I've been thinking recently about Otherworld(s).  
To me it seems that there are several ways to think about it, and I was
wondering about other peoples perceptions of the otherworld.  This 
includes both where we go after death, and those otherworlds we can
perceive in everyday life.

61 responses total.

One thing that I was wondering about in particular is the apparent conflict
between reincarnation and the afterworld.
If we can ask our anscestors to be present at rituals, and be available to 
us for communication, how do those people go on to another life?

The way that I resolve this for myself is to think that the part of the 
person that is particulary them <like memories, the pivotal events of a 
persons life, personal tastes, personality quirks, and the like> reside in 
the afterworld.  Whereas the part of a person, like basic personality <since
babies are born with at least the basics of a personality> are reborn.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

About two months ago, I finally finished _By Oak, Ash, & Thorn_ by D.J. Conway
(an author I have now learned to depise).  Anyway, *it* says that "Celtic
Shamanism" does not conflict with any religions at all- then contradicts that
statement by basiclly saying "be a goody-tow-shoes or else"!  Also, *it*
includes paths between the upperworld and underword which traditionally lead
to specific places in specific pagan religions (i.e. the rainbow bridge, more
commonly known as Bifrost, is meant to lead strictly to and from Asgard- but
D.J. says it leads to the "upperworld".  D.J. also goes on to use its
brain-only research to say that everything is done voluntarily, that there
is no such thing as a diety forcing you to do something- whislt all other
religious and 'mythological' texts refute that statement.  However, enough
about Conway.

In the reincarnation item- I stated that I could track without help the fact
that this is simultaneously my 6th and 7th human liftime.  One might wonder
why I am living two lives at the same time- well, actually I am not- part of
my soul just seems to be 3 days ahead of the rest.  I have never truly dropped
my worship of the Egyptian gods, I merely added worship of the Volsung
pantheons and learned more from there.  So I am now an Ancient
Egyptian/Volsung/Bhuddist/Apothoean and maybe I missed a few more philosophies
that I can identify with.  However, in terms of afterlives this gives me: The
Egyptian spirit world, Valhall + Gimle + Niflheim & Main Asgard,
Brahman/Atman, and Apotheosis.
The question is, which gods will take me- or *make* me?

When I called on beloved dead, I try to put on a stipulation that they
only come if they're not busy elsewhere... I think that's generally 
assumed about all forces you invite in, since we can't *force* any
forces to show up.  If they're currently engaged in another life,
then they won't show up... this question has specific relevance to us
because Val's current familiar, Noel, is the reincarnation of her
former familiar, Dusty.  We don't ask Dusty into our Samhain rituals
because he's already there.  :)
(This is blondval, of course... erg!  lock the door before popcorn 
comes in and really confuses things!)

 
        Most of the popular reincarnationist theories that I've read share
a common premise - that the human spirit or soul is fundamentally the same
as the person in life, and is capable of independent existence, or, with a
loss of memory and function in most cases, transmigration.  The Frosts and
most New Agey philosophy tends to view reincarnation as natural and
actually desirable, and more than a temporary delay in reincarnation to
be undesirable and causable by severe trauma or unfinished business of the
sort that would wrack the souls of the living.  Several Buddhist sects take
the opposite view, that escape from reincarnation is a noble spiritual goal.
 
        I have a few problems with most schools of reincarnation.  It's
plainly obvious that long-term recall can be affected by organic damage -
and while memory itself is poorly understood at a neurological level and there
is nothing to suggest that memory is stored in yet unrecognized ways which
may not be purely organic - and personality can be severly affected by
organic or psychological means.  This throws a serious wrench in the school
of thought that would have us believe that the departed are capable of
remembering their life and act much as they would when they were alive.
It does not prevent the transmigration of some vital part of the essence of
a living being, but it does tend to indicate that this vital essence, if it
exists, could not be recognizably human.  It also begins to sound relatively
tenacious to me - an overt attempt to cheat death.
 
        Personally, I'm leaning towards morphogenic field theories -
something that ties in relatively well with the Zen school of Buddhist
thought and pre-polytheistic Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation - that
all creatures are connected at some level as part of a whole, and especially
individuals that are genetically close - and possibly emotionally close.
Individuals, as a part of this whole, are capable of sharing experiences,
emotions, knowledge, all of the things that make up an individual identity,
but only to a limited degree while they remain individuals.  There is some
hard evidence of this, but I'm not really in a position to go into it in
detail, and admit that I lean towards the theory simply because of personal
preference, and because it's the first theory that I've encountered aside
from death-as-death that has some degree of validity according to the rules
of the observable universe.
 
        This provides no mechanism for incarnation, but if you accept the
premise that it is a natural consensus production of life and of living
organisms, then you have both a mechanism for incarnation and one for
reincarnation, as well ...

Ah.. but then there is Egyptian philosophy of As above so below... you live
one life as a living thing, the next as a spirit, and a born once again into
the physical world.  However, regardless of what philosopy(<-ies) are
"correct" or incorrect, one can ne'er overcome the shear impossiblity of
existance.  Howevere, reincarnation seems to be the one philosophy that also
works scientifically- Big Bang theory, of course.

I do not ever cheat death... in fact, on many nights, I am dead *not* asleep
and explore the other realms with full physical senses functioning... I have
walked the halls of Valhalla, kicked St. Peter's ass in front of the Pearly
gates, and vistied blessed oblivion.

When I did try to cheat death, she showed me that it my eventual demise was
actually something to look forward to.

Wonderful question, Val.  Gee, whatever made you think of it? <g>
Your solution is pretty close to my own- I think we can leave "ghosts"
wherever we lived particularly intensely, whether or not we are actually
dead.  These ghosts have a limited ability to react to circumstances, and
change only within a certain range.  When they are done with whatever they
are working on, presented with the fact that they are dead, or whatever,
they often disappear.  What happens to dead folks?  Dunno- I suppose some
hang out and watch us, more or less resting, in the "summerland" or "other
side" or whatever.  They are most likely to join us when asked, since they
are still more tied to this life than anything else.  You raise a good
question, Jazz- with *what* are they remembering and interacting?  Dunno,
my sense is of a sort of "oversoul" or larger-than-linear time self which
helps one to select each life and which remembers them between times, etc.
We choose lives to help that self or spirit grow.  I think some folks may
jump from one life into the next pretty rapidly while others need more of
a break, and some spend time in their conception of heaven or hell until
they are done with that process- kind of an interim incarnation, but without
the "carne".  Actually, although I came up with all of this on my own from
bits and pieces, it seems to fit pretty well with the Celtic concept.  Is
anyone surprised, coming from me? <g>

Bjorn, I'm really glad I've never wasted any money on Conway's books.  Sigh.
What a mish-mash.  In Celtic conception, the ways to the otherworlds are
many- beyond 9 waves, through the mist, through a cave or a doorway, around
a tree or across a ravine- any liminal space can take you out of this
world, approached right. Nor is there the need for a particular "gate keeper"
like Heimdal, although Manannan often guides people to Tir na n'Og (the land
of the young), etc. or over the sea to the isles of the dead (same difference,
really).  I don't have *any* clear sense of a Celtic "upper world", although
every now and then there's a tiny sense of the gods (Tuatha De Dannan) peering
down at people in the process of meddling with them.  I'm specifically 
thinking of the story of Etain, who was born 3 times, the first as one of
the Tuatha De Dannan, married to a mortal, and generally had a very confused
and weird life.  In her story, it always seems as if someone's watching and
messing around with things, but that's just my impression, and it needn't
be from above, just feels that way.  Maybe 'cause she and her lover turn into
swans?...
Oh, as to the gods coercing, my sense is that they are more into trickery
or hard bargains if a simple (but forceful) request won't work.  But then,
you work with those rough-and-ready Norse types, eh? <g>

I believe that your soul is kind of like a hermit crab.  After your shell dies
(for example, me), my soul will inhabit a new shell (a newborn baby).  This
explains all of my "memories" of ancient Ireland, life as a Native American,
the witch trials, etc.  I don't believe in heaven or hell...that's
Christianity, but I still won't go near a Ouija board.  The idea of summoning
spirits gives me the heebie jeebies, because I think they should be left
alone.  To me, ghosts are the presence of a spirit that cannot rest and are
not harmful.  My friend has a ghost in his room (the guy died in there), and
the only bad things are the fact that his room is 20 degrees colder than the
house, and the occassional weird dream I have when I sleep in there.  <shrug>
I used to be scared of these things, but being Pagan makes me *very*
open-minded.

Re #6: I work with all I have mentioned.  All acept my personal philosophy
that my body belongs to my soul and that my soul belongs to no one - they
respect that independance.  Then again, I have only failed Vidar- and he does
not seem all that peeved...

        Kami:

        I'm not entirely sure what the nature of a morphogenetic (spelled it
incorrectly before, sorry, I've that bad habit) field is, and whether it as
a whole displays the characteristics of sentience as we know them, or is above
such concepts or below them.  I'd like to believe, becuase of my spiritual
beliefs, that the fields associated with life are more than sentient, but
their concepts of "help" or "good" probably aren't the same as us ego-bound
individuals. 

        The reason I lean towards that theory is that, if such a field is
possible - sharing experiences between individuals without traditional
evolutionary mecahanisms such as physical communication - then it is a
tremendous evolutionary advantage, allowing species to adapt more quickly than
most theories of natural selection allow - and solving some of the
indescrepancy between current theories and the relative swiftness of evolution
between species-forms in the fossil record.  In short, because life tends to
adapt to whatever opportunities it is given, if morphogenetic fields are
possible at all, they *must* exist in one form or another.

        Reincarnation doesn't make quite as much sense in the same context.
There is advantage in an individual being reborn into another body - but only
if the memories and experiences of that individual go along with it - and only
if that individual's reincarnation is carefully "chosen".  It's possible that
some part of a soul or the human spirit is capable of transmigration, but we
have to be careful - clearly current human personalities are different than
hominid personalities and prosimian personalities - so there must either be
some basic ingredient common to life or there must be some adaption or
evolution of souls over millenia, eh?

        Bjorn:

        Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Egyptian system of belief a bit
elitist in terms of who survives death and who doesn't, and isn't the fate
of those who do not annihlation/gehenna?

I am a little rusty on my knowledge of the Ancient Egyptian religion, but upon
death, Anubis- god of Judgement weighs the persons heart against a feather
on a balance.  If the heart wieghs the same or is lighter than the feather,
the person may pass into the Egyptian underworld.  If the heart is heavier
than the feather, it is thrown to Ammit- the devil, who devours the heart.
What this does to the dead person, I am not sure.

<bjorn is seriously considering a spell to forver break his family ties with
one particular relative- but isn't sure he knows the right material
components>

Bjorn, material components?  You've been gaming too much.  Ring a bell,
say it out loud 3 times (better figure out exactly *what* you're saying,
first), ring the bell again.  That's all.  The rest is follow-through.
Better mean it, though- do you know what the repercussions will be? Neither
does anyone else.

Yes, perhaps I have been gaming too much.  But what is the cost of
such a spell to the caster?  My life... If I am lucky... for I also
want to break all possible ties in consecutive incarnations...
Too bad I do not have a bell available.

Well, at some point in the future you might want to talk to your family again
and you might not be able to, also they might have some insight or be helpful
in a future incarnation.  And you might feel lonely...

Bjorn, don't do *anything* for more than one lifetime.  It limits the
possibility of growth and change for all concerned.  It's a heavy chain.
Don't.
A bell is a good way of getting the attention of the universe.  So is
lighting a candle, but not quite as sharp.  Clapping your hands 3 times
works, too- it's just a signal.
Cost to the caster?  Another gaming concept.  Affiliations with the gods
have "costs".  Spells require focus, concentration and a certain amount
of energy- better gotten from the earth, etc. around you, and breaking
a tie requires absolute clarity and determination on your part, and
agility in ajusting to a new reality rather than trying to go back to
the old, bad, situation (a normal tendancy; humans are as inherently
conservative as we are dynamic- a fine balance).  Any other "buts"?

Actually, many of the tests I have read which are considered "New Age"
materials as they deal with things pagan state that magick cast for
reasons which are not necessarily justified - or the caster is justified but
being too harsh tend to create bad things for the orgin of the spell.  I still
haven't completely shaken that partial backfire of a runic curse.
Therefore, it is not entirely a gaming concept.  Also, the Lifetime documentry
of Wicca I saw a while ago mentioned that magick used for evil is visited back
upon the caster.

According to my anger towards this cousin in question, it is up to him to see
that future incarnations of him can be left alone.  For, definately brashly,
I issued an ultimatum as a last chance to again be in my favour.  While the
oath I made keeps me from harming (permanently, anyway), his present
incarnation - if he does not fufill the parameters the oath - whcich was made
with the Volsung unbreakable oath direction - will doom me to hunting down
his consecutive incarnations through eternity.  Let us hope he fufills those
perameters, and I do not end up having to do something which might become
tedious after the first 4,000 years.

Adjusting to a new reality shouldn't be that hard, since the new reality seems
to have already been building itself.  Something I noticed on December 25,
1995.

One member.  What does one little seperation do to the possibility of being
related to incarnations of other people also currently related to he?

Reincarnation is for people who take "get a life" too far..
        I hope to have better things to do, myself, when I'm done here.

        Well, after doing a little research, I've found out that the Egyptian
beliefs aren't quite as undemocratic in their attitude towards immortality
as I'd thought they were - the numerous mastabas of the rich found in the late
middle and throughout the late dynasties of the Egyptian dynasty bear witness
to that.  At one point in time, though, if I'm remembering correctly,
immortality was limited only to the phaoroahs, who were believed to be
partially or wholly divine.

        As to vendettas, I like the Gnostic Christian way of doing things. 
If someone wrongs you, make it so that for them to continue to wrong you is
impractical or outright harmful to them.  It's difficult, but it's also
tremendously effective and does not lead to escalation like most vendetta
forms do.

        I also practice Coyote medicine towards those who have wronged me,
playing practical jokes.  The strongest medicine is that which the prankster
and the butt of the joke - sometimes hard to tell - both can laugh at.

Jazz, I like that- if both parties end up laughing and learning.

Bjorn, there's a difference between Kharma- natural consequence for one's
actions, both good and bad, which was what the Lifetime (you believe these
folks?) show was getting at- and some theatrical "cost" in energy, stigmata,
special effects, whatever.  Everything we do has an effect on the univers,
and on ourselves.  If it's an effect you can live with; both the desired
end and the other ramifications, than you take the action.  Otherwise, do
not.  That simple.  If you move to isolate yourself from that cousin,
circumstances may come together such that *he* is within the family and
*you* are outside it- thus separated from him.  Could work the other way,
or something else entirely.  But you have to know *exactly* what you are
trying to do and why; long and short term.  As to future life times, I
sure wouldn't make any promises about them.  People change and must be
free to do so; both you and your cousin.  Don't tie yourselves together
by bonds of hate and duty, nor even of familial love- you may grow at
different rates, you may need to experience different realities, you can't
know that.  And in the grand scheme of things, very little is that important.

I am not sure if I believe them or not, I state only what they stated - pure
information - nothing more.

As for oaths, I am bound - my fate now lies entirely in my cousin's hands.
Unless the gods themselves choose to break the oath for my benefit, my cousin
controls my destiny.  You see, I really want to be able to trust him, though
I know it is a foolish desire . . . he is pretty hard-headed.

I tend to be a family orientd type man, but while I was the only other Arnesen
present on 25 December 1995, having the entire other side of his extended
family over did not help matters - especially since they assumed that I would
naturally be following with their Lutheran values - I was even going to argue
the point that being rude has different conotations and methods depending on
a persons beleif system, but instead of responding in anger - I held my peace.

Soeaking of otherworlds, I suppose that when my login was vidar, I told you
that I could hear the music that only the AEsir and Vanir Norse Pantheons are
supposed to be able to hear - I forget the name of this harmony.  However,
that day, I took the fact that I could hear something mortal ears are not
supposed to be capable of hearing to mean that perhaps I am not entirely
human.  I do not think it would mean that I were actually a god, after all,
what would I be doing on Mittgard for so long if I were a god?

I don't know why only the Aesir and Vanir can hear that particular music,
but many people have senses that extend beyond the "norm".  Take it as a
gift of the gods and use it to learn to know them better as a token of thanks

I woukld, but there is one problem... I stopped being able to hear this
beautiful harmonary about a year and a half ago - mayhap I am just not
as relaxed as I was then...

Bjorn,  I periodically have to go back and relearn some of the most basic
skills, as I go through life shifts or personal crises.  Moreover, my
perception set has changed with pregnancy and parenthood.  That is, even
though I don't currently have a small "growth" within my energy field-
Gareth has largely developed his own, although not completely yet, he's
more 
"attached" than Timothy was- I don't have the painful empathic sensitivity
I did when I was younger.  But I do have much clearer and more useable
perceptions in other areas.  We change and adapt.  Sometimes things come
back, sometimes we find them in other ways, sometimes we just have to let
them go.  Perhaps you will find this music again, given peace and time and
focus.  

Ja, mayhap ... for college makes it hard to focus on anything otehr than
grades, which is not an etirely good thing to be consumed by.

Re #16: Reality.....you can change it simply by changing the way you think,
so I've found.
Re #23: School is there only to instill some sense of work ethics and
motivation....too bad it also forces a measure of conformity on us. )=

Work acomplishes nothing in the long-run, though it makes lives eaier, all
work is futile and pointless.

        School is not only overrated, but in serious need of abolishment,
and replacement!

        School really does a bit more than just educate within it's cirriculum.
Take a look at any small private or home-schooled person and compare them to
someone who's gone to a large public school - you'll see the person from the
large public school has an easier time socializing and dealing with social
problems and relationships (sometimes one and the same thing).

        That's one reason I don't want the *option* to go away.

Oh yeah, John, I'm perfectly well socialized and capable of dealing 
with social settings.  Yep, sure.  After 11 years of healing from 
what public education did to me, I'm almost well enough to consider myself
reasonably socialized.

And I'm not the only one I know who was fucked up big time by the public
education system.

I wouldn't say I was screwed up too badly by public school, but it
sure didn't help me to socialize.  What it did do was set up a
rigidly defined social structure - if you're a jock, you hang out
with other jocks;  if you're an F student, you hang out with
other F students;  if you're a geek, you hang out with other geeks;
and so on.  And since just about every member of our society has
to go through this tort^H^H^H^Hexperience, these roles carry through
into our adult lives.

Let's just say that if I ever have kids, I will do everything in my
power to use home-schooling for them.

Don't you think the topic of home schooling vs. public school might go
better in Smalls or in Gen-x (or whatever they're calling the youth cf)?

It's a drift, we'll stop now (at least, I will).

thanks.

Besides which, I know neither brighn nor I actually has any children.
We're just discussing abstracts, not specifics.  (Less abstract for
brighn, of course, he's a lot more married than I am.  More married than
most of us, actually.  >8)

Brighn is more married than most married ppl I know, with the possible
exception of my brother in law, who got married in a liquor store (long story)

(Well, yes, and we are planning children, the three of us are... eventually.)
That's o.k., Wolfy, one of my marriages occurred immediately after 
consummation... it was more beautiful that way, somehow.  8^)
*sigh happily, then drift back to this plane*

        Re #28:

        Where, and in what ways, do you feel that you were fucked up by the
public school system?

That is a complicated question and the thread has been dropped, John.
At any rate, I don't feel like answering that question.  It feels
like a confrontational question...

I do hereby swear, by the blade of Gungnir, Odin's holy weapon that I will
stop responding to drift else I shall sever my left big toe.
<bjorn cuts the palm of his hand on his sword>
My blood sealeth this pact!

Ow!  Hey now, no blood pacts in Synthesis!  Sheesh!
*brighn looks the other way*
Some heathens are just *so* dramatic!

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss