I am Vinland’s Volva, an honorary title of respect and recognition, gifted me by Sámi Noaide (‘shamans’; This does not make me a Sámi, just recognized by them).
At all times, my overall focus is on the Folksoul of my people.
Curiously, many people who would turn away anyone deemed insufficiently Northern European from joining their Kindred would adamantly deny any racism. My theory is that a significant number of people have managed to internalize the idea "racism = bad", without this preventing them from behaving in a discriminatory fashion towards others! Or, a dear friend puts it, "Identifying as folkish is a way of saying that you're a racist without actually admitting to yourself that you're a racist."
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I can see wanting people who really do have the heritage a group represnts, and not people who are pretending.
Is the term "folksoul" the same as the term "folkish"?
Yngona Desmond was raised to value both Celtic folklore and Theosophy. For over 35 years she has lived, studied, and taught a mystical and spiritual lifestyle. Independently, she has been a student and practitioner of yogic traditions since childhood.So a change from Celtic folklore to Germanic Volksseele must have taken place some time. Theosophy has been covered at NAFPS before, especially its racist concept of so-called root races according to which American ndn nations are doomed to vanish while certain others are seen as 'superior'.
I checked with the Southen Poverty Law Center. They are not on any active hate group or Neo-Nazi lists. So they are just to themselves right now. http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp#s=GA http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=9
As a Folkish Heiðinn I must support and contribute to those organizations that I feel whole-heartedly promote my ethnic Folkfaith. I do not feel – at the present time – the Troth is doing this. I will continue to support those organizations that seek to enrich and ensure the continuity of Heiðindómr’s rich ethnic Folkfaith – either through financial contribution, membership or verbal endorsement. These organizations are: the Asatru Alliance, the Asatru Folk Assembly, the Odinic Rite and the Allgermanische Heidnische Front.
If California and the American Southwest are to be cultural battlegrounds, who better to lead the European-American counterattack against Tonatzin and Tezcatlipoca than our own Gods of the North.
One of the most controversial tenets of Asatru is our insistence that ancestry matters- that there are spiritual and metaphysical implications to heredity, and that we are thus a religion not for all of humanity, but rather one that calls only its own.
Fact: Ancestry matters.
...how are the beliefs explained in some of these passages any different than the view held by most American Indians? Each Nation has their own spiritual beliefs and feel that they are specific to a People.
According to a widely held view, the cult of the Germanic race was related to and even nourished by pre-Christian memories rooted in the native soil from which Wotan and Thor were never wholly extirpated. Closer examination, however, reveals the Germanic pantheon as a laborious reconstruction after an eclipse of the Nordic gods which was almost as total as that of the Etruscan or Celtic. Indeed, German mythology was only preserved outside Germany...
how are the beliefs explained in some of these passages any different than the view held by most American Indians? Each Nation has their own spiritual beliefs and feel that they are specific to a People.I've been thinking about this too , and trying to put my finger on what is the difference. I'm not sure everyone involved if these groups are what would be considered White supremacists, but I think where the feeling of being connected with your ancestors crosses over into something different is when people who have a similar descent but aren't so called "pure blood" are excluded and their other ancestry is seen as some kind of a taint. Indigenous people do feel their ancestry is important, but I don't think some idealized "racial purity" has anything to do with that.
Apparently they are using these made-up beliefs to justify their racism.
...it is quite apparent to anyone not trying to shut their ears against what they don't want to hear that the real motivation of these Folkists is not religious at all, but political. That this is so can be seen by visiting the message boards and websites of such Folkists. Many focus primarily on the issue of race and such political issues, mentioning actual religious ideas little, if at all.
One thing I've been thinking is how People from Asia, Siberia , India, Africa and the Middle East have been traveling into Northern Europe and intermarrying for the last several thousand years and the true history of Northren Europe never has been entirely "White" and has always included a degree of ethnic divesity and a few people of color. Sometimes more than a few.
To put things simply, there are three major camps of Asatruar: the Universalists, the Tribalists, and the Folkish. Universalists and Folkish practitioners are two extremes, with the (more reasonable) center being Tribalism, into which category the majority of Asatruar fall. These are the factions that have formed from three different answers to the question: "Who can practice Asatru?"
"Anyone who makes a sufficient effort to understand and adopt the culture of the ancient heathens." This gives Asatru rigorous enough standards to make sure our practice is like that of the ancients, and is well understood, for to fully adopt another culture requires MUCH study. Additionally the gods first came to be known in the context of the ancient culture, so it stands to reason that they can only be truly understood in the terms of that culture.
Much is made, in the modern Asatru community, of "not rocking the boat", and "getting along", and "being fair and open-minded". For this reason, when subjects such as the rightness or wrongness of Folkish practice come up in conversation, as on discussion forums, people quickly leap to say such things as "Let's not open up that can of worms," or "But they're just expressing their honest opinions." I think this practice is wrong. Folkism is, in general, racism and makes a virtue out of clinging to ignorance and not thinking rationally. We should treat it as such. I think a zero-tolerance policy needs to be developed in modern Asatru lest we get dragged down by some real losers. We should discuss this. We should debate this. We should get rid of the ridiculous notion that an individual's right to have an honest opinion is grounds for forcing the rest of us to associate ourselves, even indirectly, with it. We should call racists racists and make sure they have no say in the future of our religion.
It is an important tenet of our religioun, of our philosophy towards life as Asatruar, that a person is responsible for his or her actions. Well, inaction is an action too. Allowing racist beliefs to be spoken next to the beliefs of our cultural ancestors without comment gives the distinct impression to everyone that these are acceptable interpretations of the lore (and think how that affects those new to our path, as well as outsiders looking at us). It lends validity to the idea that our gods really think and feel as they do. My brothers and sisters, every time you let such opinions go unchallenged, every time you shut down a conversation with the words "let's not open up that can of worms again," or "well, they're just expressing their honest opinions," or "we've already had this conversation and it got nowhere,", every time you do these things THE RESULT OF YOUR ACTIVITIES IS THAT THE RACIST AGENDA IS ALLOWED TO FLOURISH. IT IS PROMOTED. IT IS ALLOWED TO DOMINATE MORE AND MORE OF WHO WE ARE AS ASATRUAR.
I think what we call racism and what we consider to be negative happens if there is violence and exploitation of one national (racial) group by another.