Understanding Asatru/Heathenry: There is life after Dan Halloran

As the tale of New York City Councilman Dan Halloran's arrest crawls down off of the front page of the New York Times and into the snarkier venues of Gawker and (sooner or later) the Village Voice, I find myself wincing. His faith (such as he more or less cleaves to it) is a variant of my own, and he has greatly embarrassed the larger community of pagan/heathen practitioners. We are now left to explain to an occasionally hostile society that this was not the fault of the belief system itself but of an individual's failure to adhere to it.

Making things even more difficult is the fact that the pre-Christian Nordic religion as it is practiced today has few organized groups, many variations, and much disagreement within the community itself as to best practices. Throw in the issue that white supremacists and racists infest our faith based on Nazi nationalist propaganda and the theft and abuse of our magical traditions, and you certainly have a recipe for confusion when viewed from the outside.

My personal experience with Dan Halloran consists of having attended several religious ceremonies, to include one at his former home in Queens that guested Jörmundur Ingi Hansen, the Allsherjargoði (High Priest) of Ásatrúarfélagið (Iceland's nationally recognized Asatru organization); and having had to host one of his “thralls” as a guest in our home for a time while she finished her law degree at Hofstra University. My husband and I are relatively solitary practitioners of the faith that is generally referred to either as Asatru or heathenry. We have at times belonged to small kindreds which have dissolved or moved as their founders left the local area. Like Mr. Halloran, we worship the deities of the pantheons known as the Aesir and Vanir; the Norse/Scandinavian Gods Odin, Tyr, Heimdall, Thor, Freyr, Mani and others; and the Goddesses Frigga, Freyja, Hela, Sif, Idunna, Sunna and others.

Unlike Mr. Halloran, we are not part of the sect (and often cultish practice) known as Theodism. Dan Halloran's version of the faith is “reconstructionist” - it attempts to be very true to original values and practices as recorded in historical lore. Theodism also has an Anglo/Saxon focus rather than strictly Germanic or Scandinavian. Asatru/heathenry as a whole is fortunate in that unlike a lot of other pre-Christian practices we have the Eddas, Sagas, and other written religious lore to base our practice on. Reconstructionist versions of the faith take a familiarity with this lore and adherance to it's precepts very seriously, much as there are Bible study groups within Christianity and Torah study emphasis within Judaism.

The most troublesome part of our religion is the way it has been abused for decades by racists. The theft and misuse of our sacred religious symbols by the Nazis has caused a great deal of damage throughout the world. Our system of magic, which more mainstream religions would likely prefer to call prayer, was also abused by those war criminals to horrific effect. The once innocent swastika, used worldwide by many pre-Christian cultures as a symbol of good luck and representing the journey of the sun as the year progresses through the four seasons, today is perceived by mainstream society as a hate symbol. The pernicious insistence of racists to continue to misuse this symbol, the runes, and hide the reasons for their irrational hatred behind the worship of our Gods has made it difficult to be a heathen in modern times. All the same, there are those of us who are called to it and we must remain true to our hearts, our souls and our Troth (personal honor). 

The issue of embedded racism within heathenry has become so divisive that a number of terms are in use. Those like my husband and I who believe that anyone can be called by our Gods regardless of ancestry usually have the label “Universalist” applied, although we simply refer to ourselves as heathens. Those applying the label prefer to call themselves “Folkish”, meaning that the presence of a community of similar ancestry is as important to the practice of the faith as the Gods themselves. Some prefer to use the terms “Racialist”, “Tribalist” or “Reconstructionist” to further define their practice.

There are many other differences within heathenry. Halloran's Theodish group practiced animal sacrifice. My husband and I do not do this, although we will sacrifice bottles of alcohol, food, and work done toward a goal. Some groups require dressing up in authentic clothing and conflate worship with historical re-enactment, others do not find this necessary. The more racist groups are discriminatory toward women and homosexuals as well as people of color. Frequently racist/neoNazi groups will put a emphasis on worshiping Odin in his War God aspect above all the other Gods and refer to themselves as Odinist, much as the Hari Krishnas extol that Hindu deity above all others. Some groups differ in the way that they hold the two primary ceremonies, blot and sumbel. Some groups insist on incorporating worship of Loki and other enemies of the Gods, others find this abhorrent. Some groups also differ on the ways to practice the magical aspects of the faith (galdr/seidhr/possessory work), or even the need to believe in it. Some groups allow Gods or entities from other pantheons to be toasted in blot or sumbel. When you get right down to it, if you ask 10 heathens how best to worship the Aesir and Vanir you are likely to get 13 opinions.

The common factors are a worship of the Aesir and Vanir, a reverence for nature and it's seasons, respect for the lore and the precepts embodied therein. Most heathens also agree that the Nine Noble Virtues (a relatively modern answer to the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments) accurately represent goals toward moral behavior that every heathen should strive for. These are:

Courage

Truth

Honor

Fidelity

Discipline

Hospitality

Self Reliance

Industriousness

Perseverance

As was documented in articles in the Village Voice and Gawker, Mr. Halloran's malpractice of our faith and his refusal to adhere to the Nine Noble Virtues led to his downfall. We refer to this as the interaction of wyrd (fate or karma) and orlog (personal choice or dharma). Heathenry and Greco-Roman pre-Christian religion incorporate the worship of three Goddesses that control the fates of mortal men and women. In heathenry we call them the Norns: Urd, Verdandi and Skuld. The Greco-Romans call them the Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos. Their names represent past, present and future, and/or birth, life, and death. They are frequently associated with spiders and the spinning or weaving of threads. Mr. Halloran's rise and fall as “sacral king” of his people is reminiscent of another infamous victim of his own ambition, Mac Bethad mac Findlaích; better known as Shakespeare's MacBeth, who dared to take these powerful Goddesses for granted.

These similarities between European pantheons as well as the tendency of some of our deities to be known by many names is likely based on the thousands of years of migration of the Indo-European peoples. Tolkein based much of the Lord of the Rings on historical research of our religion, and certainly there are similarities between that legendary tale and Wagner's Ring Cycle, itself a reworking of the Niebelunglied, a crucial part of our sacred lore. Practitioners of our faith believe in the reincarnation of valkyries and a revisitation of mysteries down through the ages designed to prevent the eventual “end of the world”, Ragnarok. Perhaps this is why the stories themselves never seem to fade, and spinoffs of the saga of Brynhilde and Siegfried are many and varied: Snow White, Cinderella, Briar Rose.

Getting back to the relevance of the Indo-European migrations on modern day heathenry, any sufficient study of this history leads to a refutation of any need for racism or white supremacism. Hitler's concept of the Aryan “master race”, founded mostly in Germanic racist/nationalist literature from the 19^th century (in particular Nietzsche's presentation of the“ubermensch”) has no other basis in reality. Indeed, the Aryan people are those tribes who give modern day Iran it's name. Whatever other issues one might have with that nation, last I noticed, President Ahmadinejad and most of his nation's people have a far better quality to their suntans than Adolf Hitler's racists would ever have been actually comfortable with.

While I cannot speak to the practice of Theodish heathenry in general, I can say that Dan Halloran's failed personality cult does not accurately represent the practice of modern heathenry at large. His failure shames us all. Many Asatruar/heathens are quiet, sensible and productive members of society. We do not proselytize our faith, we merely live it. You might be surprised to learn who around you is a heathen. We have a large presence in the military, as befits a faith that honors a place for the warrior in society. Many of our people are drawn to academia, science or technology. There are heathen police and firemen and medical professionals aplenty. We cover the entire political spectrum and all social strata. Our quietness often leads to our being misunderstood even by the greater pagan community. The miasma of Hitler's culture theft and the horrific deeds the Nazis attached to our faith and sacred symbols is a burden we all must deal with.

I stand as a person who can hopefully clear up some of this confusion and answer questions about the heathen faith. You will also likely hear this from other sources in the local area as the news spreads of Mr. Halloran's fall from grace, especially the more disgruntled members of his former group, but you are hearing it here first: our heathen faith as my husband and I practice it is real, true and beneficial. We may be different from the mainstream but we endeavor to live peacefully and within the law of the land. Daniel Halloran, oathbreaker and outlaw, does not speak for us!