The Social Production of the "Germanic" in Contemporary Heathenry
The central aspect of the research project – carried out in cooperation with the Institute for Sociology of the University of Freiburg and financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – was to deliver a religious ethnography of the so-called Germanic neo-pagan groups in German-speaking countries. These are alternative religious communities, whose members consider themselves devotees of a (supposedly) pre-Christian form of religion of Northern and Central Europe. Their religious self-conception thereby oscillates between the ambition to reconstruct archaic belief-systems as authentically as possible and the necessity to integrate the religious practices in a modernised daily life. The research project completed in autumn 2009 focused on the meaningful connection of subjective religious experience, collective knowledge and common as well as individual forms of the social production of religiosity declared as "Germanic".
The research design of the study was based on a combination of participatory observation of group rituals and extensive guided interviews with long-term group members. Altogether 26 interviews were conducted involving 28 persons from 14 communities exercising these three trends, as well as 6 participatory ritual observations in various groups.
The findings of the three-year field work strongly question the attribution of the concept of “Neugermanentum” (“New Germanism”) which is ideologically defined as ‘folkish religion’. For this reason the neutral alternative name Asatheism (i.e. the belief in Aesir – the Nordic deities) was introduced in the synopsis of the empirical results and further theoretical deliberations.
From the large number of individual empirical findings, only a few can be presented here as examples: In addition to widespread animism with a wide spectrum of accepted non-human beings (e.g. fairies or dwarves), the ritualistic worship of ancestral beings and Germanic deities like Odin, Thor, Frey and Freyja are essential for the asatheist religion. The sacrificial rituals (blóts) are either conducted individually at a certain occasion or collectively during specific celebrations round the year (solstices and equinoxes). The ritualism is based on the idea that transcendental beings can be contacted in a daily ritual as the personal representation of natural forces or as emanations of one’s own psyche (personality aspects) and that they can positively influence one’s happiness in life. The asatheist polytheism thereby enables a positive and meaningful explanation of extraordinary experiences, which are (have to be) mostly negated in rationalistic world concepts.
The fear of social stigmatisation at the work place and/or within families has led to manifold strategies to keep one’s own religious creeds and practices a secret, especially among the socially adapted Asatheists from the middle classes. The field research concluded in autumn 2009 with the dissertation by René Gründer supplies a large number of data and classifications that could lead to a more differentiated scientific and public perception of this alternative religious field.
Doctoral candidate: René Gründer, M.A.
Supervisor at the IGPP: PD Dr. Michael Schetsche
Publications
Gründer, René (2010): Blótgemeinschaften. Eine Religionsethnografie des 'germanischen Neuheidentums', Grenzüberschreitungen Bd. 9. Würzburg: Ergon. [zgl. Univ. Diss. Freiburg 2009] [Blót-communities – A religious ethnography of "germanic neopaganism"]
Gründer, Renè, Schetsche, Michael & Schmied-Knittel, Ina (Hrsg.) (2009): Der andere Glaube. Europäische Alternativreligionen zwischen heidnischer Spiritualität und christlicher Leitkultur (= Band 8 der Reihe Grenzüberschreitungen). Würzburg: Ergon. [The other faith. Alternative religions in Europe between pagan spirituality and christian ‘Leitkultur’.]
Gründer, René (2009): Runengeheimnisse. Zur Rezeption esoterischen Runen-Wissens im germanischen Neuheidentum Deutschlands. In: Aries Vol. 9, N2, Leiden: Brill. [Rune Secrets: On the Reception of Esoteric Runic Lore in German neopaganism]
Gründer, René (2008): Asatru in Deutschland. Strömungen einer alternativreligiösen Bewegung. In: Gründer, R., Schetsche, M. & Schmied-Knittel, I. (Hrsg.) Der andere Glaube. Europäische Alternativreligionen zwischen heidnischer Spiritualität und christlicher Leitkultur, Grenzüberschreitungen Bd. 8, Würzburg: Ergon. [Asatru in Germany. Currents of an alternative religious movement.]
Gründer, René (2008): Germanisches (Neu-)Heidentum in Deutschland: Entstehung, Symbolsystem und Struktur einer alternativreligiösen Szene, Perilog Bd. 2, Berlin: Logos. [Germanic (Neo-)Paganism in Germany: Development, symbolic system and structure of an alternative religious field]
