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Copyright © 2013 Jefferson Forrest Calico All Rights Reserved. The Copyright © 2013 Jefferson Forrest Calico All rights reserved. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has permission to reproduce and disseminate this document in any form by any means for purposes chosen by the Seminary, including, without limitation, preservation or instruction. ÁSATRÚ IN AMERICA: A NEW AMERICAN RELIGION A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Jefferson Forrest Calico May 2013 APPROVAL SHEET ÁSATRÚ IN AMERICA: A NEW AMERICAN RELIGION Jefferson Forrest Calico Read and Approved by: __________________________________________ James D. Chancellor (Chair) __________________________________________ Theodore J. Cabal Date______________________________ This work is dedicated to my beautiful wife, Cari, who worked while I read. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE . ix Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION . 10 Chapters . 18 2. A BRIEF HISTORY . 21 1970s: The New Awakening . 22 1980s-90s: Race and Schism . 25 2000s: Current Trends . 28 Flourishing of Independent Heathen Life . 29 Current Trends . 30 Story-Telling on the West Coast . 31 Culturally Specific Heathenry on the East Coast . 33 Tribalism in the Mid-West . 35 Conclusion . 38 3. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS . 39 Asatru as a Response to Changing Notions of Race . 44 Globalization and Multiculturalism . 51 Asatru as a Response to Modernity . 55 Researching a New Religious Movement . 60 Conclusion . 65 4. THE WORLDVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY ASATRU . 67 iv Chapter Page What is Reconstruction? . 68 Why Reconstruct? . 78 Heathenry Reconstructed? . 84 Cosmology: The World Tree and the Precariousness of Life . 89 Time: The Presence of the Past . 95 Sacred space . 99 Theology: The Heathen Gods . 104 Anthropology: What is a person? Orlog and Ancestors . 112 Ancestors . 118 Conclusion . 123 5. ASATRU AS FAMILY RELIGION . 126 The Sumbel Ritual . 133 Mead-hall as Metaphor . 135 The Contemporary Sumbel: A Brief Description . 139 Liminality and Communitas . 141 Creation of the Sacred Community . 143 Hierarchical Dualities within the Ritual . 143 Communitas of Structure . 145 Creation of the Sacred Individual . 147 Conclusion: Sumbel as Superfamily . 149 6. ASATRU AS MAGICAL RELIGION . 152 Defining Magic . 152 The Tension of Disconnection . 158 The Varieties of Heathen Magic . 162 Is Asatru a Magical Religion? . 167 Magic and Women’s Roles . 174 v Chapter Page Gender Essentialism in Asatru . 178 Two Variations of Seidh Magic . 183 Oracular Seidh: Seeing, Getting Answers . 184 Volva Stav: Healing the Soul . 188 Conclusion . 191 7. ASATRU AS NATURE RELIGION . 193 Denominations of Nature Religion in Asatru . 199 Elements of Traditionalist Nature Religion . 201 Hierophanies of Nature. 204 Apocalyptic Nature Religion . 207 The Story of Ragnarok . 209 Chem-Trailing . 212 Ecological Ragnarok . 213 The Topos of Evil . 215 Myths of Resistance . 218 Conclusion . 221 8. CONCLUSION: A NEW RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS? . 222 Appendix 1. ASATRU GLOSSARY . 228 2. THE NINE WORLDS OF NORSE COSMOLOGY . 234 3. THE JARNSAXA SCALE . 238 4. THE NINE NOBLE VIRTUES . 242 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 244 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AA Asatru Assembly AFA Asatru Folk Assembly NNV Nine Noble Virtues NRM New Religious Movement OR Odinic Rite vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Spectrum of racial attitudes among Asatru adherents . 49 2. Spectrum of uses of the past . 74 3. Comparison of Asatru and Neopagan uses of the past . 74 4. Heathen anthropology . 125 5. Order of the sumbel ritual . 139 6. The Asatru superfamily . 146 7. Spectrum of orientations toward magic . 169 8. The sunwheel . 202 A1. Yggdrasil and Norse cosmology . 237 viii PREFACE Although an interest in World Religions has long been a part of my life, my perspective on the subject changed when I began teaching Comparative Religion at Somerset Community College. If studying and communicating about World Religions was to become a life focus, I realized that I had to grow. When I found James Chancellor, it was clear that he could take me from where I was to what I needed to become. He became a teacher and mentor in the academic study of religion. My return to seminary represented a shift from seeing World Religions as an interest to approaching it as discipline. And it has been a most rewarding journey. I am indebted to my parents, Drs. Forrest and Patrica Calico, for their continual encouragement and sacrificial support of our family. Their many contributions to this project have been invaluable. My wife, Cari, has been a patient and loving companion throughout this journey. Her extraordinary diligence in caring for our family allowed me the freedom to study, travel, think, and write. Ethnographic work is not possible without the participation and commitment of many others. What follows constitutes the beginning of an encounter and engagement this new religion and my honest attempt at understanding its depth and complexity as well as its place in our American context. Jefferson F. Calico Louisville, Kentucky May 2013 ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Ásatrú (Asatru) is a New Religious Movement (NRM) that seeks to revive the religion and culture of the pre-Christian Norse and Germanic societies. Although it looks to ancient Europe for its inspiration, Asatru is an American religion, part of the contemporary Pagan movement currently thriving in the United States. The following work comprises over two years of research done within Asatru including participant observation, interviews with adherents, and reading in the literature of the movement. The impetus for this project derives from two insights that shaped the direction of my doctoral work in the World Religions PhD program at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The first insight concerns the nature of religion as a human phenomenon. The study of religion involves an understanding of the history and theology of the great religious traditions. These are among the factors which give context to the specific personal religious experience. But religion is ultimately a lived experience. It occurs at the level of the human life, and its meaning is personal. Wilfred Cantwell Smith has written that “the study of religion is the.
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