Metagenetics

[Bathilde]

What the hell is metagenetics? Someone please explain it to me.

[Bathilde]

LOL I guess no one can.

[Aelfgar]

Sorry Anna, I didn't see this post for some reason until now. There is an good explanation of metagenetics (IMO) in the e-book "The Rune Primer" by Sweyn Plowwright available through Rune-net. Steve McNallen coined the phrase in The Runestone in 1986.Here is the excerpt from it:

The essence of the theory is that each race has a genetic disposition toward its ancestral religious beliefs and practices.[McNallen] even posits DNA as a repository for a kind of race memory that he identifies with Jung's "collective unconscious". Indeed the theory is pretty much what Jung stated in some early works, that each race has it's own collective unconscious, and that to adopt the mythos of another race is harmful to the psyche. McNallen merely adds the genetic pseudo-science to make it sound more up to date.

As an aside, I highly recommend this book.

[JeffSinger]

It is an Absolutly unfounded pseudoscience essentially making the claim that religion and temperment are genetically determined at birth (though it is possible general temperment might be effected by Genes to an extent i.e. "He's got his fathers fire"). The claim is every race has a religion it is naturally drawn to and only people from that genetic line will be able to truly grasp said religion and only one with a certain blood can "hear the call of the gods.". They say there is a "Christian" gene a "heathen" gene ect ect and anyone not following their ancestreal religion is either lost or fooling themselves.

It's pretty moronic because something like religion cannot be controlled by genetic predisposition especially since human DNA has been developing and evolving since before religion. It's also stupid because Heathenism hasn't been around since the dawn of European man, there were other religions in Europe before Heathenism (Granted Heathenism evolved from these religions) and Christianity and Islam and Hinduism were not always in existence either, so one back then could say anyone not following semetic paganism (Middle eastern Heathenism before Judaism) was fooling themselves because they converted to the new faith of Judaism or layer Christianity/Islam.

It is nothing more than an idiotic and literally MADE UP (By someone who is not a geneticist basing his work off of other non-geneticists) idea and it is nothing more than closest racism masquerading as science and cultural awareness (Making people aware of their own folkways). It's just a way for people who are to scared to out and out tell non-whites we don't want you. Personally I always recommend one check out their ancestreal religion first but I personally don't care if anyone wants to be a heathen as long as they are truly dedicated.

MG sickens me especially because McNallen acts as if it's real and that our ancestors understood it, it's racist UPG.

[JeffSinger]

sorry Layer is Later*

Btw heres the link to McNallens Runsestone.org article and an excerpt from an article i found (and think is pretty solid) when i googled "Is Stephen McNallen a racist?"

Link to Runstone.org: http://runestone.org/about-asatru/artic ... etics.html

(Here is another article from runsetone by McNallen as well, it really gives you an idea of what a retard and paranoid xenephobe and closest racist he is)

http://runestone.org/about-asatru/artic ... hwest.html

^ that was is particularly stupid and racist

Here is the excerpt from the article which can be found here

http://www.uppsalaonline.com/uppsala/racism.htm

"2)Honestly confused Folkists who have a bad view of science or philosophy that leads them to conclusions that are in effect racist even though they honestly don't think so. Examples of this are those people who honestly do think that genetic science says that a person's thoughts and beliefs are genetically determined, when it in fact says no such thing. (There is no evidence of this at all. Most scientists believe a person's thoughts and beliefs are largely derived from childhood cultural indoctrination influenced in some indeterminable way by genetic inclinations in one vague direction or another, such as a tendency to get angry easily, or a tendency towards depression.) The most public example of this type of Folkist is Steve McNallen and his AFA, with their "science" of metagenetics. Unfortunately in the modern world, many people are exposed to science trivia in magazines and on TV and get erroneous impressions that they think actually reflect modern scientific understanding. This type is usually quite adamant in claiming they are not racist, and often gets highly offended when someone tries to point out how their beliefs may be termed as such.

4)History contains several examples that run counter to the Folkish belief. This includes things the ancient heathens themselves did. Ibn Fadhlan, the Arab, was allowed into religious rites. So was Tacitus' father. Irish slaves in Iceland, as well as Slavic, Finnish, and Sami slaves elsewhere are clearly shown, over and over again, as taking part in Norse culture, including Norse religion. Examples of this include the rites of Nerthus, in which slaves played a prominent part. (While the race of the slaves is not recorded, slaves were very often from other races than their captors, captured in raids, and not often of people from the captors race, a practice most ancient heathens considered shameful.) Indeed, such slaves often became integrated into the culture fully, as the Irish slaves did in Iceland. In fact, Icelandic law insisted that slaves take on Icelandic names immediately upon coming to Iceland. Norse slaves (again, who were most often foreigners, people of other races) were often freed after a time, and then took an equal place in society.

Norsemen, when travelling afar, often took part in the religious rituals of the lands they travelled to, such as is found in the example of prime-signing, where travelling heathens took part in Christian ritual without renouncing their native gods. If the ancient heathens thought every bloodline had its own gods that should be stuck to exclusively, then why did they engage in this practice? Similarly Radbod the Frisian, an Asatru hero, was going to take baptism to honor his friends' gods (until a Christian priest said something stupid).

Mythology too contains potent counterarguments to the Folkish viewpoint. Most notable is Odin. He seeks everywhere for wisdom and knowledge. He looks all over the world of humans. He looks amongst the alfs, and the gods, and even the jotuns. If true Asatru-ish wisdom is found only in certain bloodlines, then why does Odin do this? There is also the matter of Loki, who is a jotun yet is, according to the Prose Edda, has a divine nature. Thor's sons, Magni and Modi, were mothered by the giantess Jarnsaxa, yet they are not only considered divine despite their impure blood, they are considered so divine and mighty that they will take up Thor's hammer after Ragnarok, and become the defenders of men and gods alike. If the ancient heathens considered genetics to be all-important in determining both worth and religious inclination, why would this be so? And going back to the issue to slaves as foreigners again, the Lay of Harbarth implies that slaves have a place in the heathen afterlife, which implies that non Norsemen could have a place in the afterlife. The Lay of Rig gives a divine origin to the race of slaves, and again by implication to foreigners.

5)The genetic arguments of both the first two types of Folkists have other flaws as well. The best known proponent of the religious-genetic theory of Folkism is, perhaps, Steve McNallen, with his pseudo-science of metagenetics. I call it a pseudo-science because he bases it upon an extremely tenuous foundation and then goes way out on a limb. His primary sources for claiming proof that behavior of all sorts (therefore including religious predisposition) are genetically determined are Dr. J. B. Rhine, an ESP researcher at Duke University (not a geneticist and, by most professional scientists' standards, not even a real scientist of any sort), Dr. Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia studying reincarnation (again, neither a geneticist nor a reputable scientist), a particular and, IMO incorrect, interpretation of C.G. Jung's work (also not a geneticist), and Dr. Daniel G. Freedman, a behavioral psychologist from the university of Chicago (still not a geneticist). From the claims made by his interpretation of these scientists' work, he claims unequivocal proof that there are such profound inborn differences between the various races that no one would even dream of thinking the psychology of other races applied to whites (and vice versa).

But looking at his theory of metagenetics in an honest scientific manner, it simply does not hold water. For one thing, not a single one of the people he cites as references has the least expertise in the field of genetics. Dr. Rhine's work can be dismissed as irrelevant outright, for the field of ESP is of dubious value scientifically, and certainly no standards exist for drawing upon research from ESP experiments and applying them to genetics. Dr. Stevenson's work is similarly not applicable to this issue, for there is no question (aside from the lunatic fringe of pseudo-science) that the concept of reincarnation has been in any fashion proven scientifically. Indeed, Mr. McNallen twists even the reincarnation lore he does possess in order to force it to fit his assumptions about race. He states definitively that in Norse lore reincarnation is seen as occuring exclusively along the family line. But as any scholar of Norse mythology and folklore knows, there is insufficient evidence to even claim they had a belief in reincarnation at all. There are (sometimes fierce) debates about this fact both in modern Asatru and in scholarly circles. So to not only claim that this belief definitely existed but then to provide details that certainly are not recorded anywhere stretches the bounds of exaggeration and approaches outright fabrication. He then goes on to imply that the majority of reincarnation beliefs the world over hold that reincarnation occurs only in the family line and as an example he gives the beliefs of the Tlingit people. This is another gross distortion. The vast majority of reincarnation beliefs hold that reincarnation not only occurs outside the family line, but also outside the species line! (Just look at Hindu and Buddhist reincarnation doctrine.)

His references to Jung's work are also something of a distortion. He states that Jung held that the collective unconscious is passed on by heredity and so takes this as evidence that the different races are so dissimilar that their unconscious natures and archetypes are completely distinct. But in reality Jung, while acknowledging some variations between different races and cultures held that the archetypes of the collective unconscious were nearly universal. As Robert Segal summing up Jung's view in his introduction to Jung On Mythology, while the general hero archetype is passed on by heredity, specific examples of it are passed on through acculturization. The whole point of Jung's work on the collective unconscious is that it explains why different races and cultures have the same archetypes, not why they are different.

Out of all the references Mr. McNallen gives, the work of Dr. Freedman approaches closest to rational. But all Dr. Freedman did was show there were small differences in how 48 hour old babies of different ethnic groups responded to various stimuli, as in either pushing away a finger held over the nose or instead just switching to mouth breathing. To take the leap from this to stating that it is proof that something so abstract and complex as religious understandings vary too widely with race to admit mutual understanding is totally unfounded. Indeed, Mr. McNallen makes no attempt to justify his blind leap; he simply states it as fait accompli. This is not science, this is an attempt to use scientific sounding terminology to rationalize a belief he plainly wants to hold. Real science requires reasons, logic, empirical data.

The idea that ones genes determine one's nature (thoughts, feelings, attitudes) is hardly accepted as fact by any real scientists, as even a cursory reading in the field reveals. To believe that is does is to ignore many well documented facts, such as that wild children (children grown up outside of any human contact) lack most traits associated with any human beings, such as the ability to learn language, never mind showing traits inherent to their particular race. It also flies in the face of the fact that as yet all studies of genes show absolutely no difference between the different races. Looking at a genetic sequence, there is not one scientist in the world that could tell what race of human it came from. So obviously whatever genes account for the observed differences between the races form such a minuscule portion of the DNA that the difference is essentially negligible.

I have questioned many Folkish practitoners, and have never found a one who could give an intelligent (or intelligible) answer as to why it is the blood that is so important. Most just fall back upon such nonsensical statements as "It is the Lore of Life!", "It is the heritage of our People!", "I just know it," or some other synonym for "I can't be bothered to think much and just follow what other people and my own instincts tell me." I have noted that these people's definitions of Norse or Germanic blood grow increasingly broader the whiter a person's skin, and increasingly narrower the darker a person's skin.

The fact that proponents of the "genes determine our thoughts" (including religious ones) ideas have to ignore many empirical facts, have to twist their research to make things say something other than they really do, and have to rely on the research of pseudoscientists like parasychological researchers indicates what their real agenda is: an attempt to paint a veneer of respectability onto beliefs they are determined to have no matter what, onto their inherent prejudices."

[Bathilde]

Thanks!

[Gemyndig]

Yup, thanks JeffSinger, it's a load of crypto-nazitru bunk!

[Kitta]

Yeah, it's complete bull. One of the strongest, most honorable heathens I know is Japanese. He honors the Heathen Gods, and he honors his ancestors - he has artifacts from his family on his altar, and the norse-japanese decor is worth seeing, lol, it looks really neat. He doesn't deny his heritage and culture, but he feels Heathenism resound in his heart and that's what he follows.

I am mostly Scottish and Irish by blood, and I took some time to learn about my ancestors. I've been told I need to worship Celtic deities before by uppity reconstructionist Heathens but the Heathen Gods call to me and I feel the rightness of Heathen values in my heart and soul and I am at peace with my practices.

[Atridr]

I would like to say, that while I agree that the discussed theory of metagenetics isn't real, that doesn't mean that our genetic reality has nothing to do with what we are, both in physical and spiritual way.

As I see it, each of us is mystically connected by his blood, that is, by ones ethnicity to all other beings sharing the same lineage. In other words, we are just links in an infinite chain of generations that connects all those who live and have lived who are part of that particular genetic pool. This is very simple to prove by meditating upon ones own blood and seeking communion with the forces within. I'm of a mixed ethnical background, in which fenno-ugrian, slavonian and germanic genetic realities all are amalgamated in my being. Interestingly, by communing with the impulses found within the red streams, one eventually comes in contact with the beings our ancestors worshipped. Aesir, vanir, elves and giants.

Metagenetics is wrong in assuming that the blood determines which religion one should practice. However, in my experience certain ethnical qualities make it easier to commune with certain spiritual entities.

[schwarzesonne]

The theory of metagenetics is a very complex topic—much more complex than we are led to believe by JeffSinger's argument(s), although much of what he says bears merit.

I believe that there is a lot of truth to the theory, although it is obviously imperfect. Much of my own prejudice on this topic has to do with my own völkisch view (which focusses on ethnicity as opposed to 'fólkish' which focusses on race). It should be understood, too, that anything written before WWII using the term 'race' is referring to ethnicity as opposed to our more modern understanding of the term meaning something more like 'subspecies'. One would be wise to keep this in mind when reading older authors.

I would argue that the tendencies of a specific ethic people-- be they German, Polish, Irish, or what have you-- mean a whole lot more than anything we see in differences between, say, white vs black people. That being said, though, the genetic differences between whites and blacks (or whatever other racial group in question) are easier to quantify using the methods of modern science. For something on this I highly recommend reading Race, Genetics & Society: On the Scientific and Social Policy Implications of Racial Differences by Glayde Whitney (who was, by the way a geneticist).

All those stereotypes about the fighting Irish, the stubborn Germans, the hoarding Poles and the friendly Dutch do have their basis in reality. Does everyone of those monikers hold to those tendencies? Well, some more than others. We can get into the whole nature vs. nurture argument that has confounded scientists since the 1600s and argue until we're blue in the teeth.

But the gist of the argument is this: is the path of least resistance one of following our ancestral ways or is it a matter of following the ways predominant in our host society? I would argue to the former. If one doesn't agree that's fine--go be christian or mohammedan or whatever. If ancestry doesn't matter than don't swim upstream because it's just not worth the battle. Everyone will laugh at you and you won't make any real headlines anyway.