- Asatru Folk Assembly
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The interlaced horn design from the Danish Snoldelev stone was adopted as the official symbol of the Ásatrú Folk Assembly in October 2006.
The Asatru Folk Assembly, or AFA, an organization of Germanic neopaganism, is the US-based Ásatrú organization founded by Stephen McNallen in 1994. Gardell (2003) classifies the AFA as folkish.
The AFA has been recognized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit religious organization, or church. It is based in Nevada City, CA. The organization denounces racial supremacism.[1]
Contents
History
The Asatru Folk Assembly is a successor organization to a group called the Asatru Free Assembly founded by McNallen in 1974 and disbanded in 1986, splitting into the "folkish" Ásatrú Alliance and the "universalist" The Troth. The Asatru Free Assembly had been an outgrowth of a group called the Viking Brotherhood founded by McNallen together with Robert Stine in 1971.
The defunct Asatru Free Assembly is sometimes distinguished from the modern Asatru Folk Assembly by the usage of "old AFA" and "new AFA", respectively.
From 1997-2002, the AFA was a member organization of the International Asatru-Odinic Alliance.
Goals
According to the AFA Declaration of Purpose, its goals are:
- The practice, promotion, development, and dissemination of the religion of Ásatrú.
- The preservation of the Peoples of the North (typified by the Scandinavian/Germanic and Celtic peoples), and the furtherance of their continued evolution.
- The issuance of a call to all our brothers and sisters of the People of the North to return to this, their native religion and way of life.
- The restoration of community, the banishment of alienation, and the establishment of natural and just relations among our people.
- The promotion of diversity among the peoples and cultures of the Earth, in opposition to global monoculture.
- The fostering in our people of a deep love of freedom and a hatred of all forms of tyranny.
- The use of science and technology for the well-being of our people, while protecting and working in harmony with the natural environment in which we live.
- The exploration of the universe, in keeping with the adventurous imperatives of our kind.
- The affirmation of the eternal struggle and strife of life, the welcoming of that strife as a challenge, the living of life wholly and with joy, and the facing of eternity with courage.
Kennewick Man
On October 24, 1996, McNallen and the AFA filed suit in U.S. District Court in Portland (Asatru Folk Assembly v. United States) to attempt to stop the US Army Corps of Engineers from turning over the prehistoric remains of the Kennewick man to local Native Americans. Several prominent scientists and archaeologists also filed suit, to block the reinterment of the remains. Kennewick Man was the oldest intact human fossil ever found in the Pacific Northwest. Genetic tests to identify ties to modern people or tribes were inconclusive due to the deteriorated condition of the remains. McNallen became embroiled in the Kennewick Man issue and appeared in Time Magazine, The Washington Post and on television, arguing that modern adherents of Ásatrú have more in common with the prehistoric Kennewick Man than modern Native Americans. This claim, as yet, cannot be established without DNA tests on the remains.
After a protracted legal battle, the court ruled that the human remains were not "Native American" within the meaning of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). The remains currently are curated at the Burke Museum in Seattle. As a direct result of his portrayal by the media, McNallen later stated that he no longer advocates public Ásatrú rituals or media presence at Ásatrú ceremonies.[2]
"Metagenetics"
McNallen has coined the term "Metagenetics" in a 1985 essay outlining the philosophical principles of AFA, stating that "there are spiritual and metaphysical implications to heredity".
In a 1999 article, McNallen restated his position, invoking Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields and Carl Jung's collective unconscious as "very close to the Germanic ideas surrounding the Well of Urth", and presented a definition of "metagenetics" as:
"The hypothesis that there are spiritual or metaphysical implications to physical relatedness among humans which correlate with, but go beyond, the known limits of genetics."[3]
Footnotes
- ^ From the Asatru Folk Assembly's Bylaws: "The belief that spirituality and ancestral heritage are related has nothing to do with notions of superiority. Asatru is not an excuse to look down on, much less to hate, members of any other race. On the contrary, we recognize the uniqueness and the value of all the different pieces that make up the human mosaic." [1]
- ^ McNallen (2004) p.217
- ^ Metagenetics - An Update, RUNESTONE #26, Summer 1999
References
- Gardell, Mattias (2003). Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Duke University Press. pp. 269–283. ISBN 0-8223-3071-7.
- McNallen, Stephen A. (2004). "Three Decades of the Ásatrú Revival in America". Tyr: Myth-Culture-Tradition Volume II. Ultra Publishing. pp. 203–219. ISBN 0-9720292-1-4.
External links
Categories:- Ásatrú in the United States
- Non-profit organizations based in California
- Pagan religious organizations
- Germanic neopaganism
- Religious organizations established in 1994
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