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A Nokian, or Nokean, is someone who opposes Lokeans. A Lokean is a type of pagan or heathen whose personal religious practice is primarily about following Loki. Some Lokeans also consider themselves to be Asatruars, or Wiccans, or other sects, and some don't. Asatru includes Loki in its traditional list of gods, so many Asatruars who do not consider themselves Lokeans do honor Loki, just not as their primary deity.

A Nokian actively tries to get people who follow or honor Loki to leave public heathen spaces or stay silent within them, and tries to convince people who are seeking a religious path that Loki isn't an acceptable part of heathenry. While Lokeanism is a religious practice, Nokeanism is a form of proselytizing. People who simply prefer not to acknowledge Loki and don't have a relationship with him are not Nokeans; they are just ordinary heathens, pagans, etc. who don't have Loki in their personal or group practice. A Nokean is someone who tries to control the personal and group practice of other people to get others to exclude Loki.

Frequently Asked Question: Do I need a kindred to practice Asatru?

This question is usually accompanied by a story like this: "Someone on a forum said I can't be a heathen by myself because Asatru is community oriented, but someone else told me I can't just go join a kindred like a church and I should just practice by myself, and someone else said heathenry is about family and I shouldn't even try to practice with other heathens."

A Frequently Asked Question in the group I manage, the Asatru Facebook Forum, is: Where can I find a kindred or other Asatru and / or heathen people in my area?

Several sites and organizations have maps and locators for the members. Although the American Asatru Association no longer exists, the kindred locator map is still on the old wordpress site: 

Step 1 Take photos of:

A. People (only include people who want to participate in the Heathen Visibility Project! ) including:

Last month I had to search for public domain or creative commons license images of heathen or Asatru related rituals, gods, altars, etc. to fill up the upcoming Heathen Calendar 2018 because I didn't manage to get 12 images from living artists for various reasons. (Some artists didn't finish on time, some didn't want to sign the tax form, whatever.) I had searched for public domain classical art last year for this year's calendar, and I had previously searched for some public domain heathen related images to illustrate my blog, but this was the first time I had searched for contemporary images that might be photos of actual people. I did not find much. Artists have uploaded tons of various images to sites where people can license their images, either for money or for free as the artist prefers, using a creative commons license or another type of license. So there are places to put such images where the artists could possibly get something back for their work, if they wish. I don't know yet whether I will do another Heathen Calendar next year; it depends on how many people want one. But if I do, it would be great to have some good stock photos of heathens doing heathenry to choose from. 

Just before I did those image searches for the Calendar, I had been doing image, text, and guide searches for guides to how to tell heathen symbols from hate symbols, to create the Trollslayers' Guide, which is a guide for the group moderators of the American Asatru group on Facebook to use to do background checks on people applying for membership. (We have a strict no-Nazis rule.) The publicly available guides all have various flaws and none of them were written by heathens. I'm actually thinking of trying to expand the Trollslayers' Guide into a full blown public guide to how to tell heathen symbols from hate symbols, written by heathens for heathens. The terrible thing that I discovered while looking at all that is that some of our actual religious symbols that are not inherently hate symbols are being used by haters, publicly, where they are being photographed as news and the images propagated at the speed of news. I'm tired of the loudest voices using our symbols being the hate groups. I want to drown them out in a sea of louder voices. 

When I first became a forum admin on the American Asatru group several years ago, I was invited to do so because the group creator liked my book Asatru For Beginners.  I said yes because I had just had a bad online experience in a different group and wanted to help create a space that would be better. I wanted to create a troll free space where heathens could talk about their heathen religious stuff free of mockery by trolls and safe from online harassment and stalking and other internet ills. I wanted to create a group which would be a supportive religious community where people could find friendship and advice about life in addition to religion. I envisioned a space where there would be fun things to do, and which would be especially supportive toward creators such as authors, artists, and musicians. The group became that.

Before I joined the management team, the American Asatru Association group was already a space that screened membership applications to keep out neonazis and white power gang members and other such undesirables, in addition to keeping out trolls. It was also already a group that welcomed heathens of any sect, not just Asatru, and from anywhere in the world, not just the Americas. It welcomed universalist, tribalist, and folkish Asatruars, and was a Loki-friendly group. Those policies stayed the same while I was adminning under the original group owner, and I plan to keep them in place. 

Once again, as I did before when I became manager of the old MSN Asatru group, I've just taken over management of an Asatru internet forum. There are a few notable differences from the last time. Firstly, this time I'm fully prepared and qualified to run an internet forum. Secondly, this time I wanted the job. Thirdly, the internet is different than it was back then. Fourthly, MSN Asatru had about 200 members, and the American Asatru group on Facebook, formerly known as the American Asatru Association, has about 4,500.

With both groups, I inherited an established forum with its own established procedures and expectations. MSN Asatru was a free for all. I didn't screen members or moderate posts, excepts to remove commercial spam, and to remove posts that violated the terms of use of the MicroSoft Network, which meant I removed anything even vaguely pornographic, including any nude images. Images were not used on forums very often back then, because posting an image in one of the one MSN Groups required an image host site and some basic knowledge of html.