Originally Posted by
Green Arrow
A lot of people get their knowledge of the Norse pantheon from the Eddas written by Snorri Sturluson, a 12th century Norwegian scholar. Sturluson was a Christian in the early days and believed that the Norse pantheon were once great kings and generals of Norway, or other high-profile individuals. Once those individuals died, their memory lived on throughout history in the tales of their exploits, until eventually they became revered as gods.
Obviously, I disagree with that idea. A mere man who died and that was that could not speak to us in the ways I and my fellow Asatruar have heard and felt. It is possible, however, that the gods and goddesses WERE once mere mortals, but I'll explain that with the next point.
Our basic dogma is that there is a great, divine energy that is all around us and part of every thing in the universe. That divine energy is beyond our understanding. We believe that this energy affects us, and that we affect it. The divine energy expresses itself to us through the gods and goddesses. It is possible, then, for Snorri Sturluson's theory to be partially correct. The divine energy may have taken special men and women throughout our history and gave them the powers of the divine, and thus they now serve as our gods and goddesses.
Who can say for sure?
Beyond that, there is no specific holy book outside of the Voluspa and the Havamal, among others. Our practices and laws are based mostly on historical tradition. If you go to asatru.org, they actually have copies of the Havamal and Voluspa that you can read. They aren't terribly long and are in the poetic verse.
We meet in our Kindreds, and once a year all the Kindreds meet in what is called the Althing. The Althing is the overall Asatru governing council, where we set our bylaws and such. Outside of the Kindreds and Althing, we practice in our own homes. We have shrines to the gods in our homes, with particular importance put on our patron god or goddesss.