How a Thor-Worshipping Religion Turned RacistTo understand Odinism—and the way that it became a religion entangled with racism, exclusion, and American prison culture—you need to start with the original Scandinavian pagans. These groups worshipped Norse gods through songs and ceremonies, celebrating the mythology of gods like Thor and Odin, who went by many names. Between the 8th and 12th centuries AD, Christians "explained" to the heathens about the One True God, and so-long went paganism, until the mid-1800s, when a nationalistic climate led Scandinavian countries to rediscover their own history. They found something to call their own—Norse Gods—and rebirthed the religion into Germanic neopaganism.
In 1936, Australian author Alexander Rud Mills established the First Anglecyn Church of Odin, which claimed Odinism as "the indigenous religion of the northern European people." In his opening liturgical text, he mentioned "the fall from grace of the White Race by being untrue to the spirit of their forefathers." Else Christensen, a Danish woman, was struck by the work. After WWII, Christensen and her husband Alex emigrated to Canada and founded the Odinist Study Group after WWII with the claim that "religion is in our genes." After Alex's death in 1971, she moved to the United States and published The Odinist newsletter.
The return to Norse gods was regaining steam. In 1972, Icelandic farmer Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson founded the Asatru Fellowship (or Ásatrúarfélagið)—a spinoff of Odinism—which was granted recognition as an official religion in Iceland. While many components are the same as Odinism—including the celebration of blot, the worshipping of Norse gods, the same Moot Horn blasts and Mead Horn gulps—the religion wasn't based on an indigenous claim. "The Asatru has a holistic, environmental touch—and they feel very closely connected to Mother Earth," said Michael Nielsen, a professor of Viking History at Copenhagen University, in an email. All are welcome, no matter your heritage or color.
But a few years later, in 1976, American Stephen McNallen also adopted the term "Asatru" for the creation of his own organization, the Asatru Folk Assembly, a non-profit organization based in Nevada City, California. (McNallen created a precursor to this organization in 1972, under the name The Viking Brotherhood.)
"I found the Norse system of courage, honor, and daring much more compelling than the submission and submergence of the individual I saw in Christianity," McNallen told me through email.
But rather than following the tree-hugging vibe of the Beinteinsson-created Asatru Fellowship, McNallen's American version adopted the Mills/Christensen "folk" style regarding the worship of Norse gods, the more "classic" version of Odinism. Generally speaking, in this in this context, "folk" actually means "racist" and has caused many opponents to suggest that he has co-opted the term and ideas of the Icelandic "Asatru" for his own hateful devices.
Odin, flanked by his two wolves and two ravens. "[Odinists] claim they are opposed to racism, but they define racism very differently from the average person," says Rood. "They say, 'We're not racist. We just believe in keeping ethnicity separate.' Which... it's racist."
...The idea has caught on in American prisons. The Holy Nation of Odin, Inc., a non-profit church that worships the Old Norse gods, is run by Casper Crowell from his prison cell in California's maximum-security Corcoran State Prison. Crowell is serving a 54-years-to-life sentence as a California Three Strikes offender, the final strike coming when he shot a man in Palm Springs in 1995.
To join Crowell'sHoly Nation of Odin, Inc., you have to pay $40 membership fees, unless you're incarcerated, in which case it's free. In order to be considered, you must give up drugs (prescriptions are OK), leave your political ideology at home, follow the sacred runes, keep holy the blot, and, oh yeah, be white:
This religion and way of life was indigenous to the peoples of Northern and Western Europe and so it remains so of their descendants today, "us"!Crowell is a former member of the Aryan Brotherhood. He left because it wasn't as pure as he'd liked. Instead, he turned to the teachings of David Lane, the white nationalist founder of The Order who was serving a 190-year sentence for the 1984 murder of liberal radio host Alan Berg. Lane also infamously coined the term that particulary resonated with Crowell, the so-called Fourteen Words: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children."
It's not shocking, then, that followers of Odinism aren't known as being the most sterling of citizens. Glenn Cross, the 73-year-old who killed three people at Jewish institutions in Kansas last year, wears a Thor's Hammer medallion. Ryan Giroux, who killed one and wounded five in a shooting spree at an Arizona motel earlier this year, has Thor's Hammer tattooed on his chin. According to some reports, 15 percent of American Odinists are "overtly racist.
