Elhaz Ablaze Book is Now Available!

Long awaited, finally here: the very first official Elhaz Ablaze publication, available in both print and ebook editions. You can order the book on Amazon:

Print edition available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692984712

Ebook edition available at: https://www.amazon.com/Elhaz-Ablaze-Compendium-Chaos-Heathenry-ebook/dp/B079WCH3RK

Our back-of-title screed:

There are those who hear the phrase “Chaos Heathen” and instinctively know what it means. This book is for you.

There are those who hear the phrase “Chaos Heathen” and do not know what that could mean. This book is for you.

There are those who hear the phrase “Chaos Heathen” and get upset, confused, or angry. This book is for you.

Elhaz Ablaze: A Compendium of Chaos Heathenry dives into the fractal spirals of contemporary magic from a Heathen perspective. Ranging from the bizarrely philosophical to the vigorously practical, the book’s contributors – artistic and literary – dare to dismantle Chaos Magic, Heathenry, and themselves…just in time to serendipitously discover ever more novel, playful, and artful modes of magical and spiritual being.

The book explores diverse themes including rune magic; meditation; mystical interpretation of Norse mythology and deities (Odin, Thor, etc.); sigil magic; trance work; alchemy; the ideas of Aleister Crowley, C. G. Jung, and others; historical martial arts and fitness; and the philosophy of the occult.

Created by authors and friends of the notorious Elhaz Ablaze website, and lavishly illustrated, Elhaz Ablaze: A Compendium of Chaos Heathenry promises to smash a Mandelbrot set’s worth of paradigms, all the while artfully romancing the mysteries of Heathen spirituality.

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Returning to Seething

Groa's Incantation By W.G. Collingwood (1854 - 1932)Recently I reactivated my interest in Jan Fries-style seidr – namely the induction of shaking, swaying, and trembling as a healing tool. I’d like here to discuss the background to this technique, draw some parallels with the findings of trauma psychology, and discuss my recent initial foray back into the practice.

First of all, Fries has been criticized by many Heathens for his apparently bogus connection of seidr to “seething,” and thereby to trembling as the basis of Northern trance work. Fries has actually addressed a lot of these criticisms and even pointed out that his ideas were only ever presented as playfully speculative.

I have always maintained that there is nothing wrong with speculative innovation so long as one is transparent that this is what one is doing, so that others can make their own informed choices. Fries, I do not think, has tried to pass off speculation as historical fact. For me, Fries’s notion of seething makes absolutely perfect sense. I do not believe that anyone can really claim to practice “authentic” seidr in this day and age, but seething seems to fill that function for me just marvelously. So there.

More importantly, Fries’ research on traditions of magical trembling seems to indicate that such experiences are common in a vast array of cultures, and symbolically speaking they make sense in a Heathen context too, even if the specific technology of seidr (whatever it even was exactly!) makes no reference to trembling experiences. That said, there are boiling cauldrons and ecstatic furies aplenty, and the magical power of ergi seems very nicely compatible with the flowing vulnerable liminality that trembling can produce – states of healing and sorcery.

As such, I feel confident that in going back to the testimony of my own bodymind, and connecting that to my Heathen practice, I cannot really go too far wrong. I trust the flesh to tell me what is best for it (at least if I know how to listen!). That doesn’t mean I have to sacrifice my keen interest in reconstructionism, it just means I have healthy senses of irony and humor.

In Fries’ book Seidways the theme of healing recurs in his accounts of different seething-type practices from around the world, be they San magic rituals or Mesmerism. My own experience of trembling, shaking, and swaying practices align with his accounts most marvelously; in fact, reading that book was like coming home for me, spiritually speaking. Finally someone had put words to the deep, wordless experiences that I knew and craved.

Indeed, long before I consciously realized the significance of trembling, I had already undergone several powerful healing experiences in which I spontaneously trembled, shook, swayed, or even several such behaviors at once. These movements were automatic, unguided by conscious intention. Since I started consciously seething I found out that these behaviors could move from consciously willed into automatic modes, and that the more this involuntariness suffused them, the deeper the magical effect.

Imagine, therefore, my surprise on reading research on the psychophysiology of trauma. It appears that when a mammal experiences trauma (e.g. almost getting killed by a predator) it first experiences the potent neurophysiological event of the fight-flight-freeze reaction. After the danger has passed, the animal will then tremble and shake. And this behavior releases the body of the traumatic damage done to the nervous system and organs, so that the creature can shortly return to normal life without any chronic harm from its harrowing experience.

Humans, on the other hand, do not listen to our bodies (this comment applies mostly to modern Westernized humans) and so by and large have forgotten how to allow ourselves to tremble after experiencing trauma. This in turn is the root of many chronic problems that can be caused by trauma. It is not necessarily the traumatic event itself that causes the depression or the anxiety; the culprit can also be that the body’s natural mechanism for correcting systemic imbalances (imbalances that are adaptive in the moment of danger but not long term) has been suppressed.

The parallel with seething is significant: what Fries documented in Seidways is nothing less than a catalog of the ways different cultures have sought to ensure that cultural praxis serves the biological and psychological necessity of trembling. More than this! Such practices also marshal the tremendous psychic potency of trembling and, aligned with conscious intent, make it into a powerful engine for the working of magic.

Seething, therefore, is a particularly primal kind of magic, one which activates every layer of the nervous system’s evolutionary strata and brings all that power to bear on the seether’s intent. Yet this is not something that can be mastered overnight. First much self-healing through trembling must be accomplished (meditation, particularly in the Vipassana tradition, which emphasizes the experience of the sensate body, is a valuable adjunct).

This is where I am up to – this process of self healing. It is funny that, even though I have understood the significance of seething for years, I am only now finally taking it to my deepest heart. Well, we each have our journey, our voyage onto the sea of irony and mystery.

Recently I undertook a session of seething for the first time in many years. Since that session I have been astounded at the loosening of certain very persistent and difficult psychological fetters. I find myself more able to become conscious of the ways in which unconscious, emotional forces hiddenly direct conscious thought into flights of justification, attempts to pass off as rational what are really courses of action that have been shaped by unresolved trauma in the bodymind. Deep shifts are occurring in the tectonics of my psyche. I can intuit that if I keep up with this practice, then this profound shifting will get progressively more potent.

So what does my seething practice look like? I run from Jan Fries’ directions in Seidways pretty much as written (admittedly he allows plenty of latitude for individual preference). I find low light with candles to be helpful; I put a randomized iTunes playlist of Dead Can Dance on softly in the background, and I open the rite with the invocation of runes for protection.

But most importantly – and this is a detail that in earlier years I neglected to my cost – I am sure to ask, rather than tell, the deep mind/spirits/gods/whatever for what I would like to experience. I am humble and respectful and invite its/their instruction, rather than thinking I have to be the “master magician” in control at all times. No, such an ego-centered attitude runs utterly contrary to the sympathetic and autonomic spirit of seething, which loves to undermine the illusion of the ego’s supremacy.

As I shake, sway, tremble, and seeth, I sometimes chant, moan, sing, and laugh. My mind wanders and then returns. I am sometimes vigorous in my movements, sometimes subtle. There is little about this that is intellectual, formalized, or precise. I turn again and again to accepting what the body wishes to share, seeking to cultivate trust in that deep self from which all spontaneity and magic flows.

I call out to Odin and Loki mostly, and they are helpful, though each embodies seething in a different way. My recent Loki-themed articles reflect the building unconscious anticipation that was leading me to return to seething; if Loki is the body, then seething is worshipping Loki. It is restoring to the body recognition of its innate beauty, just as it is.

I have never loved my body. I have never trusted it. I have hated it, circumscribed it, battered it, despised it, treated it with contempt. I have been learning in recent years to nourish it, to be kind to it, to embrace it. Ill health and emotional struggles forced me to do so. Now I wonder if this whole journey were not a prelude to my decision to reintroduce seething into my life.

I am ready for this now as I never have been before. I am grounded in a vigorous meditation practice, and this seems crucial. I encourage anyone reading this article to stop now, and instead get stuck into active, practical magic, in whatever way you see fit. Magic is meaningless if it is not actively practiced. Perhaps I’ll see you in one of the worlds that only the trembling seethers may enter…

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Interview with Diana Paxson

I want to say that Diana was extremely friendly and kind. She leads the Hrafnr Community in California. I must thank her very much! For books by Diana Paxson check out our Elhaz Ablaze Bookshop.

Interview with Diana Paxson

This interview is part of an academic investigation of the practices of Seidhr in the postmodern world. Could you tell me a little bit about your background in the area of magic(k) and/or Neo-Paganism and how you came to practice Seidhr?

My first magical training was in a ceremonial tradition based on the work of Dion Fortune. After several years, I felt that I needed to balance that with a more energetic and ecstatic practice, so I began to work with the techniques in Michael Harner’s book on shamanism. However these techniques, although very well presented and effective, lacked the substance that comes from a cultural tradition, but I had no connection to any of the Native American or other cultures. When I was doing research into Norse mythology I had seen references to seidhr, which sounded like a northern European magical tradition that I could explore without the danger of cultural appropriation. Unfortunately, at that time, I knew of no one who was practicing it, so I had to figure it out for myself, using what I had learned in other traditions about spirit journeying and trance work to interpret and flesh out the information in the lore.

Where does Seidhr come from? What was Seidhr in the past and what is Seidhr today?

In the Eddas and sagas, Seidh is used as a term for a variety of magical practices which involve a trance state and is often translated into English as “witchcraft”. The list of skills ascribed to Odin in Ynglingasaga (although presented in negative terms) is similar to lists
of shamanic practices from other cultures. The oracular practice described in the saga of Eirik the Red and other sagas is also called seidh (or spae). It is said to have been taught to the Aesir by Freyja.

Oracular Seidh is the best known form today. The process I developed is based on the sources given in my answer to question 4. I have trained people all over the US, in England, and in Holland. Many have taken the basic approach and developed their own variations.

Why do you think Seidhr should be practiced? What does result from practicing Seidhr?

Oracular seidh is a community service, a way to provide insight and counsel. Other forms of seidh can be used for healing, inspiration and to gather information.

What sources have inspired you to take up the practice of Seidhr? What sources have you studied / read?

1. The sagas, especially the saga of Eirik the Red, which includes the most explicit description of any Norse religio-magical ceremony that we have.

2. The Eddic poems in which Odin visits the Völva in hel to question her: Baldrsdraumar, The shorter seeress’ prophecy, and Völuspá.

3. Saxo and other sources that describe journeys to the Otherworld.

James Chisholm has put together a sourcebook of references to seidh, published by RunaRaven Press.

Do you think one has to speak Old Norse or has to study the original sources to be able to practice Seidhr?

In order to understand the references in the lore it is useful to at least compare several translations and look up problematic words in an Old Norse dictionary, as modern languages have a more limited vocabulary, and terms are often mistranslated.

Despite the fact that the term ‘shamanism’ is itself controversial outside the context of Siberian shamanism, do you believe that Seidhr is a kind of ‘Northern Shamanism’? Does Seidhr feature shamanistic elements?

I find “shamanistic” to be a useful term for practices that resemble those found in true shamanic cultures. Ethnographic research (see Eliade’s „Shamanism“) indicates a remarkable similarity of practices in widely separated cultures. I believe that such practices were once
world-wide, and some may have survived in the Indo-European cultures. It is also possible that the Norse borrowed practices from the Finns and Saami (just as the latter borrowed some elements from Norse mythology). Oracular seidh, though it uses many of the same skills, in format is clearly part of the Indo-European oracular tradition.

What are the differences between shamanism and Seidhr? What are the specifics of Seidhr?

My understanding of the way “shamanism” is now being used is that it properly is applied to the practices of tribal hunter/herder-gatherer cultures, with the classic initiatory and other experiences.

By the saga-period, practitioners of seidh play a more anomalous role in their societies, except for the seers, who seem to have been highly respected. Because terms such as “seidhjallr” are used in connection with spae, I classify it as a subset of Seidh.

Do you consider Seidhr as part of the ‘Northern Tradition’ / Teutonic-Germanic Religion?

Although not universal, oracular seidh is practiced in a number of heathen communities in the U.S. In my opinion seidh is the proper term for such practices in Asatru. Groups basing their practice on Anglo-Saxon or Continental Germanic ways might find other terms (such as
“hexerei”). Certainly “Seidh” is the best-known and most popular term for Teutonic-Germanic magic.

What is the role of women in Seidhr? Is Seidhr somehow more connected to women?

In Ynglingasaga we are told that in earlier times both men and women practiced seidh, but that later it was considered so “ergi” that it was only taught to priestesses. Apparently as the Norse became acculturated to European Christian ideas, the status of women and anything requiring receptivity was lowered. Thus, except for the seidhmadhrs persecuted by the Norse kings, the seidh workers we read about in the lore are female.

I have trained both men and women in seidh, and both are quite able to master the skills. It is true, however, that those who continue to practice seidh and make it part of their Asatru identity include more women and gay men than straight men.

Is it ‘unmanly’ to practice Seidhr? What does that say about the role of men and women in (ancient) Germanic culture? How is this seen in (post)modern
Neo-Paganism / Ásatrú?

See above, and for a full analysis, see my article, “Sex, Seidh, and Status” (http://www.seidh.org/articles/sex-status-seidh.html)

Germanic Neo-Heathenism has been often accused of being racist / right-wing? Why do you think that is the case? Can descendents of non-European cultures be part of Ásatrú?

This is a topic that has been discussed exhaustively by contemporary heathens. For an analysis, see Chapter 7 of /Our Troth, Vol. 1/. Essentially, opinions range from those who believe that anyone who feels called by the Germanic gods can worship them to the splinter groups who think that Asatru is the natural religion of a superior white race. The heathen emphasis on family and heritage means that for many, their descent from Germanic peoples is one motive for becoming heathen, however, at least in the U.S., everyone has been formed by speaking a Germanic language and living in a culture shaped by Germanic ideas, so we all have a Germanic cultural heritage.

Why do you think so many people feel attracted to Neo-Paganism today (including Wicca, Druidry & Ásatrú)?

There are many reasons: the Abrahamic religions don’t deal well with the feminine or the environment, many of them fail to help people connect with Spiritual Power, focusing on sin and guilt is depressing, and finally, Monotheism doesn’t really make sense (see John Michael Greer’s „A World Full of Gods“).

Finally, what answers does Heathenism / Paganism have to the condition of the modern world (including modern challenges like climate change, overpopulation, financial crisis etc.)? In which way does it help to improve the conditio humana? (I would also like to ask in this context: Why is it ‘better’ than the monotheistic cults?)
To properly address any one of these questions would require a book. In brief, Paganism in general sees humans as part of the natural world, not superior to it, and teaches harmony and cooperation rather than exploitation. If we understand natural law and apply it to our own
actions, we have a better chance of restoring balance in all areas of life, and thus human, as well as natural survival.

Heathenry in particular offers a strong ethical system with an emphasis on personal responsibility, and plenty of inspiration for meeting adversity with courage. One popular saying is, “We are our deeds.”Polytheism makes more sense because no matter how hard people try to deal with the Divine as an all-powerful, etc. universal Being, so long as we are in human bodies, we inevitably personify our gods and in doing so, limit them. The solution is to have many deities that cover all aspects of existence.

Heathens tend to think of their deities as friends or relations, senior partners in the fight to preserve the world.

Skaal,
Diana.

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More Song Magic

My last article on Galdor Without Runes brought to mind a number of magical experiences I have had that have involved singing and, as a further inducement to my reader to explore the magical art form of singing, I have decided to share a few of these experiences.

1) Galdor Made Me Into Road Runner

One day some years ago I was attempting to make my way to a friend’s home. It was a hot summer’s day and the train system had broken down, leaving me in the unenviable position of having to walk from Central Station to Stanmore (Sydney-siders will know what that means; the distance involved is about five kilometres). Oh, and I had something like twenty minutes to get there in time.

Despite the fact that normally I might have just called and cancelled, I felt it important at the time to connect with my friend, who had experienced a recent break up. One of my Odinnic poems came unbidden to my lips as I steeled myself to run the distance, knowing that I certainly was not fit enough to make the distance in the time available, particularly since I had a backpack with me.

As I began to chant the poem over and over, its rhythm taking a hold of me, I began to be filled with a stern vehemence. It was like a kind of berserkergang keyed to movement rather than violence. Swept up in my own roaring chant, I fairly flew the distance.

Strangely, I didn’t actually run, I just walked, albeit at a cracking pace, reciting my poem over and over. I covered the distance in exactly the time available, and not only that, but I was overflowing with energy when I arrived: not in the least bit tired. A totally bizarre display of physical power. I really should try to tap into that trick more often.

Less dramatically, I have found that I can get more energy to walk faster by simply increasing the tempo of my singing when I am out and about. Not exactly a new discovery – music has been used to synchronise rowers and marching soldiers for thousands of years – but I hadn’t realised that I could manipulate my own body into a swifter mode of action just by varying the tempo of my song.

2) Galdor on StageIronwood With Spirit Orbs

Things often get pretty intense when my band Ironwood performs: here is a photo from a gig – you can see the incredible proliferation of spirit orbs attracted by our magical music! Of course, a big part of our mojo is our vocals.

I often get possessed when I am on stage – in fact I think we all do – and my singing tends to take on a life of its own. Prior to our first gig, I had never been able to sing “extreme” vocals – the screeches, bellows, howls, and roars typical of extreme metal music. That was generally fine because mostly I sing “clean” in Ironwood, but sometimes I wished  could add just that extra layer of intensity to our performances.

On our first gig, after a while, I noticed a tremendous roaring voice coming back at me through the monitors. It seemed to sweep up the entire room and certainly drove me into total ecstasy. Then I realised: the voice was me! Presented with the immediacy and risk of performing for an audience had unleashed a wild and powerful new range of vocal expression for me, one that established a positive feedback loop with my trance states.

In recording settings I struggle to replicate these vocals, though my efforts for the next Ironwood album came out quite well in the end.

I think the magic of that first (and subsequent) gigs came from the fact that I didn’t recognise my own voice, and that dissociation sent me into a whirl of trances and altered states. Since then I’ve experimented a lot with exploring unorthodox ways of vocalising, and they can indeed send you into a huge range of worlds. Sometimes this practice will get me shivering spontaneously – classic Jan Fries-style seidh.

3) Galdor Duets

Apart from my time spent chanting within the Illawarra circle of the Jerrahi Sufis, in which I experienced an incredible array of magical states (not least because so many members of the circle were musicians and we’d really explore tonal chaos in our chanting), I’ve also spent a lot of time chanting with Donovan (which inspired this article from a while back). Donovan and I don’t get to do this together as much as we like, but it is always awesome.

I’d particularly like to share a recent, and quite bizarre, experience I had while rehearsing Ironwood vocals with my band mate Matthew. Matt and I were practicing a particularly beautiful but tricky duet passage that will be featured on the next Ironwood album. It is only a short span of music so we’d just sing it over and over again.

Something strange began to happen. I felt an intense sensation of electricity or energy moving up and down my limbs, through my body, my head, etc. It was like a powerful energetic vibration streaming through my body.

Then I had this intense impression that there was a third person in the room, forming the third point of a triangle with Matt and I, watching us as we sang. This presence seemed shadowy, hard to pin down, but benevolent. It was the most uncanny thing to be sitting there, singing with Matt, consumed by strange energetic sensations, watched by some ineffable but intense presence.

We stopped for a minute and I told Matt what I was experiencing.

First, he tells me that he is experiencing exactly the same energy sensation or whatever it was.

Then he tells me that he also can perceive the third person watching us…and that it is him! Matt’s perception, thanks to our singing, somehow has expanded beyond his body, and incredibly, I could sense the presence of his consciousness without any prompting or clue!

Neither of us can make any sense of the experience, but it was very empowering for us both. I chalk it up to the power of shared singing, the beauty of galdor and vocal-induced seidh-like consciousness. I am curious to see if we can replicate the experience: I wonder where it might lead?

Convinced yet that singing should be an essential part of most any magical practice? If not, give it a go and persevere. You’ll thank yourself for the effort.

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Galdor Without Runes

We tend to think that galdor has something to do with rune magic, in particular due to certain authors who have promulgated this view despite the lack of any historical evidence to that effect. The word’s roots run to the meaning of “magic song”, with the intimation of a birdsong. There is nothing in there about runes. Indeed, we could even refer to the vardlokkur, the magic song used to facilitate seidh working referred to in the Saga of Eirik the Red, as a type of galdor.

Indeed, the “birdy” aspect to the word brings to mind the myth of Sigurd. When Sigurd tastes the heart of the dragon Fafnir he is granted the ability to understand the speech of birds and proceeds to experience some kind of magical initiation or expansion of consciousness. Perhaps hearing the speech of birds is a convoluted way of saying he became conscious of galdor: of the presence of magic suffusing all things.

Once we realise that the term galdor is not nearly as specific as some misinforming writers would have us think, we find ourselves in a position of immense freedom. While presumably there were various specific forms of galdor in days of yore of which no records remain, it also seems likely that there was a proliferation of styles of galdor, just as the old myths, customs, and even the rune alphabets varied from place and culture to place and culture.

Presumably individuals of magical inclination back then were as idiosyncratic as they are today (myth, sagas, and folk tales all seem to imply this conclusion).Consequently it seems reasonable to propose that song-magic innovation, undertaken with sensitivity to the mythic corpus, is perfectly “authentic”, at least in the sense of recapitulating exactly what the old sorcerers were up to.

Given the poetic proclivities of the Heathen folk (and the existence of an Old Norse poetic form called galdralag) it also seems appropriate to include rhythmic speech and poetry set to magical purpose under the category of galdor.

Recently I have been experimenting with singing in public: walking down the street, on the platform at train stations, in shops, you name it. It takes a bit of courage to openly sing in public: we are programmed to suppress ourselves, to package ourselves away from visibility (or audibility, more specifically), in contemporary Western society. At first I found it rather terrifying, and indeed my mind would turn constantly around that impossible question, “are the people around me judging me?” Sometimes I would feel so anxious that I would end up silencing myself.

Then I realised that the opinions of my impromptu audience were completely irrelevant, and that they were almost certainly not going to act on them if in fact they didn’t like the idea of me singing. Occasionally children laugh, or more commonly, stare in bewilderment, when I walk past them, singing happily away. Often I am shocked by the number of people who have no idea that I am singing because they have headphones in their ears, or because the surrounding traffic is so loud. Modern life is definitely not what our ears evolved to handle.

Apart from the fact that my singing technique is improving and I am feeling more creative (since I am now exploring musical ideas every time I go walking in public), I am experiencing deeper changes as a result of my public singing practice, and this leads me to conclude that I am practicing a form of galdor, at least in my own specific sense of psychological reconstruction.

My public singing is having effects that might be deemed magical in two senses. Firstly, it alters my relationship to my environment, including my relationship to other people. It modifies my experience of myself and the world around me, causing various fears to weaken, and correspondingly, causing me to feel more powerful.

Secondly, it is opening up the channel of my spirit. For example, when you sing your throat opens up. The vocal chords and neck muscles get massaged and strengthened, becoming more fluid and more definite. Normal speech becomes clearer, more compelling, and a little musical – all subtle “magical” effects. Even more importantly, this singing provokes feels of great joy and a lightening of life’s burdens. I feel very energised by my regular galdor, and unwittingly break into song in all sorts of moments – even when doing simple things like cooking.

If one of the central purposes of magic is to alter one’s consciousness (we might loosely call this seidh), and another is to bring empowerment (a purpose some see as a specific  purpose of the runes) then I think I have hit on an exceptionally potential-rich form of magical practice with my personal type of galdor.

What do I sing? Mostly improvised, wordless melodies. Sometimes I chant the names of runes or gods. Sometimes, rarely, I will sing songs from my band Ironwood, but mostly I just embrace the art of exploring my voice.You don’t necessarily have to sing to make this work for you – even just to recite poetry in a projective fashion would probably suffice.

Other advantages for this type of magic are that 1) you don’t need any special skills (since you aren’t singing to produce a “quality performance” and will in any case improve your “quality” of singing organically just by doing it a lot); 2) it doesn’t require any special preparation, memorising pages of middling-to-bad poetry, waving of obscure magical artifacts, dressing up in silly costumes, or anything else like that. All you need are a set of lungs and a throat. Magic that works in the here and now of daily reality is always preferable to me.

If you are not brave enough to sing in public straight away then I suggest starting by singing in “safe” contexts: while driving, or at home. Needless to say this will necessitate turning off your television (or better, driving a steam roller over it), and choosing to listen to music less (although I suppose you could always sing along to your favourite CDs).

When first singing in public, start off almost sub-vocalising or humming to yourself; don’t even bother with opening your mouth. There is no need to freak yourself out – just gradually increase the volume and physical obviousness of your singing as your comfort zone expands. It is perfectly alright to moderate your singing as appropriate for specific circumstances – I won’t sing as loud indoors for example.

One particular challenge is to not fall quiet or silent automatically when someone walks towards you. It might be scary, but once you can happily sing despite passers-by and the opinions of strangers you might start to feel a lot more cheerful and powerful. Certainly this is gradually unfolding in my experience.

The more I sing, the easier it feels to take other kinds of action in the world, to assert myself, and so forth. For example I have always had a strong telephone phobia, but recently it seems to have almost completey entered into remissiobn. Singing is very personal, yet also very public, and it enables one to reach a valuable equilibrium between internal and external worlds. If the philosopher’s stone is a thing of thought that can directly transform matter, then singing must surely be some alchemical agent – perhaps mercury – to help facilitate the process of transforming oneself into such a stone.

Of course, as alluded above, the names of the runes do lend themselves very nicely to song, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t apply runes to the art of galdor, even if strictly speaking rune-magic and galdor are two different things.

To my mind this sort of literally empty-handed magic is much more interesting, powerful, useful, healing, and deep than a lot of the more elaborate and effortful approaches. It draws on spontaneity rather than will and creativity rather than intellectual artifice. The old Heathens lived in a tough, often brutal, world, and from necessity I think they tended to prefer the quick and practical over the unwieldy and impractical. Hence my ancestors are reborn from the wordless song on my lips.

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Interview with Jan Fries

I’ve been busy with my studies at university, so that little time remained for this blog. Lastly I’ve been very involved with a paper on Seidhr (unfortunately in German). In this context I have interviewed three people involved in these practices of our ancestors. One of them has been Jan Fries (the two others were Diana L. Paxson and Freya Aswynn [Elizabeth Hooijschuur]). He’s not the main  influence to my approach to Rune Work, but his general approach to magick is of relevance and his books Visual Magick: A Manual of Freestyle Shamanism and Helrunar: A Manual of Rune Magick have opened important doors in my mind and soul.

However, the occultnik should become familiar with the objective facts concerning Runology first before engaging in esoteric Work, regardless of how ‘dry’ or ‘boring’ the academic study seems to be to him or her. The objective study of the Runes (academic Runology) should precede subjective study. Otherwise totally subjective systems of the Runes will be the result that must remain without any meaning to others. To put it in other words: you should become familiar with that which is known (exoteric) before you engage in the quest for that which is unknown (esoteric) – not the other way around ;). This approach has been called the Polarian Method by Dr. Flowers / Edred Thorsson formulated.

It’s obvious that Jan Fries’ postmodernistic, relativistic approach supports basically the development of a subjectivistic system. (Even if I don’t know if it’s possible to establish an objective system. But we can at least study what is known.) His refusal of the value of solid academic research and an intellectually ambitious approach to the Runes doesn’t make his work more individualistic, as he somehow seems to believe (at least in my interpretation of our private correspondence). But his “practical pantheism” is very inspiring nevertheless. A certain knowledge of the way our ancestors thought and what they believed could be helpful. The sagas and Hilda Ellis Davidson’s books come to my mind. The dedicated German speaking seeker should study Jan de Vries’ Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte. (I think Jan has used that work too.) First then the esoteric works should be taken into account. Subjective meanings will appear at this stage and they will very likely contradict with (some of) the interpretations of other magical authors. Here Jan is absolutely right: follow your intuition! Noone can help you here except your ‘Deep Mind’ (Jan Fries) or, to say it in a more traditional way, your Fylgja. The only rule is: don’t universalise your own intuitive realisations. (Here Jan’s take on the Runes is again creditable as he always emphasizes that his Rune interpretations are subjective and only of personal meaning.) It is this subjective stage most of us are engaged in. Some say, there is no other stage to reach (than a subjective one), others are convinced that there is a level of meaning that is reflecting a traditional, objective knowledge. It’s not for me here to decide for you what take is the right one, but consider that there exist Vitkis and Rune Masters who have been studying this magical tradition for decades and could possibly teach you a lot, if your mind is open to it. There’s no disgrace in being a beginner. We all remain Learners all life long. Hasn’t once a wise old man said that he knows that he knows nothing? For Socrates all wisdom began with wondering, thus one must begin with admitting one’s ignorance. This certainly applies to the Runic seeker. His search will begin with an irrational, mysterious flash of inspiration, which will cause him / her to seek after the Runes and/or other Mysteries. Jan Fries’ work has its place in the renaissance of Runic Wisdom and will be of use to the practioner of modern magical techniques. I consider Jan’s techniques are worth studying and can be applied in the process of subjective synthesis, when the ancestral Runic wisdom in the seeker’s Soul is reawakening and the life waters are returning to the ancient and dry riverbeds of our forefathers and foremothers.

But get a picture of Jan Fries’ approach and ideas on the magical practices of our ancestors yourself by reading his own words. Though we talked about (postmodern, neo-shamanistic [!]) “Seidhr” you can apply these statements to his take on the Runes, too. Ok, I think I said enough for an introduction to this interview. Here are Jan’s answers to my questions:

Matt Anon: This interview is part of an academic investigation of the practices of Seidhr in the postmodern world. Could you tell me a little bit about your background in the area of magic(k) and/or Neo-Paganism and how you came to practice Seidhr?

Jan Fries: Magic is central to my life. I had my first dreams of Kâlî, Medusa, Lilith etc when I was a child (they usualyy scared me out of my head), learned basic self hypnosis, breathing exercises and vowel singing at the age of eleven from a friend of my grandmother, Dr. Gisela Eberlein, started to meditate in various ways around the age of fifteen, began with Yijing divination, astrology and martial arts at sixteen, rituals at eighteen and so on. My orientation has always been eclectic, I do not believe or subscribe to any tradition apart from ‘find out for yourself’. I respect and appreciate aspects of a number religious, shamanic or magical systems, such as Huang Lao Daoism, early Chinese Wu shamanism, Tantric Kaula, Krama, Mahâcina, Haitian Voudou, non-Crowleyan Thelema, Ma’at Magick and reinterpret the local European pagan religions as I like. If forced to define the whole thing I would call it practical pantheism. However, I believe that the individual is a lot more important than any system, religion, cult or school. And if you have to stick a label to yourself to do your thing you ain’t good enough yet.

As to getting into seidhr, well, I never did think about it. I simply noted that in a number of interesting trance- or obsession states, boddy tends to shudder, sway and shake. More so, it turned out that excitement increases the shaking and shaking can increase excitement. Both of them improve visualisation and produce a state of mind that may look uncontrolled or strange from the outside, but is actually quite focused and lucid from within. As I researched shaking trances worldwide, I found examples in Siberian, Napalese, Chinese, Korean and Japanese ‘shamanism’, in Indian Kaula, the Vedic vipra-seers, Haitian Voudou, a lot of African sorcery, the Mesmeric movement, the medieval Welsh seers and so on. And in one of the trances I had the insight that body is the cauldron while awareness is the seething fluid within. By changing the ‘heat’ (the excitement induced by imagination), the ‘seething’ of awareness can be controlled. It connected neatly with Simrock’s translation od seidhr as Sudkunst, so I began researching ‘shamanic’ elements (or really techniques) in Viking literature. There are some very close parallels.

As I keep emphasising, my identification of seidhr with shaking or trembling trances is hypothetical.

Nor do I claim to teach seidhr, for the simple reason that I don’t know what seidhr really is. After all, Nordic literature on the topic was composed by people who were usually Christian, badly informed or even hostile to the art. And the sources contradict each other. There is not a single statement by anyone who actually practiced seidhr. While we all may guess what seidhr was really all about by emphasising one source and ignoring another, I believe the main thing is not the word seidhr but how people can change their consciousness. The Nordic mystique is just one frame of reference, a useful metaphor if you like. The fact is that seers and healers have used shaking, swaying and rhythmic body motions at least since the Rig Veda was compiled, and regardless whether we call it seidhr or anything else, it happens work.

Matt: Where does Seidhr come from? What was Seidhr in the past and what is Seidhr today?

Jan: Where my impression of seidhr comes from was outlined above. Historically, Viking seidhr seems to have counterparts in the skohsl dances of the Goths and the ‘shamanism’ of the Sami. Not to mention a number of ecstatic trance elements in medieval Island Celtic lore, such as Theo awenyddion which Giraldus Cambrensis daw in Wales, or the frenzied bards at king Maelgwynn’s court (according to Gildas). Such matters are discussed at length in Seidways.

What seidhr is today? I have no idea. All I know is that a number of people do things they call seidhr. You better ask them.

Matt: Why do you think Seidhr should be practiced? What does result from practicing Seidhr?

Jan: Why I think seidhr should be practiced? I don’t. Do you think mountaineering should be practiced? Do you think everybody should go diving?

Look, trancing is not suited to everyone. I don’t know about seidhr, as I don’t know what reidhr really is, but I do know that some people get along perfectly with shaking trances and others don’t. It’s an advanced trance requiring good health and sanity and I would suggest before anyone went into it, a couple of years of regular meditation and daily physical exercise are wise. Nor do I think that shaking trances are a must. There are so many ways of changing consciousness. People do it all Theo time. They get excited or angry, they fall in love, worry or feel sad. The human nervous system has an enormous abilitx for developing and maintaining highly unique consciousness states. You can use ‘shamanic’ methoda, including dancing, shaking, drumming, chanting etc., or maybe Yoga, using posture, breathing, mantra, visualisation, or you could just sit down, induce a deep trance and change your brain rhythms, chemistry and the flow of energy in your body. It’s easy. All of these are conveniences. They produce different states of consciousness, but what happens in them, and how you use (or abuse) them depends entirely on you.

The only thing which I would recommend for other people is to learn how to think and make good feeling. We could do with more happy feelings in this world. When you are happy you make better decisions, and that leads to being even happier. Fellings don’t just happen, they can be learned and made.

Matt: What sources have inspired you to take up the practice of Seidhr? What sources have you studied / read?

Jan: The sources that inspired me can all be looked up in my bibliographies provided one isn’t too lazy.

Matt: Do you think one has to speak Old Norse or has to study the original sources to be able to practice Seidhr?

Jan: I don’t think one has to learn specific languages to practice any sort of magic or consciousness changing. A couple of hundred words of special terminology, sure. Learning languages is fun, but not essential. It’s different when the literature happens to be untranslated. I learned bronze age Chinese as most of the inscriptions have not been translated into European languages. Now some people need old languages for the feeling. Others dress up in costumes, or redecorate their homes. Well and good. Anything that works is fine.

As to the practice of ‘old seidhr’ well, even with Old Norse you won’t be sure what thaz really was about.

Matt: Despite the fact that the term ‘shamanism’ is itself controversial outside the context of Siberian shamanism, do you believe that Seidhr is a kind of ‘Northern Shamanism’? Does Seidhr feature shamanistic elements?

Jan: If we use ‘shamanism’ in the common, Eliade-type definition (which I am not too happy about) as a loose term for ecstatic consciousness changing healing trance ritualism, sure, there are parallels. Read them up in my books. Personally, I am not too fond of the term as it was used in such a sloppy way by a few anthropologists and a lot of fakes. So if we have to use it, then only in want for a better term. I prefer to speak of shamanic techniques, which you find in many cultures, than of shamanism, which is such a wide (or narrow) field of cultural activity that I wouldn’t like to define it at all. Instead of looking for what people call themselves (or others) I prefer to learn what they do, how they do it, how it works and what it is good for.

Matt: What are the differences between shamanism and Seidhr? What are the specifics of Seidhr?

Jan: We had these questions earlier. You tell me what these two things are. What is ‘shamanism’ and what is ‘seidhr’? One term is too vague and the other refers to a phenomenon we don’t know much about, and that is questionable. So please tell me. When you’ve done that you can look for differences and similarities. Or do something worthwhile for a change.

Matt: Do you consider Seidhr as part of the ‘Northern Tradition’ / Teutonic-Germanic Religion?

Jan: I don’t know what you or anybody else understands as ‘Northern Tradition / Teutonic-Germanic religion. In my opinion there are wide differences between the beliefs of various Vikings (about which we know far too little), the prehistoric so-called Germans (about which we know even less) let alone whatever you consider ‘Teutonic’. As I recall the Teutons spoke a Celtic language. So just what are you talking about?

Matt: What is the role of women in Seidhr? Is Seidhr somehow more connected to women?

Jan: Yes, we all read that bit about Odin teaching seidhr to Freya and Theo goddesses. So what? There are a number of seidhrwomen in Theo sagas, just as there are women in many forms of ‘shamanism’. And sure, Tacitus also had his say. Well and good, but I really don’t care. I don’t believe in gender or race, I believe in individuals. As far as I’m concerned, souls don’t have a gender. They get one when they are born, but may have a different one in Theo next life. So Theo only thing I can say is that when it comes to shaking (which may or may not be part of seidhr), in my experience women tend to learn it faster. Simply because of gender roles. Males usually learn to freeze their hisps (to use a metaphor courtesy of Wilhelm Reich) in western cultures, and this can make shaking more difficult. But what does this amount to? Tension can be relaxed and shaking is possible regardless of gender. Just like any other trance state.

Matt: Is it ‘unmanly’ to practice Seidhr? What does that say about the role of men and women in (ancient) Germanic culture? How is this seen in (post)modern Neo-Paganism / Ásatrú?

Jan: I don’t know anything about modern, postmodern or postmortal Asatru, as I don’t belong to any such organisation. I know that some people got quite excited discussing the meaning of argr-, you can find my interpretation in Seidways and Helrunar. And I’ve heard people mixing the matter with trans-sexual behaviour and getting carried away discussing whether homosexuals could be pagans or whatever. Frankly, I don’t care. For me, the whole issue isn’t what any organisation says. It’s about you, on your own, experience in your contact with the divine, whatever you call it and however you contact it. And how it improves your life. Cults, organisations, churches, dogmas etc. only get in the way of true experience.

Matt: Germanic Neo-Heathenism has been often accused of being racist / right-wing? Why do you think that is the case? Can descendents of non-European cultures be part of Ásatrú?

Jan: I believe that (at least some people) get reborn (unless they don’t want to), and that any capable sorcerer should live in several distinct cultures. I don’t believe that the concept ‘race’ means anything. ‘Culture’ or ‘subculture’ may be slightly more meaningful, as you can join or leave them as you like. We are talking categories here. This is a long way from real life. And regarding politics, I cannot say anything about groups I don’t belong to. I can only say that politics and religion are usually a bad combination, as they make people even more stupid than they already are.

Matt: Why do you think so many people feel attracted to Neo-Paganism today (including Wicca, Druidry & Ásatrú)?

Jan: One major reason for the increase of new faiths is that people are not satisfied with the old ones any more. But then, it has always been that way. There has always been an urge to commune or unite with the divine (no matter how you call it), and whenever people organised to do so they defined themselves, they included some and excluded others, and as we happen to inhabit mammalian bodies, they also organised group behaviour in terms of territory, hierarchy and finally power poltics and money. By then, other people got fed up and invented their own faiths. It happens all the time.

Matt: Finally, what answers does Heathenism / Paganism have to the condition of the modern world (including modern challenges like climate change, overpopulation, financial crisis etc.)? In which way does it help to improve the conditio humana? (I would also like to ask in this context: Why is it ‘better’ than the monotheistic cults?)

Jan: In a world which is steadily becoming more integrated regarding communication, travel, trade, work, culture, art etc., poly- and pantheism make communication with other faiths and cultures easier than a monotheistic attitude does. Especially a narrow-minded monotheistic attitude, as in the first commandment. But that’s really all. I don’t believe ‘Heathenism / Paganism’ have any answers to anything. There ain’t such thing. It’s just two words you put together as if they were meaningful. Words, words, words. We are not talking churches or politics, we are talking people. And we don’t talk them either. They all have their own answers. Ask them. And listen.

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More on my Extremism

Following on from my last post I had a curious realisation. You see, at various points I’ve felt that the myths of Siegfried/Sigurd provide for me some important clues into my personal evolution. Yet I’ve never been able to find my way into applying them in my life.

Certainly Jan Fries’ interpretation of the myth of Sigurd in Seidways has been a helpful stepping stone. Fries sees Sigurd’s discovery of the speech of birds after tasting the heart of Fafnir as symbolic of an attainment of expanded consciousness, a kind of enlightenment, an initiation into the Big Picture. I find this a very helpful interpretation, and relevant to many of my own interests and concerns, but somehow until now I’ve stopped at that point.

Recently the next step opened, however: I noticed that the meaning of the name Siegfried is “Victorious Peace” or more specifically, “Victorious Frith”. Sigurd means “Victory Guard” – presumably a guardian of the peace. This seems inescapably parallel to the Sufi moniker Ali Salaam that I wrote about in my last post: a fusion of fury and tranquillity. Rather Odinnic actually.

The old word frith bears some consideration: frith is a time of fruitful, ordered and harmonious activity. It is bountiful. It is a very active, creative peace. There might even be some conflict mixed into it, however it’s a constructive conflict rather than a gratuitous one. The idea of such a state being victorious in my life is very enticing.

So, hilariously, I find my Sufi interests providing the perspective I needed to advance in my understanding of my Heathen path. I love the fact that the tapestry of wyrd is always more subtle and complex than we expect or might like to think!

What does this ideal of Victorious Peace mean for my life? I’m taking it in two directions – and folks, really this article provides a model for how we can use mythology as a tool and vessel for our own growth so please take what you read here and put it to good use … and feel free to tell me about how that goes for you, too.

Acknowledging Harigast

Harigast is one of the names of Odin and means something like “Ruler of the Host”. It goes deeper than this, actually – Harigast is a provoker and inciter, spurring the war band up into paroxysms of berserk fury. As such he is capable of achieving tremendous things, but potentially also capable of causing terrible things. To me this is a very primal aspect of Odin.

In my reflections I’ve come to see this aspect of Odin as coming through me when I get on my furious, self-righteous high horse. I find something about which to feel outraged, something about which I am free to adopt a self-justifying posture, and then I scythe contemptuously through any and all dissent. Yet as I explained in my last post, allowing myself to give fuller vent to this tendency has not been nearly as satisfying or helpful as I expected. You need more than just brute force to make your way in the world.

Yet it would be false of me to deny this part of myself too. I cannot just repress this Righteous Destroyer – as Phil Hine says, “a god denied is a devil created”. I think that this Odinnic force causes all kinds of problems when repressed into ugly, twisted shapes – indeed, one of the problems of Christianity is that it encourages us to ignore this aspect of our Heathen heritage, allowing it to become subverted and twisted and vile.

To that end I have decided to adopt the name Harigast as a creative pseudonym. The purpose of doing this is not to conceal my identity (I’m happy to publicly declare that Harigast is a literary vehicle). However in doing this I can (when appropriate) explicitly disclaim responsibility for the opinions expressed and/or the manner of their expression. I can allow Harigast expression in a contained, safe form by doing this. This allows me to cleanly acknowledge this aspect of my nature without causing monumental trouble.

Sometimes permitting something you have struggled with causes the need to express it to abate. Giving oneself permission to transgress one’s ego is sometimes so satisfying that the need to transgress subsides. I’m not sure if this will happen with Harigast, but I certainly feel more at home with myself since I prepared his portrait and wrote him a short bio:

harigastHarigast is fury incarnate, a self-righteous proclaimer of violent truths and armoured dogmas, usually provoked by, and in opposition to, self-righteous proclaimers of violent truths and armoured dogmas. Self-appointed avenger of wrong-doing,

Harigast all too easily becomes the very breed of monster he seeks to demolish. His seething outbursts can be beautiful, but also disastrous – as much to Harigast as to his intended victim!

Harigast is a very forceful character and often sneaks hiddenly into Henry’s words… so while many opinions are expressed in his articles Henry, even if he wrote them, does not necessarily agree with them!

Harigast wrote a piece that will appear, Gods willing, in the next issue of Hex Magazine. I’m also making him my co-blogger for this journal; hence we now both have a little bio.

Being Present

While away travelling I realised that I rush terribly. I am rarely focussed on being where I am; I’m always running off into the arms of one thing or other. Extreme emotional trips – such as fury or vulnerability – can be a trick I use to avoid facing the realities of my actions and circumstances.

I’ve therefore started meditating regularly after not doing so for a long time. I’m working with Buddhist techniques of mindfulness to attend more to the automatic assumptions and attributions I make about myself and others (particularly the crappy negative ones).

And I’m trying to hold onto the notion that you have to “go slow to go fast”, as an old mentor used to tell me repeatedly. This last bit of wisdom is really potent. I think it is an essential ingredient for feeding frith. Holding to it is part of achieving victory in the task of building and guarding a victorious frith-stead.

It’s a slow process, bringing about this change. Nevertheless I am whole-heartedly committed to this ideal.

Sometimes I find myself writing about matters spiritual in order to avoid having to actually live in the endless ordinary dilemmas of the present moment (in fact a little bit of that is happening right now as I type this). Consequently it might be that in future I will put less energy into this journal and more into spiritual practice itself. I invite my readers to get more active with their commentary in order to make up the shortfall ;-)

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Wyrd, Runa, and the Beauty of Ignorance

I had another really beautiful, intense and long-drawn possession experience with Woden today, this one totally unplanned and spontaneous. Sometimes I call… sometimes he just turns up.

I cannot say anything about it (because there are some things that I just can’t stick on the Internet for everyone to read). But I can talk about how I’ve reacted to it.

I feel as if the course of my life is reflected in the image of an archaeologist lovingly brushing dust from an ancient relic. When I was born I was buried in the earth. At some point I was dug up. Now the process of carefully cleaning me off begins. Next will be detailed documentation and theorising about my significance and meaning.

Right now it feels like everything that has happened in my life was meant to be according to a hidden logic and significance that I cannot comprehend. I am woven so integrally into wyrd. Of course, everything and everyone is.

I’ve been reading a bit about Leibniz’s philosophy lately, his idea that this world is exactly how it is meant to be. Voltaire might have mocked Leibniz, but I think I might be able to understand what he was saying. Not the best of all possible worlds in any obvious sense we can grasp… but definitely meant to be just how it is.

To ask it to be other than what it is means being world-denying and… well, unHeathen. Just a thought, no need to turn that into rigid doctrine (unless you feel like experimenting with dogmatism to see what it is like [some chaos magicians come up with the most brilliant little psycho-magical experiments]).

If each of us is on a unique trajectory through time then perhaps, well, I cannot complete the thought.

As a Heathen I am both a determinist and a believer in free will. The division between these two is false and built on ill-conceived ideologies; it reposes in an ultimately Christian abstraction, and even hard determinists are thoroughly determined by Christianity in their views.

So here we are, webbed in wyrd, hurtling through time simultaneously under our own power and completely involuntarily as well. Making decisions, responding to the shifting weave of the Norns as best we can. Once things have occurred it is retroactively true that they could never have been otherwise.

But before they occur – well there’s a whole lot of possibility for the oscillations of our agency to come to bear. Free choice is only determined once it is fixed through the hand of time.

We know Urd, the past (though the past constantly changes in meaning as it expands and is never truly fixed despite the illusion of its certain solidity).

We are in Verdandi, the present that stretches forth and most certainly is not fleeting or momentary. Heidegger was right on that one – he was paying attention. St Augustine, on the other hand, really had no idea.

Skuld, the future, is a debt that, sure, we’ll pay, but never just yet. We’re always going to pay or else we’ve already paid but you can never catch any of us handing over a wad of cash to the time bank. And even after the big cosmic foreclosure at Ragnarok things will keep going – you just watch!

So yeah, right now I ride the chariot of trust and calm. Everything is unfolding in just the right way. That isn’t the same as pretending that the world is perfect or that I and others don’t suffer all kinds of wounds or that struggle isn’t both necessary and worthwhile.

But right now I can affirm it all. Not, as Nietzsche demands, that I force myself to see the whole past as an act of my will (as though I could ever have even conceived of all this, let alone willed it!)

Rather, I affirm it all as the veil of Runa – of mystery – which I can never penetrate. Nor can any finite human being. I affirm the beauty of the horizon of Verdandi which escapes me no matter how fast I run towards it.

This is why I ultimately have so many grumpy things to say about the approach to magic typified by the ‘step by step’ logical, linear curriculum that groups like the Rune Gild espouse.

Reality is so much more complex and so much richer than that! Think of all the opportunities you miss out while you dally with you regular rigid practice of galdor, stadha, “rune thinking” and all the rest of it.

While you’re off “constructing” your Wode-Self as Mr Thorsson recommends you are missing out on the real Woden coming and showing you that a) it already exists and b) its way beyond anything you could have created anyway.

We aren’t creating from the force of our ego wills; we’re just brushing the mud off our golden forms so that we can shine with the light that falls upon us from the sun and the moon and the torch of human community (Kenaz, folks, Kenaz).

Yet ironically I worked through all that stuff for years when I was in the Gild and to carry my current train of thought to its conclusion, even that time spent doing “magical training” I now consider nearly worthless was crucial, just as crucial to my evolution as my beloved Jan Fries-style Seidh with all its serendipitous riches.

Sure, the latter is inspiring, beautiful, profound and actually helps you embrace magic and mystery. But for it to be the oasis that it is to me – well, I had to stumble through the desert of ego magic teachings and all that other rigid spoon-feeder magic rubbish first.

(The Gild say they’re against spoon feeding, yet the Gild curriculum is exactly that, an all-too-human crutch and distraction from the magic going on everywhere around the “aspiring Runester” … even if I must confess I profited from the rigid practice of getting my chanting in every day, meditating on the rune poems, etc, etc and owe the Gild a big debt of thanks).

So right now I know that I cannot and never will pierce the illusion, that the way things are unfolding for me is way weirder and more magical than anything I could ever have consciously constructed or conceived, and even my exposure to stodgy ego magic rubbish contributed to that (so maybe its good that such philosophies exist after all and I should be a little more circumspect when I grouch about them… aww, but grouching just feels so good).

And yet I have pierced the illusion at various times and will again. This is also true. Folks, two contradictory statements can be true at the same time; Aristotle was wrong (though, and here’s the kicker, for consistency’s sake I will also say that Aristotle was right).

Well anyway, things are unfolding and I’m in the eye of the storm and always have been and we all have because we’re all on our trajectories and maybe it will take one lifetime or maybe billions of years, I really don’t know if or how that reincarnation gig works, but right now I’m in the heart of marvelling at how ignorant I am and how beautiful the universe is and folks, this is the place to be. Or really, wherever you happen to be right now is the place. Or whatever. You get the idea (or not).

And tomorrow I’ll forget and I stumble back to my fears, frustrations, quirks, my amnesia, my all too human tendency to forget Mimir’s well in favour of disconnected distraction.

That’s ok too.

We forget the big picture so that we can have the pleasure of remembering it again and again, over and over. Endings are great because they guarantee new beginnings and beginnings are great because once something starts it has to stop.

And every time you come back to Mimir’s wisdom, well, I’d like to think you crawl a little closer to wherever.

What is the ultimate point and purpose of existence? I have no idea. I feel so strongly that my life is unfolding exactly in the way it is supposed to, but that doesn’t mean I have even a shred of a clue. “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment” said Rumi – I reckon he and Odin would have gotten on something fierce.

Socrates was the wisest of all the Greeks because he at least knew he was ignorant. Somebody remind me to toast that old gadfly next time I’m at sumbel, please?

What is the meaning of the question of Being? Asked Martin Heidegger. Being is Mystery/Runa – this is my answer. We are skating on the ever changing skin of the Well of Memory that feeds the world tree.

If Heathenism really says that there is no sin, no fallen-from-grace-ness, no world-as-bastardised-image-of-God’s-wisdom – well then we might as well start loving the vast cosmic question mark that escapes and entices our every rising breath.

Because that’s all there is, the question is the answer, or might be, or probably isn’t, or…. Well, you get the idea (or you might, or might not or… [yes this can regress infinitely, another secret there! {I just added this layer of parentheses to be a smart ass – or did I?}]).

Hail Chaos! Viva Loki! Aum Wotan!

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Seidh, Odin, Frey

I’ve not been well. I had my wisdom teeth out last week. In the last few months I’ve struggled with two flu viruses and some mind-blowing hay fever (I’ve never been physically incapacitated by allergy in anything like this kind of way before).

Not only that, my creative flow has been blocked these last few weeks. Among other things this has been impairing my ability to get my university coursework done. Not good when you have short deadlines and vast acres of work! Words have just been escaping me.

My only solace has been my improving physical fitness, though mouth surgery induced laziness for this past week has cut back into that again. Perhaps today I will clamber back on board the bodyweight bandwagon.

Recovering from wisdom teeth removal is not fun. Worst is not the pain, the inability to eat, the bleeding, or even the ridiculous swollen cheeks. It’s the abject boredom and isolation.

Until yesterday I had not been outside since I got home from the surgery last Tuesday. Almost a week indoors will send even a dedicated introvert such as myself into paroxysms. I even managed to bore myself with computer games, which once were my arch-nemesis in the realm of addiction!

Knowing that I’ve been sailing through dark corridors of ill health and misery in the last, say, three weeks especially, I resolved a few days ago to go on a journey, to fare forth, and see what I could see.

As a general comment on this aspect of seidh – for me faring forth is very different to what I more generally consider to be my style of seidh (and I will describe a lovely example of the latter later in this post). It’s more introspective, calm and hazy.

Sometimes when I’m doing it I question if I’m just having myself on if my focus is week or I am unable to detach my ego from the process. With my more natural style of seidh, well, once I get there there’s no doubting.

There are lots of sophisticated thinkers about faring forth in modern Heathenry (read the backlog of posts on the Seidh Yahoo E-List to see what I mean). I however lack such subtlety. I just do it.

I don’t have a working knowledge of the distinctions between the various old terms for this sort of magic, I haven’t built my practice out of precise reconstruction (though obviously I am informed about the limited evidence available and less obviously I don’t tend to willy-nilly mix in ideas from other traditions with my faring forth work).

Anyway, so I am lying in bed, in various degrees of pain (who knew that removing teeth at the back of your mouth could make every tooth in your jaw scream with agony?) And I guess that maked it easier to abandon the ship of my body and dive into the deep blue sea of projected consciousness.

I find myself in a valley shrouded by thick grey mist. The earth is barren; it’s like I’m in an abandoned World War I battlefield before dawn. Woden has come to guide me; I see his cloaked form flitting in and out of vision, luring me along dry riverbeds. And I follow his almost spectral form.

Until I come to a cave. When the river still lived it must have here flowed underground, but now there is only dust and frost to line its floor. I shrug and enter and a strange silver luminescence in the air creates just enough light that I can make my way through the crags and shadows.

I’ve no idea where Odin is at this point – perhaps he has seen out his role as my psychopomp for this journey. Seated on a rocky outcrop, however, is a woman. She is dressed in rotting finery and a tarnished crown rests on her brow. And she is a contradiction to behold.

One half of her face, her hair, her arm – I assume her whole body – is young, pale, the perfect frigid ice-maiden beautiful bitch archetype. The other half is rotten, shrunken, shrivelled and foul. This is Helja and I know now that I am in Niflhel.

Here comes the strange thing – I cannot recall anything detailed of my conversation with Helja. I know that she is cajoling, manipulative, abusive and arch. I recall her trying to bargain with me to cure me of my ailments and my loss of spirit.

But I also recall the deals she offers are just ridiculous. I would have to offer her more than I would gain in return. No point in that!

Why did Odin lead me here? I’m not sure, but perhaps it is to give me some perspective. Maybe it’s to show me how much I take for granted. Helja and I reach an impasse and I find myself leaving the way I came, trudging through the cold and lifeless mists. I clamber up an embankment and find myself back in my room with my pain-filled mouth.

And Frey is there with me. And he is frowning. And he says to me “you know, you’re not supposed to be pursuing me as you have. It’s not good for you. You are not made to accept my gifts. There is only one who is right for you, and he is a god of wolves, not boars”. (c.f. for example this post).

(Well he didn’t say it exactly like that, but you get the drift. Sometimes I admit I polish the words that divine beings say to me when I write these journal entries. Hey, they were off the cuff, we can’t all spontaneously speak like a character on Shakespeare’s stage! Arguably Herodotus’ History is more truthfull for its fabrications).

And then he was gone. And he was right. I’ve been trying to stretch myself between the infinitely uncertain, variable, chaotic and disastrous hedge-sitting of my patron, Woden; and the vast, bountiful, fertile, stable and overwhelming hedge-sitting of Frey. I’ve been ogling that green, green grass just over the religious fence. And it’s been costing me.

I tried to call Woden then, but it just wouldn’t happen. Just no luck for me there. I realise I’ve been messing up our relationship by trying to force a relationship with another god. I realise that I just don’t really Know or understand Frey – especially when I consider the intimacy of my relationship with Woden.

It kind of reminds me of how I felt around the time I quit the Rune Gild – it’s getting close to 10 years ago! I just felt that for all the discipline of their practices, all their philosophy, all the rest of it – well, they just weren’t helping me forge any kind of personal or emotional relationship to runes or to Odin.

How can you emulate someone who is a stranger to you? My solution then was that I had to chuck out all thr intellectualism in order to find the seething wode. Anyway, enough of that digression, the point is clear to me – I don’t have the faintest idea how to forge such a connection to Frey, whereas instinct easily showed me the way to Woden.

Ok, so these faring forth experiences made me decide to perform a ritual to Odin. I needed to mend our fences, repair the channels that run between us. So last night I did it.

I arranged to have an audience of one, because the vulnerability of an audience helps with ritual as a performance. You are forced to either go there or not at all. I prepared offerings of beer, organic butter, organic sea salt, water, fire (from the candle Volksfreund and I used on our necromantic adventure), garlic, ginger and tissues soaked with my blood.

I set the atmosphere by putting on some ambient Odinnic music of my own (which, gods willing, should eventually see release [yes gods, that’s a hint!]) I opened the ritual by singing the singular rune Ansuz, getting progressively louder and more aggressive until I was purely screeching and screaming my guts out.

I also banged a hammer and my wooden “Daoist priest” sword (see again the necromancy posts on my journal) and used these rhythms to build the intensity of the moment.

Then I called Woden in all his dark aspects, as god of bloodshed, war, hate, fear, betrayal, violence, destruction and all that fun stuff. Then called him as god of poetry, song, sex, wisdom, hospitality, healing and all of that fun stuff.

I called him by many of his old names.. and a few new ones spilled from my lips too, like Elric of Melnibone, and The Raven King, and Saint Nick, and even Satan (who Goethe describes as blue cloaked, one eyed and raven-friendly in Faust, after all!) Yes folks, warning: Chaos Heathen At Work.

While all this was happening I was involuntarily writhing, staggering, thrashing, shuddering, shaking – “real” seidh, at least as I experience it as a Jan Fries-loving seidhmadr. My body was plunging into wild paroxysms of its own, my consciousness going right on with it.

Until I calmed a little. Then I just called “Woden” quite softly over and over. A most tremendous sensation, like stable lightning bolts, spread through my scalp and from my hands up my arms. It spilled down over my brow like a helm – I wonder if this was one meaning of “Helm of Awe”.

It’s very rare for me to get such a dramatic energetic and physiological response from my possession work. Such experiences are so beyond my ego and the domain of its power and they’re so reassuring, healing and humbling. I cried a little with joy that my patron would impose himself on me so strongly that I would feel it right there in my nervous system.

And then I was his.

I won’t say to much about what happened because it’s all very vague, but he accepted the gifts and gave my audience a bit of a freak out. My cat didn’t recognise me when He was in charge and avoided us. I changed in appearance. Things were made good between us. The rift, healed.

He cast some runes for me too – funnily the first rune to come out was Ansuz, His rune! And they portended lovely things – healing, positive change, hard work rewarded, blockages destroyed.

And – well, that is all I really want to say, except that I am feeling vastly better today, though still taking it easily and carefully. None of this is at all intended as a disrespect to Frey, either – it’s just that you’ve got to go with the course of the river you are.

I was made for Woden it seems, and while his inconsistencies and chaos sometimes cause me fear or frustration – well I have to accept it. The other option is slow withering.

He said something, I vaguely recall, about an irony of my personality. Namely that I give myself an awful hard time for not being perfect (and therefore a better agent for him.) Yet my imperfections arise because Woden is himself imperfect, and thus make me closer to him in nature. I love irony.

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Chaos, Wyrd, and the Left Hand Path

Magick is black

Reason is white

Thus magick’s unseen

It’s nature’s to hide


Introduction:

No-Thing is true. Everything is trance-mitted.” The Fool of the Sacred Chao

My name is Matt Anon. I’m a Chaos Mystic and Left-Hand Path initiate (for my take on the LHP, see below), who studies Chaos Magick, Galdor and esoteric Runology within the broader philosophy of Chaos Heathenism. The aim of my magick is encoded in my name, beside the desire to fall in love with divine mystery :ᚱᚨ: and to reawaken the ancient wisdom in my Soul. I’m attracted by the conception of a Perennial Philosophy that appeared under different guises independent of epoch or culture and seek to understand its eternal mysteries. One of the maps of special interest to me that represents an expression of that perennial wisdom is the Runic tradition as it manifested in the cosmological and magico-mystical structures of Northern European spirituality. I’ve been interested in ecstatic experiences and inspired and altered states of consciousness since my youth. I hold many wyrd beliefs that are subject to change on my journeys along the pathways that lead down, around and up the Tree. That’s why I believe that beliefs and all dualities are fetters to be loosened (the mystic’s aim) or played with (the magician’s game), rather than unchangable dogmas set in stone. Two major influences are to be named that initially got me into the Northern Mysteries: Fire + Ice and True Helm.

I explore the Runic Mysteries by emulating the divine archetype of the Rune-Master Óðinn, who is seen as a mythical role model for spiritual development. But I would look at all philosophical, metaphysical and magical worldviews not as a reality, but recognize them “as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth.” (RAW). That’s why I combine different approaches and techniques of sorcery and mysticism (= magick) to my own Self-Empowerment and explore the mysteries of consciousness and nature.

Though I began experimenting and toying around with magick as a teenager (often intoxicated by shroooooms), my more serious and structured involvement with magick began in my early 20’s (see for my magickal background here). Having gone through all kinds of phases and systems, beliefs and dogmas (though for many years my main focus has been Crowley’s system of Thelemic Magick), ‘enlightenments’ and delusions, I stopped looking for an occult system that ‘explains’ everything and deludes the seeker that the inexplicable could be presented in a ‘step-by-step’-system to enlightenment. After all I came to ponder about the chaosmagickal saying: ‘Nothing is True, Everything is Permittes’. Nevertheless I’m against a postmodern (POMO) relativism with its “Anything-goes”- triviality. This is, perhaps, my only real criticism of the Chaos Magick Current (though also here we begin to hear diverse voices). Once I heard clearly “das Raunen der Runen” (the whispering of the Runes), I turned my face towards the North. In this regard I take the reconstruction of the Runic Tradition very seriously & do not think that it’s just another “paradigm” for the “paradigm pirate” to “exploit”. Such a person will never grasp the profundity of the Runes – especially, when one considers that Runa can never be fully grasped (I am deeply indebted for the concept of Runa to Edred Thorsson). What I liked about the term “Chaos Heathen” that Henry’s genius gave birth to, is that in Chaos Heathenism there are no members, there are no gurus, there are no systems and there are no dogmas. There is only you, you & Runa – the eternal & sacred Dance of Consciousness & Mystery. For the Runic Quest to begin, some essential qualities are required like a thirst for knowledge, a longing for something that is hard to define (probably what deRopp called “the Will to Power”, “the Will to Meaning” & “the Will to Transcendence”), a strong self (not what common man calls ego), courage and, certainly, humour – just to name a few. But the nature of collaboration or participation in chaos Heathenism, as far as I understand it, is defined by every individual herself. In this way, I’d like to begin this journal by exploring some concepts & ideas I came across since I got into magick. Though in magick nothing ever remains the same (hey, it’s the same with life, isn’t it?) I hope that in this way I can demonstrate how I approach “the lonely path where waits the eight-legged steed” (Fire + Ice / Ian Read).

Chaos:

Chaos defines, in many ways, my approach to sorcery. I am deeply indebted for the elaboration of the meta-system of chaos magic(k) made by Pete Carrol and the magicians who developed his ideas to present us an approach to sorcery that is authentic, individualistic, result-orientated and compatible with a world that has gone mad. However, it must be said that the Chaos approach was not invented by the chaos magicians themselves, but was there, hidden and applied and made visible for the first time in the Zos Kia Cultus of the artist and sorcerer Austin Osman Spare. But it was the Illuminates of Thanateros who took on the sparks of this flame and made a huge fire of it that burnt down most – if not all – assumptions of western magic(k), and thus created a tour de force, which changed the underworld of western occultism forever.

Chaos for me means that magick has no form, that the nature of the multiverse is unpredictable, that its behaviour is chaotic, that rules and “laws” are invented by the human hardware, the brain, for making sense out of information that is by its very nature inconsistent. The Chaos approach gives us the opportunity to look at different systems of magic(k) as arbitrary, children of their time and culture, and possible models rather than fixed ones that often can be limiting to one’s transpersonal vision of sorcery. Therefore it encourages the individual sorcerer to explore different perspectives and applications of doing sorcery and developing her own system of magick rather than following the worn-out paths of others. Thus Chaos becomes the major tool to look at various schools of magic(k) and to choose those elements that are appealing to the sorcerer and that work for her. However, to my mind this is – as paradoxical as it may sound – also the great weakness of the Chaos approach. In a way, the traditional assumption that everything must be kept in balance is, once again, also true in this case. By concluding that every traditional system of magick uses an arbitrary classification, we blank out the fact that the traditional ways of thinking are ancient & have been in use over hundreds of generations. They reflect what Carl Gustav Jung has called the Collective Unconscious. Individualistic approaches to sorcery are useful, but an Alphabet of Desire will never achieve what a system like the Elder Futhark can bring forth & reveal (I suppose).

Order:


Chaos is not my aim, it is my primal condition. Basically, the human being is a multiplicity of selves, a morass of chaos, “a ‘schizophrenic’ identifying in one moment with a dominant thought, emotion or sensation that wears the mantle of self, just to be pushed aside by some other ‘I’ in an equally mechanical and accidental manner” (see Robert S. deRopp: The Master Game). Thus it must be the first aim of the sorcerer to make her willed order out of this chaotic condition, to create a Magnetic Centre, to create a “soul”, as it were. Though the Chaos approach is very useful, I practice no apotheosis of Chaos. But also, Chaos is not a condition that has to be overcome, but which must be controlled to an extent that enables the sorcerer to exercise her will upon the multiverse. However, Chaos is necessary and can never be controlled completely, which is not desirable anyway. Chaos and Order must maintain their inherent moment of tension. A universe which is fully controlled, from which Chaos is abolished, is dead. In a universe where order is absent, intentional action is impossible. That’s why the intelligent sorcerer looks – as in every area of her life – for a harmonious balance. Chaos and Order are two polarities from which existence, as we know it, emerges.

Left-Hand Path:

I personally see myself going beyond the Right-Hand Path & the Left-Hand Path divide, at least as its modern, neo-satanic version is concerned. However, as the idea of the LHP has been such an important philosophical thread on my magickal path, I want to discuss it here. Genesis P-Orridge once said something about “the Path of No Distinction”. This, of course, is a Tantric idea. And Tantra is a good starting point to bring clear light into such a confused darkness, because, at its heart, the concept of the LHP developed in the context of Tantra. We should look there first to find some answers. So, I hear you ask, what is Tantra? I have two good excerpts I want to quote that explain Tantra very clearly:

“Tantra is … an attempt to place kama, desire, in every sense of the word, in the service of liberation… not to sacrifice this world for liberation’s sake, but to reinstate it, in varying ways, within the perspective of salvation. This use of kama and of all aspects of this world to gain both worldly and supernatural enjoyments (bhukti) and powers (siddhis), and to obtain liberation in this life (jivanmukti), implies a particular attitude on the part of the Tantric adept toward cosmos, whereby he feels integrated within an all-embracing system of micro-macrocosmic correlations.” (“Tantrism”, Andre Padoux, in: Encyclopedia of Religion”, edited by Mircea Eliade, Macmillan, New York, 1986, Vol. 14, pp. 272 – 76.)

David White adds: “Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains the universe, seeking to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosmos, in creative and emancipatory ways.” (David Gordon White (ed.) 2000: Tantra in Practice, Princeton University Press, p. 9)

So, for those of you who thought that Tantra is some kind of “sex religion” – sorry, this isn’t the case. In India the LHP-Tantrika uses unorthodox, transgressive means to achieve bhukti, siddhis and jivanmukti. She cuts her bindings from consensus reality and thus liberates the enlightened nature of her limitless consciousness. She transcends the limitations of the “socially constructed reality”, of the society and culture she lives in. By this she often works with behaviours, symbols, ideas and things that appear abominable to her identity and that are tabooed in her culture. Thus sex, death, drugs and madness become methods of transforming mundane consciousness into a state of enlightenment. Because everything is One, part of the same divine source whose nature is limitless consciousness, there is nothing to fear or to be rejected. Thus the Tantrika is freed from the delusion of separateness and embraces all existence, including her body and the material world. Because in India the left hand is used to do “unclean” things, this path to liberation has been called the Left-Hand Path. Nevertheless it is presumed by spiritual scholars that both paths, the Right-Hand Patt and the Left-Hand Path, lead to enlightenment. Not so in the Western conception of RHP and LHP in modern times. Here the basic idea is that every system of religion, mysticism and magic(k) that belongs to the RHP ultimately leads to dissolution, the Unio Mystica or the absorption of personal consciousness into godhood. Contrary to this popular conception the LHP magician initiates a process that is known as Self-Deification. Rather than dissolving into God (or Buddhahood) by confronting the abyss of existence/non-existence, the LHP magician tries to resist the urge to be absorbed and chooses to separate her psyche from the “objective” universe & to “create a self-aware, individual, enlightened, immortal and semi-divine entity” out of her “subjective” consciousness (see Ross G. H. Shott: The Dark Arts of Immortality). To my mind, this way of defining the spiritual journey (called Setianism, developed by Michael Aquino, founder of the Temple of Set) is short-sighted and rather an intellectual affair. I think the urge is rather stronger to be not absorbed and to maintain a kind of an ego. Please keep in mind that the whole discussion about separation (LHP) & annihilation (RHP) is a neo-satanic fantasy! Buddha once said something to the effect that what looks like annihilation to the outsider, is innermost bliss & enlightenment to the meditator. And this is the point: what modern Western LHP philosophy doesn’t seem to get is the mystical insight that it’s not just an either/or option of preservation or annihilation of self, but about the simultaneity of being self & nonself, the irrational moment of the Coincidentia Oppositorum – the paradox of Oneness. Fuck Hegel, when he mocks that the Coincidentia Oppositorum is“the night, when all cows are black”! Because this is the point, where the otherwise very useful tools of logic, rationality & the intellect collapse. Here language fails or becomes mystical poetry (thus not being an expression of logic anymore). So basically, my scepticism concerning these modern LHP conceptions comes from the fact that trying to preserve one’s ego is born out of fear and “denies thousands of years of meditative experience” (Sweyn Plowright). Eight seconds spent in Samadhi and such philosophical constructions would be burned in the inmost flame of uttermost ecstasy! The whole question of this appears so important to me, because the way one perceives the Sacred Self (or True Self) determines one’s interpretation of what happened with Odhinn at his Yggdrasil Ordeal, where he sacrificed himself to himSelf – expressed in his enigmatic words: sjálf sjálfum mér (myself to myself).

However, one can identify certain threads that can be found in both definitions of the LHP. First of all, there is the rejection of the common values of morality. The Left-Hand Path sorcerer deconditions herself from the cultural fiction she was brought up with – the cultural memes, as it were. Of course this doesn’t lead to an aversion of the values of one’s own culture. Because choosing to be anti-cultural would just mean to submit to a form of control and herd conditioning as well. The core idea here is to break inner taboos, to confront oneself with inner fears, disgusts, dislikes, repulsions etc. and to free oneself from self-imposed limitations of one’s identity (a form of Ego Magic in chaospeak; Ego Magic is about change, not about maintaining the ego like in neo-satanic philosophy). Thus a more authentic, flexible, fluid and free state of Self-consciousness can be reached. This procedure has been called antinomianism in the Western LHP tradition. This should lead to a rejection of dogmatism in general, which enables the sorcerer to question the “truths” of any magic(k)al ‘tradition’ and any route or map that pretends to show the entire path towards perfection. This leads to the second point of a genuine LHP sorcerer from my point of view: the developing of one’s own system of sorcery. (Don Webb in his witty book about the Setian path, Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide to the Left-Hand Path, stresses the point that one should first master a Traditional system of magick, before one attempts to create one’s own system. To my mind, this makes sense.) The sources for this process have been given to us by Austin Osman Spare and chaos magick writers. Further the LHP sorcerer doesn’t fall into the trap of denying their own ego, body and the material world. All of these are tools to power and fulfilment. LHP sorcerers don’t deny this world, they embrace it! LHP sorcerers realize that every individual has to follow her own path, her own unique explorations of what is possible for the body/mind/spirit trinity, without being dependent upon any person or system. Finally it must be add that sorcerers on the LHP are not interested in the “common good”, “God”, the “state” or any other abstract idea that submits the individual to some “higher purpose”. In the first place the LHP sorcerer strives for Self-Empowerment and her own enlightenment.

I think all those ideas describing a LHP sorcerer could also apply to a Chaos Heathen or be applied by a Chaos Heathen to her own ends, though, when I consider this thoroughly, what could be not applied by a Chaos Heathen? So, if one wants to preserve the idea of the LHP in Chaos Heathenism or apply it in that context, the best definition of the LHP to me would be that one does not follow anyone or any fixed routes to enlightenment, but rather that one follows one’s own path. The Chaotick Path makes more sense.

Magick & Wyrd:

Ceremonial Magic(k), also the one with Crowley’s ‘k’, has been associated for a very long time with so-called ‘High Magic’, which suggests that there’s some kind of ‘Lower Magic’. In the late 19th & early 20th century this meant that High Magic strives towards spiritual aims, whilst Lower Magic was orientated towards material results, basically sorcery of the rural population – folk magic (see Phil Hine: Condensed Chaos). The divisions between matter/spirit appear as utter nonsense in the face of modern neurology, or even neurotheology. This is one of the reasons why I came to reject Ceremonial Magic(k) & turned towards Chaos & Rune Magic(k). Such dualistic conceptions, like High & Low Magic, are rooted in Platonic Idealism, which were perpetuated by the monotheistic cults, from which they entered the ideological superstructure of modern occultism with its pretentious obscurantism and pompous, ego-blown ritualism. I wholeheartedly reject such short-sighted, body- and world-denying dualisms.

Magick, as Dave Lee has demonstrated in his wonderful & brilliant book Chaotopia!, includes three things:

1) making things happen to consensus reality (sorcery),

2) making things happen to one’s own consciousness according to will (self-transformation) and

3) experiencing higher states of consciousness, often leading to unitary consciousness (mysticism). In the first case (sorcery) we manifest results in Midgard or, to put it simply, in the material world. In the second case (self-transformation) we change the world of our subjective experience, which is the only way we can experience reality in the end anyway.

Self-Transformation (making things happen to consciousness) often leads to mysticism (see Dave Lee: Chaotopia!). This process (mystical experience) cannot be easily recognized by others as a result in Midgard, probably that’s why it has been excluded from chaos magick – a drawback Dave Lee corrects in Chaotopia!. In the final analysis, magick is a sublime art, and either the results of a working are ‘material’ in its plain sense or they remain – for the sceptic – subjective. The reason why I want to include “chaos-mystical”(Dave Lee) operations into the concept of magick (freed from its Low/High magic divide) has wide-ranging philosophical implications that stem from my vision of the world. This vision is holistic, animistic, & mystical – suspending the immanence/transcendence divide. Here the idea of Wyrd is very useful, which I sometimes refer to as The Net of Power. This multivalent term is reflected in Indo-European mythology of Indra’s Web and, most importantly, in Teutonic sorcery in the idea of Wyrd and the myth of the Three Norns. “Wyrd can be translated as ‘Coming Into Being’. Wyrd is imagined as a tapestry woven by the three Norns, called Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, representing an interconnected ‘fabric’ underlying all events that is manifest in every shape. Urd – still resonating in the German syllable Ur – suggests the primal or ancient and stands for the unseen influences underlying an event. It is the unmanifest potential, wherein all possibilities exist. Skuld means ‘should’ – that, what should happen if all progresses without interference” (see Sweyn Plowright: True Helm). But here we can see the wisdom of the Germanic peoples of old: Skuld is not a deterministic future, like the idea of fate in Christian conceptions of time, but is one that can be influenced, that is changeable and open to ‘chance’. “Verdandi is the process of ‘Coming Into Being’, that which is becoming or manifesting, the present moment, which we perceive as the manifest world” (Sweyn Plowright: True Helm). The sorcerer empowers herself by realizing that this vast Net of Power exists. Dr. Hyatt has described this concept in a non-Germanic context as “a web of gigantic sets of interwoven neocid-correlation matrices where one tiny push in the right place causes an entire field to collapse” (see Christopher Hyatt: The Psychopath’s Bible). We pull an entire system of symbolic signs and correspondences over this Net of Power(or we can say, the system emerges from the Net), which builds up our magickal “psychocosm” (Phil Hine). This enables us to manipulate the Net, or our Wyrd,according to our congruent Will. Thus chaos Heathen sorcerers empowerthemselves to make their innermost dreams, desires, visions and their quest for wisdom flesh. Hence the definition of magick has been often described as the pursuit of power.

References:

CHAOTOPIA! – Sorcery and Ecstasy in the Fifth Aeon, Dave Lee

THE MASTER GAME – Pathways to Higher Consciousness, Robert S. De Ropp

TRUE HELM – A Practical Guide to Nothern Warriorship, Sweyn Plowright

THE PSYCHOPATH’S BIBLE – For the Extreme Individual, Dr. Christopher Hyatt with Dr. Jack Willis

THE DARK ARTS OF IMMORTALITY: Transformation through War, Sex, & Magic,
Ross G. H. Shott

CONDENSED CHAOS – An Introduction to Chaos Magic, Phil Hine

Edred Thorsson’s Radio Free Runa talks at: http://edred.net/community/

The band Fire + Ice, especially the albums: RUNA & BIRDKING

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