What is Berserkergangr?

The Streetfighter

It didn’t take long before we were piling out of their car and heading into what I had always considered one of the mellowest pool halls I’d ever been in. (You can get an idea of what I was used to if I considered a pool hall mellow.) In short order we had a table and a pitcher and had settled down to the sort of trivial chatter that seemed so deep at the time. I’d noticed a couple of crusty types a few tables over who were giving me the hairy eyeball, but since they were about 10 years older than me I shrugged them off. All in all we were having a good, relaxed time.

I was leaning over to take a diagonal cross table shot and had paused in position to exchange banter with the girls. Returning my attention to the table, I was purposely ignoring one of their snide (but accurate) summations of my skills as a pool player when I heard her break off mid sentence. I looked back over my shoulder to see one of the crusties had walked up right next to me without me n oticing.

“What kind of knife is that?” he asked flatly, referring to the dagger on my belt.

“A Holden dagger,” I replied, starting to straighten up. A lot of people mistook it for a Nazi dagger, but it had been around a long time before (as in Viking times long time before) the Goose Stepping Brigade had stuck a backward swastika on it. My time in college was still a few years down the line, but even then I had a thing for history. Still, I’d jammed with a few folks over the knife who thought it meant I was a Nazi despite my dark hair and skin.

Without warning he whipped his right arm and I heard the snap of a buck knife opening. I saw the flash of stainless steel reflect wickedly over the green felt top of the pool table, and I knew I had better do something fucking quick.

Before he could bring his hand back from his overly wide and dramatic opening, I dropped the pool cue and lunged forward, my left hand grabbing his wrist and my right dropping down somewhere around his belt buckle.

With a loud “DON’T,” I heaved him up and slammed him down onto the pool table. Now don’t ask me how I managed the next few dribbles, as I really don’t have any idea except that it’s incredible what your adrenal glands can talk you into when someone pulls out a knife. I distinctly remember bouncing the guy three more times. He dropped the knife on bounce number three, but I must have thrown one or two more in there just to make sure. When he came to a rest, his arm was outstretched over his head and the knife was way down near his chest, so something must have happened that I don’t remember or I just didn’t notice. Anyway, he wasn’t going anywhere quick.

I whirled around to face his buddy, who had already decided that they had made a serious mistake and was backpedaling with wide eyes and hands held out in front of him. I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye as the bartender came barreling into view holding something down near his leg that I really didn’t want to know about…

The bartender looked at me and said, “You didn’t start it. You can stay.”

I thanked him, but told him I’d be leaving as soon as I hit the head. You don’t hang around places like that after a fight in case the suckers backed up on you with some serious firepower. I swaggered to the bathroom and locked the door. About a second later I was bent over the toilet barfing my guts out from adrenaline and fear. Once I’d washed up, we scurried out the back door to the car and got the hell out of there.

From A Professional’s Guide to Ending Violence Quickly by Marc “Animal” MacYoung

The Cop

Consider also Officer Stacy Lim from the Los Angeles Police Department, whose story is legendary among professional police warriors. It began when she pulled into her driveway after an enjoyable evening of softball practice. When Lim got out of her personal car, she was immediately confronted by a group of gangbangers who had followed her with the intent of carjacking her vehicle.

Her first response was to call out that she was a police officer. They responded by firing a .357 magnum round into her chest, which penetrated her heart and blew a tennis ball-size exit wound out her back. Stacy Lim stayed in the fight. She not only returned fire, but she also became the aggressor as she pursued the man, shooting him repeatedly. The remaining gangbangers suddenly remembered previous, pressing engagements and very wisely fled for their lives.

After she dealt with her attackers she turned around and headed up her driveway toward her house to call for help. She does not recall doing it, but as she was losing consciousness, she stripped the magazine from her pistol and threw it 20 feet away where it was found the next day. She did this because in the academy she had been taught, “Don’t let them use your weapon against you.”

Her attacker died and Stacy Lim died twice on the operating table. She required 101 pints of blood, but she survived, returning to duty eight months later. Today, she still works uniform patrol on the streets of Los Angeles, and her training philosophy is, “You need to prepare your mind for where your body may have to go.” Do they make them like that anymore?

From On Combat, The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman with Loren W. Christensen

The Berserkers

They prepared and equipped their boats, with twenty men on each. Kveldulf commanded one, and Skallagrim the other. They rowed of in search of the ship, and when they reached the place where it was moored, they put in to shore.

Hallvard and his men had covered the ship with awnings and gone to sleep, but when Kveldulf and his men reached them, the watchmen who had been sitting by the gangway at the prow lept up and called out to the ship, telling the crew to get up because they were about to be attacked. Hallvard and his men rushed for their weapons.

When Kveldulf and his men came to the gangway, they went up it to the stern of the ship, while Skallagrim headed for the prow. Kveldulf had a gigantic, double-bladed axe in his hand. Once he was on board, he told his men to go along the gunwale and cut the awnings from the pegs, while he stormed off back to the aftergaurd, where he is said to have become frenzied like a wild animal. Some other of his men went into a frenzy too, killing everyone they came across, and so did Skallagrim when he ran around the ship. Kveldulf and his son did not stop until the ship had been completely cleared. When Kveldulf went back to the aftergaurd, he wielded his axe and struck Hallvard right through his helmet and head, sinking the weapon in right up to the shaft. Then he tugged it back with such force that he swung Hallvard up into the air and over the side. Skallagrim swept the prow clean and killed Sigtrygg. Many of the crew threw themselves into the water, but Skallagrim’s men took the boat they had come on and rowed over to them, killing everyone in the water.

More than fifty of Hallvard’s men were killed there, and Skallagrim took the ship which had sailed there and all the riches on it.

They captured two or three of the most paltry men, spared their lives and asked them who had been on the ship and what their mission had been. When they found out the truth, they examined the carnage on the ship and had the impression that more of the crew had jumped over the side and lost their lives there than had died on board…

It is said that the people who could take on the character of animals, or went berserk, became so strong in this state that no one was a match for them, but also that just after it wore off they were left weaker than usual. Kveldulf was the same, so that when his frenzy wore off he felt completely exhausted by the effort he had made, and was rendered completely powerless and had to lie down and rest.

From Egil’s Saga, translated by Bernard Scudder

Fight or Flight

According to Lt. Col. Grossman, when confronted with the threat of violence we are limited to four potential options. Fight, flee, posture or submit.

The nature of the human animal is such, however, that we are not very capable when it comes to making these decisions in the heat of the moment. Once the adrenaline starts pumping, your rational cognitive ability drops sharply, so you need to make your decisions about how you would like behave in the face of violence before it happens.

People who have lived in denial about violence, or are unwilling to become violent themselves, are the most likely to simply freeze, submit, become victims and suffer the consequences.

But most people most of the time are not so willing to be pushed around. They’ll attempt to posture and bluff their way out, even if it means some yelling, screaming, pushing and shoving to get there. They typically are still not willing to really hurt anybody, and so if the situation does escalate to an actual fight they’ll resort to non-decisive tactics, designed to cause pain in the hope of scaring their opponent away. Often, a punch to the face is just another bluff in the game of escalato. Against a committed attacker, the pseudo tough-guy will be forced to fold or switch to a more effective option.

The street-smart survivor focuses his strategies primarily on avoidance and escape. He’ll fight like hell to get out of tight corner, but only until he gets enough distance to make a run for it. A true survivor will do absolutely whatever it takes to stay alive.

The warrior is a different breed, because he has chosen to stand and fight when others would fold or flee. The berserker, more than any other warrior, is committed to the principle that offence is the best defense. The berserker attacks without pause, without mercy and with little to no though for his own safety. The berserker is not a “cold blooded killing machine” like your favorite action movie star, but a raving lunatic, a mad dog entirely focused on the destruction of the target in front of him. Ironically, it is his extreme aggression that saves him. Opposing warriors are forced onto the defensive and ordinary mortals trip over each other in the scramble to escape his fury.

Berserkergangr is your natural, primal combat mode. It is a phenomenon that has occurred throughout history and across cultures. Berserkergangr is not therianthropy, though the two appear to be related, and it is not what eastern style martial artists call “no-mind” either. Berserkergangr does not require the use of any drugs or specialized training, though training will certainly help. The capacity to go berserk is something that is within you already.

Adrenaline

The physiological effects of adrenaline and the “fight or flight response” have been scientifically documented. The heart rate becomes elevated in response to stress, and progressive more elevated as the situation becomes ore stressful. Other symptoms of mild to extreme stress may include the loss of fine and complex motor control, diminished cognitive function and loss of higher reasoning, tunnel vision and auditory exclusion. The redirection of all energy resources to the vital organs and large muscle mass can lead to vomiting and loss of bowel and bladder control.

On the up side, brute strength and gross motor function are enhanced. The pain threshold is raised and vasoconstriction decreases blood lost from injuries. A berserker can run faster, jump higher, hit harder and tolerate more damage than anyone could under normal circumstances. Time may appear to speed up, or may go by very slowly. I personally have had several “out of body experiences” while fighting and have once had my conscious mind black out completely while my body went into full-bore attack mode.

In the oriental martial arts, heavy emphasis is usually place on learning to control and minimize the effects of adrenaline through deep breathing techniques. Deep, slow abdominal breathing helps you to calm, ground and center yourself. And this can be effective even in a hard contact sparring match or a low risk physical confrontation. I personally find it hard to believe, though, that anyone can remain calm, grounded and centered while facing down single, knife-wielding crackhead, much less a trained medieval army.

It seems to me that the correct strategy for the berserker warrior is not to fight against his own nature, but rather to embrace the madness. Accept the adrenaline rush. Take it and run with it. Plan your tactics to exploit the strengths of the battle-rage, and avoid the weaknesses. Take on the rage and run with it. Charge headlong into immortality.

Hail Chaos! Viva Loki! Aum Wotan!

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Top Dog & Woki

Ok, so possession is a strange thing. When I think about the image of a berserker triggering a violent trance by biting at a shield, I guess I figure something more primal than the berzerker’s everyday personality is at
play.

You might have heard of a chap called Justice Yeldam, an experimental musician. He attaches microphones to pieces of glass, then manipulates the glass with his mouth. The sounds this creates are pretty wild, and his performances seem to involve a lot of blood.

The funny thing is, he says that despite how gory it all looks, he never really hurts himself very much. He goes into a very altered state and somehow in that state no harm comes to him.

In fact I recently I read an interview with him in which he laughs about the irony of a time when he badly cut his foot in a safe environment after a doing a performance that involved putting broken glass in his mouth for half an hour to no negative effect.

Think that sounds like berzerkergang? You bet, except this chap isn’t killing someone, he’s just putting himself at risk in order to create some very strange art. Which suggests that 1) violence is only one use for a berserk state and 2) berzerkergang has an awful lot in common with seidh.

The physiological science of all this stuff isn’t at all controversial – it has a lot to do with activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which regulates all the bodily functions you can’t consciously control.

In other words, back we go to my good friend and writing partner the unconscious. The Uppsala Berzerkergang article goes into all this stuff in a lot more detail.

This is probably part of why in historical battles it was very helpful to surprise your enemy. While your side has had plenty of time to get itself all riled up and psycho-physically primed for conflict, the other side is still in a more sustainable, everyday, vulnerable conscious state. It is anything but a fair contest.

Of course today warfare seems to be more about having lots of bombs that you can bravely drop on the foe from thousands of miles away.

My reason for recounting all of this is to underline very strongly that there are many, many different shapes in which altered states can manifest, and those shapes are highly plastic. Thus the practices surrounding Heathen battle magic and the practices surrounding modern experimental music produce some comparable psycho-physical changes.

Some folks in modern Heathen argue that we absolutely must reconstruct the archaic practices as closely as possible or else we are somehow letting the Heathen side down. Well I agree that this is a fruitful and inspiring thing to do.

But it is also pretty clear that if we have different (perhaps even more) options available to reach the desired conscious states then that is no bad thing.

It certainly lacks any historical validity for me to use black metal as a consciousness altering tool, but somehow I think my ancestors would approve (at least once their ears recovered from the onslaught).

These comments serve as a pre-amble to the introduction of two possession forms that have entered my life in the last few months – namely Top Dog and Woki.

Top Dog is – well, he is THE dog. Class all the way. People get out of his way in the street when they see him coming. He like sunglasses, expensive alcoholic drinks, walking sticks and snappy clothes. Its hard not to love Top Dog because, damn it, he just loves himself so much!

Top Dog entered my life to help me in promoting my business, since I am naturally an introverted and retiring person (unless I am screaming my guts out on a stage – see above comments about using modern contexts to produce ancient trance states).

Since I am not a typical sunny kind a guy who thinks nothing of telephoning one thousand total strangers a day in the chase for referrals and work, I prefer not to be involved. Top Dog very kindly shadows me when I have to do this sort of thing.

Since Top Dog is undoubtedly THE dog of dogs, the classiest of class, he has no problem in selling us both to potential referral sources. Top Dog used my anxiety about promoting myself as a door to take over the reins – it was that anxiety which put my bodymind into the appropriately receptive state the first time we met.

He is in fact quite subtle in his presence when I am working with him (after all they are ultimately buying my services, not his). But during times of recreation he loves to put on the whole show, dancing, howling and amusing my somewhat dumbfounded wife with his antics.

He also likes walking around the neighbourhood, just so he knows that people have seen him around. And when he wants he can effect a total submersion ofmy ego, whereas usually when gods or spirits ride me I retain some sense of separate identity, watching as it were from the back of my skull.

Don’t tell anyone, but Top Dog seems to me to be an Odinnic identity. In fact, not long before Top Dog arrived on the scene my wife and I both noticed independently in Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology an intriguing Old Norse mythological name which I think is related to Odin – namely Hundalf/Hundulf.

There are debates about how this is translated – Dog-Elf or Dog-Wolf are the most common. I like to think Dog Wolf is the correct meaning – he is so purely Top Dog that one word for canine is not enough, so in Old Norse he gets two! I hope to get more of Top Dog into my life and to put together some really Classy
outfits for him to dress up in. It’s the least I can do in return for the help he gives me!

Oddly, Top Dog also reminds me of the Vodoun deity Baron Samedi, thought the Baron is admittedly a little more macabre than Hundulf is. Clint observed to me recently that there are many odd similarities between Heathenry and Vodoun. Weirder things have happened!

As for Woki – well let’s just say that WOden-loKI is a pretty natural concatenation is it not? But in truth I have had only limited experience with Woki thus far – though I must say that he turns up extremely quickly when invoked. He too is very energetic and a bit of a trouble maker.

I’m not sure how the deities in question arrange for this sort of alchemy to work out but I hope they continue with it. I love it! I also hope they teach me to get better at better at opening into their presence because really the average Odinnic or Loko personality is much more interesting than the average conventional me.

Or to refine that point – the most interesting parts of me get greatly amplified when these beings/patterns/mental states/trances/illusions/truths/insert-your-own-metaphyiscal-term start loitering around my bodymind.

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Somafera Journal

Let me start with a little history into my choice of practice.

I have always been involved on some sort of self defence art, whether it was boxing, Muay Thai kick boxing, or another form of martial art, mixed with a lot of weight pushing.

The biggest issue I had was when I did get into a situation where these practices could be used was that I would just black out, and when I came to the other person was not in any hurry to move. (I am not trying to blow my own trumpet here I am just making a ground point of how I first started this Journey).

One example of this really scared the crap out of me.

I was out with a friend and he had a scuffle with someone, anyway when we were leaving the guy ran up from behind and hooked my mate in the face with knuckle dusters, spreading his nose all over his face.

Then the guy ran at me. I don’t know what happened next I seem to have lost a few minutes which to this day I still can’t recall. The next thing I know there is the head light of a car about 30 cm from my head I am sitting on the guy’s chest beating his face in.

There was blood pouring out of this guy’s face, the guy was out cold and not moving, all the security were screaming at me to stop but they wouldn’t touch me.I ran off up the road I stopped about 50 metres away and the guy still hadn’t moved.

The next day I was freaking out what if I had killed this guy what was I to do. I even watched the news to see if they had said anything.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened though definitely the most serious so I started looking for a reason this was happening.

I happened to stumble across a site called Uppsala online; after reading the segment on Berserkergangr it all started to make sense. The berserker had always been of interest to me.

I read over this site repeatedly for a few months then I notice the link to something called somafera.

After reading through this site I could not stop thinking about what I had read, it really tripped something within me. Please read through the somafera site for a full understanding and description of what is involved.

The only thing that was missing to make this a full spiritual / physical training system was there was no set martial art to use.

I started asking around and the system I found to fit with the somafera training is a style of kung-fu called YANG MIAN where as you use internal pressure to create power.

You raise the pressure in your body by doing repetitive exercises while keeping your mind, breathing and muscles relaxed similar to raising the wode (check out their site it has some great videos on it).

Lucky for me a good friend of mine has been given permission by his Master (Master Yang) to start his own school. I have been training with him over the last couple of months to get my body conditioned and am now ready to tie Somafera and Yang Mian together in a experiment to see what can be achieved.

I will be keeping a monthly journal of my experiences on this page, it will be quite a journey.

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