Woden’s Folk Kindred is active in Texas prisons through their Community In-Reach Program. We have several volunteers who go into the prisons throughout Texas and help promote a positive form of heathenry behind the wire.

We feel like this is a very important thing to do for the future of our faith, because the vast majority of men and women who are locked up will one day be released back into the world with us. It is our goal with the Community In-Reach Program to help fulfill the spiritual needs of these men and women as well as to help prepare them for their eventual release.

It’s no secret that prisons are full of crazy ideas that pass for heathenry. The number one reason for this is a lack of good information. Every week in the major online forums for our faith, new heathens can be found asking where to look in order to learn more about our faith. “Which books should I read,” is an almost ubiquitous question in these forums, and yet where would you look if you were in prison?

Through our Prison In-Reach Program, Woden’s Folk Kindred provides inmates with resources to help them learn about our faith. We help show these inmates how to use our faith as a positive force in their lives in order to better themselves. Because prison is a highly charged and often racially divided setting, we address the issue of racism with prisoners in order to help them understand how racism is used to divide, control, and radicalize them. We also work with prisoners to show them exactly how these radical views that thrive in the darkness of the prison environment are extremely detrimental to their chances of successfully reintegrating into society upon their release.

The chief text that we use in our Community In-Reach Program is The Heathen Handbook. We have developed a study curriculum to go along with The Heathen Handbook, and we offer this free to anyone who wants it. While this curriculum was developed for the prisoners we work with, we feel that it is a great resource for anyone who wants to learn about our faith. Feel free to download and share our Study Curriculum: