I occasionally look in on our local racist cult — but not very often, because dear god, they are boring. We have an Asatru chapter near us, in Murdock, Minnesota, which was initially controversial when they bought an old church and announced that they were establishing a whites-only congregation. Since then, though, they’ve been quiet, festering in their small town enclave. That’s a danger, so I check in on their website now and then, because I half-expect to erupt and collapse at some time, which can be either hilarious or horrifying.
Asatru is a very silly religion…although, to be fair, all religions are absurd and fundamentally stupid. New religions just look particularly goofy because the older faiths benefit from familiarity. Mormonism, for instance, is crazy and unbelievable because we know it’s relatively recent and its con man founder, while Catholicism’s origins are buried in the murk of ancient history, and its founder is walled off behind thick layers of myth. Asatru was conjured up in 1972 by a couple of old guys meeting in a cafe in Reykjavik, built on a framework of myths and historical practices from the Edda, a book (the Prose Edda, at least, the Poetic Edda has older roots) written by a Christian in the 13th century. The old Norse religion has been dead for centuries. The Asatru folk are trying to resurrect a faith that has long been dead and buried in its grave.
I live in a state full of the descendants of Scandinavian immigrants, and they all came here steeped in the dogma of the Lutheran church (with a scattering of Catholics), and there was no heritage of Old Norse pagan religion among them.
The local Asatru chapter, called the Baldrshof, seems to be largely struggling to invent a mythological foundation in scraps of lore. A couple of their leaders meet once a week to record a video of their godawful boring conversations about Asatru; their channel is called Victory Never Sleeps, a title that is pretentious and nonsensical. These videos are painful to watch.
They’re 2 or 3 hours long, and they talk fantasy. I can’t watch them. They could be imbedding secret codes and nefarious plots in short messages deep in the long-winded drone and the FBI and I wouldn’t notice. They have been putting out short videos, too, that are more digestible but equally dull and silly. Here’s Matthew Flavel, the head of the local church, babbling.
When people see pictures of us, and see that those guys are Asatru, does that elevate the Aesir and our ancestors, or is it a cause for them to be ashamed?…Does that interaction bring glory to the Aesir and our ancestors, or does it make them cringe?
I have some good news for him: they aren’t cringing, because the Aesir don’t exist and his ancestors are all dead. The bad news for the rest of us is that tales of Norse folklore is a smokescreen. The rest of the world around them are doing the cringing. And we know that they have a different motivation. It’s racism.
The myth cycle, our powerful truths, they’re not literal truths, they’re pathways to truth. They show us truth in ways that our mind and our soul is uniquely capable of understanding the divine. And you find that because that’s developed through thousands of years of the experiences of our people. That’s why I think it is uniquely suited to each of as people of Northern European descent, as people who trace their roots back to that font of Aryan consciousness to embrace that spirituality. And you see that expressed throughout Europe and in little corners of the rest of the world that have since been diluted by white genocide.– Excerpt from “Asatru: A White Man’s Religion,” a speech current AFA leader Matt Flavel delivered at the Northwest Forum, a conference organized by white nationalist Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents Publishing
If the Ethnic European Folk cease to exist Asatru would likewise no longer exist. Let us be clear: by Ethnic European Folk we mean white people. It is our collective will that we not only survive, but thrive, and continue our evolution in the direction of the Infinite. All native religions spring from the unique collective soul of a particular race. Religions are not arbitrary or accidental; body, mind and spirit are all shaped by the evolutionary history of the group and are thus interrelated. Asatru is not just what we believe, it is what we are. Therefore, the survival and welfare of the Ethnic European Folk as a cultural and biological group is a religious imperative for the AFA.– Second point in the Asatru Folk Assembly’s current “Declaration of Purpose,” featured on the organization’s website
So I keep an eye on the local Asatru, boring as they are. I’m hoping they’re just going to continue to wallow in made-up folklore and fade into irrelevance, but you never know — the Mormons and the Catholic Church were also once a small cult of people with silly beliefs, too.
I keep a replica of the Wolin Svantevit in my backpack, just in case I have to scare a few missionaries.
I’m sure there were some remnants. Even northern Germany had widespread harvest sacrifices to folkloric reflexes of old Germanic deities well into the 19th century and in some places even into the 20th.
I’m sure there are remnants, but grandmothers telling stories about trolls and elves does not equal the coherent preservation of a body of religious thought.
Certainly. But there was never really a body of religious thought to preserve in a coherent fashion. What most poeple that grew up in societies strongly influenced by Abrahamic religions don’t get is how the earlier forms of polytheism worked and how much they were focused on ritual instead of doctrine.
Wow, that guy is committed to his dog whistle, even if it seemingly only makes obnoxious noise.
Luckily, the Icelandic Ásatru have moved on from their original racist and white supremacy world view. In those cases when, for example, right-wing politicians tried to stir anti-foreigner or -islamic feelings here (in Iceland) by claiming the Ásatru as allies for their political views, the allsherjargoði (highest priest) immediately jumped at them with both feet, and condemed them and their ideology. And that’s one of the few times you hear from them at all; maybe a press statement from time to time about the protection of nature or for a clear separation between church and state, but otherwise they just do their meetings and rituals without bothering anyone.
I totally agree about Ásatru being as nonsensical as any other religion, but at least our branch in Iceland is as good as it gets in not doing any harm.
Reminds me of some of the heathen (Germanic polytheist) YouTubers I used to follow, and the positions they had regarding ASA:
– If they tell you their family has kept the religion alive through a millennium of christianization, they’re lying.
– If the gods are powerful cosmic beings, why would they give a shit about your DNA?
They were fun to watch, until they doxxed the guy in the group who did all the writing and research because of a minor disagreement.
Not all Asatru are white racists.
In fact most of them aren’t. Here is a statement from the Icelandic group.
This sums it up.
“We particularly reject the use of Ásatrú as a justification for supremacy ideology, militarism and animal sacrifice.”
They mostly believe in separation of church and state and taking care of the environment.
I detest the watered-down usage of “truth.” Develop a better vocabulary. Discover words like relevant, allegorical, resonant and save the word truth for things that are, you know, actually true.
FTFY
@7 raven
They had me going right up until those last two words. I do love me some barbecue.
This seems to be a common problem with white supremacists. Take a look at them. If I were to attempt to make a case for the supremacy of the white race, the people who call themselves white supremacists are not the examples I would choose.
More. This is off an old Reddit threat.
It is more humanism than anything else.
I don’t have a problem agreeing with most of what they believe in.
Why do I get the feeling that these guys were extremely upset when Heimdall was portrayed by Idris Elba in the MCU Thor movies…?