Asatru Folk Assembly - TPP Matt Flavel May 2019

00:00:00.000 what's up folks Justin Garcia a.k.a. Master Chim here and I am here with my friend or at least

00:00:14.340 has been a friend in my head for a few years now Mr. Matt Flavel of the Ossichu Folk Assembly Matt

00:00:20.700 you want to say what's up to the listeners hey guys it's an honor to be on your program like

00:00:25.860 Justin said it feels like I've known him for a while now even though it's the first time we're

00:00:29.820 actually talking that's right and I know your wonderful wife has been a

00:00:34.540 participant on a lot of the the podcast stuff and it's it's it became a familiar

00:00:40.080 name and then seeing you know through mutual friends through social media I

00:00:44.320 see you know who's connected to so it's you know it's very I feel like I've

00:00:48.320 known you for some time even though this is technically the first time we've ever

00:00:51.000 had a conversation um now your title alzharjargothi of the afa uh what does that title entail and then

00:01:01.560 we'll backtrack i really just wanted to say the word before or in case i forgot how to pronounce

00:01:06.000 it so early on so let's get that you did perfect you did appreciate it you did better than most

00:01:13.220 people uh phonetically it's an icelandic or an old norse word that means basically the hair is

00:01:20.580 the war band. The Herjar is the warrior. It means the gothi for all of the warriors. Honestly,

00:01:27.260 you know, as it is today, I'm basically the high priest to the Astro Folk Assembly. I'm the CEO of

00:01:32.980 the 501c3 church that we operate under. And, you know, spiritually, I'm the head of our church.

00:01:39.620 Right. And is that what you do, for lack of a better phrase, is that what you do for a living?

00:01:44.020 that is what i do full-time uh my my small housing allowance i don't think really counts

00:01:52.040 as a living but yeah that is what i do uh full-time now running the afa it's really nice

00:01:59.080 we've gotten big enough now that it it requires that kind of that kind of maintenance but

00:02:04.140 that's awesome that's awesome so we're going to backtrack somewhat and uh start i guess at the

00:02:12.020 entry-level for the layman the person who is either of a different religious

00:02:17.120 you know flavor or people who are just not you know not a exposed to what you

00:02:23.600 do at the AFA what is also true mouse true is the pre-christian faith of most

00:02:33.240 of Europe I guess it's under the broad category of paganism I don't hold

00:02:40.400 myself to have much in common with with the way that terms used these days but

00:02:45.020 yeah that's basically what it is people be very familiar with it we we call our

00:02:48.920 gods by the names familiar to the Norse the Norse people so Odin Thor Frey

00:02:55.120 right right and now pre-christian that's something of significance as the the

00:03:05.360 christian uh i guess um marketing team toward europe uh things tended to change and you know

00:03:15.040 obviously you know the the majority of and i say majority uh just as a speculation i don't know if

00:03:22.380 that's actually the case but a significant portion of europe became christian uh once that was

00:03:27.680 introduced what was the return to the pre-christian roots why was there and

00:03:34.580 I've had Steve McNallen on before he and I had a great conversation a few years

00:03:38.420 back but to reintroduce everybody again why is it that there was a return why

00:03:44.240 was there felt a need to return and what was the impetus for that you know well

00:03:50.660 one thing when when Christianity first made its way north into Europe it had to

00:03:55.720 be altered very significantly from from Paul's church or you know the church in

00:04:01.160 the Middle East because European people their mindset was very different so you

00:04:05.600 see early medieval Christianity adopts so much of European paganism to make it

00:04:10.980 palatable to a European audience well over the you know over the 1500 to 500

00:04:19.600 depending on where you're at in Europe years worth of conversion and movement

00:04:24.780 there the christianity slowly lost a lot of that european paganism or the stuff that really spoke

00:04:32.440 to the european folk soul and became much more about you know universal brotherhood and turning

00:04:40.620 the other cheek and basically spirituality that was very foreign to the soul of european people

00:04:47.900 all the nobility that uh europe had been built on it's kind of slowly eroded by christianity

00:04:53.800 And we found ourselves in modern times in a place where a lot of European folks weren't served by the church.

00:05:01.840 Christianity didn't really fill that need in their soul.

00:05:06.220 And I think a lot of people discovered that around the same time.

00:05:09.540 But with the reawakening of Auschwitz, you mentioned Stephen Allen coming on your program. 0.60

00:05:14.740 In the late 60s and early 70s, he kind of put a name to it and gave it some direction and made that happen and made it take off. 0.56

00:05:23.460 And if it wasn't for him and his vision he had back then, you know, I certainly wouldn't be here today doing what I'm doing.

00:05:30.000 Right. So I understand Christianity. 0.84

00:05:34.560 Like, why did Christianity morph into that?

00:05:37.120 I would say, you know, based on a lot of my own framing of my relationship, my understanding of the world, it's they were on mission.

00:05:43.560 And once, you know, Europe was sort of on board, the greater mission then became, well, how do we now bring everybody to the point where there are no real anomalies or even differences between people and how eventually there are going to be certain groups that may have been, you know, spoken to in a certain way to have them, you know, appreciate and come on board, how that became less of a priority for the greater mission.

00:06:10.600 and so that makes sense. But now, having said that about Christianity, what is the mission of Asatru?

00:06:25.560 It's a complex question, but I think it's a really important one. I suppose the mission of

00:06:30.320 Asatru is different depending upon the time and the place of the European folk.

00:06:35.600 Um, right now, the mission has been to reawaken our people to an authentic faith of European

00:06:44.440 descended people and to bring us back home spiritually to that.

00:06:50.660 I think that, um, one of the fundamentals in that mission always is what Auschwitz means. 0.61

00:06:56.880 It means troth or loyalty to the Aesir.

00:06:59.120 And I think that reconnecting, uh, the, the sons and daughters of Europe with our native

00:07:04.220 spirituality is extremely important I think that's the goal and then see the

00:07:08.180 the success and the flourishing of our folk to where you know European

00:07:13.820 descended peoples can be happy fulfilled build a noble character regain the kind

00:07:20.420 of ability to hold our head up and put our chest out and carry ourselves with

00:07:24.740 presence and nobility I think that's certainly always been a fundamental goal

00:07:28.580 of Asatru. Right, right. What's the difference between Asatru or being an

00:07:36.320 Asatruer and being a heathen? Heathenism and Asatru. Is there a distinction to be 0.75

00:07:41.340 made? Is it just semantic? Linguistically no, but there's certainly commonalities

00:07:47.000 at least in the United States and how that's referred to. Very often the word

00:07:51.980 heathen is taken on a lot in the middle part of the country it seems, kind of

00:07:56.060 regionally um it doesn't

00:08:03.500 trying to think of the best way to phrase it without being disparaging the

00:08:07.560 determine the best word for for the group is that they know I a lot of people

00:08:13.520 like it I liked it early on um but the commonality of people who tend to call

00:08:18.500 themselves heathen are the kind of no rules we do whatever we want backyard

00:08:22.520 barbecue just have a good time on the weekends group not certainly not

00:08:27.900 everybody that uses that word that seems to be a commonality with it when I find

00:08:31.880 people using the term house or true they're very often affiliated with the

00:08:34.800 Astro folk assembly they tend to worship in a more structured way and have you

00:08:40.700 know have a group identity rather than a very loose unaffiliated presence within

00:08:48.400 within the community I guess right are there any other groups that represent

00:08:54.640 Asitru other than the AFA I suppose that depends if you want to ask them yeah

00:09:03.260 there there certainly are the Odinic right I think represents Asitru they

00:09:07.760 would call it Odinism but fundamentally it's the same thing I think the Asitru

00:09:14.500 Reliance represents a version of Alsatru, certainly a very prominent version of what

00:09:21.820 Alsatru was like back in the 80s or the 90s.

00:09:26.680 Any of the universalist outfits that would tell you that they're Alsatru, I would dispute

00:09:31.200 that claim very heavily.

00:09:34.680 I'm sure there's any other small number of groups that I'm unaware of that probably

00:09:38.860 authentically practice too.

00:09:40.080 right now the actual phrase or term though asa true that was coined by mcdallan yeah

00:09:46.540 he found in a book and i'm trying to remember the name of the book that he read that uh

00:09:52.560 put a name to it it was a book that he read back in the late 60s i believe maybe around 1970 but

00:10:01.240 you'd have to check with steve but it was a book describing the religion of the vikings

00:10:06.600 and it was described as as a true and so he used that term i know they use that term in iceland

00:10:11.580 as well and i think they started using it around the same time okay so that makes sense now you

00:10:20.000 personally uh from what i understand you have been involved in asa true for some time obviously

00:10:27.300 given your position in the organization uh but like most people i also don't think that you were

00:10:34.120 born into this you know it's it's something that you found you want to give us a background on that

00:10:39.020 well yeah real quick what's really cool to watch happen in the astro folk assembly now is we're

00:10:43.900 having kids we're starting to have teenagers that are becoming adults that were born into it which 0.99

00:10:50.040 is a really nice thing to say because you know people people my age and older that's not the case

00:10:55.640 um my family i guess was christian because you had to check a box but they were never very

00:11:04.100 religious you know they didn't really practice um as i grew up i always felt that i had a spiritual

00:11:11.380 need i felt there was something there that i needed and you know being being a white young

00:11:17.140 man in the united states of america i thought those are my options you know i'm i'm i'm not a

00:11:22.420 jew i'm not you know so that's not open to me i'm i'm not a muslim okay i'm not indian so i can't be

00:11:29.220 a Hindu or a Buddhist. What do we got? So I kind of picked through that and I, I was pretty serious

00:11:35.780 with it for a while. I picked up my Bible and I read it through about four different times

00:11:40.440 because a lot of stuff didn't, didn't fit well, but you assume, you know, if God says one thing

00:11:46.220 and you say something else, you're probably the one wrong. So I went back and checked it out for

00:11:50.900 quite a while. Um, I spent a lot of time growing up with, you know, my later teenage years and I

00:11:57.440 I guess my early adult years with my aunt, my cousins,

00:12:00.200 she was very devout Jehovah's witness.

00:12:02.680 One thing I would give those people,

00:12:04.880 they know their Bibles and the cool thing

00:12:08.760 that I genuinely respect about the Jehovah's Witnesses,

00:12:11.540 and there's probably some other denominations

00:12:13.160 that do it as well, but they went through

00:12:15.640 and they took out all the pagan elements of Christianity

00:12:18.280 that make it fun and exciting for European people

00:12:22.040 and they threw all those away. 1.00

00:12:23.800 And so theirs seems like a much more accurate representation

00:12:27.260 what you know the church that Paul intended would look like today and that

00:12:33.140 really helped me make a clear understanding of where I wanted to be

00:12:36.880 and where I didn't got to a point when I was I took it real serious when I was

00:12:42.500 about 18 or 19 I got baptized as a Jehovah's Witness I went door-to-door a

00:12:47.180 little bit I was one of those guys I had a conversation with one on my deck you

00:12:52.980 know go big or go home if you believe it you're gonna try to do it you got to go

00:12:56.900 with your whole heart. And that's what I tried hard to do. And at that time, it occurred to me

00:13:03.360 that everything that a young man wants to do is sinful in the antithesis of what Jesus would have

00:13:10.080 you do. And something else that helped me a lot around that time was the, like the Christian 1.00

00:13:15.660 bookstore kind of Christians had the whole, what would Jesus do thing? So I started looking at

00:13:21.400 things in my life in terms of what would Jesus do? And very often, what would Jesus do? And what's

00:13:26.640 the right thing to do weren't the same and didn't match it up so you know I

00:13:33.420 tried I tried hard to beat that square peg into the round hole as much as I

00:13:36.960 could but I realized at some point that it was dishonest and if if the the 0.95

00:13:43.140 Christian God was omnipotent and knew what was in my heart then I'm not gonna

00:13:47.040 just be a hypocrite I'm not going to fool God by saying one thing and believing

00:13:50.220 another and it really got me thinking and I came to a point which was 0.97

00:13:54.180 terrifying for me because I believed in it but their God was so opposed to the

00:14:02.220 things that I believe in and such a bad person for lack of a better term

00:14:08.640 literally thinking that the only option was their God or not not was pretty

00:14:14.520 scary right and I made that decision that I couldn't stand with their God

00:14:18.840 because he was just a bad person. And that's why the story of King Radbot always really stood out

00:14:25.560 to me because he was putting his foot in the baptismal font. He was about ready to sacrifice

00:14:29.880 all the old gods, whatever, where my ancestors, and when told they were all burning in hell, 0.98

00:14:35.800 he said, I'd rather burn in hell with my ancestors than go to heaven with parcel of beggars. 0.98

00:14:41.160 And that's kind of where I felt like I was. So I departed from Christianity and I 1.00

00:14:46.360 I still had that spiritual need inside of me.

00:14:51.500 I knew there was something out there bigger.

00:14:54.540 And so I was, okay, well, I know Christianity is not native to my people.

00:14:58.920 It's not native to Europeans.

00:15:00.880 So what did we have before?

00:15:03.340 And then I started discovering.

00:15:05.340 And it was funny because at first I thought I was the only weirdo that was doing this.

00:15:08.840 I was by myself, but I wanted to research things.

00:15:11.620 And I figured I'd get, you know, old primary sources, what we call today the lore.

00:15:16.360 But I was Googling things, and I found, you know, this guy, Steve McNallan, and this group, the House True Folk Assembly, and there was other people actually doing this in real life, and they weren't a bunch of freaks.

00:15:28.680 And I was shocked and amazed, and that was kind of the start of my journey, and that was 2001.

00:15:33.680 Right, right.

00:15:34.960 So that's some time.

00:15:36.120 Yeah. And I guess, you know, fast forwarding from there or through from there to now, it was just a matter of becoming a more significant, playing a more significant role in the church. And is that how you would refer to it, to the church?

00:15:52.520 it is and you know that's off-putting to some people but certainly here in the

00:15:56.700 United States it has a meaning right and when you tell people oh what were you

00:16:02.120 doing I was with my my group my national organization of people nobody knows what

00:16:09.860 that is and they turn you off oh I was at a church event oh really what'd you

00:16:14.380 guys do right it has that word and it has that meaning and honestly church is

00:16:19.620 derived from you know from a european word anyway it's not it's not a hebrew term right right so

00:16:26.780 my personally and i don't know if like you've ever heard my story but

00:16:33.880 a lot of parallels in uh in that i went from i was also raised by a non-religious christian

00:16:41.320 family and from as early as i can remember i had a more atheistic worldview because i went to

00:16:53.200 catholic school we raised catholic and i was baptized i did communion uh the sacrament after

00:16:59.200 that is confirmation you're confirmed it's like yeah you actually exist you find out later in

00:17:05.400 like so I I didn't I never did the confirmation at that point I was already

00:17:10.620 saying no this isn't for me I don't agree with this I don't like this is

00:17:13.900 nonsense and and I had a very rebellious you know attitude towards it that

00:17:18.300 continued I think and developed into a hard line anti theist by the time I was

00:17:25.900 my 20s and even early 30s and it got to the point where similar to you where you

00:17:34.320 were like you know I was all in with Christianity and and then I had to

00:17:37.740 basically just go against that well I was the guy who was like in the early

00:17:42.660 internet forum days I had a legendary thread on this prominent forum in the

00:17:49.680 martial arts community and the thread was chim chim's atheist thread and it

00:17:55.000 was just religion bashing and I ran that for years and then I had children and 0.87

00:18:06.760 then I started realizing as my mission developed that there were things that

00:18:12.940 just didn't make sense there if there were there were answers that I would

00:18:17.800 never that I knew I was opting out of pursuing because the questions had to be

00:18:23.600 asked from a certain perspective and that perspective wasn't one I was willing to to put

00:18:27.780 on and you know my own personal experiences as they sort of evolved and I started you know

00:18:33.960 reassessing what was important to me and what I've always known to be true I was introduced to

00:18:40.340 the Eddas by a friend of mine in passing and the reading of it it's like this it felt like it was

00:18:49.160 my crew like wait a minute these guys I know these guys this is this is what I'm saying like

00:18:55.220 where are these guys these are the guys who are looking at things the way that that felt

00:18:59.760 familiar to me and natural to me from as long as I can remember but it was very much a an

00:19:05.320 individual journey well to this day and I am somebody who has had very very skeptical I should

00:19:17.940 to have a very skeptical perspective of groups and organizations so one of the

00:19:23.820 things like with the AFA that is always that is always you know given me a a

00:19:30.960 sort of pause meaning I didn't want to go past a certain point of acceptance or

00:19:36.160 rejection because I knew nothing about it obviously was how does a spiritual

00:19:43.380 endeavor a pure spiritual endeavor not succumb to the bureaucracies the administrative obstacles

00:19:52.900 you know my you know again going according to a lot of my my framework and philosophies

00:19:57.780 an organization always has two missions first is the mission it was founded for and the second is

00:20:03.600 staying alive right so you'll see that with a lot of government agencies it's it starts off with the

00:20:08.840 best of intentions, but before long, people have to keep their jobs. So the problem they were hired

00:20:13.900 to solve can never end or else they lose their job, you know, and just as a, you know, an example

00:20:19.780 of that idea. But in the AFA, how do you, how does one, but you're the guy, so how do you avoid

00:20:30.280 becoming the bureaucracy? How do you avoid becoming the, you know, the, the guy that I

00:20:38.660 see on 3am in the Christian church with the Lamborghini? You know, like, how does, how does

00:20:45.440 that not happen? Well, I think that there's, I think there's things that are fundamentally

00:20:55.080 different that help it not happen. First, I'm not turning down Lamborghinis, but I don't see

00:21:00.140 lot of those coming my way um but secondly when you create an organization to react against

00:21:08.140 something or to fix a problem then you're right that problem has to continue to exist in order

00:21:13.180 for that organization to have value so you look for it everywhere and you it becomes a little

00:21:19.180 bit corrupted by that one of the things that's important to me about the afa is we're all about

00:21:23.740 building we're not about tearing something down so you'll have groups that are all about you know

00:21:30.140 Women's liberation or this and that once you get to a certain point. What do you do? Well, then I think you start reaching for problems

00:21:37.880 I'm not trying to bring down the paper to patriarchy

00:21:40.940 I'm trying to build stuff that's spiritually relevant for our folk and I think as long as as long as there's

00:21:48.860 You know the sons and daughters of Europe exist. We'll have

00:21:52.940 spiritual needs that hopefully I can help

00:21:55.760 provide for now and that we can build the AFA in a way that will provide for

00:22:00.760 them but we're trying to build up our folk and make our folks strong and

00:22:06.960 successful and I think there's always a need for that certainly we got to run

00:22:11.440 we got to keep the lights on we've got to do a lot of administrative things and

00:22:14.940 I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with that I think that one thing is

00:22:19.140 important with the gods of Austria is we're about winning not about putting it

00:22:23.140 all on. It's leaving it all to God and maybe we'll store up treasures in heaven. No, we're going to

00:22:30.500 try to build an important and lasting legacy here now in Midgard. Part of that is making what we

00:22:36.280 have successful. And so there's always a certain amount of administrative things that need to be

00:22:42.540 done, but I don't find that fundamentally in conflict with spiritual pursuit. You mentioned

00:22:48.140 early in a purely spiritual endeavor. One of the things I like about Ausitru is it's not

00:22:53.700 purely spiritual. It makes all things spiritual. It's like, it's not, all right, here's everyday,

00:23:01.300 you know, work, family stuff, time. And then on Sunday, we go to the Hoff and practice Ausitru.

00:23:09.100 Ausitru should incorporate all the things you do in your life and how you work and how you

00:23:13.340 successfully structure an organization one of the other things the acr are gods of order and of

00:23:19.940 structure odin literally took the chaos that surrounded him and formed reality out of it

00:23:26.760 and formed order and structure so i think administering an orderly hierarchical church

00:23:34.520 organization is very much in keeping with the principles of australia and in providing order

00:23:39.380 in a world that we see is very chaotic all right solid so something you touched on and something

00:23:49.380 that i brought up with uh steve mcnallan when he was on is the folk folkish versus universal

00:23:59.540 perspectives of ossature of odinism my particular take and i am in a very i would say unique in this

00:24:08.260 context not unique generally but i'm of a mixed you know uh heritage and one of the things i

00:24:16.740 recall hearing from my mother growing up so my mother irish italian my father born and raised

00:24:22.180 in puerto rico uh he a lot more mixed than than my mother and i always heard from my mother well

00:24:28.340 you have you know you have the best of both worlds you have you know and you know it was it was great

00:24:34.420 And obviously, she's my mom. I love my mom, right? But she didn't grow up like I grew up. So when I was with the white kids, I was the Puerto Rican kid. When I was with the Puerto Rican kids, I was the white boy. And so I was very conscious of this growing up.

00:24:53.740 And I think that's the greater point that I'm making first, is that I was always very conscious, just functionally, from a very young age, about race and about ethnic groups and about cultures.

00:25:06.360 And it's funny, because as my younger brother, and I do have a younger brother, and I grew up, I have always gravitated toward and connected more toward my European-blooded family, whereas my brother didn't.

00:25:23.740 you know and and he and i and you see us and you know we we look very similar we act very similar

00:25:29.340 you know he is my little brother uh but our identities are are very uh different they're

00:25:34.060 very varied so when the the conversation of universal versus volkish you know started

00:25:40.220 you know coming to the forefront of the asa true uh world you know and at least represented in

00:25:46.220 social media and such like i got it i understood it and my whole thing and again i brought it up

00:25:52.140 with Steve McDowell and he definitely had a lot to say about a lot of

00:25:55.640 productive strong stuff to say about it he said you know why would you not want

00:25:59.040 to connect with the people you know with the gods of your people why would you

00:26:02.400 want to connect with the gods of other peoples and so I get it and you know and

00:26:07.080 and the reason I'm saying this before you give me your thing is anybody

00:26:11.340 because I'm sure they're gonna be haters just this hanging on every one of your

00:26:15.900 words and I want to put out there as somebody who is of a mixed heritage who

00:26:20.520 has the last name Garcia whose father looked like Morgan Freeman by the time the middle of the

00:26:24.680 summer came like I am somebody who understands that there is is is almost a an illogical

00:26:34.240 slant on the person that says it doesn't matter you know who your your people's gods were and you

00:26:44.660 could pretty much and my whole thing is you know we talk about the black viking right on the podcast

00:26:49.220 we've talked about that before as sort of like an archetype you know the black viking my whole thing

00:26:53.620 is you know you could do whatever the hell you want but don't get mad when nobody accepts you

00:26:59.060 and that's the whole thing like yeah do whatever you want but you want entry into this group and

00:27:05.860 that's where the problem comes in and i think people should respect and honor other individuals

00:27:12.100 identities um and part of that is including the identities that don't welcome yours into their

00:27:18.340 group and it needn't be something controversial or violent or you know

00:27:24.560 even you know having any animus or malice it just it's just what makes

00:27:29.200 sense you know so all that being said what's your or afa's take on that as of

00:27:35.480 as of 2019 that's a broad question um in specific and I kind of touched

00:27:48.280 on this earlier I think there's an authentic way to practice house a true

00:27:53.240 and I think that there's ways that are inauthentic and I think that the

00:27:57.240 universalist perspective is extremely inauthentic and I think that for a lot

00:28:01.340 of different reasons because it doesn't it doesn't just include their folkish

00:28:07.460 stance or not it goes with a whole other social justice packaging training

00:28:14.980 vikings they have all of that in there used to be they liked the trainee vikings and that was cool

00:28:21.720 to have one now it's almost you've got to be a trainee viking or they don't like you um and

00:28:28.280 that's evolved pretty rapid pretty rapidly um no i like your your take that you said um it's about

00:28:36.400 trying to enter somebody's group groups have standards that they are completely entitled to

00:28:42.120 that nobody's out trying to tell them

00:28:45.620 they can't do what they're going to do.

00:28:47.560 It's ironic because the forces of tolerance

00:28:50.280 are the only ones out there

00:28:51.520 trying to tell other people what they can't do.

00:28:55.620 People are going to connect with the divine

00:28:57.960 in the ways that give them the most meaning.

00:29:03.820 And yeah, I think it's authentic for all peoples

00:29:06.860 to look to the gods of their ancestors

00:29:08.960 and pursue spirituality in that way you're right it puts it puts folks like yourself in a difficult 0.95

00:29:16.060 spot because if it's if it's a mixed ancestry which way do you go because each group doesn't

00:29:23.400 accept you're not quite one of them and it makes it really tricky so i mean that's obviously a

00:29:28.560 challenge for a lot of people but what i think is that's an understandable challenge what i don't 0.58

00:29:35.560 feel as a challenge, but I feel as a mental illness is if you're straight from Norway and 0.64

00:29:40.960 that's your ancestors since the dawn of time, but all of a sudden you want to go, you know, practice 0.84

00:29:45.820 tribal central African religion, right? It begs the question why, you know, what's going on within

00:29:53.240 you that you feel the need to get your validation out there. And I think that's a, that's an

00:29:58.700 important question that I wish more people would, would explore and think about. Right, right,

00:30:03.380 right on and i agree i uh you know my whole thing was i remember there was an episode of the the

00:30:09.540 pressure project that i did called pure blood nonsense and one of the things that i spoke

00:30:16.400 about in that episode was you know there are going to be people who because as somebody of

00:30:21.440 mixed heritage you know the people who would when i would grow up and they would say well you know

00:30:25.640 you're not part of my group because you're mixed i would say well by that logic i'm part of no

00:30:29.140 group then all right so I'm on my own group I'm a different group on so I very

00:30:33.820 early on stopped trying to get into groups that like didn't welcome me like

00:30:38.620 I don't think I'll do my own thing because it is I would say a winning

00:30:43.020 attitude right yeah and I would draw the the distinction between somebody who has

00:30:48.900 an attitude of I'm gonna make my way and build my you know build my tribe

00:30:55.140 organically functionally from scratch if need be rather than being the people of

00:31:01.680 you know you see what's happening in Europe now well these are people that

00:31:05.320 you know they all have the the pure blood why is it that they're welcoming

00:31:09.200 you know these these invaders why are they sabotaging the you know the the

00:31:14.860 beautiful history of of their peoples and you know they're their cultures and

00:31:19.320 you know their languages and they're you know their religions and why is this

00:31:23.620 being sabotaged so that my point being anybody could succumb to weak thinking

00:31:29.380 and when you embrace strength you embrace strength in a way that's most

00:31:33.580 functionally authentic for you as an individual and I think that is a huge

00:31:39.040 struggle that people have these days you know like it's not about you know I want

00:31:43.300 to be an ossature or because they represent strength but how would you

00:31:48.620 how would you represent strength would it be with ossature would it be with

00:31:51.880 your native, you know, people's religion, like, why are you trying to just put on a,

00:31:59.100 ironically, a strength shirt, right? Instead of actually becoming strong. You know what I mean?

00:32:04.640 Well, I think that's a really important point. And I think it touches on something that I think

00:32:08.160 is a little bit broader. When people see other people doing better than them, or having things

00:32:13.900 they want. The solution is to take it away or tear it down or make the other person less. So by

00:32:22.020 default, you're objectively more. And, you know, that attitude is weak and it's disgusting, 0.98

00:32:29.460 but it's very common today. You know, if I see someone who has more or is doing better than me,

00:32:36.640 it makes me want to do better it makes me want to rise to that challenge and become more myself

00:32:44.620 I wish more people would do that I wish more people all over would do that when they see a

00:32:49.980 problem when they see someone that has something they want well go out and make that go out and

00:32:55.380 build that don't not allow anyone to have nice things because you're not willing to step up and

00:33:02.120 establish that for yourself right and i think that comes into play in a lot of things not just

00:33:07.800 not just house true but i think it's a it's a spiritual principle that people lost a lot it's

00:33:12.800 kind of a it's a communist thing of let's let's make everybody equal by bringing everyone down

00:33:18.140 to the lowest level right right least common denominator and i think it's uh you know i have

00:33:25.140 this this paradigm called the aquarium you know and i think a lot of people nowadays don't realize

00:33:31.500 that they live in an aquarium and in a functional reality where we're thrust into dealing with

00:33:39.000 nature and natural law alone everything tends to sort itself out pretty quickly 0.94

00:33:44.960 you know if you're the guy who is the um you know crazy racist 1.00

00:33:51.220 black people are niggers black people this black people and you are on an island and it's you and 1.00

00:33:59.820 black guy and the only way that you're gonna survive is make you are gonna 1.00

00:34:03.900 you're gonna find a way to build a bridge and become functional so I think 0.93

00:34:08.520 the person who is completely anti other races I'll use that as the category or

00:34:16.340 races don't exist on the other end I think they functionally have or I

00:34:21.580 should yeah I should say they have the same level of dysfunction I think when

00:34:25.660 we navigate reality and we look at what works we look at what allows people to

00:34:29.700 pursue their individual you know preferences but while still surviving

00:34:34.080 you know functionally I think those are the formulas that all of our ancestors

00:34:39.900 no matter where you came from had to develop I had to work and nowadays we

00:34:44.880 lose sight of the aquarium effect whereas a reality and a sense of security

00:34:51.600 and safety is provided for you and you want to sort of make you know the wheel

00:34:57.180 rounder you know I found a way to make a rounder wheel and you have to listen to

00:35:02.880 me well the impetus for needing one was never there it's just people looking for

00:35:08.340 I guess significance looking for things to do and they wind up you know

00:35:12.640 throwing around accusations like racist and homophobic and and I've gotten them

00:35:19.060 all I know you have also I was called by a little white lady in DC a few years

00:35:25.380 back I had gone to the MPI conference in DC and Richard Spencer's conference and

00:35:31.500 I was outside and it's the first interaction I ever had with Antifa I had

00:35:36.500 no idea who Antifa was right and I remember going into this event and this

00:35:42.000 little white lady called me a white supremacist did like the whole you know

00:35:47.700 like me and she goes yeah you're and she goes they're holding a white supremacist

00:35:53.860 meeting in that building and I told another no I'm going to the MPI

00:35:57.700 conference that's you know and you know and she said it and I'm like you know

00:36:05.100 you know I'm my last name's Garcia my father's from Puerto Rico and I grew up

00:36:09.880 in the South Bronx like you're calling me a white supremacist like you're a

00:36:15.020 little blonde lady like if you ever you ever been in a fight in your life and

00:36:18.740 you ever like like what is what is your connection to being able to qualify you 1.00

00:36:22.840 to call me that. And it was just ridiculous. It was a joke. But it was my first experience seeing 0.95

00:36:30.320 how delusional people could be. And I had to admit that I was almost in a bubble growing up

00:36:36.100 where I grew up in because super liberal New York City, super liberal, and I didn't realize

00:36:43.060 until I was much older and had a little bit more of a cultured perspective on things just how 0.94

00:36:48.760 indoctrinated i was you know and it was yeah cops are all bad you know the uh rich white men ruin

00:36:55.800 everything you know the like and there was just this this list of you know things that we never

00:37:01.640 questioned growing up where i grew up and as i grew up i realized that wasn't the case you know

00:37:06.580 i recall going into the uh the building uh after you know navigating the the antifa and there was

00:37:14.240 a black guy and a black lady there and they were like in the information part of the building like

00:37:20.000 so i went up to them and i said excuse me do you guys know where the conference is being held

00:37:24.960 and you know they're sitting there and the lady goes what conference and i said you know what

00:37:32.480 conference and she said well if you registered for it you could find it yourself i said okay

00:37:38.560 fair enough i said by the way this is the stuff we're going to be talking about upstairs 0.99

00:37:44.240 just fucking with her, right? 0.98

00:37:46.920 And I remember walking down the hallway, 1.00

00:37:49.000 and I pressed the button for the elevator.

00:37:50.920 I was like, I guess I'll just find it.

00:37:52.900 And when the elevator opened, a bunch of guys

00:37:54.920 that were at the conference looked.

00:37:57.000 They went, oh, Master Chen, what's up?

00:37:58.700 And I looked back at the lady, and I said, found it.

00:38:01.020 You know, thanks.

00:38:02.120 You know, but it's one of these things where, you know,

00:38:05.040 people are unwilling to, number one, have the conversation.

00:38:09.180 and number two be willing to acknowledge that you guys might not have the same position at the end

00:38:18.360 of this you know somebody just might not share your preferences you know and and that's okay

00:38:24.300 you know just because I love me doesn't mean I hate you you know I've been saying that for a

00:38:28.680 while now and and I think you know when you look at the controversy that I've seen as an outsider

00:38:34.200 that AFA has gone through it's it's purely that it's like you're hating this

00:38:39.720 group because they love themselves and they don't want you to they're not

00:38:44.280 extending you know themselves to you the way that you feel they should you know

00:38:50.080 well I think that's I think you're spot-on with it I think there's certain

00:38:56.280 people that are very comfortable with who they are uncomfortable in their own

00:38:59.400 skin and I think you you have a situation in the world we live in today where

00:39:03.600 There's a lot of people that are uncomfortable in their own skin rather than

00:39:06.680 fix the things that make them uncomfortable or come to terms with them or

00:39:11.400 whatever they need to do.

00:39:13.540 It's easier and more socially available to try to force you to provide them

00:39:18.820 validation. You know,

00:39:20.980 you don't just have to let them be to do whatever they want to do. No,

00:39:24.640 you have to praise them and acknowledge that whatever they're doing is superior

00:39:29.120 to what you're doing. And that's, that's a bridge too far.

00:39:32.820 um with any of the things that get thrown around it's very funny because if people go to an afa

00:39:39.040 event there's not a lot of hate going on there's a lot of there's a lot of hugging there's there's

00:39:44.180 some crying there's some naming babies and having weddings and there's there's not a lot of hate

00:39:50.400 that goes on it's just people that that have a certain certain set of things we find acceptable

00:39:56.520 within our group and things we don't within our group and unfortunately other people just

00:40:01.880 can't allow that to exist in the same world they live in and that's that's kind of a sad statement

00:40:07.580 as to where we're at right right how has the afa grown um since it was first uh founded and more

00:40:17.140 recently exponentially that's how we've grown no we're doing fantastic right now and uh grown in a

00:40:24.700 lot of ways i guess since it was founded uh you talked to steve and originally it was founded as

00:40:29.560 the Austro Free Assembly way back in 1972. And that went under, you know, a number of

00:40:35.000 different changes and kind of dissolved in the late 80s. The AFA as we know it now was

00:40:40.680 founded in 1995. And the next year, we're about to celebrate 25 years. And it's grown

00:40:48.040 in a lot of ways. When it first started out, there was a real need for, when we say it

00:40:58.600 2019, the word reenactment sounds funny, but at a certain stage of development, we needed to look

00:41:04.620 to the past to reconnect with something. And one of the ways that we've grown is we're kind of past

00:41:10.800 that phase. We don't have the Viking dress up thing. It's not really about trying to be them.

00:41:17.440 It's authentically being us. One of the other, one of the cool ways that we've grown that I've

00:41:24.840 pointed out a lot in the last two years i'd say is the number of women and families anyone who

00:41:31.020 was around house the truth back in you know the 90s early 2000s it's a lot of guys it's a lot of 0.99

00:41:37.880 single guys and you know maybe somebody would bring some strange looking wicked chick that

00:41:46.360 they found but in general it was a lot of guys right now it's a lot of nice looking families

00:41:53.140 women little kids babies one of the cool things the AFA has been doing is baby

00:41:59.540 family blanket project and my wife's been a big part of that member of ours

00:42:04.840 in Florida named Janet's been a huge part of making that happen but every new 0.94

00:42:09.100 baby born in the AFA the ladies of the AFA make them their own baby blanket and

00:42:13.300 send them to that's awesome well it's cool because one of the other things it

00:42:17.320 does is it keeps kind of a running list we've got 17 babies like in the oven or

00:42:24.000 just out right now to make blankets for just so far this year and it's been

00:42:27.940 really nice one of the members of my Witten and I he was asking he said was

00:42:33.320 last time you saw an AFA event that didn't you know a group picture that

00:42:36.640 didn't either either have a babe in arms or a pregnant lady in it I can't think

00:42:41.320 right so the family thing has grown huge um one thing and i and i catch a little bit of grief for

00:42:49.960 it sometimes but we've also tried to professionalize our parents a little bit talked earlier

00:42:54.800 about i use the word church one of the things that goes with it is dressing a certain way act

00:43:00.400 in a certain way and presenting ourselves with a certain amount of reverence a lot of things

00:43:04.960 announced are true have evolved from being kind of a viking theme backyard barbecue don't get me

00:43:10.620 wrong. I don't say disparagingly. That's a lot of fun. But taking that and making it a church

00:43:15.940 weekend, making it something you're doing spiritually. So our people, you know, dress a

00:43:21.040 certain way, carry themselves a certain way. And one of the cool things when you dress nice and

00:43:25.540 you try to look nice, put your chest up, put your, you know, put your chin up, hold your head high.

00:43:30.020 It really affects how you do things. And I think it affects how we approach the divine.

00:43:35.040 And I think we've really felt that with the successes we've had. One of the other huge ways

00:43:39.300 that we've grown. One project for a website I've been working on is archiving the old

00:43:45.520 issues of the Rune Stone. For anybody who doesn't know, that was a publication the AFA

00:43:49.200 had in the 70s, 80s, 90s. And it kind of talked about where we were at. And in these articles,

00:43:56.600 I was reading back in the 70s, one of these days we'll have a Hoff. One of these days 0.92

00:43:59.960 we're going to have some land, we're going to have Hoff, and it's all going to be glorious.

00:44:03.060 that was like 1973 was that article but in 2015 we finally got that Hoff and that's been

00:44:10.660 a real big game changer because we have our own what is a Hoff okay for anybody I get used to

00:44:17.640 talking to a lot of people that have commonalities for anybody in your audience a Hoff is basically

00:44:22.320 our word for a church building a temple to our gods and previously to that there's a lot of

00:44:28.920 people that will call different things Hoff.

00:44:31.120 They'll get a shed from Home Depot

00:44:33.080 and put it up in their backyard and decorate it.

00:44:35.320 And I'm not taking anything away, that's great.

00:44:37.940 That's a really cool step.

00:44:39.600 But what I'm talking about, about Odens Hoff in California

00:44:43.160 is a building that the community and people

00:44:45.680 would recognize as a, this is a place of worship.

00:44:49.140 And so we finally have that

00:44:50.640 and that's been a really special thing.

00:44:52.420 We're able to pay off the mortgage on that

00:44:54.660 in just three and a half years.

00:44:57.560 So that was awesome and we're already right now

00:45:00.620 scouting out and getting ready to get the second off.

00:45:03.520 So that's been a really cool progress.

00:45:06.580 Something else that's happened with the AFA

00:45:08.340 and kind of in a way that it's grown.

00:45:11.000 A lot more members and a lot bigger geographical spread.

00:45:14.320 For a time there was a couple pockets

00:45:16.000 where we had really strong AFA communities

00:45:17.920 and then the rest was kind of no man's land.

00:45:21.640 Now we've got AFA members in just about every state.

00:45:25.840 We've got thriving communities all around the country.

00:45:29.220 But something else, internationally, we've got a lot of members.

00:45:32.080 We've got a kindred in Canada.

00:45:33.660 We've got a kindred in Australia.

00:45:35.760 We just got a kindred in South Africa, which is fantastic.

00:45:39.940 That's awesome.

00:45:40.980 We've got that going down there, and they're very enthusiastic folks.

00:45:44.760 We've got three kindreds in Sweden, and we have a kindred in Italy.

00:45:50.560 And we've got members in 14 different countries.

00:45:53.160 So we've really grown. I think we've grown spiritually, we've grown geographically, and certainly we've grown numerically.

00:46:01.640 But one of the other cool things that one of our members was commenting on, usually you have to sacrifice quality for quantity.

00:46:09.580 We've been really blessed that as our quantity's grown, our quality's grown and kept pace.

00:46:15.720 And so we're really living in a good time for the AFA, and it's been really special to see that.

00:46:21.220 And I really do. I think it's a great thing. One of the things you touched on was family and how families is so important. And I know you and your wife, you know, I remember I was doing some research for preparation for this interview. And a few years back it was, I think Mandy was referred to as your lovely mate or your lovely like that. So it's great to see everybody's progressing along. But I remember even being at the MPI conference.

00:46:51.220 right a few years back and a lot of people who are you know also chores heathen

00:47:00.220 Odinist you know whatever they classify themselves but basically under the same

00:47:04.500 category generally none of them had any kids you know and I from the the the

00:47:12.460 time I being a teenager I've wanted a large family and one of the the the

00:47:18.400 motivations for wanting that large family for me was always because if

00:47:22.120 we're doing good things strong things productive things we need you know

00:47:27.040 numbers we need to support that we need to make sure that the things that we

00:47:31.480 believe in are represented and we have the people who could participate in that

00:47:36.160 at a high level did I lose you there Matt oh no I'm here um can you hear me I

00:47:43.240 can hear you you're all right my camera just looks like it's frozen yeah it'll

00:47:48.160 probably reset okay but uh you know the big thing is

00:47:54.160 nobody had any children and when i look at a lot of people

00:47:59.360 who are looked at nowadays as i would say uh leaders or

00:48:06.960 influencers in in the realm of asa true heathenism odinism

00:48:12.960 um i see that you know the the the value of family is not always put forward

00:48:19.360 you know and that was a a great contrast to see afa in that it was something that you guys

00:48:26.880 felt was significant and you guys you know the proof is in the pudding you know just like you

00:48:31.840 said the pictures there's babies and women in the pictures and it's not you know a cool guy biker

00:48:36.960 club it's not a bunch of angry guys who just you know one who rail against you

00:48:43.860 know how rough life is and such or any other permutation of that you know so I

00:48:49.200 think that was something that was very endearing that I found about the AFA you

00:48:54.120 know as a as an outside observer another thing that I wanted to ask about was

00:49:00.120 you're still there yeah yeah I'm here I've noticed my camera hasn't changed

00:49:04.500 I'm here I'm with you you know what why don't you just do me a favor disconnect

00:49:09.420 and reconnect because I'm gonna have to keep asking yeah I think you're turning

00:49:13.680 your camera on and off maybe okay yeah you're there all right because or else

00:49:18.420 I have to ask every couple seconds you still there no worries no worries so

00:49:22.020 another another thing that I want to ask about I recently had a friend Jamie

00:49:26.400 Martin on who was talking you know I was asking him about his experiences with

00:49:30.600 the law and you know one of the things that really made me or motivated me to

00:49:35.400 have him on was you know through his social media presence I found that he

00:49:39.540 was somebody was very well educated I had a lot to say you know read all the

00:49:43.840 things that I either had just haven't read or didn't have the inclination to

00:49:47.520 read and so he's a good source of information since I have you on a big

00:49:52.560 thing that I I get into with Christians and I am NOT anti-christian there are

00:50:00.200 too many people who have too much overlap with my life's missions to, you know, to disregard or

00:50:06.860 disconnect from Christians. People identify themselves as Christians. But one of the things

00:50:11.560 that I get in my own, you know, spiritual pursuits is, well, you know, the Bible gives us morality.

00:50:19.020 The Bible tells us what is good and what is bad. And I contrast that personally with, well,

00:50:27.820 what is good and bad is functional it's organic it's you know a lot of times we

00:50:32.580 don't need it codified what we should be doing you know it's like I remember I

00:50:36.720 should be a personal trainer and and one of the things that I always get from fat

00:50:41.420 people is well what should I eat and I'd start off the first part of that was 0.97

00:50:45.480 first of all you know what you're not supposed to fucking be eating right so 0.85

00:50:48.700 we could talk about maximizing the strategy but grab the the cheeseburger 0.98

00:50:53.320 burger 3 a.m. probably not you know so I think when it comes to morality a lot of

00:50:58.360 it is covered by what is function what we know to be you know functional in

00:51:03.640 Ossetru in the lore how do you you know comment on you know where morality is to

00:51:11.800 be found is it found in law is it organic inherent we know what say you

00:51:16.300 well I want to go back and build on your personal trainer analogy because I

00:51:19.960 think I think that's important personal trainers it's funny because you wouldn't think you would

00:51:26.920 need them like you said you know what you're supposed to eat you know what you're not supposed

00:51:31.620 to eat we can google right now and I can find your workout routine what do you need a trainer for

00:51:37.220 but one of the things you need a trainer for is first somebody who can be an example and for

00:51:42.960 accountability it's it's really different when you make me a meal plan and tell me what I can

00:51:49.440 and can't eat than if I'm out there by myself making the decisions and I can cut myself a lot

00:51:54.400 of slack. It's different when you have accountability. One of the things that I

00:51:59.820 think is really cool about Alcetru in general, and I'll get to the lore question in a second

00:52:03.640 because I do remember that, but the accountability of a group, we all understand a certain amount of

00:52:10.680 morality is inherent. But when you have a group of people, you got to look in the eye that have

00:52:16.220 heard what you said, seen what you've done, and can hold you to a standard of whether or not they

00:52:21.620 think you're somebody worthy of respect or not, that matters. Peer pressure, you know,

00:52:28.640 I listen to your show sometimes and peer pressure is a thing and it can be a very good thing when

00:52:33.280 used towards noble ends. And I think that's something really important that AusTrue provides.

00:52:38.140 One of the things that the lore provides is examples. It provides heroes in a way that you can see these people exhibiting these virtues that we talk about. And you can read stories of great people doing great things. One of the reasons I really like reading biographies much more than I like reading fiction.

00:52:58.140 because in fiction your heroes have no challenges you can you can create the

00:53:03.180 story in the narrative however you want to make them come out on top when you

00:53:07.320 read biographies of actual people that have done inspirational things it shows

00:53:12.000 you what someone you know similar to yourself could do if they applied

00:53:17.640 themselves and I think that the Lord gives us a lot of examples of people

00:53:22.140 applying themselves think on a deeper level one of the things that I love

00:53:27.700 about the Eddas and some of the lore in that way like the sagas are really good for inspiration

00:53:32.100 when you read the Eddas and and things like that it's neat because they're like an onion with how

00:53:40.660 layered they are and I find this myself you know it's old hat I've read the Eddas I read those you

00:53:46.020 know 20 years ago but every every so often when I go back and reread something I get blown away by

00:53:51.860 something I didn't pick up the first time so they're very deep and can be read on many different

00:53:55.860 layers and they're cool because they're accessible to children if you read them

00:53:59.820 as a child you get an interesting story you learn something you know I don't

00:54:05.580 presume that Thor is literally some buff red-haired dude that drives a chariot

00:54:11.620 but if you're a child and you read that you come to understand who Thor is

00:54:16.080 better right well the more you read in the Eddas the more you pick up on deeper

00:54:20.640 deeper truths I think that's something special we have that the Bible may not

00:54:25.740 having that way it's got very truths that are in your face do this don't do

00:54:30.420 that which is really useful but the Edda's have you can keep going and

00:54:37.740 there's layers of truth and this truth that builds upon truth it's not meant to

00:54:41.880 be literal truth but it tells truth in a lot of different ways and a lot of

00:54:47.620 different layers so I think it gives it gives us that you know in a certain way

00:54:53.340 One of the things about the nine noble virtues that's kind of our list of some do's and don'ts, but it's really not.

00:54:59.420 It's a list of do's, which I think is cool.

00:55:02.520 It's not telling you all the things not to do.

00:55:04.320 It's telling you standards to hold yourself to and traits that our community finds acceptable or worthy of praise.

00:55:14.880 That's picked up through action.

00:55:17.260 You talked about practicality being the test of a lot of values.

00:55:21.180 Well, I think our virtues teach that in a very upfront way.

00:55:27.000 Those are things that you use to structure a strong self, to structure a strong community,

00:55:32.940 and to build a strong people, and that can only be done by using those values and putting

00:55:38.540 them into practice.

00:55:39.540 Would you mind going over them briefly?

00:55:43.120 If only just listing them?

00:55:44.420 You know, one of the things with, like I've done an episode, a two-part episode on the Nine Noble Virtues, and I don't know if the AFA uses the same that was formulated by the Odinic Rite, or if you have your own slant on it.

00:56:03.820 But one of the things that was prominent in those episodes that I made was everything that you're saying.

00:56:10.060 This is a proactive, you know, basically a formula blueprint for strong, honorable living.

00:56:19.460 And it isn't the rules of a game that somebody is handing down to you where, you know, you don't necessarily see the purpose or function.

00:56:28.120 You just know that I want to follow the rules.

00:56:31.080 This, you know, the, you know, the authentic rights, the nine noble virtues was a list

00:56:36.120 of things that would take any person and allow them to become better, a better version of

00:56:41.060 themselves, you know?

00:56:42.600 Well, and I'll list them here in a sec, but one of the things that you touch on that's

00:56:45.920 really important is that they're principles and not situationally dependent.

00:56:54.260 They're not, you know, you should do X on Sunday, but you shouldn't do Y on Friday.

00:57:00.320 They are a list of principles that should guide your actions and how you interact.

00:57:06.400 And so, yes, we do use the same list of Nine Noble Virtues that the Odenic Rite came up

00:57:12.640 with.

00:57:14.760 And I wish I could just bust out the year that they came up with them, but they've kind

00:57:18.080 of guided Ausitru for a long time and we do honor them.

00:57:21.700 Now, different people use a little bit different words for the same thing sometimes depending

00:57:26.380 on what you read, but the nine noble virtues are courage, discipline, fidelity, honor,

00:57:33.880 hospitality, industriousness, perseverance, self-reliance, and truth.

00:57:42.160 And, you know, not only are those all good things that would take anybody and make them

00:57:47.680 better, but they build upon each other and they build a synergy.

00:57:52.480 They act in concert with each other.

00:57:54.780 and so i think that's a very simple but a very powerful blueprint in being a more noble version

00:58:02.800 of yourself right right right on uh i agree you know i uh you know i raise my sons you know know

00:58:12.480 the non-noble virtues my sons have at least my older two have uh read uh the eddas it's a it's

00:58:19.640 the topic of conversation in my house. There are rituals that we perform. But again, you know,

00:58:24.380 a lot of this is, you know, I fall into the category of the guy who I wouldn't say is having 0.84

00:58:30.320 the Viking barbecue in the back. I don't drink. But I am certainly the guy who has, you know,

00:58:36.540 from the onset of this particular leg of my journey, has pursued truths as I found them to

00:58:45.300 be relevant and and I tried to stay honest to myself you know during this

00:58:50.280 process but speaking of the nine noble virtues specifically it's something that

00:58:54.860 I found have been a great blueprint and I know there's some who I know Jamie

00:59:00.660 that I had on before and other people that I've spoken to don't subscribe to

00:59:06.000 it because a scribe or subscribe whichever word is more appropriate there

00:59:10.080 to it because

00:59:11.600 it was generated by the

00:59:13.940 Odenic Rite you know it wasn't something that was

00:59:16.180 a you know

00:59:17.460 necessarily in the things

00:59:19.640 what's your take on that? Well so let me put this

00:59:21.700 out there because I think it's interesting

00:59:23.060 you get a certain segment

00:59:25.320 of folks that

00:59:27.500 spend all their time focusing

00:59:29.740 on the lore

00:59:31.580 or archaeology

00:59:34.060 or their

00:59:35.140 to them I think in their head they

00:59:37.540 construct that the more

00:59:40.080 faithfully you can reproduce reenacting you know 8th century Vikings that has

00:59:50.460 some spiritual significance right and you know there's there's certainly things

00:59:56.480 that are time-honored are important and valuable but the Vikings didn't dress up

01:00:00.900 like cavemen to be more spiritual and I wonder what they think fundamentally

01:00:07.680 happened you know in the year 800 that gave one of their gothies the

01:00:14.360 significant authority to say something that we wouldn't have today like was

01:00:20.980 was Olaf the Viking in Trondheim back in 840 somehow have more spiritual

01:00:29.220 authenticity to acknowledge that courage and discipline and the industriousness

01:00:36.060 are valuable well so I think that's important though right because rather

01:00:48.060 than pretending that we're ancient Vikings we're keeping it real and these

01:00:54.840 truths are valuable you can go back and look at our lore they've always been

01:00:59.220 valuable to to the European folk to the to the Aryan peoples these were always

01:01:05.760 noble principles and to codify them in you know the 1970s or 80s we're moving

01:01:15.540 forward that's that's how we ought to do if we're so stagnant that our value

01:01:20.100 system has to be based on trying to roleplay being a Viking then there's

01:01:26.280 just a fun you know why not have the Viking barbecue in the backyard just

01:01:29.700 reenact because at that point we're not living a faith where we're trying to be

01:01:34.500 reenactors and there's a time and a place for that but that's it's not an authentic spiritual

01:01:38.900 journey to me you know and and i i agree i think the the logic is sound first off i remember i had

01:01:47.160 um a paul wagner on of the the the werewolves the wolves uh the wolves of inland i don't think i

01:01:52.940 call the werewolves that's ridiculous uh the wolves of inland and and uh but one of the things

01:01:59.700 that he said that I think was was perfect and you reiterated it it's you

01:02:06.660 know it's about creating who we are connecting to you know how we see the

01:02:12.300 gods and our relationship with them not necessarily reflecting that somebody

01:02:16.940 else's relationship with the gods you know and and you know I agree a

01:02:21.900 wholeheartedly you know and also to the to the charge that you know this isn't

01:02:27.160 part of the law it sure well wasn't the law written by somebody oh yeah it is now

01:02:33.160 like it's kind of like this is how we make lore right you know it's part of

01:02:37.180 the modern lore right right and and I think and I think that's that's fair

01:02:41.260 that's valid I understand you know obviously both perspectives but I also

01:02:46.420 as somebody who's very skeptical and like I got trust issues Matt I'll be

01:02:50.580 honest with you I got some serious trust issues and you know when somebody's dead 0.96

01:02:55.880 it's like they really can't fuck me over so things that they've written you know 0.99

01:02:59.900 like it kind of is what it is but I've met many a Charlotte in my time and so 0.97

01:03:05.540 I get the skepticism I think to a certain level it's healthy but I also

01:03:09.620 think with this specifically I think there's a valid a case for well this is

01:03:15.240 the modern law you know and if you can't say that this is in conflict with the

01:03:21.440 lore then why would you you know put up a resistance against it you know what I

01:03:25.440 mean well it's there's a difference between your when you're looking at this

01:03:33.180 is a real thing and when you're analyzing it as an obscure point of

01:03:38.540 historical trivia and I think that when you contemplate it as an actual faith

01:03:44.420 and not just some strange thing Vikings did it prompts you to make some of those

01:03:49.220 decisions and to think about it. At some point in the way back, the Gofies that had the trust

01:03:56.160 of their community made decisions for their folk of what was right, what was wrong, what 0.99

01:04:01.480 was healthy for their people. When people accepted those and saw they were beneficial

01:04:06.220 and those lasted over time, they become codified in something that was agreed upon. One of

01:04:11.980 the cool things about the Nine Noble Virtues, one of the reasons that I don't try to remake

01:04:15.660 them or you know no this is the special you know Matt Flabel remix is because

01:04:23.040 they have been around and they've served us really well and they are time

01:04:26.940 honored they're not they're not ancient but you know they're 50 years old and

01:04:32.040 they're they're really nice things and certainly we can add to them over time

01:04:36.720 we can build upon them but we always need to be building and striving for

01:04:40.860 for something better, that something that we've always done is strive to achieve more,

01:04:49.140 to innovate, to accomplish, and to do more.

01:04:52.780 And so I think that in a modern sense, we have to be building.

01:04:56.940 We can't just be aping what our ancestors did.

01:04:59.420 We have to do more and rise to the challenges that our folk face right here, right now.

01:05:06.660 That's certainly what they did then, and that's what their ancestors did before them.

01:05:10.860 I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Winding down, people who are interested in connecting with the AFA, what are the different ways that people can connect with you?

01:05:25.680 well the hub for all of it is www.runestone.org

01:05:34.600 clifford erickson one of our wit members has put so much time into making our new website look nice

01:05:42.700 function well that will give you a way to connect with your local folk builder with any gothar that

01:05:49.500 are in your area it'll help you read our court documents it shows events that are going on and

01:05:55.500 that really helps you get connected and it's got a very active news section so

01:05:59.260 everybody I would encourage you to go there go there if you like us go there

01:06:03.820 if you don't like us go there if you just want to know more about us just go

01:06:06.780 to the website and check it out also on Facebook our Facebook page is pretty

01:06:12.480 active you're welcome to reach out there house of true folk assembly you'll find

01:06:17.100 it should be one of the first thing that pops up you can reach out to me

01:06:20.880 personally if you have any questions always feel free to do that

01:06:23.700 Matt Flavel, F-L-A-V-E-L, at runestone.org is my email address, please feel free to reach

01:06:32.460 out.

01:06:33.460 On that website's got your local Folk Builder, and no matter where you are, chances are we've

01:06:37.720 got somebody close to you and they can help you answer any questions you may have, get

01:06:42.920 in touch with any local people if you want to find out more about us or have any questions.

01:06:49.120 They're really good on that.

01:06:50.320 If you have a spiritual question, and I'll say this, and I think this is important.

01:06:54.860 If anybody out there within the sound of my voice, if you need to talk to somebody about something spiritual and you need help that way, please reach out to our Gothar.

01:07:06.020 So what we're here for, we'd be really happy to answer anything you may have or help you through a situation you might be dealing with.

01:07:12.300 And those contacts are all on the website as well.

01:07:14.780 Say it one more time, www.runestone.org.

01:07:17.780 That really will connect you with your people locally.

01:07:22.660 Your interaction with the AFA shouldn't be an internet thing, but again, like I was talking

01:07:27.460 about earlier, we're using what works for modern times, and the Facebook page and the

01:07:32.020 website are going to help you connect to somebody real.

01:07:34.840 But the next step is actually meeting them, actually talking to them, having a phone call,

01:07:40.260 and we're all very eager to do those things.

01:07:42.180 So that's the best way to reach out to us.

01:07:45.440 That's awesome.

01:07:47.220 If somebody wants to become more educated in Asatru, who is maybe not yet ready to make

01:07:53.540 the step to connect with the organization, what would you suggest they do?

01:08:03.400 If they're not ready to actually talk to somebody, that's a little bit different.

01:08:08.220 If you are and you just don't want to sign up, that's fine.

01:08:10.420 Any of the people I just told you about could help direct you with a specific question or

01:08:14.660 resource we have books on our website that we sell that I you know please buy

01:08:21.060 our stuff but honestly books we have on there will help you get a better

01:08:24.620 understanding of where we're coming from and more and things if you're looking to

01:08:30.140 buy books one thing Astro a native European spirituality by Steve McNallan

01:08:36.280 does a really good job of basically modern house to true one-on-one and

01:08:40.420 telling you where modern house true came from and a little bit about Steve and

01:08:44.580 the AFA and how that was started.

01:08:46.560 So I'd encourage you to buy that book if you want another one that would be

01:08:50.520 really useful is a book of truth by Edred Thorson.

01:08:57.000 Try to get, I think the 2003 edition or the most recent edition.

01:09:01.580 I'm that'll help you a little bit.

01:09:02.940 Don't be confused by the title that was before the truth became the strange

01:09:07.060 universalist situation it is now.

01:09:10.980 But I'd also encourage you for more primary source stuff,

01:09:14.580 The Culture of the Teutons by Wilhelm Groenbeck. It's a difficult read, but it's a really good one, and it's one of the

01:09:21.940 few, it's one of the books that, you know, I could read a few pages and I just had to set it down and let it

01:09:26.140 digest because some of it just blew my mind on how well it was put. So that's a really good resource for you guys to

01:09:32.220 read. And then once you do it, seriously, interact. Ask somebody, reach out. Just because you send an email doesn't

01:09:39.720 mean you have to join or, you know, anybody's going to be hassling you, but it does connect you with some people

01:09:44.380 I would love to help. That's great. You know, for my listeners, it'll be a familiar theme,

01:09:52.540 but I think that although it's important for an individual to create the wall, and the wall I

01:09:58.980 represent as the acknowledgement of who is in tribe, who is external, ex-tribe, although it

01:10:06.340 is significant for a person to do that when it comes to allocating resources and investing energy

01:10:10.820 and maintaining an individual and group identity that is, you know, congruent, cohesive.

01:10:16.680 It is also important to maintain formulas of alliance and alliance building.

01:10:21.240 You know, we need to be making allies where those allies can create a synergy with, you know, your group or you as an individual. 0.58

01:10:29.100 so even if you are somebody who is not an ossature not a Odinist not a heathen not

01:10:38.220 somebody that connects with the gods of Europe you know I would still say that

01:10:44.940 there is value to be found in reading the you know the the adventures the the

01:10:51.600 the identities the formulas that strong people during hard times you know apply

01:10:58.220 to their lives and the benefit that came of it uh if you are somebody who does share you know this

01:11:03.900 history and your your people i would i would challenge you to uh explore it for you know an

01:11:10.220 even greater purpose um being that being connecting with with the truth that you know at some point

01:11:16.140 in your life may become more familiar than you realize it ever would you know and uh and i will

01:11:21.580 say you know wrapping up um i really appreciate you you know you're doing this you are probably

01:11:28.540 the easiest guest i've ever had in terms of scheduling the talk it's like hey man want to

01:11:34.620 do this yeah how about tomorrow sure see you then boom gets it done that's how i am as a guest by

01:11:40.380 the way and like when people are you know sometimes you get the the pomp and circumstance the well i

01:11:49.180 will uh check my calendar and i will have one of my people it's like listen like give me a

01:11:55.940 break you know like either you want to do it or you don't but you've had none of that you have

01:12:00.400 been authentic from the first interaction and i and i really really appreciate you doing this talk

01:12:05.740 well no i'm really appreciative for you having me on it's a good opportunity i look forward to

01:12:11.060 talking to you so yeah i was chomping at the bit wanting to get on and make it as easy as possible

01:12:15.640 you know it's a real it's a real good opportunity to be able to speak to your audience um and yeah

01:12:23.600 i look forward to getting the chance to talk about the afa and talk about astro whenever i can get

01:12:27.620 it that's that's my life so thanks for having me on no absolutely it was a privilege i will say

01:12:34.680 that i know the afa has a a function in pennsylvania once a year if i'm not mistaken

01:12:40.340 winter nights winter nights and you know i am in npa and just an open invitation to you and your

01:12:47.360 lovely wife uh my wife and i would love to have you guys over for uh for dinner or you know to

01:12:53.240 hang out and connect uh in any way you know no no pressure but the invitation's open all right

01:12:58.700 this october let's do it all right sounds awesome all right brother uh stand by

01:13:03.020 We'll be right back.

Asatru Folk Assembly - February 01, 2021

TPP Matt Flavel May 2019

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript