A ggod essay on spotting frauds

[debbieredbear]

http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/essays/

[Barnaby_McEwan]

What a welcome change that was! I'm a bit concerned that the author seems to be quoting approvingly from the Asatru Folk Assembly's website. I'm sure she wouldn't want to be handing out good PR for a bunch of bearded, cloak-wearing, white-supremacist nutbars, so I emailed her a couple of links, and invited her to this forum. The links:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=451

http://www.wweek.com/html/cover042298.html

[lizditz]

Thanks for the heads-up.  I had searched, but not to the point of due-diligence, on the Asatru.  

For a completely off-topic comment(s)

1. Harry Turtledove's "The Case of the Toxic Spell-Dump" which is a SF fantasy in which, well, Magic works and is based on one's ancestry.  The heroes are saved in part by a Lithuanian fellow who is the manager of the dump, who invokes his ancestral deity.

2.  All of Terry Pratchett's novels, some of which lampoon wanna-bes.

[Barnaby_McEwan]

Howdy Liz.

I expect you've come across 'Asatruar' or 'Heathens', who show at least rhetorical opposition to the racism within their own scene, for example:

http://home.earthlink.net/~wodensharrow/hah.html

However even the anti-racist end of this scene continuously refers to racists like Guido 'von' List (he was not of an aristocratic family: the 'von' resulted from his delusions of grandeur) as if they were simply antiquarian revivalists.

On List, see Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology. London: Tauris Parke. 2004. ISBN 1860649734. Especially Chapter 3.

Like the rest of neo-paganism, Asatru is built on Romantic tosh about the past. Ironically, romanticising 'barbarian' peoples is a much older European tradition than the various flavours of neo-paganism. For this, see Lovejoy, Arthur O. and George Boas. Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1997. ISBN 0 8018 5611 6.

Here you'll find people like Seneca and Julius Caesar writing about the Germans in much the same way as some modern Germans write about Indians: another irony.

[VHawkins]

howdy Liz,

What exactly are you sayin' about Neo-Nazi's in the essay? I was born confused, so don't take it personal.

It is a shame some nut like Hitler and his band o' goons & idiots, or what ever you wanna call 'em -- idiots is fine by me -- used European history to propogate their "Aryan" nonsense. I guess he was the "supreme" newage fanatical guru of his era. I never thought of it that way before . . . hmmm . . .

I have an uncle (Eual Lee Hawkins, b. 1927 on a farm nine miles from Manitou, Oklahoma [metropolous of 200 about souls on a good day during wheat or cotton harvest season, when the wheat combines and cotton modules show up with their crews] -- he was barely 17 years old) -- he was killed late in the Normandy battles in July 1944. They were poor farmers. Dad used to say he walked a mile or 2 to school barefoot, cause he didn't have any shoes at times during the Dust Bowl/Depression. My poor ol' feet wouldn't last, I don't think.

I heard Uncle Eual Lee was sent to the front prematurely -- even before his training was done -- they just wanted bodies I suppose, and he was killed practically the same day that he showed up at the front. I was told  grandma was bitter, angry, heartbroken -- about that till she died, never forgiving the government. She never spoke about it to me, but I was just a kid -- she died when I was 10.

Whenever I hear anything about the Nazis I always think of my Uncle, whom I never got to meet, and the life he never got to live.

Vance

[Jamie Hume]

Hey be careful on that! Not all Asatru people are white supremists. A true Asatru would not be a believer in that! White supremists are appropriating a lot of cultural lore to hide their hate under the guise of culture and spirituality. What I see is these people being cowards and looking for a way to legitamize themselves! This is really hurting those of us who genuinely love our anscesters and care about reclaiming their indigeonous spirituality!!

I am largely of Celtic lineage. I have been encountering some very nasty examples of this on the Internet. Truth, truth, truth...we all have to try to be as sure as possible about what we are saying. This site is really making me pay attention!

Peace!

[Defend the Sacred]

This is really hurting those of us who genuinely love our anscesters and care about reclaiming their indigeonous spirituality!!

I am largely of Celtic lineage.

Uh, ok.  Which Celts?   And if you're genuinely interested in reclaiming your ancestors' spirituality, why the sundance and pipe?  Seriously.

It is true there are some anti-racist ??satrúar.  I know some of them.  There are also the out and out racists and those who, while not being cross-burners, are not exactly anti-racist.  Like any other community, it's a continuum.