What is a world-view?

Bil Linzie believes that becoming a Heathen is as much about changing your
world-view as it is about adopting a particular ritual practice (though the second flows naturally from the first).

world view, n. sing. (plur. -s), a matrix or set of matrices that an individual, human being or a defined group of human beings utilize for the purpose of storing, manipulating, and accessing information.(2)

Each culture in the world has its own way of viewing how things are put
together, how things relate to one another in time and space, and what the
meaning of each event is. Each interprets events through its own history,
language, landscape, economic support system, religion, and its social
structure. Each fits the individual into a concept of the whole. This is the world view of a culture.

A world view is not only made up of things/ concepts fitted into a matrix or a mental filing system but is also made up of how these things relate to one another.

It is relationships between events and objects, in other words the personal interpretation based on a cultural world view, which create the most complicated differences between cultures. For the average American, an owl is a night-flying bird of prey which .... are usually thought of as being an important part of the ecology of its geographical area. This way of viewing owls and their relationship to the earth is part of the "standard American" world view.

However, to many of southwestern (Hispanic) heritage such a view is absurd! The owl is, in fact, evil! The owl in this area of the country is associated with the "fact" that witches fly around the small communities in the dark of the night spying on innocent Christians and casting malevolent spells

The overall purpose of a world view has already been defined as a way in which we humans store and retrieve information. In computer terms, if information is the "data," then a world view is the filtering software which renders the data usable by the rest of the system. Data are no good unless one is able to retrieve and manipulate them to some end.
A world view is a way for an individual to be able to place himself spatially within the universe and temporally in terms of history and allows him to communicate with others within the same system. The data are then utilized so that certain predictions can then be made about the universe. Without a world view, the entire universe is simply made up of a chaos of facts, a place wherein one cannot survive. Even cats and lizards are able to make certain predictions about the world around them. Were they not able to do so, they would starve to death. But why would one wish to adopt another world view in addition to the one they were raised within?

There really may not be any good answer to this question. Some folks are born seemingly satisfied with the way the world appears to work around them while others are born seeking. Perhaps the question really has more to do with "wholeness." This term is what this book is about. The definition of "wholeness" is nebulous, but relates to a feeling of well-being within the universe, a feeling of belonging. Some folks
seem to be born with this feeling (the number is very few, however), but most begin to develop a feeling that "Surely, this can't be all there is!" From that point on, the search is begun.

It is this unfilled need which drives and spurs on scientific research, goads philosophers, causes spouse to leave spouse, and children to leave home. It is the feeling that the grass is always greener somewhere else, the human longing to return to Eden, Oz, or to the Land of the Ancestors. The search for "wholeness" is the reason why cults and gangs never seem to lack for members, and why suicide often seems the only viable choice for the chronically depressed. This book is about this search.

Stability is an important function of a world view. Stability comes from knowing whereone stands within the family, community, or world and from being able to predict with a fair degree of accuracy what one's standing will be tomorrow.

Stability springs from being able to remember and compare the past to the present, and from being able to project that information into the future: "I was born as my mother's son, I still am my mother's son, and I will continue to be my mother's son." Such a simplistic statement should be easily understood by anybody with any sense at all! Not quite. . . . There are a whole variety of events, disorders, or choices which can lead to a disintegration of even the simplest forms of stability.
Individuals in any of these cases can be thrown into madness where the world no longer holds any meaning and where chaos is the order of
the day! Amnesia induced by blows to the head or by drug overdoses is a complete loss of identity in many cases requiring institutionalization and extensive treatment.

Alzheimer's Disease decreases the ability to interact with the world
efficiently. Severe psychological disorders such as schizophrenia and diseases like chronic drug or alcohol addiction can lead to a break with one's personal world view and certainly with consensus reality. Psychological trauma such as Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome, Near
Death Experiences (NDE's), or the death of a loved one can lead to the permanent dismantling or rearranging of one's world view. Although for an outsider looking in, it appears that nothing has changed, i.e. "he is still his mother's son," but for the afflicted individual, it is the world that has gone mad. There is no longer any stability. The world appears in a constant state of flux and, because of this, there is no possibility of being able to predict. To end the madness, a new world view is needed to regain some sense of stability.

Selected extracts from
"Drinking from the Well of Mimir" by Bil Linzie