Blavatsky on Norse Scandinavian Mythology

One of the many innovations that Blavatsky brought to the study of world religions is the integration of esoteric and mystical interpretation into the burgeoning study of Norse mythology. An introduction to her fairly extensive writing on the subject. Note that Blavatsky's interest was of a spiritual nature. She did not give any political interpretations and did not prioritize specific racial interpretations of this topic.

In the Scandinavian Cosmogony — placed by Professor Max Muller, in point of time, as “far anterior to the Vedas” in the poem of Voluspa (the song of the prophetess), the Mundane egg is again discovered in the phantom-germ of the Universe, which is represented as lying in the Ginnungagap (1)— the cup of illusion (Maya) the boundless and void abyss. In this world’s matrix, formerly a region of night and desolation, Nebelheim (2) (the mist-place, the nebular as it is called now, in the astral light) dropped a ray of cold light which overflowed this cup and froze in it. Then the Invisible blew a scorching wind which dissolved the frozen waters and cleared the mist. These , called the streams of Elivagar, (3) distilling in vivifying drops, fell down and created the earth and the giant Ymir, (4) who only had “the semblance of man” (the Heavenly man), and the cow, Audhumla (5) (the “mother” or astral light, Cosmic Soul) from whose udder flowed four streams of milk (the four cardinal points: the four heads of the four rivers of Eden, etc., etc.) and which “four” allegorically are symbolized by the cube in all its various and mystical meanings. (Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, 387)

1- Ginnungagap boundless and void abyss	cup of illusion (Maya)
2- Nebelheim, Nifiheim mist-place	the nebular as it is called now, in the astral light
3- streams of Elivagar	waters (chaos)
4- Ymir, giant, semblance of man	Heavenly man
5 -Audhumla, cow,	“mother” or astral light, Cosmic Soul
four streams of milk	four cardinal points: the four heads of the four rivers of Eden, cube

 

(1) There is no obvious reference to an egg here, in Blavatsky's main source,  Asgard and the Gods (WilhelmWagner, 1880), p. 22:' Allfather, the Uncreated, the Unseen, dwelt in the depth of the abyss and willed, and what he willed came into being.' Similar to Hiranyagharba myth? Although more recent research equates the egg with the rune Haglaz.

Ginnungagap (Scand.). The “cup of illusion” literally ; the abyss of the great deep, or the shoreless, beginningless, and endless, yawning gulf; which in esoteric parlance we call the “World’s Matrix”, the primordial living space. The cup that contains the universe, hence the “cup of illusion”. (Theosophical Glossary)

 

(2) Nifiheim (Scand.). The cold Hell, in the Edda. A place of eternal non-consciousness and inactivity. (See Secret Doctrine, Vol. II., p. 245). (TG)

 

(3) Elivagar (Scand.). The waters of Chaos, called in the cosmogony of the Norsemen “the stream of Elivagar”. (TG)

 

(4) Ymir (Scand.). The personified matter of our globe in a seething condition. The cosmic monster in the form of a giant, who is killed in the cosmogonical allegories of the Eddas by the three creators, the sons of Bör, Odin, Wili and We, who are said to have conquered Ymir and created the world out of his body. This allegory shows the three principal forces of nature—separation, formation and growth (or evolution) conquering the unruly, raging “giant” matter, and forcing it to become a world, or an inhabited globe. it is curious that an ancient, primitive and uncultured pagan people, so philosophical and scientifically correct in their views about the origin and formation of the earth, should, in order to be regarded as civilized, have to accept the dogma that the world was created out of nothing!  (TG)

 

(5) Audumla (Scand.) The Cow of Creation, the “nourisher”, from which flowed four streams of milk which fed the giant Ymir or Örgelmir (matter in ebullition) and his sons, the Hrimthurses (Frost giants), before the appearance of gods or men. Having nothing to graze upon she licked the salt of the ice-rocks and thus produced Buri, “the Producer” in his turn, who had a son Bör (the born) who married a daughter of the Frost Giants, and had three sons, Odin (Spirit), Wili (Will), and We (Holy). The meaning of the allegory is evident. It is the precosmic union of the elements, of Spirit, or the creative Force, with Matter, cooled and still seething, which it forms in accordance with universal Will. Then the Ases, “the pillars and supports of the World” (Cosmocratores), step in and create as All-father wills them.  (TG)