Asatru and Culture

Many people of our time are spiritually/culturally rootless. They don't know any more where they came from or where they are going. They don't know what place they should take in life or why they are even alive. This rootlessness leads to uncertainty and to fear of members of other cultures who themselves have not yet lost contact with their roots. In the end there comes intolerance and aggression against all foreigners and all who are different.

This crisis of values is the fault of the monotheistic religions, who promote their false doctrine as the sole religious truth, and, being a universal/world religion, can give the individual no security in their own culture. Through their missionary practices the universal religions act as destroyers of individual cultures.

Among the Germanic and Keltic peoples one was always aware of belonging to an ancient culture and tradition that leads back to the Gods of most ancient period. This tradition gave the individual support and self-confidence. The tradition was also something one would carefully develop further, and transmit to one's offspring. For this reason vast numbers of old folk-customs have survived until today, although most people no longer know the origins of the customs.

It makes no sense to take a religion out of the cultural background of its origin and regard it in isolation.

In the Germanic Folk-Community, cultural traditions which are threatened with extinction are cultivated and taught. To learn old cultural traditions and to create cultural artifacts is an activity that brings joy and enrichment. So, for example, we sew for ourselves festival clothing out of natural materials, similar to that worn by Heathens in the pre-Christian period, we sing songs from medieval times, we play reconstructed historical musical instruments, perform old cult-dances, or use the Gothic script.

The person who cultivates his own culture will have the necessary self-confidence which will enable him to understand and accept the culture of other ethnic groups. Only in this way can Heathen tolerance be promoted, and people be motivated to creative action. Culture was not given by Christianity to the Heathen 'barbarians'. In fact, Christianity destroyed invaluable cultural artifacts of the Heathens. Louis the Pious, for example, destroyed wagonloads of manuscripts with Heathen contents which his predecessor had carefully collected. Other cultural elements were changed in meaning and taken over by Christianity.

From the Introductory Booklet of the Germanic Glaubens-Gemeinschaft (Germanic Faith-Community), an Asatru group founded Germany in the year 1907. Written by: Geza von Nemenyi. Translation from the German by: Nissa Annakindt

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