After the first round of spiritual pyrotechnics we decided it was high time to have dinner. So we did.
Behind where we were sleeping for the night was a series of carved stone steps leading up a rise and off into bush. You used to be able to follow these steps to the second cemetery but that area was now completely overgrown and inaccessible. That was a shame because I felt that the Old One – the ancient being that called me here – dwelled in that second cemetery.
We had come with the intention of performing a ritual and we decided to use one of the stone steps as our altar. Hence the photos with our various ritual tools and offerings.
We spent some time discussing the purpose of the ritual. The area we were staying in is considered very haunted and normally no one is brave enough to sleep there. We noticed at least one electrical device switched on spontaneously, classic poltergeist behaviour.
I know parapsychologists say that poltergeist activity is really due to overactive psychic powers in children – but we were totally alone, and neither of us normally produces such effects.
As we discussed our plans the air became more and more oppressive. It was clear that while we had done some good there was a lot more work ahead.
The basic intention of the ritual was to invite learning and healing for both us and the spirits. I carved Mannaz and Eihwaz runes on a candle as these are to my mind classic death runes. We brought some very good red wine as our blot drink.
As we planned our magic something extremely strange happened. A rat appeared and ran under Volksfreund’s seat. It was as far as I could see a totally normal, three dimensional, living rat, seen with my eyes and optic nerves. Yet it did not come out from under his seat again!
Unnerved I asked him to get up and move the seat to look under it. Nothing. I scoured the whole area, unable to believe my eyes. It just disappeared! The floor was a totally clear and hard surface, there was nowhere for it to go.
It must have been a ghost or spirit, that’s the only explanation I have. I was seriously freaked out. This wasn’t just having another being use my imagination without my control to appear before me; this thing actually appeared 100% physical and real! I’ve never seen anything of such a degree of weirdness. It wasn’t a big, dramatic thing, but believe me, if you’d been there… well, it was extremely bizarre.
To clear the space we burned recels, dried herbs. It was raining heavily and very windy but somehow we got them going and Volksfreund smudged the area as much as the weather allowed.
I commenced the ritual by calling on Draugadrottin to come and to send us his wisdom, power and blessings, improvising a string of invocations. Satisfied that the right atmosphere was established we both offered our intentions – that our magic bring healing and learning all around (strictly speaking this had already started occurring!)
We lit the candle then and began chanting Mannaz and Eihwaz to power the spell. This went on for quite a while. Eventually the fever of the chanting quelled and I held out the candle into the rain to put it out.
Only it didn’t go out. I held it there in direct and quite heavy rain and wind. Still aflame. At first it struggled a bit, but then if anything the light got stronger. We started silently at it, in total awe, for five or ten minutes as it happily broke a number of the basic laws of physics.
Eventually my arm got really tired from holding it out so I put it down on our makeshift altar. It kept burning for longer again! If you look carefully in the photo you can see the water glistening on the rock and the roses.
This we took as a dramatic and positive sign from the spirits. We raised the wine to honour the spirits and to honour Draugadrottin, making sure to give plenty back to the earth. The wild weather calmed as our work ended. It was certainly dramatic!
We saw various shadows and lights moving in the area after that. Sometimes we would see a person’s shadow moving along – but no person to shed it! Curious, no?
A really sweet and warm atmosphere spread over the whole area after our ritual. The remaining sense of malevolence dissolved completely. Indeed, we felt profoundly welcome.
We went back to the area where I served as a psychopomp for the spirits and both spontaneously went into extremely deep trances of communion with the beings there. Given that this was in the most haunted part of a place that many people fear to sleep in I think that was no small feat!
The rest of the night we felt a strong atmosphere of joy and even love. No one had given these spirits the healing or attention they desired in a long time or so it seemed. We explored the whole area again and it all seemed similarly whole and hale.
Finally at some horrible hour I went to sleep. Volksfreund stayed up and took some photos of things that might be ghosts.
The next morning thing still felt really good and we finally left at about midday. I was sad to go. One thing that didn’t happen was a meeting with the Old One. I felt that the learning it told me I would receive had occurred, but I had also hoped to have a more direct experience of it.
On our return I really wanted to have more weird experiences but none were forthcoming. And we both fell sick – in fact I’m not quite recovered.
But after a few days of feeling that I’d been invited into the most profound universe and then kicked out I got a message or clue for the next step. A new CD I had ordered arrived. I didn’t realise when I ordered it but it is concept album about communicating with the dead! And guess what – instead of a booklet it has a poster that folds out into an ouija board!
I know, that’s kinda cheesy, but I’m thinking that I have to try it at least once. It really felt like I was born to do this whole spirit expedition stuff, this psychopomping business. So now I’m just hopeful and curious about what happens next.
Hail Draugadrottin! Hail The Lord Of The Dead!
Hail the raw power of Niflheim! Hail its teaching power! Hail its love that only the brave can feel.
The timeless ancient ones love. The spirits of the dead love. It is the wyrd of being.
Heimlich, these two entries are the most resonant that you have written this year. More otherworldly challenges are now on the horizon.
Yes! New possibilities beckon…
I should mention that I don’t actually think our candle broke the law of physics… I just think some kind of spiritual force, entities which in principle fit within the physical universe but in a way beyond current understanding, got in and fed the candle with sufficient energy that it was strong enough to rest the wind and rain.
I actually dont see the paranormal as a refutation of the scientific worldview at all, just a refutation of the current scientific status quo… or something like that :)
One thing that really stood out during our stay at this very haunted site was the sensation experienced by both Heimlich and me that time was congealing all around us. Heimlich aptly described the experience as akin to “walking under water”. In fact I recall now that when Heimlich and I spoke to each other, our words came out rather slowly from our mouths.
A well-known Aboriginal folklorist from the local Aboriginal Land Council Representative once described this site as a place where time flows backwards. Spiritualists may describe this as a “vortex” that links this world to the spirit realm. It is also this source who informs the public that this site was a training ground for Aboriginal medicine men. These men were obviously shamans. And shamans, according to Mircea Eliade, are psychopomps. Psychopomps are those who guide the souls of the dead, ensuring safe passage. Odin and the Valkyries are the Norse models of psychopomps.
According to the folklorist in question, the site that we stayed on also contained middens – Aboriginal burial sites. Burial ceremonies were performed by the indigenous psychopomps. Women who were healers, too, were once present at the site, giving support to the role and the function of medicine men.
Having succeeded in “equalising” the spirit energy of this site through an Odinic rite, the door is now open for a deepening of an intuitive psychopompal action and attunement. There is something beckoning on the horizon, which surely belongs to the Old One’s inscrutable design.
As an atheist rationalist I would just like to say that the last three posts make no sense to me whatsoever.
Probably Richard Dawkins took the rat.
Unfortunately for Richard he would never come along on such an adventure and hence never be given to see such strange things.
I don’t claim to understand any of it. I am just being a good empiricist and reporting what I saw with my own eyes.
but luckily I know you’ll put up with me anyway ;)
The spirit world or dimension is not a negation of Midgard. Being-in-Midgard is in itself an attunement to the other world, if spirituality can be spoken of in the first place.
In mediumship there are two exercises that a medium must do regularly: meditation (whichever style or tradition that can help you calm your mind) and healing, both for oneself and others. Healing can also be understood more broadly as service for the common good. When these two aspects are firmly integrated into a medium’s way of being, he can open up to the world of spirits in a more confident and wholesome way. The fact is that they are around us all the time. There is no “world” as such, but only shifting of dimensions, which are guided by states of consciousness. A trained consciousness therefore gives a medium more control in his interdimensional movement (which includes the timeless phenomenon of possession), even if control is never a goal in itself, but a letting go that is full of confidence.
Volksfreund, I’d be happy to hear your private definition for ‘medium’. And since Heimlich said you are one, I would be happy to also hear about how you see yourself as one.