----- Original Message -----
From: "Selvårv Stigård" <selvarv@...>
To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 8:45 PM
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Edred Thorsson's books
> However, if you're well-read in psychology and esoterica in general,
> the latter half of _Runelore_ does have plenty of amusement value -
> you can play "spot the undocumented sources". I particularly liked
> Jung's map of the soul with a name-replacement of "lík", "hamr",
> "óðr", "önd", "hugr", "minni", sál" and "fylgja" in place of body,
> anima, sensation, emotion, intellect, consciousness, subconsciousness
> and collective subconsciousness.
I'm not so sure this is undocumented, as he explicitly titled that section
"Runic and Jungian Psychology", and specifically discusses some of Jung's
ideas in relation to Germanic psyche/soul concepts. If you want the purely
academic/non-speculative version, minus the Jung references, see Stephen E.
Flowers, "Towards an Archaic Germanic Psychology" In Journal of
Indo-European Studies, Volume II: Number 1&2, 1983. This discusses Germanic
soul/psyche concepts from a linguistic perspective.
The thing with Thorsson/Flowers which is good to keep in mind is that he
*is* a scholar of Germanic languages and literatures, as his Ph.D. would
attest, but he generally works in a dualized fashion. On one hand he does
objective/academic work (cf. "Runes and Magic", along with articles
published in academic journals, etc.). He is recognized and cited by noted
scholars such as Klaus Düwel (author of "Runenkunde") and Edgard Polomé (an
eminent Indo-European scholar of numerous works). On the other hand he does
more subjective work (i.e. most of the material published through Samuel
Weiser/Lewellen etc.). This is necessarily directed at a non-scholarly
audience (as the publisher would attest). There are certain strengths to
this polarised approach which are probably not relevant to a language list,
so I won't digress.
But having said that, I enjoyed the rest of your post on peorð.
Regards,
Aaron Cheak