Customer Reviews

Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The prose, while difficult is not a real obstacle to this text. Primarily this book is not about paganism, Asatru, or those communities, rather it is about how the trappings of these things that have been co-opted by White Separatists in North America. The bulk of the text is used to establish the context of how this has come about. With so many Americans having no real knowledge of the White Separatist movement it is important for the author to explain the progression of Ariosophy and later Christian Identity into the realm of racists adopting Asatru trappings esp. those of the 'folkish' type.

By the last third, when Gardell really gets into the modern racist/pagan crossover the reader should understand that these are not your typical pagans. These are a group of ideologically inbred folk who are seeking to escape the faith they can not justify and replace it with something that better fits their ideals. Let's be honest, "Love those that hate you," is harder than hell to justify if you hate everyone not like you. So the adoption of a form of Asatru as, 'the religion of the Aryan people,' is easy to understand. The in had been around for a long time in the form of the racialist or more folkish Asatru and Odinians like Edred Thorsson.

For this I must say that I found the presentation of Edred Thorsson's position to be sympathetic. Gardell apparently just let Thorsson talk about his perspective, one that has been presented elsewhere by Edred, often in his own books, and quoted him. Thorsson has long held that individuals should honor the gods and goddesses of their own ancestors. This position, while having a certain ethnic-heritage logic is not one that lends itself to the principles of liberal tolerance that we so often hear from the pagan community. I found no attack on either Thorrson or racialist pagans to be present. Perhaps many of the reviewers who did might want to consider why they feel so strongly about an academic text that presents very little commentary until the conclusion where you may disagree with his analysis but frankly there is not much of that.

My favorite criticism that seems to be labeled at this book though is the clear Marxist/post-modernist biases so many seem to find here. Gardell starts with early American commentaries on race and how the perception of race has changed over the last two and a half centuries. From Ben Franklin referring to, "swarthy Swedes," and their inferiority to the white race (read WASP) to the modern madness of skin tone determining race he seems well-justified in the declaring of race a cultural construct. For the review by Prometheus all I have to say is that just over a century and a half ago the Irish were considered to be nothing more than, 'white-niggers,' by the English and less than dogs in the States when they fled an artificial, state-created famine. The Irish race was damn real then, but now they are just white. Get a grip. Gardell is just establishing that at its core the term racist really means anyone who believes in the validity of the theory of race at any level. They may not be bigots, but for this text they are racists. That is neither a Marxist nor a post-modernist position in itself; it is just demonstrable fact that bites into an ideology that is untenable. This makes it much like both Marxism and post-modernism.

This book is for everyone. It is a clear and cogent history of the theologies that have been used to justify racist theories. It should be used as a wake-up call to the Asatru community that one day some idiots are going to get some real media attention for some bombing or high-profile assassination and they will shape what the public believes Asatru to be. It is a PR nightmare that could be diffused if the Asatru community really got its act together and started not merely distancing itself from this kind of stupidity but was seen to castigate and berate the forms of racist Asatru that Gardell looks at.

By the last third, when Gardell really gets into the modern racist/pagan crossover the reader should understand that these are not your typical pagans. These are a group of ideologically inbred folk who are seeking to escape the faith they can not justify and replace it with something that better fits their ideals. Let's be honest, "Love those that hate you," is harder than hell to justify if you hate everyone not like you. So the adoption of a form of Asatru as, 'the religion of the Aryan people,' is easy to understand. The in had been around for a long time in the form of the racialist or more folkish Asatru and Odinians like Edred Thorsson.

For this I must say that I found the presentation of Edred Thorsson's position to be sympathetic. Gardell apparently just let Thorsson talk about his perspective, one that has been presented elsewhere by Edred, often in his own books, and quoted him. Thorsson has long held that individuals should honor the gods and goddesses of their own ancestors. This position, while having a certain ethnic-heritage logic is not one that lends itself to the principles of liberal tolerance that we so often hear from the pagan community. I found no attack on either Thorrson or racialist pagans to be present. Perhaps many of the reviewers who did might want to consider why they feel so strongly about an academic text that presents very little commentary until the conclusion where you may disagree with his analysis but frankly there is not much of that.

My favorite criticism that seems to be labeled at this book though is the clear Marxist/post-modernist biases so many seem to find here. Gardell starts with early American commentaries on race and how the perception of race has changed over the last two and a half centuries. From Ben Franklin referring to, "swarthy Swedes," and their inferiority to the white race (read WASP) to the modern madness of skin tone determining race he seems well-justified in the declaring of race a cultural construct. For the review by Prometheus all I have to say is that just over a century and a half ago the Irish were considered to be nothing more than, 'white-niggers,' by the English and less than dogs in the States when they fled an artificial, state-created famine. The Irish race was damn real then, but now they are just white. Get a grip. Gardell is just establishing that at its core the term racist really means anyone who believes in the validity of the theory of race at any level. They may not be bigots, but for this text they are racists. That is neither a Marxist nor a post-modernist position in itself; it is just demonstrable fact that bites into an ideology that is untenable. This makes it much like both Marxism and post-modernism.

This book is for everyone. It is a clear and cogent history of the theologies that have been used to justify racist theories. It should be used as a wake-up call to the Asatru community that one day some idiots are going to get some real media attention for some bombing or high-profile assassination and they will shape what the public believes Asatru to be. It is a PR nightmare that could be diffused if the Asatru community really got its act together and started not merely distancing itself from this kind of stupidity but was seen to castigate and berate the forms of racist Asatru that Gardell looks at.

The author of "Gods of the Blood" is a scholar in the history of religions at Stockholm University. With this background one might expect to find a wealth of intellectual and spiritual insights in a study of this sort. No such luck. Instead what we get is basically a warmed-over Marxist/materialist interpretation of marginal pagan religious groups, with some weakly formulated sociological analysis thrown in to please other branches of the academic establishment. The end result is both predictable and shallow. Starting with a long discussion of racism in America, none of which has anything to do with paganism at all, the book then catalogs a variety of figures involved in contemporary Norse pagan groups.

Interestingly, the people discussed here who qualify as "white supremacists" or "extreme racists" are ultimately dualistic Christians at root, not pagans. They invariably come out of anti-pagan backgrounds, whether Christian Identity or Church of the Creator, and their adoption of paganism is just the latest window dressing for their core ideology, which has little or nothing to do with paganism per se. Take, for example, the prime movers of "racist paganism," the 14 Words/Wotansvolk crowd. The main personalities involved (David and Katja Lane) both come from a militant Christian Identity/KKK background, a fact which the author misleadingly downplays. Should it come as any surprise then, that they also supplied the book's cover photo of a giant burning cross (taken at Aryan Nations, a hardcore Christian racist compound)? The fact that this image was chosen as the cover illustration for the entire volume says a lot about the flawed and deceptive nature of this book.

Throughout "Gods of the Blood," the author struggles to fit everyone else into a slippery-slope racist continuum, but things are nowhere near that simple. Nevertheless, it's easier to demonize and dehumanize your enemies if you can just paint them as being somehow part of an amorphous and potentially threatening movement (in this case the tritely termed "romantic men with guns" movement). This is the same modus operandi that Hitler used when talking of the shadowy cabal of Jews, Freemasons, gays, and other subversives who were all seeking to undermine the totalitarian dream.

It's surprising that a university press would issue something like this, especially without bothering to edit it. While the author, a Swede, can be forgiven for not being able to write in clear English, presumably his editors have no such excuse. Given the consistent awkward and improper linguistic usages that abound here (or "torturous prose," to quote Publishers Weekly), one wonders whether anyone at Duke University Press even read the text before it went to print.

The author of "Gods of the Blood" is a scholar in the history of religions at Stockholm University. With this background one might expect to find a wealth of intellectual and spiritual insights in a study of this sort. No such luck. Instead what we get is basically a warmed-over Marxist/materialist interpretation of marginal pagan religious groups, with some weakly formulated sociological analysis thrown in to please other branches of the academic establishment. The end result is both predictable and shallow. Starting with a long discussion of racism in America, none of which has anything in the least to do with paganism, the book then catalogs a variety of figures involved in contemporary Norse pagan groups.

Interestingly, the people discussed here who qualify as "white supremacists" or "extreme racists" are ultimately dualistic Christians at root, not pagans. They invariably come out of *anti-pagan* backgrounds, whether Christian Identity or Church of the Creator, and their adoption of paganism is just the latest superficial window dressing for their core ideology, which bears no commonality with paganism per se. Take, for example, the prime movers of "racist paganism," the 14 Words/Wotansvolk crowd. The main personalities involved (David and Katja Lane) both come from a militant Christian Identity/KKK background, a fact that the author misleadingly downplays. Should it come as any surprise, then, that they also supplied the book's cover photo of a giant burning cross (taken at Aryan Nations, a hardcore Christian racist compound)? The fact that this image was chosen as the cover illustration for the entire volume says a lot about the flawed and deceptive nature of this book.

Throughout "Gods of the Blood," the author struggles to fit everyone else into a slippery-slope racist continuum, but things are nowhere near that simple. Nevertheless, it's easier to demonize and dehumanize your enemies if you can just paint them as being somehow part of an amorphous and potentially threatening movement (in this case the tritely termed "romantic men with guns" movement). This is the same modus operandi that Hitler used when talking of the shadowy cabal of Jews, Freemasons, gays, and other subversives who were all seeking to undermine the totalitarian dream.

It's surprising that an academic press would issue something like this, especially without bothering to edit it. While the author, a Swede, can be forgiven for not being able to write in good, clear English, presumably his editors have no such excuse. Given the consistent examples of awkward and improper linguistic usage that abound here ("torturous prose," to quote Publishers Weekly), one wonders whether anyone at Duke University Press even read the text before it went to print, except for maybe running it through their computerized spellchecker.

The revival of paganism--in all its manifestations--is a topic ripe for a definitive and balanced religious-historical study. Unfortunately this is nothing of the sort.

I was looking forward to reading the "first" study on Asatru. The writer went around different Odinists groups wearing a Thor's Hammer and claiming to be a fellow Odinist, he lied. It turns out he was just another one of these hack journalists who thinks lying to people is "infiltrating underground groups". So he got into the Odinist underground, oh my! If he had told the truth that he was just some yellow journalist, people would have still talked to him. I guess lying is the center of all "good" journalism.
His writing style is awful; he doesn't understand English.
A lot of misinformation and half-truths are in this so-called "study".
He says all Odinists are not Nazis, and then he goes out of his way to show they are. Some people may think this is a good book, but only those who don't know a thing about Asatru.
Because of this book, the Left is already defining Asatru as a Nazi front group, and the book has only been out for four days.
This book will give super-Christian John Ashcroft with his USA Patriot Act the legal right to spy on and frame anyone who is a part of the Asatru religion.
Steve McNallen of the Asatru Free Assembly and Edred Thorson are totally destroyed because of this book. He really painted them into a Nazi corner.

I was very surprised to see the multiple bad reviews of this book. The book is NOT about "Odinism" as it is practiced in what would be considered "normal" homes. It doesn't profess to be about "Odinism" in that manner. Read the title again, this time with feeling. It's about how Asatru/Odinism/the Pagan Revival has become home to a growing subsection of the White Separatist movement.

He uses the term "Odinism" as terminology to help separate out what he considers to be three distinct threads in the Asatru community (such as it is). I think that he makes an interesting case, although other might disagree. However, you must understand that he is, specifically, writing about groups of racist Asatru practitioners.

You wouldn't buy a book about "Christian Identity", and then rage that the author was misrepresenting Christianity as a racist religion. Don't make that mistake with this book either.

If your looking for a book that covers Asatru/Odinism from an academic/sociological point of view as this book is marketed as being then you will disappointed. 70% or more of this book is about Christian Identity, The Church of the Creator, historical revisionists, the KKK, Militias, Neo-Nazis, Anton Lavey and the Church of Satan, and other random occult groups. I was also told by one of the Odinists profiled in this book that the author misrepresented himself claiming to be the leader of a Scandinavian Asatru organization, even wearing a big Thors Hammer around his neck when he introduced himself.

The most telling thing about this book is the photos section. You have on one page a kid who wouldn't look out of place at an SCA event, or Renfaire, dressed in Viking garb and on the opposite page a picture of a group of skinheads giving the Hitler salute. Another page has a woman standing next to a Viking totem and on the opposite page three people from Aryan Nations standing in front of a swastika flag. So the association that this book is trying to make is hardly subtle. There are also pics of William Pierce, Ernst Zundell, and more than one from Aryan Nations. People like the man who wrote this book are a real Freudian delight finding Hitler and Nazism under every rock.

It gets even better though. In the last chapter he tries make an association with Odinism and Al-Queda/Terrorism, even saying "the unfolding terrorist scenario well matches the wet dreams of Aryan militants". The way things are now any unapologetic expression of white culture or soveriegnty is equated with Nazism or potential terrorism. At the rate we are going within a few years anybody that likes to read Tolkien or Norse Mythology, or listens to classical music will be a suspected Nazi or terrorist.

Not only was this book poorly worded and difficult to read (the Duke University Press editorial shaff should be ashamed for allowing the book to be published in this state), but it was filled with political innuendos, half truths, and sloppy scholarship. Gardell was quoted in a recent magazine saying that
"Everyone [pagans] supports the unabomber". I had hoped that his fully developed work would be more objective or reality-based.

He demonstrates very little knowledge or understanding of Heathenry/Asatru [down to the cross on the cover art] and essentailly scapegoats some public figures with a healthy dose of conspiracy theory thrown in. Essentailly playing on public paranoia, he demonizes an entire religious movement. Its a sloppy ethnography more on caliber with a high school student than a PhD. Even the J. Kaplan book is at least READABLE. Sloppy methodology is prevelant throughout. He had little if any contact with the Heathen Community in the USA (the subject of this work) and it shows. This book is simply ignorant.

Mattias Gardell, a swedish religious historian proffesseur at Uppsala University writes in this book about his meetings with the american rightwing odinist communities. Since many rewievers here discusses Mattias Gardell as if he wasn't asatruar/heathen himself I would like to point out that he is. There seems to be a big difference in the american and scandinavian asatruar communities since in USA there is a significant part of that community that has some race ideologies.

I've read the book in swedish, and I couldn't put it down when I started reading. It is not a dry academic language but a flowing and exciting story. It is also a good description of what you as a scandinavian pagan will bump in to when you surf the web for asatruar in US, as I have. When I started getting more involved in the pagan communities it was in the asatruar part. The american litterature and the people online came from such a different viewpoint that I really couldn't take it serious at first. With this book the ideologies behind their take on Sed/Asatru will be put in it's right context.

The book is also a good read for anyone interested in what racism can be.

I agree with the previous comment that this is a scholarly work and isn't intended to read like the latest Stephen King novel. While some may say that the book is biased, I'd say the author has something called a "hypothesis" and uses his research to back it up. You can disagree with some of his research but it is the arguably one of the first attempts to define this subculture. A fascinating read with some very enlightening observations, especially to someone who was raised in rural Southeast America. The comments about the Christianity portions of this book are short sighted and make me wonder why people seem so offended that the author wrote about Paganism and racism in the context of diverging Christian beliefs. I think some readers were wanting something that the author never really claimed to have in this book. Good read!

A book claiming to be about Odinism that has very little info on Odinism. Very dishonest. It is more about the Christian right than about Odinism. Half-truths, bad research, no understanding of English. Hard to follow. Total disappointment. Trash. What the hell is a Christian cross doing on the cover of a book on Paganism. The Black Sun is a better book.
Wyatt Kaldenberg