Under the Rocks

I will confess that I did not originally plan to write or publish a new blog post today. I have a ton on my plate at the moment, so the original plan was to highlight an old post from the past–perhaps one of Suzanne Hersey’s guest posts–and then get on with my very busy day. But a discussion online this morning lit a fire in me, so here I am.

Not since the McCarthy Era, have we lived in a time so rife with finger-pointing. I am not going to sit here and say that such is not necessary, as unfortunately, it totally is, but what I will say is that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. What do I mean by that? Where do I get off, saying such a thing?

Over the past year, I have spent a significant portion of my time turning over the rocks that are the history of the birth of American Heathenry. Trust me when I say these are rocks that nobody wants us looking under, because the truths which come pouring out are profoundly ugly and point to just how pervasive that original nazi-born root really has become, even in otherwise inclusive organizations.

1969 has become known as “The Summer of Love” for many in our modern era: it was the year of Woodstock, and the height of the Vietnam War. It was also the year that the Manson Murders happened. Meanwhile, in a trailer park in Florida, a retired medical records worker named Else Christensen, with a confirmed history as a Danish nazi-sympathizer, took it upon herself to singlehandedly found Odinism. Out of that effort, every single modern Heathen organization of note was born: the AFA (both versions), the Asatru Alliance, and yes, even the Troth (whose stance is now firmly inclusive). Christensen took her “cues” as founder from the writings of Alexander Rud Mills (also a confirmed nazi-sympathizer), Francis Parker Yockey (a far-right totalitarian), and Oswald Spengler (a Conservative nationalist, though he denounced racism), as well as her own historically nazi-based background. She promoted ideals such as “racial and ethnic purity”, and triumphed Odinism as a way for white Europeans to reclaim their “roots”, as well as their “appropriate place” at the top of society.

The initial principles of Odinism, apart from its obvious racist angle, include(d):

1. Use of the Eddas and Sagas (“The Lore”) as the most important primary source of information on the “Old Religion” and largely inerrant. Because of this, doctrine is honored over personal experience, leading to the concept of “UPG” as a label to be used as a form of public ridicule. Also because of this doctrine, any new information which challenges “The Lore” is excused out-of-hand and held as “unacceptable”.
2. The belief in the Gods as “distant” and “uncaring”, while at the same time “believers” are “kin” to the Gods. Therefore, “we do not bow or kneel, but stand as equals to the Gods”. Again, any new information (Archaeology/Anthropology, etc.) which challenges this view is held as “unacceptable”.
3. Strict “hard-polytheism”: the belief that Gods patently do not syncretize, or otherwise cross-pollinate or “blend their images” with other Gods from throughout history and other faiths. Prior to the advent of this term among Odinists, it absolutely did not exist within the field of Religious Studies.
4. Strict separation of the Gods into “tribes”, with a distinct emphasis on the Aesir (ruled by Odin), coupled with a view of the Vanir as “hostage deities”, and with an utter demonization of the Jotun deities (Loki, Angrbodha, etc.).
5. The concept of Wyrd as synonymous with Fate, leading to an ideal of pre-destination which is largely fatalistic.
6. The concept of Valhalla as the “ultimate afterlife destination”, whereas Helheim is “for the weak”, fostering a view of violence and battle as “the best way to be”.
7. An ethical system based on honor and shame, rather than guilt and sin, which fosters the approval of enforced public ridicule of those who “transgress”.

Every single one of these principles survives in modern American Heathenry, even within otherwise inclusive organizations! So long as these principles remain so deeply embedded–so pervasive–we are doomed to continue repeating the same cycle of “why do all the damn nazis keep showing up to the party?”

What’s even more disturbing about each and every one of these principles is that they match up perfectly with Robert Lifton’s criteria for Mind Control/brainwashing. Given Christensen’s background with the nazi party in Denmark, it isn’t going out on too much of a limb to understand that this was by design. In nazi Germany, the same or similar principles provided “nazi doctors” with the feeling of “omnipotence” required, in order to carry out the nasty plans for eugenics, fostered by their superiors. Motivated by fundamentalism (inerrancy of volkisch “Lore”; lack of acceptance and/or access to any materials which served to disprove the regime’s stance), implied omnipotence (“we are equals to the Gods”), strict parameters of separation, pervading concepts of predestination, and the necessary “battle hardness” implied by a “Valhalla-or-bust” attitude, inarguable genocide was perpetrated. And yet we wonder why the same things, enacted here in our modern world, are leading to consistent ugliness within modern American Heathenry? Doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting different results, is the very definition of insanity (Einstein)!

I’ll admit to feeling that there’s something a wee bit “cosmic” about the fact that I am sitting here, writing this, in a trailer park, exactly fifty years after Christensen’s initial founding of Odinism. But somebody has got to say these things, so it might as well be me….

I’ve been asked recently “how does one reform something like this from the inside, without starting completely fresh?” And the answer, which I really dread making public is: you can’t. Think of it this way: Imagine that there is an old house, built on a shoddy foundation, which was in turn built on shifting sand. Its eaves are collapsing, and it is nearly impossible to safely get into or out of it, much less see into or out of its windows. In short, the entire building has its problems, and it should definitely be defined as a “dangerous” place. Somehow, you find that you have inherited this ramshackle house. You are given a choice: you can either attempt to remodel it, or you can raze it, and instead build a new house on a more stable portion of the land to which it is attached. If you attempt the remodel, you quickly find that no matter what you do, things just “settle” back to their original conditions, because of the shifting sand on which the foundation was built. The “bandaids”, architecturally-speaking, could run into the millions of dollars, and nothing stays fixed. Thus, razing it, and building a new house on more stable land is not only the more economical, but the more wise, option. Modern American Heathenry is that ramshackle house, built upon the shifting sands of nazi propaganda and totalitarian methods of keeping its followers “in line”.

At risk of inundating this blog post with too many analogies, let me give you one more: Imagine that there is somewhere a beautiful cliff. To the untrained eye, it looks perfectly innocuous; just another beautiful vista, looking out over the sea. Yet, somehow, people just keep falling off of it and drowning. Eventually, someone realizes that the reason for this is because its slope is incredibly slippery. Now, we could do one of two things: either, we could make excuses, such as “but the view from there is so pretty; people just need to be more careful”, and not build a blockade or post warning signs, continuing to basically pretend that there isn’t a problem in the first place, or we could do the perhaps more difficult thing, and fully recognizing the problem, put up some safety railings that block off the plummet into the sea. We are standing on the precarious edge of precisely such a cliff. It now falls on us to decide whether we’re going to continue to make the same tired, old excuses, or whether we’re going to roll up our sleeves and put in the necessary labor to make certain, for once and for all, that these tragedies don’t continue to happen.

Yet citing the problems without offering effective solutions solves nothing. Who is going to build this new house on new ground? Who is going to inaugurate the building project for that blockade, to stop the plummeting off of that cliff? I never signed up to be “that guy”, yet here I am: I’m officially “that guy”. And I’ve been working tirelessly, day and night, for the past six months to gather the necessary “building materials” to do just that. I’m calling this “new house”, this “firm new blockade” Heidhrinn Sidhr: The Way of Heidhr, for it seeks not only to burn bright and shining, but to rebirth what has gone before, in the same way as Gullveig, thrice-born, upon Her pyre of spears (Voluspa). In truth, I am still working, and I expect I will continue to be “still working” likely for a long time to come, but I will leave you here with the basic principles, which reverse all those born 50 years ago, in the mind of Else Christensen:

1. Recognition that “The Lore” has its place, but that it is in no way “inerrant”, and should be read in the original Old Norse, rather than trusting the abject grafting of most “accepted English translations”, or we need a new translation, which is translated literally from the Old Norse, without any grafting by the translator, and made widely available to those who have no facility for learning to translate an ancient foreign language. Alongside it, we must place the latest information and breakthroughs in other historically valid fields of study–Folklore, Religious Studies, and Archaeology/Anthropology–absolutely coming to realize that “The Lore” is not in the least a primary source. At the same time, we must return to an acknowledgment of the validity of people’s very real and genuine personal religious experiences.
2. We are not Gods! Neither are we Their equals. Neither viewpoint is even remotely historically supported, and we must reclaim that true history by returning to actual primary sources which reveal the genuine viewpoints of the people of the Iron Age period: archaeological, ethnographic, and folkloric sources.
3. Our views of things such as the syncretization of deities must again be founded in the sound theories of Anthropology and Religious Studies.
4. Our understanding of the Norse/Germanic pantheon must once again come to be founded in evidence from primary sources, such as the archaeological record, which shows us that, while tribal delineations definitely did culturally exist (even up to and to some degree including the Gods), they were not based on nor did they firmly adhere to any sort of “separatist ideology”. Instead, tribes were an amorphous identity source, willing to grow, adapt, adopt, and cross-pollinate.
5. We must grow to understand the true nature of Wyrd, again as represented in primary sources, as well as being revealed in the original language of “the Lore”: cyclical, ever-changing, and dependent on individual actions. In fact, the precise opposite of predestination or Fate.
6. We must recognize the “Valhalla-or-bust” attitude as precisely what it is: a holdover from nazi propaganda. Rather than a systematic culture of violence, what we find in the primary sources is evidence of a highly culturally inclusive and adaptive society which recognized and practiced warfare only as a last resort, as it did not serve to promote community survival.
7. We must return to an ethical paradigm which, while still based on concepts of honor, deals with guilt on an individualized basis, so that issues may hopefully be stopped internally, before they leech outwards to affect the rest of the community. This would be done in the same way primary sources from the Iron Age reveal to us: by building up, upholding, and encouraging constant personal improvement by those who are the very core of the community, the individual. For, ultimately, the definition of community is “a collection of individuals“.

The bottom line here is this: we cannot continue to whine and complain about how much things “suck”, while at the same time continuing to be unwilling to take a good, long, hard look at how things got this way in the first place. In the end, we can either continue to sit back and scratch our heads over how this got this way, while being unwilling to really take a deeper look, because we fear what we will find, persisting in finger-pointing and witch-hunting and all the rest, or we can buckle down, face the ugly, and make real change. I’ve decided to do the latter. I hope at least some of you will join me.

Note: Before anyone attempts to start any unnecessary bullshit, let me state emphatically that it is neither my wish, intent, nor purpose to remotely imply, much less state, that this new “Tradition” I am working my ass off to found should be taken as the new “one true right and only way” of anything. It is simply a hopeful attempt to forge a better, more stable road “up the mountain”. Nor do I wish to join the “cult of personality”, for it is already too crowded, and I do not do well in close quarters. While this research is solely my own, and the lion’s share of the historical, ethnographic, and archaeological background-gathering of this “project” have necessarily fallen on my own shoulders, I patently am not doing and indeed could not do any of this on my own. To my co-builders (some might even say co-conspirators): thank you for your undying support, and all of the very hard work that you are doing in your own right to clear the way and birth something brighter. And for all of those who will read this and decide to use it as a model and take the lead in your own right: may the Gods walk ever beside you, and this community learn to be grateful for the work that you will do.