Alemannic Half-Timber Construction

Half-timbering is a skeleton method of construction in which the load-bearing framework is made of wood. The supporting framework consists of vertical, horizontal and slanting construction elements. The intervening sections are filled with clay wattling, rough rendering or with rubble or bricks. The horizontal bearers are known as sole plates and head plates, the vertical supports are known as uprights, shafts or posts, depending on size. In order to stabilise this framework, slanted braces or struts are inserted. This is the principle of the half-timbered house.

Overleaf half-timbering was common in south-west Germany until the beginning of the 16th century. This term refers to the practice of having uprights and struts cut in so deeply that they lie above each other on the same level on the facade. This method of construction is popularly referred to as "Alemannic". It was prohibited in Wuerttemberg by ducal building regulations in 1568 but continued to be used for some time afterwards, particularly for roof constructions.

In contrast the more recent method of construction is popularly referred to as "Frankish" half-timbering, although this is found not only in south but in central Germany. The mortice and tenon technique used here made the wooden skeleton more flexible on the whole. A tenon was cut out of the cut surface of the pieces of wood to be joined and this was then inserted like a wedge into the incision in the next piece of wood. This construction method emerged in around 1500, at the same time as the Renaissance taste was beginning to demand more ornate decorative elements.

Whereas the "Alemannic" half-timbered house is noted for its statically open construction, the so-called Frankish half-timbered style is characterised by the playfulness of its ornamentation. St. Andrew's crosses, andirons, rosettes, rhombuses and carving on uprights and posts as well as ornamental intarsia work were elements of this rich repertoire of forms which reached its peak at around 1600.

By the middle of the 18th century, the half-timbered house with its emphasis on visibility was going out of fashion. Those who could afford it built stone houses or plastered their half-timbered houses. An ordinance by Duke Carl Eugen in the year 1744 on the facing of buildings was intended to reduce the risk of fires. As a result the previously rich figural ornamentation gave way to simpler constructions with V and K struts.

The visible half-timbering of houses was rediscovered as an aesthetic and reasonably cheap method of building in the 19th century. At first it was used for buildings along railway lines and for public and industrial architecture. In the historicist period at the end of the 19th century, a deliberate effort was made to imitate the ornamentation of the Renaissance and Baroque period, although individual elements were also often introduced.

In this image you can see how the wattle is built up between the beams. This provides a hold for the loam or clay used to fill the compartments.

Just in case you missed it...

Despite all claims to fame as a published writer of pagan books, it does not constitute the right to manipulate public discussion forums with secret demands to have anyone who questions your approach conveniently banned. It is you who chose to delineate any healthy debate into a battlefront of "either you're for me or against me", to patronize the skeptical with that old parent-to-child gestalt ploy. Why shouldn't all that double-talking arrogance piss anyone off who can see it as plain as the nose on your face? That is where you are mistaken Mister Guru of the one and only "hereditary witchcraft". What you fail to see, is not so much the question of authenticity, rather, the seediness of your proselytizing behaviour. Face it, all that lamenting about venomous negativity just can't disguise how much you deliberate it for want of worship as a martyr. Still you persist in sending your muppets to badger us with these convenient demonizations. Save the persecution complex and branding of heretics, you're starting to sound like some kind of televangelist from hell.  Do yourself a favour preacher and STFU, we're a critical learning site not some church to shepherd the gospel according to you or anyone else. Rest assured we are quite capable of our own responsible judgment no matter how much smoke and mirrors. Anyone who tries that shit on us shouldn't wonder why the bus is leaving town without them. You or anybody, that is final.

The Problem with Modern Contemporary Esoterica

Looking back through the contemporary history of the so-called “civilized” world, one thing becomes generally apparent. Between the Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires and all the crusades that paved the course of Evangelism, there was always a secret tendency to its esoteric opposite. The irony is, this had little to do with any revival of pre-Christian tradition, as most of it had already been syncretically absorbed by Catholicism at this time. Instead there came hermetic mysticism, no less steeped in Middle Eastern lore as it was always assumed to be the birthplace of higher civilization. In fact this has been the general school of thought for both evangelists and esoterics well into the 20th century. Yet, despite all advancements in archeoforensics, still persists in the theosophical following of such seeming intellectuals as Helena Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune.

The fallacy is that assumption that no writings could be found elsewhere, for whatever they had hoped to find it all written on. I still hear this argument today from their adherents; so oblivious to the fact of ongoing oral traditions, let alone why the Celto-Germanic peoples chose not to write them down. Well, I was raised on oral tradition, especially because of how the esoteric movement tried to rewrite our history. Yes, I'm talking Fahrenheit 451 here, and they are just as much to blame as the evangelists. Little do they realize how Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine” inspired the curse of Nazi Ariosophy. Yet, you would have thought it ended with the Nuremberg trials, but not all things utopian necessarily come in the German language, nor did it really have anything to do with paganism either- especially that assumption that any special human ability came from the allegedly angelic Annunaki. Nonetheless, the buggers are still at it, trying to make it all sound so politically correct through alternate wording, when it actually boils down to much the same exploit of wanton illusion.

Two wrongs don't make it right, so think again.

Good Yule!

Fröhliche Raunächten

Pseudoscience and Other New Age Myths

With the year 2012 just around the corner, I only dread to imagine the great volley of bullshit about to descend on us from the "vortex" of the so-called Indigo/Starseed newage movement. Heaven forbid all those ascended narcissists of the Pleiadean masterrace. Man, what sort of megalomania inspires the need to be some god-sent messenger of inhospitable stellar objects? Don't even talk to me about cosmic consciousness if you can't get your science or history right. All this goobledegook about chakra stimulation of the hypothalamus to "switch on" redundant DNA codes is a load of cryptic nonsense that does no justice to the scientific terms it abuses. Those glands not only regulate our involuntary functions, but affect the balance of our emotional and sexual behaviour. In essence, messing with it can induce a whole variety of bizarre psychosomatic disorders. Just the same, transcendental meditation, like mind altering drugs, should carry a warning about prolonged use. No surprise end of time cults have such a tendency to nihilism. No, it's not "negativity" or "bad karma" that accounts for the ills of this world, but the grand expectation that others should have to burden the brunt so "we can be saved". It's just another cop-out from taking any real personal responsibility.