Where did all this Odinism come from? In the US it developed from a Danish woman who moved to Canada after World War II named Else Christensen (1913–2005). As a young woman she became involved with the National Socialist Worker’s Party of Denmark (DNSAP) as an anarcho-syndicalist.
Christensen believed that Jews control the Western socio-political establishment, and felt that this would prevent the growth of any explicitly political movement to spread racial consciousness among those she deemed to be Aryan. Instead, she believed that Heathenry – a Pagan religion that she termed “Odinism” – represented the best way of spreading this racial consciousness. In 1969, Christensen and her husband founded a group called The Odinist Fellowship” Wikipedia
Christensen befriended James K Warner, a member of the American Nazi Party and one time Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Warner had believed he could unite the white race behind the religion of Odinism but quit after a lack of interest. He gave Christensen his documents and writings. Later he “converted” to Christianity forming the New Christian Crusade Church. This was a Christian Identity Church; one that asserts white people, not Jews, are the true people favored by God. After the publication of Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, Identity ministers like Warner used it as support that the Jews were not God’s chosen people, with no claim to the land in Palestine.
Christensen took Warner’s collection and started manufacturing her own Odinism. In 1969 she started her first church, The Odinist Fellowship in Florida. She toured the country promoting Odinism and started her own magazine called The Odinist.
“A number of The Odinist’s readers wrote letters to the magazine expressing disapproval of what they perceived as the editors’ support of Nazism, to which Christensen publicly responded that such accusations were “the cheapest of all shots that can be aimed against anyone who finds something positive to say about … National Socialism … or who merely desires some degree of objectivity in dealing with this grossly maligned movement.” Wikipedia
In 1993 Christensen was arrested, tried, and sentenced to five years, four months imprisonment for trafficking marijuana and heroin. She denied involvement saying she was an “unwitting mule” and the drugs had been planted in her car without her knowledge. She put forth effort to recruit members from prisons and became known as the “Grand Mother” or “Folk Mother” by Odinists.
Christensen had a great importance on the formation of modern Paganism in Spain, in recognition within the Odinist orthodoxy the Spanish Odinist Circle, which became the Comunidad Odinista de España-Asatru, that got official acceptance in 2010, i.e., full recognition and equality with other faiths recognized by the Spanish state, was considered by her followers in Spain as “Mother Folk”. The day of her death is an official day of worship in the Odinist faith in Spain WIkipedia
“You cannot repeat the mistake that Hitler made [of explicitly attacking the Jews] … Everybody knows that the Jews rule the whole damned world, so you cannot fight their combined power. You need to watch your step.” – Else Christensen
Else Christensen died in 2013 at her home on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
It’s interesting to note how Christensen adapted a pagan religion while Warner adapted the Christian religion for the same purpose; the propagation of racist, anti government groups in the US.
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