==== ==== PREFACE: From Somervell’s abridgement of Toynbee’s “A Study Of History”, volumes 7-10 page 236: “An air of failure or, where there is not positive failure, futility surrounds practically all the examples of Archaism that we have that we have been examinin, and the reason is not far to seek [should be “to be sought”]. The archaist is condemned, by the very nature of his enterprise, to be for ever tryin to reconcile past and present…. If he tries to restore the past without takin the present into consideration, then the impetus of life ever movin onward will shatter his brittle construction into fragments. If on the other hand, he consents to subordinate his whim of resuscitatin the past to the task of makin the present workable, his Archaism will prove a sham. Greetins, o Child of Wotan! RU fed up with bein treated like a 2nd-class citizen in your own land? Discover that, which the ancient sources prescribe for our victory! Check out THE BOOK OF WOTAN! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0065QN8KW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=4faskidstorem20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789 ==== ====
The curious poetic kenning "dream-thing" appears in the Scandinavian heroic poem Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II of the Poetic Edda. In the translation by Henry Adams Bellows this kenning drew a footnote in which several editors have speculated that the line in question may be a spurious addition, based upon who was saying what at that time in the poem. The passage in question reads: "Now were he come, if come he might, Sigmund's son, from Othin's seat; Hope grows dim of the hero's return When eagles sit on the ash-tree boughs, And men are seeking the meeting of dreams." (Stanza 49, emphasis added). Bellows brings out the more literal translation of "meetings of dreams" as "dream-thing" in his footnote. This of course links the concept of dreaming with the Germanic "althing," the legislative assembly governed by gothic priests and overseen by Asgard's war god, Tyr. The literal sense of Old Norse poetry would point to the "dream-thing" as simply being a kenning for sleep. Yet, the more expanded translation as "dream assembly" is suggestive that the kenning is a seed-form for a common concept in occult circles spanning even beyond Indo-European cultures. Not surprisingly, when we look outside the northern tradition for parallels to the "dream-thing" concept, we simultaneously find sources of both inspiration and frustration. One of the earliest attempts to revive the Germanic religion and culture was made by the Swedish antiquarian Johannes Bureus, as related in Stephen Flowers' book, Johannes Bureus and the Adalruna. Bureus (1568-1652) was commissioned by the Swedish royal family to learn all that he could about the old rune staves still extant throughout the Swedish countryside. When Bureus eventually did publish his works on his runic discoveries, he showed obvious signs that he had
been influenced by the mystical fraternity of the "Rosicrucians" or Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. It seems clear to researchers like Flowers that Bureus was indeed a very early member of that fraternity. So, from very early on in the efforts to revive Gothic culture, the Rosicrucian fraternity has been a conduit of influence between Germanic religion and esoteric Christianity. What is interesting here, however, is that in the Fama Fraternitatis, the manifesto proclaiming the fraternity's existence in Germany in 1614, there is a reference to what we might call a "dream assembly." The manifesto stated that it was a rule within the fraternity that all members should meet in the "House of the Holy Spirit" on a specific day of the year, or provide the fraternity with an excuse for his absence. This "House of the Holy Spirit" was said to exist as a kind of "celestial fortress" on the Astral Plane. First, however, let me back up to state what should be blatantly obvious: If a Google search were ever able to gather every last time words were used in the language of a search, and the words "holy spirit" were typed into the search engine, then in all of history no higher and more weightier pile of steaming verbal excrement shall ever have been assembled for human consumption. And yet, at the very bottom of the pile would remain untouched and undiminished the greatest treasure of Jewish Kabbalists. It was the verbiage piled on top of Judaism by Christianity -- this shitting upon the most sacred mystical practices of Judaism -- that was among Christianity's most malodorous offenses. By an endless stream of blathering on about the "holy spirit," mainstream Christians have managed to obfuscate the fact that originally where was a very important set of mystical practices that fell under the heading of what in the English language we call the "holy spirit." The modern kabbalists have written about the practice of "ruach ha kadosh" (Hebrew for "holy spirit") in books like Rabbi David Cooper's "God is a verb: Kabbalah and the practice of mystical Judaism," (Riverhead Books, 1997). The practice was of supreme importance for attaining higher states of consciousness necessary for enlightenment and ascending to higher worlds. Nevertheless, within Christianity's "underground" in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross held a practice allegorically known as arriving at the "House of the Holy Spirit." Given the aforementioned pile of verbiage, the Rosicrucians have for centuries been able to hide a the vestiges of a sacred teaching in plain sight, mostly unsuspected. A remnant of these teachings -- and by extension a remnant of the kabbalistic teaching of the ruach ha kadosh -- may be preserved in H. Spencer Lewis' monograph, Liber 777, not to be confused with Aleister Crowley's book of the same title. In Liber 777 Rosicrucian initiates of the AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis) are taught to reach the "celestial sanctum" through a series of visual exercises, concentration and relaxation techniques. The results of such practices are expanded upon in a brilliant way in Raymond Bernard's Messages of the Celestial Sanctum, published by the AMORC. Bernard describes in detail his regular meetings with "ascended masters" of the Great White Brotherhood in the expansive gothic fortress cathedral on the inner planes. In the Rosicrucian Manual it is stated that beyond the 9th Temple Degree of the AMORC, initiation takes place solely within the psychic planes. (The technique for "psychic projection" is taught in the 7th Temple Degree.) The officials in the aforementioned "Great White Lodge" would perhaps be the emissaries of those who in the northern tradition we would call the "ginnregin," or "divine advisors." The German researcher Willy Schrodter speculated in his Rosicrucian Notebook (Weiser, 1992) that the Rosicrucian Order may have absorbed its trance and out-of-body techniques from the Arabs and possibly even a secret remnant of the Cathars in Southern France (not to mention
Jewish occultist practitioners of ruach ha kadosh). What is clear, however, is that Rosicrucians have always believed that "the first initiation is in dreams," as Schrodter summed up one early Rosicrucian thinker's ideas. Yet, that same Rosicrucian teaching -- however authentic the notion might originally have been -- has also proved to be the bane of the fraternity. If all a person had to do was astral project himself to the psychic temple of a great Tibetan guru, then that opens the door to all sorts of goofy pretenders. After all, astral initiations would leave no trace of initiation records, certificates and dues cards on the physical planes. Needless to say, there has always been a never-ending stream of pretenders claiming to have received "Rosicrucian" initiation in secret temples on the inner planes, and their work tends to out them as fakes and phonies. This phenomenon has been to the horror of careful and turgid academic researchers of the Rosicrucian movement like Arthur Edward Waite. However, just because there have been a myriad of abuses in what Stephen Flowers affectionately refers to as the "occultizoid nincompoop" world, it doesn't mean that we should entirely discount the possibility of the existence of such dream meeting encounters. I could cite my own experience where for three nights in a row I dreamed of a dark-haired woman wearing a black velvet blouse and a silver arm band. I intuitively sensed that she was some sort of "gothic priestess." (As if the silver armband itself wasn't a dead giveaway.) Then after the third night of dreaming I actually met this same woman in the aisle of the dollar store searching for under garments. I immediately sensed that there was something mysterious about the woman and we struck up a conversation in the underwear aisle. I discovered that she was into shamanism -- and was normally recognized as a shamanic priestess at first sight by Native American shamans. She invited me over to meet her pet bobcat, which was named "Cheyenne." It wasn't until she put on the velvet blouse and silver armband that I had seen in my dreams that I made the connection with the woman I had dreamed about for the past three nights. As it turned out, she claimed that on those same three nights she had dreamed about a man she then realized was me. Knowing that I myself wasn't lying, I believed what she said. Besides, if I hadn't dreamed about her I might not have stuck up a conversation with her in public and then I never would have had the experience of having an overlarge snow white bobcat stroll up to me and rub its head against my torso as it sniffed my arm pits. The female bobcat had not been bred, I was told, and she liked my male pheromones. Whatever the "authenticity" of my dream encounter might be to purists of religious history, I don't really care -- since it led to an experience that could truly be described as "shamanic." At any rate, people experienced in lucid dreaming and astral projection sometimes encounter these humanly created locales or fraternal clubhouses on the inner landscape. In his book Dreamgates, Robert Moss describes encountering a Rosicrucian locale resembling Le Mont San Michele in Normandy, France. This island citadel with a gothic cathedral fits descriptions of the Rosicrucian "celestial sanctum," and so it isn't surprising that the fraternity's astral clubhouse would resemble Le Mont San Michele. There Moss describes reading a book written by himself in the future inside one of the libraries of the "Invisible College" of the Rosicrucians. Incidentally, the location of Le Mont San Michele and Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall, England, were both associated with the Celtic god Lugh, according to Celtic researcher Jean Markale. Lugh is often seen as the Celtic parallel to the Germanic god Odin. So to me I find it interesting that the template for the Rosicrucian inner fortress is actually located on what amounts to an ancient druid/gothic sacred site. In the Hermetic occult circles there remains the teaching of the creation of "egregores" or
"psychogones." These are humanly created beings on the inner planes that live to perform some service, usually involving the maintenance of the esoteric organization itself. It is literally the group spirit embodied in human or animal form. By repeatedly visualizing this creature, initiates add strength, vitality and a modicum of self-awareness to the astral creature. The same principle might be applied to the notion of the celestial fortress on the inner planes. Except, in this case, initiates would be visualizing a landscape instead of a creature. Taken from another angle, one might even say that the lore of the Poetic Edda itself helps to foster this kind of building up of sacred places on the inner planes. Each time a person reads about Valhalla or the buildings of Asgard, we picture the places in our minds, adding our energy to the visualized place. Occultists believe that these visualized accretions have actual existence upon the astral planes. In that sense Valhalla could be seen as a collective mindscape that potentially could function in a way similar to the "Invisible College" of the Rosicrucians. The concept of the "dream-thing," as developed here, can be argued to have existed at the very least in seed-form within the poetic kennings of Old Norse. Or, we may agree with some scholars and their footnotes that the line in question may be a spurious insertion, and therefore the notion derives from Jewish kabbalists instead of having root in the northern tradition. I believe that the notion of the dream-thing ought to have a place within our tradition. Just because abuses of parallel concepts have been the bane of many in the "occultizoid nincompoop" world, doesn't mean that we have to shy away from the exploration of such possibilities. Experience may yet demonstrate that our best galdraholl (hall of magical incantations) is the "dream-thing."
Corey Wicks is an award-winning journalist and author. He can be reached through email at rosencruez@yahoo.com.
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==== ==== PREFACE: From Somervell’s abridgement of Toynbee’s “A Study Of History”, volumes 7-10 page 236: “An air of failure or, where there is not positive failure, futility surrounds practically all the examples of Archaism that we have that we have been examinin, and the reason is not far to seek [should be “to be sought”]. The archaist is condemned, by the very nature of his enterprise, to be for ever tryin to reconcile past and present…. If he tries to restore the past without takin the present into consideration, then the impetus of life ever movin onward will shatter his brittle construction into fragments. If on the other hand, he consents to subordinate his whim of
resuscitatin the past to the task of makin the present workable, his Archaism will prove a sham. Greetins, o Child of Wotan! RU fed up with bein treated like a 2nd-class citizen in your own land? Discover that, which the ancient sources prescribe for our victory! Check out THE BOOK OF WOTAN! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0065QN8KW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=4faskidstorem20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789 ==== ====