For many years, I have been involved in the Lokean community. What is the Lokean community, you ask? Well, it’s a community built around the Norse god Loki. But unlike with some faith communities, its primary goal is not just to venerate Loki. It is to propagate the values that Loki represents according to the shared personal gnosis of thousands of Lokeans. These values include:
- Prioritizing consent, personal autonomy, and self-expression. Loki is a great god for people with religious trauma, because he is well-known for encouraging people to advocate for their own needs and build lives that are in accordance with one’s own soul’s true nature and purpose.
Many Lokean spirit workers provide education on consent, boundaries, and personal autonomy as a key part of our ministry. An underlying theology is that the divine spark manifests in all of us, and it is the job of spiritual community to nurture and encourage that spark, not try to repress it or control it. This is a big part of my “Breaking Your Bonds” book. - Holding authority figures to high standards. Loki is most famous in myth for criticizing, and ultimately fighting, all the gods. Lokeans have carried on a similar tradition, often being vocal about the shortcomings of religious and political leaders and pushing for their removal.
Lokeans have existed for decades without any official Lokean churches precisely because of this skepticism of authority and acute awareness of the dangers of heirarchy. The need for organization and legal status to procure religious protection has been in constant tension with the innate Lokean distrust of hierarchy and prescriptive authority.
- Respect for all beings. While Loki Themself can be a bit confrontational, Their people are often those who have been on the receiving end of oppression and carelessness by the powerful. As a result, we have a strong ethos of respect for all beings, especially those who are outcast, marginalized, and misfits.
After decades of working together, pooling resources, and managing conflicts as an online community, though, many of us now feel that we are ready to get behind a legal entity with the ability to conduct tax-deductible fundraising and ordain legally recognized Lokean ministers under time-tested leadership.
As such, I am now beginning efforts to incorporate a Lokean church, with plans to roll out an ordination program for Lokean clergy and a publishing house for Lokean works as quickly as is legally and financially feasible.
Those interested in contributing to the effort can sign up for my newsletter for updates on matters such as online and in-person community spaces, publications, classes, and teaching, publication, and ordination opportunities built around Lokean values.
You can also email author@catherinecarr.org with subject lines like “volunteer” to offer assistance in building this future.
Why not Loki’s Wyrdlings?
Those of you who read this mission state may wonder how it differs from the work of Loki’s Wyrdlings, where I served as a board member from 2023-2026. The short answer is that the visions of the two communities are very similar, but I ultimately separated from Loki’s Wyrdlings due to disagreements with the founder over the best way to serve our communtiy.
To put it succinctly, Loki’s Wyrdlings founder Ky Greene wanted to maintain a slower, more cautious, and Facebook-based approach to providing a community space, a publishing platform, and eventually incorporating a church with fundraising capabilities and a legally recognized ordination program to Lokeans.
After 2.5 years on the board of Loki’s Wyrdlings, I became concerned that LW’s policies did not allow the kind of rapid forward motion that was needed in our rapidly changing social media, economic, and political environment.
As such, Loki’s Wyrdlings and myself have now amicably parted ways. I remain a member of their community, and will continue to cross-recommend people to resources such as Loki University as appropriate.
Catherine Carr 