Pagan Politics in The 21st Century Peac PDF

[The Pomegranate 20.
1 (2018) 5-44] ISSN 1528-0268 (print)

https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.35632 ISSN 1743-1735 (online)
“Pagan Politics in the 21st Century:

‘Peace and Love’ or ‘Blood and Soil’?”
Michael F. Strmiska1
Department of Global Studies
Orange County Community College
115 South St., Middletown
New York 02668, USA
[email protected]
Abstract
This essay begins by reviewing definitions and categories of modern
Paganism (also variously termed contemporary or neo-Paganism) that
the author first proposed in the 2005 book Modern Paganism in World Cul-
ture and then proceeds to discuss parallels with certain political trends in
Europe and America today. Particular attention will be paid to how the
rising tide of pro-nativist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim sentiment
in contemporary European and American politics mirrors certain views
and values espoused by the more ethnically oriented forms of Paganism,
even though this seeming convergence of interests between Pagans and
rightists at the political level is undercut at the religious level by the right
wing’s firm adherence to Christianity and rejection of religious diver-
sity. The essay proceeds to examine how competing nineteenth cen-
tury visions of ethnic-centered nationalism and universal humanism are
replicated today in the more ethnic and traditional types of Paganism
versus those that are more eclectic and universalistic in their outlook.
Pagan responses to the events of August 1–12, 2017 in Charlottesville,
Virginia form the final topic.
Keywords: Paganism; Czech Republic; Charlottesville; right-wing poli-

tics; blood and soil.
Introduction
I am very happy to be here in the Czech Republic, in the beautiful
and historic city of Brno, for this small but interesting conference on
1. Michael Strmiska is an associate professor of world history at the Orange

County Community College (SUNY-Orange).
© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018. Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX.
6 The Pomegranate 20.1 (2018)
“Paganism and Politics” in our small but interesting field of Pagan

Studies. I am grateful to the Department for the Study of Religions at
Masaryk University for its sponsorship of the conference. 2
Typologies of Paganism, Revisited

I will begin with some discussion of typologies of Paganism, to lay
the groundwork for exploring the political dimensions of modern
Pagan religious movements. When I was asked to organize a
volume on modern or neo-Paganism back in 2003 and serve as its
editor, I set about writing an introduction for the book and imme-
diately encountered a thorny problem that still perplexes me today:
how to define Paganism.3 For several years, I had been a participant
in an online scholarly discussion network known as the Nature
Religions List. The name of that network suggested one way to go,
which was to identify Paganism as a “nature religion.” That seemed
to me partly correct but not wholly adequate, as Pagans I had come
to know in places like Lithuania and Latvia were just as concerned
about preserving ethnic culture and identity through their reli-
gious activities as they were about worshipping or connecting with
nature. Yet this did not mean that nature was irrelevant or unim-
portant to these more ethnically-minded Pagans, only that this type
of religion could not be reduced to a single core element. I could
see that modern Paganism, like the World Tree Yggdrasil in Norse
mythology,4 has roots that reach into different worlds, and has to be
2. This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper that was originally
presented as one of the two keynote lectures at the conference “Paganism and Poli-
tics: Neo-Pagan & Native Faith Movements in Central & Eastern Europe,” 3-4 June
2016, Brno, Czech Republic. Special thanks to Aleš Chalupa, Matouš Vencálek, Miro-
slav Vrzal, and Šárka Vondracková and the Department for the Study of Religions at
Masaryk University for making the conference possible.
3. Michael Strmiska, “Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative
Perspectives,” in Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, ed.
Michael F. Strmiska, (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 2005), 154.
4. In the Poetic Edda poem Grímnismál, verses 29–35 focus on the world tree
Yggdrasil, with verse 31 stating that “Three roots there grow in three directions,
under the ash of Yggdrasil, Hel lives under one, under the second the frost-giants,
[under] the third, humankind,” The Poetic Edda, trans. Carolyne Larrington (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 56. The tree is also discussed in Snorri Sturluson’s
commentary The Prose Edda, wherein Snorri writes, “The ash is the best and great-
est of all trees; its branches spread out over the whole world and reach up under
heaven. The tree is held in position by three roots that spread far out; one is among
the Aesir, the second among the frost ogres where once was Ginnungagap; and the
© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

Strmiska “Pagan Politics in the 21st Century” 7
understood as a pluralistic phenomenon capable of multiple appli-

cations and associations and widely differing, even contradictory
interpretations.
And so, in my introductory essay for Modern Paganism in World
Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, I strove to lay out what I saw as
the most characteristic types and tendencies in modern Paganism.
I am pleased to see that the categories I came up with seem to have
proven useful to other scholars exploring Paganism, as well as mem-
bers of Pagan movements as well.
I described different types of Paganism as tending to divide into
opposing or contrasting categories. The most important and funda-
mental divide is between more ethnic-centered forms of Paganism
and more universalistic varieties. I found Pagans of a more ethni-
cally oriented mindset tending toward the position that as Paganism
was, in their view, an essentially ethnic or ancestral phenomenon;
it was people sharing the same ethnic roots or ancestry who should
participate in the same form of Paganism, while others of a more
universalistic perspective conceived of their spiritual path or reli-
gious movement as something open to anyone from any kind of
ethnic, national, or racial background. In between, I found those
who believed that while some ethnic or ancestral connection might
be the most direct and obvious pathway to Paganism, it was also
possible for others without ancestral links to the ethnic identity
underlying a particular Pagan tradition to come to feel a perfectly
valid connection to it, and that this felt or chosen affinity was also
a perfectly acceptable qualification for participation in Pagan activ-
ities and membership in a particular Pagan group or community.
The key issue is the understanding of ethnicity. Ethnic Pagans
tend to see ethnicity, both at the level of ethnic traditions and ethnic
identity, as something relatively fixed, closed and limited, whether
referring to ethnic religious traditions of the past, which they feel
are to be altered as little as possible, or the ethnic or racial profile of
those accepted into their form of Paganism, or both. In contrast, uni-
versalistic Pagans are more likely to see ethnicity, in terms of both
traditions and identity, as a starting place rather than an ending
point, as the dominant flavor in a religious recipe that is open to the
further spicing that may be added by diverse peoples of different
social, national, ethnic and/or racial backgrounds.
third extends over Niflheim.,” Jean Young trans., The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954), 42–43.

In my discussion here today, I will refer to “ethnic Pagans” as

those who tend toward the more limited and closed view of ethnic
identity and ethnic tradition. This is in accord with how this matter
is generally discussed, but we should keep in mind that not all eth-
nically oriented Pagans take such an inflexible and exclusive stance,
and that universalistic Pagans also have an interest in ethnic tradi-
tions as important components of their Paganism. All contemporary
Paganism is based to at least some extent on myths, stories, songs,
and customs that derive from foundations of European ethnic cul-
ture. The key differences that divide ethnic from universalist Pagan-
ism lie in how the two camps define the membership range of their
religious groups, that is, whether or not a particular ethnic or ances-
tral background is a necessary precondition for participation in a
given Pagan tradition or movement deriving from past ethnic cul-
ture, and whether they allow alteration and expansion of such simul-
taneously ethnic and religious traditions.
A different but related distinction is that which lies between re-
constructionist and eclectic Paganism. I characterized as reconstruc-
tionists those Pagans who believe that modern-day or contemporary
Paganism should be reconstructed from what is known of past prac-
tices and beliefs to the greatest degree of accuracy possible, avoid-
ing other religions and other influences such as modern culture as
much as possible. In contrast, eclectic Pagans were presented as
those who feel that such slavish imitation of the past is neither fea-
sible nor desirable, and so modern Pagans should feel free to blend
Pagan and other religious traditions, as well as to invent new prac-
tices, beliefs and concepts according to the needs and conditions of
the current time and world-situation as well as particular social and
cultural settings.
All of the above mentioned Pagan types can be further distin-
guished by matters of degree, in that ethnically oriented Pagans can
be more or less ethnically centered, universalist Pagans more or less
universalist, reconstructionists slightly to extremely reconstruction-
ist, and eclectics partially to predominantly eclectic. These charac-
teristics can also be combined in ways that may defy Aristotelian
binary logic but which may well meet the needs of people with multi-
dimensional and even self-contradictory life-situations and multiple
intersecting identities. One might well find ethnic Pagans who are
obsessed with racial purity but open to eclectic combinations of tra-
ditions, or Pagans who reject ethnic or racial limitations but who are
totally devoted to museum-perfect reconstruction of past practices.

I have found that the four above-mentioned categories tend to

come together and reinforce each other in two particular combi-
nations. Universalistic Pagans tend to also be eclectics, and ethni-
cally oriented Pagans tend to be reconstructionists. We can therefore
imagine a spectrum or continuum from totally eclectic, open and
universalistic Pagans on the far left to totally ethnic-centered, and
reconstructionist Pagans on the far right. The choice of who to locate
on the left and right of this spectrum is of course no arbitrary choice,
as it also tends to match up with the political tendencies of these dif-
ferent types of Pagans.
I believe it may now be useful for us to conceptualize an inter-
mediate category between a totally closed, ethnic reconstructionism
and a completely open, eclectic universalism—a form of Paganism
in which there is a predominant orientation toward a particular set
of ethnic Pagan traditions, but with openness to combination with
other ethnic or religious or spiritual traditions, openness to exper-
imentation, invention and addition of religious elements where a
need or lack is felt, and also openness to participation by people
of any ethnic or racial background. I will provisionally label this
as Open-Rooted Paganism, and I predict that this will become an
increasingly popular configuration of Paganism in coming years,
as it can provide both the clear sense of style, identity and orienta-
tion that is one of the most compelling features of ethnic reconstruc-
tionism without the racism and xenophobia that may attach to or be
inspired by ultra-traditional ethnic Paganism, while also allowing
for cross-fertilization between the ancient and the modern, the tra-
ditional and the invented, and a particular ethnic tradition and the
diversity of other traditions whether ancient, modern or invented.
In writing my introduction to the Modern Paganism book back in
2005, I also reflected on the social and cultural conditions that have
given rise to Pagan movements and related phenomena over the last
two centuries. Modern Paganism may be said to be the child of an
uneasy union between two star-crossed and oddly matched parents:
nineteenth-century folk romanticism, with its emphasis on ethnic
identity and folklore traditions, and twenty to twenty-first century
post-modernism, with its collapse of dominant authority structures
and cultural narratives opening a new horizon of religious plural-
ism, multi-culturalism and a trend toward tolerance of “difference”
in Western societies. The partial demolition of formerly ubiqui-
tous systems of belief and authority has paradoxically opened the
way for reviving and retooling ancient and medieval structures and

narratives such as pre-Christian European myths, beliefs, and prac-

tices, alongside the diminished but still massive edifices of Christi-
anity and more recently arrived religions such as transplanted and
hybridized forms of Buddhism and Hinduism.
Pagan revival movements are usually informed by an awareness
that structures, beliefs, and narratives that have been broken and
repressed in earlier periods are no longer wholly intact, fully accessi-
ble, or entirely functional, requiring considerable revision, readjust-
ment and re-imagining to render these often poorly preserved old
traditions suitable for the current day and age. The various options
for how to reconstruct and reinterpret the old, what to add and what
to subtract, and who is to be understood as the proper participants
in such old-new forms of religion are the questions that provide the
defining distinctions between the above-mentioned categories. Since
finishing the Modern Paganism book in 2005, it has become increas-
ingly clear to me that Paganism and the categories and types that
I developed to describe it are not innocent of social and political
entanglements and ideologies but exist in a state of constant sym-
biosis and continual dialogue with social and political trends and
tensions.
Paganism: European or Indigenous?

The very term “Paganism” is a case in point. Michael York has made
an interesting and important case in his book Pagan Theology for a
very broad definition of Paganism as an umbrella term for all pre-
Christian, pre-Islamic, nature-worshipping, non-monotheistic, and
non-exclusive forms of religion worldwide, a definition that makes
“Paganism” more or less synonymous with indigenous religions.5
I think the more restricted and less elegant definition that I pro-
posed, in which “Paganism” refers only or mainly to pre-Christian,
indigenous religions of Europe and, with the additional qualifying
adjectives of “neo-,” “modern” or “contemporary,” to their modern
revivals and adaptations, has gained broader currency and generally
proven more useful for social scientific understanding. Most schol-
ars who apply themselves to the study of modern, contemporary or
neo-Paganism are generally concerned with modern-day revivals of
pre-Christian European religion rather than to indigenous religions
5. Michael York, Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion (New York: NYU
Press 2003).

of non-European peoples and regions. This is noted in a recent article

by Ethan Doyle White, who goes on to propose a further fine-tuning
of the geographical and cultural radius of the term to apply not only
to modern revivals of pre-Christian, European religious traditions,
but also to contemporary revitalization movements addressing pre-
Christian, pre-Islamic and pre-Jewish traditions of the Near East and
North Africa. This expansion allows for incorporating esoteric and
syncretistic movements which draw on traditions from all across
this broader geographical zone with its many historical interconnec-
tions and cultural cross-fertilizations. As White states his position,
I have argued that the most accurate way of analytically defining and
understanding the contemporary Pagan milieu from a scholarly per-
spective is to view it as a “family” of related religious, spiritual, magi-
cal and esoteric movements, all of which are self-consciously inspired
by those belief systems of Europe, North Africa and the Near East
which were not Abrahamic but which existed prior to the Abrahamic
religions’ rise to dominance.6
Such an expansion of the geographic and cultural scope of the term

Pagan to embrace not only modern revivals of pre-Christian Euro-
pean religion but also contemporary re-workings of pre-Abrahamic
traditions of these other Europe-adjacent regions enables the term,
and hence the field of study, to encompass such phenomena as the
very interesting Canaanite revival movements investigated by Shai
Ferraro in his groundbreaking work on new religious movements
in Israel.7 White’s revamped definition also has the advantage of
allowing for comparative analysis of religious movements similar
in some respects, different in others, which have developed in adja-
cent regions as a result of having undergone parallel historical pro-
cesses of displacement and destruction of locally-based polytheistic
religions by the different varieties of Abrahamic monotheism.
I must say that in one sense I wish that York’s broader, more uni-
versal definition had won out and my more restricted, Euro-centric
one had faded away due to disuse, because that would have indi-
cated that there really was substantial harmony and agreement
between non-European indigenous religions and European-derived
6. Ethan Doyle White, “Theoretical, Terminological, and Taxonomic Trouble in

the Academic Study of Contemporary Paganism: A Case for Reform,” The Pomegran-
ate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 18, no. 1 (2016): 44.
7. Shai Feraro, “Baal in the Holy Land: Canaanite Reconstructionism among
Contemporary Israeli Pagans,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent
Religions 20, no. 2 (2016): 59–81.

Paganism and their adherents and practitioners worldwide, but this

has not happened. The reasons are not hard to understand. Above
all, it is primarily “white” people of European descent in Europe
and heavily Europeanized areas such as the United States, Canada,
Brazil, Australia and New Zealand who identify themselves as
“Pagans” and practice Paganism and primarily non-white peoples
of non-European descent in non-Europeanized areas of the world, or
at least, peoples who resist the legacy of European domination even
if they have been subjected to it, who identify themselves as “indig-
enous” and practice indigenous religions.
This is not to contradict the very important and quite legitimate
point that York advanced that on the level of religious ideas and
world view, there is considerable theological and philosophical
common ground between Paganism and indigenous religions, in
such matters as reverence for nature, a tendency to conceive and
worship the divine in multiple forms (that is to say, polytheism), and
an openness to other spiritual and religious traditions. The prob-
lem arises in the very different social and historical circumstances
of European and European-descended peoples, and non-European,
indigenous peoples who experienced colonization by Europeans.
Though European Paganism and indigenous religions both suf-
fered varying degrees of suppression, assimilation and attempted
erasure of their religious and cultural traditions by the dominant
Western religion of Christianity and Christian-oriented state author-
ities, modern-day Pagans in many countries, most of whom are of
“white” European ancestry, enjoy far more favorable circumstances
and far less social and political oppression than do many indigenous
peoples, who face on a daily basis the debilitating legacy of centuries
of racism and colonialism.
However, in a context in which we are focusing in on contempo-
rary Pagan religions as they have developed in Central and Eastern
Europe, it is important to note that the experience of Russian impe-
rialism and Soviet Communism by the peoples of Eastern and Cen-
tral Europe does indeed present certain parallels to the repression
of indigenous peoples under Western colonialism.8 The same could
8. Andrejs Plakans, A Concise History of the Baltic States (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2011); Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Independence,
1917–1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Romuald Misiunas and
Rein Taagepera, The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–1980) (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1993); Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland,
Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003);

also be said of the earlier suppression of Baltic Paganism by German

armies and missionaries in the medieval period of the Baltic Cru-
sades that raged over the lands of modern-day Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia, and ancient Prussia from about 1200–1410.9 While Pagan
and indigenous religious ideas and practices may be similar in many
respects, their social and historical situations are not, particularly in
the current time, and this basic, brutal reality undercuts any attempt
to place the indigenous and the Pagan together in a single category.
If we accept that the term Pagan has a primarily “white,” Euro-
pean reference, then we must ask, is modern Paganism, with its
mainly European sources and traditions and its mainly white adher-
ents, a primarily racist form of religion?
Modern Paganism and its Shadows

There is a long and unpleasant history of linkages between modern
Paganism and ethnic exclusion and even racism. This begins with
nineteenth-century folk romanticism, moves forward to the Nazi
movement’s embrace of pre-Christian Germanic mythology in the
1930s to racist forms of Ásatrú from the late 1960s onward and on
to the most recent link in this unpleasant chain, the twenty-first-
century, mass-murdering right-wing extremist Anders Behring
Breivik.10 This Norwegian terrorist was not a member of any partic-
ular Pagan movement, but his thoughts and actions show the dan-
gerous potential of Paganism interpreted through the lens of racial
and religious hostility.
As best can be ascertained from a rambling manifesto and various
internet communications composed prior to his arrest, Breivik’s less
than perfectly consistent ideology combined bits and pieces of Scan-
dinavian Pagan lore with notions of Nordic racial purity, a warped
understanding of Christianity as a religion centered on hostility
to Islam, and an apparent desire to return to the “good old days”
of Crusaders fighting Muslims in opposition to modern Norway’s
embrace of racial, ethnic and religious diversity. As the Norwegian
Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books,
2010).
9. Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, revised edition (London: Penguin,
1997).
10. Egil Asprem, “The Birth of Counterjihadist Terrorism: Reflections on some
Unspoken Dimensions of 22/7,” The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan
Studies 13, no. 1 (2011): 17–32.

theologian Jone Salomonsen observed in a 2012 interview, “In pre-

Christian Norse belief—which Breivik calls “Odinism”—he finds an
alternative strength and masculine aggression, which can be used to
defend Europe’s honour and supreme identity.” As such research-
ers into right-wing Norse Pagan movements as Jeffrey Kaplan and
Mattías Gardell have documented, Odinism is the branch of Norse
Paganism most directly connected with racist and white suprema-
cist views.11 Further on in the above-noted interview, Salomonsen
reflects on how Breivik’s incorporation of Paganism into his personal
racist ideology did not preclude a parallel involvement with Chris-
tianity, which Breivik subjected to a similarly racialized and milita-
rized mode of interpretation. In fact, he saw them as complementary
means of preserving European culture and identity. “In his universe,
Christianity is a symbol for a strong Europe while local pagan tradi-
tions symbolize strong local identities.”12 In a rather ironic manner,
Breivik’s racial hostility and intolerance of ethnic diversity actu-
ally opens up a limited space for religious diversity and tolerance,
with Paganism and Christianity co-existing in shared racist hostil-
ity toward non-Europeans and Muslims, the lion and the lamb lying
down together in the bed of Breivik’s racism, so to speak.
This is the toxic ideological brew that drove Breivik to his July
22, 2011 mass murder of 69 young Norwegian political activists of
a left-wing political party gathered for a summer training camp on
the island of Utøya, after he first killed nine other people in Oslo.
The young activists were slain specifically to protest their support
for the kind of multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious vision
of Norway that Breivik found threatening.13 He apparently hoped
that his violence would inspire similar actions by others opposed to
11. Mattias Gardell, Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013); Jeffrey Kaplan, “Odinism and
Ásatrú,” in Kaplan, Radical Religion in America: Millenarian Movements from the Far
Right to the Children of Noah (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 69–99.
12. The interview is included in Kristin Engh Førde, “Norse Gods in a Crusade
for Europe,” Science Nordic, April 11, 2012, http://sciencenordic.com/norse-gods-
crusade-europe.
Jone Salomonsen has further reflected on the import of this Norwegian national
tragedy in “Graced Life After All? Terrorism and Theology on July 22, 2011” in
Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 54, no. 3 (2015): 249–259.
13. For a full account of the slaughter and Breivik’s racist motivations, see Åsne
Seierstad, One of Us: The Story of A Massacre in Norway—and its Aftermath, trans. Sarah
Death (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2015 [2013]).

the presence of Muslims and to those who accept Muslims and non-
European immigrants in Norway and across Europe.
When I did separate surveys of political attitudes among mem-
bers of Norse Pagan movements in America and in Iceland in recent
years, one interesting difference I found was that the Icelandic Norse
Pagans seemed much more concerned about this heavy baggage of
racist and right-wing associations that modern Norse Paganism car-
ries with it than did their American counterparts, and much more
determined to resist such racist associations than were the Ameri-
cans.14 In his study of “Heathens Up North,” Egil Asprem noted sim-
ilar findings, in that Norwegian Norse Pagans seemed more attuned
to this issue and more apt to oppose and denounce Nazi associations
than their American counterparts.15
In my own acquaintance with Norse Pagans in other Scandina-
vian countries such as Sweden and Norway, I have found the same
strongly anti-racist, Nazi-rejecting attitudes as in Iceland, but in
my interactions with American Norse Pagans I have often encoun-
tered an attitude of annoyance and exasperation at the very mention
of such topics, as if these were matters of no relevance to modern
American Heathenry.
If I tried to press the issue by pointing out that the Nazis had
manipulated Norse myths and symbols as propagandistic support
for their racist ideas and policies, and that modern American Norse
Pagans might be accused of doing the same if they did not take a clear
stance of opposition to racism and neo-Nazism in the current day, I
would usually receive a reply to the effect that of course they were
against Nazism, but that since Nazism had been defeated, there was
nothing more to worry about in that regard, and that since the pur-
pose of their religious group was to celebrate Norse-Germanic heri-
tage, not to denigrate anyone else’s heritage, religion or identity, they
saw no need to take any special action to oppose racism or indeed,
14. Michael Strmiska (forthcoming), “Politics in Paganism: A Comparative Study

of the Political Perspectives of Followers of Modern Norse Paganism in America and
Europe.” The surveys which this article centers on were conducted via the online
survey company Survey Monkey. The book project which this article was to be part of
has been canceled, but it is expected that the paper will be published elsewhere in the
near future. An early working version of this paper was presented at the 2010 annual
conference of the American Academy of Religion under the title, “Trans-Atlantic Ten-
sions: Left-Wing /Right-Wing Tendencies in America and Europe.”
15. Egil Asprem, “Heathens Up North: Politics, Polemics, and Contemporary
Norse Paganism in Norway,” The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Stud-
ies 10, no. 1 (2008): 42–69.

even to discuss it. They seemed to either be blissfully unaware of

current-day neo-Nazis and other such violent racist movements in
the United States and elsewhere, or else curiously devoid of curios-
ity about such movements and worrisomely unworried about how
these modern neo-Nazis and white supremacists might appropriate
their religious traditions and identity.
This determined disinterest in the topic of racism echoes a common
attitude among American conservatives that the biggest problem
with racism in America is that people, especially “those people,”
meaning black or African-Americans, keep talking and complaining
about it, instead of simply putting it behind them—a point of view
that overlooks the rather important point that racism and racial vio-
lence are continuing realities in American life.
I have also come to know Norse Pagans in American who are
conscious of the problems of racism and Nazism and firmly oppose
them as well as any linkage with their religion, but my awareness of
an overlap between conservative American views of race and con-
servative Norse Pagan disinterest in racism was one of the disturb-
ing experiences that first led me to investigate whether different
types of Paganism correlate with corresponding differences in polit-
ical attitudes.
The disinterest in confronting issues of racism and Nazism among
conservative Norse Pagan resembles views and attitudes commonly
articulated by right-wing intellectuals, indicating at minimum a cer-
tain commonality of interests and world-view, and suggesting at
maximum a direct linkage between conservative Pagans and right-
wing ideology. Right-wing ideologists and social critics often express
a desire to return to a supposedly simpler time when there was
greater ethnic, religious and lifestyle homogeneity and less need to
acknowledge difference or respect minorities. In an interview in 2010,
the Croatian Nouvelle Droite theorist Tomislav Sunić spoke as fol-
lows about his impressions of America during his time studying there
in the 1980s:
I could not grasp, and still can’t, coming from the communist universe,
why a White nation of such an impressive size, loves to indulge in self-
hatred, in feelings of guilt, while catering to the lowest dregs of its
society. This was not the America I had dreamt of… I regret not being
born two hundred years earlier, in the antebellum South.16
16. Alex Kurtagić, “Interview with Tomislav Sunić,” Counter-Currents, Novem-

ber 10, 2010, https://tinyurl.com/tomislav-sunic.

This aversion to diversity combined with a rosy-tinted nostalgia

for a supposedly happier and more harmonious past has struck a
transatlantic chord, uniting the successful, anti-immigrant presiden-
tial campaign of Donald J. Trump in the United States in 2016, the
anti-immigrant Brexit vote requiring Britain to quit the open-border
European Union, and the anti-immigrant policies of the Hungarian
president Viktor Orbán and other European leaders promoting right-
wing, populist policies focused on hostility to immigrant “Others.”
This wish to return to a more homogenous past clearly corre-
sponds to the desire of some ethnic Pagans for a more ethnically
pure Paganism, if not indeed an idealized mono-ethnic society, and
the wish of the most radical reconstructionist Pagans for a return
to a supposedly pure and authentic set of religious traditions from
an earlier time of purportedly homogeneous religious life. It is the
more universalistic and eclectic Pagans who feel more comfortable
with acknowledging ethnic, religious, cultural and gender diversity,
and who see the embrace of such diversity not as a tragedy but as an
accomplishment, not a loss but a gain.
The Never-Ending Nineteenth Century

In the varying goals and sensibilities that prevail among the dif-
ferent types of Paganism, we can detect the notes of nineteenth-
century melodies that still linger in the air and in the mind today.
Nineteenth-century ethno-romanticism that went from collecting
folk songs and fairy tales to calling for the overthrow of multi-ethnic,
multi-national empires and the establishment of single-ethnicity
states lives on in the more extreme versions of modern day ethnic
Paganism. Nineteenth-century socialist utopianism, with its dreams
of universal humanism and social equality rooted in the French Rev-
olution and the Enlightenment, finds a modern echo in the more
universalist forms of Paganism, which hope to develop open-ended,
open membership forms of religion that mirror the open, pluralistic
and tolerant societies that such Pagans tend to support.
With the advantage of hindsight, we know the malignant, author-
itarian forms and destructive results that these nineteenth-century
ideologies and social movements eventually led to. Dreams may not
always come true, but nightmares sometimes do. Ethno-nationalism
found an extreme and brutal expression in Fascism, Nazism, and
the Holocaust. Socialist utopianism took an equally violent and
repressive form in Soviet Communism. The varieties of Paganism

that we encounter today often express further permutations of these

tendencies and ideologies, along with differences that can be quite
significant.
Paganism in Response to Regional Realities

That modern Paganism is shaped by the dominant trends in its
social and political environment can also be demonstrated in a dif-
ferent way. Different forms of Paganism are often marked by how
they react against political tendencies and social factors perceived
as having caused suffering and injustice in their respective loca-
tions. In Western European countries like Norway, Sweden, and
Germany, which are still haunted by the specter of Nazism, we find
forms of Paganism with a markedly anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist ori-
entation, including a steadfastly anti-Nazi, quasi-utopian openness
to social otherness and diversity. In Eastern European countries like
the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the memory of
Russian and Soviet occupation and totalitarian oppression is burned
into the collective psyche as something that fell well short of any
kind of socialist utopia.17 In this region, some remember the Nazis
as the most valiant of anti-Communist forces, and so it is that we
meet with forms of Paganism that center on preserving ethnic tra-
ditions that were harshly suppressed under Soviet rule and rheto-
ric and symbolism that may evoke earlier Fascist movements. We
also encounter less desire to embrace diversity in such places, since
for many Baltic Europeans, their most recent experience of diver-
sity was the forced settlement in their towns and cities of ethnically
Russian Soviet citizens in accordance with a Soviet policy of deliber-
ate Russification that resulted in cities like Riga becoming Russian-
majority metropolises.
Another way in which we can see the attitudinal divide between
modern Paganism in Western Europe and North America and that
of formerly Soviet or Communist Eastern and Central Europe is in
how major events of the post-WW II era created certain trajectories
of feeling and thought with continuing resonance today. In America
17. Piotr Wiench, “Neo-Paganism in Central and Eastern Europe,” in The Ency-
clopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism, ed. Shirley Rabinovitch and James
Lewis (New York: Citadel Press, 2002), 181–84, and “A Postcolonial Key to Under-
standing Central and Eastern European Neopaganisms,” Modern Pagan and Native
Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Kaarina Aitamutro and Scott Simp-
son (Durham: Acumen, 2013), 10–26.

and other Western countries, the 1960s were a watershed period of

new freedom and rapid social change that empowered many leftist
political movements, from the black power, civil rights and women’s
movements to the powerful protests that helped to bring an end to
the Vietnam War. This was a time of openness, expansiveness, and a
widespread denunciation of racism and militarism, all attitudes that
can be seen feeding into the more universalist types of New Age reli-
gion and Paganism that began to blossom in the West in this period,
beginning with Wicca.
However, not every American in the 1960s was a happy hippy
embracing love and peace. There were also those who felt fright-
ened and disoriented by the rapid social changes then underway
and who were furious at the civil rights and anti-war movements
for damaging things that they held sacred, from the long-privileged
status of white Americans of European descent over those of darker
pigmentation and non-European lineage to respect for the military
as paragons of virtue and patriotism. Within American Paganism,
these pro-white and pro-military sentiments would find expression
in a right-wing version of Norse Paganism, which has from its first
beginnings in the late 1960s attracted many followers with a socially
conservative, militaristic and racist orientation. So, we see that the
1960s shaped two different Pagan trajectories in the Western coun-
tries, one line of associations and influences running from 1960s
“peace and love” to twenty-first century Pagan universalism, and
another running from resistance to 1960s movements against racism
and militarism to lead to twenty-first century, right-wing forms of
ethnic Paganism.
For the Soviet Bloc countries and Soviet Union republics, the
1960s brought the brief promise of the Prague Spring, only for it to be
crushed underfoot by the grim reassertion of Communist authority,
which was itself a replay of the brief period of openness in the mid-
1950s following the death of Stalin and the denunciation of Stalinist
repression by Nikita Krushchev that culminated in the Hungarian
Uprising of 1956 and subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion and Com-
munist suppression. It was the late 1980s period of glasnost and per-
estroika leading up to the full collapse of the Soviet Union and the
reemergence of independent nations that provided ideological inspi-
ration, a sense of patriotic purpose, and the opportunity to openly
function for Pagan movements across Central and Easern Europe.
Ethnic Pagan movements such as Romuva in Lithuania and Dievturi
in Latvia linked ethnic pride and resurgent nationalism with ancient

myths and folk songs and have given Paganism such a secure and
respected status in the Baltic states that the current president of
Latvia, Raimonds Vējonis (b. 1966, elected 2015), has listed his reli-
gion as “Pagan” on Facebook.18 Vējonis does not appear to have any
deep involvement in any particular Latvian Pagan community such
as Dievturi, but the fact that he could describe himself as “Pagan”
without facing a political firestorm indicates the extent to which
Paganism has become an accepted albeit marginal form of religion
in Latvia. The former Latvian president Vaira Viķe-Freiberga was a
serious scholar of Latvian folklore and mythology who contributed
essays to the Encyclopedia of Religion on Latvian myths and dei-
ties19 and recorded a CD of her favorite Latvian folk songs.20
Trump, Orbán, and Brexit: A New Era of Ethno-Nationalism

New political winds that began blowing in both Europe and the
United States in 2015 and continue up to the time of writing (August
2017) signal a broad-based resurgence of right-wing, ethno-national
sentiment that is likely to mobilize like-minded forms of Paganism.
During my time in the Czech Republic teaching at Masaryk Univer-
sity in the fall of 2015, my left-leaning friends and I happily joked
about the absurdity of the celebrity billionaire businessman Donald
Trump, a man whom we tended to view as a buffoon, a bully, and an
embarrassment, seeking election as president of the United States.
We are not laughing anymore. Though Trump was given little
chance of success by most observers, the man we considered a buf-
foon and a bully has indeed become the next president of the United
States.
Post-election analysis of his popularity suggests that his great-
est appeal was to less educated, older, white Christian Americans
who saw the rising status of non-white Americans and the growing
18. Mike Collier, “Latvia Provides EU’s First ‘Green’ President—Raimonds

Vējonis,” Public Broadcasting Network of Latvia (LSM-LV), September 5, 2015
http://eng.lsm.lv/article/politics/president/latvia-provides-eus-first-green-
president-raimonds-vejonis.a132316/
19. Vaira Vīķis-Freibergs, “The Major Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Latvian
Mythology,” in Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs, ed. Vaira Vīķis-Freibergs
(Montreal: McGill-Queensland, 1989), 91–112; “Saule,” in Encyclopedia of Religion,
2nd ed., vol. 12, ed. Lindsay Jones, (Woodbridge, Conn.: Macmillan Reference, 2004),
8131–135.
20. Vaira Viķe-Freiberga, Vairas Dziesmas (Vairas Songs),CD, Riga: Lauska
Records, 2000.

number of non-white and non-Christian immigrants as a threat

to their place in society.21 Such voters thrilled to his crude expres-
sions of disdain for Muslims, Mexicans and immigrants and his
dream of constructing a massive, hugely expensive, and highly
militarized wall on the border with Mexico. Since taking office in
January of 2017, Trump’s popularity among his core followers of
anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-minority, white Christian voters
seems unshakable.
Trump’s proposal to seal off America as much as possible from
its southern neighbor Mexico seems something of a homage to the
razor-wire fence built by the Hungarian president Viktor Orbán in
2015 for the express purpose of preventing entrance into the coun-
try by Muslim immigrants and refugees arriving from Africa and
the Middle East. When criticized by the European Union and human
rights organizations for the harsh treatment of poor and desperate
people, Orbán scoffed at such concerns and proudly proclaimed
himself a champion of “illiberal”—that is, intolerant—democracy.22
The “Brexit” vote in the United Kingdom in the summer of 2016
seems to have also been motivated by discomfort with diversity and
immigrants and a dream of a supposedly simpler and happier Brit-
ain of the past that had, it was also supposed, been devastated by
membership in the open-border European Union.
At the same time and in a quite parallel manner, the crisis of
large-scale, mainly Muslim immigration from troubled regions of
North Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia into Europe has
led to the skyrocketing popularity of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant,
far-right politicians of a sort who would once have only been minor
fringe candidates in Europe. This includes such figures as Marine
LePen in France and Norbert Hofer in Austria. The racist terror-
ist Breivik may well be smiling as he contemplates these political
events.
Contemplating the potential areas of commonality between con-
servative, ethnic-oriented Pagans and right-wing, populist pol-
iticians, we might expect that in the future, we will see strongly
ethnic-oriented Pagans lining up to support far-right political
21. Jason Le Miere, “How Trump Won: White Working Class Voters Motivated
by Fear of Immigrants Not Economic Woes,” Newsweek, May 9, 2017,
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-voters-immigration-working-class-605930
22. “Hungary’s Politics of Hate,” Istvan Rev, The New York Times, September
26, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/26/opinion/hungarys-politics-of-
hate.html.

groups that ban immigration and espouse “blood and soil” nation-
alism. Indeed, this might seem like a marriage made in heaven, but
there is one little problem that may prevent the bride and groom
from consummating their union with maximum felicity. Most if not
all right-wing, anti-immigrant politicians tend to associate their
nationalism with the Christian religion and to perceive the current
wave of Muslim migration as a threat not only to European ethnic
identity, but to Europe’s Christian identity. Viktor Orbán, the Hun-
garian Prime Minister and enthusiastic builder of razor wire fences,
has been one of the most vocal champions of this viewpoint.23 In the
words of the British journalist Catherine Pepinster, herself a devout
Catholic,
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, raised as an atheist
when Hungary belonged to the Soviet bloc, now insists that Christian-
ity is Hungary’s backbone and that this backbone must be stiffened to
preserve the nation’s cultural identity and counter the Muslim threat.
Hungary’s reworked constitution now includes “the role of Christi-
anity in preserving nationhood” and he has stated he must protect
his country’s borders from mainly Muslim migrants “to keep Europe
Christian.”24
In his speech in Warsaw during a visit to Europe in July of 2017,

Donald Trump espoused a similar equation of Christian religion
and European identity. Speaking of Polish, and by extension, Euro-
pean history as a struggle between Christian faith and godlessness,
Trump characterized the collapse of Soviet communism as above
all, a triumph of Poland as a “faithful nation.” He then drew a very
Orbánesque parallel with the current situation, declaring that West-
ern—that is to say, Christian—civilization and values were now
under threat from Muslim migration among other forces that needed
to be resisted no less than the totalitarian communism of the past.
As I stand here today before this incredible crowd, this faithful nation,
we can still hear those voices that echo through history. Their message
is as true today as ever. The people of Poland, the people of Amer-
23. Robert Mackey, “Hungarian Leader Rebuked for Saying Muslim Migrants
Must Be Blocked ‘to Keep Europe Christian,’” New York Times, September 3, 2015,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/world/europe/hungarian-leader-
rebuked-for-saying-muslim-migrants-must-be-blocked-to-keep-europe-christian.
html.
24. Catherine Pepinster, “Shame on Those Who Preach Intolerance in the Name
Of Christianity,” The Guardian, April 15, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/
commentisfree/2017/apr/15/europe-migration-intolerance-christianity-easter-far-
right-marine-le-pen-viktor-orban-theresa-may.

ica, and the people of Europe still cry out “We want God”… Together
with Pope John Paul II, the Poles reasserted their identity as a nation
devoted to God… And you won. Poland prevailed… We must work
together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out,
from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these
values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make
us who we are. If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our cour-
age, sap our spirit, and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our
societies…
The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will
to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them
at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our
borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civili-
zation in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it? 25
Since most Pagans vehemently reject such characterization of

Europe as an essentially “Christian civilization,” tending to see the
past Christianization of Europe as a destructive, colonial intrusion
into originally Pagan-majority societies, 26 this aspect of European
right-wing politics is unlikely to be very attractive to or comfortable
for them, however much they may dislike Muslims and Islam. I have
noted elsewhere the varying attitudes toward Christianity—as well
as Islam—that have been expressed in the past meetings of the pan-
Pagan organization WCER (World Congress of Ethnic Religions),
originally founded by the Lithuanian Pagan leader Jonas Trinkūnas
in 1998 as the World Pagan Congress, more recently renamed the
ECER (European Congress of Ethnic Religions).27 There has often
25. “Remarks by President Trump to the People of Poland, July 6, 2017,” official
text of speech, accessed August 17, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2017/07/06/remarks-president-trump-people-poland-july-6-2017. For an inci-
sive commentary, see Jamelle Bouie, Slate July 2017, “A New Warsaw Pact: The White
Nationalist Roots of Donald Trump’s Warsaw Speech,” http://www.slate.com/arti-
cles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/07/the_white_nationalist_roots_of_donald_
trump_s_warsaw_speech.html.
26. Michael Strmiska, “The Evils of Christianization: A Pagan Perspective on
European History,” in Cultural Expressions of Evil and Wickedness: Wrath, Sex, Crime,
ed. Terry Waddell.(New York: Rodopi Press, 2003): 59–72. A further exploration of
issues and incidents raised in this article can be found in Carole Cusack, “Pagan
Saxon Resistance to Charlemagne’s Mission: ‘Indigenous’ Religion and ‘World’ Reli-
gion in the Early Middle Ages,” The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan
Studies 13, no. 1 (2011): 33–51.
27. Michael Strmiska, “Romuva Looks East: Indian Influence in Lithuanian
Paganism,” in Religious Diversity in Post-Soviet Society: Ethnographies of Catholic
Hegemony and the New Pluralism in Lithuania, ed., Milda Ališauskienė and Ingo W.
Schröder (Farnham, Surrey,: Ashgate, 2012), 125–150.

been a split between WCER participants who have advocated harsh

opposition toward Christianity and Islam, and others who have
been more conciliatory and pragmatic, seeing peaceful coexistence
as the best path forward for Pagan religions in today’s world.
However, some right-wing Pagans might decide to overlook their
disagreements with right-wing Christians about the basis of Euro-
pean culture and identity in favor of forming a tactical alliance with
them, if their animosity toward Islam and Muslims trumps their
uneasiness with leaders who espouse Christian identity constructs.
Nevertheless, such a “marriage of convenience” of right-wing Pagans
with right-wing Christians is likely to prove a “deal with the devil” if
it opens the way for a redefinition of Europe as an essentially Chris-
tian civilization after decades of shrinking Christian affiliation, since
the weakening of Christian dominance in Europe was among the fac-
tors that made the emergence of modern Paganism possible. A re-
strengthening of European Christian identity as promoted by leaders
like Orbán would seem unlikely to bode well for Paganism, which
thrives in an atmosphere of tolerance and diversity—and declining
enthusiasm for Christianity.
An extremely interesting dimension of this situation is how it prob-
lematizes the relationship of ethnicity, nationalism, and religion in
Europe, and perhaps elsewhere as well. Conservative Christians in
many countries may believe that being Christian is an essential aspect
of authentic ethnic or national identity, but ethnic Pagans in those
same countries will argue that it is Paganism that contains the true
ethno-national essence. In Poland, for example, we can find Catho-
lic Poles who prize their country’s Catholic traditions and interpret
Poland’s painful history as an expression of collective Christian mar-
tyrdom, but we can also meet Polish Pagans who see themselves as
upholding the essence of Polish identity by practicing and maintain-
ing Polish ethic customs and Polish Pagan spiritual traditions.28 A sim-
ilar situation of competition between Pagan and Catholic claimants
to the “crown” of national identity applies in Hungary,29 and other
examples could be cited as well.
28. Scott Simpson, “Polish Rodnoverie: Strategies for (Re)constructing a Move-

ment,” in Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, ed.
Kaarina Aitamurto and Scott Simpson (Durham: Acumen, 2013), 112–27.
29. Réka Szilárdi, “Ancient Gods—New Ages: Lessons from Hungarian
Paganism,”The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 11, no. 1 (2009):
44–57; Adam Koloszi, “Pagan Spirituality and the Holy Crown in Contemporary
National Mythologies: Political Religiosity and Native Faith Movements in Hun-

For this reason, it is possible to imagine that it will not only be uni-
versalist Pagans on the left-wing side of the political spectrum who
will choose to resist anti-Muslim hysteria and stand by the ideals of
religious tolerance and multiculturalism, but also more right-wing
oriented ethnic Pagans who fear religious repression under a resur-
gent European Christianity. We may in coming years see a second
marriage of convenience after the above-noted union between right-
wing Pagans and right-wing Christians, with the second union
bringing together Pagans fearing or fighting religious repression
by a Christian-oriented, right-wing government with Muslims and
members of other religious minorities also suffering religious dis-
crimination or persecution.
The Case of Russia

Fortunately or unfortunately, this scenario of religious repression
of Muslims and Pagans under a right-wing, Christian-favoring gov-
ernment is not just a hypothetical scenario. It has already become a
reality in Russia—at least to some extent.30 Since his rise to power
in 1999, Vladimir Putin has closely allied his administration with
the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin has overseen the revising of
Russian regulations on religious life to favor Orthodoxy over other
denominations and religious traditions, repeatedly vilified and mas-
sacred Muslims31--while at the same time catering to certain Muslim
groups and leaders to secure their support-- and taken action to dis-
advantage minority religions in Russia, primarily targeting Islam,
but with an increasing hostility toward other faiths as well, includ-
ing Russian Paganism.
Kaarina Aitamurto, one of the most astute observers of contem-
porary Russian Paganism, noted in a 2015 article, “For the Pagan
nationalist, the strong alliance between the state and the Russian
Orthodox Church seems exclusive and discriminatory.”32 In an email
gary,” in Walking the Old Ways: Studies in Contemporary European Paganism, ed. Adam
Anczyk and Halina Gryzmała-Moszczyńska, (Katowice, Poland: Sacrum Publishing
House, 2012): 81–97.
30. Wallace L. Daniel and Christopher Marsh, “Russia’s 1997 Law on Freedom
of Conscience in Context and Retrospect,” Journal of Church and State 49, no. 1 (2007):
5–17.
31. James W. Warhola, “Religion and Politics Under the Putin Administration:
Accommodation and Confrontation within ‘Managed Pluralism,’” Journal of Church
and State, 49 no.1 (2007): 75–95.
32. Kaarina Aitamurto, “More Russian than Orthodox Christianity: Russian

discussion in August of 2017, Aitamurto gave her further impres-

sions, as follows:
For certain, I can say that Russian Pagans do not like the growing role
of the Russian Orthodox Church [henceforth ROC]. However, after
that there is, as is usual in Pagan communities, a wide array of opin-
ions concerning the political development of recent years. Even
though Pagans generally reject the increased control and even oppres-
sion of religious activity, they may not feel much sympathy for such
groups as Jehovah’s Witnesses. For some nationalists, they represent
the alien, Western influences against which some protested already in
the 1990s. For others, it is another Christian group and therefore, not
liked very much.
There are also Pagans who support Putin… Numerous Pagans have
gone to Ukraine to fight against the Ukrainian government. I expect
that there are also Pagans who agree with the state politics against
“sects,” especially “foreign sects.” Naturally, the attitudes depend
on the extent in which Pagans themselves encounter restrictions or
oppression. Until recently, Pagans were actually not so much of a
target than, for example, such Christian groups as Jehovah’s Witnesses
or Muslims. One reason is that they were perceived as “one of us” by
Russians. Another reason is that they have like-minded people and
sympathizers in the army, the police, the security personnel. For exam-
ple, one Pagan told me that occasionally some police/security officers
are sent to surveil their activity, but usually they show their sympathy
to Pagans, even participating in the festivities. However, this might be
changing. As the ROC’s power has grown, it has convinced the author-
ities to pay more attention to Pagans as well. Moreover, it seems that
the ROC is more actively combating Pagans than earlier. Often this
depends on local representatives of the Church. For example, a few
years ago a new head of the ROC of St. Petersburg was appointed and
he has taken Pagans as one of his main targets.33
Pagans in Russia may, in time, face a choice to ally themselves

with an Orthodox-glorifying, minority-suppressing government,
which would mean tacitly accepting the superior status of Orthodox
Christianity as the favored religion in Russia as well as the favored
bearer of Russian identity and accepting for themselves a status as
a distinctly disfavored, second or third class religion, or to band
together with other religious communities, including Muslim ones,
in resisting disenfranchisement and petitioning for a government
Paganism as Nationalist Politics,” in Nations under God: The Geopolitics of Faith in the
Twenty-First Century, ed. Luke M. Herrington, Alasdair McKay, and Jeffrey Haynes
(London: E-International Relations Publishing, 2015),126–33, http://www.e-ir.
info/2015/11/08/russian-paganism-as-nationalist-politics/.
33. Email communication to author, August 17, 2017.

policy of greater tolerance and equal treatment of non-Christian

religions.
Left and Right and Pagan

Having started this essay with a discussion of one set of problematic
definitions, I will end the same way. In this essay, I have repeatedly
referred to left-wing and right-wing politics and perspectives, and I
now wish to clarify how these terms relate to modern Paganism. The
terms “left” and “right” carry different political freight in different
countries and regions, as do such terms as “liberal” and “conserva-
tive,” but some general characteristics can be emphasized.
“Left-wing” generally refers to a greater concern with “social jus-
tice” in the sense of favoring government policies to reduce eco-
nomic inequality in the society such as higher taxes on those with
greater income and wealth; to support poor and minority popula-
tions with programs to subsidize housing, education, job training
and other needs of the poor; to protect minorities against discrim-
ination on the basis of national origin or ethnic, racial, religious or
gender identity; and to save the environment from harm by indus-
trial pollution, in order to ensure an inclusive and supportive soci-
ety for all as well as a healthy natural environment. The left wing is
most interested in the state as a provider of social services, a guard-
ian of social and cultural diversity against racism and bigotry, and
a protector of the environment. While favoring the active engage-
ment of the government in the society in the ways mentioned above,
the left wing is often critical of state security services from police to
the military, when these are seen as adding to problems of inequal-
ity and bigotry when security services use force against the very
populations that the left-wing hopes to support and succor, such as
poor and minority populations, along with the use of force abroad
which is often viewed as an unproductive continuation of past West-
ern colonialism and imperialism. For the left-wing, those who speak
out and work against injustice, inequality, pollution and bigotry are
their greatest heroes.
In contrast, “right-wing” generally refers to a deep suspicion of
the leftist construct of “social justice” and policies of progressive
taxation, income redistribution, minority protection, and govern-
ment regulation of industry. For the right-wing, the highest prior-
ity is a free-enterprise economic system with minimal taxation and
regulation, with little concern for social and economic inequality or

environmental degradation, which are often seen as natural and

inevitable. The disinterest in protecting or providing services to
poor or minority populations is rooted in a belief that individuals
must chart their own course and find their own way forward with-
out depending on the state.
One of the most prominent and influential right-wing leaders in
recent decades, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
went so far as to say “There is no such thing as ‘society’… There
are individual men and women, and there are families.”34 To be fair
to the “Iron Lady,” Thatcher did not mean to reject the existence of
human society but to critique individuals blaming social conditions
for their own problems, and to also condemn overdependence on
social welfare programs provided by the government.
The right wing often sees programs to benefit and support dis-
advantaged groups as disincentives to individuals to better them-
selves, believing that the best antidote to discrimination and social
disadvantage is educational and professional attainment by deserv-
ing individuals who are able to heroically overcome social barriers
and achieve power and wealth. State or public support for those
who cannot achieve such success is not a major priority, with an
implicit understanding that there are “winners” and “losers” in life,
and that is not the business of the state to ease the pains of losers.
A parallel disinterest in environmental regulation is grounded in a
belief that business development is more important than environ-
mental preservation.
The right-wing viewpoint is protective of the social and eco-
nomic status quo, with little concern for racial, religious, economic,
and gender inequalities that may be inherent in that status quo. The
right-wing tends to take a positive view of police and military forces,
which enforce the status quo at home and abroad, and resists any
criticism of security forces, often expressing scorn for those who
34. These remarks, made in an interview with Douglas Keeay published under
the title of “Aids, Education and the Year 2000!” in the magazine Women’s Own
in October, 1987 and became so infamous that Thatcher felt it necessary to issue
a clarification in the following year. Douglas Keeay, “Aids, Education and the
Year 2000!,” Women’s Own. October 1987, https://www.margaretthatcher.org/
document/106689.
Charles Moore discusses the controversy surrounding Thatcher’s “no such thing
as society” statement in a September 27, 2010 article, “ ‘No Such Thing as Society’: A
Good Time to Ask What Margaret Thatcher Really Meant,” http://www.telegraph.
co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/8027552/No-Such-Thing-as-Society-a-
good-time-to-ask-what-Margaret-Thatcher-really-meant.html.

criticize police practices or oppose military operations. For the right-

wing, soldiers and police are often viewed as their greatest heroes,
the very definition of patriotism.
These interlocking sets of ideas and attitudes also color left-wing
and right-wing views of past history and national identity. Left-
ists tend to view their countries’ past history, if not all history, as
a struggle for human progress, viewed as the movement toward
greater equality and social justice and a better life for all, includ-
ing women and minority populations. From this perspective, the
nation is a particular constellation within a larger galaxy of inter-
connected people and cultures. Cultural and intellectual achieve-
ments, like great works of art, literature and science are proudly
valued as high points in national history, as is the overcoming of
impediments to social progress. Making common cause with other
nations for the sake of common interests such as reducing poverty
and fighting environmental degradation through such venues as
the United Nations is understood as a proud expression of solidar-
ity with humanity worldwide.
Rightists tend to view their national history in more ethnic and
militaristic terms, as the triumph of a particular people, whether
defined in narrow, racial terms or in more broad and inclusive ones,
over the challenges of centuries, above all, threats to national exis-
tence posed by war. Military victories and defeats are often regarded
as the key moments in history when national identity was forged in
the fire of battle, and commemorations of past wars and soldiers’
deaths are viewed as highly significant occasions for national cele-
bration and mourning. From this vantage point, the nation is, above
all, a proudly armed fortress protecting a noble people of unique
character and heritage from the threats posed by other nations, cul-
tures, and religions, though nations possessing similar characteris-
tics may be viewed in more friendly terms. For rightists, participation
in projects of international cooperation other than military alliances
is regarded as problematic, if sometimes necessary, since other
nations, especially those with markedly different racial, religious, or
cultural demographics are generally viewed with suspicion, and the
diversity of worldwide humanity understood as something best cel-
ebrated from a distance.
From this list of left-wing and right-wing ideological and attitudi-
nal predispositions, we can see how modern Pagans or neo-Pagans
also tend to fall into left- and right-leaning categories. This is not
surprising, since, as noted earlier, these left-right political categories

have been with us with in one variation or another since the nine-
teenth century, which is also the period when modern Paganism
developed. That is, Paganism has long been cooking in the same ide-
ological broth as left-wing and right-wing politics, and this being
such, it has naturally partaken of some of the same flavors and spices
as left-wing and right-wing ideologies and politics. So it is that more
universalistic and more eclectic Pagans tend to lean to the left, advo-
cating an inclusive, open Paganism receptive to people of different
ethnic backgrounds and to receiving influence from different reli-
gious or cultural sources. This does not, however, preclude a strong
commitment to a particular ethnic tradition as a foundational ele-
ment. There is also greater acceptance of innovation and invention
within the religion, which aligns with leftist faith in human prog-
ress. More universalistic and eclectic Paganism also tends to disdain
warrior elements, mirroring left-wing anti-militarism. This is “peace
and love” Paganism.
More ethnically oriented, reconstructionist, and/or traditionalist
Pagans tend to lean to the right and to romanticize the “land of the
ancestors” as a single, ethnically pure entity, whose traditions they
wish to protect from other cultural and religious influences and their
carriers. This is “blood and soil” Paganism, reflecting right-wing
emphasis on protecting ethnic homelands against immigrant intru-
sions. Such Paganism is less welcoming to new religious elements,
and more likely to feature warrior gods and traditions, mirroring the
right-wing affinity for the military. Such a “militarized whiteness,”
in which devotion to military weapons, training and trappings mixes
with a dedication to white European identity, is particularly evident
among right-leaning forms of Ásatrú or Heathenry in America, as I
have elsewhere observed along with other scholars such as Matthías
Gardell, Jennifer Snook, Karl Seigfried and Thad Horrell.35
35. Mattias Gardell, Gods of the Blood; Jennifer Snook, American Heathens: The
Politics of Identity in a Pagan Religious Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 2015); Jennifer Snook and Ross Haenfler. “Cultural-defense and Strategies of
Racial Exclusion Among Heathens: Mainstreaming Racism in the Era of Trump.”
Paper presented at for the annual conference of the Association for the Sociology of
Religion, Montréal, Quebec, August 16, 2017; Thad Horrell, “Heathenry as a Postco-
lonial Movement,” Journal of Religion, Identity and Politics (2011), http://ripjournal.
org/2011/heathenry-as-postcolonial-movement/; Seigfried, Karl E. H.,“Covering
Ásatrú: Reporting Rhetoric,” The Norse Mythology Blog, October 23, 2015, http://
www.norsemyth.org/2015/10/covering-asatru-reporting-rhetoric.html.

As noted earlier, these different forms of Paganism may easily

overlap and blend, and individual Pagans may mix and match ele-
ments from either end of the spectrum as well as intermediate points
between. However, the constant churning of left-wing and right-
wing political arguments and perspectives in most modern societies
cannot help but pull most modern Pagans into either a left-wing or
a right-wing orbit, even if they prefer to not be labeled as such and
wish to claim an innocent, apolitical status.
These Pagan-political correlations also demonstrate a certain gen-
dered quality in that some of the most leftist forms of Paganism are
explicitly female-oriented and some of the most right-wing forms,
highly masculinized with plenty of militaristic machismo. Consider
Starhawk (Miriam Simos), Wicca and the Reclaiming Movement,
and you see a focus on goddesses, peace and the abundance of nature
correlating with the strong influence of feminism, a questioning of
traditional gender norms, and a distinctly leftist political outlook,
with Starhawk an antiwar, environmentalist and social justice activ-
ist of the highest order.36 Consider Stephen McNallen and his right-
leaning branch of American Ásatrú, or the Rodnoverie movement in
Russia,37 and you find a marked emphasis on war gods, weapons,
and whiteness, along with male leadership, and traditional gender
roles, in accordance with right-wing ideology, with McNallen a mil-
itary veteran who has often advocated anti-immigrant and white
supremacist views.38
It is worth noting that anti-rightist, anti-racist Norse Pagans have
banded together to create a network called Heathens United Against
Hatred (HUAR), which stands in adamant opposition to the “white
and right” Norse Paganism of American Heathens like McNallen.39
36. Wendy Griffin, ed., Daughters of the Goddess: Studies of Healing, Identity and
Empowerment (Lanham, Md.: Altamira, 2000); Starhawk, Webs of Power: Notes from the
Global Uprising (Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society Publishers, 2000) and “Towards
an Activist Spirituality,” Reclaiming Quarterly Fall 2003, http://www.reclaiming.org;
Jone Salomonsen, Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco (New
York: Routledge, 2002).
37. Kaarina Aitmamurto and Alexey Gadukov,“Russian Rodnoverie: Six Por-
traits of a Movement,” in Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and
Eastern Europe, ed. Kaarina Aitamutro and Scott Simpson (Durham: Acumen, 2013),
146–163.
38. Michael Strmiska (forthcoming), “Politics in Paganism: A Comparative
Study of the Political Perspectives of Followers of Modern Norse Paganism in Amer-
ica and Europe.”
39. The organization’s web site is http://heathensunited.org/.

This illustrates how the left-wing/right-wing tension can become an

energizing, centrifugal force within particular Pagan movements.
There is one political topic on which left-and right-leaning
Pagans, from the most eclectic and universalistic on the left to the
most ethnic and reconstructionist on the right, might be expected to
agree: the importance of protecting the natural environment of the
earth in a time of rising concerns about such environmental threats
as climate change and fracked-gas extraction. All modern Pagans
claim to revere the gods and goddesses of nature and the sacred-
ness of natural forces and processes. Though it has not happened
yet, this eco-religious commonality has the potential to bridge differ-
ences between left- and right-leaning forms of Paganism, as the envi-
ronmental philosopher and scholar of Ukrainian Paganism Adrian
Ivakhiv observed in 2005.40
Charlottesville Interlude
As I was putting the final touches on this article in August 2017, an
event occurred that dramatizes the symbiotic relationship between
right-wing, racist politics and right-wing, racist Paganism while also
illustrating the capacity of more left-leaning Pagans to oppose and
denounce such expressions of racism and far-right ideology. On
August 11–12, 2017, the small American city of Charlottesville, Vir-
ginia, a “college town” known for its liberal and tolerant attitudes,
became the site of a “Unite the Right” rally bringing together thou-
sands of members of racist, far right-wing, and white supremacist
organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to neo-Nazis to newer groups
formed only in the last few years, such as the Proud Boys, as well as
neo-Confederate groups like the League of the South.41
Some of the assembled right-wing associations preferred the labels
“white nationalist” and “alt-right,” but all of these differing groups
shared a vision of an America in which white people of European
40. Adrian Ivakhiv, “Nature and Ethnicity in East European Paganism: An

Environmental Ethic of the Religious Right?,” in The Pomegranate: The International
Journal of Pagan Studies 7, no. 2 (2005): 194–225.
41. Alexis Gravely, Daniel Hoerauf and Tim Dodson, “Torch-wielding white
nationalists march at U. Va.,” The Cavalier Daily, August 12, 2017, http://www.
cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/08/torch-wielding-white-nationalists-march-at-
uva; Maggie Astor, Christina Caron and Daniel Victor, “A Guide to the Charlot-
tesville Aftermath,” The New York Times, August 13, 2017, https://www.nytimes.
com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-virginia-overview.html.

descent are to be privileged over and protected against people of

non-white, non-European ancestry. This white supremacist dream
had obviously found symbolic, electoral expression in the replace-
ment of a president of African-American, black lineage with one of
German-American, white ethnic background, with Donald Trump
enjoying enthusiastic support among far-right, racist groups like the
KKK.42 The ostensible purpose of “Unite the Right” was to protest
the pending removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a prominent
position in a park in the city center. As Lee was the commanding
general of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War
and a hero to many white supremacists and racists, many in the
town wished to take down the statue by virtue of its being a symbol
of the white supremacy, racism and African-American slavery that
the Confederacy had fought to defend.43
On Friday night, the 11th of August, the assembled racist and right-
wing forces marched across the university campus holding torches
and chanting the Nazi era slogan of “Blood and Soil” in what would
seem to have been a twenty-first-century homage to the Nurem-
berg Rallies of mid-1930s Nazi Germany. Bearing flaming torches
and chanting “You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!”
on their way to the statue of Robert E. Lee, the right-wing march-
ers stopped to make their presence known outside a campus church
where anti-racist clergy had gathered for a non-violent worship ser-
vice and training session. The torch-bearing right-wing crowd out-
side the church created such a sense of intimidation and menace that
those in the church were instructed to leave through a back door in
order to make their escape without harm.44
42. Peter Holley, “KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for presi-
dent,” The Washington Post, November 2, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/01/the-kkks-official-newspaper-has-endorsed-
donald-trump-for-president/?utm; Alan Rappeport and Noah Weiland, “White
Nationalists Celebrate ‘an Awakening’ After Donald Trump’s Victory,’” The New
York Times November 16, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/us/poli-
tics/white-nationalists-celebrate-an-awakening-after-donald-trumps-victory.html.
43. Jennifer Schuessler, “Historians Question Trump’s Comments on Confed-
erate Monuments,” The New York Times, August 12, 2017, https://www.nytimes.
com/2017/08/15/arts/design/trump-robert-e-lee-george-washington-thomas-
jefferson.html.
44. “Charlottesville: far-right crowd with torches encircles counter-protest group,”
The Guardian, August 12, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/
charlottesville-far-right-crowd-with-torches-encircles-counter-protest-group.

On the following day, Saturday, the 12th of August, the right-wing

protesters marched in quasi-military formation through the streets
of the city bearing Nazi and Confederate flags and other signs and
symbols of Nazism, white supremacy and the Confederacy. Some
bore Pagan symbols drawn from Norse-Germanic tradition or from
Nazi versions of such, such as the Schwarze Sonne, “Black Sun”
symbol that Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler had engraved into the
floor of his SS castle fortress Wewelsburg.45 Most of the right-wing
marchers were young, white and male. Many wore the red “Make
America Great Again” baseball hats that were hallmarks of Donald
Trump’s presidential campaign.
The right-wing protestors were met on Saturday by anti-racist
counter-protesters who had come out to assert an alternate vision of
America, one grounded in a more left-wing vision of positive, peace-
ful coexistence of people of diverse backgrounds and a firm rejection
of racism and white supremacy. Some of the leaders of the counter-
protesters were clergymen and women of different faiths commit-
ted to non-violence, the same who had been meeting in St. Paul’s
Memorial Church the evening before. They led groups that assem-
bled peacefully, carrying signs and banners opposing Nazism and
racism and upholding peace, love, unity, diversity, tolerance and
other such anti-racist ideals. A separate, smaller group of counter-
protesters represented the “Antifa” (Anti-Fascist) movement, which
is committed to resisting Fascist and neo-Nazi movements wherever
they appear, and comes prepared to use force and engage in fighting
in the streets if necessary.46
Many of the Unite the Right participants were dressed in mili-
tary fashion, suggesting that they were either veterans of the U.S.
military, or at least liked the look. They were carrying handguns
and semi-automatic rifles, as is allowed under the very permis-
sive gun ownerships laws that prevail in many parts of America.
As journalist David Frum commented in the newsmagazine The
Atlantic,
45. Hatewatch, “Flags and Symbols Used at Charlottesville,” Hatewatch, South-

ern Poverty Law Center, August 12, 2017, accessed August 22, 2017, https://www.
splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/08/12/flags-and-other-symbols-used-far-right-
groups-charlottesville.
46. Michelle Goldberg, “The Public Face of Antifa,” Slate, August 22, 2017,
accessed August 24, 2017, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/08/daryle-
jenkins-has-stepped-up-to-explain-the-shadowy-groups-violent-tactics-to-the-
world.html.

Charlottesville this past weekend was crammed with anti-social per-

sonalities carrying sub-military firearms… [It] marks a new era of even
bolder assertion of the right to threaten violence for political purposes.
Gun carriers at the so-called “Unite the Right” rally acted more like a
paramilitary force than as individual demonstrators. They wore simi-
lar pseudo-military outfits, including body armor. They took tactical
formations to surround the site of the expected confrontation. Accord-
ing to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, “They had better equip-
ment than our state police had.”47
Other white supremacists came bearing cruder weapons like brass

knuckles, clubs, and sticks along with shields and helmets. Some of
the Antifa were also armed, not in the quasi-military manner of the
protestors, but with cans of Mace and pepper spray, bricks, sticks,
and baseball bats, as well as urine-filled bottles for hurling at the
rightists. The peaceful other counter-protesters were completely
unarmed, holding to their commitment to non-violence.
When the chanting of slogans turned to shouting matches that
became in-your-face confrontations, violence erupted to varying
degrees of severity, ranging from pushing and shoving to the throw-
ing of bottles to fist-fights to beatings with sticks, bats and clubs. In
some instances, the non-violent counter-protesters were defended
by Antifa members against menacing movements by the right-wing
protesters. Police at the site of the confrontations initially did little
to separate the two sides, which to some observers suggested an
unwillingness to stand up to the heavily armed far-right forces, pos-
sibly even some sympathy for their cause.48
The police eventually stepped in to separate the opposing groups,
but then came the ugly culmination of the day’s tensions. At about
1:45 in the early afternoon, a supporter of the right-wing cause drove
a speeding car straight into a group of counter-protesters, crushing
32-year -old counter-protester Heather Heyer to death and sending
nineteen others to the hospital for treatment of injuries.49 The driver
47. David Frum, “The Chilling Effects of Openly Displayed Firearms,” The
Atlantic, August 16, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/
open-carry-laws-mean-charlottesville-could-have-been-graver/537087/.
48. A.C. Thompson, Robert Faturechi, and Karim Hajj, “Police Stood By as
Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville,” Pro Publica, August 12, 2017, https://www.
propublica.org/article/police-stood-by-as-mayhem-mounted-in-charlottesville.
49. Christina Caron, “Heather Heyer, Charlottesville Victim, Is Recalled as
‘a Strong Woman’,” The New York Times, August 13, 2017, https://www.nytimes.
com/2017/08/13/us/james-alex-fields-charlottesville-driver-.html.

of the car was James Alex Fields, Jr., a 20-year-old man with a history
of enthusiasm for Nazism.50
The march of the heavily armed, hate speech-chanting, right-
wing and racist groups in Charlottesville had been long planned and
was well-organized. It was intended to show to all the world the
power of far-right, white supremacist forces in American life. The
presence of the counter-protesters, from the non-violent clergy to the
Antifa with their sticks, bricks,and cans of Mace demonstrated no
less forcefully that there are also many Americans who oppose these
supporters of racism and bigotry.
Though at the time of writing, it is too soon to be certain on many
points concerning the Charlottesville events, there is sufficient evi-
dence to state that at least some of the right-wing, racist protesters
and marchers were Pagans and that, as noted above, Norse-Germanic
Pagan symbols were utilized by right-wing marchers. There does
not seem to have been any parallel usage of Pagan symbolism by the
anti-racist counter-protesters. Cara Schulz, reporting for the Pagan
news service The Wild Hunt, interviewed several Heathens (Norse-
Germanic Pagans) who had come to the rally to support the right-
wing cause, while finding several other Pagans in opposition.51
There was a vigorous denunciation of Charlottesville racism and
white supremacy by Pagans on social media, including this state-
ment on August 14, 2016, by Robert Schreiwer, a leading member of
the Troth, the largest Heathen or Norse-Germanic Pagan umbrella
organization in America, which has in recent years taken increas-
ingly forceful actions to oppose racist versions of Heathenry.
The events in Charlottesville are so shocking and repugnant that
they cannot go without comment or action…That some of our sym-
bols were visible among the forces of hatred at this event makes it that
much more loathsome. The Troth holds fast to its policies of inclusion,
which means we stand against those who would sully our deities’ rep-
utations by utilizing our symbols, and, by extension, our religion, to
50. Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Brian M. Rosenthal, “Man Charged After White
Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville Ends in Deadly Violence,” The New York Times,
August 12, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/us/charlottesville-protest-
white-nationalist.html; Jonah Engel Bronwich and Alan Blinder, “What We Know
About James Alex Fields, Driver Charged in Charlottesville Killing,” August 13,
2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/james-alex-fields-charlottesville-
driver-.html.
51. Cara Schulz, “Charlottesville: events, reactions, and aftermath,” The Wild
Hunt, August 16, 2017, http://wildhunt.org/2017/08/charlottesville-events-reactions-
and-aftermath.html.

advance causes of racism and bigotry. This applies to the rise of fascist
elements in the US, Canada, Europe… everywhere. Let us continue
to assert our viewpoints and beliefs and to bring our deities and our
ancestors -- regardless of origin -- bright fame. Hail The Troth! (Note:
This statement has the official backing of the High Rede of The Troth.
This is an official response.)52
The Pagan blogger Stella Hellasdottir published an impassioned

commentary that lamented the white supremacist usage of a key
Norse Pagan symbol, the Oðal rune.
As I absorbed articles and scrolled past images of the Charlottesville
Racists this week, I was more than disturbed. I was one angry Hea-
then. Three people were killed last weekend, by fear and terrorism.
Ignorance and toxic rage marched in the streets carrying burning
torches… [There were] flags emblazoned with hate speech and stolen
symbols. In the center of some of those flags, I saw the Elder Futhark
rune Othala…
Once again, white supremacists and neo-Nazis have seized our spiri-
tual identity and twisted our hearth culture for their nefarious pur-
poses. The National Socialist Movement (founded by former members
of the American Nazi Party) changed their symbol from the Swastika in
November of 2016. The replacement they chose was Odal; also known
as Othala. Symbols like Othala, which has been a powerful force in my
life these last few years, are toys to them. They have misappropriated
this rune in an attempt to soften the image of Nazis, as ridiculous as
that sounds. The Swastika is too powerful a symbol of genocide, and
the “Odal” is less widely known… They want the “Alt Right” to be
mainstream so that they can eventually function in the United States
as a political party. The election of a President who accepts their sup-
port and refuses to condemn racism with his own words makes this
no laughing matter.
In today’s political atmosphere, there can be no quarter for those who

would defile the runes. I always approached this symbol of ancestral
heritage from a place of love. The message and the power of Othala
have nothing to do with the color of my skin. My ancestors come from
across the seas, from several different lands. I honor them by recogniz-
ing that the fabric of our democracy, the Wyrd of the United States of
America, is woven from threads of every color. My personal practice,
the way I live my Heathenry, is firmly opposed to racism.53
52. Robert L. Schreiwer, Troth Facebook page, August 15, 2017, https://m.face-
book.com/story.php?story_fbid=10213676234361434&id=1271899092.
53. Stella Hellasdottir, “No Frið For The Charlottesville Racists,” Hugin’s Hea-
then Hof, August 15, 2017, http://www.heathenhof.com/no-frith-charlottesville-
racists/. This essay was reposted on the website of Heathens United Against Racism

Of course, the conscious effort by right-wing racists in Charlottesville

to associate themselves with Paganism by the display of Pagan reli-
gious symbols does not by any means demonstrate that Paganism was
the religion of choice of all the right-wing and racist protesters on dis-
play in Charlottesville, only that it was part of the mix, possibly only
a very small part. Even so, it is no less disturbing than Anders Beh-
ring Breivik’s appropriation of Norse Pagan myths and symbols prior
to his homicidal right-wing rampage six years earlier. For this author,
who has been both a supporter and a chronicler of Norse Paganism for
twenty-plus years, and who has often warned of the dangers posed
both by those who would link this form of Paganism with Nazism
and racism, and those who would ignore or excuse the linkage, Char-
lottesville represents a troubling confirmation of long-held fears.54
At the same time, the forceful denunciation of such linkages by Hea-
thens and Norse Pagans like Robert Schreiwer and Stella Helasdottir
and by such organizations as the Troth and Heathen United Against
Racism in their responses to the Unite the Right rally is most encour-
aging to anyone who sees racism and Nazism as incompatible with
true spirituality.
Final Thoughts
Starting from a shared love of ancient European religious traditions
of nature-worship and polytheism rooted in particular ethnic cul-
tures, left-wing and right-wing Pagans diverge markedly in their
views of the world and the place of modern Paganism within it. On
the one side, there is a paramount concern for Paganism to serve as
the vehicle for the continuation and preservation of European ethnic
heritage, whereas on the other, modern Paganism is seen as combin-
ing a basis in European heritage with an openness to modern ethnic
diversity, multiculturalism and other spiritual traditions. At one
end of the spectrum, the ethnic and religious heritage of Paganism
is to be protected by avoidance of other ethnic and religious tradi-
tions and identities; on the other end of the spectrum, the ethnic and
religious heritage of Paganism is seen as a religious path that starts
with earth-centered spirituality and its past expressions in particular
(HUAR), an anti-racist forum for Norse Pagans opposed to neo-Nazi and racist
appropriations of Norse-Germanic Paganism, www.heathensunited.org.
54. Michael Strmiska, “On Becoming a Pariah: One Scholar’s Journey from
Apologist to Critic to Persona Non Grata,” paper presented at the Contemporary
Paganism and Alternative Spiritualities in Europe(CPASE) conference in Stock-
holm, Sweden, August 2012; see also Strmiska’s blog, The Political Pagan, accessed at
http://thepoliticalpagan.blogspot.com/.

European forms, but may lead to further destinations that need not
be bound by a single or racial ethnic identity, but may incorporate
others—and Others—as well.
Both left-wing and right-wing ideologies and political movements
can have their dangerous extremes, as twentieth century world his-
tory has amply demonstrated. However, with reference to the left-
wing and right-wing tendencies within modern Paganism, it is the
right-wing tendency that seems to reveal the most troubling manifes-
tations. Heavily ethnically oriented Pagans may develop an increas-
ingly racialized concern with whiteness and Europeanness that can
mutate into devotion to white supremacy, just as individuals who
already have racist and white supremacist attitudes and beliefs may
be attracted to ethnic Paganism as a vehicle for their racial animos-
ity and desire for ethnic exclusivity. The Norse Pagans who turned
out in Charlottesville to support racists and white supremacists are
a case in point. The welcome they received from the assembled rac-
ists and white supremacists is no less significant.
Modern Pagans cannot help but reflect the social conditions and
political tensions of the societies in which they live. Pagans on the
right will no doubt continue to march to the tune of “Blood and
Soil,” while those on the left will dream of “Peace and Love.”
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[The Pomegranate 20.

1 (2018) 5-44] ISSN 1528-0268 (print)

“Pagan Politics in the 21st Century:

Keywords: Paganism; Czech Republic; Charlottesville; right-wing poli-

1. Michael Strmiska is an associate professor of world history at the Orange

“Paganism and Politics” in our small but interesting field of Pagan

Typologies of Paganism, Revisited

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

understood as a pluralistic phenomenon capable of multiple appli-

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

In my discussion here today, I will refer to “ethnic Pagans” as

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

I have found that the four above-mentioned categories tend to

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

narratives such as pre-Christian European myths, beliefs, and prac-

Paganism: European or Indigenous?

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

of non-European peoples and regions. This is noted in a recent article

Such an expansion of the geographic and cultural scope of the term

6. Ethan Doyle White, “Theoretical, Terminological, and Taxonomic Trouble in

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

Paganism and their adherents and practitioners worldwide, but this

8. Andrejs Plakans, A Concise History of the Baltic States (Cambridge: Cambridge

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

also be said of the earlier suppression of Baltic Paganism by German

Modern Paganism and its Shadows

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

theologian Jone Salomonsen observed in a 2012 interview, “In pre-

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

14. Michael Strmiska (forthcoming), “Politics in Paganism: A Comparative Study

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

even to discuss it. They seemed to either be blissfully unaware of

16. Alex Kurtagić, “Interview with Tomislav Sunić,” Counter-Currents, Novem-

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

This aversion to diversity combined with a rosy-tinted nostalgia

The Never-Ending Nineteenth Century

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

that we encounter today often express further permutations of these

Paganism in Response to Regional Realities

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

and other Western countries, the 1960s were a watershed period of

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

Trump, Orbán, and Brexit: A New Era of Ethno-Nationalism

18. Mike Collier, “Latvia Provides EU’s First ‘Green’ President—Raimonds

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

number of non-white and non-Christian immigrants as a threat

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

In his speech in Warsaw during a visit to Europe in July of 2017,

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

Since most Pagans vehemently reject such characterization of

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

been a split between WCER participants who have advocated harsh

28. Scott Simpson, “Polish Rodnoverie: Strategies for (Re)constructing a Move-

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

The Case of Russia

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018

discussion in August of 2017, Aitamurto gave her further impres-

Pagans in Russia may, in time, face a choice to ally themselves

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018