The Aryan Household by William Hearn

I must confess, before reading Coulanges’ The Ancient City, I had a very pedantic view of Paganism. I viewed it much how I imagine most modern Pagans view it. Paganism was the worship of many Gods. A pantheon. You look more into it and you might find out that the Romans, for example, had Gods for everything. There was even a God of the dung heap. From these modern Pagans, you get the ideas such as “returning to tradition.” They might try to recreate whatever scant traditions they could piece together.

But when you read The Ancient City, you learn that Paganism is not what you see in the “mainstream” of modern Paganism. Modern Paganism is in a way trying to make a domestic, decentralized religion a little more global. Maybe not global like Christianity or leftism, they want to keep in the race(at least the most far right of these. It was not about honoring Odin, Thor, and Freyr, it was much closer to the chest. When you read The Ancient City, you begin to understand WHY Paganism can’t seem to reemerge in the modern world, but this isn’t about The Ancient City, rather this is about a book that takes Coulanges’ legendary work and expands upon it. William Hearn’s The Aryan Household laser-focuses on the first few chapters of The Ancient City, as well as, the writings of Sir Henry Maine who wrote another important book, Ancient Law. I read the Imperium Press edition retitled The Indo-European Household.

Normally, I would go on rampage about the usage of “Indo-European,” which I think is terrible and cowardly academic word. The reason I think this way owes a lot to The Ancient City and something BAP said on his show #103 when he talked about nation, races, and character. He talked about fake identities and how an Athenian wouldn’t identify as an Athenian, he WAS an Athenian. Even though this Imperium Press edition is retitled, the text still references our races as ARYAN RACES as Hearn wrote it originally. It was released in 1878 btw, before the Nazis. I am giving Imperium Press the benefit of the doubt that they did this title change so as to not be dominated by amazog.

The Aryan Household gives you the bulwark of how ancient Aryan societies were organized. It’s very much different from modern society and Hearn does a great job of showing you what changed and what it did to the ancient people. It also exists as a WARNING as to why you cannot “RETVRN” to some prior way of living. The old ways worked for the ancients because they were not as connected or numerous as we are today. The new ways, the state and Christianity, prevailed because they were able to better handle the increase in population growth. There are many examples of how the creation of the state or the rise of Christianity crushed the old ways of living. But if you want to understand Paganism, if you want to understand the way of your fathers, The Aryan Household will get you there.

For ancient Aryans, religion was a domestic matter. Each household worshipped their own Gods. Their rites — their sacra — were private. Your neighbors could not know to whom it was you made sacrifice. This comes off as very counterintuitive to say a Christian or leftist who won’t shut up about their religion. Why did the ancients do this? A name was POWER. If your competition figured out the name of your God, they could sacrifice to him and maybe win that God to their side.

“Hence, too, the name of the tutelary god of Rome was a profound state secret; for, without a knowledge of the name by which he ought to be addressed, the spell which was of power to compel the god to abandon his seat could not be spoken.” -Hearn

The Romans themselves incorporated foreign Gods into their worship by promising to sacrifice much more than the foreigners themselves could muster. But these domestic Gods were the holiest and most secret of deities. Bloodlines were established by the worship of these Gods. In Rome, they were called the Lares. You might even think of them as spirits that wandered the land around the Aryan household. The Lares were where ghost stories likely originated from, as when you did not sacrifice to the Lares, they would become Lavre and would haunt and destroy your bloodline.

Where modern society is organized by the individual, ancient society was organized by the household.

If you present this idea of ancient society to our disenfranchised American youth, I bet you would get a lot of support for a similar reorganizing of society. The ancients were divided by households, not individuals. The father of the household was the sovereign over his land and everyone under him. Women did not have any rights. The sons or younger relatives of the House Father did not have any rights. Slaves didn’t have any rights. The House Father managed them all and held the power of life and death over most of them.

Society was much smaller at this time. Likely, some brotherhood cut out a piece for themselves. Do you now understand why I say, the brotherhood is the foundation and franchise? But Hearn had a different idea. He believed that each household’s religion was the foundation. That people came together in the common worship, not necessarily blood or brotherhood. Each member represented a household. Each member had a sacred duty to never let the fire(and bloodline) go out in that household.

The duty of a House Father was to produce a son who could carry on the household’s sacra and make sacrifice to him when he died. The bloodline must continue. The fire cannot be allowed to come out. These ideas are talked about in RESAVAGER essay, The Sacred Fire. His job was to take care of the household rites while securing a wife and a son. Everything else was extra. Households could have extended families, near relatives, and slaves. All incorporated into that household’s secret rites.

When the household came to an unmanageable size or there was some confederation of households that came together, they formed a clan. The clan had its own sacra practiced by the heads of each household at a clan’s tomb. These kinsmen as they were called were sworn to each other. Their bond so great, they could not testify against one another. They are bound to carry out blood feuds and support each other in numerous ways. Hearn goes into much detail that these relations were not always blood. House Fathers had the power to adopt people into their households and induct them into the secret rites.

One other interesting aspect explored by Hearn is the nature of a man’s position in the world. There was, said Hearn, ten generations that separated a slave from a chief. It took three generations to get one’s bloodline out of slavery. Another three as a freedman, and then, three more as a nobleman. Yes, you see why I talk much about bloodline and leaving your mark. Unless you are that unaccounted for great man of power who shakes the foundations of the earth, your plans must be measured in generations.

These archaic systems were powerful. The idea that you come together as a family to eat a meal today is a call back to a household performing its sacra to its Lar. Meals were how the ancients practiced their religion. If you remember from the Iliad, Agamemnon is making sacrifices left and right throughout the book. Dinner time was holy, be careful. As great and cozy as our ancestors' way of life seems to us today, there are problems with it at scale which played into its downfall.

Scalability was the Achilles’ heel of Aryan Households.

The way of the domestic religion was widely so successful, but its downside was it couldn’t keep up with its exponential growth. Beginning with the Greks, there was a realization that more was needed. The clan wasn’t enough, now there were several clans. This came together in the concept of the state. The state enabled Aryans to better field armies and the longer it remained, the more of the House Father or Clan Chief’s rights were taken by the state as the state’s interests grew. The state wasn’t opposed to the archaic household and clan as Christianity was, however. But it’s coming instituted policies that would later be exploited by the church.

Christianity — as we all know — was the ultimate bane to the Aryan household and clan system. The church’s policies were designed to isolate and eliminate the old ways. Hearn gives example of how the church forbids Christians from partaking in meals where the purpose of the meal was sacrifice to the household spirit. As barbaric as it was, Christians could not expose children as the House Father had the power to do. The church also forbade marriage to near kin. Christianity, through the church, put the old ways on the chopping block. Even today, you can get a Christian more fired up over something a Pagan said or did even though they had damn near zero power today versus getting fired up against the left which is actively tearing them from the world stage.

This leads to an important conversation that must be had. Maybe even my own view needs to be adjusted. A claim I’ve made before is that Christianity was made to destroy Paganism. Leftism was made to destroy Christianity. They know this purpose only and can’t seem to adapt. This idea was spurned while looking at the book, The Final Pagan Generation. There’s something about these new religions the old ways can’t compete with. Likewise, at some point, leftism will be supplanted by something else.

What made the state take the place of the clan? Growth? What made Christianity supplant the domestic religions? Was it also growth? Rome had conquered many peoples. Many now found themselves as part of the empire. Scalability seems to matter. How can you make religion incorporate as many people as possible? Now, that is the “wrong” question if you are aristocratic right. You are looking to be the best, but Napoleon does tell us that quantity has a quality of its own.

My point in talking about this isn’t to suggest some move to some kind of populism or whatever, but it is something we creators of the NEW FAITH must think about. What are you going to do to undo the mindfucking of the masses and get them in line for you? This isn’t a subject that Hearn speaks on. His work is on teaching the old ways which are very much worth your time if you care about these things. I do believe at least a part of the answer lies with the ancestors and that ancestor worship itself is important for the future. You must read this one. If you haven’t read The Ancient City, I would say read that first, but it isn’t required.