00:19:52.460I had, let's see, first issue of The Runestone is released August 1972. Yeah, I was probably
00:20:03.940getting ready to head off to Fort Benning and go through infantry training and various schools
00:20:10.420after that. So I knew I would be agile, hostile, and mobile, as we used to say. But still,
00:20:20.180you do what you can. Whatever the cost, you do what you can do. And if you can't do everything,
00:20:25.380you do something. Oh, for anybody curious, Nick, do we have
00:20:31.540these loaded up on the website library? There are various runestones and other
00:20:40.420publications old on there. They all used to be on there, but some of them are not there
00:20:45.140currently as I'm working on moving and changing around the library and updating it. But they
00:20:50.420will all eventually be back up there. You heard it here, folks. So eventually
00:20:55.540this will be available to look at at our library at runestone.org um yeah we're trying to get as
00:21:03.940many as we can available for everybody to look at on there it's worth your guys time if uh if you get
00:21:10.500curious just talking about you know this isn't just an idea or a or a concept or or something
00:21:20.580we're very official and I realize we may have an international audience listening to the program
00:21:25.860in the United States the official tax designation for churches or you know religious institutions
00:21:36.580is a what's referred to as a 501c3 and that's part of our tax code it means that the government
00:21:43.940recognizes the the legitimacy of a religious organization and as such them being exempted from
00:21:54.260normal taxes that other organizations or businesses would have so that was established early on this
00:22:01.460was you know always something that was done in the open and official and and that's okay still is
00:22:08.660today. This book is what inspired, I don't know, a lot of those early beginnings and the use of
00:22:25.060the term Ausatru. Steve, you want to tell anybody about this book and the things going into your
00:22:33.380decision to make use of the term Ausatru and to get things going in the way that you did?
00:22:41.300Well, you know, obviously, I was interested in Vikings. But I was mature enough to know that
00:22:48.500there was a lot more to the old ways than, quote, being a Viking, unquote. And so I absorbed a lot
00:22:56.820of really good books on it. This particular one by Magnus Magnuson in addition to the really
00:23:03.540outstanding illustrations, photos, and so forth in it. I used to know the page number. I think I
00:23:09.300published it somewhere on page number such and such of that book. Magnuson used the word
00:23:16.260also true and explained that that was the the name that the Vikings gave to their religion.
00:23:22.580and i i was really glad to see that because you know you have
00:23:27.480you know i get the allure of the vikings but there's so much more there's so much more i wasn't
00:23:33.960a viking uh yeah what did you use on your dog tags before that oh on the dog tags
00:23:43.220yeah well before i knew also too let me think um i i don't remember what i put on it uh
00:23:56.420but i do remember that after uh after we had uh i was in a i was in a wreck on the way up to the uh
00:24:03.700dahlonega the ranger school up up and up in the mountains and uh i was you know had a lot of my
00:24:10.660stuff rifled through while i was gone and stuff was stolen so uh the um
00:24:17.860okay folks said you know go down to these this little this little um office that's down actually
00:24:26.340under one of the jump towers there at at uh at fort benning and there's a little old lady sitting
00:24:32.820behind a desk and the little old lady when it gets gets to making them down you know tapping up
00:24:39.620another another dog tag for me and she asked my religious preference and i said also true
00:24:48.020i think that's what i said yeah yeah anyway it was definitely my beat was just norse i think
00:24:53.620that was before i had magnuson's book and so i just i just said norse and she she typed it up
00:24:59.620she was good with it so that was the beginning and then later as soon as i got uh the the official
00:25:06.180word also true uh you know i i i got that corrected as well all right and just kind of a side note
00:25:14.900over in the chat we have uh someone telling us hello watching the program in osaka japan
00:25:21.620so appreciate you joining us from the other side of the world
00:25:26.100Here we have in March of 77, you holding the first Oden bloat in the Americas.
00:25:40.020Is there anything you would like to tell folks about the occasion of this bloat?
00:25:46.580It was, this was number one as far as anything publicly. And believe it or not,
00:25:53.700it was held in a public park in berkeley california which of course in many ways has
00:26:01.940been hostile territory uh yeah and uh it attracted a very diverse crowd shall we say um
00:26:12.740and i i don't know that i would do it that way again but sometimes you just got to get it rolling
00:26:19.940you just got to take some action and make things roll and yeah yeah like i say i i would i would
00:26:27.460not do anything of that sort you know in a public park today with onlookers uh you know the crowds
00:26:33.940and so forth but uh uh especially in berkeley but you do what you have to do you do what you have
00:26:40.820to do to get things rocking to get things rolling and um you know some good things came coming out
00:26:46.180I picked up a fistful of really good people that then cooperated with me to do bloat inside at
00:27:02.260the office of a friend and to invite the people who were really serious.
00:27:08.180And that was a big beginning in many ways. If I hadn't done this rather public thing,
00:27:13.540you know i would never would have met those people so do you know who the two folks who are
00:27:21.540looking on in awe might be uh sean what was his name sean sean something or other
00:27:31.460and his his girlfriend i don't remember his last name or or hers either um but they were
00:27:39.700yeah you know they were compatible people and nice people and and wanted to do this and for for
00:27:47.140whatever reason we were highly interested in it so we you know there were people that i i got to
00:27:53.140know a bit and you know they were good enough folk but um yeah there was there were so many
00:28:00.020other people that I needed to draw it. So. So do you want to tell anybody anything about
00:28:10.580the name change from the Viking Brotherhood to the Alcatru Free Assembly? And Nick,
00:28:16.340if you could rotate the thing so people could see the Alcatru Free Assembly's symbol.
00:28:22.660Well, hmm, basically, of course, it was, it was leaving the singular Viking motif behind. It was more than just Viking, and Viking Brotherhood intimates, you know, suggests a small group of people getting ready to get onto a ship and sail away to burn a monastery.
00:28:52.660or something. So the also true free assembly captured that attitude of capability, that
00:29:03.740attitude of, you know, we are free. We assemble or disassemble as we desire. We are free to,
00:29:12.600you know, a fair extent with what we do and how we worship and who we may or may not offend. I mean,
00:29:21.000You know, if you're a Christian and you can tolerate us, that's fine.
00:29:48.980you think about women how you know the whole feminine thing and yeah causes oh yeah
00:29:58.180okay so that's a good question were there women involved in the viking brotherhood
00:30:05.620very few at the very beginning um doing that that early berkeley sequence uh i think there
00:30:16.260were one two three four five women and that was everything from people my own age to uh
00:30:27.780little old ladies with extreme political views uh so so it was actually quite a mix uh
00:30:36.900but you know it's it's all right if they were sincere if they were sincere and met our criteria
00:30:42.820uh they were they were welcome to come to our events such as they were
00:30:49.460religion without goddesses is halfway to atheism that's a good one yeah yeah yeah there's there's
00:30:56.740that thing i put together somewhere at some point i don't remember when exactly that uh
00:31:04.500that a religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism i was reading
00:31:10.340one issuance of that, what, two days ago when I was reading a couple of old Free Assembly
00:31:21.760pamphlets that Chris found on archive. What were those three pamphlets, Chris? Do you remember?
00:31:31.060Some ostature values. Oh, geez. Let me check. Hang on.
00:31:37.860No, I put you on the spot. It's all good. While we do that, I want to mention that a couple of few things here. Our folk builder in Florida, Alexander Casto, bought us a coffee, which is a $5 donation. It says, hail to the next 30 years and beyond. Thank you very much for that, Alexander.
00:32:00.400uh ronald blake bought us five coffees that's 25 donation he says hail all well hail to you
00:32:08.200ronald and thank you for your generosity we appreciate it and then he went on and again
00:32:13.640ronald donated 25 to folk services thank you for that we appreciate it
00:32:18.660ronald angela donated uh 25 to balder's steeple and 25 towards the phrasehof war chest
00:32:28.040very much appreciated thank you very much and austin don't whoa okay they're just keep rolling
00:32:36.620it's a good problem to have austin donated twenty dollars towards our phrase off thank you for that
00:32:42.820austin and uh gilbert donated two hundred and fifty dollars to the steeple and two hundred
00:32:50.360150 dollars to the phraseoff fund wow thank you so much very much appreciated on both counts thank
00:32:58.600you uh you guys are awesome uh we really appreciate y'all's generosity that's how we're able to do
00:33:06.520that coupled with the blessings of the icr or how we are able to accomplish so many
00:33:11.080beautiful things we really appreciate it guys thank you um
00:33:14.920um so wait wait the pamphlets were the values of Asatru the lessons of Asgard and what is
00:33:25.120Asatru the values of Asatru is a collection of essays that were put throughout the runestone
00:33:37.960I was talking to Brandy about that earlier those uh we will get those and have those
00:33:43.660available at the Runestone Library as well. So in 1980, the
00:33:50.860Oustru Free Assembly had the first All Thing. Do you want to
00:33:58.220say anything about All Thing One? And I suppose before I go on
00:34:01.420to that, pictured there is Gauthie David James, who is one of
00:34:08.460two AFA Goethys that died in office. We appreciate him and he was, you know, active in Alistair
00:34:17.440Tru all the way back to All Thing One in 1980, a year before I was born.
00:34:24.540Steve, tell us about All Thing One and how that came about, if you would.
00:34:38.460all right well it was oh there he is well hey i'm dealing with some lights and stuff here of course
00:34:45.420um it was um held at uh in a a place in the east bay uh california yeah over the hills there there
00:34:57.740was some uh a really nice place uh that uh that we could get together and you know it was you know
00:35:05.900wooded and treed and so forth and um i talked with them and they were all good with doing it and they
00:35:13.180would be glad to to do a pig for us and uh you know provide all the things that we needed
00:35:21.100and so um yeah i put out the word and we had uh we had you know a number of a very interesting
00:35:28.300people uh come we had uh edward thorson um as a very young guy and and kind of you know just yeah
00:35:41.820hairy and you know unkempt uh hair and so forth you know uh but very bright and so forth and we
00:35:50.620We had David James there, as you see He's a poet and a very good one and he's well educated on all the relevant things and has been following the gods for quite a number of years
00:36:09.620and other people who were mostly from the Bay Area,
00:37:25.960Yeah, I think that, you know, I always wonder what our enemies think that we're up to.
00:37:31.580I think there's always, I don't know, wild ideas about what really goes on.
00:37:38.460And I think they would, I think, be underwhelmed by the villainy or lack thereof that occurs and probably really moved by some of the beautiful things that go on.
00:37:50.140Um, I met David James almost 30 years, like 30 years, yeah, 30 years exactly from this period at, uh, Midsummer in, uh, Alta, California.
00:38:11.100This was a foundational thing that is, was ahead of its time.
00:38:18.260Much of the science of metagenetics has come to be recognized today as an absolutely legitimate and accepted thing.
00:38:28.160They'll put in slightly different terms, but this was really an important, I'd say was and still is a very, very important foundational concept for, I would say, for Alcetru, but also for folk religions generally.
00:38:46.020and this was first, I don't know, first distributed in winter of 1980. Steve, is there anything you
00:38:52.640want to say about metagenetics or would you like to define it for any of our audience that may be
00:38:58.000unfamiliar? Well, I think that our audience basically thinks of this immediately, you know,
00:39:07.800The idea that genetics shapes our religious opinions and our attitudes towards life, and so forth and so forth.
00:39:19.240But back decades and decades ago, people didn't want to say that kind of thing.
00:41:38.740Yeah. Yeah. Sheila seconds that he dedicated the work Futhart to as well.
00:41:47.440Kind of a side note and a plug. Anybody interested in the runes? Edred Thorson is
00:41:56.420certainly the preeminent runemaster of the modern era. And I would say that there's a case to be
00:42:07.400made perhaps ever uh his work that he has done on the runes both um in practice in esoteric usage
00:42:18.600and in you know very traditional scholarship is um unmatched and anybody who's interested
00:42:27.560futhark is the go-to text on that and i would encourage anybody interested to get that
00:42:33.480and his you know following works that kind of pair with that runelore
00:42:40.600runecaster's handbook and what is that runemite i think is the the title and that's the subtitle
00:42:48.600i gave and uh aloo are all very very good works on the runes that i would highly recommend if
00:42:54.360anybody is interested so for reasons uh the astro free assembly was dissolved in 1987.
00:43:06.120and steve would you like to tell anybody you know kind of why that was something that
00:43:10.600occurred how that went down what kind of what what that was like
00:43:14.280oh god 1987 you're with maddie yeah breckenridge had done the northern society that was right
00:43:25.320yeah at that time uh i was living in my my hometown breckenridge texas place i still love
00:43:33.240in a state I still love. And I was holding down a full-time job with the local sheriff department.
00:43:47.060I was, you know, their late-night guy and, you know, their radio guy and all that kind of stuff.
00:43:55.100And so I was holding down a full-time job. I was trying to do things on the side. I had set up a, what did I call it, a Northern European Heritage Center in a storefront and just had a lot of information of that sort.
00:44:16.060great deal of it being also true, but also just general stuff of our people. So I was doing that
00:44:26.620and, you know, trying to deal with, I don't know, just life in general. And so I was hardly
00:44:38.440making ends meet so i asked you know the the council such as it was of of the of the organization
00:44:48.360to uh to yes can i get some sort of a stipend uh and people just went yeah excuse the expression
00:44:59.080batshit crazy you know uh oh god you're just you're just in this for the money yeah yeah right
00:45:07.160you know and it was so hurtful it was so hurtful i said hey i'm done i'm done0.99
00:45:18.600i stepped away i mean it was it wasn't just that no you know we we don't think you know
00:45:26.360we can we can pay you that or whatever it was like it was it was vitriol it was vitriol i felt
00:45:34.440insulted I felt that my my intentions were completely misunderstood and I just said okay
00:45:44.760end of mission and those people turned on you later in other interviews the interviews that
00:45:52.520happened books that you read from the 90s yeah some of those people were interviewed and they
00:45:56.920did not treat steve fairly at all yeah it was anyway it was very hurtful so what was the outcome
00:46:05.640yeah matt will probably ask no go ahead go ahead well i'm thinking when you stepped away what were
00:46:12.760the two groups that took over uh what were they uh oh well it's the hospital alliance well it was
00:46:22.280astro kindred okay of arizona with valgaard and then edred went off with the room guild
00:46:29.800and started the ring of truth yeah so that that that they were the the main players at that point
00:46:36.760what was interesting now is that until this time this was the only organization so everybody
00:46:42.200considering themselves also true regardless of who they were where they lived they were all part of
00:46:48.200the afa which was a really interesting mix of people but then they tended to kind of splinter
00:46:55.560off right in the two the two groups one was obviously planned to be focused and the other
00:47:01.160one edrid was just doing esoteric stuff yeah um so before we completely wrap up the free assembly
00:47:12.440days can you kind of give us a snapshot i guess of what the free assembly was like at its at its
00:47:21.000height where were you know what was the geographic spread what was the membership what was you know
00:47:27.800how was it organized i guess for lack of a better term oh um the free assembly at that point you
00:47:40.360before its torpedoing was spread geographically pretty much across the United States with a lot
00:47:51.080of people in places we'd never met. Some foreign, but not a whole lot of them. We were just making
00:48:01.160kind of casual contacts over there at that point um we were just trying to to practice and to
00:48:10.200maintain practice uh we we would hold meetings or you know get-togethers events whatever you
00:48:18.520want to call the golf thing every year yeah it turned out for that that is there was an annual
00:48:24.920all thing as i recall those were held down at possum kingdom lake which was kind of cool because uh
00:48:33.720yeah i knew that area well um we had we had all sorts of serious discussions we had people
00:48:42.520repelling off of the building we had yeah we had uh you know it was it was interesting it was
00:48:50.440interesting were you shooting off rockets at that point shooting off rockets at that point um yeah
00:48:57.240i don't know i was kind of into shooting off rockets um it was and it was it was my excuse
00:49:03.400was that um you know that's that's a future for our folk is is to to reach outward that's what we
00:49:12.600do. You know, who were all the great rocket scientists? Germans, you know, and Englishmen.
00:49:22.840So, you know, that, that was, I wanted to give people a reach, a sense of reach,
00:49:29.400a sense of what we, we, not just us, we, but our entire fault. What was our future going to be?
00:49:38.520what would we rise to uh we are we are the outward bound people we are the ones who want to go
00:49:45.960farther go faster uh explore where nobody else has ever done that is us completely uh no no no race
00:49:56.600can begin to match us in that drive and when i was when i was six or seven years old uh obviously no
00:50:05.080no one had put out the word astronaut yet,
01:03:47.820Just to throw back here real quick, I kind of brought this up already a little bit, but
01:03:54.300Dr. Flowers in 1992 put out a book of troth, and he says in here, this is a quote verbatim,
01:04:05.660the troth is our own folk religion. This means that it is the religion that is particular to
01:04:10.800this folk, to this ethnic group. We seek first and foremost to delve deeply into the long
01:04:16.680neglected pathways of our ancestors. So in 2002, the eunuch scholar Stephan Grundy would put out
01:04:27.920his version, Our Troth, which changes that around. So it's actually in this period that
01:04:36.060the entire idea of universalist Asatru is invented, in part because Asatru is a folkish religion.
01:04:43.080It doesn't make much sense to say universalist Asatru in the same way that it's like, there's no such thing as non-Dharmic Buddhism or non-Abrahamic Judaism.
01:04:52.700These are classes that include the thing by its characteristics.
01:04:57.340So if you want to have universalist Asatru, you have to make it because Asatru is folkish, just by definition, right?
01:05:04.560So Jill made a comment over in the side chat, and I just want to say, Jill, I thought the guy standing next to her looked a lot like Trudeau.
01:05:12.220so i can't confirm or deny whether uh his parents were in fact in that picture or not
01:05:18.860but they might have been we never know um it's funny that you would say that because that's
01:05:24.060literally what i was thinking all right so wow we take a little bit of a jump here um
01:05:33.420something that i wanted to mention before we got here on it a little bit is the austro alliance
01:05:43.180all of the things that chris said but one of the things that occurred i want to say in 1994
01:05:51.020they signed off on a document that legitimized you know
01:06:00.620also true being open for everybody and not being a folkish religion and that was a
01:06:10.220that was a big problem um i'm trying to find a date for that i don't know chris if you might
01:06:16.300know that off the top of your head but it was a a fundamental thing around okay so yeah in uh
01:06:24.060looks like september of 94 they were signatories to a statement that you know
01:06:34.220house true is for anybody who wants to be also true and isn't racially aligned um
01:06:40.060um and i believe this is at the time you mentioned this when we did or when i presented this uh
01:06:50.860slideshow at odin's off but would you like to share about valgaard reaching out to you
01:07:01.980oh do you remember he was asking your help and you were supporting him
01:07:06.540yeah 12 minutes yeah um yeah yeah yeah so yeah so bainbridge was doing a big push
01:07:17.900on uh valguard valvard who passed away by the way just a few months ago yeah um and uh and
01:07:25.260bainbridge and gambling and we heard steve heard later the gambling actually who said he was part
01:07:31.020of the nsa actually came up to nevada county to look for dirt on steve that's how threatened they
01:07:37.900felt because that is when he started making the push to move back into the australia folk assembly
01:07:44.940start really pushing the runestone and everything and holding events and at that point we made an
01:07:51.900alliance with the australia alliance with our own kindred because it was always a kindred organization
01:07:58.380it was understood that the austral folk assembly would always be an individual membership
01:08:03.580even though people could have kindreds we also had guilds but it was basically individual membership
01:08:09.580but they could we could have kindreds as part of it but at that point steve and valgaard really
01:08:16.780reconnected after quite a separation and we actually went out to wisconsin for a a very
01:08:25.660what was a large moot at that point it was an all thing and uh it was a good really good event and
01:08:32.060we announced at that point that there would be now be the also true folk assembly it was
01:08:37.100the formal announcement with them and we had our um odenic right uh humgist was there we've got a
01:08:47.740story about humgist that people haven't told but probably not a very good thing to yeah he had some
01:08:53.500young men and they were all kind of drinking a little too much yeah and behind us was there so
01:08:58.940this was belgaard kind of bringing together other groups and um seeing where we'd all kind of shake
01:09:05.820out but we stayed very close to valgaard for the next uh dozen or so years uh having a kindred and
01:09:13.420he also at that point had membership in the personal membership uh in the austral folk
01:09:20.140assembly and by doing that we really pushed back on the gamligan and the the bainbridge thing and
01:09:27.260i think they probably rewrote those bylaws because they always basically had a focus
01:09:36.460presence it's just that it would be kind of sometimes a little over overrun by i don't
01:09:42.700want to say overrun but influenced by um various kindred uh members and their leaders their
01:09:49.340chieftains always a chieftain right uh and i'd go the chieftain go the kindred of four and um
01:09:57.100and they would have their own say but ultimately valgaard always always had the winning card
01:10:04.140he always to even to the very end kind of kept things uh under his control so it was really
01:10:10.700important for the alistair folk assembly to come out and push back so that the the troth really
01:10:16.140just went very independent of all of us and became very much against us and so uh and looking for ways
01:10:25.340to for one thing there was a uh somebody did a niff song against steve you may not know about
01:10:31.740that he was we were so hated in the 90s and banned from various events going to the panthea con for
01:10:38.860one thing in the bay area they had a whole section was anti-afa and nobody associated
01:10:44.940who knew steve mcnellen could be could enter and somebody actually got a horse head and did a nymph
01:10:50.940staying downtown berkeley and put it up on a stake that's the kind of stuff that was going on we we
01:10:58.300we were their arch enemies the way they saw it gave them a purpose for being i guess
01:11:02.540but we just pretty much ignored them probably let it get to us more than it should we've all learned
01:11:07.500you just let your enemies do what they wish in the background because they're gonna get nowhere
01:11:12.460and we just let it just drop away from us and we move on and do what we need to do to keep building
01:11:19.100our folk that was we learned that early on and that's where we still are today as as a church
01:11:24.620so as a as a point on that just to kind of close that up this is a strange time where you start
01:11:30.860having this push for universalism and uh you know the that's true alliance under whatever
01:11:38.620and this is kind of a note on some things the everybody having voting rights in the trough
01:11:46.460is why edward was booted from his organization the very democratic uh nature of the austro
01:11:55.980or the australians is why sometimes things happen that maybe were fundamentally against the intent
01:12:03.420of the the founders and people who put in a lot of the work but this was that time where they did
01:12:09.980sign that you know alsatru is for everybody thing and as i remember you letting me know and correct
01:12:17.660me if this is wrong but valgaard reached out to you and asked you to come back and basically save
01:12:22.460alsatru and uh i suppose that happened yeah because that's really important and it's exactly
01:12:32.380what you did and we're all grateful that you did um this goes into can i can i jump in of course
01:12:43.720what do you got um it's i i want to ask uh steve a question real quick but i also just want to
01:12:49.840point out like we keep bringing up gambling in his real name was alex jerome um we keep bringing
01:12:55.300up gambling in and bill brainbridge it's important to note that there's this universalist
01:13:01.060Asatru stuff comes about due to a very small number of people who with very few exceptions
01:13:07.380were mostly interested in the like politics of Asatru rather than anything to do with the gods
01:13:15.540or theology. I went looking around and as far as I can find regarding Gambling and Bill Bainbridge
01:13:22.280everything they wrote comes down to politics not like here's what the runes mean or here's how to
01:13:31.040So at least as far as what they wanted to survive, it really was the idea of creating this Universalist Asatru thing as outsiders intruding in a space to control it rather than like people who just want to worship Thor, right?
01:13:50.860At this time, there's a lot of consternation in Universalist Asatru about what does Asatru mean, controlling it from the outside, like park rangers watching wolves, as opposed to the Asatru Reliance guys who, for faults that can be levied against them, were like writing things about the runes and how to pray to Thor and what you're supposed to wear at Bloat and all this other stuff where they're actually doing Asatru.
01:14:16.280um if you want to say something go ahead matt i'll oh no i just oh no oh i was just gonna say
01:14:25.480that they did it in that format for decades what the australian alliance was like when i met them
01:14:32.600in 1975 it was just the same back in um 2021 you know it had never really changed in their approach
01:14:43.700And their level of involvement as kindreds and any kind of a global reach never changed.
01:16:06.980He was an interesting sort. I have not heard anything about him in years and years and years. He was skinny. Obviously, we're all literous to a point, but he wanted to know exactly how you do this to a detail and how you do that.
01:16:33.740and you know things that even i probably i think nobody knew um but um he was sincere
01:16:41.180he was a quote good guy unquote but uh he wasn't really producing much or
01:16:49.500making anything happen uh it was it was just him i would say he married you and
01:16:56.220maddie yeah he officiated yeah at your wedding yeah okay his uh his his name was uh ernest
01:17:06.700and i'm mostly just bragging that i found out this guy's name i'm sorry his name was ernest uh
01:17:12.620eric for stein for our son the bidwell junior so yeah yeah yeah but yeah he's about frankly you
01:17:23.100You know, I wouldn't want to say this to his face, but he was a pretty pathetic individual in many ways and sincere.0.82
01:17:29.940He had a good heart, but that was about it.0.98
01:17:46.240To kind of close out on the Ask True Alliance, they've stayed around kind of as a museum of what things were like in the 80s until, you know, relatively recently, they, I guess two years ago, they made a full, complete cuckery of, you know, they don't believe there's any racial component to Ask True.
01:18:14.340and they are fully rainbow globo homo uh on that team which is really sad but it is very defensive
01:18:23.140that was under their um i'll share your go feet that i'm due to personal conversations with the
01:18:32.660man doesn't believe those things but it's expedient to show cowardice in the face of opposition um
01:18:40.420which they did it as a reaction to such a pathetic thing too wasn't it a reaction to0.87
01:18:46.820like some domestic terror thing it was like the guy tried to bomb a synagogue in texas or something
01:18:52.900it was it was not because of any charges levied against them or anything to do with i think it's
01:18:58.420because they asked people in a reporter in washington asked mac and elizabeth uncomfortable
01:19:06.420questions and they got scared. I think that is the reason that the Ausitru Alliance decided to
01:19:14.980forsake any of the principles that they were supposedly holding dear up to that point. And
01:19:20.100that I know their current Ausheri Goetheus said that he holds dear. So it's really dishonest and
01:19:24.820unfortunate. But it's a good thing that John Gard called in the hero of Ausitru to come back and save
01:19:31.300it um and that's what kind of brought us here and another current that's led to this point and it
01:19:38.100will get to the slide at hand but this is part of it what relationship up to that point was there
01:19:43.620between uh you personally or the astro free assembly and lc christensen's uh odinus fellowship
01:19:51.380oh wow that was a not much i mean uh we we knew elsie uh she showed up at some of our events i've
01:20:04.820i've got that photograph which some of you may or may not have seen of her actually tossing a caver
01:20:10.580i don't think that was your event you were invited to one in southern california
01:20:14.180um maybe so yeah i don't know because we talked with somebody who was there okay but but uh
01:20:23.780yeah i don't i don't know you know she was a lack of the low lady you know and and had you know
01:20:32.820got to give her credit for for you know holding something together for years and years and years
01:20:39.380uh so i i respect that respect that a lot one thing that she wrote in her uh odinus newsletter
01:20:48.180i think it was either that or it was in a a letter in correspondence was that she knew that
01:20:55.780also true needed to happen or i think she would have referred to it as odinism but
01:21:00.980she understood the need and she tried to get our people to adhere to the values but as far as
01:21:10.260connection to the gods and ritual was concerned that you and the astro free assembly were
01:21:17.460pioneering that in a way that she couldn't and she was referring people to you in that vein and
01:21:22.980i know that i read that in her hand i'm just sure where i read it okay yeah i i can believe that
01:21:30.980I think that she had great intentions, but it was more politically motivated than most other things.
01:21:43.580I mean, she respected the history and she respected the ideas, but when it came down to actual religious material, it wasn't really there.
01:22:00.280well so what led to we got the picture up of the lc christensen defense fund and the afa's
01:22:07.160you know or the proto afa i guess at the times involvement can you talk a little bit about
01:22:12.760the circumstances of that and what that looked like
01:22:19.320either a lot of that yeah we got word that she was in prison yeah um she had been
01:22:29.560set up, carrying some drugs in a car, helping some ex-prisoners and his girlfriend and their
01:22:36.020girlfriends across the state line got caught, whether they had been tipped off. She got picked
01:22:42.040up. Janet Reno was the attorney general in Florida at that point. And talk about an evil lady.
01:22:48.060And she went after Elsie. Elsie was actually Canadian by nationality. So she was in this
01:22:54.560country and she was a widow at that point already in her late 70s and she had no means to to do
01:23:04.240anything now what's interesting is that we were still focused you know west coast i'm involved in
01:23:09.620it now we're putting out the runes down where this is the evening before the event was actually
01:23:15.560at our home one of the very first ones we did before the afa actually but um but also the the
01:23:22.300um the theods were doing stuff out on the east coast and that was kind of where the energy was
01:23:27.340we've got so many people on our leaders who were doing that in the 90s and the 2000s and we had no
01:23:34.220contact there was nothing no theodism out on the west coast at all so that's something we were not
01:23:40.380even really aware of and got involved in until around 2000 where we got to meet people but with
01:23:47.180with elsie she needed some help she was in jail we needed to get her some lawyers to get her out
01:23:53.580and um we actually we had a fellow up in canada heritage and tradition who was making silver
01:24:00.060medallions in in one ounce pure silver and he did one that was a elsie christianson one i think we
01:24:07.980were selling them for 15 each or something like that we also did he also did one for kenwick man
01:24:13.980to raise money for our our um legal fees for that of which we did have some even though we had a
01:24:21.580pro bono lawyer but we still have filing fees and all but um with that we were asked could you help
01:24:27.980and i don't know who came to us but we just stepped right in because it was like a perfect
01:24:32.780thing for us we did not i never knew her at all never really had contacts steve met her the one
01:24:38.220time but we were there to support folk mother we all knew that she was regarded as that but her
01:24:43.820work was mostly with the prison populations when she went into prison we picked up her publications
01:24:50.940like we still have that um what is at the odinus thing we have a little odinus pamphlet that she did
01:24:58.540and um handled all of her her prisoner uh mail started coming to us and i would respond to those
01:25:05.020so that's that's what we did for a long time was helping her um while she was in jail in prison
01:25:12.460actually and then she eventually got out and went back to canada and died a few years later
01:25:19.180very very sad and i wish we had gotten to know her better and we did not
01:25:23.180and that's failing on our part um so we've got a couple of questions and i don't know how long
01:25:32.380we'll have everybody so you can tell it's going to be a long show tonight we are less than a
01:25:37.740tenth of the way through but this is wonderful and it is such a treasure to have both of the
01:25:42.940mcnellens on this program so we're going to get all the best out of it that we can but nobody is
01:25:47.740obliged to stay any longer than they want to got a couple of questions though um uh from hill which
01:25:54.700i believe is a new listener to the program i'm steve and new to ouster true for a couple of
01:25:59.820months i have stephen mcnallan's book also true book of out i have stephen mcnallan's book also
01:26:06.220true and futhark any others that any of you would recommend we have book recommendations
01:26:13.180for this new also true are anybody on the panel cool so i'll recommend something that was in the
01:26:22.700chat uh but in case you don't have it i mentioned the really good room books but if you're brand
01:26:29.580new and you're fresh to it a really good book is um the runes workbook by leon wilde it's a uh he
01:26:40.860was a member of the room or what i assume is a member of the rune guild his book is really good
01:26:46.140it's very accessible to um you know teenagers young adults people who are completely new to
01:26:52.460the runes it's not as in deep it's not as in depth as the other rune books that i've recommended
01:26:58.460but it's a really really good place to start and i always recommend that to brand new people
01:27:03.100um it's something that you know i read in my 20s and i really liked so i would recommend that um
01:27:10.380other stuff the culture of the teutons i would recommend i think that's a good book obviously
01:27:16.860you know the eddas do any of you guys have any other books that you would recommend
01:27:58.420If you want to get a little more highbrow, one of the most thought-after works in all of Germanic lore and also true is The Will and the Tree by Paul Bauschatz.
01:28:18.760A book that I literally just finished today, and I've been chipping away at because it's very, very good, and I should have read much, much earlier, is The Elder Gods by Stephen Hollington.
01:56:33.480he was already such a bad actor bad character by the time I came along in the early 2000s that
01:56:38.860whenever anybody would mention his name you know it was like oh that guy you know and everybody
01:56:44.420rolled their eyes I'm like well we're not gonna talk about that you know so and and I remember
01:56:49.480specifically Chris the Bosch brothers guys were like you know somebody mentioned this dude's name
01:56:54.700and I was like who you know and they were like I don't worry about it dude you know you don't
01:56:58.460to know that guy he's a bad egg like all right so that's how i remember that name and i haven't heard
01:57:04.060it in years but when you guys said it i kind of perked up there you have it we can talk a little
01:57:09.340bit more about the uh guflorga moot when we catch up in the uh in the timeline um
01:57:20.780so sheila do you want to take us through and again we have an audience here that may not be aware we
01:57:27.020got a lot of we got about 7 000 people who are listening to this so they may not know about
01:57:34.940the kennewick man thing can you tell people what they need to know about kennewick man
01:57:40.060and y'all's involvement yeah summer of 1996 uh was july we had um
01:57:53.180rhino clinton up in camis washington who was an attorney at the time
01:57:58.460um and also thorgan odin was building a house right next to reinhold's property
01:58:04.860and so both of them were up there at that point um and we got a phone call at the end of july
01:58:14.220or i don't remember exactly maybe it was the middle of july from reinhold saying
01:58:18.780something has happened there's a really interesting discovery that happened in the
01:58:25.420columbia river that um some bones were found and they're thinking that um i guess by this point
01:58:35.860maybe they had done the um forensic work on it and had carbon um carbon dated the bones
01:58:44.840they thought originally that this was probably a pioneer it was on the banks of the columbia river
01:58:50.900and the story is that they had boat races going on an annual event they do every year
01:58:57.160and a couple young guys college guys wanted to avoid paying a ticket price so they were walking
01:59:04.740around on the beach on the outskirts and as they did they came across a bone or two and then they
01:59:11.240found a few more bones and then a skull and they found all these bones and they reported them to
01:59:18.680the local authorities the coroner came out the coroner collected the bones took them home
01:59:25.640started looking at them and as he analyzed the bones and measured them and looked at the skull
01:59:32.200he figured that this was a pioneer and so there was nothing really
01:59:37.000unusual about it he just looked like a regular white man with old bones that had aged over time
01:59:47.560but he actually happened to notice that there was a hole in the hip
01:59:54.120bone and when he analyzed that he saw that there was a spear point inside and the spear point
02:00:01.460went back to like a clovis point i'm not sure if it was clovis but we're talking something
02:00:06.760date back that far they did uh some carbon 14 dating and found that no he was not a pioneer
02:00:14.200from the 1800s he was actually from 9300 years ago and with that because this is columbia river
02:00:23.560washington over in eastern washington we had a lot of white people white afa members who were saying
02:00:31.880oh interesting he looks white he has everything about him but he is not a pioneer how did a white
02:00:41.880person get there in 9 300 or this would be you know 8 000 7 500 years ago and it uh we embarked
02:00:51.880on that journey uh at that point we happen to have some people in the area as we said we had another
02:00:58.440fellow who actually filed his own claim saying that he was what he thought was a descendant
02:01:04.040of kennewick man who at that point they called him uh richland man he was called richland man
02:01:11.400and then he took the name within a few weeks of kennewick man because he was near kennewick
02:01:16.440washington um we got involved because the waterways are run by the army corps of engineer
02:01:27.560uh on behalf of the indian tribes up there because of tribal treaties and and rights the waterways
02:01:34.920are considered theirs and overseen by the u.s army corps of engineers and so the two of them
02:01:42.600teamed together to immediately say oh well the bones are too old to be a pioneer so we're going
02:01:48.200to take the bones and we're going to bury the bones because the indian tribes get the bones
02:01:52.920And we were saying, wait, wait, wait, wait. We don't know that he is of the Indian tribes. Let's hold on. And so we filed suit. And we did our very best with no money to go against the Clinton administration, which we heard did not want us involved in the court case.
02:02:13.340but we did file and we had made ourselves known and stayed in it the court case against the u.s
02:02:21.660government for quite a while and there were also i think it was six uh well-known scientists who
02:02:28.940were also trying to prevent the the rebearing of the bones because they said that this this uh
02:02:36.940specimen is just too rare and we need to find out exactly who he was
02:02:40.940this is he would say well do the dna testing well this is at the beginning of dna testing
02:02:46.380there was no dna testing even for archaic bones at that point so they actually did though they
02:02:55.080did try so james chatters who went on one of those boar bosch the the bosch boar hunts which
02:03:02.220is really interesting you will see james chatters if you watch the movie homicide in kennewick which
02:03:07.760is has been available on uh amazon prime and uh he was the he was the forensic guy he was the
02:03:16.820coroner in kennewick who did all the initial analysis of kennewick man and said yeah he looks
02:03:24.860like my norwegian father-in-law you could pass him on the street you wouldn't think a thing if
02:03:29.820you passed him because he looked like all of us that is what uh james chatter said about kennewick
02:03:36.080man so he was on our side and he actually took some samples of bone and got them to three different
02:03:43.200institutions to check them out and one of them was at uc davis with a dr smith there and dr smith
02:03:52.400is on the video too because he was explaining how he was grinding up the bones and getting ready to
02:03:58.560do this dna test to see if we could indeed find out who kenwick's man roots were and lo and behold
02:04:06.160the government comes in and takes his sample and the other two samples and to this day they've
02:04:10.720never reappeared and this is very early on in the case this is just a few months in to this whole
02:04:17.680thing um there were a lot of things though that were going on james chatters himself had had a
02:04:25.920lot of unusual things happening he looked through the skull and looked through the ice sockets and
02:04:32.560see the world as it was in kennewick man's day we had people in the afa who were getting dreams
02:04:38.080lorgan was standing on the bank of the columbia river and he saw this mist come in that really
02:04:43.680didn't exist but he saw it come in and to him that was an omen it was like kennewick man wanted to
02:04:50.960be found every single bone of his body was found except for one small bone and it was fascinating
02:04:59.680because we we went with it we made the most that we could we had no money so we had to get press
02:05:06.560and steve was really good at it he was on lots of talk shows he was um uh interviewed on the uh
02:05:15.840coast to coast with um not our bell but with hilly rose was hilly rose's last time there
02:05:21.920by the way because you could not talk to steve mcnell and not have something bad happen to you
02:05:28.000because it was giving us press but we stuck with it for a few years there we had some really
02:05:34.160fascinating experiences because we pushed ourselves as tribal people so you'll see that a lot of the
02:05:39.920writing back 1996 for the year 2000 steve was talking about a time for tribes we did a big
02:05:47.200event that you're probably going to see called gathering of the tribes we said hey they're
02:05:51.840tribes so are we we had our european tribes have all come together in this time and place of 1998
02:05:59.040and um we're just as tribal as those indian tribes and kennewick man was not we're not
02:06:05.680descended from him we know we're not but do we have common ancestors and that's what steve kept
02:06:11.280telling people we want to see if we have a common ancestors with kenwick man that somehow his people
02:06:17.840came over here but we have roots the same in the meantime there were some horrible books written
02:06:23.040about us where we were not necessarily about us one or two were evil evil books and um but also
02:06:30.400some scholarly works that totally misrepresented us said that they also to folk assembly you know
02:06:36.080the viking brotherhood was a prison gang um that um that we believed that he was a viking
02:06:43.520you know all these things were just ridiculous um and people never did the research as they still
02:06:49.200don't but we were involved we finally got to the point in the about 2001 where we could not afford
02:06:57.280to stay in the case anymore and had kind of some issues with our attorney at the time and um but
02:07:07.040it's still there were some wonderful things happened the two of it the pictures you see
02:07:10.880were two different times one on the left was um a uh an actual bloat that steve did an odin bloat
02:07:19.760that um some of our friend michael moynahan's one with the uh drum there um thorgrins stand
02:07:26.080walking in front of him and uh i was not there but they did a bloat and had a lot of press and
02:07:31.600a lot of indians came out you may see pictures of that um because they were not happy we were
02:07:37.760involved but we felt we had to do that we had to stand with this man for a second steve did you
02:07:44.480make the indian cry no he didn't cry darn i did everything i could but he wouldn't cry
02:07:53.920it's unfortunate the indian that did cry in fact was an italian gentleman carry on
02:08:01.920so but some of the things that happened this very same day they had gone to
02:08:06.480the place where kennewick man was being stored he was actually stored in boxes they never actually
02:08:13.600put him together so that he was a complete skeleton but each each bone or a few sets of
02:08:20.720bones were put in ziploc bags and and very carefully packaged in boxes because the indians
02:08:26.880have been given rights to those boxes to do ritual over them they had to do the same for us so steve
02:08:35.440and these folks went into the room where the boxes were kept and under supervision they opened up the
02:08:41.200boxes and lo and behold inside the boxes were a whole bunch of cedar fronds that were laid on the
02:08:47.360top and steven instinctively knew there that was wrong that was wrong and that was just
02:08:55.040indicative of what was going on at this point um chatters ended up telling us personally that
02:09:03.120it was so bad for them to do that that that kind of contamination could vary any future testing of
02:09:09.280the bones because it it altered the dna within the box so we had that going on at the same time
02:09:17.280the army corps of engineer brought in um huge mats of of um coconut coconut rolls that with tons and
02:09:28.720tons of boulders totally covered the site where kenwick man was found to protect the site but
02:09:35.520But somehow it also made it so you could never go back and do any further archaeology work there.
02:09:41.280But they came in and then they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars dropping those by helicopter.
02:09:46.920Again, to kind of thwart us and people like us.
02:09:50.360Another thing they did is bones disappeared from the boxes.
02:09:58.460But somebody took the femur bones out of the boxes and they were missing.
02:10:03.520and they reappeared a couple of years later um in some other place we didn't do it somebody took
02:10:11.840them out and the thing about the femur bones is that they can indicate the height of the person
02:10:18.320um who they belong to and the thing about kind of a man is he was in fact when you hear chatters
02:10:24.120he says he was five foot eight he had the same broken ribs as i did he was the same age as i was
02:10:29.300had the same this and that and this and that and he came across he looked like just a white guy
02:10:35.460in the end so where are we now in the end we walked away from the case we couldn't stay in it
02:10:41.060but in um just a few years ago they finally had the ability to check his dna along with everything
02:10:48.340else had so many experts working on him they found that yes there was a descendant or somebody who
02:10:54.900was close connect to him genetically and that person was a lady in one of the seven tribes up
02:11:02.900in the northwest and therefore he was closely related to them all the bones were given to
02:11:11.140to them and they buried them someplace where nobody will ever know and we were writing about
02:11:18.420it a lot every every issue of the runestone had updates on what was going on with kenwick man and
02:11:23.220my thing was let's just put him in some place where he could be uncovered again where when we
02:11:28.820had better testing you could remove him and and take a small sample because that's what he wanted
02:11:34.660we felt he materialized at a time that we could be there to help him um that he he wished it he
02:11:42.980willed it kenwick man came to us we called him the far traveling one we feel that he had roots
02:11:49.940that were over in asia or europe or eurasia um and um forget what else what is that that's not
02:12:01.380how they said he looked i actually made him look like uh abraham lincoln like how do you show it
02:12:09.940yes that's when steve made the indian cry ah okay there's the crying indian
02:12:16.100all right and by indian they mean the italian guy yes
02:12:23.380start with i yeah so um yeah and i forget what else i was going to say at the end but if you
02:12:32.980want to kind of see the story as it was and and watch it unravel channel four from england came
02:12:39.380over and interviewed all the key people at that time including steve he was interviewed and even
02:12:46.260though it's been shortened they took about 15 minutes off the video just about everything of
02:12:50.900steve is still there um vine deloria was interviewed who talks well our stories tell
02:12:57.460us that there were red-haired giants in this area right because that's true so the
02:13:02.820sadika people of lovelock cave and all the giants chatter said that they were all connected vine
02:13:08.660deloria uh leader well not a leader of but an elder in the standing rock sioux tribe
02:13:16.020uh is one out was i think he's dead now yeah quite a ways but he was a very squared away man
02:13:23.700he understood completely how i we we corresponded back and forth uh and he understood that you know
02:13:30.980how i needed to work for my people and he works for his people but he was very respectful throughout
02:13:38.660out um and yeah hope he's in a good place yeah well he's with his people we know that he was a
02:13:45.860good man yeah happy hunting grounds yes he is no honestly that's really cool and i think
02:13:55.620it's i don't know it's interesting to note that lots of
02:14:00.100self-loathing white people have problems with things the afa does legitimate uh people of
02:14:09.460different ethnicities very seldom do um make note of the picture on the right hand side because a
02:14:18.180really cool picture of steve and sheila yeah it looks so familiar yeah it does it does that picture
02:14:25.860actually made it ap was supposed to get all over on the front page of newspapers
02:14:30.580that day we were on our way home from from washington state pulled in at the town of
02:14:35.700mount shasta picked up the local newspaper and there we were right on the front page that was
02:14:39.860really cool and this is perhaps the actual indian that steve may have made cry yes yes that's the
02:14:50.420the real one this is not a reenactment this is the legit uh yeah yeah but he shook your hand
02:15:01.060so that's a that's a flex yeah i i think he was probably a little grudging but you know i looks
02:15:07.460like it yeah yeah i like it and and i i think that i think that deep inside he he knew i had a point
02:15:16.580panthusa i agree with your quotation marks i raised questions as to the authenticity as well
02:15:23.700um all right so here's the thing and this is a newly added slide that i asked nick to add
02:15:33.060you went on a to a speaking tour of northwest colleges in the spring of 97. do you recall
02:15:40.820any of that to share with us it was a big thing getting talked about in i don't know some ancient
02:15:46.980publication i found on the way back machine okay holy moly yeah annabelle michael sponsored you up
02:15:54.100there yeah yeah yeah i remember that now and yeah over there on the side yeah yeah um
02:16:02.340the i i don't remember a great deal about i yeah i don't know it was just you know
02:16:10.100you were doing the theosophical society up there yeah yeah that was part of it and then he was
02:16:15.780scheduled at a couple of uh colleges if you know reed college it's very much like that evergreen
02:16:22.740right just like a very far left college in salem a private college and yes and so steve went up
02:16:29.620there going to talk about kenwick man with every plan to present a very factually unbiased i mean
02:16:38.020somewhat biased but still i'm just going to lay it out there they had professors who had already
02:16:44.500coached their their students to be there and be rioting and it was awful you had a really hard
02:16:51.300time even getting in there and and people were making all sorts of racket outside and trying to
02:16:59.060prevent you just like they do now same thing but that's what happened but he did have one or two
02:17:04.580you're you're an american student union one that was a better one i think that was good but the
02:17:09.860reed college was not good uh you did room class with the annabelle michael the theosophical and
02:17:15.700you also did with from up in and that actually happened before this but it was interesting
02:17:21.860again to show show politics he went up to canada to montreal and um what's from's first name
02:17:31.380so many years from political guy up there anybody involved in immigration would know him yeah um
02:17:40.500i wasn't a problem it wasn't um but he brought steve up paid for him to come up and the whole
02:17:46.340thing and arranged for him to speak to um i think it was like emeritus um soldiers people who who
02:17:55.380we're all decorated with medals and stuff some kind of a a really nice group of elderly gentlemen
02:18:02.420but again word got out and they steve's driving to this venue and they're saying
02:18:08.580floor because people were were around the car trying to stop it he got inside and then they
02:18:14.820started breaking windows and we're saying that was before this it was 90 probably within a month or
02:18:21.620two of this um that he had done that one um and so if people did not like what steve had to say
02:18:29.300about kennewick man just put it that way it was not a good place nor was
02:18:35.700within two months of this previous um young gothe trent east was born into midgard
02:18:43.060so happy birthday little trent um also of note we have a question was kenwick man the same as
02:18:52.500cheese man and it was determined cheese is a cheddar man no cheddar man was it was a proto
02:18:59.460englishman and uh i do not think that he was chocolatey in the way that he is currently
02:19:07.860depicted i think you think uh similar similar nonsense is at play but no there were two
02:19:15.780different gentlemen separated by literally on the other side of the world from one another
02:19:20.260but both being uh white people but it was at the same time it was the same summer that he was
02:19:27.060finally analyzed in 1996. so he came out um the cheddar man's story was worldwide at the same
02:19:36.740time that kenwick man was also a very ancient man and steve is part of that haplogroup of cheddar man
02:19:43.140which is interesting there you go and cheddar man were probably looked real similar and didn't look
02:19:50.580like um the uh clinket and hyde of people in washington yeah right so but wait there's a
02:20:04.340pre-thing gathering in 1997 and steve is performing an oath and bloat with valgaard and somebody else
02:20:12.820michael moynihan michael moynihan yeah it is yeah the older is all set up for valgaard in fact you
02:20:19.300asked about his stuff i have a close-up of all of his implements that he put on his on his altar
02:20:25.700cool get you that that would be awesome we would appreciate all of that stuff um i it
02:20:32.180It is worth just saying it is such a tremendous boon to have the both of you on tonight to tell stories and talk to us and tell us about our history from a time that many of us were not, you know, I mentioned Trent was just born.
02:20:52.560I was a sophomore in high school and still, what, here four years before I came home to Alcetru.
02:21:02.160Yeah. Let me add something real quick. In 97 was when I married my wife. There you go.
02:24:43.880Those guys were, I don't know if they were actually, you know, like the face of the troth or if they were like official troth kindred or whatnot.
02:24:55.120but there was a lot of like petty kingdoms a lot of little petty fiefdoms going on back then
02:25:00.760you know you had the theods that had you know their areas that they that they controlled or
02:25:05.880whatever um or that was their provenance that area then you had people like gladsheim kindred
02:25:11.680that did the same thing so that's interesting bodhi i'm glad you're able to share that with us
02:25:17.900was glad time run by joe merrick at the time at that time yes yes yeah i went to a glad time uh
02:25:26.360at their uh house that they had repurposed into a hof i went to that to an ostara there
02:25:33.280almost maybe i was gonna say 19 years later um so that's interesting well that's that's an
02:25:43.040interesting thing that some of those old guys uh who still are around when they talk crap about us
02:25:51.120and they say you know oh the afa says they're the first people to you know you know raise a
02:25:57.140in a thousand years well what about this house thing that we converted in like maryland or
02:26:03.020whatever and said it was a hoff and uh i remember reading all the the little you know uh promotional
02:26:12.140stuff they would do you know the post online and whatnot about them doing that with that
02:26:17.760quote-unquote hoff but very specifically you will not find i know when chris is doing his
02:26:23.020excellent uh sleuthing for our history you won't find any mention of them dedicating that
02:26:28.940quote-unquote hoff to any of our gods or goddesses so i kind of i kind of throw it back in their face
02:26:35.320as a technicality like yeah but you didn't dedicate any of those hoffs to any of the gods
02:26:38.680we did we have you just said this is a hoth we're gonna do you know bloat here sometime and
02:26:45.700everybody come look at our pretty thing but it's different to me it's different we we were doing
02:26:50.920it the right way or we have done it the right way they were just kind of playing around it's
02:26:56.300not ours is our stuff's a recognizable house of worship and this is just kind of a note that i
02:27:03.220think is worth saying. There's a lot of people prior to Odenshof that made, you know, I saw a
02:27:12.480number of, and I don't say this disparagingly, I think this is an honest assessment of like
02:27:19.860sheds. Sometimes, you know, kind of the pre-made sheds people you see sometimes outside of
02:27:27.220um like home depot or lowe's um people having sheds that they made as hoffs and that's awesome
02:27:35.700that they had something substantial to worship the gods in that's really cool and i don't want
02:27:41.380to take away from that or or be insulting to that and again um joe merrick and gladsheim had
02:27:49.300myself and a number of other afa members they hosted an afa ostara gathering there
02:27:55.140in i want to say 20 2016 um and that was really cool too uh i was i appreciate going there but
02:28:06.180again it was a it was a house that had a section of it repurposed to serve as kind of a worship
02:28:12.980space and that was really neat the difference in having a standalone building that is would
02:28:22.660be recognized by the general public as a house of worship is kind of a order of magnitude different,
02:28:28.660but it's not meant to insult people who had made attempts before or done things that I think we
02:28:36.260would call like stallies or in the glad time way, their own like house, like, that's really cool.
02:28:45.540And I don't want to be insulting of that. That's a nice thing. And that's real, real quick,
02:28:50.580before i uh i have stuff to ramble on here but i just want to say before i see the florida
02:28:55.700whitney erickson who i think how's the time the time is now um
02:29:01.780there's a different like if the property is zoned residential because you're still paying property
02:29:07.060tax it's not really a temple in like uh words or wind deeds or iron sense like it is still
02:29:13.780literally a house as far as the government is concerned chris said that i didn't say that
02:29:18.820um but in the sagas the uh there is the thing that's a test today blotus which is used actually
02:29:28.740in translation by christians as something akin to a chapel so there there was actually in the
02:29:34.420elder period a distinction between like a proper temple and the shed out back where we do bloat
02:29:41.140like not and i don't use the term shed disparagingly there just because of how architecture worked at
02:29:45.540the time uh you wanted to say something whitney erickson yeah i'm just going to add from from my
02:29:51.540experience with them because i've traveled around a bit before i committed to the aussage folk
02:29:56.260assembly um as i understand it gladsheim kindred started the east coast thing and then many years
02:30:03.220later um you know they they needed help with it or got tired of running it or something like that
02:30:09.700and it was rotated around between gladsheim kindred the vingulf kindred and the raven
02:30:14.900kindred north um all of which were were universalist um mostly affiliated with truth
02:30:21.700although i don't know that uh that their membership was like a hundred percent all
02:30:27.300troth members a lot of the times there was you know they they didn't require that kind of thing
02:30:32.980and yeah the the the the glad time hoff that they that they called a hoff was you know it was
02:30:41.220basically a house with a country western theme and some taxidermy um in the living room honestly
02:30:49.220um when when you're driving up to it you would not recognize it as anything other than
02:30:52.980like a ranch style house and there was one room that had like a collection of kind of neat stuff
02:30:59.780like a sword and you know a stuffed deer head and like a bear pelt but um that's true you were there
02:31:07.620mad and and then there was a kitchen with like you know your regular sliding doors and there
02:31:12.500was a hallway you weren't supposed to go down because that's where some dude lived so it was
02:31:16.980dallas it's true all right so let the record indicate witten clifford erickson said that i
02:31:23.380did not say that um one thing that could be said though is that um joe merritt came out in 2016
02:31:31.140two odin's off for the um for that major midsummer and that's interesting last time we ever heard
02:31:38.900from him yeah i hope he's doing well so everything else aside i'll say this real quick joe's awesome
02:31:47.860he was really nice um he was great the times i've interacted with him um zero part of anything
02:31:56.020we're saying or doing is to disparage that that was really cool uh nice guy uh right now
02:32:02.580if he's listening to the program you should join the house true folk assembly we would love to have
02:32:05.860you um that would be fantastic you should come home to the astro folk assembly um but yeah and
02:32:12.740yeah he gifted uh odenshoff to um wooden i think they're uh wood burnings of the like
02:32:22.820weapon the odenic weapon dancers that we have on either side on the the entrance to the hof there
02:32:30.420oh nice yeah so that was a get that on the back yeah that was a gift from gladsheim and we
02:32:37.060appreciate that very much um this brings us to and maybe you can add context to what this was
02:32:45.220when i first read about this in anchorage alaska i thought this a real big deal and it sounded very
02:32:50.980grandiose like a cool thing um i've heard that it might not have been there was the formation of the
02:32:58.340international aussitrew odinist alliance in the summer of 1997 and i think sheila you were the
02:33:05.380all terrier githia of this arrangement i was not in its concept i think that it probably was
02:33:13.700started out at the east coast thing and um i did not you know i'm not a person who likes really
02:33:22.420running things and i got kind of dragged into it late in the game so i don't know if steve remembers
02:33:30.340i don't i remember almost nothing about yeah it says how strange yeah yeah it is very strange
02:33:37.620so yes so it was really valgaard heimgist and steve who were the ones who were in charge of it
02:33:45.300and um um i don't think heimgist ever came to our house did he no so somehow he was i think
02:33:54.980well i know he did come to an all thing we did see him in an all thing two all things
02:34:00.100so that's probably when it was established and then we probably have pictures of that
02:34:04.100old thing in ogden utah and then but it didn't do anything i mean again there is no internet hardly
02:34:10.580at this point we don't have any connection with the identity right we never did and actually the
02:34:15.460identity right and the australians were always at loggerheads with each other they they they both
02:34:21.780you know thought they were better than each other and so really did not it was not a congenial
02:34:26.980grouping by the time it got to me i think they had run out in fact eric wood was i think the
02:34:33.940had eric wood totally stabbed us in the back and did some nasty things when a person who we totally
02:34:40.660trusted and he left and then it was like well who's gonna run it sheila you run it and so i did
02:34:46.740but i could see that these guys uh because we did have a little bit of an email were just arguing
02:34:52.180and getting nowhere and finally i i had to say no it's time we must close this we must end this
02:34:58.740because the there is no alliance here it's nothing but bitterness and fighting so under my under my
02:35:06.660my auspices of running it um it was ended and steve was never interested it was one that you
02:35:12.820know steve doesn't like this kind of stuff so he got roped into it it wasn't he wanted to focus on
02:35:17.780the afa not the international australian missile odenic alliance yeah yeah anyway it was really
02:35:26.340and nothing it was something on paper and never did anything never had any particular goals never
02:35:32.580hosted anything so there you go aside from that it was really harsh there you go real quick i just
02:35:41.060wanted to throw in here if we could just go back to the vowel movement slide for a second we
02:35:47.380mentioned another if you look there there's the afa the or and the aa on there the truth is not
02:35:53.780on there because yeah but there's another group of people that we've mentioned a few times
02:36:00.900who aren't also on there and that is the theadish guys so in uh 1976 thomas germain better known
02:36:10.740by his uh second magical name of uh the government uh supposedly was visited by a
02:36:19.460wuldane and fria and establishes what we call today as theodishism theodishery so on and so
02:36:29.220forth which i i don't use this term disparagingly i know it's really hard to believe that but was a
02:36:35.940sort of anglo-saxon pagan larp group that came out of his days in wicca and i i'm not being disparaging
02:36:43.860when i say that it was about reconstructing the social order of the anglo-saxon war band
02:36:49.300and kind of enacting it out in the world so they were the thing that people make fun of them for
02:36:55.140is they were really concerned with where people would sit at dinner so you'd have like the the
02:37:01.460sacred king and then he would have his his thanes and like where you sat at the table really mattered
02:37:08.740and they'd get in like fist fights over the seating arrangements because they were trying
02:37:14.260Chris, how many thanes were in this august assembly?
02:53:03.620in just about every sense except the most physical kind of gives an idea though because
02:53:09.040we were at that point trying to do one major event every year just as we do now with our
02:53:14.420midsummer so we were starting that tradition and trying to put on an event with great food great
02:53:20.780music great speakers wonderful bloats all those things that people have nowadays with the afa we
02:53:27.660were we had established that that was our mode that we would do there at these events and we had
02:53:33.840generally you know really nice area with vendors and all that kind of stuff this is just uh steve
02:53:40.400of course on the right guard in the middle and then um what was his name anyway the interesting
02:53:49.100thing about the man on the far left um is that when he died huh oh yes oh but but but oliver
02:54:02.220uh when he died he had wanted a viking type um passage and so the dolf brothers were all
02:54:11.260part of his group and they got steve they all went down to the mortuary and and were given
02:54:17.580permission to actually use a lance was it and lance him through his heart which i guess was
02:54:24.860an old viking method of sending someone on which was interesting so that's actually pretty cool
02:54:33.900yeah it was oh wow how are we we're back to kenwick man
02:54:40.780in chronological order so it happened okay that's okay
02:54:47.580that's a cool picture i've always thought of you guys got a lot of cool pictures from this time
02:54:53.460period yeah i took that one probably we also have some really nice ones that were done by
02:55:01.120professional journalists and they showed how they'd always gather around steve and then so
02:55:07.740this was important because they were at the point of trying to put him into safekeeping we were
02:55:13.480involved in a day-long event in portland um typing up on we didn't have a laptop nobody had laptops
02:55:23.960the government did we had some little tiny little tutorial thing from my school that i was trying to
02:55:30.840type on and give them notes but they wonder what did we want what what were our requirements for
02:55:36.760moving him and having everything about kenwick man's bones so they had to acknowledge us as one
02:55:43.560of the tribes in this and we did move him were involved in a caravan to move him in his boxes
02:55:50.360up to the burke museum where he now resides well he doesn't reside because he got buried
02:55:55.240but he was there for a long time in in seattle um university of seattle or washington but what was
02:56:02.280neat is we were allowed the night before this to sit in with um owlsley who is the top anthropologist
02:56:13.640in uh the smithsonian at least he was at the time and we sat in a very small room and probably
02:56:21.560measured um 10 by 30 feet and there was room just for about three chairs three to four chairs of
02:56:29.720visitors and then they had a long table and his bones were laid out and every bone was measured
02:56:37.320nobody could talk it was all recorded and measured and weighed and put into a plastic bag for
02:56:44.520inventorying cam and we got to actually sit in there and watch this all happening along
02:56:50.040with representatives of the indian tribes thorgram was he didn't do that thorgram was not there the
02:56:54.920next day we saw thorgan over at the burke museum we got to do one more viewing of his bones it was
02:57:01.400really interesting because one of the um scientists who was there actually picked up the skull and
02:57:09.960looked at he said oh look there's so much soil inside that skull i imagine what that could tell
02:57:15.560us and then he got actually wrapped up again and never to be well we don't know because he ended
02:57:22.520up being analyzed by various universities after that and then getting the dna testing but anyway
02:57:31.240it was an interesting time all right brings us to the altitude community church
02:57:38.600oh at the library i was there today yep we were doing it it was an experiment
02:57:44.760we do i think twice a month and got on the church page which was big listing of probably 75 churches
02:57:55.160in the area we we paid to be in there every every week and uh we never really got anybody
02:58:02.040it also did a little roadside um side that i put out there um we got a few looky loos a few people
02:58:10.120kind of interested but we did get our our one good guy and that was dave moore who ended up
02:58:15.880being with us clear to his death and a lot of his artwork his drinking horns his jewelry
02:58:24.200the abalone jewelry the hammers were all made by by dave and he came to us wearing tie-dyed
02:58:30.360and he wore tie-dyed to the end but he was one of us he was such a cool guy i actually died
02:58:35.720basically just with organ with him was in the hospital stood up after being um in the hospital
02:58:43.960overnight and stood up and killed over with organ right there so that was at least he had his buddy
02:58:49.000there with him he was good guy but uh it was our way we kind of did it with rows of chairs we had
02:58:55.640our little collection basket there and our people would it was our kindred they would put money in
02:59:00.440we still of course have that hammer and all but um yeah steve would dress up in viking garb the
02:59:06.600rest of us did not and then we'd always have uh gee braveheart music playing in the background
02:59:12.200and cookies and coffee for everybody who was there i think we all had that soundtrack i think we all
02:59:18.920had that soundtrack i think we all had the braveheart soundtrack at the time yeah right right
02:59:25.080so all right so we talked earlier about hoffs i'd been reading in the runestone since the early 70s
02:59:33.400about one of these days any day now we're gonna have this hoff and hoff's gonna happen and it
02:59:38.280took a really long time and there's some missteps and so this is a hoff that you know clearly you
02:59:44.040guys put blood sweat and tears into constructing and trying to make happen so what is the story
02:59:51.160here for folks that might not know do you want me to tell it yeah go ahead okay okay so back there
02:59:58.440at the gathering of the tribes there's a picture of steve and i standing there with a collection
03:00:03.960of photographs we had just come up to this land and taken a bunch of pictures it was quite
03:00:10.840beautiful with lots of tall pine trees on the uh on the ridge overlooking what is the american river
03:00:18.440canyon where it's very steep very very treacherous a beautiful part of california
03:00:25.160and it was 13 acres and we had been looking for property for some time but it was like
03:00:31.400how are we going to buy the property well we happen to have two brothers twin brothers who
03:00:36.440were older gentlemen in their probably late 40s at the time never married and they had money put
03:00:42.360away and they said yeah they they have the means for doing it they would pay for this we would
03:00:47.880build the hof it would be an afa hof and the afa would own the land and so we started going out
03:00:55.720there um we announced it to everybody the line we have our hof we have our land and we it took a
03:01:02.840while to begin the construction but we've chosen the place thorgan did all the planning of it and
03:01:09.480did the plans i think it was 18 by 27 feet he wanted to do units of nine um it was really
03:01:17.240nicely constructed it was labor of the folk who would go out there and camp every every weekend
03:01:23.640at least twice a month we were out there and was quite a distance for many diane erickson
03:01:30.600shakter lee erickson who people know from odin soft was out there cooking every time she'd bring
03:01:37.640in the food she'd cook it she'd wash the dishes she'd put it away and that's diane and she did
03:01:43.640that for a couple years and so we we did our best and thorgan came all the way up from santa cruz
03:01:52.600and we kept saying great this is wonderful we were doing bloat there we did baby namings all
03:01:59.160kinds of things but we never quite got it in our name and so everything was done on a handshake
03:02:06.040guys that's the lesson here and over time we had we ran into a really interesting time period called
03:02:14.760y2k it was 1999 going into the year 2000 and everybody kind of got off kilter especially the
03:02:21.480people around us uh survivalist types were all our people were actually um canning butter
03:02:27.960canning canning meat canning butter canning everything and planning for their families
03:02:33.960and it was like oh the end of the world's coming and so the our kindred which had been very close
03:02:39.560started splintering and over time um new people came in was just a little on the rough side
03:02:47.560the property was never transferred and within about a year or two we were finally in it we
03:02:57.240actually had a roof on it we celebrated uh winter nights in there by candlelight it was really cool
03:03:04.040we had a nice time but it was still um that was 2001 in fact i know because there was a loki
03:03:12.440uh toast which ended up not being very good for us
03:03:18.520the people who owned it ended up deciding to leave
03:03:22.040california with some member kindred members and what they did is they moved up to idaho northern
03:03:28.120idaho and in doing so um sold the property for their own benefit to whoever they sold it to we
03:03:38.040were not given any option to lease it to buy it or anything to buy a portion it had been in three
03:03:43.160parcels and so we lost it and it was a very very hard time for us and along with the loki
03:03:51.720the loki toast and a few other things that happened we kind of stepped back and said well
03:03:57.320we're kind of done with this and so we took a few years off from actually running afa membership
03:04:06.760like we had and that's where we kind of came to the end of uh the runestone journals because they
03:04:13.240were hard to put out anyway and they were a lot of work for me and um so we were doing we were
03:04:21.240starting to hold more local events we went back to california focusing on california and doing
03:04:26.280really cool things seasonally yeah of the room go ahead oh no i was just gonna say it got to be
03:04:38.760you know beautiful and really really professionally done and this as you can see came a long way from
03:04:44.280the uh the first image that we showed oh yeah yeah it was nice yeah we we had those done locally
03:04:53.720and we used glossy cover it was all black and white but it was always a glossy color uh cover
03:05:00.280and um i did do two more after that that you can find on wayback machine they were um digital and
03:05:07.480you can find um from two more whatever that was was 23 and 22 and 23 or something issues
03:05:15.160are still out there um but we started doing things more locally like i said
03:05:21.240and then we eventually said let's bring back membership again and so we did
03:05:27.000so oh and this is 2001 yeah this is during that time period
03:05:37.160with uh steve raising a horn at the grave of robert e howard yes indeed
03:05:46.280i presume that the audience knows who robert e howard was i hope so he's the author of numerous
03:05:52.440short stories that are inspirational to certainly the young men in the early part of uh the 20th
03:05:59.560century uh most notably among them conan but also a number of other ones that are amazing yes yes
03:06:08.440well it turns out he was a texas boy uh born and raised a relatively short drive from the
03:06:18.280little town that i was from uh and on one of my one of my expeditions to texas i went down and
03:06:26.760i lifted a horn to the the place where he's buried um and i mean he was one of my heroes
03:06:36.280i loved i loved those books you know they were they were strong masculine makes you want to go0.98
03:06:41.800out and lift weights and shit. 100%. We have a question in the chat. Where in Texas is he buried?0.99
03:06:50.600Brownwood. Is that Brownwood? He was from Cross Plains and I think he's from
03:06:55.240Brownwood Cemetery. You're right. You're right. Yeah, he was from Cross Plains,
03:07:00.120but Brownwood was the place that they buried him. Highly recommend people in Texas
03:07:07.560making that a moot they in fact have a robert e howard days i think in like june or july and
03:07:14.680going back to his place where especially if you see the movie whole wide world you've got to see
03:07:22.440that it's awesome we have had multiple copies of it ourselves and we give them out because it really
03:07:28.520tells his story so well if you if you admired robert e howard you've got to see that and you
03:07:33.320can you can visit his home his childhood home uh uh in cross plains and we were able to go down to
03:07:42.200the uh courthouse or whatever it was and with gloves on able to to peruse the actual pages
03:07:53.000of his some of his manuscripts yeah it was awesome it was awesome i'll never forget it
03:07:58.760I remember decades before that, I remember lifting weights at my house in Turlock, California,
03:08:16.040to the music from the movie. Good stuff, good for young males and old males for that matter.
03:08:28.760yeah absolutely as kind of a note of some promotional things the afa did back then
03:08:35.320or these beautiful stamps that they had made or that we had i guess right yes we had regular ones
03:08:42.520that just happened i still have some um the trihorn um and they were 37 cents back then i think
03:08:49.480you can see we have faihoo and urus and those were actually designed by our son-in-law at the time
03:08:54.920who was irish and um so he did that for us and um it was kind of cool we would give those as
03:09:02.440gifts and we actually had them so they could be put on that was the time when people actually
03:09:06.440sent you all cards so it was kind of cool having those we have a note of when sheila officially
03:09:12.760called for the disbanding of the bowel movement or the out of the vowel movement i'm sorry i missed
03:09:19.160the pond gosh it was just flush it away flush it away there you go as we do so here is winter
03:09:30.120nights in the redwoods uh circa 2005 2006. right do we know where this was it was so it's on the
03:09:42.600california coast mendocino woodlands which is um on the coast it's way above the bay area it's down
03:09:52.840halfway to eureka on the coast little windy roads getting there and the problem was we had to
03:09:59.880bring out all our own food for a big three-day event for what was a lot of people for us at that
03:10:06.440point we were starting to do our big events again we had probably 65 people what was cool about this
03:10:13.640place is that it had been a ccc camp from the 1930s they had built it with um they were all
03:10:21.000little log cabins with stone fireplaces and little front porches just like you'd find in
03:10:27.400appalachia right look just like that and it was in the redwoods so that and on a on a slope so
03:10:34.280that the road that was like a a hobbit kind of a environment it was so cool and then these
03:10:41.320this building was one wing of a three-winged uh unit well actually had it was actually two and
03:10:49.320they had a big octagon octagon kitchen in the middle that was probably 20 feet across or more
03:10:56.600at least 20 feet but these two wings each had big stone fireplaces and they had french doors at the
03:11:03.960end and then there was another the the dance hall had wide french doors and again the same look with
03:11:11.800the stone fireplace the place was so cool and so we made the long trek out there it was a long trip
03:11:19.560for everybody but it was so worth it and kind of got us enjoying our events again we would do things
03:11:25.160like everybody would get a bag of cookies and a custom cup of which you sometimes see that our
03:11:31.720cups around still we would do those every winter nights and we had non-stop coffee so there was
03:11:38.280homemade cookies and coffee for everybody it was really cool and then we had local entertainment
03:11:43.240play for us a couple who were professional musicians as well as having a well-known
03:11:50.920music uh business music instruments so and that's where yes we adopted the trihorns
03:12:01.240as the official symbol of the astro folk assembly these are adopted from the snoddle of stone in
03:12:06.840denmark seen amongst a couple of other notable solar symbols uh these represent the three horns
03:12:16.520of odinic inspiration uh son bolden and oh here is steve in 2007 uh fighting for the rights of
03:12:31.640veterans to have the uh the hammer upon their like official dod tombstones can can we go back
03:12:40.040to the trihorns real quick what what led to this as opposed to just continuing to use the raido
03:12:49.560symbol i see this as a a a very well i'll put it yeah turning it's it's it's i see it in movement
03:13:06.680it's forward progress um and uh i i just i think it's just that yeah so just just to ask
03:13:17.880group what was i guess what i'm asking is what was the the mindset about at the time about why
03:13:23.080the logo needed to be to i guess it's not changed because we still use raito but you know what i
03:13:28.440mean yeah why do we need to do that you know we really were not using the rhido very much it was
03:13:36.520on that one banner and maybe you'd see it inside runestone or something but we were using a lot of
03:13:43.960other artwork and we always wanted we always wanted to in fact we put up competition sometimes
03:13:49.720asking people send us your logo idea send us your idea for all sorts of things that you know
03:13:55.960asking people to contribute and at some point steve came upon this i do think that's the uh
03:14:02.200the the trip to denmark no this was long before that yeah okay my bad i'd like to add um something
03:14:11.080that i read that you wrote steve at the time was in searching for a new symbol is not wanting to be
03:14:19.160tied to the destiny and the fate of the astro free assembly um something that we talk about here a
03:14:27.640lot and i think that uh spawn and i talked about this on last week when you name something and you
03:14:32.920affix an identity to something it has a hymenia it has a degree of a soul to it and it has a destiny
03:14:41.480and you wrote that you know this is a different organization it's built upon the lineage of that
03:14:48.360but it's its own thing and you didn't want it to have the same the same destiny and the same
03:14:53.640trajectory so to forge a new path to uh to adopt a new symbol and i don't think at that point the
03:15:01.400trihorns have been decided upon but i remember reading that article in the runestone a couple
03:15:06.600years ago yeah a lot of change started happening at this point we really did get out of our our
03:15:14.520mode of doing things locally and for instance this came up you know the opportunity to do some travel
03:15:21.000in other parts of the country go out and visit joe merrick was involved in this um but it was
03:15:28.280it was a time of forward looking and um yeah you meant to ask this earlier but bode when did you
03:15:35.800get involved in ausa troop um i um let's see i think when we were talking earlier about 1997
03:15:47.400and everybody was saying oh that's what i did that's what i was doing you know i was just born
03:15:51.560i think i met my first foster tour in 1997 but i was doing the whole neo-pagan thing because
03:15:58.120i thought that was the right way to go and those people are all nuts um uh 2000 it was um 2000 when
03:16:07.640When I first started kind of really sniffing around in 2001, I think you and founder and a couple other of us have the kind of similar stories.
03:16:21.800All of a sudden it just kind of hit us, you know, I was struck with the realization that all this other BS that I was doing,
03:16:30.820trying to figure out, you know, my spirituality and my, you know, the correct faith for me,
03:16:37.140just shaving my ugly mug in the mirror one morning.
03:16:40.520And I said, and this was probably spring of 2001, I said, you know, I need to find
03:18:09.280Yeah, I had also come home to House True in 2001, this time 2007. I think I was still involved with
03:18:19.460what I think they were calling the heathen folk revival with a guy Sean Ridland and Wyatt
03:18:27.340Kaldenberg and we were doing something you know kind of online and I kept trying to get them like
03:18:33.980hey why don't we join the AFA they're actively doing real things in the world and you know
03:18:39.960everybody wants to be the king of their own little their own little backyard fiefdom this is when I
03:18:45.600started really wanting to be part of the Austria Folk Assembly that it you know inspired me since
03:18:51.2602001 but wanted to get involved well I want to share I want to share a little rabbit hole since
03:18:57.140you said we could do rabbit holes tonight yes so in 2002 uh so I was an officer of all of like a
03:19:05.780year and a year and some change um I take that back it wasn't even a full year um in the southeast
03:19:13.880We were kind of all loosely, like I said, kind of clumped in little dribs and drabs here and there.
03:19:19.240But this group, because if you guys have been paying attention the whole night, we were talking about, you know, when I said that for those of us in the in the eastern half of the country, the AFA was the California thing.
03:19:31.220Well, there's also the sentiment back then that, you know, those AFA guys and there's Austria Alliance guys and there's Troth guys, you know, screw them because they're just trying to like, they're trying to nationalize this.
03:19:45.520They're trying to make this like a big deal.
03:19:47.020And we want to maintain our, you know, five dudes sitting around a fire.
03:19:53.020Like, who are these national organization?0.80
03:19:55.040So there was this actually this kind of sentiment of anti-national organizationism, which was kind of silly.
03:20:02.260But in 2002, I was invited to and went to a moot that was put on by a organization that called themselves Kayak, C-I-A-K, which stood for Confederation of Independent Ocetree Kindreds.
03:20:20.320Yep. And these were the guys who were like, you know, you know, we're going to flip up. We're going to put the middle finger up to the AFA and the AA and the right because they're trying to be nationalist organizations. But, you know, to combat that, we're going to create an organization. It was just extremely silly.
03:21:33.100in the meantime steve you were in our nation's capital trying to get uh
03:21:46.540out true recognition for fallen soldiers do you have anything to share with us about that
03:21:54.860well obviously i felt very very strongly about that about the issue
03:22:03.100Being a veteran myself, it was, I thought it was inspiring because it seemed like there was a lot of folks there.
03:22:12.840There were, of course, also a lot of people, organizations that we didn't really go along with, you know, the Bay Area, you know, Witchy Poo.
03:37:19.100We learned all the little nooks and crannies and, you know, had built up a trusted relationship with the camp leadership there and could kind of do what we want.
03:37:27.700It got to the point where, you know, by the end, they would just give us the keys and we could, you know, use anything on site and they wouldn't bother us all weekend.
03:37:35.520But this was our first time there. So the learning curve was was just just beginning.
03:37:42.400but it was, it was really amazing. And, and it was properly cold, you know, it didn't snow that
03:37:49.960year, but it was, it was, it was cold at night. And I, I'm pretty sure I, I was tenting. There
03:37:57.280weren't a whole lot of people tenting that year out in the field, but I was one of them.
03:38:01.360um gosh yeah and i i met i met a few people that um that i'm still still friends with today i i
03:38:12.080believe jason plourd was that at that event as well i think so the board was there and i i think
03:38:18.240that is where i met him if it wasn't it was like the second time i ever met him um i met a few other
03:38:25.360people that would be important to me for a time but that you know aren't aren't aligned with us
03:38:30.320or aren't um in in my life anymore and uh i was kind of a pain in the butt back then i still give
03:38:38.720it gave pat a whole oh i gave pat a hard time about signing up because like bode mentioned i
03:38:43.360was still kind of in that camp of like why do we need national organizations i definitely didn't see
03:38:50.320the asa true folk assembly or the asa true alliance or the odinic right or the troth or
03:38:58.160any of those as like a church that wasn't the way that it was looked at by a lot of people
03:39:06.400back then at least it was a if it wasn't a majority view it was uh like a plurality view
03:39:13.460if you will so um this is this event definitely firmed up in my mind that the afa was was a force
03:39:19.620to be reckoned with and by the time the next winter nights rolled around i had officially
03:39:24.400joined um and had you know been dragged off of that fence by um by my dedicated folk builder and
03:39:32.000mentor pat bode you were at this event also weren't you i was that's where i first met
03:39:39.980clifford erickson as well um i don't know if i think i remember cliff and i talking but
03:39:46.880um a few points me i remember yep and that's back uh if you'll allow me to share some ancient lore
03:39:55.040um back then our uh our al-shariah godi was known by a little little poem he was the man
03:40:04.940the myth of the mountain matt flavel um because matt was quite possibly the swollest person there
03:40:11.280um yeah he was he graduated from jugs of milk by that time to uh uh already his luggage consisted
03:40:19.660mostly of protein and supplements um so that was pretty rad i remember him uh making that but i
03:40:27.000don't know matt if you remember like we became kind of fast friends me you and uh brad and all
03:40:31.720those guys and um the evening of that symbol and for those playing along at home if you want to
03:40:38.260you know, check your programs. That was Dylan Sprouse of Disney fame that, uh, threatened to,
03:40:44.820you know, threatened vengeance on his grandfather's murderer. Um, but we were all standing around in
03:40:51.300the kitchen and we, we thought the night was over because we were like, well, we ran too long.
03:40:57.700Sumble's probably not going to happen. But then, uh, founder McNally said, no, we're having
03:41:01.900Sumble tonight. And we're like, all right, we're having Sumble tonight. And everybody's looking
03:41:05.980at their watches and they're going but it's 11 p.m. and we're like yep um and uh uh one of the
03:41:12.920guys made a joke about listen if the big man says you stumble at 11 you stumble at 11 and we're like
03:41:17.340all right cool um some of us refer to that symbol as the bataan death march symbol because you can
03:41:24.300see you can see by this photo of everybody standing around in the main uh ritual area
03:41:29.400All of those people, and probably more, were in the hall for Sumble.
03:53:00.580So we would see all these driving through the countryside and it's pretty flat country
03:53:04.340denmark we'd see these you know different little raised bumps on the landscape and they were
03:53:11.300obviously not natural we'd ask people and they were these these dolmens which were these stone
03:53:17.860quote unquote burial chambers but you didn't find urns or bodies in them um so these were everywhere
03:53:27.300and we were driving through and so one day and we had this yeah so anyways one day we're over there
03:53:34.340And we stop in the middle of this guy's farm, and I think we're getting out and figuring out about directions, or I don't know.
03:53:44.320We have a caravan of, you know, three or four different vehicles, and somebody runs off over towards one of these kind of little hill things, and we don't think much of it, and they come back.
03:53:56.140And they ask if we want to go and check and go inside one of these dolmens.
03:54:01.540And we, you know, of course we, I mean, the only answer to that question is yes, but we didn't know what to expect.
03:54:08.760And they had gone in before us, and this next part doesn't make sense, but it is what it is, so it happened.
03:54:15.500They'd gone in before us and lit these tea light candles, and these are inside of this burial chamber.
03:54:23.960It's made up of all these flat stones, so there's all these little irregular ledges where the stones are set together.
03:54:30.820And they set up all these different little tea lights on them.
03:54:34.020And so it was nice and really cool ambiance inside.
03:54:37.840But when we went up to this entrance, it was as if nobody had gone into it.
03:55:29.700And, uh, we did this and so to get into this, there's what you see here, this opening into the mound, but then you, it's probably a chamber that's, I don't know, maybe 10 foot in there.
03:55:43.580This is probably maybe three foot high. You can kind of bend as the maximum you could and squat down and kind of inch your way into it.
03:55:54.740but it was really really powerful and we were going into the womb of the earth here and doing
03:56:01.800this and doing our galltering and this was a you know the locals thought that these were places of
03:56:10.560stasis where they'd put a body wait for the soul to you know cast off its requisite parts and then
03:56:18.320would take the body for you know burial or or cremation or whatever elsewhere and that was you
03:56:26.960know i don't know if that's true or not that's what the locals had told us they thought the case was
03:56:33.040but we did this ceremony in there and then when we were coming back out it was very much
03:56:37.920a rebirth and a re-emerging into the world you look out of this as if the camera were
03:56:43.520flip the opposite direction and you see out over these fields and this you know could have been
03:56:49.440very ancient uh farmland but you look a little bit further and as your eyes adjust to the light
03:56:55.360you start seeing some power lines on a highway off in the distance and we went in here and had
03:57:01.120this transformative experience and then we emerged back out in the world and it's one of the most
03:57:07.440powerful i don't know moments in my life was was this it was really really special and i'm i'm
03:57:13.760very glad that i got to be a part of that here's us if they had a um austro cemetery there and they
03:57:24.640had to rent this space i assume they're still renting it from a uh a lutheran cemetery there
03:57:33.760but they have a communal burial space in there to enter ashes of dead asatruar within this stone
03:57:41.600circle and each of the families could create their own um plaque within this concrete symbolic shield
03:57:51.680wall and i'm curious uh how far how far that's grown since that time i'm really not sure but
03:58:00.480i'd be really interested to know but this is a really cool thing that they did the first
03:58:05.520you know modern house true burial site that i've seen
03:58:12.560here's us we had this uh panel there uh there's me on the end and steve and uh brad and lars
03:58:22.560and uh wasn't super heavily attended but a number of folks there i don't know i'd say maybe 15 20
03:58:32.320people something like that uh this this house a true elder um had just had some surgery and he
03:58:45.760was in the hospital and he kind of checked himself out because it was very important
03:58:51.360he knew that steve had come there and he wanted to perform this this bloat for steve we were
03:58:57.520doing a fray faxy like a frayer bloat there and um we had this guide and she was eccentric and
03:59:12.080like aggressively demanding and kind of a harsh to be around lady in a lot of ways but
03:59:19.200really cool in a lot of ways too she would go out in uh i think she was a stewardess and when she
03:59:26.000wasn't at work she would go like sleep in these dolmens and and stone circles and holy places
03:59:34.720off in the woods and she was a very mystical really cool lady i appreciated getting to spend
03:59:40.080some time with her but she was a lot but she was just like really abrasive and really aggressive
03:59:45.200in a lot of ways but it was neat because she was just so in your face the whole time but when she
03:59:53.760got around this guy she just became a little girl because this was like her mentor that had taught
03:59:58.480her about alsatru and she immediately completely changed her whole presence and we did this uh
04:00:06.400this frayer bloat in this stone circle around this dolman um with wheat fields all around us
04:00:13.680or grain fields at least all around us and off in the distance if you look at this straight on
04:00:18.320where we're looking to your yeah left and then up there was a stable with some horses and the horses
04:00:25.760were dancing as we did this bloat it was really very very cool you need to bring that up on saturday
04:04:04.660I think I discovered Alcetru in 2012 after, you know, square peg round hole of, you know, other spiritual paths and, you know, kind of dug into it and didn't realize it even had a name for a while.
04:04:18.660And then, you know, found the word Alcetru.
04:04:20.520You Google Alcetru, you come across the name Steve McMillan.
04:04:24.000And that kind of led to some other stuff that, you know, I was looking into when it comes to stuff going on in the world.
04:04:32.200So two paths were kind of merging together.
04:04:34.680And I remember seeing those those photos from where you guys were squatted around the room.
04:04:42.200And I specifically remember the tribal shirt that Mr. McNallan's wearing in that shirt.
04:04:46.980And I remember thinking, oh, these guys are really cool.
04:04:49.480They flew all the way from California over to Denmark.
04:04:51.760I imagine they don't do anything on the East Coast, and I kind of set where I was at until, you know, I didn't, I think there was a Red Ice episode that Mr. Flabel was on a little while later that they had discussed.
04:05:05.260They had just had Ostara in Georgia that year, and I'm like, that's right next door. I don't know how I missed that.
04:05:11.600So, yeah, that was, that was where the hospitality journey for the young household started was in 2014, and I specifically remember coming across that thinking how cool that was.
04:05:21.760uh nick you said you had something you wanted to share yeah this uh this west virginia picture is
04:05:27.040the first in what's going to be a series of pictures on this slideshow where i think matt
04:05:31.520was just going through old runestones saw pictures that went that's cool let's put it on the slideshow
04:05:38.400so there's going to be a group of these that are kind of random but let's talk about them
04:05:43.520yeah it was to give flavor and the idea eventually this was going to be presented at uh
04:05:49.520at sigurbloat in tennessee there and i wanted you know some of the early appearances of
04:05:56.480some of these folks to to be on there this is a uh burial that we did for an afa member
04:06:04.080in west virginia that was um one of the first uh department of defense issued
04:06:10.880military plaques with bjolnir on it this was for uh clark woe and weber
04:06:18.560There's me and Brad and a friend of mine, Julian, there in the middle.
04:06:26.760I actually just heard from him today, as a matter of fact.
04:12:24.220well bode do you want to tell everybody the story about when you first met steve
04:12:32.460oh boy um i've told the story a thousand times it feels like um it was uh in 2003 and at that point
04:12:47.020uh yahoo groups were all the rage and there was a yahoo group called our meat hall and it was
04:12:53.660literally it had started as we had said earlier tonight when we were talking about the the rise
04:12:59.060of universalism so in the late 90s early 2000s on yahoo groups that was kind of where the war
04:13:05.640was being fought uh online between the universalists and those of us who are correct and
04:13:11.580it generally devolved into a bunch of name calling and just you know bad words back and forth by you
04:13:19.300know by two groups of people who really you know should have been trying to find common ground but
04:13:24.800they did in this our meat hall moot yahoo groups and so basically it was a it was a you know you
04:13:32.860know oh i think this about you and i think this about you back and it was kind of okay you know
04:13:37.940why don't you meet me why don't we have a moot and we'll talk about it you know say it to my face
04:13:42.800we'll have a moot and you can say it to my face and so that's what happened i think in 2001 they
04:13:47.320the first meat hall moot um it was a success 2002 was a success i had heard about it by then
04:13:54.120i was also true that but that time very new 2003 i went with my um my then wife and uh in-laws
04:14:03.560and we had our own little family kindred at the time and um the mo back then the logistics was
04:14:10.920that we're all meeting from around the country in missouri and each kindred family took
04:14:16.440responsibility for cooking a meal for everyone and my family slash kindred had the friday morning
04:14:25.080breakfast and that meat hall moot was really was really important to everybody there because
04:14:31.480steve mcnellan was coming steve and sheila mcnellan were coming and i knew who steve was
04:14:36.440but even though you know it's 2003 i did have the benefit of the internet honestly had no idea what
04:14:42.920steve looked like couldn't have picked him out of the lineup and so early friday morning we're in
04:14:47.820the northern ozarks and i'm in this little cabin in this kitchen and i've got several little flat
04:14:54.660top griddles and and stove and oven in front of me and i'm making scrambled eggs and i'm cooking
04:15:01.520bacon and i'm baking biscuits and i'm doing all this stuff and about halfway through the through
04:15:08.280the cook in walks this very slender fellow wearing a black polo shirt and black jeans
04:15:13.720and with that you know unique voice of his i heard this fellow say uh hey good morning you guys is
04:15:23.260there anything i can do to help and one of my family members said yeah and they pointed over
04:15:29.280at me and said you can go help body cook the rest of whatever and so this old gentleman comes over
04:15:34.200to me older gentleman rather sorry he came over to me and he says uh hey are you Bodie and I said
04:15:39.500yep and he said uh they told me to come help and I said cool why don't you get on the sausages
04:15:43.280right there and pointed to the flat top with all the sausages on it and he didn't say a word he
04:15:49.840said okay sure he grabbed the the tongs and the spatula and Steve and I together and like whipped
04:15:55.700out the rest of this breakfast in short order like a couple of old hand short order cooks and
04:16:00.360And so everything was over with, you know, and we had all every plated up was ready to feed the folk.
04:16:06.120And I'm kind of wiping my hand off, you know, on a tea towel or whatever or a kitchen towel.
04:16:11.280And I stuck my hand out and I said, I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch your name.
04:16:14.620And he stuck his hand out and gave me a very firm handshake and said, I'm Steve McNallan.
04:16:18.860And I've literally kind of wilted while he was shaking my hand because I was like, oh, crap, because the overriding thought going through my little pea brain at that moment was
04:16:29.360for the past 15 20 minutes i've been ordering around the father of modern austro like he was0.71
04:16:34.440a private in the army you know i'm like oh no you know i have committed a faux pas and i said i said
04:16:43.440as much to him later that day and steve just you know laughed and clapped me on the shoulder and
04:16:48.180gave me a hug and said it's all right dude you know it's you know i was happy to help and
04:16:52.440i always tell that story and i believe that's a year ago that he wants me to tell it every now
04:16:56.780and then to illustrate just what a good man Steve is.
04:17:01.440I mean, he is who he is, and he didn't think twice.
04:17:05.560And he and Sheila had just gotten off the plane
04:21:20.580these are these are your people all right take us back to uh to you and your world in 2015
04:21:31.960around the time of this okay so um the march 2015 picture of uh gothi mayo being ordained the first
04:21:43.240time is right when i discovered alcitru i've told the story before and i'll tell it briefly here i
04:21:48.680guess for history's sake um uh Dalton and Karen Woodward the two people standing in front of Nick
04:21:56.800in that picture were my childhood best friends they're no longer members or else true I guess
04:22:01.340but at the time we were in our senior year of high school a couple months from graduating
04:22:05.860and Dalton comes into math class after having attended that old star where Bodhi got ordained
04:22:10.740the first time and I was you know the typical kind of edgy liberal atheist of uh my high school
04:22:18.640But for whatever reason, Dalton describing Altair Goethe-McNallon at the time, his Odinblow at that event, it was like the flip of a switch, and I wanted to make my entire life about Alcetru, and, you know, I did.
04:22:33.800so uh and then i joined the afa like two weeks before that picture of you guys standing at the
04:22:42.760stone in front of the ritual circle at what's now odenshoff uh so midsummer that year this event
04:22:50.720in particular uh 2015 sounds right um i would have been yeah 18 we would have just started our
04:23:01.320first semester of college me and uh the woodward's there lots of people in there who joined the afa
04:23:08.280and left or a couple of them that never joined
04:23:10.900yep that's pretty much it as far as catching up to october 2015 i hadn't been to a national event
04:23:20.640or anything yet at that time those people in that picture were the only people i had met
04:43:23.000Okay. So, here is Ostara in the South, March of 2017. This was the best Ostara in the South
04:43:38.280until we started hosting them at Thorshof. It was a really important event for a number of reasons.
04:43:48.700Um, this event was, so I became, uh, I was Harry Gauthier in, uh, mid-summer of 2016, but at Ostara of 2016 is when that process really started in earnest.
04:44:08.680So this was just about a year of me trying to do my best.
04:44:17.760And the first, I mean, the first order of business was don't mess it up.
04:44:23.840Um, Steve had done such an amazing job of building this over such amount of time and
04:44:36.060making this such an amazing thing that I wanted to make sure that I was worthy of it.
04:44:40.920I wanted to make sure that, you know, I didn't drop the ball and I didn't mess up what people
04:44:47.820had spent so much of themselves creating. I didn't want to mess that up. I, you know,
04:44:55.520and there was a lot of soul searching and work and coming closer to the ICR and working with
04:45:04.960my colleagues, trying to, you know, really be worthy and do the best job I could in that year
04:45:13.060and see, you know, what I could do and, and, you know, how I could, how I could do this. And if I
04:45:20.940was up to the task, and this is a really important event for that. Um, I've mentioned this on the
04:45:26.500show before. And, uh, so I was hoping Svon would be here for this. He was at this event. It was,
04:45:34.600it was really special and something happened that was very meaningful to me when I was getting
04:45:43.860ready to do Sumble this year or at this event. I went out there and there was a big
04:45:50.700big outdoor fire pit and people were gathered around for Sumble and when I got up to
04:45:58.100bless the horn and start the first round, I was really, I don't know, I was very much
04:46:08.160contemplative and in my thoughts about this event and how this marked kind of a year of
04:46:14.020doing things. And I was standing up and I was just, I was really feeling, I was very much in
04:46:21.460my feelings on it. And I stood up and I was getting ready to make my toast and I felt a
04:46:25.940hand on my shoulder and a reassuring you know grip on my shoulder to tell me I was doing good
04:46:35.540and you know they were with me and I turned around you know didn't think anything of it other than I
04:46:44.780really appreciated it and I turned around to uh to thank you know whoever done that I assumed it
04:46:50.540was Alan. There was no one anywhere near me, not to mention no one in arms reach, but there was
04:46:58.600no one anywhere close to they could have scurried and sat back down. And that moment, I believe
04:47:05.740very much that the Allfather put his hand on my shoulder and, I don't know, approved of me being
04:47:13.200the Allsheria Gophie. That's very much something I deeply believe to my core, and I don't say
04:47:20.100lightly and it was really important to me and that's why i wanted to make sure this slide was in
04:47:23.940here um so later that year uh that's the year that in i guess december 2016 in january 2017
04:47:41.860mandy and i moved out to california we're in california for about a year but we needed to
04:47:46.660move out west to be near the Hoff and again the Hoff because it was the only Hoff at that time.
04:47:54.580So we got married and did our the first marriage at Odens Hoff here in June of 2017.
04:48:03.860Southern picture is not anywhere near that time but it's a good picture of us so I left it in there
04:48:08.660a picture with me with the hat that was at Ostara in the south I think maybe a year later
04:48:15.9402018 but it's a good picture so i kept it in there and there's alan performing our wedding
05:03:02.360That's about as much as I can remember.
05:03:04.320All right. So, January of 2020 brings us to 25 years, quarter of a century of the Astro Folk Assembly. Just an exciting and important milestone that we wanted to acknowledge in that.
05:03:24.640In March of 2020, at Ostara in the South, Witten Svahn was ordained as a Gothi.
05:03:34.820um this was a really cool event we had we were in contract for thorshoff at the time
05:03:47.060but we wanted to keep it as close to you know under wraps as we could to not foul any kind
05:03:53.380of deal or make any waves but we were very very close to having thorshoff at this point
05:04:00.460And this was, you know, right down the road from where Thorshoff would be.
05:04:06.900And it was the last event that Terry Rumpf was at.
05:04:18.080It was the last Ostara in the south before it found its home at Thorshoff.
05:04:24.920So a lot of really important things were in the works when this was going on.
05:04:30.040that was when i started apprenticing also there you go do you have any recollections
05:04:36.840of this event or this time period absolutely um some that are um all of them directly afa related
05:04:44.360but also personally at the same time um you know our our local folk builder in the carolinas had
05:04:51.400just tucked tailed and run and the ericsons were um going to be uh staying at their place for this
05:05:00.440event which was over in eastern north carolina and they were just going to drive down to south
05:05:05.240carolina and uh i touched base with uh the guy that eventually took over the event in their stead
05:05:11.880and said you know hey if anybody needs a place to crash because i where i live now is only about
05:05:16.920an hour from that site where we held the event and uh somebody said yeah the ericsson's been
05:05:22.840up for a place and i said well you know shooting my info and they can come crash at my place and
05:05:28.920and they did and uh that was where i expressed interest to them about you know wanting to become
05:05:36.120a gothy and uh you know do my part to chip in to the afa because there was a you know kind of a
05:05:42.200vacuum in the Carolinas. And interestingly enough, and this is just probably more a personal thing,
05:05:49.740but it's something I think is cool to share. The guy that split on us from North Carolina,
05:05:56.340apparently, you know, words had got pretty heated between he and Cliff upon his departure,
05:06:02.060at least through social media and stuff like that. And Cliff didn't know how I felt about it. And he
05:06:07.440wouldn't come into my house until we talked. So he stood on my porch, but wouldn't break the
05:06:12.720threshold until we sat outside and talked for like three hours. And I just thought that was a
05:06:18.660hell of a gesture by a hell of a man. So I mean, I met Cliff before this, but I didn't know him.
05:06:24.840And that really kind of started what, you know, has blossomed into a, you know, really wonderful
05:06:29.700friendship kind of started that weekend. Also, another cool, you know, reflective part of this
05:06:36.860is uh i remember the day we got there we got there a day early with the rest of leadership
05:06:44.520even though we weren't members of leadership because we we opened up our homes to the erickson's
05:06:49.860you know they said you know come on down thursday and we did and uh i was here to go through
05:06:56.180flavel showed up and i didn't know that mr mcnalon was coming and somebody said oh yeah he's over
05:07:01.200they're talking to steve i said like the steve yeah that guy so i rushed like hell over there
05:07:07.420that to that house for that driveway was these big old houses that were part of the uh the rental
05:07:12.520and all that i remember sitting on the tailgate of my pickup and having a beer with the father
05:07:17.640of modern ostrich i remember thinking he's real you know i was trying not to go like fanboy on him
05:07:23.340and uh really had some cool conversations with him but i when i was walking away from that you
05:07:30.480know kind of sticking my chest out i just had a beer with the father of modern ostrich ever says
05:07:35.460to me that spawn was looking for me and uh this place was right on lake murray right outside of
05:07:41.380columbia he was down by the lake and i went down there to go see what was up or whatever and again
05:07:46.580i knew who spawn was we had met no spawn and uh spawn was wearing those really dark wayfarer
05:07:52.640glasses and he looked really like almost angry you know i think that's just the way he looked
05:07:57.420And I thought, you know, maybe I'd done some kind of like cultural faux pas or something.
05:08:02.160I don't know. And he asked me, he said, hey, man, will you have my back with this this half project that's going to be in eastern North Carolina?
05:08:09.040Because he was tasked with keeping it afloat from Virginia Beach three hours away.
05:08:15.240And I said, absolutely. And that was the beginning of the partnership and friendship with me and Swan, too.
05:08:23.000So there's a lot of, like, I don't want to paint it out like it was turmoil or whatever, but Heather and I arrived at that event because we had just lost our fault builder, several fault builders from the Carolinas in the previous year.
05:08:36.380And, like, so what we saw as the AFA locally was just gone and with no notice or anything.
05:08:43.740And we were kind of there, like, rudderless, like we didn't know what our purpose was going to be.
05:08:47.720and it was like coming to this event and connecting with Trent,
05:08:51.520connecting with the Ericsons, connecting with Swan,
05:08:54.200and aha, Thor's office coming to the Carolinas,
05:21:39.400It's another story of we were willing to take on a building that needed a tremendous amount of remodeling
05:21:46.060because we had people there that swore their loyalty up and down and they were all in and they were super duper loyal.
05:21:53.220And as soon as we got a Hoff, again, bowels to water, and they disappeared on us.
05:22:01.340But as is so often the case, our really amazing folks that we have, led by Witten Brandy, stepped up and made it happen.
05:22:13.160And in a just tremendous way that I couldn't, we couldn't ask for better, turned into a beautiful, beautiful temple to Balder.
05:22:20.640and something that we're very proud of it's really cool right from the very beginning
05:22:27.580bringing the whole family in to help work with her her oldest boy we're standing there right
05:22:32.920next to you yeah I appreciate we got a picture of me doing stuff there I put in an afternoon
05:22:41.520of work there so many others put in days and days and days but I was there for the photo op
05:22:48.700appreciate that um i want to point out too that it was it was a real it was a band of real tough guys
05:22:56.540up there that that tuck tailed and run and and left it to two women to hold that basket and make
05:23:04.540it you know and at least get started on making it what what it has become real tough guys yeah
05:23:11.580Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's proofs in the pudding when it gets real. That's when you see what people are made of. And we've seen that when we get our Hoffs and the God's witness and the God's remember.
05:23:30.400more work that was put in there anybody who's been down the stairs in the feasting hall there
05:23:37.760will notice how far we've come from this
05:23:40.900in march of that following year of 2021 we were able to dedicate this third half of the
05:23:53.520House True Folk Assembly, and our hofta to Lord Balder there, a moment of tremendous pride for
05:24:01.680all of us. Funny note, Cliff said that, you know, he was not able to be there for this dedication,
05:24:08.580but he sent his wife and his daughter to it. So Cliff's daughter and my daughter are almost
05:24:18.400exactly the same age and it's a funny thing it's a strange anecdote but it just it's what i remember
05:24:26.720so here it is i was at that she got into where she's at the point where she's scream crying in
05:24:32.960the car when we're trying to drive places so i am white knuckle erratic scared for my safety like
05:24:41.200insane because my daughter's screaming in the back of the car and i'm like ah
05:24:44.800And every drive with that was just nails on a chalkboard, me at full, you know, tension, trying to get the car from point A to point B safely because it's just setting off all of the, you know, all of the bells and whistles in my head.
05:25:00.640there's something about your own child's noises that just hit real different. I flew up there
05:25:10.120and Katie and I and Alice shared a rental car to go from Minneapolis Airport to this.
05:25:18.600Alice was doing the same screaming thing in the back of the car, but it's not my kid. Like,
05:25:22.880hey, Alice, calm down. It's okay. And I'm fine. Everything is completely calm.
05:25:28.880zero difference other than it's not mine that's screaming in the back.
05:29:41.000I really like doing that when I'm talking to our students about how stressful, challenging, but at the same time, it's probably the most fun I've had in my ostry journey personally.
05:29:53.760Yeah, a lot of really permanent bonds were built during that time.
05:29:58.240Absolutely. Literal bonds by people who take oaths very seriously, by the way.
05:30:02.420At that same event, Heather took her folk builder oath, too, and that was equally a big deal in this household.
05:30:59.380Yeah, it was a really exceptional group of people. It was really a special time. It's one of those, I don't do that. I'm not going to just say nice things because I'm supposed to. I will not say anything. I'm not going to like, I mean, there's a time and a place. I'm not going to be rude.
05:31:18.720but I'm also not going to give compliments or say things I don't mean because I think that's
05:31:23.560really important. And this was and is, you know, a group of people that I'm tremendously proud of
05:31:30.440and we have built upon in a really important way. And I appreciate you gentlemen very much.
05:31:35.940In June of 2022, we got our fourth Hoff. In just seven years there, we've got four Hoffs now.
05:31:51.280So we got Njord's Hoff in White Springs, Florida.
05:31:54.600um a lot a long time coming we had a big
05:32:00.920a steady I don't know a steady surge of enthusiasm in Florida for a long time and we had a
05:32:11.400a kindred there American crow kindred that had been putting in you know doing bloat to
05:32:17.600there for years very piously devoted a lot of themselves to his worship in that state
05:32:26.800and it worked out really well and they were a big part of us getting getting this off
05:32:33.840it's beautiful it's on a beautiful piece of land with you know these really cool uh live oaks
05:32:40.160which are some of my favorite things they've got their own gator in one of their two ponds there
05:32:44.480which is awesome so we're excited about that
05:32:53.920the work begins there was a you know a lot of work to be done there and guys did a great job
05:33:06.640this broadcast victory never sleeps started
05:33:09.760a little bit over three years ago now.
05:33:14.400It doesn't seem like it was that long, but it was.
05:34:28.160I did, and I watched the episode while flying.
05:34:31.380in August of 2022 we did the official dedication um again we were graced with another one of Svon's
05:34:44.340amazing murals um was a very special event it was really uh meaningful to me so I uh
05:34:55.140I mentioned before in December of 2014 I've moved down to Florida and
05:35:01.380I had lived in Alaska for, I don't know, like 33 years or something at that point.
05:35:05.760I moved down to Florida for two years with the woman who had become my wife.
05:35:14.100And there's turmoil there with a mentor of mine and his kindred and falling out over some things.
05:35:23.560And negative folks that parted with the AFA having, you know, prognosticating doom and gloom and, you know, we'd never be able to be successful and the AFA could never possibly be successful with me running it and all this other stuff.
05:35:42.940And so I left Florida with a lot to prove when I moved out west.
05:35:49.060It was really special to me that when I returned back to Florida, I brought with me a Hoff.
05:35:56.620And that is a big point of pride with me.
05:36:02.020um also from the ordination this is where we ordained gothi lane ashby he leads um and led
05:36:18.520at the time and the the placement of the uh black sun halo around his head is just circumstantial
05:36:24.820here uh but it but it worked out well um he was ordained uh he is the guy that his kindred and his
05:36:34.820dutiful worship of nyorder over the years um is what allowed this off to happen and take shape
05:36:43.140and it's much appreciated and so we wanted to make sure we ordained him at that that dedication uh
05:36:49.300there's cliff in the background there and spawn over in the other corner you can't see his head
05:36:54.100but that's him i promise laughing or smiling about something i said that i have i've mislabeled
05:37:01.220swan before but i can tell by the stole so i'm i'm pretty confident on this one
05:37:08.580in august of 2022 we launched the first class of the austro academy this is
05:37:17.060not flashy it is something that is a slow burn on seeing the results of but it's one of the most
05:37:25.540important things we've ever done um we have known for many many years that we needed a place to
05:37:34.740homeschool our kids that public schools uh again we have an international audience so it may look
05:37:40.500different, different places. But public schools in the United States have become often very, very
05:37:51.860bad places to have your children. Doesn't mean every place. You know, I don't, my mom was a
05:37:58.100school teacher her entire life. I'm not trying to denigrate the institution and everybody that
05:38:05.040works there, but it's really become something quite negative. And it's become a place where
05:38:09.420often kids are abused by their cultural enrichment and taught to hate their parents and to hate all
05:38:22.120of the values that we try to instill in them while literally being victimized and not safe
05:38:27.920in many instances. So again, if you find yourself in a spot where your school district's great,
05:38:34.160that is wonderful. And I'm really happy that you have that. A lot of people don't. We wanted to
05:38:39.080sure we had the opportunity for our children to have the support they need for families to have
05:38:44.680the support they need to educate their children in a way that is in keeping with their values
05:38:50.360that protects their children spiritually and physically and we have that now we are currently
05:38:58.360enrolling for the for the uh 20 so forget 2025 2026 school year we are taking children from
05:39:08.520kindergarten to seventh grade at present so the commitment in august of 2022 was to have
05:39:15.000kindergarten and then to follow those children to where you know by now we'd have uh
05:39:24.920third grade ready for them but uh gothe stam and the people who've helped him
05:39:31.320have made sure that we now have k through seven so they've certainly overachieved on that
05:39:38.520In December of 2022, we purchased Sigerhaim and that land there in Jackson County, Tennessee.
05:39:52.180That is going to be the home of Tearshoff, which will be our first purpose-built hoff.
05:39:57.980It is where we have hosted Sigerbloat each summer in July.
05:40:04.040it is a really amazing and special place it is something we put a lot of trust in uh and daniel
05:40:13.300here to scout for us because i was looking at places across the country and relying on him to
05:40:19.420go check it out and be the boots on the ground and he did he hit it out of the park with this spot
05:45:07.420This book, especially, was really neat to read some of Steve's writing again.
05:45:15.360Anyone who doesn't know or hasn't had the pleasure yet, our founder made a living off of writing at one point in time.
05:45:22.440And he's a very powerful author and he writes in a really distinctive way.
05:45:29.240And he's one of the people that when I read something that he's written, I can it's like I can hear him speaking it in my head as I'm reading it.
05:45:36.220And so that was really cool when I read this book for the first time is to kind of experience that again in the same way.
05:45:43.220way. July of that year, we held the first Sigur bloat at Sigurheim there. There is us.
05:46:01.140I am in an unusual state of casual dress for a ritual. It was overwhelmingly hot and humid
05:46:09.380and I was not prepared, but we had an amazing event there, very special, and I can't say
05:46:19.620enough good about that place. It is truly, truly amazing. Somebody is asking over in the comments,
05:46:26.280where is the Tears Hoff land? It is right here on the slide in Jackson County, Tennessee.
05:46:32.220here is the naming of the afa sword the sword of victory being a symbol of success
05:46:47.080of accomplishment and of the afa hymenia leading us forward to future victories is a really
05:46:55.560important thing. In July of 2023, the sword was named. It was named Relentless. It is a Confederate
05:47:05.260used heavy cavalry saber. That model of sword was known as the old risk breaker because it
05:47:15.460was particularly heavy to wield and to swing. This was buried for over 100 years in a southern
05:47:25.320barn, just in case the time would come where it was needed again, if the south should rise,
05:47:32.620and it is now the official sword of the Ostru Folk Assembly.
05:47:41.220On that sword, Gauthier Mayo, who is no... Ah, he is still with us. I was going to say he's no
05:47:47.900longer with us, and I realized that sounded like he is dead, and he is not. Here he is. Bodie,
05:47:53.880This is you taking your second ordination oath.
05:47:56.540Is there anything you would like to add to this?
05:48:03.220I mean, it was a great day and one of the greatest days of my life here to present.
05:48:10.080I remember afterwards you commenting that I was really giving you a run for your money trying to hold relentless
05:48:21.940because I was so caught up in the moment
05:48:25.260that I was very forcefully pressing down
05:51:52.380A lot of the other folks here have talked about their first time getting to meet Founder McNallan and the like cool conversation they had with him or bossing him around and telling him to cook the sausages.
05:52:10.020I'd thankfully or fortunately been able to meet him a few times before this, but this was really the first time I ever got to have a one on one with him.
05:52:17.300And, well, I guess it was, there was four of us there, but, you know, a personal conversation, lots of fun stories, and lots of stories that I was sworn not to tell, so you won't hear them, but it was awesome.
05:52:33.780Good deal. In August 2023, we ordained Gauthier Nathan Erlinson, a powerful force in building our folk in the Baldershof area.
05:52:50.440and in december of 2023 we dedicated uh the statues to our founder steve mcnallen and his
05:53:02.680lovely wife githya sheila mcnallen um it was important that we build what will one day be
05:53:11.220the capital of the house true folk assembly literally around these two and around this
05:53:19.860moment of reforging our faith um steve is facing to the north there and this recreates
05:53:29.040a picture that we saw hours ago in this slideshow um yeah it recreates this one of my favorite
05:53:38.760pictures. And we wanted to recreate that in bronze and have that adorn the capital of the
05:53:50.200Astru Folk Assembly. So that was a very special thing and a very special moment. And I appreciate
05:53:55.700everybody who went out during Yule that year to get that set up. Witten Svon went out and a number
05:54:03.140other gentlemen helped him get that all arranged and cemented in and set up um
05:54:10.820so yeah that was something that was very important to me that i wanted to do for
05:54:15.540many years is to get statues made and uh by 2023 we were able to make that a reality
05:54:22.740And in May of 2024, we honored kings Anfrith of Brenicia and Osric of Daira.
05:54:37.120These two Anglo-Saxon kings are largely unsung and uncelebrated.
05:57:00.360we celebrated 100 episodes of Victory Never Sleeps.
05:57:04.560We appreciate, again, every one of you that's made this possible.
05:57:10.180That was a milestone for us and something much appreciated.
05:57:16.520In July, Gauthier Thorgan, who is in a number of these pictures and was very fundamental with Steve and Sheila to the building of the Ossetru Folk Assembly, passed away.
05:57:32.880um i was very fortunate that i got to see him as he was on his deathbed and spend time with him and
05:57:39.660his wife during that period um that meant a lot to me i will forever be grateful that i got that
05:57:46.720time with him and yeah that's so far two men that have lived this through the entirety of their life
05:57:54.680and passed away as priests to the Aesir in our day.
05:58:03.900In August, we laid his remains to rest in the cemetery at Odenshof,
05:58:12.260a cemetery that he helped take care of for a very long time
05:58:16.520and was a big part in making it happen.
05:58:18.100In November, we honored Gauthier Thorstein Guthjansson of the Asatruer Felegith, another
05:58:28.720one of the gentlemen there that founded very much in keeping with our view of Asatru, that
05:58:34.640organization to, again, reforge that ancestral faith.
05:58:41.300um oh and something of note uh isaac bought us a coffee and said 30 years hail the folk
05:58:48.660hail the folk indeed and hail to you isaac thank you very much for your donation we appreciate that
05:58:53.700he also donated 25 to balder's steeple so thank you for that very much appreciated
05:59:02.900and in january of this year we uh celebrated 30 years the ask true folk assembly
05:59:10.340what a tremendous accomplishment and something that I'm so very honored to be a part of and to
05:59:17.300share with these gentlemen on the call with me tonight and with all of you. 30 years of this
05:59:26.180is no small feat and there's much much more to come but 30 years is quite an accomplishment and
05:59:34.420something for us all to be very proud of. In March, we ordained Whitten Young's lovely wife,
05:59:44.840Githya Heather Young, as well as Gothi John Rock. We ordained them at Thorshof at Ostara in the south.
05:59:54.400We are very proud to have them serving as priestess and priest of our Iser.
06:00:04.420and because of how we've grown and that we've divided the world up into hoff districts and
06:00:11.300those districts will get smaller and more centralized and make a little bit more sense
06:00:15.860as we grow but as it is now we have four hoff districts headed up by uh githya sheila mcnalen
06:00:24.500witten daniel young witten brandy facet and witten trent east so these are the first of our hoff
06:00:33.460gothar or the gothar officially in charge of hoff districts
06:00:39.780in april we reordained uh githya lauren anderson you guys may have noticed her
06:00:46.100initial ordination way back in 2010 um she's come back to us and is serving as a githya in
06:00:53.780the odenshoff district and we are very honored to have her
06:00:56.500May 2025 we paid off New York's off thanks to many people on this show is generous donations
06:01:05.240thank you guys so much the search began the second we paid it off to start our work towards
06:01:14.700getting phrase off stay tuned we've got very exciting things on this front you guys have
06:01:22.940already been tremendous in your generosity. Really special things are happening in regards
06:01:30.240to this. And as we are able, we will let folks know. But yeah, some really special things are
06:01:37.040going on. And hopefully in the very near future, we'll have some cool stuff to tell you.
06:01:41.480About another $400 tonight to the down payment. We're up to $11,910.
06:01:47.620That is fantastic, guys. Thank you so much. That is a huge sum to have raised in
06:01:52.660just a few months, three months. That's tremendous.
06:02:02.860In July, we celebrated the elevation of King Aorik, Wengerik, and Atherid as AFA heroes
06:02:10.860with their Days of Remembrance. You guys may remember the episode that we talked about,
06:02:15.660our Gothic heroes that Chris did such a masterful job of. That was just last month.
06:02:22.660Also, last month, we elevated Gauthier Trent to the position of Whitten.
06:02:32.600Trent, do you have any recollections or thoughts or anything you would like to add?
06:08:00.980But I also think it's under duress and you have to evaluate what your greater responsibilities are in any situation.
06:08:07.640Um, it would be probably smart to do something like Whitten Young suggested and to challenge it in whatever the most appropriate way is.
06:08:17.520Um, you know, that could be putting your own pronouns that are, you know, not that they're not going to find acceptable.
06:08:27.200It could be, you know, seeking some sort of legal recourse through, you know, religious liberties avenues, although that, depending on where you are, that may or may not be a successful path and you need to evaluate the resources that would be needed to engage in that.
06:08:46.960if possible start looking for another job one where they're going to be more respectful to
06:08:56.520to you rather than have you you know be compelled to be respectful to you know people's imaginary
06:09:03.920identities but I think you know while yes it would be in violation of our virtue of truth
06:09:12.640I don't think that it is, you know, a gross violation of our ethics to do what you have to do to put bread on your family's table.
06:09:24.160A lot of us, I think, are probably less than ideally employed by less than ideal companies that do less than ideal things.
06:09:35.240and um you know do do what you need to do um like like you would in a survival situation because it
06:09:46.180really is um but you might have options and if you do you should avail yourself of them um the
06:09:54.280other thing that i i guess i would point out and i think i even did it here in my answer is that
06:09:59.320sort of it used to be real strict i remember when i was in grade school in the 80s this would never
06:10:05.120have flown but i think without all the gender bending stuff that's happened um there's sort
06:10:11.840of been a casualization of pronouns anyway people will refer to like unknown third parties as they
06:10:19.040as opposed to he like it used to be when i was in grammar school so
06:10:26.720it's just something to consider you know i referred to the employer as they rather than
06:10:31.680like it or he i don't think i've offended any of our gods or ancestors by doing that even though
06:10:38.480it could be seen as falling into that sort of pronoun game i didn't mean it that way it was
06:10:45.440just sort of a you know a literally a gender neutral in the grammatical sense pronoun but i
06:10:51.360think it's also technically grammatically incorrect and that he is the correct one if you don't know
06:10:57.840the gender or it if i'm referring to a a corporation which i know i do not believe
06:11:03.440corporations are persons unlike her government but that's where i'm at on it just to chime in on
06:11:11.360the oh sorry go on sorry i was gonna be pedantic well i was just gonna say i think that most often
06:11:18.560there are options i think there's specific fields i think there are you know like military fields
06:11:24.960where you have to use sir or ma'am I think a lot of the time you don't I think that there is a
06:11:32.080whereas there may be very there may be consequences and a lot of problem at your workplace
06:11:38.080if you were to label them the correct gender instead of bending to their mental illness
06:11:43.520I think oftentimes you can just conspicuously not you can just use their name I think there's
06:11:51.120There's increasingly less fields to where you are required to refer to somebody as Mr.,
06:12:00.480I think that sometimes you can say, you know, Pat Johnson, here's my email, rather than,
06:12:09.800you know, do it formally and more politely.
06:12:12.960And if that's their preference due to their mental illness, then that's the route.
06:12:18.200that's the first route that I would take if that is an option for you. And I think most places that
06:12:24.100is absolutely an option you can do. I think we're over a lot of the ridiculousness of that. I don't
06:12:32.660think it's eliminated, but I think it is less prevalent than it was a couple of years ago.
06:12:38.740And so I think that's positive. But yes, it is, you know, acting untruthfully if you are
06:12:45.340placating mental illness in that way. But you have to make certain value judgments on what's worth
06:12:54.520keeping your job over or not. Again, I wouldn't want to work at a place that forced me to do that
06:13:01.420and was not reasonable, but some people may not be in that kind of a situation.
06:13:06.540So you have to use your good judgment and figure some stuff out. But I think that the first
06:13:11.540The first and most easy answer to the question is, then don't use any of those gendered language at all and just refer to them by their name.
06:13:21.340And I think most places you can do that.
06:13:26.000And if it's conspicuous, they're the ones that are making it conspicuous, not you.
06:13:30.360as of now what do you think future Hoffs will be dedicated to when we arrive at the end of
06:13:40.000the current list with Freya will we move on to the maidens of Fensailor and the heavenly wardens
06:13:48.140if we do make a Hoff for all of the above what then I know this is currently about 20 years out
06:13:54.080at our current rate before we'd act on this and so a lot could change before then I'm interested
06:14:00.260in speculation. Thanks. Do any of you have speculation
06:14:26.420okay. I agree with the proposed speculation that we
06:14:30.120probably would move on to you know the additional babies that we don't have you know in our our list
06:14:38.520of of 12 plus two i think that's a a reasonable thing to think that we would do um in what order
06:14:47.080we do them that opens up more speculation i think yeah i you know i hesitate to overly speculate as
06:14:56.680you mentioned there's a lot of things between now and then and i think that when we start getting
06:15:01.480much closer we will have a much better idea it's a cool question and it's an awesome problem to have
06:15:08.680when we're in a spot where that is the problem i think that's a testament that we're doing pretty
06:15:13.240well i don't know what the order and when this will occur is but i think that once you know
06:15:22.120Once our gods and goddesses have Hoffs, there will be a day where there are many Odin's Hoffs and many Thor's Hoffs and many temples dedicated to each of our gods and goddesses.
06:15:35.920So figuring out the exact nomenclature that is going to be interesting. I don't know if we assign a region or a state or a place to them if we figure out a more colorful or honorific way to celebrate an aspect of their personality in each of those or just what it looks like.
06:15:55.520But I think there's a lot of cool directions it could go.
06:15:59.020I know at one time you guys have talked about you were throwing around the concept of doing Hoffs based on Hoff names,
06:16:06.600based on like the region or the area or something special about that place.
06:16:10.020So I'm thinking of Odinshoff of the mountain or something or something like that.
06:16:16.120I think that's a reasonable thing to think.
06:19:45.140I think it always bears repeating and refreshing.
06:19:52.220The word blood sacrifice or the concept of animal sacrifice immediately sounds very scary and very concerning, and I think a lot of that is cultural context.
06:20:08.380What kind of needs to be specified here, animal sacrifice in an also true context is the slaughter of an animal for ritual purpose, and that purpose always includes consumption.
06:20:26.500so you're slaughtering an animal in a sacred way in a sacred context you are typically offering
06:20:38.140maybe some organs usually splashing of of the animal's blood in as part of the offering and
06:20:45.620then you're sharing a meal prepared from the animal with the folk or the people who are gathered
06:20:51.760so it's not as you know scary or other as people might think especially people in farm country who
06:21:00.240you know have raised their own food or people who are hunters that know about you know dispatching
06:21:05.760an animal and then distributing you know and then butchering it and eating it and so i don't think
06:21:10.800there's anything scary about it i would say that you know the appropriate laws and ordinances in
06:33:51.440There's no admonition against premarital sex.
06:33:56.620There's no, you know, it's the worst thing in the world if there were to be polygamy.
06:34:00.940But what has always been true to our folk is you don't want to be shocking in your behavior to the world around you or to your kin or the people that you want reputation from.
06:34:17.160Having a good reputation is very important.
06:34:19.280polygamy in today's world would be very offensive to everyone around you and make you an oddball
06:34:27.840for no reason without a suitable purpose or a suitable benefit while talking on polygamy
06:34:34.360one thing that was noted about our ancestors certainly in the time of tacitus was how
06:34:43.240remarkable they were for not practicing widespread polygamy and for being faithful to their wife
06:34:50.640and having one wife and having marital fidelity was important to our ancestors.
06:34:59.380Any relationship that you are in, being a person of your word and holding up the expectations
06:35:06.320that you've agreed upon with your partner or with, you know, the people you've made oaths to
06:35:12.800is very important um polygamy we don't see that in the lore a bunch we don't see a lot of that
06:35:21.680that was not the norm in any out of true period prior that we can think of now did it happen as
06:35:29.440far as affairs of state with chieftains or with kings certainly but even then it was not the norm
06:35:36.480that was a uh an exception and not the rule of behavior i found a lot of people are very
06:35:43.280concerned with polygamy in today's world but often the people that want to get to have us
06:35:52.480say it's okay for you to have multiple wives these people can't get one girlfriend let alone
06:35:58.480like multiple wives um so yeah that's not that's not a thing that's endorsed by also true it's not
06:36:08.240a necessary thing in also true it's not given any any great approval in also true and in today's
06:36:14.960context um no the astro folk assembly doesn't accept polygamy because it is shocking and jarring
06:36:24.080without purpose to those around us and it damages our reputation in a significant way
06:36:32.080um as it goes to uh you know promiscuity again reality is very important to us as far as
06:36:42.800reputation there is no tenant and outs to true that everyone must be virginal but
06:36:47.840But virginity is important in women, oftentimes, especially at young ages with people's first and beginning relationships.
06:36:58.680It does have a value and a reputation as being particularly or notably promiscuous is frowned upon.
06:37:08.460And it does cut a different way for women than it does for men.
06:37:12.460So maintaining a good reputation and being somebody who is well thought of and adds value to your mate is really important.
06:37:23.580So, yeah, you don't want to be notable for your promiscuity.0.86
06:37:28.540That doesn't mean you have to be a virgin, but it does mean that, you know, you don't want a bad reputation for being slutty either.
06:37:38.980um the other thing that i'd like to say on that is we also have to be realistic0.62
06:37:44.660in the world that we live in today you know in our ancestors time people would be getting
06:37:50.340together and starting a family and having children by you know 16 years old in you know
06:37:56.380iron age times that's not the world we live in today um we have a lot of people getting together
06:38:04.380and finding their mate in their 30s or their 40s, and that would be very odd for you to find a mate
06:38:11.980of your age in your 30s and 40s who is virginal. That would be a very strange occurrence in the
06:38:18.880world that we live in. So keeping those things in mind. But yeah, the Ask True Folk Assembly doesn't
06:38:24.900celebrate promiscuity and we don't condone polygamy, but in large part those things are
06:38:35.280very contextualized by the world in which you live and the maintaining a good reputation with
06:38:43.520the people in our families that we surround ourselves with. And I think that does add a
06:38:48.300of context to both of those situations are there any also true holy sites in the united states
06:38:56.940aside from our afa hoffs and sigerheim do you guys know of any other holy sites
06:39:05.820in the u.s there are a few alleged rune stones in the midwest area that i don't know if i'd go so
06:39:14.060far as to say that they're also true holy sites but they're at least noteworthy also something
06:39:19.900that comes to mind to me is the uh the ruins of the the vinlander settlements in labrador
06:53:46.300It fits in a special way that blesses you greater than the sum of its parts, if that makes sense.
06:53:53.540If you are an also true employee and an also true son and an also true brother and an also true husband and an also true father and an also true friend.
06:54:03.080the more you live this authentically in every aspect of your life, all of the pieces fit
06:54:10.560together and they work together towards making your life something truly special. And the more
06:54:17.780of those pieces that you have working together, the more you will notice the blessings in your
06:54:22.260life in a really significant way. I think it's really important that it's not about calling
06:54:28.260yourself alsatru it's about making the effort to go to the hoth to go to that moot to drive across
06:54:37.220the state and to actually do alsatru words are wind words are wind deeds are iron i mentioned
06:54:48.660it earlier some some of the events that i've participated in that i got the most personal
06:54:54.820reward out of were the ones where i worked the hardest the ones where i had to miss a speaker
06:55:01.460because i was getting something set up for a gothe's below this is going back i was a folk
06:55:07.460builder once i was the guy who had to make the fire or had to move the benches up to the fire pit or
06:55:13.220get the dining hall ready or or whatever it was but you know
06:55:18.020keeping yourself busy with good work it really can be fulfilling absolutely
06:55:37.380so the next thing up here um and this is from finn wraith where do you guys
06:55:42.980see the afa going in another few decades what is your prediction for the future
06:55:48.020also greetings from prague czech republic cliff where do you see it in few what are the plans
06:55:54.980for future where do you see this in a few decades well i'll pander a little bit i definitely see
06:56:00.820a half in czechia um i think um no but realistically and seriously i think that's a
06:56:08.980that's a possibility we need people on the ground that will help build that but
06:56:12.260But we want to have temples accessible to as many of our folk as possible, and that includes getting out of the United States and into Europe and into Australia and into, you know, the white South American countries and anywhere else that our people are.
06:56:31.880You know, maybe in 20 years there will be a Hoff on Mars if those projects are successful.
06:56:39.120We've got to get one of our people to sign up and go.
06:56:43.220but i don't know every time that we establish a new hoff and then therefore you know subdivide
06:56:50.900at least one sometimes more than one of our of our hoff districts it's about where we have the
06:56:57.140leadership in place and it's about where we have the congregation and support in place to make that
06:57:03.620hoff work there needs to be someone there to preside over services and to preside over um you
06:57:10.100you know, the food pantries and to maintain the building and, you know, to show up and worship
06:57:16.520there. But it's also about reducing the travel distance for everyone who's in between these
06:57:22.800places, making it so that, you know, the farthest away, rather making it so that the closest Hof
06:57:30.060to as many of our people is reduced as best we can. You know, it has to have those fundamentals
06:57:37.700there there needs to be a gothi or a giphea and there needs to be people who will care for the
06:57:41.940place um and it needs to make sense that someone's going to actually show up there regularly but
06:57:48.020in addition to that you know it really is how many people can we concentrate and so it would be you
06:57:54.820know a half in every town and every city in every country that's probably not the next few decades
06:58:03.700that's a little bit more of a project but i might be surprised by that we thought that getting
06:58:10.100new grange hall after you know 35 years of efforts or more um was this major milestone
06:58:19.140and you could have easily at that time expected that it would take another 35 to get a second a
06:58:24.820second temple somewhere and it didn't it took five and then that that pace has been accelerating
06:58:33.700So I don't I don't see any reason that on average that pace wouldn't continue to accelerate as the number of people who come home to Asitru and their serious commitment to that both increase.
06:58:48.880But that's the biggest thing, you know, we're a church, so we want to build churches and we want people to be going to those churches.
06:58:56.400i think that's the primary thing um maybe the also true academy completes its k through 12
06:59:03.280program and starts to offer some higher education programs that's a huge undertaking that we don't
06:59:09.760have the resources for right now but it would be awesome if at some point we did some a place like
06:59:15.520sigerheim could make that possible you know that there could actually be an also true college or
06:59:21.680something like that um you know i'd like to see more people move close to the hofs that we already
06:59:30.400have and to the ones that we established so that we can you know do more things like maintain a
06:59:36.880community garden or have a lending or sit in library at each of our hofs that's used on a
06:59:43.600a regular basis um to have school houses for the ossaroo academy at each of our hoffs would be an
06:59:52.820amazing thing to do um you know and we'll see how long it takes to do all those things but i think
06:59:58.520that if we're doing this right those are all natural obvious things maybe one day we'll have
07:00:04.400an ossaroo hospital i mean these are all things that religious institutions do and those should
07:00:10.220all be on our list of eventually we'll want to do them something else that i think is important is
07:00:15.240that we continue to organize asa true um you know i sometimes describe the asa true folk assembly as
07:00:25.420an organizing religion because a lot of what we should be is still aspirational like we know that
07:00:33.160our job is just getting started right um so having a professional full-time paid clergy would be a
07:00:41.400big part of that because then you know if each of our kothar could put in 40 to 60 hours a week
07:00:47.700without impoverishing their families we would get so much done um parsonages play into that too as
07:00:55.840a way to you know make sure that our priesthood has the you know we already have the full
07:01:03.340moral support of our church but the full support of the the folk and the australian folk assembly
07:01:11.460in the way that you know the way that the christians do um that sort of stuff would
07:01:18.340would really propel us forward so i know that's a long list of it and i don't think decades is
07:01:24.600a few decades is realistic for all of them but again if this if this accelerates then
07:01:30.140we could do all that and less than that so it's we've got two more questions here and we're going
07:01:37.980to wrap this up um cliff stole any and everything i was about to say i think he answered that
07:01:46.340question as thoroughly as can be and i agree with all of the things that he mentioned uh
07:01:52.840like completely not jokingly what Cliff said. As far as Ask True Artists have a question
07:02:01.980for family members that have married outside of the folk and have kids, do we have a concept of
07:02:08.780what happens with the child's soul and how do you navigate the discussion when they discern that you
07:02:14.980don't think that they should have married outside of their folk and that these kids therefore should
07:02:21.440not have been born. No, and I think that's an unfair question. And I don't fault you for asking
07:02:29.280a question. That's not what I mean. But when people outside do things that we instruct them
07:02:36.400ought not be done, and then ask us how to manage the consequence or expect us to have
07:02:44.000the answer to the consequence of those decisions that they made we can speculate but the kind of
07:02:52.120fundamental thing at the end isn't what everyone wants to hear but it is a factual truth those kids
07:02:59.080should not have been born that relationship should not have occurred those things should not exist
07:03:05.000and it's not really our job to flesh out what the consequences of that look like metaphysically when
07:03:17.100you know deities and ancestors start divvying up souls uh in the afterlife um and i know that it
07:03:26.300would be great to have a more complete answer and it's compelling to just make one up but i don't
07:03:32.660think we can do that. I think we have to be led with discernment through interaction with our
07:03:39.780gods and through understanding of our lore, and I think that we don't know how that fleshes out on
07:03:46.600the other side and just how that works, but it's not a favorable situation. It's not one that we
07:03:54.380would have recommended or been in support of, and then when, you know, if family are uncomfortable
07:04:01.740with that, that's something that I think we try to navigate with the best tact that we can. I don't
07:04:10.960think it's appropriate or advisable to be rude or to be disrespectful. It's certainly something that
07:04:18.000the person in your family asking you has a lot of stake in and a lot of feelings deeply involved,
07:04:24.580and perhaps so do you. So I don't think it's something to be rude or flippant or not compassionate
07:04:31.400about in how you answer. And the thing is, it already is, it already exists. So whatever's
07:04:39.460going to happen is what's going to happen. I don't think it's your job to, you know,
07:04:46.940you can choose how much or how little to interact with that family member or those people who've
07:04:53.220made those choices. And you can choose how much to engage or how much not to. But there's no,
07:04:59.760you're not being impelled or compelled by the Astro Folk Assembly to treat members of your
07:05:07.180family poorly. And I wouldn't advise that you do so. So it's a long roundabout way to say,
07:05:15.380no, we don't have a full conception of what happens with that child's soul. I think a lot
07:05:22.800of that depends on the mixture, and how mixed, and all kind of intangibles that we could
07:05:29.420speculate on, but we don't really have good grounding to speculate on, other than don't
07:05:36.300get in mixed-race relationships, and don't make mixed-race children, and try to avoid
07:05:41.340that circumstance. I know it's not satisfying, but it is the best answer that we have right
07:05:46.860um the last thing here does the afa have an opinion on the norena society and its attempts
07:05:56.540to reconstruct teutonic mythology in mark purrier's writings
07:06:05.580yes but i want to be nuanced and separate two things mark purrier is a really nice guy he's
07:06:13.180always been very kind to me he's been very kind to the house true folk assembly he has been a
07:06:18.380gentleman in my dealings with him he has been very respectful i genuinely like mark i don't
07:06:26.060think he is an evil person i don't think he is a bad person what i wish is that mark purrier and
07:06:33.500the well-meaning members of the norena society would join the house of true folk assembly
07:06:37.980I wish they would get on the team and help us move forward.
07:06:45.240I would appreciate if they would get on the team and help us all move forward and we could, you know, have meaningful discussions amongst one another and get people squared away to where we're all going the right direction.
07:06:57.660Outside of that, no, I think the Narina Society is wrongheaded in their approach.
07:07:04.100I think that they approach religion from, like, studying about religion and not from practicing religion.
07:07:18.500I think that they try to, and I don't think this is done evilly, I just think this is done through a not religious lens.
07:07:28.940We talk about directionality, but I think they attempt to reduce the gods into quantifiable pieces that fit into their theories as opposed to advance their understanding in order to meet the gods and elevate their understanding in a way that approaches a closer understanding of the gods.
07:07:53.140If you treat the gods as academic subjects or literary devices or whatever, then it's a lot easier to take liberties with those things to make them more digestible.
07:08:06.600And I think that inadvertently, that's what the Norena Society absolutely does.
07:08:11.280I think that their work is detrimental to the development of Ausatru, because I think some of it is wrong, and I think their existence is in and of itself a distraction from us all moving forward together in a unified way that best pleases the Aesir.
07:08:32.780Do either of you guys have thoughts that you'd like to share about the Narana Society or their writings with folks?
07:08:41.280I do. They'll be brief, too. And these are my opinions. They're not the position of the Austro Folk Assembly. But one thing, I've never really cared for their co-opting of the name Norena Society.
07:08:59.980I personally find it confusing to people who are trying to find out what's what and a bit disrespectful to the original one.
07:09:09.800I don't I just don't care for it. That's my personal opinion on it.
07:09:16.340Also, I mentioned this in the chat way back. I forget how many hours ago.
07:09:21.760I have a personal preference for older translations of the Eddas and our lore for a lot of reasons.
07:09:29.980um i'm not against new ones but i think that they need to be
07:09:37.500i think they need to be done with a respect for the original material trying to change it
07:09:43.420is wrong um you know if someone thinks they can legitimately do a better translation from
07:09:52.140old norse into english by getting more of the actual fact right and doing a better job of
07:10:00.540maintaining the poetic meter then okay go for it but i don't find that there's a dearth of
07:10:07.180translations that requires things like norena society or jackson crawford i just i'm disinclined
07:10:15.980to pick up the new ones i prefer the older ones like going back over a hundred years
07:10:22.140all right daniel do you have any thoughts or feelings about the norena society you would
07:10:28.060like to share with the class nothing that hadn't already been shared except that uh
07:10:32.660yes mark's a nice guy yeah that's the thing i don't people ask questions i don't want to give
07:10:38.800an honest answer i'm not trying to beat up on those folks or whatever i don't think that they're
07:10:44.840all or mostly, you know, bad or ill-intentioned people. I think that they don't, they do a lot
07:10:53.160more arguing over obscure theories and points to where they, when you approach religion through an
07:11:02.980academic lens and not through the lens of faith, it's very sexy to like come up with really
07:11:12.060obscure theories and then be excited about your obscure theory because it doesn't really matter
07:11:20.120it's not really offending anyone if you're not really religious and i think they would probably
07:11:25.660say they are but i don't think their actions show that i don't know of a track record of
07:11:31.540actually worshiping and participating in a gift cycle with the gods and i think that if they did
07:11:37.760And if they did that more regularly, then they would come to, I don't know, come to better conclusions and hopefully come home to the Oustru Folk Assembly.