Asatru Folk Assembly - 8⧸3⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 4

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00:03:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:04:00.000 hello again welcome appreciate you guys tuning in today so we got a treat for you today uh my friend

00:04:12.720 and the dean of the asa true academy gothe rob stam is joining us hey rob welcome thank you good to be

00:04:20.320 here okay looks like uh already got quite a few of you here to start with for folks that may not

00:04:33.440 know you rob can you tell folks a little bit about you your experience with the afa like

00:04:40.240 what brought you here how long you've been around uh sure um prior to the afa i was involved in

00:04:48.720 and theodism. And I was in, it wasn't a theod at the time, but it was a theodish fellowship.

00:04:56.360 And just, it wasn't quite right. So I left and searched around a little bit. I had known of the

00:05:04.580 AFA. I had known of Elder MacNalen. So I decided I was going to join the AFA. And I'm really glad I

00:05:13.280 did, one of the very first things that I noticed, and it was such a major difference, was at

00:05:20.500 events, the women and the children eat first, and the leadership last. And that really represented

00:05:29.820 the proper values, in my view. For instance, in theodism, before you're sworn or oath,

00:05:38.080 you're a quote-unquote thrall and you actually get food and serve the lords uh rather than them

00:05:46.240 waiting to make sure that they're full keeper um so that right away made a really big impression

00:05:52.400 on me i knew i was kind of in the right place um and when svan when i first met svan i mean he

00:06:00.000 it's it's almost like i had known him for years he was so warm and welcoming

00:06:04.320 And instantly it was like, okay, I'm home now.

00:06:08.160 And it's been a few years now, and it doesn't seem like that much time, honestly, because it's just been so great.

00:06:20.780 Excellent.

00:06:21.600 So we've already got a donation and a super chat question up on entropy.

00:06:29.400 uh sarah wants to know and you kind of just answered it but throw us a bonus one because she

00:06:34.440 she kindly donated three dollars to us what would you say the defining moment you knew

00:06:40.440 that you had found your way home to the afa was well i think the defining moment uh was actually

00:06:47.720 the the very first ritual that i attended with our kendrick um that made an impression on me

00:06:55.720 at mealtime but also just the ritual it was so much more warm and it felt real it didn't feel

00:07:02.520 like it was a play act like it was dress-up time it felt like you were actually really connecting

00:07:08.440 with the gods as opposed to you know dressing apart and going through the motions in a language

00:07:14.600 that you don't understand um that was the probably the the absolute moment i knew i was i was in the

00:07:22.040 the right place. Good deal. We've got a couple of other questions. I want to knock those out and

00:07:30.140 then I'd like to get you to, hold on one second. Ashley asks what we are singing at Freyfaxi. I

00:07:39.660 think that was addressed to Paul, but I'm not sure. Ashley, are you taking requests?

00:07:46.100 and ryan asks isn't spam german for tribe uh i think it's really similar if not

00:07:57.860 write that down for us rob that is uh one meaning of it uh unfortunately it's not my meaning of

00:08:07.040 Stam. Stam also means trunk or tree. And our Stam, how we got the name is, it was family

00:08:15.180 that lived near an unusual tree trunk. So, yeah, it's not super noble like roaring lion

00:08:23.680 or anything. It just means when the Germanic people were taking names, they said, well,

00:08:29.400 those folks live by a neat tree trunk so yeah fair enough i think it's cool that you know that

00:08:37.880 uh so many of us don't know the the story behind our surnames

00:08:43.400 um tim asks gofi rob do you have any thoughts on also true being a pan-european religion and not

00:08:50.360 just for germ of germanophiles i've got a lot of thoughts on that actually um

00:08:56.680 um yeah it is pan-european um we all stem from the same source uh all europeans stem

00:09:04.920 from the proto-indo-europeans the arians so when we look across you know country and borders and

00:09:12.360 we see the swabs and we see how very similar their their their ethnic faith is or the coast for that

00:09:18.840 matter and their culture as well and even with the greeks and the romans and the iberians

00:09:26.920 the cultures are so similar because we stem from the same source um now as far as

00:09:34.040 also being pan-european we all share in that source and also very well um documented whereas

00:09:42.360 some of the other ethnic faiths unfortunately aren't um now i know there's a there's hellenic

00:09:49.880 and roman uh ethnic faith out there but i'm not sure that's a huge thing in the united states

00:09:56.040 um so also true really is i mean it's representative of all european

00:10:03.400 and it is the the big game in town in the united states so

00:10:07.000 i think that's that's certainly true i i know there's a number of people out there that have

00:10:14.280 looked into um celtic paganism and hellenic paganism and at least to my knowledge there's

00:10:25.800 nothing representing that that doesn't immediately go to

00:10:29.880 extreme license and degeneracy very very quickly unfortunately so i think this is a really good

00:10:40.760 place for all of our european brothers and sisters to find themselves

00:10:45.800 we've got more questions coming in and i think we will all night but i wanted to have you kind of

00:10:53.080 early on here, tell us a little bit about the Ausatru Academy and how that's come about and

00:11:00.920 how that's getting set up so far. Sure. Well, for a long time, we've all seen the decline in the

00:11:10.280 value of public school. It's not so much an education as it is an indoctrination,

00:11:16.040 and indoctrination into values that we don't share so more and more families have been turning

00:11:23.720 to homeschool and so we saw a need where we can provide homeschool the shell the curriculum and

00:11:32.600 the monitoring and really help our parents who may not know where to even get started

00:11:39.160 and so we offer good education that's actually education but it also has

00:11:44.200 also true and AFA values we want to teach our children our values and pass those on so what

00:11:52.040 a better of a platform than schooling so we saw you know our people have really the choice between

00:11:59.240 christian private school which purpose is better than public school but it's not

00:12:04.760 obviously the perfect choice or homeschooling themselves and homeschooling can be a little

00:12:09.640 scary if you've never done it when I started homeschooling you know I thought

00:12:14.320 well wow my wife and I both work you know we've never done this I've taught

00:12:19.660 college courses before but I've never taught kids and it was a little a little

00:12:26.980 touch-and-go and a little nerve-wracking at first so if we can do that help that

00:12:33.580 transition for our parents to be as smooth and bumpless as possible that

00:12:40.660 that was the goal and that's what we do we we you know we know the state

00:12:46.540 requirements for all our kids where they live and we walk parents through that we

00:12:50.800 have parent portal where they can get all the assignments we take care of you

00:12:55.660 know grading and monitoring and we help with attendance logs for state to

00:12:59.540 acquire it. So we make it as less scary as it possibly can be. And we also have, you

00:13:07.600 know, great volunteers and staff that will help if you're struggling to teach, for instance,

00:13:13.160 you've never taught before. Well, you know, Githya Sheila McNalen is our Assistant Dean

00:13:17.860 of Curriculum, and she's a licensed teacher. We've also got several people on our staff

00:13:23.000 have homeschooled for many years that are there for you to offer tricks tips and to help you teach

00:13:32.520 and really home school isn't as scary as it sounds we don't have to spend eight hours a day

00:13:39.480 instructing a classroom like a traditional school would be because most of that time in public

00:13:43.960 schools is filler and learning how to be compliant whereas the actual learning if you look at the the

00:13:51.240 state requirements i mean for kindergarten it's 90 minutes

00:13:54.840 and it's in three-minute pumps i mean that's really pretty easy to do

00:14:00.200 so that was the motivation between behind the afa academy

00:14:05.960 offering parents something that will help them school their program and good

00:14:10.200 values and good education and we want our kids to be smart to take on

00:14:14.440 the world with good values you know the afa academy

00:14:19.240 is really going to help in that. Definitely. That's one of the biggest things that I really

00:14:29.480 want to emphasize. Something that I've heard from a lot of parents and something that's

00:14:34.060 intimidating to me as a father when Aubrey gets old enough is just knowing that it's

00:14:42.240 something that you can do, that you can understand the system, that there's somebody there to

00:14:46.840 help you make sure it's, it's legit. Um, I know a lot of, a lot of people have trouble getting

00:14:54.180 that confidence, especially if they have no exposure to, uh, to homeschooling and it's not

00:14:59.980 something they've been involved in. So I really want to double down on the fact that the AFA is

00:15:05.440 here to help parents to feel confident getting their kid educated through the Astru Academy and

00:15:12.680 and making that a completely legitimate and above board experience and compliant with any of the

00:15:19.000 any of the rules in your state um and i think it's a decent time to bring up that

00:15:24.680 we are looking into different canadian provinces and what their rules and structures are on it um

00:15:33.080 it this may not be an option for a lot of our international students but certainly for our

00:15:37.720 students in the united states um and uh nick threw a link up but we are taking registration for

00:15:45.400 the next school year starting in the fall we're taking registration right now for kindergarteners

00:15:50.600 so far kindergarten is all that we have a complete curriculum for but our our folks

00:15:55.800 under rob's direction are are diligently working to get more grades accessible because we know

00:16:01.640 there's a big need out there our goal is to have k through 12 done in five years time and by the

00:16:10.760 end of this school year we have to third grade so that we can off you know have that option available

00:16:17.640 to more of our parents so i was going to say that's that's our next paid question um again

00:16:24.680 thank you for your donation sarah sarah asks you know what is your long-term goal for the afa academy

00:16:31.000 so what what are some of your long-term visions for that rob

00:16:36.200 well uh long term uh like i said within this year i want to have at least third grade ready to go

00:16:42.680 for next year and then in five years the k through 12 curriculum completed and ready to go

00:16:49.000 offer our kids uh more of our kids that option long term uh i mean super long term and and really

00:16:58.200 you know uh aiming for the stars i'd love to see a brick and mortar school at some point

00:17:03.800 um i think that would be really cool if we could have on-site learning um but in a near future uh

00:17:12.040 our our biggest project going forward is going to be to get everything digital learning and uh

00:17:19.240 have our students have the ability to go online and

00:17:21.960 do worksheets online and have instant feedback that that's going to be one of our major projects

00:17:31.120 going forward that I hope we have we will be able to have up sometime this year would be preferable

00:17:38.120 all right um hair stam could you speak on what meister von list means uh to you personally

00:17:50.560 as well as for the AFA as a whole? Certainly. From a personal perspective, I view Meister

00:18:00.520 von List as enlightened and a guide, a teacher to that path for ascension. Now we're getting

00:18:10.000 into some Mesoterica here, but I do believe Meister von List was divinely inspired, not

00:18:16.340 only in the runes but in his other writings the path for all the Ubermen

00:18:25.020 or ascension into a higher realm of consciousness and so that to me that's

00:18:32.840 important because it makes you a better person just following that path as far

00:18:41.060 the afa he's a hero of the afa way back in the late 1800s he wanted to establish a temple to

00:18:48.820 wotan and unfortunately the maister was not able to do that before his death but we have done that

00:18:55.060 and dedicated an altar for him uh in his honor at odin soft so i'm sure the maister is among his

00:19:02.820 ancestors and smiling that there is a temple to wotan or odin and that he his photo hangs there

00:19:11.060 Um, when that happened and I saw that, that was, uh, it did my heart glad because I do

00:19:17.000 follow Meister Von Moritz and I do think he is divinely inspired.

00:19:23.420 Absolutely.

00:19:24.240 I think it's worth noting, um, that awakening and the, the events that he set into motion

00:19:33.820 and the ball that he started rolling, I, I think it'd be wrong to call that out so true,

00:19:40.460 but it was certainly proto-Ausatru, and it's what got the currents and the things flowing and

00:19:47.260 our soul stirring back to coming back home to Ausatru. And I think that that set

00:19:55.240 in motion, in a way, so much of what we have today. So I think, yeah, Meister Von List is very,

00:20:01.980 very important in getting this moving forward. And his, the things that he did

00:20:10.060 certainly inspired the generation to follow that kind of more, more firmly started Ausitru

00:20:17.440 or restarted Ausitru, I should say. Um, what do you think the biggest misconception people have

00:20:26.720 about Von List is. Rob? That he was a theosophist. That's one of the biggest

00:20:35.660 misconceptions. I think there might be some theosophic ideas in some of his works, but

00:20:43.360 he was not a theosophist. And I think some other misconceptions was that I've heard before

00:20:51.600 people tell me, well, he was just making it all up so he could have a club and write

00:20:55.640 book i i don't think so um and even if he was he was making it up to awaken that that folk soul

00:21:05.880 so i i still think that that could have been divinely inspired anyway um yeah i think the

00:21:12.920 biggest misconception is uh that he used non-folk ideas uh some of his numerology

00:21:21.720 i mean numerology is math it's numbers uh it doesn't really you can't be non-folkin

00:21:27.960 when you're talking about numbers and um the the theopathy um yeah there's some theosophic

00:21:34.680 ideas but i don't believe he's a the theosophic all right what inspired daniel asks what inspired

00:21:47.160 you to join the clergy and who do you look up to ah well what inspired me to join the clergy

00:21:56.120 it's a long road i've always felt a very strong pull to the gods and the ancestors

00:22:05.240 and in fact when i was in the system um i got some sideways looks because i mean i got very

00:22:13.480 you know into the ritual even though that's not really a fadish thing if that makes sense

00:22:19.800 um so i've always felt a very strong connection to the gods and my ancestors

00:22:25.880 and i wanted to serve them and the folk and more than just going to ritual i wanted to

00:22:33.560 really be a part of that magic um and also i just i enjoy serving the folk i enjoy talking to the

00:22:40.280 folk uh helping when i can um i've had some unique life experiences uh in my former career so i think

00:22:50.040 a lot of people might think well you know nobody has experience in this how are they going to

00:22:53.800 counsel me like well i mean i've seen it before i've been there i've counseled people that you

00:22:58.600 know through my job that have experienced some of these things firsthand so that gives me a lot

00:23:04.040 of satisfaction helping helping folks um and just doing just doing honor to the gods and the

00:23:10.920 ancestors is a privilege that's the privilege of my life really um and that's a huge motivator

00:23:18.680 and really who i look up to there's there's two two uh clergy that i really looked up to when i

00:23:24.440 decided that i wanted to to be a gothy and that was uh the altar your gothy himself um and also 0.60

00:23:32.040 Witten Harrell, I'll say you're gothy because of your ritual, your ritual is, anybody who's ever 0.53

00:23:38.600 been to one of your rituals know how moving and powerful they are. And so if I can even capture 0.87

00:23:45.400 a piece of that, you know, and, you know, come rise to that level a little bit, then I've done

00:23:52.360 a fantastic job because your ritual is out of this world. So that's the one of the clergy I

00:23:59.000 look up to and then witten harold uh before his piety um he's a pious man and i aspire to be as

00:24:08.760 pious as what this perilous i think that i think that we all should aspire to be as as pious as

00:24:18.760 as fawn is uh it's really a standout characteristic of him uh and thank you for that rob i appreciate

00:24:24.920 it uh sarah asks what was it like to be oathed as a gothi uh alongside two of your closest friends

00:24:35.640 words can't describe uh

00:24:39.320 it was a moment that sent shivers up my spine um

00:24:44.520 you know one of the genuine religious feelings when you start the base of your spine and go all

00:24:51.720 the way to the base of your neck um an absolute privilege to stand next to two men that i have a

00:24:58.600 lot of respect for and receive an oath that means a lot to me um very proud moment so it's like it's

00:25:06.360 hard to put into words that particular moment to be 100 percent all right we got a interesting

00:25:14.920 question Robert asks does the AFA have a stance on polygamy and was it past practiced in the past

00:25:23.240 um yes the AFA does and this has come up a couple of times

00:25:29.480 so first I guess last question first was it practiced in the past

00:25:35.320 sure um but it wasn't the norm of our folk in the past

00:25:44.920 If you go far enough back in most any tradition, you have currents that go through.

00:25:52.140 And certainly in some of the, specifically the royal houses in tribal Europe, you had polygamy occur.

00:26:01.100 But it wasn't the norm for our people.

00:26:03.700 One thing that was kind of, I'd say surprising, is that, or for some people.

00:26:14.920 is that when you read tacitus they they remark so much on how the germanics specifically were very

00:26:27.560 they had a very you know morally structured home life and family life and that was

00:26:35.080 you know very contrary to what i think some people would assume about

00:26:39.400 uh about pagan barbarians but no there was a very structured family life and family

00:26:44.600 family order and structure there was absolutely a morality to it i'm not implying that all all

00:26:50.120 polygamy you know goes against morality but it feeds into the second question uh

00:26:56.840 does the afa have a stance on it absolutely we do and

00:27:00.200 And the best way to put this, it doesn't match the social custom that we have and that's healthy

00:27:10.820 for our families. So the AFA is opposed to the current practice of polygamy because it's just

00:27:19.860 one more thing to confuse our children and to muddy the family values that we're trying so hard

00:27:28.580 to protect right now. It's come up when members, so something else, Ausatru has always attracted

00:27:36.840 an element of the fringe as well as regular folks, but it's been heavy in the past on a fringe

00:27:45.800 element. And that's evened out quite a bit. And that's the exception and not the rule these days.

00:27:52.060 But some folks on that fringe are also into various other fringe things, one of which is

00:27:58.480 is polygamy so we've had a couple of people ask if they you know if they could could join and

00:28:03.840 bring their multiple wives to events it's just not the example we want for our children it's

00:28:11.200 not the example that we want for our community and the confusion that it causes is where is 0.81

00:28:19.840 not worth the benefit that it brings to indulge a couple people's

00:28:24.880 fairly fringe ideas of of how families should be structured and uh so that's kind of where

00:28:31.280 where we're at on it and why the afa has the stance that it does we have another

00:28:36.720 donation from callum of five dollars thank you very much for that um how do you stop

00:28:45.200 a corrupt group taking over the afa and selling out to the political correct agenda that has taken

00:28:51.120 over many modern churches it's a good question i'm glad you asked that because it's a question

00:28:57.920 that's very very important to me um because we've seen that we've seen it as you mentioned we've

00:29:03.840 seen it with so many churches in the united states and in the west in general but we've also seen it

00:29:09.920 particularly in the history of aussitrew you'll have a person or a generation of people that

00:29:17.600 that start something and it'll start out folkish and above board and uh very quickly if they have

00:29:24.480 too much demoted or uh voting and democracy involved in their their leadership structure

00:29:32.000 the foundational principles get voted up voted out and the next thing you know it doesn't even

00:29:36.640 resemble what it started as and it doesn't resemble what the appropriate course is and

00:29:43.440 we've just seen that take over so many institutions that's i'd say the chief reason

00:29:50.560 that the afa's leadership structure is structured the way that it is

00:29:55.760 in the afa we don't vote on things we don't yeah we don't decide by voting we have a very well

00:30:04.800 defined hierarchy. And ultimately, the buck stops with me. It's not that I don't care about

00:30:13.960 consensus. I certainly do. But when we have a strong executive in the AFA, we have a person

00:30:22.500 that's able to, you know, say no to that slide towards political correctness and make sure that

00:30:28.540 we stay on the course. And so that's really essential. And the AFA is absolutely an autocracy

00:30:33.960 in that, in that way. And that's a, it's a very, it's a very important responsibility that I take

00:30:40.300 really seriously is safeguarding us staying true to our gods. True doesn't just mean belief in the

00:30:47.380 gods. It means loyalty to them and loyalty to the principles and to the folk that, that,

00:30:52.360 that implies and maintaining that, that stance is extremely important to me. So I guess the answer

00:31:00.320 is to prevent it from being corrupted we have a very strong executive and we keep the afa um 0.90

00:31:06.400 an autocracy that way and we're gonna make really sure that whoever takes over for me one day

00:31:12.480 is also a champion of upright values and the right way to live

00:31:20.800 um now the next question for you rob uh sierra asks mr stam how many hoffs have you visited

00:31:30.240 and what are your favorite memories from them? Well, it's kind of embarrassing. I've only

00:31:36.240 visited two. Thor's Hoff, my home Hoff, and Baldur's Hoff. I was very fortunate that I got

00:31:45.920 to go up and spend a few days in Minnesota. I had a great time and accomplished some goals.

00:31:52.640 uh i've got so many memories from thor's off it would be hard to chew the best one uh but it was

00:32:01.500 really nice going and i'll just talk because it was recent uh it was really nice going up to

00:32:05.380 minnesota and and seeing some folks some folks that i'd only ever talked to on the phone and i

00:32:10.160 mean literally knowing them for years and never meeting them in person um so that was really

00:32:16.220 great and the folks up in minnesota have done just an out of this world job with that hawk it was

00:32:23.660 absolutely beautiful um i mean i was taken aback when i first stepped in i'm like wow um

00:32:31.660 so i mean hats off to the the minnesota folks and north dakota that have accomplished that um

00:32:39.500 yeah so so many memories i think that the probably the the nearest and dearest to my heart is uh my

00:32:46.060 youngest daughter having her baby naming at the dedication of for cloth that you know that maybe

00:32:51.980 that's a little bit personal and selfish but that's going to be one of my favorite memories from ha

00:33:01.260 no that's beautiful um just it hits me and i said this to death now but it's

00:33:08.460 It's the difference between a world without Hoffs and a world with Hoffs is such a marked

00:33:15.720 difference.

00:33:17.140 And, you know, children that have been born since 2015 are never going to know a world

00:33:23.660 that didn't have Hoffs to our gods.

00:33:26.560 And that's such a profound thing.

00:33:29.320 Those of us who've been involved in House True for a long time remember when having 0.90

00:33:34.540 a Hoff was a distant dream. And we know the difference. And now that we have four Hoffs, 0.85

00:33:42.580 it's, it's really amazing. You mentioned kind of how you felt a little bit bad that you've

00:33:49.440 only been to two Hoffs. The fact that you can say that is such a, such a testament to

00:33:56.200 where Alcetru's at. And I think that's really special. And are you going to be able to make

00:34:01.720 it down to the Nordshof dedication? Unfortunately, I'll have to work. I am from Florida, so I will

00:34:09.860 get down there eventually. Good deal. I'm certainly looking forward to that. I think it's a good time,

00:34:16.080 I guess, to plug it. Those of you who are able, on the 13th, we are dedicating Nordshof. That's

00:34:23.840 something I'm looking forward to. If you're able to make it, I look forward to seeing you there.

00:34:29.180 If you're not able to make it, it's not going anywhere.

00:34:32.460 So you can make it in your own time.

00:34:35.940 Gauthier Rob, Tim asks, Gauthier Rob, most folk have a stigma towards organized sports, and rightly so.

00:34:44.600 But the World Cup is coming up.

00:34:46.320 Any thoughts on football nationalism?

00:34:48.780 And do you have a team you're cheering for?

00:34:52.100 Yes, I have a lot of thoughts.

00:34:53.860 um yeah american organized sports and more recently european even organized sports

00:35:01.700 i mean they've become woke and you know it's it's a business it really is uh professional sports is

00:35:08.180 a business that said i still really enjoy nhl hockey um i still will go see a baseball game

00:35:16.500 occasion i love baseball i played baseball in high school um and i i enjoy uh world cup very much and

00:35:26.100 i think that's a little different because it's it's something it's it's a time when europeans

00:35:31.060 can really be proud of their country um and really show off their their their patriotism

00:35:37.780 and it gives people european people something to to root for and uh to be proud of even in even

00:35:45.060 in Germany you know they're very proud of their their soccer team and they should be I mean it's

00:35:49.940 the best team in the world uh so that should tell you who I root for is team Germany um so uh but

00:35:57.780 I also like team Spain I'm a quarter Spanish European Spain so I'll also go for team Spain

00:36:04.740 but Germany is my first love so that's what I'll be pulling for in the world cup

00:36:09.620 good deal uh sierra asks gothi stam which version of the runes do you personally use in your day-to-day

00:36:21.060 practice and why um i i am not much into rune divination uh to be honest uh i do use runes but

00:36:31.860 not a piece of divination uh i do i follow uh full builder adam hudak's uh rune yoga that you

00:36:39.220 can find in the rune stone um but i use the armen and runes uh because i am a devotee of

00:36:47.140 the michael von liszt's philosophy so that's the set of rooms that i use

00:36:51.700 fair enough um i'll also let you take this one do you think there could ever be an ouster troop

00:37:02.100 pagan school like there are christian private schools and schools for other religions

00:37:09.140 yes i think that is very possible and i hope to see it in my lifetime uh i think that

00:37:16.260 would really give our kids something that it's tangible uh the home school is a great is a great

00:37:22.980 option right now uh in the future i would like to see a brick and mortar actual school

00:37:30.580 you know they can suit up and play sports for or they can cheer on uh at the game or they can wear

00:37:38.580 their school colors with pride and go into a classroom with teachers that are learned and

00:37:46.980 also share their value and they don't have to be worried about being proud of who they are at school

00:37:57.140 yeah i think absolutely that's a thing the only thing holding us back from that right now

00:38:02.180 is just proximity i'm getting enough children of the same age in the same area to make one really

00:38:09.860 feasible but the you know as we're growing and as we're getting more children growing up together

00:38:16.180 and also true the closer we get the more the closer we get to having one of those brick and

00:38:22.260 mortar schoolhouse schools but we'll absolutely have that one of these days uh this is a good

00:38:28.660 question what was the religion gothi stan was a part of before he joined the afa i didn't

00:38:34.900 understand the name rob could you give people kind of a who are not familiar a little bit of

00:38:39.060 background on theorism and the theotish group you were a part of sure uh that's anglo-saxon uh

00:38:46.980 heathenry they would say uh and it's it's very similar to ossaroo in fact they use a lot of

00:38:53.540 Ossipu archaeology and book kind of fill the gaps because the Anglo-Saxons converted fairly early

00:39:01.220 among the Germanic people. So it's a lot like Ossipu, but it's from an Anglo-Saxon or English

00:39:07.860 perspective. There's some major differences in that a lot of times you're drafting in period

00:39:15.540 attire, which is kind of LARP-y. Like I said, there's the leadership structure that, I mean,

00:39:21.300 even the leaders in theodism will admit that it's toxic so but they they won't give it up

00:39:29.300 they know it's toxic but they won't give it up where the leader is just served upon um

00:39:35.300 and the members of the what what would be our version of a kindred you know are lowly and

00:39:41.620 serve the lord um and really it's kind of silly it's like okay so you're a car salesman by day

00:39:49.460 but by night you're a grand prince you know and it's just kind of goofy um there are some folks

00:39:57.380 in that in that in that uh denomination of of germanic paganism if you will that

00:40:04.500 are very devout and i have respect for um and that have even written some really good books

00:40:11.700 uh but there's also a lot of play actors and a lot of people that just you know they like

00:40:17.220 being a lord on the weekend um and i still have some some respect and some friends that are into

00:40:25.380 that into that it's just not for me i you know i wouldn't recommend someone go that route um

00:40:32.420 but at the end of the day it's it's germanic paganism with an english taste if you will

00:40:40.180 and they got the cool smurf hats yes they have those awesome ferrian hats that they wear

00:40:47.220 And I, I mean, I still have my, uh, I, uh, Nick, but I mean, I'm, I'm just not into that.

00:40:55.200 You don't have one of the hats. Do you?

00:40:57.400 No, I don't have a hat.

00:40:59.980 All right. You have to rethink the go through things. If you got the hat.

00:41:04.140 I wasn't a Lord, so I didn't get it.

00:41:07.760 Um, all right. So Brandy gave us $3. Thank you, Brandy. She wants to say,

00:41:13.080 thank you gothe stam for sharing your amazing talent at baldershoff and contributing to its

00:41:17.640 beauty rob can you tell folks a little bit about what you did at uh at baldershoff and nick if we

00:41:24.120 could maybe throw up that picture uh sure um yeah that's that's a piece of the carving i did they

00:41:32.360 had a an aft free that was uh not healthy and they had to do something with it because the branches

00:41:40.440 were leaning over the hoth and they were falling in the lawn so instead of just chopping it down

00:41:46.760 to the stump it left me you know uh i think it's about maybe 15 feet of of tree trunk and i went

00:41:56.200 out and i carved a god pole um to balder and if you can see uh in runes it'll say it says balder

00:42:05.160 and then it's got uh the solar cross i love that that image of the solar cross

00:42:10.600 uh from the nordic bronze age um and balder being a solar deity that really

00:42:17.160 you know reached out to me put that on there and then just above you'll see the face of balder

00:42:22.280 himself um i was i felt very privileged that i was able to go out there and do that uh

00:42:30.280 i i thank the folks up there for the opportunity

00:42:35.160 Well, I know they loved having you up there, Rob.

00:42:40.120 Those of you who are listening, if you guys are anywhere close, you can make it up.

00:42:45.960 That's the next thing we have coming the following weekend from our dedication.

00:42:52.600 So correct me if I'm wrong, Nick, and maybe you can throw up the information.

00:42:56.580 I want to say the 20th, whatever that Saturday is,

00:43:03.000 that weekend we're having uh fall fest at balder's hof and that's in murdoch minnesota and if you

00:43:08.840 guys can make it to that it's going to be amazing i am looking forward to it our folk at balder's

00:43:14.680 hof have put so much love into that place you see something new and something beautiful every time

00:43:21.240 you go there and the devotion those folks have to balder is absolutely amazing um

00:43:27.880 trent asks gothi stam what does your daily practice look like do you pull runes for example

00:43:39.560 um well like i said before i i do pull runes um very rare i don't do it daily

00:43:47.160 uh rune divination is just not something i do very often i might do it twice a year

00:43:52.120 um my daily practice really consists of uh meditation um i light some incense her aunt

00:44:02.280 for my aunt on my ancestor altar uh then i light a candle and some incense uh on my

00:44:09.320 altar that i keep my godstone my your eye my little idols on and um i just say some very

00:44:16.120 simple prayer and then you know I get ready and go to work but throughout my

00:44:22.240 day I really try to live also true and I think that's what sets us apart from

00:44:31.780 some other face is that it informs so much of our lives for instance I mean

00:44:38.020 just living in the modern world you're going to get every opportunity there is

00:44:41.560 is to show nobility in your actions, to show hospitality to other folk.

00:44:56.020 And doing that, you're living your religion, and that's what's really important to me is

00:45:00.800 just trying to live within the values of my faith.

00:45:05.360 at night uh often i'll read my children's stories um some religious stories or one of our favorites

00:45:12.800 is uh grim's fairy tales and yes i do read the old uh german version which is a little bit more uh

00:45:22.080 i guess you could say violent then uh some of the more uh uh

00:45:30.400 modern versions that kind of cut some of that out but i mean i i grew up with the original german

00:45:35.360 not all right um christine would like to know can you describe your process

00:45:43.600 for designing and making the god poles

00:45:47.920 sure uh when i was asked to do a balder god pole first thing i did is i tried to find images of

00:45:54.640 uh originals if there were any and there there's not many um and then also i looked at a lot of

00:46:02.240 what the europeans are doing especially the the baltic pagans and the the slavs they really are

00:46:10.320 they've got quite a thing going over there and they carve a lot of godfold

00:46:14.560 so i kind of looked what they were doing and tailored it to an asa aesthetic um

00:46:23.200 that's you know and then i had to work within certain parameters because it is outside

00:46:27.680 so took all that into account and made a drawing and uh ran it by uh whit and callahan and

00:46:36.800 went started started hammering away

00:46:42.400 good deal um from the etta rob what's your favorite

00:46:46.400 hmm well I mean I like the the Hava Mall because it's basic you know it's basic advice

00:47:00.200 and I think there's a lot of good stuff in there just good lessons for every day so I think that's

00:47:11.780 that's probably my favorite is just the hob of mine basically that is

00:47:23.380 no there's no need to get fancy some of the you know some of the obvious answers are obvious for

00:47:28.340 a reason um what uh the salutrian asks what are the folk heroes for each hof

00:47:35.380 At Odenshof, we have an altar to honor Maestro Guido von Liszt that we talked about earlier.

00:47:43.380 At Thorshof, and actually the picture we used to advertise this broadcast was Rob and I standing

00:47:49.140 in front of the partially completed altar to Alexander Rudd Mills, and he's the folk hero

00:47:55.940 for Thorshof. And for Baldershof, it's the folk mother Elsie Christensen. And Njordshof, I believe

00:48:04.020 that's still to be decided, but it might be Roud the Strong. I'm not certain, but I think that's

00:48:14.900 the leading contender right now. Goethe Stam, what was the turning point for you that you

00:48:24.120 decided the AFA was the best place to come home to and raise your family within?

00:48:28.240 um well i think i've kind of answered that already but uh i'll just say you know the

00:48:37.120 main principles were the focus on family and leaders putting the folk first and the genuine

00:48:48.000 religious experience the real feeling the passion and the piety that goes into afa rituals

00:48:55.040 it's not just going through the motions it's not just putting on an ass it's not doing things 100

00:49:01.920 perfect what our ancestors did 2 000 years ago or 1500 years ago or a thousand years ago we don't

00:49:09.040 have we don't really just sweat these small little things make sure it's absolutely historically

00:49:14.480 accurate instead what we focus on is honoring the god and that really really is important to me

00:49:22.560 and our rituals are beautiful because they're meant to honor the gods and being heartful

00:49:28.400 felt and compassionate rather than mechanical

00:49:36.000 well i certainly agree with you on that and it it's very heartening because we hear that

00:49:41.520 from a lot of folks that attend one of our rituals that have you know maybe attended

00:49:46.320 different groups rituals before about how ours are are real and they feel a genuine connection

00:49:53.040 there and that that that makes me very happy that folks feel that way during our rituals

00:50:00.560 um gothi stam how important do you think a room study education is important for children and at

00:50:07.600 what stages well i think it's it's not super important i think the runes a person should

00:50:17.920 have a very basic understanding of them uh how to write with them um some understanding of their

00:50:24.720 their meaning um i don't think it's 100 necessary for every person to pull runes or uh to really

00:50:34.640 get into the the esoteric side of things um you don't need you don't have to do rune yoga to still

00:50:41.120 be a good off course um that said if you want to it's absolutely a great thing to learn um

00:50:49.520 as far as children i think you know kindergarten might be a little early for that uh because

00:50:56.160 there's there's some very abstract principles uh to the the magical use of runes as far as writing

00:51:03.600 I think the focus in the early grades really needs to be writing English, you know, learning English, the ABCs, because that's what they're going to use in their day-to-day life.

00:51:15.060 I think as we go up in grades, though, and I'm just pulling a number out of the air here.

00:51:21.820 I think maybe, in my opinion, around third to fourth grade, we can start introducing some rune work and knowledge.

00:51:30.500 If we decide we want to do it earlier, you know, I'll be on board with that.

00:51:35.320 But in my opinion, I think probably third or fourth grade is a good time to start that.

00:51:41.200 And just start really basic with being able to write in the rooms and kind of know a little bit what they stand for.

00:51:49.960 And then as the program grow and progress and get older and more emotionally mature,

00:51:57.340 then introduce some of the more magical and esoteric stuff, if they want to.

00:52:05.280 Yeah, I think, you know, while they're young, teaching them the runic alphabets as alphabets

00:52:11.400 is a really good thing to do. And I think it lends themselves, you know, when you see the

00:52:17.280 English alphabet done for kids with, you know, A is for aardvark or whatever, that always has

00:52:23.840 be forced our runes are pictographs of a concept and an idea and i think that lends itself towards

00:52:30.800 memorization and and familiarity with it better than than the standard alphabet so i'd love to

00:52:35.920 see our kids learning that early on uh column donated five dollars with a question hey thank

00:52:42.480 you very much for the donation we appreciate it he asked are there afa members in south australia

00:52:48.320 I will admit this. So I looked on the map a second ago because I thought you were talking about the

00:52:54.740 southern half of your country, but no, there is a province of South Australia. And no, we do not

00:53:01.280 currently have any members in that province. Not sure if you guys call it a province, and I apologize

00:53:06.880 if I get that wrong. We do have Australian members, however. All of our Australian members right now

00:53:13.560 are on the um the east coast of australia but pretty much all up and down that coast we've got

00:53:21.480 we've got members spread out we also have members in new zealand but no nobody in south australia at

00:53:29.160 present what do you think about the possibility of an aussitrew university rob go ahead and take

00:53:39.080 you can start on that one uh that would be amazing um

00:53:45.960 i i would love to see that uh i think i mean there's there's private universities there's

00:53:51.400 no reason that there can't be uh a focus also true private university um i don't know if we're

00:53:59.800 quite there yet in our evolution uh maybe some decades or you know longer down the road but i

00:54:07.000 think you know i would hope that maybe my my children or my grandchildren will see that

00:54:13.880 yeah it'd be a very nice thing to see uh and i don't doubt that we'll get there at some point

00:54:19.080 um i do think we're a little ways away from that i think handling the immediate needs of uh

00:54:25.080 children in in primary school and is much you know it's important it's a need that people

00:54:31.080 are just crying out for now and i'm glad that we're accomplishing that

00:54:34.760 Daniel asks, what was the most powerful ritual you've been a part of, Rob?

00:54:43.200 Oh, that's a hard one because I've been lucky enough to have experienced

00:54:49.920 some really powerful rituals by so many very gifted and talented clergy in the AFA.

00:54:57.700 So, ah, it's really tough to narrow a single one down.

00:55:06.420 Githy Eriksson's Dysir bloat is phenomenal.

00:55:11.960 Alserier Gothi's Woden bloat and also his Thor bloat

00:55:15.520 that he does at Thorshoft is out of this world as well.

00:55:19.180 I mean, we shake the rafters at Thorshoft

00:55:22.400 and that's really a sight to behold.

00:55:28.260 yeah that's i can't nail it down to one i'm going to be honest it's it's a it's a handful

00:55:33.380 and that speaks to the uh the quality of cold food that the church has it really does

00:55:46.420 all right josh wants to know are there any particular authors or students of von list

00:55:52.580 that you favor and would mention or recommend yeah one of my favorites um and he's very difficult

00:56:01.860 and not to find in english um and really he's even difficult to find in german um is meister

00:56:11.380 gorsleben um he's probably my favorite um also marty is really good um

00:56:20.100 um and i would make an argument that miguel serrano is a direct inheritor of on list but

00:56:29.140 that's one of my personal view um and his books are a little easier to come across but still not

00:56:35.460 as easy as you know going down to the local bookstore and grabbing it but um i would

00:56:40.740 definitely say if you can find my sigors laban's books uh he's a brilliant armin and master

00:56:50.100 good deal um so here's a interesting question should we have an anti-marxist leftist anti-marxist

00:57:01.720 leftist declaration 127 regarding opposition to evil um we kind of already did but we didn't

00:57:10.140 define it well i suppose that's a historical declaration 127 wasn't just an attack on us it

00:57:17.620 was very specifically an attack on a statement that I made that defined what the AFA does or

00:57:26.940 positively values. And I suppose it wasn't a negative statement against Marxists and communists.

00:57:32.620 It was a statement in favor of what we value. I think I said that we value our masculine men,

00:57:43.740 our feminine ladies and our beautiful white children. And that's what the reaction is for.

00:57:50.320 One of the reasons, and I'm not sure if that's a serious question or just kind of an interesting

00:57:54.640 statement, but I think it's well taken regardless. What I think is an important thing to note there

00:58:00.980 about them. The left has. So our original statement was completely positive. It wasn't

00:58:14.120 saying anything in a negative sense of things that we don't like or things we disapprove of.

00:58:20.280 One of the things I like a lot about the AFA and I try to keep us sticking to as best we can

00:58:25.600 is the things that we love, the things that we promote in phrasing who we are and what we value

00:58:31.220 in terms of positive values, as opposed to defining ourselves by opposition. And the left

00:58:38.740 chose to define the whole modern phase of their, you know, quote, unquote, ausiture movement to be

00:58:47.140 about negative definition about all the things they will not tolerate that they don't stand for

00:58:53.740 that they oppose so i think that's a telling difference between the two schools of thought

00:59:03.900 to live also true is applying the eightfold path so i can't claim that i'm an expert on

00:59:12.860 the dharmic eightfold path but in my understanding of it yes that

00:59:17.980 i think the eightfold path the way that i understand it is the path of of nobility and i

00:59:28.220 think that that nobility of character is a part of being also true but i think the fundamental

00:59:33.740 that you miss in order to be also true you have to define yourself by loyalty to the isere and

00:59:40.700 And you can do all the things in the Eightfold Path with your devotion towards different things.

00:59:48.440 But to be also true, you need to not only be a noble person,

00:59:52.400 but you need to use that nobility and use your might to further the cause of your folk

00:59:58.020 and ultimately of the Aesir.

01:00:03.060 Goethe Stamm, what's your favorite flavor of mead and why is it apple cinnamon?

01:00:10.700 Apple cinnamon because that's probably the only one I know how to make but

01:00:18.380 honestly my favorite flavor is anything that Alan makes because he quite the

01:00:25.400 mead maker so yeah the only one I know how to make is apple cinnamon and just

01:00:32.360 the plain Jane stuff so my favorites anything that Alan's made because his

01:00:37.640 This meat is out of the world.

01:00:41.120 So nobody asked me, but I'm going to throw this out there anyway,

01:00:43.880 because I have been privileged to get to sample some amazing, amazing meads in my lifetime.

01:00:49.080 And I'll say this, I've had a lot of homebrewed meads, and I've had a lot of commercial meads.

01:00:54.120 And my favorite three meads that I have have all been homebrew from folks at AUSA True events,

01:01:02.040 at AFA events. Unfortunately, the three brewers are no longer AFA members that made these meads.

01:01:09.580 But way back when I first joined up, there was a guy that made a mead he called Apple Piety,

01:01:17.140 and it was apple pie flavored, and it was amazing. We had a member up in North Dakota

01:01:22.840 that made the most amazing orange spice mead. I like a sweet mead. And then we had a member

01:01:30.480 in the tri-state Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York area that made a spiced pear. I'd say the

01:01:37.420 spiced pear and the spiced orange were about equal on the best meads I've ever had. My preference goes

01:01:43.580 to the spiced orange just because I'm a spiced orange guy. But yeah, unfortunately, those guys

01:01:48.920 are no longer on our team, but they made some amazing mead. Tim asks, I'll hear you go through

01:01:56.880 matt and go through rob what could each of you say to our folk on the fence about joining the afa

01:02:04.400 go ahead and take the first swing at this rob uh if you're on the fence i'd want to i don't know

01:02:11.040 what i could tell you why why are you on the fence um it's such a positive loving community

01:02:18.480 it one of the greatest things and i noticed this on my very first national event

01:02:24.320 because i had my my daughter with me and i i can't i think she was eight at the time

01:02:29.920 and the kids just run off i may not see them but until it's time to go to bed but

01:02:38.560 um you know everybody looks out for each other's children and they're in a safe environment you

01:02:44.480 can't put price on that um you know if you're on the fence i mean come on come come join we've got

01:02:53.280 a beautiful community we've got wonderful people i've got i've made lifelong friends uh more than

01:02:58.560 just friends i've made family um we're all it's such a welcoming community and a beautiful beautiful

01:03:07.280 faith to share so if you're on the fence hop on out hop on off that fence and join

01:03:14.400 you know i everything rob said i do have to question if you're on the fence why um and one

01:03:25.920 thing that that just comes up and i understand is people are scared of being being labeled as

01:03:32.120 something negative and they're scared of the ridicule that they might get by being associated

01:03:36.020 with us and i think that's really unfortunate i think i really hope we get to a point where that's

01:03:42.840 not such a thing. I hope we get to a point where the left doesn't have such a monopoly on thought

01:03:49.160 in this country and in the West. I hope we get to a point where nobody will be mean to you for

01:03:55.080 making the right choices. I think I would advise people who that's the reason they're on the fence

01:04:03.640 to choose to define themselves and their destiny by courage and not by fear. If it's the right

01:04:11.800 thing to do, then you should do it. And it's hard. It's really easy to be very brave with stuff when

01:04:21.580 there's no cost. It's very hard when you face peer pressure or you face, you know, maybe somebody

01:04:29.020 will, you know, out you or make fun of you in the social space or call your employer. And I wish I

01:04:36.640 make those things not hard but the champions in the end are the ones that stand up to things that

01:04:45.040 scare them and stand up to hardship and do the right thing regardless it's the motto of odens

01:04:50.480 hof is do right and fear no one so i would advise to define the decisions you make for yourself and

01:04:56.720 and your family by courage do you support the idea of a ple or area where there is a concentration

01:05:10.160 of those or of european descent and supporters of the afa this community would take the majority

01:05:16.080 of a town or a county um yeah i think that's a great idea i think

01:05:27.200 there's pluses and minuses i want to see our people be successful if we're spread out broadly

01:05:33.200 it's great because we cover a greater area when we get people that want to come home

01:05:38.640 in different spots one of the really really special things about the afa is as our membership

01:05:44.000 has expanded um in parts of the world you can have this too but certainly in the united states

01:05:52.320 outside of a very few places you're never that far from afa members that are actively

01:05:57.920 worshiping our gods and you have family literally wherever you go and i think that's great

01:06:03.280 but there's absolutely advantages for folks living in close proximity be that on shared property be

01:06:10.480 that all just happening to move to a town or or a small community or a county um i think anywhere

01:06:17.520 that our people can come together and share resources and build an organic and a healthy

01:06:24.560 community for our children is a beautiful thing and i think that's fantastic i'd love to see more

01:06:29.360 of those popping up did mills have one book or did he write more uh he was a prolific author

01:06:41.760 he wrote quite a bit of things he wrote several little booklets but he also wrote a lot of really

01:06:47.280 really neat poetry if you get a chance to read it um i think the the we so as far as books if

01:06:57.680 you look at that picture that we advertised this show in it's got a we're very fortunate it's got

01:07:02.640 an actual relic there it's got a book that that he wrote uh i think it's hale odin and it's a

01:07:15.840 copy from

01:07:21.520 for whatever reason in my head it sticks out 38 but i'm not sure

01:07:26.560 um it's a very old book and it's a book that he actually wrote an inscription into a friend of

01:07:33.440 his in england that he sent the book to so or not an inscription a letter i believe he signed the

01:07:39.680 book it also has a letter with it that he sent with the book that's on his um he was a barrister

01:07:45.680 so it's on his um his legal you know typewriter that he wrote on and it's also um got his

01:07:54.080 signature on it so it's it's actually something that he touched and he wrote on which is kind of

01:07:58.320 special but yeah he wrote a lot of different things he wrote several little booklets and

01:08:02.240 like i said he was he wrote a lot of really really neat poetry if you get a chance to read it

01:08:09.120 question for rob what kind of also true music would you like to see from folk in the community

01:08:15.120 i know matt said bluegrass before which would be awesome um yeah i like bluegrass as well i think

01:08:24.080 you know we've got a lot of like you know black metal and death metal bands we need some folk

01:08:28.480 music some bluegrass uh maybe some old stuff old style country um i think that really plays well

01:08:37.920 to the folk soul bluegrass is a descendant of island music um you know so it really plays well

01:08:48.000 to the to your folk memory um just americana style music really uh i think would serve us well i mean

01:08:57.520 i like you know some of the the nordic ambiance bands that are out there but i mean you know

01:09:02.480 that's not the end all be all i think they're and it's not applicable to every situation so

01:09:08.560 yeah definitely bluegrass folk americana stuff like that i think plays well

01:09:12.960 So you've already mentioned some of this, but if you have any additional thoughts on

01:09:22.000 it as kind of a bonus, Goethe Stamm, what do you think about the possibility of an

01:09:26.640 Oustree University?

01:09:28.720 Oh, yeah. I hope to see it, you know, maybe in my children's lifetime, but certainly in

01:09:36.720 my my grandchildren's lifetime um you know right now we're just we're laying the foundation stones

01:09:43.200 we gotta we gotta build the foundation so that there can be the castle built on top

01:09:51.760 all right so we have a tip from bobby hey bobby thank you so much for the five dollar tip

01:09:56.960 uh it comes with a statement i first met gothe stam at ostara many years ago just as he was going

01:10:02.960 through a really difficult situation his steadfastness in the face of that adversity

01:10:08.000 has always inspired me greatly and me as well rob

01:10:15.520 thank you bob i'm glad i could do that for you

01:10:20.160 so for schooling what languages should be offered or taught should old norse be treated the same

01:10:28.240 way catholics treat latin let's go ahead and what are your thoughts on that rob uh

01:10:37.680 well i think as far as the school goes uh since it's home school i mean really realistically

01:10:44.480 our students can learn any language that they like i mean obviously with the parameters that

01:10:49.680 it be a european language um as far as like a liturgical language like latin is to the catholic

01:10:59.120 church that's a little above my pay grade um i really but i'll give a small opinion i kind of

01:11:08.240 have two feelings on that and that's because of my background in the in the theotish uh

01:11:14.320 I don't think that a foreign language that nobody can understand could be used for ritual

01:11:24.400 because then the ritual loses its relevance and power to the folk that are assembled.

01:11:30.560 I do think, though, that clergy learning Old Norse and maybe even Latin, because a lot

01:11:37.780 of early works and primary sources were written in Latin.

01:11:42.260 I think that would be beneficial that our clergy can read firsthand, not having to go through a translator.

01:11:48.780 I think that's a good idea. Absolutely.

01:11:50.800 I personally don't want to see ritual conducted in a different language.

01:11:57.100 So, you know, I'll add to that, that the question is a good one first, as far as what languages should be taught in the House of True Academy.

01:12:07.220 Whatever languages they want to learn.

01:12:10.100 Yeah, I'm with Rob.

01:12:10.920 I would prefer those be European languages, but there could be all kind of reasons.

01:12:14.280 And certainly as we move into the later grades, depending on what they want to do, there may be plenty of other linguistics to learn.

01:12:21.580 And I think that's something that homeschool is very feasible on a lot of, you know, a lot of different choice when it comes to that.

01:12:29.520 But as far as a liturgical language, I like the idea of, you know, Old Norse being, I guess, our church is Latin, but in a, in a thematic, in a fun way, not in a alienate the congregation way.

01:12:51.300 I like, yeah, and there's different opinions on this amongst our Gothar on how much to use and how much not to use.

01:12:59.520 i like it where it makes sense i always like using the old norse characters especially when we all

01:13:04.960 know you know how those are pronounced um you'll see that in the names of the hofs i like mixing

01:13:13.200 that in sometimes because it's nice but never just like rob said never at the sacrifice of

01:13:18.960 clarity or people understanding if you're doing a ritual and uh you know if you have occasion to

01:13:25.920 say something you know in you know one of our ancestral tongues in there i always think it's

01:13:31.840 beneficial to tell people what that means before you go in the circle so they know what they're

01:13:37.520 saying um if the the folk can't relate to what you're saying and they can't fully get behind it

01:13:47.040 and fully put their intent behind it it cuts them off for being an active part of that gift cycle

01:13:52.800 and being you know really engaged in the ritual so i would never want the use of of old norse to

01:13:59.200 prevent that so yeah i mean i like using it when we're dealing with proper names or proper

01:14:04.800 terms that were originally in old norse i think that's fun um and sure i would love

01:14:11.440 for that to be something that we could teach someday so our kids could learn it and and know

01:14:15.360 it better but i certainly don't want to see that used heavily in ritual certainly not to a point

01:14:21.040 where it confuses anybody we've got a couple of uh donations over here with accompanying stuff

01:14:28.320 so i want to get to that eric donated a hundred dollars that's huge thank you so much eric we

01:14:35.360 appreciate it and he donated it with the caption of a future thorshoff member absolutely that's

01:14:42.160 great we'd love to see that um thank you so much that's much appreciated we've also got 25 from

01:14:50.240 folk the rude thanks for the weekly talks well you're very very welcome i thank you guys for

01:14:56.160 listening to me i love this i love it so much it's a highlight of my week and i'm glad that you guys

01:15:03.760 benefit from it it literally is me sitting here for a few hours talking with some of my very best

01:15:10.960 friends so uh yeah thank you guys for listening um and then we have a question uh

01:15:20.240 five dollar question from column do you believe the gods are actual physical beings

01:15:25.600 or are they representatives or a representation of our folk and ancestors

01:15:32.800 so first and unequivocally gods are absolutely real they are absolutely real individual

01:15:39.280 personalities and beings the part that throws me off are they real physical beings i don't

01:15:44.880 know that that's how gods exist i know that gods can manifest themselves in a physical form but i

01:15:53.040 don't i think that the definition of physics in that way doesn't apply to the gods as strictly

01:15:59.600 as certainly it does to humans but i know that the gods are real when i say that that i believe no i

01:16:05.520 i know that our gods are real i know that when we engage in the gift cycle that our gods bless us

01:16:13.360 us. I know that when we reach out, they reach back. All the particulars of exactness on

01:16:22.480 that, we can talk about those all day long. But there's no question in my mind that our

01:16:27.120 gods exist as real persons. And it's really a very fundamental point. And it's something

01:16:36.220 that you can't prove to someone who hasn't experienced it. It's hard to express it on

01:16:42.560 on a show like this. But, and I said this last week, but the most, probably the most beautiful

01:16:50.460 and special thing as a gothi is to participate in a ritual where all of a sudden a person has

01:16:58.060 that realization. Because once you see it, once you know our gods are real, you can't unsee it.

01:17:03.760 But if you haven't been touched in that way to where the magic happens, it's really hard

01:17:12.940 to make that case or to prove it.

01:17:16.300 They certainly do represent aspects of our folk soul.

01:17:21.520 They are our ancestors in the most ancient sense.

01:17:25.260 They are those things.

01:17:26.420 They represent those things, but they are also very real beings.

01:17:31.860 to look at them as something other than that makes it much harder to authentically engage

01:17:37.760 in the gift cycle. All of our ritual practice, all of our religion is about building relationships.

01:17:45.640 It's about building relationships with our folk, but ultimately it's about building relationships

01:17:50.380 with our gods. It's about us sharing with them and them sharing with us. The more we have made

01:17:58.900 that emphasis, the more we have been blessed. And you can't, you can't wholeheartedly engage

01:18:10.220 in that ritual if you don't honestly believe there's a person on the other end of it

01:18:16.200 listening to you and interacting. That connection, that gift cycle is the fundamental thing that

01:18:23.240 that fuels our religion

01:18:31.640 okay next question is from christine

01:18:35.800 gofi stam you shared reading the grimm's fairy tales to your children

01:18:40.680 do you have any other books you would recommend for children

01:18:43.480 um specifically related to the religion uh i mean we i haven't read them myself but i hear

01:18:55.320 really good reviews it's uh one of our folk builders have written several children's books

01:19:00.120 um folklore coming um i've heard reviews on those um really anything that's classical european

01:19:10.200 fairy tales is great for kids i mean give let them grow up with the magic and wonder that our

01:19:16.280 ancestors have for generations you know that we can't even count um there's a reason that those

01:19:23.160 stories are still around uh because they're good and they they they uh convey an aryan principle

01:19:32.360 in these stories it's not just for fun it's you know they're actually teaching you something

01:19:37.640 they're teaching you something of arian values so yeah i would definitely recommend any european

01:19:43.000 fairy tales or or books uh any i know it sounds kind of silly but i always go by if it's old

01:19:50.840 it's probably good yeah before before the the slide of the west if you want to call it that

01:19:58.760 it's old it's good

01:19:59.720 i think that's i think that's probably solid um you know works that were done before

01:20:11.080 before political correctness became the first and foremost point that you have to accomplish

01:20:16.280 in any endeavor it seems it was really nice when you can read a book

01:20:22.680 to where they just full-throated go hard on something they believe in

01:20:26.920 rather than having to couch everything they say so they don't possibly offend um those in power

01:20:33.720 it's really nice to get something that's more authentic that's a little bit older like that

01:20:37.720 so i'm hoping we can get some help from nick or from some of our uh our folks over in the chat

01:20:43.320 room to get up some spellings of these names uh tanner asks how do you spell that horst laban

01:20:50.200 gorst laban and harvey and i think he misheard some of those names so if we get somebody to

01:20:56.520 put gross laban and marby over on the side in their correct spellings i think that would be helpful

01:21:05.240 i'm sure somebody knows

01:21:08.920 good deal uh sierra asks matt what rooms do you use for day-to-day use uh do you date do you daily

01:21:18.120 do you do daily divinations of a sort and do you have a daily routine that you incorporate

01:21:24.120 faith into um so i don't i use the runes more sparingly than that i know there's some people

01:21:32.520 that like to do a morning rune pull um i think that's cool i think that's great that's never

01:21:37.320 been something that's been a habit of mine um so the runes that i end up using and i

01:21:48.840 And I do this, I suppose, even with the Arminen runes.

01:21:54.780 I associate them with the things that Meister Von List added to them,

01:21:59.240 but I also associate them with their corresponding runes in the Elder Futhark.

01:22:03.940 And I usually use the Elder Futhark because I'm most familiar with it.

01:22:08.720 And it's what I've known the longest since I've been involved in Ausatru.

01:22:14.000 i used them in terms of divination when asked i performed rune divinations at the the plurids

01:22:24.220 wedding which i was very honored to perform they wanted me to do a live three rune pull

01:22:30.660 like do it live during the ceremony and made me a little bit nervous but it was very auspicious

01:22:36.260 it was a really cool pull and so i don't want to you know the more you do it the more often you do

01:22:43.580 it, the less special it is those really meaningful times you do it. I also like to do a bit of

01:22:49.220 divination because I incorporate that into my baby namings that I perform. But for myself, I don't,

01:22:57.360 I don't do that. I find that my own thoughts and my own feelings have a tendency to cloud

01:23:03.880 my interpretations of runes if I'm just pulling them for myself. So I kind of avoid that.

01:23:09.440 um what i use the runes most for in my personal life is um galder and i galder when i'm in a

01:23:20.960 meditative state sometimes just for the meditation sometimes directing that runic energy at an

01:23:28.480 outcome or at at something um i find i have a really hard time meditating in complete silence

01:23:37.280 I need a mantra or a galder. One of the things that's really special when you, or at least for me, when I do these runic galders, though, is you intone the sound and you make it so much and so rhythmically that there becomes a point where your brain shuts off and you don't have to think to continue the ebb and the flow of the rune that you're intoning.

01:24:03.120 and a part of yourself separates

01:24:08.180 and your brain can be over here in meditation space

01:24:12.720 while you notice the mechanics of your mouth

01:24:15.120 and your diaphragm and everything intoning this rune.

01:24:19.440 And those parts where your I-ness is bifurcated

01:24:28.540 is really special and meaningful.

01:24:30.420 And I don't know if I put that in any way that makes sense.

01:24:33.120 that's kind of a meaningful thing to me as far as a daily thing um greeting the ancestors in

01:24:38.800 the morning it's something i like to do with my daughter when we get up i've got

01:24:42.400 down her room is upstairs and we go down the stairs i like to take a moment to just say good

01:24:48.960 morning to the ancestors because i've got one of those picture walls going up my stairs with

01:24:53.360 with my ancestors on it so i like to do that and i like to come before my altar um

01:24:58.640 um my personal altar in the house and uh you know just kind of as a touchstone to

01:25:08.600 often it's uh an affirmation thing often it's a coming before the altar and reaffirming

01:25:16.660 things that I've committed to or things that I'm resolved to to get done um just offering a prayer

01:25:24.800 and speaking to the gods and uh i like to do that as at my personal altar 0.99

01:25:37.040 should the afa promote members moving to areas where hoffs are present this is really similar to

01:25:44.720 the um ple question earlier absolutely we should and we do um but it's a it's a both ways work and

01:25:55.680 i think individually it may be an either or proposition but organizationally it's not

01:26:03.120 we're going to have members that are rooted where they're at that don't want to move

01:26:06.640 i would love to see things grow in their area and that's fantastic those folks who are mobile

01:26:14.160 and who are willing to i would love to see people move to the little small towns and areas where

01:26:19.280 our hoffs are i think they're all areas to where you know just a few of us moving there could

01:26:25.440 really be impactful in that community and us you know taking root there so i would love to see that

01:26:33.360 just kind of a i suppose a reminder to folks so folks know brownsville california is where

01:26:39.680 odenshoff is linden north carolina is where thor's hof is murdoch minnesota is where balder's hof is

01:26:48.480 and white springs florida is where new york's off is so if anybody's thinking about moving

01:26:53.520 i would recommend you move to one of those four locations or their their bouts

01:27:00.800 all right we've got another question for you rob gozi stam what part will physical education play

01:27:07.680 in the afa academy program if any we all need to become stronger and more healthy and we need more

01:27:14.400 exercise these days yeah absolutely um in the curriculum i i very much uh i guess i want to

01:27:27.600 I recommend nature hikes, outside activities, exercise, you know, to develop the whole person.

01:27:37.120 And being home school, we're not going to have, say, a gym class, but we definitely promote

01:27:44.880 physical activity. And that can do a lot with learning. I mean, you know, when we go on family

01:27:52.000 hikes uh my wife is very much into plant identification and you know she's teaching

01:27:57.760 that to our daughters uh my oldest daughter is really into plant identification now and

01:28:02.800 and not just identifying it but okay well what can we use that for uh what what does that plant

01:28:11.200 sunburns or uh poison ivy you know um so not only are you getting the physical activity

01:28:19.120 learning something too um and i do promote that in the curriculum even for kindergartners doing

01:28:24.800 major hikes getting outside um and i will have to really talk about how we want to incorporate

01:28:33.120 physical education going forward we've got a lot of really good uh folks in the afa that

01:28:39.520 know that stuff when it comes to healthy living exercise whether that be weight lifting or strong

01:28:45.600 man or sports, you know, we've got plenty of resources into that, you know, you show up

01:28:56.220 in the gym class and the goofy shorts with your name on it and take a lap. Maybe it's,

01:29:03.080 you know, also your go-through teaching you proper lifting form on a video and then you

01:29:07.640 go and video yourself doing that lift and that's your physical assessment for the week.

01:29:12.760 granted it's going to be after kindergarten but i think that's a very feasible option going forward

01:29:20.280 yeah i'd love to see um athleticism getting in shape be paramount to our children and to our

01:29:31.560 future um it's not just announced a true problem it's a it's a america problem and i think a west

01:29:39.080 in general but in america specific problem we have so many people who are

01:29:46.600 who have let themselves go into obesity it's so easy in this day and age with so many calories

01:29:52.200 available to us and we see what that does and and i and i want to throw this out here too and i think

01:29:59.640 it's worth saying um it's absolutely about us being strong and being healthy and doing it for

01:30:06.360 your health absolutely do all those things but you know what else it's about doing it so you

01:30:11.000 look good too i don't think that's vain i don't think there's anything like that wanting to look

01:30:16.600 good our people holding beauty as an aesthetic that is is virtuous and valuable to us

01:30:26.200 is one of the really special things about our folk we want our people to be beautiful we want

01:30:31.800 our men to be handsome and our ladies to be beautiful and we want our people to look their

01:30:35.800 best one of the things is the better you look the better you feel and the more confident you are

01:30:41.800 when you go out and face the world and i would love for that self-confidence and that beauty to

01:30:47.400 be a defining characteristic of our folk yeah if i can add real quick onto that um and i think it

01:30:55.960 yeah i mean it does it's just such a self-confidence boost um yeah i got to wear i got to wear a suit

01:31:03.240 that i hadn't been able to wear in years to one of my best friend's weddings and it fit like a glove

01:31:08.360 and that was so awesome that's such an adrenaline rush like yes this thing fits and it looks good

01:31:14.360 uh we want our kids to you know grow up with that feeling hey i look good i feel good i can take on

01:31:20.760 the world and physical education is part of that and i like also your goat you said there's nothing

01:31:26.200 wrong with wanting to feel good and look good um sunshine sucks gave us ten dollars thank you very 0.51

01:31:33.560 much for that you have been a loyal listener and contributor and i really appreciate it um 0.81

01:31:41.400 should afa members get involved in politics

01:31:44.200 So I think that question is, I don't know, I suppose it's the same. It's the same answer that 0.98

01:31:55.200 I would advise anybody in any church. That's going to be up to the individual and what they

01:32:01.180 want to accomplish. Sure, if you feel called to be politically active and involved in the politics

01:32:08.160 of your community or your country, absolutely you should be involved in that. We certainly

01:32:12.340 shouldn't retreat from the the sphere of politics um what i would say though is certainly in some of

01:32:19.220 some of the circles that i know this audience reaches

01:32:24.580 we should make sure that however however we represent ourselves we don't get lost

01:32:31.380 in representing ourselves as a faceless part of a of a bigger political movement

01:32:36.900 but that we always make sure individually we maintain our high standards and our high values

01:32:43.460 of how we present ourselves. And I think it's very easy for large groups to move agendas and

01:32:50.580 certainly optics in ways that aren't a good look for us individually. So I just say, you know,

01:32:58.160 no matter what you do, but specifically politically, be very aware of how you're

01:33:02.560 presenting yourself, always present your best self and, you know, make sure that the things

01:33:10.460 that you're doing are legal and appropriate and things that you're going to be proud of 10 years

01:33:15.500 from now. And that goes for whatever political involvement you're involved in. But as far as,

01:33:21.160 you know, are people trying to run for office or, you know, especially in local government,

01:33:26.520 I think there's a lot of options to make good things happen in your community if you're,

01:33:32.340 if you're so motivated and you want to get involved in something local like a school

01:33:35.700 board situation or many things that way so yeah i would encourage that

01:33:41.620 i'm trying to donate is there something on here or do i have to go to the website so that's a

01:33:47.140 good question i think it's a good time for nick to throw up some advertisement for us first if

01:33:51.780 you want to donate during these podcasts um the folks are donating over on entropy and nick can

01:33:58.340 throw up that entropy link but uh yeah entropy is how people are donating and doing the super chat

01:34:04.980 and and things that way we really appreciate it but any of you guys can donate at any time um

01:34:11.860 on our website at runestone.org we have a special donate page for all the different

01:34:16.580 things we're involved in or just to the general fund so it goes just wherever it's needed

01:34:21.220 but i want you guys all to know everybody who's it's fun to watch the donations come in on this

01:34:26.500 chat, but all the people that donate to us, we really, really appreciate it. It means a lot.

01:34:36.860 And that's how we're able to accomplish the things we've been able to accomplish.

01:34:41.180 It's y'all's generosity that have gotten us four Hoffs in, you know, seven years. So

01:34:49.460 we're doing really good things because we've got so many very generous people willing to give of

01:34:54.680 themselves and i want you guys to really know that's appreciated um so speaking of callum gave

01:35:00.520 us three more dollars to ask how do you feel about afa members hanging out with past members and

01:35:07.720 non-members all right rob you go first on this all right that's a that's a tough one um you know

01:35:18.040 someone that uh was a really close friend of mine years ago had left the asa briefly

01:35:25.080 and i still spoke to them and granted a lot of that speaking was hey you should come back

01:35:31.160 um but um and they did uh but if you leave the church you kind of i mean if i met you in the

01:35:43.800 church and you leave the church then what we have in common it's kind of over at that time

01:35:49.240 um and you know and it just seems like in 99.9 percent of the times someone leaves the church

01:35:57.240 it's over some bs um like that i don't know it's hard for me to respect that um

01:36:06.600 you know if you're leaving over some something that's very trivial it's very hard to respect

01:36:15.080 that and maintain it and it's harder to maintain a friendship with someone that you don't respect

01:36:19.640 their their motives or their actions um and you know if someone were to leave the church and just

01:36:27.000 completely turn their back on the faith completely well it's really hard to maintain a friendship in

01:36:33.720 the next day. So, you know, all my friends and family are in the church and that's the way I like

01:36:39.720 it. So first, you guys are grown, be friends with whoever you want to be friends with.

01:36:51.420 It's not the AFA's position to demand that our members be friends with certain people or distance

01:36:59.340 themselves for other people. And that's not something that I have any intention to do it.

01:37:03.640 But since I was asked, I'm gonna throw it out there. As far as our members being friends with

01:37:08.280 non-members, absolutely, of course. You know, we're all going to have friends that are not

01:37:13.080 members of the AFA for various reasons. Maybe they're members of our folk that, you know,

01:37:17.900 aren't ready to come home yet. Or maybe they're people that couldn't be eligible for AFA membership

01:37:22.860 that we can still have a friendship with. And I think that's just fine. As far as how I feel about

01:37:28.500 our folk who want to associate with former members first as rob said if the point of

01:37:35.460 your association is hey man you should come back to the afa then absolutely um but i take it really

01:37:42.900 personal um this is my life i have devoted 100 of myself to this i i live this i eat it sleep it

01:37:53.940 breathe it. If someone leaves the AFA, I have to wonder why. If it's a rejection of our gods and

01:38:08.160 our faith, then that disloyalty to our gods is fundamentally offensive to me. If it's because

01:38:17.820 they don't like myself or what I'm doing, that hurts too. If they've completely changed their

01:38:26.740 worldview and they're no longer, you know, they're no longer folkish and they're no longer 0.99

01:38:31.440 aligned with our values, then I don't know what we have to be, to be connected over. Those are 1.00

01:38:36.380 the things that define a friendship. So, you know, I always want people who leave to come back

01:38:43.160 And I don't think that, you know, everyone has to necessarily cut them off completely.

01:38:50.040 But when when a person turns their back on the AFA, they're literally turning their back on me and I take it really personal and I can't help it.

01:39:00.880 There's no way for me to do this where I'm not invested in it, heart and soul.

01:39:05.080 And so it means sometimes the folk break your heart, unfortunately.

01:39:08.340 but I've seen a lot of amazing people join us over the years and I've seen some people I was

01:39:13.940 very close to end up leaving and it's sad just thinking about it. We have another donation from

01:39:25.160 Tanner, $5. Thank you so much. He says, thanks for doing these shows. They've been great and

01:39:31.180 looking forward to seeing what's happening next with the Academy. Let's take a break for a second

01:39:38.180 rob could you tell us uh how many students do we have already enrolled and can you give us an idea

01:39:45.700 of what states these folks are from yeah uh well actually we've got a lot of applications from

01:39:52.740 folks that were jumping the gun a little bit um you know either kids that are too old or too young

01:39:58.580 for kindergarten uh but they'll they every one of them said okay well i guess we'll see you next

01:40:04.020 year because we really want to get involved um so right now we have 11 in kindergarten

01:40:13.940 exceed our expectations for the very first class so we're very excited about that um

01:40:23.460 i'm sorry can you you remind me of the the other parts of the question

01:40:27.940 see how it is yeah no i was wondering how many students and

01:40:30.740 geographically like what states are represented uh geographically uh every single hoff district

01:40:38.260 including the brand new one uh new york's off is represented uh we've got off the top of my head

01:40:44.040 we've got montana california washington state tennessee uh minnesota maryland um virginia

01:40:54.040 uh let's see where else florida and i'm sure i'm forgetting some but those are off the top

01:41:02.040 of my head every every half district you've represented good deal and so folks know one of

01:41:08.120 the one of the strategies on how we're structuring curriculum and in the running of this program is

01:41:14.280 we're trying to find the most restrictive hardest to comply with states and gearing towards that

01:41:21.240 where the easier you know every state that's not the hardest state will be that much easier and

01:41:27.160 will be that much more squared away from but if you're worried that maybe your state has standards

01:41:32.120 that you're scared we don't meet or whatever please still reach out because we're committed

01:41:37.960 to making it compliant with all of the states we've got a good team of people to walk you through

01:41:44.280 that process and make through even states that try to make it difficult for homeschooling

01:41:48.840 to where we can navigate that system because it's it's it's worth it for our children

01:41:55.160 uh so storm chase mike has a suggestion i have a suggestion on finding other members

01:42:01.080 what would you guys say about a map showing where other members are that are close by

01:42:08.120 um for members or for non-members for within the membership we could do something like that

01:42:14.680 it'd take a little bit of doing there's a thing on the application where you select whether you

01:42:18.520 want other people to be referred to you or not um a lot of people are touchy when it comes to giving

01:42:24.920 out their exact addresses so i think that how we populate that map would be interesting we could

01:42:32.600 maybe put it on uh you know just the town um instead of making it closer than that we already

01:42:40.200 have a really nice map that we use within leadership to plot where members are but i

01:42:45.160 think something visual visual like that would be really useful for our members so that's something

01:42:51.320 that we can certainly consider the other thing that's always good is reach out to your local

01:42:55.640 folk builder they have access to the map that i was talking about they can tell you who's close

01:43:00.440 and who's not and they can get you connected with those people near to you um so zach asks

01:43:11.480 it's good to hear from you, Zach. Njord's Hoff is about to have its dedication. What does Njord

01:43:17.560 mean to you, Matt? And what is the slogan for Njord's Hoff as Odin's Hoff is do right and fear

01:43:23.740 no one? First, the slogan is the harshest winds make the strongest wood. And I looked over to

01:43:31.000 the side because I have it hanging on my wall over there, the flag that is. So what does Njord

01:43:37.680 mean to me to me i think of nyord as an abundant happy overflowing god um i think of of him as as

01:44:00.480 someone who just trying to think it's hard to encapsulate but just words of of

01:44:07.680 of bounty and and you know a bountiful catch of gold and and riches and success and just having

01:44:16.400 the fullness and happiness of life i think that gets imparted and seen through his children

01:44:23.840 i think uh fray and frayer i'm sorry frayer and freya and i think

01:44:31.440 i just think that's the the bounty of the sea and all of the riches and wonderful things that

01:44:36.720 that wash in from that is what New York means to me. So I think that that abundance is what I think

01:44:45.020 of when I think of New York. And that means a lot to me. And having a Hoff in Florida means a lot to

01:44:50.740 me as well. I lived in Florida for a short time, for two years when I first met Mandy. I moved

01:45:00.900 down there to you know further further things with house the true and in the afa and also

01:45:07.300 very much to build a life with mandy and uh when i left there we had this one hof out in california

01:45:13.140 and i went west so i could be where the hof was and you know be close to that and now my first

01:45:19.460 time returning back to florida i'm coming back with us dedicating that hof there and it's really

01:45:25.140 kind of a special return in a way for me so that's really special as well

01:45:35.940 so the salutrian asks can we become gods or godlike um can we become gods

01:45:46.660 i want to say no can we become godlike yes certainly in a way when i say that i mean

01:45:54.100 that with little g's and not big g's i think people delude themselves when they

01:46:00.580 feel that by emulating the gods they can somehow become one of the great gods of

01:46:08.980 the pantheon of our folk i don't think it works that way but certainly we can ascend

01:46:14.420 And certainly our heroes become more than they were. Hopefully in life beyond the veil, we can

01:46:23.660 transcend beyond that as well. We can ascend to something greater and we can keep doing that.

01:46:29.740 I don't know what the limits of that are. But I think we can certainly become spiritually

01:46:38.660 advanced to where we are more than we are at present, to where that we are something more

01:46:44.620 than regular mortal man. I think a lot of that is with our belief in being in the halls of the gods

01:46:52.660 and after death and being celebrated in Valhalla for an idea. I think that is a form of ascension

01:47:01.620 that makes us much closer to the gods and much higher in the spiritual realm. And there's probably

01:47:08.360 steps beyond that but you know if you work really hard are you going to be

01:47:13.720 the god of storms probably not um i think that's that's a different

01:47:20.440 that's an apples and orange kind of comparison i think

01:47:31.800 so another question or a statement rather learn a little old norse to study the eddas

01:47:38.360 Yeah, I think that would be certainly cool to do. I think the more you can read texts in their original, the more you get subtle nuances of them. If you read all of the different etic translations that we have now into English, they're all a little bit different.

01:47:58.320 Sometimes that difference is really small, but in some passages, it's very big.

01:48:03.820 So I think it's always kind of a cool and a special thing to be able to go back to that root language.

01:48:08.600 If you're a native speaker of that language or if you learn it, you pick up some nuance that you'd miss otherwise.

01:48:14.720 What do you think, Rob?

01:48:16.680 I absolutely agree.

01:48:18.320 You know, even just with modern languages, when I read something, like from my, you know,

01:48:27.080 Meister Wortsman, who I mentioned earlier, when I read something from him in the original

01:48:31.560 German, I get the nuances, I get the context perfectly, the way he wanted it portrayed,

01:48:39.340 whereas if I read a translation, there's definitely something lost in translation.

01:48:44.700 it is absolutely of value to learn the languages of the primary sources

01:48:52.380 all right uh josh asks general question we talked about the afa universe about an afa

01:48:58.380 university but what about more trade craft and skill sharing ideas would we like to see more

01:49:04.300 of that and if so in what capacity what do you think rob well um that is another advantage of

01:49:11.740 homeschool is that you can really concentrate on uh a trade or trade craft and part of schooling

01:49:23.100 can even be an apprenticeship um or a learning about that particular grade and i do uh i don't

01:49:32.140 want to give too much kudos to the european system but i do like their the way they do schooling

01:49:37.420 where if you're destined to go to university um then you go to one type of high school but if you

01:49:47.340 are destined to be a soldier or a plumber or an electrician you're going to go to high a different

01:49:54.940 type of high school where you get the the basic knowledge just to be a productive human being

01:49:59.740 that you need i mean you need to know some math and you need to know science but you don't need

01:50:04.300 to know physics to the degree that someone that's going to be a uh you know a petroleum engineer

01:50:11.900 does um and you take some trade classes as part of your your high school i think that's really smart

01:50:20.540 and um you know and i've often said that uh you know my my cousin who's a plumber makes a whole

01:50:28.620 heck of a lot money than i do with a master's degree um so uh i do think there's much value

01:50:35.980 in tradecraft and trade education and i would like to incorporate some of that once we get

01:50:41.100 down into the high school level and that's the beauty of homeschool is that we can do that

01:50:47.180 yeah i think that's really important and i i think that's a valid thing to throw out and

01:50:52.060 I've heard this from so many people and more and more all the time. Unless you're going for a very

01:50:59.420 specific career that requires a college education, people are finding that they can do way better

01:51:08.880 economically in the trades. And I think those are always things that are useful and valuable

01:51:15.220 for our folk. What I'd like to see more of and kind of outside of a school perspective is more

01:51:21.000 apprenticeship and more you know our folk that have a skill being able to employ and train other

01:51:28.760 afa members especially young afa members so they can learn skills to build a life on

01:51:34.760 we already see some of that but i would love to see more of that as time goes on

01:51:41.400 next question is what do you think or do you think there are things in nature

01:51:46.920 that are or at least could be acts of the gods. Absolutely. It's tricky because

01:51:54.860 there's a balance. And so many people, everything's either black or white. 0.99

01:52:02.940 The gods work through nature in a lot of ways. So every time there's a storm doesn't mean the

01:52:11.160 gods are angry, but maybe sometimes it does. You know, when something special happens in nature

01:52:17.080 that's odd, there's a lot of science that goes into it that's not, you know, necessarily an act

01:52:24.440 of the gods, but then there's times where it is. And one of the special things about maturing in

01:52:31.980 Austritu is being able to see those synchronicities and see where natural occurrence and natural

01:52:37.980 things have a deeper meaning and where they don't. And sometimes things in nature that you're going

01:52:45.020 to see, you know, it's easy to think about storms or earthquakes or big things, but sometimes just

01:52:49.860 subtle occurrences when you're out in the woods with animals or with other sign. Animal sign is

01:52:55.080 a big thing during ritual. An animal sign is a big way that the gods communicate with us.

01:53:01.360 But then again, there's animals that just wander around and do animal stuff and differentiating

01:53:07.260 between the two is very challenging. A lot of new people, when they first get involved in

01:53:12.020 Austertru, man, every time they see a raven, it's a messenger from the Allfather.

01:53:20.060 And it's not. But it could be sometimes. Sometimes it is. Again, figuring out those subtleties

01:53:27.580 are important. And sometimes it's something specifically meaningful to you.

01:53:32.100 But that is something that I'll note that a lot of people do notice is during ritual when

01:53:36.300 at certain really important moments you'll see nature react to it in very subtle ways

01:53:42.540 and that's always a special thing to see what do you think rob oh yeah definitely uh one of my

01:53:50.700 one of the prime example i can think of right after your odin's bloat at winter nights i think

01:53:57.840 it was two or three years ago maybe longer uh as soon as you were done and we were leaving the

01:54:03.240 circle, there was a meteor shower. And maybe that, you know, it was coincidence, but boy,

01:54:08.640 it sure was very powerful for a lot of people. And I'll share a few things. I really like

01:54:15.880 animal signs. That's, it's kind of my nerd out. And both times when my one of my really

01:54:25.740 good friends and fellow Gothar, when he was married, there was a fuzzy bumblebee that

01:54:31.780 floated around the ceremony and landed and hung out the whole time and and bees are a sign of good

01:54:37.900 luck and then later another friend of mine was renewing his wedding vows and the same thing

01:54:43.520 happened a bee just hung out and and watched and you know the whole time uh didn't bother anybody

01:54:50.260 uh just kind of hung back and watched and i really like noticing small things like that

01:54:55.020 um you know like matt said uh sometimes a raven is just a raven but i still think it's kind of

01:55:03.860 neat to notice little things like that um and a story i'll tell uh even though a raven may just

01:55:10.580 be a raven um it can also be a learning point um and if it serves the strength in your faith all

01:55:17.680 the better um my daughter and i were hiking up a famous virginia mountain called old ride

01:55:24.480 and um we we went during a weekday and it was fairly chilly um so we were the only ones on the

01:55:31.360 mountain and we were going to do a little uh ritual to own a stop and uh as we're going up uh

01:55:40.000 my daughter points out and she's about nine at the time she points out that there's ravens that

01:55:45.600 keep circling and flying and she saw them they may or may not have been the same pair of ravens

01:55:50.720 i don't know but she saw him the whole way up and then when we were on top of the mountain and we

01:55:55.200 were resting and having something to eat uh they they landed on the rocks and you know fly off and

01:56:01.600 circle back around but that was really really special to a nine-year-old girl she said i know

01:56:06.640 dad i know that's hugan immune and telling odin that we're here to say hi and uh they're going to

01:56:12.720 go back and say that you know tell odin that we're doing a ritual for him on this mountain

01:56:18.000 so maybe it was just ravens maybe not but it was really special and powerful

01:56:23.120 to a nine-year-old girl so stuff like that can be very special

01:56:29.760 yeah and that's what i meant by sometimes stuff is just particularly meaningful to you and it

01:56:33.760 may not be meaningful to everyone else uh all right so we're having some technical things some

01:56:42.160 folks are saying entropy is down uh nick if you could i don't know copy and paste those questions

01:56:49.520 that i already have up that i haven't gotten to yet so we don't lose them and i'll try to refresh

01:56:53.920 it and see what i can do um in the meantime we got a question rob have you heard of the wisdom

01:57:00.480 of odin youtube channel and i'll throw this in if so what are your thoughts on it uh i've heard of

01:57:07.040 it uh i have not personally checked it out so i couldn't offer anything

01:57:14.160 yeah that's that's where i'm at with it as well i know a lot of folks on here do ask about it um

01:57:25.680 i'm more of a book guy than a youtube guy i still like having paper books in my hands

01:57:31.280 don't say that while we're on a youtube

01:57:36.560 no no i watch everything i really do but uh i just watch everything the afa puts out but uh

01:57:44.320 yeah no i'll check it out and you know if you want to send me a message i'll let you know

01:57:49.600 my opinion after i've actually looked at it okay so i am copying some questions here and if this

01:57:58.480 disrupts anybody please ask your question again if for some reason something happens

01:58:03.120 i'm going to go ahead and restart the entropy deal and see if that fixes the problem folks are having

01:58:10.880 um i think of something in the meantime uh rob can you talk a little bit about your experience

01:58:21.840 at thorshoff you've been you know one of the founders of that place making making that so

01:58:28.480 successful can you talk a little bit about that to us while i get this worked out

01:58:33.280 oh absolutely um it's a very special place um and i when we first started there i'll never forget uh

01:58:43.200 And, you know, my wife and two of the other Gothi's that are now Gothi's wives were sitting

01:58:52.700 there in the hall, and it was just so bare and empty, and, you know, it was so sterile,

01:58:59.340 it looked like a cafeteria.

01:59:02.220 But, you know, now it feels very homey, and, you know, it's very welcoming and warm, and

01:59:11.100 And to have played a small part in that is really special.

01:59:15.860 Foresthof is my second home, and it feels that way.

01:59:21.860 The people there are my home, and it's just such a magical place.

01:59:28.480 There's so many powerful rituals have occurred there.

01:59:30.820 You can feel the current of energy flowing through the place.

01:59:36.900 And so much hard work by so many great people have gone into making it what it is now.

01:59:45.660 And I mean, it's in a very scenic, picturesque place, a small southern farm area.

01:59:51.500 Linden itself is a nice little southern town.

01:59:54.960 There's barns on even City Hall, which is really cool.

02:00:00.780 you know uh it's just a relief to go there to get rid just get away from the modernity for a while

02:00:10.620 and be around how life was intended to be with family and friends that you love and love you and

02:00:17.340 in the in the energy and the power of the god's presence um it's hard to put that into words but

02:00:24.940 is really special and you haven't been to a Hoff,

02:00:29.080 you have to go.

02:00:30.700 All our Hoffs are unique

02:00:33.200 and they do have a slightly different feel,

02:00:35.660 but they're all very special

02:00:37.160 and they all have that warmth and magic there.

02:00:41.940 You haven't been to a Hoff yet,

02:00:43.180 you really are doing yourself a disservice.

02:00:45.200 You've got to get to one.

02:00:47.400 What Rob said.

02:00:49.180 Yeah, it should be obvious to anybody who's watching this,

02:00:54.180 that this would be our suggestion but absolutely if you haven't been to one it's it's such a game

02:01:02.660 changer and being able to see the difference um when we didn't have hoffs and when we were you

02:01:09.300 know just kind of traveling around to parks and making the best of what we have the difference

02:01:14.980 between that and a holy temple honoring our gods that we can come we can call ours and we can call

02:01:22.340 home is uh it's such a special transition um so i've got entropy back up it never really stopped

02:01:30.020 for me but i went ahead and reloaded it if people want to get back in um and nick is being so kind

02:01:37.140 as to repopulate my questions i don't think we lost any of y'all's questions but if you don't

02:01:42.740 hear us answer feel free to uh ask again i know we usually run behind on questions because we get

02:01:48.900 we get meaty answers. So and it promotes really good conversation. All right. So do you think

02:01:58.600 that pagans could make their own non PC movies or series about the myths and history? For example,

02:02:04.680 there are a bunch of fan made films based on fantasy like the Lord of the Rings and other

02:02:10.640 fantasy um i think that i would encourage more people with traditional values generally to be

02:02:20.800 involved in making entertainment there's a lack of that and i know the way that mainstream

02:02:26.720 entertainment is structured it's very very hard for someone to break into that um because it's

02:02:33.760 controlled by a select group of people unfortunately so it's kind of tricky but i'm a big fan of

02:02:39.280 independent films and independent things. I know some of the fantasy things that you're talking

02:02:45.140 about. There's a lot of LARP things. But LARP's cool if you're doing it as a movie and it's in

02:02:52.460 its own box. It's not cool as a lifestyle choice. I think that more of our people getting involved

02:03:00.180 in art, whatever the art may be, would be a beautiful thing. But specifically in film and

02:03:05.980 entertainment that way i'd love to see more of that go through rob we have heard that you're a

02:03:13.660 big student of history uh is there a specific time period that you find exciting and want to

02:03:19.660 talk to us about that talk to those of us about who might not have your knowledge uh certainly

02:03:27.820 I love the Bronze Age. The Nordic Bronze Age is really cool because it is the birth of Germanic. So that's, you know, that's something very special. Unfortunately, that's more archaeology than it is history.

02:03:46.740 um but bronze age uh greece however is very rich and written accounts of stories i love homer

02:03:58.980 um and i think that bronze age greece

02:04:03.140 is the only culture that is oh hi aubrey

02:04:07.700 Bronze Age Greece is, I mean, we've had trading networks and cultural associations with the

02:04:17.600 Nordic Bronze Age, and it is absolutely a good example of our people's value, world

02:04:25.820 view um and and how they saw things so yeah i really like the bronzy uh your history though

02:04:45.020 uh i gotta go medieval i love the medieval time period

02:04:47.980 the star of the show is here so

02:04:54.540 yeah we got a we got we got a special guest my beautiful daughter aubrey just got done

02:05:03.040 taking her bath so she wants to come say hi and try to poke the camera and wave at you guys

02:05:07.740 um i'm a extremely extremely lucky guy uh this little lady is wonderful and i love her so much

02:05:16.240 and i appreciate you coming and saying hi uh yeah i share a love of medieval history with rob certainly

02:05:23.680 um history is fascinating and it doesn't just have to be in some archaic i think our people get

02:05:35.200 stuck just thinking of the viking age for religion and for history and the history of

02:05:41.360 our folk is our collective inheritance and i think all point all periods in history have

02:05:49.120 amazingly interesting and valuable things we can learn from so i would encourage people to

02:05:54.480 you know check out stuff that's outside their box a little bit sometimes

02:05:59.760 um for both of us what is one misconception about also true that you want to address rob go first

02:06:08.320 um you know i've been i've been involved in germanic paganism if you want to call it that

02:06:18.280 for such a long time that you know the the misconceptions from outsiders are

02:06:23.200 kind of far removed from my thought processes um but i would say you know that we're i mean

02:06:34.360 The biggest one I can see, and even my family's very accepting, my parents, who are devout Catholics, will send me a Yule card, they'll white out Christmas and write in Yule.

02:06:50.640 So they're very accepting even, but I mean, I've heard some other people, you know, oh, so you worship demons.

02:06:58.460 Well, no, that's a false, you're setting up a false premise.

02:07:04.360 my gods are outside of the the bubble of your religion if you will we don't exist

02:07:12.840 just in your bubble so i guess that would be the biggest misconception

02:07:16.840 maybe it you know uh from maybe mainstream conservative christians i guess is that we're

02:07:25.960 that's the biggest one i can think of to be honest yeah i you know i i'm kind of with rob

02:07:32.680 i've been involved in this for so long um and i'm inside the bubble i don't really know what

02:07:41.720 folks that have misconceptions you know i'm not really sure what what the word on the street is

02:07:47.720 um things that i have seen uh that are misconceptions is there's a lot of folks

02:07:52.440 that haven't looked into it seriously and and this may be a huge thing to us because we live

02:07:57.720 this as part of our life, but Alcitru are a very small percentage of population. There's a lot of

02:08:03.800 people that aren't familiar with who we are, what we do. So I think a lot of people think that we

02:08:09.400 don't take this seriously, or they find it silly. And I think that's the biggest misconception I'd

02:08:16.200 like to clear up is just how very devout and serious we are in our practice of Alcitru.

02:08:23.080 and i i believe that the afa is also true and else true exists through the afa whatever these

02:08:32.880 other folks do outside of that i don't believe is is authentically also true and i don't put

02:08:39.860 much stock in there's a lot of people on the outside that i i don't think approach this with

02:08:44.900 piety but in the afa we take this very seriously we absolutely believe in our gods we absolutely

02:08:52.380 believe in our faith. And yeah, it's real to us. And I don't think, I think that's one of the

02:09:02.440 misconceptions that I see. And I see that a lot in alt-right circles and, you know, people that

02:09:07.300 ideologically may have similar worldviews sometimes. Because they may not have that

02:09:14.560 sincere faith in their life or because they may not have experienced or made friendships with

02:09:20.800 AFA members, they may not get how important it is. But one thing I'm very gratified in that way for

02:09:27.300 is when we've had members of the community show up at our Hoffs. And, you know, whenever we have

02:09:35.920 folks that, you know, family members of members, there was a wedding at Thor's Hoff recently where

02:09:41.820 an outside photographer was there, they're getting to see how very spiritual and very

02:09:49.760 serious our religion is, has been a really nice thing because they're able to share that

02:09:55.780 with, with people that, you know, may not know what to think. And one thing that they

02:10:00.140 go away with is, you know, how truly serious and truly pious and devoted we are. And that's

02:10:05.960 really important. As a Christian, I experienced communion with God. I still value those experiences

02:10:14.440 and feel they were genuine. As someone investigating Ausitru, how would I relate

02:10:21.000 those experiences to an Ausitru context? I don't think that you have to, or I certainly don't

02:10:33.140 think there's a spot where you're having to beat a square peg into a round hole um none of us are

02:10:40.500 trying to tell you that your previous gift cycle with the uh the the christian god with yahweh or

02:10:52.420 with christ is invalid or not real nobody's trying to invalidate that for you um i think in any if

02:11:02.820 If any, I think that you could relate that to what we talk about in Ausatru as the gift cycle.

02:11:11.600 That sharing and that communion, in a way, is similar to us sharing our energy with our gods.

02:11:23.300 Just as your God, or I'm not sure where you're at in your spiritual life here, so I don't want to presume.

02:11:30.560 But if you have a devout faith in a Christian God that doesn't invalidate or take away from our God's existence and vice versa, our God's existing and being powerful and real doesn't mean that the Christian God doesn't exist.

02:11:50.440 Um, so I, I don't think that you have to forsake past experiences, but learn from them.

02:11:57.260 One thing that I think it does relate also true wise is that idea of building a personal

02:12:02.200 relationship through the God with the gods through prayer and through sharing.

02:12:07.320 And, um, I would say that our worship is much more of a sharing of energies and less one

02:12:15.740 sided but absolutely interacting with a god in that way where you're sharing the energy and you're

02:12:22.940 you're feeling that god reacts to your devotion that's that's absolutely something that you can

02:12:29.580 experience in house of truth what are your thoughts on it rob uh yeah i it's a tough question it's a

02:12:40.540 a good one um i don't deny that yahweh exists i just don't view yahweh as the god of my folk my

02:12:49.500 ancestors and me um does yahweh care about you know people outside of his folk i can't answer for a god

02:13:00.300 um perhaps your experiences were genuine and and part of that is the collective spirit of the

02:13:10.940 people there yeah i like like uh matt said we're not taking away from that and you can

02:13:18.220 you certainly had those experiences i would contend that you might have more powerful experiences

02:13:26.220 interacting with the god of your folk and your ancestors your long ancestors

02:13:31.820 and it is a gift cycle we we exchange energies as matt said it's not so one-sided um

02:13:40.140 yeah i don't i don't want to take away from the experiences we've had before i couldn't say that

02:13:44.620 those experiences and better are absolutely attainable uh within aussitrew so we have

02:13:52.540 a three dollar donation on behalf of sarah alt and uh goethe rob looks like he could use a la croix

02:14:00.300 at uh this point la croix intermission uh actually i do have i'm drinking bubbly tonight so

02:14:11.020 much uh but yeah actually a big shout out to ryan uh who sent me four cases of la croix

02:14:20.620 while I was doing the Baldershoff dog pull.

02:14:24.420 That was amazing and awesome.

02:14:26.660 He had the, what do you call it?

02:14:30.780 You get somebody online and they can go pick up your groceries

02:14:34.780 and bring them to you.

02:14:35.760 I don't remember what it's called, but yeah,

02:14:38.940 folk builder Ryan Harlan out in Montana saw that we were working hard

02:14:42.620 and it was hot, so he sent over some cold to Croy for me.

02:14:47.620 Well, that was very nice of him.

02:14:49.860 i just want to state unequivocally that uh the austral folk assembly in no way endorses

02:14:55.620 la croix it is disgusting we are a bang church so no la croix heresy here get out the shepherd's

02:15:08.180 truck yank you off so um gothe stam are there things that parents could do for their kids

02:15:18.900 before they're old enough to get into the afa academy yeah uh one of the biggest things that

02:15:26.340 i'm a huge advocate for and there's studies that'll back it up as well um read read to your

02:15:33.780 children reading to your kids gives them a huge head start uh and studies have shown that children

02:15:40.420 that are read to routinely do better in school down the road they uh they read at higher levels

02:15:47.220 and it just sets them up for success um so yeah that's the biggest one i can put out there is

02:15:54.020 read to your children and that uh that becomes an activity too that you get to bond with your

02:16:00.180 children over um it's story time good deal um does anyone have any suggestions of folk made clothing

02:16:12.980 or at least usa or euro made clothing um i do not rob do you uh i mean i spend more money than i

02:16:22.580 should at the afa store on t-shirts it seems like every time i make an order melissa's coming out

02:16:28.420 with something new um so yeah i'd advocate uh the afa store um yeah outside of that i'm

02:16:38.340 i can't think of anything off the top of my head so one one thing and i want to make this clear

02:16:45.940 about the afa store i have no idea where the garments come from um the logoing and art done

02:16:53.380 on it comes from us but i can't make any guarantee that the shirts aren't outsourced uh and made in

02:17:00.340 different country so much the price point is so much better that it's it's disadvantageous a lot

02:17:08.260 of the time to get american-made products um but yeah i just don't want anybody to think that we're

02:17:14.820 making a guarantee that the products in our store are all are sourced from either europe

02:17:19.300 or the united states because that may very well not be the case um

02:17:24.660 can afa members keep the fact that they are they are afa members private to avoid people at work

02:17:36.180 or other places seeing that one is a member of an organization called white supremacist on wikipedia

02:17:44.180 um yeah absolutely you're as a member and we

02:17:49.780 we we do ask that our leadership have their their name their face and their association with us be

02:17:57.540 public that's for being leadership as a member it's entirely up to you on who you want to let

02:18:03.460 know about your um your involvement with the afa or not we don't publish our membership list to

02:18:10.740 you know the general public we don't give that over we don't give our membership list over without

02:18:17.140 you know some kind of subpoena or something that's not something that we do so your um

02:18:25.220 your privacy is very important to us in that way and and you can tell whoever you want that

02:18:30.660 you're a member or or not that's entirely a choice for you to make that said the afa as a whole we

02:18:38.020 believe in practicing house true openly and we carry that over with our events and with pictures

02:18:43.700 that we take and how we do things but as far as you as an individual and your membership with us

02:18:48.980 that's that's up to you who you want to share that with or who you don't

02:18:53.940 rob if folks find outsider resource recommendations for your your review where can they send this

02:19:03.860 uh you can just send it to my email which is rstam runestone.org which is on the screen now

02:19:11.780 uh thank you nick uh that's that's the best uh i check my email uh incessantly

02:19:20.100 you send me something there i'm gonna see it

02:19:26.420 that's an interesting question i don't think we've ever gotten this one before

02:19:29.940 would you all suggest a break for a fence sitter that's leaving one religion

02:19:35.140 and interested in the afa rob what are your thoughts on that

02:19:43.220 well i think that if you're considering leaving a religion there had to have been a spiritual

02:19:49.140 and mental break prior to you actually going through the steps of leaving that religion

02:19:54.980 like something had to serve that on something in your heart something in your soul

02:19:59.300 um that started making you question things started making you wander

02:20:04.420 um and you've obviously looked at the afa and that looked right so i don't think necessarily

02:20:12.260 there has to be a break because probably mentally mentally and spiritually you've already been

02:20:19.380 through that break process and you found the afa you know like that looks good now you go through

02:20:25.780 with the actual physical world steps

02:20:28.960 to make the break from the former fate to the AFA.

02:20:33.300 So no, I don't think there has to be a break.

02:20:36.680 You know, it's a really, really interesting question.

02:20:39.180 And it's, in a lot of ways,

02:20:42.480 it's exactly the same as people getting out of a relationship.

02:20:49.120 It all depends on where you're coming from.

02:20:51.340 I don't. In a lot of ways, it's like, you know, getting out of a relationship and pursuing a new

02:21:03.360 relationship. You want to make sure that the baggage of the one doesn't carry over to the

02:21:08.320 other. And if you've been treated poorly in your previous faith, I can understand where there

02:21:18.260 be a time of exploring what you really think who you really are getting back to an authentic version

02:21:25.860 of yourself and from that point choosing a different faith but i think all too often it's

02:21:30.820 all part of a spectrum and you've you know you've been transitioning out of your faith and slowly in

02:21:37.620 to ausitru for some time and if that's the case once you break your ties with with your your old

02:21:44.420 faith community i think you're probably oftentimes already geared towards

02:21:54.420 getting immediately involved in aussitrew and i would suggest you go ahead and do that i think

02:21:59.300 there's something to be said for you know taking a moment to breathe and figure things out is

02:22:04.660 important but there's also very much something to be said for you know riding that wave of zeal

02:22:10.900 and enthusiasm when you discover something new that you're passionate about and excited about.

02:22:16.660 So, yeah, I think that depends on the individual. But I don't think there's

02:22:20.660 I wouldn't recommend that period of taking a break. I would recommend that you jump in and

02:22:29.860 open yourself wide and completely to our gods and our folk and see what beautiful things can happen.

02:22:37.620 them. Can you speak to the idea that the power or influence of the European folk gods

02:22:47.100 is directly proportional to the degree of intensity that Europeans believe and revere them?

02:22:59.380 So yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a really

02:23:01.720 good thing that you bring up, or an interesting thing that you bring up.

02:23:07.620 I think our gods exist and have power externally from us, but certainly that power is amplified.

02:23:18.900 By our our reverence for them and our gift exchange, so when we are engaged in a gift exchange.

02:23:30.180 You know, maybe, you know, our ancestors will often sacrifice an animal or offer up some food or some meat that way.

02:23:38.900 We make offerings of mead.

02:23:41.800 Sometimes, you know, we offer other things.

02:23:45.260 But, you know, our ancestors would also make offerings of spoils of battle and weapons and things.

02:23:50.720 The gods don't need weapons.

02:23:52.000 They don't need, you know, any more food.

02:23:54.100 They don't need any more mead.

02:23:55.940 And what those things are all serving as a conduit for our energy, for our spiritual might.

02:24:04.800 And when you invest spiritual might in something, it's empowering.

02:24:09.900 And that works both ways with us and with our gods.

02:24:13.240 But I do absolutely believe that they are directly empowered by us giving them that might from ourselves.

02:24:22.400 There's something special that I think is also noteworthy about the gift exchange.

02:24:28.040 It's very much an exchange, and it's an exchange of a resource that doesn't get spent the same way other resources get spent.

02:24:37.140 There's a synergy there that when it cycles around, the more we pass it back and forth, it becomes worth much more than the sum of its parts.

02:24:47.720 it's not like we're all drawing from a limited resource of spiritual might

02:24:52.360 our very active engaging in that cycle in that process so often increases the relative power

02:24:59.960 of that hymenia and that might that we pass back and forth between us and the gods

02:25:05.960 what's your take rob i don't think i can say it any better matt

02:25:10.440 fair enough uh carter asks mr flavell and mr stam what are your opinions on incorporating

02:25:19.880 american folklore uh slash american history into our beliefs

02:25:29.080 how about let's have you take that first rob um absolutely it's an i think it it's feasible uh

02:25:37.720 You know, real American folklore and real American culture, you know, is, stems from Europe. Like I was talking about earlier, bluegrap is, you know, it's the offspring of Scottish Highland and Irish music.

02:25:57.320 Um, you know, there's like, maybe I'm biased because of the region I live in, but a lot

02:26:03.180 of, uh, Appalachian folklore, uh, I mean, that's, that's very European in nature and

02:26:09.460 it fits very well within, uh, you know, an Austrian context.

02:26:14.740 Um, and I, I personally like that aesthetic.

02:26:18.440 Um, so yeah, I think European inspired American folklore is very, you know, applicable.

02:26:27.320 to us a true yeah i think um this goes kind of back to what i was talking about when we were

02:26:36.600 talking about history earlier um i think it's a fallacy for us to engage in viking larp

02:26:51.240 and i don't just mean in a sense of playing dress up i also mean in the sense of putting

02:26:56.440 our mind in that mindset we're not vikings we don't live in you know 800 in norway we just don't

02:27:05.480 um i think acknowledging you know those of us who are americans acknowledging our americanism

02:27:11.480 acknowledging our recent history of the past i mean maybe your family's just moved here maybe

02:27:15.960 you've been here for hundreds of years but acknowledging your real history and where

02:27:20.040 you're from doesn't distance you in any way from an authentic practice of alsatru you know being

02:27:26.760 a frenchman doesn't you know negate your right to worship our gods being an american doesn't

02:27:35.320 you know make any of us less or distant or more removed from alsatru than someone who currently

02:27:41.080 lives in in norway um i think what's really really important to our faith is practicing it

02:27:49.320 in an authentic way that's relevant to us to the area we're in into the life that we live

02:27:55.320 and i think certainly incorporating our american history into our beliefs and into the things we

02:27:59.960 celebrate is very important and i mean the same would go for those of us you know folks who may

02:28:05.160 be listening who are in australia or south africa or new zealand or any other place that that

02:28:11.640 europeans have have colonized um don says why not do plays songs or short movies of our faith and

02:28:23.000 gods yeah why not i think those would be great to see all of those things um we've talked about

02:28:29.320 songs already but some more music especially folk kind of music that you can sing along to

02:28:35.240 as opposed to i don't know i like especially in a religious context music that you can sing along to

02:28:42.360 that we can sing along to together the idea of us all singing together something is really special

02:28:48.840 to me um and it's really hard to do that with metal and cookie monster vocals it's much easier

02:28:55.160 to do that with something like folk or like bluegrass where you can very clearly understand

02:29:01.400 the lyrics um i'll tell you go the have you ever made your own idols and or altar pieces

02:29:09.760 I have not. I mean, I say, OK, so give a better answer on that.

02:29:16.340 No, not as far as pretty stuff. I am. I am not good at making things, crafting things.

02:29:23.360 I've never been a crafty guy that way. I have done, you know, various carved runic symbols or things.

02:29:32.160 If I need something to meditate on or something as a magical purpose, I've done that.

02:29:37.300 but i don't really think that's necessarily what you're asking also my runes that i use

02:29:43.860 are runes that i did carve i carved those and then i blooded them with my own blood because

02:29:48.900 i think that's very important to do for your connection with those particular items when

02:29:56.820 you're using those in an esoteric way um is it right to call it a church yes it is but i understand

02:30:05.620 how the question could be confusing especially if you live in a different country um in the

02:30:12.900 united states church has a meaning and where and it's kind of got two meanings so in the united

02:30:19.460 states church can refer to the building that the services are held in but it also refers to the

02:30:27.860 organization the catholic church isn't a building it's the the international organization of roman

02:30:36.580 catholicism um you know the baptist church isn't fifth street baptist church it's all of the

02:30:43.780 churches that conform to the southern baptist convention or you know however they do their

02:30:48.580 governing body that way so when referring to a large international religious organization i

02:30:57.860 think church is the only word that fits that accurately certainly in in the united states

02:31:03.700 where people understand that meaning it also has a um a legal definition that that fits what we do

02:31:10.420 that makes that makes that make sense um and you know we could call it something else we can make

02:31:17.300 up a term that people are unfamiliar with but that wouldn't really communicate well to other folks

02:31:22.980 and when we try to call it an organization people think of it as a club or you know

02:31:31.620 some kind of a group or a society that we all share certain commonalities with but they don't

02:31:37.380 treat it like it is a religion like we are a faith community engaged in worship of gods

02:31:44.180 the word that encapsulates that in english and in the united states is church if you look at the

02:31:50.660 roots it's not a hebrew word it's either a german word or a greek word either meaning in the first

02:31:57.460 case circle or in the second case a lord's house but the word itself doesn't come from the hebrews

02:32:04.260 it's a it's an arian word do you have any thoughts on that rob i just agree with what you say uh

02:32:17.140 yeah organization it sounds very sterile whereas search conveys a meaning that everyone will

02:32:24.340 understand um and you want to ask time off from work yeah i'm going to an organization camp out

02:32:33.460 or do you want to say i'm going to a church retreat you know um well you hit the nail

02:32:40.740 square on the head with that rob that's one thing that that i think all too often we forget to

02:32:45.620 mention the point of words is communication and rob's example with telling your friends what 0.58

02:32:54.900 you're doing or your family what you're up to or your work what you're up to if you say that you

02:32:59.780 are going to a church event they are legally required in case of your work to treat that

02:33:06.260 with a certain amount of respect if it's your you know bowling league or whatever organization

02:33:13.060 you're part of they don't so using religious language gives a lot of legitimacy within

02:33:20.020 communication especially in the united states and i get it if you're uh somewhere in europe or you

02:33:25.220 know maybe maybe many other countries the preconceived associations with these words

02:33:32.500 can be really different um and so i get that so i can understand if someone who's not in the united

02:33:37.700 states doesn't understand but because the vast majority of our membership is here it's a word

02:33:43.220 that we're very comfortable using and we've noticed um it's communicated what we've want

02:33:49.540 what we've wanted and it's part of an evolution that's really helped us be a much more

02:33:55.060 religiously focused group than before we were comfortable using that term

02:34:01.300 um oh and sierra says matt i'm so proud to have you as an alzheimer gofie and i'm equally as

02:34:06.580 proud to have mr robstam as dean of the school hail victory both of you men exude what i

02:34:12.180 personally look for in leadership thank you so much sierra that means the world to me

02:34:16.500 Yes, thank you very much.

02:34:23.500 Are AFA members held accountable or have any expectations as to how they treat others within the folk or their family?

02:34:32.500 How are issues handled or is that beyond the reach?

02:34:37.500 Thank you.

02:34:38.500 So everybody likes blanket answers that are super black and white.

02:34:45.500 and light. And I'll let Rob address this as well, because it's something in his role as a go-thi 1.00

02:34:51.100 that, you know, that comes up. I held accountable for and have expectations. Absolutely. A lot of 1.00

02:35:01.020 those are in what we call the law of the hall that describes the frith or the reciprocal,

02:35:07.480 you know, agreements that we have amongst one another to treat each other with a certain

02:35:12.400 amount of respect and in a in a reasonable way and it's incumbent upon our gothar which are our clergy

02:35:21.200 to counsel people on that and uh and manage that in a way that's going to be healthy and up building

02:35:32.380 um and get people where we want them to go um we're very much a family in the afa and we want

02:35:41.420 to correct bad behavior and move it in the right direction the best that we can, as opposed to just

02:35:48.680 cutting off people that don't live up to expectations. The idea is to help build those

02:35:54.040 people up to where they do fix what they may have broken and where they can move beyond it and grow

02:35:59.860 and get better. So we want to counsel all of our people. One of the things as a GO-THI, it's

02:36:05.980 important is to counsel each of our each of our members individually in what they can do to better

02:36:14.700 themselves and better how they treat people so if there's a conflict between members of the afa

02:36:21.260 very often each of them will get counseling from a separate gothe or githia so they have

02:36:28.620 somebody that's really focusing on advocating for their betterment but that is a situation

02:36:34.940 we do try to manage and ultimately if the behavior is so unacceptable that it's either you know

02:36:40.540 directly contrary to our values in a in a shocking way or to where it is ultimately disruptive and

02:36:48.540 more harm than we can deal with with a community that we do have to have to part ways with those

02:36:55.260 people until they can you know get their life right and people do when they come back one of 1.00

02:37:01.100 of the things I think is important to note on this as opposed to a Christian church sometimes

02:37:06.060 is though we want all of our individuals to grow and succeed and we want to help the individual

02:37:11.820 the community is the most important thing so if we have a person that is

02:37:17.280 a consistent problem and their problem is spilling over into the community

02:37:25.180 we either need to get that solved really quickly or we need to separate to where they're not

02:37:31.340 ruining the experience for everyone else. But Rob, what are your thoughts on that?

02:37:38.820 Yeah, absolutely. And counseling individuals, nobody is perfect 100% of the time. And everyone's

02:37:48.740 going to have a period in their life when they're going through something that they wish they

02:37:53.520 weren't and you know we want to cultivate nobility we want to always conduct ourselves in the most

02:38:02.400 noble way we can but even the best of us can at times struggle with that and you know a lot of

02:38:10.240 times family issues especially are very contentious emotions are so high and that's one thing we do

02:38:17.440 is in an instance like that is like matt said the gothar will counsel individuals separately

02:38:24.960 to be the best person they can be and like i said everybody is going to have a rough

02:38:30.800 point in life but that doesn't define you unless you let it um if you let it define you then

02:38:38.240 you're on a wrong path as it is um but yes with it in mind that the first and foremost

02:38:46.320 uh responsibility with the help of the community um but i there's very few individuals that i think

02:38:54.480 are beyond redemption in my mind it may be a very hard road to achieve that redemption but it's

02:39:02.000 available if that makes sense all right what is the reason for the wikipedia hate group label um

02:39:14.480 Is it because it is a European faith and simply accepts European rooted folk, or is there more to the story? I saw a temple set come up years ago.

02:39:25.520 So. Leftist commies call everything they don't like hate while they're bursting with hate internally.

02:39:47.860 Leftist degenerate folk like to apply mean labels and call us names.

02:39:55.520 and i and i'll give you a more detailed answer than that but that's the most simple thing it's

02:40:01.120 become in vogue in the last 30 years in this country and much much more so in the last 10 to 0.89

02:40:08.560 just shout down hate bigot racist homophobe to people that you don't like and make them run and

02:40:14.960 hide um and so the left does that with you know impunity and they do that with careless disregard

02:40:22.160 for truth about things uh wikipedia i believe is a plot so wikipedia has got these little um

02:40:32.640 the way i understand it is that each category of thing in wikipedia has its own

02:40:39.680 um czar for that category that officiates what things are able to be added what sources they

02:40:47.600 accept what sources they don't accept and has say over that the one in charge of the

02:40:54.800 section that we're under is pretty biased against us so they won't allow people to put in

02:41:03.120 favorable things which i don't expect but they also don't allow people to edit things based on

02:41:10.160 objective things or facts or force them to you know wikipedia can straight up label us a hate

02:41:18.480 group or label us a white supremacist organization without having to cite sources and our people are

02:41:24.880 unable to get that removed by questioning that or by suggesting that we are you know accused of

02:41:30.880 it by an organization or a different way to word it that doesn't make it a fact and unfortunately

02:41:36.320 when people read wikipedia very often they assume that what they're saying is factual

02:41:42.000 and that's unfortunate so wikipedia is saying that because the splc a number of years ago

02:41:48.240 labeled us hate group in that time and if you read the splc article on us it doesn't mention

02:41:55.520 that we've done anything hateful or that we say anything hateful it specifies that it doesn't

02:42:03.600 connect us directly to anything hateful it throws in random people that have never been afa members

02:42:09.840 in the same sentence with us to try to associate us with people that have done uh hateful things

02:42:17.440 but it never once says that we've done anything wrong it says oh they know what we really mean

02:42:24.080 but there's no instance that they cite of us saying or doing anything hateful um

02:42:28.800 Um, when report, uh, so a reporter that was doing a story on us when we opened Baldershoff

02:42:35.080 reached out and they were trying to do this scandalous, um, hit piece on us.

02:42:40.300 And they, and they, they reached out and they, they had contacted the SPLC and asked them

02:42:45.080 why we were hate group.

02:42:46.380 And this reporter was disappointed, but they said, yeah, what the SPLC told me about you

02:42:50.900 guys that makes us a hate group was three things.

02:42:54.160 um we believe there is a biological component to race well there is um every doctor every

02:43:06.200 anthropologist um every person involved in forensics like there there just is that's true

02:43:14.100 that's that's i don't know what else to say about that that just is second we have an archaic view

02:43:21.100 of gender. Without citing anything specific on that, I am forced to conclude that that's because

02:43:29.920 we believe that boys have penises and girls have vaginas and that our biology defines our gender. 0.99

02:43:36.920 And it sounds like I'm being silly. Unfortunately, in 2022, that's not silly. That's something that 0.99

02:43:43.400 I have to say. And then three, the third reason is because we propagate the white nationalist

02:43:52.600 propaganda about a white genocide in South Africa. We could call that something different.

02:44:01.340 If you look at the United Nations definition of a genocide, though, it absolutely meets that

02:44:07.240 criteria. It's a real thing. It's in the news. It exists. We could link stories to it. 0.53

02:44:18.580 White people in South Africa are currently being targeted for rape, murder, and depossession of

02:44:25.520 their lands by various groups of people based on their ethnicity. That's true, and that happens. 0.98

02:44:32.280 and us i would think that us standing against any group of people being having a genocide

02:44:39.820 committed against them would be a noble thing for us to to be opposed to um but unfortunately

02:44:47.720 as long as it's targeted at white people the left doesn't agree with that so those are those

02:44:53.000 are legitimately the three reasons that this reporter said the splc gave to them um there's

02:45:00.180 way to be authentic and to be on the the the right side of that with with those folks unfortunately

02:45:06.340 i hope we get to a day and an age where we're treated fairly but until then we're going to keep

02:45:10.900 trying to do the right thing and letting the chips fall where they may but keep pushing forward

02:45:17.140 um i'm not sure your comment about the temple set you may be alluding to the temple of set which um

02:45:26.100 there there was a gentleman that's not an afa member and hasn't been an afa member that was

02:45:32.500 involved with but again i don't think that really relates to a hate group thing so if there's more

02:45:36.420 to the second part of your question that you want to ask we'll answer that down the road

02:45:41.700 um so i'll let you take this one rob heather wants to know what is the difference between

02:45:48.580 orlog and weird is there a difference what is the difference and is there a difference

02:45:54.420 oh that's a that's a good question i look at it as weird is more i don't want to say

02:46:07.140 it's more wide it's folk wide weird is the waves in the energy that that flows out across

02:46:15.940 everything and i don't want to sound like i'm some hippy dippy here but it's it's kind of like

02:46:22.660 cause and effect uh but it's not at a personal level where as orlog is uh more like your personal

02:46:30.980 uh luck for lack of a better word uh which is just a positive act then you know i guess negative that

02:46:38.580 accumulate and build up and can actually affect weird um but that's more of a personal soul thing

02:46:45.780 is orlog where weird is more of a picture and that's the most basic thing i can say

02:46:54.420 uh what do you say matt no that's well done um orlog has it relates to weird um but weird there's

02:47:04.900 your personal weird there's the weird around us there's the weird of a particular group it's a much

02:47:11.700 broader concept um then your personal or log which is in a way a trajectory more than a uh

02:47:27.700 more than than a firm destiny per se it's it's an area that you are pointed

02:47:32.580 due to circumstances and situations um does the afa have an astrue course for non-members

02:47:43.940 we do not at this time um it's one of those things that we do our religious instruction

02:47:51.620 for members as as they become members we're all happy to answer questions but we don't

02:47:55.860 really have a a course that we put people through um i'm not sure exactly what that would look like

02:48:04.580 but uh some people have asked about like a new to oust a true course and i don't think we've made

02:48:12.420 any progress on that but i know some folks have asked about that um do you see the role of a

02:48:18.580 gofi as a servant of the people or a priest class type that is a bridge between members and the gods

02:48:25.860 Yes. I think that, I know that that's sometimes the cop-out answer, but I don't think that our

02:48:39.900 gothar are, you know, I don't put forth that they're this ultra humble servant class of

02:48:49.680 people that are just there to serve selflessly. No, I want our people to stand upright and want

02:48:56.880 good things and be ambitious. But they certainly have an obligation to serve the folk and to serve

02:49:03.880 the gods. That is absolute. So I think some of the confusion that some might have is in the world

02:49:16.960 we live in very often there is a separation between authority and responsibility and we don't

02:49:25.840 see that in our gothar your elevation and your elevated status is directly proportional to

02:49:35.840 your service and your duty that you have to our folk and to our gods and to our church

02:49:41.680 um i absolutely see the gothar as a plea a priest class that bridges the gods and man and man and

02:49:48.560 gods we serve that bridge ritually and we serve that bridge throughout our lives of connecting

02:49:54.160 our folk with our gods and representing the afa before the gods and also representing the gods

02:50:00.000 before the afa and that's an essential function that we couldn't function as a priest class if we

02:50:07.920 we didn't do. But no, I don't begrudge anybody wanting power and authority and nice things and

02:50:21.120 feeling special. But all of those things come with heavy responsibility. And I want people to

02:50:29.220 have all of the things they want in life, but I want them to live up to it and be worthy of it.

02:50:33.060 So I think it is an obligation for a Goethe for their entire life to try to be worthy of their position and worthy of being a leader.

02:50:43.140 So I don't think those two things have to be mutually exclusive.

02:50:47.240 What are your thoughts, Rob?

02:50:49.500 Yeah, absolutely.

02:50:50.700 it we are priests that serve that bridge and we are a priesthood class but we do have the

02:51:01.340 obligation to the folk and it's funny it was a joke when I was in the Gothar class a friend of

02:51:13.000 mine and I were talking we were talking about folk building stuff because we were folk builders

02:51:16.920 and say, man, I can't wait till we don't have to mess with this when we're Gothis.

02:51:21.560 Oh, no, no, no.

02:51:22.560 We just mess with 10 times more. 1.00

02:51:26.380 Matt all the time says that Gothis are super folk builders, and that's absolutely true. 0.98

02:51:33.740 But we also get the privilege of serving as the bridge to the gods, and that is an absolute 1.00

02:51:39.500 privilege, and it's a heavy responsibility.

02:51:43.580 So if there are some accolades and some recognition that comes from that, it's well-earned.

02:51:50.580 And our Gothar are the best in the business, hands down.

02:51:55.580 I mean, nobody holds a candle to AFA Gothi.

02:52:02.580 So, yeah, and I think that it's a very big responsibility as well for our Gothar that

02:52:11.580 have to, and it's not even

02:52:13.440 have to, we want to. We want to always

02:52:15.640 conduct our lives in a way that

02:52:17.460 will be pleasing to the gods and look well

02:52:19.400 to the folk. 1.00

02:52:21.880 The trihorns is not

02:52:23.460 just a symbol or a flag.

02:52:25.500 To me, it represents

02:52:26.480 everything that is important.

02:52:29.640 And I wouldn't, you know,

02:52:31.220 it represents so much

02:52:33.540 more than, yeah, that's the church

02:52:35.360 symbol. It's just

02:52:36.440 it's very powerful

02:52:39.320 and you don't, you want to live up

02:52:41.380 to that symbol that makes sense and um it is a very honor and privilege to serve as a go-to

02:52:50.180 in the afa you know there's there's a theme and the theme of the show is victory never sleeps

02:52:57.380 but it's relevant to um

02:53:02.820 authority never sleeps either there's not a point where you can rest on your laurels

02:53:08.340 you have to earn it each day um our gothar are asked to be worthy of their position every day

02:53:16.420 and to always continue to do more to earn their spot and that never stops that's a lifelong thing

02:53:24.100 as long as you as long as you wear this ring it's a lifelong thing uh so we have a couple of

02:53:30.980 questions left we're almost at three hours now it's been really good tonight i appreciate all

02:53:35.940 the questions and i appreciate the folks that have donated over on entropy thank you guys so much

02:53:40.900 if any of you guys have any last questions you want to make sure um we get to please go ahead

02:53:47.300 and ask those um we'll make sure we get to all the questions before we cut this off

02:53:53.300 but as it stands now i think we got about three more questions to address so is mr thorson still

02:54:01.220 affiliated with the afa the copy of the book of troth that i have was published by runestone

02:54:08.100 um no edward thorson has

02:54:13.860 so there's a little bit to that first he was a member of the aussie true free assembly

02:54:18.180 way back in the 1980s um so in that sense he was associated with the afa uh edward thorson has

02:54:25.620 never been a member of the Ausatru Folk Assembly. Him and our founder Steve McNallan have a long

02:54:32.420 standing relationship. He's certainly been very influential in the development of Ausatru and in

02:54:39.780 the develop of modern Ausatru and in the develop of, you know, most of our runic understanding.

02:54:46.660 He has been the preeminent source for runic interpretation of runic understanding,

02:54:54.180 but he's never been officially affiliated with us what had happened um with that book

02:55:01.860 his publishing company and this was i could be off on my dates i want to say in 2013 or so

02:55:11.860 was going under and they were having to sell the rights to those books and we bought a bunch of

02:55:18.500 those rights because we didn't and and i was um i was not the alzharia goethe at the time i was

02:55:24.500 the folk builder coordinator um but i was involved in those discussions it was something i was really

02:55:30.660 proud of we bought the rights to a bunch of edrid's books so that we could safeguard those

02:55:40.660 and we ended up selling those back to him for for for what we paid for them uh once he was

02:55:47.540 back on his feet and able to do that we wouldn't want an author to lose the rights to something

02:55:52.500 that he's worked so hard for but he found himself in a hard time and we were able to help in that

02:55:57.540 way and preserve that knowledge for our folk and help somebody who's really contributed

02:56:03.860 immensely to the runic revival so uh that's that's why there was that crossover there briefly

02:56:09.700 um does the afa host children bloats uh yeah very often at our events we the children will go and

02:56:19.880 have a have a children's bloat um those are really neat things if you get to catch them

02:56:26.040 and it's really special to watch

02:56:28.220 to watch and see what the children do during those it's really sweet and i'm blown away by

02:56:38.060 some of the really good toasts that I've seen children make, both in, you know, in different

02:56:44.240 rituals that they do. Their actions in children bloats have been really cool. And then the toast

02:56:48.860 that they make sometimes at Sunbull have been really, really nice and really spot on.

02:56:55.020 We have a donation from Sarah, $25. Thank you so much, Sarah. We appreciate that.

02:57:02.560 She wants to just want to say this has been an awesome show.

02:57:07.860 Gauthier Stamm has been top notch.

02:57:10.240 He has been the best boss to us over at the Academy.

02:57:15.920 I'm thankful to know both of you gentlemen, super proud of the AFA, and happy to be home.

02:57:22.240 I encourage anyone sitting on the fence in this chat to check out the district websites.

02:57:28.440 Nick, if you could plug those for us and to reach out, come home. Well, I'm very glad you feel that

02:57:34.840 way. Sarah, Rob's awesome. He has been an amazing guest. This has been a great show tonight.

02:57:41.520 They're popping up on the screen now, but please check out those websites. They're your best way

02:57:49.920 of seeing what's going on near you. There's an event calendar section on there. So it shows all

02:57:54.900 of the amazing stuff we have going on all the time in so many different places. I encourage

02:58:00.660 you guys to get involved in elixir assist to go ahead and come home. Last question of the night.

02:58:08.620 Let me see. Let me see. Hold on. I may have to scroll for a second. I may have spoke too soon.

02:58:12.980 Okay, there's a couple more. So last one that was on my screen. Do you often get approached

02:58:19.020 by universalists who say there's no evidence for folkish ausitru um no there was a time

02:58:27.740 where there was a lot more interaction we don't get approached by those people often anymore i'm

02:58:33.100 really glad for that um that was you know i mentioned the the white babies statement that

02:58:39.260 i made that caused declaration 127 a long time ago um the purpose of that was to create that

02:58:47.580 very clear separation and distinction because there was a lot of overlap at that time since

02:58:53.340 that time there's not a lot of overlap we don't hear a lot of the nonsense that universalists

02:59:00.140 have to say anymore it usually just doesn't come to our attention their argument about

02:59:04.380 folkish house of true is absurd on the face of it um every folk society practicing an indigenous

02:59:14.220 faith has been folkish and has shown an in-group preference for their family their clan and their

02:59:21.340 tribe that's obvious it's ever present on any of the source literature no they didn't live in a

02:59:31.260 in a ethnically diverse nation like the united states at the time so there was no reason to

02:59:37.020 make it that explicit but it was always understood in a fact of life that one's allegiance was to

02:59:44.780 one's family and their tribe and their clan and the gods of their ethnic people um that was was

02:59:52.140 always how it was in in the ancient world until the abrahamic faiths uh took root that's just

03:00:00.540 understood by anyone with common sense it's like the woman that asked at a at some kind of a speech

03:00:07.980 i saw this clip of this woman asking where it says that boy scouts had to be boys and i think

03:00:14.300 it was ben shapiro and he's like in the name boy scouts it's any folk religion is going to be

03:00:21.340 focused by definition that's what it is i'll say this about modern house of true um

03:00:26.780 it was always folkish there was no universalist house a true until the very tail end of the 1980s

03:00:39.300 and maybe the early 1990s there started being this universalist reaction um but also true

03:00:46.480 since its inception in modern times first certainly with with elsie and certainly with

03:00:52.500 Alexander Rudd Mills, Rudd Mills being much earlier in Australia, it was always inherently

03:00:58.460 folkish. And with the AFA and with Steve McNallan's founding of modern Alistair in 1968,

03:01:07.220 it was always inherently folkish for, you know, the next 20 years until a couple weird lefties

03:01:18.740 started uh coming up with ideas but the old timers that were around from the you know the good old

03:01:25.920 days they they're wondering what the you know when did this universalist thing start up and why did

03:01:32.080 it start up and there's conflicting theories on why their school of thought started up but very

03:01:38.200 little of it has to do with anything authentic about our gods as far as why they're universalist

03:01:43.980 um despite protestations to the contrary they try to force our faith to conform to their politics

03:01:55.680 instead of the other way around and that's uh that's a very backward way of thinking

03:02:01.560 All right. Nick just sent me an inside joke. Hold off on the picture. You don't need to drop

03:02:14.840 the pic. He's been good. The official last question. Is it okay to wear traditional garb

03:02:26.740 at the bloat okay is a strange word first as long as it's not obscene or vulgar you can wear what

03:02:37.300 you like it's not not our job to force you to dress a certain way um if you want to wear

03:02:45.220 and i think there's a misnomer on traditional garb as well if you want to wear garb that's

03:02:52.340 modeled after the viking age i don't know why you would like to do that but if that's something you

03:02:59.460 would like to do you're certainly welcome to you will most likely be the only person doing that

03:03:06.740 and some people will definitely look at you strangely but you're certainly welcome to um

03:03:12.420 Um, certainly the leadership and myself and many of our members are gonna, you know, wear a suit and a tie or a nice dress for the ladies and dress like modern people who are doing something religious.

03:03:30.380 modern western white people doing something religious the the same way that that modern

03:03:36.560 western white people dress when they do anything of great importance in their life um but no you're

03:03:44.360 welcome to wear period garb if you would like to but it's it is going to be you know it's going to 0.69

03:03:51.500 single you out and it's going to be odd but you know you do you we're not we're not out to be the

03:03:56.900 fashion police. That's not something we're trying to do. So that said, Rob, is there anything you

03:04:03.540 want to leave us with? Any final things that you'd like to tell the audience?

03:04:10.600 In regards to that last question too, I mean, occasionally I'll wear lederhosen

03:04:15.140 which is a still modern ethnic wear. And you'll see some kilts that is still a modern

03:04:24.800 uh ethnic clothing i mean i think that's perfectly acceptable and a lot of folks do that

03:04:30.800 um my final thoughts are i just really enjoyed being here and talking with everybody and

03:04:37.600 sharing some knowledge and wisdom and and uh you know chatting with matt it's always fun so

03:04:45.760 i'm glad i got to do it well it's it's been a pleasure to have you on the show um

03:04:51.160 yeah, I know it's been great for our audience. It's been a great night. We've been on for three

03:04:56.460 hours. We'll definitely have you back on. It's, yeah, it's an honor to sit here and get to talk

03:05:03.380 with you. So until next time, keep doing the good work. And we're really excited to hear about

03:05:10.260 updates as far as how the Astro Academy is progressing. Everybody who's donated tonight,

03:05:17.320 everybody who's asked questions everybody who's just participated in this thank you so much

03:05:22.600 these are great we've been getting good feedback on them uh

03:05:28.040 keep the questions coming and and i really appreciate you guys tuning in and spending

03:05:32.200 your evening with us uh until next time until i see you guys well

03:05:39.080 no i'll have another broadcast before then but i might as well do the reminder anyway if you

03:05:42.520 If you can make it to the Njordshof dedication on the 13th, please do.

03:05:47.200 The following Saturday, if you can make it to the Fall Fest at Baldershof, please do.

03:05:52.980 I would love to see you guys there.

03:05:54.740 If I don't, and until next time, hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA, and remember, victory never sleeps.

03:06:02.300 Good night.

03:06:12.520 Transcription by CastingWords

03:06:42.520 Thank you.

03:07:12.520 Thank you.

03:07:42.520 Thank you.

03:08:12.520 We'll be right back.

03:08:42.520 Transcription by CastingWords

03:09:12.520 You

Asatru Folk Assembly - August 04, 2022

8⧸3⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 4

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