[00:00:01] Due to the themes of this podcast, listener discretion is advised. Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies.

[00:00:27] Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics, and intrigue. This podcast is produced and hosted by Chris Carr. On today's podcast, I'm joined by author and researcher Ross Downing, and we discuss his book Germanic and Slavic Paganism, Security Threats and Resiliency, which examines how paganism connects in both Russian and Ukrainian culture. It also looks at the role pagan extremism plays in Russia's war on Ukraine.

[00:00:54] On this episode, we have a visual section which will be exclusive for YouTube, and we'll be looking at the pagan symbols used by Russian and Ukrainian forces. So those listening to the audio-only version may want to join us on YouTube for that section. I hope you find this episode interesting. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Take care. The opinions expressed by guests on Secrets and Spies do not necessarily represent those of the producers and sponsors of this podcast.

[00:01:36] Ross, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you on. Cheers. Good to be here. We're going to talk about your book Germanic and Slavic Paganism, Security Threats and Resiliency. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about what motivated you to create this book. It's quite a niche topic. And then what conversations you hoped it would spark? As you say, it is very niche. So the conversations we wanted to spark really was to draw attention to the fact that this isn't just about the religions themselves,

[00:02:03] but about the fact that it ties into a lot of the kind of worrying and disorientating social and geopolitical issues that we've got going on in the last, certainly the last 15 years. Right. So my motivation was that I was asked to do it by Inform, which is a UK non-profit educational charity. I don't represent them.

[00:02:31] So I encourage people to look them up themselves so that I don't misrepresent what they are. But my understanding of what they are and what they do is that they were set up in the 80s with funding from parliament to be a scientific, sociological resource for understanding new religious movements or specifically minority groups.

[00:03:03] So the whole remit of Inform is to mitigate social harms either to minority religions or from minority religions. So they have an educational remit, which is in part what the book is an extension of to help educate people that these minority religions are often in part full of normies, normal people,

[00:03:28] but that there is something about them that is either associated with or there's a wing of that religious movement that is harmful. So that's what Inform is about. And amongst the many things that they do, they've released about two dozen academic books over the years. I think it was mainly on Routledge.

[00:03:51] Last year they started a new series on Bloomsbury, which I believe the new series is called Religion at the Boundaries. And the first one was about sociology and the second one, sorry, not sociology, Scientology. It's a big difference. Yes. You don't want to get those two big stuff. Although they probably see those two things as similar. But yeah, my book is the second and that came out December, January now.

[00:04:21] And it's focused on two related religions, neo-pagan religions, and we can get onto what they are a little bit later.

[00:04:30] But yeah, so my objective there is to, as is in the subtitle there, to look at what the actual security threats are and to also come to some kind of conclusion about how we can make these non-extremist majorities of these religions more resilient to infiltration, appropriation, that kind of thing. Yeah. And how's the book been received so far?

[00:04:55] Generally pretty good. But because as you say, it's a niche subject, it's, it's got less traction than I think is if, as if we would have done it just about neo-Nazism, for instance, because the focus is on the religious aspect and inform is a, is a educational research body focused on religions. So by its nature, if you're looking at minority religions, you're going to have probably a minority impact.

[00:05:19] But what we try to push out in the, in the book is that this issue that comes up in the book with security threats is much larger than the religious groups themselves. But we can get onto that perhaps in a, in a little bit.

[00:05:38] Yeah, no, indeed. Well, thank you for that. So for listeners unfamiliar with contemporary paganisms, predominantly Germanic and Slavic inspired ones, how would you describe what they are today and what distinguishes them from older pagan revivals? Okay, well, that's probably three, two or three questions.

[00:05:58] So to briefly summarize two religions. Um, well, well, firstly, if we say that they're not a religion, so generally speaking, the majority of people will see neo-paganism as a single religion, but they're not. Um, neo-paganism is a type of religion or what we call in, in academia, religiosity.

[00:06:21] So you could also say it's not necessarily just about religion. It's also about a kind of spirituality or identifying with a certain kind of way of living, a way of being. So, um, the, the two religions, the reason why we put, if we were just, just to examine, if it was, okay, let me put it this way.

[00:06:43] If it wasn't for the war in Ukraine, we would have just focused on Germanic neo-paganism because of the domestic issues that have been around since, yeah, since the 1930s and 40s. But what, what we have to do because of the remit of inform is to deliver something that is extremely up to date. Um, and what we were seeing was that there was now a gap in academia in that there's been so much focus on the Germanic aspects.

[00:07:12] Um, sorry, the Germanic neo-paganism and its relationship with neo-Nazism that it missed all the stuff that's been going on because of the war. And this is now we're getting to geopolitics. So Slavic neo-paganism is rampant in Russian special forces and security services. And it has been for a long time. Um, and that's possibly because of its relationship with ethno-nationalism.

[00:07:38] Um, it's also the same religion is also, is also very much at the forefront of the best known military formations in, in Ukraine. So the, what's now called the Azov movement, which is kind of broader than the, the Azov units, which I think is now a brigade. It's where it started off as a, as a minor detachment and became a battalion and regiment, et cetera. But now it's a full on brigade. A lot of them, or at least the core group were far right Slavic pagans.

[00:08:07] And so in Slavic paganism, which is almost entirely only exists in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland. So the Slavic countries, if you like, there's a, a very important element to that, which borrows from Germanic neo-paganism and neo-Nazism, which has always been, had this relationship with neo, Germanic neo-paganism.

[00:08:35] So it's been impossible for us to disassociate those two religions. And also because of the, the lessons that the Russian state has learned by handling and having, just generally having domestic experiences with far right neo-paganism in its own country.

[00:08:54] It's used those lessons to inform and shape its weaponization of narratives and different disinformation on right-wing populism and right-wing extremism in the West. Yeah, because I remember, I remember when the Euro maiden protests were going on, there was a lot of Russian propaganda claiming that the Ukrainians were far right and neo-Nazis. And even in the buildup to the recent war as well, that they were sort of doing that. So is this all kind of connected to that?

[00:09:22] It is, and it's quite unpopular for, for, for reasonable motivations to say that the Ukrainians have some issues with neo-Nazism. It's much more complicated than just saying that. Um, and obviously to, to say that would reinforce the Putin regime disinformation campaign that, that focuses on denazification.

[00:09:52] And one of, I think one of the reasons why they, they, they Russians latched onto this narrative of denazification was because the, the major group was this Azov that was pushing for nationalist, um, detachment from Russian imperialism was this neo-Nazi or right-wing nationalist movement called the Azov movement.

[00:10:13] And they also became, um, a lot of neo-pagans and they were also at the tip of the spear in the Mariupol defense in the steelworks there. So the Russians decided, I think if they, if they can focus on breaking the Azov unit, then they've, they've potentially broken the, the Ukrainian defense and we can therefore denazify them.

[00:10:40] But there's like, it also gets a little bit complicated because the word, the, the, the, the Russia, as I understand that, I'm not an expert on Russian language, but from my understanding of what I've reports that I've read, the term for Nazi in the Russian, in Russian narratives is basically just anyone that is an opponent to, to Russia. It's like the, it's almost like we would use the word like terrorist to, to say anybody that is against, um, the establishment.

[00:11:04] In Russia as well, like with Putin and, and, um, Putinism, he seems to be kind of co-opting the Russian Orthodox church. And I was just wondering how that kind of relates into all of this. Yeah. There's this, the, the biggest, he's, he has to, you know, um, walk a fine line there because he's dependent on what we call the ROC, the Russian Orthodox church.

[00:11:27] Um, so there is reports, there are reports, uh, not least from Ukrainian, um, security analysis, not all state run. A lot of them have been, um, private sector. Um, and one of the guys that did one of those major reports is actually a contributor in the book.

[00:11:47] Um, that specifies, goes into detail about the way the Russian state used the ROC as a kind of espionage and, and psyops, um, propaganda machinery in Ukraine. Uh, for the last few decades, but also obviously it was a major concern for the Ukrainians when they, they realized they had to dismantle that whole infrastructure after 2022.

[00:12:16] Um, so the ROC line is that the, it's very ethno nationalist and it's very, it's, it's also, it's very similar to Christian nationalism in States actually. So traditional values, anti-abortion, anti-homosexuals, um, very much of based on the, the idea of Slavic Eastern European blood.

[00:12:46] Also supremacy over ethnic minorities in what was the former Soviet union, which is now the Russian Federation. And by extension, therefore the Russian Orthodox church and race really should have hegemony over, uh, Ukraine and even really the Baltic States.

[00:13:05] So some listeners might be familiar with a ideologue called Alexander Dugan, who is, or he's kind of like the Steve Bannon of, uh, for Putin. He's, he's an extremist who is also a philosopher and academic like Steve Bannon.

[00:13:23] Um, and he, he, he's laid out books since the nineties where he, he also goes into a great deal of emphasis about the, about Neo-Paganism or rather what Neo-Pagan ties, Paganism ties into, which is these cultural heritage, heritage narratives where blood and land and traditional values are tied into, um, kind of natural religion.

[00:13:50] But you also get this, this odd kind of, I wouldn't say it's hypocrisy, but it's almost like a cognitive dissonance where they, they have to acknowledge traditional Christianity at the same time as they acknowledge this Neo-Paganism. So you see that in Anders Braevik as well. He had to, to juggle that. It is, it is, and people won't be familiar with his manifesto, but I am.

[00:14:15] And he, he, he, he's very much focused on Templars and Christianity and everything, but he's since now, and there was a lot of paganism in there, but now he's full on anti-Christian and very pagan. He's full on pagan. So there's a bit of a progression there. Um, but all of these things are on a spectrum and they don't really make a hell of a lot of what you might say, rational sense or logic a lot of the time.

[00:14:43] But yeah, so, so to be, to reduce this to a, to a basic answer. Yeah. The Russian Orthodox church is in there and it has a difficult relationship with Neo-Paganism. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. So your book covers, uh, pagan presence on both sides of the Ukraine war. What have you found out about how pagan narratives are used or mobilized either in support of democracy or authoritarianism? Yeah. This is another potentially provocative, uh, thing to say.

[00:15:12] Ukraine is going through a process of Westernization. There are probably less Neo-Nazis that are involved in Neo-Pagan ideas now in the male population. There are two reasons for that. One is that a lot of them are getting killed. And another reason is that they, uh, they have a, they have more Western troops or multi-ethnic foreign fighters in their units. Um, and we've seen that progress as well.

[00:15:41] So maybe like at the beginning of the war and in the earlier parts of the war, after the, after the Crimean phase of the war, you had these Neo-Nazi units like the Azov, um, battalion as it was then. But kind of Neo-Nazis, but they also had their best mate in the photos was a Muslim guy that got recruited or joined from Chechnya or Syria. So there was like, we were wondering like, what, what's going on here?

[00:16:09] So I think what we saw, there was a process, a progress where we are now, as you say, the, there's a big motivation now for these former Neo-Nazis or kind of semi-Neo-Nazis to be more democratic. Mm-hmm.

[00:16:26] And what will not, I think, get, disappear from these guys is the ethno-nationalism aspect, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be rampant Nazis. But I think what we're going to see, however the war goes is that you will not be able to take the extremism out of these guys.

[00:16:48] And the reason for that is, is what I was saying before about cosmic thinking is the term we use in academia. So for the Ukrainians, this is a war of existential survival. And it's very easy for them to see Ukraine as a sacred ideal. The actual territory is sacred.

[00:17:12] And when you get into that territory, it's very, very difficult, difficult to, to remove that from your ideology.

[00:17:21] So unless Russia completely cedes all of its territory, there's no way, in my view, that we're, we're not going to have an issue with pagan influence and extremists or militants and actual pagan extremist militant units, which is what we've got now. And I think that's a popular idea. It works. It really motivates a lot of these soldiers.

[00:17:49] And that's, so that means that it's likely to continue. The, the Russian aspect is a, is a little bit more complicated because it's, well, it's perhaps not completely complicated. It's just, it's just the inverse from the Ukrainian aspect. So it's about aggression. It's about superiority. It's about imperialism. It's about saying that we have a right to Ukraine and we are the, we are the true inheritors of the Kiev Rus.

[00:18:16] So Kiev Rus is the pagan, uh, state that was formed in the middle ages by Scandinavian Vikings who settled in Kiev and mixed with the Slavs. And that is why Slavic neo-paganism has this strong geo, neo-pagan, Germanic neo-pagan element to it. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. When Putin had his chat with Tucker Carlson, he started by saying, I'm just going to correct you there for two minutes.

[00:18:46] And then he had a monologue for about half an hour. Very Putin. And he put a, very Putin. And he's, the first part of that was all about paganism, the move to Christianity and all about Kiev Rus and about how Ukraine is a borderland to the Rus state of Russia.

[00:19:03] So as I said, you, you've got a lot of these ethno nationalists and pagan extremists in the Russian special forces, in security services, in the intelligence apparatus, because it lent the warrior ideal of paganism lends itself quite strongly to defending my people, defending my land, my heritage, all of that kind of stuff. So it's, it's, it's a very good motivational force for, for warfare and for fighting.

[00:19:32] And that's what we see, see play out, um, in the, the Wagner PMC group. Um, Wagner group takes its name from the original commander of the unit. Um, his name was Utkin and his call sign is, his kind of code name was Wagner because he was a Nazi. So he had that, that relationship with, you know, Wagner and operas and, and flight with the Valkyries and Nazis and stuff.

[00:20:00] So he had a Nazi tattoo and he, he called himself Rodnoveri, um, uh, back religiously. So he was a Slavic pagan. So he was very, he very much encouraged all the commanders of the units to be Rodnoveri, to be Slavic pagans and neo-Nazis.

[00:20:17] So, um, they, the Wagner group was at the spearhead of the Russian side and they were fighting against the Azov units, which were also ex-Neo-Nazis, well, neo-Nazis, semi-Neo-Nazis, progress, progressing neo-Nazis and also neo-Pagans. So as I said before, you get this kind of sense of a war, a holy war against heretics on both sides.

[00:20:41] We've touched upon this a bit, but how does pagan identity function differently in Ukraine compared to Russia, especially given their shared but diverging Slavic cultural history? Not much different. I would say the, the war has shaped things a little bit like we talked about the social media to extremes. So as, as you mentioned before, you've got the Russian Orthodox Church is extremely powerful in Russia on a social and cultural level.

[00:21:09] So Russian people are perhaps not entirely empathetic or sympathetic to Russian neo-Paganism. They, but they are probably aware of it and they probably aware that it's, it's fairly big because, because news reports and because Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church has also made public statements about that. That they see this problem of Pagans in, in the security and defense apparatus.

[00:21:38] In Ukraine, it's quite a different story and in Poland and to some degree Belarus. But certainly if we look at the Ukrainian situation, the relationship of the common people and media, etc. And the way they see neo-Pagans has been exacerbated by the war. But it, that, that relationship still also exists in Poland a little bit.

[00:22:04] And perhaps there's also been an, that's also been affected by the sense that the war, you know, the war is on our doorstep. But the, the concept in Ukraine of the common people is that neo-Pagans are kind of torchbearers of our cultural history, sorry, cultural heritage and our narratives and our identity. So there's a lot of empathy for neo-Pagans and neo-Paganism.

[00:22:25] They're not seen so much as weirdos and eccentrics and they're not pushed out of, they're not considered as pariahs in the same way as perhaps they, neo-Pagans have been seen in, in, in modern history in Europe, in Western Europe. Yeah. Yeah. Because when you talk about Pagans, a lot of people think of the Wicker Man or something and it's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:51] And I, and I think that was to some extent, possibly the way neo-Pagans were seen in Ukraine in the nineties. But in Ukraine, they really loved their folk culture and their folklore and their folk dresses and their folk music and their folk festivals. So when you've got neo-Pagans doing their little ritual at the folk festival for the common Ukrainians, like, yeah, good. At least somebody is keeping the old religion alive.

[00:23:20] And now I'm going to go off and drink beer and watch this folk band in the, in the marquee. So it becomes, as I said before, part of the, the spectrum of cultural heritage narratives. As in Ukraine, it's much more accepted than it is in, in Russia. Thank you for that. Well, let's take a break and be right back with more.

[00:23:52] So with regards to paganism, why do you think the traditions are so often misunderstood or misrepresented, whether it's in media or in policy circles? There isn't much of a policy perspective on this at all. There's no real need. There hasn't been seen any need to yet. Probably because they, they see neo-Pagans as kind of hippies.

[00:24:18] So not real, or I think the closest they get to, to having created, created any social issues was the, their association with, um, new age travelers in the past. When neo-paganism occurs as a security threat, as a part of neo-Nazism, it's not understood as neo-Paganism. It's perceived as, as just really part of neo-Nazism.

[00:24:39] And that's something that I'm, my, my network is, is really trying to educate people in security studies and practitioners and policy and also academia on. It's that we're actually dealing, dealing with what I think we could call pagan extremism. So in the same way as jihadists don't represent all of Islam, they are still Islamic extremists. They're still part of the spectrum of the religious ideology. Yeah.

[00:25:09] We have this problem in the West though, that we define right-wing extremism by its very definition, by the name as political. So as soon as you see anything spiritual in there, whether it's religion, whether it's Christian or, or paganism, you just kind of cognitively disassociate that and then say, well, that's not spiritual. They're, they're, they're, they're a political movement.

[00:25:31] And that's, that's led to a lot of misses, misdiagnoses in tracing a lot of these extremists because they often also focus specifically, they camouflage their, their hatred in religious and spiritual language. One of the themes that stood out is how the, these paganisms sort of reflect wider social anxieties about sort of land, belonging and history. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? I would, I would, I would go back to what I've just said about it lying on spectrum really.

[00:26:00] So, and also what I said about how it ties together with these geopolitical events that we've seen in these, this, this sense that there's something happening in, certainly in the West. In domestic policy.

[00:26:15] And certainly when you see it reflected in, you know, top politicians, world politicians, like Vance, when he literally addresses the Western security infrastructure as saying, you have a problem, domestic problem with values and immigration. So I'd say that neo-paganism lies on a spectrum of what I call cultural heritage narratives.

[00:26:45] So neo-paganism are part of that spectrum, but also the appeal of, of these narratives about who am I, who belongs in my country, what makes us our country and what is right to, what is the right state for our country to be in.

[00:27:09] Is, is, is based on these kind of romantic ideas that aren't really based on history or knowledge. They're based on feelings and sentiment. And it's those same narratives, those same, um, not quite fantasies, but romantic imagery that, that inspire neo-pagans.

[00:27:36] So to extend this a little bit further, one thing we see in is that there's a, there's a, there's a theory or a model that when a social group sees itself to be going through existential threats, they tend to split off from some of the institutional ideology and start talking about things in terms of heresy. So that they have this special knowledge.

[00:28:06] And, uh, if only people to listen to them, they could correct the cosmos. So we have this term in academia about cosmic thinking or cosmic warfare, where people see the entire entire, their entire worldview, society, gay rights, immigration, um, uh, economic inequality.

[00:28:31] All of that gets reduced to this semi-religious ethno-nationalism. And when you look at jihad, very rarely is it a theological, purely theological and spiritual issue. It's generally tied into socioeconomics, into immigration, colonialization, globalization. Um, ethno-nationalism is a big one and organized crime.

[00:28:59] There's very few Islamic extremists that are experts in Islamic theology. And this is where this, this issue with neo-pagansman neo-Nazi comes in is there's a lot of feeling. There's a lot of romantic ideas about who we are and what is right. And then that informs people's sense of, of righteousness in, in, in basically being hateful or at least being socially divisive.

[00:29:29] Yeah. Thank you for that. You also write about the persistence of warrior archetypes, especially in Germanic and Slavic traditions. Um, how is this image being used and sometimes abused in far-right narratives? I'll unfairly pick you up from what you said there because it, people do say this and it, and it's a, it's misleading. You said traditions. These aren't, these aren't traditions. These are completely modern inventions. These two, these, all neo-paganisms are modern inventions.

[00:29:56] But you, you're right in, in what you were saying there that they, all neo-paganisms are intended to be a kind of revival. That's how they see themselves. Germanic and Slavic neo-paganisms are attached to this trope at its core, a romantic trope that we are kind of Viking pagan warriors.

[00:30:25] And to, to contrast that with other neo-paganisms that came before. So the two big ones was Druids, um, these, these, and Wicca. So both Druid, Druids and Wicca kind of shaped people's prejudices about what neo-paganism is. So Druidry was kind of ethno-nationalistic in that it emerged from mainly from the Celtic regions of Britain in the 1800s.

[00:30:50] But there was a big focus on ritual and slightly older middle class and upper middle class guys, you know, beards and educations and antiquarianism and Celtic mysticism. So it wasn't really an ethno-nationalism that was aggressive. It wasn't like a, you know, a real hatred for the Englishman. It was more, you know, getting back to our roots and Merlin and King Arthur and that kind of stuff.

[00:31:15] So even today, Celtic neo-paganism doesn't have much brave heart in it. It's, it's more, it's more Merlin and Stonehenge, right? And it was very much informed by or shaped by Freemasonry or the aesthetics of Freemasonry. Wicca emerged in the forties in the UK and its trope rather than Merlin was very feminine.

[00:31:39] And this idea of, we've been oppressed for centuries by the patriarchy and we've been misunderstood as Satanists, but it's not black magic. It's actually green magic or white magic. And it's not, it's not magic. It's folk medicine and things like that.

[00:32:00] And Wicca really got exported globally and was very popular because of its emphasis on, on witches, on feminism. It became very popular amongst, you know, goth girls. And, you know, that, that, that image of the pentagram, which is, is the, one of the core images of Wicca has shaped what people think paganism is. Having nineties flashbacks. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Showing your age there, mate. Exactly.

[00:32:29] So, um, Germanic neopengenism has exploded globally now. It's kind of eclipsed, eclipsed Wicca on the global stage, um, because of the internet. And as, as, as you rightly say that the, the, the, the trope there, the differences, it's not romantic mysticism. It's not feminine, introverted, sensual spirituality and crystals and things and scented candles. It's a warrior archetype. It's a warrior archetype.

[00:32:58] Now the majority of, of Germanic neopagans and even Slavic neopagans are not hateful. They're inclusive and they are, they believe in democratic values. But the earliest forms of Germanic and Slavic neopaganisms were grounded, generally speaking in the thirties amongst ethno-nationalists, amongst neo-Nazis basically. And therefore they've inherited a lot of the ideological baggage.

[00:33:25] So even though they're constantly trying to purge neo-Nazis from their ranks, it's that challenge is, is, is a, is bigger than the sum of its, of its parts as a community. And that's something we get to in the conclusion of the book, really. Um, the, so the main issue is if you've got a religion that's focused on a trope of, of warrior hood and even the mainstream version of your religion focuses on ancestry and nature.

[00:33:54] And as a religion, you don't really have a clergy. You don't have a, um, written canon. You don't have Bible. Um, you're leaving yourself wide open for ancestry and nature to become about blood and soil. And the warrior thing is not just you being somebody who has pride and honor and takes care of your family and, and, you know, helps a granny across the road.

[00:34:22] It also can lean quite strongly, easily get manipulated into, we have to defend our nation from Muslims and woke. And that's where, where we are today. Yes. Interesting. You bring that last bit up about, uh, what we can things. I was just like, I was thinking about the American frontier mythology that seems to be becoming increasingly popular in sort of far right circles in the United States. I was wondering if there's any sort of relationship. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:49] And as I said, these things get all mixed together and that's because of the internet really. Um, that's what, what is the, the, the danger of, of the algorithm as you might, might call it as if there's one algorithm that seems to be, you know, polarizing, you know, Western society. Um, and, and radicalizing us really that's, that's what it does. So as part of that, I mean, QAnon is a classic example of how everything got mishmashed.

[00:35:17] So one of the terms that goes around in, uh, in academia is con spirituality. So it's a spin, spirituality based on conspiracy theories.

[00:35:26] So as I said, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll get this mix of, you know, paganism, anti-abortion, anti-vaccine, anti-COVID, anti-Zionist, anti-elites, anti-capitalism, anti-pollution, um, crusader mentality, uh, even a little bit of, um, trans-exclusionary radical feminism in there.

[00:35:52] Um, so that's kind of probably where maybe, maybe J.K. Rowling has got radicalized from being fairly normal run of the mill and a democratic progressive feminist and now being almost conspiratorial and the stuff that she comes out with. And it's possibly even why Musk has ended up the way he has as well. Yeah. It's very interesting that, and it's, um, I was just thinking it's sort of like the, it's magpie ideology stroke spiritualism really, isn't it?

[00:36:19] People sort of just take a bit of everything and mish mash it as their own personal flavor of things. Yeah, but I mean, the Nazis were doing that as well, right? I mean, um, neo-Nazism has had a much greater emphasis on neo-paganism and occultism and things like that. But if you look at neo-na, sorry, Nazism itself, yes, there was a very important relationship with neo-paganism.

[00:36:42] Um, as neo-paganism existed, it was still very, very young at the time, but there's also, and probably even more than neo-paganism, it was very much informed by Christianity. Um, so even the Nazis and certainly neo-Nazis, you know, it's this hodgepodge of, of things that from the outside seem to be very, uh, contradictory.

[00:37:05] And you, now we're in a different stage as well with, with populism where to call it far right extremism is a misdome because it's almost mainstream. So is it, is it, is it realistic to call this stuff extremism anymore? Is it realistic to call it far right? And is it even right wing when you've got like gay divisions and Sikh divisions and Jewish divisions in the English defense league?

[00:37:35] So what unites them is anti-Islam. So you've got a new wave. The new right isn't really like the neo-Nazis, which has this conspiracy of Judaism, um, or, or I should say Zionists that are controlling the world. And they, a lot of it is, um, it's just, let's get the Muslims out.

[00:37:56] And, and we live in a democratic society, you know, so Jews are accepted as long as they're Westernized in a, in a, in our democratic society, but there's no room for the woke and there's no room for, for Muslims. That's, that's their rhetoric around. In your book, you explore the distinctions between individuals who are politically right wing, racist or radical, but note they're not all the same as we've sort of just been discussing. So how common or easy is it for someone with right wing interests to be radicalized within the pagan community?

[00:38:25] I suppose it's a simple case of mathematics now. So if you've got more people interested in paganism and you've got more people interested in anti-establishment and anti-immigration politics, you are going to have a much statistically higher chance of people having that overlap. That's the quick answer. So deviate slightly.

[00:38:52] I want to bring something up, which listeners might find quite central and applicable to a lot of things that you talk about on your, on your podcast. When we talk about these social anxieties, right. In term, in response to things like Margo. It's, it's unpopular to talk about this, but this is the reason why we've got the, the polarization and the extremism.

[00:39:16] I think the majority of people recognize that, that are legitimate concerns amongst what is traditionally called, called the far right. And because of the polarization effect, instead of the, the kind of what used to be the centrist discussion of, okay, well, let's look at this question of, of immigration. Let's have a reasonable discussion.

[00:39:44] Instead, we have to, what used to be called up until maybe five minutes ago, virtue, virtue signaling where the center, certainly the more progressive and liberal parts of society in politics and media have felt pushed to say, we absolutely cannot have that discussion. And that, all that has done is, as empowered groups like Alternative for Deutschland and certainly Margo.

[00:40:15] And you've got very odd cases now in, in, well, not just in, we, we saw the reason why Trump came to power is because he got a lot of the so-called ethnic minority vote. That's what pushed it over. So you've got, certainly in Europe, this is not really talked about in the mainstream media. I sound like Trump, the mainstream media.

[00:40:36] It's, it's not popular to talk about the fact that a lot of the people that are voting for these anti-immigration parties are immigrants because a lot of them come from conservative religious and social backgrounds. They have very conservative values. They wanted to get away from a lot of these problems of ethno-nationalism or rather things that challenge their ethno-nationalism in their country and instability. And they wanted to have the freedom to practice their conservative religion.

[00:41:04] And then they look at, say, ethnic minority gangsters, things like that on the street and say, well, we don't want anything with them. Get rid of them. And so, so maybe as a, as a white person, you might think, well, hang on, what's going on there? That doesn't make any sense. So a lot of, my point is that a lot of these things that we used to consider to be classic neo-Nazism are now got, there's question marks over everything.

[00:41:27] And it's, it's very difficult to, to say, um, well, neo-pagans are more likely to become neo-Nazis than anybody else. Because for a start, well, what is a neo-Nazi? And for a start, you know, when you look at the, that guy who mowed people down in Magdeburg, he wasn't a white supremacist, but he had white supremacist rhetoric, but he was an ex-Muslim. And that's where we are now.

[00:41:55] We're at this very, very complicated picture, which almost reflects the kind of ideas and symbols and concerns that it, that makes up the internet. It's just reflection of these short, sharp shocks we're getting all the time online. Well, yeah. What role does social media play in spreading and reinforcing these more harmful ideas? And does it accelerate the path to radicalization and, you know, through a distortion of pagan beliefs? Absolutely. It's everything. It's, it's absolutely everything.

[00:42:23] The growth of neo-paganism, if we go back to that, rather than, you know, talking about general geopolitics and social politics in neo-paganism, they're, they've exploded demographically because, um, of social media. So it allows people who are more isolated, what would have been isolated in the nineties to now talk to people and integrate with people, share ideas and ideologies. And quite a lot of neo-pagans are still geographically isolated.

[00:42:52] They, there are no neo-pagans in their area. So the only way they can feel part of a neo-pagan community is online. And as I said, the, the problem with neo-paganism, certainly the, the Germanic and the Slavic is that there isn't any vetted clergy. They're not trained. There isn't any canon.

[00:43:11] Um, and it's, it's very much an innovation rather than being focused on, on academic expertise, academic knowledge about the old religion, which it bases itself on. So that leaves it very, very vulnerable to bad actors that have a political agenda.

[00:43:29] And as I said, because these two religions were grounded, were founded in ethno-nationalism and fascism, they don't, a lot of the inclusive pagans that are acting out this, these, these discourses on social media, they don't even realize that a lot of the core tenets that they have in their religion are leftovers from, from fascist ideas. Hmm. Hmm. So it's very, very problematic.

[00:43:58] And then on the neo-Nazi or, or the pagan extremist side, they actively use things like runes and pagan rhetoric to hide and disguise and recruit in broad, in broad daylight.

[00:44:15] And that, for a security studies perspective, makes things very difficult because then you need to have a knowledge specialist like me to come in because you, the question would be, okay, are we dealing with pagans or are we dealing with, with racism? And my answer would be, we're dealing with both. And you need to move away from the emphasis on politics and instead see this as a, like I said, this cultural heritage narrative spectrum. Thank you for that. Well, let's take a break and be right back with more.

[00:44:58] So, um, is there a danger that well-meaning or culturally motivated pagan groups might inadvertently echo or enable nationalist extremism, especially in the wartime setting? When you say wartime setting, do you mean, are you talking about people that are in the war zone? Or... Yeah. Yeah. Or also people looking at the war as well, I suppose. Yeah. Well, we had a really interesting situation.

[00:45:23] If we, if we look at the Germanic side then, and by that I mean the Western pagan community, which was, which is much larger than the Slavic one, because as I said, the Slavic one is mainly demographically in the, in the Slavic countries. You had this really interesting situation with the far right pagans after 2014 because the Azov movement became quite, um, publicized.

[00:45:51] And the Russian disinformation campaign was also pointing to the Azov movement saying, oh, look, the, the independence movement in Ukraine is, is neo-Nazi pagans. You had a lot of neo-Nazi pagans in the West going, oh, we should really support the Ukrainians. After the 2022 campaign invasion, there's been a massive switch.

[00:46:16] So now you've got the far right is almost entirely pro, pro Putin. And they see Ukraine as puppets to Zionists and all that kind of, you know, conspiracy theory stuff.

[00:46:30] Neo-pagans, the majority of Western neo-pagans, certainly Germanic ones that, that push out neo-Nazis and very hyper aware of, of these anti, um, democratic values and voices in their own community. They're constantly on the lookout and trying to push these individuals out and police them. Not very successful, I should say, but, um, they're trying to do that. It's it.

[00:46:56] One of the flag red flags there is if people start talking about Russia as, as maybe what were they going to do because NATO was provoking them. If you see that in some of the forums on social media, mainstream Western pagans will go, ah, hang on. We've got a problem here. Um, in the Slavic countries, again, you've got that polarization.

[00:47:23] Um, so you've got Poland, Polish pagans and Ukrainian pagans on one side who are becoming more ethno nationalistic, but not, as I say, not necessarily anti establishment. Mm. Um, the read that's complicated. So the reason why is because there's much more sympathy now in Eastern Europe as in the Westernized elements of Eastern Europe. So Poland and Ukraine for the establishment.

[00:47:53] So ethno nationalists up until five minutes ago, um, and, and certainly, as I say, in Western Europe are very much against the institutions, against the establishment. In Eastern Europe, ethno nationalists and neo-Nazis tend to be pro government, pro NATO and anti Russian.

[00:48:17] So there is a difficult sense that the mainstream pagans, which was to get to your point to answer your question in Eastern Europe, Poland, Ukraine, there is a difficult sense that the mainstream pagans there are perhaps more open to ethno nationalism.

[00:48:41] Because they feel the sense of defense and they're under cosmic threat. If you like, they sit by that. I also mean that they see like Russian disinformation campaigns, vans come into their country and telling them that they're all lunatics for being anti, you know, for not being anti immigration enough, all that kind of stuff.

[00:49:03] So they, mainstream neo-pagans are reflecting mainstream anxieties. In the West, the danger of neo-pagans becoming mainstream neo-pagans becoming radicalized comes generally speaking from Russian disinformation campaigns. So that's where we are.

[00:49:59] Same thing as I say to anybody really is that we have to question the algorithm. So social media is ruining us. It's absolutely ruining us. And for every day, there are new forms of extremism that are coming out that are challenging security studies to redefine and re-advise policy makers on what the hell we should be doing.

[00:50:29] How do we re-categorize certain types of extremism? So one of the current ones that seems to be hot for the press is the incel movement. And that's perhaps because of the Netflix miniseries that got people talking.

[00:50:48] And even in incel and gamer culture, subcultures, discourses, there is, again, these eco-fascist, anti-COVID, pagan symbolism. A lot of those things are going on.

[00:51:08] So my advice to people that are empathetic or sympathetic to pagans or are mainstream pagans would be to seriously educate yourself on social media literacy. That applies to wolves. Oh, yeah, totally.

[00:51:30] I mean, I've witnessed uncles who identify as a Christian who are relatively well-meaning but end up sharing memes that are connected to the EDL or something. And you're like, oh, my goodness. What's going on? And I don't think they're aware of it. But they kind of like whatever the meme's about, but they don't realize the kind of the baggage it draws with it. Yeah, a lot of people fall for that, sadly.

[00:51:57] Well, one thing I'd be interested to talk about is this sort of divide between folkish and inclusive. And how does that split play out on the ground? Yeah, if you could talk just a bit about that. So fundamentally, that's what's going on when we talk about these confusions in these neo-pagan movements and these infiltrations about the far right.

[00:52:20] So not to give a massive history lecture, but folkish, the word folkish is common certainly in Germanic neo-paganism. It's not used so much in the Slavic countries because it's a Germanic word, but the idea still exists. And the English word folkish comes from the German word volkish.

[00:52:44] And volkish exists in or emerged in national romanticism in Germany and became a central part of the Nazi regime ideology. And that idea is blood and soil. So that there's an almost kind of metaphysical spiritual relationship between my national, ethno-nationalism basically.

[00:53:09] So my race, my folk, or my volk is intimately connected to the states, the nation, and the land. And that exists now in neo-paganism by virtue of the fact that it was there since the beginning, since the inception of Germanic and Slavic neo-paganisms.

[00:53:33] Mainstream neo-pagans in those two religions, and I'd say mainstream neo-pagans in all the different mythologies and all the different branches and religions of neo-paganism, are inclusive. So they reflect probably the same, similar values as the majority of the societies where they exist. And that is, you know, no problem with gays. Women should have abortion rights.

[00:54:01] And, you know, the right to same equal pay as men. You know, all that kind of stuff. Not to go into too much detail, but that kind of stuff. So where that plays out on the ground is, if you say to people in the community, well, you can be Germanic pagan. They use the term heathen or as a true.

[00:54:26] You can be heathen if you're from Singapore, but you should really look at your own people. That's the folkish theology. Now, within that folkish rhetoric, you've got a spectrum of people that will accept people of color and sexual and gender minorities in the community,

[00:54:55] but still think that, the blood and soil thing. And then you've got, towards the other end of the spectrum, which is based on that they are full-on neo-Nazis, and they will not accept, they will, on social media and face-to-face, they will physically mop people of sexual, gender, and ethnic minorities when they come to these groups.

[00:55:22] Sorry, enter these social media groups or in real-life rituals and things like that. And so what are some of the practical steps that could be taken, whether it be by educators, policymakers, or faith leaders, to sort of challenge this growing extremism linked to pagan ideals? It has to be two-sided.

[00:55:42] It has to be a policy and infrastructure concern. And by that I mean, when I say infrastructure, I mean everything to do with the establishment.

[00:56:00] So, you know, everything from NGOs, more established religions like the C of E, the Anglican Church, the state church apparatus, media, all of that needs to be more involved with the mainstream neo-pagan concerns.

[00:56:20] But what we found, we gave about, I think it was like nine steps, nine conclusions or suggestions for changes and resolutions in order to reinforce resiliency in these communities. Out of those nine, six of them lay the impetus on the neo-pagan communities.

[00:56:42] And I think that if neo-pagans see these guidelines, they might be a little bit peed off about that and feel it's some kind of attack. Obviously, that is not the intention. The intention is literally to help them survive these social harms, prejudice, and infiltration from these far-right ideologies.

[00:57:08] The reason why it should be a concern for policy and for media and society is if neo-pagans can offer people that are interested in white identity, cultural heritage narratives, who are stressed about immigration, about the loss of traditional values,

[00:57:30] if they can offer them a democratic community that still fulfills spiritual needs by giving them a sense of belonging and a relationship with nature, that doesn't involve hate speech and conspiracy theories and that kind of stuff, then that's great. That's probably going to be one of our solutions, right? So policy needs to pursue that.

[00:57:57] But it can't do that because there is no infrastructure in the neo-pagan communities. They're not fully organized. They don't have physical temples. They don't have trained clergy. They don't really have spokesmen. They do rituals in all different places in the country, a lot of them embarrassed about their religion. So people don't generally talk about it in the workplace, all of that kind of stuff.

[00:58:27] Now, mainstream media has actually been really, really good, I'd say, in the West about representing and showcasing mainstream neo-paganism. Certainly the last 15 years, the majority of articles have been really good. They've highlighted this issue of neo-pagans are perhaps a little bit eccentric, but they're not racist.

[00:58:53] And they have this problem that they're being misunderstood and infiltrated as racist. And more needs to be done. So media is really actually quite on board. But neo-pagans, as I mentioned earlier, and this is a conclusion that we come to in the book, and that will piss off neo-pagans, is that I don't think, and all the contributors in the book say this, not all of them, majority of them do,

[00:59:20] are of the opinion that neo-pagans have tried to solve their own problems, and they can't. They've tried for decades. And it's great that they're trying, but the problem is bigger than the sum of their parts. And therefore, they need to have help from outside. They need to seek support from academia in order to create a more coherent and resilient theology.

[00:59:47] And they also need to have PR support and organizational guidance from established religions that have been doing it for 2,000 years. Yeah. You know? But they don't. They're terrified. Neo-pagans are terrified of going down that route of the corruption and the institution and the oppression of the Anglican and Catholic churches. They don't want to do that.

[01:00:15] So that's why things aren't going to change. Yeah. One random bonus question I just thought of. You have to pay extra for that. So have you seen any connection with environmentalism and environmental activism and a rise of, should we say, these sort of pagan ideals and the neo-Nazi pagan ideals? Yeah.

[01:00:40] And more research needs to be done on that because where it occurs, it's not clear. It's not clearly, I should say, it's not clearly defined. So there is a whole body of study in security studies on the far right that looks at something called eco-fascism. So Ted Kaczynski was inspired by neo-paganism.

[01:01:10] And there's elements of that in Andrew Breivig's manifesto. Classic neo-Nazis also use some of this eco-fascist imagery in a lot of their memes and stuff.

[01:01:28] So the sense is, in the real, you know, hardcore neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic elements of the new rights, the alt rights, they see the establishment and the Zionist people cabal that's controlling the world as destroying the environment. Yeah.

[01:01:58] So that needs to be overturned and we need to go back to traditional gender roles. And, you know, everybody has a little farm and the, you know, the whole country is re-greened and liberated from Zionists and homosexuals and Muslims and all that. That's basically the kind of conspiracy ideology. And you see that in anti-capitalist circles too.

[01:02:28] I've sort of seen that kind of weird hark to this past that I'm sure a lot of people actually wouldn't want. Yeah. Yeah. You know, hospitals are a good thing generally. Yeah. So, yeah. You know, if you want to be able to get Kiwis in winter, then you need globalization. So, but as I said, because of the algorithm, these things are getting more and more bundled together

[01:02:53] and really in ways that I think mainstream society or the general public are kind of surprised at because it seems to challenge classic neo-Nazism. But that's not, you know, it isn't neo-Nazism anymore. It's populism. It's a significant minority of the population that votes compared to perhaps the majority

[01:03:23] of the population that is apathetic and democratic and progressive that doesn't vote. And that's why we've got the rise of the far right or whatever we are now going to call it, the far right, the cultural heritage fanatics, whatever you want to call it. Well, one big question, I suppose. Have you seen examples of pagan communities actively resisting or pushing against this sort of far right co-option? Oh, 100%.

[01:03:51] I mean, that's been there since the 90s, really. But certainly there's an academic who's actually one of the contributors to the book. It focuses on American heathens, so Germanic neo-pagans in America. And she used the phrase or the term hyper-aware.

[01:04:15] So that's a sophisticated way of saying that neo-pagans are bloody terrified and extremely stressed out about the far right extremists in their ranks. And it's to the point now, because of, as I say, also because of the algorithm, polarizing algorithm,

[01:04:35] these fears have motivated online discourse in neo-paganism so that a significant more, some research should be done, really, to do discourse analysis. You know, look at the data of how many, how much of the content, online content, is expressing these fears.

[01:04:54] So rather than discussing and developing theology and ethics and positive things and talking about deities and spirituality, a lot of it is them constantly fundamentally saying, we're not Nazis, we're not Nazis, we're not... To each other. That's how much of an issue it is.

[01:05:16] But as I said, the problem is that for at least 35 years, they've been trying and failing to purge their ranks. Some of the actions that they've done have been more effective than others.

[01:05:34] But it's never going to work enough until our entire society can undermine the appeal of neo-paganism to these cultural heritage extremists. Yeah. Well, you've shown that paganism could both be a tool of exclusion and of healing, depending on who's using it and how.

[01:06:00] Do you think it could have a constructive role in the post-war recovery and cultural restoration in Ukraine or elsewhere? As is, neo-paganism, inclusive neo-paganism, cannot undermine and resolve the issues of ethno-nationalist extremism and neo-Nazism, etc. in the West, as is.

[01:06:28] If there's going to be a healing, it won't be a healing. It will be a massive de-radicalization process that will take decades that will require a whole policy investment and an infrastructural and organizational game changer in the neo-pagan communities, which I don't think they are motivated to do because they're allergic to that on ideological grounds.

[01:06:55] In Ukraine, definitely, there's... And one of the chapters in the book mentions that quite heavily. Two chapters in the book mention that quite heavily. That there's likely to be a healing emphasis on folk identity and folk culture and the relationship with nature and land, even ethnicity and cultural heritage. That can definitely be done in Ukraine.

[01:07:25] But, as I said, the problem, as far as I can see, and is not being talked about in security studies, is that we've got a lot of guys that have this cosmic thinking and cosmic war mentality, who are also going to be traumatized and potentially pissed off by whatever resolution looks like it's coming from the war,

[01:07:53] because it doesn't look like it's going to be in Ukraine's favor. So, where does that leave them? Giving them narratives about, you know, just get back to nature and enjoy, you know, a folk music festival, etc. That isn't going to stop them wanting to reclaim the Holy Land, if you see what I mean.

[01:08:20] So, there is one Ukrainian, at least one Ukrainian scholar called Denis Brylov, who specifies this in at least one of his reports, saying that these guys make for absolutely, you know, phenomenal defenders of our country because they are defending the Holy Land. But they're going to be a real barrier to any kind of peace building initiative.

[01:08:48] You've mentioned the algorithm a few times. So, are there any recommendations for social media companies, etc., and how they can improve things? Probably not via a soundbite now. But I would want to be more directly involved with that policy change.

[01:09:09] And I'm involved in a network where I coordinate these specialists in these religions and concerns and ideas, and we are trying to get this message out. I mean, the book is part of that, and that's something that I inform identified. That's why they were quite keen to develop this into a book. We need to get this push out into the discourse and policy much more.

[01:09:38] And certainly in the UK, the private sector is an essential part in change in legislation, and also watchdogging, radicalization, extremism, polarization, etc. So, there needs to be a policy change in the private sector and in legislation and in government, civil service, basically. But that was our conclusion in the book, that in order to do that,

[01:10:08] we need to be able to interact and interface with the neo-pagan communities. But the neo-pagan communities don't have any resources for us to do that, even if we wanted to. What would you most like scholars, journalists, or even listeners to take away from this book? Well, two things, really. One is pagan extremism, so that we need to see...

[01:10:31] My message to policy and practitioners and academics is to see the far-right political category as actually on the spectrum of religiosity. So, my network is pushing this term pagan extremism. I think that would allow us, A, to identify a lot of these extremist ideas,

[01:10:58] and B, to analyze them, and then C, once we understand them, how they work and can spot them, we can also work on prevention. The other message I would say, and perhaps more to a non-academic and non-policy audience, would be to see neo-pagans as one element of not as on a fringe of society,

[01:11:27] but as part of society, really. And that the reason they get drawn into neo-paganism, what attracts them, is the same reason you might watch the Vikings TV series. There is this cultural heritage narrative that we all have that defines us and how we feel about our country and how we navigate the future.

[01:11:54] And by that I mean when we're beset by challenges and questions in policy, politics, culture, media, Vance, J.D. Vance, or whatever, it asks us to dig into these abstract ideas about identity and heritage and culture and land and all of that.

[01:12:18] So I would urge people to question and to perhaps formulate what they actually think about those things. And if they are interested in it, pick up a university book about history. Don't Google Viking paganism and then take from some fluffy or potentially political website and get your information from there.

[01:12:47] Generally speaking, as I say, social media has an issue where it doesn't promote accurate information. It promotes feelings. And we need to get away from feeling. Well, is there anything else I'd like to add before we wrap up today that's important to you that we might have missed? No, really. And if anything, I'd just like to say what an awesome, no sounds cheesy, but what an awesome podcast you've got. I think you guys are doing really, really good content. It's good quality.

[01:13:13] And yeah, I look forward to seeing the episode after mine. So I wonder what you're going to do next. There's always some good stuff. Thank you. Where can listeners find out more about you, your work and this excellent book? The book, they can Google. It's on Bloomsbury, Amazon, all those kinds of things. As for me, I mean, I'm not marketing. I'm not selling. I don't make any money out of the book.

[01:13:41] This was an academic and educational endeavor for me. The people who would be interested in me, policy, practitioners, stakeholders, academics, they know where to find me. And we can have conversations about challenging and overturning the status quo of ideas and interpreting ideology as it stands. Brilliant.

[01:14:09] Well, thank you very much for your time today, Ross. I really enjoyed this. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:14:46] Thanks for listening. This is Secrets and Spies.