Asatru Folk Assembly - The SoNo Show Ep. 38： Interview w⧸ Matt Flavel

00:00:00.000 When I first came into this worldview back in late 2018, my entry point, you could say, was through Varg Vickerness and his former YouTube channel, Tulay and Perspective.

00:00:16.000 oh, excuse me, technical, boomer tech. From him, I learned a lot about him and his wife Marie's

00:00:29.560 views on our native European ethnic beliefs. Then I discovered the authors Vegard Solheim

00:00:36.360 and Stefan Svetkovic. Since then, I have branched out into many other topics regarding our folk,

00:00:43.300 movement history, philosophical and ideological intellectual pursuits, and a plethora of other

00:00:50.300 ideas. I am not a member of any organization or public-facing group, as I have made it abundantly

00:00:57.480 clear in past videos. I find myself leery of such things. Infighting, snitching, our scene can be a

00:01:03.820 minefield of such deleterious pitfalls. I favor networking and doing all we can to reduce our

00:01:10.680 dependence on the system and navigating in such a fashion to exploit the system where we can find

00:01:16.200 the gaps, but that's enough about me. Tonight, I want to return, in a sense, to my entry point. I

00:01:23.320 want to discuss the Asatrude Folk Assembly. They do a few things that I am interested greatly in.

00:01:30.220 Number one, they are providing an interpretation of our ancient ethnic spirituality in this 1.00

00:01:37.860 otherwise vapid, shallow, spiritual desert of modern-day Ameriquois, as my friends call it. 1.00

00:01:45.140 A strong, number two, a strong effort at building parallel structures to reduce our dependence on

00:01:51.380 the system, encourage a sense of self-reliance, community, tribe, and family building.

00:01:59.140 Number three, charitable efforts. While not as flashy as marches, protests, and speeches,

00:02:04.820 I think this is very needed. The Native European has extremely few charitable organizations in 1.00

00:02:11.200 this country and abroad. Welcome to the Sono Show, episode 38, interview with Matt Flavel. 0.55

00:02:19.860 So without any further ado, here is the guest. How are you doing tonight, Matt? I want to thank

00:02:25.280 you for coming on. Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm doing fantastic. How about

00:02:30.840 yourself oh i'm doing great i'm doing great if i was any more fine i would be frog hair you could

00:02:36.680 say that's just a hillbilly uh hillbilly uh idiom i guess is what you would call it so i know you're

00:02:43.880 a very busy man and i want to thank you deeply for coming on here to discuss your group so

00:02:52.280 i've got several questions here i want to thank my friend stone ox his wife furious wolf for

00:02:58.360 getting us together about a month ago, and I'd also like to thank Appalachian Highlander and his

00:03:04.140 lovely wife and the Appalachian Aussitrew group for giving me a list of questions and helping me

00:03:10.900 to form this interview, I guess you can say. So, I guess we'll go ahead and get started here.

00:03:20.900 Matt, what would you, in your own words, describe the Aussitrew Folk Assembly as?

00:03:28.360 I mean, I could go on. It's many things, but fundamentally, it's the Church of the Aesir here in Midgard.

00:03:40.620 Yes. Very nice. Do you know, let me see, what's the next question here?

00:03:49.600 How long have you participated in the Osatruth Folk Assembly and led the organization?

00:03:55.140 so try to look into that on just how long i've been participating in one way or another

00:04:03.420 the furthest back i can find a record of it was in 2009 but i believe i was involved a little bit

00:04:11.400 earlier than that but that was the time i became what's called a folk builder in alaska and i was

00:04:17.740 living there at the time and that's kind of our our entry-level um leadership volunteer position

00:04:23.880 yeah i've been the alls harrier gothi which for folks that aren't aren't familiar basically the

00:04:29.400 high priest of the austral folk assembly since mid-summer of 2016. so just about seven years

00:04:35.640 right now have you had uh have you enjoyed your position is this is it can it be i'd say it can

00:04:42.280 be very stressful you are absolutely as committed to this i mean it is your life i would imagine

00:04:47.880 Um, yeah, so it, it is absolutely, my whole life is connected to it one way or another.

00:04:59.040 Um, you know, I'm, I'm a father, I'm a husband, but fundamentally all my life revolves around

00:05:05.000 the Astro Folk Assembly.

00:05:06.640 And, uh, it is absolutely, uh, sorry, we're just going through an earthquake right now.

00:05:14.220 Are you serious?

00:05:15.320 Yeah, that's kind of strange.

00:05:16.900 Wow.

00:05:17.880 So to get back on back on track. Wow. That's wild.

00:05:24.900 No, it really is. We don't get them here often. We had two small ones yesterday.

00:05:28.900 So it's like a small trimmer, I guess. Well, no, this one was pretty decent.

00:05:33.620 I'm curious what's whether it's going to come out as. I heard I heard something fall in the background.

00:05:39.420 I was like, whoa. Yeah. It rattled the shutters and everything. But you know what?

00:05:44.380 i've uh there's absolutely stress and there's absolutely um weight and i never want there

00:05:53.180 not to be weight to it um it's a tremendous responsibility to be the alzeria goethe of

00:05:59.180 the astro folk assembly but any of that said it is the biggest biggest blessing the biggest uh

00:06:09.020 uh, I don't know, honor of my life to be able to do that. And I'm so very proud to be in the

00:06:17.100 position I am. Um, you know, it, it's stressful sometimes, but it's supposed to be. That's what,

00:06:23.940 that's what leading is about sometimes. Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, you talk a lot about

00:06:29.620 pressure, you know, pressure though. That's, that's what makes the diamond shine, I guess

00:06:33.820 you can say. Yes, I do. Going back just a

00:06:37.700 brief segue to the previous

00:06:41.580 question. You said it was the Church of the Asir

00:06:45.140 in Midgard. Yes. And this is a

00:06:49.720 question that I was

00:06:53.740 wanting to ask a little bit later, but I think this is a good, decent time to

00:06:57.640 ask this question. You know, y'all

00:07:00.780 worship the 0.90

00:07:03.580 Aesir, the Norse

00:07:06.200 gods and goddesses,

00:07:07.800 have y'all

00:07:10.320 ever considered

00:07:11.100 looking into some of the other

00:07:14.280 various

00:07:15.780 European pantheons, perhaps

00:07:18.020 like the Hellenic, the Celtic,

00:07:20.660 maybe even the Slavic?

00:07:23.620 I'm just curious

00:07:24.540 about that, you know, because

00:07:25.900 I will say this, I think if you're here in

00:07:28.500 America, you definitely have some

00:07:30.620 Germanic blood, most likely, if you've been here for at least over a century or so. But, you know,

00:07:39.520 myself, I'm a mixture of Germanic and Celtic ancestry. I do not know, my knowledge on Celtic

00:07:47.540 mythology is very vague, unfortunately. Have y'all ever considered branching out to these others,

00:07:53.980 or do you prefer to keep it within the Norse pantheon because perhaps it is the most,

00:07:59.860 you could say the purest pantheon i guess i don't know if that's the correct term but uh

00:08:06.420 anyway i just thought that was an interesting question i would like to ask you

00:08:09.780 no absolutely i think it's a question a lot of people have especially here in america where

00:08:15.140 we have um a broad range of european ancestry amongst us yes

00:08:23.300 so first yeah we absolutely have have looked at those and studied those

00:08:28.580 and uh the afa is now and it always has been pan arian in our in our faith we believe that the

00:08:38.020 gods of our folk are expressed in these different pantheons by different groups of people due to the

00:08:45.140 relationships that they have developed but fundamentally they're the same um the same

00:08:52.020 divinity the same spiritual forces just with different different names and different

00:08:57.300 relationships, much like, you know, for example, friends that I went to school with know me one

00:09:06.080 way. My father knows me as a son. My daughter knows me as a father. My wife knows me as a

00:09:12.380 husband. Folks in the AFA know me as the Alzheimer's, you know, guys at the gym may know me as

00:09:19.640 something else. Those are all me. But that picture looks really different depending on

00:09:24.460 what group of people has that relationship. I don't think that's the most perfect analogy,

00:09:30.160 but I think that's the case with our gods. We use the Germanic or the Norse names and

00:09:43.080 understandings of our gods because those are the best, as you said, the purest in the sense of

00:09:51.260 they come to us the clearest yes they were written down in one of the they're one of the latest

00:10:00.360 groups of of source mythology that comes to us so we get a a clearer glimpse of them and also

00:10:09.960 that's that is the form that they've taken that have inspired our folk and become so successful

00:10:16.580 and following that success we want to uh we want to honor that instead of looking for what else

00:10:25.680 we could possibly do we want to go with the folks that brought us to the dance and that is the

00:10:30.800 spirituality that's awoken in the soul of our people those that is the the names of the gods

00:10:36.620 that have resonated and brought us to where we are today and so for lack of confusion in the afa yes

00:10:42.320 We refer to our gods and our goddesses by their by their old Norse names and Norse perspective.

00:10:52.580 Yeah. Well, I appreciate you answering that. That was just a random question I thought of the other day.

00:11:00.700 Let me pull the list of questions back up here.

00:11:04.620 Hey, everybody in the chat, I apologize. I've not really paid attention to what's going on.

00:11:10.560 I've got several tabs open. I just want to say thank you all for coming here to this episode

00:11:16.720 and to hear Mr. Flavell talk about his organization. So, let me pull this back up.

00:11:26.080 The final question in this little introductory section is,

00:11:30.120 how did you work your way up into your position and title?

00:11:34.140 well so as i mentioned earlier um i i don't like to halfway do stuff so when i got involved i was

00:11:47.940 living in alaska and there really wasn't a lot of afa activity up there at the time so i wanted to

00:11:53.340 i wanted to jump in and help and see what i could do yeah and it was presented to me that they needed

00:11:59.220 a folk builder up in alaska and you know great sign me up how do i do it and i really threw

00:12:05.780 myself at it as best i could and i i had you know i had some success in alaska and building our folk

00:12:11.860 up there and as part of that what year was this if you don't mind me asking

00:12:18.580 again we were trying to run it down in our records like when it got

00:12:21.940 announced i know i was a folk builder um before i had gone to my first national afa event my first

00:12:29.620 national afa event was in 2010. so sometime before that i want to say i feel like it was 2008 or

00:12:39.940 earlier but somewhere around in there and so uh yeah i was trying to do what i could locally and

00:12:47.220 organize the the folks that i could alaska's kind of spread out and it's yes not a very population

00:12:53.300 dense area so took a while to get that going but it snowballed into into a really nice group up

00:13:00.100 there uh by the time that i that i moved out but one of the things during that time i became aware

00:13:08.580 of at the time the afa had just one big national gathering a year yeah and that was in northern

00:13:15.380 california um it was being done at uh sons of norway camp uh up there in in the redwoods and

00:13:30.020 it was midsummer in the sierras and i i should have gone in 2009 i saw the kind of slideshow

00:13:37.940 thing of the event and i was kicking myself and i knew i had to go so i went in 2010.

00:13:42.740 yeah i just fell in love with it it was the first time that you know i was around a you know a

00:13:50.180 substantial group of people i don't know how many people were there that year but i want to say 70

00:13:55.460 or 80 and yeah they were all they were all us they were all our folk they were all also true

00:14:04.100 they were all there practicing this that i felt so lonely and doing for so long and man i i

00:14:11.140 completely fell in love with it and i tried to make uh my way to every national event i could

00:14:15.620 from that point going forward and that uh i realized that i was spending you know most of

00:14:24.900 my year i was spending 360 days trying to arrange my life so that i could have those five days

00:14:32.900 living the way we want to live and so i tried to change that restructure and and make the afa when

00:14:39.940 i'm what i'm centering my life around and so that uh led to relationships with other folk builders

00:14:47.060 and other uh leadership and gradually it kind of worked my way up um the guy who was the folk

00:14:55.220 builder coordinator which was a position we had at the time he uh he saw something in me and i

00:15:02.580 became the assistant folk builder coordinator um when he became ordained and moved up in in the

00:15:11.860 organization as a gothi i took his spot as the folk builder coordinator and then you know as he

00:15:19.140 moved up further i i kind of followed in his wake there for a little bit um i got ordained in 2012

00:15:26.980 and became a gothi and uh yeah at that time i was on the the board of directors in 2012 and yeah so i

00:15:40.500 you rose quickly through the ranks definitely well i i did i was very fortunate that way

00:15:47.060 you know it it was a lot of work but i think it was a lot of a lot of just commitment and

00:15:53.060 loving what i was doing and loving our ass true folk assembly yeah and then when uh steve mcnallen

00:16:00.020 our uh our founder in the first house here you go if he decided to step down in uh early 2016 um

00:16:10.100 i got uh i got elevated to take that spot and i got um installed as all share your gothy at

00:16:18.900 midsummer at midsummer in the sierras which by that time we had our own hoff at odin's hoff

00:16:24.660 yeah um the same event that that i went two years ago that i just fell in love with it i got made

00:16:30.980 i'll tell you go the uh six years after that first event man that's awesome so yeah it was a lot of

00:16:39.140 commitment a lot of work i bet that is a very powerful feeling being around so like the first

00:16:44.900 time you mentioned when you had went to the uh first uh gathering there in uh 2010 how you said

00:16:52.580 there was 70 80 people there that i bet that was a very powerful feeling you know i've i've met

00:16:59.620 several people since i started this channel a few years ago but i've never had a large group together

00:17:07.060 you know and i feel a special you know it's just a special connection whenever you meet someone new

00:17:13.300 that thinks like you that your heart is in the same place so i couldn't imagine you know having

00:17:19.940 70 80 other 80 other people you know no it was it was amazing and and one of the things that i

00:17:28.420 will always remember that stood out to me is we were i think we're eating breakfast one morning

00:17:34.260 we're all in this you know big chow hall eating breakfast and there was some culturally diverse

00:17:41.860 question and so instinctively i'm used to being in a place that with that many people in a room

00:17:49.780 there's you know it is uh enriched with some kind of diversity so i looked around to find

00:17:57.140 you know the closest mexican guy we could ask this question and it occurred to me like no

00:18:02.340 wait this is all us yeah and that realization oh wow this is just my folk this is just my people

00:18:11.860 was, I mean, it's something so simple, but it was, it will always stand out to me. And it was

00:18:19.540 really nice. Um, the biggest, uh, biggest gathering we've had so far was mid summer of last year at,

00:18:26.720 uh, 154 people in attendance. So yeah, it was amazing. That's quite the crowd.

00:18:35.140 Absolutely amazing.

00:18:38.120 That's impressive. Awesome. Let's see. Let me pull up the next question here.

00:18:45.140 Now I wanted to go into the section talking about the Asatrub doctrine and beliefs.

00:18:51.720 This is where we get into the metaphysical, the theological part of the interview.

00:18:58.240 What are the basic tenets of your organization's worldview?

00:19:04.240 Like I mentioned earlier, Varg Vicarinus is how I got drawn into this.

00:19:10.640 Before that, I was under, I mean, I was just a normie, basically.

00:19:15.580 Maybe a conservative.

00:19:16.340 You could have maybe called me a conservative or something like that.

00:19:19.440 But, you know, I didn't know that there was actually really such a thriving sort of community.

00:19:27.080 And that's what I kind of seen with Varg's videos.

00:19:29.440 But over time, I've learned that there are so many different interpretations.

00:19:35.540 There is the folkish interpretation, which is more aligned with our views, you know, but there's even differences and caveats within this.

00:19:45.700 You know, Varg, some people would call him a sort of atheistic type pagan.

00:19:50.780 Some people are interested. Some people believe, you know, that gods are physical beings and things of that nature.

00:19:58.220 That's basically what I'm just trying to ask here.

00:20:02.720 Let me see. Let me pull that question back up.

00:20:07.620 I guess this will be part, this question is kind of redundant, but I just want to say,

00:20:11.880 say, do you believe that the gods and goddesses are real in the physical sense that they are metaphors of archetypes from our people's history or forces of nature, our ancestors, or a combination of all the above?

00:20:25.540 so first and unequivocally our gods are absolutely real they are absolutely conscious

00:20:36.100 they hear us when we reach out to them they share in the gift cycle with us

00:20:42.480 I believe that with a hundred percent of my heart I know that that is true

00:20:47.260 um what shape that forms it's it's odd because when you say physical certainly they could

00:20:54.480 manifest themselves physically if they choose to yeah but i think it's it's beyond that and i think

00:21:03.600 physicality i guess lowers them in a way to to our existence our plane of existence you could say

00:21:11.520 yeah and so certainly they they could manifest themselves physically but they're absolutely real

00:21:16.800 and individual they're not concepts they're not personifications of natural forces they're not

00:21:23.920 archetypical forces i mean they do serve as archetypes in the sense that

00:21:31.520 they are the source of our consciousness and our most primal examples

00:21:38.240 they are archetypes in the same sense that you know your father your grandfather is

00:21:43.360 an archetype of how to be a man um but that said i do believe that there are most ancient

00:21:50.000 ancestors and that they are connected to us fundamentally through our through our very blood

00:21:55.440 and dna so in that way i do believe they are our most ancient ancestors in the fact that they gave

00:22:01.280 us life but they're not you know they're not deified humans they're gods yeah i understand

00:22:09.920 i appreciate that answer um let me see here let me see what i got next um is your organization

00:22:19.520 like what what do y'all believe in reincarnation or what are your thoughts about the afterlife i

00:22:27.520 guess you could say so when you want to ask about reincarnation i think that's where

00:22:34.400 it really depends on what you mean by the by the word we believe that there are

00:22:38.720 we have we as arian people have a multiple part soul yes and parts of our soul absolutely do

00:22:48.820 reincarnate down down the line with our family or if people are through their naming practices

00:22:55.820 or whatever else so pieces of that do reincarnate in a way but fundamentally we don't you know the

00:23:04.160 one for one reincarnation like aha i was so and so in a former life not so much not that that's

00:23:10.560 not possible certainly if the gods will to make that happen i believe they can but i don't think

00:23:16.080 that's how it typically works um we believe very much in the idea that we go to our ancestors when

00:23:26.640 we pass whether we stay there or not that's a different question but initially we go to our

00:23:34.880 ancestors and they are gatekeepers in a way of our afterlife they can accept us and share you

00:23:44.640 know share their halls with us we spend time with them and commune with our ancestors yeah

00:23:51.120 I think for folks that are particularly heinous or judged to be unwanted by their ancestors and by the gods, if someone is that bad, our lore talks about the dissolution of that person's soul and basically recycling that person that is so awful that that's the situation.

00:24:20.160 But I think that's rare. The other thing that's also rare is the idea of ascension, the idea of us moving closer to the gods in the afterlife.

00:24:30.740 And that doesn't mean that we become gods, but the idea of sitting in the halls of the gods, of communing with the gods, of being something more than we were in life.

00:24:40.800 I think that's something that happens to heroes and people who the gods judge worthy of ascension, of becoming more.

00:24:49.560 That's a good answer. That's interesting. Honestly, I could talk about some of this stuff. I could listen to you talk about this stuff all day. Let's see. The next question I have here. Okay. Going back into your past a little bit, what were the origins of your beliefs?

00:25:08.360 well so growing up my family wasn't very religious um i think that we were nominally

00:25:20.080 protestant christians of some stripe but my pa neither of my parents were were particularly

00:25:26.820 church going so i guess i was raised with a christian i guess uh worldview in a very broad

00:25:38.120 sense but without any specifics and i always wanted more than that i wanted

00:25:45.400 i had a spiritual need i was a very spiritual person and that that wasn't fulfilled um when i

00:25:52.520 got into my later teens i spent time with uh with my aunt and my cousins and they were jehovah's

00:25:58.280 witnesses yes they were really active they were you know experts on their bibles because they 0.81

00:26:05.880 you know i will give jehovah's witnesses that they're very good at stripping down christianity 0.59

00:26:13.560 to its biblical roots and removing all of the um pagan traditions that have been co-opted

00:26:20.680 by christianity in medieval europe yeah so it made it very very clear to me that contrast

00:26:29.560 and i tried i tried hard i read my bible three plus times all the way through i thought you

00:26:36.280 know maybe if i wasn't getting it if if this uh you know perfect god says this and i don't

00:26:44.760 understand then it must be me so there must be something i'm not getting and i figured out

00:26:51.640 when i was about 18 that no i i don't think it is me um the god of of of the bible is not

00:27:01.720 good but i didn't know there was another option so at this point i was still of the mindset that

00:27:07.720 this is the god of the universe and it was terrifying but i decided that i didn't want

00:27:16.040 to be a hypocrite and that that god was a bad person and therefore i didn't want any part of

00:27:25.480 being on that team and that was really scary because i didn't you know it's not like i left 0.78

00:27:29.960 to jump to something else i just realized that everything you know everything that a young man

00:27:37.320 wants to do in life is sinful according to that conception of the world and that's not

00:27:43.800 not any part of so I left and I didn't know what to do but I still felt the need for spirituality

00:27:52.400 and I looked and you know I man what did my folk have before because I realized that you know the

00:27:59.300 Bible takes place in in the Middle East and is about Jewish people well what did what did my

00:28:05.120 people have yeah you know I know about history and I knew vaguely but I wanted to dive deeper

00:28:10.640 and how does that work how did we worship how did we do these things and in doing that i started

00:28:19.920 you know becoming aussitrew before i knew what that was um i was at one point when i was

00:28:27.840 that faith had been awakened in me and i wanted to worship our gods i was looking and googling

00:28:34.240 online about you know i i thought i was going to get historical sources but i came upon uh the

00:28:41.360 austral folk assembly and this guy stephen mcnallen and i saw wow there's there's real people in you

00:28:50.240 know whatever it was at the time 2001 2002 that are that are doing this it's not just me there's

00:28:57.120 other people doing this and i was hooked at that moment and yeah that's when i came home and and

00:29:03.200 And I've been here ever since.

00:29:05.760 It's an interesting story.

00:29:07.300 That kind of your story is a little bit similar to mine regarding Christianity.

00:29:13.140 I was raised Presbyterian myself.

00:29:15.980 My family, we weren't overly religious or anything.

00:29:19.120 We'd go to church some Sundays.

00:29:20.680 But, you know, even as a child, I remember reading the Bible.

00:29:24.880 Now, I have never read the Bible all the way through.

00:29:27.740 I think I've only sat down and read maybe the first six books of the Old Testament.

00:29:33.200 bits and pieces of the Old Testament and the gospel and Romans. But, you know, what you said

00:29:41.580 right there just struck with me, you know, that a lot of the things that you want to do as a young

00:29:47.020 man is, you know, it's kind of frowned upon if you follow the doctrine. So anyways, let's see,

00:29:55.600 I'll jump back to the list of questions here.

00:30:01.700 Okay, well, you touched on this in the last answer, but do y'all have, do y'all ever make attempts to reach out as sort of like pro-white Christians?

00:30:12.660 Have you ever done anything like that?

00:30:14.280 because I think here in America, you know, everybody, well, maybe not everybody, but

00:30:19.740 the majority of our folk, you know, they start out with some denomination of Protestantism

00:30:25.960 oftentimes. You know, there's some Catholics and there's some Orthodox in there as well.

00:30:31.120 Do y'all have any sort of way of reaching out to these, what you could say, pro-white Christians?

00:30:37.540 um no not overtly but i think that's a demographic that we'd certainly like to reach 0.58

00:30:47.380 the trouble is them getting together as a group is about their christianity and you know it's

00:30:53.140 not like we can call up local local christian churches and want to come there and talk about

00:30:58.100 also true yeah so it's um it's not like we have a very proactive outreach that way but we do have

00:31:07.860 overlap with a lot of uh a lot of people who share our world view but happen to find themselves

00:31:15.460 christian at the time and we talk with a lot of those people and we do end up getting quite

00:31:19.220 a bit of those people to come home to also true uh most of that's done through private

00:31:26.340 conversations between individuals where our circles overlap in the world i see what you're

00:31:33.940 saying yeah definitely okay let me jump to the next question here uh this is a personal one of

00:31:42.740 mine who is your favorite philosopher would you say so this one is tricky because i

00:31:53.380 I, when I look at historical persons to emulate or to learn from, I like active people more

00:32:05.160 than I like contemplative folks.

00:32:08.000 I see what you're saying.

00:32:08.700 A lot of the people that truly inspire me are, wouldn't be described, I don't think,

00:32:14.680 as a philosopher.

00:32:15.860 But as far as people who would describe themselves as philosophers that I like, certainly my

00:32:21.420 my favorite is uh julius evola um i've read everything that he's written that's been

00:32:29.340 translated into english certainly everything that i can find and uh what did you think about

00:32:35.180 rod the tiger i'm actually i'm actually uh reading it right at this second so i made them as a tiger

00:32:43.580 so it's a tale of two uh two adventures on that the first one mistakenly that was my first evola

00:32:49.980 book I tried to read and I wasn't ready for it. Yeah, I wasn't ready for it. I wasn't familiar

00:32:54.540 with, you know, his, his worldview, his phrases. There's a lot of terms and things he repeats very

00:33:01.400 often. And I wouldn't recommend that as the first Evela book anybody reads. So I got lost. I put it

00:33:08.400 down. I didn't pick it back up again for a few years. When I read it the second time, I thought

00:33:12.780 it was great, but that's because I'd, uh, I'd had a pretty solid background in Evela's other works

00:33:19.700 before i got there yeah i think that's a mistake that i'm currently making myself because it's i

00:33:26.020 don't know maybe i'm just not smart enough to understand it you know i got there was uh

00:33:31.860 there was an internet group at one time elders of the black sun and they had uh like a flow chart of

00:33:40.740 what order that they suggested you read evola's works and then all of them laid out on this map

00:33:47.620 and this flow chart on how to do it and a friend of mine and i we both got into it at that point

00:33:52.900 decided we wanted to do that and we started there and that really helped me a lot i was really happy

00:33:58.340 i did that i think it took took me about two two and a half years or so to get all the way through

00:34:05.140 it but uh i thought that was a lot of fun and i learned a lot that way that's awesome that's

00:34:11.540 awesome um let's see next question i've got here for you um tell us about your favorite bloat

00:34:20.500 and the role of ritual in your organization

00:34:29.780 so i have been really really fortunate to have been in a lot of really amazing bloats

00:34:38.180 um i've been able to lead some bloats that are tremendously powerful to me and i think

00:34:44.500 really special things were accomplished during them but my favorite bloat that i was ever a part

00:34:50.260 of wasn't one of mine it was um githya pat hall did a de sear bloat at winter nights and for

00:35:01.300 those who are not familiar the desir are our uh our ascended female ancestors that look on

00:35:08.660 from beyond the veil and take care of us and uh look after us in the afterlife and they look on

00:35:16.740 to us and the afa celebrates at winter nights which is basically you know our halloween if you

00:35:25.700 will yeah because that time is the closest where the veil is the thinnest between the worlds and

00:35:31.620 our ancestors particularly the dc at that time are closer and more viscerally able to interact

00:35:41.220 with us then than at other times in the year so uh we do this dc or bloat and uh what was it

00:35:49.380 uh 20 i want to say 2016. i want to say 20 could be off could be 2017 but i want to say 2016.

00:35:58.580 and um anyways she was doing this desire blow and as part of it she had us call out the name

00:36:08.020 of one of our female ancestors and invite them to be in the circle with us and uh

00:36:14.340 And so she went around the circle doing this, and I did.

00:36:20.840 I called on my grandma, Marianne Davis, my mother's mother.

00:36:26.520 And she has closed her eyes, and as she went around the circle to ask that ancestor to be there with us,

00:36:37.440 And I so at that moment, I because my eyes were closed and so everything other than visual, I felt my grandma give me a hug.

00:36:50.440 I remember she passed in 2001, I believe, and this was, you know, 15 years later.

00:37:00.500 But I remember how tall she stood and, you know, where her head was.

00:37:05.200 lost

00:37:35.200 hey can you hear me now yeah sorry about that i don't know what happened there i have no idea

00:37:47.500 what happened either i've actually never i never have had that happen i don't know what just

00:37:53.820 happened all right boomer technical difficulties i don't know it just said it uh my internet

00:38:00.520 connection was working but it's like oh disconnected but i don't know but anyways uh continue on did

00:38:07.640 you finish where where where was i at you were talking about the bloat you had well so the name

00:38:14.840 pat um gifia pat hall went around and she had us close our eyes and ask for our female

00:38:21.880 ancestor to be with us and again my eyes were closed but you know i remember my grandmother

00:38:29.640 she passed in 2001 and uh i remember how tall she was you know where her head was on my chest

00:38:40.120 and it was like she it wasn't like my grandmother gave me a hug in that circle um

00:38:47.800 i could smell her old lady hair product i could feel you know what it felt like the last time i

00:38:55.480 gave her a hug and uh it was the most visceral experience that i've ever had in my life that way

00:39:04.520 and uh and it wasn't just me but it was it was very profound to me but a whole bunch of other

00:39:14.040 grown men left that circle crying like little kids that night because it touched them so deeply

00:39:21.080 um i i feel really silly every single time i've talked about that i tear up

00:39:28.760 and i really can't help it it's the connection was so very real and so very visceral

00:39:38.120 that it bypasses everything else in your brain and goes right to your soul and it was

00:39:45.480 that was my favorite ritual i've ever been in that's a deep spiritual experience sounds like

00:39:54.200 very deep it really was she uh that she was amazing that bloat was was by far my favorite

00:40:02.520 but i remember your question was a two-parter and that was the first part but i don't remember what

00:40:06.600 the second part was uh what is the role of ritual in your organization it seems to be a very important

00:40:14.200 sort of uh like bloats are very important to your organization well it it is so ritual is that point

00:40:23.640 of connection between our gods and our folk and as priests as gothar it's our job to facilitate

00:40:35.400 that connection through ritual and as well as many other things but a fundamental to our job

00:40:41.560 is providing that connection through ritual um but also in in a big concept to all of our rituals

00:40:52.600 is the idea of the gift cycle is sharing

00:41:00.680 of ourself with our gods and our gods sharing their blessings with us so that's the fundamental

00:41:09.400 of any bloat is that idea of us offering up our loyalty our love our worship our gifts to the gods

00:41:19.080 and then asking them to bestow their blessings upon us and receiving those blessings

00:41:29.640 we do similar things but the idea of community sharing like that we do similar things with our

00:41:37.000 feasting and our sambal tradition as well but all of our ritual goes back to that gifting cycle

00:41:44.280 interesting i had never heard of this gifting cycle that's that's interesting

00:41:49.720 very interesting um anyways i just want to say again to everybody in the chat i want to thank

00:41:55.880 y'all for stopping by i've not been able to pay as much attention to you guys as i normally do

00:42:02.040 and i apologize for that but uh the last question that i have is would you ever consider working

00:42:11.160 with pagans of our folk from other groups such as the odinic right the noriana society wolves of

00:42:17.960 vendland or others are you open to working with them or well it really depends what that means um

00:42:33.000 so let me let me phrase it like this i was just curious i had someone asked me this actually in

00:42:38.040 the appalachian also true chat they said would y'all ever consider recognizing perhaps gothy

00:42:43.960 from these other organizations or is it pretty much just in-house i guess you could say well

00:42:52.920 it's a it's a big difference of scale and i've always said this um there was a time

00:42:58.840 There was a time when we did more of that and there was a time where the AFA, okay, for example, you mentioned the Odinic right. In, I want to say like 1999, there was the International Ausatru Odinic Alliance, which was basically a cooperating between the Ausatru Alliance, the Ausatru Folk Assembly,

00:43:28.840 and the odinic right. And at that time, there was, you know, some sort of similarity in membership.

00:43:34.660 That's really changed. Most of the other organizations that were

00:43:40.540 a big deal at one point have diminished very greatly.

00:43:50.600 It would depend on what working with them looks like. What, quite honestly, I think is much more

00:43:56.820 efficient and much better for us to do is those much smaller groups join the afa and we can all

00:44:03.700 move forward under the afa's banner then uh diffusing our energy with one group that's got

00:44:15.060 a thousand members and other groups that have 20 um and that's the number that was was said to me

00:44:22.740 about the uh from mark perrier of the norena societies there's about 20 people that are an

00:44:27.700 active part of that i don't really think that's you know working together i think the way of

00:44:34.500 working together is the other folks who want to practice house a true getting on the team joining

00:44:40.980 the afa and we can all move forward that way and as far as that's concerned there's there's some

00:44:46.260 people certainly elders uh that have been around a very long time that we would very much consider

00:44:52.260 recognizing their statuses as gothar but most of those are from uh from steve's generation

00:45:00.420 and from that foundational generation of house of true as it is now um as it is now in the world

00:45:08.580 uh i mentioned earlier i don't feel that we are we are a church of the as icr i think that we are

00:45:14.820 the church of the icr i think they've given us their blessings and i would encourage other smaller

00:45:21.300 groups of aussitur to join us and we can be stronger because of it and move forward united

00:45:29.380 interesting interesting um let's see i think that is my final question i had regarding the

00:45:39.780 spirituality uh the i guess you could say theological component um now i want to talk

00:45:47.300 a little bit about the history of the afa and perhaps some of your operations okay um i may

00:45:54.980 have asked you this earlier and if i did i apologize but the question i have is when did

00:45:59.460 you first meet stephen mcnallum i met him at that first midsummer i went to in 2010 i tried to okay

00:46:06.820 i actually got there a day early because i wanted to make sure i was there to help set up so i got

00:46:12.180 to spend a little time with him before the event officially started yeah

00:46:20.340 interesting yeah i'm sorry i'd already asked that i remember from earlier but um let's see

00:46:25.060 there's a quick question i've seen from the chat uh this is kind of kind of off topic but i'll go

00:46:29.780 ahead and ask it uh destination travel asked what do you know about the aura linda book do you know

00:46:36.180 much about that so less than i should it's something that i've tried to look into and

00:46:46.500 i think i'd be a liar if i told you i was an expert on it but i i have i have looked into

00:46:53.140 it and i've looked into the story of you know how it how it came to be in its modern form

00:46:58.020 how it was i guess discovered or rediscovered um i'm familiar with it but you know i'm certainly

00:47:04.740 no expert on it yeah i'm not i'm not either to be honest i remember i think it was a year or two

00:47:10.820 ago i watched a video by uh asha logos uh he had made a video a pretty informative video talking

00:47:17.460 about the aura linda i'd like to look back into it myself um the next question if stephen is

00:47:25.300 considered the father of the afa what would you consider yourself so

00:47:34.740 I wouldn't. I'm the, I'm the also of the Astro Folk Assembly. Beyond that,

00:47:43.460 I think that's up to, up to others on what they would consider me. I mean, Steve

00:47:50.740 didn't bestow that upon himself. That's what we all look to him as,

00:47:54.980 because we recognize that contribution that he's made over the years.

00:47:59.460 um my my peers and in history i think will judge me um with whatever they'd like to call me

00:48:08.500 hopefully hopefully it's something positive it should be let's see

00:48:14.500 um next question what would you define the mission of the afa as

00:48:19.300 so i could get fancy but i think that the best way to do that is our declaration of purpose

00:48:29.380 and this is fundamental fundamentally our mission and i think that the first one is

00:48:34.420 the most our mission there's nine planks here so the first one is our mission is

00:48:41.700 or our purpose is the practice promotion development and dissemination of the religion of

00:48:47.300 of Alcetree. Second one is the preservation of the ethnic European folk and their continued

00:48:54.740 evolution. Third, issuing a call to all our brothers and sisters of the ethnic European

00:49:01.700 folk to return to this, their native religion and way of life. Four, the restoration of 0.62

00:49:08.180 community, the banishment of alienation and the establishment of natural and just relations

00:49:14.580 among our folk point five the promotion of true diversity among the peoples and cultures of the

00:49:22.580 earth six the fostering in our people of a deep sense of responsibility and self-reliance and

00:49:30.900 seven the use of science and technology for the well-being of our people

00:49:35.460 while protecting and working in harmony with the natural environment in which we live

00:49:39.140 Eight, the exploration of the universe in keeping with the Faustian instinct of our kind.

00:49:46.300 And nine, the affirmation of the struggle of life, welcoming the challenge of that struggle and living life wholly and with joy and facing eternity with courage.

00:49:58.800 All right. That was a fine answer there.

00:50:04.360 Let's see.

00:50:05.960 okay the next question did you get your wife to join also true or did she already

00:50:11.400 align spiritually with also true beforehand yeah i was very fortunate with that um my wife was

00:50:23.320 i was gonna say she may even be an afa member slightly longer than i was if not about the

00:50:30.840 same amount of time i met her in 2014 at winter nights in the poconos which is our big east coast

00:50:39.800 event at the time and yeah i was coming in from alaska and she was coming in from florida

00:50:45.800 and we had mutual friends in the afa that kind of introduced us and uh two months later moved

00:50:52.440 down to florida and uh started pursuing her and made her my wife and now we have a beautiful

00:51:00.600 baby daughter that's three well that's awesome you know y'all came from opposite ends of the

00:51:05.560 continent that's uh that's that's pretty cool let's see um next question here uh what all has

00:51:15.560 the afa accomplished today with the various hoffs at this moment you have what is there

00:51:21.480 four hoffs currently currently four hoffs yeah um

00:51:30.360 i suppose that's a big question what all that is a broad one so one of the

00:51:36.200 one of the things that is very special about the time that we live in is

00:51:44.120 we're able to be that generation that gives hoffs to our gods again our gods have been without

00:51:51.480 places of worship for a thousand plus years in some cases. And we get to be part of that

00:52:02.540 generation. I've commented on this. My daughter, who's three, she will never know a world that

00:52:09.000 didn't have Hoffs to our gods. And that's a huge accomplishment, I think, with the establishment

00:52:18.600 of Hoffs. And I think we're able to repair the distance between our folk and our gods in a really

00:52:26.260 special way by re-establishing Hoffs to them. I think that our relationship with Odin, with Thor,

00:52:35.440 with Balder, and with Njordr is much better today than it was because we've been able to give them 0.99

00:52:42.580 hoffs in this world and have their folk gather and do bloat to them in their own house of worship

00:52:49.780 and like i said that hasn't that hasn't happened in over a thousand years yeah that's you know i

00:52:56.980 find it pretty impressive what y'all have done um didn't y'all just uh open yours off it's located

00:53:03.940 in florida isn't it yeah it's located in white springs florida and we uh dedicated that in august

00:53:10.820 of last year. Yeah, it's just, I think I'd read, it's just about a

00:53:14.820 mile or so from the Sewanee River. Is that correct?

00:53:21.100 Did, the idea of

00:53:22.820 putting Yordshoff in Florida, did that have a sort of geographical

00:53:26.620 barrier since Florida is a peninsula?

00:53:31.400 Well, yeah, we were, excuse me, I'm sorry, I've been

00:53:34.800 sick just kind of getting over it. Oh, you're okay.

00:53:37.500 we're uh we're very committed so to backtrack a little bit with our hoff adventure we could

00:53:45.740 have put the first three hoffs in a lot of different locations but it was really important

00:53:51.660 to us for njord's hoff that we put his hoff near the water so putting it in a coastal state was

00:53:58.620 really important that narrowed it down and we had to look you know where did we have a thriving

00:54:04.060 population of members that could take care of it where did we have leaders that were dedicated to

00:54:09.660 be there to perform services and then you know where are we able to find property at a reasonable

00:54:16.220 price that we could do and uh you know we've looked at a couple of options i think we were looking at

00:54:26.380 so i think in the broadest terms we're looking at possibly

00:54:29.500 somewhere like massachusetts in new england washington on the coastal side of the mountains

00:54:38.980 there the gulf coast in texas or somewhere in florida yeah and we whittled that down to you

00:54:48.660 know gulf coast either in texas or in florida and then whittled it down even further to florida which

00:54:55.280 is our, our state with the second highest membership. So it was a, it was a good choice

00:55:00.920 for us. Interesting. Interesting. Let's see. Next question. I wanted to talk a little bit about

00:55:10.160 the hierarchy of the AFA. And from my limited understanding, it is the members and then the

00:55:18.040 folk builders, the Witten, the Gothi, or Githia. And what is a process that each rank must satisfy?

00:55:28.940 Like, go ahead. Okay. So the first, the first step in leadership is being an apprentice folk

00:55:39.360 builder. And that apprenticeship period is a time where we can kind of train people up in what all

00:55:53.860 that job entails. There's a lot of back-end stuff, a lot of technical things, a lot of

00:55:59.600 social media stuff, ability to, you know, teaching people how to get folks together and host

00:56:05.920 host events and share those and a lot of nuts and bolts things yeah but things that are very

00:56:12.820 important to the AFA functioning like it does and that's a period of time where we get to

00:56:19.640 feel out if that person is doing doing the job that we expect in the way that we need them to

00:56:25.360 and also for them to feel out you know is this something they really want to do do they

00:56:29.080 feel comfortable with things and how they're working is this something they want to pursue

00:56:33.020 further. And if we want them to advance, and they want to advance, then they take their

00:56:39.400 oath and become a folk builder. So our folk builders then get the opportunity to be invited

00:56:49.680 to take our Gothar program to become ordained as a Gothi or a Githia.

00:56:57.280 How long is that process usually? Because I would imagine there's a lot of instruction

00:57:01.700 and the sort of education that comes with it?

00:57:03.940 So there is.

00:57:05.180 We have, so ideally, if we spot that that's someplace they want to go,

00:57:13.240 that's someplace we want them to be, as folk builders,

00:57:16.720 we have some preparatory training we do before they're in the Gothar program

00:57:22.180 itself to prepare them, to get them really solid in the fundamentals

00:57:27.420 of where they need to be to be into the Gothar program.

00:57:30.820 and you know there's no there's no time frame on that for sure once they're in the program itself

00:57:39.900 the program is typically between one and two years of instruction and on the job training

00:57:47.360 as it were to become a gothi when they're ordained their job is not just the things you would think

00:57:56.600 of as as a priest job as far as ritual but also the management of the folk builders underneath

00:58:03.880 them and it's one of the things it was very important to us that uh our gofar have to come

00:58:10.920 up through the ranks and do some of the more mundane nuts and bolts things do a lot of the

00:58:17.320 hard work that's often thankless that they do that and they show their commitment to that before they

00:58:24.280 get to perform the rituals and do the the more high church function of that but also with being

00:58:30.600 a gothi you know there's certainly all of the rituals there's the management of the folk builders

00:58:36.760 there's the running of the afa but i'd say the biggest thing our gothar do is counseling

00:58:44.040 and working with our members when they're going through the various struggles in their

00:58:48.440 lives and providing that counseling that's a huge thing our gothar do um the next step up from the

00:58:56.520 gothar is the witten and that's a limited number of people uh right now it's uh five individuals

00:59:05.240 and they are they're all ordained gothar but it's witten they're in charge of the running of the afa

00:59:12.840 and of their advisors to me yeah we meet uh the witten and myself we meet uh virtually every two

00:59:23.400 weeks or twice a month sometimes it works out different on the weeks but twice a month yeah

00:59:28.920 and uh and we discuss you know all of the things pertaining to the afa be them you know theological

00:59:36.680 be them you know administrative whatever else and we basically plan you know how we're how we're

00:59:43.400 doing things how we conduct stuff and what we're doing going forward and they advise me and then

00:59:48.520 as the alzharia go the uh the the final call on things rests with me the responsibility rests with

00:59:55.800 me and uh yeah that's our uh that's our hierarchy nice nice um let's see

01:00:06.680 The next question. You run a podcast called Victory Never Sleeps.

01:00:12.880 Do you have a certain process for selecting topics and choosing guests?

01:00:20.620 Sort of. So this actually coming up really soon, I'm going to have to check on that.

01:00:27.040 We are just about one year exactly into the weekly Victory Never Sleeps YouTube live podcast deal.

01:00:35.980 it depends i mean we think up topics that we think people'd like to hear about

01:00:43.960 honestly the show kind of starts out with the topic to get the ball rolling but most of it

01:00:50.720 is a question and answer run program yeah it depends every other week i have uh witness

01:01:00.040 von harrell on there to talk about lore or a particularly deep um spiritual subject

01:01:07.800 because he is he's got a lot of expertise a lot of knowledge to share and he's got a special gift

01:01:13.960 for that so we bring him on and uh you know he's he's my he's my guest host about 50 of the time

01:01:21.880 um the other we alternate you know we try to get exposure for different gothar and different folk

01:01:28.200 builders um right now we're in the midst of doing a series of also true heroes we have you know a

01:01:36.280 number of also true heroes that we honor with days of remembrance and we're trying to do a little

01:01:43.160 biographical information on those help our people get to know a little bit about our heroes so yeah

01:01:50.280 we're in the middle of that series right now i'm not sure exactly what we're going to do next but

01:01:55.240 But it's important to me to try to get get people the opportunity to get to know some of our folk builders and go far because they do a lot of work for us.

01:02:05.340 And I don't think they get the exposure that that they deserve.

01:02:09.620 Yeah, I understand what you're saying. You've got to venerate those who came before you and have, you know, laid the groundwork for what you're building on.

01:02:19.380 Absolutely. I actually see a question here from my friend Hans.

01:02:23.780 hey how you doing hans uh he's got a question how let me post it here how do the locals near

01:02:31.460 these established locations or the hops respond to the afa anything notable ah yes absolutely um

01:02:44.420 so one thing that's really important with all our hops and this goes into what you're saying

01:02:49.940 In, I want to say 2017, maybe even 2018, we started running a food pantry out of Odin's

01:03:06.340 Hove. And we would have, initially it was with the food bank. We do it independently now,

01:03:15.560 but it originally was in conjunction with the food bank there in Yuba County.

01:03:20.000 And we would, you know, once a month,

01:03:22.580 we'd go out there and distribute food to folks that, that, you know,

01:03:27.820 down on their luck needed something to eat. So we would,

01:03:30.320 we would do that food pantry and that started and we've been committed ever

01:03:35.100 since then every single month, we've done that at Odin's Hoff.

01:03:39.000 And it's been essential to us that we start that at each of our Hoffs when we

01:03:43.780 open them so we have monthly food pantries at each of our four hoffs every single month and it

01:03:52.740 has been a really special way to show our face to the community and to be neighbors one of our

01:03:58.580 values is being good neighbors and being noble people and part of it is you know helping folks

01:04:05.940 out and being good to your community. That has been huge in the locals. And again, it's not

01:04:15.300 monolithic. I want to say the locals love us and they do. I'm sure there's some people in each of

01:04:20.780 these communities that are grumpy and don't like us. But overwhelmingly, we've gotten really good

01:04:27.380 responses from people who are actually our neighbors. At more than one of our hops this year,

01:04:35.940 people have donated uh natural gas to us for heating and whatever else um like they had a

01:04:43.700 credit and have given it to us just anonymously to say thank you yeah we have folks come by at

01:04:50.420 odenshoff and make us cookies and whatever for the food pantry sometimes a whole lot of people

01:04:55.940 are very appreciative of that and we've got really good relations there that's in brownsville california

01:05:02.500 yeah the media made a real big stink around baldursoff because we had to

01:05:10.340 so for anybody who doesn't know the story about baldursoff in murdoch minnesota we had we had

01:05:15.860 purchased a former um i want to say a former lutheran church there yes um i remember reading

01:05:24.500 about today but in between when it was a lutheran church and when we got it some um

01:05:31.780 overly ambitious folks decided they wanted to buy it rezone it as residential and remodel it and

01:05:38.100 they didn't get very far with it but they got the zoning messed up so we had to get the zoning back

01:05:42.820 right and that brought um some negative attention in uh left-wing circles and there was you know

01:05:53.220 there was this online outcry and there was actually a group of people there called the

01:06:01.940 murdoch alliance against hate or whatever i've seen this video there was a guy named

01:06:07.700 thorson that voted to approve so that we had this nonsense from largely from literally antifa

01:06:19.380 um and from some some other uh left-wing news outlets as time went on it's been really nice

01:06:30.000 because they beat that drum and it didn't work and it showed a lot of the folks in the community

01:06:35.060 that they were being lied to uh one of the founders of that murdoch alliance against hate

01:06:39.560 since came by and apologized to us and says hey we're great he's glad to have us in the community

01:06:44.820 and he's sorry that he believed the media on it wow that's interesting they made you know so they

01:06:51.300 made this big stink but nobody locally seemed to have a problem we've got you know old folks that

01:06:56.180 come by and wish us well that got married in that building you know 50 years ago and are glad we're

01:07:02.020 doing something nice with it yeah one of the one of the ladies in the city council there comes by

01:07:08.020 Ryan has coffee with Argythea there from time to time.

01:07:13.020 Our neighbors treat us great.

01:07:14.840 We got a little shamrock card in the mailbox on St. Patrick's Day

01:07:19.800 saying that the community is so blessed to have us with them.

01:07:23.380 Well, that's a good sign.

01:07:25.260 I wouldn't doubt a lot of those people that were there protesting it.

01:07:29.460 I mean, I remember seeing in that interview that Thorson guy

01:07:32.960 who I think was part of the town council that voted yes.

01:07:37.760 he had someone from california calling him and harassing him and you know that's that's something

01:07:42.320 that the left does is they mobilize and they you know a lot of and it was funny i did see that

01:07:48.720 interview it said a lot of the locals are upset man these people ain't they ain't locals they're

01:07:53.760 from they're from california so these other places well so we had um a couple of locals first nobody

01:08:03.520 showed up to protest it we had um one group of like five left-wing folks that wanted to

01:08:13.680 claim that they were also true in some way come up there and stand on the front porch and blow

01:08:22.000 a horn really poorly and then they left they just were there for photo op yeah we had the local um

01:08:29.840 um so we had all these threats online and from California and from these other places

01:08:38.420 but the as far as people that actually showed up there was a uh I got this email from a girl

01:08:45.500 and or from at the time some female I didn't know her age and she said you know hey I just

01:08:51.740 want to let you know that I'm going to come and stand in front of your Hoff and protest things

01:08:57.380 but I don't wish you guys any violence or any harm and it's going to be peaceful and whatever.

01:09:02.360 And that's fine. It was nice enough. And I said and she said, me and some people in my class.

01:09:08.580 So I assumed it was some kind of a college class or whatever. No, it turned out it was a high school

01:09:13.580 girl and some people in her high school class. And, you know, I said to let us know if they

01:09:18.460 were getting cold, if they needed to come inside and warm up or if we needed to, you know, get them

01:09:23.180 some get them some coffee or some something and it was again and it was really really just a nice

01:09:29.440 thing um one of uh again they they said that the local hispanic community was was very concerned

01:09:38.960 and and i said who they love the local hispanics there's not a lot up there i would imagine

01:09:45.200 yeah i ran the numbers it's 10 people and i asked who they couldn't tell me and i said oh well

01:09:53.160 you know, I counted on my hands. Those are our neighbor, the neighbors across the street and

01:09:59.560 their kids. Those 10 people are the first 10 people at our food pantry every weekend or not

01:10:06.940 every weekend, but every month. And they don't, they don't seem scared. They seem very, very

01:10:13.080 friendly with us. So no, the news is just making stuff up. What was really a big thing to us there

01:10:19.800 was when churches in other towns nearby were directing their parishioners to come to our food

01:10:26.040 pantry if if folks were hungry and that was really nice every time you go out there i go there for

01:10:32.120 their event once a year and i've had this at a couple of places but specifically at balder's

01:10:36.360 off you know if you show up dressed nice on a saturday to stop by and get you know an energy

01:10:41.080 drink or whatever at a gas station people hey you're are you guys with that church the the

01:10:46.680 the, the, the, the Norse church there. And yeah. And then they'll have something really nice to

01:10:53.880 say. We've made a good impact on every community we've been in so far. And we're very proud of

01:10:58.900 that. We're going to keep doing it. I understand. That's good. That's,

01:11:04.300 it's a positive thing, you know, to have a decent working relationship with a community.

01:11:11.540 Let's see, you had answered, you pretty well answered my question about the charitable efforts.

01:11:16.260 that's something that i myself am uh very interested in uh the next question what is

01:11:22.420 the largest expense of the afa so that one's kind of tricky and i mean okay

01:11:36.820 Okay. The largest expense is the purchasing of our haffs.

01:11:43.060 Yeah.

01:11:45.060 The, you know what, that's a huge experience, the purchase, as far as a single expense,

01:11:56.640 the purchasing of Sigurheim, which is about 70 acres of land that we're, we're building

01:12:03.360 on and doing things on is that was the biggest expense very close behind that was new york's off

01:12:12.080 yeah um but that's as far as like one time one chunk expense as far as upkeep

01:12:19.920 odenshoff is our biggest expense it's in brownsville california and california is a

01:12:24.640 very expensive place yes so i'd say that's our that's our next biggest expense

01:12:30.080 i would imagine so i couldn't imagine living in california i've heard we have a lot of people

01:12:36.940 here in east tennessee moving out i mean they come here from california uh but anyways um

01:12:45.700 let me see what the next question is um

01:12:50.140 what is your favorite festival or event to attend at the hoffs and which one of the hoffs

01:12:57.720 is your personal favorite

01:13:05.480 hmm i imagine that could be a difficult question well well it is so i'm trying to think of what my

01:13:13.240 favorite okay so as opposed to one of our our bigger gatherings my favorite event at any of

01:13:25.560 the hoffs um is yule at odin's off and it's not a big national event but we do get a lot of people

01:13:34.120 there locally but it's it's yule and yule is i mean it's that time of year yeah it's the time

01:13:44.680 of year there's something in the air it's cold we all grew up with those kind of traditions

01:13:49.800 um all of the fun things about christmas are yule traditions of our ancestors that were co-opted

01:13:57.560 um you know except for the major scene or whatever else all the the the tree and the ornaments and

01:14:05.080 the spending time with your folk with with good food and merriment around that holiday season

01:14:11.560 And I love that. And that's really special. Now, my favorite Hoff is.

01:14:22.940 Honestly, I love all of our Hoffs. My favorite, you know, is going to have to be Thor's Hoff in a way, because that was that was the first Hoff we got under my administration.

01:14:39.920 It was a really big thing for me to see that I could be able to do that and help our folk, like lead our folk in that process.

01:14:52.300 There's a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, and I wanted to make sure I didn't make it up or mess it up, make sure I found a spot that was going to be good for our folk, that was going to honor Thor, that he was going to be proud of.

01:15:06.480 And it was a real big thing for me personally when we achieved that.

01:15:12.400 And so Thor's Hoff's my favorite Hoff for personal reasons, I'd say.

01:15:16.620 I understand. I understand.

01:15:19.820 And let's see, I've got just one more question.

01:15:23.140 This is the last question of this section, and then we're going to work our way to wrapping it up.

01:15:29.080 Lastly, have y'all had to deal with bad actors, informants, or infiltrators of various stripes?

01:15:35.600 And, you know, how did the AFA handle these type of situations?

01:15:42.060 Yes, I think anytime you get past a certain number and anytime you are successful, you're going to have some degree of that.

01:15:55.140 I think that, you know, as our founder, Steve McNallan, said, our folk have a soul sickness.

01:16:02.120 And I think that as far as bad actors go, we have a crab in the bucket, moth to a flame psychosis amongst our people that when something starts winning, when we start doing too good, when something starts being too successful, you always have somebody that wants to try to pull it down or fracture it or fragment it from within.

01:16:30.200 And we've had, you know, we've had several rounds of that.

01:16:33.560 And, you know, I think that's bound to happen.

01:16:36.060 And, you know, I've seen it before.

01:16:37.860 And I don't think, you know, I don't think we've seen the last of it.

01:16:41.100 But we push through.

01:16:42.980 We stay true to what we're about.

01:16:44.680 We stay true to our mission.

01:16:47.800 And usually when it's internal like that, that has a way of eliminating elements within

01:16:56.860 in our group that probably weren't healthy to be there to begin with. And we end up coming

01:17:02.620 out stronger on the other side of it. As far as outside folks trying to infiltrate, I would

01:17:11.620 be shocked if that's never happened. I have, you know, a couple of folks have told me that

01:17:21.780 they've been reached out to by by folks to uh inform about us or you know give people information

01:17:29.880 about us paid or unpaid yeah and you know those folks turn them down and let me know i don't know

01:17:37.540 how many others maybe didn't i have nothing i have nothing to say is the only thing that these people

01:17:43.240 need to know. And so here's the thing. One thing that I think is important to consider on that

01:17:53.220 though, we're not up to anything shady. Yeah. And one of the big things you asked how we handled it

01:18:02.120 or how we continuously handle it. We are wide open. We are open. We use our real names. We use

01:18:10.100 our faces. This is what we do. We certainly wouldn't invite infiltration in because that's

01:18:18.160 dishonest and we don't, that's wrong. But if folks were curious about what's going on,

01:18:26.920 we're wide open because we truly don't have anything to hide and we're not up to no good.

01:18:31.600 I think the surest way to get negative attention that is first unwanted and second potentially

01:18:39.800 very, very dangerous is to shut everybody down and be super secretive. When you build big walls

01:18:47.260 and hide behind them, it's very easy for people on the other side to make up in their head what

01:18:52.820 they think you're up to. And we've seen some really, really bad examples of that in my lifetime.

01:19:00.280 So I think the best way to not get Waco-ed is to be transparent. Yeah, be transparent.

01:19:06.620 And it's not a, it's not a trick. It's not a strategy. We're not doing anything wrong. We're the good guys. We're out here doing honorable things that we stand by. And that it may sound cheesy, but openness and truth are our biggest, our biggest supports and our best armor in case anybody would want to infiltrate our organization.

01:19:33.540 i understand definitely um let's see let me pull up i was also going to say uh once again i know

01:19:44.260 i've said it a couple of times i'm sorry i apologize chat that i've not been able to

01:19:48.040 interact with you as much as normal i've got so many things open right now but i did want to say

01:19:52.840 if y'all have any questions think them up for this last section i don't want to keep uh mr

01:19:59.220 flavelle too long um so if you have any questions be thinking on them and we're going to enter the

01:20:05.700 last part of this interview which is the future of the afa um this is a personal question of mine

01:20:14.340 what do you think the future of our people is here in this nation and this continent

01:20:20.980 um and also what will society look like in 10 20 maybe 50 years in your opinion i know i'm just uh

01:20:29.220 i'm just asking you here to pull out the crystal ball what do you think uh what do you think the

01:20:34.180 future is so as far as the big picture of what america looks like in 10 25 50 years

01:20:45.780 i don't know the signs right now are not leading in a great direction

01:20:50.180 what i think what i think people in our circles often

01:20:56.020 either prophesy or fantasize about is some kind of total collapse of things and either

01:21:07.060 fortunately or unfortunately i don't think it's going to work like that i think if we are going

01:21:12.820 to continue to decline as a society i think it's going to be slow and incremental and i think

01:21:21.060 that's that's how that works um i don't think it's gonna you know descend into mad max times

01:21:29.220 i just that's not how these things tend to work yeah but the other thing is i'm not gonna i'm not

01:21:36.580 gonna put that evil on my children i hope it doesn't i hope things get fixed i hope people

01:21:43.060 realize some of the very very detrimental things that the past you know 20 30 years of culture

01:21:49.700 have brought to us and uh you know i hope we turn it around but here's what i can say

01:21:55.700 we're doing everything we can as the afa to build our community and our society to be better

01:22:03.220 it's hard for me to prophesy about what the entire 300 million people in the united states are going

01:22:10.500 to do but our people what we're already doing and we're so proud of this we're about to enter the

01:22:18.180 second year we just finished the first year of our house true academy which is our homeschooling

01:22:23.460 program for for our kids first was kindergarten this year we're going to have kindergarten through

01:22:30.660 third grade able to uh to apply and that's going to keep increasing every year until we have k

01:22:37.380 through 12. um so we are going to take take back control of educating our children of raising them

01:22:45.700 in ways that are healthy and that are good and that are honorable. We're going to build more

01:22:51.700 Hoffs to our gods. We're going to establish community. We're going to get our people living

01:22:56.420 closer together and functioning in a much closer way to how we have organically as a folk, to where

01:23:04.620 we have communities of our people celebrating our gods and our traditions. So we're going to

01:23:12.040 continue to build something very bright amongst ourselves now if that's patched in to a thriving

01:23:19.480 america awesome if that's you know outposts of beauty in the uh mad max world that people you

01:23:29.080 know think might happen yeah okay if it's just really bright places for our people to come home

01:23:35.720 to when things continue to get more stressful and more degenerate in society over the years

01:23:43.240 we'll have that too we win either way as long as we're doing it together and we're honoring our gods

01:23:49.960 sounds good sounds good um let me see what the next question here is

01:23:57.160 um what is your goal 10 years from now either personally and or for the future of the afa

01:24:03.320 um so i've gotten to where future of the afa and personally are kind of one in the same yeah um the

01:24:17.320 afa is pretty much my life so within the next 10 years i'll be living at sigerheim and uh

01:24:26.520 that's in central tennessee yes um we will have a hoff to first we're going to have a hoff to fray

01:24:38.360 that's going to be in most likely in eastern ohio with a very slim chance of western pennsylvania

01:24:48.520 and then we're going to have tears hoff on the grounds of siggerheim we're also going to have

01:24:53.480 a great hall at Sigerheim where our people can gather. Another one of the Sigerheim dreams is I

01:24:59.780 want to have either cottages or a dormitory set up, some kind of a set up there to where 1.00

01:25:06.600 our elderly or our cripples or whatever else, if they can't live on their own completely,

01:25:14.400 can have a place where we as a community can help take care of them while they're still around our

01:25:20.240 folk and still immersed in their faith and their culture without having to be you know put away

01:25:26.320 somewhere um we're not gonna be able to provide medical care but if it's just getting around

01:25:32.320 getting to the store having somebody look in on them we can take care of our of our elderly and

01:25:37.120 our folks with health problems much better than we currently are and we'll be doing that there

01:25:42.080 we're gonna have in the next 10 years we're gonna have a full curriculum for that house true academy

01:25:46.000 that i talked about and uh if we extend that out to 11 years and maybe 12 years we'll be able to

01:25:54.800 yeah 12 years from now we'll graduate that first graduating class of uh that house to academy but

01:26:03.040 that's definitely going to be full swing i think realistically in the next 10 years we may have

01:26:10.160 more hoffs than just those next two in that case we would have braggies hoff as well um

01:26:20.080 so for sure we'd have that we currently have members in 14 different countries i'd like to

01:26:25.920 see some more countries involved in that i'd also really like to see a thriving community of of afa

01:26:33.920 members in south africa within the next 10 years we've been working hard on that um our people in

01:26:39.680 in South Africa have a real hard time

01:26:41.380 and we've been trying to get

01:26:42.820 that built and more unified

01:26:45.880 because I think our people

01:26:47.620 need this there

01:26:48.900 more than rest.

01:26:51.060 That's a bad, terrible situation down there.

01:26:54.180 What's going on?

01:26:57.200 So yeah,

01:26:57.960 let's see.

01:27:02.140 And here's the last

01:27:03.660 question I have for you and then I'll go

01:27:05.760 through the chat and ask some questions.

01:27:07.580 And we'll get this wrapped up here soon.

01:27:10.820 What do you think is the best thing for your organization to focus on based on your expectations and concerns for the future?

01:27:21.920 It's one of the things that it what it's hard for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons is we're very holistic.

01:27:29.160 Um, all of the different parts of what we do, um, they function, they interface with each other,

01:27:39.640 so they're not completely disconnected. I think the most important thing is building a sincere

01:27:46.340 and deep piety and religiosity amongst our folk. I think getting us focused on that kind of very

01:27:53.100 real commitment to our gods and our faith as opposed to some of the hobbyism that i think a

01:28:00.060 lot of people start with and that's not an insult um you can't build a deep faith overnight it has

01:28:06.620 to do with experience and like any other relationship it comes over time but bringing

01:28:11.340 our people to a much more closer um sincere religious experience with our gods the other thing

01:28:19.420 I can't say it enough, but that Oustru Academy, taking back control of being able to educate our children and get them out of situations where they're being, I don't know, intentionally corrupted or intentionally harmed in a lot of cases.

01:28:37.500 Because getting them in a spot where we can take care of them and raise them with values that we believe in, that's huge for our future.

01:28:47.080 And it's harder to see, and it's less flashy than the Hoffs, but it will pay off 20 years from now in ways that we couldn't even imagine.

01:28:57.740 Very good. Very good.

01:29:01.200 So I believe that was the last question.

01:29:05.000 It's been very interesting to speak to you, Mr. Flavio.

01:29:08.860 I've really enjoyed it, and I think the audience has as well.

01:29:12.720 So I wanted to give this, it's like I mentioned a few minutes ago.

01:29:15.820 Do y'all have any questions?

01:29:17.680 Ask them now, and I will go through them.

01:29:20.040 I've seen some of them earlier.

01:29:22.220 Any questions, feel free to let me know in the chat,

01:29:25.680 and we'll work our way through them before we close this stream out.

01:29:30.200 Let's see.

01:29:32.040 I've seen one back up here.

01:29:33.720 I've got to scroll back for just a moment.

01:29:40.200 All right.

01:29:43.360 Okay, here we go.

01:29:45.480 One from Hans.

01:29:47.960 He said, can you share that I appreciate his conversation on Unslaved with, I believe, Michael Sarion.

01:29:56.660 Did you go on his podcast at one time?

01:29:58.820 I did.

01:29:59.400 I want to say that was 2017, but I'm not sure.

01:30:03.720 Yeah, Hans, that's what he's talking about. Also, is there a hero that stands out for him, myth, and history?

01:30:19.820 Absolutely. There are lots of them, so it's hard to narrow it down. Do you mean Ousitru specific or historical hero in general?

01:30:28.720 oh that's a good question he doesn't specify i would just say in general i was gonna say i can

01:30:36.800 do i can do both there's a couple that stand out this is not exhaustive in also true i mean

01:30:44.080 steve mcnallen blazed a trail to get us where we are i'm big building the things that that i have

01:30:53.500 that are so special to me off of the foundations that he laid so he's certainly a hero of mine

01:30:59.000 uh alexander rudd mills who founded the anglican church of odin in australia yeah is a big hero

01:31:07.500 of mine as far as alsatru goes um as far as history in general there's a great number of

01:31:17.500 people that I really admire. Teddy Roosevelt, in a lot of ways, I admire he was one of those,

01:31:24.100 you know, I don't think he counts as a philosopher, but a lot of things that he said,

01:31:27.300 especially his man in the arena speech. Yeah, one of my favorite things. And I go back to it a lot.

01:31:33.860 And his person, the way he built himself through activity, through living, through doing

01:31:39.560 is an example to us all. Nathan Bedford Forrest is a hero of mine. The Wizard of the Saddle was

01:31:49.240 one of the most amazing men in times of conflict, as far as a leader of men, leading charge on

01:31:57.400 horseback with pistol and saber in hand at the front, always with his guys, is an inspiration,

01:32:05.740 I think, to many of us. Further back, there are plenty. I look up to Emperor Napoleon. He literally

01:32:24.280 conquered Europe on horseback from the front, leading and doing and accomplishing. But those 0.85

01:32:32.280 are a few, I'd say. Yeah, that's interesting. As far as an American president goes, Andrew Jackson

01:32:39.600 has always been my favorite. Oh, Hickory. He's a Tennessean. But let me jump to the next question.

01:32:47.100 GC asks, what is the longest episode of Victory Never Sleeps?

01:32:53.880 I'm trying to think of what the topic was. I want to say it was the thing on the soul complex

01:33:00.200 with me and Witten Svahn. We did that for just about six and a half hours. I think it was like

01:33:07.000 six hours, 24 minutes. Wow. That's a marathon. That is impressive. It was long, but it was a

01:33:14.020 really good show. And I think there was a lot of really good questions, but I think that was our

01:33:18.380 longest. Yeah. All right. Ima asks, what is the AFAs outlook for growing outside of the USA?

01:33:26.020 say? I think you kind of answered that earlier. A little bit. So we have folks in 14 different

01:33:34.320 countries, as I said earlier. We had some really great momentum in Sweden before

01:33:42.080 the world reacted the way they did to COVID-19. When so many things were shut down, it made us

01:33:50.840 very very hard for us to continue um stuff internationally with all the borders closed

01:33:58.800 on everything it made that hard um i think that hey sweetheart it's okay sorry that's my daughter

01:34:06.940 joining us um yeah oh she's getting ready um how you doing so sweden is a really good prospect

01:34:21.020 we've got a new folk builder in france we've got some prospects for a folk builder in england as

01:34:29.420 well um so that's that's all really promising i think that sweden is probably our strongest um

01:34:39.820 non-usa afa territory yeah but uh we've got some folks in ireland and italy i'd like to see that

01:34:48.940 come together on the continent of europe a little bit better and like i said earlier we have members

01:34:53.660 in south africa but they're very far apart on a map it looks really small but when you spread it

01:34:58.460 out it's a huge huge country yeah so i'd love to see our folk develop there and that's something

01:35:04.860 that we you know have our hearts set on she's having a good time looks like she got her a drink

01:35:12.380 there and everything but yeah that's sweden that's there was a guy on here uh one of my friends

01:35:18.220 charles lindberg he's from sweden uh maybe he can get in contact with you all um let's see my next

01:35:26.060 question i have here is amera arian asks is there a vetting process and are there background checks

01:35:35.020 absolutely um so we have a security team and it's been a work in progress we're always trying to

01:35:42.220 get better at it um we run a criminal background check we ensure that nobody is on the sex offender

01:35:50.460 registry and what we also do is we check we check that periodically um we're gonna check

01:35:59.500 that periodically to make sure that nobody winds up on that list that we overlook

01:36:05.740 but we we do have a team of folks that look through try to do background checks we also

01:36:10.140 try to check out social media to you know to try to make sure um you know folks align generally

01:36:18.220 with our worldview but we run a criminal background check the sex offender registry check

01:36:24.620 and we also do that for people who aren't just members but people who are going to attend our

01:36:29.260 events yeah as far as the sex offender registry the deeper background check is for membership

01:36:35.820 yeah i was going to say i was going to mention this to you too as well one thing that you could

01:36:41.820 do i don't know if you're familiar with a guy named tom metzker but he he was a very uh prominent

01:36:48.940 member in the movement one thing he mentioned in one of my friends streams my friend patrick had

01:36:55.420 interviewed him back in i think it was late 2019 early 2020 it wasn't long before tom had passed

01:37:02.220 away but one thing tom did is he would also like if he was vetting a member that was coming into his

01:37:08.300 organization uh he would also check the civil files civil suit files like hey he would check

01:37:19.260 the civil suits files he said he he found several uh she's having a good time yeah she's trying to

01:37:30.780 avoid bath time right now oh i understand when i was that age i wasn't a fan of taking a bath either

01:37:37.100 but yeah that's just something uh uh you could say that is a possibility for you uh to get a

01:37:43.260 better view one of the things we're also looking into is if we can check uh the status of any you

01:37:48.860 know if there's any kind of a restraining order or uh any kind of uh active warrant out on folks

01:37:54.300 too we're always trying to look for ways that we can do that better and uh so our security

01:37:59.500 teams working on that right now okay that's let's see um off bjorn he had a question for me he said

01:38:08.540 are you coming out to siegerheim for sieger blokes on july 22nd i might be it's uh i might be able to

01:38:15.740 work that in i'd love to meet you yeah it's i think that's probably about might be about two

01:38:24.460 hours from me, maybe two and a half somewhere. But yeah, I'll have to look at it. Let's see.

01:38:32.580 Any other further questions? I'm having to scroll down here just a second.

01:38:45.000 I'd like to hear from Matt. What is the AFA? Okay, I think I just read that one. I apologize.

01:38:50.880 guys. I've got quite a few new comments

01:38:55.020 here, so I'm going to have to scroll my way down.

01:39:01.160 All right.

01:39:04.820 Actually, I don't think I see

01:39:08.100 any further questions right this second.

01:39:12.480 The chat is impressed with your daughter's 0.88

01:39:16.500 antics. That's what it's all about, though,

01:39:21.360 you know, having the children. She's a star of the show.

01:39:26.140 Absolutely. Well, guys,

01:39:29.860 I think that's all the questions that I currently see.

01:39:36.300 Once again, Matt,

01:39:37.320 I want to thank you for coming on here, for taking the time out of your schedule.

01:39:41.380 um i appreciate this uh and i think it's uh i want to wish you luck in all your endeavors

01:39:49.940 and uh i hope everything uh i really uh it's a special thing what i think y'all are doing

01:39:58.120 you know trying to separate yourself building these parallel institutions like i mentioned earlier

01:40:03.520 um and also the spiritual component because i mean it's i feel like america or america as we

01:40:12.280 like to call it is kind of a spiritual desert you could say but uh not to get into that any further

01:40:18.780 um do you have any final words or parting statement a parting statement sure first thank

01:40:25.860 you so much for having me on the show um it's a great opportunity and i appreciate it uh i

01:40:32.400 appreciate getting to speak to your audience. If anybody, if you are heterosexual and white and

01:40:40.440 want to be part of what we're doing and build a connection with our gods, I would encourage you

01:40:46.760 to check out runestone.org. And if you'd like to join, we'd love to bring our folk home.

01:40:56.640 I would also say this to anybody out there that's curious and not quite, you know,

01:41:01.920 knowing what to do spiritually and not quite sold on the gods, reach out to your ancestors,

01:41:09.440 reach out to your ancestors first. And when you reach out to the gods, go into it with an open

01:41:16.820 heart and an open mind and give them the opportunity to work within you. And if you do,

01:41:24.360 I think some real beautiful things can happen. Well said. And with that, I want to thank

01:41:31.720 everybody in the audience for stopping by. I should have another stream here in the next week

01:41:39.060 or two, but I hope y'all have a great evening. Thank you again, Mr. Flavelle, and I will talk

01:41:46.460 to y'all soon. Bye-bye.

Asatru Folk Assembly - June 28, 2023

The SoNo Show Ep. 38： Interview w⧸ Matt Flavel

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript