Asatru Folk Assembly - July 2022 Live Discussion

00:00:00.000 hello guys welcome once again to our monthly youtube live chats um had a lot going on in

00:00:17.520 the month of june it was a it was a great month um it's hard to believe it's already july

00:00:23.600 looks like we got a number you guys over in the in the chat which is great to see

00:00:28.080 and uh yeah we got i've got um a couple of things i'd like to talk to folks about right off the bat

00:00:37.680 um some upcoming stuff so you guys know uh in the month of august we've got two

00:00:47.280 two big events to talk about um first on august the 13th we're going to dedicate njordshoff

00:00:56.000 um for the past what a month now we've had folks up there just about every weekend

00:01:02.640 putting in effort getting that place ready and cleaned up and nice to make it a

00:01:10.400 beautiful and amazing hof for nyorder and we're going to dedicate to the hof to him and officially

00:01:18.480 sanctify that place on August the 13th. I hope you guys can join us there. It'll be great and

00:01:27.780 I'm looking forward to it. Also in August, this year our fall fest at Baldershof is in August.

00:01:36.300 Usually that's the first weekend of September, but in order to make it work and work out some

00:01:41.820 of the travel logistics a little bit easier, that's going to be August the 19th through the

00:01:46.680 21st. And we're all looking forward to seeing you guys there. That's going to be amazing.

00:01:52.200 The folks at Baldershof have put in a lot of effort to get everything ready and everything

00:01:56.440 special for this year. And I'm sure it's going to be a really good time. I hope you guys can join me

00:01:59.920 there. So those things off top of the bat, what else we got going on? Also, I'd like to mention

00:02:18.880 our Njordshof website is officially up and running today. It's just like our other Hof sites. It's

00:02:25.720 really useful for folks in the new Njordshoff district to go on and see what's going on in

00:02:31.460 your part of the world, what events are coming up. The event calendar on there is fantastic.

00:02:37.020 I really love the new websites that we have, and those are all the hard work of Jessica Lambert,

00:02:43.320 one of our folk builders in Ohio. She is fantastic. She's done an amazing job on those,

00:02:48.140 and we really, really appreciate the work she's put in.

00:02:50.940 And that's going to be at www.njordshoff.org.

00:03:00.140 And links to all of our websites are going to be in the description of this video on YouTube.

00:03:05.220 So when you guys look at this later, yeah, in the description, I put a link to all of our websites.

00:03:14.060 Looks like Alabama is well represented in the chat room.

00:03:17.900 That's good to see.

00:03:20.940 hmm got a question from heathen hammer is bloat held inside the hof depends depends where um

00:03:29.740 at odin's hof we typically do bloat outside in the ritual circle that we have

00:03:35.220 at thor's hof i know they've done bloats outside but typically their bloats are inside the vey

00:03:42.600 at balder's hof the bloats are inside the hof and uh we have yet to do bloats at njord's hof so

00:03:49.960 we'll figure that out. Certainly there will be bloats inside the Hoff, but outside the Hoff

00:03:55.380 may be an option there as well. We'll see. All right. So also I got a question and you guys can

00:04:08.560 feel free to email me questions throughout the month. If there's things you want to have me

00:04:12.860 address on these, I try to get to all of them the best I can. We had one question and it was about

00:04:19.940 it was about weddings uh we had a question

00:04:25.540 so money is an option uh this couple was trying to find some find some cheaper ways to do some

00:04:31.300 things and still make their wedding nice and he he asked if during the the gift exchange between

00:04:39.300 bride and groom if he could get a you know a reproduction you know a reproduction or a display

00:04:46.740 kind of sword as opposed to a functional battle-ready sword. And I thought that's an interesting

00:04:55.180 thing to bring up and something for us to talk about. First, it's your wedding. I don't think

00:05:01.260 it's disrespectful or wrong or going to offend the gods one way or another. But I do think it

00:05:07.180 causes us to take a moment and think about why we do the things that we do in our true weddings.

00:05:13.340 and I know for a long time and you know certainly in the 80s and the 90s it was very

00:05:18.680 I don't know it was the way things were done to exchange like exchange the you know keys to the

00:05:28.280 new house maybe a fancy set of keys to the wife and then the groom would get from the wife a

00:05:34.280 a sword and if you look at other things that time there was a lot of

00:05:40.200 dressing up like period Vikings and things of that nature. And we've really moved away from

00:05:48.380 that. We're trying to do modern things. And so feel free to exchange a sword if you think

00:05:56.040 that's relevant or good. But I think it's important to understand the symbolism there

00:06:04.040 and make sure that the meaning of that isn't tarnished by what you do. I don't think that

00:06:09.640 you know, the quality of the weapon exchanged is as important as the meaning of it. 0.57

00:06:16.320 In our ancestors' day, when they would give a, you know, when the wife would give her family

00:06:21.540 sword to the husband, the point of that was literally an implement of life and death to

00:06:30.440 protect that family and to protect the honor of that family. And in that day, that sword was a

00:06:38.580 was a deadly weapon and so it was a heavy responsibility and was a really important thing

00:06:44.180 and it being a family weapon it was also often something that was handed down and significant to

00:06:49.620 the wife and her ancestors that now this husband was responsible for um

00:06:57.140 oftentimes i've seen and i i don't aim this at anybody who may be listening in the chat but um

00:07:03.220 Um, oftentimes people just run out and get a sword because it's cool to have a sword

00:07:08.900 at a, at a house at your wedding.

00:07:11.120 But what I have seen and what I think makes much more sense is the exchange of a firearm

00:07:17.600 in areas where that's legal.

00:07:19.660 If in your state or your country, whoever's listening to the show, you can exchange, you

00:07:24.180 know, a pistol or, or a rifle or an actual weapon for defense of your family, that's

00:07:31.220 much more in keeping than, you know, with a reproduction sword of something from a different

00:07:38.320 time. When people see a sword nowadays, most often it's a decoration for your wall or it's a

00:07:45.400 cool curiosity, but it doesn't have the same weight as an implement of taking life in defense

00:07:51.900 of something. And so whatever you do, that would be the most important thing is to realize the

00:07:59.460 symbolism is about you having that power of life and death. So I think that handing, you know,

00:08:05.660 again, a rifle or a pistol in an area where that's legal is a very reasonable thing to do.

00:08:11.700 I think the idea of a sword becomes relevant if there's a sword that is passed down in the family

00:08:17.440 that has some kind of familiar connection to it. Maybe an old military sword, an old officer's

00:08:23.900 sword if if one of your wife's ancestors was was in the military and that was a part of a part of

00:08:30.760 what they had or maybe a family weapon or a family you know a family rifle or a family shotgun if

00:08:36.120 that's a thing but the point of the weapon is that very deadly responsibility and not just having a

00:08:44.440 not just having a cool sword for a themed wedding so i think it's important to keep that in mind

00:08:48.660 look on the side I know we had some had some questions in the chat

00:08:55.480 uh yes we absolutely had the question was asked is is the AFA in Virginia yes as a matter of fact

00:09:04.800 we have three folk builders in Virginia of the Astro Folk Assembly um we've got quite a few

00:09:11.660 members in Virginia Virginia is a very active area for the AFA so our I believe just about

00:09:17.740 every state that borders virginia so no that's a really active place for us

00:09:27.980 um anti-antifa i'm glad to hear that you want to get involved that's fantastic

00:09:33.980 um if you do want to get involved and you want to want to think about joining

00:09:37.900 www.runestone.org is the place that you'd want to go to both to join and also your next question

00:09:46.460 about where you get a flag in our store section on that site is where you can buy a flag

00:09:51.900 and yeah so go check it out if you believe in what we believe in if you stand by our

00:09:57.420 our declaration of purpose and our statement of ethics then i do invite you to go there

00:10:01.500 and fill out an application if you'd like to be be part of this that we do

00:10:04.940 Seems like by the time I got to your question, other people had answered it for me.

00:10:18.860 I appreciate that, guys.

00:10:27.800 I'm glad to hear that.

00:10:28.780 So politics aside, what we're here for is absolutely to reconnect our folk with our gods and to live in a way that's going to spiritually uplift our people and get us back spiritually healthy again and help us to be successful.

00:10:48.180 And we would love to have you sign up and be part of what we're doing.

00:10:58.780 okay um king of cheese and again i just love the name has a question and i think a lot of people

00:11:11.780 wonder about this uh does the afa take any issue with folk worshiping different aspects of the gods

00:11:18.800 such as the greek or hellenic pantheon

00:11:22.280 no

00:11:24.840 um the question is can be so much bigger but no fundamentally the spiritual connection between

00:11:38.900 our gods and that root divinity is shared by those pantheons um i don't think there's always

00:11:47.140 a one-for-one crossover on which of our deities relates to the other and how, but we are Pan-Aryan

00:11:56.740 and if you're worshiping any of the Arian deities then the AFA does not take issue with that.

00:12:04.020 It does become a little bit more complex to figure out how that all works out spiritually

00:12:08.660 on the other end and where exactly that worship ends up, but if it goes back to our Arian gods

00:12:14.980 then we have no problem with that whatsoever.

00:12:18.240 And we want to maintain that piety

00:12:19.940 with all the Aryan deities.

00:12:28.600 It's great to see so many people in the chat room. 1.00

00:12:30.880 I know it makes for a little bit of dead air

00:12:32.380 while I sort through it,

00:12:33.420 but I love seeing so many people

00:12:34.700 having conversation in there.

00:12:44.980 um i got a question i'm not really sure the context uh from alistair questions

00:12:49.620 why wear a hammer it's just symbolic then if it has no practical value um

00:12:57.780 yeah the hammer's symbolic i mean i don't expect my necklace to have a lot of practical value

00:13:05.700 but the symbolism of wearing something that ritually was always sacred to our ancestors

00:13:12.340 that was a self-identifier, that they were followers of Asatru, yeah, that's exactly why

00:13:18.960 we wear it. We wear it so other people see it, can make the recognition that, oh, that guy is an

00:13:23.840 Asatruar. That guy follows the Aesir. And it's an honor to wear a symbol that is sacred to Asathor. 0.96

00:13:34.320 The hammer was certainly a weapon to slay giants, but it was also an implement to sanctify and to

00:13:39.780 purify. It was something to bless the womb of brides at the wedding. So yeah, wearing the

00:13:46.940 hammer is a very special thing, and it absolutely is symbolic. That's the entire point of it.

00:14:05.180 Alistair, I think you may miss my point, or maybe I didn't make my point clear. I don't

00:14:08.780 fault anything that has symbolism to it. What I dislike is symbolism that's disconnected from

00:14:16.060 the meaning. If the whole focus is the symbol and not the reason behind it, that's what I take issue

00:14:22.180 with. If you want to use a sword in your wedding because you deeply are connected with that and

00:14:28.000 you're a person who understands the very deadly nature of the exchange of a weapon and the

00:14:34.780 responsibility to protect with your very life, your wife and your children and your family

00:14:41.920 through this exchange, then symbols are fine. But when people only see the sword,

00:14:47.800 because Vikings had swords and swords are cool, I think some of the weight of what that means is

00:14:53.080 lost. When you're talking about wearing a necklace, there's not more practical necklaces

00:14:59.480 to where I don't think that the mule neuron, the necklace takes away from practicality,

00:15:05.280 whereas, you know, a display sword is not going to be useful in defense of your wife and your

00:15:10.600 family. No, there's some things that we do that are absolutely symbolic and harken back to our

00:15:17.840 ancestors. Your point about the horn is a good point. We can certainly use glasses, and I've

00:15:22.500 had symbols to where we use glasses or another vessel. The horn connects us in a very sacred

00:15:29.200 way to how we connect with our gods. In the alu formula, ansus, lagus, urus, the liquid

00:15:39.360 connected with that primal urus element that the horn does symbolize is part of that. So our

00:15:48.360 ancestors drinking from a bovine horn was always very symbolic. And it's absolutely why we do it.

00:15:56.880 But I don't think you're doing it wrong if you use another drinking vessel.

00:16:00.000 But the trouble is, I don't think anybody confuses that.

00:16:05.460 But, yeah, I don't think that.

00:16:13.320 Because one thing is good doesn't mean the other thing is bad.

00:16:17.240 And I'm not trying to harp on people LARPing.

00:16:20.660 But if you ask a lot of those folks that did practice House of True back in the 80s and 90s,

00:16:25.660 like Steve McNallan himself. He doesn't dress up like a Viking anymore because as he's grown up as

00:16:31.260 a man, he feels that that's silly. And he feels that locking our ancestry, locking our faith

00:16:38.840 in an archaic period instead of practicing it in a modern context is kind of silly. As one of the

00:16:45.500 guy who founded doing that feels that way. I feel comfortable saying that, you know, I think that

00:16:50.800 dressing up like a viking and being played liking is silly but having certain implements like a

00:16:57.680 horn during ritual is nice and an aesthetic that does harken back to our roots i don't think that

00:17:03.680 you have to be all 100 one way or 100 the other way i think we need to be mindful of the circumstance

00:17:09.040 and the effect it has on those around us and those who are in ritual with us

00:17:12.560 okay i got a question can i explain the afa's approach to galder in ritual i've noticed the

00:17:26.620 galder chance during bloats evolving over the past few years and i was just curious what the

00:17:31.340 thinking is um i was it depends on what you do i think there's a there's several factors to that

00:17:39.120 So I like to Galdr when I first get people in the ritual space.

00:17:46.600 And I say this, I say that it harmonizes us literally and figuratively, and I think that

00:17:54.220 it does.

00:17:55.360 When you're making those Galdrs as a group, you'll notice a dynamic that happens as you 0.99

00:18:01.820 progress making them.

00:18:03.620 At first, it's disjointed and only a few people are Galdring at different volumes in a 0.98

00:18:08.960 different ways but as we go we sync up and we rise and we fall as a group with that galder and

00:18:16.580 it's a literal harmonizing and it's powerful our folk intoning sacred charms in unity

00:18:24.780 raises that energy in the circle and it connects us all in a in a very tangible way

00:18:31.300 um i think a lot of the time when we galder in ritual it uh it summons forth the energy from

00:18:40.880 that galder um the root of our of much of our magical practice comes from you know spells

00:18:49.480 are incantations they're literally speaking something into existence and so all of us

00:18:55.840 chanting these sacred charms into existence in that circle raises that power and connects with

00:19:02.920 that source of power. But also, just on a practical note, during ritual, it engages us in a very

00:19:10.460 special way, and it engages everybody in that circle in part of the holy process that we're

00:19:16.120 doing. One of the things that's a challenge for a gothi is downtime in a circle. The more time

00:19:22.080 that there's silence as people process around the circle with the offerings of the horn and

00:19:27.080 things of that nature. It's time for the people who are standing there to lose focus, to think

00:19:33.620 about my feet hurt or what am I going to do after this? Or, you know, am I standing in the right

00:19:39.880 place? Or what's that guy across the circle wearing? Or, you know, I hear a baby crying,

00:19:44.580 all of those things. When you're engaged in an active Galder, it keeps you present and keeps 0.97

00:19:49.460 you in the moment. And it also summons up that energy. So

00:19:53.080 that's a big reason why we do it.

00:20:01.640 Yes, is the AFA active on the European continent? And are

00:20:04.620 there members in Europe? Absolutely, there are. It's

00:20:08.700 tricky as far as on the continent itself. Typically, when

00:20:12.700 people say that they're excluding Scandinavia, and you

00:20:18.020 know, saying the continent excludes the British Isles. We have members in England. We have

00:20:24.180 members in Ireland. We have members in Denmark and Sweden and Norway. We have members in

00:20:31.240 Italy. We have a member in the Netherlands. So, yeah, we do absolutely have European members.

00:20:39.320 With all of the things that have gone on with people's reaction to COVID-19,

00:20:45.320 it slowed a lot of our international interactions because different countries and different places

00:20:50.840 have been through all kind of different levels of lockdowns and whatever else and also travel

00:20:55.800 between countries has been made very difficult but we do have have quite a few members in europe

00:21:01.240 specifically quite a few in scandinavia

00:21:15.320 um so are the gatherings more of a spiritual nature or ever politically based they're always

00:21:20.840 of spiritual nature people whenever concerned and you know people who are aware of the world

00:21:28.840 around them get together no doubt some political discussions happen um but in general that's not

00:21:36.440 the i say in general just flat out that's not the point of what we're doing um and your politics

00:21:41.880 should reflect your faith and not the other way around and i think that's a really important thing

00:21:46.440 for guys on our on our side to understand your political beliefs no matter who you are should

00:21:54.040 flow from your core values and your core values should be flow from your religion and your faith

00:21:59.560 and your gods so our religion our faith and our gods is exactly what we're doing and helping each

00:22:06.440 other have better lives is what we're doing sometimes political discussions certainly come

00:22:11.320 up but the point of our gatherings is always a spiritual one we are a church that's absolutely

00:22:16.840 what we are and what we do. So the primary purpose of our gatherings needs to be to build bonds as

00:22:25.560 a folk and to worship and give honor and praise to our gods.

00:22:30.440 king of cheese don't apologize about anything your questions are always great

00:22:46.960 and you know i enjoy answering your questions please keep going

00:22:50.140 everybody answer asking questions it's always much appreciated

00:22:53.560 um morris taylor is the astro merchandise made by astro true folk no um that'd be really cool

00:23:09.760 but i don't want to pretend um you know we don't have astro folk knitting the shirts we don't have

00:23:17.160 them producing most of our products. A lot of our products do come from China, because quite

00:23:23.740 frankly, that's where we get by far the best deal. And for American companies, when we want to get

00:23:30.140 our symbols and things associated with the AustroFolk assembly done, very often we get pushback

00:23:36.660 from cancel culture and the left feeling like we practice wrong think. Sometimes we try to get

00:23:44.340 merchandise if we can from Eastern Europe. That's difficult with the situation between Russia and

00:23:49.940 Ukraine right now. But folks in Eastern Europe and folks in Asia don't care about the strange

00:23:59.760 social issues that are going on in the United States right now. They're happy to make whatever 0.99

00:24:04.340 products we like for a fair and very reasonable price. So we do get most of our merchandise that

00:24:08.800 way um we do sell books that are by aussitrew authors our clothing so we get clothing items

00:24:17.200 obviously the shirts and the raw material are made somewhere else typically often in china but the

00:24:22.640 work done on them to print our designs is done in-house by a an austral woman uh one of our

00:24:28.400 folk builders melissa mills so we have our own people designing the things that go on our shirts

00:24:35.120 and our clothing items and producing those.

00:24:39.200 So we handle the content, but the actual production of a lot of things does end up getting outsourced, unfortunately.

00:25:05.120 Okay. So the ADL and the SPLC view us guys as a hate group. What is my response to this?

00:25:19.900 Would you ignore it and think it's nonsense? First, it is nonsense. 0.93

00:25:27.260 um it's i want to say it's funny but it's not funny haha it's funny ludicrous that we get

00:25:38.400 labeled that because whenever either of those organizations have been asked why we count as a

00:25:44.300 hate group they can't point to one thing that we've said or done that's been hateful and truly

00:25:52.080 as a church, the AFA is not hateful. That really doesn't factor into any of the things that we do.

00:26:03.180 We get together. One of the things that I've always loved and I'm so proud of about the AFA

00:26:07.820 is the purpose of what we do and the vast majority of everything we do is based around love. It's

00:26:13.680 based around things that we're proud of and things that we like. The AFA is kind of a haven to get

00:26:19.520 away from the negativity of all the stuff in our daily lives we may not like and that frustrate us.

00:26:24.820 When we get together, we talk about the things that we do like and that we positively are for,

00:26:30.000 not all the things we're against. We talk about the things we love, not things that we don't.

00:26:35.500 So no, the AFA is absolutely a group about love and about pride of ourselves, of our gods,

00:26:41.440 and of our ancestors. And I mean that. I don't just say it. The SPLC and the ADL have not mentioned

00:26:47.820 one time that the AFA has done something hateful, said something hateful. They imply that they know

00:26:54.680 what we really mean. The three reasons that the SPLC gave to reporters when asked why we're a hate

00:27:01.980 group, and they said that we have an archaic view of gender, meaning that we believe that biology

00:27:10.380 defines your gender. We believe that race is not a social construct, that there's a biological

00:27:19.840 component to race. There just is. That's science. Every forensic pathologist knows that. Every

00:27:27.540 archaeologist knows that. And truly, everybody in the general public knows that. It's a thing. It

00:27:34.300 exists. And then we spread the white nationalist propaganda about a white genocide in South

00:27:41.420 Africa. You can call that something else if you want. I think those terms are absolutely correct,

00:27:49.680 but you can just Google it and look on the news. There is horrible atrocities happening to

00:27:57.520 South African whites, and they're being targeted because of their race. 0.99

00:28:03.260 They share that race with me and with us. And as brothers and sisters, we are hurt by what's going

00:28:12.080 on to the white South Africans. And we want for atrocities to stop happening to our people there.

00:28:21.460 the fact that someone would find that to be hateful is mystifying to me and I think speaks 0.87

00:28:27.500 to a serious mental illness from those folks. You're asking me for my response and or whether

00:28:33.960 we should just ignore it. I guess that's the more interesting question. There's not much to be done

00:28:39.300 about it. We keep doing what we're doing and we continue to be very successful. I don't think

00:28:46.160 there's a feasible place or a time or a scenario for us right now to squabble with either of those

00:28:55.100 two groups that have oceans of money to throw at the problem. It's just not productive. We'd rather

00:29:02.500 focus on continuing to do the mission of the AFA and accomplish good things for our folks

00:29:08.280 and our gods. And so far, we've been very successful with that. So yeah, it's unfortunate

00:29:15.980 those people engage in name calling and it's even more unfortunate that the media chooses to

00:29:24.380 give a loudspeaker to that name calling and i hope that changes and i think that it will at some

00:29:29.340 at some point.

00:29:59.340 All right, I have a question. Can I explain the importance of the Hoftholler and what do most people contribute to it?

00:30:11.280 Yeah, for those of you guys that don't know, the Hoftholler is a percentage-based giving.

00:30:19.120 I believe we implemented the Hoftholler in early 2020, perhaps in 2019, I'm not certain.

00:30:29.340 Um, we're trying to, so as part of the growth and development of the AFA, we're really trying

00:30:36.940 to function as a, as a religion and as a faith community and not as, as a club and as some

00:30:44.220 kind of a membership, membership organization.

00:30:48.420 We want to function as, as a faith community, as a religion.

00:30:52.780 And one of the things that helps with that is instead of paying membership dues as you

00:30:58.180 would to a club or, you know, group that you want to contribute to that way, or instead of paying

00:31:05.940 for a service, like you get some value out of your membership tangibly, what we want to do is be

00:31:11.940 donating to our church, donating to our gods, donating to the mission of the AFA, and successful

00:31:19.660 religions have always done that by people contributing a percentage of what they have.

00:31:25.440 we found that our ancestors used to do something like this that they called the hoftoller and it

00:31:31.600 went to support the gothar and it went to support the hoffs and temples and groves and our ancestors

00:31:38.540 worship of our gods so that's the term we use for it the hoftoller in the afa is a minimum of one

00:31:44.220 percent of a person's income or a family's income for that matter donated to the afa and it's not

00:31:51.300 just 1%. That's the minimum. We have a number of members that give 5% or even 10% to the AFA.

00:31:59.800 And we're so very thankful for that. That's one thing that's really allowed us to accelerate

00:32:04.900 these last few years and get the last three Hoffs that we've got have been the Hofftoller. So we're

00:32:10.280 really thankful for anybody who pays by it. You ask what most people contribute, and it depends.

00:32:15.360 Like I said, it's a minimum of 1%.

00:32:18.560 So most people start there and see and see what their family can afford.

00:32:22.780 Often, like I say, as people who've been on the Hof toller for a time, I have increased

00:32:27.700 that up to 5% or 10%.

00:32:29.660 I think it comes out to an average of somewhere around $50 a month for the people that end

00:32:39.400 up paying Hof toller, somewhere around there.

00:32:41.320 But again, we don't we don't want to be invasive in people's privacy and overly investigate.

00:32:48.320 We trust them. And if we say, hey, is this one percent?

00:32:51.320 And I say, yeah, one percent. Cool. We trust that.

00:32:54.320 And we've really moved ahead with it. So once again, thank you, everybody who does pay the half dollar.

00:33:11.320 Yeah, anti-antifa. I see what, you know, you have a question. You don't know why the

00:33:27.440 Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center would target you guys for no reason.

00:33:32.400 How would you deal with this? Well, we deal with it by continuing to be good, upstanding people

00:33:37.820 and building a reputation for ourselves in the real world.

00:33:44.380 I'm not sure.

00:33:45.320 It's hard to, you can't get tone over the internet.

00:33:47.280 So I don't know how serious that was.

00:33:49.940 But if, you know, assuming that it was completely serious,

00:33:53.300 those folks do that because that's what they like to do.

00:33:57.000 It's a very popular thing right now to pick anything

00:34:01.380 that expresses pride and positivity for white people

00:34:06.020 and to demonize it and treat it as something negative and something hateful.

00:34:10.780 That's what the media has done very consistently for a long time.

00:34:15.220 And that's kind of their favorite pastime right now.

00:34:18.860 I think that any time those groups who their sole focus of existing is to find things they

00:34:28.840 perceive to be offensive to their special interest and to demonize those things.

00:34:34.200 That's the founding reason for those two groups. And if they don't find, you know, if they don't find horrible monsters to go after, they cease having having a reason to exist.

00:34:46.560 And so in order to sustain themselves, they very often like to create sensationalism and fan the flames of racial tensions to make themselves seem important or relevant. And that's really unfortunate.

00:35:04.200 But, no, that's what those people do. That's what those people always have done.

00:35:08.440 And I imagine that's what those people will continue to do.

00:35:10.780 Okay, Alistair, to come back to your point about how much symbolism to use or not to use,

00:35:40.780 trying to think of the best way to communicate it and all of your questions are good questions

00:35:49.100 and please don't think that I'm taking them wrong or that I'm being in any way hostile to them I

00:35:54.280 think it's a fair question there's a balance of things a couple elements of symbolism in things

00:36:02.100 that you do have a really powerful effect don't take people out of the modern world don't make

00:36:08.900 you look like you're pretending to be something you're not, but do look like you're taking

00:36:13.440 something from the past and keeping the memory of that thing alive through symbolism. And there's

00:36:18.780 absolutely a place for it. But when you go too far and you dress up as if you were a reenactor,

00:36:28.100 then it has a very different effect on the audience and the folks around you.

00:36:32.760 Again, in a vacuum, it doesn't matter in a vacuum. If you want to dress up from a particular period that you find important and, you know, exchange decorative implements from that period, that's fine.

00:36:50.440 And I've done weapon exchanges at weddings. I've officiated. That's fine.

00:36:57.720 What I think is better is to make what you do particularly meaningful.

00:37:05.440 Symbols can certainly be meaningful, but they're not always meaningful.

00:37:09.560 So if there's a firearm exchange, that's always very powerful because you're literally getting a tool of death in your hand that you have to be responsible for.

00:37:26.040 That is not always the case when someone receives a sword, especially in the case I mentioned earlier, if someone receives a largely decorative hobby kind of sword.

00:37:36.760 It doesn't have the same gravity of a tool that if you are not careful, you can take someone's life with.

00:37:45.080 And that's why. Be it as it may, when folks dress as Vikings in 2022, most people who see that find it silly and it demeans the reputation of our gods and of our folk.

00:38:05.400 People don't react that way when you drink from a horn in a ceremony or when you wear a hammer.

00:38:12.460 We wouldn't want anything that we do to make our church or our gods or our folk a laughingstock to the community.

00:38:21.040 What other people think is important shouldn't be the only deciding factor, but it does matter.

00:38:27.500 And it's always mattered to our ancestors and it matters to us now.

00:38:34.520 sorry guys again i'm trying to catch up over the side we got too many people asking questions and

00:38:57.640 doing great things that's a really good problem to have i appreciate you guys staying with me on it

00:39:04.520 Um, another thing I wanted to talk to you guys about, I had a very powerful experience at Midsummer.

00:39:22.120 Um, it was my honor once again to conduct the Odin's bloat in the ritual circle at Odin's

00:39:29.600 off. And because we had so many, so many new people that were there for the first time at

00:39:36.940 Odin's Hoff and many of them for the first time at an AFA ritual, I gave a little bit different

00:39:43.380 instructions before the bloat than I'd done before. I really emphasized to everybody there

00:39:50.880 to have an openness when they go into that circle and they go into the holy space. I asked everybody

00:39:57.420 to leave their analytical mind outside and to walk into the circle with an open mind and an open

00:40:05.080 heart and to just be open to the divine, to interact and to just receive whatever they were

00:40:14.400 going to receive there and see what happens. And in that, you know, seemingly very simple

00:40:19.860 request for all of us to go in there with an open heart to receive what our gods were

00:40:25.720 were delivering to us. It was one of the most powerful bloats I've been a part of and some

00:40:33.200 really special things happened during that bloat. And it's made me think about that. And someone

00:40:38.080 wanted to mention to you guys, I would encourage everyone, whether you're doing something with

00:40:43.720 your kindred or with your family or just by yourself, when you go into ritual space and

00:40:53.360 you're doing a ritual, if you're doing it at your altar, if you're doing it wherever.

00:41:00.820 The act of opening yourself up to genuinely receive from our gods or from your ancestors

00:41:11.240 or whoever you're invoking in that bloat, it's a very, very, it can be a very powerful

00:41:17.480 thing. One of the things that holds our people back so much from experiencing spiritual things

00:41:26.000 is that we're set to be very critical. We're set to be very closed and very analytical of

00:41:33.220 everything. And we often have trouble putting our minds in a place where we're just genuinely

00:41:40.140 unguarded and open-hearted, open-handed, and taking what comes our way and appreciating it

00:41:49.180 for what it is. And sometimes it takes a specific effort on our part when we get into a ritual

00:41:56.360 context to do that. We have people, I'm sure, listening to this conversation and

00:42:02.480 in the AFA at all levels of spiritually questioning, coming from a place of atheism,

00:42:13.520 coming from a place where you're just really not sure what you want to believe,

00:42:17.500 all the way through to people who've had profound spiritual experiences in their life. And

00:42:22.000 it's not a belief, it's a knowing that our gods are real and interact with us.

00:42:28.140 And you can't make those things happen. They happen by the combination of things from us, things from the gods and the conditions that we're in.

00:42:40.740 But by opening yourself, it is a huge step towards allowing those things to happen to you and allowing for this to be very real to you.

00:42:49.240 And I just had a really good experience with that at Midsummer, and I'd encourage all of you guys to practice that openness when you're in ritual space and when you come before your altars.

00:43:19.240 Um, okay, so we got a question. This is an interesting question. I don't think I've seen

00:43:40.100 this one before. Someone who's new to AstroTru asked, will being a vegan cause any issues

00:43:46.160 with pursuing this way of life? No, absolutely not in and of itself. There's nothing about

00:43:56.680 Ausatru that would prevent one from being a vegan. I'm sure as a vegan, you run into this

00:44:04.460 all the time. A lot of what we do together is feasting and sharing a meal together. It's a big

00:44:10.720 part of our ritual. So you're probably going to need to provide some of your own food

00:44:15.300 or be cautious on the food that's there

00:44:18.380 on what meets your vegan standards and what doesn't.

00:44:23.040 But that's the only way it would cause

00:44:25.400 any kind of hindrance to you.

00:44:26.480 And I'm sure that's something

00:44:27.180 that you're used to dealing with in your life.

00:44:29.820 But yeah, you don't have to eat meat

00:44:31.380 in order to be honest and true.

00:44:45.300 Alistair, I don't think that the hammer and the key lose meaning.

00:44:55.060 I don't think the key ever loses meaning.

00:44:57.860 The only item that I've said in a wedding exchange that loses its meaning is when somebody goes out right before their wedding and purchases a reproduction sword that has no attachment to a family.

00:45:09.540 and that isn't something that they're actually going to potentially use to defend their family

00:45:15.580 in a home invasion or a life or death situation.

00:45:20.600 That's all I said.

00:45:21.540 It really isn't as big of an issue as I think maybe it's being perceived as,

00:45:26.680 but it was a response to a question that I got from someone.

00:45:33.040 Oh, I see the correction right below the response about the sword.

00:45:39.540 do we plan to expand the items available in our store absolutely we do um melissa melissa mills

00:45:49.660 our folk builder in missouri has done a great job of getting uh consistently getting more clothing

00:45:54.920 items up there and we're working on that just recently we got a book of ausitru hymns that's a

00:46:02.440 collection of folk music, some original, some traditional music that's been put to the musical

00:46:10.360 notes and has the lyrics in there. And that was by a man named Tanner Thayer. It's in our store

00:46:18.420 right now. And that's kind of interesting. We absolutely are open to putting new things in the

00:46:23.280 store. And just recently, we've gotten a little bit better at that. If you have any requests,

00:46:28.100 We'd love to hear them and see what we can do.

00:46:29.660 Okay, can I speak

00:46:58.040 on the religious perspective on abortion. Absolutely. People have asked this a lot and

00:47:05.040 it's certainly come up a lot with recent Supreme Court decisions in the United States.

00:47:18.840 So I'm trying to think of the best way to put this. Abortion is always bad. Killing babies 0.96

00:47:27.960 is always bad. And I want to be completely and totally clear on that point. I think it's 0.99

00:47:37.400 morally terrifying that we, as a culture in the West, have a significant part of our population

00:47:47.180 that genuinely celebrate abortion and celebrate killing babies.

00:47:57.960 that's downright ghoulish now i say that and i also want to say this there are certainly instances

00:48:07.480 where it abortion might be the best of a lot of very bad choices um there's instances where

00:48:19.160 uh a mother's health or life is at risk due to a pregnancy there's all kind of issues where child

00:48:26.600 where children are potentially born with horrible disabilities and extreme deformities and things to

00:48:38.600 where I think in those cases there's a reasonable place to consider aborting a fetus but at no point

00:48:51.960 do we in ouster truth think that the killing of of unborn babies is is a good thing um it's always

00:49:02.960 something bad and it's always a really bad choice and for anybody who's been in the spot and had to 0.97

00:49:09.240 make that bad choice or their family has had to be confronted with that choice the afa has always had

00:49:15.940 position that you know families are going to make choices about their family and our heart goes out

00:49:22.260 to people that are in a spot where they need to make those kind of very extreme decisions but

00:49:30.500 also true is fundamentally about the success of our folk and us continuing a chain that goes back

00:49:37.780 to our gods themselves the killing of babies violates the most fundamental um

00:49:50.980 fundamental instincts of human beings and i'd say of of mammals generally and

00:49:58.820 And celebrating that is a horrible thing.

00:50:06.440 There's all kinds of choices that get made in life that you have to make, but there's

00:50:11.980 never an occasion where that's something to celebrate and that's never something good.

00:50:18.140 So, and that's the position that I think almost everyone in the Western civilization was in

00:50:24.280 And until very recently, no matter what side of that political question they were on, they at least all agreed it was a bad thing.

00:50:32.360 And they thought, you know, maybe one side thought there was different circumstances than the other side thought where it was an appropriate solution to a problem.

00:50:41.840 But it was never considered a good thing until recently.

00:50:45.580 And I think we should all step back and very seriously look at that.

00:50:54.280 Um, okay. Can I quickly tell you what Ausatru means and a quick summary of our religion?

00:51:13.400 uh yeah absolutely so alsatru is a old norse word

00:51:21.420 and it means troth or loyalty to the icier uh contrary to what some people believe it doesn't

00:51:32.020 mean believing in them but not only do we believe in the icier but we are loyal to and we we follow

00:51:39.320 the Aesir. So that's what Asatru means. Kind of what our religion is about is worshiping our gods

00:51:48.840 in an ancestral way where we believe that our gods are our most fundamental ancestors

00:51:55.540 and we're involved in our creation and our success. And we believe in maintaining that

00:52:00.660 gift cycle with our gods and our brothers and sisters who also that ancestry connects us to.

00:52:07.020 And those are the most fundamentals. If you want to see more about it, www.runestone.org has a lot more in-depth on exactly what we believe, our virtues, our statement of ethics, and our declaration of purpose.

00:52:22.520 And once again, my beautiful daughter, Aubrey, with the messed up hair this time, wants to join us and say hi to you guys. Can you wave?

00:52:30.260 i don't know she's not being very wavy she's squirmy today so we get a brief visit 1.00

00:52:37.240 but here she is i think she's trying to decide whether she wants to go with her mom and get a

00:52:41.620 bath or not all right she opted for bath time but yeah that's a real quick rundown of what

00:52:49.220 our faith is but you can find out a lot more by looking at runestone.org um and i'm glad that you

00:52:57.200 like the new njortzhoff shirts um i believe that is a conjunction somewhere between lane madison

00:53:05.720 and melissa

00:53:06.760 Um, Morris, that interpretation is locked in a certain time period.

00:53:34.880 But yeah, I think, you know, in ancient societies, certainly your point about women deciding about abortion issues before birth and fathers deciding about, you know, the laying out of mouths they couldn't feed or sickly children after birth was there.

00:53:53.440 And again, there were decisions when you're in a position of starvation and life or death for your family or your tribe.

00:54:02.680 Again, sometimes really bad choices have to be made.

00:54:06.300 Sometimes those choices also involved letting the elders die as opposed to having to feed members of the tribe that weren't able to contribute.

00:54:16.480 So, you know, times of horrible famine and whatever. That's why I'm not saying there's never, ever an occasion, but it was always seen as a very bad thing, even in the most ancient of times.

00:54:46.480 So I'm trying to make sense of a lot of chat on the side.

00:55:09.960 I know we got a lot going on and some things that I guess needed to get redacted over there.

00:55:15.180 So I'm trying to follow as best I can with the conversation of people's questions.

00:55:26.420 I am way behind on the questions. I'm sorry about that, guys. I'm trying. I'm looking.

00:55:32.000 Hi, Tracy. It was really good to meet you when you came out here for midsummer.

00:55:35.260 I hope you got your luggage and everything sorted out when you got back home.

00:55:45.180 a question are afa members banned from traveling through canada to get to the u.s mainland from the

00:55:55.260 u.s mainland to alaska um canada doesn't there's no laws that are targeting us as afa members doing

00:56:02.940 any of those things but as far as just americans being able to do that i have um i know i was born

00:56:11.260 raised in alaska so i understand that you know that transit between alaska and washington state

00:56:18.860 uh has been tricky last i heard you had to like you had a really specific route that you had to

00:56:27.420 take and you had to stay at selected hotels that the government of canada had selected at various

00:56:35.580 points along your trip so i think that if you went through canada from alaska to

00:56:42.380 uh washington or washington to alaska you'd need to at your point of entry like chart out

00:56:49.980 with the border patrol exactly where you were going to stay and exactly the route you were

00:56:54.380 going to go that's the last i'd heard about going through canada that sounds like a really

00:56:58.860 difficult and messy situation right now okay i got a question if i could speak a little bit about the

00:57:15.660 the okay so hey guys you may not know this but this midsummer a shrine was dedicated

00:57:22.860 to Meister Guido von List at Odinsoff.

00:57:28.840 That's going to be added to and embellished on

00:57:32.720 and made better over the years.

00:57:34.680 But he's kind of our patron hero of that Hoff.

00:57:38.340 And our Hoffs so far all have a particular

00:57:41.780 Alcintru hero that's revered there.

00:57:44.980 And so he's the one for Odinsoff.

00:57:47.700 Those of you that might not know about Meister von List,

00:57:50.380 He was fundamental in the resurrection of our ancient folkways in the late 1800s in the German speaking speaking sphere in Europe.

00:58:04.920 He was an Austrian and he. He reclaimed a lot of our ancestral faith and our ancestral knowledge.

00:58:13.860 He sought after the mysteries of the runes.

00:58:19.980 He was gifted with special inspiration on the Arminen runes.

00:58:25.500 And also, when he was a boy, he vowed that he would one day found a temple to Wotan, the German name for Odin.

00:58:34.520 And that's why it was really important, and with our ideas of posthumous ascension, that in a way we could fulfill that vow, be it after his lifetime, by citing him as an inspiration for that first of its kind temple to Odin.

00:58:55.340 So at the first, you know, the first major temple of Odin in the modern world, we wanted to acknowledge Guidovan Liszt there as a fulfillment of something that he put into play 140 years ago.

00:59:16.440 So, yeah, that's the significance of that.

00:59:25.340 Okay, we have another question. Can someone practice Alcatru and Christianity together?

00:59:41.920 No. That's fundamentally not compatible with either. 0.97

00:59:53.920 As I said earlier to your previous question, Asatru doesn't just mean belief in the Aesir, but it means a loyalty to them.

01:00:01.500 And a loyalty to them would mean a standing against forces that were hostile to them.

01:00:08.360 The very nature of Christianity demands that their God is the only God and that anything else but that is sinful and wrong and on the side of their adversary, the devil. 0.85

01:00:21.340 So you cannot be a good Christian and also be also true. 0.96

01:00:25.840 And you cannot be a good also true and also be Christian. 0.59

01:00:38.360 Absolutely, Alistair. 1.00

01:00:54.480 I think you and I got to a point of synthesis on that, and I like to.

01:00:59.300 Sometimes it's awkward reading questions and responding to them, but I do really appreciate all of your questions tonight.

01:01:08.360 i appreciate i appreciate all the chat going on in the chat room we've got a lot of people

01:01:17.240 with a lot of great things to say um do i have a membership update i can share with folks

01:01:30.120 um yeah the last month saw us with our our most members ever in the afa um our numbers are way

01:01:37.320 up our participation is way up so no our member our membership number is doing great it's like i

01:01:43.640 said it's substantially bigger i'm trying to think of percentages in my head but it's up well

01:01:54.920 it's up probably 15 percent from a year ago which is a tremendous growth um don't quote me on the

01:02:02.120 15 i did quick quick math in my head but i think it bears out to be somewhere around there

01:02:07.320 Thank you.

01:02:37.320 okay um i'm hope that i can take from this question what what's being asked

01:02:44.120 do also true ancestors function as the classical gods a parent is like a god to their children

01:02:51.300 would past ancestors function the gods to an adult um

01:02:57.300 yes if i understand your question yes um

01:03:03.380 Um, our ancestors function in a realm that's much closer to our gods in a way than we are.

01:03:14.960 Whereas our gods and our ancestors are both on the other side of, of kind of a veil that separates our world from theirs.

01:03:22.020 Um, our ancestors intercede in a spiritual way to look after us.

01:03:31.040 I think that all of us, you know, fundamentally, that idea of ancestors looking on and helping us has been present in European spirituality since the beginning, very much in Ausitru, especially our female ancestors, because of the amount of love and devotion that they've put towards their family in their years living on Midgard.

01:03:57.580 We believe that our female ancestors look out for us and watch over us in, you know, throughout our lives.

01:04:04.980 And we also believe that they help, you know, guide our souls into the afterlife.

01:04:10.680 Very often it's a female ancestor that people report seeing when they have a near death experience.

01:04:17.460 But no, the are the females of our line that look on and take care of us after death are known as the desir.

01:04:23.800 And, you know, in a way, they're like goddesses with a small g.

01:04:29.580 They're certainly something elevated beyond our station, but they're not gods on the same level as the great gods of our folk, like Odin or Thor.

01:04:39.400 But they absolutely are an advanced or have the potential to be an advanced spiritual persons.

01:04:45.980 We believe, and beyond that first, just your average ancestors, we do believe look on and benefit you and look out for you in the afterlife.

01:04:55.080 But we also believe that some of our ancestors have earned a certain amount of ascension and are raised to a higher form than we are.

01:05:05.000 Something a little bit closer to our gods or closer to touching that divinity.

01:05:15.060 Tony I really like how you put that it's talking about how he had trouble trying to science it

01:05:39.480 out or analytically make everything click until he opened himself up to the gods and tried to

01:05:46.920 understand rather than analyze and i think that's a really really important point and something that

01:05:53.880 i hope people will take to heart um also true is not a science project it's not a history project

01:06:04.360 It's not a. It's not a book report, it's an active religion and it's engaging in a relationship with our gods, between our gods and our folk.

01:06:19.120 We do that through our gifting cycle, but it's very much about having an actual relationship and connection between divinity and the folk.

01:06:27.460 And that's what we try so hard to accomplish. And that's where Ausatru happens. It doesn't happen in books. Books can help inform your practice and help you better understand things.

01:06:40.380 but this happens in the real world this happens when you make that connection and when you're

01:06:49.660 in an emotional place reacting with the gods in an emotional relationship building way

01:06:56.580 that's when the magic happens it doesn't happen if you're you know a scholar on ancient vikings

01:07:02.940 that can help you but it happens when you with an open heart engage and embrace your gods and

01:07:11.500 when they reach back from beyond the veil with you that reaching and connecting between us and

01:07:17.160 the gods, that's where Auschwitz happens. So unpopular opinion, I think that the concrete

01:07:40.340 jungle gets a bad rap. I think that cities, you know, our ancestors built cities. Aryan people

01:07:48.680 were some of the greatest at creating amazing cities in the past. But with cities come problems, 1.00

01:07:57.820 with cities being hubs of trade and hubs of whatever else. Cities tend to be more diverse 1.00

01:08:04.240 with things, but cities also, when you put, the more people you put in a space, it's very easy

01:08:18.840 when that number becomes too high to feel lost in a sea of people to where individually you don't

01:08:26.720 know everyone else. No matter what, though, if you find yourself in a city now, I would encourage

01:08:34.820 you, we have the ability to travel. I would encourage you to get together with other

01:08:40.200 as regularly as you can. Unfortunately, in this day and age, it means traveling, sometimes a

01:08:46.720 couple of hours to meet up with another AFA member. But, you know, 10, 15 years ago, that was a much

01:08:54.360 further distance that distance is getting smaller and smaller every day if you look at those websites

01:09:00.600 that i post on here chances are there's going to be something within a couple hours of you if you

01:09:05.880 live in most any american city you can attend afa events regularly so even if you live in a city

01:09:14.600 where community is much harder to come by you can still forge your own community within the afa

01:09:22.360 and that's what we work so hard to do um making those connections really important i think the

01:09:27.720 internet also gets a bad rap because it's a good tool to keep fresh the connections you make in

01:09:34.600 real life one of the things when i first got involved in alice true i lived up in alaska

01:09:40.440 and connecting with the afa and other members was really hard because so much of the things that

01:09:44.840 went on were down in the lower 48 here so i felt really disconnected but i went to one event in

01:09:52.200 northern california and i met so many amazing people that then when i went back to alaska

01:09:58.440 i could always touch bases with those people and talk to those people from not the time i believe

01:10:04.120 was on facebook but on whatever social media i was able to interact and connect with these people

01:10:10.280 that i'd made real life connections with and maintain that over distance so using the tools

01:10:16.120 that are available to us to be part of community and to make that happen and be willing to go out

01:10:21.320 of your way a little bit to drive i don't ever hear from afa members let me rephrase that i very

01:10:30.120 often hear from people that it's too far to drive or they don't want to drive to something i don't

01:10:35.640 ever hear from people who have driven or traveled to an afa event that they regret doing it on the

01:10:41.800 other end i never hear people saying man that was just too far i wish i didn't do that that never

01:10:47.800 happens so i would encourage people in cities if you got afa folks near you in the city get

01:10:54.520 together with them if you have to go a little ways out of town do it a couple hours here a

01:10:59.400 couple hours there if you can make it happen you know it can really change your life and

01:11:03.640 and it can add such a rich dimension to the life

01:11:06.340 that you already live.

01:11:23.020 Pam, you absolutely can USPS a donation.

01:11:30.460 Mandy, or anyone else, if you're on,

01:11:32.480 you could post uh the po box to where those donations could be mailed to um and i'm going

01:11:40.320 to hope that somewhere in this chat that they do by the end of this if not i'll go through and try

01:11:46.160 to find that but yes you can absolutely mail in donations if you'd like um we would we'd certainly

01:11:52.240 be very appreciative of that sorry guys trying to find my find my place to where i was

01:12:22.240 All right. We're getting back to it. You guys got so much over on the chat. I'm sorry. I know

01:12:30.020 it's taken me a lot of dead air reading stuff on the side. I'm aware of it. I don't know a better

01:12:34.840 way to get at it, but it's because you guys have so much really good things going on.

01:12:44.680 Don Ricardo, I don't know if I understand your question. I'm not sure what a UAP is.

01:12:49.660 If you want to tell me a little bit more, I'd try to answer it, but I don't know what a UAP is.

01:13:01.660 What would be the modern view of oath rings? I think the modern view and the ancient view are very similar.

01:13:07.660 Swearing a ring or swearing an oath on a sacred ring that many oaths are sworn on makes it extra binding and extra valuable.

01:13:18.660 valuable uh right now we have oath rings at each of our hoffs and when we oath in new members of

01:13:26.180 afa leadership and we just got them recently but we'd like to perhaps implement this at weddings

01:13:32.820 and other things where oaths are involved making an oath on a sacred oath ring that lives in that

01:13:38.900 resides in a temple to our gods in the presence of the god of that hof

01:13:47.060 is sacred and it's done with that god watching you to make sure you fulfill that oath 0.91

01:13:53.380 and to make judgments about your character on whether you do or whether you don't so

01:13:58.260 oaths made on an oath ring are particularly sacred

01:14:09.860 Is Icelandic also true the same as AFA Austria? No, it's not. I would say that Icelandic also true

01:14:15.860 is not also true. Because fundamentally, and this has been admitted by their leadership, 0.98

01:14:21.860 they don't literally believe in the gods. Also true in Iceland, at least as practiced by the

01:14:29.460 asitur felegith is much more of a cultural celebration of icelandic history

01:14:38.020 um they don't they have said that they if some of them do and disagree with this then i

01:14:45.380 i'm ready to hear that out but as i've heard from their leadership they don't really believe in our

01:14:52.180 gods and they certainly don't actually worship our gods and if they don't and are not true to our

01:14:59.540 gods then they are literally not also true um fundamentally their values are extremely askew

01:15:06.420 to the afas their values are not traditional in any way and they're very much a modern

01:15:14.020 my modern european leftist organization with progressive leftist values

01:15:22.180 Jeff, we absolutely do want you to bring your guitar and play stuff.

01:15:32.860 We always want music and events.

01:15:34.660 any thoughts on focusing one on one god versus worshiping them all yes do both

01:15:55.040 that's the beauty of polytheism is it's such a rich tapestry of spiritual things for you to

01:16:03.640 embrace. I don't think, you know, I don't think there's any obligation on you to have one

01:16:10.580 particular God that you're hyper focused on. But if you feel like you have a strong connection to

01:16:17.800 one of our gods, particularly, and you want that to be a big part of your focus, absolutely. But

01:16:23.040 that doesn't need to be done to the exclusion of our other gods. I think as good Al-Satruar,

01:16:28.300 we owe piety and reverence to all of the Aesir. But if you have one in particular that you feel

01:16:35.100 a special closeness to, then follow your heart in that regard and build and nurture that

01:16:41.360 relationship. But that's the beauty. You can do both. The one doesn't have to take away from the

01:16:46.000 other. They work in a synchronicity.

01:16:58.300 it's getting late guys. So I'm going to do the best I can to go and answer the remaining

01:17:12.580 questions on here. I know I've had you for well over an hour now, but I love doing these things

01:17:17.880 and look forward to them every month. So I appreciate you guys sticking with me.

01:17:28.300 um yeah you're very welcome pam uh i owe it i owe it to you all i owe it to myself i owe it to my

01:17:46.620 gods to speak truthfully even on subjects that i know a lot of people have very strong feelings

01:17:52.300 on, but it's literally my job to represent our gods, our folk, and our values as best as I

01:17:59.800 possibly can to you that I speak to. And so you will always get truth from me on stuff like that.

01:18:07.820 Even if it, even if folks don't agree, I'm always going to give you the most honest thing that I can.

01:18:18.540 American Beowulf, why is membership based on monthly payments?

01:18:22.300 because honestly, we need money to make things happen. Membership isn't in a fundamental and

01:18:31.820 straight up way. Yeah, it's about contributing money so that we can do things. But in a more

01:18:39.420 principled way, it's based on people contributing and people participating. The contribution of our

01:18:47.520 folk is what allows us to function it's what allows uh our our hoffs to happen it's what

01:18:55.180 allows us to advance as a faith and to do the things that we're able to do um in any

01:19:04.520 functioning religiosity in the world ever it is relied upon the contributions of the

01:19:11.120 members of that faith. Sometimes that was in the form of a tax that because the state and the

01:19:18.000 religion were united, that that tax went towards it. Oftentimes it was voluntary by people just

01:19:24.540 stepping up and being willing to donate. Sometimes it was sponsored by great kings or lords that

01:19:29.400 would give a portion of their funds to sponsor temples and priests and things like that happening.

01:19:35.780 um but yeah we need to ask our folk to contribute or else we don't have nice things and we don't

01:19:42.280 honor the gods in a way that we'd like to so you know money's not a dirty word and we absolutely

01:19:47.620 need money to make things happen and i really appreciate every one of you who's donated to the

01:19:52.780 afa to allow us to be so successful um it's an honor to us it's an honor to our folk and it

01:20:00.780 certainly is an honor to our gods and i thank you for it

01:20:03.500 Can you pay annually?

01:20:12.380 Absolutely, you can.

01:20:13.340 wow am i just getting to the person of the conversation where my daughter was up here

01:20:36.780 man i'm way back in these questions i'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to all of them on the side

01:20:43.340 so i like all the talk about australia music i would love to have some australia folk music

01:21:00.060 what's always been kind of something i've wanted to see and i'd love to see happen

01:21:03.340 is australia bluegrass it may sound silly to some of you guys but i mean it 100 legitimately

01:21:08.920 I would love some Asa True Bluegrass.

01:21:11.860 Any of you guys want to make that happen?

01:21:13.460 You've got a big fan right here, and I would love to see it.

01:21:26.980 Bjorn, I'm really glad to hear you say that.

01:21:29.500 I'm glad that you feel that you found so much community with the AFA.

01:21:38.920 When we tell people that it's about coming home, that's exactly how it was for a lot of us when we joined.

01:21:45.960 And it's absolutely what we want to provide every member that joins the AFA is that feeling of coming home and being part of that community.

01:21:53.920 So I'm really glad that you feel that way.

01:21:58.800 Oh, thank you, Pam. That's nice. I appreciate that.

01:22:01.120 I'm answering honest and I'm answering the best I can. And I appreciate that you like my answers.

01:22:08.920 uh i uh okay um her question or i i'm assuming that's okay yeah question is uh you're wondering

01:22:23.080 if pursuing the ways of astro treatment we should avoid marrying or partnering with another race

01:22:28.600 absolutely that's exactly what that means um we want to pass on our genetic link to our gods 0.92

01:22:36.360 in whole to our children we want our children to reflect that beautiful connection we have

01:22:44.040 with our gods and we want to keep the cohesive nature of our community of our folk and of our

01:22:51.880 connection with who we are as a people so it does it absolutely means that we don't condone 0.96

01:22:58.840 interracial relationships or or creating interracial children

01:23:28.840 Um, American Beowulf, I'm trying to think of the best way to answer your questions.

01:23:50.780 your last statement that you said that you know we can't exclude someone from their gods for not

01:23:59.900 paying i don't presume that you know if you don't want to be a member of the afa i'm not

01:24:06.680 i'm not saying that you know you can't connect with your gods i'm in no position to to bar you

01:24:15.580 from eternity from interacting with the Iser if you don't pay the AFA money. That's silly and not

01:24:22.460 something that I'm trying to do. But we absolutely can choose to only let those into the AFA and

01:24:28.340 share in our frith and share in our relationship with the gods if they want to contribute to our

01:24:35.220 faith and our family. And people that don't want to contribute or aren't willing to contribute in

01:24:40.060 way that we require we are under no obligation to let those guys in not contributing um

01:24:51.340 it takes money to do things uh our membership our regular our lowest monthly membership fee

01:24:57.740 is very very reasonable at ten dollars a month but our uh our hoff toller is paying by percentage

01:25:04.940 And that means even if you're doing very poorly economically, if you couldn't part with one percent for your gods and your faith, if you do not feel that Ausatru or the Ausatru Folk Assembly is worth one percent of of your income, then we can absolutely choose to not associate with you in that way.

01:25:29.560 and less or until you decide to contribute,

01:25:32.800 because all of the rest of us are contributing.

01:25:59.560 Varg and David Lane say a lot of different things that many of them, the AFA doesn't

01:26:19.060 agree with. I think Valhalla is about ascension after death much more than it has anything

01:26:26.420 to do with elements of reincarnation. And I think to limit, like I said, we're not beholden to

01:26:35.780 things that David Lane nor Varg have to contribute to say that how it's true is or isn't about.

01:26:41.620 Okay, so that's a good question. What kind of things would I like to see from the Astro

01:26:59.860 community at large? Would I like to see more crafts, more fitness? I would love to see more

01:27:05.620 art. And I don't. First, if you're a person that makes stuff, that's awesome. I'm not good at

01:27:15.760 doing things with my hands or making art or making music. So I'm not to put any of that down. But

01:27:23.580 what I've seen, not as much as I'd like to see of is, is art like sculpture and painting.

01:27:29.820 um i would love to see more also true music like we talked about earlier um everybody's got their

01:27:39.180 own musical tastes i've never been one that really likes the the metal with the cookie monster

01:27:44.200 vocals i love like beautiful music i like lyrics i like singing i like harmony so songs with lyrics

01:27:54.640 that we can clearly hear more folksy kind of songs i think would be really great about also true

01:27:59.840 more overt um hymns and more overt worshipful songs i'd love to hear as opposed to like i said

01:28:06.880 opposed to some of the um the metal that we do have that reflects us true uh yeah that painting

01:28:14.720 sculpting also true art would be really beautiful to see more of that developed as always i always

01:28:20.640 want to see our people becoming their best so i'd love to see more fitness things but we're already

01:28:26.160 seeing that that's moving forward at a really good rate we're getting a lot of our people healthier

01:28:30.320 better looking having more pride more self-esteem that's been a beautiful thing to see i'd like to

01:28:36.320 see more ostrich who are become successful um financially successful able to to function in

01:28:44.640 the world in a way to where they're finding success and that can take a lot of different

01:28:48.560 routes. But the more I see our people be successful at whatever they choose to do, the happier I am.

01:29:18.560 i'm sorry guys i keep got to find my place

01:29:27.520 all right i'm getting back to where i was sorry about that um

01:29:39.240 hey jeff we appreciate you and your family coming up to winter nights i know that's a long trip if

01:29:47.780 you see over on the side, he talked about his family having to go 15 hours to get to winter

01:29:52.200 nights three times so far and how worth it was for them. And I know that it was really great

01:29:57.400 for us all to see you guys there. So, you know, they had to go 15 hours. I think most of you guys

01:30:01.960 can find something a little bit closer than that. For people nearly joining, what kind of questions

01:30:17.280 should we be asking? About anything, about ourselves, literally about anything you like.

01:30:23.820 Any question you want to ask me, I'm going to try to give you a good answer.

01:30:27.840 The focus is on Alcetru's stuff, but Alcetru's a way of life and it's an entire holistic faith.

01:30:35.020 So, you know, anything that you feel compelled to ask, please feel free as long as it's a

01:30:39.500 serious question. See Alcetru's view on the afterlife, what happens when people die? Now,

01:30:46.160 I'm 30 minutes over when I usually am on these.

01:30:48.820 I'm not in a hurry, but I don't want to keep everybody longer than is necessary.

01:30:53.120 So I'm going to answer briefly, but there's a lot to it.

01:30:57.720 So I think that what happens when you die is our soul is in many parts.

01:31:06.260 those parts dissolve and go to different places and different things happen with them.

01:31:17.680 Part of our soul complex is the body. Well, the body doesn't live after death. The body goes back

01:31:22.540 into the earth or it's burned or it's cremated or whatever happens to it. So that part of your

01:31:28.100 soul goes away. The other parts of your soul, things with your luck and some of your ancestral

01:31:33.920 memory, that part does reincarnate and get passed down through your line. Elements of your memory

01:31:40.700 and of your hymenia go on to people posthumously within your line. But your soul, the you,

01:31:50.320 your personality, a lot of that goes back to our ancestors. And I think for most folks,

01:31:56.440 we go to a place where we reside with our ancestors, to where we look on after our family,

01:32:02.200 after we pass. But I think also there's the possibility for ascension. I think that if you

01:32:08.020 have stood out, if you're a hero, if you've achieved a certain level of spiritual prowess,

01:32:15.260 then you can become something more. You can become closer to the gods. And I think that's

01:32:21.300 what's described as going to the gods' halls. You can get closer to communing with our divine.

01:32:28.840 And in short, those are the things that I believe that happened in our afterlife.

01:32:33.080 I don't think that there is a clear-cut, one-size-fits-all answer, but we know that our ancestors that have passed hear us when we interact with them.

01:32:40.620 We know that in ritual, they can, in very tangible ways, come forward and interact with us.

01:32:47.300 We also know by people who have near-death experiences that they see, often their female ancestors, that they see are there to greet them.

01:32:55.360 So commuting with your ancestors and moving on to a different plane of existence is absolutely something that we do believe in.

01:33:25.360 sorry guys i'm trying to catch up on the last little comments here uh unidentified aerial

01:33:52.400 phenomenon, UFOs. What are my thoughts on UFOs? Do UFOs exist? Certainly. There's stuff up there

01:34:00.100 that we don't know what it is. Do I think that it's aliens? I don't know. I don't have the answers

01:34:09.080 to all of those questions. I think it's an interesting thing that when you ask people

01:34:13.940 if they believe extraterrestrial life exists, most people logically think that it does with the

01:34:20.320 you know, billions of planets that they believe are out there in space, certainly there's other

01:34:25.240 sentient life somewhere. But when you ask people if they believe the stories that you hear of

01:34:30.860 alien abduction or alien visitation to Earth, they don't believe that. So I don't know why it's

01:34:36.840 easier to believe the one than the other. But I find myself falling into that too. Do I think

01:34:42.380 that somewhere in the universe other life exists? Sure, I do. Do I think that those come here and

01:34:49.920 do all the stories that we hear about. I got an open mind. I'm certainly curious. And I find

01:34:58.040 those things very interesting. But I can't say that I have an honest feeling that those things

01:35:03.220 do happen. Very often, the people that I hear talking about those things don't do a lot to

01:35:09.340 help boost the credibility. But I am very interested in those things. And I certainly

01:35:13.640 listen to every one of those stories with a very open mind.

01:35:19.920 Oh, guys, I love doing these live discussions. I look forward to these every month. It's a really cool way to be able to talk to you guys. This is a joy for me to do.

01:35:49.920 Joe, great. I hope to see you at the Njortzhof dedication. Anybody who wasn't here at the

01:35:59.480 beginning of this, Njortzhof is getting dedicated on August the 13th. So if you guys want to be

01:36:05.640 part of that, August the 13th in White Springs, Florida.

01:36:19.920 Thank you.

01:36:49.920 uh storm chase i am doing great how are you doing uh i am on top of the world because i love doing

01:36:57.680 these and i'm getting to talk to you guys and we're having a whole lot of questions so i'm

01:37:01.360 losing myself running almost double time tonight on this so i'm i'm doing great

01:37:05.520 Alistair, really? You never heard about Cookie Monster vocals?

01:37:18.980 I think you know what I mean. I hope you know what I mean.

01:37:35.520 All right, guys, we're getting towards the end here. I think I'm getting all the questions. I

01:37:43.080 hope I've answered everybody's question tonight. So Morris, that's an interesting question. He

01:37:55.640 asks, is generic Ausitru essentially leaderless with some formal Ausitru groups like the AFA

01:38:02.020 having more organized beliefs. So it's, that's an interesting question. If you asked this question

01:38:15.340 20 years ago, I'd say yes, I'd say there was a lot of different Alcitru groups

01:38:21.360 with no centralized, just one leader of Alcitru. But the Alcitru's always had

01:38:27.320 a certain current. The founder of the Ausatru Folk Assembly, Steve McNallan,

01:38:33.080 is the one who founded modern Ausatru in the way that it's practiced.

01:38:38.800 At a very similar point in time, there were others who started doing the same sort of thing

01:38:45.060 or connected things. I believe Elsie Christensen started around the same time.

01:38:51.840 Stobba in England was doing this around at the same time, and those three were initially

01:38:56.580 unconnected um but there was a current there so there was a current there and as it flowed through

01:39:06.740 the 70s and the 80s the house of true group that was most prominent in the united states certainly

01:39:13.380 was the astro free assembly also founded by uh stephen mcnellen um in recent years

01:39:21.220 the other groups that have practiced ausitru have really faded away

01:39:24.660 There's a lot of Internet also true active also true activism.

01:39:30.660 Again, I don't believe that those people are out are practicing also true.

01:39:35.660 So asking me that question.

01:39:37.660 No, of course, I disagree because I believe that the AFA is also true and the AFA is organized and does have a leader.

01:39:46.660 I think other people may answer the question differently.

01:39:49.660 But I think when you look at numbers of people that actually get together in the real world and practice Ausatru, the percentage of that that's not involved with the AFA, I think, is very small compared to the percentage that is the AFA.

01:40:05.080 When you look at we have four Hoffs to our gods and these other people don't have anything on that scale.

01:40:12.300 They don't have the membership. They don't have the numbers that they're doing. 0.93

01:40:16.320 So, again, I don't want to be self-serving, but, you know, I believe that Ausatru is the Ausatru Folk Assembly, that we are the Church of Ausatru.

01:40:26.320 And in that sense, yes, we have a leader. But again, if you ask that other places, people will probably vehemently disagree with me.

01:40:46.320 Thank you.

01:41:16.320 uh zammo so i think what you should ask or what you should do is wherever you're located you should

01:41:33.280 look for the folk builder nearest you if you want to stay on the side and i'll tell you who to

01:41:37.600 contact and you should the questions you should ask is when are you guys doing something and what

01:41:44.240 can i bring i think you will get a lot out of just showing up to an afa moot in your area

01:41:49.920 and interacting with the folks there and i think questions will come to you as you go

01:41:54.240 so that's what i would suggest that you do

01:41:59.520 antonio we do have we have many members in michigan um we've got folk very strong folk

01:42:06.080 builders on either side of of michigan if you are in um

01:42:14.240 If you're in the Upper Peninsula, I'd reach out to our folk builder, James Ault at J-A-U-L-T at runestone.org.

01:42:22.540 He's the guy I would talk to.

01:42:24.020 If you are in the other chunk of Michigan, I would reach out to Jonathan Rock, J-R-O-C-K at runestone.org.

01:42:32.060 Either of those gentlemen would love to help you get involved.

01:42:44.240 Okay, last question, and then I'm going to let you guys go, and I'm going to go make myself

01:42:54.200 something to eat. Question is, does the AFA have views on marijuana use?

01:43:02.140 No, we really don't. And I know that we have a, it's so strange. And again, I'm not sure,

01:43:07.980 more as how old you are but it's a really strange age issue a lot of the time most quite a bit of

01:43:15.180 people older than myself are very opposed to marijuana use because they grew up in a world

01:43:21.040 where they were being told constantly about how bad it was and how much it was associated with

01:43:26.640 a lot of terrible things I grew up most of my life I'm I'm gonna be 41 this month and all of

01:43:34.860 my life going through school, marijuana is this horrible thing. And then all of a sudden it gets

01:43:39.720 legalized and it's not this horrible thing anymore. So it's, it's very hard. And I know a lot of

01:43:44.660 people have different views and usually those views are, are with the age. A lot of people in

01:43:49.500 their, in their twenties now have no reason to think that America, that marijuana would be a bad

01:43:53.740 thing. So it's really strange. And I know we have people all over the place with it.

01:43:58.580 But what we think on any kind of intoxicants is, you know, being responsible with what you do. If you get, you know, so high that you're embarrassing yourself for being unsafe, then we're certainly opposed to that.

01:44:13.520 We're opposed to that if you're getting altered on any substance to the point where you're becoming an embarrassment or a danger to people around you.

01:44:21.460 And if your use of substances brings you to a point where it's damaging your life and your relationships, then we absolutely are opposed to it.

01:44:29.480 But if you live in a state where marijuana use is legal, then we don't have a big stance against it.

01:44:34.280 if you are in a state where it is illegal, then certainly we don't want anyone practicing any

01:44:41.060 illegal in any illegal activities at or around AFA events. But that's what I got. Thank you guys

01:44:51.140 so much for being here tonight and so many good questions on the side. I really, really appreciate

01:44:56.220 it. And if I don't get to see you guys this month, hope that I do. But if I don't, I will talk to

01:45:02.760 you guys again the beginning of next month. Until then, hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA.

Asatru Folk Assembly - July 04, 2022

July 2022 Live Discussion

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