“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to speak of many things…”

A year ago, Sarenth Odinsson made a post about “Cutting Ties” with Galina Krasskova and her husband Sannion. The primary reasons for this were Sannion’s use of the Sonnenrad (which many believe was designed by the Nazi S.S.), as well as Galina and Sannion’s personal comments against Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and The Political Left.

When I made my thoughts about this known via reblog (linked above), Sarenth declared me a person of vile hatred and long winded screeds. Be being the person I am, responded to this by pointing out that Sarenth is a vile, immoral hypocrite who disowned Sannion over using a symbol created by the Nazis, while happily throwing his support behind an group (Anti-fa) which was created by communists as a response to their failure to have a Communist Revolution in Germany (an act that led directly to the Nazi’s gaining fame, support, and eventual power in Germany for their open resistance to continuous Communist violence in the streets.) and that he was happy to silently consent and support the dozens of murders carried out in the name of BLM.

To my knowledge, he never responded to that post which used his own moral standards to judge him.

Now, after a year, Sarenth has finally decided to publish Part 2. Personally, I am shocked to find myself still alive, but here I am, so once again I shall be the voice of Hel on Earth.

“I am going to ask everyone who is going to comment to fully read these posts first. Know that I do not delete posts unless they are spam. I also make frequent backups of this blog. None of the conclusions I have reached or the actions I have taken or will be taking in the future were arrived at with haste. If anything, this has been a long time coming where I have ignored my internal compass for too long, and I have hit my limit. Now, on to Part 2.“

For any of those hoping he might have taken my points to heart about what his morality actually is and the hypocrisy he is living in…sorry. He may no longer be ignoring his “internal compass” but he is still ignoring his own standards of morality.

“It has been a year since I reached this decision, and I have not regretted my decision to cut ties whatsoever. It does not feel like a year, though. It feels like a lifetime ago.

Looking back, if I regret anything, it is that it took me this long to make the choice to cut ties. In the last few years I knew them, both besmirched anyone even a bit to the left of them, which is fairly far right. For awhile I thought perhaps they were both centrist. In my early friendship with her, Galina and I held a lot of similar views in regards to universal healthcare, the right of a woman to choose, civil rights for LGBTQIA+ folks, civil rights for BIPOC, and on many other issues. Towards the end of our relationship I had a sinking feeling when they both made fun of or criticized pronouns, particularly the use of they and the use of differing pronouns such as that of Spivak, or neo-pronouns. Likewise to their denigration of the Left in general, Black Lives Matter, and social justice in general.”

I think it is fair to say that a great many of us are not where we were politically or religiously when we started our paths in Heathenism or Paganism in general. Like Galina and Sarenth, I was nominally for a woman’s right to choose in the beginning¹, completely for civil rights for LGBT people², civil rights for everyone regardless of race, etc. I was never really for universal healthcare, but my reasons for that can be found in this blog I’m sure.

But as the years have gone by, real world politics has certainly changed the views of nearly everyone involved in our faiths. Some have been driven deeper into the ancient ways. Some have progressed to the modern beliefs. Some have held steady. Some have withdrawn. Some have thrown themselves forward without thought or fear.

Many a Pagan/Heathen has thrown their lot in with Social Justice and its ideals, such as “all whites are privileged,” “All minorities are oppressed.” “We should judge people by the color of their skin, rather than the content of their character.” Many have embraced the form of social justice known as “Woke/Wokeism” which, when looked at fundamentally, appears to just be another form of Marxism, just with the serial numbers filed off and economic/class status replaced with sex/gender/racial status. I studied history, and while my main interest was the Medieval/Viking period, I have had cause to study more recent histories and it is something to realize we’re basically back to the same racial attitudes we had pre-Civil Rights Movement, just with the good races and bad races reversed.

Sarenth’s support of groups like Anti-fa and Black Lives Matter I have addressed in the hypocrisy post, but let us just say that after a year since his “cutting ties” if anything these groups have gotten worse, not better. Given how bad they were before, with their rampant destruction, murder, and crime, I fail to see how any moral or sane person could still support them and not denigrate them. Believe that black lives, or all lives, matter, but one can do this without supporting people who loot, murder, assault, embezzle, or lie and use mob violence to influence our justice system.

“There were a great many red flags that I ignored for a long while. Their insistence that the Gods were either above political machinations, something I have only ever heard when folks want you to ignore the political implications of their positions, or the over-focus on miasma were warning signs. Something Galina said towards the beginning of our relationship, and that I still hold quite true, is that polytheism itself is revolutionary. It is. To then insist, especially as loudly as she and Sannion did, that the Gods are “above” politics, is to completely ignore the history of how enmeshed the Gods have been in them, and quite firmly are. If someone insists that the Gods are above politics, do not just question it. Demand they explain themselves. While a given God or Goddess is not likely a Republican or Democrat, a socialist or a capitalist Themselves, polytheism, and the Gods from whom these religions are devoted to and rise from, have definite leanings, if not views.“

It is an interesting dichotomy I have noticed over the years among Pagans. Those on the “right” tend to insist that the Gods are above mortal politics. Those on the “left” tend to insist that the Gods are deeply involved in mortal politics (usually on the side of the one claiming this).

I’m going to be one of the few on the “right” who comes out and says it. The Gods are political.

Not all of them. Hel generally views politics as an affair of the living, but if you think your politics isn’t part of how you get judged in the afterlife, you’re wrong. I’ve explained this before. In Helheim A Is A, a thing is a thing. If you believe something is good, it is good for all. If it is bad, it is bad for all. If you treat someone as bad for doing the same action you consider good when you do it, or treat yourself as good when doing something you consider bad when others do it, well guess what happens. This is something I pointed out very heavily in the hypocrisy post. Sarenth considered Sannion a bad person for using the SS Black Sun because the SS did some bad things, but happily throws his support behind Anti-Fa despite their founders doing those bad things on literal steroids while snorting an 8-ball and downing vodka by the keg.

The thing is, we can judge the politics of the Gods by looking back at the history, culture, laws, and theology of the cultures who originally worshiped them. I have addressed this very lightly in ideas of “Casting Aside the Cross,” and may one day do an full in depth post or even series about it. Thing is though, if we go back to the “politics” of the Gods, it would look very, very different from how most of those who claim the “Gods are Political” like to pretend it would be.

To bring forth Norse examples: Tyr would have sided utterly and completely on the side of Chauvin. Find my words horrific if you like, but Norse views on Crime and Punishment were not as “enlightened” as our views today. Floyd was a career criminal, he broke the law, he resisted. In days of yore, he would have met his fate at the end of a blade, not a knee ‘taken too far.’ The same goes for BLM or Anti-fa. At any point in time when they would have started to riot, our ancestors and Gods would have met them with blade and shield, not with cops standing by and letting them run rampant.

Slavery would still exist. Perhaps not in the form we’re most familiar with, but Slavery as the Norse or Roman’s knew it would still absolutely be a thing. There was no mandate that “all men are created equal” which gave rise to the idea that slavery was immoral. The norse had a clear class structure, and while there was flexibility to rise or fall within it, it did exist and slavery would be completely moral.

Freya, Frigg, Sif, and the other Goddesses would not support much of how women live their lives today. There would be no “women’s vote,” for a woman’s place was the running of the home, not matters of politics and law. There would be no “onlyfans” or “twitch thots” or “hookup culture.” These things would be viewed as shameful, dishonorable, and any woman who engaged in them would not be considered anything more than a whore.

While in many ways, our ancestors were more ‘liberal’ in their ideas than the Christians, if an honest look at the Gods’ political leanings were to be taken into account, virtually every Pagan faith would look very much like the bible thumping Christians in their morality. Certainly, if we map them on a political compass, while they might shift between “libertarian” and “authoritarian” they would near universally be “far right.”

A fact politically Left pagans who invoke the Gods like to ignore. Those that don’t ignore it, tend to end up screaming, calling such views “Fascist” and demanding they be purged from our faiths, the way Gods and Radicals did and possibly still does.

“The over-focus on miasma is something that I should have understood as a red flag. It is one thing to wish to be clean, but to insist on it, in all areas? It becomes Puritanical. Taken to the extreme it becomes the fascist idea of rooting out all that is unclean and purging it. This is different from being sure to cleanse oneself before ritual, before divination, before hearth cultus, and so on. The focus on miasma and cleansing it that marked their writing before I cut them out of my life had, at that point, reached something of a fever pitch. Ironic, considering that Sannion picked up and wore one of the most contaminated symbols he could possibly have, and that Galina then defended this decision.”

I will admit, over the years, I didn’t read a lot of Galina’s stuff. Not because I agreed with it, or didn’t agree with it, it just wasn’t super relevant to my path then or my path now. My time was limited, and there were plenty of my own thoughts to catalog, and plenty of Pagans running around shoving their generally left wing politics into the arena and insisting we needed to get rid of the “bad” (right wing) Pagans at the time. When you’re wanting to preserve the old ways, and find people insistently scratching their new words onto the ancient stones, as a historian and faithful believer, you have to get out the spray bottle and do what you can. At least I felt I did. Galina was never really guilty of that, at least as far as I could tell. At least in-comparison to so many others.

That being said, even I noticed Galina’s focus on miasma and thought it was a bit much. Still, looking back, I can’t help but consider the idea that what I considered “new words on old stones” and the invasion of political views antithetical to much of the ancient ways, was what she was terming miasma. Or maybe Galina has a Howard Hues level of “germophobia” but applied to spiritual matters. As one bound to the realm of Illness, who am I to judge really?

It is less ironic at this point than it should be, that Sarenth declares the “rooting out of all that is unclean and purging it” to be a “fascist” idea, when as a general rule, those most ruthless in their purging of such things has been the political left, not the right, both in Paganism and in the world at large. After all, we’ve seen it time and again (often documented for a while on this very blog) how Left leaning Pagans have tried time and again to purge our faiths of the “unclean” “non-believers.”

“There were a lot of red flags otherwise. Red flags that I set aside, and ignored my own internal compass on. I gave passes when I should not have. To be sure, I argued with Galina and Sannion in private, especially with regards to how they spoke about Black Lives Matter, their hatred towards Islam, antifa, and other subjects. I could have and should have been much more public in my pushback. I thought, given we were colleagues and friends, and I was initiated under both of them, that maybe I had more pull with them than what I did. Had I pushed back earlier the letter I wrote would have been different, and written much earlier. I cannot undo the choices I made that led me ignoring my internal struggle with their rhetoric and harm, nor the choices that led me to separating from them in the way I did.“

So, Galina and Sannion’s crimes were: speaking against Black Lives Matter, hating Islam, Antifa, and “other subjects.”

To address these briefly as a reminder of what they hate, and Sarenth apparently supports.

Black Lives Matter is responsible for the murder of over 30 individuals, the destruction of hundreds of businesses, and the loss of billions of dollars of property. It is also responsible for jury intimidation, and people who supported BLM lied their way on the Chauvin jury with the express purpose of “enacting change” rather than doing their lawful duty of considering the evidence and then rendering a verdict. This is a blatant violation of their oaths, and any Heathen (left or right) should stridently be against this action. Sarenth, however, still supports BLM and its supporters despite their oathbreaking and murder (two acts that demand one be fed to Nidhoggr)

Islam as a religion has been responsible for some of the grossest violation of what we consider human rights in the history of the planet. Its treatment of women is despicable. It’s use of slavery was nearly triple that of the entirety of western civilization combined and in many ways far more brutal. It’s endorsement of pedophilia as a practice is undeniable. It’s treatment of non-muslims is horrific and continues on to this day. It is stated in the Koran that one may make false oaths to spread the cause of Islam (an idea antithetical to Heathenism on every level), and it proscribes that ever Pagan should be put to death. Sarenth, however, believes that it is a faith to be defended and respected, apparently.

Anti-fa, as addressed before, rose from communists after their failed attempt to take over Germany with a communist revolution. They enacted violence on the streets, targeting anyone they felt helped the “fascist” (namely anyone not a communist) cause. The antifa of yore acts pretty much like the antifa of today, and the antifa of today uses the same methods, tactics, and holds pretty much the same beliefs as their communist forbears. Communism, of course, being responsible for somewhere in the ballpark of 150-160 million deaths, and the gross violation of human rights on a scale similar to Islam. Sarenth, however, fully supports antifa.

So, to put it in simple terms. In Sarenth supporting these things, he supports rape, looting, murder, enslavement, genocide, mass murder, slavery, the abuse of women, oath breaking, the making of false oaths, pedophilia, the death of his fellow pagans for being pagan, and he considers Galina and Sannion bad people because they do not support these things. And yes, I do mean he supports them, because on numerous occasions (including by myself) when called out to denounce the bad actions of those he supports, he has remained silent or dodged the question.

And he is unhappy he did not speak up in support of these things earlier.

Perhaps he should have kept the rudder of his wordship behind the reef. He might have not lost all semblance of actually being a moral person.

Cont. In Part 2

Hela Bless

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¹Now, years later, I’m pretty fairly on the pro-life side of things because I value human life. Hel has taught me the value of human life and the human soul. That being said, I am fairly tolerant of abortion, if for a reason most pro-choice people would find horrific: The second amendment. I recently saw a clip of former president Bill Clinton in a movie against the NRA where he states something along the lines of “they believe the cost of innocent lives is worth their right.” And well, yes. Yes I do. The same way that ever pro-choice advocate out there is happy spend innocent lives to protect their right to abortion. The difference being that guns kill maybe a little over one hundred people a day in the USA, where as abortion kills over eight thousand a day in that same country. If their right to their body is worth 8,000 lives a day, my right to my body is certainly worth 100. If it is just to spend human life to preserve a civil right (which it is) then one cannot say that one right deserves those lives and another does not.

²Of course, then we had the whole Transgender vs Dianics thing, which showed me that “equal rights” was kinda out the window. When you “genocide” and entire group just because they don’t agree with you, feel threatened by you, and want nothing to do with you, that isn’t looking for equality that’s demanding supremacy. The fact that the LGBT community is rife with dishonorable behavior, physical and emotional abuse, the intentional spreading of lethal diseases, and plethora of other behaviors that strike against the very core of Heathen Morality, means that I can’t really support them. I won’t stop them, I won’t generally campaign against them, but I will not expend any effort for their aid either. Yet as ever greater examples of even worse behavior come forth with ever greater regularity, I may have to evaluate my position yet again.