Asatru, NOT for Everyone.

That’s right I said it, Asatru is not for everyone. Asatru is an organized religion much like Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. The modern Asatru movement is comprised of a lot of different national groups all who have acquired their 303c papers from the government establishing them as an official religious organization. They then set up their own rules and regulations, theological ideas about how they want their members to worship and practice and create dogmas.

Some of you might be saying, “Wait a minute here. That not how it is!”. Sorry, yes, it is. I have been around tis national Asatru group scene for thirty-seven years. In my early years coming out of the organized Christian church I thought that this is the way. You Leave one organized church for another. I could not have been more wrong. Most of these groups are run by a select few, usually founding members who intentionally or not create a template for membership and worship. This template is a one size fits all method. The problem, you cannot fit a square peg in a round hole.

 What we call Asatru is a modern concept and an attempt to create an organized heathen religion based upon Germanic paganism. For the most part it is loosely based upon what we know about historical Germanic religious practices. The vast majority of it is guesswork and made up by people who started down this path in the late 1960s and the 1970s. The goal of these folks was and is to establish Asatru as an organized and recognized religion.

With the internet and social media coming along these groups have multiplied and become more convoluted. Most groups out there today are of two types, Universalist like The Troth or Folkish like the Asatru Folk Assembly. These two groups are the two extremes; the AFA being to the right and The Troth to the left. The AFA is a white supremist organization masquerading as a religious organization and The Troth is very liberal exceedingly politically correct organized religion. These are the two oldest Asatru religious groups in the United States along with the Asatru Alliance.  The Asatru Alliance tends to fly under the radar with modern Asatruar. The Asatru Alliance and the Troth both formed in the 1980s from members of the Asatru Free Assembly, which became the Asatru Folk Assembly in the 1990s. Most Asatru new groups today are based upon either the AFA or The Troth. It’s sort of like being either Catholic or Protestant, there are different flavors and ideas out there, but ultimately, they are the same (more or less).

Here is the problem. I left the Christian church because of its contradictions and its ideas or theology was not in alignment with my inner spirituality. Basically, they Christian doctrines made no sense to me, so I walked away. When I discover what was called Odinism or just simply Norse Paganism I was intrigued because there was no nationally organized church. I started learning on my own by buying and reading books I purchased from the local Wiccan/New Age shop in town. What attracted me to Norse Paganism was the idea that I could read and research, come to my own conclusions and make my “religion” my own. A lot of early Norse pagans or heathens were like this. The problem was connecting with other pagans like us.

We are a social lot, humans that is. Thus, pagans or heathens seek out other pagans and heathens. That is why we gravitate to national Asatru groups in hope of finding like minded heathens how we can be with. That is why I started Joining these organizations back in the 1980s. To this day I have had little success meeting pagans and heathens through these organizations. I have been and on again off again member of The Troth since their formation and I have never met or kept any sort of relationship with other Troth members. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that there are just no Troth members living near where I live. The other is that pagans or heathens ten to be tribalistic.

Asatru is a modern concept designed to create an organized religion. This is in direct conflict with Germanic paganism and paganism in general. The ancient Germanic peoples were somewhat nomadic, thus the migration period. When they did settle, they were not building villages towns, they build farmsteads. The medieval village that we may think of was not established in Germanic society until after Christianity took control.  These farmsteads were rural and comprised of tribal members, most of who were related. We know from archeology that in some cases there were groups of farmsteads in an area that formed a community somewhat like a village. However, from what we know each farmstead tribe most likely had differences in religious traditions and customs, what many of us call thews today. Most likely these individual tribes did come together to celebrate large spiritual events, but on a day-to-day basis religion of personal and tribal within a farmstead. Most modern pagans are the same way The Ancestors or historic peoples – Tribal. These new tribes tend to be protective of their Innangardh and have their own tribal practices that are different than the national Asatru group they may be associated with.

When I say Asatru is not for everyone, I mean the organize religion of Asatru. I know it is not for me, which makes it difficult to find likeminded pagans. I am not sheltered from the affects of organized Asatru. It has taken me many decades to evolve to a more rational heathen. As heathens we can use the sources that were written many years after the conversion to Christianity, by romantic Victorians, or modern 20^th century heathens but we must develop our own ideas and traditions that work for us. We can also use large, organized Asatru groups to network and find others, but be weary of establish doctrines that tell you how you should worship. What works for one pagan does not work for another.