Author | Mattias Gardell |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Duke University Press |
Publication date | June 2003 |
Pages | 456 |
ISBN | 0-8223-3059-8 |
OCLC | 51053972 |
Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism is a book by Swedish scholar Mattias Gardell discussing neopaganism (in particular Germanic) and white separatism, neo-fascism, and antisemitism. It was published by Duke University Press in June 2003.
It was published by Duke University Press in June 2003. [1]
Amos Yong grouped the book with recent scholarship by Michael Barkun and Jeffrey Kaplan. With its more narrow focus on the pagan white separatist landscape, Yong described it as "a well-written report and analysis of this phenomenon". [2] Stefanie von Schnurbein wrote that the combination of racialist ideology and neopaganism had been "sadly understudied" by scholars, and that "Gods of the Blood is an important and innovative contribution to filling this void". [3] Publishers Weekly wrote that "although Gardell's academic tone and sometimes torturous prose make for slow reading, his well-researched book offers never-before-seen glimpses of the visions and goals of racist pagans". [4]
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, spans a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some common similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, sharing no single set of beliefs, practices, or religious texts. Scholars of religion may study the phenomenon as a movement divided into different religions, while others study neopaganism as a decentralized religion with an array of denominations.
Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List, was an Austrian occultist, journalist, playwright, and novelist. He expounded a modern Pagan new religious movement known as Wotanism, which he claimed was the revival of the religion of the ancient German race, and which included an inner set of Ariosophical teachings that he termed Armanism.
Robert E. "Pastor Bob" Miles was a white supremacist theologist and religious leader from Michigan.
Wotansvolk promulgates a white nationalist variant of Neo-Paganism—founded in the early 1990s by Ron McVan, Katja Lane and David Lane (1938–2007) while Lane was serving a 190-year prison sentence for his actions in connection with the white supremacist revolutionary domestic terrorist organization The Order. After the founding of 14 Word Press by David Lane and his wife Katja to disseminate her husband's writings, Ron McVan joined the press in 1995 and founded Temple of Wotan. 14 Word Press - Wotansvolk proceeded to publish several books for the practice of Wotanism before becoming defunct in the early 2000s.
Else Christensen (1913–2005) was a Danish proponent of the modern Pagan new religious movement of Heathenry. She established a Heathen organisation known as the Odinist Fellowship in the United States, where she lived for much of her life. A Third Positionist ideologue, she espoused the establishment of an anarcho-syndicalist society composed of racially Aryan communities.
Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th century, its practitioners model it on the pre-Christian religions adhered to by the Germanic peoples of the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages. In an attempt to reconstruct these past belief systems, Heathenry uses surviving historical, archaeological, and folkloric evidence as a basis, although approaches to this material vary considerably.
Árpád von Nahodyl is a German writer, neopagan activist and local politician. His books on pagan subjects, esotericism, divination and mythology are published under the pseudonym Géza von Neményi. Active in Germany's neopagan scene since the early 1980s, he founded the Heidnische Gemeinschaft which attracted media attention and controversy in that decade. After leaving the organization, he founded the Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft in 1991, of which he is the spiritual leader and self-titled Allsherjagode.
The Allgermanische Heidnische Front (AHF) was an international neo-Nazi organisation, active during the late 1990s and early 2000s, that espoused a form of racial Germanic Neopaganism. It grew from the Norsk Hedensk Front (NHF), which was claimed to be led and founded by the musician Varg Vikernes in 1993, although he and the organisation denied it. The program was based on his first book, Vargsmål (1994), published shortly after he was convicted for church arson and the murder of fellow musician Euronymous.
Stephen Anthony McNallen is an American proponent of Heathenry, a modern Pagan new religious movement, and a white nationalist activist. He founded the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA), which he led from 1994 until 2016, having previously been the founder of the Viking Brotherhood and the Asatrú Free Assembly.
Hans Bertil Mattias Gardell is a Swedish historian and scholar of comparative religion. In March 2006 he was appointed of the Nathan Söderblom Chair of Comparative Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden. He received the Lenin Award in 2009.
Stephan Scott Grundy, also known by the pen-name Kveldulf Gundarsson, was an American author, scholar, goði and proponent of Asatru. He published more than two dozen books and several papers. He is best known for his modern adaptations of legendary sagas and was also a non-fiction writer on Germanic mythology, Germanic paganism, and Germanic neopaganism.
Esoteric Nazism, also known as Esoteric Fascism or Esoteric Hitlerism, represents a fusion of Nazi ideology with mystical, occult, and esoteric traditions. This belief system emerged in the aftermath of World War II, as adherents sought to reinterpret and adapt the ideas of the Third Reich within the context of a new religious movement. Esoteric Nazism is characterized by its emphasis on the mythical and spiritual dimensions of Aryan supremacy, drawing from a range of sources including Theosophy, Ariosophy, and Gnostic dualism. These beliefs have evolved into a complex and often contradictory body of thought that seeks to justify and perpetuate racist and supremacist ideologies under the guise of spiritual enlightenment.
Thomas Torquemada Thorn is an American musician. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, he is best known as co-founder of, and lead vocalist for, the industrial metal band The Electric Hellfire Club.
The Ásatrú Alliance (AA) is an American Heathen group founded in 1988 by Michael J. Murray of Arizona, a former vice-president of Else Christensen's Odinist Fellowship. The establishment of the Alliance, as well as the establishment of The Troth, followed the disbanding of the Asatru Free Assembly in 1986. The Ásatrú Alliance largely reconstituted the old AFA, is dominated by prior AFA members, and acts as a distributor of previously AFA publications.
Deutsche Heidnische Front was a far right Neo-Nazi group created in 1998 as the German section of the Heathen Front. It was formed by avowed neo-Nazi Hendrik Möbus. It has been inactive since 2005.
Samfälligheten för Nordisk Sed is a Swedish modern pagan organisation founded in 1997. It adheres to a version of Nordic neopaganism that emphasises folk beliefs and claims an unbroken continuity through these. The organisation has few members and is closed to outsiders.
The Verein für germanisches Heidentum, abbreviated VfGH, is a Germanic neopagan organisation in Germany. It began in 1994 as the German chapter of the British Odinic Rite and was called the Odinic Rite Deutschland. It became independent in 2004 and changed its name in 2006. Though it has never had many members, it is nonetheless influential among German neopagans. Prominent people within the organisation have included Bernd Hicker, who was its first leader, and Fritz Steinbock, who has managed and influenced its religious practice.
Wyatt C. Kaldenberg is an American white supremacist and a supporter of Tom Metzger's Neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance (WAR) organization. He is also an Odinist, and an author of several books.
Modern pagan music or neopagan music is music created for or influenced by modern Paganism. Music produced in the interwar period include efforts from the Latvian Dievturība movement and the Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt. The counterculture of the 1960s established British folk revival and world music as influences for American neopagan music. Second-wave feminism created women's music which includes influences from feminist versions of neopaganism. The United States also produced Moondog, a Norse neopagan street musician and composer. The postwar neopagan organisations Ásatrúarfélagið in Iceland and Romuva in Lithuania have been led by musicians.
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a collective term for new religious movements which are influenced by or derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern peoples. Although they share similarities, contemporary pagan religious movements are diverse, and as a result, they do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts.