Disconnected

I find I've been struggling with heathenry lately. Not a struggle in terms of comprehension, or spiritual turmoil, but in waning energy for the subject. I'm not reading as much as I should. I'm not putting in the work I should. I'm not connecting with it in the way I have previously been. I know this is a temporary lull, but I feel like I should address it, particularly as it has meant I haven't been posting here like I should.


I think a lot of it is a community issue. I'm an introvert by nature, so I'm naturally inclined to hermit up and keep to myself. On top of that, I haven't really made many connections to fellow heathens. I did manage to track down a group of locals via facebook, but thus far haven't been able to attend any of their events. Of course, this may be at least in part for the best, as certain comments made within their group are troubling. Of particular note, one announcement bothered me a good deal: 

"Types of ceremonies/rituals will be Asatru with some Druidic peppered in. We want to have them for the holidays (on the Druidic and Asatru calender)" 

This is troubling for a number of reasons. The first and foremost being that I'm a reconstructionist heathen. By definition, the goal is to condition one's practice to emulate the religion of our ancestors as closely as possible. Why you would intentionally dillute this practice with outside elements, I don't know. 

The second issue is closely related to the first, and that is the idea that Druidism has any kind of place at a heathen ritual or ceremony. There is this weird kind of assumption out there that european pagan traditions can be mix-and-matched without any issue, and that is not only not the case - it's also kind of insulting. Not just to me, but to the other side as well. It ignores the fact that there are specific cultural values and an entire world-view built around those traditions. To lump them in together with a kind of broad strokes "pagan is as pagan does" is cheapening both religions and cultures. One would not say "we're going to be practicing catholic mass, with some Vedic tantra and Shinto mixed in."

But I think my biggest bugbear is that Druidism is such a sketchy subject in general. We know almost nothing about druids. At all. We have nothing surviving about what they actually did, or what they believed. We know nothing of their practices whatsoever. The only historical sources we have for druids are what greeks and roman writers thought about them (pro tip: it wasn't kind), some archeologial findings (implements and the like), and whatever tidbits can be gleaned from study of irish folklore. Nothing we have comes even close to a working religious or philosophical system. In my experience (and one could make a case for this by necessity being universally true) anyone claiming to have knowledge of Druidic traditions is full of new-age bullshit. Things billed as Druidic can almost always be traced back to the same strains of neopaganism that came out of Gardnarian Wicca. 

Why on earth would I want that anywhere near my religious traditions?

Ranting aside, I think a secondary issue has simply come the fact that the circles in which we travel shape who we become. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on the subject of innangard, and forming of a tribe, and I realize that the people with whom I am closest are not heathen. With the standards I hold for company I keep, I begin to wonder if I will find fellow heathens that would measure up. Or if they do, how will they deal with the fact that my closest tribe members are not themselves heathen? 

It's a perplexing thing, and I think I've stuck things on the back burner while I chew on it. 

Stay tuned. 

An Interesting Comment

I had a discussion with someone the other day who discussed that their background was in Odinism, and they made a comment that I felt deserved a more thorough examination.

"A reconstructionist, by definition, does not fit into the religion as handed down, folk style. You are picking out the pieces and reconstructing the religion to fill your needs or personal requirements to construct a new belief system." 

This is an interesting statement, as I both agree and disagree with the person at the same time. It's easiest to break this down into two sections for discussion.

"A reconstructionist, by definition, does not fit into the religion as handed down, folk style."

I will actually agree with this wholesale, but not for the reasons the speaker would hope. The key here is the phrase "the religion." Imagine if you will, that you had as your heart's greatest desire the goal of being a good and proper Catholic. A significant part of being a Catholic is, of course, the nature of the church and the role it should play in your life. Now imagine that the church you have been going to is run by a man who claims to be a priest. He wears the robe, he has the little white collar. He may even speak fairly good latin, and within the cathedral, the light filters through stained glass windows and illuminates the statues of hundreds of saints. He goes around offering the wine and crackers, lighting the candles, taking confessions - everything he is supposed to do. The problem is, his sermons are about Mary Magdolin as the divine goddess, and he seems incredibly adamant that the best practice for life is to make sure your chakras are properly aligned. Really, the important thing to keep in mind is saluting the four-corners before mass, and whatever you do, make sure you're doing enough meditation at home. That, my sons, is the path to God.

The problem here is that he may be a Priest, of sorts. He may even claim to be a catholic, and grown up catholic himself, but what you are learning is not Catholicism. It doesn't matter how good your intentions, how genuine or sincere you were in your seeking, in making use of this information - in practicing this doctrine - you are not being a Catholic. 

Others can, in fact, examine the beliefs you have learned and accurately say "those are not catholic beliefs." They can objectively claim that you are not a Catholic. This is not because they are mean, or dismissive, or narrow minded. This is not because they have "declared themselves pope." It is because we have a fair body of evidence for what Catholicism is, and thus can claim with fair certainty what it is not. 

The Problem with Odinism

I almost hate to write this, because I know I'm going to get a lot of flak from it. For a long time I've shied away from criticizing any specific group within heathenry with the idea that I just didn't know enough about their internal politics or philosophies to say. The more I see of Odinism, however, the more I find it suspect and more to the point, the less I find it "heathen."

The problem with Odinism is that most of the things I see promoted within Odinism are either ahistorical practices, imports from other groups or cultures, or wholesale fabrications. Chief among these is the central claim popularized by McNallen that Odin has been "the god of the European race" and worshiped in one form or another for 40,000 years. Someone with even a cursory knowledge of human civilization can easily point out the flaws in this. To start with, you're claiming we have evidence of Odin worship dating back to the middle of the last ice age. Yeah. No. I'm not going to harp on about this here for space reasons, but even the best information we have of any religious practice only dates back to 6000BCE or so, and that's in the middle-east, not Europe. Before that it's a total clusterfuck of guess-work, and absolutely nothing to support these claims.

Beyond that, we have even more fun. Among other claims and practices I've heard from the Odinist crowd:

• The authenticity of the Hammer Rite, which is in fact a direct copy from Wicca, which itself was invented by Robert Gardner in the last century.
• The overwhelming influence of Catholicism in the philosophy and structure, with Odin set up as an almost monotheistic arch-god.
• The importance of a reward-based afterlife, substituting Valhalla for Heaven and Hel for..well. Hell.
• A repackaging of the Völkisch movement as "authentic heathenry," despite the entire concept being invented no earlier than the 19th century.
• Meta-genetics: a completely unprovable and counter-factual theory used to justify a racial/ethnic agenda, packaged in the same kind of bullshit pseudoscience that expects "intelligent design" to be looked at as a possible origin for human life.
• ..The list goes on.

Even if we accept that everything else about Odinism could be grounded in historical heathenry, it can already be fairly claimed that Odinism is not authentically heathen. Like the Priest above, it has deviated too far from core doctrine to be considered wholly true to the original claim.

So yes, when you say "A reconstructionist, by definition, does not fit into the religion as handed down, folk style." I will absolutely agree that recons do not fit into the Odinist religion as handed down. We have no interest in it. Our goal is to learn Heathenry, and the tool we use to do that is Reconstruction. 

"You are picking out the pieces and reconstructing the religion to fill your needs or personal requirements to construct a new belief system." 

Like the first section, I can both agree and disagree. The goal of recon is indeed to "pick out the pieces," in the same way one picks out the pieces of chaff in order to gain the wheat. We are in fact "Reconstructing the religion to fill [our] needs." The difference is that this sentence can be construed to mean that Recons are creating "their own" religion, in the sense that new-age neopagans can simply make it up as they go along. This is demonstrably untrue. Our "Need" in this sense is to practice the religion of our ancestors - the historical form of heathenry practiced prior to the Christianization of northern Europe. We are not constructing "a new belief system." We are working to learn what came before - we are reconstructing the belief system of our ancestors.

Like the Catholics in the thought experiment before, we can effectively point out what "is" and "isn't" heathen, as defined by the historical practice of pre-christian germanic pagans. We are not creating something new. We outright reject it, in most cases. We are trying to restore what is lost through every discipline available - studying the literature left behind, studying the historical accounts from every angle, researching the archeological scholarship - everything goes into this study, and then is violently filtered through the marketplace of ideas. It is not an easy path, but few things worth doing are. You have to be willing to constantly evaluate and challenge your own ideas and beliefs, and be willing to change or drop them when new information contradicts your previous perceptions. 

This isn't the way our ancestors learned about their religion, but they had the benefit of being born into a living culture and world-view. We did not have the luxury of having our religion handed down to us "in the folkish way." No one did. That world doesn't exist anymore. We are, by definition, trying to reconstruct that world-view and live it as authentically as possible. 

If forced to choose between "correct information" and "correct distribution method," I will choose the correct information any day. 

Division and Politics (OR 'Why I'm a Reconstructionist')

I spent quite a while sticking to myself in the whole heathen thing. It's how I do most things, first taking them up in private and fiddling with and figuring it out before I get involved with anyone else or want to participate in a community. I think it's a prideful kind of thing: I want to at least look like I know what I'm doing before I open my mouth. That in itself is kind of a heathen sentiment - don't open your mouth unless you've got something worth saying.

When I finally did begin seeking out other heathens and trying to get a grip on the community, I was unprepared for the politics. Having been weened on Raven Radio, Asatru Lore, and the Recon community, I hadn't realized what a diverse - and divided - group the broader spectrum of heathens actually was. With the group being as small as it is (relative to other religious groups), I would have thought there would be more concern for similarities than differences. In a way, it reminds me of The Life of Brian.

"Judean People's Front? We're the People's Front of Judea!"... "The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front."

Of course, this is perhaps to be expected. Heathenry is a religion that stresses the relationships between people in individual communities, rather than any kind of pan-heathen brotherhood. The notion that we should all be Brothers and Sisters in Christ Odin is leftover baggage from someone else's religion. Innangard is one of the core concepts from the world view and is by definition exclusionary. This is also a religion that encourages someone to stand their ground, and comes from a culture that celebrates independence and personal charisma, so heathens by nature tend to be both opinionated and stubborn, with no divine commandment of subservience or humility to stand in their way.

I'm the first to admit that I fit all of these issues to a T. I'm part of the problem. While I wish that there were a greater consensus on a number of things, I realize that most Heathens do, and like all other heathens I would prefer my version of the story to be the one that is agreed upon.

In my mind, however, there is a difference and here I will present a case for my position.

In the world of Heathenry, there are essentially two categories of declarative statement. The first falls broadly under Reconstruction. Reconstruction is essentially the factual, objective information we can point to the lore itself (sagas, eddas, etc), from outside texts (Tacitus, Saxo Grammaticus, ibn Fadlan), and from archeological and other scholarship. The other half falls under UPG - Unsubstantiated Personal Gnosis. Any time someone leads with UPG, what they are talking about is their personal experience and insight that is unsupported by outside sources. This doesn't mean that their UPG is wrong, or even goes against the lore, but any time it is UPG one cannot make the claim "This is true," they can only espouse a personal belief or opinion.

Even if I'm not the most deeply educated of heathens (yet), I tend to lean towards hard recon myself. What this means in practice is that I assume the humble position that the people who actually practiced this faith centuries ago understood their lore, gods, and philosophy better than I do. Thus, what is and isn't "heathen" to me falls squarely on the shoulders of "what did our ancestors believe?" In my view, if you're claiming to be heathen, then you assume that the answer to that question is what you should be incorporating into your religious practice. This is not to say that I'm entirely against UPG, I have some of my own. But it means that I assume UPG is like sexual preference - everyone's got some, yours has nothing to do with mine, and you should assume no one wants to hear about it unless they ask you directly.

So why would anyone ever not push for Recon? Well, there are some pretty common arguments I hear:

Recons live in a fantasy world / are trying to pretend they are vikings
This is a fairly common opening argument, usually because the person at hand doesn't actually understand what recon is. Reconstructionists are not out to put on costume and live in the 10th century, but instead are trying to understand the world view of those that came before and apply it to modern life.

We can never know what they believed, so why bother?
This comes from a simple ignorance of just how much we actually do know, and we know more every year. There are far fewer gaps in the collective scholarship than people would have you believe.. but.. of course, you'd actually have to do the work and study to understand that.

We live in a different world now.
This is also occasionally changed to sound something like "Heathenry is a living religion and it must be updated with the times." I find this claim to be both absurd and kind of misleading. For me, the philosophy is actually what brought me to Heathenry, so claiming that it needs to be updated is a kind of idiocy that could only be represented by idiocy as some kind of platonic ideal. The world itself is full of other religions and other schools of thought that are more "modern." To me, that is the biggest reason to choose heathenry, to get away from the shallow and sickly philosophical notions that permeate modern society and religion. And as stated before, if you don't actually follow the philosophy of a religion, why bother?

The real problem with this claim is the idea that the philosophy needs updating at all. Heathenism is a life-affirming and human-centric, humanistic religion and it's underlying philosophical tenants bear that out. If someone wanted to make a very well-reasoned argument about a specific point that could use changing, I'd be all ears. Unfortunately, this argument only ever really means "I want to import this non-heathen concept from some other religion, call it heathen, and have everyone else accept its validity."

Recons are as dogmatic as christians!
This is one of my favorites, and forms a nice catch-all for the rest of the issues that might come up. Heathenry has no dogma. It has a world-view, as does every culture and every religion. It needs no dogma, and no commandments (don't get me started on the "Nine Noble Virtues") because if you understand the world-view, none of the rest is required.

Generally speaking, this is the retort of someone who has tried to hybridize their heathenry, infusing it with their leftover christian baggage, or tried to import wicca or other new-age influences and presented it as "their" heathenry to other people. Some groups will be fine with that, but this is where pejoratives like "wiccatru" and other less than friendly accusations come in from the recon-crowd. It's not that there's anything wrong with wanting to be High Priestess Silver Odinswolf of the Mjolnir-Bearer's Coven. You are free to do that, but what you are doing is substituting what we factually know about the way heathens organized and worshiped historically with non-heathen sources. You can do it as you please, but what you are doing is not heathenry. Some embrace this openly, referring to themselves as part of "The Northern Tradition" instead. For the most part though, people who fall under these categories seem to be either new heathens who haven't learned any better yet or people who either simply don't care enough to learn what was actually practiced, or actively want to disregard what was practiced in order to craft a religion more suited to their own personal politics and convenience.

Ultimately, that's the best argument I can make for Recon. In many ways it strikes parallels with the role of the role the Constitution is meant to play in US government. Whatever differences in philosophy you might have or UPG or other ideas you might bring to the table, Recon serves as a neutral ground and a boundary line. It is an objective standard by which one can measure ideas and objective middle one can meet at and declare "this is heathenry." You cannot one day make the declaration "This is heathenry, and because I call myself a Gothi, I declare it so" any more than a president can stand up and declare himself king (try as they might).

And the case for those against recon? All I can say is that I've noticed that whenever someone comes out and states that some god or another, or their ancestors, or whatever source decides that they are such a special and remarkable individual that they can speak for the truth of heathenry, that source almost always sounds like "You are perfect just as you are, do what feels good" and almost never sounds like "we gave you this information already, we have been arguing for the same kinds of rites, rituals, and cultural values for thousands of years. Go out there and do the work."

Just a touch too convenient, if you ask me.