Asatru Folk Assembly - February 01, 2021


Asatruļ¼š A Native European Religion October 2008


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

121.391426

Word count

677

Sentence count

34

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Steve McNallum, and I lead an organization called the Asatru Folk Assembly, or AFA.
00:00:10.740 Asatru is a native European religion, and in the next few minutes I'd like to explain to you just
00:00:17.400 exactly what that means. Asatru was practiced throughout Europe by many of the tribes of that
00:00:24.540 area. All the way from Iceland to Russia, all the way from the frozen climes of Scandinavia
00:00:31.840 down to the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, these tribes wandered, lived, fought, left
00:00:39.260 their legacy and honored their gods and their goddesses and their ancestors. Today the sons
00:00:48.060 and daughters of Europe are scattered all around the world and we think of ourselves 0.87
00:00:52.340 as being Americans or Canadians or Germans or Danes.
00:00:57.840 But beneath these newer labels,
00:01:00.980 there lurks an older and more essential identity.
00:01:04.980 We are Angles and Saxons.
00:01:07.800 We are Vikings.
00:01:09.660 We are Hermundari, Chati, Cheruski,
00:01:13.940 all the old tribes from which we are descended.
00:01:17.220 we have been europeans for about 40 000 years
00:01:24.100 we have been christians for considerably less than 2 000 years perhaps it is time that we took
00:01:34.620 a look at the path of our ancestors the way that they related to themselves to the gods to the
00:01:41.560 world around them and see if there isn't something better that can benefit us, real, ordinary,
00:01:47.460 live human beings in the 21st century. In the 1960s and 1970s, many people of Native American
00:01:57.800 ancestry started returning to their traditional ways. Part of this was expressed in political 0.64
00:02:03.540 fashion, but other parts dealt with their innate spirituality, the ways of their ancestors.
00:02:10.280 At about the same time, many people of African-American descent began looking towards all things African,
00:02:17.300 looking to their culture in Africa, their clothing, their food, their ways of relating with each other,
00:02:23.520 and, yes, also looking at their African religious roots as well.
00:02:29.380 Now it is time for people of European descent, not just in America, but all around the world,
00:02:35.160 to hearken back to this older identity. 0.99
00:02:38.960 Time to look again at the way, the spiritual way,
00:02:43.420 that gave our ancestors strength and courage and protection and inspiration in a difficult world.
00:02:54.020 It's not easy for me to give you any sort of a description of Ausatru in terms of beliefs and doctrine
00:02:59.960 in a short little presentation like this.
00:03:02.200 But I do have some statements that I would like to read that I feel tell a little bit about the flavor of Alsatru, how Alsatru fits in our hearts, what it feels like.
00:03:15.320 I have here nine statements.
00:03:18.120 Number one, the world is good.
00:03:22.400 Prosperity is good.
00:03:24.640 Life is good, and we should live it with joy and enthusiasm.
00:03:28.160 number two we are free to shape our lives to the extent allowed by our skill courage and might
00:03:39.600 there is no predestination no limitations imposed by the will of any external deity
00:03:46.680 number three we do not need salvation all we need is the freedom to face our lives with courage and
00:03:56.040 honor. Number four, we are connected to all our ancestors. They are a part of us. We in turn will
00:04:07.380 be a part of our descendants. Number five, we are also linked to all our living kin, to our families
00:04:16.940 and to every man and woman rooted in the tribes of Europe. These are our greater family. Number six,
00:04:26.040 We are connected to nature and subject to its laws.
00:04:32.180 The holy powers often express themselves in nature's beauty and might.
00:04:38.320 Number seven, we believe that morality does not depend on commandments,
00:04:44.800 but arises from the dignity and honor of the noble-minded man and woman.
00:04:49.200 number eight we do not fear the holy powers or consider ourselves their slaves on the contrary
00:04:59.360 we share community and fellowship with the divine the holy powers encourage us to grow
00:05:05.980 and to advance to higher levels and finally number nine we practice also true by honoring
00:05:16.140 the turning of the seasons, the ancestors, the divine, and ourselves in everyday life.
00:05:26.600 Ausatru is about roots. It's about connections. It's about coming home.