Odin’s Eye: The Far-Right’s Blind Spot
Mythic vs Mystic: Evola, Cassirer, and the QAnon Shaman
Warning. This article explores the ideology and mythic revival of the far right. I will cite authors I do not endorse. I will explain ideas that are not mine. And more importantly, it may smell quite foul. So be warned, Slick. I promise we will get out of this tunnel, but this descent into the abyss isn’t for the faint of heart.
Hey, Slick!
Do you remember the QAnon Shaman?
Or should I ask, how could we ever forget?
A man, shirtless in the January cold, standing beneath the Capitol dome, wearing furs and a horned helmet like some half-remembered vision of a Norse god.
Marching through the US Capitol, his face streaked with blue war paint, his arms tattooed with pagan symbols.
In one hand, a spear. In the other—a megaphone.
Shaman in the Capitol: Myth as Costume
The QAnon Shaman is a prophet to his followers, a punchline to the media. In his own eyes, though, he’s something more: a vessel for forgotten gods, a shaman at the heart of an empire on the brink, a guardian of America’s soul.
But here’s the thing.
If there’s a hole in your psyche, horns and face paint won’t fix it. Carving runes on your pickup truck won’t fix it.
The Shaman’s tattoos, horns, and face paint were borrowed feathers, not earned ones. He wasn’t Odin sacrificing his eye at Mímir’s Well; he was a dude from Arizona in a costume, wrapped in symbols he didn’t understand.
And yet—this wasn’t just personal delusion. His performance tapped into a broader movement where myth bleeds into politics, worn as armour but stripped of its transformative power.
The Far-Right’s Mythic Revival: from Cosmic Battle to Cultural War
#NotMyShaman
One thing the QAnon shaman surely is not is a blip, an anomaly. Quite the opposite: he’s a symptom. Across far-right movements, mythic symbols—Thor’s hammer, runes, and Roman fasces—are invoked as tokens of strength, purity, and cultural defense.
You’ll find runes marking banners at rallies. Thor’s hammer swinging beside Confederate flags. Iron Cross tattoos in military units. Myth, once layered with meaning, is now stripped to aesthetic rebellion.
In Charlottesville in 2017, runes were scrawled across shields and banners, juxtaposed with Confederate flags and swastikas. Thor’s hammer pendants dangled over shirts emblazoned with “Blood and Soil” slogans.
It’s not just in America, either. In Germany, Bundeswehr soldiers have been caught with Iron Cross and Valknut tattoos linked to white supremacist circles. In Sweden, Nordic Resistance marches show men with painted faces invoking berserkers.
This Isn’t Random. This isn’t just some man-child’s fantasy, dreamt up after binge-watching Marvel movies. Nor is it just a dog-whistle. It’s the foundation of a whole ideology, and we owe that to a self-proclaimed ‘super-fascist’. This weaponization of myth draws heavily from Julius Evola’s Traditionalism.
Evola’s Mythic Blueprint: Cosmic War and Degeneration
You’ve probably never heard of him. But the guy had quite the reach, and influenced the likes of Aleksandr Dugin (Putin’s Rasputin) who draws on Evola’s belief in sacred empires to frame Russia’s role in a mythic civilizational clash. Or Steve Bannon, who echoes Evola’s ideas by blending economic nationalism with mythic revivalism. Bannon calls for a return to Judeo-Christian values—a modern Kali Yuga war under different branding.
So what did Evola preach?
In Revolt Against the Modern World, Evola paints history as a spiraling descent. We are, he claims, living through the Kali Yuga—the age of decline and chaos.
To Evola, modernity is decay; liberalism, egalitarianism, and democracy aren’t signs of progress—they’re disease. Salvation lies in returning to sacred hierarchies, where myth restores cosmic order and separates the divine from the profane.
Hierarchy is sacred; democracy weakens the spirit; and only by reviving ancient mythic structures—those built on spiritual kingship, war, and sacrifice—can society reclaim its rightful place.
In this framework, the Far Right becomes the last spiritual warriors, protectors of ancient wisdom.
Their enemies? The agents of chaos—liberals, immigrants, feminists—forces that hasten cultural collapse.
Their task? To revive myth and hierarchy, and protect civilization from disintegration.
Or, to put it more plainly:
Me, blessed by the gods.
You, a barbarian.Valhalla, my destiny.
Your face, my hammer’s.
Evola’s Traditionalism sees myth as a cosmic weapon. But today, myth is rarely wielded for spiritual restoration. Mjölnir, Thor’s hammer, had become something else: a tool for reshaping culture. And if it’s light enough for anyone to wield, it’s because in the process, it’s become hollow.
And that’s maybe easier understood through another smelly author: Alain de Benoist.
De Benoist: Myth in the Service of Culture War
For all his wrongs, Evola approached myth with some form of integrity. His self-description as a “super-fascist” reflects a belief that fascism should transcend mere political ideology, put politics in the service of myth, like a cosmic script that needs the right cast to restore order.
Alain de Benoist is more of a marketing strategist for the Far Right. He isn’t building a temple, but franchising it; not summoning the gods to steer civilization, but airbrushing Thor for the next election poster. A much better fit for our Shaman.
Evola believed in myth as cosmic truth, an order to restore through spiritual elites; De Benoist doesn’t care about cosmic scales. For him, myth is more pragmatic—a tool to sculpt identity, shift politics, and guard borders. Evola sought priests and kings; De Benoist seeks voters.
For De Benoist, the gods aren’t timeless forces; they’re cultural mascots, trotted out to sell identity, draw borders, and keep globalization at bay. Instead of a war for cosmic order, de Benoist wages ‘metapolitics’: a long, slow war to reshape identity, culture, and belonging.
“Myth is the foundation of identity. To reclaim identity is to reclaim sovereignty.”
-Alain de Benoist
For de Benoist and the new Far Right, myth isn’t spiritual; it’s identity. In his case, the goal is to rekindle Europe’s pre-Christian, pagan mythologies to combat universalism, globalization, and cultural homogenization.
Who hurt you, Alain?
Evola called for spiritual elites to restore cosmic cycles; De Benoist called for cultural warriors to restore identity through myth, art, and narrative. The casting call for his crusade is open to all—no understanding of the myth behind the symbol necessary.
Myth becomes not so much a hammer or a spear, but a shield against modernity, binding people to ancestral lands, reinforcing tribal and national identity. Runes, shields, and Norse imagery are still more than aesthetics; they guard against the encroachment of globalization and multiculturalism—or universalism, liberalism, immigration, wokeness, and everything else they perceive as forces of cultural erasure. They see myth as the antidote—a reawakening of blood, land, and sacred belonging.
From Berserkers to Cultural Warriors
The Nordic Resistance Movement, Generation Identity, and the Alt-Right are inheritors of Evola’s cosmic battle and de Benoist’s cultural war. Thor’s hammer can be a tool as much as a weapon; in their hands, though, it’s mostly a banner. Odin’s runes aren’t mystical symbols, but marks of defiance.
But myth, stripped of mysticism and sacrifice, becomes fragile. It feeds the ego, not the spirit. That’s their blind spot, and as always in myth—mark my words, Slick—it will be their downfall.
Borrowed Gods: When Myth Loses Mystic
Across far-right movements, symbols drawn from Norse and Indo-European mythology are worn, painted, and tattooed with pride. But like cheap imitations of ancient relics, these symbols are stripped of their mystical core, reduced to signifiers of strength and tribal identity.
Anatomy of a failed shaman
The torso of our wannabe-shaman shows a trio of Odinist symbols.
At the top, a Valknut, or The Knot of the Slain. A symbol associated with Odin and the afterlife in Norse mythology. the far-right views the Valknut as a warrior’s emblem, a mark of Odin’s chosen who are bound for Valhalla. It signals loyalty, sacrifice, and warrior elitism.
Below, Yggdrasil, The World Tree. Yggdrasil represents ancestral roots, unity, and divine connection. For figures like Chansley, it’s a symbol of stability, cosmic order, and connection to Norse heritage.
Further down, Mjölnir, Thor’s Hammer. Mjölnir is used as a talisman of protection and power, worn to symbolize strength against enemies and the safeguarding of cultural purity. Thor becomes a symbol of white resistance, smashing forces that threaten tradition.
Then, on the upper arm, there’s the Triquetra, three interlocking loops often linked to Celtic and Norse traditions and used by the far-right as a symbol of unity, eternity, and interconnected strength, associated with pagan heritage and cultural purity.
And last but not least, the face paint. This war paint isn’t subtle. It’s loud, bold, and deliberate—a mashup of patriotism and tribalism. On the surface, it signals rebellion and warrior defiance, a declaration of allegiance to American ideals through the imagery of battle and resistance. But beneath the stars and stripes, the paint tells a more layered story—a blending of Norse, Indigenous, and shamanic influences. The far-right often leans into berserker imagery—frenzied warriors draped in fur, painted for battle, ready to unleash chaos. Face paint becomes part of this performance of ferocity.
So you think you can tell Asgard from Hel?
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. By turning myth into a weapon in the culture wars, the Far Right makes it a blunt instrument, and not even a good one at that: it’s hollow.
Myth is much deeper than propaganda. Even our ‘shaman’s’ symbols have layers left unturned.
The Valknut? It’s intimately tied to death, fate, and surrender to forces beyond one’s control. Odin doesn’t grant it to the strong—it marks those who walk the path of the doomed. It carries sacrificial energy, not conquest.
“They invite Odin’s gaze—but that gaze demands a price.”
Yggdrasil, the world tree, is not a stable monument. It trembles, decays, and bleeds. The tree exists in constant danger of collapse, gnawed by the serpent Níðhöggr. It reflects the fragility of existence, not unshakable power. To stand beneath it is to accept impermanence and the looming threat of Ragnarök.
“They invoke Yggdrasil, but they forget—even the gods cannot stop its branches from withering.”
Thor is not simply a destroyer or an invincible hero, but a flawed, burdened god who often must learn from his defeats. A protector of balance and humility whose hammer, Mjölnir, doesn’t just crush—it consecrates and heals.
“Mjölnir doesn’t guarantee victory—it reminds its wielder that strength without wisdom breaks the hand that holds it.”
The triquetra reflects the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. It speaks to transformation and balance, not rigid identity or dominance. In Norse myth, such symbols warn against stagnation—embracing change and chaos is essential to survival. Everything is interconnected: Land (Midgard), Sky (Asgard), and Underworld (Hel); Body, Mind, Soul.
And face paint isn’t just a symbol of strength—it’s an invitation to surrender the self. In battle, paint conceals identity and signals a willingness to become something else—often something destructive or lost. Berserkers painted their faces because they expected not to return as the same person.
The berserkers weren’t just avatars of rage; they walked the line between madness and the divine. Their power came at the cost of their humanity. Berserkers often lost their identities, succumbing to a dangerous ecstasy that could shatter their minds long after the battle ended. Not quite the clout chasing type.
“Face paint hides the self because the self must dissolve in war—but not all who paint their faces come back whole, especially if they have not already died to themselves.”
One-Eyed Wanderer, Blind Followers
There is more to the old symbol than the Far Right propagandists would have you believe, Slick. And there’s more to the old gods.
Odin is not a God of War as much as the One-Eyed Wanderer. The Far-Right invokes some aspects of Odin: the warrior king, the divine ruler of Valhalla who selects the bravest warriors to fight at Ragnarök.
But Odin isn’t simply a warlord. He’s a seeker, a poet, a magician, and a god of sacrifice. His power comes not from conquest, but from surrender: Odin sacrifices his eye for inner vision. He hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days and nine nights, and pierced himself with his own spear, so the runes would reveal themselves to him and grant him their power. The far-right sees the spear, but ignores the tree.
“I know that I hung on that windswept tree,
Nine long nights,
Wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
Myself to myself.”
–Hávamál (The Sayings of the High One)
Thor, the Protector, is likewise reduced to a Blunt Force Weapon, a guardian of purity, a hammer-wielding champion against outsiders and giants. But Thor isn’t invincible; he loses, stumbles, and ultimately relies on cooperation with others. His greatest trait is not his strength but his humility and resilience.
“They walk with Thor’s hammer—but refuse to hang from Odin’s tree.”
But where are the Valkyries?
And of course, there are some gods missing entirely in their playground cosmogony. Valkyries don’t fit the tradwife ethos.
Neither does Freyja, Goddess of War and Magic. She disrupts their fragile ideal of hyper-masculinity. As a goddess of fertility and love, she doesn’t fit into their warrior-only myth - but Freyja is also a battle goddess, claiming half the souls of slain warriors before Odin chooses his share.
She practices seiðr (Norse magic), a shamanic power that bends fate—the very magic she teaches Odin. By ignoring Freyja, they reject the feminine face of war and power.
Then there’s Loki. Trickster, Agent of Change, Loki represents chaos, ambiguity, and disruption—qualities at odds with their desire for order and purity and simple, easy-to-follow narratives.
Yet, without Loki, Asgard would stagnate. His mischief often brings innovation, necessary destruction, and renewal. Myth isn’t about preserving rigid structures but about embracing cycles of change and rebirth. In rejecting Loki, they reject the engine of transformation - the engine of fate, the very fate woven by the Norns that Odin himself cannot escape.
And how about Hel? Goddess of the Dead and the Outcasts. They should probably get acquainted—Hel governs those who die ordinary, ‘ignoble’ deaths. She doesn’t offer glory. She offers the truth no one wants to hear: most of us won’t make it to Valhalla.
The far-right ignores Hel because she complicates their heroic fantasy. But Hel anchors the mythic balance. Without her, the cosmos tilts.
“They wear the Valknut—but Hel waits beneath it.”
Ignore Hel at your peril. Even the gods bow to her in the end.
For the far-right, myth is about exceptionalism—not the fate of the unremarkable or forgotten. Hel’s existence disrupts their afterlife narrative. But death is inevitable—for all of us, not just warriors. Without Hel, there is no boundary between the realms, between the world and the underworld, between life and death. There is only bloodshed; peace dies with her.
Ironic they should overlook her. Just as Odin anchors the gods of Asgard, Hel anchors the forgotten, the ordinary, and the rejected. In myth, ignoring the shadow—the parts of existence we fear or deny—leads to imbalance and collapse.
The Danger of Half-Blind Myth
Myth can inspire, but it can also distort. The far-right’s selective embrace of Norse symbols turns spiritual figures into empty mascots, erasing the initiation, suffering, and ambiguity woven into the myths.
Worse: when myth is fragmented, it ceases to guide. It becomes a tool for dominance—a justification for tribalism, violence, and exclusion. For the Far Right, that might actually be the whole point. But to wield myth without acknowledging its full spectrum is to risk becoming its antagonist.
In borrowing symbols without their shadow, they risk summoning the wolf instead of the god.
The God who Wanders
In Norse myth, Odin’s knowledge doesn’t come without pain. Loki’s disruption brings renewal, not just destruction. And Freyja’s magic is not submission, but mastery over fate. The lack of depth and nuance and myth is not just partial; it is dangerous.
Evola was erudite, but his spiritual elitism distorted myth into hierarchical cosmic battles. His obsession with purity and decay fuels the selective embrace of myths that reinforce strength and dominance.
De Benoist translates this spiritual war into cultural war. Myth is wielded not as a tool of enlightenment but as a fortress against liberalism, migration, and perceived threats to identity.
In their vision, Odin is no longer the god who wanders, but the god who guards borders.
How does one base their whole identity on such obvious contradictions, Slick? Let’s ask Ernst Cassirer.
Cassirer’s Warning: Myth and the Masks of Power
Cassirer wasn’t dealing with Viking cosplayers in furs or fascists in Thor pendants. But he understood the danger of myth’s reawakening in the political sphere better than most. Writing as fascism swallowed Europe, Cassirer warned of something chillingly familiar—myth, when untethered from spiritual introspection, becomes a weapon.
The Myth of the State
In The Myth of the State, Cassirer describes how authoritarian regimes hijack mythic narratives to manufacture consent and justify dominance. Where once myth was a vehicle for meaning, initiation, and cosmic alignment, in the hands of fascists, it degenerated into raw propaganda.
Myth went from quest to cage. It was no longer about seeking truth or connecting with the transcendent. It became a tool to control populations, to stir primal emotions, and to construct rigid national identities that could not tolerate outsiders or ambiguity.
Sounds familiar?
Then comes the Heroic Lie, Cassirer’s take on Plato’s Noble Lie1. The heroic lie is when leaders emerge cloaked in borrowed symbols of destiny, casting themselves as warriors in cosmic battles—prophets guarding the soul of civilization from corruption, mythologizing their rise to power as destiny. Symbols, parades, and grand narratives create the illusion that these leaders are chosen by fate.
Cassirer didn’t mince words:
"The new political myths do not pretend to lead to truth but to hold and bind us in collective action... They do not enlighten but enslave."
– The Myth of the State (1946)
The Far-Right’s Hollow Myth: Too Wyrd For You
Cassirer was right. Myth is powerful—powerful enough that any idiot with a moustache can wield it and bypass rationality entirely.
That’s how strong myth is, how powerfully charged, how persistent in our collective unconscious.
But Cassirer knew myth could not simply be dismantled. His fear wasn’t myth itself, but myth without reflection—myth severed from the mystic, worn as a mask instead of walked as a path.
It’s not myth that enslaves, Slick. It’s what happens when myth is half-told and used to shield fragile egos.
But Cassirer also got one thing very wrong.
He thought rationality was also the antidote to fascism’s mythic spectacle. But myth isn’t defeated by reason—it outlasts it, and by aeons. Reason alone can’t contend with the allure of narrative, the magnetic pull of heroism, symbols, and cosmic battles.
This isn’t new, Slick; Jung mapped this terrain. Campbell charted the hero’s path. The way forward is not to abandon myth, but to reclaim the parts that make you sweat. Not to flatten myth into banners, but to embrace its full cycle—light and shadow, creation and decay.
The far-right’s myth-making is dangerous not because they embrace Odin, Thor, or Yggdrasil, but because they do it poorly: they deny the death that precedes rebirth, the chaos that fertilizes order.
And let me tell you, Slick: myth punishes those who deny its shadow.
They summon Odin as a warrior but forget he’s a wanderer. They wield Thor’s hammer but forget it blesses as often as it breaks. They invoke Yggdrasil but deny the serpent gnawing at its roots. And that serpent? It doesn’t care if you believe in it or not.
Mímir’s Well: Beyond the Blind Spot
So what’s the way forward? You don’t win against mythic distortion by dismantling myth—you do it by reclaiming the full story.
Reintegrating the Shadow
The parts they ignore—Hel, Loki, Freyja, and the unremarkable dead—are not lesser. They are the anchors of the mythic structure. Without them, the entire framework collapses.
More Rituals, Less Politics
Myth isn’t meant to dictate policy or serve as an identity shield. It’s meant to initiate, to transform the self, to walk someone through suffering, surrender, and renewal.
Facing the Abyss
The far-right’s selective myth leaves no room for self-sacrifice, humility, or descent. And that’s why it’s fragile. Without acknowledging the necessity of loss and chaos, their myth shatters the moment it meets real conflict. To wield myth is to walk the full road—not just in the light, but through the underworld.
Holding the Whole Tree
At Ragnarök, Odin dies. So does Thor. But the gods don’t fight to win—they fight because it’s Wyrd, or Destiny. Because even in the face of inevitable collapse, the act of standing, of confronting fate, holds meaning.
The world that emerges after is not the same, but it is reborn.
“To hold the hammer, you must also hold the wound. To invoke the gods, you must pay their price.”
And that’s the far-right’s blind spot, Slick.
They want Valhalla without the spear.
Victory without sacrifice.
Myth without initiation.
But that’s not how this works.
So let them scrawl runes they don’t understand. Let them march with hammers they can’t lift. The gods see through the charade—and when the wolves of Ragnarök come, they’ll know who truly paid the cost.
And it may not be the guy in face paint.
Yes, Slick, Plato believed it was OK to lie. Cassirer’s concept of the heroic lie draws heavily from Plato in The Republic, where he suggests that society might require myths—deliberate fabrications that uphold social order and inspire citizens to embrace their roles within a structured hierarchy. Specifically, for Plato, the myth of gold, silver, and bronze souls, which designates rulers, warriors, and workers, is essential for maintaining societal harmony. This lie isn’t malicious but a necessary fiction to ensure that the state functions smoothly—a “Noble Lie”.
I can’t tell you how deeply this essay hit me. During my fifteen years of Jungian analysis I tended to identify more with the Greeks than the Norse, but I read Bullfinch’s mythology and Edith Hamilton, as well as many books by Jungian analysts relating myths of one sort and another with psychological problems and their resolutions. I was brought up a Methodist—no statues of saints in the churches I attended. We barely recognized the existence of saints. So when I encountered Jung, I was ripe for the sensuality of imagery.
I have not lost that love of richness, but I have missed it a lot since I left the Jungian community. Thank you for bringing it back to life!
I have a really deep and resonant experience reading some of your essays mate and really believe you are onto something good with this publication's overall project aims. I even cross-posted your recent essay on the Dark Elves Fallacy critique of NRx.
That being said, as a minor point of contention for myself - I get frustrated when critics on the mainstream left such as within podcasting, academic and journalistic spheres let their emotional reactions and hysteria bleed into what could otherwise be good quality dispassionate exploration.
When I personally hear "stinky far right" and stuff along the lines of "content warning: think of the non-binary children writing gay smut (check out my piece on joining a writer's group for this reference)" I just roll my eyes a bit because it tends to look like someone having an emotional seizure.