Vik, Iceland

In the summer of 1981, I returned to Iceland for another brief interlude away from the chaos of densely populated continental Europe. This time I managed to make it to Vik along the south coast, and spent a night in a peculiar guest house, attached to an old corrugated Nissen hut. Atop the steep rise behind it, I could see the skeletal remains of an old air base. All along the coastline the beach is black, largely the flood plain of the Myrdalsjökull glacier where Katla recently erupted. Out to sea against the stormy horizon, stand several stark black pinnacles of basalt, seeming much like you've reached the legendary Ultima Thule.

Exhausted from the long drive across the midlands, I readily went to my room, tossed aside my gear and practically fell asleep the minute I hit that bed. I had the strangest dream. I was a British ordinance Major, in some makeshift officers club. The place was packed and spirits were riding quite high. Somebody came up and took me by the shoulders wholeheartedly cheering excitedly, "We won, old chap, we won!" It's my good guess this was the end of the war we were celebrating. When I finally woke up, I felt somewhat askew, so I left the room and went down to the small sitting lounge of the reception, to make some sense of things. At some point I just plonked myself down on a sofa, shaking my head, still befuddled. It was then I realized the owner was standing there grinning at me like a cheshire cat. The grin broadened ever more as he cut straight to the chase; "Strange dreams, huh?" "Yeah, no kidding" I blurted out eying him curiously. Obviously I wasn't the first this had happened to, as I didn't have to say much. He explained that amongst other things, Vik had been a refueling station for transatlantic missions towards the end of WWII, and that practically all his guests had had strange dreams about it.

It's been said that around Iceland, there are alot of places that seem to border on the otherworldly. Indeed, no surprise what inspired the extraordinary myths of their Norse ancestors.

The Physics of Psychic Ability

First of all, there is no such a thing as "extrasensory perception". The continuum is awash with all manner of matter and energy interacting on various levels; from which we can gather infinite information. It simply depends on our level of perception and especially its realization. This is not limited to five senses alone. For instance there are other sensors within the human neuro-nasal complex that can recognize, amongst other things, the bio-electric signatures of other life forms. While our hearing may be limited to certain frequency ranges, our sense of touch is also receptive to a whole variety of different energy signatures and vibrations. At best our brain collects all this information and maps it out into a multidimensional construct, that most times we are not even consciously aware of, except to alert us of any imminent circumstances. Thus the better choice of words is “psychic ability”, which whether we realize it or not, makes a large part of our creative ability; as we put the constructs we realize into synthesis. In effect, this synthesis has the capacity to transcend consciousness into causality.

Secondly, there are no supernatural boundaries. The phantoms we may perceive among us are a phenomenon of the multidimensional. While our biological construct is logarithmically attuned to what we perceive as the “here and now”, the spacetime continuum is multilayered, and where there are tidal effects, these different frames of spacetime can emerge between our own frames. Thus our perception of these alternative realms depend on how well our brain can tangibly map them out.

While we all possess these abilities to some degree, to truly realize them is not without the trials of logical reasoning to establish the tangible facts. This is where a lot of skeptics, as well as avid occultists, tend to fall short. It is not enough to simply accept that one has these perceptual skills, nor is what science can’t define in layman terms any argument against it. For all our modern convenience, we expect some fabulous self-help course or book is going to connect all those dots for us. However, in the real world of opportunistic marketing, you’re more apt to be herded down the trendy path of popular mysticism- yet, no matter how many tantric channels, vision quests, or gamma levels of remote viewing you believe you’ve mastered by whatever means, still can’t even predict the weather. The same goes for Tarot, Ouija, Runes, astrology or whatever other “parlor” amusements. You can learn their procedures in every intimate detail, but that’s not necessarily going to improve the accuracy of your results. Conversely, all the academic degrees of science aren’t going to cut it either, if you don’t put it to the test of real life situations. Does an experienced farmer need to consult an oracle or call the national weather service to know when to turn his fields? Just the same, some of this “knowing” is already encoded in our genealogy; accounting for certain inherited talents (ie. artistic ability, mechanical aptitude, good with numbers, etc.). Despite popular belief, however, psychic ability is not something confined to one brain hemisphere or another, nor any particular creative skill, rather, concerns reasoning with the whole neurological process of its interactions with causality. As they say, knowledge is power - the power to see what our eyes alone cannot discern. Know yourself.

http://www.senseofsmell.org/feature/smell101/lesson1/01.php

http://socyberty.com/paranormal/polymorphic-perception-of-the-fourt...

http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=2066&C=1851

April, April, Weis Nicht Was Er Will

It's the old German addage that April doesn't know what it wants. Indeed things have taken that rapid descent into hell again. I'm up to my eyeballs in burocracy, while all the rest is going to shit. The temperature has taken a nose dive again, carrying a nasty flu epidemic in its wake. Of course I had to unwittingly pick it up in town on Wednesday...and although it didn't seem as bad as the last one, today I sounded like a herd of treefrogs when I phoned about a job I had applied for over a month ago. As I might expect, they already reviewed all the applicants, but never bothered to inform me. At the same time I finally got a rejection notice from another firm I had applied to around the same time. I've had to unplug the sewer at least three times. My Honda Dax finally gave up the ghost and I spent the past two days trying to get the other Mokick to work. Despite switching the batteries, as this one was dead, something in the electrical system is so fecked, I neither have headlights nor ignition. So I resolved to call the local repair (they're never open on Mondays), then proceeded to investigate the heap of bicycles in the shed, for a reasonable alternative. Of the four, I finally found one that didn't have a flat tire (although I had already replaced them in November), only to discover one of the foot pedals is fecked. Daylight was disappearing fast and so was the weather, so that repair will have to wait for tomorrow too. Just don't ask me what it is that I must endure this curse every year around the same time, but I'm sure that soothsayer in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" had it right. Beware the Ides of March. The good news is that the BF had his mechanic friend give it a go for far less the price and hassle. This proved to be a wise move.

The Goldenville Experience

Every so often on my physical journeys to a particular location a spirit will tell me a story of it. This was my experience in a small hamlet called “Goldenville” near Sherbrook, Nova Scotia. I had been searching for a friend’s sister who had gone missing for several weeks. Rumour had it she landed in the clutches of some Manson-style self-proclaimed guru who had bought some property there. I knew this creep only too well, and when he came around with some dubious premise that he was under psychic attack- I played along with my own plan in mind. Needless to say, my suspicions were confirmed. He had her there drugged on rediculous amounts of synthetic mescaline. What he didn’t know was that I had a high resistence to the stuff since my LSD days in Westphalia, Germany. When the lot were too busy getting wasted and talking a lot of pseudo-religious nonsense, I buggered off into the shale fields to work out my plan of escape. It was there after a while I felt something call out from deep within that rock, a very ancient spirit. I sat down and let the images come to me as it told me its story. Where I sat was once the center of a great continent many millions of years ago. I saw the great swamps that formed in its midst, teeming with strangest life. Then came a great catastrophy and the continent divided. Spirit then explained how these cataclysmic cycles contributed to the great diversity of life forms out of which we were born. Although I knew much of this already, Spirit helped me put it together into a tangible stream of causality. This was excellent, as I was otherwise wasting my time there in that bleak landscape. As for the guru, on the following morning I threatened to torch his house lest he drive me back to Halifax, and he knew I certainly would have. Of course, once back in Halifax with 50 dollars to buy my silence, I informed my friend’s mother, who immediately sent the RCMP to raid the place on the charge of kidnapping (snicker).

About Ghosts and Spirits

It's a popular misconception that ghosts should appear transparent, rather they are a very solid looking manifestation of altered time. Take for instance the case of Roman legions marching through the basement walls of a house that was built atop an ancient road. The figures look very real, yet, pass through the basement as if its walls didn't exist. Indeed, these walls didn't exist in their time. These, however, are not to be confused with spirits, whose forms can be highly suggestive. Either way we can forget about catching them on optical frames of visible light, rather, would require algorithmically mapping their quantum signatures- something which our brain actually does quite unconsciously- that we have yet to replicate technologically. At most we can only catch the thermal absorption anomalies they leave behind, otherwise it's about as effective as trying to photograph radio waves.

The earth is a great natural dynamo for all the tidal forces in its atmosphere, the great oceans, and the magma convections under its rather tenuous crust. This, along with the gravitational effects of its mass spinning at an equatorial speed of 1,674.4 km/h or 1,040.4 mi/h has a measureable effect of distortion on the fabric of spacetime, and that’s aside from orbiting the sun at a speed of 29.77 km/s. Thus, it should be no surprise that we see some pretty strange things wherever these forces attenuate into the transcendental.

Spirits are a different story, for the simple fact that they interact with us; though most times on a subliminal level. They are everything from wights and little people, down to the unresolved souls of the dead. One must understand local spacetime on this earth as a multilayered thing, with the occasional “thinning of the boundaries” at the nodes of these attenuating forces. We can suddenly find ourselves within their alter-reality in a different order of time- where a few seconds can seem like hours or quite the opposite. They may come to us through a mere energy signature, rather like a signal- the experience of their presence seeming more a tele-projection or dreamlike synthesis. Sometimes we may only hear a voice, or perceive a very vivid scent. To understand the nature of these different manifestations gives us something more tangible to work with in comprehending their messages- in effect, learn how to work with them in a better understanding of existence as a whole. This is the essence of spirituality as nature intended it.

Encounters With Johnston

The six years I spent in Westphalia Germany, was in an old fortified medieval town called Soest. A great circular maze of old cobbled streets, alleys, and houses so ancient, their walls of clay and straw were seldom straight. There were plenty of strange old spirits. You could even hear them joking and playing cards in the old guard house of the town's main gate on warm full moon nights. Thus when we moved into an old colonial Victorian house in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, I was already well accustomed to these things. It would happen late at night, just as I was drifting into sleep, something relentlessly pacing throught the attic above. The mutterings would escalate into somekind of philosophical perplexity, as whoever it was, was obviously trying to figure something out. Whenever I sat in deep thought at the window or on the door step, it would empathically intervene, in cynical agreement of my insights. Despite my young age I already had quite enough of society's rediculous gestalt games. He agreed that humanity had obviously missed the big picture somewhere down the line. Then he would ramble on and on about some strange mystical formula, that I later learned was Rosicrucian. He was looking for the key to some higher realm of existance. It was right there under his nose, but he just couldn't see it for all his mystical precepts. It was futile. He just wouldn't let go of any of it, eternally trapped in his own quasi-temporality until hell knows what for the sake of immortality. Thus these late night haunts became tediously annoying, to say the least. Then the news came from Germany of my grandfather's stroke after a low flying fighter jet had shattered all the windows in his neighbourhood. It was barely a week later, I was tossing in my sleep with the most nagging feeling of his imminent death, when the pacing suddenly stopped with a loud crash. The phone rang and it was my father calling to tell us that Opa had just died.

For my brother, it was a different story. He actually saw the man one morning at sunrise, hovering cross legged before the window, leering at him. I think what shocked him was the fact of something so alter-real actually blocking the sunlight as a solid form. My friends, however, were a foolish lot, often dabbling in things they just didn't have the guts for. One night they tried to hold a seance in my bedroom. I only laughed and said "heh, I hope you realize what you're getting yourselves into". Needless to say, our resident spook did not approve, and a cold hand on the shoulder soon sent them fleeing out of the house.

The large house had been divided into a duplex, and our side of it had no access to the attic. In the basement there was a door to the other side, but it was locked. Of its "living" residents was a divorced woman who worked at the bus terminal and her elderly bed ridden father. She had a terrible reputation as a nattering gossip, so I did my best to avoid her. At first I wondered if the pacing at night was the old man, that maybe he wasn't so bed ridden. She was always giving him hell, which was very disturbing indeed. I felt for the poor man. Then one day he died, and the house was up for sale. We were not yet required to move, pending the decision of the new owners. Nonetheless the pacings and mutterings did not relent.

With the other side now vacant, I took the liberty of picking the lock of that basement entrance. Reaching the ground floor, I found myself in a beautiful spiral stairwell with a stained glass skylight. I ascended into the attic but all was empty and silent as it should be, still there was a feel to that whole side of the house, of something lurking on the temporal borderline. A well educated quaker friend, upon learning where I lived, told me it was the "Johnston House", the summer residence of one of Nova Scotia's first premiers. An extremely eccentric chap who despite his public Christian standing, was a notorious Rosicrucian. My brother went down to the Dartmouth Heritage Museum to check this out. Not surprisingly the face in the picture matched the one he saw leering at him that one morning. When we finally moved out, I could feel the man watching from his attic retreat as he said "You'll be back", but I knew deep down it was only his wishful thinking and turned away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Johnston

2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions

I thought this article in the Pagan Newswire was brilliant so I just had to post it here. It's exactly what I've been trying to get through these pentacle waving trendies for years:

In the world of Interfaith relations, where religions, faiths and traditions seek to find cooperation and peaceful coexistence, the labels and definitions and how they are used are important. Descriptions of faith practices are the way interfaith speakers share information that leads to greater understanding, and the clearer the language used, the better chance all parties will be able to find common ground. In this case, for a very long time Paganism has been defined by the Christian definition of any non-Abrahamic religion. This has been considered a derogatory term by many faiths, and seen as insult to many including members of Hinduism, Buddhism, Native and Indigenous faiths. They each desired that they be seen as an equal religion with their own title and definitions to be used. In this, by agreement, Paganism is not used to directly describe any faith simply because it is not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. This agreement has allowed each faith attending to put aside the use of this word as a central description of their faith.

So the term Pagan itself is being redefined from this old Christian based definition. Part of the Teaching of Traditions series, created with the help of Pagan Trustees, describes Paganism as follows: “Paganism” is a collective term that most aptly defines Indigenous cultures of pre-Christian Europe, the Celtic and Germanic Tribes, The Balts, The Scandinavians, The Basques, The Slavs and many others.

The first Pagan presentation of the Parliament helped begin this change of identity and was called “People Call Us Pagans-The European Indigenous Traditions”, by PWR Trustees Angie Buchanan, Andras Arthen, and Phyllis Curott. The opening of the description is as follows: As the World confronts environmental devastation, we are beginning to appreciate the wisdom of Indigenous peoples who have lived thousands of years in sustainable harmony and spiritual connection with the Earth. After hundreds of years of suppression, most Westerners have forgotten that their ancestors once shared this wisdom as the Indigenous traditions of Europe. *

This concept of Paganism as being based deeply in European Indigenous Traditions has fascinated and found ground among American, European and Australian members of the Parliament. It helps move Paganism from being a New Religious Movement to an Indigenous tradition, and offers many more opportunities to reach out at the parliament.

As described by Andras Corban-Arthen most forms of modern Paganism can be described as part of the New Religious Movements as they were formed in the 20th century, yet there are several Pagan ethnic traditions that have survived Christianization. One such example is Romuva of Lithuania. It is these ethnic traditions that fit better into the description of Indigenous traditions, instead of New Religious Movements. It allows Pagans to be part of both New Religious Movements and also recognized as part of the Indigenous traditions. By accepting that Pagan Traditions are indigenous to Europe, then individuals must take another look and it presents them with a different paradigm of what Pagan stands for.

Further, Andras Corban-Arthen points out that Wicca, for example, cannot be seen as an indigenous Pagan faith practice and is instead a modern syncretic movement. Under this description Wicca therefore would not fall under the definition of Pagan, and would be squarely a New Religious Movement, while British Traditional Witchcraft could be considered a Pagan and Indigenous faith tradition.

This concept of redefining Paganism as Indigenous Faith Practices of Europe has been seen as a way to change perceptions. River Higginbotham, Author and Pagan, who has heard this definition for the first time at the Parliament, describes this change as one that will benefit many Pagans, and he accepts that most Pagans he knows draw on European traditions to form their own practices. This allows them grounding in culture, and this description has given them a better understanding of where their faith is coming from.

Angie Buchanan offers that recognition of Paganism as an extension of the faith practice of Indigenous European Religions gives modern Pagans grounding in their own traditions. This will help them find their own customs and rituals. This will discourage modern Pagans from raiding other Indigenous faiths rituals and practices, which is also known as Cultural Appropriation, which many Native Americans and other culturally based ceremonialists describe as a form of spiritual theft. By having Pagans focus on their own European roots, they can avoid creating situations that would aggravate cultural appropriation that harms interfaith efforts.

Linda Hart, Interfaith Liaison for Pagan Awareness Network of Australia, feels this is a good description for Paganism, and finds it useful for non-Pagans to understand. It is a useful tool in dealing with other indigenous faiths, which do not see themselves as Pagan. Instead this allows Pagans to share as fellow Earth-Based Spiritualists.

So we see that Paganism is beginning to be used to describe Indigenous European faiths, and that other practices by Indigenous people are being seen as part of a larger family of Earth-Based Spiritualists; That some forms of what we call Paganism are really independent of that term and are better described their own name under New Religious Movements.

In all cases, the definition that Pagans are those who practice a faith not covered by Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, should be discarded as politically and socially unacceptable. That we must look beyond a definition forced onto the world by missionaries as a way to divide us, and instead accept that each faith practice can and should be called by the name of their choice.

For many self-described Pagans, this is a different lens to view themselves with, and offers a chance to reexamine their faith as Pagans, Earth Spiritualists, New Religious Movements, or something else yet to come. It may be time to examine the entire Pagan movement under this new definition and allow it to evolve into more than simply one community; that understanding these differences and the labels they generate can allow us to interact more fully in a multi-religious and pluralistic Interfaith World, as shown at the Parliament of World’s Religions.

*PWR Program Handbook, 2009, pg.142-143