American Pagan Identity

My first exposure to neo-paganism was when I was about 14, so say about 1969. Fifty years ago. I read Evangeline Walton's re-telling of the Mabinogion. Of course, I already knew quite a bit of Greco-Roman and Scandinavian mythology, but it wasn't until I read Walton that I truly understood how the old myths could form the core of a modern religion.

(A word of caution—if you're not familiar with these books, don't rush out to read them thinking you're going to get a special template for modern paganism. It was my reaction that led to my epiphany. It wasn't anything special that Walton says.)

The Mabinogion led to me becoming interested in Wicca (1971), joining a coven (1977), wandering off to join Stephen McNallen's Asatrú Free Assembly (1978), and on and on through a cascade of neo-paganisms. (Maybe even as far as buying Shining Lotus Metaphysical Bookstore (2008), although that really had more to do with my husband. I wasn't ready for retirement.)

But here's a problem I've had almost from the beginning. As an American, how is it right for me to claim an national identity that belongs to another culture? That is, in what way am I Welsh or Swedish or anything else except American?

Think about it. If you're Welsh, the Welsh myths are part of your national history, as much as part of your ethnic identity. You learn about them in school. The names and places are part of the background of your life. The holy days might even survive as national holidays.

But if you're American, your national history and probably also your ethnic identity are American. If you know about the pagan religion of your European ancestors it's probably because you've chosen to make a special study.

Over the years I've had a chance to pose this question hundreds of times, and always with one of two results. Either it's ancestry that matters or the only thing that matters is what you feel like doing. That is, one side says you can be a Welsh pagan if you have (any) Welsh ancestry. The other side says you can be a Welsh pagan if that's what pleases you.

Sounds like the choices are (a) racialism, which perhaps would be just a relatively innocuous nationalism if you happened actually to be Welsh, not just Welsh-American, or (b) cultural appropriation, if you're not Welsh.

Tom Rowsell at Survive the Jive is thinking along the same lines. He assumes there is no conflict between personal and national identity. He says "The main meaning of paganism is an identity." (Jive Talk 03: About my life and why I became pagan.) That's a pithy insight by itself, and shows his command of the subject. A minute or two later he cautions, "Paganism can be a component of your British identity but paganism is ultimately a path to understanding, something a bit more than being British, something a bit bigger."

R. J. Stewart frequently touches on this point then glides off without real explanation. It's his idea that the ancestral religion is the individual's past, and the place of birth is the starting place for the future.

This is an example: "As we shall see in a later chapter, much of UnderWorld experience is influenced by an apparent contact with the Traveller's ancestors. If these ancestors are from a radically different environment to that of the candidate's physical birth, a choice is presented. The choice is not a matter of race but one of Paths. To a certain extent, the Ancestors represent the individual and collective past, whereas the point-of-environment holds the present and future within its heart. Ideally, these must be merged as one. (The Underworld Initiation (1990, 1998), 41).

And more directly: "Astrology has always held the indicators of this instruction, for it is the physical land of your birth that indicates the Inner Way which you should follow." (The Underworld Initiation, 86).

So, these are signs the pagan community in Europe sees the fundamental tie between their cultural heritage and their paganism. But no American response. Until recently. The first glimmer I've had that the American neo-pagan community might be maturing is an article I found a few weeks ago. American Folkloric Paganism: Embracing Your American Roots by Kitty Fields (Nov. 23, 2017). I predict this article will become a milestone. Update July 11, 2020: Far from becoming a milestone, the article has been yanked down and seemingly repudiated by the author.

Her advice: "If you are American and practice mostly your ancestors' form of paganism from old world countries, why not embrace your modern American roots and incorporate American history, folklore, traditions into your practice as-is? Don't be ashamed to honor American holidays. Don't be ashamed to learn and use American folklore in your practice. Honor the indigenous peoples by learning their history and beliefs (without stealing/dishonoring their beliefs by using it to your own advantage)."

That's a step forward, I think.

More Information

• Sarah Ann Lawless, For Sale: Neopaganism “As Is” (Nov. 12, 2018), visited Feb. 10, 2019.
• Tom Rowsell, Authentic European Identities, DNA and Indo-Europeans, at Survive the Jive on YouTube (Feb. 7, 2019), visited Feb. 24, 2019.
• Tom Rowsell, National origin myths and narratives of identity, at Survive the Jive on YouTube (Feb. 7, 2019), visited Feb. 10, 2019.

Comic Book Religion?

Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) doesn't like the Norse gods. He thinks Odinism is a "comic book religion in a lot of ways". It makes sense he (and they) would think so. White supremacists love Odin. That gives Ásatrúar a bad name. And throughout Europe (and much of America) neo-Nazis and the radical right love Julius Evola.

The SPLC charter includes monitoring hate groups and other extremists. They added Neo-Volkisch pagan groups, including the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA), to their list of hate groups in 2017. No surprise. Short version,
"Born out of an atavistic defiance of modernity and rationalism, Völkisch adherents and groups are organized around ethnocentricity and archaic notions of gender."

On the surface, that seems a bit harsh. There is certainly a hefty dose of hyper-masculinity in the way some moderns romanticize the ancient Norse. And really, it is comic. But it's hard to see how that's a sin.

The real issue that got them black-listed is their racial separatism. Often, these groups are centered around "survival of white Europeans and the preservation of dead or dying cultures they presume to embody." And in some groups that turns into an explicit endorsement of White supremacy (although I don't see Stephen McNallen and the AFA going that direction).

I see some of this very differently. Euro-Americans seem to be preoccupied with turning themselves into a tribal people. (More on that some other time.) And, it shouldn't be a surprise when tribal people have tribal gods and are descended from those gods.

In Europe, ethnic paganism is a natural fit for arch-conservatives and reactionaries. But in America? No, it doesn't have to be that way. In America someone can participate in romanticized ancestral identities without ever becoming anything but American.

The past is malleable enough to support whatever ideology someone wants to find buried there.

More Information

• Dorothy Kim, "White Supremacists Have Weaponized an Imaginary Viking Past. It's Time to Reclaim the Real History" (Apr. 12, 2019), Time, visited Oct. 28, 2019.

Related Posts

• Racism on the Edge (Oct. 8, 2017).

Updated February 11, 2019; revised Oct. 28, 2019 to add links.

Siting a New House

"A place for a new house was chosen carefully. In Central Serbia, it was believed that the best place to build the house on was the one which a flock of sheep chose as it's resting place."

• Read More: "New house", Old European culture (Jan. 16, 2019).

Syncretic Religious Practices

Listening to Benebell Wen on religious syncretism. If you don't already know, this is a thing.

There's this:

"The fixation with reconstructing the past and correlating authenticity with history or even specific [sic] the color of your skin or even your DNA is a fascinating conversation . . . ." Syncretic Religious Practices | Bell Chimes In #4 at 14:11.

That's a great way place to start. She's promised more on that topic. I'm looking forward to it.

And there's also this, on the subject of borrowing from other cultures and reinterpreting the material:

"Slam the door shut on the naysayers and keep doing what you're doing. But I will probably criticize you because imperialism, post-colonialism, social studies, critical race theory, privilege, and politics." Syncretic Religious Practices | Bell Chimes In #4 at 15:16. 

The people in my world tend to be metaphysical but they do not like — not at all — these topics. I'm very pleased whenever I find someone who enjoys teasing out the underlying ideas.

More on a related topic from this remarkable woman at Cultural Appropriation | Bell Chimes In #5.

Paganism is booming

You don't expect Masaman to talk about neo-paganism. At least, I don't. I follow his YouTube channel. It was a wonderful surprise to find his latest.

The main takeaway for me is the sharp dichotomy between neo-pagan politics in America and Europe. Americans on the Left; Europeans on the Right.

The key to the difference, I think, is that the European pagans tend to be ethno-nationalists, while American pagans are often more "New Age" -- although of course we Americans have more than we need of white supremacists doing the purity of blood thing.

• Masaman, Why is Paganism Booming in Europe and Beyond? (Dec. 27, 2018), at YouTube.com.

Norse Totemism

The most common totems in the Norse world, at least among warriors, were the bear, wolf, and raven.

We don't know much about the various totems, but bears were prestigious and aristocratic, while wolves came to be associated with outlaws.

Totems are likely connected to ideas of a fylgia, the form the soul takes as shaped by a person's life. For example, someone who was crafty would have a fylgia in the form of a fox.

• Arith Härger, "Totemism in Norse Culture", YouTube (Sept. 5, 2018).

More Information

• Jackson Crawford, "Spirits: The Dís and Fylgja in Norse Myth", YouTube (Sept. 21, 2017).
• Arith Härger, "The Animal Fylgja", YouTube (Mar. 6, 2019).
• Arith Härger, "Hamingja - The Guardian Spirit", YouTube (Feb. 10, 2019).
• Arith Härger, "Hamingja - Walking in Shapes", YouTube (Feb. 6, 2019).

Revised Oct. 29, 1019 to add links.

Norse gods

Tuisto's name means "twin" or "twice" (perhaps from the Proto-Germanic *twis). Was he the same as Ymir? Or Ymir's twin? There's no agreement but Grim suggests they were twins.

Ymir is the father of Bolthorn, who is father of Mimir and Bestla.

Tuisto aka Buri is the father of Mannus aka Bor who married Bestla. Their children are Odin aka Ingo, Vilje aka Istro, and Ve aka Irmin. Mannus is the eponymous ancestor of MAN-kind. His three sons are the ancestors respectively of the Ingvaeones, Istaevones, and Irminones, the three main divisions of the Gemanic people.

Thus far from Grimm. Then moving on to later structural analysis:

Odin kills Ymir aka Hymir. From his flesh the Earth (Jord), from his blood the sea (Njord), and from his brains the Sky (Tyr). These three can be said to be children of Odin who created them or of Ymir from whom they were made.

So. A tri-partite division of the world, as in most Indo-European religions.

Njord (Sea) marries his sister Jord aka Nerthus (Earth). They have Frey and Freyja. Jord is also married to her brother Tyr (Sky).

Tyr (cognate with Zeus and Jupiter) is the ruler of the gods until he loses his hand, and being imperfect now can no longer rule. War. Odin has learned sorcery from his maternal uncle MImir. Odin becomes king.

Odin takes Tyr's wife Jord. They are the parents of Thor. Now we have the "Hero Twins" Frey and Thor who are maternal half-brothers like the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux).

But Odin also marries Jord's daughter Freyja aka Frigg. This is why Odin learns sorcery from Freyja, as well as from Mimir. Also why Freyja takes half the dead. Partly because she is Odin's wife and partly because sorcery and half the dead are her inheritance as heir of Ymir. (Alternatively, Frigg and Freya are confused in a different way. It could be Frigg who takes half the dead and knows sorcery.)

Speculation from Jackson Crawford: he thinks Heimdall might be same as Ull.

Then one of the comments on that video he says:

Jumping off the Ullr/Heimdall connection I have always thought that there is some kind of connection between Heimdallr and the figure mentioned in Tacitus' Germania known as Mannus. The reason I came to this conclusion is because of the similarity in how Mannus is said to have fathered the ancestral Gods of the three primary Germanic tribes; Irminones, Ingvaeones and Istvaeones with how Heimdallr is said to have fathered the three races of men in the Rigsmal.

What's curious there is there's a clear etymological progression with the Ingvaeones and the Old English Ing/Old Norse Freyr, and as for the Irminones Irmin is given as one of Odin's many names which, in my estimation, makes Mannus the father of Odin and Frey at least if you're going by the earlier Proto-Germanic versions of the mythos. Of course this contradicts Snorri's recounting of Odin's origins and the Norse creation myth but I've always been of the belief that, that was a much later mythological creation and arguably not indicative of Norse or early Germanic belief.

All that aside I think there's a connection between Heimdall, Ullr and Mannus that we're missing context on, perhaps all three are the same figure.