February 2009 – Elhaz Ablaze

Necromancy Part Three

February 19, 2009 by Heimlich A. Laguz

necromancypartthreeimage1 After the first round of spiritual pyrotechnics we decided it was high time to have dinner. So we did.

Behind where we were sleeping for the night was a series of carved stone steps leading up a rise and off into bush. You used to be able to follow these steps to the second cemetery but that area was now completely overgrown and inaccessible. That was a shame because I felt that the Old One – the ancient being that called me here – dwelled in that second cemetery.

We had come with the intention of performing a ritual and we decided to use one of the stone steps as our altar. Hence the photos with our various ritual tools and offerings.

We spent some time discussing the purpose of the ritual. The area we were staying in is considered very haunted and normally no one is brave enough to sleep there. We noticed at least one electrical device switched on spontaneously, classic poltergeist behaviour.

I know parapsychologists say that poltergeist activity is really due to overactive psychic powers in children – but we were totally alone, and neither of us normally produces such effects.

As we discussed our plans the air became more and more oppressive. It was clear that while we had done some good there was a lot more work ahead.

The basic intention of the ritual was to invite learning and healing for both us and the spirits. I carved Mannaz and Eihwaz runes on a candle as these are to my mind classic death runes. We brought some very good red wine as our blot drink.

As we planned our magic something extremely strange happened. A rat appeared and ran under Volksfreund’s seat. It was as far as I could see a totally normal, three dimensional, living rat, seen with my eyes and optic nerves. Yet it did not come out from under his seat again!

Unnerved I asked him to get up and move the seat to look under it. Nothing. I scoured the whole area, unable to believe my eyes. It just disappeared! The floor was a totally clear and hard surface, there was nowhere for it to go.

It must have been a ghost or spirit, that’s the only explanation I have. I was seriously freaked out. This wasn’t just having another being use my imagination without my control to appear before me; this thing actually appeared 100% physical and real! I’ve never seen anything of such a degree of weirdness. It wasn’t a big, dramatic thing, but believe me, if you’d been there… well, it was extremely bizarre.

To clear the space we burned recels, dried herbs. It was raining heavily and very windy but somehow we got them going and Volksfreund smudged the area as much as the weather allowed.

I commenced the ritual by calling on Draugadrottin to come and to send us his wisdom, power and blessings, improvising a string of invocations. Satisfied that the right atmosphere was established we both offered our intentions – that our magic bring healing and learning all around (strictly speaking this had already started occurring!)

We lit the candle then and began chanting Mannaz and Eihwaz to power the spell. This went on for quite a while. Eventually the fever of the chanting quelled and I held out the candle into the rain to put it out.

Only it didn’t go out. I held it there in direct and quite heavy rain and wind. Still aflame. At first it struggled a bit, but then if anything the light got stronger. We started silently at it, in total awe, for five or ten minutes as it happily broke a number of the basic laws of physics.

necromancypartthreeimage2 Eventually my arm got really tired from holding it out so I put it down on our makeshift altar. It kept burning for longer again! If you look carefully in the photo you can see the water glistening on the rock and the roses.

This we took as a dramatic and positive sign from the spirits. We raised the wine to honour the spirits and to honour Draugadrottin, making sure to give plenty back to the earth. The wild weather calmed as our work ended. It was certainly dramatic!

We saw various shadows and lights moving in the area after that. Sometimes we would see a person’s shadow moving along – but no person to shed it! Curious, no?

A really sweet and warm atmosphere spread over the whole area after our ritual. The remaining sense of malevolence dissolved completely. Indeed, we felt profoundly welcome.

We went back to the area where I served as a psychopomp for the spirits and both spontaneously went into extremely deep trances of communion with the beings there. Given that this was in the most haunted part of a place that many people fear to sleep in I think that was no small feat!

The rest of the night we felt a strong atmosphere of joy and even love. No one had given these spirits the healing or attention they desired in a long time or so it seemed. We explored the whole area again and it all seemed similarly whole and hale.

Finally at some horrible hour I went to sleep. Volksfreund stayed up and took some photos of things that might be ghosts.

The next morning thing still felt really good and we finally left at about midday. I was sad to go. One thing that didn’t happen was a meeting with the Old One. I felt that the learning it told me I would receive had occurred, but I had also hoped to have a more direct experience of it.

On our return I really wanted to have more weird experiences but none were forthcoming. And we both fell sick – in fact I’m not quite recovered.

But after a few days of feeling that I’d been invited into the most profound universe and then kicked out I got a message or clue for the next step. A new CD I had ordered arrived. I didn’t realise when I ordered it but it is concept album about communicating with the dead! And guess what – instead of a booklet it has a poster that folds out into an ouija board!

I know, that’s kinda cheesy, but I’m thinking that I have to try it at least once. It really felt like I was born to do this whole spirit expedition stuff, this psychopomping business. So now I’m just hopeful and curious about what happens next.

Hail Draugadrottin! Hail The Lord Of The Dead!

Necromancy Part Two

February 18, 2009 by Heimlich A. Laguz

Well we made it back in one piece. Although since our return both Volksfreund and I have been sick – well, we were running around in the rain all night! I don’t know that any more occult explanation is needed for our exhaustion.

So what happened? You ask. Plenty! First a little background.

While, as I mentioned before, I won’t name the location, I can tell you that it is located in a beautiful wilderness area. White Australians have been using the area for a long time and there are many very messed up ghosts in the place because many tragic (or monstrous) things happened in this place. As I mentioned in my last post, it used to be an Aboriginal sacred site, too, and we definitely felt that the land there has a very strong presence.

Ok – well, I’ll start from the beginning, counterintuitive though that may seem. I should add that my account omits some of Volksfreund’s experiences, partly because he stayed up later than I did. So this is not quite the whole story, but I tried to keep detailed notes.

We travelled partly over water to reach our destination and as we came near to it we were greeted with some very strange weather, in particular a sudden and very dramatic impact of wind and rain. Watching the wild ocean water I found myself imagining all kinds of watery spirits playing and fighting violently over the surface of the waves. Volksfreund had very similar visions. We felt that we were being sent a welcoming party in fact.

At the entrance to the location I was overcome with a profound sense of loss. It was first and foremost a physical reaction, very visceral. In fact, it took a lot of effort to forge onward. I could almost see spectral figures hovering about.

Different areas of the location seemed to have very different atmospheres. Specifically it was as though the air was thick and choking here, cold and flat there. The changes were immediate – not at all gradual. One minute we would feel fine, the next we needed to make a strong effort in order to move at all. It was very strange, and hard to explain, but also very palpable, like in each area the air buzzed in a different frequency.

There are two cemetery areas – or at least areas where corpses are buried – at the location. Walking down a hill past the first of these I felt a sensation like a hand pulling on the back of my neck. I fell down, completely disoriented. For a few minutes I lost my sense of identity: I sat there sorting through my thoughts, trying to remember who I was. It was as though someone had stolen my identity or reset it or something.

Volksfreund decided that this was the right time to announce us to the land spirits and ghosts of the place. He had researched the names of the Aboriginal tribes that had once used this place and his speech was very impressive! The oppressive air that had built around us softened in response, but not entirely.

Volksfreund had been there before and was known to the spirits, but I was a new quantity. I felt I needed to identify myself and state my business. It was a bit awkward, but I stood up and announced my name, my lineage, and so forth. I explained that I felt I had been called and that, while I did not know why I was here, I trusted the intentions of the spirits. I explained that I had been told my Odinnic lineage was the reason I had been called, even though I had no clear grasp of my purpose here.

Each time I finished one of the statements powerful gusts of wind blew up, as if in acknowledgement or response. The timing was unerring. Very strange.

As we made a first walk around the area we both experienced intense bursts of physical pain, difficulty breathing, and Volksfreund suffered a lot of pain in one arm, where he has previously had a lot of health problems. It was not pleasant – we felt like the memory of many people’s suffering were radiating from the rocks and ground – and into our bodies.

We climbed a hill to the area considered to be the most haunted. This is where many people died. It is also very beautiful, with sweeping views. Volksfreund saw a ghost whose presence in this area is well-documented, as well as a number of other beings. One touched his hand in a comforting way.

Then I felt a powerful urge to lie on the ground. I fell into memories of place, as images of people from the past washed over me. Looking around I felt as though hosts of people were walking around the place, as though still alive – but clearly spectral, more like imaginal memories that remained in the location.

Then a terrible grief welled up in me as I felt all the pain and fear of those that died here. I burst into wracking sobs as the choruses of voices clamoured to be heard. They wanted their fear to be witnessed, known. They feared letting go of this last vestige of their mortal lives, yet to remain trapped them in the agony of their deaths. The pain and fear was overwhelming.

I offered these beings comfort and reassurance. I have faith that returning to the heart of being, the well of memory, is no terrible thing – we only lose the trappings of physical life. To me Germanic cosmology suggests that everything gets recycled and personal experience seems to fit that too. That said, I don’t particularly understand how any of this works.

My words and thoughts somehow opened a passageway. A great imaginal column opened through my body and many of the spirits rode it away into wherever. I had a powerful feeling of elation and joy and heard many voices thanking me for acknowledging their fear and thereby giving them the choice to leave.

It was one of those remarkable experiences where, though I saw and heard all this in my imagination it felt like someone else was doing the imagining, using my brain in ways I could not use it myself. And of course my physical reaction was one hundred per cent real.

The awesome thing is that Volksfreund saw the column of spirits too and mentioned it before I did! That was a nice bit of confirmation to receive. The experience shook me up a lot, but I was really overjoyed. I could sense that great healing had come to many. In fact this experience felt like something I was born to do. My first effort as a psychopomp was thoroughly successful.

After that the various atmospheres in the area stabilised and smoothed over; furthermore we received no more phantom pains. Other ghosts told me that they chose to stay in an arrangement with the land spirits, because so long as they remain haunting the area it will not be damaged by humans. And it is such a beautiful place, they like it there.

Well that was pretty dramatic all in all…but the night was yet young. Volksfreund and I agreed that we were constantly entering into and out of trances, particularly after the psychopomp incident. But I’ll tell you more of what happened next time – including some pretty dramatic outbursts of the paranormal and at least one physically impossible event that nevertheless occurred! Oh, and we seemed to bring great calm and smoothing over of the various areas, too…

Necromancy

February 13, 2009 by Heimlich A. Laguz

I’ve just recently on this little journal been declaring how similar I am to Woden. So of course, time to put your cash where your teeth live, Henry. And events, strange events, have been afoot.

The thing with chaos magic is that when you read about in books it tends to come across that the universe is like a computer game – a serious of push-button scenarios that only get provoked by the magician’s actions. If the magician never entered the griffin’s secret cave then that griffin would just sit there, bored out of its brain for all eternity, doing its nails and reading the TV guide.

But in reality all kinds of wild stuff goes on, and while I’m off making crazy magical plans, the world it seems has plans for me.

Mr Volksfreund, who is often kind enough to lend his comments to these journal entries, is a friend in real life too (as though the internet were all just a fantasy!) He’s also a hellishly good medium and provoker of magic. I mean, when I hang around him I tend to get spontaneously possessed by Woden. Which is fun, but dangerous of course. But fun. I like fun.

So Volksfreund recently spent a few days at a famous haunted location here in New South Wales. I can’t tell you what it is called or where it is for reasons which aren’t worth explaining (due to being intensely prosaic). He recorded all kinds of evidence of ghostly activity, conversed with spirits, you name it.

On his return we had dinner – which turned into something of a bar crawl I admit – and he told me all about his otherworldly adventures. His tales are pretty damn out there, but I’ve seen and heard his recorded evidence too – very impressive. What neither of us quite expected, however, was that some of the beings he encountered could use him as a bridge to get out into the wider world! And so things began to get odd, because I copped some of these visitors.

It first started at night. I was alone in the house and my intuitive hackles got rubbed right on up. I don’t like being watched by entities that I cannot otherwise detect. I’m not conventionally psychic, but I know when there is magic going on around me. I pulled out my standard Thor magic artillery and that cleared the space… but whereas usually that settles the matter, on this night it did not. My visitors returned later.

So I’m lying in bed, sleeping happily away, and then I’m awake and a young ghostly woman is standing in front of me. She’s the one I sent packing earlier in the night, only to return. As I say, they don’t usually do that, so I’m a little intimidated. Lucky for me, all she wants is to talk.

She says her name is Abigail and she died when quite young. Her dress is very much turn of the century, and her eyes are wide and innocent. She seems to be one of those ghosts that haven’t really developed much perspective since they died. Still wrapped up in and identifying with her lost human form.

I ask her how she managed to come back after the magic I performed; similarly I ask her how she managed to use Volksfreund as a bridge to come to visit me. She doesn’t know the answers; she’s just as confused by it as I am. Reaching an impasse I ask her – well, why are you here ruining my night’s sleep?

Incidentally – why do ghosts have to do that? I mean, I’m a morning person, if they come in at 5.30 am I’ll already be up, showered, breakfasted and ready to stomach the undead. But 4 in the morning? C’mon, surely that’s still roll over and go back to sleep time.

Ok, so petty complaints aside – Abigail explains that she has been sent by someone, she is serving another being which took care of her ability to find me and weather the dismissal magic. And so she says that she’d like to see me again (which just seems a bit weird and uncool to me, can I just say), and then she’s gone.

To be replaced but what I can only describe as a presence. This thing is old. I mean, I sometimes think that in the big picture I’m pretty old (or my true nature is anyway), but this thing is all old all the time. Its voice echoes in my skull like leaden sledgehammers. I have this vague intuition of a vast inky blackness, but really, who knows. I don’t have any of that cool second sight stuff unfortunately.

Well anyway, this being explains that it has sought me out because of my Odinnic lineage. I considers me to be a psychopomp, one who guides the dead to their resting place. And it wants to educate me in this undertaking!

Volksfreund tells me that the haunted location this being followed him from on its way to me was used by the local Aboriginal groups once upon a time as a psychopomp training ground – apparently this is a matter of historical fact. Well I don’t know how I fit into all that (or not) but hearing that did make me feel a bit less nuts.

Apologies to anyone who finds it offensive that an Australian land spirit would take any notice of a white guy, but they seem to like Woden for some reason. Its not my fault! Yes, I am aware of the complex politics of spirit of place and also I’m not going to ignore some big scary spirit just to keep happy a bunch of atheist academics who don’t believe in Aboriginal spirits anyway. Or something along those line anyway. Don’t take me too seriously on this folks.

It explains that I am a psychopomp. My only true calling is to serve the dead, to guide them from blockage or ensnarement into the next part of wherever they are supposed to go when they die. Hmm. That gets me thinking. I had an uncle who was an Odinnic avatar. At his funeral I saw Odin come, cloth him in garments of blazing gold, and lead him off to Valhalla. I wonder if I saw that because of this psychopomp business?

I point out to this spirit that I’ve been following this whole psychotherapy path, and that I’m about to can that and do more psychology study, and that this work is a bit like being a psychopomp for the living at times. Isn’t that enough? No, it says. Not enough. Apparently it doesn’t think I was ever meant to work with the living – that was just the best compromise I could find in this damn atheist-on-the-surface-but-actually-terrified-of-the-unknown society I’m in.

Well then, I point out that this is no basis for putting my beloved organic vegetables on the table, or having anything better than rags to wear. “Arrangements would be made” is the response. What on earth does that mean?

I mean, let me get this straight, I’m told by an entity which may have at some point knocked about with Aboriginal sacred stuff that I am a psychopomp by virtue of my Odinnic lineage and that I’m supposed to spend my working life freeing the dead of entrapment and helping them on their way to the next stop on the grand consciousness carousel.

Does anyone else find this bloody weird?

And then this great beastie says it wants me to come visit it at the location Volksfreund was mucking about at so it can educate me some more. Well, we are going to check it out on Sunday night, so I sure hope that something happens.

A few days later I try contacting this spirit again but all I get is a brief Abigail appearance, who tells me that it I have to visit them if I want to know any more. Damn.

Does it end there? Oh no it doesn’t!

Ironwood played a gig in Canberra last weekend. While I’m watching the band on before us (a very classy act called The Veil, check them out), the big scary spirit speaks to me. It says our performance tonight is only incidentally for the living. Really, it’s for the dead. What does that even mean? Ok, I say. Whatever, at least you know what is going on!

And then a name of Odin’s comes to mind. Draugadrottin – Lord Of The Dead. Sounding a bit thematic? Sure is to me. The first song we planned to play (and indeed did play) is an Odinnic invocation. So I made sure Draugadrottin got some extra focus when we performed. I really should try to contact this aspect of One-Eye.

As we prepare to perform all these ghostly forms start entering the venue. By the time we are underway the place is bursting from the seams with ghosts. Yet when I try to focus directly on them – gone. Then when I stop trying – bang, everywhere. Luckily we performed really well (hurray for returning to a regular rehearsal schedule). So I guess we satisfied them. I mean, I didn’t get any rotten spectral tomatoes in the face after our set.

Is this what being a psychopomp is? I don’t even know. But hey, if I can make a living doing this sort of thing, well that sounds like fun. I hope it means I get to have an Indiana Jones kinda lifestyle in fact. I need one of those cool whips that psychically know when you want them to come loose and when you want them to hold on tight.

So yeah, we’re about to go and check this place out. I wonder what will happen? Well, you might read about it here… if I make it back. After all, they never said I was going to be a living psychopomp. I hope I can make sense of this. If this is somehow my path… well then I better bloody well embrace it with all my heart. See you on the other side… or not.

Hey, I just realised. Its Friday The 13th!