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Pars

Paginae

I.

Shamanism of the Northlands

1-76

II.

Mastering the Elements

79-171

III.

Mastering the Skills

175-334

IV.

Keeping Whole

337-411

I.

Shamanism of the Northlands

1-76

I.0

Introduction

1-19

I.1

Classic Shamanism & Core Shamanism

22-31

I.2

Spirit-Allies & Spirit-Masters {or Spirit-Mistresses}

32-76

I.0

Introduction

1-19

p. 8

"I can't afford to be lorebound, not with Gods and wights on my tail. ... We are the primary source material."

p. 9

"I can actually imagine ... a way that would be disrespectful ... . It consists of doing reconstructionist religion

without believing wholly in the Gods of our ancestors; one does their practices {as a hypocrital outward sham, to trick the gullible into imagining the ritual-performer to be a true-believer}, but merely pretends to believe in their Gods. It's a twisted, blasphemous kind of ancestor worship."

{The usual reason for disbelief in Deities is such an overwhelming devotion to Mammo^n as to exclude all other devotions and beliefs. ("Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Matthaios 6:24) The utter disbelief against the supernatural, combined with an exceeding zeal for materialistic greed, is known as "capitalism", a system promoting absolute hypocrisy in religion, along with steadfast antisocial hostility against all persons other than oneself. The ungodly hypocrites almost always prove to be capitalist-fanatic infidels.}

"The Buryat Mongols have a word for shamans who are spirit-taught - it's bagshagui.

{This is the name of a Mongolian mythic shamaness (ChS, p. 3).}

Usually this happens when the shaman's lineage or clan dies out and the spirits who have worked with them all move over to another line or clan".

"The various ... Indo-European ... early gods were ...

much like the Greek Titan[e]s.

{This term /Titan/ would be cognate with Skt. */Citan/, i.e. /Ciratana/ ('Antient', translated into Bodish /rN~in-ma/), and thus evidently to <ibri^ /H.irah/.}

Yet ... they are extremely Neolithic and shamanic in nature ... . When you come to the Northern tradition ... "shamanism", ... you'll get the Jo[,]tnar or the Ro,kkr Gods {and Goddesses} (Hela, ... Surt, Fenris, Jo[,]rmundgand, Angrboda {Angr-boda}, etc.)".

"In ancient times, spirit-workers -- be they shamans, vo[,]va[-]s, seidhr-workers, noaidi, etc -- did a variety of things to help their people survive.

They called the wild animals for hunting {for being hunted [called by means of a "hunting drum" (infra p. 14)]} ... .

{This is (or was) the most commonplace routine social function of shamans in Siberia and among Amerindians.}

They called fish into rivers and close to seacoasts.

They made sacrifices {to plant-deities} to make sure the crops grew."

"When you are a spirit-worker ..., one of the most important things is to be aware of[,] and skilled in[,] interpreting Wyrd, or the paths of Fate."

"being a spirit-worker narrows our Wyrd to a thin line. Because we have more power and the ability to see further, we can have more responsibility. ...

To be a Wyrdwalker is to understand where we are going, and what we are to be used for {by Deities}, and to see that path {of Wyrd} clearly."

"These charms and power-songs were given as {divine} gifts to myself and other shamans who spoke to the Gods and wights and then generously donated their {viz., Gods' and wights'} words to this book. You can ... sing them, but they won't have any effect at all unless you first go to each deity who provided them, make offerings, make alliances, and form a real relationship. This is spirit-magic ..., and it requires the ongoing cooperation of the spirits. ... This was the deal we made {as a convenant, with the Deities} when we asked to be allowed to publish them. ...

A bevy of spirit-workers "interviewed" them {the Deities involved}, asking them their opinion on the most important things for a spirit-worker to know. Some {Deities} gave charms, some{Deities gave} songs, some{Deities gave} important {religious/philosophical} knowledge."

"Music for the power songs can be found ... on my website

(http://www.CauldronFarm.com/music/ )".

p. 15

"a shaman is someone who is seized up by the spirits and forced through a long and

p. 16

tortuous phase of illness that brings them {him or her} close to ... complete insanity ... . During this time, the Gods and wights

modify their {his or her} astral body

{and also his or her mental body and his or her causal body}

in ways that you'd have to be close to death in order to manage. ... Once through, they must do their job of public tribal spirit-worker for the rest of their life {or until disabled by old age}, or the shaman sickness will occur {recur} and cause insanity".

p. 17

"If you look at the wandering Volva in Erik the Red's Saga, ... she's welcomed in, but there's all this "When is she leaving?" They go to ... feeding her the hearts of every animal on the property, ... to propitiate her ... and ... because they want her to be on her way as quickly as possible."

"There'a a story about a young girl in a Native American {Great-}Plains community who got hit by lightning. ... But she didn't die ... . So she ended up living outside the village with her {tipi-}door open away from the village, but they would still bring her food ...

p. 18

still tied to the tribe, to the service position,

even though they fear you ... . ...

{In her case, the tribesfolk dreaded that too intimate an association with her might cause the lightning-spirits to assume that anyone intimate with her was requaesting to be struck likewise with lightning (would could be deadly) : so, what the tribesfolk dreaded was not so much herself as her tutelary deities.}

You can't just up and leave, unless the spirits are sending you to another tribe. You have to keep offering your help again and again, even though you will never really be one of them."

"I first encountered Laufey when I went on a journey to Jo[,]tunheim. ... It seems strange ... that this calm ... giantess is

the mother of the infamous Loki ... . ... This is ... the woman who fled Jo[,]tunheim while pregnant, alone ..., and who ...

{"When Leto was preg[n]ant with the twins she was pursued relentlessly ... from land to land preventing her from finding a place to rest and give birth. ... Delos eventually provided her with refuge." ("TL")}

sought sanctuary among total strangers in Mu[`]spellheim for the sake of her unborn son."

{Letoi was approached by "the gods' own minstrels" from Maionian [*MaiSon-] PaktoLos (K:H4D -- "TL") : cf. (phonetics of) /Mu`SPeL/.}

I.1

Classic Shamanism & Core-Shamanism

22-31

p. 22

"The term "core shamanism" was popularized by Michael Harner in his book "The Way of the Shaman". It ... implies that ...

the experience of people who work with core shamanism is not identical to that of shamans ... who come to their work the old-fashioned way, anthropological accounts of which

{This "old-fashioned way" is a two-way-interchange communication with Deities; whereas a "core" practitioner (i.e., layfolk worshipper) may simply pray to Deities without receiving any discernable reponse from them.}

p. 23

have been gathered for over two hundred years."

"it's the central spiritual experience that is strongly different".

p.

Core Shamanism

Classical Shamanism

24

"Is theoretically open to anyone who is sincere."

"Is open only to those who are clearly chosen by the spirits."

"Is generally entirely voluntary. The individual choose the path ... . They may choose their own human teachers, and they may stop .., unless they have made specific bargains."

"Is generally entirely involuntary. The individual ... is not allowed to refuse ..., or they {he or she} will suffer illness, and/or insanity, and/or death. They can never stop being a shaman ..., or it will recur."

25

"Shamanic practice ... can be a part-time hobby".

"Shamanic practice occupies the main focus, time, and energy".

"Primarily taught by human teachers".

"Primarily taught by divine and/or spirit teachers".

26

"Often taught in groups, or in books."

"Never taught in groups; always ... as an oral tradition."

"Taboos are rare, and taken on only as a deal with a particular spirit."

"Lives are bounded with dozens of increasing taboos, violation of which generally brings immediate ... pain, or other physical and spiritual retribution."

27

"Can draw from any cultural contexts, or create their own."

"Generally requires one specific central cultural context ... "anchoring-point"".

"Often seeks to have a relationship with the gods and/or spirits that is "equal", or even "mastery over the spirits"".

"Relationship with gods and/or spirits ranges from propitiating or coaxing to being their outright slave". {The occasional phrase "mastery over the spirits" is merely figurative.}

"The average American who might get themselves {himself or herself} seized as a shaman by the Gods and/or spirits ... may end up medicated (which will temporarily "abort" the shamanic transformation, only to have it repeatedly recur throughout the person's life until they are insane or dead) ..., or struggling with life-threatening illnesses that modern medicine is not capable of curing. Often, if an illness contracted as part of a shamanic rebirth is actually cured by medicine, the sufferer will promptly come down with another one."

"in a small Taiwanese village. A local woman began to ... talk to unseen spirits. A group of shamans came from miles away to check her out, and declared that

she was merely mentally ill".

{Officially-sanctioned (in class-ruled society) "shamans" are likely (or are even officially required) to dismiss culturally-unfamiliar spirits as "evil", or -- in atheistic-style terminology -- as "mental illness". [Any practicing "shamans" in such places are often socially required to be orthodox Confucianists; and, if so, their "shamanism" is largely theatrical public ritual almost devoid of spiritual content.]}

"However, we also have accounts of white Americans who are "classic shaman" types;

who survived their transformation illness

{usually with sympathetic kinsfolk (perhaps themselves occultists), who protected them against being incarcerated in "insane asyla" by vicious capitalist-stooge psychiatrists}

and went on to do their job in a way remarkably similar to that of traditional tribal shamans. ... Some threw themselves into the foreign cosmologies

(with the permission of the spirits attached to those cosmologies)

{Such permission is automatically granted (by the deities, perhaps without those deities very distinctly shewing themselves) to any seeker who is respectful and sincere.}

and some struggled to unearth that of their own ancestors."

{Because "their own ancestors" would regard only those of that particular lifetime, and may vary substantially from lifetime to lifetime (so as to give as wide experience as possible to the soul involved), this is barely at all significant.}

"Perhaps it's wrong to steal the cultural context of someone else's culture ... but what if their gods speak to you?

{Though mortal earthlings may deem this to be "stealing"; yet nevertheless the immortal deities (who have awarded that culture to mortal earthlings) are likely to think otherwise, and have every right to switch their awards howsoever they may wish.}

... but what if your own genetic heritage is nearly entirely robbed of its ancient shamanic roots?"

{This is, indeed, largely the case with European cultures.}