Asatru Folk Assembly - 4⧸22⧸26 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 198 - Lawspeaker AMA

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:30.000 Thank you.

00:03:00.000 Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:11.720 As you may notice, we are joined once again by our law speaker, Alan Turnage, who has been

00:03:20.700 away on various adventures for the past couple of months.

00:03:23.460 So it's good to have him back in the in the co-host seat tonight to talk to us about adulting and to answer any and all of your questions about any topic you might bring to him.

00:03:38.280 So now is your time. Come up with questions. He will attempt to answer them.

00:03:44.360 I will also, when appropriate, throw in my two cents on some of these questions.

00:03:51.600 And, yeah, we'll have a fun night this evening.

00:03:56.920 Top of the show things for you.

00:03:59.540 So someone made note in the chat that I do not have my beard.

00:04:04.840 That person has been absent from watching the show for about a month, I would assume.

00:04:09.740 so uh i do a thing and it doesn't have any great spiritual significance uh i grow my beard from

00:04:20.540 the autumnal equinox to the vernal equinox um a couple of reasons i was just playing around and

00:04:30.220 i tried it once because i've been clean shaven for a while and i noticed that my beard gets

00:04:34.860 gray in it i was entertained i wanted to see what we do with it and uh then by the springtime i got

00:04:41.500 bored and got itchy so i decided to shave it off about fall time i was missing my beard and i wanted

00:04:47.980 to see the progress of the gray so every fall i get to to mark the progress of of the gray hairs

00:04:55.500 in my beard and it you know i get bored with the one or the other so i do both um on to something

00:05:04.860 More meaningful?

00:05:11.520 So first, okay.

00:05:13.820 Yes.

00:05:14.460 All right.

00:05:14.840 Because I have a couple of things I'm juggling.

00:05:16.540 It'll make sense here in a second.

00:05:17.940 Thank you to everyone.

00:05:18.600 Say it all in one sentence.

00:05:20.980 All right.

00:05:23.500 No, that would be a terrible run on.

00:05:25.160 It would be embarrassing.

00:05:27.240 So, and I want to take time to note this.

00:05:30.180 Thank you to everyone who donated to the Thorshaw heat situation.

00:05:33.560 you guys have been particularly generous in donating towards that and we were able to find

00:05:41.020 a heating unit and the conversion kit and all the necessary accoutrements to get it fixed so

00:05:49.660 we are set for that we have reached the total we needed we're able to get it under budget because

00:05:56.100 we try to make efficient use of the donations we get and so we appreciate that the unit is

00:06:03.780 in the mail and they'll be installing that as soon as it gets there so thank you everyone

00:06:08.420 who made that a success and i'm sure the good folk at thorshoff come this winter will be very

00:06:13.540 appreciative um also a couple a couple of few things as phraseoff is concerned weekly update

00:06:26.020 on where we're at um you guys continue to be very generous we're doing fantastic on that

00:06:35.940 there we go the graphic is now up so we're at 30 8.1 paid on off on that which is tremendous

00:06:43.540 104 dollars per member we pay that off immediately you guys have been great if you are interested

00:06:50.980 in donating to this or any of the other um fundraisers that we're working on

00:06:58.500 runestone.org donate and we appreciate your generosity as always um another kind of note

00:07:06.580 on Frazehoff. My family and I were able to attend Nornanot there over this last weekend, and the

00:07:14.660 folks there did a fantastic job. It was a tremendous event. It was wonderful to see all of our folk who

00:07:21.300 showed up from the Frazehoff district. Also, it was nice to be able to show Mandy and Aubrey that

00:07:28.980 Hoff for the first time. I will say this, Githya Katie Erickson prepared the best meal that I have

00:07:34.900 ever had it off uh this last time phrase off so that's gonna be hard to beat she did an amazing

00:07:40.340 job there um yeah it was just overall fantastic so thank you to all our wonderful folk at phrase

00:07:46.820 off um next up so some of you guys may or may not know we started i think a little bit over a week

00:07:57.620 ago maybe two weeks ago thereabouts raising funds to build a pavilion at sigraham we've already

00:08:08.180 raised can't tell the exact uh percentage on this particular thermometer but we've raised

00:08:15.220 1700 that so far with some generous donors you guys have been awesome we've got plans in place

00:08:22.740 and folks that want to put in the work to make this pavilion happen it's going to be special and

00:08:28.660 it'll be the first a little permanent structure put on the grounds there kind of a sign of things to

00:08:33.620 come and giving us a place in the meantime to gather under some shade to have a seat and join

00:08:42.340 meals together and fellowship with our folk and to host our events that we have there including

00:08:49.540 what's going to be the big event at Sigurhan this year past years we were doing a cigarette

00:08:57.060 there we'll do that again in the future when we have some ac but folks would like a little bit

00:09:02.660 cooler and more a palatable event for central tennessee so we are going to uh celebrate i'm

00:09:09.140 harry of level here so in november we'll be gathering it'll be nice beautiful the weather

00:09:15.060 we've cooled off and i hope any and all of you can come out and share that experience with us

00:09:21.300 hopefully under a beautiful pavilion that we're trying to set up like this we'll see what we can

00:09:26.900 do we appreciate you guys uh other top of the show things coming up very quickly in the pacific

00:09:35.860 northwest we have a uh we have a regional gathering there at mount rainier celebrating

00:09:46.260 norna knot it's going to be a weekend event mcnallans are coming up from california it's

00:09:52.420 always a really cool opportunity to meet our founder and his lovely wife is sheila

00:09:58.180 um so yeah you guys should make that if you can i know we have a lot of people in different uh you

00:10:06.740 know in coastal washington and oregon that don't get the opportunity to come out with some things

00:10:10.500 sometimes it's a really good opportunity and like i said i get to meet the mcdowlands as well and

00:10:16.740 our pacific northwest leadership so it's a really good opportunity i hope y'all take advantage of

00:10:22.820 that i'm sure it's going to be an amazing event i look forward to seeing pictures hearing stories

00:10:29.460 um one last thing and i will let alan get to cooking here gw farnsworth you are amazing you

00:10:38.420 pull us every week with your tremendous generosity uh 50 donation towards the

00:10:44.660 cedar hang pavilion thank you i hope that you can join us under that pavilion whenever you like

00:10:51.140 but it would be great to have you there and we appreciate your generosity

00:10:55.620 nick in ohio donated a hundred dollars to help us pay off phrasehoff thank you so much for that nick

00:11:01.060 much much appreciated and steven in japan donated five dollars to towards the baldershoff steeple

00:11:09.380 and ten dollars to paying off phrasehoff so thank you for that steven also we appreciate your weekly

00:11:15.700 generosity on the program thank you guys very much with that alan tell us about alan's stuff

00:11:24.260 okay so i'm gonna start with a little about me um because that's my favorite topic and then

00:11:31.780 another little bit of preliminary business and then we will get to the couple of topics

00:11:37.780 and then questions um so uh first of all i am sipping on some tea because i brought a cold

00:11:47.220 back from the cruise that i went on that looked that caused my absence last month um it's it's

00:11:54.980 some i think it's some form of the covid stuff or maybe tuberculosis because i've had this cough for

00:12:01.540 a couple of weeks and can't seem to shake it so i'm having some tea and honey my very own honey

00:12:07.060 from my very own hives so it is uh extra special because it was free it only cost me uh i won't

00:12:15.460 say how much it cost me in equipment and time but the honey's free um so otherwise things are good

00:12:22.740 here on the uh on the property everything is running smooth um and life is pretty good here in

00:12:33.060 Tallahassee see sorry excuse me the other thing to update us from the from a

00:12:44.520 show a couple of months ago that where we were talking about various and sundry

00:12:49.200 things one of our members called and asked for some advice about her son who

00:12:54.420 was dealing with a bully in their scouting troop that her son and the bully were both in.

00:13:05.100 We talked about dealing with that in a forthright, upright fashion, and apparently that worked

00:13:12.480 pretty well because I was texting with her today.

00:13:16.360 she let me know that now her son has passed the bully in the in the scouting hierarchy and

00:13:23.720 so that seemed to have put things to right the good guys on top and the bullies where he belongs

00:13:31.940 pretty much although you know in the dumpster would have been better but at a lower rank that's

00:13:38.420 that's the next best thing. So preliminaries aside, now we're going to start talking about

00:13:46.700 some important if unseemly things, and it's something that we don't like to talk about,

00:13:56.280 but it is also something that everybody does, poop.

00:14:07.320 So, you know, again, it's one of those things, you know, that if you, that's right, exactly.

00:14:16.280 See, everyone poops, whether you like it or not. 0.64

00:14:19.520 Hopefully, everybody poops.

00:14:21.080 So, it's not that I've dedicated my life to this topic, but I have spent an untoward amount of time thinking through the minutia of this particular topic. 0.65

00:14:38.640 It has brushed up against me in, that's the wrong phrasing, but I have run into it in several health-related videos and books that I have been keeping up with.

00:14:49.920 And so a couple of bits of advice on that topic, and then we will turn to more seemly questions from the audience unless we want to dig into the minutia of this topic.

00:15:03.540 So one thing is that the modern toilet, the modern flush toilet, for all of its magnificence, puts our body in the wrong posture for complete evacuation.

00:15:24.380 I was looking for a graphic there.

00:15:26.200 So the basic idea is that physiologically, see, your musculature has not evolved to the flush toilet.

00:15:41.240 So if you just sit in the orange picture posture in the regular sitting, it pinches off your valve and you don't get a complete movement.

00:15:53.940 So the green, the green for go posture there opens up your valves so that you can empty yourself completely.

00:16:08.740 And that's, I've been assuming that posture for like 15 years now.

00:16:16.140 And I can attest to the fact that it is a much better, it is a much more effective, much more thorough way to go.

00:16:23.940 There is a device, as you can see, the guy, there you go, that's called the Squatty Potty.

00:16:34.340 There are nicer ones than that plastic one.

00:16:37.040 I typically take my pants off before I sit on the toilet, but some people don't, I guess.

00:16:45.620 But that puts you in the right posture.

00:16:49.200 You don't have to buy one of those plastic things.

00:16:51.960 You can put a couple of bricks there so that you can step up on that.

00:16:57.160 But anything to put you in that knees above your hips posture, your body will thank you.

00:17:03.940 And you'll thank me maybe eventually, even though you may not want to do it in public.

00:17:11.060 So a couple other things, right?

00:17:14.740 Stop drinking energy drinks.

00:17:16.300 Those are bad for you.

00:17:17.320 They interrupt your probiotic system.

00:17:19.780 Yeah, exactly. 0.96

00:17:20.360 They drink tea because you want to poop like everyone else does.

00:17:28.280 Chia seeds are very effective late at night.

00:17:32.440 Not late at night, you know, but I mean, like right before you go to bed at 9 o'clock,

00:17:37.520 stir up some chia seeds and a glass of water.

00:17:39.860 Let them dissolve so that not only hydrates, but the chia seeds will sweep you out.

00:17:47.680 A little bit of olive oil will do a lot of the same thing.

00:17:54.420 And train yourself to go first thing in the morning and then you get in the shower and then you're clean all day.

00:18:02.760 I think this might be a short people problem.

00:18:06.200 It occurs to me on your graphic, which is informative.

00:18:09.000 i assume a closer to green person position because i am tall so i've never considered

00:18:17.880 it a problem my legs don't dangle off the off edge of the toilet um it is certainly

00:18:24.360 a matter of degree though so if you like if you had your feet up off the ground

00:18:29.800 like ideally toilet should be just a foot or so above the ground so you can get into the right

00:18:35.640 posture um you know i've often

00:18:42.440 had this conversation recently with uh exercise and fat people and you know mentioning that you

00:18:50.920 know especially if they go in the position that you're talking about they they fully squat you

00:18:55.480 know 300 pounds or so every time they they engage in said activity fat people have very strong legs

00:19:03.800 because they are you know they are doing the farmer's walk with 300 pounds everywhere they go

00:19:09.560 indeed um so there you have it so thank you for that little aside i

00:19:19.160 offer advice and okay so it is obviously funny and i think that from

00:19:27.400 you know two to 102 we probably all are going to laugh about poop because it's funny

00:19:34.760 But I imagine it's no laughing matter if you find yourself in need of performing said activity and you have difficulty.

00:19:42.840 So if this advice helps you, good on you.

00:19:48.980 And there you have it.

00:19:51.560 Before we go on to the next fascinating topic, and it's going to be random tonight, folks.

00:19:56.900 I have no idea where the last speaker's taking us.

00:19:59.640 Gilbert donated $150 towards paying off Frasehoff.

00:20:02.700 Thank you, Gilbert.

00:20:04.360 your generosity personally is astounding much appreciated thank you um

00:20:11.960 and leroy donated ten dollars excuse me ten dollars each towards paying off phrase off

00:20:18.760 and towards the cigarette pavilion so thank you for that leroy we appreciate you um law speaker

00:20:27.000 what else do you got in the in the chamber for us so a couple things um one since you mentioned

00:20:32.760 gilbert um i want to thank him publicly for uh the air conditioner that he contributed to

00:20:40.520 um i don't know how many people know or how many fewer of them even care but we had a bat

00:20:47.720 we had an infestation of bats habitating in one of the wall air conditioners there at njordzov

00:20:54.840 it was causing an unpleasant aroma because the bats were pooping in the air conditioner

00:21:07.140 not following my advice and squatting over the toilet so we had to buy a new air conditioner

00:21:15.300 And I will say that one of the other members and apprentice folk builder, Michael Van Dyke, and our Hoff steward, John, and I spent three hours arguing and engineering and figuring out a solution to put that air conditioning unit into the slot where the old air conditioner came out.

00:21:41.980 it works great it's a vast improvement they washed the wall outside so it looks like a wall

00:21:48.820 now and not like an outdoor restroom for vets but Gilbert thank you thank you thank you for

00:21:56.720 facilitating that and making that happen because oh and I'll say this too like this is part of the

00:22:06.040 magic stuff of what we all do and it's the and this was kind of weird yes that word the um

00:22:16.460 because the bats have been in there for several months um consistently and we can hear them

00:22:23.120 squeaking around and doing stuff in there um but uh when we went to put in the air conditioner we

00:22:31.280 were debating whether to just shove the bats out of there or you know make a bat valve and let them

00:22:37.040 get out and go away but when we started messing around with it the bats had gone so the bats left

00:22:43.700 the air conditioner that they were living in after having been in there for several months

00:22:49.340 and what that suggests to me um is that like they they they heard us coming from months away

00:22:58.800 and they vacated the property because that was the right thing to do so that we didn't hurt them

00:23:06.340 they didn't hurt us it uh you know it's pretty weird that that stuff happens um but that's what

00:23:14.260 happened um uh hand on my hammer and interestingly enough bat feces or guano is may is a primary

00:23:32.580 thing ingredient in tnt well there was about enough around there for a big m80 maybe um but

00:23:42.340 But by the time you dilute it with Clorox and ammonia, it was pretty thin, but I guess we could have saved it and decocted it.

00:23:52.940 But we didn't because we're good citizens.

00:23:56.660 But I just thought it was noteworthy that the bats knew we were coming and did our job for us by, you know, by not making them disturb themselves.

00:24:09.480 Excuse me. I'm sorry about this cough.

00:24:12.340 And, two, I bought two bat boxes and put up on the property.

00:24:19.440 So, if the bats choose to return home, there's now a safe habitat for you that is not inside our air conditioner.

00:24:28.660 Welcome back, bats.

00:24:33.660 Also, thank you to Rachel in Montana, who donated $110 towards the payoff of Fraseoff.

00:24:40.860 You guys are awesome.

00:24:42.000 thank you so much um oh and

00:24:46.880 yeah as a as a note and as a thing the flavels will be down to

00:24:55.480 yorkshoff to celebrate uh mayday summer mall here in

00:25:01.200 next month on third weekend whenever that falls and we'll be down there looking forward to seeing

00:25:08.700 anybody down there so if i've got folks who can make it to new york's off in white springs florida

00:25:14.460 we'd love to see you then um and we look forward if you'll remind me because i'm i'll text you

00:25:24.620 about that when we get okay get done with the show i don't like fiddling with my phone while

00:25:28.860 we're on the air no worries um cool so what else do you have for us tonight alan well

00:25:38.460 So a couple of things, you know, in brief review, first of all, you know, I think one of the very

00:25:44.780 first topics that I talked about, which still gets me a lot of emails from the folk is talking about

00:25:51.260 debt, which to me, like really simply, you should not use credit for anything except the house.

00:26:00.780 I know that people buy cars on credit. That's typically unhealthy. But if you have to have, you know, if you have to have car payments, at the very least, you should be very careful about the deal that you make.

00:26:17.980 I mean, the Kelly Blue Book is online, so you can always tell exactly what a vehicle is worth, so you should never pay more than what a car is worth.

00:26:27.760 One of my other mottos that I like to promote to my clientele, and I practice bankruptcy law for anybody who doesn't know that,

00:26:39.880 but one of the things that I promote to my clientele is that maintenance is cheaper than payments.

00:26:46.100 Even if you have to put in a $2,000 transmission into a vehicle to get it back on the road, I mean, that's three or four or five months of payments that you would make on a new vehicle.

00:27:03.840 The warranty is never worth the price of having to pay a new vehicle that takes you months and months and months of payments before you own any of it.

00:27:11.700 I also, and again, this is just a matter of adulting, is that you maintain your vehicles, keep your air pressure right, change the oil.

00:27:24.980 I know modern oil supposedly runs 10,000 miles, but I always change mine at 5,000 because the mechanics I've talked to say the filters get clogged, even if the oil is still good.

00:27:40.720 And I have a truck out there with 160,000 miles on it that, and the oil, you know, the oil that's been in there for 5,000 miles looks brand new.

00:27:53.800 And so my goal is to get another 150,000 miles out of that truck.

00:28:00.880 And again, if you, you know, if you, if you maintain your vehicles, they will live a lot longer and be worth it.

00:28:10.000 You know, a vehicle is an investment in getting you where you need to go, so you need to make the most of that investment.

00:28:17.360 There's no reason not to keep a vehicle until the engine blows and leaves you dead somewhere.

00:28:24.320 The vehicle, not you.

00:28:25.260 Um, also the, you know, the other part that, that tries to be my overarching theme and the way that I approach these things. Um, and the reason that, um, vehicle maintenance and poop gets mentioned in the same episode is that, um, part of the, part of my, part of my goal with this, uh, series is to,

00:28:53.660 for all of us to have a more integrated, holistic view of the way that we live our lives.

00:29:02.140 We have to be integrated into the world and in the world of commerce, which is generally unhealthy and soulless.

00:29:13.600 So, you know, as we try to activate our higher selves and attain the highest degree of ourselves that we can,

00:29:21.740 Again, a lot of that, part of that goal should be to buy less and make more, grow food, have bees, can stuff, you know, bake, cook.

00:29:36.860 You know, a meal that you make at home costs a tenth as much and is ten times as good for you.

00:29:42.640 So those are the sorts of things that, again, you know, it seems like a random choice of topics.

00:29:47.720 sometimes it is but the the goal of it is to be to you know because whole holistic and holy all

00:29:56.500 have the same root word so the more integrated that you are um the less cognitive dissonance

00:30:05.040 that you have in your brain and you know the less echo there is in there and you can be

00:30:09.160 one whole person um there's a lot of strange stuff that comes out of that you know that i

00:30:16.620 have as tonight's opening topic portrays. There's a lot of strange stuff that

00:30:22.040 revolves around that. I'm glad to share any of that that anybody has any questions about.

00:30:27.840 So just as another random topic along that same sort of line, like in the morning and in the

00:30:35.020 evening, you shouldn't turn on your big overhead light. I know that seems strange, right? Like

00:30:39.920 what difference does it make? It's because for tens of thousands of years, millions of years,

00:30:44.920 you know the light when it first comes up it's red and it's off on the horizon so like the sun

00:30:51.900 doesn't appear at noon as a big white thing so you sleep better and you're more

00:30:58.980 your circadian rhythm is better if you have you know side lights lamps and sort of that sort of

00:31:07.480 thing and as orange and orientation like these led bulbs are great they save energy and save heat

00:31:14.880 But you need to get the red ones, you know, so that they're more an orange type color.

00:31:21.580 And then, you know, when you go to bed at night, you leave your phone in the other room.

00:31:26.620 There's nothing that's going to happen overnight that you have to attend to unless you're a surgeon that's got a, you know,

00:31:33.800 that may have to be called into emergency heart surgery or something.

00:31:38.500 It'll all be there in the morning.

00:31:40.860 You sleep better if your phone's out of range.

00:31:43.500 And also the blue screen, supposedly, and I've read some conflicting things about that,

00:31:48.880 but the blue screen is really bad for you.

00:31:54.720 It makes you think that it's full daylight and you're sitting there looking at your phone at 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night.

00:32:01.980 and it again it interferes with your circadian rhythm because your brain your animal brain

00:32:10.220 thinks it's midday because you're looking at a blue light instead of looking at orange stuff so

00:32:16.480 i mean and that can be diminished i assume there are apps that would run or you know that would

00:32:22.140 make your screen more red than blue they have the glasses that filter out some of the blue light

00:32:27.020 but less phone at night is more better at some after some point

00:32:34.060 i think all those um

00:32:41.820 so it's something that's reiterated a lot and i think alan may express it in a different way

00:32:48.740 but we talk a lot on here about that concept of wholeness

00:32:53.500 i think this is probably true of any religion but it's something that is especially true of

00:33:04.240 ours and something we want to fully acknowledge and fully embrace our faith involves all aspects

00:33:12.340 of the art of living living nobly and living true to the iser and so you know the regular

00:33:22.080 going about our day-to-day is very much a part of how we live out our faith and our values

00:33:30.320 and to get all of the pieces in your life for as many of them as you're able to fit together nicely

00:33:37.720 to be in sync and to be whole is your best path to physical spiritual mental

00:33:45.860 and economic health so i think these are all really important things and i think we live

00:33:53.140 in a generation where a great many of us may not have people in our life who have taught us 0.89

00:33:59.940 these lessons who have taught us these things so one of the real benefits in the astro folk

00:34:05.540 assembly is having your tribe having your faith community around you that's able to

00:34:10.820 give you insight to pass on generational wisdom to pass on lessons learned and to better equip

00:34:18.100 each of us with the challenges we face in life that are as simple as like when do you change your

00:34:24.260 oil or how do you manage your credit card debt or you know how do you evacuate your bowels

00:34:31.300 efficiently apparently so there's a there's a variety of lessons we're going to harken back

00:34:36.980 to that's gonna be a theme on today's show because again it's perpetually it's perennially funny

00:34:42.580 but it's also true like all these little things really do um add up and so i i appreciate that

00:34:48.980 it's one of the things i think people really like about this adulting series is just kind of some

00:34:54.900 of those everyday things that they may not think about or may not seem connected and that i feel

00:35:01.620 like that's my job is like the croc the face of the crotchety old man out here um you know i've 0.69

00:35:07.940 gotta wag my finger at you youngins because we've you know we live in the youth culture where you

00:35:16.180 know young people think they know everything um i certainly did um until i got to be old a couple

00:35:22.820 years ago. And if you listen to the perennialist philosophers and the traditionalist historians like

00:35:38.020 Sorokin and Toynbee and Abloh of course, then they will point out the downfalls, the real 0.99

00:35:50.260 pitfalls of you know of letting the youth lead i think the voting age should be raised to about 40

00:35:57.780 but i don't have that authority yet

00:36:03.380 yeah no there's a lot of truth to that and we live in an age that is this is one thing that

00:36:09.540 i would really really really like to strengthen and make a hallmark of afa culture is a re-embracing

00:36:18.980 of respect for our elders um it's something that i've noticed you know and i'm not an old man by

00:36:27.380 any means but you know in my mid-40s i look back and i think that maybe my generation maybe the

00:36:34.100 generation just prior to mine are kind of the the last ones to where it was the norm for children to

00:36:42.260 at least feign respect for their elders now it's very common for genuinely for young people not to

00:36:51.140 know any better like it doesn't occur to them that they should treat their elders with a certain

00:36:55.620 amount of respect and it doesn't mean that your elders necessarily know more than you hopefully

00:37:01.620 they do but you know i think we've all and the the discussion about boomers has become you know

00:37:09.380 overwhelming we all get that there's a lot of stuff that maybe previous generations didn't

00:37:13.700 get right or maybe people older than you do dumb stuff that's that happens it's thing

00:37:19.940 but there's a base level of respect of just acknowledgement this person has managed to

00:37:24.580 make it through life significantly longer than yourself it warrants a certain

00:37:31.940 treating them with a certain dignity and at least pausing to consider what they have to say and that

00:37:39.720 maybe somebody that's been around 20 40 60 years longer than you might know some things that you

00:37:47.620 don't and i think we all you know i know that that is a thing i know i absolutely thought i knew

00:37:53.580 everything and i think that there's a natural tendency to do that but what's different i think

00:38:00.240 a lot in the young people

00:38:02.660 that I encountered these days.

00:38:05.980 I thought

00:38:06.940 that I knew the right things,

00:38:11.380 but common sense told me

00:38:13.060 that I probably didn't,

00:38:14.640 so I at least had the humility

00:38:16.400 to know that

00:38:17.240 it was

00:38:19.660 self-delusional.

00:38:22.120 I think a lot of the time

00:38:23.560 that's not even a consideration.

00:38:25.160 We just blow past it these days.

00:38:30.240 Do you have more up front for us? Because we also do have questions tonight and a variety of asking Alan's stuff.

00:38:40.180 I can point out where a lot of that blame comes in while you line up the first question you want to ask.

00:38:47.720 You know, we go back to the Cartesian duality, you know, where Rene, as I've learned, is the pronunciation Rene Descartes.

00:39:00.800 said you know that there's material and spiritual and there's not any overlap and that's certainly

00:39:06.160 the belief of many of the major major mainstream religions that only the nothing out there is

00:39:13.360 sacred but we also tour um this life is sacred um the lives that we take in order to feed ourselves

00:39:24.800 those lives are sacred and that's and you treat that with respect

00:39:30.080 and yes we kill to eat but we do it in a we try to do it in a respectful way

00:39:38.080 you know the our factory farm system is a profanation of of everything that is right

00:39:44.640 and holy about the way we feed ourselves and that should be upended as well um but

00:39:49.760 until we do away with the moneyed interest in agribusiness that's not going to happen either

00:39:58.800 also the frankfurt school if you're not familiar with that

00:40:03.520 check it out it's pretty scary we're living in the cali yuga baby all right so

00:40:10.320 this isn't an alan specific one this is one we've gotten emailed to us and uh anybody if you have

00:40:20.480 questions at any time either during the program or literally anytime vns at runestone.org and we

00:40:29.040 will answer your questions at the next opportunity nolan asks dear vns my multi-part question is

00:40:40.000 which runic alphabet does the afa work with chiefly the elder or younger food thought why

00:40:46.800 is there a master document you refer to for runic meanings for those of us that want to

00:40:51.840 make a study of it thank you um almost i don't know i feel the i feel the need to say almost but

00:41:02.960 But exclusively, the AFA uses the Elder Futhark.

00:41:07.360 But, I mean, that's not to say there's something wrong or inappropriate about the Younger.

00:41:15.340 Certainly for writing, if you're trying to, you know,

00:41:20.400 writing most of the runic inscriptions that we have are in the Younger Futhark.

00:41:26.660 Phonetically, if you're trying to reproduce English,

00:41:29.420 the anglo-saxon food fork is a better option for you because it's catered more towards the

00:41:36.960 development of english language but most of the time in the afa we're not writing things and

00:41:43.060 some people may own a piece of art or on a flag or something but we use them for galder work

00:41:51.120 or other more esoteric more magical purposes and for that we've got a long-standing tradition

00:41:59.020 with um with the elder truth arc and it's i don't think it's inappropriate to use different

00:42:08.300 rune arrangements for that but we have a built-in tradition

00:42:13.380 of using the elder truth arc and you know it's not a

00:42:19.100 it's a tradition that we've been doing since the 1980s

00:42:26.520 so you know in the grand scheme of things it's not some some ancient tradition on it it's i

00:42:33.500 would imagine that for various magical purposes our ancestors used a variety of different systems

00:42:39.120 but the elder the elder runes have a more attested magical use and less of a phonetic use i'd say

00:42:51.220 um a lot of people have asked about that kind of mat of master text that details you know

00:42:59.980 the afa approved interpretation of each of these runic symbols and i think that developing

00:43:06.640 something like that would be really cool it's something that's kind of on the wish list of

00:43:11.320 something that one day we'd like to have we rely um i would say that we lean heavy heaviest upon

00:43:22.920 the runic tradition and understanding of dr stephen flowers um he has done really groundbreaking work

00:43:34.120 on runology and you know both the academic study of the runes but also of practical application

00:43:42.360 and magical usage of the runes he's been working very consistently on that since at least the early

00:43:50.360 1980s and his works you know again i i don't claim that it's perfection or the be-all and

00:43:59.320 end all but it's certainly the place where i think all of us start and i'd be willing to say that i

00:44:05.800 think most all of us in the world start with because as i said i think his stuff is he really

00:44:12.360 did break new ground in you know the 20th century as far as as rune work goes uh before his work in

00:44:22.120 the rooms most esoteric rune things were related to the armin and futhark and were done in you know

00:44:29.000 the romantic period and afterwards in germany so the working with the elder futhark is really

00:44:35.400 something that he popularized and added so much meat to the bone of so i would recommend that i'd

00:44:42.200 say that um futhark by his pen name is edrid thorson um if you google it or whatever either

00:44:52.520 of those will bring it up but futhark is his original work on it and he expounds on it

00:44:59.880 in a number of subsequent works but i'd say futhark and room lower

00:45:04.040 would give you the most of that and as just kind of a fun aside

00:45:10.760 alu is a book that he wrote more on like expanding the magical uses and discussing

00:45:24.560 esoteric uses of runes i want to say that's one of his newer things but by newer i mean like 15

00:45:30.260 years old but it was it was something that i really liked um that kind of stood out and it's

00:45:35.600 a book i hear talked about a lot and then as kind of another honorable mention for somebody who is

00:45:41.280 completely brand new to rooms and has no uh no previous understanding of them or for um you know

00:45:48.640 young adults or or older children i would recommend um the room workshop by leon wilde and that's a

00:45:56.960 really a really good and i think very accessible work about rooms um alan do you have anything

00:46:05.760 you'd like to add on it excuse me yeah um a couple things um one certainly i i you know i

00:46:14.480 like most of us work almost exclusively in the elder food's art um one of the and i don't think

00:46:22.960 it was any of flowers work although he may have talked about it um but many of the brachiates that

00:46:31.600 are found and other things have the entire food are carved on them um as a as a work and what

00:46:41.600 What the archaeologists and sociologists who have studied it think is that that representation of the runes was very much like, for our folk, it was very much like what the Oriental cultures use with the yin and yang symbol.

00:47:07.140 So that speaking of those runes and the writing of those runes was a way of saying, you know, this is the world.

00:47:16.460 We are owning the world in that way.

00:47:19.380 And so one of the things that we started doing at Njordshav and that I've been doing for a while is Galdring the Futhark, the Futhark, just like that.

00:47:30.560 And we did it last week.

00:47:37.460 Thank you, folk, for indulging me in that.

00:47:39.900 But we and Bodie for making room for it in his presentation.

00:47:47.380 Sorry.

00:47:48.820 But if you want to get into the idea of it, the band Heilong has one of their songs.

00:47:57.660 and I don't remember which one it is, but where they gall or the Futhark.

00:48:00.820 I can't do the whole thing in one breath like they can because there's six of them singing it,

00:48:04.820 and I think they spell each other.

00:48:08.700 But, you know, so I do it in eights.

00:48:13.600 You know, there are 24 runes in the Futhark.

00:48:17.640 So you gall or eight in one breath, take a breath, and, you know, go over it.

00:48:23.220 I know, you know, so instead of singing Cardi B in the morning or whatever you would normally do, you can galler the runes.

00:48:30.520 And that makes that makes the world. We are the world. This world is ours and it's time we retook it.

00:48:39.160 And that's one small step in that direction.

00:48:44.720 All right. Caleb in Ohio asks,

00:48:49.500 I noticed a lot of our detractors criticizing our dress for Hoth-Holy tides.

00:48:55.480 I understand that they'll criticize anything we do, but what is the best way to dress for Hoth-Holy tides?

00:49:03.060 Should we dress more modern formal or more of traditional ausitru garb? 0.92

00:49:08.680 Is it better to look like Protestants, in quotation marks, or Vikings? 0.94

00:49:13.080 I've got a lot to say on it, but Alan, would you like to take a swing at this one first? 0.89

00:49:23.620 Yeah.

00:49:27.900 Anybody who will criticize us for dressing up for Hoff has got, they need to find a life.

00:49:35.700 The, you know, because we're not dressing like Protestants.

00:49:39.480 we're dressing like, we're dressing like adults in the modern era. Um, you know, there was a time

00:49:48.060 20 years ago or so when, when it was not unusual to, you know, for people to come in, uh, you know,

00:50:00.300 come to bloat and wear a tunic or, you know, a lap belt or, or any of that sort of stuff.

00:50:06.820 That time is gone. You know, I don't think there is, I mean, if you're an archaeologist and you know different, you can correct me, but I don't think there's any evidence that, like the Vikings, when they would, they didn't dress in a loincloth and carry a club to go worship Oven.

00:50:25.260 They dressed like Vikings because they were Vikings.

00:50:28.740 And we're not Vikings.

00:50:29.900 We're modern Americans.

00:50:33.780 And Europeans, don't want to short you guys, and Canadians, our 51st state.

00:50:41.280 So, you know, and we dress respectfully.

00:50:46.300 When we go to ceremony, we're going to meet and commune with our gods.

00:50:51.840 And, you know, and we should show them that proper degree of respect.

00:50:56.940 Like if you went to go have lunch with the governor or even the mayor, I mean, you wouldn't go in, hopefully, you wouldn't go in flip-flops and, you know, in a crop top, right?

00:51:11.640 So you want to go and treat yourself with respect, treat our gods with respect.

00:51:16.940 And it has nothing to do with being too churchy.

00:51:20.700 It's the other way around, right?

00:51:22.780 Because traditionally, you wanted to give of your best.

00:51:27.460 You give your best to your gods.

00:51:29.140 You don't, you know, you're, you're, you treat like you, you dress like you have some respect for yourself.

00:51:37.380 At the same time, if all you can afford, you know, if you, if you, you can, if you've just got a polo shirt and some nice jeans, that's good enough.

00:51:45.640 but we prefer leadership especially don't have to wear red or white but the um because that you

00:51:57.120 know is another thing but the but we um but dress like you have some respect for yourself and respect

00:52:04.060 for the people that you're going to see and again that you know all this devolve you know this this

00:52:08.480 again speaks the deterioration of our culture people you know you go out to eat at a nice

00:52:14.320 restaurant you don't wear a death leopard t-shirt and shorts and flip-flops when you're going out

00:52:21.520 to dinner at any place besides waffle house right act like you have some respect act like you're an

00:52:27.840 adult 100 um and yeah the questions assumptions are correct the people who complain about that

00:52:40.080 would literally complain about anything we did um as far as traditional outs of true garb

00:52:51.920 from when like we're dealing with thousands of years from the

00:53:00.400 the ice age to 1000 and across what location where styles, hairstyles, clothing styles

00:53:13.160 changed tremendously during that time period.

00:53:16.040 We're also not trying to, ah, but you know, Steve kind of restarted the rebirth of Ausitru

00:53:22.880 really took shape in the early seventies, but we don't show up in bell bottoms and you

00:53:27.580 know there's no none of that makes sense and i think that if our detractors really cared to

00:53:35.320 think about it it doesn't it's not a protestant wearing um a shirt and a tie ladies wearing

00:53:42.540 dresses yes it's what protestants do it's also what catholics do it's what anyone who's going

00:53:49.920 to court or going to a formal occasion or going to a wedding or going to anything they take 0.72

00:53:58.000 seriously do it's what you do when you're going for a job interview it's what you're doing when

00:54:03.920 you're trying to take care about your appearance in the modern world in the modern west um

00:54:12.000 and our our fashion of what we wear to bloat isn't stuck in time now i can see a case being

00:54:18.160 made for a special garment for um for clergy but what we've seen when people attempt that is

00:54:27.440 just viking clothes there's not an idea of like what uh and the australia has tried to come up

00:54:34.960 with something that they think is you know would be a suitable clerical garment for it but most

00:54:42.000 people viking dress up isn't the same as trying to dress like a gothi so there's nothing inherently

00:54:51.680 holy or sacred or also true by doing you know wearing reenactment garb um that said

00:54:59.560 the the principle much like alan says you're trying to present yourself in a dignified way

00:55:07.300 the best that you have available to show honor and respect to the gods and to present yourself

00:55:14.900 to an audience that you should supremely care about if you care what your parents think when

00:55:21.600 you show up to their wedding anniversary or you care what your friend thinks when you show up to

00:55:25.720 his wedding if you care what the judge thinks or the jury when you show up to court if you care

00:55:31.580 what a potential employer thinks, how much more should you care what your gods think? 0.70

00:55:38.380 And, you know, yes, it's what Christians do because they're there to worship a god that

00:55:43.360 they believe in and to present their best selves. It's the exact same reason that we

00:55:47.480 should dress our best. I say that. The AFA encourages that. We don't get rid of people

00:55:57.120 or scold them or treat them badly if they show up how they show up.

00:56:02.920 I think the only times that that's been a thing

00:56:05.360 is if somebody shows up wearing something that is overtly offensive.

00:56:10.600 Somebody shows up with clothes with profanity on it

00:56:14.060 or gratuitous vulgar sexuality on it or whatnot,

00:56:19.980 something completely inappropriate for the situation.

00:56:23.660 But other than that, no, we have something that we aspire to, but people figure out the best that they have.

00:56:32.560 But, yeah, we should always want to present ourselves the best we can when we approach our gods and our ancestors.

00:56:40.160 And I think that's obvious on the face of it.

00:56:43.480 And some of the criticism I don't think is disingenuine or at the very least is not well thought out.

00:56:50.740 And you can see where that's coming from.

00:56:52.800 And, you know, they couldn't they couldn't present themselves respectively on a dare.

00:57:00.380 I'll say, too, that like here at Northoff, we have a rack of collared shirts for men.

00:57:10.440 I guess women could wear one, too.

00:57:12.300 But, you know, sometimes guys show up wearing a T-shirt and like they look around and we're all because it's their first time there.

00:57:19.840 and you know they want to be and we'll loan them a shirt you know just like at a you know certain

00:57:25.200 restaurant they'll loan you a jacket and a tie if you don't have one so don't let you know um

00:57:32.480 you know dress in your vest but if you show up we will um we'll upgrade you if you want well

00:57:38.720 another note there's and i've heard people over the years criticize like oh i can't afford you

00:57:45.040 all those fancy highfalutin clothes

00:57:50.080 goodwill is full of jackets and slacks and collared shirts and ties you can go into goodwill and for

00:57:59.120 20 bucks get a shirt and a tie and pants possibly even shoes

00:58:06.960 the the money is is not a good reason and i know that people about what it costs you to eat

00:58:12.720 to mcdonald's me or your t-shirt your band shirt that you're wearing costs more than an entire

00:58:21.900 outfit of nice clothing at your local club yep a big thing that really irks me is if we were

00:58:29.820 dressing protestant we'd be wearing 1500s british larp just because something is the

00:58:38.800 protestants do it or the europeans did it does not make it a christian thing or a protestant thing

00:58:44.940 it's done because we're white people we're europeans we do it because of that not because

00:58:52.680 in spite of not because of the christianity it's just we dress nice we don't dress

00:59:00.920 ghetto we don't dress like a band member or like we're going to the gym because it's more important

00:59:07.880 so um another point that i think needs to be made as many times as we can make it on the show

00:59:16.720 also true isn't the anti-christian and i know a lot of people have a hard time

00:59:25.200 getting past that when they come to it at first

00:59:28.760 also true isn't defined by being the opposite of whatever christians do

00:59:35.720 there's going to be overlap of the way white people behave when they're doing something they

00:59:42.780 take seriously, or the way that modern white people behave when they're engaged in worship.

00:59:50.020 Some things are going to look similar. Alistair is its own separate thing. It's not a reaction

00:59:56.140 against Christianity. And I think that's something that held our people back for a long time. It's

01:00:01.620 been nice to be in a time where no we're blazing forward a new path of being also true instead of

01:00:10.360 trying to define ourselves by how un-christian we are and that has defined paganism or i know

01:00:20.860 you don't like but we are pagans in that sense of the word but you know the mod so much of the

01:00:25.360 modern paganism has just been, you know,

01:00:27.200 define themselves as the opposite of Christianity.

01:00:30.560 And one of the books that helped me understand that a lot is Alain de

01:00:36.160 Benoit on being a pagan,

01:00:38.980 where he talks about the modern pagan movement has defined themselves as

01:00:43.240 anti-Christian and therefore, you know,

01:00:46.020 they're also anti-family and anti-monogamy and all the things that we are in

01:00:50.360 favor of that traditional societies have tried and worked,

01:00:56.780 experimented with over hundreds of thousands of years, you know, we're,

01:01:01.280 we adopt and revere those traditions.

01:01:05.220 Those are the traditions of our ancestors.

01:01:07.320 Christians didn't invent marriage.

01:01:09.420 Christians didn't invent, you know,

01:01:12.040 child rearing and all those other sorts of important ideals that we uphold.

01:01:17.160 they just adopted them

01:01:19.620 and one of the books I was listening to

01:01:22.100 today again reminded us

01:01:24.260 because I was the one listening to it

01:01:26.280 but it wasn't

01:01:28.420 that Germany

01:01:30.080 was Christianized

01:01:32.260 so much as Christianity became Germanized

01:01:34.520 so much of

01:01:35.440 Catholic

01:01:37.860 practice and especially

01:01:40.240 Protestant practice

01:01:41.820 more so even the English

01:01:44.040 church that came to be done

01:01:46.140 is, you know, is very much a blend of the Germanic pagan stuff

01:01:52.560 and, you know, with a little veneer of Christianity over the top of it.

01:01:59.140 So all these traditions are ours.

01:02:02.560 The holidays, the reverence for tradition and for our elders, you know,

01:02:09.960 the Christians just adopted it.

01:02:14.340 They didn't invent it.

01:02:16.140 It's funny that you mentioned On Being a Pagan by Benoit.

01:02:26.300 They need to learn how to spell things right in France, just saying. 0.56

01:02:32.980 But, yeah, it's funny that you hold it out as a positive example because I was going to bring it up as a negative example.

01:02:42.280 I was so disappointed because it's not about On Being a Pagan.

01:02:45.620 It's about not being a Christian. It's the exact same criticism.

01:02:50.020 And I suppose on reflection, he does that, but he doesn't provide you what the paganism is.

01:02:57.780 It's about how to juxtapose pagan to Christianity.

01:03:03.220 And I think, you know, Alan kind of quipped at the beginning that I don't like using the word pagan.

01:03:07.420 And I don't because it's not specific and it is a definition that has come to just mean not Christian or not Abrahamic.

01:03:19.340 And I always want to posit what we do.

01:03:23.900 It's why I prefer the term Alcetruz.

01:03:26.320 It's a self-identifier about who we are, not about what we're not.

01:03:32.620 and any of the other terms are so

01:03:34.740 often used by in-group

01:03:36.980 Christians would

01:03:38.680 claim these people are pagans

01:03:40.880 they're you know 0.97

01:03:41.820 the rabble 1.00

01:03:43.920 or heathens these are the 1.00

01:03:46.700 people out on the heath these are

01:03:48.440 strange backwoods

01:03:51.120 you know

01:03:51.500 hillbillies

01:03:54.220 I like us talking

01:03:56.660 about no we are the people who are loyal 0.99

01:03:58.480 to the Iser I think there's a 0.56

01:04:00.280 there's a power in self um defining yourself and who you are as opposed to taking on the

01:04:09.000 designation that um you know often your enemies have put on you but that ventures a little bit

01:04:18.320 far afield our next question is from austin greetings all what is a law speaker and what

01:04:25.980 does a law speaker do thank you for all that you do alan tell people enlighten us okay to the

01:04:37.060 extent possible um so the so i am a practicing attorney um low these uh 34 years and um so

01:04:49.900 So part of my function within the AFA is to interact with a lot of the legal stuff.

01:05:00.400 I read contracts that we enter into.

01:05:05.680 I help negotiate and review and approve.

01:05:14.080 Buy-sell agreement.

01:05:15.820 We don't sell anything.

01:05:16.840 I think the purchase agreements that we enter into for our HOFs, the negotiations that we do, I run point on a lot of that sort of thing.

01:05:29.480 I maintain the compliance with state registries so that, you know, every place where we have a HOF, we also have to have a corporation so that we can do business.

01:05:43.020 You know, even a church is doing business in the broadest sense of the word as a 501c3 church.

01:05:51.320 So I maintain compliance with all of that.

01:05:54.560 Also, then within the AFA, first of all, I offer advice to members on legal matters.

01:06:04.280 Not always specific advice.

01:06:06.820 I can I can think of half a dozen instances where people come to me about like child support and child custody matters that's outside my area of practice.

01:06:18.260 And also it varies greatly state by state, but I help people negotiate the maze of legal remedies that are out there and the legal resources that are available.

01:06:37.240 You know, even if it's helping people find the right attorney or, you know, depending on the way, depending on your circumstances, there might be free legal help that's available to you in your state to deal with those sorts of things.

01:06:49.380 Internally in the AFA, I counsel, I was Harry Goethe. He sometimes listens to me about things. And we, as we guide the, our ship into victory, we, you know, we try to do things.

01:07:12.420 And I try to know and understand the traditions and the way that the folk would have dealt with things.

01:07:27.460 so that we when we take oaths when we make oaths and when we deal with people who want to be

01:07:37.020 released from their oaths and that sort of thing that we do that in the in a way that is most

01:07:41.600 pleasing to the gods so that they can so that those folk can so we can maintain the integrity

01:07:50.900 of the oar log of the organization and our own weird and owned to maintain that entire and intact.

01:08:04.660 And I try to do that within the context of modern ausitry.

01:08:13.140 Yeah, a lot of people, I don't know that they fully realize that.

01:08:18.040 think that you know they they hear the title and um don't i don't think a lot of people contemplate

01:08:27.640 all that goes into doing this at the level that we've been fortunate enough to to find ourselves

01:08:34.520 at um it is such a tremendous boon to the afa that we have a you know a practicing for

01:08:45.640 you know decades attorney uh in our leadership giving us advice um running things by um

01:08:56.280 and being able to consult with things we live in a world where our society is very litigious

01:09:02.040 there's all kind of bureaucracies and procedures to navigate especially when you are at a stage

01:09:10.120 where you have we have actual properties we have hoffs and where you're dealing with um

01:09:17.640 and i've mentioned this on here too uh our gothar deal with so much more membership counseling than

01:09:27.640 i think anyone would really know and and why would they it's stuff that's kept confidential and

01:09:33.800 and discuss behind the scenes but our group is large enough in the afa our membership is large

01:09:44.360 enough that we have people with such a wide variety of situations that they face that they

01:09:51.320 need counsel on it is so valuable to have an attorney that can help you know help them guide

01:09:59.000 or help guide them through the process help them you know make good decisions for the situation

01:10:05.720 they find themselves in or for planning for the future um it's also tremendously valuable to have

01:10:12.280 someone that you know that i can consult about these kind of things that has experience in a lot

01:10:19.960 of real world doing stuff that many of us it's a side of things that many of us never encounter

01:10:28.280 or if we encounter it's you know in a very particular and very limited way

01:10:33.560 it's it's very much a wealth of experience and expertise that he's kind enough to uh

01:10:38.920 extend to us and it's very much appreciated but it's been a huge deal having alan

01:10:46.280 serving our leadership and advise me and the rest of us on all the things we've done to

01:10:55.080 step our game up and to raise also true to the level that it ought to be or towards the level

01:11:01.160 that it ought to be we still have much work to do and we're always working on it but it's been

01:11:06.600 a real game changer to have to have alan's expertise in in in our functioning in our

01:11:13.880 leadership and advising me well and i i appreciate you saying that i it's a great honor um and uh

01:11:22.360 And, you know, the rest of my life is just a support system for my ossative habit.

01:11:28.260 So I appreciate the opportunity.

01:11:35.480 So here's two questions for each of us.

01:11:45.220 what is the most regrettable event you have experienced or witnessed

01:11:51.880 within the greater Ausatru quote-unquote movement, either near or far past?

01:12:00.160 Alan, what would you say is the most regrettable event that you've experienced

01:12:04.380 or witnessed within an Ausatru context?

01:12:07.020 um i'm sorry um as a single event i think the really the the most regrettable

01:12:16.640 thing is you know we had a guy at um who was homeless um who had applied for membership at

01:12:29.480 the AFA, and then he came down and was camping out across the street from Njordtsov. Now,

01:12:39.620 for those who don't know, there is a state park that is directly across the street from Njordtsov,

01:12:45.500 so it wasn't like he was camping out in somebody's yard. He was camping out at a state park,

01:12:50.100 albeit not in a sanctioned camping place. But then, um, at some point he, uh, you know, he

01:13:01.340 came over and tried to force himself into the hop. Like he was, you know, he was going to come

01:13:08.000 in there and, you know, I don't know what his plan was, but, um, you know, it was regrettable,

01:13:14.420 but he tried to force his way in the door. Um, there were six of six or eight of us men

01:13:19.520 in the door prevented his entrance um i tried to counsel him to you know to say you know odin

01:13:26.360 doesn't approve or you know however i was phrasing it um you know odin wants you to get your mind

01:13:32.160 right but instead he uh you know chose to rush the door several of us uh prevented that um the

01:13:41.980 cops came and arrested him um and took him off now that's regrettable in the sense that we

01:13:48.140 He even though and that was the culmination of several weeks of that guy interacting with us.

01:13:54.640 And it made me sad that we couldn't reach him and turn that little switch in his brain, because, you know, if he has that much energy and gumption, you know, he could have been a real asset for us.

01:14:11.540 But instead, he, you know, he turned into an arrest and, you know, the cops trespassed him and ran him out of town that, you know, as a single incident, I think that was the thing that comes most immediately to mind.

01:14:26.020 And more broadly speaking, the thing that I regret, like, as a broader incident, and it may be some of the people that we hint at about some of our critics who, without speaking their name, because I can't do it without a string of vulgarity.

01:14:52.200 But, you know, the people who have split with us over non-issues, over minor minutia, those who refuse to join because we don't do stuff in some ancient, archaic way that's directly out of the, you know, out of the lore.

01:15:13.980 I think, you know, those sorts of ticky tack, purity spirals that cause people to split with us.

01:15:25.180 And I could name names, but I don't. 0.84

01:15:28.740 And, you know, that they, that, like, in the broadest sense, that causes me more consternation than this guy who is obviously mentally unstable.

01:15:43.400 well, these are people who are rational and, you know, have their reason.

01:15:46.660 And I, you know, I mean, I understand, like, if we don't, you know,

01:15:56.380 none of us are doing this exactly like we want to.

01:16:01.120 I mean, you know, if I was in charge, things would be slightly different.

01:16:04.800 If somebody else was in charge, it would be a slight other difference.

01:16:07.780 But what we do and under Matt's able and well-considered leadership, we are adopting a practice that is that harkens back to true worship of the Aesir.

01:16:20.820 We are doing it. The AFA is right in the things that we do.

01:16:25.840 And we are doing it in the most the most pious and reverential way that can be conceived in the modern world.

01:16:37.780 And so those who split with us over minor quibbles over doctrine, you know, that's the big regret, you know, is, you know, those guys who split off and think they know something we don't because they don't.

01:17:02.860 They're wrong.

01:17:03.520 We're right.

01:17:05.900 There, I said it.

01:17:07.780 there you go so a reaction to that and then i want to get on mine um

01:17:15.700 what's sad is when people split with us over things that turn out to be trivial

01:17:24.180 sometimes they come back which is awesome more often than not embarrassment

01:17:30.660 or the whole thing leaving a bad taste in their mouth from coming back yet and that's really

01:17:41.160 unfortunate and I hope people can get over that you know we all make mistakes in life we all

01:17:47.700 are wrong about some things it'd be cool if people who left over trivial things when they realize

01:17:55.800 that the grass isn't greener,

01:17:59.320 it'd be cool

01:18:00.160 if they tried to come back

01:18:01.560 and with very few exceptions,

01:18:03.580 we'd welcome them back.

01:18:07.860 So this is a,

01:18:10.440 the way my brain works

01:18:11.900 is a very, very hard question to answer.

01:18:14.320 I'm trying to,

01:18:15.200 I threw it to Alan first

01:18:16.280 because I wanted to give him the like,

01:18:17.560 ha ha, on the spot.

01:18:18.960 Because I'm trying to think of what,

01:18:20.760 I know that's what you do.

01:18:21.800 I'm okay with that.

01:18:22.780 That's absolutely what I do.

01:18:25.800 um but I still can't get what I think the most single event I'll I'll get close to it but there's

01:18:37.980 two themes that are a whole bunch of little events the

01:18:43.980 the disconnect from the people who talk the most about courage and then show that they don't have

01:18:57.420 the courage of their convictions and refuse to put their name their face or any of their

01:19:05.280 reputation in this world up for the things that they believe in

01:19:11.940 is very sad to see and it's something that is we see over and over and over again in a variety

01:19:20.340 of different ways I think one of the things that is most regrettable

01:19:26.560 and i believe it happened

01:19:31.020 three times but i'll go to the mat on it happened twice was when um the astro alliance

01:19:44.340 signed and agreed that there's no um and the most recent one is the specific one that i'll mention

01:19:52.560 that there's no racial components to Ausitru

01:19:56.900 and that they disavow any kind of fulkishness at all in our practice.

01:20:02.260 And it's regrettable because it's just so wrongheaded,

01:20:06.840 but it's made so much more so.

01:20:10.840 I know the guy who's their leader doesn't agree with it

01:20:16.500 and doesn't really think that way,

01:20:18.780 but just lacks the courage of having any convictions.

01:20:23.200 and that has happened in the past with that organization and it has happened several times

01:20:31.760 and it's really sad because it's so counter to the things that i know a great amount of

01:20:39.120 certainly their former membership believe um so the awareness of how much cowardice exists

01:20:48.560 that we still have to overcome is a great tragedy to me the other thing that is

01:20:56.240 tremendously regrettable is that

01:21:02.960 our folk are so beaten down that 0.99

01:21:09.440 suicide is still the leading cause of death in the astro folk assembly

01:21:13.680 And there have been a significant number of men, most of them young, but not all, who have been in the Astru Folk Assembly or in close association with us who've taken their own life because the weight of the negativity that they see around them has made them so hopeless that they couldn't overcome it.

01:21:39.880 And that is extremely regrettable.

01:21:45.380 And I think, you know, regrettable is an interesting word because there's stuff that's, you know, a calamity.

01:21:52.820 There's all kind of things, but regretting implies, man, I wish there was something I could have done different.

01:21:58.540 and on those situations we always try to find any way that we could have done something better

01:22:06.840 or that we can support people better or that we could catch those things before people get to that

01:22:12.480 point and i think we'll always be trying to find a more perfect way to get there because that is

01:22:18.840 it's truly sad when some young people especially and this is a huge problem with young white men

01:22:25.720 when they're so beat down that they make very permanent um solutions to problems that are

01:22:33.700 inherently temporary and uh yeah so if anybody is at that stage listening to this program or

01:22:41.820 you find yourself there any of our go-thar would love to talk to you if that's where you're at

01:22:48.360 and you've already kind of made the decision you don't really have anything to lose give it a shot

01:22:53.200 reach out to somebody maybe something good can happen but we'd invite any of those people to

01:22:58.240 reach out to our ghost or myself included we'd love to talk about it see if we can make

01:23:06.320 you know that's we are you know um so he has a second second piece i'm gonna skip a thing here

01:23:16.480 because i want to get um ron's questions what oath have you taken that you are most proud of

01:23:23.200 The Goathe Oath, you know, to serve the Austin Folk Assembly, I'm certainly most proud of that.

01:23:38.400 But it's, I say that, and say again, so now I'm thinking of other stuff that, you know, so like I have, and in my position of goatee, I have performed several weddings and renewals of vows.

01:23:58.420 um most of them have held but a couple of them have not so you know that that too is one of

01:24:06.060 those regrets i can think of a couple of members who have wandered from those vows and you know

01:24:12.460 that's unfortunate but that's um you know i'm certainly proud of this ring that i wear as a

01:24:18.940 Goethe of the Austro Folk Assembly, it's a great honor, and I don't have my wallet on

01:24:30.860 me, but I have a card that identifies me as a member of the clergy, and every time I pull

01:24:39.860 that out, I'm like, it reminds me of what a great honor it is to serve the folk.

01:24:48.940 Yeah, if I would have anticipated the question, and I may ask Nick to do this anyway if he knows where it is.

01:25:00.600 There's a picture of when I took my folk builder oath back in mid-summer 2010.

01:25:12.060 and i mean the the uh ordination oath is certainly

01:25:19.180 like superior to that but for purposes of this i'm going to say the the folk builder oath because it

01:25:25.740 was like the step towards that it was the i it's what started that oath relationship

01:25:34.460 in a very formal way with our gods in a particular way with the astro folk assembly

01:25:41.100 and as a source of pride in it and this is also a this is a double-edged sword it cuts both ways 0.96

01:25:49.800 but I look back it was a um this may have been the first time that folk builders were taking

01:25:58.540 oaths to the AFA I was pretty new at that point um certainly new to participating on on the national

01:26:05.740 level with the afa um but it was a mass folk builder of thing where we all came up and took

01:26:12.780 our oaths and you know you look at the line of people it's probably 10 or more people there

01:26:19.100 maybe even more than that um and if you could find that picture it'd be cool if not it's no big deal

01:26:27.580 i'm looking it's got a load cool i appreciate you nick

01:26:31.500 of the people in the picture that took that oath that day

01:26:36.920 there's there's two of us that have held to it and one was um my good friend uh go through

01:26:44.860 passed um almost two years ago now um but yeah i was honored to be at that at that event at my

01:26:58.540 first big afa event in front of our i'll say here you go see steve mcnallan in front of people that

01:27:07.180 had tremendous amount of respect for and to stand with the other folk builders and to take an oath

01:27:12.460 that i took very seriously and to get to take that oath with somebody that i respect that

01:27:18.460 held that oath for the entirety of of the rest of his life i'm very proud of that one and it

01:27:25.340 yeah i look back with a lot of pride on that one and i i remember that one very viscerally

01:27:36.220 um

01:27:39.500 do you have any also true this one's something i i think that you'll sink your teeth into alan do

01:27:45.020 you have any also true specific practices or recommendations for those seeking to build a

01:27:50.620 a better relationship with the gods or ancestors, and increasing spiritual might.

01:27:55.980 That's part of it.

01:27:57.000 The finishing up is, is meditation a future topic for adulting without one?

01:28:03.460 You have a question?

01:28:05.640 Thank you.

01:28:09.020 I would be glad to do, I think I did a show on meditation.

01:28:13.160 I'd be glad to do another one if I haven't.

01:28:16.080 It's one of those things that I'm not sure everybody's interested in.

01:28:20.040 I have been a daily meditator since I, like one of the arcana about me.

01:28:30.580 I am also a certified kundalini yoga teacher.

01:28:34.840 So I have meditated almost every day since 2010.

01:28:41.140 10. I haven't merged with the one yet, but I'm, you know, I like to think that it does help me

01:28:52.500 get through my day. So absolutely. Some of the ideas that you can

01:29:04.500 uh, uh, meditate with, um, and again, if you want to email me, I'm glad to overshare on that topic,

01:29:15.880 as Matt knows I will do, um, but again, like, you could look up that High Lung Song to get a,

01:29:22.460 uh, to get an idea about chanting, Galdaring is what we call it, Galdaring the Futhark,

01:29:28.180 Um, you could, um, do a rune pull each morning and sit and galler that rune.

01:29:38.480 Augies, Augies, Augies.

01:29:43.520 Um, you know, there's, you know, that is absolutely a very solid and very worthwhile and noble approach to doing that.

01:29:54.860 Um, so one of the other things that I do is we bless our meals. Um, you know, uh, meal blessing is not a Protestant activity. That's something that has always been done.

01:30:11.760 um to to bring a a meal and to recognize the sanctity of that um the you know the animal

01:30:24.520 that gave its life um the act of preparing food which is an act of love and wholeness

01:30:30.680 um and even the act of eating you know in its own way is you know you're you're if it's done

01:30:37.140 In a conscious way, a blessed meal is just a way of recognizing that, you know, the sanctity of that act.

01:30:50.660 And now I'm going to swing my camera around.

01:30:53.140 Let me see if I can do this in the right way.

01:30:56.300 See, there's my altar.

01:30:58.820 That's all you get of that.

01:31:02.880 So I have pictures of my parents and grandparents on the altar.

01:31:07.140 Um, I light a candle. Okay. I'm going to share, I'm going to do something I'll usually do. Okay. I'm going to share my morning ritual. One of the, so like after I meditate and I do the five Tibetans, which is another thing and kundalini waking practice, blah, blah, blah. So I light a candle, right? And I put it in the little candle holder. And I say this, grandfather's inspiring me at the strength of the warrior.

01:31:37.140 that I may face my trials with courage and live a life of virtue and honor.

01:31:42.820 Grandmothers, with your grace, guide and protect me.

01:31:46.700 Seek out for me that which is good and seemly,

01:31:50.360 and shield from me that which would do me harm.

01:31:57.540 And that reminds me every day that I am only the,

01:32:02.840 I'm today's incarnation of the folk soul.

01:32:05.720 my grandparents blazed a path so i could be here and i blaze a path for my grandchildren

01:32:11.780 and i take my place in the shield wall gladly

01:32:15.860 so and thank you for sharing that with us i think that it's

01:32:26.020 useful a lot of people have ideas of what it's supposed to be like but without a real tangible

01:32:34.980 hey this is what a real person does they don't get the full picture they can't really put

01:32:41.700 themselves in the spot without seeing it sometimes so it was a good question the way it was asked but

01:32:47.540 it was kind of a two two-part thing that certainly build on each other but i don't think are inherently

01:32:53.060 the same so

01:32:54.980 So I think that building a better relationship with gods and ancestors is a different process than increasing spiritual might.

01:33:10.320 Yes, the one helps with the other in both cases, but, and I think there's something interesting.

01:33:18.280 and I'm glad that you get a kind of a variety

01:33:20.660 of different voices on the show of what they do,

01:33:23.040 because I think that these processes

01:33:25.320 look a little bit different

01:33:26.600 depending on the individual else who are doing them.

01:33:35.420 So for an experience to be meaningful,

01:33:43.720 especially one that is communicative,

01:33:48.280 It has to be meaningful to the sender and to the receiver.

01:33:56.140 And the more you are able to put your whole self into it and apply your spiritual might, as you put it, the more effective I think these things are.

01:34:10.820 So, magic is such a difficult thing to talk about because it's hard to put words that make sense to the subtlety that so much of magic is.

01:34:33.460 it's not a wizard with like a staff casting a fireball at someone or whatever that would be

01:34:40.200 awesome if you can do that let me know i would love to see that but more often than not it is

01:34:46.100 being able to harness your spiritual might and use it to affect the world around you in some way

01:34:56.260 and that is facilitated best by you being able to fully connect to what you're doing

01:35:08.340 so some people and i've seen this in ritual and i've seen this in their home practice i've seen

01:35:16.680 this in in you know maybe big afa bloats some people like to write stuff down and have like

01:35:26.280 a script that they practice and recite read some people the act of creating that and the act of

01:35:34.840 repeating it and memorizing it or however they make that happen for them the act of doing that

01:35:45.320 gives them confidence and helps them to connect with what they're doing to me it's the opposite

01:35:51.400 the more i have to remember or the more it's scripted the more i'm focusing on not messing

01:35:56.440 up the script and the less i can be in the experience so it looks really different to

01:36:02.600 different people and that's okay um as far as building better relationships with gods and

01:36:08.840 ancestors i think something that alan mentioned is really important have pictures of your ancestors

01:36:21.160 to the degree that's available to you have you know artifacts of theirs if you have them and

01:36:28.680 And that extra element of tangibility helps.

01:36:36.700 But talk to them.

01:36:39.720 Talk to them daily.

01:36:43.920 Talk to them enough to where you break through.

01:36:48.520 And same with the gods.

01:36:50.600 And talk to them enough to where you break through any initial awkwardness you feel.

01:36:56.500 or strangeness or discomfort you feel.

01:37:02.420 Talk to them to the point where it is very normal to you.

01:37:06.940 And that, I think, is really important in and of itself.

01:37:10.260 Go before your altar regularly.

01:37:13.080 You don't have to have the most elaborate, biggest offering or ritual.

01:37:19.320 Light a candle, light some incense, pour out a shot, do what you do.

01:37:23.920 but talk to the gods and the ancestors,

01:37:28.040 sometimes we complicate things that are simple.

01:37:32.420 Building a better relationship.

01:37:37.220 The relationship between you and the gods

01:37:40.000 is obviously different in some ways

01:37:43.380 than the relationship between you and your parents

01:37:45.960 or you and another person.

01:37:48.180 But the fundamentals,

01:37:49.440 that's how we start to know what that is.

01:37:51.640 interact with them talk to them share gifts with them that's how you build a relationship with

01:38:00.360 anything that's sentient and living and aware our gods are at the very least that there's so much

01:38:08.900 more but at the very least start with what you know and make the effort i think that in this

01:38:16.740 perhaps more so than anything else we do, it is the thought that counts. It's the intention

01:38:24.300 behind your action. It's not the thought that counts if the thought doesn't equate to an action.

01:38:30.100 But if you have actions that the thought is clearly behind, our gods and our ancestors

01:38:37.540 are able to understand that in an enhanced way that maybe people with the distractions of

01:38:46.580 the physical world around us

01:38:50.520 don't perceive.

01:38:53.620 Have your thoughts and intentions squared away

01:38:56.480 and speak from your heart

01:38:59.220 to the gods and to your ancestors.

01:39:02.420 And I can't recommend that enough.

01:39:04.540 Frequently look at their pictures,

01:39:06.680 remember them actively,

01:39:08.460 speak of them actively

01:39:09.940 to your family and to the people

01:39:12.160 that you care about.

01:39:13.240 And I think you'll find

01:39:14.360 that relationship getting better in all those instances as far as enhancing yourself with

01:39:21.140 your spiritual might there's a lot of techniques i think galder is really important that's something

01:39:27.120 that i you know i'm a very big fan of um as alan kind of kind of mentioned with his morning routine

01:39:35.200 um affirmations of stuff not always praying in the sense of asking for something

01:39:43.920 pray in the sense of you know affirming your commitment to things and then following through

01:39:51.020 on those affirmations following through on those things you commit to i think fundamentally building

01:39:57.380 your spiritual might has a lot to do with setting goals and then achieving the goals that you set

01:40:05.140 and building a record of victory and a record of overcoming things that you are scared of

01:40:12.160 or things that are uncomfortable for you.

01:40:14.300 Find ways in a positive way to step outside your comfort zone

01:40:19.720 and become more than you are.

01:40:22.000 I think it builds your own spiritual might,

01:40:26.900 but I also think our ancestors generally and our gods specifically

01:40:33.320 have an appreciation for those of us who are able to transcend our limitations

01:40:41.580 and become more than we are i think that is a special beautiful thing that shines like a

01:40:47.400 beacon through all the worlds that people that spiritual persons take note of overcoming things

01:40:56.240 that you are reluctant to do because of fear or because of discomfort or poor habit

01:41:04.860 those things are significant the more you show that you have mastery of self the better you're

01:41:11.860 able to build spiritual might and i think that's you know i think that's important for what it's

01:41:18.140 worth i agree wholeheartedly and i'm while you're talking about putting those thoughts into action

01:41:24.960 it also reminded me of one of the other ways that i honor my ancestors um is uh my parents

01:41:33.300 And my mother's parents are buried in this small cemetery at the small church out in rural Alabama.

01:41:40.920 And I send them a check every year, not because I support their mission, but because that's my way of honoring my ancestors who are buried there.

01:41:52.420 And my father's mother's buried in this small Methodist church in North Carolina.

01:41:56.580 I send them some money.

01:41:57.620 And, you know, money is, some people think of it as vulgar, but it's a tool.

01:42:04.240 You know, that's another way of showing my respect, not to them and the way that they've been misled,

01:42:11.940 but to the, you know, to the respect that they have for my ancestors by them residing there in that sacred ground.

01:42:21.580 what i don't my thought on real quick on the money thing though is if we were just if we were

01:42:30.620 to get donations or if we were to send donations of beef or of grain nobody would think twice

01:42:38.700 call it vulgar or anything like that but it's the same thing the money is just the products of our

01:42:45.940 labor in 2026 for those especially for those of us in you know the white collar gray collar fields

01:42:56.120 but even though you know even most blue collar folk

01:43:00.120 at the same time if you want to butcher a cow and send us a side of beef

01:43:08.380 norton's off has a commercial freezer and we will store it and honor that donation

01:43:13.480 and Sigurheim has a meat grinder even oh there you go this is something that

01:43:21.400 harkens back to kind of a theme of an earlier conversation people got to get over themselves

01:43:26.500 and religion functions real religion has always functioned by the active

01:43:36.700 financial contributions

01:43:39.120 of the parishioners of that faith.

01:43:44.540 You know, I've

01:43:45.800 heard a variety 1.00

01:43:47.760 of our folk that, oh, that's what Christians

01:43:49.900 do. That's why they have churches

01:43:51.840 and nice things and an institution

01:43:53.980 that's existed for 2,000 years.

01:43:57.920 But I tried to look, like, man, what 0.94

01:43:59.780 do these other religions do? How do

01:44:01.620 Hindus do it? How do Sikhs do 1.00

01:44:03.840 it? How do, you know, how 1.00

01:44:05.600 how did the shinto do it no it's all done by the parishioners giving usually a percentage of what

01:44:14.880 they what they produce or what they earn to the supporting of the temples the gods and the

01:44:22.480 priesthood of what they believe in that's how it works and there's truth is one of our virtues

01:44:29.600 And I think it's really important that our people grow up and understand that that's how things work. And this aversion to money or this discomfort with that is a hurdle that we really have to get over.

01:44:45.900 And so many of our people have. It's why we're able to have, you know, five Hoffs and be working on acquiring our sixth. It's why we're able to perform Alcetru at the level that we're able to. It's such a huge factor in that. And it's, you know, this pettiness when it comes to money is something that's got to get overcome.

01:45:11.380 unfortunately you know as we've seen for the generosity just on display in this show so many

01:45:15.940 of our people have have moved past that and have given very generously to the astra folk assembly

01:45:23.220 and it's moved us forward in a lot of ways and it's very much appreciated um

01:45:30.740 okay appreciate this question for both of you dashing gentlemen

01:45:35.700 Alan, what do you feel was your most formative moments in your AUSA troop path?

01:45:45.580 Alan, do you have any thoughts on what were the most formative moments in your AUSA troop development?

01:45:53.040 you are muted Alan

01:46:06.520 dang it see I was coughing I didn't want to cough into my throat

01:46:15.960 alright so two things come immediately to mind

01:46:19.180 And one was a bloat that was done before I even found the AFA.

01:46:25.560 It was at the Mead Hall moot, lo these many years ago.

01:46:32.780 If, because we all remember Pip and well, all those old timers remember Pip.

01:46:40.960 But he gave a bloat to Tear that manifested the gods to me in a very real way.

01:46:48.840 Stuff I don't usually share except in person, but I will say that that was a very moving experience for me very directly.

01:46:56.400 And another very similar and more powerful moment was when I had the privilege of sharing close ceremony with our founder, Steve McNeill.

01:47:13.480 He did a bloat with a small few of us up at his house where he dedicated the first AFA flag, and I found that to be powerful and moving and, like, removed any doubt.

01:47:30.180 Not that I had any, but, you know, that just bolstered the certainty that I was in the right place.

01:47:41.640 try to think of what um

01:47:50.640 again i have a tendency to overthink these kind of questions of like the most uh

01:47:59.640 first nick did you find that picture

01:48:03.520 yeah there's a picture of when i took my full boater of and there was

01:48:13.260 11 of us in uh in that picture and two of us uh two of us helped with that

01:48:25.300 but that was a really important one for me so um and interestingly enough y'all two are the

01:48:33.040 vanguards on the ends uh we we are the we are the uh two bookends in that picture um so

01:48:44.260 there's been there's been so many things so i'll try it out i'll try to hit some of them

01:48:50.680 um going to that particular event there was a really

01:48:58.000 all right so i guess first things first it goes without saying but finding the astro folk assembly

01:49:06.040 was

01:49:08.080 a fundamental to all of it i found it very quickly as i became also true but

01:49:18.380 finding that made all of this real and not theory up to that point in my head and i'm like okay

01:49:27.880 well guess i should worship you know the norse gods then um whatever that looks like and it was

01:49:35.880 so much contemplation in my head and wondering what if and it was an imaginary exercise until

01:49:43.640 i found the afa and it became real and it took form and took shape um following along with that

01:49:52.280 a number of years later going to my first afa event i grew up and i found alice true in alaska

01:50:00.360 and you know up there you're so far away from where so many things are happening and it's so

01:50:05.640 hard to get to stuff and i had decided i talked myself for whatever reason i was thinking about

01:50:12.760 going to the 2009 midsummer and i chickened out or i found some excuse where i didn't go

01:50:18.920 them and i regretted it and was resolved i'm going to go to this one in 2010 i'm going to do it and

01:50:25.960 i did and it changed my life um it was so very important in so many ways i took that oath um

01:50:34.120 i met amazing and inspirational people um one of whom was our founder and it was such a big deal

01:50:43.720 to stand in bloat with with with steve mcnallen um with my hero it was like just such a

01:50:53.400 such a special thing to get to meet him um

01:51:01.320 on the macro level that showed me just how real and thriving and just a glimpse at the potential

01:51:09.080 of all of this but another thing happened at that that was very very funny

01:51:17.320 i met a a man who for a good period of years there was a was a very close friend of mine

01:51:24.680 certainly a mentor of mine brad taylor hicks he took me under his wing and he taught me

01:51:32.840 so many you know so many things about how to look at alsatru about a level of

01:51:41.240 seriousness and professionalism to treat our faith with i think he was the first person

01:51:47.880 that i had encountered that you know encouraged wearing you know wearing a suit wearing a tie

01:51:55.080 treating this like a very very serious thing and that in the way of our presentation um so much

01:52:02.840 with a vision of what this could be and how this could develop in a way that was very inspirational

01:52:11.860 and kind of transcended the the brosa true that was so common at that time and that me at the age

01:52:18.400 I was was you know just something that I you know that's kind of where where a lot of us found this

01:52:26.100 seeing that there was something to transcend that

01:52:29.900 and move forward in a much more serious

01:52:33.940 much more dignified way really

01:52:37.840 did a lot to shape the man

01:52:41.900 I've become certainly in Oustru and I learned a lot

01:52:45.660 with that. I learned a lot throughout that entire

01:52:50.080 relationship, that entire friendship and

01:52:53.620 regrettably that that that ended in a wish that it didn't but um learned so much and still am

01:53:05.140 very inspired by that i think those were really really formative kind of things the other that i

01:53:14.260 think should go without saying but um my my elevation to also your goofy but not at that

01:53:30.580 moment more like the three months preceding that of preparing for that and getting my

01:53:40.420 head in the right place for the enormity of that i think did a lot to shape the course

01:53:50.740 that i've tried to set and stay to since then and my ideas on

01:53:58.980 trajectory and the gravity of that office i think those things

01:54:05.460 Those things were super formative for me as an Alcitruer.

01:54:15.560 I'm on the wrong little screen here.

01:54:18.300 All right, let me find it here.

01:54:22.380 Question. 0.88

01:54:23.720 Can people of non-Germanic slash Norse ancestry, but still white, be Alcitrued? 0.62

01:54:30.420 And can other gods, for instance, Celtic, be worshipped? 0.51

01:54:35.460 um first yes all white people can be australian the other question you know we've addressed on

01:54:46.380 here a number of times but it's a little bit more nuanced

01:54:49.260 we unify our practice by unifying into the norse pantheon of gods the norse corpus of lore

01:55:02.280 because to do otherwise is so endlessly eclectic and confusing and difficult to find a clear

01:55:13.000 pathway through but other gods i think is a bit of a misnomer there's undoubtedly many many local

01:55:20.860 you know deities that are land associated that are you know a particular river goddess or things

01:55:27.920 that way but the gods of white people are the gods of white people they go back to the very

01:55:35.840 beginning of our race they formed us they shaped us and the different conception and naming and

01:55:44.080 stories about those gods

01:55:49.120 like evolved in slightly different sometimes in slightly different sometimes in very

01:55:54.880 significant ways over the course of our folk moving developing language developing

01:56:04.160 finding themselves in different uh climate in different challenges in different conflicts and

01:56:12.160 developments as thousands of years of migration happen they're still the same gods and we're

01:56:19.120 still the same people on a genetic level and them on a identity level but as our people move and

01:56:27.280 develop different relationships things are going to stand out different if you're in a culture

01:56:31.360 where you're always warring your gods are going to their standout characteristics are going to have

01:56:37.680 a lot more to do with warfare if your people are more seafaring people that will become much more

01:56:43.280 significant and any number of permutations in between there we've unified the way that we

01:56:50.160 conceptualize and address our gods in the norse way so that we're all doing it together and so

01:56:57.040 that we're unifying what we do it's part of that whole holistic approach that we talked about 0.98

01:57:01.920 earlier where the pieces fit um but yeah fundamentally all white people are welcome

01:57:07.360 and come home to the Ostry Folk Assembly, these are your gods, and you should worship them. 0.60

01:57:13.100 We do prefer that publicly within the Ostry Folk Assembly, we express that through the Norse understanding of our gods.

01:57:24.360 But, I mean, Alan, do you have addition to that?

01:57:30.300 No, I think that sums it up quite nicely.

01:57:34.460 I, you know, I like to think of it as different, like you said, different nomenclature, different iterations, but all the same underlying practice.

01:57:49.200 The Indo-European peoples evolved and migrated and changed names for things, but they did not change the underlying structure.

01:58:02.120 The striker guide, the, you know, the god of oaths, you know, it's all one thing.

01:58:12.740 You know, the goddess of female agency, we invented that.

01:58:19.720 So, you know, that's, we are the, you know, the, those are all, but I, I think it's absolutely right to unify it under a, you know, under a single set of nomenclature and, you know, and that way we're all doing the same thing and we know who we're talking about when we talk about the gods.

01:58:39.440 So, the very last question, it's right about the same stuff.

01:58:50.120 yeah let's do that question thoughts on uh adjoining with sami slavic

01:59:01.000 lithanian rush and finnick traditions within aussitrew as they are drawing on that same uh

01:59:09.720 northern route so i don't think that they are it's not about being far north it's about white

01:59:17.320 people and not white people and i think that some of the groups mentioned in that

01:59:22.920 bundle there are not that certainly the sami there's elements of finnick things that are

01:59:32.360 ours and there's elements that are influenced by um i don't know if it's the in vogue term over

01:59:41.000 there but inuit peoples eskimo peoples sammy peoples um those kind of not us asiatics that

01:59:49.240 are in the uh the arctic um yeah the key thing comes down to us as a race of people and those

02:00:01.080 practices that are authentic to our our aryan or indo-european or white people roots uh and again

02:00:11.640 i think some of that's not now you see some overlap but one thing that i'd like to address

02:00:16.360 on it that i think is important um there's a kind of an ongoing debate about shamanism

02:00:22.920 and it gets

02:00:26.860 sticky because it depends what you mean.

02:00:30.460 So there's shamanism with a capital S

02:00:33.000 that is a, for lack of a better

02:00:36.480 analogy, a trademarked

02:00:40.440 Siberian Asian people

02:00:43.300 thing. Cool. That exact method

02:00:46.740 of that exact practice, that's

02:00:49.860 those people's thing.

02:00:52.920 But the practice of what people would define as shamanism with a small s is absolutely attested in our lore,

02:01:03.640 is something that is shared in common, and has a great deal of similarity in his practice within Ausatru.

02:01:10.440 And I think that borders on some of these border regions that you mentioned.

02:01:15.640 Certainly the Slavs and Lithuanians and Rus are our folk and do practice some of those kind of traditions.

02:01:22.920 so it depends on you know there is a branded trademark with specific kind of

02:01:29.300 reindeer high drumming thing that is a siberian thing and then there is

02:01:36.520 going through ordeal to consult spirits of the dead or to peer beyond the veil and come back

02:01:47.260 with wisdom and that's you know that's clearly for anyone who reads our lore that's attested

02:01:52.460 it's something that the all-father does with his ordeal on the world tree where he wins the runes

02:01:58.060 um so there's overlap but alan do you have anything to add or to talk about with incorporating

02:02:05.180 any of those groups traditions no i i think you're exactly right the you know we we can certainly

02:02:12.840 look to

02:02:13.820 some of that to

02:02:16.440 consider how

02:02:18.460 the influence that were

02:02:24.060 impacted on our

02:02:26.700 peoples as that but

02:02:28.320 at some point it fades

02:02:30.800 off into a point where it's not

02:02:33.100 Indo-European

02:02:35.140 practice anymore also true

02:02:36.860 and you know

02:02:38.800 you just gotta you know it when you

02:02:40.840 see it and it's

02:02:42.600 and none of it's wrong

02:02:55.480 what they do is right for them, what we do is right for us

02:02:59.400 but I think there is a line in there somewhere

02:03:02.780 where that is exactly

02:03:04.240 I leave that to the ethnographers

02:03:09.540 you're muted Matt

02:03:17.200 you're muted Matt still

02:03:21.700 all right sorry about that all right law speaker what advice

02:03:27.880 do you have for all our graduates getting ready to start

02:03:31.760 adulting on their own

02:03:33.140 wow

02:03:42.340 the first thing that got in my mind

02:03:52.840 is run adulthood is a trap

02:03:55.020 but

02:03:56.580 you know

02:03:59.860 one I think is to

02:04:03.020 So is to be prepared to know that graduation, whether it's high school or college, graduation is the beginning.

02:04:13.020 You don't know everything. You don't know anything.

02:04:17.080 You know, look, whatever trade or profession that you take up, recognize that that you're at the beginning of a life.

02:04:30.120 So treat those who have been at that job,

02:04:35.260 treat them and everybody, all the adults around you with respect.

02:04:40.900 Firm handshake, look people in the eye.

02:04:44.740 Another thing, and it's hard to believe that you have to say this to adults,

02:04:51.840 but I actually had a conversation with one of the guys on the cruise and he

02:04:59.700 was, he owns a plumbing company and he was talking about one of the 18 year

02:05:05.840 olds that he hired as a, as an assistant.

02:05:08.500 And the guy showed up 15 minutes late for his first day on the job.

02:05:13.060 So he rolls up and he says, you know, what are we doing today?

02:05:16.200 You're going home because you're fired.

02:05:19.020 So be on time, be early.

02:05:21.840 You know, because that is an adult way of doing things.

02:05:26.680 You know, you're you don't show up late and you don't question the boss.

02:05:33.740 The boss isn't always right, but he is always the boss.

02:05:39.400 For a while until you have some big idea of what you're doing.

02:05:43.140 So treat people with respect, respect yourself, respect your place in the hierarchy.

02:05:49.640 And, you know, and throw your full weight at the job, however tedious and menial it is, because, you know, that's how you, that's how you move up that, you know, you, you dress for the job you want, you know, so dress a little nicer, work a little harder, and you will earn a place, you'll earn your next place up in the ladder.

02:06:16.340 That's, that's the start.

02:06:19.640 All right, another Alan question. Law speaker, it is a duty for us, Alistair Truar, to reproduce, but is it a duty for us to set up dynasty trusts or perpetual trusts? Is there a difference between them?

02:06:38.060 I'm glad somebody has enough money to have to ask that question.

02:06:49.100 Sorry.

02:06:50.780 Yes, absolutely.

02:06:54.140 Like you said, I don't think they asked it as a question, but it is a duty to reproduce, 1.00

02:07:01.180 um especially in this age of idiocracy where um all of the lower castes are reproducing without 0.99

02:07:09.700 restraint while we who should be multiplying going forth and multiplying are doing so with 0.88

02:07:16.880 reserve and circumspection um we are you know idiocracy was supposed to be a warning not a

02:07:24.400 blueprint. The movie is what I'm talking about. You haven't seen it.

02:07:28.720 The other part of that, yes, absolutely.

02:07:34.100 You should set up a trust if you have the wherewithal.

02:07:38.880 Although it probably would behoove people

02:07:44.000 with a somewhat lower threshold than what I usually think of as

02:07:47.920 a trustworthy amount of wealth.

02:07:54.400 To consider that, but absolutely, you can set up a trust that funds the lives of your children and grandchildren.

02:08:06.040 If you have that sort of money, it's definitely a worthwhile enterprise.

02:08:11.300 Spend some money off to the AFA, if at all possible.

02:08:14.180 I also accept wills so that when you die, your last wishes can be implemented to the maximum extent possible.

02:08:30.900 Email me about that procedure.

02:08:34.200 But absolutely, if you have the even modest amount of wealth, you probably should talk to an advisor.

02:08:42.700 I don't know a lot about trust law.

02:08:45.060 I know it's an important way to protect your wealth into the future

02:08:51.840 and protect your children from being exposed to too much wealth too soon

02:08:57.440 because that can have real bad effects there too.

02:09:02.080 okay so that that prompts um what do you feel the threshold is dollar amount to where one

02:09:17.240 should start considering a trust yeah that's a good question and you know as i was talking i

02:09:25.560 was trying to think what that number might be my guess would be that probably like at that

02:09:30.780 $100,000 range even. If you have more than a modest life insurance policy, you can pour that

02:09:38.360 over into a trust, especially if you're a younger person. I know when I was a mere youth of 45 or so

02:09:56.420 and had children i um young children um you know i had a decent sized life insurance policy and

02:10:12.260 looking back on it i should have probably set that so that that poured over into a trust so

02:10:17.300 if you have you know a life insurance and life insurance by the way is a an important component

02:10:24.500 of a holistic life plan if you're a young parent especially if you're the primary wage earner

02:10:33.860 for your family you should have life insurance and i don't mean like ten thousand dollar burial

02:10:40.100 policy i mean like a million dollar because if you die um you need to replace that lifetime

02:10:47.860 of earnings for your parents you know for your children and that's absolutely the kind of thing

02:10:52.980 that you would want to pour over into a trust so that your 18-year-old kids don't get a $350,000

02:11:02.480 life insurance check, but a lifetime of annuity payments that would protect them in a way that

02:11:13.580 you would if you were still around. But I would think $100,000, or if you have some properties,

02:11:20.280 especially if you have a couple of rental properties, you can set those into a trust.

02:11:25.260 And those are the sorts of things that, like, for my own consideration,

02:11:30.940 that's the sort of thing that that's that threshold that you want to think about it at.

02:11:38.220 Okay. 0.60

02:11:40.020 Would it be better to start bartering like certain peoples did in Europe in the early 30s

02:11:46.300 to avoid debt from banks and usury?

02:11:50.280 sorry what was the first part of the question would it be better to start

02:11:56.160 bartering like certain peoples did in Europe in the early 30s to avoid debt

02:12:01.680 from banks and user to start borrowing from other people bartering oh bartering

02:12:10.680 bartering, bartering. You know, maybe, probably. I mean, the, you know, the problem is like

02:12:23.940 what we talked about earlier when we were talking about funding Hoffs. Money is just

02:12:31.720 the is is the is the fungible way of transacting it you know i have some eggs i sell eggs

02:12:38.440 um so then i can go to walmart and buy a trailer hitch or whatever but the um

02:12:47.560 but i can't go to walmart and trade my eggs for a trailer hitch um but certainly among the folk

02:12:54.200 um you can do that sort of thing and i think that's absolutely a valid and valuable way to

02:13:00.680 trade your services.

02:13:07.740 But to do that, you need to come together and move to Jackson County.

02:13:13.060 Absolutely. Or participate in the MeWe folk trade thing. I know that there are, you know, 0.98

02:13:24.420 The MeWe, you know, folk sale thing, you know, what's it called?

02:13:32.600 The marketplace, MeWe Marketplace, where some of the AFAers have stuff for sale.

02:13:38.820 And I'm sure, like, if you've got a crocheted hat, I could send them some of my honey, maybe, you know, and do a barter in that way. 0.97

02:13:46.460 I think the bigger way, the easier way to avoid getting trapped into usury is to want less stuff, right?

02:14:04.860 Like you don't need a new car. You don't need new furniture. I buy the, I mean, I buy most, most of the shirts that I wear, I bought used. It's funny. I bought a lot of it on Etsy and eBay and just have less stuff overall than one.

02:14:28.120 um and number two first of all we all need to eat less but you know like the even more important

02:14:37.720 thing there like if you're gonna if you have to eat breakfast and lunch every day and dinner

02:14:42.140 um cook it yourself you know that if you want to find a way to save money you know if you're

02:14:49.120 eating an eight dollar mcdonald's hamburger every day first of all you're destroying your

02:14:54.780 intestines. And secondly, you're destroying your pocketbook. Make yourself a sandwich or cook some

02:15:00.440 eggs and that will save you thousands and thousands of dollars over the course of a year

02:15:06.080 and keep you out of debt. What are your thoughts on universal index life insurance or using your

02:15:17.040 401k as a personal bank that way i am my own bank instead of giving my money to big banks

02:15:29.520 that's the sort of stuff that that is certainly a valid way to approach it um

02:15:35.520 i have worked with clients who were like their primary business model was they had

02:15:42.000 a retirement account that they um funded their business through that you know they bought so

02:15:48.720 they bought and sold houses and rehabilitated them by using their uh ira and that protected

02:15:59.200 the income in a certain way all that stuff has really complicated tax implications um that i'm

02:16:06.400 I'm just not, I mean, except on a case-by-case basis, it's hard to say, you know, that it's better to do it one way and not another, you know, so talk to your tax people.

02:16:19.500 I hate to say that because I don't like taxes.

02:16:21.880 I don't like tax accounts for the most part, but, you know, that's certainly the sort of complicated thing that I couldn't give you an answer to off the cuff.

02:16:32.800 Although one thing I will say is that if you have debt, first of all, I don't think you'd borrow from your 401k.

02:16:44.860 Generally, the people that I run into as clients, bankruptcy clients who have done that end up, you know, the goal, they end up in a bad posture because then you have to pay back your IRA plus you're taxed on it when you draw the money out.

02:17:00.520 So the best thing to do is not get in debt in the first place.

02:17:05.540 Want less, spend less.

02:17:09.500 One, and if you're in the spot where you're, you know, where you're thinking about borrowing money from your IRA or 401k, think about filing bankruptcy instead.

02:17:20.880 That's not something that I would ever counsel lightly.

02:17:24.000 But if you've got a lot of debt, more than $20,000 is the threshold I've been using now.

02:17:33.340 But if you have $20,000 in unsteered debt, it's maybe time to think about filing bankruptcy.

02:17:38.740 Do not put a second mortgage on your house to pay off credit card debt.

02:17:41.980 That, too, is a terrible idea for the most part.

02:17:45.840 There are exceptions.

02:17:48.340 But spend less, want less, pay your house off.

02:17:52.720 And like for me personally, I never, I didn't save money until I paid off my debt.

02:18:05.220 Like if you are putting money into an IRA that's drawing 4% interest, but you have a credit card debt that you're paying 29% interest on.

02:18:14.580 I mean, you could bump your, you can increase the money, a couple of orders of magnitude by paying off that credit card debt first and then start a savings account.

02:18:26.100 Pay your house off.

02:18:27.400 I mean, that's the strongest thing you can do, especially in Florida.

02:18:31.980 You know, own your house, own your car, pay off your debt.

02:18:35.200 And then, because you never know what's going to happen in the market.

02:18:37.500 Most IRAs, 401ks, are market indexed, and depending on who you listen to and which stock market prognosticator is running the show at any given moment, that money may or may not be there.

02:18:59.880 You know, invest in things and put away money that you can afford to lose.

02:19:05.520 that's that's a lot of that's just personal stuff you know that's my own personal experience

02:19:10.840 buy rental properties you know once you get your debt paid off

02:19:16.340 all right next up how would it be a duty to reproduce i've never read a command to be

02:19:24.740 fruitful and multiply in the habitable so i've got a number of different ways to go about

02:19:31.780 answering this, but Alan, what, how would you address that question?

02:19:39.200 Well,

02:19:40.760 it is not a command because it's one of those things that was just known like

02:19:51.300 any other species, right?

02:19:56.140 every other race knows that the point of life is to make more life. Um, like I, I look at the

02:20:07.040 hickory nut tree outside my yard and it puts out a thousand hickory nuts every year. And what's it

02:20:12.920 trying to do? It's trying to reproduce itself. Um, you know, every species everywhere knows that 0.97

02:20:22.060 The, you know, it's the primary commands are eat, survive, reproduce.

02:20:30.160 And, you know, the point of the folk soul is to make more, you know, our ancestor didn't carve their way into the wilderness so that we could decide that we would rather have an extra two weeks of vacation every year instead of having to raise children.

02:20:52.060 yeah it's so and I appreciate the question and I think that it's always a

02:20:58.320 valid thing to reexamine fundamentals and reinforce like why and I so I don't

02:21:07.120 think that's a bad question but some of the answer is that it's self-evident it

02:21:12.820 is a biological imperative of all life to reproduce and to create the next

02:21:19.000 generation to pass their genetic inheritance down to future generations.

02:21:28.680 In Ausitrus specifically, so much of our faith is based on the veneration of our ancestors,

02:21:37.080 the remembrance, the celebration, the worship to a degree, and the, you know, honoring of those

02:21:46.520 who came before us and passing down a strong family line to those who come and follow us

02:21:56.680 it didn't need to be reinforced as a thou shalt because it's just it's just

02:22:03.160 true and all biology knows that it's true um but it's funny that you mentioned because the

02:22:10.040 have walls not silent on it it may be it's common sense but have them all 72 says it's best to have

02:22:17.800 a son though he be born late and before him the father be dead because seldom are stones on the

02:22:24.520 side of the road raised saved by kinsmen for kinsmen building up your kin fence your family

02:22:31.560 and your descendancy to have something to pass on your legacy and to have people to remember you and

02:22:38.440 celebrate you is fundamental to our ancestors worldview it's fundamental to any healthy worldview

02:22:47.320 that views so this goes to another thing um also true is a life embracing religion

02:22:54.600 some religions think that life in this world is suffering and horrible and illusion and bad and

02:23:01.800 we should try to escape it and those kind of religions that reject the world and think that

02:23:07.880 life is terrible are positioned very differently we embrace life and think that life is wonderful 0.98

02:23:16.200 and think that the world and nature and the natural law is a wonderful and a good thing

02:23:23.320 natural law says that as biological beings we have an imperative to

02:23:29.240 to our ability to produce offspring and to

02:23:37.480 hopefully produce a better next generation of people that build from the efforts that we've

02:23:44.120 done and if we've been good stewards of those which of that which has been passed to us by our

02:23:50.120 parents to continue that acceleration and upward trajectory trajectory of our line um

02:23:56.680 So it's definitely worth asking questions, but that's a truth of existence that I think we all know.

02:24:07.820 And it would have been assumed without having to, I mean, like I said, it's absolutely valid to ask the question.

02:24:18.420 but the reason that the west has been asking itself that question the last 100 years is

02:24:25.860 because of the frankfurt school and its efforts to unwind western civilization

02:24:34.580 yeah and and there is a lot of confusion out there in the world

02:24:37.780 and there's also so i have no idea the motivations of who asked the question and i'm

02:24:44.660 not to be critical of that at all but we have a lot of people that may have neglected that

02:24:52.580 in their life and then find resentment and try to you know come up with mental gymnastics to

02:25:00.740 where it's not important just because it's not something that's a reality for someone

02:25:07.780 due to their age or a medical condition or whatever else that's unfortunate

02:25:13.620 but it doesn't make it not a true thing it does make their individual circumstance

02:25:18.340 unfortunate and we do have sympathy for that um next is an amendment you thanked

02:25:26.260 gilbert about the ac and he wants to point out that he christy and jordan went in

02:25:32.820 thirdsies on it so it was not all him sorry yes thank you thank you christy and thank you jordan

02:25:40.980 my bizzle, but

02:25:45.140 yes.

02:25:47.120 Also, Ben in Arizona

02:25:50.980 donated $20 to B&S.

02:25:53.240 Says, love you guys. Law

02:25:55.040 speaker, you are looking sick. Are you 0.59

02:25:57.160 okay?

02:25:59.120 I am sick, actually.

02:26:01.980 I

02:26:02.220 although I didn't realize

02:26:06.980 I'd look that sick. Maybe I should turn

02:26:09.100 down the white lights over here i didn't realize it was that noticeable but yes i am uh i do have

02:26:14.460 a cough that i brought home from the cruise um which is just part of the penalty that you pay 0.90

02:26:20.220 for being around people there you have it um what is the item that a fa gophy seemed to wear that

02:26:30.860 looks like a catholic priest stole it is just that it is a clerical stole and it's an item that

02:26:41.900 predates christianity it's an item that originally was uh not certainly not a um a norse gothar

02:26:50.140 item we have other than um other than a silver arm ring we don't really have an indication of

02:26:58.700 what gothar wore um but the stole is an italic pagan item that is attested that priests of jupiter

02:27:09.020 would wear um it's got a history not just for the priesthood but also as a sign of office in pagan

02:27:19.500 rome and i believe there is a greek equivalency as well for um as a sign of office and rank as

02:27:30.460 an attestation to wisdom and scholarship that's why you still you've seen it come down to us

02:27:37.820 in modern times most people encounter it as something that priests wear but also as something

02:27:42.860 that um you know uh alumni or faculty or a graduating uh person people wear graduations

02:27:52.540 and for a similar reason a similar kind of tradition and one of the reasons that it's

02:27:57.420 a standout is because certainly in the west it is a clear mark of someone who is performing a

02:28:05.820 religious function and it's easily understood it's one of those if somebody is wearing that

02:28:11.100 it's a very simple and clear way to understand they're a clergyman it serves that function really

02:28:19.180 well when there's i mean i think it works you know fine in whatever circumstance but it has a

02:28:25.180 particular effect if you are entering into a fixed company situation where you're going to minister

02:28:32.300 to somebody who is in the hospital you're doing prison ministry or you're on a military installation

02:28:38.860 or you're um you know performing any of those kind of functions in a public setting

02:28:45.020 it's immediately recognizable that you're there to be clergy and perform a clergy function

02:28:53.260 you are muted

02:28:57.020 google tells us that the you know that the roman priests rule war they've called them vestments

02:29:01.980 but it's the same thing you know it's stole to denote the authority of their office and it does

02:29:07.820 set the gothar apart um and rightly so we you know when we perform our holy sacred function

02:29:15.900 and duty to uh to to bring forth the gods um you know we it is absolutely right to

02:29:24.460 have a designation of that office

02:29:35.260 okay it's interesting the uh iguvine tablets are the first kind of i don't know reference of it

02:29:44.860 and it talks about the priest of jupiter using it to make offering but what's kind of cool on it and

02:29:50.060 i just found this out the other day looking up something is it also talks about them making

02:29:56.700 sacrificial offerings with me which i thought was really interesting in these inuvian tablets it

02:30:02.300 says the the quotation is while you are slaying it wear a stole on your right shoulder and when

02:30:09.100 you have slain it place the stole upon the uh mefa cake while you're presenting it wear the

02:30:17.340 stole on your right shoulder present grain offerings and sacrifice with mead so it talks

02:30:23.100 about it's kind of an these uh tablets are kind of interesting because they go into detail of the

02:30:30.300 these particular priests function at the time it was kind of a kind of a cool thing i found the

02:30:35.420 other day but yeah that's where it comes from and it has that common tradition

02:30:39.900 what uh next one thoughts on okay i already read that one here is a quick question what topics

02:30:50.520 of theology do the gothar disagree and debate each other

02:30:56.020 alan what topics of theology do our gothar debate on and i guess have they debated on

02:31:08.260 traditionally in your time in the afa uh you know certainly um i think some of the things are um

02:31:26.580 some of the things that we've already talked about like how far ranging like how far out

02:31:31.140 away from the central core of also true do you get before you're not also true

02:31:37.520 anymore that you're doing some other kind of practice the importance and

02:31:42.380 centrality of you know I'll say it this way like from for my personal practice

02:32:00.520 meditation forms the core of a big part of my practice um and this is a so i don't like to

02:32:09.480 i don't like to air the you know those are the minor disagreements that we have because you know

02:32:15.080 if we talk about stuff we disagree about it's going to sound like we have a lot

02:32:18.680 but you know there's like the 99 percentile

02:32:22.040 maybe not quite that much we agree on 88 of stuff um but uh but then we and we disagree about

02:32:32.940 you know some couple of minor things um i am one who is in the school that

02:32:42.360 uh you know that we are trying to manifest our our highest selves as our god selves

02:32:49.140 you know, that I think is not universally believed.

02:32:58.280 The ethic is like another example.

02:33:02.120 And this is, again, this is that idea that

02:33:06.440 whether we should do blood sacrifice.

02:33:14.520 And it's something that we have talked about doing.

02:33:17.440 It certainly was a tradition and would, you know, would have been absolutely something that would have been very common in any prior era.

02:33:29.180 But we're just so squeamish.

02:33:33.640 The modern modern civilization, quote unquote, is so squeamish about that sort of thing that I don't know that we could do it.

02:33:42.180 But I think it's something that if we can find the right time and place that, you know, that we should do, you know, some blood sacrifice.

02:33:53.880 And, you know, the purpose of that manifestation would, you know, again, would be, you know, what exactly is that that we're doing?

02:34:05.040 Could be debated.

02:34:06.200 but you know the the rest of the stuff i think we all agree on don't you think so matt well yeah so

02:34:14.240 i was gonna say it's not it's hard because the question

02:34:19.640 and i mean this pretty honestly by just kind of how things develop there's not

02:34:28.860 a ton of like disagreement there's discussion of stuff and i guess it's kind of you know debated

02:34:38.860 pros and cons of different things but there's not like big schismatic disagreement points

02:34:46.880 amongst the gothar that come up and i can't you know in my time as all as harry gothy i can't

02:34:55.420 really think of times amongst the gothar where there's some big theological schism of that i think

02:35:09.340 like way back when the gothar were getting strange things over folkishness or universalism

02:35:19.500 but that's been completely stamped out and made clear and uh hasn't been a thing for

02:35:26.300 you know well over a decade now or a decade just about evenly um

02:35:33.420 i mean we discuss different stuff like something that is frequently discussed is

02:35:39.740 how best to do a certain like um how best to do rune galder i know gets talked about

02:35:49.180 i think different gothar have different preferences on it it's not really a

02:35:53.740 like an argument as much as it's people saying well i like to do it this way because of these

02:35:58.620 reasons well i like to do it this other way because these other reasons so we talk about

02:36:02.860 stuff a lot but i think because so much of us have talked about these things together for so long

02:36:10.860 the the big points of theology of things that we've kind of come to you know come to a synthesis

02:36:19.900 and come to an understanding of there's not you know big schismatic things that are discussed

02:36:27.380 so it's i wish that we had like a more i mean i don't wish that we had more conflict but i wish

02:36:33.400 had like a more exciting answer to the question i just think that there is much oh okay i and i do

02:36:42.520 um australian i do remember seeing this question earlier in the chat and no we didn't intentionally

02:36:48.760 skip it it didn't make it into the um into the line of questions for whatever reason but we'll

02:36:54.120 get to that here in just a second um we've got one question in front of that um

02:37:01.720 I got my Mjolnir off Grimfrost. Where do y'all buy yours? Alan, where'd you get your hammer?

02:37:12.240 I got this hammer from the Ossetru Alliance in their golden, or got silver, era, back when they 0.98

02:37:20.240 were folkish. Um, the order was fulfilled by, um, Valgaard Murray himself. Um, so, you 0.97

02:37:29.740 know, but that was, yeah, 2006 or something like that. Um, this hammer, um, was gifted

02:37:38.940 to me by a great good friend of mine. Um, it's my ceremonial hammer that I wear a lot

02:37:44.520 when I'm doing ritual. I have another one in there that was

02:37:48.300 made by a former member for, again, for special purpose

02:37:52.720 and gifted to a few of us. There is

02:37:56.420 absolutely nothing wrong with buying 1.00

02:37:59.180 a hammer, even one made in China

02:38:04.760 if that's what you get. Certainly, I think

02:38:08.680 it's better. I think it's a better

02:38:12.460 practice and more meaningfully spiritual, spiritually meaningful to buy from Grimfrost

02:38:22.400 or from friends of ours. You know, you want something made in America, buy a

02:38:29.020 by a folkish ostrich, or if you can get that, even if it costs a little more,

02:38:35.740 I think it's just going to be more significant to do it that way, to buy it from, buy it from friends.

02:38:45.340 Yeah, it depends on where you can get it or whatever.

02:38:47.900 I know Alan said buy American, but I think one thing that's really cool is you can get some really neat stuff done out of Eastern Europe that I've seen.

02:38:56.540 Right. Yeah, that's, yeah, I bought some really cool stuff from, you know, from Ukraine.

02:39:01.560 some very focused uh stuff comes out of that part of uh the country too absolutely i think

02:39:07.720 it's it's best if you can get it from you know someone who practices our faith um but yeah i

02:39:14.760 wouldn't i wouldn't over stress that hammers are you know the meaning is there that you intend for

02:39:20.440 it i wouldn't wouldn't worry myself over it too much this one um uh had custom made at some point

02:39:28.760 but it's the same design as the first one i had the first hammer i got was um this same i think

02:39:36.760 this off of a old swedish hammer and it i got one um from the museum store it used to be a store

02:39:46.600 they had in the mall back when the mall was a thing and it was the first one i found it was a uh

02:39:52.520 uh brass um version of this hammer and I still have it I actually um gave it to my daughter

02:40:02.000 for her baby naming um for Asavatny and it yeah it's neat that one I sure was probably made in

02:40:11.780 China or some other place um but yeah people get them from all over there's a lot of really cool

02:40:18.260 that sell you know just about any variety you can think of producer Nick

02:40:26.060 has a really cool hammer that's you know very different it's not a historical

02:40:30.320 design hammer that's really cool there's a lot of neat stuff people do so I'm

02:40:38.240 assuming you're talking about the one with the big green stone yes yeah that

02:40:43.520 It just comes from, go on Etsy.

02:40:45.960 There are so many Euro, Ukrainian, Finnish, Polish shops on Etsy that you can find. 1.00

02:40:53.880 And at least you know it's made not by Chinese. 1.00

02:40:58.040 There you go.

02:41:00.820 So the question that got missed.

02:41:06.260 Alan, what are your current feelings on the Trump administration?

02:41:09.560 what policies do you think need to be implemented to benefit white people?

02:41:20.840 Well, to use a phrase that was coined by one of the websites that I follow pretty closely,

02:41:31.640 CounterCurrents, I'm currently suffering from Trump Disappointment Syndrome. 0.88

02:41:36.160 I would like to see mass deportations stepped up that would, you know, that would certainly benefit Native Americans.

02:41:55.160 Americans, we white Native Americans, you know, that would be a starting point. 0.89

02:42:05.480 That being said, I think it's important to recognize that despite his recent error in starting an unprovoked war, which I think is a horrible idea in every connotation of that, and that's a personal opinion, not the opinion of the AFA.

02:42:25.160 But, you know, when you look at the impact that his judges are having in the way that jurisprudence is being decided, that will have an impact for years and years and years.

02:42:51.520 It's just the Supreme Court, especially if the Supreme Court decides the right way on the birthright citizenship case that was recently argued.

02:43:03.900 I mean, we could that would be a tremendous pivot that was brought about by Trump's election.

02:43:12.400 And those are the sorts of things that you can't discount that that his election.

02:43:21.520 For all the disappointment that some of his decisions have brought, have been pivotal and may be pivotal in, you know, in our lifetimes and shape the long term health or dearth of this country.

02:43:38.400 And another thing to note, along that same line, if you're not aware, Trump's Department of Justice recently indicted the Southern Poverty Leadership Council.

02:43:52.340 And if you don't think that's big news, it is.

02:43:57.960 The SPLC has been the enemy of conservative peoples everywhere for a long, long time, and they are now under indictment for fraud and money laundering and all sorts of federal crimes.

02:44:20.000 And that would have never happened under any kind of, you know, certainly, you know, certainly not even under a, you know, a rhino Department of Justice.

02:44:32.920 That's a that is a big, big deal. And so, you know, that would have only happened because Trump has unleashed the hounds on on some of our enemies.

02:44:43.620 And, you know, for that, that's big news and important stuff that, despite the recent misadventure, will lead this country back in the right direction.

02:45:00.080 Yeah, I think, and again, this is, you know, Alan and my personal thoughts on it.

02:45:08.120 want we don't want to duck the question but um and you did say current but i think it's worth

02:45:18.600 just saying i think there were a lot of steps in the right direction in a lot of ways there

02:45:22.680 are certainly a lot of promises in the right direction and i'm currently extremely disappointed

02:45:30.920 that those promises have not been fulfilled in a lot of ways what i will say is there's a number

02:45:37.560 of people um that were unjustly imprisoned that he is uh freed and pardoned which is

02:45:45.880 a good thing and a good step i think that

02:45:52.760 um acknowledgement and this has been going on for a while but acknowledgement of

02:45:58.520 our brethren that are suffering in south africa and wanting to help facilitate them have a better

02:46:05.960 life is a very positive thing for our people i think um doing the deportations and fixing 0.82

02:46:17.800 the immigration problem that has changed the complexion of our country to an unrecognizable

02:46:23.480 way fixing that which was kind of started and then stopped would help us a lot 1.00

02:46:29.720 um biggest thing that is just it is disappointing to see him continually surround himself with the 0.72

02:46:39.400 wrong people and get guided in bad directions a lot and the big elephant in the room is the israel 0.85

02:46:47.400 thing to have a foreign country that is a jewish ethno state calling the shots of our foreign 0.97

02:46:54.520 policy and getting us involved in wars is a terrible thing and anything that he could do 0.99

02:47:02.680 or policy he could put in effect to where we are independent of having to have israel dictate

02:47:10.920 any of our policy would be a positive step for our folk and i think for the world and everybody

02:47:20.200 involved it would be very nice if we function as an autonomous country without that lobby dictating

02:47:27.240 what we do absolutely and you know for for all the missteps that he's taken you know you're not

02:47:34.680 going to go from a half black muslim to kaiser wilhelm in one step i mean the ship of state 0.79

02:47:43.080 turns but slowly and you know so we you know you got to take what friendship you can get 0.99

02:47:50.200 and that's the thing Kamala wouldn't have been any better and it's at the end of the day I know

02:48:02.040 that's not a strong endorsement but it is worth thinking you know I want the most good things for

02:48:09.320 our folk that can be and I also don't you know it's important to not let perfect be the enemy

02:48:18.600 of good in terms of our expectations to make the most of opportunities that present themselves no

02:48:24.760 matter who's in office and to position ourselves best to write out when people in office are not

02:48:31.800 the ones we want or are the ones that make a bad choices for us whatever we can do

02:48:38.600 while we're able to put ourselves in a good position to write out the things we don't like

02:48:45.080 is also a you know something to always keep in mind instead of obsessing over you know neither

02:48:51.240 of these people are our guy or said they're our guy but some of the candidates trump being one of

02:48:57.640 them has said some things that would be really positive and beneficial for uh white people in

02:49:03.000 america if they were you know if the promises were lived up to and hopefully and we don't endorse

02:49:09.400 or advocate any particular political party or candidate no this is and this is an important

02:49:16.280 note like we don't need to be aloof from anything political but we do have to you know as the austro

02:49:21.160 folk assembly we're not trying to you know as alan said we're not trying to endorse a candidate or

02:49:28.200 endorse a piece of legislation but it is appropriate to advocate for things that are good for our

02:49:36.040 our folk and good for our people and you know those are some policies and some things that

02:49:41.480 i think would be very good for our people yeah um next uh matt and alan for those of us leading

02:49:54.760 sumble in our homes how much weight should we place on things like dress and atmosphere

02:50:00.760 versus intention and frith of the gathering what are your thoughts there al versus uh um

02:50:08.040 versus what now was the last of the question the frith of the gathering yeah should you know dress

02:50:14.760 an atmosphere versus people they're being comfortable and facilitating them having a

02:50:19.560 fruitful interaction um i think i think when you lead symbol below um at your home it's going to

02:50:32.840 be somewhat less formal um i i absolutely agree that um that uh that you don't want to

02:50:41.640 you know put people off by being too formal um at the same time i think it is absolutely

02:50:47.800 appropriate that as the person leading ceremony, that you should be dressed in a way that's

02:50:56.560 at least, and I hate to use this term because it, you know, because it sounds cheesy in

02:51:01.620 this context, but you want to be like at least business casual, right?

02:51:06.500 You want to be collared shirts, nice pants that would be appropriate in a, you know,

02:51:14.200 in a, in a business setting in the exact same way, um,

02:51:19.520 that you would not go to a job interview. Um, you wouldn't, you know,

02:51:24.240 with a, although obviously that's outside the home, you know, and, but,

02:51:29.700 you know, you don't certainly in your own home,

02:51:31.600 you don't turn people away because they're not, you know,

02:51:35.300 because they're wearing a journey t-shirt or something like that.

02:51:40.480 But I think as our practice evolves and as your personal practice becomes more formal, you know, you want your ritual to be set apart from, you know, from the rest of the mundane.

02:52:08.400 So, and if that means you dress a little nicer than you usually do, then that's absolutely appropriate. But at the same time, you know, other people do themselves. And if they're, and if they show up, I mean, you don't, you don't want to, you know, you just don't say anything.

02:52:29.860 But hopefully after some several ceremonies, they will start to get the idea and treat it with a little more respect and with a little more dignity and will come dressed more appropriately.

02:52:45.720 You know, I think that it's interesting because the two two major rituals of our practice are bloat and stumble and bloat is very much about approaching the gods.

02:52:59.860 That's something that you're approaching that audience necessitates a certain level of decorum and presentation that I think sumble doesn't necessarily depends.

02:53:15.980 one of the things we talk about it you know at the hoff when we do assemble it's a high

02:53:20.860 assemble and it's a elevated occurrence but there's a lot of occasions that you can do some

02:53:28.220 that you know dressing casually isn't inappropriate some a lot of the time is

02:53:35.660 about building connections with the people that you're with there so i think you know i would

02:53:40.540 never want it to be done see um in a silly way or in a way that wasn't serious but you know there

02:53:50.460 have been people who are staying up all night to see the you know the the rising sun on a solstice

02:53:57.500 or to see you know like uh yeah there have been people in situations where they're in their

02:54:02.940 pajamas doing assemble because everybody spent the night on the floor doing whatever i don't

02:54:08.540 think that's entirely inappropriate there's times where you'll do a stumble when you're out camping

02:54:13.020 or you know on a hunting trip or where you find yourself and i think that that uh the

02:54:19.980 the details on that matter i think it's always something that should be done seriously and

02:54:24.060 sincerely but on a stumble in your home those things are much more about the the atmosphere

02:54:30.940 of the event and i do think the um the intention and the frith is more important i'd say than

02:54:38.860 in the dress and in the fanciing up the atmosphere because again it's building

02:54:44.060 bonds between the people that are there more so than it being focused on approaching the gods

02:54:51.980 um but again i i think that the intentions matter in both and i think that that's not

02:54:59.740 something i'd spend a lot of time stressing i would much more want it to be an atmosphere where

02:55:04.540 people feel comfortable opening and sharing deeply and treating it seriously um my two cents

02:55:14.860 uh next alan have you ever went through the nine doors of midgard the way dr flower is prescribed

02:55:21.340 i have not um i've read part of the book i think it's a valid exercise i just never connected

02:55:32.460 enough with the room guild um to go through it i know you can self-initiate through the work of

02:55:39.100 that book um i have other work that i do that's kind of similar i probably should get my volume

02:55:47.620 out and go through that process as well i mean i've got several other

02:55:58.740 elevation techniques that i use and you know i think they enhance each other

02:56:06.020 i have

02:56:10.260 it is a very

02:56:11.060 so no i've not made it all the way through all nine i think i think i made it through four of

02:56:22.900 the nine um the first two i think were really meaningful i think past that it kind of

02:56:35.940 i kind of got away from it or like the

02:56:41.060 yeah the first two i've made it through i believe i think i've made it i've made it through the

02:56:46.260 first two twice and i made it through the first for the first time when i first picked up the

02:56:53.140 book way back with it but um yeah it's very long and very involved process and it's hard to stay

02:57:02.420 with if you're not all the way connected on some of the some of the pieces of it but i think a lot

02:57:08.820 of it's really good i certainly think that the early stages the early doors are very good and

02:57:14.180 i would recommend those for people next question when reaching out to the gods and the ancestors

02:57:24.740 how can we tell if they are reaching back how do we know if the signs of their interactions

02:57:30.580 are genuine and are not just us fooling ourselves.

02:57:35.120 Alan, what are your thoughts?

02:57:44.980 I don't think we can fool ourselves about that interaction.

02:57:50.240 If you reach out to them, they hear you.

02:57:53.020 If you call to your ancestors, they know it.

02:57:57.500 If you speak to your gods, they know it.

02:58:00.580 So I don't think it's possible to be fooled in that regard.

02:58:08.080 You know, our gods are real.

02:58:09.640 Our ancestors are real.

02:58:11.660 And when you call out to them, they hear you.

02:58:20.120 So, yeah.

02:58:23.740 um the the thing on how to tell if they're reaching back and what that means i think the

02:58:32.220 first part you know alan is is spot on i don't think there's a question of whether they whether

02:58:40.220 they hear you or whether you know your reaching out has been heard but them reaching back is a

02:58:49.820 bit harder and i think that it's hard because you want to balance some things

02:59:06.300 you don't want to be frivolous and you don't want to cloud everything with wishful thinking

02:59:11.660 but you also want to be open enough to allow for things to be meaningful and not just dismiss them

02:59:22.400 out of hand and I think in the early stages when you first start

02:59:34.040 putting your mind towards that to where them reaching out is something that you're looking

02:59:38.180 for i think your ancestors have likely been trying to reach out to you in some way

02:59:43.540 your whole life and maybe you don't notice it until you put it in a in a religious context

02:59:53.700 but when you start out you wonder what that looks like what that feels like what that is

03:00:03.460 and so i think that you can equally miss stuff because you think it's going to be some grand

03:00:11.780 you know the heavens open and you know a booming voice speaks to you but i think you can also

03:00:24.020 you know aha that creek in the in the floor that was clearly grandpa like you can you can

03:00:31.060 you can do both of those things over much but having the discernment to allow for

03:00:40.980 well maybe that was let's ponder that or i'm listening for it this felt meaningful

03:00:48.580 let's examine that let's think about it and let's internalize it over time

03:00:55.620 and i know this doesn't answer the question in a very tangible way and i don't think

03:01:00.100 it's something that can be answered tangibly because it is different depending on circumstance

03:01:06.500 and it's different depending on the person involved um but what i do think is true is over

03:01:13.460 time you learn to discern what things are meaningful and what things aren't and i think

03:01:23.700 i don't think you get perfect at that but i think you get better at it over time through practice

03:01:32.500 i think you recognize what stuff feels like and it's um you know maybe a failing of mine

03:01:39.620 or maybe a failing of the the spoken word or language in this but

03:01:46.820 it's hard to it's hard to equate that because i think it feels different for other people

03:01:56.020 i know people that you know swear that they they hear things like they hear voices and they get

03:02:03.540 really clear communication sometimes i know other people that will will see things and they'll

03:02:11.940 describe it as you know clear as day seeing things there's other people that see glimpses

03:02:17.780 at a corner of their eye there's people that have dreams that are very real and very meaningful and

03:02:28.660 very you know very particular about something that they've reached out to the ancestors the

03:02:34.180 god's about i know other people that feel it as a as a as an intense feeling or a manic like

03:02:42.580 frantic need to do something or a message that repeats to them there's a lot of different ways

03:02:49.620 that people experience that and i think it can go go in a bunch of different ways but i think you

03:02:56.100 start recognizing the synchronicity the coincidence of when i do something it feels like a meaningful

03:03:04.980 bloke or meaningful offering then i feel something this is what i feel this is how this feels

03:03:12.980 and that may be different to you than it is to me but it's likely something that will recur to you

03:03:19.300 when similar kinds of experiences happen that you can recognize and feel a familiarity to

03:03:27.940 and it's one of those things that also doesn't lend itself well to this medium sometimes you just know

03:03:34.580 um i would rather a person err on the side of thinking that things are meaningful that might

03:03:42.500 not be than dismissing anything and not seeing it and you know not giving things a chance to be

03:03:50.420 meaningful i would rather err on the side of i guess optimism than on pessimism in terms of that

03:04:01.220 but it is real reach out to the gods and the ancestors and they do reach back

03:04:06.740 and i can't promise that they're going to reach back every single time

03:04:09.620 i can't promise they're gonna reach back ever but i promise they do reach back and i know that they

03:04:17.280 have to me in my life i know they have been a great many of the people that i know and i have

03:04:25.000 every reason to believe that if you continue earnestly reaching out to them then someone

03:04:31.760 will reach back to you you just have to be open to feeling it to experiencing it when it happens

03:04:39.200 and it might look really different to you

03:04:41.580 than it does to me or than it does to Alan.

03:04:48.080 That is our last question of the evening.

03:04:50.880 Alan, do you have any parting thoughts

03:04:53.500 you'd like to leave the folk with tonight?

03:04:59.180 There's no wrong way to do...

03:05:03.180 Sorry, that overstates a little bit.

03:05:05.400 There is a wrong way to do it,

03:05:07.180 But if you practice with sincerity, it will help your life.

03:05:18.900 And, you know, and I realize we are swimming against the tide, you know, in an era of insanity, telling the truth is a radical act.

03:05:32.920 And that's what we are and that's what we do.

03:05:34.960 um but we are right and we will prevail all right well it's great to have you back on um i am

03:05:44.520 hoping that your your illness will flee from you by the time that i see you here in a couple of

03:05:50.220 weeks um it's been great to talk to you tonight thank you i appreciate you guys listening appreciate

03:05:59.140 everybody who's participated with uh their questions i appreciate everybody who's donated

03:06:04.140 thank you guys all for being here looking forward to talking to you next week

03:06:09.660 until next time hail the icer of a folk hail the afa remember victory victory never keeps hail victory

03:06:33.580 Transcription by CastingWords

03:07:03.580 Thank you.

03:07:33.580 Thank you.

03:08:03.580 Thank you.

03:08:33.580 Thank you.

03:09:03.580 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - April 23, 2026

4⧸22⧸26 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 198 - Lawspeaker AMA

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