| Group: | Gylfilites' Guild |
| Founder: | Wolfgang Kantelberg |
| Regions: | Germany |
| Religions: | Paganism |
The Gylfilites' Guild (German: Gylfiliten-Gilde), also known by the adherents' or movement's names the Gylfilites or Gylfilitism, is a Germanic Heathen sect of Ariosophical-Armanic orientation based in Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, which gathered public attention in 1976.[1] The sect published the magazine named Odrörir, the name of the mead of poetry. Since the 1990s the group has gone underground.[2]
The Gylfilites were founded in 1976 by Wolfgang Kantelberg, titled Brother Wali (Bruder Wali),as a splinter group of the larger Germanic organisation Goden.[3] Kantelberg was in the years 1960s a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany, which he later abandoned for instead joining the Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeit.[4] For the Gylfilite group, Kantelberg developed a secret language based on ancient forms of German speech naming it Diutisk (actually an ancient form of Deutsch, "Teutonic").[5] [6]
The Gylfilites are named after the mythical Scandinavian king Gylfi and describe themselves as a religious organisation aligned "according to the teachings of the Eddas". It is a Germanic Neopagan group with Blood and Soil and National Socialist ideas. Adolf Hitler is revered as a saint who prevented a communist world dictatorship, and together with Arminius and the namesake Gylfi he is considered a battle-slain in Valhalla.[7] The community holds an idea of the German people similar to that of nationalist organisations pre-dating 1933.[8] The Judeo-Christian tradition with its monotheism and its egalitarianism is categorically rejected.
Stefan von Hoyningen-Huene categorises Gylfilitism as a movement influenced by the völkisch movement, Ariosophy and the Deutschglaube (German ethnic religion), combining Germanic beliefs such as the Ragnarök with Buddhist elements.[9] Hugo Stamm assigns Gylfilitism to the neopagan religious milieu.[10]