Berserkers and the Symbolic Power of War

Did the Viking berserker ritual involve drug use to achieve a battle frenzy? Maybe. But there’s no evidence for it, so it’s entirely speculative.

The idea was first proposed by the Swedish theologian Samuel Ödmann in 1784, based on a thirteenth-century description by Snorri Sturluson, who described the wild behavior of warriors before battle and called it “berserkergang.” However, was Ödmann just a romantic trying to apply things he encountered among Siberian shamans to a completely different culture and period without any foundation?

First of all, the question is which drugs they might have taken. There are a few prominent candidates, primarily Amanita muscaria and henbane. Karsten Fatur argues that aggression is indeed one of the side effects of henbane, but the whole matter still seems speculative. Thomas Hatsis, based on his personal experiences with Amanita, argues that there’s no way a trip from it could lead to the results described in berserkergang (although it is indeed unpredictable). Roderick Dale believes that the whole berserker phenomenon was a ritualistic practice and nothing more, within the worship of Odin. Let’s think about the Maori “haka” dance.

In short, it’s an open question. However, if you look at the archeology of polytheism, you may not need this evidence of drug war intoxication at all. And here is the exmplanation:

According to the theory of symbolic interactionism, when you engage with an institution, it expects you to behave uniformly or undergo a process of “socialization.” When you are part of a religion, your socialization involves becoming like the religious ideal. In this case, the religious ideal is the deity itself. In Christianity, this is called “imitatio Christi”. Each deity, of course, has its own attributes, but in general, war gods developed from the figure of the father of the gods. This can also be seen in etymology: “Deus” and “Deva” contain the root “diw,” which turned into “tiw,” meaning arrow or spear (and thus Tyr from Tiwaz, and perhaps also Indra, containing the roots D and R).

The reason arrows are mentioned is not necessarily because the arrow (or spear) was used as a weapon but because it was associated with divination. We see this in Hebrew as well: “arrow” (חץ) shares the root with “half” (חצי). The basic method of divination was a binary gamble, meaning there were two options: “yes” and “no”. A circle was drawn, and a stick was thrown from a distance. If the stick fell inside the circle, the answer was “yes”; if outside, it was “no”. Similarly, a line was drawn, and if the stick fell beyond it, the answer was “yes”; if before it, “no”. This is how, for example, David and Jonathan gambled in 1 Samuel 20.

These arrows were wooden sticks, or (hebrew: kesam, קיסם) and they were mainly used to ask the gods whether to go to war or not, or when the right time for war was. This was usually related to the weather, as it was important not to have mud, storms, and other adverse weather conditions during a campaign. Wars were usually waged in spring when the rains stopped, which is why the god of war was called Mars, like the month when spring begins. The people who answered these questions, the oracles, were called “magicians” (hebrew: kosmim, קוסמים) because they dealt with these sticks. Hence, war gods were generally also gods of weather or sky gods. Birds flying in the sky, lightning, or other natural phenomena, the movements of stars, and so on could all be used for divination. One of the reasons astrology developed was to perform divination. The scientists of that time didn’t know it, but the movements of the stars could be predicted using mathematical models. The stars’ movements meant nothing, but back then, they were believed to be omens and heavenly signs.

Since God was perceived as existing in another dimension, dreams were also a way of divination, as were different states of consciousness. The way to connect with the gods was to try to enter those states of consciousness. However, the berserker was not necessarily to divine but rather to acquire the attributes of the war god: uninhibited, violent, strong, and unpredictable, like the storm, lightning, thunder, earthquake, and so on.

But also because the psychedelic experience is perceived as a battle with demons or “dragons”, the one experiencing it is considered a kind of survivor or guerrilla fighter. The internal war was spoken of in terms of a real war, somewhat like what later became known as Jihad – the lesser and the greater. The lesser is an internal holy war, and the greater is a physical war. The attempt to emulate the god became the shaman’s internal war and the berserker’s physical war. In both cases, they used the main attribute of the war god, the soma that Indra, the war god, loved so much. Because soma is actually the psychedelic. In Christianity, this kind of Robinson Crusoe was called “athleta Christi” – and it had two manifestations: the ascetic, hermit monks, a kind of Western fakirs, and the righteous knights in the style of King David, “scholar and warrior”, those who would be part of the “army of believers” and accompany Jesus in his war against the Antichrist at the end of days.

the druids decorated their temples with the skulls of their enemies. The Greeks, as mentioned, also placed the heads of their offerings in temples, as I previously wrote about the bulls’ “bucrania”. But because war is a divine matter, and when one nation fights another, their guardian gods are also fighting. If you win, your god has defeated their god and is superior. They would go to war with divine symbols, and victory was considered achieved once you “captured the flag” of your opponent and took their god.

In ancient Greek culture, weapons captured in battle were turned into monuments and dedicated to the gods as a sign of gratitude or as an offering. This was especially common during the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek history, though we also see such practices in Rome, like the famous example of the temple lamp displayed in a triumphal procession. They displayed not only the spoils taken but also prisoners and the religious symbols of the defeated. The divine symbol was considered a “tropaion”, and the victor “won it”. The public display of the tropaion was considered a “triumph.”

This motif of each nation having its own god persisted in Judaism and Christianity. In Judaism, each nation has its own “prince,” and when Israel fights its enemies, the “prince of Israel” fights the “prince of Esau”, as if it were a clash of titans between Larry Bird and Dr. J. We also see in the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant captured by the Philistines and displayed by them, and David seizing Goliath’s sword, which is sometimes (1 Samuel 17:7) referred to not as the “wood of his spear” but as the “arrow of his spear,” because both the spear and the arrow evolved from the same “stick”.

The Dragon Slayer Archetype

In the Aarne-Thompson Motif Index, motif number 300 is “The Dragon Slayer” which involves a hero who defeats a fearsome dragon and cuts off its head. Sometimes, the hero doesn’t kill the dragon but only neutralizes it. Since the dragon has magical powers that allow it to rise from its ashes or strengthen in other ways, it remains a threat and will one day return, needing to be defeated again. The one who will defeat it will be the same hero, a reincarnation, or one of his descendants. In the “Motif-Index of Folk-Literature”, Stith Thompson expands on the character of the dragon, its hatching from an egg, being a hybrid with terrifying elements from various animals, having multiple heads (usually three), its appearance resembling a snake and perhaps even being a snake itself, and so on.

I am currently reading the new book by our group member Sarah Kugel, “Iranian Mythology”, while also browsing Thamar Eilam Gindin’s book “Heroes, Kings, and Dragons”. Both books deal with Iranian mythology, and one of the central stories is about the evil king “Zahhak” who turned into a dragon or, alternatively, grew two man-eating snakes from his shoulders after being kissed by the devil. This king was wicked and represented Iran’s enemy, and only after a thousand years did the national hero, Fereydun, manage to depose him. Fereydun is a later iteration of the original Avestan word Traitaunas, meaning “possessor of three powers”. Zahhak is a later iteration of the Avestan word “Azi Dahaka,” meaning “man resembling a dragon,” and perhaps even “the laughing dragon”. Perhaps he laughs because he is invincible, and even when defeated, he is not truly dead and always has more strength, at least until the final victory, which no one knows when it will come.

It’s easy to see that this story is essentially a prototype of the “Whore of Babylon” in the Book of Revelation, who will only be defeated at the end of days. It’s no coincidence that Babylon is mentioned since, in these Iranian stories, Zahhak is originally Babylonian or at least built a fortress in Babylon. Gindin mentions that in one version, he misled the Babylonians into believing in sacred scriptures he wrote called “Oritā” (from the Aramaic ‘Oraiyta’, the Torah) as if he were a reincarnation of Ahriman himself, posing as the good god, for Ahriman once tempted the first humans, infiltrated their thoughts, and made them worship demons. Such is also the Antichrist. The Gnostics (as well as the Manicheans who incorporated Zoroastrian elements into Gnosticism) claim that the God of the Jews is the god who created the material world, so it’s clear why his sacred texts are referred to as the Jewish sacred texts. By the way, the Gnostics worshiped a being called Hermes Trismegistus, which means “the three times greater”, or “the three times stronger”. The fact that Megistus mentions the Zoroastrian Magus or Magi is very welcoming.

The deeds of Fereydun are based on another hero whose name is derived from the number three: Trita, an Indian hero (mentioned in the Vedas) who is also credited with killing a three-headed dragon named Trisiras. This story is an iteration of another story attributed to the god Indra, who killed a dragon named Vritra. Indra also fought with Varuna, the guardian of immortality, and took his place—a myth that reminds us of Yahweh’s battle with Leviathan or Marduk’s with Tiamat.

So much for comparative mythology. From here on, I will mention that Indra’s favorite drink was soma, an intoxicating beverage he consumed before the battle with the dragon-serpent. This dragon was the leader of the “Asura”, who were actually “Devas,” gods who fell and became demons. They pretended to be benefactors, though they were power-hungry and deceitful. Three Devas—Varuna, Soma (Chandra), and Agni—who were initially on the dragon’s side and called him “our father,” were eventually bewitched and helped Indra defeat him.

The Indo-European warriors would drink soma to get the war frenzy, and Zarathustra did not like the uncontrolled way they consumed the sacred drink because it led to chaos and bloodshed. Alternatively, the priests of the false gods consumed haoma (which is the same as soma, just in Avestan) and through it worshipped demons, something Zarathustra despised. He called those demons daêva, and their worshippers “daêvan.” Indra himself was called daêva. Zarathustra detested the haoma cult, and one of his reforms was to replace the intoxicating substance with ephedra, whose psychoactive effect is much lower. Some say he did not prohibit the use of the intoxicating drink but merely restricted its consumption because irresponsible people would have a “bad trip” or simply lose their inhibitions because of it.

At this point, I will mention, as Lewis Ungit already pointed out, that the dragon-serpent symbol they fight is essentially a personification of the psychedelic experience. Some people drink the intoxicating drink and get lost with it, fighting and being defeated by the dragon. Conversely, some people defeat it and cut off its head, but this does not make them immune later because the severed head will grow back, and the dragon will always be strong enough to attack the next time. Only at the end of days will that dragon, who disguises himself as a beautiful woman, truly die, and the one who defeats him will win the grand prize, perhaps even marry the princess—more and more elements recurring in Stith Thompson’s index, which are probably now better understood.