Talk:Heathenry (new religious movement)/Archive 3

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Removal of heathen groups?

This article was original populated with several kindreds and other various heathen groups, which have now been removed. In the UK there are many kindreds and theods that do not opperate under the OR, which have been removed. This article is clearly biased and does not accuratly represent modern heathenr or 'Germanic Neopaganism' in all its forms.Exile x2 (talk) 22:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

By all means add or restore any material on groups for which there is a reliable source. And I don't mean the New York Times, anything more than a one-off blog would do for me! This article is NOT clearly biased; as a non-Heathen I cannot detect any leaning towards or away from any particular group/s, on the contrary it seems pretty well balanced to me. Further material to fill it out more would be great of course, and adding material to the article is actually more important than discussions about the title which are currently going on. So don't just complain on the talk page, Exile x2 - get on the article and fix it! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:55, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Exile, I think this revision of the article is currently the best one and should be restored and mended in what is considered wrong of it. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 10:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Your work is certainly appreciated, but we've moved past using that draft. How about simply suggesting folks refer to it for possible information instead? We need to remember that information provided by any religious group about itself is a primary source, and thus is not considered reliable. That seems to be particularly contentious in this context, since the individual groups are all fiercely independent, and each one seems to feel slighted if their particular style is not mentioned. Let's aggressively stick to secondary sources so we can fairly assess what needs to be covered.--~TPW 12:05, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I know you prefer that version Blegkorbh, and in fact I suspect we are only disagreeing about means, not ends. You'd like some of the well-sourced information that has been removed to be restored. I'd like some of the unsourced information that was more recently added to be removed. Between us we could work to a median position that could be identical! When I made this reversion it was not intended to be back to a perfect state. Indeed, to show good faith I immediately started to go back and I restored 5k worth of text which seemed to be well sourced. To try and show continued good faith, I'll go back to my 47k deletion today and see what else is salvageable.

Between us we have spent more time on the talk page and written far more text than we have on the article itself. I think it's time we attended to the article. I'm going to carry on restoring well sourced text, and removing unsourced material, in the service of improving it. That will speak more convincingly than any amount of talk page contributions from me! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 12:12, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, that's another 5k of text restored; I have worked down to (but not started on) restoring text to the History section. If anyone else would like to look at this reversion of mine, to pick out what I removed which could defensibly be restored, that would be great. There is some good stuff which I have not restored, concerning Wyrd, Orlog, Rita and Yggdrasil. The reason I haven't restored it here is because I think it's a little too detailed, and belongs in those articles rather than here at the top level article. I know it's a judgement call, but the danger is that if you keep adding stuff here this article just gets too big to be read and understood as a whole. I think we have enough material here now to let this article be the parent of a large family, and that means some information has to "leave home" and set up it's own house elsewhere - while maintaining links both ways, of course!

Please, all of you who have posted so enthusiastically on this talk page, join me in trying to improve the article now! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 12:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Please Do Not Close Debate

First of all, this entire discussion is occurring during a major holiday in the USA, and the timing is bad. I myself am traveling and cannot devote the proper time to this discussion.

Secondly, the concerns of two administrators, Dbachmann and Bloodofox, are being ignore. The first deleted material that is now being restored, and the second asked for a complete rewrite. The first also restored the article to Germanic Neopaganism.

Finally, the entire point of wikipedia is to create articles that can be found. The average person does not think of heathenism as Odinism or Asatru or Germanic paganism. Indeed, in America, a heathen is what Aunt Esther called Fred Sanford in the Sanford and Son television show. Sad, but true.

--ThorLives (talk) 08:01, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid I live in Europe and don't celebrate Thanksgiving - but I'm not going to take a holiday just because it's being observed elsewhere in the world, sorry! In any case, my first set of re-additions happened days ago with no objections.

Now, nobody has closed the debate. The talk page is always open.... I am rewriting the article by taking what was well-sourced in the previous long (105k) version and restoring it. As I am not an expert in the field this is the best I can do - nobody else has come forward to rewrite it so I feel justified in doing so. I have NOT restored everything; far from it, about half of what was there is still gone. If you disagree with any instances of my rewrite, then please be specific! You've made a number of complaints in very general terms about the article but never made any specific suggestions for improvement; why not do that, so we can see what the objections actually are? Ideally, improve the article by adding well-sourced material that fills in gaps in the coverage!

If your final point was about the naming - there will be redirects so anybody searching for any of those terms would be redirected to the right place. You need to make your point in the section of this page that discusses renaming, but it would be best if you could point to a source which supports your point. --Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk)

I report that roughly two days ago Hengest, the Internet Information Officer of the Odinic Rite, intervened here with this message stating ThorLives isn't a member of Odinic Rite or any other of the organisations which belong to the Odinist lineage, and he has been exploiting the Odinic Rite name to give undue authority to his personal opinions. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 11:28, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Blegkorbh, there's really no need to post a diff to a contribution which is already on this page for all to see (and which I read and noted when it was first made.) I must say the original didn't add anything to the discussion here for me in any case: whether a person is or is not a member of a particular group cannot ever be proven here and therefore any claims ever made of that sort neither strengthen nor weaken editorial arguments. The only arguments that count are those which rest on one or the five pillars of Wikipdia. I have not given any extra weight to ThorLives's opinions because of any knowledge or status he claims, as I would not to you whatever your status or experience might be.

My guess is that there is some kind of inter-group conflict being played out here, and that both of you potentially have WP:COI and possibly WP:NPOV problems. That's not a problem as long as you each acknowledge your positions and try not to let them interfere with writing this encyclopaedia. But at the end of the day that is why we are here, and not to allow your or anyone else to use WP as another venue for an ongoing battle. I neither know nor care what the battle is - except that of there are WP:RS who describe it, it would be good to have it noted in the article.

Now, could we spend less time on talk-page politics and more on actually improving this article? If there are inaccuracies, correct them. If there are missing sources, insert them. If there are whole sections missing, find sources and write them. Sorry for the cross voice and stampy foot here, but eventually we have to write this encyclopaedia! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 11:43, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually I am not a member of any group, I am an independent Heathen with some affinity to Odinism (the Odinist branch of Heathenry) regarding my strongly conservative socio-political positions. The version of the article I contributed to write was utterly NPOV describing the various Heathen denominations, theological stances, political stances, thus I don't understand these continuous claims of non-neutrality of user ThorLives. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 12:48, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not claiming anything for ThorLives, I know nothing about him or you except that you can neither of you seem to leave the other alone on this tyalk page, and I haven't seen either of you actually contribute anything to the writing of the article. I'm not going to try any further to encourage the pair of you and won't respond further to discussions about process. If either of you wants to controbute to or discuss CONTENT that would be great! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:02, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's the biggest issue; sources. If the websites and publications of individual groups is not permissible as credible then it is impossible to make it known that in the UK any Heathen, Asatru or Odinist group exists other that the OR. The information about the OR is correct, and they are a Germanic neopagan group so therefore no one can object to them being present on the page, however it would be like the neo-druidism page having S.W.O.R.D. on there but not the Cotswolds and others. The Druidism page mentions OBOD, BDO and the Druid Network demonstrating various groups exist in the UK. Anyone reading the Wiki page for "Heathenry" who did not have knowledge of the various groups in the UK would believe that only the OR exist in the UK which is completely incorrect. My suggestion is that the UK section of the page be totally removed until a consensus of what evidence is acceptable can be reach allowing a wider range of groups to be listed. Generally Heathen groups in the UK do not make news headlines or get written about by anyone outside of Heathen circles Noddyt (talk) 16:30, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I hadn't looked at that specific section until you mentioned it, Noddyt. On looking, it stated that the Rite was one of the first pagan organisations to be granted charitable status so it seemed to me that there must be reliable sources which confirmed this. I found some and have sourced this section rather than deleting it; I suspect from the little I have found that there is a long and controversial story there!! However we cannot rely on what editors here might know of the back story and must instead go with the sources; in this case the Charity Commission, the Independent newspaper, and an academic paper delivered at an international conference.

I fully realise that this leaves the UK slot populated only by the OR and its successors, but rather than deleting this well-sourced material what we now need to do is find sources for the other branches of Heathenism in the UK. Can someone help with these? (I will look myself, but as I don't know what to look for, I start at a disadvantage!) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's not make this a British discussion. Odinism and Asatru are found around the globe, so we must think globally.

I repeat my suggestion that Germanic Neopaganism is best because it offends no one. We all have our favorites (note the American spelling), and mine is Odinism. Steve Mcnallen likes Asatru. Our "heathen" friend here likes "heathen." But, Germanic Neopaganism offends no one.--ThorLives (talk) 07:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

ThorLives: you totally miss the point of everything I have said, I have no objection to Germanic Neopaganism as that covers all reconstructions, revivals and modern inventions based on the pre-Christian religions of the Germanic people, I agree that it is a good name for the Wiki entry. My objections and complaints about this entry is the bias placed on the OR in the UK due to the rest of the UK Heathen community keeping out of the news headlines and just getting on with being Heathen. Because Wikipedia is not allowing the groups' websites and publications as evidence that they exist they are effectively invisible to anyone reading the entry. People with no knowledge of Germanic Neopagan groups in the UK would be left believing that only the OR and OF exist which is completely incorrect. Your argument for the term "Odinism" is irrelevant to my concerns and has only made it more difficult to accurately discuss and write about the state of UK Heathenry, Asatru, Vantru and Odinism. Noddyt (talk) 13:21, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Hello Noddyt, regarding the noteworthiness or not of the UK section... I did find some reliable sources for the stuff regarding the OR - indeed when I realised they had acquired charitable status I felt sure there must have been some independent reporting of the fact, which proved to be the case. This being so, the material on the OR must stay, because the sources demonstrate their notability. I do understand the point about other groups, but the hard line is this: if they have (perhaps deliberately) kept their profile lower than that of the OR and have escaped public notice then by definition they cannot and need not be mentioned here. This is an encyclopaedia and not a definitive list of all notable and non-notable Heathen groups.

However my line is somewhat softer. I accept (as a fellow Pagan myself) that the Guardian and the New York Times are not necessarily going to be aware of all the groups who are out there. But there are some sources which, in the context of paganism, I'd regard as equally reliable. In the UK, Pagan Dawn and The Cauldron, for example. Internationally, The Pomegranate for sure. Then there are books by Jenny Blain and other heathen authors. If we can establish a group's existence, then it is OK to use their own website or blog, per WP:SELF, simply to furnish some information about what they say about themselves. If the only evidence for a group's existence is their own material, then it is harder to mention them here. They could just be a hearth of a dozen folks and this is not the place to list every sub-group, any more than the Wicca page is one to list every coven in existence!

So if you can suggest any other groups who should be mentioned, I'll try and see what sources I can chase up to verify their existence and balance the UK discussion a bit. Of course, the same logic can be applied to all the national/regoinal sections of the article - but let's take one step at a time! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 16:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify for any editors that have come to this page via the RM (as I myself was confused at first), Kim Dent-Brown's use of OR above is short for Odinic Rite, not WP:OR. :) - SudoGhost 00:08, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Quite right, and thank you for pointing out me slipping into confusing jargon! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 00:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

It is significant that when I GOOGLE "heathen" in the USA, the first group to come up (it is number 55 in the search) is an atheist site!

http://www.heathen-hangout.com/ --ThorLives (talk) 20:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

ThorLives, had you searched for 'Heathenry', you would have come across the following: http://www.englatheod.org/ (number 8 in the search) http://www.holyspring.org/Heathenry.htm (number 10 in the search) http://fyrnsidu.org/ (number 12 in the search) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ukheathenry/ (number 15 in the search) http://odinsvolk.ca/O.V.A.%20-%20SACRED%20SYMBOLS2.htm (number 16 in the search) http://www.tworavenskindred.org/asatru.html (number 30 in the search) https://www.facebook.com/pages/Berks-County-Asatru-Heathenry/154265971250533 (number 32 in the search) I think that is more significant. Elswyth — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.118.43.9 (talk) 04:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Now google ASATRU. The groups, forums, and sites that pop up are far TOO NUMEROUS to list here. And ALL the hits refer to the subject under discussion. Next, google Odinism. Also impressive. --ThorLives (talk) 06:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

A Google search is not going to distinguish between reliable sources and others; see WP:GOOGLE for some cautionary words on why this cannot be the deciding factor on the correct page name. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 07:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thor Lives, you haven't yet understood that "Odinism" and "Asatru" are names for specific denominations ("Odinism" is the doctrine of the OR and groups sprung out from the same lineage; "Asatru" is Reconstructionist Norse Heathenism, different from "Forn Sidhr" which is Folkist Norse Heathenism, a distinction which is very well remarkable in Scandinavian organisations), and they're NOT blanket terms. What is being discussed here is which blanket term to use, and the options are "Germanic Neopaganism" and "Heathenism". --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 10:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Search "Heathenism" through Google and you'll find even more groups, kindreds, information pages, papers, journals about Germanic Paganism than those linked above by Elswyth. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 10:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Edits here for the past several months have tried to create the illusion that “Odinism” and Asatru are separate denominations under a larger religion, but that is disinformation.

In the mid-20th century, when Rudd Mills was active, all devotees to the Gods were called Odinist. In the 1970’s, when McNallen, Yeowell, and Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson began their work, they coined a synonym, Asatru.

Since the last three were or are friends of mine, I am certain of this fact. --ThorLives (talk) 22:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not individuals find the term "heathen" to be offensive shouldn't be taken into consideration for multiple reasons. Thorlives, you are quite mistaken when you claim that "Germanic neoPaganism offends no one". It offends many people. Particularly in the United States it offends MOST heathens. Your championing of the word "Pagan" over "heathen" is illogical due to the fact that "pagan" was and still is used as an "insult hurled at friends of the old gods" in the same way that "heathen" is. Pagan ALSO meant country dweller. The difference between the two however in how they have developed are pretty vast. The argument FOR "heathen" variants has a lot of support both in modern groups, and in acadamia. Consider these points. A) aside from Forn Sidr, or the names of individual germanic tribes, Heathen is the only term that was a naturally germanic term that was used to refer to prechristian germanic people. It appears first in Gothic but appears in Beowulf, Anglo Saxon Law, and in the Sagas, with a good example being the Death scene of Hakon the Good "To the Heathen Gods he fared", when he was buried "by heathens". B) It is still used and understood in Academic circles, particularly among medieval historians to refer to prechristian germanic people SPECIFICALLY. C) A large portion of modern heathens refer to themselves as heathen BECAUSE they are focused on reconstructing specific cultural and religious traditions that are referred to in academic texts as well as medieval sources as "heathen". The online journal Odroerir has already been mentioned, as has the Journal for Contemporary Heathen Thought. The Troth uses the word "heathen" over "pagan", as do most independent kindreds. These exemplify the very real existence of a very large group of people who refer to themselves as "heathen". You will find more groups that Identify as "heathen" than as "pagan", so because of your own strange problem with the word, your intentionally creating a misperception that "pagan" is more appropriate than the word "heathen" when both are equally insulting, and "pagan" historically and contemporarily refers more to Mediterranean based and even more so WICCAN groups, while "heathen" historically and contemporarily refers to central and northern Euorpean polytheists. It should ALSO be noted that "heathens", particularly in America tend to NOT approve of being called or lumped into an umbrella term of "Neopaganism". A) Paganism was never a term used to refer to the religion of the Germanic tribes by any medieval source during the period that heathenism existed. So to call them "pagan" is inaccurate. B) We must take into account modern umbrella terms and groups and how they associate...heathens have big issues with being lumped in with groups that identify as "pagan", and fairly often there is open hostility BETWEEN "Pagans" and "Heathens". Because ALL of these terms being offered are nebulous, no one term will ever be fully agreed on, but between "pagan" and "heathen", heathen is used much more widely in germanic...."heathen" circles, and it is more consistent with acadamia and linguistics. There is no reason to use a latin term that is synonymous with the germanic term to refer to germanic traditions. The only reason this is a debate is because of ignorance and misconceptions pertaining to the words "Pagan" and "Heathen".

Due to the above information, the most accurate and least offensive title for the page should be- "Contemporary Germanic Heathenism". You can try and write off the word "heathen" as a juvenile attempt to make parents uncomfortable, but that only speaks volumes about your own ignorance pertaining to both the terms "heathen" and "pagan". The only reason "pagan" is remotely acceptable of a term now is due to the Wiccan movement, which, last time I checked, we were not a part of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.248.63.82 (talk) 23:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course pagan began as "country dweller," but language changed my friend. By the Romantic period in the modern west, paganism came to be seen as a form of aesthetic ideal, a kind of free-spirited person without the grim life-denying trappings of Christianity. Swinburne: "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death." Also see Nietzsche--ThorLives (talk) 01:21, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I have a citation from a verifiable source of a newspaper exactly on point to this issue noting the use of the term Heathen repeatedly. http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-11-30/news/america-s-top-heathen-dan-halloran-city-council/ --dscarron — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.204.58 (talk) 03:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

To clarify my point, that pagan and heathen are not the same, it is a common error to assume that if two words from two different languages have the same meanings, that they retain these identical meanings when the words pass into English.

The English word “agnostic” is derived from Greek and means “no knowledge.” The English word “ignoramus” is derived from the Latin which also means “no knowledge.” In English, are agnostic and ignoramus the same in meaning?

Another example: the word “shit” is derived from a good Anglo-Saxon word for a certain substance. The English word feces is derived from a Latin word for the same substance. Are the words exact equivalents in educated discourse? --ThorLives (talk) 21:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Proceeding towards a page move

It has been pointed out to me that admins at WP:RM need to have a specific proposal for a move on which they can form an opinion (old page vs proposed page). Presenting a list of options is not helpful. I will in due course post a request at WP:RM with the old page being obvious - Germanic Neopaganism - but what to present as the proposed new page?

There have been several suggestions thus far, many of which have got lost in the walls of supporting and objecting text. Could I ask that people edit the blank list below with the name/s they would like to be considered as alternatives. I would then propose a poll (yes, accepting that WP:POLL discourages them!) to decide the challenger - exactly like the America's cup, now I come to think of it! I will close this list once 24 hours have gone by with no new additions.

Please do not add anything to this list except suggestions for a new name. Comments and arguments for and against in a new section please - preferably ones we have not heard before...

*Heathenism (modern pagan religion)*Heathenism (contemporary) *New name 3

• New name 4
• New name 5
• New name 6

(Add further bullets if needed) Many thanks, Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Admins have not much to do with the RM process, except for closing. A specific suggestion is needed if you expect a consensus to form around it, by us editors. We've probably had enough proposals and random discussion already that someone who has a clear opinion could pick one and propose it as the new name, and see if it flies. Dicklyon (talk) 19:27, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Dick, trouble is as I see it that anyone with a clear opinion would be likely to have it immediately and forcibly disagreed with by several other editors... I think the likeliest candidate for an alternative is something like "Heathenism (modern pagan religion)" so I have put that first on the list. However, I do not expect for a moment that others will agree this is the best candidate to run against the incumbent title, hence my proposal that we list the potential challengers then vote (yes, vote - not !vote...) to select one. Unfortunately I think the alternative would be a long series of alternatives lining up to be checked off one by one at WP:RM. This way I hope we'll select the best alternative to the current title, ie the one with the best chance of supplanting it. If it's unsuccessful, then that (for me) calls a halt to the process and we stick with this name. BTW, I should point out that although I've taken it on myself to devise this procedure, I'm actually OK with the existing name... but it seems to have generated a lot of debate and I think we need to close this definitively one way or the other.

Of course this procedure is entirely my own idea and others may object to it. In which case unless someone can suggest a better way, we must either stick with the existing name or leave it up to individuals to take alternatives to WP:RM. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 20:34, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

"Heathenism (contemporary)" for evenness with "Paganism (contemporary)". --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 22:08, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I've added this to the list above. Any other candidates, please feel free to add them directly to the list folks. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Leave the page as it is Germanic Neopaganism. Germanic Neopaganism is a neutral name that excites no one and offends no one. Wikipedia is based on neutrality and consensus. Heaathenism is a pejorative term. and it is used by marginal groups, such as the Temple of the Heathen Gods (eight members)--ThorLives (talk) 08:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

As more than 24 hours have elapsed with no further suggestions, I have placed the request move template below. Please comment in the appropriate space below, as concisely as you can and ideally with reference to reliable sources and Wikipedia policies. The discussion will be concluded after 7 days and a decision reached by the good people at WP:RM. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 2

FYI

 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:49, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Germanic Neopaganism → Heathenism (contemporary) — There has been much discussion and at least one hasty move of this page. Recently a lengthy discussion at the talk page has arrived at two contenbders: the existing title and this proposed new one. Please note that both are disputed and the choice is not therefore straightfroward. Arguments for and against both are given at length on the article talk page. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose No sign above that this is common usage, and since "Heathenry", now archaic, was originally formed in Anglosaxon chiefly to refer to Mediterranean paganism, it will confuse the casual reader. JCScaliger (talk) 19:16, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support As someone inside international Heathen circles "Heathenry" is now the most commonly used word to describe the collection of belief systems based on early medieval Germanic religions. As for it being used to describe Mediterranean paganism I would suggest reading Bede, for example when describing November he says "forðon ure yldran, ða hy hæðene wæron" "because our ancestors, at that time they were heathen" he is describing the English people not Mediterranean. I concede that hæðen and its cognates in other languages was used as a gloss for the Latin paganus when translating from Latin. Noddyt (talk) 20:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose Heathenism. Article should remain Germanic Neopaganism. The Oxford English dictionary, which lists definitions in order of usage frequency, defines heathen as "chiefly derogatory." It also defines heathen as "a person regarded as lacking culture or moral principles." --ThorLives (talk) 23:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Reasons already discussed. @JCScalinger: what you have written is not true, "Heathenism" is the Germanic term that was used for local (Germanic) ethnic religions, not for the Mediterranean ones. You can find it in other Germanic languages too, as Heidentum, Hedendom, Heidhni, etc. I suggest you to read something about the etymology and history of the word. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 14:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The OED gives two possible etymologies for the common Germanic root of 'heathen'. Both observe that Ulfilas used the feminine of haiþnô in Mark 7;26, for the Greek of Syrophoenician descent; one has it as a translation of paganus, the other as from Armenian het῾anos from Greek ethnos. All three are Mediterranean. JCScaliger (talk) 23:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, but marginally so. This is a very close call and I can see the arguments against both options very clearly. I think Germanic Neopaganism is the least worst option because it requires less explanation than Heathenism. Imagine a reader seeing the two titles and trying to work out, from the title alone, what the subject might be; I think the first title is a little more unambiguous and informative. I accept completely the arguments that most practitioners of these religions would prefer Heathen. However (a) clearly this is not unanimous and (b) we have other examples - eg Quakers - where an article on a religious group uses a different name than that group does for itself. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 15:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - Unless there's some previous discussion I've overlooked (I'm not seeing one), nothing has established that Heathenism (contemporary) is a neutral descriptive title, nor that it is the common name (I highly suspect that, due to the nature of the article's subject, establishing a clear common name would be unlikely). As per WP:TITLECHANGES, "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." That some individuals and groups use "Heathenism" to describe their faith is not reason alone to change the title, given that the title being proposed is not an uncontroversial one (the word Heathen is still a pejorative word where I live) and the fact that "Heathenism" has not been established to be anything other than one of many descriptors used for the article's subject. - SudoGhost 18:52, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support Heathenry A phrasing like "Germanic Neopaganism," while wholly appropriate as an etic decriptor, is not generally used as an emic identifier within the community it describes. Titling this page "Germanic Neopaganism" would be like titling the page on Christianity "Greco-Hebraic Monotheism." It would be a somewhat accurate third party description of what Christianity is, but, since Christians have a preferred term used to refer to themselves, that's given in place. It's the same story with the term "Heathenry."Frater S.E.R.V.O. (talk) 02:37, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Christianity is indisputably the WP:COMMONNAME for that article's subject, and is uncontroversial in nature. "Heathenry" is neither of those things. Some groups identify themselves as Heathens, but far from all of them. But to use your example, Germanic Neopaganism is not comparable to Christianity, but is instead comparable to Abrahamic monotheism, which is to Christianity what "Germanic Neopaganism" is to the various related faiths therein. - SudoGhost 06:15, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Heathenism is comparable to Christianity, while is Paganism which is comparable to Abrahamic monotheism, being "Paganism" the collective label for European traditional religions. "Heathenism" is the umbrella term for religious movements with roots in Germanic culture. Heathenism, the Germanic ethnic religions, is also comparable to Hinduism, the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian ethnic religions. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 19:12, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Support Teutonic Heathenism (change to 'Teutonic,' or keep 'Germanic,' whichever other word is decided on.) Paganism/heathenism are synonyms, and though neither are fully relevant here, each word has been used similarly by non-adherents and is preferred by and alternatively offends (is used pejoritavely) various religious Teutonists/Germanists (interestingly, Hellenismos, Slavianstvo, Celtism, though perhaps a Celtic translation instead of the latter, are used by those ethnic religions without the once more pejorative 'pagan'/'heathen,' but a Teutonic one has not come into use.) The clear solution is use the more Teutonic, not Latin word. I am against using 'neo' and 'contemporary,' though 'reconstructionism' might be ok (IF you can prove none are traditional lineages.) 'Contemporary' is not used for articles on the major religions and their sects, though in several cases a strong case can be made for it, and I will be offended if it is used here.--Dchmelik (talk) 08:27, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Given that Heathen itself is considered an offensive pejorative, do you have any policy or reference based reasons to support the move? - SudoGhost 21:34, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Note that further discussion should be in this section someone made, not in people's survey answers above, which is distracting to those who will count the results.

I feel there has been enough discussion and did not really want to add more, but this was my reply to SudoGhost, revised. I like neither 'pagan' nor 'heathen,' and as I said in my survey answer, both are pejorative and offencive. I wish that Teutonic 'pagans/heathens' would use a religious term for their ethnicity, like basically all other European ethnic groups do. Both terms are in common use, as you can find references for in the articles, from 'pagans/heathens' in person, on the 'net, and in the long previous discussion. I am merely in favour of using the Germanic, rather than Latin, pejorative term, as a lesser evil. Even if anyone would argue one was more pejorative, that is not really the point. Even if 'pagan' is supposedly less pejorative, which I do not recall anyone giving a reasonable argument for, part of the point is that 'pagan' is a pejorative term for non-Abrahamists from a viewpoint of the Christian Roman empires and societies whose language they influenced, which basically excludes Scandinavia. The other part of the point is some, but not all, adherents of non-Abrahamic European religions started to use 'pagan' as a non-pejorative, but the same is true of 'heathen' (merely a translation of 'pagan' present in all Germanic languages, though 'pagan' is not) and though I feel both terms are inadequate, a more proper term for Teutonic 'paganism/heathenism' is a word common to all Teutonic cultures. Just as Hellenists do not call traditional followers of Hecate (Greek goddess of magic) 'Wiccans' (a Germanic word,) there is no reliable reason to call Germanic 'heathens' 'pagan.'--Dchmelik (talk) 01:52, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Their different origins and histories has led to different modern connotations of these terms. In my understanding, and with at least partial support from a few dictionaries I looked at, pagan is more about what kind of gods one believes in, while heathen is more about how (un)civilized one is. No doubt these connotations vary regionally, but I think my interpretation is common in most of the U.S. at least. Dicklyon (talk) 04:29, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Towards fixing this

Since we seem to have overcome the "Heathenism" red herring now, can we please go back to actual article content, and either fix or undo the recent article deterioration? A lot of work has gone into building this article into an encyclopedic and neutral overview of the topic. While I understand that there will always be misguided additions, it should be straightforward to undo them. But I do not have much patience with editors who run rough-shod over a developed article and then start wikidrama when they are reverted.

The section "terminology and groupings" is a disaster. This is an extremely difficult topic to cover, precisely because the vast majority of sources are primary, non-neutral and poorly informed. You cannot base the article on googling neopagan websites. Anything on this page will need to be based on quotable secondary literature. It is extremely difficult to discuss terminology, because people using this terminology refuse to educate themselves. So terminology is extremely unstable. It is important to discuss "terminology" separate from "groupings". "Asatru" is not a "denomination" within Germanic neopaganism. This is complete nonsense. It may or may not be used in the sense of a "denomination" by some people, but then you will always find "some people" with extremely idiosyncratic terminology. The question is why these people and not other the idiosyncracy of others should be allowed to dictate the terminology used in Wikipedia's voice. The answer is, of course, that they should not. Another thing on Wikipedia is, of course, that if somebody turns an article into an unreferenced mess, their edits should be reverted. --dab (𒁳) 11:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you think you could be any more insulting to practising Heathens, Asatruars, Odinists and Theodist? This whole article is becoming a farce about a community written by people outside of that community who continually tell the people within that community they are wrong or don't understand their own community. To be honest Wikipedia would be better if this article was deleted. Noddyt (talk) 11:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Each of you has criticisms of the article; why not improve it with some well-sourced additions? This would be a good, constructive way of using everyone's time. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:36, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs work; I disagree that we should delete it!

I agree with that the denominational verbiage is nonsense. May we begin by tightening up the lead material?

May I also suggest that we first remove self-published books, references that are blogs, and other inappropriate sources? --ThorLives (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

What if we replace the first paragraph with this opening statement:

Germanic neopaganism (also known as Ásatrú, Odinism, Forn Siðr, Theodism, Wotanism, and Heathenism), is Germanic paganism in the modern world. Although most surviving sources for the religion originate in Iceland, the movement is found in many countries across the planet. --ThorLives (talk) 23:40, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I can actually agree with you on the first sentence, it makes perfect sense and cure most ills, I am not sure the second sentence is needed and may muddy the waters made clear by the first. I principle I support such an edit. Regarding the "well referenced" stuff, we will always hit a brick wall. Heathenry (Asatru et. al.) does not make much noise. It is not written about much by outsiders either academic or journalistic (except when dragging us into the "racist camp") so this only leaves sources authored by people within our community which then apparently means in Wikipedia's eyes this writing is "poorly informed" and by people who "refuse to educate themselves"! Noddyt (talk) 13:20, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Noddyt; I'm not as pessimistic as you. There are some good academic authors within the Heathen community (Jenny Blain to name but one) and we can certainly use them. Furthermore, I think with care we can use some self-published sources because they give information about groups' own views. As long as we carefully follow the guidelines from that blue link and exercise due editorial judgement I'm sure we can source this adequately. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The article has been destroyed

It's ridiculous how a handful of users have totally destroyed the article removing a lot of informations and sources. --95.248.79.81 (talk) 11:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that too, but am willing to assume good faith and give them time to fix it. If not soon done, we can just roll back the changes, no worries. Cheers, Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 13:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Without specifics to talk about, I can't agree with this rather dramatic assertion. I don't see the article having been totally destroyed. It's only a handful of users who ever contribute to articles, to be honest. It's not as if there's a huge constituency of editors whose work is being over-ridden - if there were, they'd have resisted the changes that have been made! But anyone of course can (and should) feel welcome to improve the article further by adding referenced and sourced information; if sources have been removed which could still benefit the article, then by all means let's have them in! I wouldn't suggest rolling back to a previous version as this will delete useful as well as problematic changes, but by all means reword and reinsert valuable information which has been lost. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 11:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any "useful change" since two months ago, just an enormous loss of material. --79.10.89.116 (talk) 14:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Then quit complaining on the talk page, and rework the stuff you miss into the article! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 16:30, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

It's been a week since the OP from an IP editor about the quality of this article, but I don't see any changes being discussed here or made to the main article. I know there's been a divergence of opinion about what should be included here and whether the article is currently in better or worse shape than in the past. Whichever our opinion, I'm sure it can be improved! I'm willing and able to edit from a position of semi-independence (for which read semi-ignorance). I'm pagan and therefore sympathetic, but Wiccan and therefore not knowledgable about the fine detail of this topic. I'm happy to do editorial-style contributions such as copyediting, staying NPOV, judging sources etc but I'm not in the best position to write new content. Anyone care to join me in improving this article? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

\

I have been holding back because I do not want to start another editing war.

In my opinion, the article needs to be clearer. Instead of making artificial distinctions between Asatru and Odinism and so forth, we need to address theology, ethics, eschatology, and so forth in depth. --ThorLives (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

New Source for "Heathen" Title

In the hopes of providing a more credible source for the "Heathen" designation, I present Barbara Jane Davy's Introduction to Pagan Studies, which is published by Altamira Press (2007) as part of the Pagan Studies series of books sponsored by Wendy Griffin (California State University, Long Beach) and Chas S. Clifton (University of Southern Colorado). On page 158 of the "Denominations" chapter, she writes: "Norse and Germanic reconstructionist traditions are collectively called Heathenry."Frater S.E.R.V.O. (talk) 03:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to be blunt, but - no! The title for this page has been agreed and IMO any reconsideration of this needs to wait several months at least. There's no point having a discussion and decision if whichever side loses it immediately reopens debate. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 08:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Manipulation of the poll

The survey of December 2011 was held to determine whether to use "Germanic Neopaganism" or "Heathenism" as the title of the article and the main colletive name for the religion here in Wikipedia. The contents of the article were not a matter of discussion. Despite the prevalence of "Heathenism" among Heathens themselves the poll result was for "Germanic Neopaganism" and the title of the article remained such.

Afterwards however user Dbachmann and user ThorLives exploited the result of the poll to modify the leading part of the article imposing one more time their unsourced and confused view of the Heathen Movement. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 10:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Bhlegkorbh, firstly the title for this section is very misleading! When I saw it on my watchlist I reasonably assumed that you were complaining that the decision making process (poll) itself had been manipulated. I assume from what you have written above that this isn't actually the case; what I understand you to mean is that you believe others have subsequently made use of the result to (in your eyes unfairly) manipulate the article. If as you maintain their views are unsourced and confusing then the answer is very simple; improve their editing by rewriting it to remove the confusion and add the missing sources.

Secondly I'm going to make a general point that is NOT exclusively directed at you Blegkorbh - it goes out to everyone who has contributed more bytes to the talk page than to the article itself. I'm fed up of people complaining on the talk page how the article is biased, unfair, misleading, unsourced or confusing and who then have nothing to offer in terms of improvements. The next person who posts in such a fashion, I would be delighted if you either (a) follow up your criticism with some improvements to the article, or (b) suggest some improvements on the talk page or at the very least (c) be specific about the criticisms rather than waving generalities about. We are here to write an encyclopaedia, not to champion our particular corner of Heathenry/Asatru/Northern Tradition/Germanic Neopaganism/whatever. The average reader cares nothing about our internal struggles and will never look at this talk page; can we keep them in mind please? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what I meant is that someone has made use of the result to further destroy the article. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 15:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Massive, undiscussed reversion

I have just noticed that this article has very recently been massively reverted in this edit by Bhlegkorbh. Unfortunately I didn't spot this, as the huge edit was followed one minute later by a tiny edit linking to a foreign language wiki, made by the same author. This had the effect that when I looked in my watchlist I saw the tiny addition of a wikilink but was unaware of the massive reversion. Now I am going to take a deep breath and a massive leap of faith in assuming (for one last time) good faith here. I'm not saying that Bhlegkorbh deliberately disguised the reversion by inserting a tiny edit seconds afterwards. But nevertheless, the effect was that the reversion was disguised.

Bhlegkorbh, you have yourself complained about the unfairness of massive, unannounced reversions but apparently when you carry them out it's OK? You made no announcement either in advance or after the fact of what you had done - the section above certainly does not constitute a clear announcement. I am going to restore the article now to how it was before your reversion. Not because I disagree necessarily with any of the content you have added but because it was such a massive, undiscussed change that had the effect of being smuggled in. Now, you have been bold; I have reverted; let's discuss, as WP:BRD suggests. If sections of what you removed have good sources (not all do) and if they add to the article then by all means put them in. But can we please ALL behave like collaborators here, not as competitors trying to get the last word in?

Reality check: there IS NO LAST WORD on Wikipedia! Nobody is going to win this argument, if by 'win' you mean get your own version in place here ahead of your opponents. Either they will spot it and revert, or neutral busybodies like me will do the same. If this poor behaviour continues (from any/all contributors here) I will have no problem escalating this outside the informality of the talk page here. But let's not do that? Can we please collaborate, openly and collegially, on this much-abused article? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The small edit for the re-addition of the Alemannic article did not "obscure" the reversion... this is just ridiculous. There has not been any improvement to the article since the latest complete version. Someone is just trying to keep the article in a bad confusionary state, maybe for ideological reasons. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 15:52, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but whether you intended it or not the effect of your small reverion seconds after the big one was to mask the big reversion in people's watchlists. Nor did you announce what you had done on the talk page, which would have been the way of staying above board. Nobody is trying to keep this article in a 'confusionary' state. I have made many additions to the article myself with the aim of improving it. You on the other hand have been contributing massively to the talk page but have made almost no constructive additions to the article itself. I'm sorry to sound so critical (I usually adopt a more emollient tone) but one minor typo correction in 2 months is not a great contribution. Please, if you don't like an aspect of the article as it stands, make a positive change! Ideally a well-sourced addition, and certainly not a reversion back to a weeks old version. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 17:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 17:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

This kind of edits are not improvements. As you can see there has also been deletion of sources, and this is not the only case. The article had already reached a complete version (this, please read it entirely) before the current one was restored. New York-based user ThorLives has taken over this article and pretends to stand for the movement while he actually knows very little of this European religion and a representative of the OdinicRite has written in this talkpage that he has nothing to do with the organisation itself. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 10:09, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, now I see the problem. You think that Wikipedia articles achieve some kind of 'final version' status, after which no change is permitted? I'm afraid that's not the case. I'm going to stop replying to you in detail now, given the difference between you and the other editors working here. I have no personal opinions on the content here because I'm Wiccan, not Heathen. But I DO see that since November you have made approximately 45 edits to the talk page and 3 to the article itself, one of which was a typo correction and one of which was a reversion to a week's old version. So don't complain about other editors' incremental additions to the article when you're not willing to make any yourself. You can't complain about ownership by others (which I'm not seeing by the way) when you're not willing to make any contributions of your own. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 11:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I do not think that Wikipedia articles achieve final versions; what I meant is that this article achieved a far better version before the current one was restored. There hasn't been any "incremental addition" since November, just the deletion of a lot of information and sources as it has also been pointed out by other users. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 12:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

What is this? User ThorLives has been systematically deleting informations about non-Norse Germanic Heathenism (ie Anglo-Saxon and Continental branches) since as he has written at least two times in talkpages he thinks that modern Germanic Paganism must be based only on Icelandic sources. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 12:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Four more edits to talk space, no improvement to the article. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 14:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The only possible improvement to the article is the restoration of this version. Since then the article has just lost material. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 14:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you've made your position clear. I can't agree that there is "only one possible improvement" and I suspect if you think for a moment you'll recognise that was not the best argument you could have made at this point! However I'm getting fed up of talk page ping-pong so I've gone back to the article itself.

I've just made a number of additions based on your "ideal version". I hope you'll be convinced that the article with them is better than without them? My criteria for re-inclusion were (a) were they reasonably well sourced and (b)did they add something back to the article without simply bloating it. I think my main argument with the "ideal version" is that it was simply too big and over-inclusive. We had something similar with the Wicca article about 3-4 years ago when the additions to the article simply made it top heavy. The answer was to cut the main article radically to make it a broad, top-level introduction and leave the detail to sub-articles. I think that family of articles is much better as a result and we could apply the same logic here.

I'm going to apply a rule to myself from now on not to post here on the talk page unless I've either made an improvement to the article, or am suggesting one for discussion. If we all did something similar I'm sure we could work together to get this article improving. PS: I'm not trumpeting my recent re-additions as perfect! I've rather hastily cut-and-pasted from the earlier version so any sub-editing for style and content would be welcome! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 15:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Administrators' Noticeboard

Hello all, you may like to know that an editor has posted a request for intervention here under the title "Help with Germanic Neopaganism article" which other interested editors might like to know about. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 19:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I have restored most of the material that was lost over the last two months considering the deletions of unreliable sources by bloodfox and more recently by Drmies. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 22:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes you have, and no it won't stand. Read up on reliable sources, study the MOS--and next time you remove that "rewrite" tag while making it worse, I am going to report you for disruptive editing and ask for a block. Drmies (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Do not trouble yourself, I withdraw from this website. This is far too much. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 22:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much Bhlegkorbh for contributing a positive edit at the article, and for letting us know what you had done. This is very helpful so we can all see how the article evolves. I understand why you have re-inserted some of the material but I think the reason Drmies removed some of this is because of the poor/non-existent sourcing. The sections on Orminism, Asatru and Rokkatru for example have no WP:RS to support them. If they are significant (and even I know that Asatru must be so...) then we can surely find the sources. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually what I did was to restore material considering (I think this is the wrong verb) the deletions made by Drmies. I did not re-added material he deleted. See the differences. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 23:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Kim, I am conflicting with you--but my comment was much less friendly. The previous edits were unacceptable, which is why I reverted. You noted a few, but I turn your attention also to the directory of non-notable organizations they added. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 22:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Drmies, I was trying to play "good cop - bad cop" and keep Bhlegkorbh on board if s/he could only grasp our policies. But it looks like they have gone. I'm sorry, in a way, but they took the decision to take this to AN and reaped the reward of having another admin crawl all over this. Thanks for your input, I'm sure it has cleared the air helpfully. I'll work with other editors now to try and continue the improvements - all well sourced, of course! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

You can delete the list of non-notable organisation links with the exception of the oldest and most notable ones which also would deserve an article, but please consider the re-addition of contents to the article. --Bhlegkorbh ^Talk 23:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Bhleg, if you edit a contentious article, to which you have pointed the direction at a public forum, where now not one but two admins are active, by way of adding a whopping 30k of dubious information (increasing it 50%), you should not be surprised to have your edits reverted. As for lists--the rule is simple: we include groups or names if they have articles on Wikipedia. We do NOT insert URLs for the organizations, certainly not in the text, since that is exactly the kind of thing WP:NOTDIR is meant to prevent. Drmies (talk) 23:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Bhlegkorbh, I will certainly work to improve the article and where we can find well-sourced material to back it up I will certainly re-insert it. However I do think the article at its current size is about at the limit of readability, and I'd suggest any new material will need to come in at the expense of stuff that we cut. However by adding or expanding daughter articles from here I'm sure we can improve the coverage overall. If you'd reconsider your decision to leave and join us in the endeavour I'd be very pleased. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I will not leave for now. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 09:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Strmiska's Modern Paganism in World Cultures - Heathenry section

I think this study which is part of Michael Strmiska's Modern Paganism in World Cultures can be considered a good source. It contains virtually all information we need, from terminology to cosmology, and I think it could replace some not reliable sources of the previous version of the article. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 10:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

This is indeed a good source to draw from. We need the article to be based on more sources such as these. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I already posted them but I wonder if also the following studies could be considered reliable since they're fundamentally academic works.

• Paganism: Druidry and Heathenry, written by Professor Eileen Barker as a chapter of New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction (1995), published by the INFORM and the Staffordshire University.
• Introduction to Heathenism (Germanic Neo-Paganism) by Jennifer Porter, Associate Professor of Religion and Popular Culture at Memorial University of Newfoundland. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 12:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, both the above would be valid in my opinion, also any of Jenny Blain's published stuff and anything from The Pomegranate also. We should use WP:SPS as little as possible, though they can certainly be used to illustrate what groups say about themselves. Now the question is, what is missing from the article that we could use these sources to fill in? Oh, and I don't see these sources as being exclusively relevant to one particular section. As far as I'm concerned they are all discussing the wider topic of this whole article. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 12:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Professor Jennifer Porter, a Canadian academic, has been mentioned THREE times on this page. I do not know her, but she is best known for lecturing on Disney films. A syllabus.

--ThorLives (talk) 23:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that .pdf link ThorLives - I don't think it deserves to be written off merely as a lecture series on Disney films though! Reading the titles of some of the lectures (and the supporting references) it looks like she is asking her students to be very critical of the Christian assumptions in the Disney world view, the romanticisation of the "other" in Mulan and Pocahontas and so on. Looks solid enough to me. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:55, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Dr. Michael Strmiska, whom I have met, has an interesting article in a book edited by him, but the title of the article given above is wrong. The title is Asatru: Nordic paganism in Iceland and America.

Dr Strmska's unpublished dissertation is his best work, and it details the connections between Vedic and Eddaic religions. Quite fascinating! --ThorLives (talk) 00:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I was not criticizing Professor Porter. I, for one, like Conan the Barbarian films! --ThorLives (talk) 00:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The title is not wrong, Asatru: Nordic paganism in Iceland and America is just another section of Strmiska's study, focussed on Nordic Neopaganism, the movement of Asatru starting in Iceland and North America, not to be confused with the greater Germanic Neopaganism/Heathenry in which it is included. Say things as they actually are, please. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Editorial priorities

Speaking as a Wikipedia editor (and not specifically as a fellow pagan) I think there are a number of improvements we can make here. Could we agree these? I've gone ahead and made the first, which is simply to move all the material on the different subgroups to lower down the article, after the material on beliefs, blot, sumbel etc which I take to be generally applicable. It didn't make sense for me to wade through the list of groupings before I got to the information of what is this subject actually about?

The second priority for me would be to reduce the detailed, sub-group specific information and hive it off to daugfhter articles, giving us more room for top-level description here of what is common across the topic. What would other people's targets be for the next editorial improvement? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. An independent article about Theodism actually existed before it was redirected, and a separate article for Urglaawe already exists. However I think a brief text introducing each group should be present in the general article too. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 14:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

However, generally speaking Heathens put a much greater emphasis on ethnic identity rather than philosophy, and this emphasis translates itself into the various ethnic religious subgroupings (with the exception of the subgroupings which differ in methodology rather than ethnic orientation). Thus, it's a good idea to create separate articles, but I think the "subgroupings" topic should be treated ahead of the other ones. We can look at the German article: it handles the subgroupings-topic sharing them in two groups: "ethnic subgroupings" and "doctrinal subgroupings". --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 14:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Hiving off daughter articles is, in my opinion, not a good idea. Major organizations, such as the Asatru Alliance, Odinic Rite, and so forth, already have articles.

In reality, pretending thatm Odinism is somehow different from Asatru simply confuses matters. Wikipedia is basic encyclopedia for general users. We must keep articles focused and clear. This talk page does show that Odinists (again, in American English, heathen means an atheist or a drunken fool, so I am not "heathen") do clash over trivial points, but there is no reason to spread those debates around wikipedia.

May I suggest that we simply create an article on Bhlegkorbh's group? He clearly is representing someone, so let's do an article on his group to make him happy. --ThorLives (talk) 01:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Stop claiming I am part of any group, because as I have already written different times I am an independent Heathen and I'm not American at all. As demonstrated "Heathen" is used by many umbrella groups and even by the Asatru Alliance, The Troth, the Odinic Rite and the Asatru Folk Assembly, which members co-work for the Heathen Journal. What you're trying to do is impose your own point of view which is not based on the actual developments of the Heathen movement. Just see how many Heathens on this page have opposed to your generalisations. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 12:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Cut it out you two. Bhlegkorbh, your recent experiences at WP:AN should have indicated that you are expected to edit collaboratively; your most recent edit and summary were another example of your I-don't-like-it-so-I'm-reverting-everything style which is so unhelpful. ThorLives, this isn't the American Wikipedia it's the Engiish language Wikipedia. We have ample good sources indicating that Heathenism is internationally ther preferred designation for most of that ilk, as the references you deleted indicate. Your insinuations about Bhlegkorbh were unnecessary chain-yanking - which s/he sadly could not resist responding to.

Neither of you is behaving well here. There are now two admins with eyes on this page and believe me, as one of them I am now losing my patience and will happily begin formally warning for disruptive editing. Thor, stop poking Bhleg. Stop deleting any use of the word Heathen in the lede. Bhleg, stop reacting to Thor, and stop your wholesale reversions. Both of you, use this talk page to argue your cases rather than using shorthand edit summaries. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 12:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Kim, I've actually been going through the links to the various sub-sub groups and have worked on a number of them (don't ask me which--their names all sound a bit the same to me). There are good sources to be found for some, and others may have to go. It is entirely possible to increase the number of articles on those sub groups: since there is much interest in New Age as well as in right-wing religious and political extremism, there are plenty of publications. The problem with our article is that the term is also an umbrella term. The introduction should hint at that (I think it does now), describe general tenets and the history of the phenomenon, and then describe/link to the different organizations, briefly. This structure is there already (though I think history should precede rites), but right now, one of the things this article is is a trashcan, a repository for information on little-bitty groups that aren't notable enough for their own article, and thus we get lost in non-notable and trivial minutiae with a bunch of URLs to websites for references. There's some other structural concerns I have, but they are minor: I think "Aesthetics and symbolism" is nothing but a little appendix and should be incorporated somewhere else--wait, I looked at the sources and it's gone--and "Distribution of adherents" is a misnomer, since it also involves topical discussion such as the neo-nazi stuff.

  But the first thing we need, IMO (besides peace and love), is a list of hardcore, decently published academic and other publications to get the terminology straight and to help solidify the other sections, so we don't get a bunch of "this group likes whites and that group likes runes" all linked to their websites. Drmies (talk) 15:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Rewrite Needs Sandbox

Looking at this article again, I'm seeing that it's no better than it was before all of this recent discussion. Some major issues that remain:

• The article needs to be grounded entirely in academic sources (WP:REF)
• The self-published sources that currently make up the majority of the citations on the article need to be restricted to groups referring to themselves (WP:SPS)
• Tiny, minor groups are listed as if they're important and more than just a couple people on the internet (WP:NOTABILITY)
• The lead section needs to be free of links and nothing more than a simple summary of the article contents (WP:LEAD)

As I've stated before, this page needs a complete rewrite from a clean slate to achieve the above goals. Now, it has been my experience that it is much easier to rewrite an article with superior sources than spend months quibbling over someone else's mistakes or fighting over apparent agendas. There's no use in trying to "fix" anything here; the core is rotten. Throw it out. Instead, what we need are editors collaborating in a user page sandbox (Go to WP:SANDBOX and click the link in "If you have registered an account you can find or create your own user sandbox here") with the idea of producing a totally new article to supplant this one. While rewriting, it has further been my experience that it's best to stick to the Wikipedia:Good article criteria. If one wants to make a lasting article, there's no other way of going about it. That said, I can duck in and help now and then, but I have several concurrent projects going on. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Please, feel free to use this sandbox: User:Bhlegkorbh/Germanic Neopaganism. The sources listed above (in the section "Strmiska - Heathenry") are the best ones I've found about the greater movement. Regarding subgroups: Strmiska's work Modern Paganism in World Cultures has a further section studying the Asatru (Nordic Neopaganism) movement in America and Iceland; Mattias Gardell describes very well Odinism, Wotanism and Ethnocentric Asatru in his works; I guess good academic works can be found for Forn Sed too. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 17:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Bhlegkorbh, with all due respect, your sandbox is filled with the OLD article! The point is to start from scratch! To build fresh. --ThorLives (talk) 22:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

you may want to create your own homepage about our own religion instead of rewriting perfectly stable and well-developed Wikipedia articles. We don't allow the evangelicalist bible-thumpers to rewrite our articles about Christianity, so why should different rules apply to the neopagan topics? Would you prefer us to allow the evangelicalists to trash the Christianity articles and in exchange let you have your way here too? Then you are not here to build an encyclopedia, sorry. --dab (𒁳) 12:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear here, anyone—regardless of creed or origin—is "allowed" to edit any article on Wikipedia as long as they follow Wikipedia guidelines. And while I don't know who this was addressed to (and the point of it seems to require some pretext), other users should be aware that "perfectly stable" and "well-developed" are not criteria for writing decent articles; users who want to contribute should look to Wikipedia:Good article criteria—the only articles that will ever be "perfectly stable" or could be considered "well-developed" by Wikipedia standards are written to these guidelines. Much of Wikipedia remains in a poor state, but things are getting better every day, often due to simple rewrites. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Dbachmann or Bloodofox, could one of you initiate the sandbox for the reconstructed article? I think administrative prestige would help validate the new article. --ThorLives (talk) 09:36, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I would be glad to sit down and hammer this out, but I can only really invest in commenting and minor changes on Wikipedia at the moment. I'm overloaded. I can be of more help in the summer. I should also point out that I'm not an administrator, and that administrator status is irrelevant to article editing unless an administrator tool is abused during a dispute. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:13, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I am an admin and I concur with the above; the status has absolutely no bearing on editorial authority. I will not in any case be using my admin powers in respect of this article, except in the most obvious cases of (eg) IP vandalism, temporary page protection etc. In that respect I am at your service (the more knowledgable editors of the article) rather than being in any way in charge. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

But the fact remains that we still do not have a clean sandbox. Could someone make one? --ThorLives (talk) 00:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Done, new sandbox is at User:Kim Dent-Brown/Germanic Neopaganism‎. FYI, anyone can create such a page anywhere - it doesn't involve any admin powers. I suggest the talk from that page should stay here and gave created a redirect page from the sandbox talk. I'm not sure how to proceed from here; somebody needs to suggest a structure perhaps, which we can put in as a skeleton? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 12:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I will try to start with some non-controversial points....--ThorLives (talk) 21:44, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I just pulled the "beliefs" section that was in progress; it contained numerous errors and theories presented as facts—most of the material was Lindow's personal spin on things. It's important that this section is neutral, and it may be wisest to begin with describing the deities and their associations, then get into some story telling. The fact that our current article on Norse mythology is pretty bad does muddy the waters, but some time ago I began a new one (before being derailed this semester...). As it's a crucial article, it's currently my top priority on Wikipedia, and I'll get back to it when my schedule opens back up. In the mean time, you can see it in its current form here: [1]. Perhaps consider pulling material from what is there so far. :bloodofox: (talk)

I think "riddled with errors" is a bit extreme, but I must admit that Kim Dent-Brown's proposed outline is superior to what I was constructing. --ThorLives (talk) 21:03, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

No offense was intended with "riddled with errors" and I hope none was taken. We simply must be very careful. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I have just come back to this after somewhat giving it up as a bad job. I have looked at the structure in Kim Dent-Brown's sandbox and overall it looks right however I see it falling foul of some big arguments and potential bias. The difficulties will be; beliefs, gods & goddesses, afterlife and cosmology. The reason these will be contentious is that these change from modern group to group and were different by historical region and time period. However with care this should work but it will be a huge article. Noddyt (talk) 09:09, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but if we provide a simple, straight forward overview of Germanic mythology from scholarly sources I don't think it will be a problem. We can note that interpretations of the material may vary by group. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

That assumes there is a universal Germanic mythology which there is not. We have Tacitus, Saxo, Snorri and fragmented stories from the Continent and England; all have similarities and differences. It's not as though Heathenry has a core text like Christianity or Islam with only interpretations differing, each regional group has it's own regional mythology. We're an awkward lot Noddyt (talk) 22:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying here. See the Norse mythology rewrite I point to above for the sort of approach I'm talking about. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:11, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Urglaawe Page Redirected?

Hail... I noticed that the Urglaawe page is now being redirected to the Germanic Neopaganism page. However, details that were on the Urglaawe page are absent from this page. Fortunately, most of them are still present on the Pennsylvania German Wikipedia article for Urglaawe, but can we either recover the old page or incorporate the information that was in the old page? Thank you. Verzannt.15:18, 24 February 2012.

All the Urglaawe material can still be seen in the history page for that article. Selecting any two versions and pressing the 'compare versions' button will show the content. Personally I wouldn't support adding much to the Urglaawe section here; one of the things we have been trying to do is to make this page a generic one which contains material which applies equally across all forms of Germanic neopaganism. But if there is enough material on Urglaawe to justify a full article with that title (rather than a redirect) there's no reason why it couldn't be reinstated. Any editor can do this (it hasn't been deleted, which would require admin intervention.) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Importance of Swastika

I added some information, then it was removed here: 07:35, 1 April 2012‎ Dr. Günter Bechly (talk | contribs)‎ . . (67,331 bytes) (-33)‎ . . (Removed propaganda nonsense. The swastica is no primary symbol of any respectable group of heathens.) (undo)

What nonesense. Here is a little information, especially the 5 articles: http://nikarevleshy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/odinism-and-importance-of-fylfot.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThomasANeb (talk • contribs) 17:04, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Personally I don't agree with the reason for the removal (would they also claim that the swastika isn't a symbol of any respectable group of Hindus or Buddhists?) but I'd leave it out of the article unless you can cite reliable sources stating it's importance to Germanic Paganism. Total-MAdMaN (talk) 17:49, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi Total-Madman, thank you. If you go to the blogspot page it gives references. Their are even listed 4 article and a campaign by the leading and logest running Odinist organisation The Odinic Rite to show this. Hope this helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.171.141.198 (talk) 18:48, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi. As already said blogs are no good as source. The usage of the swastika by Odinic Rite does not justify the comment that the swastika is a PRIMARY symbol for Gernanic Neopaganism even more than the Mjölnir. Odinic Rite is just one organization of many, and most Heathens are not odinists. Unless you can show that the majority of Germanic and Norse Heathens and their organizations use the swastika as a PRIMARY symbol, the comment has to be deleted as factually incorrect. Fact is: The overwhelming majority of Germanic Heathens and Asatruar use the Mjölnir or Valknut as primary symbol of their faith, and not the fylflot! Again: the crucial point and reason why the sentence has to be deleted is the incorrect claim that the swastika is a PRIMARY symbol and even more important than other PRIMARY symbols like the Mjölnir. The debate is not about the question, if or if not the fylflot is respected by many heathens as a non-political symbol that was used by the historical Norse and Germanic people, because this is not disputed. However, incorrectly claiming that most modern Heathens identify with the swastika, which is after all discredited through its use by the Nazis, as THE symbol of their faith, is trying to associate Heathenry with neonazism which is simply nonsense. The percentage of Neonazi heathens is probably not bigger than that of Catholics or Protestants.--Dr. Günter Bechly (talk) 20:59, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

(Moved section to bottom of page - new comments go at end of page, not beginning). I concur that the blog is not sufficient to confirm the swastika as being of such central importance; much more reliable sources would be needed, I fear. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Just so that we're all not the same page here, while the swastika sees little use in modern Germanic Neopaganism outside of the Odinic Rite, it was one of the most common—if not the single most common—symbol employed by the pagan Germanic peoples. See Swastika (Germanic Iron Age). :bloodofox: (talk) 22:37, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

The swastika is a widely used sacred symbol in Odinist groups. Not only the Odinic Rite recognises it, but also, the American Odinist group Holy Nation of Odin. Because of it's sacred importance and meaning I think it should be added in the article under the hammer. --95.248.79.197 (talk) 07:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Explain why an user keeps deleting sources and misusing them and noone intervenes

One user keeps deleting sources calling them "redundances" and no-one intervenes. He misuses other sources _ Rimmel's book uses "Heathenism" and discusses the various independent movements "American Asatru" and "Odinism" separately, it doesn't say "there is one movement which can be called Heathenry, Asatru, Odinism or Theodism" _ and no-one intervenes. --79.54.78.122 (talk) 18:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Bhlegkorbh. I have no idea why you now make all edits without logging on; your identity is quite obvious.

As I have explained many times, I am editing for clarity. Wikipedia serves the general public. To the general public, heathen means a sinner or blasphemer. Note this "heathen" form is for atheists! see it here

--ThorLives (talk) 01:02, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The title is "Germanic Neopaganism", but the lede must specify that "Heathenism" has become an umbrella self-designation among adherents themselves and academics who have discussed the movement. As for Asatru, Odinism, etc. they're not general terms but specific kinds of Heathenry related to specific types of organisation, culture or ideology. This has been discussed many times, and the lede of the article reached the form you have recently trying to delete.--95.248.79.197 (talk) 07:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

As for Coulter's "Germanic Heathenry", his books gives way to a movement which is called "Irminenschaft", not generically "Heathenism".

The lede doesn't suggest otherwise, so you're trying to fix something that isn't broken. - SudoGhost 13:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The current lede, the one you restored, does not suggest this, it says that "Germanic Neopaganism" and "Heathenry" are the same as "Asatru", "Odinism", "Theodism", etc, and this is not true. The differences between the various branches/religions CONTAINED within GN/Heathenism are discussed in many of the academic works reported, and the term "Heathenism/ry" is always used as an umbrella term, not as a sub-denomination. "Asatruars" don't say of themselves to be "Odinists", "Odinists" don't say they are "Theodish", etc., because their approaches to the religion are different.--79.11.84.169 (talk) 16:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

This lede was that that reached a consensus, and ThorLives has recently modified to make it coincide with his personal views. --79.11.84.169 (talk) 16:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The Hjuka Coulter book, Germanic Heathenry. published in 2003, CONFIRMS MY POINT. Mr. Coulter's excellent book, which I own, uses "Germanic Heathenry" as a term to describe a type of Germanic neopaganism which focuses on the GERMAN version of the gods (not Old Norse ones). Therefore, we cannot use heathenry as a comprehensive term.

--ThorLives (talk) 21:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Coulter's book is a self-published primary source, not an academic one, so i'ts not reliable. Moreover, it has given way to a movement called IRMINENSCHAFT, not "Heathenry". Lastly, "Heathenism/ry" is used as an umbrella term by ACADEMICS! --87.4.82.13 (talk) 11:43, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a misuse of sources. You can't impose one type of terminlogy usig just one work not actually academic and not even treating the subject of the article. --87.4.82.13 (talk) 13:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I would like to see some decent elaboration on the anon's claim that

"Heathenism/ry" is used as an umbrella term by ACADEMICS!

which I understand as the claim, put in the language of Wikipedia,

"there is clear evidence that "Heathenism/ry" is the preferred WP:UCN title for this topic"

So let's see this evidence. You need to show that a clear majority of scholarly publications on the topic over the past years have shown a preference for this terminology. It isn't enough to cherry-pick a single "academic" reference and pretend that this settles the case. If you are doing this for the first time, be sure to take the time to read WP:UCN.

The problem with this terminology is the following:

• While in context (it is already clear that Germanic Neopaganism is being discussed), there is no problem with referring to it either just as "paganism", or else just as "heathenry",
• to use "Heathenry" as a denominator to be used even when the context is not clear (e.g. in a title), you are equating neopagans with Anglish linguistic purists.
• Worse than that, you are abusing the peculiarity of English having many Latinate/Germanic synonym pairs (or near-synonyms, such as pork/swine, stool/chair) by pretending that the choice of synonym determines the cultural origin of the thing discussed.
  • As it were, saying that "Gemanic paganism" should be called "heathenry" because it is Germanic is like saying that German beef should be known as cow, because it is beef from Germany, and the word beef is Latin, therefore any product from Germany clearly cannot be called beef.
  • Worse, you imply that cow from now on cannot any more be used as the name of the living animal, because the term is now used (according to you) for beef products imported from Germany.
  • This is clearly a nonsensical proposition, and if it works for "Heathenry" at all, it is just that people do not need that word on a daily basis and you are free to contort it as you like without bothering too many people, but this doesn't mean that you are "right" in doing so.

--dab (𒁳) 15:19, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Sources

Again, please do not cite books without reading them. Rommel, Gundula E., Asgard in America: Inventing European Ethnic Identity in a Post-Industrial Pluralist Culture, 2011, ISBN 978-3-640-94603-7., is actually from an M.A. thesis. The author uses Asatru 64 times, heathen 15 times, pagan 15 times.

Margot Adler, sweet lady, nice witch, but she is not an academic. Great journalist, however! --ThorLives (talk) 05:59, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Now Graham Harvey, who is a professor, edits a book in which Professor Robert J Wallis says this on the religion in question: "branch of paganism known to its practitioners variously as Heathenism, Heathenry, Odinism, Asatru ("allegiance to the gods"), or more loosely the "Northern" tradition." --ThorLives (talk) 06:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Shamanism: A Reader Graham Harvey (Editor) Routledge 2002 ISBN 0415253306 --ThorLives (talk) 06:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

You're trying to swamp this discussion again. Reliable sources have been listed different times. Drawing Down the Moon by Adler (with "Heathenism" chapter) is one of the most used sources on Pagan artcles within Wikipedia.

As for Rommel, I think you're either misusing it or you haven't read it. It's not important how many times he uses "Asatru" and "Heathenism", but HOW he uses these terms. The book uses "Heathenism" as an umbrella term alterning it with its synonymous "Germanic Paganism", then he focuses on two sub-groups of the general movement, "Odinism" (its American organizations), "American Asatru" (which is Asatru as it has developed in America) and Theodism. --87.4.82.13 (talk) 11:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Cite Rommel (2011): Chapter Community History of American Asatru. [...]Besides a few scholars whose works on contemporary neo-paganism include cursory discussions of Heathenism, only Jeffrey Kaplan and Mattias Gardell have conducted extensive research in this field and published detailed information on the most prominent Asatru organisations, history, ideology and practice [...], then he discusses the spread of Asatru and Odinism in America and emergence of the racialist and non-racialist groups, [...]Although the dividing between these camps were less distinct during the early years of the movement, the division was already perceptible in the different characters of the first two Heathen organizations to emerge in the United States in 1969-70 [...] (he discusses the Odinist Fellowship and the early Asatru Folk Assembly). [...]Meanwhile, Norse Heathen religion was independently rediscovered in England, where the Committee for the Restoration of the Odinic Rite was founded in 1973, and in Iceland by Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson, whose Asatruarfelagid was formally recognised by the government the same year [...] they have often been held up as a shining example of Heathen emancipation. Within the United States, the Heathen movement ramified to form more specialized groups such as Theodism, the Anglo-Saxon branch of Germanic Heathenry established by Garman Lord, and the Rune Gild, an esoteric order founded by Edred Thorsson in 1980 and dedicated to the mysteries of the runes [...], then he discusses the later history of AFA, [...]the other successor organization took a completely different approach to the advancement of Heathenism: For the Ring of Troth, founded in a private ceremony by Edred Thorsson and James Chisholm "with the aim of reestablishing the ancestral faith of the Germanic peoples [...].

I think this is enough to make chrystal clear what is the use Rommel makes of the different terms. --87.4.82.13 (talk) 12:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Rommel wrote an MA thesis. Also, his book thesis was written in German, and the translation is altering the text. A better translation into English would use the word "pagan."

Professor Robert J Wallis says this on the religion in question: "branch of paganism known to its practitioners variously as Heathenism, Heathenry, Odinism, Asatru ("allegiance to the gods"), or more loosely the "Northern" tradition."

Is there a reason you are not logging in? Were you banned under your user name?

--ThorLives (talk) 23:36, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

A book on Shamanism (Wallis' one) is not reliable for a specific article on Heathenism. Moreover, Wallis' definition is not right since Paganism isn't a single religion and Heathenism is not a "branch" of it. Rommel's work is the one you have inserted to support your point of view on terminology; it's a good academic work, but as I have shown through the quotes, it uses "Heathen", contrarywise to what you claimed. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 21:46, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of American Religious History - Volume 1 - Page 159 Edward L. Queen, Stephen R. Prothero, Gardiner H. Shattuck - 2009 - "Ásatrú (Odinism) Ásatrú, or Odinism, is one of the forms of neopagan religions (see NEOPAGANISM) that reemerged or were revivified in the United States (and elsewhere) during the second half of the 20th century. It also goes by the names of Heathenry and Wotanism."

--ThorLives (talk) 09:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The book is Encyclopedia of American Religious History third edition (Vol 1-3) [Hardcover] Edward L., II Queen (Editor), Stephen R. Prothero (Editor), Gardiner H., Jr. Shatuck (Editor), Martin E. Marty (Foreword) Hardcover: 1200 pages Publisher: Facts on File; 3 edition (January 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 0816066604 ISBN-13: 978-0816066605 Authors are Edward Queen (religion and philosophy, Indiana Univ.), Stephen R. Prothero (philosophy, Georgia State Univ.), and Gardiner H. Shattuck (Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island) --ThorLives (talk) 09:08, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Stop, stop, stop, stop this stupid random-sources quoting. You have been swamping this article for months. The American Encyclopedia of Religions or similar is not reliable. Reliable sources are listed above, including Rommel's one who you have proposed and then deleted just because I have proved it does not support your POV. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 20:52, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused...why is that source not reliable? Did you discuss it at WP:RSN, or is that just something you've concluded, without any explanation as to why? - SudoGhost 23:40, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

removal of racist origins of odinism

I tried to explain how odinism is related to racist ideas, but it was removed twice as "restored neutral pov". The racist references in Project Megiddo were removed in October 2011 as "corrected material".

But search "odinism" in google books, and you will find plenty of books from university press discussing odinism, and they all discuss its racist aspects and how it appeals to far-right people, and how Asatru is less racist. It's not neutral to keep silent about these matters.

I provided sources for the edit, but it keeps being reverted to an unsourced version that avoids mentioning negative aspects. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:52, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Not all Odinists are racist, although some are. One cannot call all Christians "racists" because Christian Identity is. --ThorLives (talk) 07:29, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:DUE. consider the number of scholarly sources on Christianity, relative to those discussing Christian Identity. Then consider the number of scholarly sources on Odinism, relative to those discussing racism in Odinism. The two ratios are going to differ by about six oders of magnitude, I would say.

Now, I am not one to get all excited about claims of 'racism' by some government study. The allegation of 'racism' has been abused so much for political games that resorting it it is pretty much equivalent to 'I don't like you'. But Odinism has been plagued by this for the entire duration of its existence, this isn't just about "Project Megiddo", it is also about the 1987/8 rift in American Asatru caused by the internal dispute over racism. Plus portions of pretty much any publication on the topic, ever.

--dab (𒁳) 14:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Again about the title

I think that this happening could change the result of last December's survey about the title. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 16:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Bhlegkorbh, I thought you were the vandal that was banned. --ThorLives (talk) 23:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I will not react to your provocations ThorLives. I did not mean to say that I think that you are the banned user; I simply think that the ban could affect the result of the poll, since the user voted and the poll resulted in a draw. --Bhlegkorbh (talk) 23:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There was no poll, no counting of votes and hence no draw. There was a discussion summarised here which achieved no consensus. The very full discussions elsewhere on the pros and cons of the article name illustrate that there was no possibility of a consensus for change, even with one voice more or less on either side. The proper way to argue for a title change is to use the WP:RM procedure, not to start this discussion here; however I would strongly advise against it. There has been a very recent failure to get anywhere near consensus, and there is no evidence of anyone having changed their mind. Pushing the matter now is only likely to harden attitudes, IMO. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 12:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Kim Dent-Brown, I posted below before I saw your post here.

As a compromise, since this issue is starting to remind me of the legendary golem that can be killed but still comes back every 33 years, could we keep the Germanic neopagan article as the main article and then create "heathen," Odinism, Asatru, and so forth sub-articles? I am uncomfortable with calling the whole movement "heathen," since it also means boorish, but it is obvious from our debates here that a few people like the term and feel passionate about it. --ThorLives (talk) 23:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC).

I'm finding it exceedingly interesting that some editors here appear to think they know better what to term members of the heathen community than those members do. The term used by Asatruar, Odinists, etc. is almost universally "heathen," and the umbrella term is "heathenry" or "heathenism." You will find almost no practitioners of Asatru describing themselves as "pagan." Whether YOU think it means "boorish" or whatever doesn't change the fact that the community uses it in a different way. I know you really think you know better. You don't. Stop fighting the clear and obvious choice to change the article name to the more appropriate title. Stormkith (talk) 04:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The reverse is also true: if the article were titled "Heathenry" others would find it interesting that you think you know better what to term members of the community than those members do. If there were some agreed upon name for this article's subject then this discussion wouldn't even be here. That you personally use a specific term over other terms does not carry much weight nor does it really change things; nobody is arguing that nobody identifies as "heathen", so your comment does not verify something that was previously in question. Your opinion does not become The Truth™ just because it is your opinion, because while you use one term, others use completely different terms to describe the same thing; without reliable sources showing some clear common usage of one thing over the other (which hasn't happened) your personal experience does not carry more value than others. It is "clear and obvious" to you because your personal experience knows nothing but your opinion, but your opinion is not and there's no reason your opinion would somehow make everything else meaningless. - SudoGhost 05:26, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but as a member of the community in question, I'm stating outright that you're wrong. This isn't a personal opinion. Every major Asatru group, and most Odinists, on the planet uses "heathen" almost exclusively. This includes Assembly of the Elder Troth, Irminsul Ættir, The Troth, the Asatru Alliance, and many others. "Pagan" or "neopagan" are terms we don't apply to ourselves. Call a practicing Asatruar a "pagan" and you're going to be immediately corrected. Feel free to research it a bit yourself. Focus on articles and pages actually published by members of the community, rather than outsiders who may or may not be privy to the terms in question. It's not a "few people" as ThorLives implies. He's in a very small minority of heathens that doesn't use the term. (As an aside, "Stormkith" is an accidental account; this is my ongoing Wikipedia account.) Thekithless (talk) 05:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

If it isn't a personal opinion, how is it that everyone has their own version of "right"? Why is your "I'm right" more correct than ThorLives's "I'm right"? That sounds like an opinion to me and is certainly not as clear-cut as you're making it sound, if the reliable sources are anything to go by. Unless you can provide some pretty clear evidence for those claims, it is most certainly your opinion and not an indisputable fact. There have been a few requested moves for this article, but nobody was able to provide any references or evidence for any clear usage of any one term over any others, other than what basically boils down to "I use this term and everyone I know does too, so everyone uses it." I have no doubt that you use the word heathenry, and that people you know also use the term. I also have no doubt that ThorLives uses whatever it is he uses, and that people he knows use that term. I don't think there is any one prevalent term, otherwise I think a few years of discussion would have uncovered it by now, and if it were as "clear and obvious" then there wouldn't be any question nor would there be at least two failed requested moves. - SudoGhost 06:44, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Thekithless is right. The terminology troubles generated by a minority of users, against the majority of users who intervened and the sources provided (see sections below) in favor of "Heathen", are just hindering the proper development of this article.--79.10.80.178 (talk) 12:11, 23 June 2013 (UTC)