Asatru Folk Assembly - The AFA on Counter Currents Radio

00:00:00.000 Thank you for listening.

00:00:30.000 I'm Greg Johnson. Welcome to CounterCurrents Radio. I have two special guests today.

00:00:40.080 I have Matt Flavel and Alan Turnage from the As A True Folk Assembly. Gentlemen, welcome.

00:00:48.800 Thank you for having us, Greg. It's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon.

00:00:53.180 yeah i i met you uh matt years ago uh out on the west coast i haven't met alan until today

00:01:02.600 but we've have corresponded recently and i i go way back with as a true i i'm not a follower of

00:01:12.140 it but i'm one of these interested parties who's sort of been watching the development for a couple

00:01:17.720 of decades now. And I thought that it would be great to have a conversation about what you guys

00:01:24.940 are doing and how the As-A-True Folk Assembly is growing. So could I just begin by asking you,

00:01:34.540 gentlemen, first Matt and then Alan, for the people out there who are just total novices,

00:01:42.080 normies, newbies, what is the meaning of the word As-A-True and what is the AFA about?

00:01:47.720 All right, so word Ausatru is a combined word that means trough or loyalty to the Aesir.

00:01:57.980 And the Aesir are, you know, the gods of Northern Europe as expressed by the Old Norse.

00:02:05.280 The Ausatru Folk Assembly is celebrating our 30th anniversary this year.

00:02:11.920 And we are the Church of the Aesir in Midgard calling our folk home.

00:02:17.720 We are a fully functioning church religious organization that practices and propagates the religion of Ausatru.

00:02:28.780 Currently, we have four Hoffs. We are working on Hoff number five right now.

00:02:35.380 And we have been tremendously blessed by the ICR over the last, certainly over the last 30 years, but a lot over the last 10.

00:02:43.700 Yeah. Alan, do you have anything to add to that?

00:02:45.560 No, I think that sums up the beginning. That's a great introduction. And also true, although specifically an Old Norse word, we practice it as a pan-Germanic religion. So everybody from Greece to Scandinavia to England to the Western Balkans, all welcome.

00:03:10.880 Okay, that's useful to know.

00:03:12.740 So how did you find Asitru?

00:03:15.760 I'll ask you, Alan, and then go to Matt.

00:03:18.700 How did you find it?

00:03:19.720 And did you have a religion before you discovered it?

00:03:23.700 I grew up in a pretty strict Christian denomination,

00:03:29.500 strict constructionist, church of Christ.

00:03:32.960 But then I sort of plumbed to the bottom of that and found my way out,

00:03:36.980 wandered through buddhism and daoism and then um work into kind of paganism and was in a pagan

00:03:48.060 group for a while and one of the facilitators there said you know this is kind of what you are

00:03:53.240 and kind of shunted me off in the asatru assembly and as soon as i found it i knew this was where i

00:03:59.080 needed to be you know it fit me pretty exactly i had always been it's it it felt like something

00:04:06.720 I had always been rather than something that I became when I found the faith. It was just cool

00:04:12.080 to find that there were other people already doing it. Yeah, that's great. It's like coming home.

00:04:18.180 So what about you, Matt? How did this happen? And did you have a previous religious belief

00:04:23.860 or education? So I grew up generically Christian if my parents had to be pinned down on what we

00:04:33.860 were because they were probably as loosely affiliated. I think it was a cultural thing

00:04:38.160 more than anything else. And then because I've always been a real, you know, fairly spiritual

00:04:42.840 person, certainly a spiritually curious person, I was a Jehovah's Witness for a time before I

00:04:48.240 found House of Truman. I had a hard break with that and, you know, knew about history and decided, 0.75

00:04:55.500 you know, what did our folk have before, you know, a Middle Eastern religion came in? 0.79

00:05:00.920 And I thought I was the only person doing this by myself. 0.66

00:05:04.100 But when I got online to do some research, I found the AFA and found that other folks were doing this in the modern world and were taking it serious.

00:05:12.920 And you said, you know, it's like coming home.

00:05:15.480 That's kind of one of our slogans, but it's not just a slogan.

00:05:18.820 It's how so many of us felt when we first found it.

00:05:22.120 And, you know, hopefully how folks still feel when they come home to House of Truth.

00:05:27.140 So I taught for a while out on the West Coast.

00:05:31.680 I was living in Berkeley, California, and there was a group of people there who were

00:05:36.320 into Azutru, and I went to a couple of their gatherings, and I won't mention any names.

00:05:42.680 I know Berkeley has some connection with the origins of the AFA, but these people were,

00:05:47.980 well, I guess you'd have to say they were very multicultural. 0.70

00:05:51.600 They were very sort of woo-woo, New Age-y, pagan.

00:05:55.320 And they put on some actually really good events.

00:05:59.960 I think I attended three of them.

00:06:01.760 But it was odd because the people who attended them were kind of standoffish.

00:06:08.820 They weren't particularly friendly.

00:06:11.940 You know, I sort of wandered around feeling awkward going to these things.

00:06:16.780 A lot of them were kind of weird and gross, to be really, really frank.

00:06:21.740 And they had a kind of universalistic approach to this religion.

00:06:30.600 And I understand that there's a difference between universalistic and folkish as a true.

00:06:38.480 Can you explain that distinction?

00:06:41.500 Yeah, certainly.

00:06:42.860 First, as just kind of a point of fact, there's no such thing as universalist as a true.

00:06:49.100 Folkish as a true is redundant.

00:06:50.740 But for those that are that are curious, there are certainly people who are absolutely strange and gross that think they practice Ausatru.

00:07:00.980 But a lot of that, realistically, the situation you described with likely the people that us and folks in the audience picture are attending those events you mentioned, they're typically viewing this as another plank in their generic smorgasbord of what they perceive as paganism.

00:07:27.960 and very often it's not so much a positive paganism as a rejection of, you know, social

00:07:36.760 propriety and appropriate norms. And folkish Ausatru is certainly not that. It's traditional

00:07:46.340 in the most fundamental sense of the word tradition, and it's not about, it's not licensed

00:07:53.440 for degeneracy. As a matter of fact, our ancestors were known for their, you know, moral uprightness,

00:08:00.260 especially contrasted with other, you know, other surrounding cultures. So that's really not a thing.

00:08:07.140 And I'll say this, the universal practice of our faith has really diminished over time. That's not

00:08:13.360 really a divide that I see that often anymore. I see people in the AFA, and I see, you know,

00:08:19.580 Other folks that have yet to join the AFA, but I don't see a lot of that universalist crowd. Maybe

00:08:26.080 it's because I no longer run in any kind of circle where there's that overlap.

00:08:30.320 Well, this is more than 20 years ago now, actually. There were a couple of things about it

00:08:35.020 that I already mentioned that I thought were, well, how to put it? If you want your group to grow,

00:08:42.400 you certainly don't make strangers and newcomers feel unwelcome. And they really did that very

00:08:49.920 poorly, I thought. It was very cliquish and odd. And later I was in a conversation with

00:08:57.400 another person who was somewhat affiliated broadly with this strand of paganism. And the question of

00:09:05.520 what paganism meant came up. And it was fascinating to me because this person really

00:09:13.080 wanted to define paganism or neo-paganism as a marginal outsider critique of some kind of

00:09:23.740 established religion or culture. And she actually went to the point as far as saying, so for Roman

00:09:30.800 paganism for me that would be something like the mystery religions you know the subaltern cults the

00:09:38.400 the outsider things not the actual uh civil religion of rome and i thought this is a very

00:09:44.480 fascinating divide here because uh what's going on is these people have basically identified paganism

00:09:53.040 with you know being teenagers who's mad at mom or something or or or people who who feel disaffected

00:10:02.340 with the dominant culture and religion of their society and so if they define it that way it will

00:10:10.080 never become the culture and religion of a society it's always a counter-religion or a counterculture

00:10:16.260 which I think is completely contradictory to the spirit of any actual healthy religion.

00:10:24.560 It's the mainstream of a society or wishes to be the mainstream of a society.

00:10:32.080 And so it doesn't surprise me that this kind of stuff might fade away for a while.

00:10:37.600 But I guess there are always going to be people who want to define themselves as outsiders and rebels.

00:10:44.620 but they're the kind of people who would probably get upset if, you know, say something like Azatru

00:10:51.660 actually became the mainstream religion of a society. Then it wouldn't be pagan as far as

00:10:56.460 they're concerned. Well, if they got upset, we would find some way to balm their wounds, I'm sure. 0.61

00:11:05.340 Right. Yeah. Well, I think it's really important that you point that out because

00:11:10.140 I think it illustrates a couple of things. It's one of the reasons that we don't typically refer

00:11:15.340 to ourselves as pagans. I mean, obviously it is factually the case, but the word itself

00:11:21.180 is a Christian word to describe the other. And I think that's the same with a term like heathens,

00:11:27.260 why we use Ausatru is to say proactive what we are about, not that we're those guys over there 0.64

00:11:33.980 that don't do the the normal thing um and we've seen that come and go i think it's a blessing that

00:11:41.880 some of the edgelord thing is so flaky and comes and goes because you see the same people that

00:11:50.140 would be very very edgy and punk and gothic and whatever else all of a sudden you know a number

00:11:58.120 years ago it became edgy to be you know quote unquote trad and so you get the same people

00:12:03.420 trying to do that. And it's just putting on whatever the new edgy, non-conformist uniform

00:12:11.180 of the day is. And that's absolutely not what we're doing. It's really important that we're

00:12:14.740 defining Alcetru on its own terms and not as an anti-Christianity or an anti-establishment.

00:12:21.600 It's its own unique, independently upright and standing tradition.

00:12:26.640 And you certainly identify part of the issue and why we fit into this, let's say, unique niche, because most of the neo-pagan stuff is fairly left wing.

00:12:40.960 We are not. And then when most people think of traditionalism, they think of Christianity, which we are not.

00:12:49.480 You know, we're and I think of myself as a radical in the in the true sense of the word, you know, in the Latin root, you know, meaning going back to the root.

00:12:57.320 We have examined, I think individually, when you come to Austria and certainly at the level that I was here, you go, you and I practice it.

00:13:07.340 We've examined this stuff in pretty close detail.

00:13:11.320 We try to bring the practice and the profession of the faith into the modern age.

00:13:17.840 But with, you know, in the way that instead of trying to reconstruct what our folk were doing 1500 years ago, you know, if Wotan was alive today, what would he be doing?

00:13:31.280 And that's what we're trying to bring to the folk.

00:13:34.240 Well, this brings me to a couple of questions that are related.

00:13:38.980 what happened with the old religions of europe in the mediterranean in the far east of europe

00:13:48.100 and in the north of europe is they were extirpated and in various ways by the coming of christianity

00:13:56.580 and the traditions have been severed they've been broken to some extent perhaps completely and

00:14:05.300 And the question then becomes, well, how do you revive an old religion that was killed off?

00:14:15.760 And how do you do it without being what some people will basically parody you as?

00:14:22.700 You know, these are just a bunch of people who were LARPing as Vikings, right, with horned helmets or whatever.

00:14:29.000 How do you bring back something that's dead?

00:14:31.800 Or did it really die?

00:14:33.880 I guess that's the question. How authentic is this connection with the old religion?

00:14:43.120 So our gods are real. And if you're looking at religion through a, I don't know, a scholastic

00:14:53.280 cultural phenomenon, it becomes really different. But if you're looking at it as a religion,

00:14:58.940 And as a people's relationships with their gods, it is authentic in the fact that it's a real connection between us and the Aesir who continue to exist.

00:15:10.660 It's not starting completely fresh.

00:15:14.120 It's very much a reforging, you know, like Sigurd's sword.

00:15:19.000 You know, it is it is reforged together to be stronger and to, you know, take the pieces that we've inherited from our ancestors and forge them back together in a cohesive whole that comes through consistent gift cycling.

00:15:35.060 And it comes to the blessings of the Iser.

00:15:37.800 It's a fundamental that we believe that in 1968, the Iser, specifically the All-Father Othen, reached out and spoke to our founder, Stephen McNallan.

00:15:49.900 And that that moment of inspiration brought us to where we are today.

00:15:55.020 But it's been the consistency of the gift cycle over that time and sincere prayer and dedication to our gods.

00:16:03.880 And, you know, hopefully along that way, getting blessed with wisdom and understanding that connects us.

00:16:11.360 It's important that we become as knowledgeable as we can on the lore that's available to us.

00:16:16.960 But our religion doesn't stop in the Viking Age.

00:16:20.420 It's a religion that, you know, pre-existed the Vikings by thousands of years.

00:16:25.460 And it's a faith that's eternal as long as our folk and our gods exist.

00:16:30.220 And that force has been pushing its way through and tried to arise again in Germany, in Australia, in England at various times, and it finds what founder MacDowell called vectors, you know, that we are instruments that the gods find to bring their will back into the world.

00:16:55.600 And so by expressing the will of the gods and by doing our duty, we are bringing this faith back, you know, an old faith for a new age.

00:17:07.740 One of the analogies that I think is really useful for understanding how you can revive

00:17:16.400 old religions, old religious traditions, is the revival of authentic performance techniques

00:17:25.620 in classical music.

00:17:27.540 Because there's a tradition of performance, but this tradition was changed over time.

00:17:34.260 were changed tunings were changed things like that and yet when people were looking back to

00:17:44.340 music from the baroque and the renaissance era uh and they they realized okay we we've lost

00:17:50.260 something here uh we're not playing it the way that it was originally played we don't we can't

00:17:55.940 hear what it sounded like uh maybe we can recapture how they they did this and so there were treatises

00:18:04.260 and and records on tunings there are actual instruments original instruments around

00:18:11.140 in museum collections you could reconstruct these instruments and the tunings and

00:18:19.620 you could look at the scores but ultimately what you had to do to to really get back to the old

00:18:26.340 performance techniques is you had to actually perform you actually had to practice and when

00:18:32.660 the practice began people were doing it in a kind of mechanical way which is the way things are when

00:18:41.380 you practice any kind of music it starts out kind of mechanical and then the necessity of performance

00:18:50.340 sort of teaches you uh you you're you're aiming at making this sound its best right and the

00:18:59.540 what happened with these authentic performance practices over time is they just got better and

00:19:06.080 better at it. It seems to be more and more a reflection of something that was alive once,

00:19:16.140 and then it was lost, and now it's been regained. So yeah, you can look at texts, you can look at

00:19:22.020 history, but you have to actually try and bring this back as a practice. And when the practice

00:19:29.500 begins, and you get more fluent at it, then the thing really starts coming alive. And I wonder,

00:19:37.400 what is the role of performance, religious ritual, religious practices in this revival?

00:19:47.380 And how has it changed over time? How did it start out back in the 60s? And how has it

00:19:53.800 uh continued since then has there been an evolution in your practice as you feel like

00:19:59.960 you're getting this right or getting this more dialed in so it's funny and i think it's a good

00:20:08.840 way to start and i know the the way you use the word but performance so when it was again i've

00:20:16.200 i've only been involved for the last you know 20 24 years or so but when folks started

00:20:24.040 reforging this a lot of the ritual structure was you know we don't know what to do this is what we

00:20:33.160 think it might have been similar to and there was a lot of performance art involved people tried

00:20:40.920 through various means of what they could deliver the best uh you know make the best show of and i

00:20:47.800 don't mean that inauthentically but as a place to start without having any experience figuring out

00:20:53.800 what that might have looked like some people took that in a really dramatic uh like a ritual drama

00:20:59.880 direction other people would draw on what they what they knew or what they assumed and see what

00:21:05.960 works um over time what i've found ritual has become more and more genuine and from the heart

00:21:15.400 it's been more and more a direct connection between our folk and the gods and a lot of that's

00:21:22.920 been built on experience with what the icr approve of and what garners you know garners their favor

00:21:33.640 and what may not as well and over time through ritual and through consistently being part of

00:21:38.360 that gift cycle i think we've got a pretty consistent way that many of us do it that

00:21:45.400 our gods seem to deeply bless and favor us with and i think ritual practice is important i think

00:21:51.960 a lot of people confine this to that and it's not a religion is about your entire way of life

00:21:58.760 but it's all informed around and built upon that point of connection which we do through

00:22:04.600 ritual between us and the gods and so you know i don't think that's a the highest percentage

00:22:11.320 of what we do but it's one of the most essential and without that we wouldn't have the faith but

00:22:18.680 it's been great to watch that evolve over time and become less of a scripted thing and a much more

00:22:24.920 or authentic outpouring of devotion and emotion from the folk and the Gothi presiding over the ritual and that gift being given to the Yisir.

00:22:38.660 And we've seen their approval and their blessings in countless ways.

00:22:43.900 and i can say that i have been in ritual both conducting ritual participating in ritual

00:22:51.240 where i have felt the presence of the gods so i have no doubt um in the reality of

00:23:01.300 of what we're doing it's you know it's not sterile and and to me it's not even really

00:23:08.220 reconstructed as much as re-blooming. I'm just now thinking of this, but it's like a field that

00:23:15.480 is blossoming again after a long period of laying fallow. We have definitely evolved the way that

00:23:23.740 we do things in some manners becoming more formal, in some manners less. Back in the long time ago

00:23:33.660 when I started practicing in 2005, many people wore, it was called garb, you know, you'd wear

00:23:42.680 a Viking tunic, and maybe a Viking belt, and those sorts of things, just to try to get yourself back

00:23:47.200 in that space, but we have come to understand that that's not what they would have done,

00:23:52.260 they wouldn't have looked, you know, to their ancient ancestors, they would have just worn

00:23:55.840 their best suit to go present themselves to the gods, and that's what we do. We have followed,

00:24:02.120 We have followed and do follow the architectural investigations that go into the sites, which informs how we understand and practice our faith.

00:24:15.660 Many of the laws that were written, we can look at what the laws when the Christians took over.

00:24:22.780 We can look at what was prohibited. 0.67

00:24:25.580 And those were the, for lack of a better word, Matt doesn't like it.

00:24:29.280 But the pagan practices that were forbidden when the when the king became Christianized, you know, what were they forbidding?

00:24:35.720 The rituals that we were conducting. So we can look at that negative example is what we, you know, again, as as some information about what what the way that our faith was practiced.

00:24:47.220 We can also look at lore that came down. It is, although imperfect, when Snorri was writing stuff down, there's an open debate whether he was writing these things as a Christian who was kind of deriding and specifically misinforming the practice.

00:25:07.200 But but he but he certainly at the very least copied down the lore and brought forward the stories of the gods.

00:25:14.200 And even like the Grimm's fairy tales and the folklore that came down to us through the centuries that were collected mostly by the Grimm's, but by hundreds of other scholars as well.

00:25:26.500 Those sorts of things bring in, as Matt mentioned, you know, the whole way of life.

00:25:33.400 It's not just what you do once a month on a Saturday.

00:25:38.020 It's how you live your life, how you view the world, what your philosophy is, philosophy, religion, worldview.

00:25:46.880 Those are those should all be the same thing.

00:25:48.960 And that's whole and holy have the same root word.

00:25:52.980 And the more holistic we can be in the way that we approach this faith, the more that it can fit with the Western culture and the Western way of life and readopt this faith and this practice for the modern era and for our folk.

00:26:10.940 I have no assumption, I have no pretense that, you know, through some act of magic, if a Viking were transported to one of our rituals, that it would be the same.

00:26:24.520 It wouldn't be.

00:26:25.980 But I hope he would understand what was going on, and I'm confident that he would.

00:26:30.140 And I don't think that if he were transported back to, you know, the Neolithic times, that the ritual would be the same.

00:26:35.840 the essence and the understanding and the importance of it would be understood

00:26:39.980 and I'm confident that it would be and just kind of a note on Snorri I uh I do think that Snorri

00:26:46.220 was trying to authentically tell the the the faith of his ancestors and a quote I ran into by him

00:26:51.960 just the other day which is I don't know haven't struck me before but in his advice to the Scalds

00:26:57.300 who were you know continuing the edict tradition he says do not lose sight of the splendid tales

00:27:03.540 of the fathers. But remember always that these legends are to be used to point a moral or

00:27:08.480 to adorn a tale. Not to be believed or to be altered without the authority of ancient

00:27:14.640 skulls who knew them. Belief is sin. Tampering with tradition is a crime against scholarship.

00:27:21.520 So in that way, I do think that he was a fairly honest broker.

00:27:26.260 That's a very interesting quote. It's actually very encouraging. We've talked a bit about ritual

00:27:32.840 what about life in general? Because as you emphasize, yes, this is a religion that encompasses

00:27:40.500 the whole of life. It's not just a ritual you do once a week. Have your lives changed

00:27:46.380 in positive ways, perhaps some in negative ways, as you've lived into and in the light of

00:27:56.460 this new religion that you've come to yes a thousand times yes my life has changed in

00:28:04.860 amazing ways um alan just talked a little bit about the idea of of the whole and being holistic

00:28:12.840 in our practice, the more that my beliefs, my daily life, my family, my politics, my interests

00:28:27.760 have all coalesced in a harmonious and synchronized way. The blessings have really poured out. And I

00:28:36.240 don't know. I don't know if everybody listening to this thing may believe it or feel it the same

00:28:41.360 way, but I met my wife through the practice of Alcetru, did a naming ceremony for my daughter.

00:28:48.480 She's grown up playing at the Hoffs to our gods and building relationships with other AFA members

00:28:55.980 at our Hoffs and in the practice of our faith. The gods have blessed me tremendously through

00:29:03.160 my participation in Alcetru, and I am deeply, deeply thankful for it.

00:29:09.520 I would not trade it for anything in this world.

00:29:14.500 And I'll say that right about the time I was really steeping myself in the practice of all the truth,

00:29:22.580 I took a kundalini meditation course, a teacher's training course.

00:29:28.340 And so many of those folk who were taking that course adopted Sikh names.

00:29:34.660 It was through the Yogi Bhajan's tradition of Sikhism.

00:29:38.900 And so they were, you know, so they were sort of, again, like we were talking about at the beginning, they were taking this little one course from the buffet and taking their little, you know, taking this part as Sikhism and, you know, trying to cobble that together with their, you know, with the rest of their new age smorgasbord.

00:29:57.340 But like like any other thing that's, you know, a combination of wood and plastic and metal, it just doesn't fit together well.

00:30:05.540 Whereas what I've done is taken that practice and brought in the practice of rune mantra, which is called Galder, and using that both in ritual and in my own personal meditations.

00:30:19.440 So, again, incorporating that holistic structure of the entire faith that we practice into a unified, for me, progress toward some kind of higher realization.

00:30:35.880 The other thing that I think brings a lot of folk to and certainly has helped me in the way that we understand this is that also true.

00:30:49.400 In addition to having a strong relationship vertically to our gods, we have a strong relationship to each other.

00:30:55.880 And so to say so we are answerable to each other for the acts that we do.

00:31:01.820 One of our sayings that we repeat frequently is that we are our deeds and by and through those acts, it holds you in a way that you know that it's not just that Santa Claus is looking over your shoulder.

00:31:20.700 It's all your neighbors are looking over your shoulder.

00:31:23.020 All the folk in our church are looking over our shoulders all the time and we're accountable to all of them.

00:31:28.040 And that horizontal relationship is equally important.

00:31:32.080 We are a folk.

00:31:34.340 We're not just individuals practicing an individualized religion.

00:31:37.820 We're a folk who stand together before our gods.

00:31:41.940 On something that Alan just said, if I could,

00:31:45.880 so many people might confuse or think that religious practice is about what you believe.

00:31:53.060 And it's fundamentally not.

00:31:55.460 It's about what you do because of or, you know, in light of those beliefs.

00:32:01.860 There is a tremendous ignobility in having those beliefs and then not acting upon them.

00:32:07.580 So I think that's something really important to keep in mind.

00:32:10.580 So, folks, if you out there in Radioland would like to ask some questions of our guests, you can do that in a number of ways.

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00:32:36.520 If not, that's fine.

00:32:38.500 You can also just send us questions in the various chats.

00:32:42.680 And you can also email me at editor at counter-currence.com.

00:32:47.380 And we will try and get to this, get to all questions, of course,

00:32:51.820 as a true related questions in the course of the stream today.

00:32:54.960 So, yeah, just keep that in mind. Also, scrolling across the screen is runestone.org. That is the website of the AFA. If you want to find their presence in the World Wide Web and then maybe find their presence in the real world, start at runestone.org.

00:33:13.900 And so I want to ask a couple questions here. These are questions that I imagine people in

00:33:22.160 the audience might be asking. I think I know the answer to these, okay? But I wonder if some people

00:33:28.440 in the audience are wondering things like this. What is the relationship of Azitru to nature?

00:33:36.880 is this some form of nature religion or is there an element of this religion that transcends

00:33:45.080 nature how do you uh relate yourself to the natural world no also true is not a nature

00:33:52.720 religion and i think the way some people might think that it is but we do recognize the beauty

00:34:00.780 of nature and the beauty of the order that's found in nature. We believe that's crafted and

00:34:07.340 instilled there by the Iser. One of the things that is fundamental to our faith is the

00:34:13.860 harnessing nature for our benefit and the overcoming the chaos that is in nature to create

00:34:22.660 ordered, structured, beneficial nature. And I think that's seen time and again in our

00:34:28.080 in our myth cycle. But something that is fundamental is to be a good steward of the

00:34:33.240 things that we have and to be respectful towards the creation of the Iser in how we interact with 0.74

00:34:40.720 nature and how we how we treat the world around us. I think the honor and the nobility that we

00:34:47.420 treat one another is also reflected in the way we behave in our environment and the implications of

00:34:54.360 that. Absolutely. And in fact, one of the things that when we talk about Christianity in a lot of

00:35:01.400 ways, even within the AFA, there is a wide range of views about how the planet should be treated.

00:35:07.580 We certainly exploit its resources, but we try to do it, as Matt said, we try to do it in a way

00:35:13.740 that is respectful to the gods of nature, the Vanir, the gods of blessing and fertility.

00:35:21.860 I think the more respect and gentleness, if that's the right word to use, that we that we express toward the planet, the more that we are blessed in return, because the the earth in its own way is sacred.

00:35:39.720 And frankly, that's one of the things that which is I started out the way I did, because I know that Christianity has come back around to the to the idea that the earth should be treated with respect.

00:35:50.640 But for so many Christians for so long, the only thing that was holy or expressed any type of holiness was the ritual toward toward Jesus and his father.

00:36:04.120 So that's one of the things that put me out of Christianity was that disdain that so many hold in the Cartesian worldview that there is, you know, that the world is sort of a binary thing.

00:36:18.060 there's holy over here and there's profane over here and what's holy is very limited and what's

00:36:25.600 profane is everything else that we can see and touch. So trying to adopt that holistic worldview

00:36:32.140 is another way that we express a healthy relationship with each other and with the world.

00:36:37.660 so nature isn't the holy in the sense that it's untouchable or unchangeable because

00:36:47.960 you do believe that well it can be changed to benefit us in in particular ways so

00:36:56.140 what is sacred what is holy in as a true life as far as our life and how we live it

00:37:07.460 either heroically or not the relationship with the iser tradition is holy our folk are holy and

00:37:17.460 sacred and something to be safeguarded and that is our folk at large but it's certainly also

00:37:24.740 our families our our bonds of kinship um you know there's there's things that are

00:37:32.260 ritually exalted to a more holy or a more sacred you know place like our hoffs or like certain

00:37:41.620 sacred locations but the process of life here in midgard is in fact you know something sacred

00:37:49.780 and important uh and something to point out that i think alan opened the door for in his last

00:37:54.660 comment was we are a life embracing relationship we make a name for ourselves and earn our fame in

00:38:04.980 this life in the art in which we live our life and display our deeds and our character in the world

00:38:14.980 that we live in we believe in an afterlife certainly but our focus is the here and now

00:38:22.420 while we are here and while it is now and so the moment is in fact sacred and forging a better

00:38:32.260 world for those who will come behind us yeah so if life is this human life is the locus of the sacred

00:38:43.300 then that would include the fact that human beings are creative creatures that we change the world

00:38:50.900 to suit us, that we impose our designs upon nature, you know, given a choice between

00:38:57.140 the salmon and your child, you choose the child and you eat the salmon, those sorts of things.

00:39:06.060 That makes sense to me. Yeah, thank you. There's some other related topics that maybe we can delve

00:39:15.100 into, but before I go into that, let me just check and see if we have any questions from our audience.

00:39:20.900 here. While you're looking at that, I'll flip out a little bit on the, you know, it's certainly,

00:39:28.800 as you say, the, you know, one of the, I think the vulgarities that is being committed against

00:39:34.620 the planet right now is factory farming, for example. Right. It's not quite a religious

00:39:40.320 thing, but it's the next best to it. You know, the lives of those animals are,

00:39:47.100 or are literally a profanity against the against the god the life force uh that our gods brought

00:39:56.700 into being at the same time just because something has a degree of sacrality doesn't mean that it

00:40:03.180 can't be eliminated you know we kill and eat animals and they're and that is both in the sacred

00:40:10.240 and, you know, in an everyday context, but they should be treated with respect.

00:40:17.020 And, you know, I think there's a lot of analogy.

00:40:19.420 I haven't really thought it out a lot, but I think there's a lot of analogy to the way our prisoners are treated.

00:40:24.100 I think there's something to be said for execution of the violent criminals and, you know,

00:40:29.200 and restitution for those who can be rehabilitated.

00:40:33.380 Yeah. If life is sacred, we have to recognize that life feeds on life.

00:40:37.680 we have to uh act appropriately so i i take it you're you're not vegetarians well let me ask

00:40:48.000 you are there vegetarians or vegans who are into as a true or is that something that you just you

00:40:56.300 frown upon or is that something that's totally optional or is that considered sort of uh exotic

00:41:02.460 perhaps. So one of the things that's, I don't know, frustrating, but honest when people ask

00:41:09.760 questions like these, so much of the challenge in our faith is to rise to the requirements of

00:41:18.580 noble people to make choices for themselves. There's no, you know, veganism is not frowned

00:41:25.040 upon unless it becomes the obnoxious trying to make everybody else do veganism because

00:41:30.840 No, there's, I would say that would, I don't know of any vegans who are also true.

00:41:38.460 I don't know of any strict vegetarians who are also true.

00:41:42.480 I'm sure that they exist.

00:41:44.240 If they show up, they would have to provide some of their own food at our communal, you know, get togethers.

00:41:51.740 But no, I don't think that's frowned upon at all.

00:41:54.880 Bacon is not quite a ritual food, but it's the, it's the next thing to it.

00:42:00.000 Yeah, well, let me ask you another related question. How do you conceive of morality? Is it something where you've got a list of commandments? Is it a rule-based religion like Christianity or Judaism or Islam, or do you conceive of morality in a different way?

00:42:30.000 so i i think that there's a false dichotomy there a bit acknowledging the tremendous amount of

00:42:40.500 nuanced decision making when it comes to moral decisions doesn't abdicate the position that

00:42:47.800 there are some things that are absolutely completely righteous and some things that are

00:42:52.720 completely abhorrent there is that but the challenge in aussitru and the admonition is

00:42:59.300 to do things that are honorable or dishonorable, things that gain your reputation amongst the gods

00:43:06.320 and amongst your folk and things that diminish that reputation amongst God's folks and folk and

00:43:12.120 ancestors due to their ignobility, due to their disgrace. So we recognize you live in a world

00:43:21.100 with a lot of different choices and sometimes values come up conflicting, but handling them

00:43:26.280 in a morally upright in an honorable fashion as opposed to a dishonorable one and so it's never

00:43:33.340 it's not a list of do's and don'ts as if you know there's there's not that playbook there's

00:43:41.440 the playbook of building character to where your character is such that you live in an artful way

00:43:49.560 that impresses and pleases the gods and the ancestors in that way I'd say it's much more

00:43:55.200 an art than a science yeah this sounds what people in philosophy like what people in philosophy

00:44:04.560 described as virtue ethics and it seems very consistent with say the the ethical attitudes

00:44:11.760 of the ancient greeks too so that's that's an interesting parallel there uh archie has written

00:44:19.200 in with $7.44. Thank you very much. And he says, this stream is important in that it opens a door

00:44:26.360 to places that people need to find the progress of knowing to practicing than to having the

00:44:31.680 spiritual experiences like learning to play the violin. How do different folk religions work

00:44:37.320 together? So I guess the question is, does the AFA have any kind of relations with other

00:44:46.720 practitioners of folk religions, or Christianity for that matter, I guess, do you engage in what

00:44:54.640 they like to call interfaith dialogues and ecumenical get-togethers, which are very popular

00:45:02.260 in the world of religion today? Is that something that you make a point of doing?

00:45:09.300 No, it's not something that we make a point of doing or that the opportunity often presents

00:45:15.400 itself, but it's certainly not something we're opposed to doing. When you mention other ethnic

00:45:20.580 faiths and working together for a common goal, or at least having dialogue, I think that's

00:45:25.180 completely appropriate. But our position towards those outside of our folk or our faith, it all

00:45:32.680 depends on the circumstance. It's completely appropriate. And in fact, we ought to act noble 1.00

00:45:37.940 with everyone that we deal with. Sometimes we have conflicting values and conflicting

00:45:43.340 conflicting goals and that's fine. Other times they work together. But what I think is really

00:45:49.460 interesting is the places in society where those things do intersect. And it is interesting. I have

00:45:57.280 found a tremendous amount of professional respect the times that I've had to minister to our folk

00:46:04.540 who are in the hospital or the few times that I've gone into prisons to minister to our folk

00:46:11.960 there, or when I've been, anytime I've interacted with a existent chaplaincy somewhere, there's been

00:46:19.640 a moment of dialogue. And I've been surprised at how well received that's been by, you know,

00:46:26.280 the others that I've had to work with. I think it's also true that dharmic faiths,

00:46:33.440 and that's a term that I got from Acharya Ji's book, The Dharma Manifesto,

00:46:39.680 So dharmic faiths can exist side by side.

00:46:43.160 We would never try. Not only would we try, we'd never try to impose, but we would exclude anyone who was an ethnic Japanese, for example. 1.00

00:46:52.520 Shintoism is their ethnic dharmic faith. And that's, you know, so they practice that. 0.95

00:46:57.940 We do us. They do them. And it's so it's not so we can get along and harmonize ourselves in that worldview.

00:47:06.960 because, you know, we live in a very real way in different worlds.

00:47:13.500 As long as they respect the border where it is, you know,

00:47:16.620 then we don't have to – we can cross-pollinate our faith in a certain way

00:47:25.100 and find value in the way that these organic expressions of faith

00:47:33.540 of the different peoples have come to blossom in the field of the world

00:47:38.640 and without trying to impose our worldview onto anybody else.

00:47:44.860 Yeah, that's nicely put.

00:47:47.280 If it's a folk religion, you can sort of stay in your own lanes, I guess.

00:47:53.380 There's no necessary conflict there.

00:47:56.000 The Japanese are not trying to convert you to Shintoism

00:47:58.840 and you're not trying to convert them to Asatru.

00:48:01.600 But I think you can probably appreciate and get and understand some of the things that they do.

00:48:09.500 One of the things that was really remarkable to me was a scene in The Hidden Fortress, the Kurosawa movie, where these people who are basically refugees from an enemy that's destroyed their castle, they're in disguise and they come across this harvest festival in the woods.

00:48:34.860 and there's this huge bonfire and you see this festival and basically it's a it's a kind of

00:48:40.540 bacchanalian revel uh it you you can see what's going on there uh the language is foreign the

00:48:49.100 the mythology is foreign but i know this song anyway somehow uh i can sort of hum along uh play

00:48:57.100 a few bars and i can hum along uh because there's there's something intelligible about that uh and i

00:49:04.620 I think that that's an interesting thing that followers or people who are knowledgeable about,

00:49:12.780 say, one folk religion can do when they see echoes or parallels or analogies with others.

00:49:20.460 But yeah, they still remain other and they have their own integrity.

00:49:25.420 Our friend Friedrich has written in with 20 US dollars, thank you. He has a question,

00:49:30.300 does as a true have explicit safeguards to make sure it will never become universalist great show

00:49:37.500 best regards yes in a couple of different ways um and again in the austral folk assembly we don't

00:49:47.580 there's no mechanism by which we can you know forcibly disallow other people from using the

00:49:53.820 term also true so that's unfortunate but it is what it is in the afa it is very explicit

00:50:02.700 we have always been the you know at the forefront of being folkish enshrining that in our core

00:50:10.060 principles requiring that of our entrance as far as members go and i think that one thing that

00:50:19.020 ensures it is our organizational structure we're not democratic there's no

00:50:27.580 parliamentary process of different people getting in and and changing the rules on you it is very

00:50:34.060 much done through the succession of the alzharrier gothar to where that authority rests with the

00:50:43.180 person in that position which is much more secure than a committee and we've seen this in other

00:50:49.020 early outs to true organizations and other related organizations where you get

00:50:53.980 enough people in that decide they want to bow to political currents and things can go real

00:50:59.820 different directions. We try to safeguard against that, you know, as best we can. And the way of

00:51:05.620 doing that is kind of trusting that authority in a select few and not in a larger democratic

00:51:12.860 process and then our hierarchy if you will um with matt the alteria or go the um having all

00:51:22.200 the decision making authority then but before you can become a gothar which is um god man or

00:51:30.020 githya's god woman um the before you can become that you're you know you you're known you're known

00:51:37.600 entity um you have to practice with us for a long time and then you come up through the hierarchy

00:51:44.320 and are trained in our uh in our worldview to the extent that you don't have that already

00:51:51.040 then we can you know you're you can be educated the afa as an entity is in no danger of becoming

00:51:59.120 a universalist russian because those people are excluded at the membership level you know people

00:52:05.520 would want to try to join that are not of our people,

00:52:10.640 are not allowed to become members.

00:52:13.240 So, you know, they're excluded before they ever get in the door.

00:52:16.920 And like Matt was saying earlier,

00:52:18.380 focus also true is redundant.

00:52:20.500 You know, you can say you're a universalist also true practice,

00:52:23.720 but that's like saying you're a square circle.

00:52:26.460 The word makes sense in an English sentence,

00:52:29.440 but it's not a thing.

00:52:31.980 Is also true growing?

00:52:33.560 And I guess there are two questions here.

00:52:36.860 I see more Thor's hammers.

00:52:39.900 I see T-shirts at gyms.

00:52:42.760 I see guys with tattoos of things like vault nuts and stuff like that.

00:52:47.860 I see more of that.

00:52:49.480 So it seems to be out there in terms of a cultural presence, a graphic design thing, merchandising and so forth.

00:52:57.580 But is it growing as an actual religion?

00:53:04.540 And specifically, is the AFA growing as an Asatru community?

00:53:12.200 Yes, and I'd say yes on all of those fronts.

00:53:15.400 I think awareness of Asatru as an actual faith is certainly growing.

00:53:22.220 um as far as with the general public and people recognizing it i think absolutely i think there

00:53:30.000 was a time you know again i mentioned you before the program but you know i'd wear my hammer and

00:53:35.580 people would question if it's a a broken cross or an anchor or you know any number of things

00:53:42.300 then i watched it to where oh that's a thor's hammer now semi-regularly at a store or a random

00:53:48.500 location. Oh, nice Mjolnir. And they'll even ask if I mouse it true. That's a tremendous amount

00:53:55.240 of growth. The AFA has certainly grown numerically, but we've grown in our practice and in our scope,

00:54:03.680 I think, tremendously. We have members in 12 different countries at present. And what I think

00:54:11.780 has really amplified the growth of our practice in a very practical sense is our four Hoffs.

00:54:20.260 We now have a Hoff to Lord Odin, to Baldr, to Thor, and to Nyordr. And so we have four different

00:54:30.220 physical locations that every month our folk gather at, engage in ritual and fellowship,

00:54:36.100 and have physical places to where people in the community can literally go feel that it's real 0.80

00:54:44.340 and that it exists and has a has a place on the map and for for what it's worth and as silly as

00:54:49.840 it may sound it's really cool to try to type in the name of one of our hoffs on google maps

00:54:55.500 and it populates and you get a blue line that takes you right there that adds a level of realness

00:55:01.020 i think to people uh we've also had you know a number of our our folk will do uh

00:55:07.660 with their local group of afa members they'll have an adopt a highway i know we've gotten

00:55:11.740 members off of just seeing the sign on the road hey this is real and exists in the real world

00:55:16.140 so our real world practice is has grown tremendously over recent years and i expect

00:55:24.540 to continue to go that way. And I'll take advantage of that to segue into a note of

00:55:32.780 thanks that I want to get out in a very public way to one of the members of the No White

00:55:38.180 Guilt family who financed Njordta for us after the bank that had pre-approved our loan turned

00:55:48.100 us down because of who we are. So thank you very much to those folk who, who made that purchase

00:55:55.300 possible. It's, you know, I can tell you it was, it was a tough, it was a tough couple days while

00:56:03.200 we were trying to make sure that we could finance this property that we had made a down payment on

00:56:09.340 when the bank, when the banker called me after having pre-approved our loan and basically read

00:56:15.840 from a script using very carefully parsed terms, obviously, that had been assigned to him by his

00:56:24.140 attorney, who basically said, we can't finance you because of the religion that you practice.

00:56:31.520 You know, the fact that that got turned down, but then we had one of our, you know, that next

00:56:37.360 circle of folk that are, that who know who we are, who support what we do, that was willing to come

00:56:45.120 in and put money down so we could buy that property. And we paid off that 10 year loan in

00:56:51.800 four years. So wow. Yeah, that's, that's a nice story that I always love it when these networks

00:57:00.060 work. So another question, what are some books and thinkers about Ozzatru that inspired you and

00:57:10.740 you might be able to recommend to people who want to learn more about it as far as the the lore to

00:57:17.060 be inspirational i think the edda's are really important i think that um the culture of the

00:57:22.740 teutons is really important but as far as thinkers and people that inspired me early on as far as

00:57:31.780 Ausatru getting involved in talking to actual participants and practitioners is what really

00:57:41.240 sunk it into me getting involved meeting our founder Stephen McNallan and speaking to him

00:57:46.280 and getting to see real people doing this and not just you know theorizing or pun or you know

00:57:53.420 speculating on it I think did a ton and as I've grown learning about some of the early

00:57:59.940 The early pioneers of Ausatru, like Sveinbjörn Vientinsson in Iceland and Alexander Redmills in Australia, have really inspired me in the sense of this being a real modern thing that some pretty great people have spent their life building and making happen.

00:58:21.000 In addition to that direct transmission through the Eddas, which, of course, that's excellent work, I think the cultural tradition, I certainly got a lot out of Evola, although, of course, you have to unpack his compound complex sentences, but much of what he talks about in the preservation of European tradition is exactly what we are on point about doing.

00:58:49.500 you know, protecting and preserving the traditions and expression of the faith of our folk.

00:58:56.940 I think Alain de Benoit, his book that I've recommended over and over again at the at the top of the show,

00:59:03.840 when you were explaining the you know, that that so much of the neo-pagan movement is just about being anti-Christian

00:59:13.040 and where they've thrown out all of the strong, noble traditions that Christianity adopted its

00:59:21.560 way into, Benoit's book on being a pagan very definitely defines them and helped me define my

00:59:28.280 way out of that neo-pagan movement, because it very definitely says you can't define yourself

00:59:34.920 as against that because you're still allowing that religion then to define you. Beyond that

00:59:41.200 sort of thing. You can look at the book, The Germanization of Christianity, where the author

00:59:51.780 there who, name I forget, but he talks about how so many things like from the cult of the saints

00:59:56.860 to many of the ideas that our Christian folk, that our traditionalist Christian people rightly

01:00:05.920 respect is actually the way that the Christian church, when it came in and overtook the tribal

01:00:17.020 practices, that they adopted those folkways into their own tradition, like Easter, for example,

01:00:24.500 with bunnies and Easter eggs. That's, you know, that's very much the Germanization of the way

01:00:31.040 that Christianity has become to be practiced.

01:00:33.820 And so, yes, there are those few core books,

01:00:36.440 and there are hundreds and hundreds of books right outside that

01:00:40.040 that populate that entire practice area.

01:00:46.260 We should also mention, of course, Steve McNallan's book,

01:00:50.720 also true of Native American spirituality,

01:00:53.100 where he has narrowed down and defined a lot of these concepts

01:00:58.260 in a way that is that is very accessible to people where you can read the stories and just get the

01:01:05.460 idea of the practice and what it's about and then if you're uh if you want to come out and experience

01:01:11.780 it just like matt said you know that's that's really where you find what the practice is because

01:01:16.340 the practice is not what you believe it's what we do yeah the book you're talking about is the

01:01:22.100 The Germanization of Medieval Christianity by James Russell, which is a really very interesting

01:01:29.080 book. And we have a review of the Steve McNallan book on Asatru at Countercurrents by Colin Cleary.

01:01:37.020 Colin Cleary has published a couple of useful books at Countercurrents. One is called Summoning

01:01:43.740 the Gods and the other is called What is a Rune that deal with Asatru? And I'm working now on

01:01:49.260 another collection of his essays called what is odinism so that'll be out later this year just to

01:01:54.980 plug his work he's also done a whole bunch of essays that haven't been collected that that deal

01:02:01.880 with with these sorts of topics so you can find a lot of that at countercurrents just type in

01:02:08.900 colin clary or type in as a true in the search bar and a whole bunch of stuff will come up so yeah

01:02:16.060 Sorry, I should. And I apologize to to Mr. Cleary, who I had the honor of meeting traveling through Idaho fairly recently and and got to share a couple of meals with him.

01:02:29.440 I have a great deal of respect for the way that he has brought, and especially his book, Summoning the Gods, it helped, definitely helped me to coalesce my understanding of a lot of what it is that we are doing, what it is that our lore expresses in the way that those stories about Odin, about the way that Odin brought order from chaos.

01:02:57.340 And I thank him again for bringing that work and for the book that he gave me when we were up in Idaho.

01:03:06.660 What is the relationship of the AFA to the Rune Guild?

01:03:11.200 That's another organization I understand in North America that has a lot to do with Azatru.

01:03:18.700 There's really not.

01:03:20.000 And I think there was early on.

01:03:21.840 The Rune Guild was founded by Dr. Stephen Flowers, and he and our founder, Steve McNallan, are certainly acquaintances and friends over the years and have worked together.

01:03:34.520 There have been a number of people in the AFA over time that have crossed through the Rune Guild, but I haven't heard a lot about the Rune Guild being very active in a lot of their things in a great many years now.

01:03:49.480 But they did, and I'll throw this out there. One of their members, Leon Wilde, wrote a book about runes called The Rune Workbook.

01:04:00.560 and it is as far as an introductory book to someone who's maybe you know young high school

01:04:10.260 age folks or somebody who's completely fresh to it I think it's a really good primer on the runes

01:04:17.560 and I think it is very very accessible so I anybody interested in the runes and you know

01:04:23.880 the also true worldview that surrounds them and gives them context that's a really good book for

01:04:29.920 that. And also their core curriculum, the nine doors of Midgard is really beneficial. And it's

01:04:37.160 a lot, it's a lot to, it's a lot to chew on, but especially their first couple of doors in that

01:04:44.700 book, I've gotten a lot of benefit out of, you know, using that early on in my house to true

01:04:51.860 practice. And I think that's really beneficial, but there's not, not a lot of current interaction

01:04:56.380 going on there. Okay, that's interesting. I have a question here from Jace. Does Azzatru seek to

01:05:03.660 emulate the ESER? When you spoke of honor earlier, what does an honorable life look like?

01:05:11.360 Is it obvious to say what a dishonorable life looks like? So that's three questions there.

01:05:17.000 But you emulate the ESER, first of all. Is that how you understand your practice?

01:05:21.340 no and i think again being forcing that into a binary yes or no i think is complex i don't think

01:05:33.960 that the point of the isere is for them to be instructive as things to model ourselves on as

01:05:40.660 opposed to be instructive as gods we want to build a relationship with and invite into our lives

01:05:51.040 We're not gods. We are people. And I think that that functions, you know, really differently.

01:05:57.720 But I would say as far as the follow up questions, I wish there was a very clear cut.

01:06:04.800 Hey, this is what a noble life looks like. This is what an ignoble life looks like.

01:06:10.400 And I think we recognize them when we see them. 0.97

01:06:12.900 But I think the noble life for an IT professional in 2025 is likely very different looking than for a Viking raider in 800, than from a, you know, Germanic farmer in 100.

01:06:28.300 the actualization of facing your life's unique circumstance with a dignified and honored practice 0.82

01:06:36.780 informed by our tradition and in light of the judgment of the iser and the ancestors

01:06:43.180 and your folk it's a very complex thing but we certainly know and celebrate when we see it and

01:06:49.460 we're very aware and we um shame it when we see the the contrary it's interesting because i would

01:06:56.920 answer in the exact same way, except I would say, yes, we are to emulate the gods, although not in

01:07:02.640 that, it's certainly not in some precise exact way, but in the story, like, for example, of Tyr

01:07:09.900 sacrificing his hand, his good sword hand, so that his folk could survive, we can look to that

01:07:17.200 as an example of what a noble life looks like. It's certainly not that direct pointing where

01:07:23.980 you can do something that looks exactly that way. But those sorts of examples do allow us to

01:07:30.060 inform our discerned understanding and our judgment about what a noble life looks like.

01:07:38.580 And it's like a lot of, like the Supreme Court justice says a long time ago, we know it when

01:07:45.300 we see it. And it's one of those things where I've often wished that we were a more rules-bound

01:07:53.460 religion, if I were making the rules, where we could say, yes, this, no, that. That would make

01:07:59.260 us easy. It would make it, you know, it would make Matt's job easier, my job easier, and the job of

01:08:04.600 our folk. We could just, you know, track along the rules, but it's not. We, you know, we just

01:08:10.800 have to walk along that razor's edge and try to discern in each modern situation, you know, how

01:08:18.680 it is that our folk way informs the decisions that we are forced to make so in the chat we have

01:08:27.560 a comment from placeholder what the afa is doing is critically important for all people of european

01:08:35.480 descent god bless you matt and alan and god bless the afa and archie agrees with that ron boardman

01:08:43.880 writes in, in the AFA, there are many with quite a few years of longevity in worshiping the Easter,

01:08:49.940 which leads to knowledge, maturity, and a pious nature being dominant. We've seen pain, growth,

01:08:54.500 change, and victories. Much dead wood has cleared away over the years. The AFA knows what works on

01:09:01.220 Midgard and Asgard. That's a good point. Basically, with time and experience, you learn things. You

01:09:10.300 learn things and grow you know i don't think you need to apologize for not having tablets with

01:09:15.900 rules on them because rules need to be interpreted and interpreting rules in the light of what's

01:09:25.820 going on around you is an act of judgment and judgment is seasoned through experience and

01:09:34.780 it wouldn't be judgment if uh you know you could you could predict in advance what you're going to

01:09:42.620 decide in every given situation uh so i think it's a recognition though that there's a kind

01:09:49.580 of knowledge that you gain from practice and that is a higher form of knowledge than the rules uh

01:09:58.060 any any set of rules that are put down they have to be interpreted uh so there's this

01:10:03.500 active judgment that takes place and polish polishing your ability to judge in the circumstances

01:10:09.900 happens with time and there's a natural authority of people who are older and more experienced 0.98

01:10:17.600 you know there are there are old fools in this world there's no question about it there are

01:10:22.660 people who've gone through life and not learned a damn thing but if you go through life with your 0.95

01:10:27.900 eyes open and you hone your ability to discern what's good and bad in particular circumstances,

01:10:34.940 you're a natural authority that other people can look to. And of course, then there are heroes

01:10:41.040 from the past. You can look to them and wonder what would they do in those circumstances.

01:10:49.040 You'd be naive and childish to think, well, Tyr cut off his hand or lost his hand,

01:10:55.720 So we should all cut off our hands. Right. That that's that's contrary to the spirit of, you know, any kind of wise religion, I would think.

01:11:08.100 But that would be the sort of rule bound or LARPy or merely imitative approach to things, which thank God you're you're too smart to to fall into.

01:11:21.000 let me see if we got any more questions and comments here and then we can wrap

01:11:25.320 up because I don't want this to be too long I want people to be able to wrap

01:11:31.320 this up and immediately go and investigate more about the AFA so

01:11:37.680 gentlemen how do people find out more about the AFA we have the runestone.org

01:11:43.920 url but are there other ways that people can find you do you do podcasts are you on various social

01:11:53.600 media platforms and things like that absolutely first you know and foremost runestone.org and

01:11:59.760 thank you for putting it on the on the bottom of the screen that is a great place to go and find

01:12:05.020 out who we are what we believe what we're what we're doing and to find contacts for the folk

01:12:10.280 builder near you. Our folk builders are our local representatives, the Astro Folk Assembly, and each

01:12:16.360 and every one of them would be happy to field any of your questions, get you involved locally, or

01:12:21.680 sort you out on where you need to go. But we also, every Wednesday night, we do a live broadcast on

01:12:29.660 a variety of platforms on YouTube, on Odyssey, on X, and a variety of other places called Victory

01:12:37.500 never sleeps. And that's every Wednesday at six Pacific. And I think we're at like, I think we're

01:12:43.820 almost at episode 160 on that. So we've been doing that for a little while. That's a great way to go

01:12:49.160 and to look us up on YouTube. You can find the archive of all of our previous shows. If there's

01:12:55.660 a topic that interests you, chances are, if you have questions, there's one of those that you can

01:13:00.200 find that'll help you get closer. Or if you tune in live, you can ask any question you want. We'll

01:13:06.380 address it. That's what I would suggest. As far as social media, X is our biggest outlet right now,

01:13:13.140 as well as, you know, I guess YouTube doesn't really count as social media, but it crosses

01:13:17.300 the sphere a little bit. Yeah, you can find us on X at Folk Ausatru. Yeah, but any of our contacts,

01:13:24.140 our Gothar, myself, or our Folk Builders, please feel free to email any questions you might have,

01:13:30.480 and we will answer them to the best of our ability and see if we can help you out.

01:13:35.900 That's great. So are there any final thoughts, any final words that you'd like to impart to

01:13:42.300 our audience out there? I'll start so Matt can have the last word. First of all, I want to thank

01:13:48.540 you again, Greg, for having us on. I have a lot of respect for Countercurrents. I read it

01:13:58.460 and stay current on all the articles. I'm a member of the website. I forget what it is that you guys

01:14:03.820 call it but um you know uh thank you for subscribing yeah well you're welcome i i think

01:14:10.220 that what you guys do brings the right tone of both of information and the philosophical

01:14:18.540 underpinnings of what it is that we are all trying to do in our own ways uh to protect

01:14:25.420 the uh the zeitgeist the world spirit of uh of western civilization our folkways our religions

01:14:37.580 our viewpoints our folk are noble and worthy we are worthy of respect and worthy of tradition

01:14:47.020 and thank you for the hard work that you do in protecting our faith of our folk ways

01:14:58.880 and making sure that it continues into the future.

01:15:02.300 Well, thank you. I very much appreciate that.

01:15:05.520 You know, I'd like to certainly echo that.

01:15:09.860 Thank you for having us on the program today.

01:15:12.720 It's always much appreciated for us to have opportunities to talk to people who may not

01:15:18.900 know about us or who may have questions or things they'd like to learn. I appreciate getting to

01:15:24.240 speak to your audience. I would like to, I suppose, leave people with this. I know that

01:15:31.220 I am aware that the most difficult thing is very often going from a place of inaction

01:15:36.900 to a place of active engagement. I jokingly say that like the greatest distance is from the couch

01:15:42.740 to the door, but it really is. And I think we all have had that feeling. So I would encourage

01:15:47.920 everyone out there that conceptually likes the idea of Ausitru, thinks that it would be really

01:15:55.100 cool, or it should be really cool, or, you know, it's something one of these days they might do.

01:16:00.280 take that initiative and be Ausitru, participate, join the AFA and meet with your folk and be part

01:16:10.260 of it. We're doing absolutely amazing things. And we would love for all of our folk to come

01:16:16.460 home to Ausitru. Like I said, there's a lot of people cheering us on from the sidelines,

01:16:22.280 but get on the team. We would love to have you. So thank you.

01:16:27.120 well that's really beautiful that's really well said thank you guys for coming on i really really

01:16:33.140 appreciate it and i do hope that this has been educational but more than educational i do hope

01:16:38.420 that some people will actually take that step and reach out and get in touch so that's a nice way of

01:16:43.880 ending ending the show and we will be back next week with another episode of countercurrents radio

01:16:50.480 we have not yet determined the guests there's so many things going on i'm trying to get eric

01:16:55.340 Orwell of the Back to the Land initiative on for an interview as soon as possible, because he's

01:17:01.980 now in the crosshairs of the global establishment for wanting to basically live among his own kind.

01:17:09.960 Apparently, that's not legal in America. So I will definitely try and get him on board. 0.93

01:17:14.680 There are a few other people I'm trying to get on the show. Chris Brunette, for one,

01:17:18.860 we will let you know

01:17:21.380 there's no shortage of things to talk

01:17:23.420 about and there will

01:17:25.320 always be new current

01:17:27.300 things to talk about so

01:17:28.920 we will be back next week

01:17:31.360 with some guests

01:17:32.820 and until then just keep reading

01:17:35.180 Countercurrents. Thank you.

01:17:48.860 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - July 29, 2025

The AFA on Counter Currents Radio

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