The only part of the Goatske post that I can't even entertain the suggestion of is the bit about all cremated offerings going via Loki to their intended deity. My head just won't accept it, even though I've seen it before somewhere, plus in the lore of course he brings things to the gods, Thor's hammer etc. IDK what parts of the article came from where but I guess from your tags you know a lot about it, so if you don't mind sharing could you tell us your thoughts on it please? Thank you!
While you’re probably already aware of this, some brief historical context first for others reading. (Because my experience running a 101 blog has shown me it is far less widely known than it should be, and I’m 100% sure if I don’t include it here I’m going to get half a dozen follow up questions asking me about it.)
The idea of Loki as a god of fire entered the popular consciousness through a linguistic theory of Grimm that has since been disproven. basically, he conflated Loki with the fire god Loki due to an etymological assumption that turned out to be wrong. But Wagner drew from that, turned it into an opera, and he were are.
There are some late medieval traditions that connect a figure named Lokke to the hearth, but we have no idea how much this figure is connected to the pre-Christian god Loki, if at all. There’s also the Snaptun stone, but we aren’t sure whether it actually depicts Loki with stitched lips or just a smiling man with stylized teeth. And even if it is Loki, a bellows stone could easily be meant to be a symbol of air, which Loki is closely connected with in various kennings, rather than fire. Basically, the historical grounds for Loki as a god of fire are shaky at best, and honestly, people probably wouldn’t take what little we have nearly as seriously as they do if they weren’t clinging to the image created by Grimm’s mistake.
But due to the phrasing of the particular post you mentioned, it seems like they’re directly referencing the theory put forth by Dagulf Loptson. (See here and here.) He draws comparisons with the god Agni in Vedic religion to claim that Loki is the king of Muspelheim and the Norse god of cremation and sacrificial fire.
Now, to be clear, I am all for people doing whatever their like in their own personal practice. If you want to venerate Loki as, e.g., the god of bronies and cheap vodka in the privacy of your own home, it’s not hurting me any. And I totally support academic speculation. This is how scholarship advances.
However, that speculation has to have a plausible basis in historical evidence. And I believe the standards are even higher when you’re asking people to incorporate it into their religious practices, and thereafter speaking of it as if it were fact, as Loptson and others have.
Drawing from a South Asian text composed before 1000 CE and applying it to texts from medieval Iceland does not seem like a remotely sound practice to me. Most scholars are hesitant to accept late medieval Scandinavian practices as an accurate reflection of pre-Christian Scandinavian beliefs, let alone something two millenia older from an entirely different continent. Both cultures being Indo-European only gets you so far.
Especially since Loptson’s theory openly contradicts other medieval Icelandic texts. Egil’s saga refers to Odin, not Loki, as the guardian of sacrificial fire. I have never seen Loptson or any of his adherents attempt to address this.
Again, if you personally see Loki as a god of fire due to personal gnosis, that’s fine. Your personal beliefs are your personal business. Just don’t aggressively ignore sound scholarly practices to claim that your UPG is backed up by historical evidence, or present it to others as fact.
