00:02:22.000We'll see. My wife and I didn't know if it'd really be in the cards for us. We both
00:02:26.320kind of waited too long in life. Both of us are 40 now, so we're really happy we were
00:02:31.680able to have her. We'd love to have some more, but we'll see how that goes.
00:02:37.620Sure thing. Totally understand. Yeah, 40 gang here as well, sir. So Godspeed to you.
00:02:42.240I hope you do have more, but hey, you got that one precious babe. Yeah, exactly. Count
00:02:46.880your blessings. And what were you raised religiously? We know you're probably something
00:02:51.660different now or maybe well I wasn't I think in the most broad possible sense
00:02:57.780I guess culturally Protestant Christian just because my parents had to put
00:03:02.620something down on a piece of paper but sure it wasn't really a very active part
00:03:06.900of my upbringing that way so you came to your current faith around when in life
00:03:14.880So I had a brief period. I've always been a person with a spiritual need and didn't
00:03:23.060really know my options. So my aunt was a very active Jehovah's Witness. I say was, I assume
00:03:28.720she still is a very active Jehovah's Witness. And I got involved with that for a couple
00:03:33.700of years, towards the end of high school. I found Ossetru in, let's say, 2001.
00:03:41.200okay how'd you find it um so i uh i tried really hard with with christianity i i tried you know i
00:03:53.440read my bible through i think three different times cover to cover to try to get you know try
00:03:58.480to force the square peg into the round hole and uh i came to the conclusion that the biblical god
00:04:05.600wasn't i think person's a strange word to use but just wasn't a very good person in my
00:04:13.760understanding of that and i wanted to separate from it it was very scary because i didn't know
00:04:18.100what the other options were right but you know i was a historically minded person i know that
00:04:22.960our people had you know had religion before jesus came you know from the middle east to europe so i
00:04:31.120I looked back into what that was, and I thought I was going to be the only, you know, weirdo out there doing this, but I was, I had, you know, Googled it at the time, just to find out, I was thinking I would get some historical information from historical sources, and I found this thing called the Astro Folk Assembly and Steve McNallan, and I saw, you know, regular folks that were practicing this faith, you know, right now, and it was fascinating, and once I got hooked, I've never really let go, it, it was,
00:05:00.140we always say in the AFA, it's like coming home. That's one of our catchphrases or whatever,
00:05:05.300but it really is that. It absolutely felt like coming home, and a lot of our members
00:05:09.160described that as well. Fair enough. And before we get on to the faith itself,
00:05:15.020your position, Alshur Jargothi, apologies for the pronunciation. What is that? Is that like
00:05:20.500a high priest, or are you the top dog? Yeah. Yes. All right. Simply yes. Now, the word itself,
00:05:27.980alzharjar gothi so it basically means like alzharjar harjar meaning warrior and so like
00:05:36.940every warrior's gothi and gothi means like god man it's from the same root as the goths um gothic
00:05:44.780and god for that matter all right very cool so my conception of afa is pagan the old gods uh odin
00:05:55.900and Thor, and I always wondered whether it was more of a cultural movement or whether
00:06:02.020your flock, your members, were true believers, actually believed in the divinity of those
00:06:07.840very ancient and historic beliefs that so many of our ancestors held. So now's your chance to
00:06:14.720describe it in your own words. I'm sure some of our Christian listeners will maybe get a little
00:06:20.560bit triggered so bear with us folks we're trying to get uh the the straight dope from from the
00:06:26.800chieftain himself so go ahead have at it matt what do you guys believe in and why well so i can't i
00:06:32.440can't promise you that every member of the austral folk assembly has a deep and sincere faith i hope
00:06:37.360that they're on the road to that i can certainly say our leadership myself very much included
00:06:43.080without a doubt believe completely in the existence and reality of our gods and in
00:06:50.040the relationship that we have built and are building with them um i think it's very easy
00:06:56.640for people who don't who haven't been raised with that and haven't had experiences that way
00:07:03.360to picture our gods in these very you know comic book fairy tale images sure and there's so much
00:07:11.280more to it than that i don't believe that thor is you know big buff dude with a red beard driving a
00:07:18.000goat chair i think that that image tells me about the great divinity that is thor it helps me wrap
00:07:25.000my head around it but our gods are so much more than you know the the images and myths of our
00:07:32.400ancestors they're they're the supreme forces of consciousness of our of our folk of our race
00:11:13.880I mean, the prose and poetic eddas are certainly a really rich source for the high points of our lore.
00:11:21.860But I think that it encompasses the traditions of our folk back to the beginning.
00:11:28.300There's a lot of history and archaeology involved to getting a well-rounded view.
00:11:31.640But to understand the modern religion of Ausatru, I'd say go to our website, www.ronestone.org, and also check us out on YouTube.
00:11:44.240We're still on YouTube, and we've got a lot of followers there, and we've got quite a bit of content there that goes a little bit more in-depth.
00:11:53.120And you guys are recognized, you know, not that we care whether the government recognizes it or not, but you have one.
00:11:59.760uh i don't what were court battles or did you have to struggle to gain legitimacy from people
00:12:05.420you know against people who either thought it was racist or uh sort of a front you know just
00:12:10.180a way to be racially exclusionary no i mean folks don't necessarily like it but we've always been
00:12:15.900treated fairly in that regard by the government we got our uh 501c3 acknowledgement from the irs
00:13:55.140Do you have a golden rule and that sort of thing?
00:13:59.060The essential practices for someone who's in your faith?
00:14:03.460As far as a set of rules, much less thou shalt do this, thou shalt not do that.
00:14:15.460What we have is the nine noble virtues, and we've got much more than that, but these are kind of nine concepts that encapsulate a lot of what it means to live true and also true.
00:14:29.640And those are courage, discipline, fidelity, honor, hospitality, industriousness, perseverance, self-reliance, truth.
00:14:43.640And then the AFA would believe in a tenth noble virtue of victory.
00:14:50.860Now, I'm sure that a lot of guys and gals listening to this would be like,
00:14:55.300this all sounds great, but I can't see myself sincerely believing in Odin or Thor or the old
00:15:02.420gods. Would those people, would they be sort of like auxiliaries? Could they be friends with your
00:15:08.800flock, but not real members? What's that dynamic like? A lot of people start there. I think a lot
00:15:17.620of our folks start there. We got kind of two dynamics now, and it was different years ago,
00:15:23.160But now, you know, there's the people that come to Ausitru from Christianity, but there's a lot of people who come to Ausitru from atheism or at the very least agnosticism to where they don't have, they're not people of faith before they become Ausitru.
00:16:19.640um when you do a ritual and it doesn't hit everybody at the same time but even people
00:16:26.680who think they believe you can catch that moment when like oh wow this you know it's like when you
00:16:34.580go hunting every stump is is what you're hunting for until you see the animal and then you wonder
00:16:39.560how you could have been so easily fooled before when they see it and they're like oh okay this is
00:16:45.160real sure that's really a special thing can we circle back to the nine noble virtues0.58
00:16:52.600of course um so there's what the oh dick right that it's a similar set of uh rules i guess right
00:17:04.920and how do you how do you feel about them do you guys use those well so the nine noble virtues is0.83
00:17:09.800kind of a commonly agreed upon up until there's some lefties very recently that take issue with
00:17:15.880it which makes it even better um yeah the nine noble virtues have been kind of agreed upon by
00:17:23.160most uh also true organizations like i said until very recently um certainly i believe they were
00:17:29.160developed in large part by uh stoba in in the odenic right um yeah so those lists are very very
00:17:39.000similar i think there's some people that have it in a slightly different order but that's pretty
00:17:43.320much common across the board in the history of modern house of true smasher we were talking
00:17:49.480before we hit the record button and i i figured that this was up his alley and indeed it was
00:17:55.160smasher was there anything that uh you know you're not a member of course but is was there anything
00:18:00.440that turned you off or gave you pause are you still uh interested and it's just a question of
00:18:09.000The biggest challenge, I think, for Pagan or Asatru curious people would be you don't grow up with any, you know, knowledge of, you know, any of the old faiths, basically.
00:18:28.200You learn some really surface level garbage or you get like the Marvel DC version of, you know, Thor.
00:18:38.840And so you have this, you know, basically you get this huge barrier to entry because it's all these foreign or seemingly foreign words and you don't understand any of it.
00:18:52.400uh maybe you grew up in the church and even if you aren't in the church any longer it's like
00:18:57.360you still you know all of this stuff about christianity uh culturally i mean we're not
00:19:02.560really christian but we're still kind of you know culturally christian in a way
00:19:08.400at least from a knowledge base i think people you know just know a lot more about christianity than
00:19:13.120they do about any type of pagan or old faith um so that was i would get a bit of a barrier to entry
00:19:22.800uh and i mean i've read and i'm certainly better than like i was years ago when i first heard
00:19:28.560about the afa uh but for me it's mostly been a time thing where it's just like i was in the army
00:19:35.680and didn't have any time uh then i had a set of twins and didn't have any time and now i have
00:19:41.680another set of twins but we recently met uh someone in the afa and so having somebody local
00:19:49.440to you kind of makes access a little easier and sure hopefully we can jump start jump start that
00:19:56.880yeah i'm sincerely curious about it obviously it's not on my to-do list yet but uh i'm leaving
00:20:02.960that door open to be candid now sam on the other hand said that these are all a bunch of heretics0.99
00:20:07.840who deserve to be burned before before we record it that's true0.85
00:20:14.880yes sam what are you thinking about this does this make you uncomfortable do you respect it
00:20:18.960grudgingly what's your take on all this uh no no um yeah as the resident christian on this show i
00:20:25.840i have been waiting to chime in waiting for the right moment you know this if you uh read the
00:20:33.600new testament this uh very thing was a a controversy because christ said oh do you not
00:20:42.240realize that that the scriptures say ye are gods you know and so this thing of uh honoring the
00:20:48.880ancestors and um you know the gods so to speak small g gods uh this is in the bible it's in our
00:20:58.960faith and um i was just at a beautiful wedding uh over this last weekend one of our dear comrades
00:21:06.560locally here was married and was officiated by an afa guy i'm not going to say his name on the air
00:21:14.800uh and maybe we talk a little more about that uh later but um you know he he hearkened to that
00:21:22.720in his remarks about uh the ancestors and stuff like that and uh you know i i don't think anybody
00:21:29.520have could have a problem with that but um as the resident christian here i would like to to
00:21:37.120comment on this you know for the sake of the christians or for the sake of anybody i guess
00:21:41.520who's listening but uh you know um in in the scriptures in our new testament it says
00:21:50.160be a doer of the word and not just an ineffectual hearer and i have had a lot of experience through
00:21:57.760the years with these um asatru or pagan types and these are people i don't know matt extremely well
00:22:08.000but uh i i have the idea that if we sat and talked just like i sat and talked with this
00:22:14.160uh man that was officiating the wedding we're on the same page we have the same morals
00:22:20.800you know as a christian whether this person exactly agrees with the things i believe in
00:22:28.720the thing is he's living to the things i believe in and he's doing the things i believe in so in
00:22:34.960that way if you're a christian and you and you are wondering about this look at it in that respect
00:22:42.640that uh you know our people have the law written in their heart and so we we uh have this inclination
00:22:50.640to to be a certain way and and uh matt and and his people they have that same inclination to be that
00:22:58.160way uh that's the way i would put it as far as a question to matt uh you know for just speaking
00:23:06.320for myself i am uh unabashed white nationalist and uh i don't know if the does the afa take a very
00:23:16.960explicit position like we are for white people per se or or do you express it more in this
00:23:25.200these spiritual terms you know uh affirming these ideas about uh odin and these different different
00:23:34.320characters and things like that um i don't know can you can you say just a little bit about that
00:23:41.840how how explicitly white nationalists argue come yeah and if i and if i could piggyback off that
00:23:49.520real quick too sam yeah i mean at least in the news and in what the enemy describes you as you0.96
00:23:54.320know of course you're you're terrible horrible racial racially exclusionary you know what budding0.86
00:24:00.480or crypto white supremacist but but it does sound like you are you got away with this is a faith for0.97
00:24:06.000people of european descent so yeah talk talk about race and afa if you would bet well we didn't get
00:24:12.000away with anything because we're not doing anything wrong it's absolutely an ethnic faith and it's0.89
00:24:16.880absolutely just for white people and we put that in our uh in our um declaration of purpose and in0.93
00:24:24.880our statement of ethics to where it's clear um it's an ethnic faith in the same way that many
00:24:30.440native american faiths are ethnic faiths yeah honestly most religions that aren't abrahamic
00:24:37.300in origin are ethnically based and ethnically exclusive and so in that sense absolutely now
00:24:44.820as far as nationalism goes well we're a we're an international uh church we have members around
00:24:50.540the world and we're a religion and not a political movement so you know i don't know if i'd throw
00:24:56.460that on it but we are certainly uh for our folk which we define as white people sure and now how
00:25:04.140about i'm not trying to be cute here what about southern meds or uh those from the levant i assume
00:25:11.020that not you know not all europeans believed in odin and the old norse god so how do you square
00:25:17.420that circle you know i i think that all europeans believed in indo-european aryan divinity and i
00:25:26.940think that that takes certainly as you branch out from northern and central europe that starts
00:25:34.220looking quite a bit different it ends up looking different in the mediterranean and i think that
00:25:39.340the racial makeup there tends to look a little bit different too for a similar reason
00:25:43.420um but we're absolutely pan-arian and the people that join the afa we have italians we have
00:25:50.380spaniards um the reason that we use white isn't to be provocative it's because in the united states
00:25:57.160it has a meaning um sure absolutely you know there was a time where we you know we're much
00:26:03.300more cautious and talking about ethnically european and this and that but barack obama
00:26:07.700is ethnically european and all right oh yeah yeah really yeah yeah all right so yeah
00:26:17.300you got a lot of people at the time who are genuinely confused they're like well if i'm
00:26:21.860half german and half nigerian why why couldn't i join if it's for ethnic europeans
00:26:28.900and when you go and you fill out a job application or any kind of a survey in the united states you
00:26:33.700know what box you check right so do you have a take it do you have a hard rule not not a drop
00:26:41.060of non-white blood or you know we basically have that job application rule if you're if you look
00:26:47.860like the rest of us and you identify as the rest of us then then we're fine i'm not into rooting
00:26:53.460into anybody's family tree or whatever but by that same token and i'll say this for anybody thinking
00:26:58.260about joining um you know if you're elizabeth warren and you're a hundred percent white but you
00:27:03.620want to identify as something else that hurts our group cohesion it hurts what we're all gathered
00:27:09.540together to do and to celebrate so we wouldn't allow her to be a member for that reason sure
00:27:15.140well the reason i brought that up was because and and you already addressed it but i i wanted to
00:27:21.620underscore that this word pagan um you know like you like if if i put up a flyer in my town here
00:27:30.420and i said hey pagan festival next weekend or something like that you know what kind
00:27:35.300of weirdos would show up you know so that's you know so i'm glad you drew that distinction because
00:27:48.900you know like it in a way like i've i've met enough people where somebody's using that word
00:27:54.660that moniker pagan okay well i talk to them enough and i see okay all right we're on the
00:27:59.540same page here it's fine you know but i i think that's important uh to understand like for somebody
00:28:05.620who's approaching this they think oh yeah pagan i'm gonna jump on that you know let me tell you
00:28:11.300if you go attend something and it's being described as a pagan thing you're not going to want to be
00:28:16.420there i don't think you wanted to start out start out as a pagan and next thing you knew you were0.96
00:28:21.220homosexual i mean you're literally gonna see like redlock pot smoking no that that sounds0.95
00:28:29.860that sounds like a joke but no i bet you that the majority of that pagan festival the theoretical0.79
00:28:35.780pagan festival is probably they're probably wearing a lot of costumes it may not be a furry
00:28:42.340costume and it's very disproportionately homosexual yeah yeah the same the same people that are going0.93
00:28:51.300to the uh pagan festival or the same people that would go to like the libertarian kid rape park0.57
00:28:58.420well this is something that i wanted to kind of mention that that i think is important um
00:29:04.020one of the things that drew me to the astro folk assembly specifically and that i'm very proud of
00:29:09.380about us is we define ourselves positively we're not also true because of how not christian we are
00:29:18.020we're also true because of our positive faith and our gods and our celebration of our folk
00:29:24.020um a lot of people who are under the you know the pagan that i'm doing a little air quotes
00:29:29.860uh banner they're pagan because they're not christian or they're not this or they're
00:29:35.940non-conformists generally so they've decided to put you know a special label on it but
00:29:45.620they're atheists that like marvel yeah or that like just renaissance fair stuff
00:29:52.740smasher i gotta stop you there you're you're keep mentioning marvel and comic books i am
00:29:57.220a comic book guy but i just wanted to quickly say there's a series going on right now it's
00:30:02.740called norse mythology uh it's a neil gaiman uh produced thing it's on image comics and uh
00:30:10.260it's actually really good it's like a very straight telling of the nordic myths so uh
00:30:16.500check it out you know if if somebody's out there and they're into comics sure thing uh matt tell
00:30:23.060us a little bit about the uh the v i gotta ask you had a vision of the gods but uh before that
00:30:29.220where did the where did the roman and greek gods fall into the picture are they considered sort of
00:30:33.380like uh ancillary or relatives of the old norse gods what's up with that and then talk about the
00:30:38.580vision that yet so that's that's the murkier one and it's kind of difficult if you said are the
00:30:44.900celtic gods the same i'd say yes are the slavic gods the same i'd say sort of when you start
00:30:52.020getting the overlap in divinity functions and personality is very different in greco-roman
00:31:03.060religion and i think it cheapens that to say it's exactly the same but i do believe they're drawing
00:31:12.660on the same sources of divinity presented in a different way and it's presumptuous to say that
00:31:20.020you know our version of it is the correct version and their version of it's wrong what i will say is
00:31:26.560any modern attempt at reviving that faith that i've seen tends to immediately go to the0.97
00:31:35.060gay backic orgy and not go to hire you know they're not worshiping you know0.97
00:31:41.840jupiter optimus maximus they're they're going into immediately into the the license for1.00
00:31:49.480degeneracy i've seen a lot of that unfortunately which makes it very hard for the people that are
00:31:53.260very sincere i've seen the same thing with um modern attempts to revive uh the celtic faith
00:31:59.700so i would encourage those folks to come be part of the afa it gets it it gets you to where you're
00:32:07.200trying to go, it reconnects you with your ancient, you know, Aryan spirituality. That's the true
00:32:12.120faith of our people. Sure. And I guess before the vision, tell us what a, you know, for lack of a
00:32:18.220better term, a mass or a ceremony, you know, an assembly of your faithful looks like. And then I
00:32:24.380assume that your vision was maybe perhaps part of some ceremony. I don't know how much of this
00:32:28.180stuff is, you know, secret in-house or what you can share with the audience to give them a taste.
00:32:32.140and yeah i'm a pretty open book on it um so usually most of most of our events that we do
00:32:39.080because we there's a distance factor you know we'll have people to our homes or whatever but
00:32:43.840to go to one of our hoffs a lot of people have to commute a little way so we make a day out of it
00:32:48.020um spend a lot of that day just in fellowship getting to know people making friends um
00:32:54.900doing any work that needs to be done on the on the hoffs or the grounds preparing a meal together
00:33:00.940um that's something that you know can be a very important community building fact of our faith
00:33:07.420is we do base a lot of the things we do around around mealtime around sharing a feast together
00:33:12.580so sometimes the ladies will be in the kitchen helping prepare that or the guys will be out by
00:33:17.380the grill that's a cool bonding time but it's a lot of time just you know getting to know each
00:33:22.200other we often have um little classes or discussions on various topics that are relevant to the reason
00:33:28.480that we're there um our main religious ritual of the day is called a bloat i think that's the
00:33:37.440closest thing to a mass that that we do and it's um i'm trying to describe it depends where you're
00:33:44.400at whether you're outside or inside but in general we do that in a in a circular formation um we do
00:33:50.400things sun wise so you go into the circle and sun wise or clockwise um do all your movements that way
00:33:58.480the point of the bloat is to connect the folk with the gods and vice versa the gods with the
00:34:06.680folk and as the officiant of that ceremony the gothi um that's really a lot of what you do and
00:34:14.140it depends on the purpose let's say we're at odin's hof and we're doing an odin bloat um
00:34:18.780the gothi would go into the end of the circle usually we have a fire in the middle um
00:34:24.360yeah and he would uh invite the gods to to witness what we were doing to be there to join us
00:34:33.080uh he would invite the ancestors to watch what we're doing and to celebrate with us
00:34:38.920and he'd often invite the spirits of the land the spirits of that location
00:34:43.560to to witness what we're doing okay um at that point you usually invoke whatever deity you're
00:34:51.320honoring and say your peace um it's really important to me that you address the god you're
00:34:58.860talking to and don't just look at the people and talk to them about the gods and during bloat
00:35:05.020you're communicating directly with divinity uh at least if you do it right so um the gofield will
00:35:12.220talk to the god uh speak for the group to the god and then the main the main portion with most
00:35:18.980everything we do is a is kind of a form of a communion it's a sharing it's a gifting cycle
00:35:24.500so we'll take a horn usually filled with mead that our ladies bless and prepare for us
00:35:29.780and we'll walk around the circle and you'll you'll pour your energy into that horn you'll you touch
00:35:36.020the horn and imbue that with with your feelings of of worship of loyalty of of commitment to
00:35:43.780whatever god we're celebrating we'll do that in a circle and then we'll uh pour out that horn and
00:35:50.340offering and then i'll raise a horn and i'll ask that that if if that god if you know we use the
00:35:56.900odin example if odin hears us and you know accepts our offering and sees what's in our heart and is
00:36:04.020pleased to pour out his blessings on us and so well hold the horn up until i feel like we have
00:36:10.820received those blessings and then we'll distribute it around the circle and it depends you know when
00:36:16.500i first started out everybody's drinking out of the horn and it's all good at this point if you
00:36:21.940get you know at our midsummer we had 150 people so we'll often a spurge with the mead and usually an
00:36:28.900evergreen sprig to distribute it amongst amongst the folk all right um we'll do that and then
00:37:02.780tell us about the did you have a vision during one of these uh bloats or assemblies or was it a more
00:37:07.900personal thing oh i think i think a vision is kind of a big word for it
00:37:13.820uh trying to think the best way to describe i've had a couple of really really profound experiences
00:37:20.060and it's it's hard to say one of the things that people will notice will be certain things um
00:37:26.700happening it happening at auspicious times you'll have animal signs there'll
00:37:33.060be a particular point of emphasis in your bloat and all of a sudden a raven
00:37:39.720will call from a tree or an eagle will land or you know something that doesn't
00:37:43.860usually happen but happens at a really specific and important time or a gust of
00:37:49.020wind will make the fire rage you when you want to make an emphasis you'll see
00:37:55.440those things and those are always really special all of them sound very uh you know if you're not
00:38:01.520actually experiencing them they sound like yeah whatever so the wind blew that's fine but if
00:38:07.200you're there it's really different and i'll tell you the most profound ritual experience i had
00:38:12.000um it was by a githya named patricia hall um who's no longer with the australian assembly but
00:38:18.160she she was doing the winter nights uh dc upload and that's where we invoke our female ancestors
00:38:26.400that watch over us and our families and at one part of the ritual she was basically summoning
00:38:32.960those ancestors to be there with us and she had us close our eyes and speak the names of one of
00:38:39.200our our female ancestors that we that we connected with that we wanted to to be there with in that
00:38:44.800circle and the most when I say that when I say that my grandmother was with me in
00:38:58.060that circle I'm not saying it as metaphor I'm not saying it's symbolically I could
00:39:05.740feel what it felt like to hug my grandma the last time I was able to I I could
00:39:11.860smell her it's very hard for this happened I don't know six years ago and
00:39:18.580it's very hard for me to this day to recount it without tearing up because it
00:39:23.260was so powerful we had all these grown men leave the circle just crying like
00:39:28.140babies because they connected with with female ancestors that were important to
00:39:33.400them and it was really moving I think another time that I had a really
00:39:37.960profound experience i had just become the all's harrier gophie uh our founder steve mcnow and it
00:39:43.000had passed the torch to me and i'd been doing it for a few months at this point there's a lot
00:39:47.160of weight on my shoulders those are really big shoes to fill and a really big responsibility
00:39:52.680and that was at the star event and we're getting and i didn't mention this and i'll say more about
00:39:57.960it later if you're interested but another one of our rituals we do is a ritual drinking
00:40:01.720rounds of toast called the sumble so i was getting ready to to stand up and initiate that
00:40:09.240and i was just really feeling the weight of my position what i was doing and
00:40:13.720you know there was a hand on my shoulder so you know there's any number of people there
00:40:18.360who would have given me a reassuring hand on the shoulder you know shoulder grab shoulder pat and
00:40:23.560so i looked around just kind of thank them because it was a cool thing to do there was no one anywhere
00:40:27.800near me but when i say there's a hand on my shoulder i don't mean it felt like there was
00:40:31.640a hand on my shoulder or it was as if i mean no there was a hand on my shoulder um i don't think
00:40:39.720those translate really well over podcast but i can't i can't get them out of my head so
00:40:47.640uh but no i was just saying i believe you buddy and uh i'm a supremely skeptical person usually
00:40:54.760when it comes to the supernatural to to ghosts and spirits and heaven and hell and all that stuff but
00:41:00.120i'm 95 sure that i saw a ghost on my property just happened to coincide when smasher was visiting
00:41:05.800once i woke up uh and camped out with the kids in a tent watch your uh breathing there matt you're
00:41:10.600a little hot on the on the phone uh but i swore that i heard the sound of a extension ladder
00:41:18.120rattling off in the distance and smasher and a couple other friends were over helping us out
00:41:22.200i was like man they're really getting going early it was like right after sunrise so i get up and
00:41:27.400look out and sure enough off there in the distance i see in the mist a vision of a man walking around
00:41:33.560with a extension ladder so i get out of the tent put my shoes on go to look nobody there uh i go
00:41:39.720up to the house to see if the guys are awake everybody's asleep and it just so turns out that
00:41:43.560the man who built this house uh here in great appalachia where we live uh did excuse me in
00:41:50.280fact die in this house so i think it's possible that you know his spirit or whatever was wandering
00:41:55.320around the property that morning hopefully in uh sort of happiness or gladness that we're doing
00:42:01.560honor to it and fixing it up so uh yeah i i don't know maybe i was just seeing things in the morning
00:42:07.720in the mist but well i think i think that's one of the good entry-level things to to get people
00:42:13.400who are skeptical involved with house the true is the worship of your ancestors first factually you
00:42:20.360know they existed there's no question that at least while they were here on earth they existed
00:42:25.560or you would not be here um to honor them is is only a positive but in doing so and trying to
00:42:33.400connect with them i find people have a very real very visceral connection with that and if you can
00:42:40.120believe that your ancestors look on from beyond the grave and here with you in some way then it's
00:42:46.760that much easier to to accept you know the divinity sure uh how about heaven and hell uh valhalla is
00:42:57.240there uh if if people fail to live up to your moral standards do they go to hell um no i don't
00:43:03.560think so i i think there's something you know fundamentally off about believing there's a place
00:43:09.720of eternal torture that's just kind of sadistic um i we do believe that at some point if you
00:43:19.000if you don't have worth then you get uh basically disintegr disintegration you cease to be and your
00:43:27.640component parts go back into to making the next batch um i think that's what's described in our
00:43:35.400lore a lot about you know when the poison drips on when there's snakes that are dripping poison
00:43:40.360in uh the strand in kind of our our unhappy underworld that's the idea of that is that
00:43:46.920disillusion and dissolving of that person that's of very little or no worth or i guess of negative
00:43:56.040worth and how do you guys uh yeah reboot reboot that soul um how do you guys handle obviously0.95
00:44:06.940we are in a fallen world with rampant degeneracy either satanic or just jewish running wild all0.90
00:44:13.780across the west very good special but uh i mean it's it's dark out there man uh do you are you1.00
00:44:20.740growing are people coming to you looking for salvation from the sick society that we live in
00:44:26.580and uh yeah do you do you plan to combat it or is this more of just a we are doing right
00:44:31.860by our folk and the rest of the world be damned yes all right so it's a multi-pronged approach
00:44:41.860yes we have a lot of people who have come to us lately because things out there have gotten as bad
00:44:46.580as they have um mostly because values that we all were kind of agreed upon 20 years ago are
00:44:54.820completely foreign to the values that are in vogue now and if you take that back a generation or two
00:45:01.300it's it's really shocking um so we got a lot of people that come to us for
00:45:06.980what would normally be standard western values um the world is a you're right the world is
00:45:14.980degenerated in a lot of ways and there's a lot of a lot of bad things out there and i think it's very
00:45:19.620easy for us to gnash our teeth and you know shake our fist at it and be upset about it but in the
00:45:26.660afa we have an opportunity to fix things for each other fix things for our folk when last year when
00:45:35.460everything was you know in full swing with the coveted lockdowns and people weren't going to
00:45:40.020their churches. I mean, there's millions of Americans that couldn't gather together to
00:45:45.060worship their gods. During that time, we had our largest gathering ever at Midsommar. We got two
00:45:52.780new Hoffs during that year, and we spent that year together because we had our own properties
00:45:58.020in fellowship, worshiping our gods, celebrating our folk, and we had that outlet where so many
00:46:04.420other people weren't lucky enough to have that. So we look for the opportunities we have,
00:46:08.840the state of the world gives us a tremendous opportunity to do things and to make significant
00:46:15.280differences in the circles that we run in. And yeah, if we can, you know, if we can change the
00:46:21.360whole world and get our folk going in a good direction, fantastic. If we can make things
00:46:26.500better for our families and our media community in the meantime, even better. We can do both.
00:46:31.580that's perfect exactly i think you know without um a guy you know some type of guide you're going
00:46:41.420to be significantly more uh negative in your in your outlook you know if you don't have a worldview
00:46:48.700that kind of guides you to still good in this world of evil like you're going to get locked in
00:46:55.580the sauce yeah absolutely i think that's really important one of the things that i think is
00:47:01.580so at least was refreshing to me about also true is it's about doing and about achievement it's
00:47:08.500not about you know letting jesus take the wheel or whatever the expression is where you give up
00:47:14.020and leave it to the gods it's very much about taking action being the hero and doing things
00:47:21.300and accomplishing and making your ancestors and your gods proud and it really strives it really
00:47:26.920gives you a push to be all that you can be how about i'm sure that you attract some dubious
00:47:36.520characters or eccentrics have you i assume you've had to kick people out for misbehavior or immoral
00:47:43.320activity obviously i'm not looking to give you a bad rep or anything like that but what would get
00:47:48.120somebody kicked out or have you had to uh eject members uh we have um yeah it you know it depends
00:47:57.320i'm trying to think of the most common the most common things that cause us to part ways with
00:48:01.240members uh in general as a church we want to help people be better so people have struggles
00:48:08.840you know we we would prefer to keep them involved in the afa and and help them grow and help them0.98
00:48:14.680fix whatever's wrong uh we've thrown people out for deciding to pursue interracial relationships0.96
00:48:23.880um that that'll that'll get you thrown out um good no based asian i'm sorry you broke
00:48:32.440up there for a second my end oh no based asian waifu no negative0.79
00:48:37.560of no no body pillows no yeah watching anime i i hope is certainly smasher you can't join
00:48:46.260they don't allow anime watchers um another another thing and i'm trying to think of stuff
00:48:51.800you mentioned how degenerate the world's getting um there was one uh person that we had to to
00:48:57.200part ways with who was passively allowing their daughter to transition as
00:49:06.440into pretending she was a man or whatever and in our view that's child
00:49:11.640abuse and we couldn't allow yeah those are the things or if you do something
00:49:18.020unsafe you know we've had members that will will make women uncomfortable by
00:49:23.700being unsafe or will be violent towards women and families and we are absolutely a family
00:49:28.640organization and the protection of our women and our families is you know one of our top priorities
00:49:34.920so if you if you become unsafe we can't have you around sure i assume abortion is a no-no
00:49:40.400um so here's the thing uh we don't have some kind of universal no abortion stance i think there's
00:49:50.320probably a lot of reasons that a family might choose that some of those being medical we all
00:49:57.600have a different standard that way but something that's happened out there in the world is you know
00:50:02.160used to be abortion was universally bad but sometimes it was the better of two two evils
00:50:09.200now it's celebrated like yay let's have more infanticide and we want to stay as far away
00:50:15.280from that as possible but there's health reasons and and perhaps other things that may make that
00:50:21.840a thing we try not to get in the family's business on that more than we need to sure uh matt i just
00:50:29.200have uh one or maybe two more questions here we'll give sam and smasher a chance to chime in too we're
00:50:33.600already at an hour i think it's flown by go ahead smasher i was just gonna say it's not illegal
00:50:38.160goats frowned upon fair enough uh animal sacrifice you guys killing goats and drinking their blood0.51
00:50:46.000um drinking their blood no i mean i assume that most of us eat meat and uh we so animal sacrifice
00:50:55.280is not a a big or a common part of also true but i can't say that people haven't practiced it i
00:51:00.480mentioned earlier though that one of our big things is the community meal and the sharing so
00:51:06.500So every instance I know of an out-of-true sacrificing of, you know, a goat or a pig or whatnot has been to then prepare it for the folk to share it at a ceremonial feast and dinner.
00:51:35.720uh regardless but you guys were you guys were in the news big time with the minnesota approval you
00:51:41.420got a you got a half approved there and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth there oh god
00:51:46.820you know a church that's only for white people if you read the press it was like another show
00:51:52.380and yet it wasn't quite uh as it seemed from media depiction so let us know what happened
00:51:58.000in uh minnesota the status there so i mean the status then we'll kind of rewind everything's
00:52:04.600fine we've got a conditional use permit that is an automatic renewal unless we do something to
00:52:11.060significantly violate those terms which are like you know have loud parties after 10 and
00:52:17.640become a nuisance to our community no everything's great the people in the town have been very
00:52:23.900supportive of us in real life I know the media doesn't portray that unfortunately we got at when
00:52:31.340we first when we first got into town there the media had gone out of their
00:52:37.040way to go to specifically Hispanic families and to terrify them with what
00:52:43.920dangerous evil people we are and that's that's unconscionable that's literally0.99
00:52:50.180terrorism they went out of their way to make these families scared to live in
00:52:54.660their community right many of those people are now our friends they come by
00:52:59.400regularly we do a food distribution to anybody in the community who's hungry frequently hispanic
00:53:06.360families show up to that church leaders in other towns send members of their congregation to come
00:53:13.000get fed if they're hungry because we do our food pantry there the neighbors have been great people
00:53:19.560we've dealt with as far as inspectors and city people have been great as far as i can tell
00:53:25.240there's two people in that town that don't like us they just have the loudest voice
00:53:29.400there you go yep and uh and you're when you're working on new hofs around the country and that's
00:53:34.760really my final question here is uh well a little editorializing here i certainly hope that our
00:53:40.120christian listeners are not offended by this conversation or think that we're trying to
00:53:45.320convert people away from christianity and toward asa true but i would posit we've had plenty of
00:53:50.920pro-christian episodes oh absolutely 100 yeah i'm just a little preemptive defensiveness here
00:53:57.080But I would posit that for a lot of the guys out there who are irreligious or agnostic or atheist or most especially despondent and sort of lost in life, this sounds like something that would be absolutely a net positive for them.