Table Full of Nazis

Over a decade and a half ago, back when I was lead guitarist for the totally improvised doom metal band Soul Power Trio, I was I was standing outside a local metal show in Chicago. I think the band playing inside was maybe Chicago Thrash Ensemble.

The venue was a typical Chicago storefront spot: tiny, shaped like a shoebox, with a bar running down one side and paint-covered tin ceiling tiles above. The amps were overpowered, the speaker stacks were humongous, and the PA system was cranked. The volume inside made it feel like your chest would burst and your bowels void.

We escaped the sonic attack and hung out on the sidewalk with some other players and scenesters.

At the time, I was listening to a lot of so-called pagan metal and Viking metal. There seemed to be something of a surge of releases by that type of band and an interest in that type of music during those years.

So, I wasn’t surprised to see a tall dude with really long hair and a full beard wearing a big Thor’s hammer amulet standing there with us outside the venue.

I told him that I liked his hammer. I’m sure I was wearing mine, because back then I didn’t leave home without it. We talked a bit about music and stuff. He seemed to be into the pagan and Viking angle.

I could see the top of a large chest tattoo peeking out over the edge of his tank top, and it looked like a Germanic Gothic sort of font. I was still trying to figure out if he was an actual practicing Heathen (as opposed to someone just into the metal scene’s version of Vikings), so I asked what it said.

He pulled down the front of his shirt so I could clearly see the words tattooed all the way across his chest. I honestly don’t remember if it said White Power or White Pride.

Whichever one it was, it brought the conversation to a screeching halt (imagine the sound of a needle scraping across a vinyl record), and my bandmates and I moved on to some other scene that night.

Metal Haven

In those days, I went to Chicago’s Metal Haven record store a lot.

The shop closed its Montrose Avenue storefront in 2010, but it was the place to find non-corporate metal albums before that. You could spend forever pawing through the bins of CDs divided into increasingly obscure subgenres and look up to see the guitarist from some touring band or some guy with a wizard beard and cowl standing across from you, likewise absorbed in bin-diving and searching for hidden metal treasures.

I would grab albums based on their cover art, band names, and song titles. This was back before I adopted the more modern practice of pulling up any and all music on YouTube to check it out before getting it on physical media. The 2000s were a while ago. (Yes, I still buy vinyl and CDs today. I hold fast to the considered theological opinion that MP3s are the Devil – and not in a good way.)

Metal Heaven had new pagan metal and Viking metal releases every time I stopped in. I picked up a lot of them.

Several of the bands I first discovered then now have had long careers, and I’ve interviewed several for The Norse Mythology Blog: Amon Amarth, Heidevolk, Ensiferum, and Týr. When I talked to them at length, they mostly turned out to be musicians at their core who happened to strike a chord in audiences with pagan- and Viking-themed imagery and lyrics.

Other bands were more mysterious, with only one or two obscure and usually self-released releases to their credit.

In the succeeding years, I’ve discovered that almost all of the pagan-ish albums (aside from those by the bands mentioned above) were put out by folks with white nationalist, neo-Nazi, or some other gross racialist ideologies.

The black metal subgenre seems particularly inclined to swing that way, with its own sub-subgenre of National Socialist black metal (NSBM). Following in the footsteps of the Third Reich, they cloak their hate in pagan, Viking, Norse, and Germanic symbols and subjects.

One by one, I’ve tossed those CDs in the garbage as I’ve found out that the bands (on the black metal scene, often just one guy recording all the parts in his mom’s basement) have made social media posts or done interviews making their gross bigotries plain.

Sometimes, I found news that they had played at explicitly white nationalist festivals. Other times, I read accounts from fans of them flying Nazi symbols on stage or being involved with racist organizations.

One common tip-off is a band replying “we’re apolitical” when asked about ties to neo-Nazism or related ideologies. Bands giving that answer will almost always rail against Muslim refugees “destroying our culture” in some other interview (sometimes in the same interview).

This isn’t a case of “everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi” or some pearl-clutching pooh-poohing at groups simply using imagery of “the pagan north” (or whatever they call it). This is simply gross people promoting their gross ideology under the guise of Paganism.

I don’t want that evil in my house, so I throw out the discs. But I do save the jewel cases to use for other CDs (#ReduceReuseRecycle).

There was one guy who worked at Metal Haven who always congratulated me on my picks.

“Dude, that’s an excellent album.”

“Righteous choice.”

“I know you’d like this other group. They’re right up your alley.”

He seemed nice.

Then, one night, I came in wearing a fancy t-shirt I bought online that had Asgard or Valhalla or something like that embroidered on it. This is when I was wearing a lot of pagan- and Viking-themed t-shirts, and this particular one was nicer and pricier and sportier than the print-on-demand Etsy shirts of Freyja or whatever.

“Bro!” he said. “Great shirt. It’s about time we got something of our own culture on athletic gear.”

Paired with all his endorsements of Viking-ish black metal, the pairing of “our own culture” with “athletic gear” gave me a creepily neo-völkisch vibe, like a white-pride American Heathen ranting on Facebook about black athletes being anti-American simply because they stand (or kneel) against police murders of unarmed young African-Americans.

Sure enough, when I dug into the company that made the shirt, I found some German-language posts talking about the company owner’s connections to far-right groups over in Europe. Into the garbage it went.

I stopped wearing pagan- and Viking-themed clothing after that. With the high proportion of bad actors putting this stuff out, it’s just not worth it.

Hanging up the hammer

I used to wear a Thor’s hammer pendant all the time. After a while, I started to feel weird if I left the house and didn’t have it on.

I always wore it out, on top of my shirt, for all to see.

I wore it in every situation. Family events. Running errands. Orchestra jobs. Band shows. Teaching private lessons. Teaching college classes. Faculty meetings. Divinity school classes. Public lectures. Interfaith events. Everywhere, all the time.

I felt it was important to show that being Heathen, that being a practitioner of Ásatrú, is normal and good. I felt that wearing the hammer was a way to start conversations, to let people know that we’re here, we want to be included, and we’re ready to talk in a friendly manner.

I stopped wearing it a few years ago. I think it was shortly after the “QAnon Shaman” was photographed with his enormous Thor’s hammer tattoo while raiding the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

After years of experiences like the one with the metal dude on the sidewalk, this was the last straw. It finally seemed like people who assume someone wearing a hammer has shady connections were likely right more often than they weren’t.

At the same time, I was getting into a serious mixture of studying tiger crane kung fu, practicing qigong breathing exercises, and getting regular acupuncture treatments along with taking Chinese medicine for various health issues.

I was also reading the writings of Bruce Lee, which are much deeper and more spiritual than you may have guessed. In addition, I read many books on the history of kung fu, its relationship to multiple Chinese religious traditions, and its particular connection to the Shaolin Temple.

I think Heathens will understand my tendency to really get into researching the history and thought on a thing when I get into a thing. It’s how many of us grow our personal understanding and practice of Ásatrú and its historical precursors.

Over the years, I’ve talked to several Heathens who identify as “dual trad,” as practicing two modern religious traditions simultaneously. Most often, it’s some mixture of Norse/Germanic and Celtic Neo-Paganism.

I started to think of myself as dual-trad: Ásatrú and kung fu. I even identified myself this way to a pair of academic researchers working on the crossover between contemporary Paganism and Viking studies.

Kung fu is definitely a spiritual practice and has a fascinating mix of ultraviolence (“you aim this blow here, to smash the throat”) with denial of same (“we learn this move to strengthen and focus your inner chi, then we meditate together”).

It has helped me with many of the things a spiritual practice is supposed to help with: improved mental health, improved physical health, improved ability to deal with life’s challenges, and improved relationships with others.

So, when I stopped wearing the hammer, I started wearing a yin-yang pendant. Because I like cultural resonances, I picked a slightly flashy one from the 1970s, when the kung fu craze was in full swing and Bruce Lee was its (deceased) king.

I haven’t had any weird dude with suspiciously Odinistic tattoos ask me about it yet, so that’s a win.

A couple of Chinese-American people have looked at it, then looked at me, then looked at it, then looked at me, but not said anything. I feel like they want to ask if I study or practice a Chinese tradition, or if I’m just a dumb hippie, but they’re too polite to ask.

Is it cultural appropriation to wear this symbol? My view is that we can love, study, and practice cultural traditions that we find meaningful and important, as long as we value, respect, honor, celebrate, and recognize those who created and developed the tradition – and don’t claim to have created it or insist that we own it ourselves.

That’s what the older African-American musicians who welcomed me into the jazz tradition as a young bass player told me, and that’s what I believe.

There are plenty of American Heathens who loudly insist that they own Norse Paganism and its symbols, but that’s a view to which I can’t subscribe. We can love a thing without staking an erroneous ownership claim.

Sending a signal

All of the mess with white nationalists flying the Viking flag on the metal scene seems like a big giant parallel of or metaphor for my experiences in Heathenry.

Too many times, I’ve found out that the weird dude with the neck tattoos of runes at a Heathen event is a notorious neo-Nazi.

Too many times, the guy I’ve met who’s wearing a Thor’s hammer pendant or who asks about my Thor’s hammer pendant is a raging racist.

Too many times, I’ve heard self-declared “not racist” Heathens make exactly the same Islamophobic and anti-refugee statements about “our culture” that the racist metal bands make.

Too many times, the people contacting me to ask about getting a Viking beard exemption in the military or Viking ritual privileges in prison are really just angry that Sikhs and Muslims are given religious rights at all.

Too many times, I’ve seen the same attitudes, assertions, rhetoric, and ideology pop up in “inclusive” Heathen spaces as are commonplace in neo-völkisch groups.

This is why I no longer wear the hammer in public.

This is why family members periodically whisper to me, “Go back to being a lone practitioner.”

This is why I no longer have anything to do with any Heathen organization, foreign or domestic, local or national, in real life or online.

There’s just too much darkness lurking below the surface, across the board.

Instead, I practice and celebrate with my family and with the members of Thor’s Oak Kindred. Our gatherings are small, local, and face-to-face.

I wear my Thor’s hammer during our events and celebrations, or when I’m actively participating in some event specifically as Ásatrú practitioner or clergy.

I’ve come to believe that it’s okay to not wear a religious symbol all the time. We don’t have to fly the flag for our faith in every situation.

I’ve also come to believe that being a lone practitioner or practicing with a small local group is not only safer and healthier, it’s more meaningful and more real than the other options. I don’t expect others to agree.

When people contact me to ask about organizations to join, I advise them to read books, to practice on their own, and – if they meet good people of positive intent in real life – to build a hyperlocal, real-world, face-to-face community.

Anything other than that, and you might one day find yourself sitting at a table full of Nazis.

And we know what signal that will send to the world about you, whether you intend it or not.

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