Yggdrism

So, I've mentioned before that there's a longstanding history of weird little cults springing up in this town. Thing is, not all of them are Christian in nature. One of them is neopagan, Norse to be specifically. It's called Yggdrism, because its followers believe Yggdrasil is more than just a giant tree, but the incarnation of the cosmos itself- after all, it's on Yggdrasil that the worlds hang.

If you're noticing a weird theme of trees, especially world trees, that's because they keep fucking showing up in these things and I don't know why.

So, for background, Yggdrism started in the 1950s with Robert Stern, who had previously been a professor of comparative mythology with a specialty in that's right goddamn world trees. He apparently published a number of influential papers, and even a book compiling a number of his lectures on the matter titled The Branches of the Cosmic Tree.

 

Apparently, either Stern was so entranced by the Old Norse belief system that he became convinced it was correct, or he thought it would be a good way to make money, because in 1952, he officially founded the Forest Temple as a tax-exempt religious organization, and he got a lot of funding from his members, allegedly guilt-tripping and even threatening them into donating. His criminal activities grew harder and harder to ignore throughout the 50s, including drug running and violent attacks on other religious groups, culminating in a shootout with the police in 1960 that led to the death of Stern and several other members, with the rest being arrested.

 

They were released from prison yesterday.