Winifred Hodge Rose
Here I’m addressing some questions I’ve been asked by Heathens, namely: does everyone go to Heathen afterlife destinations after they die, or only Heathens? If it’s only Heathens, what about interacting with non-Heathens in the afterlife, such as loved ones and kinfolk? Is that possible? The answers that I perceive to these questions have to do, in part, with the nature and activities of our Ghost-Soul, as I discuss in this article. Needless to say, what I discuss here are my own thoughts; whether you agree with them is up to you!
On Faith-Based Afterlife Destinations
On the subject of where Christians (and other non-Heathens) go after death: I believe in the reality of all the Deities, not only the Heathen ones. I was Christian (Episcopalian) for a number of years and received valuable spiritual training and experiences there, as real as I’ve received within Heathendom. I’ve known people on other religious paths whose wisdom and spiritual development parallels what we can achieve on ours. I left Christianity not because I disbelieved in it (though I did disagree with some of it), but because a stronger loyalty drew me to our God/desses. But I still maintain respect and honor for all faiths and paths, except for specific interpretations of beliefs that cause significant harm and injustice to others, which unfortunately can occur in any religion.
By the same token, I think that the afterlife arrangements for people of other faiths are their own. Christians go to their own Heaven or Hell, so do Hindus and Muslims go each to their own afterlife domains. Buddhists have their own complex afterlife path. Tribal peoples around the world go to be with their God/desses and ancestors as they have done for countless thousands of years. Australian Aborigines who follow their ancient ways enter their Dreamtime; followers of Santeria join their Loa, and so forth and so on. So in my point of view, I’m not the least concerned about Christians wandering around loose in Valhalla, Folkvang, Hel, or anyplace else of ours! I don’t think they go there; they go to their own afterlife places.
I feel strongly that, in spite of what other religions may say, no God and no afterlife domain has power over other people’s God/desses and afterlife domains. The Christian God can’t grab Heathens to send to his own Hell, nor can Odin grab Christians unless in their own hearts they realize they do want to go with him, which I think sometimes happens (perhaps especially with warriors). But then they’re no longer Christians, they become Odin’s own (or Freya’s, or Frigg’s, or Thor’s, etc.). That’s how people convert from one religion to another, and that can even happen at the time of death. They switch from one ‘jurisdiction’ to another, but this can happen only through free will and sufficient understanding to comprehend their choices.
I know of several Heathen spirit-workers who have indeed found Christian souls lost and wandering in Hel. In each case I know of, these souls were terrified of being condemned to the Christian hell, and were trying to escape that fate, ending up in our realms instead. My Heathen friends were usually able to guide these souls onward to places better suited to their customary beliefs, but in some cases the souls chose to stay where they were, in Hel.
There’s also testimony in older sources that dead Christians could be a problem for those faring over ‘misty lands,’ possibly lands of the dead or the path to them, as we find in the Grogaldr or Groa’s Chant in the Poetic Edda. Groa’s son Svipdag has come to her grave to beg her powerful spirit for spells to help him while he undertakes a dangerous journey that apparently leads through or near the lands of the dead. Verse 13 reads “An eighth one (spell) I will chant for you…so that it’s inconceivable that she could do you harm – a dead Christian woman” (Larrington’s translation). This isn’t very clear, but seems to indicate that occasionally Christians either went to Heathen Hel or lurked along the Hel-way, the road to Hel, with evil intent.
Nevertheless, in my view such instances are rare exceptions rather than the general rule.
Interacting with Non-Heathens in the Afterlife
As for interacting with Christians and other faiths in the afterlife: in my understanding, the issue doesn’t lie with us, but with them – if there are any issues. There’s nothing in Heathen belief, as I see it, that would interfere with our wish to interact with kin and friends wherever they might be in the afterlife: the wish to be with kinfolk in the afterlife comes through loud and clear in so much of the ancient lore. For example, the Heathen king or duke Radbod of Frisia. The tale goes that he was willing to be baptized for political reasons, but as he was stepping into the font he asked the bishop whether he would see his kinfolk in the Christian heaven. On being told no, they could not be there, he refused to be baptized, saying he’d rather be with his kinfolk in Hel than in heaven by himself.
Here is what I think: the afterlife experience depends on a state of mind, if you will – a matter of perception, as does so much of our life here in Midgard. Strict Christians who’ve been taught all their lives that “there is nothing else other than Christian Heaven and Hell” (or followers of other absolutist religious teachings about the afterlife)…these people are, once they arrive in their heaven or hell, simply unable to perceive other souls and other surroundings that don’t correspond to what they’ve been taught to expect. They are blinded to other possibilities.
The State of the Ghost in the Afterlife
I perceive the afterlife of our spirits, our Ghost-souls (all human Ghosts) not as a fixed state with physical-seeming surroundings and beings, nor as a state that limits us in the same way that physical surroundings limit our physical bodies to being in one, fixed place. I see our Ghosts existing as amorphous, fluid, multidimensional states that can perceive and experience multiple layers of Being at once.
We can experience being in several God-Halls at once – these God-Halls being themselves amorphous states of being that can inter-leaf or inter-layer themselves and shift around to different ‘places’ and contexts. The same thing when interacting with our Deities: we can be in a state of communion with more than one of them at once, in different ‘places’ or states of being at once. This is how our Deities are, too: not limited the way physical beings are. Not required to be “this-or-that,” “here-or-there,” but able to be multiple places at will. They are much greater, more multidimensional and flexible than our Ghosts are, but it is a matter of scale rather than being different in our very natures. Our Ghosts share the nature of the God/desses, but at a smaller scale.
I think that the ability to deal with and make full use of this amorphous quality of being and perception is something that happens over time for Ghosts. At first, I think, a ‘young’ Ghost in its first few rounds of afterlife (after being reborn and living several lifetimes in Midgard) still perceives and reacts as though it is living in a version of the physical world, with the physical world’s characteristics and limitations. This is how we get our tales and perceptions of the afterlife: from younger Ghosts who’ve been there and then reincarnated, but are still focused on perceiving things the way we do here in Midgard.
After several lives, or after being in the Heathen afterlife for a long extent of ‘time,’ the Ghost gradually becomes aware of this more amorphous, less limiting state of being and perception and is able to take advantage of its opportunities for multidimensional existence. At some point in its development over multiple lives, I think the Ghost feels no more need to reincarnate and focuses more on its state of multidimensional Being and its interactions with other beings in the same state.
What Heathen and Non-Heathen Ghosts Perceive
This multidimensional ghostly existence can indeed include interacting with Ghosts of people who followed other religions or beliefs in life. These other people are living in their own afterlife worlds of belief and perception, and their ability to perceive and interact with Ghosts in different afterlife worlds than theirs depends on how much flexibility of perception they have developed. If their religious beliefs are very strict, they may either not perceive our Ghosts at all, or if they do perceive them, they’ll perceive them as being in some version of “Hell” and will not want to, or be able to, go anywhere near such Ghosts.
There’s a short, very readable Christian book by C.S. Lewis that can offer some insight on this subject if one reads it with a Heathen mindset, called The Great Divorce. (The ‘divorce’ here is the separation between Christian Heaven and Hell.) In this metaphorical tale, the people who are in ‘Hell’ are actually not separated from Heaven and from the souls and angels who populate Heaven. They are simply unable to perceive them, and they suffer from their self-imposed blindness. We as Heathens can take this general idea and extend it to other afterlife worlds or domains, with the idea that non-Heathen Ghosts may well perceive and interact with Heathen Ghosts, and vice versa, as long as these Ghosts are not limited by strict beliefs about who belongs in which afterlife.
All of the afterlife domains and states of being as described in all the religions exist. Whether or not we can interact with them depends on the development of our perceptions and state of being, which in turn depends upon our spiritual maturity, our wisdom, our great-heartedness, our openness and generosity of spirit and of mind, our tendency toward frith and our willingness to relate to others in frithful ways.
It also depends on our discernment, part of the development of our wisdom, because some afterlife beings and places can be dangerous and worse than dangerous. Or simply unworthy of relating to: without any worthwhile qualities or values, and without any benefit to ourselves or to them. Some places are simply self-created wastelands, and if those who dwell there cannot perceive us or do not care to, we can be of no benefit to them, nor they to us…at least, not while in the afterlife. There are always other possibilities that can develop during reincarnation in Midgard.
The Ghost’s Multidimensional Capabilities of Perception and Experience
Let’s talk a little more about the afterlife as a state of mind or perception. My understanding of this begins with realizing that our life here in Midgard is also a matter of perception and a state of mind. We are taught ways of perceiving events and experiences: taught by our families, teachers, those around us, our culture, and by our own reactions to our experiences. Sometimes we learn other ways of perceiving as we grow, sometimes not.
As examples of ‘a state of mind,’ we can look at the scientific perspective, the materialist perspective, spiritual perspectives, perspectives of various religions, perspectives of many different cultures around the world. People who’ve suffered from terrible experiences perceive the world as a dangerous place, while children who are protected and nurtured develop a trusting world-view, which may gradually change as they experience more of the world.
Even our native language embeds certain perspectives in each of us; if there are no words for certain concepts or perspectives it’s difficult for us to perceive them. That’s what I’m working on with Heathen soul lore: in modern English we have no words for some of our souls as perceived by elder Heathens, and we don’t have the concept of each person having multiple souls, either. What did ancient Heathens perceive about the souls that we don’t? They had words that we don’t have today, and for decades I’ve been trying to understand their words better. This work has changed my whole perspective, my worldview, and my experience of life itself.
So, our Midgard life is a matter of perspective. At the same time, we have a great many ‘touchpoints’ where we can perceive the ‘reality’ of the physical world: this world which is governed by physical laws and properties that don’t change depending on our perspective. Our life in Midgard is a combination of our contacts with the physical world plus the ways we interpret and experience those contacts. And, of course, the great influences of the ‘worlds’ of emotion, thought, creativity, and spiritual experiences.
When we leave the physical world and exist as entirely non-physical beings, our Ghost’s contact with the physical world lessens greatly. We don’t have the ‘touchpoints,’ the reality checks, that the physical world provides during physical life. So the state of mind and perceptions about everything that we developed during physical life now define even more of our personal reality than they did while we were in Midgard. These perceptions are all that our young Ghost has to go by. We don’t have any anchors to physical reality that we did in Midgard; we only have our perceptions and the state of mind we developed during life.
There are certainly ‘fixed points’ in the afterlife domains – a great many things that do not depend on our perceptions, just as the physical world in Midgard does not depend on our perceptions. The God/desses and other spirits, and the landscapes of the God-Halls and other Worlds are certainly ‘there,’ as the physical world is in Midgard. A young Ghost, a Ghost who has not spent a lot of time in spiritual form yet, will perceive these beings and spaces as it has learned to while in Midgard: as physical-seeming entities that apparently follow the laws of matter as we have learned them while living in Midgard.
Thus, the young Ghost may experience Valhalla, for example, as it is described in the old Norse lore. Or quite possibly as it is envisioned by some modern warriors, in a more modern setting. (People in other religions or belief-systems will likewise perceive what they are taught to expect.) If the Ghost wants to visit a different God-Hall, it will ‘travel’ there, leave behind its interactions with those in Valhalla and ‘arrive’ in that other Hall. There, the Ghost will perceive quite different surroundings and experiences.
For an ‘older’ Ghost, one who has lived multiple lifetimes in Midgard and afterlives in the God-Halls and otherworlds…my understanding is that this Ghost doesn’t need to ‘travel’ in any physical sense to a different God-Hall. It just ‘shifts its perspective,’ alters its perception, and finds itself in that other God-Hall. With more practice, it can experience ‘layered’ spaces – God-Halls or otherworldly places, otherworlds, and indeed spiritual spaces of Midgard, too – all at once, simultaneously.
How to describe this? It’s like tasting some complex food recipe, a cookie or a scone, for example. You can taste the ‘layers’ of flavors: a bit of salt, sweetness, some tart lemon, a hint of vanilla, a buttery flavor, some crunchy nuts, the texture of the food, and its temperature. You experience these all at once, as a composite of everything that went into that food. If you want, you can analyze your taste experience, breaking it down into individual flavors and textures, but more often you will simply enjoy the complex taste experience, the blending of the individual flavors. You can go either way, right? It’s all a matter of how you choose to perceive your taste experience.
I think this is how the God/desses perceive things: they’re engaged with many things at once – people, events, interactions with each other, different Worlds, etc. They can focus on each individual thing, and / or at the same time focus on the multidimensional interweaving of all of them together. That’s how they have a deeper perception of Wyrd than we do. But our Ghosts are similar to the Holy Ones, as I perceive: ‘smaller,’ on a lesser scale, but with some of the same abilities. Including, for the more experienced Ghosts, this ability for multidimensional perception and experience.
Multidimensional Resonance
Let me offer some personal experience. I work a lot, these days, with the ‘resonance of the heart’ that I write about in my article Heathen Contemplation. I reach out to the Deities through the energy of my heart, and I find that this approach is not confined to a materialistic conception of limited space. If they choose to respond so to me, or I to them, there is no limit to the number of Holy Ones that I can resonate with simultaneously, through my heart’s perception.
‘Space’ has nothing to do with this experience, and therefore the limitations of physical objects in space don’t, either. I don’t worry about ‘how many God/desses can fit into the resonances of my heart’! Nor about how many Deities my Ghost can ‘visit’ at once. Such concerns are meaningless in this exercise. There is only resonance with them – vibrational attunement – that can be experienced as single or as many-layered, just as with the example of flavors that I mentioned.
I find that my heart serves as a bridge between the physical and the spiritual, as does my brain and its thoughts, and indeed my whole body, as I’ve written about in my article Fields of Awareness. My Ghost and my other souls regard these physical-spiritual contacts as training grounds for my souls in their afterlives. But the resonance of the heart, I’m finding, has some unique traits, and one of them is the freedom from spatial concepts that it offers.
My mind, my thoughts, find such freedom more difficult: it’s difficult for the mind to conceptualize being in multiple spaces at once. But the heart can experience it without worrying about the idea of it, without asking ‘how is it possible to be in multiple spaces at once? Or interact with multiple beings at once?’ The resonance of the heart is like an orchestra, where many instruments and different notes of music all combine into a holistic experience. I feel that this practice is of great use in preparing all my souls for more immersive afterlife experiences.
It’s easier to experience this lack of spatial limitations than it is to conceptualize and describe it. We actually need to change, or perhaps overcome, our concepts of space and time if we want to approach these matters through our mind / thoughts, and I think that spiritual experience is the best way to bring about that conceptual change.
I’ve tried to respond, here, to questions that I’ve been asked by Heathens. I hope these responses either make sense to you, or else offer some stimulus for you to seek your own answers to questions about our spiritual experiences and the other worlds!