Theodism: Elegant Simplicity
by Travis Thegn
Theodism is a movement dedicated to the study and revival of the tribal religion of the ancient Germanic people. The Anglo-Saxon word Þéodisc is an adjective meaning "of a people." The word Þéod meaning "a people" or "a tribe." The word geleáfe means "belief" or "faith." Þéodisc geleáfe literally means the "belief of the people" or "belief of the tribe."
The term "Germanic" refers to people that spoke a language reconstructed by linguists called Proto-Germanic. The people who spoke this early language eventually broke up into groups whose descendants today speak languages such as English, Dutch, German, Icelandic or Swedish. Some well known examples of historic Germanic people are the Anglo-Saxons, Frisians, Goths, Vikings and Franks. These various Germanic peoples had material, linguistic, ethical and spiritual cultures that can be said to have the same origins and are quite similar in most ways. Sweartfenn Theod studies and follows the customs of the heathen Anglo-Saxon people.
The contempary reawakening of the "belief of the tribe" is about thirty years old. In the late seventies a group was created to revive the religion of the heathen Anglo-Saxons. This small group became the first modern theod. A man known as Garman Lord continued over the years to innovate and improve Theodism with the help of many others. Through serious study of anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, Indo-European cultures and the rigorous application of what was learned, Theodism became more and more authentically Germanic. As new things were learned certain practices were taken up and others set aside. The work and dedication of Theodish folk over the years has resulted in an orthopraxic religion that is simple in form but deals with complex issues with great versatility and beauty.
In the first decade and a half of Theodism, the basic hierarchal structure in use today emerged. In the early 90's the Gering Theod was formed by Garman Lord and a few others. During this period, the Gering Theod enjoyed a great deal of rapid growth. Theodism also became better known to adherents of other types of Germanic Heathenry. As Theodism grew larger, more theods were formed and became part of what was known as the Winland Rice. Due to a number of factors, the Winland Rice slowly faded and eventually dissolved. Several former members of the Winland Rice have created their own theods and continue the work that Garman began. Sweartfenn Theod is one of these.
We say that Theodism is tribal but what does that mean exactly? It is our contention that religion, in general, is tribal and communal. This means that the religion itself is contained within the worldview of a people and their culture. When tribal people worship their gods, it is almost always done communally; they worshiped together as a group. Worship was performed as a whole and the tribe was thought of as a single entity. They did not see themselves as individuals worshiping the gods together but as a tribe worshiping the gods.
In folk religions, the spiritual is part of everything that a particular people does. This was true for the ancient arch-heathen folk whom we look to for the basis of all we do. When they sowed and reaped the crops, when they chose a new king, when they selected sites for homes and when they made war; all these things had the thread of their understanding of the divine and the sacred at its traditional foundation. It is clear to us that the ancient arch-heathens did not have a "religion" in the same way we think of religion today. What they had was a culture with a spirituality and religiosity built in. This tribal and communal practice helped to create group solidarity and maintain the harmony and strength of the tribe without recourse to written law or elaborate systems of governance.
What we would think of as separate aspects of life, government, religion, family life were all one thing. Every part of life was interwoven as one fabric. You can trace a single thread through a fabric but it is part of the whole fabric. Without other threads there is not a whole cloth. When all the threads are woven into a single piece of cloth it lends strength to the whole with each thread still retaining its own distinctiveness. This is how we view our religion. It is part of who we are, every moment of everyday. It informs everything we do and how we do it. Each part of our lives is connected and strengthened by every other part and can be viewed as a healthy holistic way of being. The theod is also encapsulated in this metaphore. Each member of the theod is connected to the whole and is strengthened by the whole but is distinctive. The theod is strengthened by each member but is a whole entity that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The gods we worship are the same gods that were worshiped by the Vikings with whom you may be more familiar. These gods are known by their Norse names as Odin, Thor, Tyr, Heimdall and many others. We use the Anglo-Saxon names for these gods such as Woden and Thunor. It is very important to understand that the reason why we worship our ancestral gods and the manner that we worship them is not in order to gain anything ourselves. The gods are generous in many ways. We can never repay them gift for gift for their generosity. We are not specifically seeking out some sort of spiritual experience or enlightenment by virtue of our rites and practices. We are worshiping the gods because they are worthy of worship. Our heathen ancestors had a relationship with the gods and we seek to reforge those bonds with the gods of our people.
Our primary purpose, in coming together as a Theod, is to worship the gods that were worshiped by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in a manner that is consistent with how they worshipped. Our intention is that we worship the gods as they were accustomed to being worshiped in ancient times. In order to successfully give our offerings there are many things that have to be achieved before performing such worship. The appropriate roles of each member of the theod are set down and understood by each of us; we come together in friendship and have relationships with one another that are reciprocal in nature. All of this and more is done so that at the point that we come together as a single group, a single entity before the gods, that we are focused entirely on them and honoring them as part of our reciprocal relationship with them. We honor and give offerings to our ancestors and the spirits that live on the land and in the home. We also honor ancestors and Germanic cultural heros in communal settings such as the drinking rituals symble and gebierscip.
In A Case for Orthopraxy, Wulfgaest Hlaford discusses how there are correct ways to perform certain rituals and to give offerings to the gods. The form our rituals take is based on our study and contemplation of what we loosely call "lore." "The Lore" is primary written sources from ancient times, studying information learned by archeologists, folklorists and Germanic language scholars that tell us about the culture and the religious practices of the ancients. We also use other more abstract and theoretical disciplines such as anthropology and comparative religion in our work to understand how and why the arch-heathens practiced sacral observances. We make it a point to study the culture as a whole to keep these practices in context. Context is key in understanding the arch-heathen worldview. If one looks at the lore from a modern viewpoint then certain practices seem to make no sense. When considering these practices in terms that the ancients understood them, they become intelligible and even obvious. This is not an easy process by any means. It takes years of introspection and disciplined work to comprehend the ancients on their own terms. By looking at things that, on the surface, seem very mundane like what sorts of food were grown and how they built their dwellings we can begin to understand the culture as a whole and thus achieve a greater understanding of the spiritual thread in particular.
Theodism has a hierarchal structure that is based on the ancient social structure. There were three primary classes in the social structure in Germanic heathen society. The highest of these is what most modern people would think of as the aristocratic nobility. These were the eorls and their thegns who were rulers and warriors. There was a lower class of free men called ceorls and then a slave class (thralls) known as theowes. Each caste had reciprocal responsibilities to those above them and to those below them. There was some degree of social mobility in ancient heathen society. One could be released from or work their way out of slavery and become a freedman. It was not unusual for a freeman to become a slave in order to pay off a debt. Ceorls could become thegns and thegns could become eorls. This social mobility depended on ones social standing based on the value of their deeds and the reputation they gained by those deeds.
In the Theodish movement each tribe has its own approach to how they implement these classes called arrung but generally resemble the following pattern. There is a lord or lady who leads the theod and stands at the pinnacle of the hierarchy. The lord has a group of individuals sworn to assist in the performance of blot and other important functions. These oath bound individuals are called thanes. Thanes may serve many different functions within the theod. Both the lord/lady and the thegns have a number of responsibilities to fulfill within the theod and are oathbound to do so. They are dedicated to the well being of the theod as a whole and work to instruct and improve the worth of those individuals in their charge. Next come the churls who are the rank and file members of the theod who also have certain responsibilities though these are largely self defined. While churls do have some of the responsibilities implicit in being free members of the theod they are able to decide how they wish to contribute to the theod and how much of their time they want expend in the service of their lord and theod. Churls may be raised to the arrung of thane if they work hard on behalf of the theod and are worthy. Below the churl is the thrall. The article Radical Acculturation describes how to become a thrall and what that means in greater detail. The thrall is a person who desires to join the theod but does not yet know all the thews of the theod and has not proven themselves worthy to have "freedom" within theod.
It is important to note that the lord of a theod is a "sacral" lord. That is, the lord is duty bound to officiate or perform certain rituals on behalf of the theod. Through their ritual acts of blot on the behalf of the tribe they establish, maintain and protect the relationship the tribe has with the gods. The theod must be seen here as a whole with the lord being the bridge or connection between the gods and tribe. That means the lord is the embodiment of the tribe in a single person. They are the container and the protector of the luck and mægen of the tribe. This does not mean that individuals within the theod do not or cannot have individual observances and relationships with the gods. Since Theodism is a communal religion, we are mostly unconcerned with the individual ritual practices one may observe in their own home.
The theod, as do all types of community, must have rules for proper conduct both in the performance of sacred rites but also in social conduct between each other and with those outside of the theod. In Theodism, these "rules" are unwritten. We call them thew which is an Anglo-Saxon word for "custom." Thew functions in much the same way certain sorts of courtesy and custom function in any culture or society. For example, every culture has its own particular way of greeting others that are particular to that culture. Every culture has certain taboos, that though unwritten, are understood by the members of that culture. Certain things are impolite to talk about in public, one wears black to funerals and white to weddings and so on are all examples of custom that you may be familiar with. These things exist within Theodism as thew. Thew is an effective way of maintaining harmony and well-being of the theod.
Thew is simple to understand and elegant in handling very complex and difficult situations. Once one learns and begins to implement the tribe's thew in their lives it becomes easy to spot instances where thew has been broken within the theod and compensation of some sort is due by the person breaking thew. Thew is applied to all in the theod, from the lord down to the churl. The only people in the theod not bound by thew is the thrall. The thrall does not yet know thew and is not yet brought into a place where he or she can effect the luck of the tribe in any significant way. In many ways, thew is representative of Theodism as whole. It is simple, elegant and beautiful in its form and structure. It is simple to understand, once you are acculturated to it, but very versatile and deep in its implications.
I hope that you have gained a foundation for understanding what Theodism is. Often Theodism is much like many other things in life; hard to define but you know it when you see it. We seek to worship the gods in a way that would be recognizable to the arch-heathens. Our practice is tribal and communal. We seek to be as authentic in that practice as possible by the apprehension of the cultural identity of the ancients and the way they viewed the world as well as the way they lived in it. We worship and honor the Ese, the Wen, our ancestors, the spirits of the land and the hearth. We work to improve the well being of our families and our theod. We function in a hierarchal structure with reciprocal relationships where those in leadership functions have responsibilities to those below them and those above. Finally, we are bound by custom and tradition to the ways of our ancestors and the ways of our theod that are dynamic and flexible in a world that seems to be always changing. We are heathens living in the modern world, not modern people being heathen.