A Brief History of Asatru in the United States: Introduction & Part 1

Introduction

In this multi part series I want to give a brief history of Asatru in the United States from my perspective. American Asatru really got its start in the 1970s and it took decades to take root. I started on the True path in the early 1980s and have followed it thought to today. I am raising the two children in the Heathen ways, the first generation of true heathens who have not been Christianized first.

I started writing this months ago. With the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the country and around the world, I have had to put my focus elsewhere. I have had very little time to write, but I hope all that will change. Thank you for you patience and I hope you all are well. 

Part One: My History

Me in 1987

I have been around the Asatru, Heathen, community going back to the early 1980s. In those days if you rediscovered yourself as Heathen you did not have a lot of options. In the 1980s, we called ourselves Odinists. As far as we knew there was no Heathenry or Asatru, but we knew Odin and the label Odinist seemed to fit. Most of the time you found yourself alone, ostracized, and ridiculed for your beliefs. If you were a 13-year-old living in suburban New England, well you didn’t tell many people. Back then a lot of us were closet Heathens. Unless you knew for sure someone else was Heathen, you didn’t ask, and you didn’t tell. It was hard enough being a punk rocker, never mind a “Satan worshiping heathen:”! If you were not Christian in the 1980s, you were a devil worshiper, plain and simple.

Book of Runes

I discovered the Runes first, a popular new age book by Ralph Blum, and from there I discovered more.  I discovered that there were other heathens out there when I bought a book by Edred Thorson at Waldon Books (now closed) which had information about joining the Asatru Free Assembly. I promptly wrote a letter asking for information and how to connect with other Heathens and sent it off by the US Mail. About three weeks late I received a brochure, membership form, and a homemade magazine, Runestone, of the AFA. It was all pretty low budget. I filled out the form, got a money order for ten bucks, and away it went. After a month I received my membership card and a list of contacts, executive board members, and prominent figures in the Asatru Free Assembly. I remained a member until the collapse of the AFA in 1986. During this time, I communicated (through letter writing and phone calls) with Edred Thorson, Stephan McNallen, James Chisholm and many others who would go on to found the Asatru Alliance and The Ring of Troth, which I would later join in late 1987. I would spend the next 30 plus years in and out of The Troth, the Asatru Folk Assembly, and forming my own kindreds and Heathen organizations including Yggdrasil Asatru Community. From about 2014 to 2019 I spent my heathenry time in solitude. Literally I completely walked away. I had no idea what was going on, how things had changed, and that the AFA and other so-called Asatru groups had popped up and turned white nationalist. In 2019 I was completely in the dark on the affairs of Asatru.