Homogenized Heathenry

It always amazes me the amount of judgment heathens place upon each other when it comes to the "rightness" of another's practice in the context of historical relevance. It really is a fool's argument no matter how you address it. I'm not saying that every practice should be respected here. There are most definitely those out there who are practicing harmful, questionable forms of heathenry with a heavy dose of bigotry and political extremism. I think we can all agree that it is damn right not only to question but to dismiss and shun such traditions. I am addressing more so the inane amount of quibbling over detail that goes on within pretty much every heathen forum there is out there about who is more "real" of a heathen than the next. It's ridiculous.

Snorri "Unbiased" Sturluson 

I preface this by saying I used to be the same way when it came to certain groups within heathenry. Once upon a time I was another Nokean voice in the crowd. We live and learn, and that is definitely true for me. It took time for me to realize that my own disdain for Lokeans was based heavily not on reality but my own preconceived assumptions and rampant stereotypes about them. Through a series of missteps I began to realize that my untested feelings about Lokeans and Loki in general were not only irrational but also disrespectful to other heathens. Coming to terms with the damage my own ignorance had done to some of my relationships with Lokeans was difficult.

That is just an example of what I am describing, but the focus is much more general. We like to argue about details. We like to illustrate our own knowledge and share opinions. It is human nature. Our interactions and differences of opinion force us to grow and to question our own ideas. It is how we learn the most important lessons. But it becomes futile when we become unbending, so settled in our own paradigm of "how it was" and therefore "how it should be" that we can no longer see the irrationality of such a conclusion, particularly in regards to "right" heathen practices.

In the paper "Behind Heathendom, Archaeological Studies of Old Norse Religion," the author Anders Andren sums up the problem with declarations of "rightness" when it comes to defining what heathen practice looked liked in ancient times.

      The Icelandic texts are medieval Christian literature, showing how authors in 13th-century Iceland interpreted the pre-Christian history of Iceland and Scandinavia. A basic question is therefore how we should view the relationship between the fiction of the narratives, the author's society in the 13th century, and the pre-Christian society in which most of the narratives are placed. Do they merely present an imagined heathen religion or do the Icelandic stories contain elements based on a historical reality? Another problem concerns the character of pre-Christian Norse religion, since contemporary sources called it forn sidr, that is, 'the old custom' or 'the old way of life'. In other words, people in those days emphasized the religious practice, but in the Icelandic literature there is very little information about rituals. We are given a detailed description of the pantheon, but - paradoxically - very little knowledge about how people related to these powers

This is the only rebuff you need really. There isn't a scholar out there that can answer these questions with complete accuracy. At best when reading the Eddas and comparing them to archaeological evidence we can decipher but a fraction of what Norse religious practice looked like, touching on singular periods between spans of thousands of years and different tribes, cultural groups, regional areas, etc. The idea of a reconstructed "Norse" religion is in itself false. Anders describes this perfectly in the next paragraph when he describes the "homogenization" of our concept of a Norse religion. Such a thing never existed. There is no such thing as one universal Norse tradition with dogmatic beliefs, practices, and rituals in which the Norse people universally participated.

We only tend to think this way because the influence that monotheist dogmatic faiths have had on the very idea of religion. What many "dudebro" heathens do not seem to be able to fathom is the great diversity that is often found in pagan religious traditions in comparison to religions like Christianity whose core teachings have been transmitted in written codes and sacred texts for thousands of years. When one speaks of "rightness" in terms of heathen practice, they are only speaking with the assumption of a uniformity of belief and practice that never existed. 

This isn't even touching on the fact of how the influence of Greco-Roman and Middle Eastern culture has been pasted onto our understanding of Norse religion from thousands of miles away, while cultures such as the Saami and the Finns have been largely ignored, though they were in constant geographical and social contact with the Norse folk. It seems odd to me that heathens can memorize voices such as Dumezil and Davidson, but they still haven't learned about the marginalization of the cultural impact of indigenous people like the Saami or even the deep currents of euro-centrism and classicism that have made the above mentioned authors famous all the while minimizing the voices and influence of the cultures closest to the Norse people. And lets not forget that these "less influential" cultures somehow managed to have a largely oral culture more similar to the Norse culture than any classical or eastern ones. But yea Freyja, she's totes Aphrodite...

 This isn't to say there isn't value in examining the impact of Greco-Roman beliefs and others on the Norse religion. The point is that there is little counterbalancing in the majority of academic studies comparing the Norse to other more local indigenous ones who may have had an equal, if not greater effect on Norse religion and culture than the more distant ones. 

The bottom line is there isn't a heathen alive today that can claim to have the one "real" heathen practice, or even a basic understanding of it. Maybe they can have a firm grasp of a few hundred years of the culture at best. And Edda thumpers, fooooooorrrgeeettt it. The Eddas are exactly what was stated in the above quote. A 13th century Icelandic medieval Christian text of what the author knew of the religion of a people who lived 400-500 years prior. How well do you think you could extrapolate on the religious beliefs of Americans in colonial times...? And let's also imagine you don't have a written record of the majority of those beliefs...? 

As a Vanatru, recon heathens have shit on me and my beliefs for years. I've been told I don't exist. I have been told my gods don't exist. I've been called fluffy as a heathen who dared practice witchcraft. When I first came to the Vanir they shit on Vanatru, now they moved on to Lokeans. It's still the same fool's argument. Everyday now I see some Edda masturbator telling Lokeans that "Loki isn't a god" or "he is the debil" or some other nonsense. There isn't much to do other than tell them to show their PhD, and on the off chance they present it grasp it firmly in your dominant hand and slap the shit out of them. Either that or just ignore them. They'll scuttle away soon enough. Demanding accountability for misinformation is one thing. Belittling a person and their practice because it doesn't fit into your narrow view of heathen righteousness is another matter entirely. 

In Frith

Cena