ODINISM – Our Faith, Heritage and Identity – Part 1

by Heimgest DCG
First published in ORB No. 106, March 1991

The Odinic Rite celebrates our own unique Folk Faith, and in present day society its existence is in itself something to celebrate because it affirms that against huge odds our Holy Faith has never died.

To survive and flourish we must be able to fend for ourselves, for no-one else will fend for us – but that is the way of the Northern Peoples. We survived and flourished with no help from anyone but ourselves (and the Gods). When our ancestors’ harvests were poor, and starvation stalked the land, they had no stranger people to organise ‘Band Aid’ or any other aid. So it was in all areas of life – our forbears lived with the constant threat of destruction.

Today, materially, we seem to be far more secure, but again our Folk face extinction. In the space of a century our percentage of the world’s population has plummeted to under 10%, our homelands have large and rapidly growing alien communities, and stranger people control most of our ‘wealth’, and dictate to our supposed ‘leaders’. Yet, in these dark times, the sacred light of our Faith still glows. A return to our Ancestral Faith is a promise of survival, and in this we must rely on ourselves; we must be dedicated and strong. Remember also that our religion is a living faith, and no amount of purely academic knowledge (important as it may be) can equal the experience of actually feeling and living Odinism, the spiritual heritage of our people, our birthright. It is heartening to see our kin in countries across Midgarth claiming again this right.

The Odinic Rite encourages the practice of all positive aspects of our religion, and there are many. One of the most important is performing the Blots, when we can very consciously link with our comrade Odinists in honouring our Gods. The Blots are the celebration of our Gods by their People, and a blessing of their People from our Gods. In performing each Blot we consciously affirm again our past, present, and continuing biological and spiritual link with our Ancestors, Lands and Gods. We, the Odinic Rite, are a manifestation of that link.

Odinism gives us our identity, and identity is vital, for an individual, and for a race. Many of today’s problems, personal, national, and global, stem from a loss of identity. We are in an unnatural situation, for while it is socially acceptable, in fact seen as desirable, for all other ethnic groups to feel a pride in their culture, their heritage, the same does not apply to us.

Backbreaking stances are taken by established authority, and draconian laws are passed, to ensure that the customs of stranger peoples are protected, respected, and encouraged, but we are taught to belittle and forget our own. We are constantly made to feel guilty for our successes, ashamed of our heritage. The virtues of other peoples are extolled, but our own neglected.

This perverse, twisted teaching is found on every level, from cheap soap-operas to academic works. But to survive, to flourish, we must preserve our identity, and there is nothing that more clearly defines this than our people’s native, organic religion, because a Native Faith is the sum of a Folk – what it was, what it is, and what it can be.

The loss, or blurring of our identity was inevitable once our people were converted to a faith which was not their own – a religion which taught that a stranger God was the only God, and that a stranger people were the Chosen People – a religion which taught a disgust of life and of the Earth, and which taught that we are all guilty of some awful inherent sin – a religion which ‘ungodded’ nature.

It was our Folk then, more than others, who were enslaved by this alien faith, and as we, more than others, have influenced world events, the harm we have done has been worldwide.

We know that each Folk (and therefore the world) is best served by it’s own way. For the Japanese it is Shinto, for the Indians it is Hinduism – for our Folk that way is Odinism. It reflects our true character and inspiration.

Read the other articles in this series:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4