Asatru Folk Assembly - Focus on the Folk Part 1 October 2007

00:00:00.000 Music

00:00:21.000 As it true is a folk religion, it's a religion tying ethnicity and religious identity into a way of life.

00:00:27.340 It's a difficult topic to discuss.

00:00:31.580 It doesn't get discussed often enough, but I thought it would be a good opportunity if

00:00:37.020 we got together, at least for today, to begin discussing some of these issues, and maybe

00:00:42.280 in the future we could discuss other issues of importance.

00:00:47.140 The term folk is not often well defined, it's used a lot, but the way that I personally

00:00:58.320 use it is basically meaning the people to whom Azatru was brought to originally, or

00:01:05.020 religions very similar that we now today know as Azatru.

00:01:11.200 Like I said, the whole forum idea is new, but I think it can be an interesting opportunity

00:01:16.520 for us to discuss some of these interesting and difficult issues.

00:01:21.800 What I've done is I've constructed a number of questions.

00:01:24.800 I presented it to our participants here so that they could prepare some answers.

00:01:30.980 Hopefully these will be issues that are important and interesting to you.

00:01:36.300 So our three panelists don't need much introduction, but real briefly, if you, from left to right,

00:01:42.280 Steve, if you could introduce yourself real briefly to everybody involved here.

00:01:46.560 My name is Steve McNallan.

00:01:48.160 I head an organization called the Alsatru Folk Assembly.

00:01:51.400 I first started following the gods about 35 years ago.

00:01:55.580 Obviously, the opinions that I'll be giving here today

00:01:57.980 actually represent not so much the AFA necessarily

00:02:00.980 as my own worldview and my own opinions,

00:02:05.400 which obviously are somewhat connected to those of the AFA.

00:02:10.040 My name is Helda Mangum.

00:02:11.760 I've been heathen for about 15 years, and I'm a member of the Hammer of Thor Kindred.

00:02:17.180 And I was invited to speak by Stephan, so thank you.

00:02:23.340 I'm Stephan Thorsman. I'm chieftain and goethe of the Hammer of Thor Kindred.

00:02:28.280 I've been heathen for 15 years.

00:02:31.060 I'm also clergy coordinator for the Asa True Folk Assembly.

00:02:34.660 I'm really, really honored to be here.

00:02:36.720 So what I've got, let's start out with either an easy or difficult question.

00:02:42.780 Starting from left, my left, Mr. McNallan, how many azitrar do you think there are?

00:02:51.320 Well, that's a good question.

00:02:52.800 We're not exactly organized in a way that allows us to keep track of that.

00:02:57.380 You know, there is no central registry for azitrar, and even the term itself is debatable.

00:03:03.340 Many people don't consider themselves Alcetur, but rather Odinists or Theodish or this, that, or the other,

00:03:10.920 and many don't even have a name for it.

00:03:13.280 Wild guess? 5,000 to 20,000?

00:03:18.200 That's nice in general, huh?

00:03:24.820 It's not a specific question.

00:03:26.240 I'm kind of just leaving it open for people to discuss and maybe address as they see.

00:03:31.420 Worldwide, it could be larger, yeah.

00:03:33.340 um helga what do you think i think he answered it very well and there's a lot of people that

00:03:40.540 i know they just moved to a small town in oregon and they found a heathen in their town who had

00:03:45.180 never met another heathen before in her life right um so i think there's as good account as we could

00:03:51.340 get from our who's in the troth who's in the afa who's in the odenic right would still probably

00:03:58.300 only be a half to three quarters of who is total. I think the communication between is

00:04:05.060 one of the harder things.

00:04:07.180 Stephen?

00:04:08.200 I'm going to say something. I could be way off base here, but this is just what my gut

00:04:12.840 instinct tells me. I think worldwide we are probably counting solitaries, people who are

00:04:22.580 practicing heathenry alone, heathens behind bars, various people who are searching and are going to

00:04:31.880 very, very soon find heathenry. Worldwide, I'd venture to guess we're probably around 100,000

00:04:39.100 counting heathens in Germany, Iceland, Sweden, because it's growing. It's taking a foothold 0.99

00:04:45.620 in Europe much faster than it is here in Vinland. And I think part of the reason for that is because

00:04:52.500 that's the mother country. That's the source. But it's really taking hold. And if you are

00:04:59.280 on the internet, if you spend any time on the internet at all, you see this. It's reflective

00:05:04.620 in the music, which is starting to take hold. Websites filled with heathen art. So I think

00:05:13.400 we're growing. So I'd say probably 100,000. Steve, considering that growth can be both

00:05:19.900 blessing and bring its own problems how do you think we should approach growing

00:05:26.320 ourselves and bringing those people into our organizations and in our community

00:05:31.180 in a way that's not going to be very disruptive disruptive to well if for

00:05:41.560 example a bunch of people with their own ideas come in about who we are and what

00:05:46.780 we are and they bring those in, often sheer numbers alone can affect and influence the

00:05:55.020 culture and views that people hold. And if we start bringing people in from Christianity 0.52

00:06:00.660 for example, they're going to bring their own ideas in. 0.94

00:06:03.220 Okay, gotcha. I think it's important to mature this thing of ours that we do to the point

00:06:11.660 that there is a general understanding of what we're about,

00:06:15.520 that the scholarship is there, but not just the scholarship for the elite,

00:06:19.460 but also versions of that that have filtered down to everyone involved.

00:06:23.920 There needs to be a general understanding of what the Northern Way is,

00:06:27.400 and we can institutionalize that to some extent,

00:06:30.460 like within the AFA we've got the clergy program and so forth

00:06:33.420 that largely meshes in with our own particular worldview.

00:06:38.120 Helga?

00:06:38.940 I think growth is always a difficult question.

00:06:41.660 in a community such as ours where we're small enough that right now the people that come

00:06:45.660 to our faith tend to be very dedicated.

00:06:49.980 When I was 16 and trying to find other people of this faith, it took me, I think, two years

00:06:55.680 to finally get an answer from what was then the Ring of Troth. 0.96

00:06:58.640 I think that's a bad thing.

00:07:02.920 I think making ourselves available for people to find us is a good thing.

00:07:09.880 Pushing for growth, I think it's a little touchier because I'd like to maintain the

00:07:14.320 quality of people who come into the community, and I certainly think that having some sort

00:07:21.000 of a already established set of guidelines, I guess, for what the community is would be

00:07:27.960 helpful for us in maintaining what we want and helpful for the people coming in for understanding

00:07:33.080 what it is they're getting into, if that makes sense.

Asatru Folk Assembly - February 01, 2021

Focus on the Folk Part 1 October 2007

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