Wyrdwalkers, I.2

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I.2

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

32-72

pp. 32-3 signal-clarity and signal-connectivity in communications with Deities; Deities' epithets for invoking them

p. 32

"the real spirit-workers that I know are constantly working to improve their signal clarity and figure out what's the clear voice of the wights ... . ... It's one of our biggest struggles ... because we've heard the voice of the Gods".

p. 33

"each God/spirit is seen as a separate, living, changing entity, not dependent on human attention nor worship ... (although their connection to this particular world of matter may fail without that), and clearly differentiated from other similar Gods/wights."


"a deity may actually deliberately appear under a different name, and some deities have lists of heiti -- titles of their different aspects which, when used to call them, will define how they manifest. (That seems to be a Cosmic Law that is bigger than us ... .)"

p. 35 how antique Deities update their customs, behaviour and activities

"if you view the Gods and wights as real individuals, you have to take into account their ability to change and grow. Some of the Gods that I work with seem to be still very much stuck in an ancient era, and unused to modern ways; others ... evolve by experiencing things through us ... . Instead, the northern spirit-worker needs to understand that these Gods are alive and remaking their connection to this world, and coming to understand it anew."

p. 36 [by L.H.] metaphysical praemises

"Premise number one : The entire manifested universe was, at one time, generated from a single undifferentiated Source.

{This is not even abstractly possible, nor imaginable. Existence of any "manifested universe" is dependent on consciousness, and consciousness cannot exist in an "undifferentiated" state (because it must require various objects-of-awareness distinct from the awareness-itself).} {Furthermore, the nature of metaphysical qualities (i.e., principles of logic) is such that they are aeternal, and do not arise at any point in time; and the "manifested universe" is simply a display of those qualities, and therefore is also aeternal (and did not originate, nor be dependently generated, at any point in time).}

Premise number two : Manifestation in general is an illusion, in that it is all still really part of the one undifferentiated Source ... ."

{Manifestation is general is defined as a praesentation-to, or impingement-on, consciousness; and because consciousness-itself is not an "illusion", therefore a praesentation-to, or impingement-on, itself would not be an "illusion", particularly if the praesention or impingement be necessary to sustain the consciousness-itself through which the existence of the material universe is upheld.} {The alleged "undifferentiated Source" is apparently intended as the Brahman of the antient Upanis.ad-s. In more recent metaphysical literature (Agama-s and Nigama-s), however, in order to account for the complexity of the universe, Brahman is differentiated into 5 aspects (Is`ana etc.); not to mention the more numerous primordial tattva-s of the Samkhya dars`ana, etc.}

pp. 39 & 40 goda-teow (propre meaning 'god-servant')

p. 39

"Many ... northern-tradition shamans get grabbed by a specific God or Goddess who claims them. The god-slave (... godatheow) phenomenon ... does ... have a definite trend ... . ... The godatheow ... is very much the slave of their God(s), who may trigger shaman sickness, turn their lives upside down ..., and herd them by force onto a specific path, not shirking at punishments".

p. 40

"the god-slave is discussed in more depth in the final section of the book Dark Moon Rising by Asphodel Press".

pp. 39-40 punishments inflicted by Deities against theatrical imitations of shamanic curing

p. 39

"an article recently by Tatyana Bulgakova, Shaman On The Stage, translated from Russian and published in a European museum newsletter. It discussed how Siberian shamans ... were caught up in ... showmanship ... to perform their ceremonies on stage as entertainment. ...

p. 40

However, they soon became ill and ... died, punished by the spirits ... . ... The most sensible response has been from one shaman who had the actors remove certain vital costume elements, and rewrote the sacred songs ..., largely as a {thanking} prayer and praise of the spirits rather than as a request for aid."

"Shaman On The Stage" = pp. 150-64 of Tatiana Bulgakova : Nanai Shamanic Culture in Indigenous Discourse. Verlag der Kulturstiftung Sibirien, 2013. http://www.siberian-studies.org/publications/PDF/nanaishaman.pdf

p. 40 advantages to being an "owned" (actually, indentured-servant) spirit-worker

"You also get a higher "security clearance" when it comes to getting pieces of cosmic information ... . ... With a patron deity at your back setting rules of use {of you by spirits} and screening out the most unsuitable {of possessing-spirits}, you can guarantee that you will not end up in ... the mental bin {insane-"asylum"}, or dead from random spirit-use of your flesh."

p. 41 unowned spirit-workers

"some spirit-workers are not "owned" by any one deity or wight; instead, they have webs of alliance with various smaller wights who aid them in doing their job. These might be animal spirits, plant spirits, Alfar, Duergar, ... landwights ... . Making alliances with many spirits, and keeping those relationships happy, is the major source of a spirit-worker's power".

pp. 42-3 wights -- to be identified or not

p. 42

"you're going to a strange place {a strange otherworld} and Something pops up and attempts to communicate with you ... . ...


The first wrong approach is to say, "What are you?" This is rude -- some {praeternatural} folk may find it offensive -- and counterproductive ... .

{A praeternatural entity may have reasons for keeping identity secret : if identity were intended to be openly revealed, then some other divinity already acquainted with one's self would have appeared on the scene and have provided formal introductions.}


It's better to first ask "What do you want?" or "What is it that you would like me to do here?"

p. 43

... Often it isn't really important who or what they are, just finding out what they're aggrieved or worried about, and being able to assure them ... . It's better to have a positive interaction with an entity whose identity you'll never know ... .

... sometimes the only way to find out what a particular wight is may be to ... document not its appearance but its behavior, including its alliances and connections."

p. 43 deity-category-shifting by praeternatural entities

"Wights can also change categories ... . Little sprites can meld with the larger land-wights ... . Jo[,]tnar and Duergar {Dwergar} and A[`]lfar can fuse with the elemental spirits of a place to the point where they become extra-powerful elemental guardians".

{Their noticeable shifting of their own divine category is simultaneous with their own shifting of lines of telepathic communications with other deities in other deity-categories : temporary co-incidence in their mutual thinking (due to their having mutually to co-operate in some social task) will induce temporary assimilation to other deity-categories.}

"It seems to me that the (often ... sloppy) assumption that these categories all blend together anyhow is due to ignorance ... of how they can shift from one category to another."

{These categories can indeed (under very peculiar circumstances, and only quite temporarily) " all blend together", but only because the categories are merely designations of the work-services being performed by deities -- services which are continually shifting with shifting duty-rotations, particularities of jobs to be undertaken, etc.}

pp. 44-5 recommended books in this series, about categories of Norse wight-divinities

p.

category

book

44

Aesir & Vanir

Gallina Krasskova : Exploring the Northern Tradition.


Jo,tnar

The Jotunbok [Jo,tun-bo`k] : Dealing with the Giants ... .

45

A`lfar

The Pathwalker's Guide to the Nine Worlds.

pp. 46-7 [by L.H.] "trapped" divinities?

p. 46

"in Europe there are a lot of things {divinities} that are trapped, because in Elizabethan times there

{Praeternatural divinities cannot be truly "trapped". How-be-it, some Renaissance (Rosicrucian/alchemist) conjurer-magicians may well have convinced some minor divinities (with the approval of those deities' troupe) to participate in some project (perhaps connected with some human practice) of indefinite duration, which may have required such divinities to remain at some specific locality.}

p. 47

were all sorts of sorcerers ... trapping things {divinities} and forgetting about them ... .


There are lots of giants and elves and boggarts and gnomes and kobolds stuck and being used as power sources ... or whatever else in these magical setups."

{What, if anything, ought, or could, be arranged with or about these situations, would depend heavily, of course, on details of the accomplishments, intents, and effects of whomever mortal humans may be using these divinities as " power sources".}

pp. 49-51 Land-vaettir

p. 49

"Each part of the Earth has an indwelling spirit


which wears the soil and bedrock ... like a body.

{Only figuratively, in a similar sense as that a human worker likewise "wears" a job "like a body". Each spirit already hath an anthropoid and/or therioid body (or a choice of bodies -- astral, mental, causal) to wear. The local " soil and bedrock" are merely what this spirit may be assigned (by the spirit-troupe, with consent from their superiors) to custodianship of.}


The landwight is aware of everything that happens on its piece of earth -- or could be ...; some landwights are semipermanently hibernating. Some will gladly latch onto humans who make contact with them, and some will ignore humans entirely. ...

If you do own your own land, and intend to stay on it, there is no

p. 50

excuse for you not to make a strong connection with the local [land]wight ... . Make it offerings ... -- mine likes ... sex, dancing, drumming, and general good energy. In return, it can do things like run your wards for you, give you energy in an emergency ..., and hold your thread {of Wyrd} when you journey to any place that it can conceive of. (There are some {supernatural} places that land-wights don't understand very well, especially the Void-type areas and very non-material worlds.)


[There are] ... stories (some of them quite modern) of landwights interfering with the construction of roads and houses. If you have bought a piece of land (or one of your clients has done so), it's best to talk to the [land]wight before doing anything. ... the landwight has a better idea than you as to where a house should go, and which way it should face ... . Negotiations will need to happen. Large features like boulders may be an energy center for the wight or an indwelling place for the local sprites ... . ...

Wight-hearts are often the places where ... the birds gather ... . However, if you haven't found it ..., ... ask to be led there. If the wight wants ... you, it will lead you there. Once you've been admitted to the heart-center of a land-wight's teritory, be extra respectful of that space."

pp. 50-1 larger Land-vaettir; urban Land-vaettir

p. 50

"There are also larger landwights that look over huge areas of land, but the bigger the wight, the less likely they are {he or she is} to take any notice of you. ...

p. 51

One historical example comes from Iceland, where a seer on an astral scouting mission ... saw the four guardians of that huge island -- a snorting bull, a fierce eagle, a dragon, and a mountain-giant with a club".


"(... landwights can morph into city-spirits ... .) City dwellers ought to make nice with the city spirit before, or possibly instead of, dealing with the landwight."

p. 51 indigenous & immigrant sprites

"Some are local to the area and some have migrated -- in my area of the U.S., we have both the local Native American sprites and a crowd of Finnish tonttu that came over with the ... Finnish immigrants a century ago. My own farm ... has a bunch of those tonttu living in the garden; we've made a small house for them to live in."

pp. 51-2 spirit-guardians of animals and of plants

p. 51

"Sprites ... are part of the astral world of this material plane. They are generally friends with the landwight ... . They excel in finding things ... . ... Sometimes local sprites take it upon themselves to be the guardians

p. 52

of wild animals in the area, and to a lesser extent plants. As the local ecologists, you may have to negotiate with them ..., especially if there are [round]about species whose survival is in peril. ... The local sprites of another place may be more likely to help when called upon than the landwight itself, especially when the landwight has not interacted with humans for a long time and is not attuned to their specific mental wavelength."

pp. 52-3 housewights

p. 52

"These spirits ... choose to dwell in human habitations. The Scottish people call them "brownies" and in Sweden they are called Nissen. Some very old houses come with indwelling spirits that have attached themselves to the home in the past, and look after the inhabitants ... .

Most new houses don't have housewights, and if you want one, you can call one by stating your intent ... . ... They will not only outlive you, they'll expect the same deal (or at least a similar one) of the next inhabitants of the house, so you'll have to plan ahead for what will happen then. ... On the other hand, a housewight

p. 53

is excellent at helping with ... keeping food from burning ..., helping butter to come ..., keeping pets from destroying things, keeping important items from getting lost, protecting the place from fire ... . ... Housewights are happiest when you treat them like one of the family."

pp. 53-4 Elementals

p. 53

"Elementals have short attention spans

{They have short attention-spans when accosted by mortals, simply because they have little interest in the ordinary doings of mortals.}


and are further removed from humanity than the giants and faeries; ... although they are not stupid."


"The skogsrar, or wood-roes, lived in the forest and ... might center their spirit in large "grandfather" trees.


The na:ckar, or nixies, were spirits of the fresh-water rivers and streams. ...

p. 54

Sjo:rar {Sjo,rar} are the lake-spirits, some of whom have been known to seduce and pull down people ... .

{cf. Hulas : "the Nymphai ... saw and fell in love with him, they pulled him in, dragging him down into the spring." (AL:M 26 -- "NS1")}


The forskarlar are ... sprites that guard waterfalls".

AL:M = Antoninus Liberalis : Metamorphoses.

"NS1" = "Nymphai Stories 1" http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/Nymphai3Myths.html

pp. 55-6 greenwights

p. 55

"When dealing with any given plant, you're actually dealing with two sorts of spirits : the spirit of the plant itself, and the Grandparent Spirit of that plant's species. ... That's why ... it's easier, in the cases of small plants, to do negotiations with their overarching Grandparent Spirit ... . If you can form and alliance with them {Grandfather and Grandmother of a species}, you pretty much have access to the power of all the little plants that they look after.

To start talking to plant spirits, ... grow one from seed ... . Tend it and talk to it, and when it is old enough (you'll get a feel for when) ask it to be your introduction to the Grandparent spirit of that plant species ... . If the spirit agrees, they'll come and talk to you; ... ask them for wisdom about its usage ... . They may give you a rhyme or chant to use (many examples of these will be found in The Northern-Tradition Herbal) when making herbal remedies ... . Once you've gotten to know a few of them in this way, many (not all) of the other Grandparent plant spirits will be willing to speak to you through any live child of

p. 56

theirs, even if it's a weed in a field.

Be prepared, though, to have taboos laid upon you {by Grandparent plant spirits} about ever using that plant unwisely again. For that matter, spirit-workers with ... plant-helpers generally end up taking on very different attitudes toward plants than {from} most people -- for instance, ... avoiding food-versions of them


that are horrendously treated."

{with artificial chemical modification of texture, etc.}

pp. 58-60 fylgja ("fetch" in Scottish)

p. 58

"The fylgja is a product of psychic dissociation ... . The piece of soul that is shapeshifted and "hived off"

{This is sheer conjecture : there is no reason to suppose that any "piece of soul" is capable to any such "dissociation". If one should encountre a fylgja, there is no cause to imagine that such divinity is some part of one's soul "shapeshifted and "hived off"". More likely, the fylgja is an independently prae-existent divinity (a variety of guardian-angel), with no very intrinsic relation to oneself.}


usually (but not always) takes an animal form. It can be sent out to

{The very fact that this can assume animal-guise is already a strong indication that it is no part of one's own nature.}

p. 59

reconnoiter, or journey alongside of someone. ...

Among the Yakut shamans of Siberia, the word yekyua describes


an animal-spirit part of the soul ...

{According to tradition and practice, this is a spirit which is originally independent of one's self, and is recruited to be one's assistant.}


like the fylgja. The yekyua (literally "mother animal") is usually sent out


to live in a wild place;

{The Wiyana (Guiana) aequivalent (to Aztec tonal) is considered as residing in a remote wilderness place.}


the shamans have an understanding that if their yekyua is killed ... they will die,

{This true of the Aztec *tonar (tonal) : it and its human countrepart must die simultaneously.}


and therefore it must be protected. ...

The other common form of the fylgja is human. Some fylgjar look exactly like the individual -- thus the term "fetch", which was


something that looked exactly like you that you saw

{Exceptionally , instead of projecting one's consciousness into the astral body, the consciousness may remain in the material body, which may then view the projected astral body.}


when your life was in danger. (It may be that ... some people ... would make the fylgja leap out of the body ... . ...)


Other fylgar look like members of the opposite sex ..., rather like the Jungian animus or anima ... .

{Carl G. Jung hath described in his Red Book is encountres with his female "Soul" (Anima) during his own dreams.}


In these cases the fylgja often serves as a "self-spouse", having an erotic relationship with the main consciousness."

{In such cases, the "erotic relationship" can be undertaken during dreaming.}

p. 60

"On the other hand, since it is not uncommon for an external spirit to do the same things as a fylgja -- right down to being a spirit-spouse or an animal-guide -- ... it doesn't matter which is which -- if nothing else, a fylgja is much more difficult to offend ... -- but they play similar parts often enough".

{All this could be taken as evidence that there is no real such difference; that a flygja is simply a tempermentally especially-congenial external spirit-guide.} {Though so very congenial as to be difficult to offend, a persistent regarding and treating of fylgja as a mere "hived-off" fragment may eventually prove so insulting to that essentially-independent spirit-spouse or animal-guide as to produce lasting offense.}

p. 60 kin-fylgja

"A kinfylgja is the guardian spirit of a whole family, clan, or human lineage." [also mentioned on p. 62, and on pp. 264-5]

p. 61 the dead

"dealing with angry, troublesome ghosts. Almost always, in these cases, the Dead soul either doesn't believe that they have {he or she hath} passed on, or knows but is still hanging on out of ... sheer habit. After a certain point, their remaining life force begins to fade -- ... they need to feed off of whatever energy sources come by, which is often the humans who live in their former home. It's often the spirit-worker's job to broker negotiations between the humans and the ghosts, ... convince the ghosts that they need to move on, ... or forcibly remove them through the door to Helheim if necessary.

The spirit-worker may also be called on to lead dead souls to where they need to go when there are no {living} humans involved. This usually comes through as a request from the Gods, usually Death Gods. ...

In a northern {Norse}-tradition context, most who follow the various forms of this religion go to Helheim ...; a very few go to Valhalla or Sessrumnir or Bilskirnir, and some go to be with their patron deity."

p. 62 redincarnation

"as ... in charge of this sort of thing, I can say that souls who die in this faith can indeed reincarnate ... but that

Hela is the only being in the Nine Worlds who has the power to recycle them".

{Fuller descriptions of the metempsychosis process describe a committee in charge of this, e.g., "the judges of Hades" (ONR, p. 161).}

ONR = Kurt Leland : Otherwhere : ... Nonphysical Reality ... . Hampton Rds Publ, 2001.

p. 62 ancestral altar

"It's important for a spirit-worker ... to have an ancestral "harrow", or altar.

{This is true in China, in West Africa, etc.}

This can have photo[graph]s of dead relatives,

or just their names".

{Chinese ancestral altars traditionally had merely their names.}

"Not everyone can make a connection to their ancestors, however. Some people's ancestors have cut them off, for various reasons. In order to figure out whether this is the case for you ..., you can do a Soul Map reading and check the Kinfylgja for a block."

pp. 63-5 [by E.V.] guiding the dead

p. 63

"I am a psychopomp and I serve Hela in that capacity. ... At the very start of my career as a spirit-worker, I was told by her Ladyship that for the remainder of my life, I will have to make at least one journey to Helheim every year to bring dead people to her realm. ... .

p. 64

I have to serve as a sort of honor guard for the important party on their way to Helheim. One of these was a relative of Lauf[-]ey, Loki's mother. Another time, I was sent to collect a Teind of elven souls from both the Lyossalfar [Lyo`s-a`lfar] and Svart[-]a[`]lfar ... . ...


In the case of dead humans whom Hela has convinced to come to her realm, it generally involves a physical trip to collect the dead from the place where they have been told to gather, then the use of a labyrinth through which I can pathwalk to the borders of Helheim ... .

In the case of the non-human wights, I have thus far used hamfara (faring forth, or astral journeying) to go to one of the other [of the] Nine Worlds".

p. 65

"One of the things I do every time I make a journey to Hela's realm is to bring messages for the dead, and to bring back messages for the living who have enquired after them. ...

{Messages sent and received in this fashion are likely to be usually more pertinent and reliable than those via more conventional spirit-mediumship.}


I would advise anyone who ends up working as a psychopomp to do the same."

p. 67 Di`sir

"Rudolf Simek, in his 1993 Dictionary of Northern Mythology, specifically notes that Di[`]sir were ... the souls of dead women (Simek, p. 61). Simek goes on note that ... their worship was closely tied into the cult of the Matronae {Matronae} or Mothers (Simek, p. 62)."

"Maintaining an ancestral altar replete with pictures and possessions once belonging to one's female dead is an excellent way to start incorporating them into one's devotional practices."

p. 69 draugar

"In northern lore, draugar are undead creatures who rise like zombies or vampires to feed on the living, still clad in their rotting bodies. Another term for such creatures was aptr[-]gangr, which literally meant "after-goer", or the thing that goes after you. ...

Modernly, some spirit-workers have dealt with ... a "draugr" ... . ... While bodiless, it ... can drive someone mad or scare them literally to death."

p. 70 night-MARE : the "Old Hag" of "sleep-paralysis"

"the Ma[`]ra, sometimes said to take the form of a horse, and sometimes the form of a woman ..., sometimes sitting on their chest and attempting to suffocate them."

p. 71 force no sprite

"While demanding and forcing smaller spirits to work has been done throughout the ages by magicians ..., it's bad policy. ... We are not Gods, and they are not our lawful prey."

pp. 74-6 lesson from Frey

p. 74

"The Norns {Nornir} guard those threads [of Wyrd] closely, and any God who would seize smeone away ... must justify it to Urd {Urd}".

p. 75

"you will sing spirit songs. ... .

... you will drum forthe spirits. ... .

... you will spin spells. ...


Your sexuality too, that will be used as well. Whatever is between your legs will no longer be your own, and that goes for those who do not carry Gods in their bodies as well. ...


The man who places his member {penis} ... in his wife to give her children, that is a sacrifice in its own way."

{Br.hat Aran.yaka "theology presents sexual intercourse as a sacrifice." (PO:CE, vol. 1, p. 19)}

p. 76

"That joy is yours ..., and even the Norns {Nornir} will not begrudge".

PO:CE = Patrick Olivelle : Collected Essays. Firenze University Pr, 2008. http://books.google.com/books?id=P_Jx52VYRssC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=

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Raven Kaldera : NORTHERN-TRADITION SHAMANISM, Liber III = Wyrdwalkers : Techniques of Northern-Tradition Shamanism. Asphodel Pr, Hubbardston (MA), 2007.