This is my forty-fourth monthly teaching letter and continues my fourth year of publication. In the last several lessons we have been on the subject of Egypt. In lesson #42 we got on the subject of the “Ashet Tree” which is inscribed several times on Egyptian obelisks. After writing that lesson, I have found much more information concerning the “Ash Tree.” Then I wrote about the “Ash Tree” again in lesson #43. This has led to an extended research into Norse Mythology. Norse Legend would be a better designation, for there is little myth about Norse Mythology. Since writing lesson #43 an avalanche of information has come my way on that subject too. There is so much material to present on this, I hardly know where to start. For the moment, it is imperative we drop the subject of Egypt to cover, in some degree, the beliefs of the Norse. Evidence is coming forth that the so-called gods of the Norse like Odin, Balder and Frea are actually real people and not myth. Also, for those who are interested in Odinism, I would warn you, there are twisted half-truths and downright lies on the Internet concerning him. After we have covered this interrelated subject, we will get back to “Walking Step By Step Through Israel’s Sojourn In Egypt From Joseph Until Joshua.” If you don’t have lessons #42 and #43, you might want to get copies in order to see how we arrived on this topic and what it is all about. The best place I know to start this is with The Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition (1894), vol. 2, page 594 under the topic “Asgard”:
“The historical explanation of Asgard, as given by the early northern authorities, is that, in the country called Asaheim to the east of Tanagvise (the Tanais or Don) in Asia, there was a city, Asgard, in which ruled a great chief, known as Odin or Woden, who presided over religious sacrifices which were held there. At that time the Roman generals were marching over the world, and reducing nations to subjection, and Odin, foreknowing that he and his posterity would occupy the northern lands, and unwilling to encounter the Romans, left Asaheim with a vast multitude of followers, and wandered first westward to Garderike (Russia), and afterwards to Saxland (North and East Germany). After some time he proceeded northward, till at length he came to the Malar Lake in Sweden, where they settled at a place known as Sigtuna, the present Upsala. His twelve diar, or chief priests, in the course of time founded states for themselves, and everywhere set up the laws and usages which they had followed in Asaheim. Here we have an historical link with the Mythic story of Odin’s halls in Asgard, and his twelve attendants Æsir; but we have no means of fixing the date of the events referred to. It has been conjectured that Odin may have lived at the time when Mithridates Eupator was defying the armies of Rome, 120-80 B.C.; and that, to avoid subjection to either power, he and other Sarmatians or Caucasian chiefs left their settlement on the Black Sea, and wandered forth in search of new and independent homes, to the north and west to the primary Asiatic seat of their tribes. It is not improbable that traditionary records of such earlier migrations had lingered among the people dwelling on the shores of the Euxine, for it is certain that, whatever may be the age of Odin’s appearance in Scandinavia, previous waves of population had passed from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and cleared the way for the reception of that highest phase of Aryan civilization brought to Northern Europe by Odin and his followers.”