>unfulfilled need for a group identity and sense of belonging.
To some extent perhaps, the non-hate group types are very very guarded and closed to outsiders in my experience, they are generally private to those outside of kin (blood relation) and kindred (like a coven, church, clan, group) which are often pretty small groups of people.
For those remotely interested just go randomly browse /r/asatru and /r/heathenry for the non-racist types and make your own observation.
Personally I find them to be an interesting lot, there are quite a few that still do blood sacrifices and from their self-reports on ritual it seems to largely just be a lot of getting together, getting drunk, and dancing around in a field/woods/someone's yard with the occasional mention of some practice or ritual that may or may not have a basis in historical reality, usually based largely off of a modern book or a combination of archaeological discoveries and surviving myth/poetry.
> ... from their self-reports on ritual it seems to largely just be a lot of ...
I think most religions boil down to this, when applying enough reduction. Doesn't mean that they don't touch people and give them experiences in things that modern society is perhaps lacking in. I think those things can perhaps be difficult to comprehensively be described with words.
In my experience of trying to learn more about invidiauls that follow/are Asatru though it's more of "that's nice you are interested we don't know you and you aren't our kindred, go bother someone else, there's a few book titles published a few years ago, leave me alone"
Whereas, take the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints:
"Hi I'm interested in learning more"
Awesome! Here are some pamphlets, here's one of our scriptural texts, when can you meet with some of our missionaries to talk? Do you have any questions right now? Here's some useful articles, some great talks, there's also these YouTube channels, I know I know it's a lot of info but we'll cover the basics and then you can consume as little or as much as you want!
Similarly Catholicism has RCIA, Buddhism has some 'centers' where you can go like here in Indy the Indiana Buddhist Center, Islam you can drop by most masjids and people are super friendly and will answer questions or there are places like the Islamic Society of North America here in Indiana in Plainfield, some sects of Judaism are very open to investigators/conversion (although some make it next to impossible and actively try and drive you away), etc.
I suppose though, that probably makes Asatru in fact very similar to the peoples it claims to base its beliefs around. People in the ancient world weren't too terribly receptive to outsiders with the exception of trade.
To some extent perhaps, the non-hate group types are very very guarded and closed to outsiders in my experience, they are generally private to those outside of kin (blood relation) and kindred (like a coven, church, clan, group) which are often pretty small groups of people.
For those remotely interested just go randomly browse /r/asatru and /r/heathenry for the non-racist types and make your own observation.
Personally I find them to be an interesting lot, there are quite a few that still do blood sacrifices and from their self-reports on ritual it seems to largely just be a lot of getting together, getting drunk, and dancing around in a field/woods/someone's yard with the occasional mention of some practice or ritual that may or may not have a basis in historical reality, usually based largely off of a modern book or a combination of archaeological discoveries and surviving myth/poetry.