In modern heathenry metagenetics is a term used to describe a pseudoscience based on a conglomeration of genetic theory and Jungian archetype theory. It’s author, Stephen McNallen, is one for the big names in American heathenry, and is neither a genetic scientist or a psychologist. This, in and of itself, is a warning that the subject matter is probably going to be cherry picking it’s evidence. The article I will be referencing to refute for this post is located at http://www.runestone.org/about-asatru/articles-a-essays/144-genetics-a-beyond-metagenetics-an-update.html.

McNallen states in this article that “the hypothesis that there are spiritual or metaphysical implications to physical relatedness among humans which correlate with, but go beyond, the known limits of genetics." Right here, it is stated that metagenetics is a hypothesis. What turn this hypothesis into pseudoscience is that it is distinctly untestable.

McNallen also postulates that the mechanisms involved in metagenetics transcend the information stored in the DNA molecule. Yet again, this is a conjecture that flies in the face of genetic theory. The DNA molecule encodes all genetic instructions used in the development and function of all living organisms. DNA is the basic unit of heredity. In saying that metagenetics involves more than DNA McNallen had removed himself from sound scientific principal and into the realm of pseudoscience.

McNallen in Metagenetics also moves metagenetics in to the realm of Jungian psychology. he states that "Jung stated explicitly that the archetypes were not culturally transmitted but were in fact inherited- that is to say, genetic." However, without citing his source I cannot verify that Jung made this statement. Anthony Stevens, in "The Handbook of Jungian Psychology” made the statement that archetypes are encoded in DNA. However, his arguments for this are largely linguistically based in that many of the terms used for functions in DNA and genetics (‘templates, genes, enzymes, hormones, catalysts, pheromones, social hormones’) are the same terms used to describe archetypes. A confluence of terms used in two separate sciences (in this case genetics being a hard science and psychology being a soft science) is not sufficient evidence to make this claim.

Metagenetics is the foundation of the Folkish Heathen philosophy. It is the idea that ancestry matters in order to practice a faith. However, in the anthropology of religion we find that religion is a cultural product of the community that practices it. It is not a product of their genes. Folkish philosophy is nothing more than an attempt to couch racism and separatism in to scientific terms to justify them.