The Invisible Asatru

Organized Asatru is estimated to include no more than 20,000 members worldwide, and between 1,000 and 3,000 in Denmark, but it is well known that there are people outside organized groups who identify as Asatru. Yet no one knows how many, who they are, and in what they believe. Here, we examine the demography and spiritual life of this broader group of Asatru for the first time. Of 23,326 participants from a Danish national cohort group (EXICODE), 94 (0.40%) self-identified as Asatru, which extrapolates to 15,000–23,000 Asatru individuals in Denmark alone. Compared with other Danes, matched by age, gender, and ethnic/cultural background, these self-identified Asatru respondents tend to be single younger males with lower income and education. This invisible group of Asatru shares several characteristics with the more visible organized Asatru, including active spiritual lives, a tendency to turn to nature, and opposition to the church. Importantly, our data indicate that the vast majority of self-identified Asatru exists in unorganized, fluid, and less visible forms. Indeed, we argue that Danish Asatru may best be understood as a pyramid with different levels of investment and organization, ranging from a few highly invested and organized neopagan Asatru at the top to a much wider group of less invested and unorganized cultural Asatru at the bottom.