Wisdom & magic of Kalevala

[Nefastos]

The (literal) Theosophical race theorisation and erroneous discussions of Finnish race migration from central Asia have dated fairly badly in my opinion, but it's not really a big deal as it's a small part of the book and kind of understandable when considering the nationalism of the time.

I still think there's a grain of truth in those theories. At the moment we have just been talking about this interesting similarity between Sanskrit and Finnish vocabulary in the things esoteric in the Finnish forum. But this kind of talk - as I said there, too - is better left to occult ponderings and out of the academic map, for now. For it is easy to make straight lines between dots and err badly.

One interesting author discussing the northern peoples' shamanistic religions is Uno Harva. Most of his books are in Finnish (and rare & expensive now, since he wrote in the early 20th century), but there are German translations available. Then there are Martti Haavio, E.N. Setälä and much forgotten but very good Iivar Kemppinen; I think some material of theirs should be found in German or even in English.

Ervast's Key isn't bad, but it's kind like a hybrid, trying to be somewhat plausible academically, but necessarily failing that; and as an esoteric text, it doesn't go very deep. I think it's because of the era, which you already mentioned. In that time science came nearer to occult studies & vice versa, and then there was this bright interest considering the newly-found Finnish mythology & religion. It was extremely fruitful time, but sometimes its presentations (except art) are hard to understand in a correct light, seeming a bit chaotic.

Something similar seems to be happening even now, considering the Left Hand Path. Afterwards it will be easy to criticize that, but right now I think it's necessary to put most of the eggs in the same basket. With over-analysing at the times of fertilisation, the vigor is easily lost.

[Nefastos]

Then there are...

I must mention Juha Pentikäinen, Anna-Leena Siikala, Risto Pulkkinen and Timo Heikkilä too. Unlike the ones above they are all recent authors, and at least some of Pentikäinen's works are also availabe in English. Heikkilä's ideas are not of academic kind but occult, and thus even more interesting - but the books are harder to come by.

[Jiva]

I still think there's a grain of truth in those theories. At the moment we have just been talking about this interesting similarity between Sanskrit and Finnish vocabulary in the things esoteric in the Finnish forum. But this kind of talk - as I said there, too - is better left to occult ponderings and out of the academic map, for now.

I assume you're referring to the internal discussion on the forum only, although I think a grounding in the academic is preferable in this instance as modern languages are tangible (not that this requires any more than a statement of orientation though).

I've found a few books by the authors you mentioned in English, particularly the academics in your second post although I haven't looked particularly hard yet. As always, thanks for the recommendations.

In that time science came nearer to occult studies & vice versa.

A couple of hours before I read your post I had read some of the first chapters of Ervast's Esoteric School of Jesus, the first of which is titled: "Religion as Science". That says it all really .