PS - I have now come across some interesting and relevant videos on this, and misappropriation / the arrogance of thinking one "owns" Deities. See:
- "Appropriation of Gods : Bigotry, Political Correctness, Cultural Appropriation & Materialism";
- which refers to:
- "FOLKISM: Spiritual Racism", a video on
- this channel: "Ocean Keltoi".
I have now discovered
(a) what the fuss is about the symbology in the US "conservative" conference stage; and
(b) that neo-nazis misappropriation of runes includes Othala, Erda, and Algiz.
To say I am pissed off is an understatement, but this has happened a fair bit of late - including the idiot editors who allowed a terrorist group to misappropriate the Greek name of the Egyptian Goddess Aset instead of using the more accurate ISIL or the better, as it annoyed that evil group and was actually even more accurate, Da'esh.
For more on this, see the following links:
- an article by John Beckett, where I first understood exactly what is going on (and please note the recommendation to use the image, if you do, with a "no" symbol, first recommended by T. Thorne Coyle) at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2021/03/who-put-the-odal-rune-on-the-cpac-stage.html (my one qualification to his article is that the version he describes is also known as the Erda rune - see below);
- a linked article at The Wild Hunt (note: the image is protected as per T. Thorne Coyle's recommendation) at https://wildhunt.org/2021/02/editorial-yes-that-is-an-odal-rune.html;
- another Wild Hunt article listing symbols banned by the US army because of their white supremacist links, including Algiz, at https://wildhunt.org/2021/02/army-special-operations-center-cautions-soldiers-about-extremist-imagery.html;
- information from the Anti-Defamation League, which notes both the extremist and innocent usage of the rune Othala, at https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/othala-rune; and
- an older (I guess) page describing Erda and its beneficial associations, at https://www.angelfire.com/ca7/Tree/aett5.html.
I will avoid using the three runes that have been misappropriated, and am now going to be wary of any rune work. In my case, I can use magic squares, which I worked with before I came across runes, but the struggle for "ownership" of symbols and names is part of the world's struggle against the evil of white supremacism, including its neo-nazi and fascist sub-cults - and idiot editors are part of the problem, most of all because of their arrogance.
