Heathenry (new religious movement)

[15] Conversely, others draw inspiration from the beliefs and practices of a specific geographical area and chronological period within Germanic Europe, such as Anglo-Saxon England or Viking Age Iceland.

[15] Some adherents are deeply knowledgeable as to the specifics of northern European society in the Iron Age and Early Medieval periods;[16] however for most practitioners their main source of information about the pre-Christian past is fictional literature and popular accounts of Norse mythology.

[17] Many express a romanticized view of this past,[18] sometimes perpetuating misconceptions about it;[19] the sociologist of religion Jennifer Snook noted that many practitioners "hearken back to a more epic, anachronistic, and pure age of ancestors and heroes".

[21] As the religious studies scholar Fredrik Gregorius states, despite the fact that "no real continuity" exists between Heathenry and the pre-Christian belief systems of Germanic Europe, Heathen practitioners often dislike being considered adherents of a "new religion" or "modern invention" and thus prefer to depict theirs as a "traditional faith".

[38] Alternately, Blain suggested the use of North European Paganism as an overarching scholarly term for the movement;[39] Strmiska noted that this would also encompass those practitioners inspired by the belief systems of northeastern Europe's linguistically Finnic and Slavic societies.

[40] He favored Modern Nordic Paganism, but accepted that this term excluded those Heathens who are particularly inspired by the pre-Christian belief systems of non-Nordic Germanic societies, such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Goths.

[41] This term is favored by practitioners who focus on the Nordic deities of Scandinavia,[42] however is problematic as many self-identified Asatruar worship entities other than the Æsir, such as the Vanir, valkyries, elves, and dwarfs.

[53] There is thus a general view that all those who use Odinism adopt an explicitly political, right-wing and racialist interpretation of the religion, while Asatru is used by more moderate Heathen groups,[54] but no such clear division of these terms' usage exists in practice.

[73] In Heathen ritual practices, the deities are typically represented as godpoles - wooden shafts with anthropomorphic faces carved into them, as were used prior to Christianisation, although in other instances resin statues of the divinities are sometimes used.

[93] The political scientist Jeffrey Kaplan believed that it was the "strongly millenarian and chiliastic overtones" of Ragnarök which helped convert white American racialists to the right wing of the Heathen movement.

[111] Opinion is divided on the NNV; some practitioners deem them too dogmatic,[111] while others eschew them for not having authentic roots in historical Germanic culture,[112] negatively viewing them as an attempt to imitate the Ten Commandments.

[115] Within the Heathen community of the United States, gender roles are based upon perceived ideals and norms found in Early Medieval northwestern Europe, in particular as they are presented in Old Norse sources.

[116] Among male American Heathens there is a trend toward hypermasculinized behaviour,[117] while a gendered division of labor—in which men are viewed as providers and women seen as being responsible for home and children—is also widespread among Heathens in the U.S.[118] Due to its focus on traditional attitudes to sex and gender—values perceived as socially conservative in Western nations—it has been argued that American Heathenry's ethical system is far closer to traditional Christian morals than the ethical systems espoused in many other Western Pagan religions such as Wicca.

[7] During religious ceremonies, many adherents choose to wear clothing that imitates the styles of dress worn in Iron Age and Early Medieval northern Europe, sometimes termed "garb".

[166] In Iron Age and Early Medieval northern Europe, the term blót was at times applied to a form of animal sacrifice performed to thank the deities and gain their favor.

[170] Groups who perform such sacrifices typically follow the procedure outlined in the Heimskringla: the throat of the sacrificial animal is slashed with a sharp knife, and the blood is collected in a bowl before being sprinkled onto both participants of the rite and statues of the gods.

[190] Part of the discomfort that some Heathens feel toward seiðr surrounds the lack of any criteria by which the community can determine whether the seiðr-worker has genuinely received divine communication, and the fear that it will be used by some practitioners merely to bolster their own prestige.

These poems were originally written in a Christian context, although practitioners believe that they reflect themes present in pre-Christian, shamanistic religion, and thus re-appropriate and "Heathanise" them for contemporary usage.

[198] Some Heathens practice magic, but this is not regarded as an intrinsic part of Heathenry because it was not a common feature of pre-Christian rituals in Iron Age and Early Medieval Germanic Europe.

[216] Universalist practitioners such as Stephan Grundy have emphasized the fact that ancient northern Europeans were known to marry and have children with members of other ethnic groups, and that in Norse mythology the Æsir also did the same with Vanir, Jötun, and humans, thus using such points to critique the racialist view.

[222] Some practitioners explain this by asserting that the religion is intrinsically connected to the collective unconscious of this race,[223] with prominent American Heathen Stephen McNallen developing this into a concept which he termed "metagenetics".

[252] In 1933, the eclectic German Faith Movement (Deutsche Glaubensbewegung) was founded by the religious studies scholar Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, who wanted to unite these disparate Heathen groups.

[253] The Heathen movement probably never had more than a few thousand followers during its 1920s heyday, however it held the allegiance of many middle-class intellectuals, including journalists, artists, illustrators, scholars, and teachers, and thus exerted a wider influence on German society.

[279] As the group expanded in size, Hansen's leadership caused schisms, and to retain the unity of the movement, he stepped down and was replaced by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson in 2003, by which time Ásatrúarfélagið had accumulated 777 members and played a visible role in Icelandic society.

[287] In Germany, various groups were established that explicitly rejected their religion's völkisch and right-wing past, most notably Rabenclan (Raven's Clan) in 1994 and Nornirs Ætt (Kin of the Norns) in 2005.

[291] Heathen influences were apparent in forms of black metal from the 1990s, where lyrics and themes often expressed a longing for a pre-Christian "Northern past"; the mass media typically associated this music genre with Satanism.

[309] On the basis of his sociological research, Joshua Marcus Cragle agreed that the religion contained a greater proportion of men than women, but observed that there was a more even balance between the two in northern and western Europe than in other regions.

[310] Similarly, Cragle's research found a greater proportion of LGBT practitioners within Heathenry (21%) than wider society, although noted that the percentage was lower than in other forms of modern Paganism.

[322] Many Heathens are also involved in historical reenactment, focusing on the early medieval societies of Germanic Europe; others are critical of this practice, believing that it blurs the boundary between real life and fantasy.

[326] While deeming it impossible to calculate the exact size of the Heathen community in the U.S., in the mid-1990s the sociologist Jeffrey Kaplan estimated that there were around 500 active practitioners in the country, with a further thousand individuals on the periphery of the movement.