Cattle die and kinsmen die

And so one dies one's self

One thing I know that never dies,

The fame of a dead man's deeds

A Tribute to Robert Ward

(12/10/68 - 9/17/04)

On September 17, 2004, Ulfhethnar Kindred co-founder and Gothi Robert Ward died unexpectedly at the age of 35. 

For those of us fortunate enough to have known him, his death hit rather hard.  After all, he was still in his prime.  But he was gone, felled by pancreatitis.  It seemed almost surreal. 

Robert was an extremely intelligent, well-read, and artistic individual.  It was through our shared devotion to Asatru that we first met.  Over the years I learned many things about Asatru from him, and we shared a lot of laughs and good times. 

At the time we met, Robert was a member of the Tribe of the Wulfings, an Asatru group known for their intellectual endeavors and artistic talents.  However, they were spread out across the country, and Robert desired to gather more often than this group's geographic separation would allow.  I was semi-active locally with a few associates, but wished to be involved in Asatru in a more organized and formal manner.  As our friendship grew, we realized that we were both interested in the same thing - a local, tight-knit group that could gather regularly to practice Asatru. 

So in 1996, he and I decided to form the Ulfhethnar Kindred, and his knowledge made him the natural choice to serve as our Gothi in those formative  years.  To this day, his mark is felt on many of our customs, rites, and activities.  I can honestly say that without him, the Ulfhethnar Kindred would not have survived through its early development, which experienced its fair share of growing pains.  His focus and knowledge of the religion kept us on track and, due to his reputation and work on projects such as The Fifth Path and Vor Tru, the Ulfhethnar Kindred earned a certain level of credibility not usually granted to new kindreds.

As Gothi, he relentlessly strove to keep all our blots and rites as historically accurate as possible.  To this end he studied the lore tirelessly and was regularly able to quote some obscure source that would give us the information we needed to plan a unique rite.  Yet he was always open to suggestions and willing to make changes in a ritual's format in order to increase its power.  With Robert at the helm, we experienced many powerfully spiritual gatherings.

Robert was also very artistic, and in fact held a BA in Art from CSUS.  Many of his works were featured in various publications.  Some of you probably observed his skills in the aforementioned Vor Tru or The Fifth Path, both of which showcased his writings, artwork, and great eye for magazine layout.  His artistic talents are also on display in our logos, both of which he designed.

But it wasn't just the Ulfhethnar Kindred that benefited from his knowledge, talents, and dedication.  American Asatru as a whole reaped the rewards of his efforts.  Through his writings on music, he introduced many people to obscure, heathen themed musicians and recordings.  During his tenure as editor of Vor Tru, its number of subscribers exploded by perhaps as much as 500%.  Additionally, many of his writings on Asatru were translated and published all over the world.

Robert accomplished a lot in his short time on Midgard.  We all owe him our gratitude, and should look at his deeds as worthy of remembrance.  Though he and I had drifted apart over the last couple years of his life, I always respected and liked him, and I will always miss his presence around our fire.  I always raise a horn in his honor during sumbel, and every time the Ulfhethnar Kindred gathers, his legacy lives on.

-Jim Silva

Remembering Robert Ward 

by R.N Taylor

I first became aware of Robert Ward and his magazine, The Fifth Path, in the early 1990s when I purchased several copies being sold through the archive of Aesthetic-Nihilism. Coupled with copies of The Fifth Path was the CD “Sacred War” (released on the Gymnastic label).  These items introduced me to the emerging music scene of groups like Death In June, Sol Invictus and similar bands. 

I wrote Robert and had an exchange of letters with him. I offered to write articles and reviews and to help in any way I could. His initial response was lukewarm at best, but we did begin sharing thoughts and enthusiasms. 

At some point, Robert was planning an article on Yukio Mishima. I had read many of Mishima’s works and still had a sheaf of news clippings and magazine articles which appeared at the time of his death. I sent them to Robert and think they were helpful for his project in some small measure. 

I liked The Fifth Path, its originality, and the new ground I felt it was breaking. The bands it featured and the general scene it covered had few journalistic venues in America at the time.  Eventually, I did some reviews and a full article, “Animal Spirit,” which appeared in the final fifth issue, or as Robert titled it, “The Death Issue.”

From that point on, Robert and I developed a friendship through mail and telephone mostly. For a year and a half or so, we were in near daily contact by phone. 

Early in our conversations I realized Robert’s innate intelligence, aesthetic tastes and artistic skills. Robert had come out of the Industrial and Black Metal music scenes. He had an interest in occultism, magick, and had investigated the Satanic scene. I felt his talents would better serve something more positive than these, so I did my best to introduce him to Asatru, the religion of Northern Europeans. I think he was already gravitating in that general direction when we first met, as he was studying runes and Germanic lore. 

In time I convinced him to lend his skills and talents to Vor Tru, the official magazine of the Asatru Alliance. Around this time, he officially was accepted as a member of the Wulfing Kindred of the Asatru Alliance. In time, he decided to form his own kindred in his area. I did all I could to advise him on how to go about doing so. In a remarkably short time, he had a functioning kindred, The Ulfhethnar, holding seasonal gatherings and other group activities. His Kindred joined the Asatru Alliance and Robert gave his talents to Vor Tru for many a fine issue. 

Vor Tru had originally been an independent publication. At its inception, it was pretty crude in layout and construction. Valgard Murray improved it after it became the official Alliance publication.

With Robert, Michael Moynihan (a long-time friend of Robert) and myself, we revamped Vor Tru into a truly outstanding magazine. In fact, it became the premiere journal of Asatru. Robert was able to get the magazine on the stands at major outlets like the Barnes and Noble, Borders and Tower chains. Its circulation went world-wide. Its subscribers grew by leaps and bounds, and Robert worked to make each issue better than the one that preceded it - and he achieved that goal over and again.

Up until then, there had never been as fine an Asatru magazine as Vor Tru had become. Much of the credit goes to the unremitting work of a handful of people. Robert was its linchpin, and his unstinting labor, dedication and creativity won my admiration. 

My admiration did not end simply with his work. It had much to do with Robert, himself, as a person. He was a thoughtful, intelligent and true-hearted individual. He was a trustworthy friend and a kinsman. He was also a generous person, given to sharing with those who were his friends. Today, I look around my home and there are so many fine things to remind me of that fact: There are the two Tibetan sacrificial bowls he had gifted me, there is a hard-back copy of the Rig Veda in English translation, there are serigraphs and prints of his art work that hang on the walls, books on Norse legends he had shared with me, and more. 

Robert has impacted my life as well as that of many others I know. He is not and will not be forgotten by those who knew him as a friend and colleague. 

Sometime near the end of the millennium, the Tribe of The Wulfings resigned from the Asatru Alliance. Robert continued working on Vor Tru but I am sure he felt somewhat abandoned when we (The Wulfings) left, and it was not long before he resigned as editor of the magazine.  The aftermath of his resignation was not a happy period. It left a void in his life. I was still in regular contact with him and he had many ideas of what projects he would do next. Few, if any, came to fruition. Up until a year before he passed away, I called and spoke with him regularly. He seemed very depressed. I suggested that he come out to visit for a couple of weeks. He never took me up on my invitation, which saddened me.  Then I tried calling him and his phone was discontinued, as was his e-mail address, and I had no further means of contact. 

When news came of his demise I was greatly saddened and felt a great loss, as did all those who had known him and worked closely with him on so many projects.  He will be missed. We accomplished much together, we had many a good laugh together and shared many a horn of mead.  There is a lasting bond with him that death has not severed.  May we meet again on other shores in distant realms wild and free.

The following interview was conducted by e-mail with Robert Ward sometime in 1998. We never finished it in its entirety and it was never published anywhere. I recently discovered it in my files and thought it might help to familiarize those who never knew Robert, as well as serving as a shard of remembrance for those who were his kinsmen and friends.

_____________________________________________________________

 Interview with Robert Ward 

Conducted by R.N. Taylor

(Circa 1998) 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Could you tell me something about how you came to publish The Fifth Path? 

It started one dark and stormy night.  No, I don’t remember what the weather was like, but here is how things started.  A friend of mine had excitedly finished a book by Robert Anton Wilson, and on the pretext that he wanted to do an interview with him, he got Wilson’s number from his publisher.  Since it was so easy to get in contact with such a well-known author, he told me he was thinking of starting a magazine and thought I would be interested in helping out. 

It sounded like a good idea to me, so I sent off some interviews to several people in whom I was interested at the time – Douglas P. of Death in June and Zeena “Doesn’t-want-to-be-called-LaVey-anymore” who was working with Radio Werewolf at the time.  I was sort of shocked when both of them agreed to my interviews. 

The guy who started the magazine, as well as a joint acquaintance of ours who was also associated with the magazine moved down to San Francisco – either because they were too busy or just didn’t have the commitment to the magazine – couldn’t seem to get around to finishing their articles and interviews, so I became the de facto editor and publisher of The Fifth Path. 

I’m sure you’re tired of reiterating this, but could you inform our readers as to what the name The Fifth Path meant and the reason you chose it for the magazine? 

I came up with the name while watching the Joseph Campbell PBS series, The Power of Myth. A comparison was made between the paths that the Knights of the Round Table took to find the Holy Grail and Chakras as paths to enlightenment.  I liked the idea and came up with the phrase The Fifth Path. 

Speaking of Chakras, have you an interest in Eastern religions or mysticism? 

Well, I certainly have an interest in the aesthetics.  I think I could have possibly have become interested in such things after seeing all those Sinbad the Sailor movies as a kid, with the stop-motion action of the Hindu statuary. 

In what form or to what extent does this interest exist? 

From a young age, I don’t know how I got interested, but I was interested in Kali.  Unfortunately, a lot of the information one comes across is contradictory, confusing Kali and Durga.  I’ve gone from reading books and writing a school paper on Kali-ma to doing some artwork.  I came up with a rather threatening piece on Kali, a multi-layered piece where I combined one part of a multi-colored silkscreen print of Kali I had been doing with a photo collage of a Norwegian girl at my school, where I presented her with a third eye and fangs.  The two pieces, while created around the same, were worked on as individual projects and when combined, came out really strong.  I think it may have been the same semester that I was taking an independent-study class where all I did was some enormous water colors of Kali, too. 

So, beyond Kali, I have always been fascinated with the third eye in Hindu art as well as the mandala design and traditional Hindu ritual dancing.  I haven’t done what I would consider much research on the topic, but lately have been building up my library on the subject and plan on doing some reading of the Vedas. 

Did you ever personally meet Freya Aswynn?  

I’ve met Frau Aswynn three times now.  She did an interview with me in a way that an acquaintance of mine interviewed her for The Fifth Path using a list of questions I compiled.  I first met her at an Asatru gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

What was she like as a person? 

I found her charming, though I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to her as she was the special guest of the event, so everyone wanted to be around her.  I met her again a year after that (again at an Asatru gathering) and a day or two later I attended a lecture she gave at an occult bookstore.  The ‘free-thinking’ feminists that attended the talk left as I guess her talk was too serious for them.  It was something to do with true instinctive spirituality – not their politicized, theoretical one world religion.  I wonder what they would have thought about the two ravens that I observed flying over another talk of hers I saw the first time I met her.  The sight would have probably been lost and wasted on them. 

Some people in the Asatru community view her as eccentric, which she certainly is, and question her choice not to have children.  I agree with a friend of mine that witches should not have children.  The energy needed for a witch to do what a proper witch does (serve her community through divination, i.e., rune casting, seidr trances, galdar, prophesying and singing blessings on her fold, curses on their enemies and keeping the old stories alive) is very hard to split between all these activities and raising a new human being. 

I find Frau Aswynn very charming, indeed, and would certainly like to be in greater contact with her, but it is hard to keep contact with people across the sea.  I certainly think her book Leaves of Yggdrasil is one of the best rune books out, and there are a lot out there!  The music she did with Current 93 and Sixth Comm is excellent also.  She is someone in the Asatru community who has managed to influence the world outside her – not just the ‘converted’.  We need more of such actions. 

Have you ever attended a live show of the Japanese drum troop Kodo?  What is it that attracted you to their material? 

I have seen Kodo once.  It was quite an event – their drums seriously shook the house!  The seating in the auditorium shuttered during their show.  I was attracted to their material as I have a fascination with drums, though I have never played them with any sort of seriousness.  Also, I find the Japanese sense of aesthetics inspiring – everything has so much thought and care put into it. 

You once were studying art in an academic setting.  What did that consist of? 

I majored in fine arts, two-dimensional design.  Beyond the several required art history classes, I took a lot of studio classes.  This was done at a regular university rather than an art school. 

What are the art mediums you have created in? 

Quite a few.  In high school, I took a lot of drawing and painting classes that consisted of pencil, charcoal, pastels and acrylics.  I also took several semesters of ceramics (hand sculpture only, not wheel throwing).  I dabbled a little in photography in high school, though none of it was of any note.  I later took some photo classes at the university and have continued with that medium for the last several years off and on.  Beyond photography at the university, I also did some water colors, wood sculpture, wood cuts, metalworking, printmaking, silk-screening, etching, collage, montage, and computer graphics. 

What is your preference as an art medium? 

Well, I have kept up with photography and would like to do some more wood sculpture in the future, but generally haven’t had time or space to do it.  Another problem is my art philosophy.  I like utilitarian art.  That is why I have taken printmaking classes, from woodcuts to silk-screening to photography.  I like multi-reproduction art.  This is another reason why I have found myself working in the graphic arts – the art is serving a function beyond ‘looking pretty’ and it is mass-produced so it reaches more people. 

Who are some of the artists who have had an influence on your own art, if any?  Whose work to you most admire? 

Well, my mother was an art minor and English major in college, so I used to look through a lot of her old text books as a child.  The one artist I have always admired, though, was Albrecht Durer.  I also enjoy the pen and ink illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, the college novels of Max Ernst, the photomontages of John Heartfield, the portraits of Wolfgang Willrich, and the sculpture of Arno Breker. 

I think the aesthetics of Death in June and Laibach have also been influences.  Laibach, or more properly, Irwin and the NSK (Neue Slovenische Kunst) of course deal mostly with totalitarian propaganda art (one of my influences, too).  Even though they use the Dadaist medium of collage, they ended up with works akin to surrealism, another school of art that I enjoy along with the Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau and Art Deco to a certain extent.  I am interested in the Romantic/Symbolist works of Northern Europe in the 1800s, but such stuff doesn’t seem to have received much attention outside of Germany and Scandinavia. 

The Fifth Path had at least one triple comparison review of the Movies Throne of Blood, Orson Welles' Macbeth and Polanski’s rendition.  What is it about the Macbeth story that attracts you? 

I don’t know if it was the Macbeth story that attracted me.  The genesis of that article is hard to remember now, but I think it was part of a theme I was dealing with in The Fifth Path.  Classical art, be it the music of Wagner and Orff or the plays of Shakespeare, has been ignored and neglected by many because it has the respect of one’s parents, mainstream society, state, and thus is considered boring and ‘square’. 

While I am pretty ignorant of these subjects in general myself, I think it has been rejected out of hand by far too many people without any actual experiencing of it.  So I did some movie reviews of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.  I don’t think this attack on ‘classical art forms’ is anything new, though.  I guess it is the peasant farmer in most Americans, and the urban thrill-seeker on the other hand that has caused this – ways of thought as old as the republic and industrial revolution!  Political correctness is just the most recent attacker of such works. 

It was by chance that Akira Kurasawa, a director whose works I had seen and enjoyed, did a version of Macbeth that I reviewed in that article. 

Were there many supporters of your efforts in publishing The Fifth Path? 

There were several people I knew either before The Fifth Path or through its duration who helped with it in varied ways, such as finding a printer and transporting the magazines from the printer to distributors. 

Eleven different people helped contribute to the magazine over its five issues, from one article to several.  Unfortunately, I ended up writing more articles than all other contributors combined – and that isn’t including the review section, which was probably close to 80% all my work! 

Were there certain criteria for the type of material that went into the magazine? 

I am not sure I would say there were criteria beyond what interested me or seemed appropriate to the scene we were covering. 

Though at first glance the magazine seemed to be concerned with music, and it has become thought of by most people, I think, as essentially a music magazine, many other cultural subjects were covered in its pages.  

Could you elaborate on your choice of subjects and materials, beyond the music, that were covered in The Fifth Path? 

In the beginning, I would say the topics we were covering were the type of stuff Re-Search and its predecessor Search and Destroy were covering, alternative counter-culture stuff most often connected to the Punk and Industrial scenes.  The two guys who were The Fifth Path along with me in the first issue were quite interested in Noise music and Psychic TV at the time.  I was personally interested in what goes by the name of Apocalyptic Folk music now – bands like Death in June, Current 93, Sol Invictus – stuff like that. 

About a year or so before the magazine started, I had made a choice to study Norse mythology and culture as much as I could in my life, so this element also found its way into the magazine.  There was also a bit of LaVeyan Satanism in The Fifth Path, though my interest in this topic was pretty faded at the time.  A lot of my interest in it was to shock, annoy and offend Christians, not to become a ‘bad guy’ like many people interested in Satanism seem to be.  I think it was an expression of a contrary streak in my nature. 

Beyond all of these topics, an interest in traditional tribal cultures and their modern survivals were covered by articles on Voodoo as a political tool, the traditional Japanese drum troop Kodo, and how some traditional Hopi prophesies were viewed to have come true in this century.  But while it is easier to define such subjects from foreign cultures, I think The Fifth Path also did this concerning western and northern culture in such pieces as my joint interview with Freya Aswynn (in common terms, a Norse witch), the Viking metal of Unleashed and Bathory, and the primal classical music of Carl Orff. 

What was the reaction of your readers when you announced that you were discontinuing publication of the magazine? 

There were some kind letters stating that the magazine was enjoyed and would be missed, but that was about it. 

None of them offered to pick up the ball and carry on with the magazine? 

Nope, and I certainly would have been surprised if some had.  I am not sure that I would have agreed to it either, though since I did most of the work on The Fifth Path, it wouldn’t be exactly right for someone to be working off of my labors.  If I had simply been the magazine’s editor and not its main contributor over the years, it might be a different story. 

Michael Moynihan of Blood Axis had a part in the magazine.  How great was his involvement and what essentially were his contributions to the magazine? 

Michael started contributing to The Fifth Path in our third issue as a guest reviewer.  In the next two issues, he helped me in the always enjoyable tasks of editing, spell-checking and writing reviews, as well as contributing several interviews in both issues. 

I first came in contact with Michael via a piece on him in the magazine Minotaurus, which was put out by Markus Wolff of Crash Worship.  Michael and I exchanged some lengthy letters for a while before we first talked on the phone.  This was the beginning of my truly horrifying long-distance phone bills that are still with me today.  Michael has been one of all too few people I have known and whom I truly got along with – one of those kindred spirits that at first meeting seems like a long lost friend. 

Beyond Michael’s efforts at helping me edit the magazine and the interviews he contributed, he also gave me the benefit of his experience as a writer.  At the time we first came in contact, he was doing interviews and reviews in a local music magazine in Denver and was beyond his years in other music and publishing efforts. 

It has often been said that emulation is the highest form of compliment.  There seems to be a whole genre of magazines that are reminiscent of The Fifth Path:  Esoterra and Eskhatos, to name a few.  How do you feel about this?   

Well, Esoterra was coming into formation at the same time The Fifth Path started, so it should be considered independent of my magazine’s influence, though perhaps we were part of the same zeitgeist.  I don’t know if I would say these magazines were emulating The Fifth Path.  We just seem to have been part of the same scene, and as there are only so many people who are doing things of interest, it just seems to be the way it is that everyone ends up interviewing the same people. 

Do you feel you have set a trend of sorts in these types of magazines? 

No.  Maybe I was one of the first relatively well distributed magazines covering Industrial music for lack of a better word with some consistency, but there certainly have been plenty of counter culture magazines out there before The Fifth Path. 

I personally trace the influences of The Fifth Path itself as Re-Search and Search & Destroy.  These were in essence Punk Rock magazines without a musical focus.  While The Fifth Path wasn’t a Punk magazine, its roots can be found in the Punk Rock and Industrial scenes.  There are a ton of successful Punk magazines out there like Maximum Rock-n-Roll, Flipside, and Forced Exposure.  I think it’s high time that there were some successful Industrial magazines, but can there be such a thing as a successful Industrial magazine?  I am not sure there can be. 

The Fifth Path has gone its way, but people still find occasion to mention it, quote from it and discuss it.  Do you think it has become part of a sort of legend since its demise? 

Well, I haven’t seen this ‘mention, quotation and discussion’ of The Fifth Path, so I don’t think I can say anything about ‘the legend of The Fifth Path’.  From some of the reviews of TFP, perhaps ‘infamous’ would be a better word than ‘legendary’. 

Did you learn much from your venture into publishing The Fifth Path?  

Besides lay-out skills and how to physically put a magazine together, I am not sure what you mean.  It was certainly a learning experience in that way. 

Do you still get people writing you in regards to The Fifth Path? 

I get an occasional letter or so asking about how to order the magazine, and totally inappropriate stuff to review still arrives to clutter up the place, but not much more than that. 

You seem to be several steps ahead of the rest of the counter-culture, mainly in cultural matters.  What have you been up to since The Fifth Path’s final issue? 

I don’t know if I have been several steps ahead of anything.  Quite often, I feel several steps behind. 

After The Fifth Path, I firstly thought of taking a year or two off and possibly starting a rather radical Odinist magazine.  As it turned out, around this time I became aware of the magazine Vor Tru, which roughly translates from Old Norse as Our Faith.  It is an Asatru magazine that has been around for a decade now, but as I was never part of an organized pagan community, I wasn’t aware of it. 

Now I suppose I should explain to those who might not be familiar with Asatru:  The term itself, once again roughly translated from Old Norse, means “true to the old gods”.  It is the most correct term for what is commonly referred to as Odinism or Norse paganism. 

While Vor Tru has been around for years, it was still being produced fairly primitively.  I offered my layout assistance, and subsequently have become an associate editor and contributor. 

Beyond my work on Vor Tru and the day-to-day work one needs to survive in this wage slave economy, I have been adding to my growing library and trying to get out of the hermit lifestyle I have been leading. 

What other projects are you engaged in at the moment?    

In the next year or two, I should be doing some book layout for World Tree Publications, the people who put out Vor Tru.  The Editor-in-Chief of Vor Tru, Valgard Murray, is currently in the process of writing a book called Living Asatru.  This book received its birth as a way to answer all of the questions that Valgard gets about how to live and practice Asatru.  Right now it is appearing in a serialized form as articles in Vor Tru.  The book Living Asatru will contain fleshed-out versions of what has appeared or will appear in Vor Tru as part of a series.  I am looking forward to this, as most of the layout graphic work I have done – flyers, calendars and magazines – have been periodical, disposable works.  I look forward to working on something a bit more permanent and planned out. 

What future projects have you in mind? 

I can’t say that I have any projects planned for the future.  Right now I am very occupied with Vor Tru and have several articles in the planning stages that I need to research more of.  At some time, I would like to have the leisure time to do art again, as opposed to graphic art.  About the only art form I have a chance to do now is some occasional photography.  I have been getting into a documentary state of mind on this matter, looking to document the world in the way that I think it should be.  Needless to say, I don’t find too many subjects.  

At times I have even played with the idea of doing a Collected Works of The Fifth Path, a book with most of the interviews and articles from the five issues, and perhaps a couple of new ones.  I am not sure that this would be worth the effort it would require, or that there is that much interest.  I did have some ideas for a sixth issue of The Fifth Path, but perhaps once a number was associated with the title of the magazine, that was a way of sealing its fate in the first place. 

Why did you decide to discontinue The Fifth Path’s publication?   

I ended the magazine when I tried to make it into an on-time publication (to get the four issues that made up a subscription all out in one year).  Throughout the existence of the magazine, it always took forever to get an issue out.  After the magazine grew from its initial fifty-some pages to around eighty, and started to be printed, it became a financial impossibility to produce.  In fact, it was always a financial impossibility.  There was never enough advertising to make the magazine even come close to paying for itself.  After getting a really good advertising response on the third and fourth issue, when the fifth issue got not nearly enough advertising, that was the last nail in the magazine’s coffin. 

Also, after several years of doing so much work, I was beginning to feel I was going to repeat myself and not be able to find the artists necessary to interview to keep the magazine on the news stands – something I needed to do to keep the magazine out. 

And finally, I just started getting burnt out with the labor of doing so much work while going to school full-time, and doing taxes, too, certainly made the magazine dreary work. 

What other interests, outside of music and magazine editing, do you have? 

I don’t know if I have an interest in music and magazine editing any more.  I became pretty spoiled having CDs sent to me, so now I have the hardest time putting up the money to buy music.  Unfortunately, the music I am interested in is both hard to find and expensive, as it is mostly independent artists and imports. 

I have no great joy in editing magazines.  I have just ended up doing it because no one else was there to do it.  I am much more interested in laying out magazines and researching articles. 

What other interests do I have?  Well, I suppose there is a fair amount of them.  I am always looking for books on Norse mythology and culture.  I have also been building up my Celtic library.  My Jägermeister collecting hasn’t grown much, though a lot of that was done for me by friends.  I just don’t hang around in enough bars to run into their promotional events.  I haven’t been out collecting skulls recently, either.  A lot of my skull collection has been through friends and antique stores.  My personal attempts at skull collecting were always pretty pathetic, though they certainly make for some amusing stories.  I haven’t gotten around to finishing my Nazi S&M film collection – just too much money to spend on that one. 

You recently wrote an article on the use of runes and symbols by the SS in Germany in the first half of this century.  How did you come to write on that subject and why? 

Having always been interested in graphic arts, from a young age I was enraptured with the Third Reich and the SS – some of the best graphic art work ever – and having this interest, of course I read some of the books on the subjects that I bought the pictures for. 

A lot of the more interesting books about the Third Reich made hints or told wild tales about the occult interests and influences on many leading members of the NSDAP.  The information on all of this activity is pretty hard to find, and when one does find it, a lot of it is pure and simple crap.  In a past issue of Esoterra, someone wrote an article on “The Nazis and the Occult”.  I don’t think the person had a clue of what was really going on and was just presenting the Weekly World News version of World War II.  Having done some reading on the subjects, and having come across some interesting information on the subject from my own research as well as that of some friends and acquaintances, when Esoterra asked me to write an article for them, I decided this was my chance to set the record straight. 

That article was published in Esoterra and was picked up by Filosofem (an English-language journal published in France).  I have had several other articles reprinted.  The Death in June article I did in the first issue of The Fifth Path was reprinted by Propaganda magazine.  They were going to reprint the Zeena one also, but I don’t think they ever did.  They certainly never sent my photograph of Zeena back. 

I don’t know how popular my articles are, but it certainly is good to see more than one audience being exposed to one’s works.

Below is a copy of Robert's obituary from the Sacramento Bee:

Beloved son of Thomas and Cheryl Ward was taken from us unexpectedly on September 17, 2004 at the age of 35. Robert was born December 10, 1968 and lived in Sacramento all his life. Robert loved animals, nature, and his family. He enjoyed photography, local bands, travel, visiting historic sites like Stonehenge and the Viking museum in Denmark, and walks at the Effie Yeaw Nature Area. Robert graduated with honors from CSUS in 1993 with a BA in Art. He produced his own music magazine The Fifth Path from 1990-1994 and corresponded with musicians throughout the world. Robert also did graphic design for a Scandinavian culture magazine Vor Tru and prepared music reviews of local Sacramento bands for Rant magazine from 1994-2003. Robert worked for StateNet since 1995, most recently as a text editor. Robert is survived by his parents, Tom and Cheryl Ward of Carmichael, his grandparents, Ane and Bob Russell, his aunt Margaret and uncle Greg Pickens and cousin Aaron Pickens of Sacramento, his cousins Jennifer and Chris Salas of San Francisco, his uncle Steven Russell and aunt Nancy of Redding and cousin Shannon Briggs of Citrus Heights, and many other relatives in Sacramento and Kansas. Robert was predeceased by his grandparents Dorothy and Maurice Ward and great-grandmother Verna Russell. Robert's ashes will by scattered at sea by the Neptune Society of Northern California, Sacramento. A family memorial gathering is being planned. Donations in Robert's memory may be made to the American River Natural History Association (please designate your donation is in support of the Effie Yeaw Nature Center), P.O. Box 241, Carmichael, CA 95609-0241.

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