The Roots of Odinism in the writings of Alexander Rud Mills

So I did this interview about Odinism with WISHTV News in Indianapolis on September 19, 2023. You can read about it here. After hearing about the interview, my mentor said “So . . . you went on record that Odinism is a thing.”

I heard that more as a question and it sounded like this: “If Odinism is a thing, what kind of thing is it?”

That’s a really good question. 

I want to write a few posts that try to give an answer. I think that Odinism can be three things:

• a movement with specific history, idealogues, and groups, 
• a meme, a set of ideas that flow through the cultic milieu, and/or
• a monster, an imaginary onto which we project our fears

So here is Part 1: The Roots of Odinism in the Writings of Alexander Rud Mills

We can argue that Odinism begins with the Australian Alexander Rud Mills, 1885-1964. He was sympathetic to and influenced by Nazism and had met Hitler. He was aligned with and participated in pre-WWII British fascist groups as well as the nationalist Australia First Movement. He was detained by the Australian government during 1942 for his Nazi connections, fears that he supported a Japanese invasion of Australia, and because of his outspoken Odinism which he maintained his entire life even after his incarceration. Among Odinists, this imprisonment in an WWII Australian internment camp only adds to his allure as a Folk hero and the Father of Odinism.

Rud Mills has several works that have been influential in the development of Odinism. Let's look briefly at his pamphlet “The Call of our Ancient Nordic Religion” published in 1957. This is the most widely read of his writings. In this short book, he sketches out the ideological framework for Odinism,

The key move he makes is to detach his new Odinist religion from German nationalism – the German völkisch movement was closely tied to German nationalism, German identity, and German expansionism. Nazism was as well – Nazism, rooted in the German politics post-WWI was not so interested in uniting a pan-national “white race” as it was committed to advancing German superiority and subjugating all other nations under German dominance. In this pamphlet, Rud Mills separated his philosophy from the specific cause of German nationalism by looking farther back into the past. Odinism, he said, was the religion of all those with Nordic ancestry. He writes about “our Nordic ancestors,” and “our forefathers” referring to these ancient Nordic people. This shift made Odinism into a race-based international movement that can sell as well in Australia as in Britain and the United States.

What are the other seeds of this ideological framework found here?

• Nordic or Aryan superiority: In chapter two he claimed that Nordic or Aryan people were the progenitors of all the great civilizations from Greece, to Egypt, to India. “They built up fine and noble civilizations . . . [and made] wonderful contributions to the achievements of mankind.”
• Anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity: In chapter 3, he sets this Nordic faith up against both Judaism and Christianity. He writes that “'Greek' Christianity has made the people Jew-following nations. Christian preachers teach Jewish history, they call the Jews God's chosen people, and by so doing depreciate the history and spiritual values of their own nations. Even Chinese and Negroes are taught that Israel is the 'Holy Land'.”
• Esotericism: Odinism includes a strong esoteric component with practices involving the elevation of the mind to higher states of consciousness taking Odin's ordeal on the World Tree as a model, and the raising of oð, the psychic power of Odin, the frenzy and inspiration that is Odin within the practitioner. In chapter five, Rud Mills hints at Odinic esotericism when he writes, “The WONDERFUL Norse Gods - It is beyond the powers of man to conceive and wholly understand the great Being and Vitality, in whom and by whom man lives. Some men can understand more than others.”
• Centrality of Odin: In chapter five, he centers the All-Father as the heart of the Odinist spiritual pursuit,  “The All-Father was the great conception of the Nordic or Norse religion.” And Odin, he suggests, is the entity or the archetype by which humans understand and connect to the All-Father, “The greatest of the 'family' of the All-Father was Odin, Woden or Wotan. Odin was that of the All-Father which man in some measure may understand. . . ." He goes on to discuss other gods and the goddesses, such as Thor, the Mother Freyga who was embodied in Nature, and Tyr.
• Politics: Odinism offers a radical social critique of modernity. In chapter six, Rudd Mills outlines a sprawling worldview and ethic. He implies a sort of political autonomy that could be the basis for the tribalist philosophy that later Odinists developed as a model for an ideal Nordic society. “The ruling of one person by another person grows less under our Odinist direction, even as such ruling grows greater under religions which tend to make men 'robots and soulless automatons, ruled by ruthless non-spiritual men.” In his earlier writings, he leans more explicitly toward a fascist-type of organic statism or perhaps a caste system, “the endeavor under Odinism is to have every man in that place which is best for him and his gard in God, and best for that wider community of which he is a part,” (from his 1933 The Odinist Religion Overcoming Jewish Christianity). We also see here the incipient critique of modernity as a system that homogenizes humans, sucks the spirituality and vitality out of them, and reduces them to materialists and passive consumers. 
• Warrior Ethic: Odinism often talks tough, threatening direct and violent action to instigate a radical overthrow of what it sees as a sick modernity characterized by the homogeneity of globalism, spirituality-denying consumerism, and the weakness of democracy.  Rud Mills signals the warrior ethic of Odinism when he writes that “Force must be used, if necessary, to check and defeat the powers of Evil. The Son of Odin fought to the death. Tyr gave his right hand in the service of his fellows.”
• The Folk Awakening: Odinists and other folkish Heathens believe that Odinism is "in the blood" of white people, those with Northern European descent. It is an archetype that is imprinted in the minds of Northern European people, a structure of their brains and DNA. Drawing on Jung's Wotan essay, they believe that this archetype can be awoken or activiated--and that white people will return to their "native" religiosity and true nature. This idea draws on Jung's Wotan essay in which he describes Wotan as a "psychic force," that can be stirred back to life "that an ancient god of storm and frenzy, the long quiescent Wotan, should awake, like an extinct volcano, to new activity." In chapter eight, Rud Mills also forecasts the “Nordic Awakening” that so many Odinists and folkish Asatruar talk about. Once there were great men, noble and heroic, called Sons of Odin, “What men were ever so great as these men? What men ever thought so beautifully or so truly?” This nobility was obscured and lost by the coming of Christianity. That darkness, he writes, is coming to an end, "but the seed which those men, our very fathers, sowed is awakening again. The new day comes, because it is of the nature of Being that it comes. And we have seen, thanks to our Odinist forefathers, a light in the darkness which beckons us on to safety and to life.” Odinists tend to believe that this new awakening is occuring now and seek to call white people into white-only groups, united by Odinist religion, and organized to resist modernity its attack on "traditional Western culture."  
• Anti-Equality: In chapter nine, he forwards the argument against human equality - another core Odinist talking point. Odinists argue for the saliency of difference: differences among the "races" and differences between the sexes. They are quick to defend and maintain these distinctions as good and natural. Rud Mills states, "One resultant of the Plato-Socratian error is found in the constitution of the United States of America which states that, 'It is a self-evident truth that all men are created equal.' A stentorian conclusion too pathetic to laugh at. It is a logical consequence from an untrue source, and flatly contradicts all the experiences and the senses of man given him by God. In one aspect, it is a spurning of God's gifts to man. And what at first may appear laughable becomes tragic”.
• Anti-Miscegenation: Odinists believe that Western, aka European, society is being diluted, weakened by "race-mixing," for which Rud Mills uses the awful term "mongrelization." These days, Odinists call it "white genocide." White genocide is a conspiracy theory holding that the "white race" will soon cease to exist because of a deliberate plot involving immigration, multiculturalism, interracial relationships, and declining white birthrates. He writes that this belief in equality wars against human nature and leads to “human mongrelism” and an equality “measured by the most deficient unit of the species.” In his earlier collection of pamphlets, The Odinist Religion Overcoming Jewish Christianity, he writes, “Odinists do not marry persons racially distant from them. They understand the dangers of mongrelism and the mating of opposites.” He also includes a chilling pamphlet on eugenics. This makes the racist basis of this movement very plain. Odinism is a religion grounded in white supremacy.
• Race Mysticism: Chapter nine ends with an explicit call to racial consciousness. Judaeo-Christian dominance, he writes, “has almost destroyed our connection with our own Father Spirit in God, our creator and our source of strength and life. Many of our people are unaware of their racial origins, and are taught to believe that race and breed are of no value as far as mankind is concerned. They are ignorant of their specific Gard or Place in God - in the scheme of things. Breed, they are taught,  is valuable regarding horses, cattle and animals but is not valuable for mankind.”

Odinism and the Delphi Murders: My Interview with WishTV news

On September 19th, 2023 I did a quick interview with Kody Fisher, a reporter with Channel 8 WishTV news in Indianapolis about Odinism. See the video below. 

The Delphi murder case is a horrible and tragic story. One of my students who is from southern Indiana said that she grew up with these murders as part of the trauma of her childhood world. 

So my heart goes out to the families of these young women, all those who were impacted by these murders, and who continue to live without resolution through the legal process of this case. 

Two young teenage girls, Libby and Abigail, had gone for a walk on Monon High Bridge Trail in Delphi, IN on Feb. 13, 2017. They disappeared from the popular trail and were found murdered in the woods the next day. One of the girl's cell phones was recovered with a "43-second video that showed Abigail walking on the Monon High Bridge toward Libby while a man wearing a dark jacket and jeans walks behind her. The man can be heard ordering the girls 'down the hill.'"  

The case has gone unsolved, but in October 2022, a man named Richard Allen was arrested in connection to the case. There is significant evidence that points toward Allen's involvement including his own confessions, security video placing him and his vehicle at the scene, and a bullet recovered from the scene which matches a handgun found at Allen's home although they believe a knife was used for the murders.

The twist in the case - and the reason for my interview - occurred on September 18, 2023 when Allen's defense team released a 130+ page memorandum alleging that the murders were part of an Odinist ritual human sacrifice. According to Fox News, the defense memorandum claims that "overwhelming evidence in this case supports the following … Members of a pagan Norse religion, called Odinism, hijacked by white nationalists, ritualistically sacrificed Abigail Williams and Liberty German." 

Religion professor breaks down Odinism and its connection to the Delphi murders

So the reporter reached out to me because of my book Being Viking and my expertise in this area of Norse Pagan Heathen religion. He wanted to know what Odinism is - the defense memorandum uses the term "Odinites," which is a term I've never encountered and showed a glaring lack of familiarity. And he wanted to know if Odinists could have ritually sacrificed these girls as part of a religious rite of human sacrifice.  

I don't particularly want to be defending Odinists, but here I was giving an interview and finding myself pushing back against unsubstantiated allegations that "Odinites" had ritually sacrificed two young white girls years ago in Indiana.

On the surface, the evidence seems to weigh against Heathens. The reporter kept coming back to the fact that Heathens do make sacrifices as part of their ritual cycle. There is both textual and archaeological evidence that ancient Pagans engaged in some human sacrifice.  And he was really interested in Reconstructionism--contemporary Heathens and Pagans who want to restore or revive ancient religious practice as closely as possible for contemporary times. I discuss reconstructionism throughout Being Viking, check the index, but specifically on pages 38-44. Additionally in the last few years Odinists have been tied to various acts of violence and murder. Therefore, as the reporter implied, why not human sacrifice?

The most obvious answer to this question is that Pagans have universally and explicitly rejected human sacrifice. Please see my essay "Do Heathens Practice Sacrifice" in the upcoming release from Equinox Press, Pagan Religions in 5 Minutes, edited by Suzanne Owens and Angela Puca. Reconstructionists have been clear that some things from the past should be left there and not revived. Human sacrifice is at the top of that list. Heathens and Pagans of all stripes have roundly rejected the sacrifice of human beings.

Heathens do make offerings to spiritual beings: Gods, ancestors, spirits of nature. Almost universally, these offerings consist of libations of mead, an offering of sacred beverage charged with the prayers of the faithful, and poured out in honor of the Gods. While the term "sacrifice" may be used, and the Norse religious term "blot" is more directly connected to sacrifice, Heathens and Pagans are more likely to call these gifts or offerings. And while some Heathens have engaged in animal sacrifice, this has been practiced only rarely and with the greatest ethical care. For more on animal sacrifice in Heathenry, see Being Viking: Heathenism in Contemporary America, chapter 6, "Animal Sacrifice and the Blot."

As odious as Odinism is, there is simply no evidence that Odinists in America have ever practiced ritual human sacrifice. Odinism has been around for a hundred years, if you start counting with Alexander Rudd Mills. And in all that time, Odinists have not practiced or advocated for ritual human sacrifice. Odinism does use warrior imagery and presents an aggressive picture of itself. Some Odinists have perpetrated criminal acts of political and racially motivated violence and murder. In fact, if you told me that there was another report of an Odinist attacking a Muslim woman on a train somewhere, I wouldn't be shocked. But to engage in ritual human sacrifice - that would be an aberration even for Odinists. 

Now, as one of my mentors told me, "Never say never." After pushing at all these different angles, the reporter finally said, "But you can't rule it out, right?" That is where he quotes me saying "There are crazy people everywhere." People have excused their heinous actions by claiming that "God told me to do it." The larger context of that quote is this: If someone wanted to claim that Odin told them to sacrifice a human being, then there would be resources in the historical record of Norse Paganism that they could make use of. Just as the Bible and the Qur'an have passages that could be and have been used by criminals and immoral people to justify violence, murder, and mayhem. But that act would not be in keeping with the norms for the contemporary religious practice of Heathenry. That person would be a criminal - not someone living out a religious practice in a socially acceptable way.