Some Thoughts on the
Basic Premises of the Faith
by HnikarThe peoples of the Earth differ from one another not only in their physical characteristics, but also in their spiritual qualities, in their Folksoul, as revealed by the nature of their religious expressions and forms, and by the nature of their communities and cultures. They therefore perceive the numinous in unique ways.
Because their perception, their spirit, differs, they have across generations developed their indigenous faiths to express that Even where an alien faith has been forced upon them, or adopted, it was merely grafted upon the Folk ways and traditions.
It is only recently in historical terms that religion came to be viewed as something with universal applicability. Until the rise of Christianity such concepts enjoyed relatively little popularity, and each people for the most part honored the gods in their own way without thinking to impose it on others. Religion was viewed not as revelation, not as the domain of jealous gods who sought to make the world choose between kneeling or suffering, but as an organic spiritual outlook arising from the earliest days of that people's existence. Today, however, the curse of universalism, the cult of universal sameness and religious rootlessness, is wrapped in the tangle of "popular thought", that series of concepts accepted without much thought by the individual (in which each age expresses its folly). Asatru stands as the organic opposed to the ideological, as the natural expression of a real Folk and not as a universal one-size-fits-all dogma. To borrow the revolutionary idea of Vaclav Havel, religion must "live in truth" and not in popular ideologically-based untruths.
THE GODS: The Aesir and Vanir exist as living beings (I believe) or as archetypes of the Folksoul's spiritual understanding. They obviously do not "live" merely in the sense of man, fauna or flora. The gods and the giants are related spiritual beings, differing in their opposing roles within Wyrd, beyond form but assuming form. Like men they have a personality, an individual perspective. Our gods are not distant judges, but may be known. They are a numinous form of life and express themselves in the forces of Nature, in the wind blowing through the forest, in the rumble of thunder, in the roar of the sea in a storm, through our mythopoetic understanding, through our souls.
They are no less the same entities that have been honored by the various branches of our Folk from prehistory- Tyr is Tiw is Tiwaz is Jupiter is Zeus is Dyaus Pitar is the ancient sky god of the proto-Indo-Europeans is the god of those of our Folk who dispersed to explore before the rise of proto-Indo-European culture (as represented by Cheddar Man, Kennewick Man and Spirit Cave Man for instance).
The gods live today and we communicate with them across the worlds by focusing our thought-will ("telepathically"), by creating a link between the worlds in rituals such as the blot and symbel, and by our soul traveling between the worlds ("shamanism").
WYRD: Wyrd is the impersonal relatedness of all things and events. Nothing is outside Wyrd. Represented as a fabric being woven it can be viewed as a Mind or an intelligence. However, the intelligence is focused on the pattern being woven, not on the individual threads as such- this is the will of Wyrd. Before the creation of the worlds, all was stasis, entropy. The rise of energies in opposition, clashing, set creation into motion, and it is the opposing energies of the related beings, the gods and the giants, which continue the tension from which life arises. Our Folk, given the breath of Odin, born in harsh lands and necessarily inventive, necessarily bold, necessarily creative, stand with the ancestral gods in this struggle. Like Odin we have forever sought to know truth- an eye on this world and another in the Well of Wyrd. Like Odin, we have forever sought to uncover the secrets around us- no Folk has been as exploratory in action or in thought. Within Wyrd, we and our people's gods are united in spirit and purpose.
SOUL: Conceptions of the soul, as revealed by etymology, by the clear purposes of burial practices, by the study of such sources as the Eddas, of shamanic practices, of research into the concepts of related religious paths, and of pre-Christian Western philosophy firmly grounded in the Folk's spiritual perspective, are complex but clearly reveal that the concept of the soul has been known among our people from its earliest days.
PERSONALITY: We have an essence, a self, which exists beyond this lifetime and beyond this world. This personality, this soul, is what survives our death to live among the gods, to be reincarnated, or merely to haunt Miðgarð disembodied. This soul is also the vehicle by which we may travel along Yggdrasil to the other worlds while we live.
If life is to have meaning, the soul must somehow be linked to our life, to the genetic path to which our lives also are linked. Without such a connection, such religious notions as asceticism, withdrawal, and the extinguishment of the self become almost reasonable. If the soul is our higher self, and brings us to the worlds of the gods, without reference to our lives of struggle on Miðgarð, some would conclude that to opt for disembodiment and withdrawal from the needs of the Folk would be worthwhile. These concepts are alien to our native religious conception and to our very spirit precisely because our Folk senses that spirit does not exist apart from reality, but as a part of it. While our soul exists beyond this lifetime, it is part of the genetic-spiritual complex which is indivisible in life and beyond. The non-carnate souls of our ancestors live because we live- each personality is a part of the greater Folksoul, without which it cannot survive. Life has meaning, ancestry has meaning, and spirit reflects this.
FOLKSOUL: Just as in life we have our individuality and also a genetic relatedness to our Folk, so too does our individual soul have a commonality, a likeness and a reliance, with the souls of others of our Folk. The Folksoul is a unifying thread of livingness for the individual souls- it is the great sea from which we draw the energy of existence. It is through the Folksoul that we experience the spiritual, through which we find our indigenous religious outlook. The Folksoul is expressed in Miðgarð also by the nature of our Folk, by our creation and exploration, our Odinic search for knowingness.
PRINCIPLES: Asatru is an honoring of our ancient and living gods, but this goes much further than ritual and ceremony divorced from the rest of our lives. Unlike modern conceptions of religion as being apart from other areas which we label politics and such, Asatru has forever been seen as not an area of life, but a way of living life. This includes all aspects of life, and every moment. In pre-Christian times, the entire social order, the entire fabric of community, revolved around the faith. Religion is more than a way of acting or of thinking, it is also a way of being. Asatru is a life of honor, of pride, of protectiveness for Miðgarð, for family, for the Folk. Asatru is the ancestral spirit acting in the present to create the future for our Folk, to serve the unity of purpose within the will of Wyrd for our Folk and our gods.
CONCLUSION: Our faith puts great store in the fame of a man's deeds, understanding that these are eternal in the Folk. Who among the American Indians would honor ancestors who did not struggle for their future, for their Folk ways, for their culture, for the survival of their people? Who among the Asians and the Africans would honor ancestors who surrendered their freedom, their Folk ways, the sovereignty of their people? Who in the future generations of our Folk will honor those millions who today are willing to surrender, or are too weak-willed to hold, the legacy of our past? Who do not value the genetic existence and spiritual uniqueness of our Folk? Who failed to honor the trust implicit in receiving the creations of their ancestors by giving them to their descendants? Asatru stands for great deeds by individuals in the service of the Folk, and in this age of surrender and weakness, little else will earn eternal fame.
Hail the ancient and living gods! Hail the Folk!
- Hnikar