Exoteric and Esoteric Heathenry

External vs hidden practices, and where so many mistake the latter for the former...

When I say or write the word esoteric, certain ideas will come to mind. Perhaps it is someone kneeling in prayer, having fasted for days, seeking union with God. Perhaps it is a person rocking back and forth as they mutter words in a seemingly endless string, calling on spirits to enter into their body. Perhaps it is a person in saffron robes contemplating the truth of reality. Esoteric practices can include all of these things. What they do not describe are exoteric practices.

From the Cambridge Dictionary we have the following definitions for esoteric:

“Very unusual and understood or liked by only a small number of people, especially those with special knowledge” and “intended for or understood by only a few people who have special knowledge”.

Exoteric's definition from the Cambridge Dictionary:

“Intended or suitable for people generally, not only for some people”.

In other words, exoteric religion is accessible and for everyone, while esoteric is for only those with specialized knowledge or interest. Exoteric religion in Heathenry is the everyday stuff everyone does, from the youngest to the oldest, like engaging in hearth cultus, making offerings, or making prayers. Exoteric religion is foundation to being a Heathen. It is the living of the ethics, like hospitality, that everyone is expected to do. In other words, it is mainstream Heathenry.

Esoteric religious expression in Heathenry are things like engaging in magic of various kinds (whether seiðr, Runes, making taufr, etc.), engaging in communication with the Ginnreginn through divination, or working to encounter Ginnreginn through techniques like útiseta (sitting out). Esoteric religious expression in Heathenry can take a lot of forms, but what unites them in common is that none of them are necessary to being a Heathen. Esoteric religion can have massive impacts on how we engage in exoteric Heathenry, eg the results of divination can drastically change your life, but you also do not have to be the one to do it. You can live a perfectly happy life as a Heathen and never draw a Rune or drop a card in divination, and either let someone else do that for you, or simply never bother with divination in the first place.

Exoteric religion is the foundation for esoteric religion and experiences. Without exoteric religion, the esoteric religion has nothing to build on, hold on to, or grow from. Without exoteric religion the esoteric religion is unmoored from a solid worldview in which anything makes sense. While everyone can have their own entrypoint into Heathenry and Heathen magic from wherever they come in, without the underpinning of where magic comes from and what it means with an established cosmos and standard ways to interact with it, it is unfocused and without form.

Esoteric religious practices, such as engaging in forms of magic like seiðr or Runework, have no basis without the exoteric religious practices that underpin them. Without the specifically Heathen worldview and character those esoteric religious practices are founded on and embodied through in Heathen exoteric belief and practice, there is no Heathen esoteric religion. Exoteric religion and religious expression is made from the basic forms of polytheism and animism that is the basis of all Heathenry. This is why I say so very often that orthodoxy and orthopraxy are two sides of the same coin, as orthodoxy informs orthopraxy. Orthopraxy fulfills the orthodoxy, because without the orthopraxy there would be no point to why right thinking would matter. Praxis, the specific forms of hospitality, ritual, and other forms of religious expression comes about as a result of a given Heathen community or individual Heathen’s community, training, and/or personal relationships with their Ginnreginn. Without these expressions of exoteric praxis that undergirds the whole thing, there can be no esoteric practice.

Without the foundation of the exoteric, the esoteric has nothing to rise from, and no meaning can really be usefully gleaned when there is interaction with the Ginnreginn or cosmos at large when esoteric practices are engaged with. Without the foundation of the exoteric the esoteric has nothing to usefully compared, contrast, and discern itself with. Remember, the exoteric are all the things accessible to everyone without specialized training. These would be knowledge of the Ginnreginn, such as the myths and sagas, as well as modern teachings on these subjects through teachers, institutional and individual. The exoteric practices would be those accessible to everyone, including prayers, offerings, right relationship, and the marking of time and holidays.

The esoteric paths in Heathenry build from the exoteric foundations available to everyone. Rune magic does not exist without Óðinn and the other Ginnreginn that have received the Runes, without the narratives that explain what the Runes are and do, and without the history of Rune magic we can still see in the written, archaeological, and modern resources left to us. There is no seiðr without Freyja, and the many sagas that form the understanding we have of seiðr in all its forms, written and archaeological, and modern expressions of it. Esoteric religion and religious expression is in ongoing dialogue with the exoteric religion and religious expression underpinning Heathenry, the Ginnreginn in whom those relationships are based, those who practice it. From these dialogues the trainings, initiations, and lessons given to esoteric practitioners, and modern practitioners of these esoteric practices themselves are given shape, form, and create their own dialogue with one another. From this grounding in exoteric Heathen religion, esoteric practitioners and what they bring into community can make dialogue, and then lasting, useful impact on exoteric Heathenry.