost all Indo-European nations (and, of course, not only of their). By itself, this fact has great importance. But, more important than the fact of their widespraeding is the question what is their meaning. If Hyperborean myths really have such an important role in the unconscious of the Indo-European peoples, they have this by their own significance, due to its interior facilties. Because, for us, a myth in not "false story", a superstition or a misunderstanding. Myth is timeless reality, which is, perhaps, "not never enact anywhere," but is constantly repeated in history and, indeed, in a reality that determined and defined it.
The meanings of the myth are numerous, and can be interpreted in different keys. It is, also, important to notice that they have their own literal, "naturalistic" sense: Each myth is not true solely fantasy, imagination, what is contained in it corresponds to some particular circumstances of time and space on Earth. In other words, the myth did not have to happen the way it is described, is never really did not happend on that way, but it could be happen and it has happened in a particular degree. "It is true only that which has not happened never and nowhere" (Novalis).
Hyperborean myths are not only immediate and clear evocation of the immortality of the Earth in the far north of the continent… When, in the Russian fairy tale, for example, mentions three brothers, and the youngest was Ivan, who lived in a distant country which was ruled by constant darkness, until Ivan killed a giant snake and freed the Sun ... – that is, to us, obvious and clear evocation of the Arctic night, then North, and Hyperborea. Ivan repeats the archetypal venture of Indra who killed the dragon Vritra, to regain the Sun and freed the celestial waters. Myths about Hyperborea have the advantage that, like the myths of Atlantis, preserved a memory of a real country (though, their meaning do not exhaust only in that), but, unlike from Atlanteas myths, they are relatively narrowly localized in areas near to North pole: only there you can search for traces of their material existence and evidences about it.
But, regardless of their truthiness, they are primarily about the archetypes of the North, who have their own strength and form an almost independent reality. Independent of the specific historical conditions, they withdrawn and again come to life, always with a new and previously unforeseen power. Their particular attraction, in all ears, it is not necessary to prove. They can easily find expression in myths and folk legends, fairy tales, the stories, in the songs, and even in the folklore. Too far will gets us if we just try to enumerate their various forms and expressions, in many and diverse traditions. They are also the subject of art, but, from some time ago, and scientific studies, which giving totem, in different ways, some semblance of scientific arguments. (Sometimes, though, we have the impression that their goal is not really set up some new hypotheses, theories or scientific truth: they are sometimes simply an goal to itself.)
Behind the Eagles, guardians of the gold
The oldest known mention about myth of Hyperbora is one that we find in Herodotus' history. Herodotus tells us a strange story of Aristeas from Proconnesus (7th BC), who accompanied the Apollo and reached to Issedonia. Aristeas in Metaponto was worshiped as a cult because, they believed, how he spent seven years with the Apollo, in the land of the Hyperboreans. Here is the fabulous description, which Herodotus owes Aristeas, the poet of today lost „Arimaspea poems“, which still attracts commentators and interpreters: "behind Issedonian live Arimaspi, people with one eye (...) behind them are Eagles, the guardians of gold, and more far away of these,in the way to the coast, live Hyperboreans". (It is there, according to Plutarch, where dreaming Cronos, the God of the Golden Age.)
Aristeas description contains a clear memory of the Golden Age, of the primaeval condition, the "first and best of all countries," the Hyperborea. Herodotus etymology, however, when it comes to the name "Arimaspi" obviously is wrong: it is typical for Greek way of the name translation and interpretation in terms of sonority. But "Light of old Persia lexicon allows us to find the proper interpretation for name` `Arimaspi`; "Aryannaaspa" = "Aryans which love horses" (Dragos Kalajic: „Introduction to the arctic theory of Lokamanja Maharaj Tilak“).
Aristeas was accompanied Apollo, with that he deserved deification, cult-esteem. For Apollo, it was believed that every year he goes to Hypeborea, in the chariot pulled by swans. He's no longer wanted to go back and old Greeks were able to back him only with the song. According to Diodorus Sicilus, in the Hyperborea was the Temple of Apollo, the sanctuary dedicated to the God of Sun. In other words, the cult of Apollo comes from Hyperborea, from where he was brought in ancient Greece by Achaeans.
From their homeland in the far North, Hyperboreans were sent each year votive gifts, from nation to nation, wrapped in wheat straw, they sent from the most northern outpost of the Eurasian continent, to all the way down to Delos island in the South. Votive gifts, hidden in wheat straw – it was sign of eternal values, tradition handed down from nation to nation, and from generation to generation. In commemoration of the death of Hyperboreans girls which brought gifts for the first time at Delos, recorded by Herodotus, the tradition dictates that the "Delos's girls and boys cut their hair; on the eve of the wedding the girls themselves cut off one strand of hair, wrap it around the spindle and place on the grave... and all the young men also wrapped their cutted hair around a green twig and put it to the grave".
Ultima Thule and sole nomen habens
Late helenic and late roman variations of the Hyperborea myth is the myth of Ultima Thule. It is a land of eternal light in the far North, „Ultima Thule and sole nomen habens“. Certain Pytheas from Massalia, sometime in the second half of the fourth century BC, took a trip from his native Massalia (present-day Marseilles) in the far north of Europe. To the last country which he saw, he gave name Ultima Thule (Last Tula). Is worth mentioning, and that Constantius Chlorus undertook a campaign at the British Isles in order to contemplate the "most sacred land, the nearest to the heaven".
But the toponym Thula occurs in many before-Columbo American traditions: the center of the Toltecs empire was called the Tula. For Tula, “the land of eternal sunshine in the North”, "near to the great waters”, "knew and the mythology of Aztec and other tribes. Indians from tribes Quiche (Central America), according to legend, took the road to Tula, but it was found under the ice, in the dark, without the Sun. 1925, the Cuna Indians tried to establish by arms an independent Republic of Tula.
Tula is a toponym extremely widespread in Eurasia, from Russia (the old city of Tula and Tulos lake in Karelia), to Ukraine (Tuljchin), and to France (Toulon or Toulouse). The meaning of the word, however, is preserved in the Russian and Serbian language, where the word “utuliti” has a meaning of attenuation, concealment, and form “tuliti” means a lament, lamentation, deep, long crying. It is same case as the meaning of the word Boreas, the north wind, has an analogy in Sanskrit “bhurati”, and in Russian (“bura” – hurricane wind) and Serbian (and Old Russian) “bura” – storm. But the name Apollo, as the Russian researcher Valerij Demin says (refers to Chertakov), has its roots in the word “opaliti” (go off, fire) which, in Russian and in Serbian vocabulary, has the same meaning.
Chariot pulled by swans
The meaning of the myth which described Herodotus is obvious: the northern Hyperborea is previous homeland, the first land of many nations, including the Greeks. It is an ancient memory, the memory transposed into the space, and not in a mere geographical description. The origin of the cult of Apollo is in North. In the study “Alike to fists bracelets and cultural identity of the Indo-Europeans”, Zivojin Andrejic shows a remarkable finding from our soil, the so-called "Statue from Dupljaja" (Dupljaja is village near to Vrsac, north of Serbia).
"It is a very significant phenomenon; bird-like idol which stay in the wheelchair pulled by wild birds from Dupljaja. This image has the role which is undoubtedly associated with the myth of Apollo from Delphi, who is six months in the country of the Hyperboreans, distant and with the fog covered area (...) and then he spending the next six months in sunny Greece. It could therefore be the precursor to Apollo Belenus, who is revered in these areas as the God of Sun” (Z. Andrejic).
"The origin of the cult of Apollo, therefore, must be dislocated of the centers of Mycenaean culture, far away from the Mediterranean in general, but it should be sought only in the North. This is clearly the meaning of customs of girls and boys from Delos; custom to cut their hair and lay it on the graves, and traditions of the gifts that are sent each year from Hyperboreans extreme North, through the hands of the people, to the South of Europe. It is a pledge of fidelity to Hyperborean tradition.
Valerij N. Demin mentioned Pausanius and his work; Pausanius was ancient writer of the second century, which in the part of his “The description of Hellas” (XV, 8) states that the first priest-prophet of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was called Olen, Olenj, ie. “Jelen” (Serbian). “Jelen” is deer: which was clearly north, therefore Hyperborean symbol of the Sun. Also, Roman author Pliny the Elder in “Natural History “ (Naturalis Historia IV.26) writes about the Hyperboreans as a very real population of the Arctic Circle, which is in relation with the Hellas over Hyperboreans Apollo cult.
Temple of Apollo in Lapland
Russian archaeologists have discovered the archaeological location of the Paleolithic era called Berezovskaya location (on Russian: “Берёзовский Разрез“) on the riverside of the River Pechora, whose existence is estimated at 40,000 to 20,000 years ago. Their findings are significant changes in our notions of population in northern circuit in such ancient eras. In 1922 Alexander Vasilyevich Barchenko and Aleksader Kondjajin organized archaeological expedition to the Kola Peninsula in Russia's Lapland, where, on the shores of Lake Sejdsko, was an ancient temple of Saami people. Name of the peninsula has a clear solar symbolism: it is the land of Sun, solar cars. On the peninsula there are many toponyms with the typical Indo-European roots; with “Ind”, and “Gang” frame. There is, for example, with a base of ”ind” six rivers (Indoga, Indomanka, Indega, Indigirka and two rivers named Indigo, there is a Rama`s lake etc…)
The same author informs us about the expeditions „Hyperborea 97“ and „Hyperborea 98“ (organized by Valerij N. Demin), which were also implemented in Kola Peninsula in Russian Lapland. On this peninsula they find labyrinths of pebbles, about five feet in diameter, a stone pyramids and petrography, with dimension of about one hundred meters away, where is on the rock as cruciform shaped human contours. There are, however, quite distinct form of the shrine of stacked stones, on top of which is the deer's antlers – sadie. In the past they used to be located anywhere, now mostly in remote areas, in the mountains.
Most interesting of all is finding of expedition Hyperborea 97, in the Lovozerska tundra, in the central part of the peninsula. The place is located at about 500 meters above the lake Sejdsko. The ruins of megalithic complexes consisting of gigantic staircases, walls and embankments which Demin called "Hyperborea ruins", and brought them in the relation with Diodorus Sicilus words about the Temple of Apollo in Hyperborea.
Anyway, the daily we got evidences that far north, not even in so long ago eras, was not wasteland. With it apparently are related many tumultuous events of protohistory, about which, so far, we know a very little. There is no doubt that the new archaeological research will largely, if not entirely, change the ideas that we have of it today.
The deer, the mammoth and the herd
Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovic is author of the most complite and until now unequaled mathematical model, which explain shifts in the ice ages and climate change on Earth. In his book “Earth's past calendar” (Belgrade-Zemun, 1926) we read the following:
"During those thousands of years, 9,500 before Christ, was raised over northern Europe a gentle wave of heat. During that era the summer was in the northernmost parts of Europe unusually warm, and then there could be managed plants that now cannot."
To the similar conclusions, although on quite different ways, by analyzing the tradition of the steppe peoples of Euroasia, came and the Russian scientist Lev Nikolayevich Gumilev. He refers, in part of the book „Etnosphere – history of mankind and the history of Nature“ (Moscow, 1993) and concludes that, in the end of the last ice age (20,000 to 12,000 BC), in northern Siberia, was a very rich steppes, not today's cold taiga. This climatic peculiarity was conditioned by the existence of a stable anticyclone which, in turn, resulted in the very small amount of precipitation. Sufficient water has been provided by the surrounding glaciers, which are melting, creating numerous rivers and lakes full of fish and birds. Steppes are grazed herds of cattle’s, deer’s, mammoths and gazelles. This is an environment in which raised race of Indo-Europeans, creating cult of the Sun, which symbol is the deer, elk, and hence is the great importance of cattle, which in all Indo-Europeans symbolizes prosperity.
With the end of the ice age in northern Siberia, northern Russia and Scandinavia penetrated cyclones which bring cold and moisture. The climate is changing drastically, fertile steppes are transformed into the cold taiga, everywhere encroaching ice and snow; animals, a huge herds of steppe, and after them and the mass of hunters, moving into the south. Is that the exactly same glaciation that remembers old Persian „Avesta“. Thus there is a large anabasis of Indo-Europeans. However, Gumilev nowhere claims that the ancient inhabitants of the steppes were solely Indo-Europeans; their fate could be shared by the ancestors of many other races and ethnicities, that we know today. But still, the most vivid memory of it has been preserved exactly in the tradition of Indo-European peoples. And that makes the subject of extensive and ingenious study which wrote Bal Gangadhar Tilak, entitled “The Arctic homes of Vedas”.
It should be mentioned that the Tilak in his work provided the most complete and most brave formulation of the theory about Hypeborea. He has provided her exceptional scientific argumentation, which so far has not contested – the time being the only time in its favor, essentially confirming author's conclusions and intuitions. The fact that almost all of the authors involved in the research of the homeland and origin of the Indo-Europeans regularly and correctly stated about this book- even in the footnotes – but without challenging, nor confirming, shows to us recognition of Tilak genius.
Tilak's „The Arctic homes of the Vedas” was published at the beginning of the twentieth century, in 1903 year. The significance of his theory is not waned since then, but it is growing of for the past hundred years, and it is, without a doubt, made a very strong impact and inspired many to follow the footsteps of Arctic research and ancient heritage of the Indo-Europeans.
The most ancient evidence left by our race
We will keep you in the shortest possible way, on the Tilak's work. We keep up on its findings and outcomes, avoiding, this time, otherwise very grounded, complex and hard arguments.
His considerations are based on what he calls "the most ancient testimonies left by our race" – on an analysis of the most ancient texts of Indo-Europeans: the “Vedas”, the sacred books of Hinduism and the “Avesta”, the sacred books of the Persians, and on its first and oldest chapter “Vendidad”, completing his exegesis with the chapters related to astronomy, meteorology, geology, biology, archeology, paleontology, comparative mythology...
The result is a significant move from then quite arbitrarily estimated age of the Vedas, for several millennia in backward. Tilak back us so many thousands of years into the past, into the darkness of protohistory, in which we perceive the outlines of the great Aryan culture which is undoubtedly flourished in circumpolar areas. It should be noted that Tilak, interpreting the naturalistic aspects of the Vedic tradition often does not stay only on them, but he highlights and the basic, essential contents of the Indo-European tradition, such as the absolute dualism of light and darkness, summer and winter, the long days and long nights.
"The evidence we have obtained in the previous sections are based on allegations of first-hand from the “Vedas” and the “Avesta”, which proves without a possible error that poets of “Rig-Veda“ (the oldest of the four Vedas) knew the climatic conditions only observed in the Arctic areas... A long day and a night long of six months, reversing long and continuous morning (dawn) for many days, years with less than twelve months of sunshine all were known and described by Vedic bards, and not with the use of the allegory and metaphor, rather by use of direct allusions, that have long remained unintelligible or wrongly interpreted (...)"
Aryan homeland, says Tilak, might be only in the far north: "continuous dawn of thirty days may be just a few degrees south of the North Pole. But if the latitude can be determined with great accuracy, longitude, on the contrary, remain in complete uncertainty". However, "(...) it is not unlikely that the primordial habitat is in the north of Siberia, rather than in the north of Scandinavia and Russia".
Aryan's ancient homeland was destroyed by snow and ice – glaciations of which is unequivocal, clear and direct testimony in the “Vendidad” – this is the time of the more than eight thousand years before Christ; this is the beginning of an post glacial era and the time of migration Aryans, and start of their scattering by Eurasian continent.
„The first of the places and countries that have created Great Ahura Mazda, was Airyana Vaejo (Aryan paradise), which is overspread by good river Daitya.“
„Angra Mainyu, full of death, fight back by creating this plague, river snakes and winter, which created the Daevas.“
„There is ten winter and two summer months, and those months are cold for the water, cold for the earth, cold for the vegetation. It is the center of winter, the bottom of the winter, the heart of winter, the worst of plagues“ (Vendidad; Fargard I).
In “Fargard II” we find the beginning of the tale about dispersion of the Aryans, when Ahura Mazda warns Yimа that "at a material world will fall the unfortunate winter that will cause strong snowfall in dense layers, with the thickness of a one aredvi, in the highest mountain".
Atlantis star maps
Tilak was not the only one who went by footsteps of the Hyperborea myth. His discoveries in the scientific domain are the most spectacular and, shall we say, the most comprehensive, most complete. Other authors before and after him, did reach similar or even the same conclusions, by following other “roads” and other, quite different optics and methods of cognition.
In the first place, it should be noted French astronomer, who was astronomer of the last French king. His name was Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793 - years when he was guillotined). Similarly to Tilak, who was encouraged to research data on basis of the position of the constellations that could be found in the ancient Vedic literatures – Bailly's curiosity spurred ancient celestial maps, that were brought to him by missionaries and travelers from India. They, says Bailly, could arise only in the field of precise observations from the area between 50 and 60 degrees of north latitude. He assumed that the observations are from "some unknown people" – Bailly named them Atlanteans – which migrated from the far north to the south. The author has found many certificates for his beliefs, exploring the many and varied mythology. Here are his main conclusion: "At the same time when all that traditions are often “blurred” and confused, we note, with amazement, that they all aspire to the same goal, which raises their origins right to the North."
Bailly identified the "unknown people" as "Atlanteans": we will identify them as the Hyperboreans, since their homeland is placed "between 50 and 60 degrees north latitude, and "that is, in areas around the North Pole, which right at this point, are in most of our interest (the mythical Atlantis of Plato reportedly was located somewhere in the northwest Atlantic). It is for authors such is René Guenon closely related to Hyperborea, but as a secondary center of the polar tradition, and it is wrong, and even fatal, see them as absolutely identical.
Man-gods and man-animals
Other authors, in other ways, have reached almost identical conclusions. We will, for the purposes of this essay, among many others, mention and the researcher Herman Wirth, about whom, in his work “Hiperborea's theory” (Moscow, 1992), reported Russian author Alexander Dugin, remaining at the end of the book and concepts by so-called traditionalists, such are Rene Genon and Julius Evola. Dugin, in his book, does not speak about scientific discoveries, theories, hypotheses, or "point of the view", but just about “the universe of Herman Wirth."
To us is unknown the way in which Herman Wirth came to his knowledge, to his findings. But, it is perfectly clear that he do not gain the knowledge in the roads that followed the orthodoxy science of that time.
But, as we will realize, that question has only secondary importance. More important than the question of method is the question of what Herman Wirth saw and decided, what the true result of his work. The fact that they are sometimes described as fantastic, at least does not diminish their importance – Wirth anyway talks about things which established science avoid or hushed. But we are, first of all interested in the truth, not about the concrete historical facts, as about the truth of the myth.
The most important of his work is titled “The origin of Mankind” (“Der Aufgang der Menschheit”, 1928). In this book, and in many other books, Wirth developed his own conception, which the starting point is Arctogea, Northland; Hyperborea as the origin of humanity, but, above all, the home of a unique human race and tradition, which from the beginning appears in its complete – it would be better say perfect, organic – form. During the following time, in postartic era, it will be subject to distortion and perversion, but also subject of the mysterious re-appearance, in a more or less pure and original form. It may, however, in spite of everything, remain the main subject, the most important theme of spiritual history of Mankind.
The main carrier of that tradition, and therefore the main subject of history is the Arctic Man, North Pole man, representative of the arctic race, actually represent of the race of humans-gods: the true children of God in the universe. To his is, therefore, perfectly appropriate the extreme nature of the Arctic polar environment, with almost absolute dualism of light and darkness, life and death, heat and cold (dark, cold and death, which occurs during the arctic winter).
Legitimately and naturally, since God himself is dualistic, Arctic proto-continent has its own complete opposite and counterweight, the proto-continent of South, Gondwana. It is a country of the night, of the tropics and of the equator (not the South Pole), inhabited not by man-gods, as is the case in Arctogea, rather by man-animals. South is the demonic counterpart to the Arctic. Back in the Tertiary, two races lived completely separately without mutual interference. (Remember in the “Vedas” is pronounced an absolute prohibition of their interference.) Sometime in early quaternary, with the glaciations of Arctogea, when was frozen northland (a small number of representatives of the Nordic race remains among the icebergs), the north man starts his way from the North to South, and thus, his way to confrontations, conflicts, uncompromising struggle, but at last, and his way in the mixing of two human races. Thus begins a period of gradual degradation of the Nordic tradition and race. And not only is there was a freeze of Arctogea, but itself Gondwana breakup into several continents, and the original North-South opposition is replaced with the new, the East-West opposition. "Atlantis is then located in the North Atlantic and touches remains of Arctogea. East continent is the proto-continent of Eurasia."
Wirth then follow complex migration paths of the Nordic race,which gradually changing the look and racial composition of the population of Gondwana. Atlantic cycle, roughly speaking, corresponds to the late Paleolithic, his Magdalenian period, 22,000 to 10,000 years before Christ.
From archaeological „nowhere“
Cro-Magnon man appears from archaeological „nowhere“. Its occurrence is inexplicable from the standpoint of evolutionary concept. It is clear the northern classe of man, which, in its pure form, in the history occurs later, in the Mesolithic and Neolithic era, although its detection (detection of the northern type of man) is very difficult due to his distinctive modes of burial – with the burning, and not as the burial in the ground – that does not leave behind it anthropological traces.
Aurignacian sub-type is mixed racially from Nordic and half -animal Gondwana, but he is created not with evolution, but with mixing the Cro-Magnons, with their perfect features with the type of Neanderthal man. Neanderthal man is descended from proto-race Gondwana (monkey-race people, half-animal man from Gondwana). The first wave of migration of Nordic type, "men-gods", which were the Atlanteans in fact, was that when they came from the North Atlantic and the Western Arctic. They have left behind them megalithic monuments, as well as "North African, Arab, Assyrian, and the Southern Indian and ocean Atlantaeas (Amorites, the Moors, Maori...)", in highly complex patterns and lines of migration, mating and resettlements.
The second wave of migration of northern types - were resettlements of the people a Tuatha Dé Danann (peoples of the goddness Danu), wich arrived on the Island and in Ireland from the north; they indicates actually existence of true proto-Indo-Europeans, Aryans who, like Cro-Magnons, but later; in the late Neolithic period, migrate to the southeast, across the Caucasus to the India and Iran. There they build or purely Aryan civilization (Iran, India) or caste or spiritual teachers (Japan).
Herman Wirth in his work tried to reconstruct the main migration flows and the mixing of races - the basis of his conception is the absolute dualism, duality of two competing fundamental principles, which the consequences are the human races – and their spiritual content. Herman Wirth ambition was to highlight, expose the traces of the true history of humanity. His starting point is Hyperborea myth. Wirth it develops in the unsuspected and, often, a grandiose manner, thus complementing the missing chapter in the history of mankind.
The tradition which always existed
French philosopher and metaphysician, "traditionalist" or "perennialist”, René Guénon made a limited, but very powerful, focused impact on intellectual circles, in his time and our time, essentially with his concept of "Primordial Tradition": the tradition that have always existed, which is above the time and superhuman, divine by origin, but which throughout history somehow obscures and lost, retreating gradually from the realm of hidden, secret knowledge, to the complete oblivion in the "dark" last age, that in Indian tradition is called Kali Yuga and the European tradition of the "iron age" or, in Christianity, "the last time". Guenon area, therefore, it is not science or speculative thought, but is esoteric. He himself refused to inform readers about the sources of his knowledge, emphasizing his work is not about knowledge that can be acquired through the books in the library.
Guenon's idea of „Primordial tradition“ we will prefigure here only in general terms, as short as possible, and kept it away from the "details"; the original traditions have always existed. Guenon, in many places, suggesting its polar, Hyperboreans, therefore, Indo-European origin. In its fullness, however, it exists only in the first Golden Age of Mankind (which corresponds to the Hyperborea cycle), but then, during subsequent period, it was subject to regressive processes. Myths and legends of different nations, religions and metaphysical doctrine, traditional symbols and rituals are nothing, but pieces of that Knowledge, adapted to the new conditions, or translated into popular language.
Atlantic cycle of the human history is the latter in relation to Hyperborea:and in one place Guenon explicitly warns of the danger of identifying Atlantis and Hyperborea. First, is the West, the other is North. Both were destroyed by cataclysms, which is basically a consequence of the direction of history and time, which are with regressive, degrading stream. The downward, regressive flow can only slow down, but can not be changed, until the beginning of a new cycle of humanity.
The name „Tula“ (which exist in a variety of areas, from Russia to Central America), according to Guenon , means previous, former "the center of spiritual power"; and he said: "we must think that each of these areas in more or less remote epochs, was the midpoint of spiritual authority, as an emanation of the primordial ones (literally polar) Tule ... The word "Tula" in Sanskrit means „libra”, and specifically signify the zodiacal sign of that name, but, according to Chinese tradition, the stellar Libra was originally constellation of the Great Bear. This observation is of the utmost importance, because the symbolism that is associated with the Great Bear is on natural and the narrowest way linked to the symbolism of the North Pole. "
And also: "(...) should be distinguished the Hyperboreans Tula from Atlantean Tula (...) the latter, in fact, is the main and supreme center (...) All the other islands of the world, which are all marked with names identical in meaning, were only pictures of her (...) "(Rene Guenon: “King of the World”).
Close to Guenon is another traditionalist, the Italian Julius Evola, although it would be wrong to consider him for Guenon's scholar or follower. Evola, is no doubt, was inspired and with Guenon's works, but the two of them, in addition to the many similarities which they share, are with significant differences. Evola most comprehensive explain his views in his book „Revolt against the modern world“ („Rivolta contro il mondo moderno“, 1934.)
Evola's worldview is really characterized by an almost Manichean order of dualism: on one side of the modern world, and on the other hand, the values of world of the traditions, which has origins in the polar regions, in the North Pole, in Hyperborea. This is the true Golden age, if not of all of humanity then at least is Golden age of the Indo-European race. The original homeland of the Indo-Europeans is located at the Pole, in circumpolar areas. With cataclysm affecting Hyperborea, begins long march of the Indo-Europeans, through time and space, from the far north to the south of the planet, from the initial state, originality, to the roads of the perversion and decadence, over the Atlantic cycle, from prehistory to ancient times, to the Medieval, and to our own, "modern time", which is the utter opposite of Tradition. With that march starts and degradation of man himself, from god or of man-god to a purely human, and even lower, to the animal and demonic, to the dark abyss "of modern era".
In the deepest level, it is a fight of the two cosmic principles: on the one hand, the life-giving hierarchy of the Order, Order that is with the equal support and defend and from the people and from the Gods, and on the other side are forces of chaos and entropy; and it is also a struggle for sanctification, the sacralization of the space (through ritual), against the forces of the time, which destroy and devour him. It should be said that many Evola's insight and strong intuition" subsequently are confirmed by work of Georges Dumezil and his learning, such as that of tripartite ideology of the Indo-Europeans.
Light from the North
We have seen that the myths of Hyperborea are everything, but for sure they are not dead past. They are not the product of imagination of some classical writers, and even fewer, are absolutely not dead superstition of an distant era. Otto Muck, a fan of another myth, the Atlantean, in the book „All about Atlantis“ („Alles über Atlantis“), attempts to explain the myth about Hyperboreans by certain natural phenomena, in themselves which are fascinating, which trigger imagination and a certain content in the viewer. But, even if that were the whole truth about Hyperborea, such a natural environment would have, in the time, draw or create a certain type of people, and then, again, would naturally lead to the creation of the appropriate race and ethnicity, culture or civilization ...
From the myths about Hyperborea still raises a large number of researchers and thinkers. North polar area, which once attracted polar travelers, today attract archaeologists and explorers of the past. It's not sterile research: the archetypes of the North and are now living and effective, they encourage those who follow to the true spiritual adventure and discovery. Very slowly, much harder than other regions and countries, North reveals its deep hidden secrets. They, moreover, are in a much deeper history than others. Some clues to confirm: carbon-14 tests showed that "the megalithic monuments of Europe and the Balkans metallurgy are elder, senior forms than Mediterranean prototypes. And not only metallurgy, but also attractive small sculptures from the Balkans are for one millennia older than the assumed Aegean prototypes" (Colin Renfrew: “Carbon 14 and the prehistory of Europe”, San Francisco, 1972). Is not that a roadmap for future researchers – a guide directed to the north and not, as before, to the south of the continent?
Sometimes, in the nineteenth century, archeology was guided by the principle “Ex Oriente Lux” (Light from the East). Then, this principle has been replaced by: the Neolithic culture spread from the northwest to the southeast, from Western Europe and North Africa through southern Arabia to India and Oceania ... But today almost universally accepted is assumption that the oldest cradle of Mankind's is Africa, so South.
Indubitable is that during the Aryan migration, findings of Negroid and Mongoloid populations is older, and that Aryans were foreigners, strangers on the Eurasian continent. Today, thanks to entrepreneurs and heroes of the North, Pole, we have to think about the new assumption that all of the above gives a completely new and different place and meaning. If the origins of humanity, or at least part of it – the Indo-European race – is North; it is perfectly possible that their migration during the Neolithic period and after was through the northwest and northeast, crossing in the Balkans and in the Middle East, and creating a centres of civilization that, however, are latter in relation to the culture of northern Europe and Eurasia.
Sooner or later, these assumptions will have to be proved or disproved by new ones. Research of the North are still at its beginning. Myths about Hyperborea will represent in this, no doubt, very powerful incentive. Nothing like that, after all, is not linked to a specific area or continent, except the ancient traditions of Atlantis in the West. The origins and traditions of the Indo-Europeans (or perhaps even the whole of humanity), their primeval homeland, migration and movement of peoples and races, during what is called the "prehistory" of the ancient religions ...– all this, as we have seen, is closely related to the Hyperborea myths.
The idea of the Center
In its last and highest sense Hyperborea myth represents the idea of the Center. The center is primarily metaphysical meaning: it is the center of both, and the intelligible and the sensible world. Then it is and the spatial and temporal center symbolized as "the first and best of all countries", Hyperborea, in whose center is the mythical Mount Meru, which, in turn, has its own center and it is top of the mountain. In terms of time, this is the first and the Golden Age, ideally for the beginning, the start, because reintegration, metaphysical realization, which is nothing more than "conquest of the center", involves moving opposite to the flow of time and history, with their erosive effect.
The center is immaterial, metageographical, suprahistorical and above the time. It does not exist in the phenomenal, and therefore can not be destroyed. It is a center that man need to gain, but is hidden, so it is available only to exceptional ones. Therefore, logically, it is symbolized by the North pole: while it itself, as a "quiet place", unmovable, make that seems how everything revolves around him. Man's position in the center is the "action of non-action". This real immobility determinate and reality itself and its movement: in this sense, it is "more powerful than reality". Whoever owns the center, holds the rest of the circle.
Thus, in the phenomenal world, conquest of the Pole in the physical sense has potential value of the metaphysical act. In Sanskrit, the word "Uttara" also means "north" and “noble land”. Tend towards to Hyperborea, an ideal fatherland, gradually changing and the protagonist of the „Hyperboreans“ of Milos Crnjanski. In a world which is ex-centric, he is the one that has his own center – timeless, invisible and immaterial, "Weall are with the polar regions, with the the polar Sun in relation ... These areas are icy goal to all people, and anyone who has looked into this realm of ice, has become different. To me this community of dead researchers of the Polar regions are the most interesting. Why they going there? Why they were changed?"
In direction to Hyperborea first went (or he was back in it ) god Apollo: follow him, second was Aristeas, the poet of today lost „Arimaspea poems“. Hero of Crnjanski book, as many polar explorers, repeating their act. The same is the truth for of all those who currently go to Hyperborea.
Boris Nad
Translated by Vesna S. Disic
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