00:09:09.900Also, he's been on the program a number of times,
00:09:11.900but Bodie can tell people a little bit about who you are,
00:09:14.900where you're from, or where you're located,
00:09:16.900and how long you've been involved with Ausitru
00:09:19.900Yes, sir. Thank you for having me again.
00:09:25.800So I, too, reside in the state of Georgia, USA, not the country.
00:09:31.740I am a Georgian by birth and Alabamian by raising.
00:09:38.920I have the privilege and honor to serve as a priest of this fine church.
00:09:43.300I have been a member, I believe, I'll share together, you and I could not pin it down,
00:09:48.660whether it was 2012 or 2013 one of those two but either way i've been a member since around that
00:09:54.420time i've been i've been an ostrich since mother's night of 2001 um i am currently at work on the
00:10:04.980amber lamps um hence the visual or the audio only um let's see what else did you want to know
00:10:13.060how long that you've been uh us true and how long you've been involved with the astro focus
00:10:22.100center so yep i think i answered those been australia since 2001 and i've been involved
00:10:27.860with afa since 2012 or 2013 i think it was 2012 2012. um all right guys well
00:10:37.060So, we're going to have questions and a variety of things to talk about tonight, but one thing
00:10:47.420that I kind of noticed is a series of interactions that seems to be on the uptick lately.
00:11:02.200So, we have, over the last few weeks, we have had a number of our posts on X get a lot of traction.
00:11:15.800And it's been a real blessing. It's been amazing to get our message and pictures of our folk worshiping our gods and gathering together in front of a much larger than normal audience, which is fantastic.
00:11:35.700One of the biggest challenges for the growth of Al-Satru and the growth specifically of the Al-Satru Folk Assembly is that in today's climate and with a number of struggles with things like Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, for that matter, we're limited in the number of people that know we exist.
00:12:04.960our potential membership is vast the likely percentage of those that would be interested
00:12:15.300in joining the afa i think is tremendous compared to our current member level but the deal is a lot
00:12:21.700of people just don't know that we're out here and just don't know we exist so the more we can
00:12:26.820increase that reach and get out of our normal circles that is a great thing for all of us
00:12:32.660But we get a lot of comments that indicate to me a lot of people struggle with a concept called, or that I like to refer to often, as allowing perfect to become the enemy of good.
00:12:51.380And one of the things that is a forever, I don't know, hurdle that we've seen, and I think that these two gentlemen can attest in their time in Ossetree they've seen.
00:13:03.780there's a whole lot of time that people spend mulling over minutia in their head
00:13:14.260or theorizing about how things should be could be would be possibly could be different if they were
00:13:21.260you know had unlimited resources or unlimited ability to do something and all of that um
00:13:29.520analysis paralysis leaves them exactly where they started before they had those thoughts or before
00:13:36.800they contemplated house of truth we find a lot of people that are stuck there for you know months
00:13:42.900years and sometimes in some people's cases decades on you know man but the perfect thing but the
00:13:50.000perfect man what i'm waiting for is the perfect group that does things the way that's perfect
00:13:56.360with the perfect people in the perfect place when i'm at the perfect time in my life when
00:14:03.160um you know the perfect star alignment or whatever the case is again those guys don't
00:14:09.880end up getting up off the couch and doing anything uh and i think that's something worth
00:14:15.640kind of pondering of what that looks like
00:14:18.360like why we do the things that we do and why now is the quote-unquote perfect time to start
00:14:31.320um so there's a lot to be spoken about tonight in regards that and
00:14:38.920first um trent is that something that you have noticed or how how has that shown itself to you
00:14:50.440in your experience with alsa true uh it happens in a few different ways and it's been pretty
00:14:59.780consistent from uh even since i was just an atheist kind of looking into alsa true uh
00:15:06.840uh and it it happens from so many different angles from uh mostly from other people claiming to be
00:15:15.620also true or pagan or whatever else uh even on in the the right politically you know uh
00:15:23.700they'll say well you're not doing animal sacrifice as well you're not doing human sacrifices
00:15:28.760well you didn't build that that building so it's not really a half uh and even those are more
00:15:35.220recent i'm sure there were there's been complaints since 1968 when founder mcnalen started this up
00:15:41.960but uh it's a lot of that and then people will say things like this is why i can't get involved
00:15:48.100with the afa they're not doing exactly what i would do and i know one of your favorite responses
00:15:54.560to that sir is uh okay well where's your hof what does your hof look like where's your
00:15:59.020uh national three-day event with 150 people and uh for some reason they never have a
00:16:06.980response to any of those so uh yeah it's a pretty persistent theme that we hear from these types uh
00:16:16.480the wording of it never really changes it's always one of a few different paths it's usually some
00:16:24.140critique of uh the people or the building or the kindred flags or the lack of uh enough viking
00:16:33.820looking stuff but yeah that's i've seen that a lot i've heard it in person and
00:16:40.060mostly mostly over twitter though of course
00:16:45.580so bode you have been involved in also true for quite some time have you noticed this phenomenon
00:16:52.620And if you have, how has it reared its ugly head in your experience?
00:16:59.400Well, you know, I hope that all of everybody listening who has access to the Rune Stone read my recent article that speaks to this specifically,
00:17:08.420because I wrote about my experiences in the first 25 years of Ossetru so far that I've experienced.
00:17:14.360And in the beginning in 2001, as I said in the, in the Rune Stone article, it was very, very much, you know, just, you know, how to be polite here, a dude fest.
00:17:27.180So there was not a lot of, you know, not a lot of women involvement.
00:17:32.080And there was always a lot of, a lot of, a lot of always backbiting, a lot of infighting, a lot of, you know, I know how to do this better than you do.
00:17:43.120There was a lot of, you know, judgments being thrown around, you know, if someone was really
00:17:50.580trying their best to be pious and really trying to, you know, worship the gods properly and honor
00:17:57.200their ancestors properly and make offerings and do bloat, then they were accused as being more
00:18:03.160ostrichry than thou and before the the afa became what it is now um and we were kind of all insular
00:18:14.820um there was a lot of there's a lot of what i like to call in that article cannibalization of
00:18:21.800leadership meaning that back in the early 2000s when i first came around anytime a man or a woman
00:18:30.320and decided to take the reins or the tiller as it were to use viking you know imagery anytime
00:18:35.780somebody wanted to put their hand on the tiller of the ship and steer us all in a good direction
00:18:39.260immediately the you know the behind the scenes back talking started with you know who does he
00:18:45.140or she think they are and why do they think they can be in charge and this and that and so
00:18:49.000we experienced or at least i experienced just this rudderless existence where yes we had
00:18:54.740tiny kindreds that were you know in isolated little pockets maybe those kindreds would get
00:19:00.240together if they were in their same kind of area you know um as i said back in the early 2000s
00:19:07.460people really wouldn't even travel out of their the area of their state let alone their state or
00:19:12.640their region or across the country and so it existed for a long long time and you know there
00:19:19.520was always you know this you know man one day it'd be great for us to have a hof man one day
00:19:26.320be great to build a temple. Man, one day it'd be great to do this. And something else that you say
00:19:31.440I'll share with you is that, you know, you know, one day needs to be day one. You know, it doesn't
00:19:37.260need to, if we, if we had all sat around and said, man, one day, then we wouldn't be where we are now.
00:19:43.480And I'm always struck by, like Speckner East said, our detractors come at us and say, well,
00:19:49.540you're not doing this and you're not doing that. And our response is some variation of what we are
00:19:54.460doing something, aren't we? We are doing something. We're moving the ball forward. We're advancing the
00:20:00.300calls of Auschwitz. What are you doing? All you're doing is complaining that we're not doing exactly
00:20:05.040like you want us to do. So there's that. You know, Trent's right that I do always kind of,
00:20:16.500that's my default response about the, you know, hey, where's your Hoth? Hey, where's your, you
00:20:24.100And it's, I can recall one instance, there was a children's bloat at Thor's Hoth.
00:20:34.480And I believe at the time we had two Hoths in the world.
00:20:41.480um and we had a go-fi like a legitimate ordained go-fi at one of the two hofs that exist both were
00:20:53.720ours and a group of children worshiping our gods
00:20:59.660but the onlookers well that's not how to do it well look how that's decorated that's
00:21:10.880completely uninspiring man that's oh how how how protestant of you in my response this is the first
00:21:21.280time i remember saying it and it was worded like okay well please show me a picture of how your
00:21:30.000children do bloat in your hoof so that we can learn how to do it better and yes i so first i
00:21:38.840to point out i was a hundred percent prepared if they're like fine then and they showed me
00:21:45.240you know the von trapp family all doing this perfectly synchronized bloat in a towering
00:21:52.680golden crusted hoff i was i was absolutely ready to sit down with the pen and a paper and take notes
00:22:00.520i thought the smart money was that was not going to be the case but it was
00:22:05.400It was a fun, sarcastic flex, but it was also a genuine, but wait, there's kids in a hof
00:22:17.860with a gothy doing bloat to Thor in Thor's hof.
00:22:26.880And the complainers, as opposed to what, and that was kind of, you know, Bodhi talked about it, but one of the, one of the struggles that we had for a long time, we continue to have is we are in a culture where insincerity and sarcasm and just critiquing and criticizing is the coin of the realm.
00:22:53.260it's very easy to allow yourself to sink into
00:22:59.320commenting and critiquing on what other people do as opposed to doing and um
00:23:08.740you know some of this is a defense of like hey we're doing the best we can but a lot of it is
00:23:15.440also a call to action like hey if you want to see things that are great you want great things to
00:23:20.600happen get up off the couch and make great things happen and if you want to effectively
00:23:28.600help things progress in a way that you know to your mind or to your liking
00:23:33.960that progression ought to go the best method for that is get on the team get involved we would
00:23:40.040love to have your help um i think another point that needs to be made and i speak for myself but
00:23:45.480but I'll speak for the entire AFA with this.
00:23:49.300We are fully committed to doing things the right and best possible way.
00:23:56.900It's not to say that everything we do is the right or best possible way,
00:24:03.820We are sincerely committed to, you know, trending ever closer to perfection,
00:24:10.260realizing that perfection is not attainable it's not that we shouldn't strive for it we should
00:24:19.280but we're doing it wrong if at any step we don't see how we can do it better
00:24:26.360um one of the reasons that i chose victory never sleeps is the name of this uh this broadcast is
00:24:33.660it it's a constant process of pushing forward and our desire to do glorious things for our gods our
00:24:46.380folk and ourselves should have no end we should always want to achieve more to do better and to
00:24:55.740increase that's fundamental to our very nature as arian men and women and it's you know it is the
00:25:06.380attitude and the determination that we owe to our gods um we have some some good questions
00:25:14.620stacking up we also have some stuff i'd like to i'd like to get thoughts on and talk about a little
00:25:22.620bit. Before I do that, Gilbert, thank you so much. You're awesome. Gilbert, a super frequent
00:25:30.520donator on here, donated $150 towards the Pavilion. We appreciate you. That's amazing.
00:25:37.400Thank you for that. And so I took some notes on some things I'd like to talk about.
00:25:43.560One thing that, and this touches on other things, I'm sure we'll get back to it, but one thing that I find is a detriment of our folk is the purity spiral.
00:26:03.180And I think that, you know, we all may have a different understanding of exactly what that means.
00:26:08.380but in our demand that everything and everybody be our imagined version of perfect there's a
00:26:19.820tendency amongst our people i think most prominently amongst our men and amongst our men most often
00:26:29.380amongst young men with a lot of time on their hands, when everything is in the world of
00:26:39.960theory, then you can come up with the most perfect scenario that doesn't have to conform
00:26:44.720to the reality of life as it's lived by real persons.
00:26:49.240so there's a constant infighting of let's find you know all the ways that everybody isn't perfect
00:27:00.280and dismiss them and what you find is when you do that it accelerates it doesn't just okay this one
00:27:07.480guy is not perfect enough well then the next guy that's slightly less perfect and then the next guy
00:27:13.360the next guy and the next guy until it's just you in mom's basement wondering why nothing gets done
00:27:20.320and i've seen that i've seen that an awful lot and you know whoever wants to jump in but gentlemen
00:27:26.720what what would you say to folks that are afflicted with this this mentality
00:27:34.960well you know one of the biggest uh insults or comments whatever we get on twitter lately is
00:27:45.820you know uh these orthodox christians or whatever e crusaders will comment on the uh the weight or
00:27:54.880lack of physical excellence in some cases of some of our members and i i find that
00:28:01.500critique specifically coming from these types to be interesting because in anybody who's
00:28:08.340done anything to worry and you know try and better themselves physically knows that it takes work
00:28:14.080it's uh it takes time whether it's diet exercise should be both by the way but
00:28:19.620both of those things take time effort and it's a journey as cheesy as that sounds
00:28:25.340and so these same people will say you know no i'm not joining any any cause until i know it's
00:28:33.160perfect well just like that fitness journey you know you want these overweight people to lose
00:28:39.140weight it's a journey you want the afa to have purpose built poffs or uh more people or what
00:28:48.160have you it takes work there's not going to be a uh you know a ready-made organization for you
00:28:56.740hopefully i guess as soon as possible the afa is that organization and our kids or grandkids have
00:29:02.620that available to them but it's we don't have that yet we're as close as you're going to get
00:29:07.480i'll tell you that uh but it's not going to be you know hot and ready like the the hot pocket
00:29:14.400that twitter person's mom is bringing them in a few minutes you know it takes work
00:29:19.080side note hot pockets are delicious um the uh
00:29:28.060ham and cheddar is good the barbecue ones are awesome um no they are trust me but that's a
00:29:39.500that's a very common thing and it's something that you touched on a couple of
00:29:46.460a couple of points there and i wanted to also i'm not
00:29:50.940i'm not immune to that either i remember i remember when i first
00:30:00.260when i first joined the afa and when i first um
00:30:09.500I came home to Alistair. I had a whole lot of relief. I knew exactly the perfect way to do everything. And how come all of these other dullards aren't doing things perfect? Because I am a genius and I know everything and I'm 20.
00:30:27.200And I think that a lot of people, when they're, you know, 18, 19, 20, and up into their mid-20s, I think all of us know absolutely everything about absolutely everything.
00:30:41.500We have the perfect formula in our head.
00:30:43.500If only we were calling the shots, then everything would be perfect.
00:30:47.460and i appreciate that my elders at the time were gracious with me and i got to learn
00:30:58.660why things are the way they are why things work the way they do and temper the purity spiral with
00:31:08.420the reality of the world that we're in and as i did i was able to
00:31:18.820stop sitting around frustrated about what we didn't have and be really excited about the
00:31:25.620amazing things that i was able to be a part of by joining me part of the house true folk assembly
00:31:32.900and so i think that we all you know we've all been there not something that you know anybody
00:31:37.940on this call hasn't doesn't struggle with um but it's a really important shift in perspective that
00:31:44.100kind of needs to happen um so you brought it up and i want you to answer this uh trent why are
00:31:51.940there so many fats in the afa uh some of our detractors called a cop-out answer but oh well
00:32:02.100uh i mean just the soul sickness as it's been called it's sort of the sign of the times
00:32:08.500i but you know as some people in the comments on youtube are pointing out i could ask the
00:32:14.340same of christians i could ask the same of uh white buddhists white hindus um i could ask the
00:32:23.380the same of any ethnic group. Uh, and it'd be pretty funny if I did, I won't, but it, it's not
00:32:30.800just an us problem. It's not just an AFA problem. In fact, I would argue that if you're going to
00:32:36.500look at any, uh, Alcatru group versus the AFA, I think probably we look the best and that's not
00:32:45.060to say there isn't work to do. You know, uh, I wake up on days and, uh, I feel scrawnier than
00:32:52.860i'd like to right try and make sure i get my macros the way they're supposed to be for the
00:32:57.640day and i feel fatter than i want to whatever uh and there's people who are in much better shape
00:33:03.380than me in the afa or a good bit worse shape than me in the afa but it it's just where we're at right
00:33:11.320now as a people and as a human population in the west frankly and everybody's aware if you're
00:33:20.380watching this you're probably aware of all the stuff that's in food and how caloric surplus
00:33:25.340makes you gain weight caloric deficit makes you lose weight and eating too much is going to make
00:33:29.980you fat i mean it's pretty simple stuff and the answer like i said before to that is simple but
00:33:37.740it takes work it's it's just what's happened you know but it do yeah that's the thing the the
00:33:45.500simple answer and i i think that oftentimes it's not a question it's just a snarky
00:33:56.620effete uh criticism of stuff the reason that there's so many fats in the afa
00:34:03.820is that we're based in the united states it's where the majority of our membership is
00:34:09.740and in the united states in 2026 we have a significant obesity problem
00:34:17.340the mission of the also true folk assembly a mission assigned to us by the icer is to bring
00:34:25.180our folk home to have as our founder called it an in-gathering of the folk and that means
00:34:33.260taking our folk where we find them and inviting them to come home but we don't stop there while
00:34:42.060we do have people at all different levels of fitness and different levels of fatness
00:34:48.460we actively try to help and encourage our members to get better at that
00:34:53.260bodhi could you talk a little bit about i don't know the culture of trying to help our people
00:34:59.500fix it within the afa sure one of the one of the things that
00:35:09.260kind of strikes me about this situation in this topic is that
00:35:14.060our detractors seem to think that fat people don't have any worth they don't have any they
00:35:20.620shouldn't have an opinion that if you're not swollen fit nobody should listen to you that
00:37:05.240So within, within the AFA, one of the, um, I was, uh, this year at Midsommar, I will have been
00:37:19.360Osheria Yothi of the Astrid Folk Assembly for 10 years.
00:37:24.400When I was installed as Osheria Yothi, I addressed the folk.
00:37:29.900And one of the things that I said was that I was committed from that day forward to help our people to achieve excellence mentally, physically, and spiritually.
00:37:52.820Literally since that day, the AFA has tried to encourage fitness amongst our members to help those who wanted to improve and to get better, be it to gain muscle or lose fat, to help those people.
00:38:12.400we've created in every iteration of any of our you know groups and interactions we've had groups
00:38:19.060right now we have a physical excellence group and I think that's why we called it physical
00:38:24.380excellence those are the words that I used at that at that address and it's one of our most
00:38:32.960active groups if not the most active group we have members on there every single day
00:38:38.760um every single day talking about ways to tweak their diet to get better results ideas for
00:38:49.040exercise we have a physical um summer challenge going on right now to kind of encourage everybody
00:38:56.620to have accountability with each other and work towards a higher level of fitness
00:39:01.960uh we post workout routines in there we talk about nutrition and it's active it's active
00:39:08.600every day we don't chase around our members and you know demand that they um you know demand that
00:39:16.600they lose weight that's not a practical reality in the world we live in it's going to be effective
00:39:23.560but if we're looking at it right we should want all of our people to achieve physical
00:39:29.720accidents and to be the best version of themselves they can be. If we allow people who are not
00:39:38.000perfect in the Auschwitz-Folk Assembly, and I'm not to avoid the hyperbole, if we allow people
00:39:46.620at a substandard level of fitness into the AFA, we are optimally poised to help them to get in a
00:39:55.260better level of fitness for themselves, for their families, for their appearance, for their health,
00:40:00.880for their well-being as souls. If we don't and we say, hey, no, move it down the road to chunks.
00:40:11.320We got no room for you here. We have abdicated our ability to help them make improvements.
00:40:17.600we have forfeited the opportunity to be a positive force in their life to help them succeed
00:40:26.100that is antithetical to what we're about as noble people we want to lift our brothers and
00:40:32.880sisters up even if they're heavy um so the and these are you know in no particular
00:40:44.960no particular order but just kind of questions that come up and you know trying to get perspective
00:40:51.200and answers on those questions because they're things people wonder and they're not um formatted
00:40:57.520we live in the soundbite culture and it's not really formatted for a sentence or a witty quip
00:41:03.760back at a detractor but it is worth explaining to people and it's something that does kind of
00:41:34.160We dress like respectable white people in the Anglosphere, specifically, to be fair, which Christians in the Anglosphere that aren't the annoying hippie Christians also do.
00:41:51.000Something I kind of discussed with somebody about this a few weeks back on Twitter was, you know, they had that question, why you dress like Christians, you should be dressing like Vikings or whatever.
00:42:01.740No, we shouldn't. Please don't do that.
00:42:04.160um but the the point kind of came to me you know when the unfortunate uh conversion to
00:42:13.600judaism to electric boogaloo was happening across scandinavia and the rest of europe
00:42:19.860did the vikings start wearing a suit and tie in 1032 or whatever because
00:42:27.760jesus or did they keep dressing like vikings and they swapped out their their mjolnir for a cross
00:42:35.780or some other abrahamic accoutrement uh it's the second one no that they didn't start wearing suit
00:42:44.560and tie because it's a christian thing uh suit and tie is uh an aryan thing i think it's specifically
00:42:51.500probably a british thing uh forgive me for my lack of exact knowledge on where a suit and tie
00:42:58.660comes from but it's just a very white man thing to do uh a well-meaning atheist could wear a suit
00:43:07.540and tie he's still going to be an atheist uh a jewish person can wear a suit and tie
00:43:12.540he's still going to be jewish it you see a white a white man in a suit and tie and there is
00:43:21.180a not respect per se but there's an aura to use one of the the kids terms about him that says
00:43:31.460okay this guy is serious whatever this guy is doing he means it and that's a big part of why
00:43:38.560we do it i i suppose it's not the primary reason maybe the secondary reason the primary reason why
00:43:43.400we dress the way we do is because we are going before our gods or ancestors and the rest of our
00:43:51.460folk and these are gods you know uh it's it sort of relates back to that old stupid facebook bros
00:44:01.240a true meme of i don't kneel before my gods uh as the old serogothia said is if lord thor came
00:44:08.640down from on high in his chariot i promise you you would kneel um so when we get together to
00:44:16.840worship the gods again literal gods yeah we want to look our best uh you want to put on a nice suit
00:44:25.260a nice tie ladies put on a nice respectable dress what have you uh you would put on the best of what
00:44:32.480you have and i'm sure that in the viking age or the uh also true saxon age of england whatever
00:44:38.580our ancestors would have put on their best tunic or their best
00:44:43.400whatever women wore kind of dressed back then you know it's it it relates really well to the
00:44:54.540gifting cycle too when we do that the heart and hand to horn we're giving them the best of
00:44:58.800ourselves because they're gods and they're our gods and that's what they deserve
00:45:08.080buddy do you have anything you'd like to add on why we dress the way we do or as the question
00:45:13.600is formed against us uh why we dress like christians yeah so one of the things that i
00:45:21.040responded the way that i responded to that in the past when they're like you know why do you dress
00:45:25.360like christians well we don't like trend said we don't we're dressed like respectable white folks
00:45:31.280and the way i framed it to the person who asked it to me a while back was that all of the mother
00:45:37.520countries in europe have a national dress and they are all quite beautiful you know especially the
00:45:44.640women folks dresses and the different you know flower crowns and whatnot and things that they
00:45:49.680wear you have the i think it's pronounced bunad that the scandinavians wear the norwegians and
00:45:54.880And the Swedes wear the ladies' national dress.
00:45:58.680So the question is left to us as Americans and Englishmen in the West.
00:53:08.400Another thing that has come up, and I'd like to ask you first on this, Trent Bodie, why
00:53:18.000don't we wear stoles like the Christians?
00:53:22.620because there is an attestation to it in ancient Aryan practices,
00:53:28.840and we have been able to recover such things through archaeological and anthropological digging and research.
00:53:35.400You may know better than I that famous statuette that we found,
00:53:40.040not we, the AFA, but that archaeologists found that clearly shows a bearded man wearing a stole,
00:53:47.180and it is mentioned in several instances throughout our history.
00:53:52.620Um, I believe Speckinger Trent mentioned that the other day on X.
00:53:59.100So I have him tag in on that because he remembers probably the, I know the answer that you gave Trent was more specific than what I'm doing right now, but it is historically attested to.
00:54:12.260It's not just something that we picked out of a hat or we saw the Pope and his minions do it.
00:54:18.820um so i can't remember the exactly but it's not something that we do just frivolously
00:54:25.840uh i think that was the altar ago that posted the exact source for why we do it uh i had argued with
00:54:39.900somebody because they uh they mentioned that it was a greco-roman thing specifically and i was
00:54:45.420oh white people and uh they didn't like my answer uh but no that was all i contributed to that
00:54:53.100conversation yeah the stole is um from even the pre-roman period amongst the italics
00:55:04.460and it was something specifically attested to as something priests of jupiter would wear
00:55:15.420there's a whole bit and it was cool because on the same tablets that we're talking about the
00:55:19.180use of the stole and that ritual and as a symbol of of that priesthood it also talked about
00:55:25.660libations with mead which was interesting but yeah it predates christianity but also
00:55:33.660in 2026 it is easily recognizable as something that a clergyman wears and it's a very practical
00:55:41.740garment for people to understand that you are conducting religious rituals it's coming really
00:55:47.980handy in prison ministry and in ministering to our folk who find themselves in long-term
00:55:56.220care facilities or in the hospital it immediately marks our gothar as clergymen and with it they're
00:56:05.180afforded the respect and privileges that come with that position and it's something that's um
00:56:14.140used in a lot of different contexts and i've seen in other iterations outside of uh outside
00:56:20.300of christianity but yeah it does have its roots in european paganism that predates christianity
00:56:28.380I'd like to point out something, if I may. When we were at Alstra at Thorshof, one of our newest apprentices, Mr. Blake DeShane, give him a little shout out.
00:56:40.020There were a lot of young men there that were either new to the AFA or new to Alstra Street who were coming to a Hof for the first time.
00:56:48.700And several times throughout the main event day on Saturday, Blake, you know, brought young men to talk to me that had questions and I was not wearing my stole at the time, obviously, because we weren't in ritual, but I was wearing my ring.
00:57:05.860and Blake pointed to, pointed to my ring and told one of the young men that was,
00:57:11.560you know, you know, he had brought over to ask, you know, have me answer a question for,
00:57:15.920he pointed to my ring and he said, if you have any questions for, you know, that you, you know,
00:57:20.720while you're here, just look for that ring. That ring means that they are a priest. That means
00:57:26.020they are a goethe and they can answer your questions. And that struck me very, you know,
00:57:30.800it really moved me that here's this young guy who just joined our church and just became you know
00:57:35.920decided to be an apprentice and he already gets it and he's already pointing this out and he's
00:57:40.540already cementing this in this young man's head and all those young men there that that was a sign
00:57:45.420of our office absolutely um and that's really that's important and i think that
00:58:00.780it's worth noting kind of a couple of things I think that in people's mind
00:58:07.620when they complain about the souls they have some other other idea but the other
00:58:14.940idea is like dress like a Viking and that's kind of kind of silly I'd
00:58:22.740certainly be open to a variety of different ideas for money kind of a
00:58:26.940clerical vestment that sets clergy apart but dressing like a renaissance fair viking doesn't
00:58:35.500do anything to signify that you're a religious officiant practicing a serious faith
00:58:42.400certainly not in any kind of superior way than us trying to wear stoles and wearing
00:58:50.620and respectfully while executing our office um so trent why do we worship at hoffs instead of out
00:59:01.020in the woods uh because hoffs are our space they are a space that we specifically can consecrate
00:59:12.860and make sacred for us to our folk and to a purpose um i can answer that question better too
00:59:22.860because uh if i kind of frame it in the way where i i know our detractors in uh other
00:59:28.520austro organizations kind of throw that at us uh we often get this thing from i think we get it
00:59:36.280from universalists too once they're done calling us uh racists or whatever they always say oh real
00:59:42.560heathens worship in nature et cetera et cetera that's true of course um there's nothing like
00:59:48.040doing a blow to the all father in a a little grove and in the middle of the night with a fire
00:59:53.080you know it's nothing like it but they they think that's the case partially just because of facebook
01:00:00.360memes or whatever uh and then the other big reason they think that is because they read
01:00:05.740germania by tacitus which you should do and uh this was you know the uh iron age like well
01:00:14.600early kind of roman imperial age and uh tacitus says then in that time that the germans worshipped
01:00:24.120only in groves and they had sacred groves and i'm sure he was largely correct i don't think he was
01:00:30.700totally correct because he had never visited germany himself but that's where they get that
01:00:35.200from and that's fine but our people like any people and like anything in the natural world
01:00:41.880we evolve uh and our faith evolves so you know back then do we worship only in groves
01:00:49.780probably not let's say that was the case right uh 600 ish years later we have the temple at
01:00:58.400Gamalupsala in Sweden. There was one in Javering in England. I think that's one in Northumbria.
01:01:06.480One in Rendlesham in East Anglia in England, I believe. Probably more than those, of course.
01:01:13.800There were temples all over Scandinavia, Germany, wherever else. So we know for a fact that our
01:01:22.060ancestors did have Hoffs and that they really, really treasured those Hoffs and they were sacred
01:01:27.580places so uh incidentally us worshiping in hoffs is kind of a a point in our favor to those that
01:01:36.220say we're not perfectly reconstructing the viking age way of worship or whatever other nonsense
01:01:42.900uh and and partially the reason why we do it too is because like with the suits and ties and and
01:01:50.580also the gift cycle these are gods they deserve our best they deserve whatever we can give to them
01:01:56.820And if we can give them a, you know, taking back Aryan-built buildings from the scourge of Christianity and repurposing them and rededicating them to something that is noble and beautiful and true, like the Aesir, I think that's a pretty decent step in the right direction towards, you know, honoring them.
01:17:36.360When you see inequality, you can't force the lower to be as good as the upper.
01:17:52.080but you can always tear down the upper until they're as low as the lower and that's
01:17:59.360the easiest path and the path that people sometimes intentionally oftentimes subconsciously
01:18:05.920do let's pull everyone else down to our level so that we don't have to deal with the discomfort
01:18:13.600of others being more successful than us we would all be so much better off if instead
01:18:20.960of that we were inspired to do more and be more if we saw the success of others as
01:18:26.800an example of what we could accomplish or as a challenge to do more and to surpass and overcome
01:18:34.640i hope that our folk can heal and internalize that as we move forward to an increasing degree
01:18:41.920we'll see we have some questions stacked up and i'd like to get to some of those
01:18:47.760what's the most common religion slash denomination slash belief held by members
01:18:55.960before they come home to Alcantre? Trent, in your experience, what would you say that is?
01:19:05.060Just Protestant Christianity broadly. There's a few denominations in specific that we get a lot
01:19:12.460of members from uh mormonism or the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints whatever
01:19:21.260uh is a an especially big one myself uh folk builder tyler heineland
01:19:27.360a bunch of other members that aren't coming to mind right now uh but a lot of us come from
01:19:33.920that faith uh here in the bible belt specifically a lot of former southern baptists
01:19:41.700we have uh a not a large number but a sort of when put in perspective kind of large number
01:19:52.820of former jehovah's witnesses of course uh i would say and then i if i had to say the biggest
01:20:03.860denomination would be just kind of the broad non-denominational just sort of nominally
01:20:09.940christian you know uh christmas and easter only types would be the biggest that uh our members
01:20:18.980come from largely just because of the state that christianity is in in the west
01:20:24.460what would you say the most common belief denomination religious system uh that people
01:20:37.220in the afa had former or had prior to their afa membership buddy
01:20:41.980um like trent said i the most i've ever seen the most numerous would be protestant christianity
01:20:51.260uh i myself was inside of central baptist church 1407 broad street phoenix city alabama
01:20:58.700every time the doors are open but i'm not bitter um i've seen some mormons i've seen
01:21:06.020jehovah's witnesses uh we also have a fair number of folks who weren't raised in any religion before
01:21:12.980coming to aussitrew uh so super jealous of that that must be nice um to not have all that you know
01:21:21.780baggage to you know drop at the door and and things to unwrap your head around so yeah pretty
01:21:30.920much it's uh especially here in the south you know catholics are few you know are thin on the
01:21:37.240ground here and i think for good reason um i don't think our ancestors really wanted to um
01:21:43.000to deal with a fellow in a pointy head anymore they'd rather have you know one of their own
01:21:47.420preaching to them so yep just protestant christianity is the most numerous
01:21:52.400you know i'm gonna swerve on that i think that that was the case for a long time
01:22:00.900I think that cynical atheism is the one that I've seen the most in recent times.
01:22:09.780And I mean, it sounds in a way like kind of sidestepping the question, but I don't think it is because I think it is in this day and age adhered to with the fervor of a religion, of a religious conviction.
01:22:25.600And that's been challenging because, as I've said on the program a number of times, I think it's easier for religious people to practice a different religion than for inherently irreligious people to learn how to be religious.
01:22:47.600But I think that's certainly something we see with our brothers and sisters in Europe as they've been largely secular societies for a longer period of time.
01:22:59.380But more to the meat of the question, I would say generic Protestantism, as far as church attendance stuff, I've seen a surprising amount of Pentecostals that have joined the AFA or at least been very interested in joining the AFA in recent years, which is interesting to me.
01:23:29.380So I don't claim that's the majority, but it's a surprising number in kind of an obscure sect of Christianity.
01:23:48.220Bodie, what can you tell us about numerology and does it play a part in our cosmology?
01:24:52.280I'm going to say no, other than there being nine realms and nine being a recurring motif.
01:24:58.580And I know that's not like an interesting answer or a cool answer.
01:25:03.420And I'm not going to be so full of myself as to say that numerology definitely has no part in our cosmology.
01:25:12.540Only the gods would know if that's the case.
01:25:15.660But in my short time in Alistair, relatively speaking, no, I've not seen any real connection to numerology outside of the number nine being sacred to us because it recurs in the various stories in the lore.
01:25:38.340yeah um it's one of those things i don't want to be flippant about something that i'm just
01:25:49.840not very well versed in um in my understanding numerology means different things to different
01:26:00.880people there are recurring numbers in the lower um tend to most often be multiples of three
01:26:13.280uh as the spectrum respond frequently reminds us there are tripartites
01:26:21.040in many many elements of our lord on many different layers
01:26:25.760um nine certainly is a number that you know recurs too many times to just be coincidental
01:26:34.80012 is also very well attested and a frequently utilized number there's numeric significances
01:26:44.320that way um that i think our mind draws us to seeing them being recurring and then being kind
01:26:52.800of stand out and i think there is symbolism and significance that is inherent in those and can be
01:27:02.080built upon those but i don't see numerology as being overwhelmingly meaningful i know that people
01:27:10.720will position different letters in the alphabet with different numerical values and they'll try
01:27:17.440to add up the letters in a name and it will be meaningful to them in some way i truly don't
01:27:24.640understand that enough to you know debunk it or say you know have an opinion on it one way or
01:27:32.080another although it's not something that i've noticed to be meaningful i know that uh dr steven
01:27:39.120flowers and some of his runic writings has talked about you know assigning numerical correspondences
01:27:46.000to the rooms in the different room rows and for there to be some numerology built into that
01:27:53.360that's never been a part of my practice and i can't really say that i know
01:31:52.180were we rich enough to have many head of cattle.
01:31:55.880we would drive them up into the mountains or up into the summer pastures at this time and so in
01:32:04.500order to ensure our safety and the health and wealth of the animals those blessings would be
01:32:10.960bestowed upon us by our women folk so this is a recreation of that so that we can cleanse
01:32:17.040ourselves of all the negativity that we're bringing forward into the year and get rid of it
01:32:21.940So that was the exact purpose of Nornanot. I'm assuming that any of these herbs taken in a tincture or in a tea, I know for a fact that some of them do alleviate symptoms, but that's about the extent of my knowledge as far as herbs and women's health issues.
01:44:24.200You would see time and again when different groups of people encounter one another,
01:44:30.240their belief that the other group of people's gods exists, that was common amongst...
01:44:36.980shoot all the time in the classical world it was common um when europeans interacted with
01:44:46.900any of the different variety of native americans the understanding that other groups of people have
01:44:52.020their own gods and that those gods have a power for those people was a very common thing in the
01:44:58.100world when and i believe still is in the world when you're not dealing with abrahamic faiths
01:45:06.980Polytheism lends itself to that understanding of the world in a very particular way, whereas monotheism rejects that possibility inherently.
01:45:17.300But even in that case, you don't see that to be true.
01:45:24.240You read in the Bible about how thou shalt have no other gods before me.
01:45:29.720It acknowledges that other gods exist, but you're not to worship them.
01:45:34.400in uh europe during the colonization of christianity taking over europe the conversion
01:45:41.280it wasn't so much that our gods didn't exist it's that they were demons and they were bad
01:45:49.720but i think that the the most common stance until it had become culturally ingrained for generations
01:45:59.320was that other gods exist, but the right God,
01:46:05.380the only God you're supposed to worship, is the Jewish Jehovah God.
01:46:10.260So no, I don't think that's inherent or a necessary thing,
01:46:13.340and I don't think it's too convenient.
01:46:15.440It is, you know, in a way, you know, shoo, shoo,
01:46:19.820this is our own little club, go find your own.
01:46:23.580But that's because that's the facts on the ground,
01:46:29.320We believe that people are inherently genetically built to have their own spirituality in their own way and are inherently different and they relate to the divine in very different ways.
01:46:45.740Hopefully that interfaces between them and their gods in a, you know, in the way it's supposed to for them.
01:46:53.040Gentlemen, you guys have anything to add on that?
01:46:59.320uh not a whole lot but it's an interesting conversation and uh i appreciate the question
01:47:05.720because that's always a really it's a really fun topic to get into i think i i hope that
01:47:14.560uh every race has their own gods and that their own gods are real but uh just because you know
01:47:21.540it's nice to be nice and want nice things for people or whatever but on another level and uh
01:47:27.960sounds flippant but i i don't really care in a sense and that's nothing against those other
01:47:34.200groups uh no more so than usual anyhow uh you know i'm i'm white my wife is white my son is white
01:47:43.480my best friends are white you know i and i know our gods are real i've felt the presence of our
01:47:48.900gods uh and all the white friends i mentioned are all in the afa so they all have two uh i've
01:47:57.620I've never, I've never sought out the presence of other gods other than the Jewish God when I was a Christian, of course, I never felt anything there.
01:48:09.880It, I don't know, it's just one of those things, when people come to Austria, they kind of ask this, and they'll also ask, you know, well, the story says that Odin and Vili and Ve created the first man and woman.
01:48:25.180was that the first people ever was the first white people ever and uh i i don't want to minimize it
01:48:32.640and say it doesn't matter of course it matters but again in a way it it doesn't we know that
01:48:40.460whoever uh oscan embla were they were like us um in the rig stula uh jarl carl and thrall
01:48:50.120uh they were us right and just as a nice person i i want that same situation for all the different
01:49:01.580races i want them to have their own stories and their own gods and i want them to have a
01:49:07.500great relationship with their gods or whatever it's let me see the other question worded this
01:49:12.220real quick uh so it sort of feels like shoo shoo go away this is our little club get your own
01:49:22.680yes this is ours go away have a great time going away but go away yeah uh in all seriousness though
01:49:31.520yeah no i just the ulterior go the answered it pretty well um this is this is ours and i hope
01:49:38.920have yours but this is mine you know excellent all right one of the more recent complaints by our
01:49:53.640detractors is our membership costs why does the afa have membership costs how does this make us
01:50:01.320different from other quote-unquote Norse pagan groups that are free to join. Bode.
01:50:09.540Money is how we do nice things. Money is how we have Hoffs. Money is how we have a priesthood.
01:50:18.080Not that we get paid, but money is how that we have a priesthood. Money is how that we have
01:50:22.000all the things that we do. And those free quote-unquote Norse pagan groups, again,
01:50:28.220back to the earlier part of the broadcast where are their hoffs where are their members
01:50:33.660they're not doing anything they are as you said earlier when you talk about people being stuck
01:50:39.840those groups who you know cry and moan at us about having a membership fee
01:50:45.960those are the same people who still meet up in state parks and still do camping moots because
01:50:52.080that's all they have now camping moots and all that were great 25 years ago but we've evolved
01:50:58.140and things cost money we can't just wish hoffs and make them happen we live in the real world
01:51:06.180in 2026 things cost money and we've said it a lot you know when people ask me personally
01:51:13.000hey why do why do i need to pay a membership fee to be in the afa well do you want nice things
01:51:19.420i mean again we can't we can't whip these up out of hopes and dreams that's not how the real world
01:51:25.920works, and we live in the real world, so that's why.
01:54:42.780More than that, it's how any religion ever in the history of the world has nice things.
01:54:48.900Um, and furthermore, most often that's done in the form of a percentage-based giving.
01:54:59.660i was trying to look around one of my first things as i was hearing go through was trying to figure
01:55:05.680out how does this work how does fundraising for religious things work how does it work
01:55:11.420you know outside of christianity you know what are the other options on that this is how it works
01:55:17.140is people give a percentage of their income to their religion it's how as far as i know it's how
01:55:24.880most Hindus do things, it's how Sikhs do things, it's how Buddhists and Shintoists, it's how
01:55:32.620everyone does things, or something very, very similar, because it's how people who take their
01:55:40.380religion seriously do things. Importantly, it's how our ancestors do things. The Hoftaler is our
01:55:48.880word for giving to the AFA based on a percentage-based giving model. That is extremely
01:55:56.000important. Our members that have chosen to give in that way have been a huge part of our ability
01:56:02.420to accomplish things. If you'd like to know more about that, please talk to your local folk builder.
01:56:08.720Anyone would be happy to help you if that's something you're interested in learning more about.
01:56:12.820but it's not a word that we made up it's a word from our lore that and from our history that was
01:56:21.140the toll the hoff toll that people paid to support the gothar and the hoffs in you know the prior
01:56:30.340period of aussitry uh at upsala there was the expectation that you had to pay to contribute to
01:56:37.460support the the hoff and the gothic structure there and so much so that if you didn't want to
01:56:45.540participate in bloats as a christian you had to pay to opt out during that period where there was
01:56:51.460some transition i was learning about that a little bit more today as i was reading about hoffs just
01:56:56.260kind of incidentally um it was remarked at one point in in uh during the conversion period in
01:57:04.900anglo-saxon england it was i think it was actually in contrast when there was the danelon
01:57:12.180there was a uh a danish presence in england that the uh the australia would regularly stock and
01:57:19.460pay for their temples and they were meticulous about making sure that they were bountifully
01:57:24.820giving to their uh their religious structure whereas they couldn't at the time get the
01:57:31.300christians to regularly pay their tithes and it was a point of contrast about man why are these
01:57:37.300christians being so cheap if they're giving to the church when you know the australia were regularly
01:57:43.460supporting their hoffs and their gothar um so yeah the kind of the contrast is we're able to
01:57:50.940accomplish things we do things we build legitimacy and we build nice things for
01:57:58.740the reputation of ourselves of our folk and of our gods here in midgard we build institutions
01:58:08.020that will be here for our children our children's children i think the groups that complain about it
01:58:15.040some of it is just to find something to complain about because they're um overwhelmed with
01:58:20.960negativity i think sometimes it's because they've just been so conditioned to see anything that you
01:58:30.640know we have to be the anti-christianity so if christians do something we have to do the opposite
01:58:36.640and i think there's other people that just genuinely don't take this seriously
01:58:41.360there are people that are very content to like well you know me and four of my friends get in
01:58:46.560camp chairs in the backyard and we share a rotisserie chicken and we drink and we yell
01:58:53.600about the gods and it's fun and that's all there is those are often the same people that don't
01:58:58.880include their families and those are the kind of people that you know as soon as one or two of them
01:59:04.720move or pass away they they stop being also true and it stops with them we're building things for
01:59:12.160the future we're building we're trying to build an institution worthy of our gods and something to
01:59:22.320further our faith because this is so very important to us and the things that are
01:59:26.880important to us you know the expression put your money where your mouth is you show what's valuable
01:59:33.120to you by what you're willing to donate towards and make happen and you know there's
01:59:39.680There's an evergreen source of complaining by people on the outside that we require a donation in the AFA, but no one has yet to have any idea how to do it any differently or any better.
02:00:07.120The same people want us to have hawks. They want this to be a legitimate thing. They want this to be something for their children, or they say they want that. But money is something that our people are kind of rally around complaining about. And the difference between us and groups that don't is that we accomplish things, and they don't. We're relevant, and they're not.
02:00:34.660something i'm something i'd like to add if that's possible is that um something that just struck me
02:00:42.020is that a lot of our people yes they like to complain about things and they like to
02:00:46.600complain about money especially and wonder why we have to have a membership donation
02:00:51.400um number one i think it's so that we know that you at least as you just said put your money where
02:00:59.420your mouth is and you're at least going to put some quote-unquote skin in the game but also i
02:01:04.440think that for a lot of our people of all ages that come to also true they they are under this
02:01:11.380impression because they have experienced in their lifetimes this monolithic thing of religion
02:01:18.420you know they see a christian church of all type of denominations on every street corner
02:01:23.360they see these big catholic churches they see all of this and it never strikes them that all of that
02:01:28.320took money that never it never occurs to them that these things just don't you know appear out
02:01:35.200of whole cloth they took money it took lots of coin lots of treasure to make these things to
02:01:42.220make these towering edifices that are catholic churches to make all these you know little
02:01:47.460protestant churches it takes money but somehow you know they turn around to see us in 2026 and
02:01:54.220well why do you have to charge a donation why do you have to charge a membership fee
02:01:59.580because if we want the same things that they have on the same scale that's what it requires
02:02:05.500so i just want to throw that in there well and some of it's just
02:02:11.740i think a lack of being honest with themselves how much money do you spend every month on netflix
02:02:18.300how much money do you spend on takeout food how much money do you spend on a subway sandwich how
02:02:26.700much money do you spend on cigarettes how much money do you spend on you know whatever the
02:02:32.860things are that you like and this is not to disparage any of those products but it's to say
02:02:38.780you spend money you know all day every day on things that you choose that you think are priorities
02:02:45.420to you, be them things that you need or things that you enjoy and you want, it says something
02:02:53.680if you're not willing to put money towards something that you claim to believe in.
02:03:01.600That's something that I think people should give some thought to if that's their position
02:10:42.880And I got to really, I feel like I've grown by getting a better understanding of our folk as a whole, having my finger on the pulse of modern house of true.
02:10:56.660I've got to forge a friendship with our founder, Steve McNallan, and learn from him and from Githy Shulam McNallan and learn their wealth of experience being involved in this for as long as they have.
02:11:18.340I got to get so much, I don't know, so much wisdom and insight from their experiences.
02:11:31.720And I also, becoming, the more I got involved in leadership, the greater I got to learn the weight and the responsibility of that.
02:11:48.340being a gothi and now being the else harrier gothi to
02:11:53.280have to navigate that and counsel people in a variety of situations and
02:12:04.220i've grown in the paternalism that i have towards the afa towards our fellow leaders and the
02:12:15.800membership, but I've also grown tremendously in my relationship to the ICer and the very
02:12:25.480personally, uh, just in my personal relationship, but also very specifically in my position as
02:12:32.580I feel that I have interacted with him in a very special and very particular way that
02:12:42.000has um helped me to better myself in a lot of different a lot of different ways a lot of
02:12:52.560different ways psychologically emotionally spiritually i feel like i've been blessed
02:12:57.760with a much closer relationship with the icr than i would have experienced otherwise and
02:13:04.080And I also am able to appreciate all of the victories of the folk because I'm in a spot where kind of all roads, all paths of communication kind of come up to where I'm at.
02:13:20.940So I get to hear about the accomplishments and the promotions and the marriages and the babies and all the different things going on within the AFA that are really special.
02:13:36.000I get to have a very special perspective on that that most people don't get to see.
02:13:43.280From my vantage point, I get a much wider scope of vision on seeing those kind of things.
02:13:49.380as far as stuff that i've learned lately or that i've ways that i've grown
02:13:54.960i wish i had a really cool answer just off the top of my head i feel like i'm always learning
02:14:09.460something new or something different one of the things that i always tell the gothar is you know
02:14:14.880we always have something unexpected or, you know,
02:15:34.320i don't have the exact measurements that uh you're supposed to know to get fitted for a suit
02:15:43.620but i know it's it's kind of like neck thigh um chest etc you can look up the list uh
02:15:53.680and you know you measure all that in inches keep it on hand update it every so often depending on
02:16:01.680if you're going through a physical change or whatever uh i i mean i guess to answer the can
02:16:09.400the afa men help younger men be properly sized etc uh yes yes we can uh
02:16:15.120also like the site i order my suits from is uh
02:16:21.640it's going to sound fishy but it's this uh suit retailer in hong kong called bd tailor-made
02:16:28.880I promise that while they are no longer owned by the British Empire, the Cantonese and Chinese hands there yearn to serve the Anglo-Saxons still.
02:22:10.500So this complaint, there is a phenomenon amongst our very often young men that are isolated,
02:22:21.980that lack a lot of real world experience.
02:22:24.740kind of the same set i mentioned earlier that do a lot of the purity spiraling to where
02:22:30.700they treat life or their idea of what life is like it's a video game where you've got to like
02:22:42.520pick and choose where to place stats and like how to do your character creation and oh you need
02:22:50.720something for the religion slot so let's put something in there well what's my preference
02:22:58.080on how i create a religion it doesn't work that way our religion is based on our understanding
02:23:05.200of divine truth and relationship of our full twitter folk and our gods um if we were creating
02:23:12.960like a made up religion with just random stuff that we think would be cool then sure we might
02:23:20.400created that way with no female priesthood and we could have all of our priests be you know
02:23:27.280six foot or greater and they could all be you know five percent body fat and we could have
02:23:35.840they would all be geniuses and like you very quickly get outside the realm of
02:23:41.360dealing with real people in the real world our ancestors never had um
02:23:46.480that kind of distinction. And it wasn't equality and it wasn't sameness. It was out of a unique
02:23:59.820understanding that the women had a very particular skill set in relating to the divine. And you see
02:24:10.360this in you know all aspects of of arian spirituality it's not unique to um house true
02:24:17.960or to the the norse expression of it you have priestesses in all of the arian faiths because
02:24:25.640women are able to relate to the divine in a very particular way in a way that's very beneficial to
02:24:31.720the community to we've always understood there is a divine element to femininity just as there's a
02:24:40.040divine element to masculinity to to cut part of that off or to negate part of that
02:24:48.760would be unbalanced and you'd be missing out on a lot of a lot of things there is an inherent
02:24:58.840anti-woman bias in abrahamism that leads to like oh it's trad and it's based to not let women do
02:25:08.280stuff we're not trying to be trad we're not trying to be based yes stuff that we do happens to be
02:25:19.000based or happens to be trad because the right thing to do but that directionality is really
02:25:24.980important we're not trying to create this whole cloth thing to impress our internet friends so
02:25:34.080they can tell us how based we are we're trying to do something that reflects the natural order and
02:25:39.760that um is true to divine truth the way that we understand it so githias have always been
02:25:47.040a part of our faith they're an extremely important part of the modern expression of our faith
02:25:54.880i know that feminism so this is something else also true isn't a reaction to something else
02:26:02.160it's its own thing we do a disservice by making it a reaction to things we don't like out in the
02:26:10.000world so feminism and an inbalanced um in your face like gross feminism has been repugnant in
02:26:23.520our modern world and so we recoil at it and it's very natural to feel a need to react against it
02:26:30.800But that's because there's a gross imbalance created by the degenerate world around us.
02:26:38.740That's not the natural state of things.
02:26:41.360In the natural state, there's a harmony there.
02:26:44.380There is a coalescing of men and women around rules that are suited for them to fit well in them.
02:26:54.680And that was always reflected in society and is reflected in our priesthood today.
02:27:00.800But something else that's really true, despite whatever people wish were the case, we evaluate the individuals who step forward and want to take a position of leadership in the church and want to serve our gods as priests or priestesses.
02:27:23.100um that's not who we wish were there or who we designed to be there that's these are the
02:27:33.480individuals who step up who have that faith who feel that calling and who want to contribute in
02:27:39.760that way very often our githias step up in ways that you know our gothar don't they step up in
02:27:48.380ways that other members of the AFA don't, and they fill slots that there's not men out there
02:27:54.580that are going to do. So not only do I think that they're very uniquely inclined to do certain
02:27:59.860things in ways that are better or certainly different than men can do, but they also are
02:28:06.420sometimes the ones willing to carry the load and do the work, whereas a lot of men let us down that
02:28:11.820way. But they're uniquely situated for a lot of things ritually. They're especially uniquely
02:28:21.800situated to serve as conduits for the divine in particular ways. And we've seen that with
02:28:28.640our ancestors. In a just practical way, they're very good at building the frith and weaving
02:28:37.580the frith within our community within the congregation and also counseling our members
02:28:45.020and not just like you might think with counseling you know men counsel men or women counsel women
02:28:50.540but sometimes you need that cross-gender counseling sometimes there's men that need
02:28:56.700to hear certain things from a woman from a female perspective are willing to
02:29:01.740um to share or to be vulnerable talk about what they're going through with a woman in
02:29:10.300a way that they wouldn't be with a man and that's facilitated very well by our idea of this so
02:29:17.900we have him there because this is also true and that's always been something that also true has
02:29:22.460and they feel unique and spiritually um significant role in our faith
02:29:28.860faith. That's the way the gods have ordained that to me, literally and figuratively, and
02:29:35.520that's always been expressed with our faith. We don't have an anti-woman bias. We have
02:29:40.740a pro-nature, pro-natural order bias. It's very important that we don't define ourselves
02:29:48.840by the negation of things we don't like, but by positive values of things that we do like.
02:29:53.900We try very hard to do that in the Austrophoism.
02:30:03.340Trent, besides Founder MacNallan's book and the work by Edred and the Eddas,
02:30:10.560what other books slash authors do you guys like or that have influenced you?
02:30:17.720I would recommend Germania by Tacitus, as I mentioned earlier.
02:35:07.080And I know that in a fun way, and this is something that Steve and I kind of bonded over, but Robert E. Howard wrote a lot of really cool short stories.
02:35:21.600And like, it's not that they're necessarily deep, but the tone of them is inspiring and masculine and assertive in a proud and excited way.
02:35:35.860so those are always really cool um historically i really like david irving's books i think there's
02:35:44.580a lot of again really good authors there's a bunch of authors there's a particular author
02:35:49.380i can't think of right now writing about medieval kings of england that i really like
02:35:58.260but yeah so a lot of that type of reading but these other gentlemen kind of got some
02:36:03.620of the major oustertree ones before i did uh what are the
02:36:16.500bode what are the similarities and differences between agithya vulva and witches
02:36:24.340uh pretty simple um to me um a githya is a priestess a vulva is a cirrus and a witch is someone who
02:36:39.860typically and historically is someone who hexes people that is why the the german word we have
02:36:50.200the german word hexen knocked for what the holiday or the holy day rather that we call
02:36:56.300um three important distinctions i think one uh if there are any to my mind and correct me if i'm
02:37:07.580wrong here but to my mind if any of their any dnd fans in the house a githia would be
02:39:49.520there's a lot of overlap in those things and i think that's worth um
02:39:58.440Um, worth saying. Um, yeah, they're, they're all, you know, obviously, as Trent said, they're all, um, women. I think that the witch thing takes different connotations. It certainly does etymologically over time as it comes to us and develops.
02:44:37.900For a non-AFA kindred, if I were to perform a wedding or ceremony, I might get you.
02:44:44.440This isn't the nicest or prettiest answer, but no.
02:44:47.700um i am of the opinion that the only current gothar are afa gothar uh
02:44:56.200but even if that were not the case i would say that the title of gothi or get you a sacred it's
02:45:04.000a lifelong thing it's something you need to study for and you put the work in to
02:45:11.220be recognized by that title uh so simply getting a um an ordination at the courthouse or whatever
02:45:24.340uh to do a wedding uh would not make you a priestess no uh i mean that said if your family
02:45:32.080wants you specifically to get some form of ordination reform wedding absolutely do that
02:45:37.120that's certainly a tremendous no no okay ordination means something getting an ordination
02:45:47.680out of a mail-ordered thing is just offensive there's a lot of ways that you can do things
02:45:54.400in your state as an officiant oh i don't know your statement in a lot of states
02:45:59.120to officiate a wedding without being clergy but an ordination specifically for any faith
02:46:09.460is a serious thing those of us that are gothar or priests in any capacity have devoted our lives
02:46:18.320to the service of our gods in a very particular way and it's disrespectful to the concept
02:46:25.680for people to go get a quick mail order ordination so they can fill out paperwork.
02:46:32.700I get it being special to your family, and there's a lot of states
02:46:36.720that you don't have to have any ordination in order to do it,
02:46:39.840but you do have to register as an officiant.
02:46:42.360There's ways they can get married civilly at a courthouse.
02:46:45.680You can perform some sort of ceremony, and then they can get it stamped off by the judge.
02:46:51.480There's a lot of workarounds, but I think it's really important not to disrespect the position of a priest in any faith by that.
02:47:05.240Ordination is a serious thing. I get that it's easy to get in today's world, but it devalues the position of all the rest of us when people get it without the sincere commitment of, you know, being that.
02:47:23.260i'd say if you wanted to become a githia then certainly you know go through the steps within
02:47:32.260the afa and be happy to help you get to that if that's a commitment that you want to make that's
02:47:38.820lifelong um but yeah and i get i get it we live in a time where families are very disconnected
02:47:48.320and often don't have a religious tradition or a religious body that they're a part of
02:47:56.380and they want to have a particular kind of ceremony for their wedding.
02:48:01.600But it's something that we take really seriously.
02:48:05.360There's a point of having a Githya or a Gothi perform a wedding before the Aesir.
02:48:11.960it is a significant and a holy right performed by people who the gods have ordained and recognized
02:48:21.720as clergy going through that system in that way recognizes the authority of the icr and the
02:48:30.920position of gofi and githya as being something important so i really urge people to do that
02:48:36.760if your family members are also true you know they should join the afa if they haven't and if
02:48:43.000they did we'd be happy to you know arrange for someone to be involved in um officiating that
02:48:50.200wedding but no i would not consider you githya if you got a quick ordinations for a family githya
02:49:00.120and i think it is and none of this is aimed at you for asking the question thank you for asking it
02:49:06.760and it's not to be a jerk but it's because it's our job to be honest truth is one of our virtues
02:49:13.480and i think that that kind of a quick ordination to do a one-time ceremony
02:49:18.040is disrespectful to the office and go through
02:55:51.900But if one of those two things doesn't happen,
02:55:56.320it's going to make your relationship very, very difficult,
02:56:00.160and there's going to be a lot of heartache involved.
02:56:02.980I also don't think it's something that magically necessarily gets resolved overnight, and I don't think it's the first step isn't, well, fine, let's get a divorce.
02:56:19.440I think that there is a discussion process and a working things out process that should be pursued.
02:56:28.420And, you know, again, him becoming Austro is the best bet.
02:56:35.560But it's important to consider how important this is to you.
02:56:42.600and is your trough to your husband more important than your trough to the gods
02:56:49.580or is your trough to the gods more important than your trough to your husband
02:56:55.040and i think honestly reflecting on that will inform how you deal with this situation
02:57:03.160i think if you have the flexibility in your situation to be a house of truth to practice
02:57:11.080also true and to reflect the good that you know also true making you a better person also true
02:57:24.120making you a better wife also sure making you know if you can connect your faith with your
02:57:30.680value as a person perhaps he would look at it differently perhaps it would cause him to
02:57:36.680reconsider his own faith or his own position when you practice wars that's a very very difficult
02:57:43.960circumstance and there's nothing i can say that will make it not one but that is between you and
02:57:50.840your husband as far as um how that affects your marriage you're absolutely welcome to join the
02:57:58.600afa and if you're unable to to pay that's we don't ever want that to be a blockage for you
02:58:07.240practicing our faith so if you reach out we can make that part work out the rest is something
02:58:13.160we'd be happy to kind of help you work through or you know advise you where we can on it but
02:58:18.760ultimately that's a decision that you're going to have to make and navigate based on the things that
02:58:23.720are truly important in your life um and it's kind of a side note um just a follow-up on um
02:58:34.120the question about uh the ordination uh the the response in the chat the ordained question i
02:58:41.800understand i'm not a newbie though i've been reading and practicing for a couple of decades
02:58:46.200i feel like it's an honor that i would be asked by my true blood family to do the wedding certainly
02:58:51.960that is an honor absolutely i understand that you want to do that and
02:58:58.520i understand that you've been also true for a long time
02:59:03.860but this is part of the reason why it's so important the idea that if you know enough
02:59:11.280stuff you can just do it and be a githia for your family negates kind of the importance of
02:59:20.880of what that means or the value of what that means.
02:59:25.640Neither of the three of us are Gothar because we know stuff.
02:59:48.680It's about asking for them to bestow upon us the authorization and blessings to represent them as Gothar and go through a fundamentally transformative process of being ordained and bound to the responsibilities of that position for our lives.
03:00:09.320and a lot of people, it diminishes that if, well, if you know enough stuff and read the
03:00:19.580right books and you kind of know how ritual works, then that's good enough.
03:00:27.480That's not in religions that folks take very seriously. Nobody, you know, in sincere Judaism,
03:00:37.540Nobody thinks that you can just be a rabbi for a day because you've read your Torah and it's just for a day.
03:00:45.160So you're a rabbi or the Catholics wouldn't suggest you're a priest and you can perform the sacraments
03:00:51.320because you are very familiar with, you've been Catholic for a long time.
03:30:11.440um some pretty fascinating stuff he's doing um i don't like the whole chaos magician thing
03:30:19.720or label that's put on him um i was just reading that
03:30:24.980he believes that corporate logos are powerful quote-unquote super breeder sigils that invade
03:30:34.180and alter collective imaginative space um okay um reading what he believes you know hyper sigils
03:30:43.020as he calls them to be you know quote extended reality bending narratives uh designed to edit
03:30:50.920reality well i mean that is one thing that you could say about the runes themselves is that they
03:30:59.700are they are ideographic representations of mysteries and of cosmic lessons that our
03:31:09.040ancestors used to bend reality to their will to do things that could not normally be done
03:31:17.360by other means so yeah i agree with everything that trent said as far as you know reaching
03:31:26.120out to speckner's fun he knows all about that there's um also in that kind of realm of thing
03:31:32.520there uh especially sigil magic uh a lot of our folk are aware of the galder staffer or the
03:31:41.140the um the galder book from iceland um that's been largely i don't want to say debunked but
03:31:50.280it was a later working didn't come around until i believe correct me if i'm wrong i'm sure you go
03:31:55.640that was like the 1500s or 1600s when the galder stuffer book was made we don't know is we can't
03:32:03.660necessarily hang our hat on the validity of those um everyone's familiar with two symbols that come
03:32:10.820from that book being the agis llama or the helm of all and the vegvas here aka the viking compass
03:32:18.700um i can't again we would have to get we would have to get fingers fun on here to
03:32:25.640really elaborate on that um but yes our ancestors our also true ancestors most definitely worked
03:32:32.900with rune magic and sigil magic maybe not just in the style of mr morrison but yes they definitely
03:32:40.080did yeah so old does not equal authentic or i guess more precisely new does not equal inauthentic
03:32:54.240um sure sigil magic is absolutely a thing i think in morrison's kind of vain but not really
03:33:04.560art is inherently magical or can be if the intention is imbued in it in its creation
03:33:13.520there's a lot of ways to do that there's a number of artists and craftsmen that you know
03:33:20.520enchant items with you know literally galdering as they create with you know casting runes into
03:33:32.160paints or molds or things they do. There's all kinds of ways to magically imbue items
03:33:40.600and visual pieces that relate to signal magic. I think the most overt is obviously vinegreens,
03:33:50.300but I think that corporate logos can be, but to assume that they all are is naive. I think
03:34:01.100that the efficacy of magic comes from intent and imbuing something with intent and if something
03:34:11.180accidentally looks like something else it lacks the force of intent and the magical
03:34:17.740efficacy of something that is purpose purposely crafted in a particular way to alter an outcome
03:34:24.860or to affect reality so i think in order for that to be effective you have to imbue it with intent
03:34:31.100But yeah, there's plenty of that done in Anoush the True Context with Sather practice, with bind runes, but in other forms of art in spells we mentioned earlier with the Norns, the Nornir weaving and binding and weaving and binding.
03:34:53.540there's a lot of magical work involved in that but yeah that is a absolutely but to get like a
03:35:03.200really you know a how-to manual or something isn't really a thing so much of magical practice within
03:35:11.840the master true context is taught you know master to apprentice between colleagues it's not something
03:35:22.220that is talked about very openly i think sometimes there's a initiatory aspect to that i think it also
03:35:32.220sounds goofy or silly to people that aren't well schooled in it or that don't have the context or
03:35:39.500the experience so it's something that's typically um discussed quietly in between people in private
03:35:47.340but there's certainly a house true application to sigil magic absolutely
03:35:53.500um in the the final question of the night what are the requirements of someone to become a go-fi
03:36:00.060with the afa after becoming a member if that's someone something they want to do so um
03:36:06.860The basic requirements are that you be a member, that you be a folk builder, and you spend
03:36:18.100your time as a folk builder apprentice, that you take your oath as a folk builder, and
03:36:24.740that you apply or are selected to enter the GOTHAR program, which requires you getting
03:36:36.500the trust of the existing GOTHAR and specifically of the Speckengar and myself to where we trust
03:36:46.860that you're someone you want to potentially entrust with that organization, with that
03:36:55.440responsibility. That requires you to go through training with a mentor and with the GO-THAR
03:37:06.840as a whole to develop the skills and the knowledge that you need and the trust that you need
03:37:15.420be able to execute that office so all of those things it's important that you be a folk builder
03:37:21.260first and you do the hard work of building and maintaining our church a lot of people want to
03:37:31.980you know they get excited and they want to immediately become a go-thi so they can
03:37:36.140do and i don't think this is always um frivolous people are excited and they're excited they want
03:37:46.060to serve the gods and they conceive of that in a way that perhaps unknowingly is very theatrical
03:37:54.700they want to do bloat they want to perform ceremonies they want to be this master of
03:37:59.100ceremonies person they want to be you know the flashy filthy that does the stuff and that's not
03:38:05.500wrong but the position so much more than that involves counseling and it involves the responsibility
03:38:14.700of building and maintaining the house true focus simply in a dignified and professional way that
03:38:24.700is so much more than just um officiating ceremonies and so we make people who want
03:38:33.740to be ordained go through the process of doing the not fun things the uh the mundane things that have
03:38:42.540to be done for this to function and from there having an understanding of our membership of how
03:38:50.140the afa works along with their understanding of the lore and their ability to counsel and their
03:38:58.060or building that relationship with the gods.