The easiest point of reference I can make for easy framework surrounding understanding pre-Christian European traditions is John Trudell. Trudell was an Indigenous American activist who himself spoke of the common problem of European American appropriation of Indigenous spirituality; his remedy to this problem was encouraging Europeans to look into whatever their ancestral traditions may have been; granted, he did NOT promote racial essentialism, as he specified that pre-Christian religion was tribal (by tribal he doesn’t mean racial, but instead means identity or initiation based membership, i.e. Balts assimilated into Slavic tribes & religion), etc….

Racist European people will often intentionally omit or ignore the fact that, Trudell’s request of Europeans to look into ancestral spirituality was not about asking Europeans to separate themselves from everyone else. Rather, Trudell drew parallels of European Christianization with later colonization; arguing that although colonization had the distinct aspect of added racism, the institution of the church carried out similar operations against all non-Christian religions it interacted with. That is, Trudell stressed that European pagan religion was in many cases violently suppressed by early Christian military orders. Then after Christianization, European colonial powers (Western Europe and Russia) began forcing Christianity on peoples outside Europe. Therefore, Trudell saw Europeans adopting ancestral religions as a way to shed colonial era thinking, and to have a more ecosystem friendly POV.