Caveat Emptor: Divine contact and spiritual experiences

Note: This started off as a cathartic little rant about people making up bullshit stories to try to score points in heathen groups online. It started to get quite verbose, however and by the end it was looking too long to post in a single draft. So, I'm going to split it into three parts and post each part over the next few days.

I appreciate some of this is quite derogatory and not hugely respectful to new heathens. I would encourage people to bear with it, though as nestled in all that wordage are some few little pieces of advise that I would have benefitted from greatly, back when I was a new heathen at the start of this millennium.


Contemporary heathenry is populated by a wide range of people with an equally wide range of world views and spiritual experiences. From atheists to polytheists and skeptics to believers. Surprisingly, and testament to the good will present in the subculture as a whole, this has yet to cause much in the way of strife - as far as I am aware. A fondly held tenet of online interactions being a robust tolerance for the views of others (excepting bigotry, obviously).

In general, though, online discussions stick to the material plane. The lore, history, archaeology and white supremacist groups being hot topics in most of the heathen communities of which I have been a part. In discussions, divine/spiritual experience and UPG is rarely mentioned. UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis. Essentially personal experiences that inform our own paths, but shouldn't really mean anything to others. Remember that time you thought you saw the Wild Hunt in the sky as you were leaving your work's Xmas do? That's UPG. May or may not be real, but felt real/important enough on a personal level to inform your path.

My personal opinion is that UPG should be left out of online discussions, unless the topic specifically calls for it. If one person believes from the very cockles of their heart that they're Thor's human lover, that has no bearing on anyone else's path whatsoever. The person claiming that may be mentally ill, may have been tricked, might have been under the influence of drugs, or might just be plain lying. All of those are more reasonable explanations than a god with no record of having ever taken a human lover, has gone against all reason and his own character to play hide the sausage with some random whose only been heathen since the start of the second season of "Vikings".

I am not denying that spiritual experiences and/or divine contact can and do occur. I have had an experience that, at the time, felt spiritual myself. What I am saying is, that such things are personal and not really appropriate fodder for discussion in an online, public(-ish) heathen forum. It kind of equates to being introduced to your mate's friend for the first time in a pub and opening with "My uncle Trevor showed me his winkie when I was eight years old...". It's too personal, not at all appropriate and, frankly, how is the other guy supposed to react? What possible conversation or social activity will blossom from that? Spiritual experiences are the kinds of of things that should, to my mind, be reserved for relating only very rarely and in hushed, reverential tones over ale/across a campfire to very close and cherished friends. Not used in some lame attempt to score "Viking points"[TM] with lots of strangers over the internet.

Now, spiritual experiences are kind of subjective, nebulous and hard to adequately describe by their very nature. Looking back upon them, we can be forgiven for perhaps embellishing the event a little to suit our desire to make it an example of "heathen divine contact". First of all, though, it is not necessary to have some kind of special event or blessing from a god to be a bona fide heathen. Self identifying as heathen and working toward understanding the faith and carving your own path is more than enough. Secondly, even accepting that gods do exist as entities in their own right and that they do, on occasion, take on physical form, there are certain things we need to get out of the way. First of all, there are heathens in the world today who have been on their heathen path for over four decades. They have dedicated their lives to one or more of the gods and goddesses, written books about them, held public blots and symbels and been an example of how a disciple of their chosen god should speak and act over years in many public fora and in real life. With this in mind, please ask yourself why this particular god would appear to you when you have only been self-identifying as heathen for a couple of years? The gods don't care that you once dropped a 250UKP order at GrimFrost. If anything, they are gonna judge you by your actions. What have you done recently to show how heathen you are?

To be continued...

Heathenry and bereavement

At the start of this year, my father died. It came as no great surprise - he was 86 and had suffered ill health for several months previous. However, it is never nice to lose close family, and they don't come much closer than your father.

Surprisingly, I found that heathenry helped give me strength at what was a trying, grief-ridden time. My knowledge of heathenry and the nature of my path meant that I appreciated that my father hadn't really gone anywhere. He was and is still present in myself, my brother and my sister. In true heathen style, we talk of him often and keep his memory alive - despite none of my family back in Lincolnshire actually being heathen.

I also noticed how many people came out of the woodwork, so to speak, to attend his funeral. Every last one of them said what a kind, simple man he was - and each seemed to have an anecdote to illustrate just the kind of man he had been. I found that very touching and the greatest possible affirmation that the most important thing that survives death is one's reputation.

I still think of him a lot, and miss him terribly. But now and then, I think of his having joined our ancestors and I still shares words with him, as I do with them. While there is little in the way of comfort in the heathen view of things, when a person dies, they are simply gone - joining our other honoured dead in the burial mound. However, there is a comfort to be had in the understanding of the way of things - old makes way for new.

Save me a space on the bench, Dad. See you later.

Less than ideal job: What would the vikings do?

Here I am, working (unpaid) overtime for a job I loathe, and I can't help but wonder to myself, what would the original norse heathens or those of the Viking age have thought about my situation?

Would they expect me to pull up my big boy pants and simply endure? Putting up with the daily grind, lack of appreciation and depressing work life in the name of supporting my family?

Or perhaps they'd respect me more if I stood up and took action? Maybe working to change the situation here at my workplace, or to go out and try to find another company that will appreciate me better?

What I do understand, is that the raiders known as Vikings were very entrepreneurial sorts and would be looking out for an opportunity to earn fortune and fame, rather than bitching about their situation on their blog. Had they had blogs back then, of course.

Kith of Yggdrasil forum post 2011: Pondering Tyr

Here is a blog entry I originally posted to the (sadly now defunct) Kith of Yggdrasil forum in Dec 2011 and then again to my UK Pagan blog just under a year later. Think it might have found its way to my internal martial arts blog at some point, too. Enjoy.



Posted ImagePosted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 2:04 pm Post subject: Tyr I've allowed Tyr to occupy my mind somewhat, perhaps in an effort to get to grips with him and any way that he might help in my Baguazhang training.

I've read the usual factoids regarding him, available from several sources. Perhaps once the chief deity until he was usurped by Odin in some areas. Sky god. Patron of combat. Lost his hand while binding Loki's troublesome canine offspring... yada... yada... yada...

At first I found him completely inscrutable. Very little information available regarding him and there seem to be very few authors willing to pontificate too much as to his nature, either.

Then I started to really think about what we know of him. He lost his hand when binding the wolf. Offered as a pledge of faith. Tyr must have known that the hand would be lost once the binding was complete. To look that giant, ravenous animal in the eye and to offer your hand without a solitary quiver of doubt crossing your face...? Any sign of unease would surely have warned Fenrir of the gods' true intent. To keep that calm under such immense pressure in spite of what pain and loss was to come. Now that calls for ice in your veins.

Similarly, Tyr is described as the only god brave enough to feed the bound Fenrir. When you consider the nature of the other gods, that is quite a claim to fame. Perhaps the statement is not meant to be literally true - Odin and Thor, for example, do not strike me as cowards - but to be hailed as the bravest of the gods is an incredible accolade.

The feeding of Fenrir also raises another interesting point. This wolf has just bitten your hand off, what kind of fairness of judgment must you show not to bear a grudge and to feed the animal? Hel, why not just let Fenrir starve, chained up helpless as he is? Obviously, Tyr's honour precludes him from such base flaws.

Indeed, Tyr's honour would have to be renowned for his hand to make sufficient a pledge for the wolf to allow himself to be bound. Let's face it, Odin or Thor would be likely to eschew honour in order to get the job done. Only Tyr, it seems, had enough honour, bravery, determination, pragmatism and foresight to offer his hand for the greater good and to secure the future - allowing the gods a chance to secure a better post-Ragnarok world...

What will I attempt to learn from him, then? It seems he has a lot of value to teach me, even from the superficial insights I have drawn for myself so far. I am looking forward to getting to know him even better, so that I can learn some of those traits of which, I must confess, I could use more.

Obviously, at the time I didn't feel the need to reference any of my claims within the little passage - but it is through plain, simple consideration and musing like this that I have come to feel myself closer to Tyr than before. No mystical mumbo-jumbo required. No chanting bollock-naked in my garden (good job, too, I only have a small balcony that is overlooked by the apartment block across the street). Nothing but a little time and thought.

Wonder if I could get closer to other aesir and asynior in this way? Might be worth thinking about... ;)

Heroism

"In Viking times, not only did a man fight with courage, travel with enterprise, or die with nobility; the writer of his epitaph thought it worth describing these events in the language and form of heroic verse. To take a couple of examples out of many. At Sjörup, Skâne, is a memorial stone, perhaps of the eleventh century, set up by a man after his félagi (a word which, in this context, I take to mean'comrade-in-arms'). The primary record, set in an outerband of runes, is simple description: 'Saxi put up this stone in memory of his comrade Asbjorn, Tóki's son'. Within this is a second band of runes, comprising two lines of verse which show why Asbjorn needed and deserved commemoration: Sárfló eigi at Upsalumen va meó hann vápn hafdi* 'He did not run at Uppsala, but fought while he could hold weapons.' The significance of this example is that, to recount a heroic deed, its verse uses a form of words that must have been traditional in heroic poetry. The Norse en vámeó hann vápn hafdi gives the parallel to the Old English heroic formula pa hwile pe hi (he) wœpna wealdan moston(moste), 'as long as they (he) could wield weapons', used of the doomed English defiance to the invaders in the poem of As on the Söderby, Uppland, Sweden, rune-stone (L. Musset, Introduction à larunologie (Paris, 1965), p. 392). The stone was a memorial to Helgi whom Sasur killed,'and he did a nióingsverk—betrayed his comrade.'4 L. Jacobsen and E. Moltke, Danmarks runeindskrifier (Kobenhavn, 1941-2), text,cols. 332-4. The last line of verse is variously divided into its separate words, but this does not affect the argument...

....The man who put up this stone in Skâne looked upon his slaughteredfriend in the same way: as one who had perished in valiant resistance, refusing the easy option of flight. We are not surewhat this battle at Uppsala was, and it may have been a sordid little skirmish; but here it has become a great and heroic Viking adventure."

~excerpt from 'A Most Vile People': Early English Historians on the Vikings, by R. I. Page