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…?
So, “No Irish Need Apply”
Thor would like to have a word with you about this.
He’s been having a second career as a print and movie star.
One of the main enemies of the Aesir were the Frost Giants. They fought them for centuries.
With some success.
When was the last time you saw a Frost Giant?
they’re not literal truths
If they’re not literally true, then what are they? “Alternative facts”?
A person walks out of their bathroom claiming to have just taken a shower, but also that they were “not literally wet” while doing so. Sounds to me like they didn’t take a shower.
@no.9 Reginald Selkirk:
The Icelandic Ásatru as well, they just don’t bother to slaughter the animals themselves. Some people wanted to make this all about the killing of the animals itself, therefore the official statement against it. The “barbeque”, called blót, is one of the most important parts of the whole show.
I’m going to disagree with this statement here.
Not so much about the Aesir and the Norse religion but about European Paganism in general.
In a larger sense, European Paganism isn’t dead and there is still a slight continuity with the older pre-xian forms.
I looked into this once long ago, when I was leaving xianity, but won’t go into details. They are buried on the internet and today is heavily scheduled and I don’t have time to dig them out.
.1. How do we even know what Paganism was and is about? People, often the opponents of Paganism, wrote it down and some of that knowledge has made it through the centuries.
.2. The xians tried to persecute Paganism out of existence. The last witch in the UK was burned at the stake not that long ago.
“The last person legally executed for witchcraft in Scotland was Janet Horne in 1727. She was burned alive…”
The Salem Massachusetts witch trials were in 1692.
People don’t murder other people like this unless they believe in things like magic and witch craft.
.3. The fundie xians hate Pagans and will attack and persecute them if the can up until right now.
Xians spent centuries trying to eradicate Paganism. They thought they got them all.
They didn’t. And now they are back.
I used to get a Pagan newsletter on literal newsprint. Half of each issue was about attacks by fundie xians on Pagans.
They get fired from jobs, kicked out of rental housing, and occasionally their houses and businesses are shot up by drivebys with guns. They sometimes ended up in court suing fundies for discrimination and winning.
The fundie xians believe in Paganism and believe it shouldn’t exist.
.4. Why did I go to a Harvest festival a few months ago and why is that Pennyroyal growing in the back yard?
I do exist, an (atheistic) Pagan. There are a lot of us.
Pagans aren’t very organized. It’s more a mass movement than anything else.
I’ve had some passing, on-and-off interaction with groups who were exclusively Asatru (following the Norse pantheon), and other Pagan groups who invoke a variety of gods from all over, including the Norse. Here’s a quick summary of what I can say from that limited experience…
First, in the DC area at least, there seems to have been a major schism in the ’90s between racist and non-racist Asatru groups, with the non-/anti-racists labelling the racists “Nazitru” (pron. “not-so-true”). Not sure what’s happened since then, except that the leader of the really nice and sensible group my first wife and I hung with — a descendant of WW-II veterans — just quit the whole thing and became a Buddhist. I hope the anti-racists prevailed, but I do remember meeting up with some Heathen groups since then who gave a not-so-true vibe.
Second, very few of the Asatru folks I knew of had actually read the Eddas. I think that, like me and most other people in the Pagan community, they had read or been told about various pre-Christian myths and pantheons (Greek, Norse, Celtic, Native-American, Egyptian, etc.), and had gravitated toward whichever stories seemed to speak to them most. And while a lot of us at least pay lip-service to the idea of re-discovering or “reclaiming” all those pre-Christian beliefs and stories in their “authentic” or “original” form, we also acknowledge that we’re bringing our own present-day liberal-democratic, secular, and pro-environment values into our beliefs. As others have said, what survives of all those beliefs to this day are mostly rituals and stories, NOT laws or principles set forth in any sort of “bible” or holy text. Neither Thor nor Odin the All-Father are ever alleged to have delivered a “sermon on the mount” or a list of Commandments on stone tablets.
Third, let’s face it, the ancient Norse peoples weren’t at all concerned with White supremacy, racial purity, or protection of “White/Western Civilization” against anyone. They were among the savage barbarian hordes, not the civilized Greeks or Romans, remember? And most of the tribes they fought were about as white as they were; Africans just weren’t really a factor in post-Roman Europe. There were Mongol invaders, of course, but they came after the Norse had started making their place in history. So the “White racial/blood purity” version of Asatru is really no more “authentic” than the “liberal inclusive nature-worshipping” version.
And just a little note about the “Thor” comic books and movies: while many people may have come to Asatru via exposure to the Marvel-comic Thor stories, I believe the cause-and-effect relationship went mostly the opposite way: the Thor comic books were popular because they were based on pre-existing stories that were already well-known in Western Christendom.
Wondering if the Icelandic Ásatru know about the Minnesotan Ásatru & vice-versa and clearly very differnet view son things so .. what do they say about each other and separate sects and clashing?
@13. Militant Agnostic
Plus no Jewish people and italians and Spanish, Portugese are .. boarderline or less and (long list of ever more people they don’t like who are arguably also “white” for whatever that wrod menas and is worth when actually pink skinned and anyhow.. )
They chose a fake artifact as their domain name. Tells you all you need to know.
For some reason here Brin’s brilliant short story Thor Meets captain America :
WARNING :Spoilers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Meets_Captain_America
Springs to mind here.
As does the classic old meem (author unknown to me) where the Norse God Thor notes :
Or suchlike.
Of c both gods – all gods – are mythological, obvs. A-n-y-w-a-y.
If they tell you their family has kept the religion alive through a millennium of christianization, they’re lying.
Yeah, given all the conquests, reconquests, migrations, invasions, wars and other socio-political upheavals that have happened all over Europe, it’s pretty much impossible for any family’s traditions (which would have been based on land and community) to have survived, unchanged, from pre-Roman times to now. I can certainly believe someone who says “my grandmother told me this lore that her grandmother told her back in the Old Country;” but that’s a far cry from “this practice dates back to the time when Stonehenge was built.”
If they’re not literally true, then what are they? “Alternative facts”?
They’re stories that are told to entertain or inspire people, or instill some sort of lesson. Because stories are among the ways human brains learn and process ideas. Every culture has them, and most times they’re not meant to be taken literally, and in fact lose their meaning if taken so.
So by their “(il)logic” :
If white = supreme & whiter = supremer (if there’s such a word? Is cromulent now.) Then are albinos the supremest group of naturally occurring people of all?
Also do the Aryan “race” Supremicst racists know that “Aryan” kinda sorta equals Indian?
StevoR: I read “Thor Meets Captain America” — a very interesting story, if dreadfully unpleasant. I sometimes wonder if maybe at least a few Nazis really were thinking, perhaps at an unconscious level, that torturing and killing people by the millions might arouse some magical power to help them destroy the Reich’s enemies. (IIRC & FWIW, all that genocide didn’t really get into high gear until after Germany started losing the war.)
Ah, the “mythic truth” that fascists adore so much, were Truth does comport with reality, but reality must align with “their truth.”
(Am I the only one annoyed by the phrase “my truth”? Sorry, but reality is objective. There is only one truth, one reality, and you are obligated to accept it. No one gets their own “truth.”)
@24 Or Persian but anyway.
Somehow I just remembered a rather entertaining black supremacy site I found some years ago. They honestly claimed that the vikings had actually been black! Don’t remember what imaginary evidence they listed for that claim.
I thought my Eritrean coworker would find the site entertaining, but they had a picture of Haile Selassie on the page and I got to hear a rant about how the Rastas and others venerated that bastard…
The Younger Edda written by Snorri includes a lot of the material written in the Elder Edda, and is the sole source for a few stories. Snorri was a skald, and the purpose of writing his book was to preserve the tradition of skaldic poetry. Neither book goes into detail about the religious beliefs or traditions associated with the Pantheon of Norse Gods. We know that ritual sacrifices were performed. We know that Yul involved eating sacrificial horse meat and drinking copious quantities of ale.
There is one mention of a sacred preserved horse penis called Volsi (phallus) in Vǫlsa þáttr, a short story which is only extant in the Flateyjarbók codex.
The Saga of the Volsungs is about the Volsung clan which takes it name from the sacred Volsi, but otherwise we know nothing about the horse gods sacred phallus. It’s one of the oldest sagas, and is a source for Lord of the Rings and Wagners Ring Cycle. It has Brunhilde, Valkyries and Attila the Hun, but nothing about gods.
The stories in the Sagas of the Icelanders do date linguistically to the pre-christian 9th to 11th centuries, but they involve a lot of blood feuds, genealogy, and magical swords. Very few involve the ancient Gods.
Yes, the Asatru cult is terrible. But, this nation is (has always been) FULL of hateful, bigoted, ignorant cults. One of the most dangerous is the magat cult. Another favorite mindset for cults is ‘christian nationalism’, you can see it at work everywhere and especially evident at the white house news conference podium with that blond, ‘always lying’, grinning, magat xtian whore.
If you want a more fun (as in sexy) cult, try the Raelians. Unfortunately they are into flying saucer BS. And they insist on using the swastika as a symbol (which you should only do in India).
@ Mordred #28
Some vikings were black. Viking is not an ethnic description, as I hope you know. It’s more like a job title for those who left home to seek their fortune overseas. The vikings raided or traded all across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and possibly as far as India. Membership on a viking crew was a fellowship, with contracts delineating what share of loot or profits each member was entitled to. Life on the sea was very hard going, and some crew members died en-route, necessitating the hiring of new crew wherever they might be found. So yes, some (few) black sailors from Africa crewed viking longships, and even settled in Scandinavia. While Ibn Fadlan never sailed with vikings as depicted in The 13th Warrior, no doubt other Arabs did, or people from the many wildly disparate cultures the vikings met with over the centuries. The racism associated with Aryan purity was never a thing until the Völkische Bewegung arose in the 19th century.
You’re just posting about old men frothing over Norse mythology and horse phalluses so you don’t have to post about the Epstein files and the Don Dong. What a surprise…he knew about the girls! What a surprise! He was playing with the girls!
robro: They weren’t “playing” with the girls, they were raping them.
Shermanj
This term is unacceptable. I’m surprised it made it through the filters. Call her Lyin Leavitt, but avoid the gendered slurs of the misogynists.
Birgir
The tapestry found in the 9th century Oseburg Ship burial has many swastikas on it. It’s unfortunate that the Nazis made it their official symbol and tainted it.
robro
Sorry. There is definitely veneration of horses that most modern humans would consider bizarre. The word for stallion literally means hung. Odin is of course the hung god, so it’s a double entendre. The Norse aren’t at all shy about sex. There is also quite a bit of veneration of trees, sacred groves, and springs in the Eddas.
Raging bee
Seconded
I see it as part of a pattern. cf. Wicca, cf. Druidism, cf. Rodnovery.
Basically, LARPing fanfic for modern people, a bricolage by those whose only knowledge of the original stuff is third-hand or further away.
A cultural identity costumed as religion.
Artor@13: You are of course right that not all Vikings were pale and how recent the current (stupid) idea of distinct races is. And yeah, I do know that they were raiders, not a people.
The black supremacy site I mentioned claimed that all vikings had been black, to show that black people are the strongestmof all…
“Victory Never Sleeps” — Týr has sleep apnoea?
“We Want to Glorify the Gods” — because there’s nothing powerful cosmic entities enjoy more than human toadying.
Raging Bee #23:
Or slander the neighbors’ ancestors, long after the original occasion for such political messaging had passed.
Ah, the famous Northern Blót
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_blot
My “Ethnic European Folk” ancestors were Bretons, Scots, Englishmen, and Germans. All of whom fought each other at some point. Matthew Flavel might want to crack open some history books and see how concerned Europeans were at preserving the supposed White Race throughout most of their history.
Raging Bee @ # 18: … the Thor comic books were popular because they were based on pre-existing stories that were already well-known in Western Christendom.
Apparently Jack Kirby browsed through lots of ancient mythologies, and used whatever intrigued him. The perennial debate over whether the OG Thor was blond or redheaded still resounds thunderously today.
Stupid pronoun games as vagueries:
I get what they are trying to express, but it’s very very poorly written and open to interpretation; perfect fodder for someone like me to make multiple and different critiques and retorts.
Specifically, the pronoun “them” ambiguously refers to either “the Aesir,” “our ancestors,” or both, while “us” and “those guys” may or may not be co-referential.
The actual viewer, subject, and judged party are left to interpretation, and no commitment has been made thereby. Appeals to the unthinking types, I suppose. They can interpret it as they see fit.
Tethys
The design appears in many cultures in both hemispheres. I doubt any culture can really claim to have invented it. I’ve even seen it on African textile.
@raven #17:
Capitalist Christian paranoia and mental illness were much easier to come by than witch-aligned pagans.
Podcast: The Thing About Witch Hunts – Malcolm Gaskill on The Ruin of All Witches (1:03:50)
Podcast: The Thing About Witch Hunts – Salem Witch Trials and Folk Magic w/ Maya Rook (1:09:44)
* Mary Sibley.
CA7746, the definition of paganism in Christendom was equivalent to the non-‘People of the Book’ in Islam.
That is not coincidental. But I give the original (Judaism) kudos for not being fanfic or being proselytising.
IOW, anyone non-Abrahamic was a pagan. Vague but sufficient.
(It did not refer to witches)
Re: #17 cotd.
My point was that those particular examples: a famously self-owning moral panic and Scots torture-killing a senile parent of a disabled child aren’t great examples of Pagans being exterminated, however much the Christians convinced themselves they’d found Pagan, of any flavor, among their neighbors.
Podcast: Witches of Scotland – Alexandra Maher on [her film] “The Cunning”
Podcast: The Thing About Witch Hunts – [A crossover episode where the hosts tldr to Scottish podcasters about New England]