American Pagans, and reclaiming our Religious Rights.
You are all supposed to have universal Rights and Freedoms that are guaranteed by the US constitution. But we don't....
Among the people of America, there is a vast scope of different religious beliefs. Between most of them are many common things that are fairly universal. Each one however has its own unique differences. Within the wide brackets of the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution, they should all be granted their freedom to practice, and continue to be respected.
What does that mean?
There is a both a very simple, and a very long and complicated answer to this. The simple one, is that as long as your religious beliefs do not infringe upon the rights, freedom, or property rights of others, they will be respected. Those things are also the fairly universal aspects, that were mentioned earlier. That's a very simple interpretation of the matter, just keep in mind that this is not legal advice. You can still be arrested in most states for performing or honoring these legitimate religious traditions.
Even the religion Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is afforded these rights and freedoms. They are respected in this just as they should be, because no matter how absurd some people may find it, they are members of a legitimate and peaceful modern religious belief system. It took them years of fighting, and hundreds of hours of court litigation to be recognized as such, but now they are.
Why are the Rights and Freedoms of Norse / Germanic Pagans, and Wiccans being trampled on?
To be clear, these are not the Barbaric Viking tribal groups portrayed in pop culture. Real Odinists are peaceful, until they are forced to defend their family, or community. This can be seen clearly in the teachings of the Eddas, and especially in Hàvamàl (The Words of Odin). The belief system is equipped with a structure for a peaceful, and orderly community. It is much more closely akin to a Native American Tribe, or even a Dutch Amish village, than the tribes in show Vikings. The entire Odinist belief system centers around our ancestral God Odin, the head of the Aesir, and the God of Order, and community structure. He was also known for many other things, along with seeking wisdom, and knowledge. The Havamal has always been a guidebook for things, like the common courtesy shared between a host and a guest, plus how to handle trust, and even guidelines for settling disagreements. There are also stanzas with lessons as to why habitually using, or abusing alcohol and drugs is bad. This is not a handbook for war, hate, or racism, like popular culture and the mainstream media would have you believe.
So, why are these Pagan belief systems having everything from their burial rights, churches (sacred groves, altars, or temples,) seasonal holiday ceremonies, and medical and health beliefs, blocked, banned, and even outright made illegal?
Is it because there are so few of us, that there is not a loud enough voice, or demand for it? No, there are actually more Pagans, than there are Mormons, or Amish in the U.S. There were things that happened here in America during the witch hunts, that have still never been fixed. Everyone remembers Salem Massachusetts, and it is usually the first thing people think of when they hear “witch hunt.” Salem was just one very small town that partook in the hunting and killing of almost of all of the non-christians among them. Those modern massacres went in for decades, through the 1600-1700’s in America the estimates say 40,000 were killed. That's if they were lucky, they could also have been sold into slavery, and their land was then legally kept by the Christian that exposed them for being a Pagan. That label of Pagan in itself, was a derogatory term. Originally meaning people of the country, or farm folk, it was used to describe those that lived outside of the “romanized,” or otherwise civilized towns, and cities. Back to the witch hunts, in Europe they were far worse than the US, primarily because there were still far more Pagan folk there hiding, and surviving well outside of the populated areas. In Germany, it is estimated that tens of thousands were killed in the 1690’s alone. But it only hit a climax at that point, it had actually still been happening there since the 1300’s. We can see there was German Inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer, who wrote a handbook on the identification and treatment of witches in 1486. It describes the tortures, and other acts that were allowed to be performed on any of those suspected. It was the origin of all the horrendous methods used in Salem. Things like drowning a person, to see if they survived it because only a witch could, came from his texts. When the pagan genocide was started by the church, most of the world was polytheistic and would have been deemed Pagan.
How many of us are there now ?
According to some of the more conservative polls, there are at the very least 1.5 million Wiccan “Pagan” people just in the United States as of 2023. That is not including the many groups of Celtic, Baltic, Norse, and Germanic pagan folk.
The Pagan Revival has become so popular in fact, that even National Geographic has reported on the growing trend. In their article though they primarily focus on the Wiccan beliefs, and derive most of their generalizations in it from Wicca. The polls more specifically focused on the Norse Germanic beliefs and it's modern followers, show about 2 million more. The most recent one of those that I could find with any credibility, was from 2020. That means just between the Wiccans, and Odinist Pagans, there are about 3.5 million. Again, those are both the most conservative estimates I could find. If you factor in the Celtic, Baltic, and Vedic followers there is probably over 2% of the US population. Some other sources put the numbers closer to being between 8-10 million just in the United States. They however do not discern the type of pagan, and just refer to them as polytheists.
We have started to rebuild.
There are now dozens of legitimate modern Pagan Tribes, that have been re-formed. This is the first big step. These are coming together as close knit communities. There are even some that trade and barter among each other, and they do this with their farmed and crafted goods. By doing so, some of them have even become self sustaining, and have no use for money. They celebrate their ancestral traditions together, worship the Gods together, and function as closely to their ancestral tribal traditions as possible. Thankfully because of modern technology, it has become quite easy for the people genuinely looking for them, to now find these groups. Just like the multiple denominations of modern Evangelicals, Christians, and Catholics, their beliefs may slightly vary but are for the most part, are usually quite similar. No different than with Christians and churches, a Pagan person may not be compatible with one group, but will find a real comfortable tribal family in another. I myself have experienced this, and found a whole family among my Tribe.
Needless to say, we are not a small insignificant Religious group any longer. Collectively we have been rebuilding, and now we are at a crucial point.
Many of us in the smaller groups, and Tribes more centered around ancestral tradition, have tried joining the larger modern Pagan groups. Organizations The Asatru Community, or even The Troth, we're not for us, we left when we noticed politics and bureaucracy beginning to form just because of their size. They adopted woke politics, or began forcing their members to partake in propaganda spreading. They are part of the reason that we have not been recognized legitimately, and had our rights respected by the US Government. It is also because the system that the government has in place to do this, is designed around recognizing religions and religious groups based on a standard of the Judeo Christian, and Abrahamic churches. The steps they require us to follow, and the monetary cost they require just to be considered a legitimate religion, or even just as a religious group, are in conflict with our core beliefs. So how do we fix it? They say model your religious structure like this church, or that religious group, and we will give you a stamp of approval.
Should we do it just because something has to change, and in order to grow and prosper, we need to be be validated by the government? Consider this..
Our rights to some legitimate traditional Seasonal, and Religious ceremonies are illegal acts.
Most of our Funeral Rights are banned in the United States. From Sacred Groves, to basic Pyres, and Aquatic Burial.
Our right to self sustain. (This one is big.) Including, restrictions on farming, using and collecting Solar, Wind, and Hydroelectric energy, and growing ones own traditional herbal remedies, and the stilling of spirits for tinctures, and antiseptics. (We are forced into commercial consumerism.)
We need to build back more of Our Own Spaces. All of them were forcefully taken by the Catholic church, and The local governments over the last 1,200+ years.
This is not going to be a quick and easy thing to rebuild. In the past, we have been fought back into nearly every corner that they had previously boxed us into. Now we have the voice, and the numbers needed to do this the right way. There are now fundraisers and crowd sourcing projects to build Sacred Groves, and Temples. Together if we become loud enough, they will have to hear us eventually. 💪
Will all this division out there, ripping countries, families, and communities apart, just remember. Real strength comes from family, and community. We have been far too focused on Global and National issues because of the propaganda. Remember, culture and tradition starts at home, and radiates out locally.
#LoveYourNeighbor to #SaveTheWorld
Thank you for reading. It's because of people like you, that small independent publications like this one can exist. When you share it to other mediums like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even by text, and Email, it opens up doors that never would have been otherwise, and I deeply Than You for that.
You can also help spread the culture, and keep tradition alive, by supporting 👇 or sharing this. The project below, is my personal “first punch” thrown, in the millennium old culture war against us.
Links and Sources:
https://www.spaghettimonster.org/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Havamal
https://www.voluspa.org/havamal.htm
https://www.justice.gov/crt/page/file/1006786/dl
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/where-to-go-to-explore-pagan-culture#:~:text=At%20least%201.5%20million%20people,up%20from%20134%2C000%20in%202001.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_modern_period