Well, we are coming into winter and Skadi has graced us with her attentions once again. My area has already had its first snow of the year, which seems highly unusual. Not going to complain though, it looked really pretty for several hours.

What never looks pretty, however, is when someone decides they’re going to self aggrandize themselves as “better than you” and shit on their supposedly co-religionists for brownie points belonging to groups of people who already hate us and are so caught up in how “moral” and “progressive” they are they fail to realize they’re as bad or worse than the people they look down upon.

I know I probably “pick on” Mainer74 way more than I should, but honestly the man just keeps making posts that inspire me to point out are shitty. He recently did a post about “Not Valhalla” which started off by making himself out to be a hero (or his protagonist, anyways) by dying trying to take out a couple of “incel nazis” who “couldn’t get laid with a $500 dollar bill wrapped around their dicks” or something like that. I thought about writing something of that post, but honestly it was really just too sad to give much attention too. Especially when it degenerated into stuff that Mainer’s “socio-political circle” would probably deem sexist and misogynistic. So, you know, way to live up to your own standards, human.

The post that got me two write today however started off more in my own “wheelhouse” as it were with Mainer talking about the Soul and different parts of it. I was content to leave it alone, though the post is mostly in defense of “inclusive heathenism” and seems to be arguing that reincarnation is real and people who are not “ethnically white” can still be drawn to Norse religions because their Soul is of the Norse.

Okay, sure fair enough, I’m willing to hear arguments about that. I know a guy who insist that there in fact only one soul and all of humanity is that singular soul living each and every life in turn in some sort of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey thing. I’m not going to say one way or another who is right.

He tries to argue this because apparently some None Natives were found in some burial mounds and their bodies were found the same way as Norse bodies, so therefore race and ethnicity didn’t matter to our ancestors so why should it matter to us? This of course ignores that there might have been special circumstances for those burials, the lore and recorded history that may disprove his point, and any burials of Non-Norse treated differently from Norse. But I was content to let it slide.

That was, until we got to a certain Paragraph.

Carry forward to today. We have the folkish vs inclusive rift in Heathenry that honestly everyone has grown sick of. It really was an attempt from the beginning to dress racism up in pretty clothes and make it more acceptable than the KKK white hoods and burning crosses. It carried with it misogyny and gender roles right out of the most conservative Evangelical Christian wet dream, and resembled Nazi family propaganda in a degree that would have made Gobels think they won the war. To say it was homophobic, transphobic is really not doing justice to the degree that folkish Heathenry really found there to be only one right way to be a male or female Heathen. You had to be pure of blood, you had to be one hundred percent cis-normative in your expression of your gender or you were just wrong.

Odin’s fucking ballsack.

Look, I am not going to claim I am an expert in the history of Heathen Revivalism, but I have pieced things together over the years.

Asatru/Heathenism started sometime in the 70’s. It was started by Steve McNallen and a few others, and from the very beginning Steve pushed for a Folkish world view in the religion. There was a rift starting not long after, but it was between the Folkish Heathenism and the Universalist Heathenism…not Inclusive Heathenism. From what I can tell, Inclusive Heathenism didn’t start until a few years ago and it has absorbed/consumed Universalist Heathenism. And I say that because Universal Heathenism went from “Everyone is welcome,” to “fuck those fucking folkish fuckers, they’re mean to our precious minorities!!!!”

But Folkish Heathenism was never about trying to “Dress up Racism” or anything like that. While there are certainly “racists” in Heathenism (the Signers of Dec127 certainly proved that with their racism), Folkish heathenism and McNallen was NEVER about that. Hell, McNallen has spent a large portion of his life helping out other ethnic peoples preserve their heritage and religion. Certainly far more and to a far greater degree than Mainer ever fucking has that I’ve heard about.

As far as “traditional gender roles out of a Nazi or Christian’s wet dream” Mainer can fuck right off into Nidhoggr’s mouth. What gender roles I’ve seen in folkish heathenism tend to line up decently well with the gender roles of our Heathen ancestors, and if that happens to look like gender roles from other places that’s because gender roles…kinda follow the same lines no matter where one goes in the world in terms of geography or time. So it’s nice to know that 5th century china was a strong bed of Nazi Christian Gender roles.

As for Homophobic or Transphobic, I call bullshit. Joe of Upsal’s guarden had a transgender child and for the longest time literally no one gave a shit in the AFA. I can’t speak for all folkish organizations but AFA was founded by the Reviver of Heathenism and is the largest folkish organization so we’ll use it as a baseline. And yes, under Flavel a new, “less accepting” age has begun, but even that age is more a “we prefer heterosexuals for the purposes of procreation” than it is “burn the fucking gays and trannies.”

Then again, given the actions of the LGBT community of the decades, and especially in the last few years, who could honestly blame any group for not wanting a bunch of bloodthirsty, intolerant, hateful individuals around whose sole goal in life appears to be to have the most amount of sex, least amount of loyalty, and an attitude of supremacy that would make most members of the KKK blush. I mean, at least a member of the KKK will occasionally take off his white hood, but a tranny will never drop a lawsuit or twitter mob. The Dianics are proof of that group’s “mercy and morality.”

And honestly, since when is “cis-normative” a fucking problem? 99% of people on the planet are Cis Gender. More, honestly. Virtually all of human history was made by Cis-people. Being the norm, being normal, is not a sin. There is absolutely no moral imperative to “queer the world” and for a religion trying to revive the customs of its ancestors it has long been denied, seeking the “norm” is certainly acceptable! Mainer says “how dare you be against the LGBT!” while he himself is being bigoted towards the “cis” and the “normal.”

So folkish was cast into the midden where it belonged, largely because too many of the folkish who weren’t racist misogynist homophobes were just unwilling to stand against the ones that were, so collectively we decided the folkish had failed the test of Havamal 43, and made friendship with our foes.

If by “cast into the midden” you mean “the largest growing and most successful faction in Heathenism,” then sure, Mainer. Folkish heathenism was absolutely cast into the Midden. That’s why the AFA has going on two temples and you inclusive heathens can’t stop stabbing each other in the back in a giant purity spiral.

You certainly have shown them.

Further down the page, Mainer says the following.

Inclusive Heathenry is just that, we don’t let other peoples labels decide who fits and who doesn’t. We got that right. Not everyone in the community will stay forever, because we are largely a group of people that exist in an over-culture that rewards conforming to the Christian perceived norm, and to be Heathen is to accept being a salmon that is committed every day to swimming upstream, and not everyone has the drive to find this sustainable, or finds the journey rewarding consummate to the price.

“We Don’t Let Other People’s Labels Decide Who Fits and Who Doesn’t.”

Reaaaaallly?

So, to clarify, if you’re a “racists,” a “bigot,” a “homophobe,” a “transphobe,” a “cis-normative,” you believe in “gender roles,” you’re “folkish,” and/or are a “misogynist” you don’t belong in Heathenism, but “we don’t let other people’s labels decide who gets to be a Heathen.”

The lack of self awareness would be absolutely stunning if I weren’t sadly already used to it.

“Welcome to Inclusive Heathenism, where we happily accept everyone unless you happen to be any of these things we don’t like, in which case you’re evil and we’re going to burn you at the stake of our moral smugness.”

I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that Abel, the founder of the Troth (the largest Universal Heathen organization at one point) was Thrown Out of the organization he lead and founded by “inclusive” heathens like Mainer, for the crime of saying McNallen (a man he’d worked with on many occasions) was not a frothing mouthed nazi. That is “Inclusive Heathenism” in a nutshell. It doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter how long or hard you’ve worked for the Gods and the Faith. The instant you do absolutely anything the “inclusive” people don’t like, you’re out. And to remind everyone what started the chain of events that got Abel kicked out for defending McNallen? McNallen was protesting the mass rape of women and the lack of government action to protect them or punish their rapists, by asking/calling for the formation of a civilian defense force who would.

That’s right, the Inclusive Heathens kicked someone out for defending a guy who was protesting rape.

And this is the faction Mainer insists has moral and spiritual superiority over the “Folkish?” This is the faction Mainer insists has a better and truer understanding of what it means to be Heathen? A faction that, by their actions, would rather see women raped en mass in the streets of their homelands and attack the ones who protest it as evil?

Fuck that shit.

You think that attitude is pleasing to the Gods and Goddesses we follow (or claim to follow?) You think the Gods are pleased when you allow things like rape to go unchallenged because to call out the rapist is “racist?” You think the gods are pleased when you reject “cis-normative ‘christian’ gender roles” that they taught our ancestors in favor of “alternative” sexualities whose practitioners generally act in utter opposition to what the Gods find pleasing in terms of honor, loyalty, etc?

It is not.

Mainer is championing moral positions not because they are pleasing to the Gods, but because they are pleasing to Men, and not even Heathen Men at that. This “inclusivity” thing is not even a decade old in terms of being “mainstream” and in terms of the moral positions it enforces, many of them were antithetical to society not two decades ago. Fifty years ago they were unthinkable. A hundred years ago inconceivable. A thousand years go, without ancestors? Some of the very concepts did not exist, and some that are opposed now by “inclusivity” were seen as morally good. Morally good as taught to our peoples by the Gods Themselves.

Frankly, I would rather be right in the eyes of the Gods than I would in the eyes of Mortals.

At the rate “Inclusivity” is going, in five to ten years Mainer will be calling you a bigot and false heathen because you stand against letting a Pedophile fuck your child, and he will insist that True Heathenism always supported child fucking, while the idea of a woman staying home and running the house is false heathenism that deserves to be “thrown into the midden” and you are a sexist misogynist for believing it.

Is that what you want? Is that what you believe? Do you believe such things are pleasing to the Gods and Goddesses? Do not consider such things flippantly, but rather deeply. Look to the Lore, look to the tales of old. Look to your own time with the Gods and Goddesses.

Mainer and his Inclusive Heathenism throw their full support behind different groups and people. But Heathenism is about deeds and judging people by their deeds. Look to these groups that inclusivity welcomes and consider their actions. Not what is done to them, or their place in society, or how they have been treated, but what they themselves do. How do they treat others, how do they treat those within their own community, how do they treat those who are kind or unkind to them, how do they treat those innocent and those guilty? Do they act with honor or tyranny? Are their actions taken justly or with inhumane vengeance? Do they show mercy?

Do not just accept the surface, but look deeper, inside, to the things that happen all the time but are never really talked about.

I have, and I have seen things. Things that are displeasing to the Gods and Goddesses. Things that do not, will not, and cannot make our communities and faith stronger by their inclusion. While each individual should be judged individually, one can look at communities and reject communities if needed, and question if it is worth allowing individuals from those communities a place in ours. And I do not fault anyone who looks and sees the things I have seen and decides that, even if it is unfair to the individual, it is better to safeguard rather than welcome.

Asatru and Heathenism was founded on an ideal. That all peoples have a right to their ethnic heritage and to practice it. This is the Ideal McNallen has apparently lived since he started Heathenism. Mainer says that despite this being the foundation of Heathenism, we as Heathens should reject it in favor or embracing some transient modern morality that says anyone and everyone should be accepted…except for those with that Ideal. That True Heathens embrace people known for rampantly cheating on their lovers, castrating and mutilating children, or any number of other actions that are far preferable to husbands and wives loving each other loyally as they work to build future generations that happen to have the same skin color.

So consider, which Heathenism you want to support. Consider what is pleasing to the Gods. I’m not saying Folkish Heathenism is perfect. It’s not. Nothing is. But I do believe it is far closer to what they Gods gave our ancestors than whatever it is that Mainer is insisting is the “true and correct” way based on whatever moral fad is currently going on that insist we should throw our full and unquestioning support behind groups and people simply because of their “sexual or gender identity” or their “minority ethnic status” or whatever justification comes up next. The old ways were given to us by the Gods. The new ways, by Men. So consider, you who walk these paths.

 

Hela Bless