Odinism and Else Christensen

If we take Alexander Rud Mills as the progenitor of modern Odinism, let's look at the "Folk Mother" Else Christensen and her legacy. 

In the mid-1960s, Else Christensen discovered Rudd Mills' pamphlet "The Call of our Ancient Nordic Religion" (Gardell, Gods of the Blood, 167). I briefly discussed the pamphlet here. 

Rud Mills seeems to have been a source of inspiration for Christensen that focused her work through this Norse lens. She came to see the pre-Christian European past as the source of values and ideas that would foster white/Aryan renewal. 

Or more precisely - attaching her political/social critique to Odinism had a legitimizing effect on her work for her audience -- imprisoned white men and far right activists. But incidently, it also tapped into the burgeoning Pagan movement although this wasn't her initial target audience. 

She did more than retrieve Rudd Mills from obscurity. She was influential in bringing together a new socio-political-religious confluence of ideas that created American Odinism (Calico, Being Viking, 141). In addition to tapping into Mill's writings and his dream of an Anglo-Saxon Church of Odin, she was in dialogue with Francis Yockey's Imperium and the Traditionalist and European New Right movement that included Julius Evola and Oswald Spengler. She also brought Odinism in touch with the radical right politics of the United States including the American Nazi Party and its leader George Lincoln Rockwell. These various tributaries shaped Odinism as a new white racial politics that saw the West threatened with cultural and spiritual degradation and sought to revive the Western, European, "white" soul through a spiritual awakening to its pre-Christian roots. 

Odinism from its very start presented itself as a superior alternative to Christianity. This stance goes back to Rudd Mills. While the racial opponent was the Jews, the ideological opponent of Odinism has always been Christianity--Christianity is the foreign (Middle Eastern) ideology that seduced white people, Europeans, into a racial and spiritual confusion that has resulted in the decline of the West and the dilution of Ayran superiority. This position comes through to the contemporary period, even in the Odinist critique of the Black Lives Matter movement. (See my paper "Heathenry and White Nationalism" on Academia.edu.)  As Gardell puts it, Odinism was "a vehicle for racial rejuvenation" (Gods of the Blood, 171). A significant part of Odinism has always been the fight or "struggle" they might say for Aryan rights, Aryan religion, Aryan self-determination, etc. Odinism stands up for the white race and they would claim everyone from Thomas Jefferson to Hitler as heroes in that racist cause (Gods of the Blood, 172) 

Blot at Else Christensen's grave,
2021 AFA Day of Remembrance

The early American Asatru movement in the 1970s was substantially influenced by Else Christensen. Many of the early founders of Norse Pagan groups had personal relationships with her.  If a group recognizes Else Christensen as the Folk Mother - they are working with this tributary we could call Odinism. This includes Stephen McNallen and the AFA; the Asatru Alliance led by Michael J Murray aka Valgard Murray; Heimgest and the Odinic Rite under his leadership; Max Hyatt and Wodan's Kindred and Wodanesdag Press. 

Christensen's influence was embedded in the ideology of Odinism through her personal relationships with these early leaders, her voluminous personal correspondence, and her newletter The Odinist. According to the Heathen History podcast, The Odinist was published in 151 issues from 1971 - 1992 and was focused mainly on right-wing racist political and social analysis and commentary on current events. "Very little content that you could actually call religious." It seems that Christensen was simply not very religious and was much more interested in social and political questions of "Aryan spiritual liberation." However, her writings comprise a large body of ideas that circulated through the early years of Norse Paganism. In addition, she began her Odinist Fellowship as a prison ministry by establishing study groups in three Florida prisons. Through her correspondence, visits, and newletters, Odinism began spreading within the US prison system--a religion or at least a philosophy of white empowerment inspired by an imagined Norse-inspired past. 

It may be important to point out that Odinists are not Pagan Reconstructionists. Reconstructionists try to recover the practices and worldviews of ancient Pagan peoples in order to provide a type of authenticity and legitimacy to contemporary Pagan religions. Reconstructionists study the ancient primary texts, often using the original languages, and make use of current academic research and archaeological discoveries to better understand what the elder or arch-Pagans thought and did. 

This is definitely not what Odinists are doing. Odinists are inspired by a particular imagined Pagan past, often an era of Viking battle glory. We should note that the sources used by Odinists are often from the Völkisch movement--the racial German nationalist movement from the turn of the 20th century that also invoked a romanticized version of the Germanic & Norse pagan past to legitimize Germanic military expansion and the genocidal repression of non-Germanic people.

As the Heathen History podcast points out, her ideas and influence were quite broad - while all of it came from the racist perspective of white supremacy, she critiqued globalism, believed in the importance of smaller "tribal" human communities and economies, was concerned with environmentalism, and valued individual freedom and self-expression. Odinism - as developed by Else Christensen looks like a philosophy, a social critique, and a socio-political agenda.

Several scholars, including myself and Being Viking, are quoted in this wikipedia article on Else Christensen.

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.