Germanic Native Faith

 Over recent years, I have pondered the issue of how to name pre-Christian Germanic religion. Our ancestors did not need to apply a name to their religion because it was accepted that all members of their community were already an integral part of their real-world spiritual community by virtue of being born into the clan, tribe, or folk group. The terms 'Germanic heathenism', 'Germanic paganism', or 'Germanic polytheism' are all retrospective terms, and by using them ourselves, it causes us to put an unnecessary psychological distance or barrier between us and our ancestors.

'Heathenry', 'Asatru', 'Wodenism', 'Odinism', 'Wotanism', et cetera are all modern-day terms that are used by practitioners of our religion as self-descriptors. The problem with 'Asatru' is that it immediately implies that the follower is relating to the religion in a particular place and time period, a thousand or so years ago in Old Norse-speaking communities, while the majority of followers live outside of the far north and are a product of the 20th or 21st centuries. The same also may be said about practitioners of 'Vanatru'.

 'Wodenism', 'Odinism', and 'Wotanism' all imply that the follower is a worshipper of the god Wotan, Wodan, Woden, Odin, which may not be the case; his primary allegiance may be to a different deity. It also implies a form of monotheism and the granting of a supremacy to the god, which our ancestors may not have granted. The problem here is our overreliance on the Old Norse written sources and our framing the gods into a hierarchical 'pantheon' like the ancient Greeks and Romans, which, in my opinion, is a serious error. I will explain my thinking on this particular issue in a future article.

The term 'Odinism' originated in 1841 with the publication of the book On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History by the Scottish historian, Thomas Carlyle. This term was then taken up by the Australian, Alexander Rudd Mills, in the 1930s, who founded the First Anglecyn Church of Odin in Melbourne in 1936. Whether he was familiar with Carlyle's work, I do not know. The next major use of the term was by the Odinic Rite, which was founded in England in 1973 by John Yeowell, known as Stubba , and John Gibbs-Bailey, known as Hoskuld. The Odinist Fellowship was founded in 1988 by Ralph Harrison, known as Ingvar, and Mr Harrison was formerly a member of the Odinic Rite. Likewise, Woden's Folk was founded in 1998 by Wulf Ingessunu, a former member of the Odinic Rite. These are the three main Odinist/Wodenist groups that operate in England today, and all three have folkish elements of belief. 

The group Asatru UK was founded by a number of Facebook members in 2013 and describes itself as 'inclusive' and stresses that it welcomes people regardless of 'gender, sexuality, or ethnicity'. We can conclude from that description that it is most certainly not folkish but universalist, placing it at the opposite end of Woden's Folk on the heathen spectrum. 

So, back to the question of what we should call our religion? In recent years, I have taken an interest in Balto-Slavic mythology and pre-Christian religion. Modern-day practitioners of that reconstructed religion call it 'Rodnovery', the etymology of which translates as 'native faith', making it an ancestral and thus folkish religion. Indeed, it is often called Slavic native faith in the English-speaking world. It embraces all the Slavic peoples and gods. Thus, I see no reason at all why we should not use a similar term for pre-Christian Germanic religion, id est Germanic native faith.

Germanic native faith thus embraces all folkish interpretations of the religion, regardless of region and time period and avoids the notion of an hierarchal pantheon, something which in my opinion, is an alien concept to the Germanic folk soul and would rid us of some of the negative baggage and harm that has been done to our religion by American 'white supremacists' over the years.

False Machismo and the Lack of Balance in Modern Heathenism

I have read many books over the years on Odinism and on Germanic heathenism in general, both by contemporary heathens and works by scholars who seek to genuinely identify the beliefs and practices of our Germanic and Indo-European forefathers. Many of the books published by contemporary heathens and articles by them on the Internet, especially from North America display a certain false machismo which is more fitting for a gang of Hell's Angels than genuine followers of  our ancestral deities. One sees this especially in works by Wotansvolk with images of Vikings with bulging muscles and Gods with fiercesome (adjective's spelling is intended) demeanours. I do currently have a number of their works on my shelves, purchased many years ago which I have since outgrown and intend to dispose of in the near future to make space for more interesting works.

The point that I am trying to make is that for far too long as English heathens we have allowed our religious beliefs and practices to be determined (like almost everything) by Americans. For those of you who used to follow my previous blogs you will realise by now that I hold 'Americanism' and indeed the United States as a country (established by genocidal puritans) in deep contempt. Practically everything that the average American holds dear I stand against with one exception-the general concept of 'free speech' (I can't think of anything else). The USA is the physical embodiment of militarism, aggression, capitalism and bare-faced hypocrisy. There are of course individual Americans who I hold in high regard. What I am referring to is the country itself, its system of government and its 'god', capitalism. England's gain in getting rid of these religious fanatics was the Red Indians' loss!

This American militaristic, aggressive and capitalist attitude can be found in the writings of some American heathens, even high profile ones. They seem unable to help themselves. They are unable to restrain themselves at any notion of criticism of their society and mores and label their opponents as being 'socialist'. It would seem that a country which seeks to protect its most vulnerable citizens; the sick, the old, the young, the homeless and unemployed is 'socialist'. I find elements of this attitude here in England as well. I note a certain veiled criticism of the 'welfare state' (see paragraph 23 of Odinism, What is it?) in an online archived article of the Odinic Rite. This of course may be quite an old article and their views may have changed but the paragraph troubles me. See Odinism, What is it? As in Christianity, particularly Protestantism, work became a 'virtue' in itself, something which appears to be echoed in Odinism.


The ancient Greeks however had a clearer concept of the 'value' of 'work' and ascribed greater value to leisure time. Perhaps with the increasingly mechanised nature of the work place we will see an increase in leisure time and who knows perhaps the introduction of an unconditional 'universal basic income' for every adult. See Basic Income It is interesting to note that the welfare state is regarded by Americans as an example of the much hated 'socialism' and not surprisingly it has the worst welfare state in the entire developed world. Let me be quite clear about this; an industrial or post-industrial society REQUIRES a welfare state unless you subscribe to the concept that a man is nothing more than a thrall to the 1% of the 1% and should slave his entire life until he drops down dead at 70 from exhaustion?

We are seeing the beginnings of this in the United Kingdom with the government's attacks upon the welfare state and the steadily increasing pension age and its sinister mantra of 'generational fairness' which pits the young against the old. This has always been the tactics of the Tories-they divide and rule.  Before England's Industrial Revolution when it was still largely rural one or two of my ancestors in North Meols, Lancashire acted as 'Overseers of the Poor'. See Overseer of the Poor Rural communities looked after their most vulnerable members as if they were a family. This is the essence of National Socialism except that many who claim to be National Socialists tend to glorify capitalism and are at heart 'right-wingers' not genuine left wing revolutionaries as the NSDAP was in its very early days until it sold out to big business and murdered its brownshirts and at this point embarked upon a disastrous militaristic campaign. Even Miguel Serrano recognises this fact in one of his writings.

The rejection of the welfare state by many Odinists, American or otherwise is an outworking of this false machismo and should remain where it belongs-in the USA. We see also a rejection of the concept of prayer by many Odinists who see it as a form of 'begging' and 'pleading', demeaning of their masculinity! Again we see this attitude in the aforementioned article by the Odinic Rite (paragraph 26), the author of which seems to be oblivious to the many examples in the Icelandic sagas of Norsemen praying to the Gods, such as the Landnamabok and the Saga of Erik the Red. These muscly Norsemen did not consider it demeaning to offer prayers to the Mighty Thor. I also noted a similar line of thought in the article All About Odinism by the Odinist Fellowship who state that Odinists "do not bow or kneel" before the Gods. Again this entirely flies in the face of the historical evidence. It is faulty thinking, not based on the evidence which is available to us. It is NOT demeaning to kneel or bow before the Gods. Our ancestors did so willingly to their lords and those lords did so to their superior lords so how much more worthy of respect are our deities? The whole concept of prayer is dealt with in some detail by Tom Rowsell in his excellent video: Indo-European Prayer and Ritual This is not intended to be an attack upon the Odinic Rite or the Odinist Fellowsip as I highly esteem both organisations. It is the faulty thinking that is at the heart of Odinism that places stubborn human pride-masculine pride at that ahead of true devotion and service to the Gods. I would also like to point out that there is also nothing wrong with the concept of SERVICE or being a SERVANT! To be a servant of our Gods is surely the highest calling.

I see many examples on the Internet of Odinists stating that even when they do engage in prayer they never bend the knee or bow. This may be so but it is NOT traditional! Again these proud Odinists need to actually read the sagas which they esteem so highly. They should start with the sagas which feature the Goddess Thorgerdr Holgabrudr and Her follower Jarl Haakon Sigurdsson, a ruler of Norway from about 975 to 995. The relevant sagas are Jomsvikinga Saga and the Faereyinga Saga.

The only way that we can counter these faulty understandings of certain aspects of Germanic heathenism is through encouraging heathens to spend time in thoroughly studying the source material so that modern day heathenism is grounded on the best available evidence of our traditions, not Hollywood films (made by Americans). As Europeans we need to be more selective in our reading matter especially where American authors are concerned.  By encouraging the involvement of more females we may hopefully gain a more balanced view of our religion for balance is something which is generally lacking in most forms of reconstructed heathenism and paganism.