An interview with Stephen Cox

By AC, 1998

Stephen Bernard Cox is an English artist and author, as well as being the founder of The Order of the Jarls of Balder / The Arktion Federation. Cox, a cultured and well-spoken man in his forties, has dedicated his life to the reawakening of what he consideres to be the European Ethos. The following interview was conducted in the confines of the European Library in Reading, Berkshire, in August of 1998. 

 

Stephen B. Cox, Dartmoor, 1998

Could you begin by giving some background information about yourself. When and how did your interest in paganism arise? When was the descision made to launch Balder?

I was born and brought up in a rural community in the west of England. My family had always been very close to the soil and we had always tried to grow as much of our own food as possible. So from an early date I had a close relationship with the soil and the processes and rythms of nature. This was reinforced by the context and atmosphere of a rural community, where everybody looked after each other, and there were strong traditions, both in terms of family and identity, and village history.

 The village history again, was reinforced by our sense of play and our activities as children in the countryside, where local legends played an intensive part in our games and activities. Even in my education as a small boy in a church school, this was strenghted by the folksong and folkdance which was still forming part of local education in the schools at that time. This was before the advance of materialism into the educational processes.

I suppose I would be described as having been born in a working class family. We had always been very poor, although my ancestry comprised farmers who had fallen on hard times as result of the materialism and speculation of the First World War. 

So spirituality had always been a part of my life, although the awakening towards a more folkish and esoteric type of spirituality began with the development of my art. Despite having been intensively interested in history, and that subject having been my pride and joy throughout my school years, having won various prices for historical research, my career from the age of sixteen increasingly revolved around art. I developed a passion for art and sculpture, and sculptural painting in particular, dramatically influenced by the landscape of my local area. My art career then developed along those lines and I spent many years engaged in having art exhibitions around Britain and Europe. Whilst the art could have been called 'abstract' in the contemporary idiom, it was firmly rooted in the seasons, in the land. Because of my research into farming processes, my studio being based on a traditional farming estate in England, I began to be increasingly involved and interested in the folk-rythms of the land, and the spirituality or the Magick of farming and of folklore. Thus it was a relatively short step for me to become involved in what is generally termed Magick or the occult, having seen both in my own upbringing in a rural community and in my research into art, alchemy and folklore, that there was a rich vein, a pagan vein, running through the life of the people, either subconsioisly or in a hidden way, waiting to be reborn. 

In September 1990, The Fraternity of Balder was launched as a small and very modest newsletter to a number of people I had been writing to, in the context of some small books on such subjects which I was publishing. The rest, as they say, is history.

As you mentioned already, you are an artist and have had your works exhibited etc. I understand your experiments in art with the cycles, seasons and elements of the pagan year had a large influence on your interest in paganism, and eventually Balder?

Yes, that´s right. My research and my work into the influences which motivated me, that is, a strong kinship with the land, which even though my work had been described as 'avant garde' and most unusual, the materials used were drawn from the land. In the case of sculpture I used materials directly from the land, from the farm, from the process of the seasons itself. All of my sculptures, all of my paintings were intensly related to the processes of thesis-antithesis-synthesis; birth-life-decay-death and rebirth.

With regards to the journey from folklore and cycles of time into Magick and esoterism, the step was not as large as one might imagine because the work I had been doing with my art led me to intensive research into the pre-historic sites of Europe. I spent extensive periods of time both working, living, sleeping and camping in different landscapes, including pre-historic sites, both known and unknown. I engaged in both measurement, photography and investigation; and spontaneous and intuitive ritual work. Looking back on it, I now appreciate that what I was engaged in, was ritualistic work.

The ancient sites themselves, both the legend and magnificence of their creation spoke primally to me, and my work reflected that intensity of connection with a tribal heritage. Thus, the combination of that practical, intensive and personal relationship, living and working in the land at ancient sites, combined with my developement of grass-roots artists organisations, brought in a return in my own life to the traditional processes that would have existed in the craft and skills of our ancient pagan societies. Thus, my own life began to reflect an intensive reconnection with what I began to recognize was a pagan inheritance. By the time a desicion had been made to launch Balder, my own life was already geared towards a pagan structure and a pagan ethos.

As we are on the subject, could you describe the basic ethos and aims of Balder? 

At the heart of Balder, or The Arktion Federation as it is now called, is an ethos that is not restrictive; an ethos which is not a dogma or a doctrine. The ethos, essentially, is to represence the inheritance and the tradition of the western tribes. This not in order to create a revival, or a repetition, or a reconstruction, but in order to extract the essence that motivated our ancestors, the inner core which created the springtime of western civilisation. By tapping into this tribal resonance it is possible, we belive, to take paganism from its past into its future.

There is a great deal of discreditation going on with regards to paganism and folklore; this we regard as part of the messianic subversion of the western tribes. By taking the essence - no matter which tribe or pantheon, no matter which part of the pagan inheritance of Europe you happen to belong to, or which aspect of pagan religion, faith, esoterica or Magick you happen to subscribe - through Balder there is an ethos which will give you the skills, the determination, the vitality to undertake your own Wyrd and your own path, yet one which is in harmony with your ancestral ties. In other words, you are the most recent representative of your ancestral land and traditions.

This also involves living practically in a pagan way. By living in a pagan way, by represencing a spirituality in our lives which has been undermined and virtually destroyed by 2000 years of monotheism and materialism, the ethos therefore is part of a re-arming of, not just the western tribes, but of humanity itself; because members who belong to other races, irrespective of the fact that they cannot subscribe or belong to the western tribes, have found skills and disciplines which have enabled them to reconnect to their traditions, no matter to what race or continent they belong.

Thus by giving ourselves a renewed spirituality, we will be giving ourselves the diciplines and tools to redefine our place in nature, and our Destiny among the stars...

What then, is actually meant by the concept of 'paganism', and the trendy term of 'New Age'; what do these terms mean, in practice?

Paganism has become something of a fragmented an widespread terminology. I think it is important for us to return to what the root of paganism was. 'Paganus' was the christian insult against all that was non-messianic; those who lived or worked in nature, whether they be pesants, or whether they be priests and practicioners of the old religion. So from an insult we have taken an insult into a form of pride - 'pagan' essentially refering to religious forms, spiritual forms, and ethical living forms, which are non-messianic, which do not need "saviours", which do not need any form of jurisdiction according to a dogma, no matter whether that jurisdiction be god, or capital, or politics. Paganism essentially then, in its wide-ranging forms across the western tribes is an intensive and dynamic connection with the evolutionary precepts of man and nature itself. Paganism is a reflection of the vitality of nature, as expressed in man´s upward surge towards sentience, higher spirituality and higher consiousness.

With regards to 'New Age', again, we have to be circumspect and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is of course the 'New Age' which is full of the commercialism and materialism and even monotheism, which is a modern equivalent of spiritual hunger. That is, throughout the west you can go to any modern town, especially a town like Glastonbury, and find the place awash with almost every manifestation of spirituality cobbeled together that the world has ever known; from east, west, Africa, north America and also bits of Europe. Now, it is very easy to criticise and dispose of that without consideration, because within even that somewhat meaningless conglomeraiton of apparent spirituality, there is a deeper thread running through it. It is what the occultists of the late 19th and early 20th century would have regarded as an awakening within the soul of man itself; a gradual rendering of the 'sleepwalker' into conciousness. That is not to say there isn´t a great deal of work to be done to provide a dynamic educational forum to enable each individual and each race to tap into the spirituality of their own civilization.

The 'New Age' is also a dynamic vechile for awakening into traditional forms; that is, within the so called 'New Age', it is possible to find tribal forms and manifestations. The 'New Age' is also on a different level a reflection of the spiritual hunger of which I spoke of. Rather like Marthusian theory in the 19th century was able to point out that there is a natural mechanism within nature and the human race with regards to the maintenance and control of birthrates and cycles and a natural ecological balance, that perhaps it is also true within the spiritual conciousness of man that at a point at which there is materialistic overload and lack of spiritual skills and diciplines to define and maintain the secular world; perhaps at that point a natural trigger or hunger emerges in the human race to recommence the unfinished work. Just as in Gaia herself; when there is great damage being done, the forces of the mother awaken and begin to re-asserte a natural balance.

An unusual aspect of the Arktion Federation, if compared to other pagan groups at least, seems to be its promotion of and emphasis on sports/physical training as a from of Magick, via the various books and courses available on the subject and the Spartans Sports League. Could you elaborate on this?

Well, just as I had always recognized that there was a lack of spirituality within the technological process and progress of mankind, so when Balder had been launched and I became more involved in the spiritual, Magick and esoterism, it became very clear to me that so much of so-called Magick and esoterism was rooted in what I call "the airy castles of magick" - that is, intellectual and abstract pursuit. In other words, it was not grounded in living and re-harmonisation of the total being.

Several hundred years ago with the Cartesian revolution of Rene Decartes, the division of man into matter and spirit, there was a dichotomy born, which we are still paying the price for. Just as materialism is seen as irrelevant to the spiritually inclined, so is spirituality seens as irrelevant to the materially inclined; likewise with regards to the body. And yet to our ancestors this was not the case- spirituality was very much rooted in physicality; in other words the physical body was seen as the outer representation of the spiritual health of the individual.

Therefore, Spartans Sports League seeks to reprecense this ethos of defining and advancing the natural harmony of the inner and the outer man. As we say, it is difficult, if not impossible for a human to deal with the powerful forces of Magick and spiritual awakening, unless there is a healthy body within which to contain and handle it.

After all, if we are going on a long journey in a car, simply because we have the will to undertake that journey doesn´t mean to say the car is going to get us there, unless we make sure it is well tuned, properly fed with oil, petrol, water and so on.

This is a simple precept, and yet one we do not apply to our own path of evolution in life. So SSL is a very practical and physical counterpart to the spiritual and mental process of rediscovery.

Another way in which the fraternity seems to differ from other pagan groups is its inclusion of a 'dark', 'sinister' or 'shadow' aspect within itself, via the groups Fraternitas Loki, Sceadu Bäel Gëbrodör and Deorc Eorde Sweostor. What are the ethos and functions of these groups?

Just as SSL was developed to provide a physical health, a harmonisation of the human, both within local groups across Europe and for the individual in their daily life; so Fraternitas Loki and its sister groups of Sceadu Bäel Gëbrodör and Deorc Eorde Sweostor grew with FL to answer the need for the shadow. That is, the western psyche and indeed the entirity of the human race has become paralyzed by polarities of left-wing and right-wing politics or left-hand path and right-hand path - sprituality of God versus Satan. True paganism, no matter which race a man belongs to knows not these artificial divisions. In the old religion, both light and dark forces undertook a spiral dance of dynamic revelation. Yet this integral harmonious spiral dance does not emerge by our doing nothing. We have to first understand the nature of the so-called 'sinister' or 'dark', which has been artificially created by messianism- no matter whether it be in its Satanic or extremist political forms. Once we understand the way in which the way in which the psyche has been corrupted then we can re-build that dynamic integrity, as comprehended by Carl Jung when he spoke of individuation. 

Thus, Fraternitas Loki is not ”satanic”, as we regard Satanism as another aspect of messianism. Rather, it is a shadow path of re-integrating the shadow into a normal balanced human integrity.

Sceadu Bäel Gëbrodör takes a slightly different approach; that is, it offers a path of analysis and understanding of the traditional pantheons bringing out the various heroes and great cycles of the pagan pantheons, and highlighting the 'sinister' or 'shadow' aspect, which various of these heroes undertook. For example Hercules and his dark aspect of madness, caused by Hera; aspects which had been ignored, supressed, distorted by many who would seek to revive or understand paganism. We cannot have one without the other. We cannot have the Norse gods without the destruction of the Norse gods by the so-called dark forces, and a new synthesis when Balder comes to rule a new age.

Likewise, Dark Earth Sisters helps to re-presense the primal energy of the Godess. The Godess in her contemporary form is somewhat of a christianized virgin- sweet, lovely, harmless. The mother in her true pagan form was these things, but also powerful, lustful and capable of destruction and rebirth. As with the cycle of the Godess at the Avebury group of monuments.

So, the so-called 'sinister' is represented within the dynamic of these three groups, because in itself it is rebellion against the nature of the so-called 'sinister'. That is, messianism created a "bogey man" for the western psyche, which those who seek to free themselves or rebell by going into the so-called dark paths very often unwittingly become another representative or tool of the very desease which messianism created, for example Satanism.

Fraternitas Loki seeks to be an accuser as Loki was a true accuser to the high gods. So FL must be an accuser to our own psyche to re-integrate, in a dynamic way, both the light and dark forces. 

More especially, the work of these three groups requires an intensive involvement in a revitalization of the self. 'Sinister' in this context requires the breaking down and shedding of excess baggage, and then the rebuilding of the self in the psyche in a new and dynamic form. In that respect, one is undertaking a complete process of purging, of alchemical transformation, which is often too real, too painful and too challenging for some.

Some people have stated that paganism is, because of its emphasis on the past, a form of spirituality that is outdated. How would you reply to such statements?

It is not the mythology, pantheons and folklore that are outdated; rather, it is the contemporary ethos of manifested messianism which constricts the forms of our psyche and our ancestors into its own image. We have suffered for approximately 2000 years of a destruction of our natural, evolutionary, sentient growth. What is required is to reconnect with the dynamic of the springtime of civilisation in order to go foward; that 'going foward' is not going to be witnessed by suddenly ditching 80000 years of human evolution in favour of a doctrine, a form of messianism, which any totally new, abstract so-called archtype would be.

Rather, if we look at nature, if we look at evolution itself, it does not consist of linear time, of sudden stops, changes, sweepings away, as the judeo-christian would have it. It is in fact an unravelling, an unfolding, one thing growing out of another, seeds being sown. If we look at the evolution of species, and indeed of the changes of family lines, inheritance, or of races, or of transformations of landscape, cataclysms do occur, but they don´t occur in a total way, and cataclysms are very often an aftermath of a long process. Therefore, mythology, folklore, paganism and pantheons are a vital part of our going foward. What is needed is to understand the archetype, to understand the cycles, to understand the balance of polarities, which our ancestors very much experienced, and then give rebirth, to reconnect, to restart that essential evolutionary imperative in a fit and proper way for our own times. Within our own psyche today, the archtypes are starting to emerge with those young people in the Arktion Federation and other groups across the world who are witnessing a revolution within their own spirituality, within their own way of living. This in itself is a revitalization of the archtype.

So rather than just dismissing the entirety of human evolution for some besotted glory of a dogma, the path foward is perhaps more likely to obtained by becoming part of evolution itself; by rebuilding and taking foward, rather than repeating, trying to build something in abstract.

How do you belive a spiritual rebirth will take form in a practical way, after our current rather apocalyptic phase? 

Within our contemporaray society today, there are the manifestations of that constant change. There are those, of course, because they are tired and because they do not have the vitality and disipline to continue with a struggle, who seek an armageddon, who seek a ragnarök. These can be found both within the old messianic religions and within contemporary so-called rebellious forms.

Within society at this very moment there are changes, just as within nature there are changes. It is somewhat presumptious to try to impose upon evolution and upon history itself some grand pattern, some grand judgement as to what will happen. We can perhaps be the subject of our own worst fears that way. Rather if we look at history we can see certain forces at work; we can see that in times of great danger certain energies have arisen within the psyche of man, just as in times of great danger to the planet, the planet has renewed herself. Around the world today there is a spiritual hunger, which is being gradually fulfilled or answered by the developement of regional identity, by the developement of spiritual groups as ourselves and others. There is the breakdown of the state, or the national centralist state. There is the growth of regional inheritance, the growth of languages. At the same time the is the growth of dynamic and very powerful centralist governmental and internationalist forces. We have to accept and understand that nothing lasts forever. International powers, be they political or economic, do not, have not, and will not last forever. We also have to recognize that whatever spiritual renaissance or cultural change or transformation takes place, again, they won´t last forever. The old religion did not last forever; judeo-christianity hasn´t lasted forever. It is a case of stepping outside of the cycles of time itself to try to understand the context of which we are part, because the small things today which may not appear to be very important, could well be the seeds or foundations of the new age tomorrow. And yes, there is a new age coming, there has also been a new age coming, because the world is always changing. Whether that new age is the one we want, or wheter it is the one we fear, is entirely up to us. There was a new age which followed the collapse of hunter/gatherer societies to agriculture. There was a new age that followed the collapse of peasant rural societies into industrialism. There was a new age that followed the collapse of paganism into judeo-christianity. The world is constantly transforming itself. To see it in a black and white condition of "the new age tomorrow - the old age today" somewhat befuddles our view of history. It is a case of grasping the nettle of history, and belonging to and joining in the nature of transformation itself. 

If a new age, that is, a revitalization of a spiritual dynamic for the human race is to occur, it will not suddenly happen overnight. It is an error to assume that as by a magic wand, we can have a revolution, whether it be political, economic or spiritual to suddenly solve our problems; this is a delusion as surely as heaven and hell are delusions.

What, perhaps, we may be doing within the dynamic changes occuring in society in our own lives and the pagan way of living, which is emerging with the young generation; we may be either laying the seeds for the foundations of a new epoch, or we may be actually laying the foundations themselves. We must not seek to assume that we will one day be living in a new age, but perhaps we can contribute to the unfolding of potential, and this is the important thing: not to worry about a new age and what form that new age will take, but to obtain for our own lives the unfolding of potential. If within our individual lives we reveal the unfolding of that potential, then we will be contributing to the foundations of a new epoch.

Lastly, could you tell us about the future plans and aims of the Arktion Federation; its upcoming projects and such?

The organization is in a dynamic phase, both within the developement of local groups, within the growth of its publishing, within the developement of its high technology, the Internet and its web-sites. What is also happening is that there is a dynamic explosion with regards to connection with like-minded individuals and organizations; that is, the developement of The European Circle of Heritage, which provides a facility to help both individuals and groups develope their work within the context of European pagan heritage and tradition.

More especially is the very active developement of practical training courses, workshops and study holidays. These are run both by members and officers across Europe and at headquarters in England. Related to that will be the developement of public activities and public courses; facilities and skills for the public to bring a revitalization within the public domain of education and public life, and increasingly the recognition of a pagan way of living as a dynamic alternative to life as it currently is. Various practical programs are now in place, which will be of direct and increasing benefit to young people, and indeed, to local communities. 

There is the opportunity for all of the readers to become involved in a variety of opportunities. It does not require subscription to a dogma or bowing down to a leader. What it does require is a voluntary decision to reveal your potential and to undertake a dynamic evolution in your own lifetime. By striving to fulfill that pagan imperative within your own life , you can and will be able to contribute both to the unfolding of the Arktion Federation and its own imperative for the unfolding of the species.

The Arktion Federation - A non-profit pagan foundation, founded by Stephen Cox.

*The following announcement can now be found at the Arktion website: In 2005 ill health and other difficulties caused him to issue a directive suspending indefinitely all activities of the Trust. He does not give interviews or accept visitors.

* Ragnarök Runa comment: This interview was conducted in 1998 and is no longer available online. The reason to re-publish it is to bring more interest to the writings and works of the OJB/Arktion