00:05:01.840It's a really nice setup that James got me.
00:05:04.860So thank you. Thank you, James. Appreciate it a lot.
00:05:17.620Vargerhoff, glad you could join us. I'm not sure who you really are or exactly where you're at, but I'm glad you're with us. I'm glad you decided to join.
00:05:34.860where are our facilities? So we have three Hoffs now. The first Hoff is Odens Hoff in Brownsville,0.76
00:05:42.080California. That's in Yuba County, California. We have Thors Hoff in Linden, North Carolina.
00:05:48.440I believe that's in Cumberland County. And we have Balders Hoff in Murdoch, Minnesota. I believe
00:07:06.380I'm trying to figure out a name over here on the side. It's using a character that's
00:07:23.060really hard for me to read over here. It looks kind of strange. Anyway,
00:07:26.360someone's asking a question about what would it take to get a Hoff going in north central
00:07:31.840Pennsylvania? Not a lot. I'd be very tempted. We've got some great people there. Central
00:07:41.400Pennsylvania is where we host winter nights every year. In Pennsylvania, we've got some of our very
00:07:47.100best people. We've got folk builder, Adam Hudak. We've got Githya, Katie Erickson, and we've got
00:07:53.100Witten member and one of my best friends, Clifford Erickson out there. I think Pennsylvania looks
00:07:58.220like a great place to have a Hoff. It would take finding the right property at the right
00:08:04.380time for the right price. But yeah, I'd be very, very interested in us getting off there
00:08:08.820sooner rather than later. We've got a really good support system and great people in that
00:08:16.220All right. Well, fantastic. We got some questions coming in.
00:08:31.920So Scottish Witch, I am really sorry that your husband has not received the lapel pin.
00:08:47.960Hopefully, Mandy, you can get that to the right person who needs to know, and we can get that sorted out.0.91
00:08:54.980Yeah, I'm really sorry to hear that. We'll get you taken care of, though.
00:08:57.540And we have James asking about the idea and the information going around that the folk mother, Elsie Christensen, was a Bolshevik, and he wanted me to set that straight.
00:09:15.260So for you guys that may not know, Elsie Christensen was a extremely important figure in the establishment of modern house.
00:09:25.200true she brought so many people to house a true and helped so many of our folk she
00:09:36.880her involvement was extremely important she brought so many uh especially young men to
00:09:42.480get involved in this early on and saw them through through regular correspondence um
00:09:48.240very important person in modern house to true. And we want to honor her. One of my first things
00:09:55.160that was important to me to do as, as I was Harry Goethe was to honor her with one of our
00:09:59.860days of remembrance. The Midwest regional event in May is set up to honor her. And on the side,
00:10:08.120we can get you information on how to sign up for that. We would love to see you guys out there.
00:10:12.140I'm going to attend that event. I'd love to see you guys there. But anyways, back to the thing
00:10:16.540about Bolshevism. So some of it's a little bit difficult to understand the political machinations
00:10:27.340of 1920s, 30s, and 40s Europe. But there was two streams that there was a lot of overlap in
00:10:37.600that developed after, in the mid 30s, they started to diverge pretty heavily. There was a lot of
00:10:48.880socialist trends. And yes, among that was Bolshevism. And that coincided with national
00:10:55.140socialism. It coincided with Italian fascism. And those elements overlapped quite a bit.
00:11:04.040One of the things with with Elsie in Denmark at the time was she was very much involved in social concerns.
00:11:13.540That was a time where you had a whole lot of poverty, a lot of crushing poverty and a whole lot of wealth in a very few hands.
00:11:20.920And there was a real need to help out the rest of the folk. And that was very, very important to her.
00:11:28.420um but she was part of the danish national socialist party of the time and she did have
00:11:34.700affiliations with the more um labor-oriented wings of that party but no elsie was not a communist
00:11:41.560um that's not the case whatever you think of her of her political decisions one way or another she
00:11:48.340was she was at the time a member of the uh the danish national socialist party
00:11:53.320all right looks like we're getting the pin thing squared away on the side
00:12:04.660thank you James I do what I can um we had someone mail in a couple of questions email to me
00:12:10.880so guys if you think of this first those of you who showed up early you guys can show up here as
00:12:15.360soon as I schedule the next one if you have questions that you think of that you want to
00:12:18.840throw out and make sure I get to. So I encourage you guys to sign in, you know, you guys can sign
00:12:24.060in. I mean, as soon as I get it up tomorrow, the next day, and ask questions, then if you'd like,
00:12:30.500you can also email me questions, mattflavell, F-L-A-V-E-L, at runestone.org. And I'd be really
00:12:38.120happy to try to make sure I remember to get those into these conversations. So I'm trying to think
00:12:44.240how they put it but they basically asked if philosophical schools of thought and have a place
00:13:16.840one day when Alistair True flourishes and all our folk come home and there's millions of
00:13:27.580Alistair True are then maybe there's something to some of that I think that right now when I see
00:13:33.360different major philosophical schools within I Also True. It seems to be a way for very few
00:13:39.920individuals to feel special and superior to others by thinking they have some esoteric key
00:13:46.760that the rest of us lack. I haven't seen that to be a reasonable thing in I Also True. I think that
00:13:53.180our numbers are still not great enough that we should squabble over obscure points of esoterics.
00:14:00.280I think that us being a unified body and a unified folk practicing Ausatru in a unified way without diverging into competing schools of thought is a much more legitimate thing for us to do.
00:14:12.380um we saw in the early days of also true
00:18:31.120But I hate to hear that happening on the side.
00:18:33.800please let me know and i'd be very very happy to help you get squared away with everything to talk to
00:18:44.920any new platform to get make getting connected uh staying in
00:18:50.920staying in contact a little easier a new platform i don't know about that we're trying to be very
00:18:56.760active on vk uh folk builder lane ashby is working on expanding our social media a little bit more
00:19:06.280we've got regional or district rather telegram groups going on hopefully those work well for
00:19:13.720folks i know telegram can be a little bit difficult to operate we have cliff on the back end looking
00:19:21.720at perhaps some forums perhaps something more like that to help our people connect a little
00:19:27.960bit better we are looking at our options and doing the best we can on that right now the leaders are
00:19:34.200our vk telegram and then i'm very happy to say our youtube presence is working really
00:19:38.280well we reach a lot of people on youtube with videos like this but yeah we are working on that
00:19:44.120personal choice for a okay brand the viking asks what would my personal choice be for a book to
00:19:57.140learn runes um so michael followed you up directly suggesting that you look into the
00:20:10.480works of edward thorson that's where i want you to go eventually if you're brand new to the runes
00:20:16.180the best very basic primer on the runes i think is the runes workbook by leon wilde um i can't say
00:20:26.080enough good about that book as a as a very beginner level book about the runes i think
00:20:30.960it's really accessible i think it's accessible by older children and certainly by people who
00:20:35.200new to alsatru um i think very highly of that book i like it a lot if you're if you're above that
00:20:43.360then absolutely pretty much anything edrid writes on the runes i think edrid edrid thorson is
00:20:49.440the foremost rune master that we have in the modern day perhaps ever i think his his knowledge
00:20:55.120of of the runes is untouched by by any other competition um futhark is always a good first one
00:21:04.720by him he has several rune might rune lore all of which are very good so i would i would uh
00:21:10.560say go with that but any brand new people to the runes the runes workbook by leon wilde
00:21:18.720Okay, we have somebody asked, what is the AFA's stance on people using the symbols of our faith to push dangerous political agendas and attacking our capital?
00:21:49.520the images are of our faith are part of our folk soul and i think in a way are fair game for our
00:21:56.240people to use towards causes that they sincerely believe in and sometimes i'm going to agree with
00:22:02.480those causes and sometimes i'm not um i think attacking our capital is a little bit of a
00:22:14.400misnomer of events that occurred not taking a position on it i don't think that there was a
00:22:19.680lot of violence i want to be careful accusing people of attacking stuff the other thing i'd
00:22:24.240like to say is when using our holy symbols for something we may not all agree on how they're used
00:22:31.840but we should always be pious and respectful in our use of them we should never use them for
00:22:38.880just never use them casually we need to use them
00:22:43.200with a full knowledge of what they represent and who they represent
00:22:47.360and make sure that's at the forefront of our mind when we do use those symbols
00:22:54.800but you know referring to the same incident a lot of folks have a lot of different tattoos
00:22:59.040that's just going to happen it is what it is
00:23:01.920um if you tattoo holy symbols onto your body and then you find yourself doing and that's
00:23:08.400something to be aware of if you find yourself in pictures with those tattoos on you doing things
00:23:14.080make sure they're things that you uh you think our gods are going to support
00:23:18.960and stand behind and i think that's a solid advice for all of us
00:23:31.040James the point of clarification did GoFundMe in fact shut Ron down. I'll look for your answer on the side. So some of you may know this leave two nights ago.
00:23:46.040Also true elder, an artist and man that has done a whole lot for the resurgence of also true Ron McMahon. He awoke his garage and his car were on fire burned to, you know, almost nothingness.
00:33:44.500It's a very hard sell, and it's very hard to get people on.
00:33:47.300If that's something you're interested, though, I mean, swing for the fences, and I wish you the very best.
00:33:52.920But I think a good alternative or a good preliminary step to that would be just move closer together with some Alcetra or with some AFA members.
00:34:02.800um i would love to see afa members move uh closer to one another obviously i think that moving
00:34:11.300closer to our hofs is a really good idea i think that's a good foundation for a community to happen
00:34:17.220in those places so i would really encourage that but yeah our our folk living closer together
00:34:23.600is a huge step towards the idea of that village that so many people dream about
00:34:29.580And I think that'll get you ahead in the right direction.
00:34:44.580Oh, what do I think about the utilization of modern art and music to spread the word of our gods and inspire our folk?
00:41:08.760The downside is there's not a lot of people.
00:41:11.080long. It's not a lot of English speakers on VK. VK has got a ton of Russians. I'd love to get our
00:41:17.320Russian brothers and sisters involved in what we do. I'd love to have a lot of Russian AFA members.
00:41:22.420As it is, though, it's hard to connect on there because so few of us are there.
00:41:26.720The AFA is on there. We post there. I post there a lot from our different AFA
00:41:31.760Hoff pages, the AFA page. And personally, I would encourage you all of you to come join me on VK.
00:41:37.780is it as good as Facebook? No, but it also avoids the cancel culture problem. It also lets you have
00:41:50.360free speech. It also is the place where we can do the things that we want to do now and it functions
00:41:55.700in that way we're all familiar with. So I would really encourage everybody to come join us on VK,
00:42:00.560check it out. The more you guys are there and participate, the more we can have something
00:42:04.420thriving and worthwhile there vk has also got a lot of really cool and obscure history stuff
00:42:10.020something that some of you guys may not know or maybe it's just me because i'm getting old but um
00:42:15.700if you go to vk on your on your laptop or on your desktop uh google chrome at least does the um
00:42:23.460automatic translating so all the cyrillic that's so very hard to read and understand
00:42:28.260if you're looking at it on your on your your pc it's much much you know it does that
00:42:33.780translating for you. And they've got some amazing history groups that is just the kind of stuff you
00:42:38.560don't find on Facebook that was really neat. So I'm in a lot of those as well.
00:43:03.780Okay, so James is asking me about my, my, there we go, my Rhydo ring.
00:43:29.960This is the ring of the Gothar of the Astru Folk Assembly.0.95
00:43:33.780Chosen for a number of reasons. The rune Rhytho is the rune of right action at the right time. It's also a rune of nobility. And it's really important to me that that nobility and that right action at the right time guide our Gothars as we help lead our folk home.1.00
00:43:55.460Rhytho was also the symbol chosen by the Austro Free Assembly to represent that organization, to which the AFA is the successor of.
00:44:07.920So the Rhytho rune inspires us to be noble in all the things we do and to act rightly, to act rightly at the right times.
00:44:18.900and also around the edges and it's way too close and you guys there you go maybe you can see that
00:44:25.880it's got um recurring all the way around in an endless circle it's got ansus lagus urus
00:44:33.400lagus ansus it's got alu and then back up ula and uh it's because our gothar
00:44:42.340are that link bringing the divine through the ritual symbolized by lagu's, the mead, the blood of sacrifice, through that ritual to the folk, to the primal, the divine to the primal, and then connecting the folk, the primal, back through ritual to ansuz, to the divine.
00:45:05.460and very much in indo-european tradition the idea of the the gothar the priest being that bridge
00:45:13.840between the divine and the folk and so that's very much what our gothar are as jane mentioned
00:45:21.080there's a lot to go through with it there's at least a year-long course um where you're mentored
00:45:27.200by an acting or by someone who's already an experienced gothi or githya
00:45:31.920um and most of the lore stuff is stuff you should know already when you go through it
00:45:37.860our course is much more about leadership about counseling so much about counseling
00:45:43.620um and about how to actually be a religious leader for our folk and for our community
00:45:50.040um it's been really touching in this day and age how much our folk you know there was a time where
00:45:59.880gothar were looked at as you know masters of ceremony for ritual and certainly we conduct ritual
00:46:06.360but it's been beautiful and i feel so honored to be a part of a time where
00:46:11.400we're religious leaders of our folk and we're able we're come to by members
00:46:16.840with all kind of very very serious counseling needs and we want to make sure that we're well
00:46:21.240equipped and have the ability to counsel our people and to help make our people have better
00:46:28.440lives to have more successful families and to make it through the hard times that life throws at us
00:46:36.520it's what our ancestors gothar did that's what we're doing and that's we're striving every day
00:46:41.160to make sure that the gothar that follow us down the road are better equipped and can learn from
00:46:45.720us our experiences in order to do that more and better in the future with the challenges that0.99
00:46:50.760arise in days to come gab i don't like gab i don't find it very useful i i mean i like the
00:47:02.120people at gab i like the idea of it i just that really quick sound the really quick couple of
00:47:09.000words thing that gab gab is kind of a clone of twitter and um i don't find it to be super
00:47:15.480effective for what we're trying to do but anybody wants to use gab please do i i appreciate what
00:47:20.280what they're trying to do over there. I guess this follows that. Are we going to use Gab or
00:47:39.360Telegram for social media? We use Telegram extensively as it is now. If you're not part
00:47:44.760of that, please contact your local folk builder and they can get you sorted out.
00:47:48.720It's not perfect, but it is a constant communication with other AFA members.
00:47:54.860Gab hasn't been very fruitful to us, but I'm not opposed to people trying to make that work better.
00:47:59.220Hopefully Lane will try to get on Gab and have some good ideas about how to make that work best for us.
00:52:12.900And this goes out to anyone who can hear my voice, AFA member or not.
00:52:22.480Now, if you're in trouble. If you're having a hard time. If things out there are just too much for you, please reach out to our go thar please reach out to me personally.
00:52:42.480Please reach out to your folk builder who can direct you to our go thar please reach out.
00:52:49.480um our go thar we are here to help we're here to counsel our folk we're here to listen
00:52:57.320um so many people are going through a lot of hard times for a lot of different reasons
00:53:04.040if you're struggling and you need someone to talk to please please reach out um
00:53:11.720and this goes without saying and i'm not trying to make it awkward if anyone hearing my voice and
00:53:17.800And because we've lost some people this way, if anyone here in my voice is so overwhelmed that they're thinking of ending it, I would really like for you to, I was going to say make me a promise.
00:53:32.440I don't know how you're going to do that, but at least give it a try, giving one of us a call before you go through with anything.
00:54:12.280I'm sure that the scholarship in it is extremely sound, and that's probably a really great thing and maybe something that I'll look into.
00:54:42.280Nate, I'm glad you liked them. We'd love to get you up there one of these days. Let's make sure
00:54:57.420we get a couple of those in the calendar. This is the same Nate from Colorado I'm thinking about.
00:55:04.020If you see him over here on the side chat, he is the man you have to thank for the beautiful
00:55:07.560AFA calendars we have every year. He does a really good job on those and we really appreciate them.
00:55:21.560Um, Das Schaefer Sturm Trooper, Trooper. I'm sorry, he's not getting back to you.
00:55:41.360Anders, if you see this, if anybody's got contact with Anders, let him know that you're reaching out.
00:55:46.760If you email me, mattflavell at runestone.org, I'd be happy to get that squared away and figure
00:55:53.580out what's going on there. I can speak personally. I know Anders. He's a really good guy. I think
00:55:58.820very highly of him. I don't think he's ignoring you on purpose, but if there is a glitch and
00:56:03.580something's going on, I'd like to get to the bottom of it and figure it out for you.
00:56:16.120I'm sure there's a lot of people that consider themselves white separatists.
00:56:20.580It certainly doesn't conflict with Ossetru.
00:56:23.080It's also not a position point of the Ossetru Folk Assembly or something that we're in any way trying to push, but I don't see it as contradictory to Ossetru in any way.
00:56:33.520There's a wide scope of politics within the AFA and, you know, within reason in a way that it doesn't contradict our core principles.
00:56:42.100We, you know, we certainly encourage our people to, to have strongly held political beliefs and to believe in them and practice them in a, you know, legal and appropriate way.
00:56:52.720But yeah, I'm sure you'll find people like that.
00:57:12.100Okay, one of our, our Uruguayan member is well can't really see the names not sure if it's our member or not. But a gentleman from Uruguay is asking if I think it's a problem some countries have some religious institutions that are held as official level, like the Anglican Church
00:57:42.080or churches that support the monarchies. This is a hard question, because of course, I don't like
00:57:50.000the ones that aren't also true. But you know, in a perfect world, if I was making the rules and
00:57:55.460establishing countries, also true would absolutely be an official religion. I think it depends on
00:58:01.320what official religion means. And if it implies negative things towards people that aren't of
00:58:08.360that faith. But I think context is key to all of these things. I will say this, I appreciate when
00:58:15.320Austertru has official recognition and in the places that it's treated as an official faith.
00:58:20.560So far, it's treated that way alongside other faiths. But I think the context to that is a
00:58:28.300huge thing. And I think there are situations where, you know, if Austertru was the official
00:58:33.420religion of a state or of a monarchy, that would be a beautiful thing. And I think that
00:58:38.160certainly the case with many of our ancestors in many different times in history
00:58:57.600okay got an interesting question do i think that saying white instead of native european has hurt
00:59:02.240the afa helped or made no difference seem like it's triggered some people it has triggered a lot
00:59:07.760of people um but no i don't think it's hurt the afa i absolutely think that it's helped the afa
00:59:14.960um the trouble is when you say european and i don't say white all the time ethnically european
00:59:20.160is a fine term but it has ambiguity a lot of people and some in our international audience
00:59:26.240may it may not be the same where they're from and i know that's the case in some european countries
00:59:30.960but here in the united states white means something when we fill out job applications
00:59:37.040or applications for schooling and various other things there's boxes you check for your ethnicity
00:59:43.200and white means white non-hispanic means something very specific you find numerous
00:59:50.640mixtures of people that because a part of them is descended from europe would describe themselves
00:59:56.240as european but those same people that would not be eligible for the astro folk assembly
01:00:02.720I also do not ever check the white box on any of those applications. Barack Obama is half Irish, but he's not white and he would never tell you or claim to be white.
01:00:14.840So that's why white has such a value. When I made the post about how in the AFA we love our masculine men, our feminine ladies and our beautiful white babies, it triggered so many people.0.90
01:00:26.880But there's nothing mean or, you know, abhorrent about any of it. And the fact that I used the word white to very clearly describe what we're talking about, because we're not ashamed of it, that brought a lot of people to the AFA.
01:00:41.680Simply the change from being scared to use the word white and actively using it has caused a big surge in AFA membership.
01:00:53.340And I attribute a lot of it to speaking plainly about what we mean and not being afraid or being ambiguous for the sake of political correctness.0.83
01:01:03.540And there's nothing wrong with being white. It's not a bad word. It's not a mean word. It's not derogatory towards anyone.0.89
01:01:10.960And it clarifies what we're talking about.
01:01:14.040So, no, I think it's helped a great deal.
01:01:15.740But it absolutely has triggered people.
01:01:19.220Often when you do the right thing, a whole lot of people get triggered, unfortunately.
01:01:40.960Melinda, I'm really sorry you haven't heard anything about your application.
01:01:45.960It depends on when you sent it, it can take up to a week to get someone to respond to you.
01:01:53.960If you're comfortable leaving your name on the side I can look, I can look it up in our database and get back to you after this program.
01:02:01.960If you're not comfortable you can email me at mattflabel at runestone.org and I'll try to see what's going on with that and get you some answers.
01:02:09.960Again, we do appreciate everybody that applies so I'm sorry to hear that and buck stops here get a hold of me and I'll take care of it and get you squared away. Okay.
01:02:18.960um any fundraisers coming up um we're currently doing the fundraiser for ron
01:02:28.400um outside of that we are always always doing an ongoing fundraiser to help out
01:02:34.960the displaced uh displaced white farmers in south africa um we're always running that those people
01:02:43.040can always use our support and we're constantly trying to keep that going and helping those folks
01:02:47.840our hoffs are always in need of funds uh the donate links on the afa page can get you there
01:02:53.520they certainly need your help and folk services we try to build up a war chest in folk services
01:02:58.640so when our folks uh come on hard times we're able to uh to help them out and to jump right in
01:03:05.520and you guys have been generous on that we've been able to help a lot of people
01:03:08.640So, Folk Services is a constant fundraiser that's running.
01:05:17.180Um, I think that every time the mainstream culture throws out white supremacy, it's going to make certain people view us negatively. It's one of those trigger words that still has some power.
01:05:32.260Although I think the more that they misuse the term, the less power it has.
01:05:39.100And when they put it on us, it scares certain people.
01:05:42.760I think it also for the people who've picked up on the fact that they label everything white supremacy or everything, everything that's, you know, encompasses a certain worldview.
01:05:52.960I think it probably also advertises us to people that are tired of tired of being thrown in that category themselves.
01:05:58.360So, at some point, I don't think it has, I think it has a net neutral effect, because I think it has pluses and minuses getting that label, and I'm not owning that label in any way, but knowing that they throw it on everybody, I think it loses some of that power, and I think it does mark us as people that are going against the current of political correctness, which, in a way, and as long as that's done in a principled way, helps us.
01:06:28.360Yes, that is on the website. If you want to contribute to helping our folk in South Africa, that links up there, and we make sure that goes to helping folks in the camp.
01:06:52.100Often we try to make sure that gets targeted towards children for things like blanket and food needs.
01:06:59.260One of the big things we were involved in was a project to give baby formula to a lot of babies that don't have that formula over there.
01:07:06.200Or whose mothers are not capable of providing milk for them.
01:07:10.820Situations are really bad in those camps.
01:07:12.900And every little bit helps and your money goes a long way in South Africa.
01:07:22.100it's a good point um that's being made over on the side don't own the labels that they want to
01:07:37.080throw on you don't own just because they call you a white supremacist that you are
01:07:40.780we're not we don't claim to be that's nothing that we do that's a label that they throw on us
01:07:45.780um and you want to make sure that you never play into their hand by being the villain that they
01:07:50.960paint you as. And I think that's something we should all keep in mind.
01:08:07.360I think that's an interesting concept, the idea of the Norse gods won't save you.
01:08:12.480I'm not sure what everybody wants to be saved from. I think we're obliged to save ourselves
01:08:17.760from things. I think our gods help us. I think our gods inspire us. But I don't think we've ever
01:08:24.940had any promises to be spared conflict or difficulty. In fact, our gods themselves embrace
01:08:31.280conflict. So I don't think it's an issue of looking to be saved from anything, certainly not
01:08:36.300saved from some sort of original sin. But I think our gods do help us. But if we have situations
01:08:43.040that we need to be saved from we need to look to each other and to uh to the gods for inspiration
01:08:48.640but for us to do the hard work of saving ourselves
01:08:58.720ah there's a number of regional events for hexanocton mayday and i encourage you to reach
01:09:03.840out to folks for those i believe all three of our hofs are hosting an event for each of those two
01:09:09.120days so please reach out to your local hoff and your local folk building area
01:09:15.280and see what's going on for those days
01:09:39.120Daniel, can I touch on ancestor worship and why it's not as prominent as it should be?