If not hell, then what?
Christian or Judaeo-Christian apostasy (official renunciation of religion) becomes more and more popular, particularly in Poland. The decision to commit apostasy causes unease in the Judaeo-Christian part (or – in case of Poland – majority) of the society, worried that abandoning the “guidance” of Bible, the 10 commandments and the priest, living without the fear of God, hell and eternal damnation will cause the apostates to fall into ethical and moral chaos.
The concerns of Judaeo-Christians are not difficult to understand. After all many pagan religions – including Slavic Native Faith – do not recognise the concept of universal good and evil, the concept of sin, hell or the last judgement. However there can also be no doubt that our ancestors – the original, pre-Christian followers of Slavic Native Faith – despite not professing the Christian religion, not knowing about sins and not being guided by the Bible and the 10 commandments, somehow still managed not to fall into chaos, which the modern pagans are so commonly accused of nowadays. Pre-Christian pagans – not only Slavic Pagans, but any ethnic or cultural group – not only were able to build stable societies, countries and empires, not only were able to create laws, that were followed, but also were able to peacefully coexist with followers of other – pagan or Judaeo-Christian – religions. So today we will be examining the motivations behind the ethical and moral choices of our ancestors, trying to understand how it was possible that, without the fear of hell and eternal damnation, somehow, they did not descend into chaos of sinful hedonism.
Dura lex, sed lex
The law was certainly one of the elements supporting the moral backbone of our ancestors. Although the original legal codices of the laws of Slavic pagans did not survive to our times, the elements of our ancestors’ judicial system were incorporated into the legal codices written after the Christianisation of the Slavic land, hence we do have a pretty good idea about the body of pagan laws.
The important difference between the modern and early medieval judicial system is the way the accused’s guild or innocence was judged. In modern times the legal trial might not be the most pleasant experience for the accused, nevertheless it is not, in itself, a punishment (and most certainly not a corporal one). It was, however, quite different in the societies of our pre-Christian ancestors, who, while deciding on the guilt or innocence of the accused, commonly used trial by ordeal (known also as the judgement of Gods), so, in the understanding of the modern law – torture.
Ordeal by boiling water (“Der Kesselfang” Friedrich Hottenroth)
Trial by ordeal was considered a sort of evidentiary hearing, held in situations when the guilt or innocence of the accused could not be established basing on physical evidence or witness testimony. For example, if a horse was stolen, and there was neither witnesses, nor convincing evidence indicating who committed this theft, but the owner of the horse (or another member of the community) had reasons to suspect that the theft was committed by, let’s say, his neighbour, then it was within the rights of the owner of the horse to accuse the neighbour of the theft and expect the court or adjudicating body (in the case of pre-Christian Slavs, typically a council of elders) to hear the case. With no witnesses or evidence, in order to prove the guilt or innocence of the accused, a trial by ordeal was held. Depending on the type of the crime, different type of ordeal was used. So, there was an ordeal of: water (either drowning or making the accused submerge a part of the his/her body in boiling water), fire (for example: torching the skin, forcing the accused to touch/hold red-hot iron), combat (duel) or even ingestion (forcing food down the accused’s throat). After the trial by ordeal took place the guilt or innocence of the accused was established basing on whether the trialled survived or not (in ordeals of combat or drowning), how well the injuries were healing (after a trial by boiling water or fire), or basing on whether the trialled was choking or not (in trial by ingestion). Of course, if the guilt was confirmed by the ordeal, the accused (or, actually, after failing the trial of ordeal – the guilty of the crime) had to still be punished for committing the crime. The punishment could be: flogging, cutting off a part of the body, exile or even death.
There were two possible ways to avoid being tried by ordeal. One way was to admit the guilt (and accepting the punishment required by the law), and the other was to present witnesses, who, under oath, vouched for the innocence of the accused. Obviously, those witnesses had to be, as it’s called (and in the olden times, which I’ll explain below, it was actually seen like that), pillars of the community, so respected and upstanding members on the community of the village/settlement. The witnesses vouched for the accused’s innocence by swearing by – so summoning for witnesses – the Gods themselves. From the chronicle of Helmond we know that Slavs did their best to avoid making such oaths, as they were concerned (rightfully so!), that calling the God or Gods to be a witness could angered the God or Gods and the anger could be directed towards the person who takes such oath.
Considering the above, there’s no doubt that, despite not knowing the Bible or the Decalogue, despite not being aware of the concept of sin or hell (the ultimate Judeo-Christian punishments for the sinners), the pre-Christian Slavs had every reason to avoid breaking the laws ruling their societies. I’d even say that our ancestors had more of those reasons than the modern Judaeo-Christians. Because in those times, in early Medieval Ages the punishment – most commonly corporal punishment – was imposed not only on those who were guilty of a crime, but also on those who were only suspected of committing it. Without any physical evidence and without respectable and reputable friends (who could vouch for the accused’s innocence), anyone suspected of committing a crime, had to prove his/hers innocence by the trial of ordeal (so: drowning, burning, scolding) which, in itself, was a punishment.
The Gods’ wrath
We know already how cruel the treatment of suspects in the judicial system of our ancestors was. But, apart of the laws created to protect humans, pre-Christian Slavs knew also laws created – or imposed upon humans – in order to protect the name and dignity of the Gods, as well as – which will be explained below – in order to protect the stability and the order of the universe.
One of such laws was keeping one’s oath, or – while under oath – always saying the truth and nothing but the truth. As I mentioned before, our ancestors tried to avoid swearing or taking oaths, not only by the Gods, but in general. This reluctance to swear was a result of widely held belief, that breaking an oath could not only anger a God (or other supernatural being/spirit/power by whom/which the oath was made, like, for example: water, fire or earth), in whose name one swore, but also disrupt the order of the world, damage the foundations, supporting not only the society of our ancestors, but the universe in general.
Etymological analysis of Slavic languages indicates that original Proto-Slavic word “*prisę̀ga” – oath remained pretty much unchanged since it developed in the language of our ancestors roughly 2 thousands years ago. Proto-Slavic “*prisę̀ga” has the same etymology as “*sę̀gati”, which means “to reach, to attain”. The common etymological root of Proto-Slavic words for “oath” and “to reach” confirms what we already know from other historical and anthropological sources: the original followers of Slavic Faith (as well as their ancestors, because the common ethymology of “oath” and “to reach” can be traced in other Indo-European languages) while making an oath, reached out to the earth, fire, water or a representation of the power of God/Gods (for example to a holy tree), to attain the support of the power of the element or God in order to strengthen the oath. The action of reaching out to the element/God, the action of grasping and attaining the additional support or foundation to the words of the oath, made the oath more true, more solid, gave the oath the infallible properties of the element or the God who was called upon/reached out to. By the act of making an oath and upholding it, our ancestors created pillars of a safe, tame, irrefutable and solid world of humans. The words of oaths, the sworn statements of our ancestors were the foundations of the order of the world of pre-Christian Slavs. Thanks to those words – supported by the power of the elements - our ancestors knew that the war was over (because an oath was made while agreeing on a peace treaty), and it was safe to travel; that one suspected to be a murderer, was in fact not a murderer (because a respectable person – a pillar of the community – vouched for this person under oath), so he/she will not break in the house and kill them or their family. I was the oaths, supported and strengthened by the power of the elements, that allowed our ancestors to safely and peacefully sleep, plan the future and agree trade deals, knowing that the world they know, the world they live in is founded on solid and secure pillars of oaths.
Modern scientific research is XXI century equivalent of the pagan, pre-Christian oath. As our ancestors believed, that the taken and sworn oath will be kept, so we believe in the rules of physics, chemistry or biology - rules written in textbooks and scientific papers. Most of us don’t know exactly how a car, a plane or a microwave work, yet we still use those things on a daily or almost daily basis, believing that the scientists and engineers don’t lie. We believe, we are certain that the car won’t burst into flames, the plane won’t fall from the sky and the microwave won’t explode. To understand the strength of our believe in the scientific research and its importance for the stability of our reality and societies, it is enough to analyse the effects of one false scientific research authored by Andrew Wakefield.
Andrew Wakefield is – or rather was, because in 2010 he was struck off from the medical register - a British physician. As a physician, after graduating from a medical school, he took a medical oath (also known as Hippocratic oath), in which he swore, among others, to do no harm and to put the wellbeing of his patient first, above any other consideration. He broke this oath around 1995, when he decided to falsify the results of his research on autism. (Back then still) doctor Wakefield started cooperation with lawyers, who represented parents of children affected by autism. Those lawyers, motivated by financial gain, needed “evidence” to support a claim that MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccination cause autism. For an appropriate fee Wakefield started “research” into this matter, wanting to provide such “evidence”. In order to “prove” the connection between MMR vaccination and autism Wakefield not only falsified the results of his research, but also put the subjects of his research (autistic children) through invasive procedures such as colonoscopies, colon biopsies or spinal taps. Basically, for money and with a consent of the parents (who, sadly, at least partially were in it for the money), Wakefield was performing illegal experiments on children. Experiments, which results were then falsified to „prove” that vaccination were harmful. The “results” of this experiments were then used by the lawyers to sue the manufacturers of the vaccinations (pharmaceutical companies) and, through litigation, gain compensation money. Wakefield’s “research” was also published in a scientific paper, printed by a renowned scientific journal The Lancet.
Although the “results” of Wakefield’s “research” was quite quickly verified and refuted by independent scientists (and Wakefield was struck off from a medical register in 2010), the harm done by the publication of one false scientific paper can be seen and felt until now. The act of breaking a single oath has caused – literally – a collapse of the whole word for thousands, if not millions of people. Only in 2019 over 200 thousands unvaccinated children died as a direct result of measles. That means that for over 200 thousands parents their world – the world they knew, loved and wanted to live in – collapsed and crushed down, and never will be the same again. The world of those parents collapsed not because of some natural disaster, not because of bad luck or fate. Their world – the world of their family, their love and hope for the future – fell apart, because in 1995 Andrew Wakefield broke his medical oath and produced “scientific research”, in which the parents of the unvaccinated children believed as much, as our ancestors believed in the words of an oath. The strength of the belief in Wakefield “research” made those parents decide not to have their children vaccinated (to “protect” them from autism), which left the children vulnerable to measles infection and – caused their death.
Knowing the history of XX and XXI century, seeing the political and socioeconomical situation of the modern world, one can only come to one conclusion: the world we know is falling apart. Many blames it on more and more widespread rejection of God, religion or Judaeo-Christian tradition or culture. Many call the collapse of the world’s order the God’s wrath or God’s punishment. But I, seeing the consequences of breaking one oath (the medical oath taken by Wakefield), I wonder if our pagan ancestors’ way of ensuring stability in the word was not the right, the correct and the truest way. The world of pre-Christian pagan Slavs was built on immaterial, yet solid foundation of oaths. Oaths, that were taken reluctantly, but – when taken – they were always and unconditionally upheld. The world of our ancestors was held by the strength of character and believes of people so righteous, so worthy, that their words, their oaths, supported by the power of Gods and the elements, were stalwart enough to protect others from chaos and injustice.
Do we, the modern people, not only Rodnovers, build our lives on foundations as solid as the oaths of the pagans? How many of us are aware of our responsibilities as human beings? How many of us see and understand, that it is us – not the governments or corporations - it is us who are responsible for creating the foundations of the human world. How many of us use words – promises and oaths – in a responsible and conscious way? How many of us keep their promises and their oaths? Promises given to our own children, marital vows, professional oaths? How many of us believe that the vows taken by others, let’s say members of the Parliament or a newly elected president, will be kept? No wonder our modern world is falling apart, if it is built on lies and false promises, and not on upheld and unconditionally respected oaths. The God’s or Gods’ wrath has nothing to do with it. It is us who, more or less purposefully, bring the end of our own world. It is us, who – through lies and broken oaths – kill our children and, through them, kill our future.
The hell of oblivion
The laws created by the societies of our ancestors, as well as the awareness of catastrophic consequences of perjury were not the only elements supporting the moral backbones of our ancestors. The third, perhaps the most important element motivating the moral conduct of pre-Christian Slavs was their belief in the afterlife.
Our not-Christian ancestors did not know the concept of hell or heaven. Which, obviously, did not mean that they did not believe in life or existing after death or in a punishment – or rather a consequence – waiting for those, who, when alive, did not follow the ethical and moral code of the original, pre-Christian Slavic Faith. However, contrary to Judeo-Christian beliefs, the post-mortem punishment or reward was not given by the Gods, but by the living people – most commonly the family of the deceased.
The rules of the original Slavic Faith gave the living nearly total control over the fate of the dead. According to the beliefs of the pre-Christian Slavs, depending on the type (or lack) of the funeral rite, after death, the soul of a human could either stay in the world of the living, or pass over to the underworld (which, by the way, in Slavic languages, is not called under-world, but rather after- or behind-world). And, after passing over, the quality of “life” of the dead, depended on (or, one can say, was decided by) the living too.
Passing over to the (after-, behind- or) underworld (also called Navia) required the body of the deceased to be burned on a pyre. This burning of the body allowed the soul of the deceased to “separate”, which was necessary before travelling to the world of the dead. If the body of the deceased was not burned, his/her soul remained “stuck”. Our Slavic ancestors knew this rule very well and – as always creative and full of useful ideas – used it for their own needs. It was, for example, very common to bury the dead (usually new-borns or young children) under the household’s threshold. The soul of the dead who was buried in this way became trapped in the walls of the house and became a protective spirit.
The rule “unburned body-trapped soul” was one of the main reasons, why our ancestors regularly performed rituals of Dziady. For those familiar with Slavic culture and tradition, Dziady is mainly associated with the veneration of the ancestors. This association is, of course, correct, but apart of being a ritual of veneration of the ancestors, performed to allow the ancestors to maintain contact with their living members of the family, Dziady was also an opportunity to lead out to Navia (the underworld) any and every soul trapped in the world of the living (obviously with exception of the souls trapped on purpose in the walls of the households). In order to lead out the souls the pre-Christian Slavs called them with songs and spells and, with the help of the holy fire, showed them the way to the world of the dead.
After passing over to Navia – during an appropriate funeral rite, or during Dziady – the souls of the dead remained there until they were called out by the living members of the family and invited to the ritual feast of Dziady. We don’t know for sure what happened (or, perhaps, is still happening) to the souls, which were not called out to participate in Dziady. Perhaps they resided in Navia as birds, perhaps were shepherded by Veles, or perhaps they simply dissolved “in the nameless crowd of ancestors”. Whatever happened to those souls, one thing we can say for certain: their “life” was not particularly interesting. They had nothing to eat, nobody to talk to, they could not help or advise anyone. They also could not leave Navia, because passing back from the world of the dead to the world of the living required the help of the living, who performed the ritual of Dziady. It’s no wonder then that the original followers of Slavic Faith, when alive, did everything they could, to become respected and valuable members of the family and society in general. After all, if they were unkind, unfriendly, unhelpful and egocentric, nobody wanted to interact with them when they were alive, let alone after they passed away. If, while alive, they did not gain friendship or love of the people closest to them, after death they could only expect the worst possible punishment – oblivion.
Hope for the future
The moral backbone of our ancestors was not supported – like the Judeo-Christian ethic – by two stone tablets with one set of rules, but by three independent elements: the laws of the people, the laws of the Gods and the laws ruling the afterlife. Because of these three independent, but working together elements, a pre-Christian Slav was less likely to (using Judeo-Christian terminology) become a sinner. In order to avoid torture (of both trial by ordeal and the actual punishment for a crime), to not to shake the foundation of the reality itself (by breaking an oath) and – after death – to avoid falling into the void of oblivion and loneliness, our ancestors simply had to live in harmony and peace with not only their families, but also with all the other members of their community. They had to live in such way, to not to be even suspected of committing a crime; to have trusted friends – particularly among respected members of the community, so, if needed, those friends could vouch for their innocence; to be respected and valued enough by their own families, to, after death, still be invited to share their food, drink, and the light and warmth of holy fire of the Dziady ritual.
Although modern laws are much more lenient than in Medieval times, and trials by ordeal are not legal anymore, the modern Rodnovers still can (and perhaps even should) use the law as a sort of a guide in interpersonal interactions. Mainly because the laws of most of the contemporary laic and democratic countries are created with the purpose of protecting the human rights. It means that observing the XXI century codices of laws (let me stress it again: laws of laic and democratic countries) makes it easier for Rodnovers to function within the society in a harmonious and peaceful way, which allows us to build honest, respect-based relationships with others, which in turn increases the chance of being respected, remembered and invited to Dziady ritual after we pass away. For the very same reason modern Rodnovers should care about the health and future of their children as well as the natural environment. After all our children will be the keepers of our souls. If we ruin their future – either through lack of parental responsibilities, or through, for example, complete and utter destruction of the environment – there won’t be anyone to remember about us after we die. And in the Slavic tradition oblivion is worse than (Judeo-Christian) hell.
Slava!
Bibliography:
S. Sielicki “Indo-Iranian parallels of the Slavic water rites and oath and guilt confirmation attested in Medieval Latin accounts and Slavic law codices
J. Grković-Major “On Proto-Slavic oath formulas”
A. Brückner „Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego”
A. Szyjewski „Religia Słowian”