Asatru is a heathen religion. A heathen is a pagan whose faith originated on the heath, that is, Germany, Iceland, Scandinavia, Scandinavian-influenced Scotland, and other parts of Northern Europe. The word heathen is Scots dialect, derived from Gothic, a Germanic language. The Rhine River, which served as the border between the Roman Empire and Germania, is the dividing line between what is the heath and what is not.
There are other heathen religions, such as Theod, the Anglo-Saxon religion; Forn Sed and Forn Sidr, European variants of heathenry; Odinism, which has an English version and an American version; and Urglaawe, the Pennsylvania Deitsch tradition. Some heathens consider religions based on other European cultures to be sister religions, although they have different gods. The Celtic religion and Druidic faith centered in Ireland, Scotland, and parts of France is sometimes included as a sister religion. Some people include other traditions under the umbrella of sister religions as well, such as Slavic traditions.
Although many heathens do not consider themselves pagan, heathendom fits under the broad definition of a pagan as one who practices any of the non-Abrahamic religions. The three main religions of Abraham are Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Most of the world's tribal religions are pagan in the broad sense. Many modern reconstructed religions, such as Asatru, and newly invented religions, such as the Church of All Worlds, are also pagan in a narrower sense of a new or reconstructed religion based on an older non-Christian tradition or body of knowledge. Only reconstructed and newly invented religions usually identify as pagan; religions with a continuous tradition, such as Hinduism, generally do not identify under the pagan umbrella. This is the reason some heathens do not consider heathenry to be pagan. Whereas outside observers consider heathenry to be a new religious movement, many heathens perceive heathenry to be a group of ethnic religions.
A group of people actively created Asatru out of the materials available from literature, archeology, and other scholarship, and continuous folk traditions that coexisted with Christianity after the age of conversion (that is, the time period during which countries in northern Europe officially became Christian countries). Asatru is not an unbroken tradition like Hinduism. Scholars define Asatru as a new religious movement, but they also define Asatru as a folk religion. A folk religion does not have a religious authority that decides what is and is not part of the religion. Rather, the customs, canon, beliefs, and practices of a folk religion are collectively decided by those who practice it. Asatru fits that definition. There is no Asa-Pope.
Some heathens don't consider heathenry to be pagan because generic paganism is synonymous with Wicca, whose practitioners call themselves witches. Most Asatruars do not identify as witches, and Asatru is not a form of witchcraft. There are magical traditions within heathenry and Asatru, but not all Asatruars practice magic.
The word Asatru is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable. Pronounce the A as you would pronounce the Au in Austria. If you are from the United States, you probably say AH-suh-tru and AH-stree-uh. If you are from Iceland, you probably say OW-suh-tru and OW-stree-uh. Continental Europeans are split between the two.
Many Asatruars consider Asatru to be a nature religion. In addition to the gods, many of whom have functions and spheres of influence in nature, we also honor the landvættir, the land spirits. Some Asatruars see the gods as personifications of nature. Other Asatruars see nature as a personification of the divine.
Some Asatruars are polytheist and believe the named gods are all separate entities. Other Asatruars are pantheists and believe all the goddesses ultimately form one Great Goddess. And there are people in Asatru who fall in the middle, for example, they see Odin and his brothers as a trinity and yet different from each other, but see the other gods as separate from them.
As I mentioned previously, Asatru is a reconstructed religion. Rebuilding the elder faith continues through scholarship of literature and linguistics, anthropology and archeology, the study of fairy tales and folk customs, and the experiences of modern Asatruars. However, many current customs are holdovers from heathen times. Folk customs, fairy tales, and even many nominally Christian celebrations have heathen roots.
Asatru is a religion of action, not faith. To be a good Asatruar one must do specific things, which include participation in specific rituals, but one does not have to believe. The idea of accepting deity into one's heart to be “saved” is a Christian concept that is not part of heathenry. Within Asatru, there are those who believe, those who do not believe, and those who do not need faith because they have personal religious experiences and relationships with the gods and other beings. You can regard the gods as archetypes if you choose, as long as you act honorably. Acting honorably includes respecting other heathens who may be in another group and believing that doing heathenry differently than you does not mean they are doing it wrong.
Asatru groups that celebrate holidays together or practice magic together can be called kindreds, hearths, garths, and other terms. Most groups have learned from bad experiences in the early days of the heathen revival and no longer ask new members to swear kindred oaths on first meeting. For the sake of your honor, never take an oath in a language you do not understand, nor swear kinship to people you do not know very well. Oaths are serious business in heathenry. These days, many Asatru kindreds no longer do kindred oaths at all, and those who do usually have members take them only when everyone is sure they're a good fit.
The answer is no. Some Asatruars are of mixed race and choose to follow the ways of their Northern ancestors, some are of other races and were adopted by Asatruars and raised in Asatru, some come to Asatru through cultural or linguistic identification, and some are called by the gods of the North. Within Asatru, there are two schools of thought about whether a person must belong to a particular nation in order to be that particular type of heathen. Those who say no are called “universalists.” Those who say yes are called “folkish.” However, even among the folkish, the tradition of tribal adoption is honored, and those of mixed ethnicity are welcomed in most groups as long as they have some ancestors from the given nation. In fact, many American Asatruars, including myself, are part Native American. In recent years, many Asatruars are identifying as tribalist, which is part way between folkish and universalist.
Men and women had traditional roles, but leadership was not only for men. Warrior women and ruling queens abound in the history and legends of the various Northern peoples. Women held a monopoly on the manufacturing of cloth, the major export, and on practicing medicine and foretelling the future. Women also owned property and could initiate divorce. Viking Age women held great economic power.
Many people new to Asatru want to find other Asatruars, and want to know how to tell if someone is an Asatruar. Some Asatruars wear symbols such as a Thor's Hammer pendant, have runic tattoos, or wear T-shirts with symbols of the gods. Many Asatruars use online identities with the names of the gods included in them, or adopt Icelandic or Germanic names. The Resources section has some ideas for finding other Asatru individuals and organizations.
Those who hear the call of our gods can seek the common thread between both religions; for example, a Hindu who dreamed of Odin came to Asatru without giving up his original beliefs. Heathen practices that are continuous folk traditions, such as the Maypole dance, have been practiced alongside Christianity all along. Some Asatruars practice Asatru as a tribal or folkish religion, that is, they believe they are called because their ancestors were heathen. When practicing Asatru as a tribal religion, Asatru can be combined with other tribal religions when the person is a descendant of each tribe. For example, one Asatruar who has Northern European and African ancestry is both Asatru and Kemetic.
You don't. Asatru is not an initiatory tradition, so you are Asatru when you say you are Asatru. However, there are initiatory traditions within heathenry. For example, there are ancient stories in which the hero is given a drink of sacred mead and occult knowledge. Modern-day heathens can experience trance or dream journeys in which they meet the initiatory maiden with the mead. This is an experience sought by very few advanced magic practitioners and mystics. It is uncommon among the small percentage of heathens who do practice some form of magic. Some Asatru groups borrowed Wiccan style initiation ceremonies; these groups are usually oriented toward magic rather than toward celebrating the holidays.
When people ask how to get initiated, they are really asking how to find a good teacher or how to find a group with which to celebrate. There are three components to a good teacher: knowing a lot, sharing the knowledge, and refraining from exploiting the students. A good mentor will probably give you a book list, recommend some websites, and provide personal direction. Heathenry is often called “the religion with homework.” On the sharing and nonexploiting front, watch out for the warning signs of hierarchy and promised secrets that never materialize. If a potential teacher tells you there is something you absolutely must know to have a chance at a decent life, you haven't qualified to know it yet, and to learn it you must meet some exploitative demand, run.
None of the gods is omnipotent. Wyrd (destiny) and orlog (karma) are the forces of the universe that govern “fate,” that is, outcomes. They show us that the causes of events originate in our own world. Actions by ancestors, neighbors, leaders, and businessmen set off chains of events, and reactions lead to more reactions, building up the layers of past action we call orlog. Orlog is the hand you are dealt, and your actions and decisions while working with it create more orlog.
Our mythology describes Valhalla as a house in which there are tables and benches where the einherjar, the battle slain, eat high on the hog and drink mead. Every day they go out onto the practice field and hold a battle, they are all healed, and they go back inside to continue their revelry. They are practicing their war skills for the last battle at the end of days. Generally, all the homes of the gods, from Valhalla to Hel, are described as halls within lands (gardens or fields), and the dead that go to each hall have food and drink there. The mythology does not describe daily activities or tasks for the residents of any hall but Valhalla.
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Readers of Asatru For Beginners might wonder how close the content of this book is to my previous book. Some things have not changed. For example, the way a sumbel ritual is done has not changed much in the last twenty years, so that part is pretty much the same. Other things in this book have been updated and expanded. When I wrote Asatru For Beginners, I was the manager of the MSN Asatru Group. This time, I'm the administrator of the Asatru Facebook Forum. Being a forum manager again while working on this book allowed me to do the same things I did when writing the first book. One of those things was to collect the frequently asked questions, see in real time whether people understood my answers so I could revise my responses, and save my new answers. Another was to see what general direction Asatru was taking as thousands of group members discussed their practices. That's how I saw the rise of the modernist movement, which does a lot of things differently and has different opinions on many issues. I decided I needed to update my book to reflect current practices. This book includes both traditionalist and modernist ways. Also, there has been a lot of new scholarship in the years since I wrote Asatru For Beginners. I've greatly expanded the section on the gods by including new gods and new types of information on the gods. For example, in this book I've included information on the gods' tribes and family relationships.
You can start by giving them them a copy of this book to open the discussion.