Winifred Hodge Rose
This is my consolidated response to a number of related questions about Valhalla and Folkvang, Ragnarök, the God-Homes generally, and the afterlife, especially that of the Ghost-soul. I’m addressing the querents as ‘you’ in this text. Here are the topics covered in this long article:
On the ‘Criteria of Acceptance’ into Valhalla
Other God-Halls
On Faith-Based Afterlife Destinations
Past and Future Ragnarök Events
Naströnd and ‘Punishment’ in the Afterlife
Interacting with Non-Heathens in the Afterlife
What Heathen and Non-Heathen Ghosts Perceive
The Ghost’s Multidimensional Capabilities of Perception and Experience
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On the ‘Criteria of Acceptance’ into Valhalla
You’re asking about my thoughts on what one might call the ‘criteria of acceptance’ for warriors to enter into Valhalla and Folkvang. You’ve noted that the standards of ‘warrior morality’ in Viking times are quite different than the Geneva standards regarding the conduct of war today, and that in conflicts around the world these modern standards of warfare morality are being disregarded by combatants, to the extent that such warfare seems more like the ‘no holds barred’ behavior of Vikings and other raiders of those times. Yet, as you note, we are told in the old poetry that many of those unrestrained Viking warriors were lauded as heroes and awarded places in Valhalla and Folkvang.
You write: “I have long pondered on the fates of fallen warriors in the modern day. It is said that only the honorable fallen may enter these realms, but what does that mean specifically? ” This is likely a question that many of us wonder about. What was honorable then, many of us may not consider honorable now. Are combatants who engage in acts that are considered dishonorable today still welcomed into the Gods’ halls as they apparently were in the past? What are the ‘criteria of acceptance’ into Valhalla and Folkvang today?
You also wonder whether Christian warriors are accepted into Valhalla along with Heathens. I don’t see this as the case at all, for the sake of the Christians as well as the Heathens. I think Christians would be horrified to end up in a Heathen afterlife, and would very likely simply regard that as being in their Christian Hell, not see it as a reward of any kind. Christians have a very obvious warrior ethos of their own which apparently doesn’t exclude them from their own God and their own Heaven, even though warrior behavior seems to contradict the teachings of Jesus. I leave them to sort out those contradictions themselves!
And on the Heathen side: what would be the point of accepting Christians? As I’ll get into more when I respond to your main question, I think one of the main criteria for acceptance into the Heathen warrior God-homes is loyalty and devotion to Odin or Freya–loyalty to the point of death, loyalty in spite of the risk of losing the battle, being a ‘failure’, as long as one dies in the process and dedicates one’s efforts and one’s death to one of these Deities. Christians certainly wouldn’t be loyal to our God/desses, and wouldn’t have that motivation to fight for them at Ragnarök, which is the primary motivation for collecting the warrior-ghosts into Valhalla, anyway.
Whenever we see individuals celebrated in the old poetry who are said to be taken into Valhalla, these people are of high status, kings or chieftains or famous warriors. They are not the raff and scaff of the Viking crews raiding and pillaging, but people who in the view of their society held and earned the highest honors, based their deeds, their status, their heritage and descent, and their luck. These people were driven by their sense of honor, which was sometimes quite different than ours today, as you mentioned, but their concept of honor was very much present and motivated much of what they did.
Viking raids abroad were not motivated by honor, but by gain and by the headiness of having power over those they regarded as prey–foreigners outside the frith of their own society. Their own societies didn’t regard this behavior as dishonorable, as we would, but neither was it specifically considered honorable, as vengeance against a personal enemy would be considered honorable. It was just a practical thing that brought them profit. (Though some raids were indeed motivated by vengeance, and those were considered honorable.)
I haven’t come across any mention (though there could be some) of Valkyries ‘harvesting’ the souls of Vikings killed during raids. The Valkyries hover over fields of battle that are being fought for the sake of honor, for vengeance, for trying to raise the status, success and luck of the combatants, and they may well be there to harvest souls from both sides of the battle as acknowledgement that both sides are fighting for their own honor.
There are some passages in the old lore that say that Odin takes all those slain in battle every day, or the one that says he takes half and Freya takes half, whereas in other accounts it sounds like he and the Valkyries are being much more particular, choosing just a few out of the mass of combatants in each conflict. I believe that the latter is more accurate, and the title of “einherjar,” the single or unique warriors, supports that view. The Einherjar are not, really, a massed army, but rather ‘special forces’ that are individually chosen according to the criteria of Odin and the Valkyries (who are not always in agreement). However, I am not a warrior myself, and I may not be understanding the process correctly, but these are my thoughts.
As I see it, the process is one of ‘choice’, not just a godly vacuum-cleaner sucking up the souls of everyone who’s fighting every day and spitting them out into Valhalla and Folkvang. That’s why the Valkyries (or Waelcyrige in Anglo-Saxon) are called what they are: choosers of the slain. They’re picky! And the ones they don’t choose go off to Hel with everyone else, where things might be pleasant and comfortable for them, or might not.
It’s those criteria you’re interested in: why does Odin choose, or direct the Valkyries to choose, one warrior and not the next one, assuming that indeed the Einherjar are chosen individually? I get the impression from your original question that you view the entry into Valhalla or Folkvang as a reward for the chosen warrior, and the old poetry often treats it that way, too. I think the poets did that to flatter their wealthy patrons with visions of the treat awaiting them after their heroic death, and to encourage the warrior-spirit so chieftains would have people eager to join their warbands. If you look at the powerful Sonatorrek poem by that crusty old Heathen, Egil Skallagrimson—who was not a court-poet—that laments the deaths of his sons, you won’t see any praise of Valhalla there. He considers that Odin has stolen his “all-worthy” son from him: “Odin, not Egil, enjoys him forever.”
I, and I think many other modern Heathens as well, look at the situation more from Odin’s perspective–he’s recruiting the warriors he needs to prepare for Ragnarök, not necessarily rewarding the wealthy patrons of poets (though of course, they might well be worthy too).
Now getting into the morality aspect: first I’ll say that Odin is not really the God to look to, for the details of moral behavior. He has his own morality, which I would characterize as “The ends justify the means,” something that many of us today don’t consider to be the high ground of moral behavior even though it’s often tempting to adopt that approach.
Odin doesn’t try to justify this, but he has his reasons. As I understand it, though he knows that Ragnarök will bring about the deaths of the elder Æsir Gods and destruction of Midgard and its societies, what he wants to do is bring down the enemies that will cause that destruction so that a new cycle of the Worlds can begin, one which does not have these dire enemies looming over it. He will do what it takes to bring that about, and his choice of the Einherjar is one of the tactics he uses. (As to his own role in the arising of the enemies of the Æsir, that’s another whole can of worms!)
So let’s move on to the modern day, and the question as to whether the criteria of acceptance into Valhalla have changed. I’ll offer a scenario and a response to this question that might or might not make sense to anyone else. Odin and the Valkyries choose the Einherjar for a reason: their potential effectiveness at Ragnarök. So what is Ragnarök? Has the understanding of the nature of Ragnarök changed over time, along with so much else? And if it has, then the role of the Einherjar changes too, and hence the criteria for selecting them also have to change.
I propose this way of looking at it: Ragnarök is the symbol of a dire threat to the world, a massive change in the circumstances of living and in the things one believes and trusts. It’s as much an ‘inner’ thing as an ‘outer’ one. Various cultures and societies and locations of humans have experienced Ragnarök-equivalents many times over the centuries and millenia: effectively their own cultural world comes to a terrible end, the world they always knew before, even though the physical world continues in its existence. Though indeed there are often physical disasters too: floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, famine, and the like. Climate change, too. This happens all the time around the world. Sadly and awfully, it’s happening right now to various groups of people. It’s often heralded by the death of a culture hero, like Baldr for the Heathens.
Different people respond differently to these events, and their religions play a role in shaping these responses. I suggest that the role of Odin and Valhalla, and I’d say Freya and Folkvang too, and in fact all the other Deities as well, who are much involved with all this–is to prepare for such changes as these ‘cultural Ragnaröks’ bring. Changes for them–the Deities, and changes for us humans, for Heathens specifically, and for the natural world as well.
And so, the selection of the Einherjar and the Folkvang warriors needs to change, to prepare in a suitable way for the nature of whatever form of Ragnarök is coming next. And not only them. Odin boasts in Grimnismal 24 (Poetic Edda) that Thor’s hall is the greatest of all, even larger than Valhalla, which contains fighters as well. I write some thoughts about the dwellers in that Hall in my article about Sif and the Hall she shares with Thor: “Goddess Sife: Kinship and Hospitality.”
In another article, “To Honor Vidar,” I quote a powerful poem written by modern Heathen John Mainer about Vidar, which gives a picture of a different ‘hall of waiting’ for warriors chosen by Vidar.
Frigg and her ladies have great roles to play, as diplomats and peacemakers. Tyr, through the Tyr-star that guides us over the paths of night, as the rune-poem says, points out a trustworthy path for those who would work with the Gods. All of our Deities have their teams of partners and human afterlife souls who support their work and aims in Midgard through spiritual means. They don’t remain fixed in the past, focused on things that might or might not have much relevance for today.
So, I think that the selection today of warriors for Valhalla and for Folkvang needs to take into account whatever form of ‘Ragnarök’ may be coming next. The thing is, we don’t know what shape that will take, nor what kinds of responses the Holy Ones may be preparing to deal with it. Here, I’d say, is where some trust comes in: trust that we Heathens and Odin and Freya and all the Deities can align our values and ethics to fit both the Gods’ vision and our own about what is right, as these matters play out in today’s world with all of today’s challenges and confusions.
We need to follow and live by our own values, and interact with our Holy Ones to understand their views, their actions, and their choices. And thereby we find and trust in the common ground, the frith, that unites us all. Ethics and values grow out of a ground of frith, and support that frith. The Gods expect us to accomplish this creation and maintenance of frith and the values that support it by ourselves; they don’t impose it on us as other Deities do with their followers. We need to have the intelligence and goodwill to take this pursuit seriously, knowing that it’s our responsibility but that the Gods respect us for our efforts, and meet us on that path of mutual understanding.
I think that this question you asked, and that other Heathens ask as well, arises from the root of a longing for frith among humans, and frith between humans and Deities. We want to have a sense of values and to know those values are shared with others, humans and Deities, both. By asking the questions and pursuing the answers as well as we can, we help to create that common ground of understanding among us all.
I want to expand on something I wrote earlier: I think that Valhalla as a ‘reward’ for brave warriors isn’t the actual reason for the existence of Valhalla or for the choice of the Einherjar. For Odin, the reason is preparing for Ragnarök, as I argued before, and for the Einherjar, I believe the reasons for them being in Valhalla are their honor and loyalty to Odin, the Æsir, and Odin’s purposes. If the main reason for Valhalla was ‘reward,’ then the Einherjar would simply be mercenaries, not honor-bound warriors. I have more respect than to call them that!
But for warriors as for everyone else, of course rewards are welcome and appreciated, and from the images of Valhalla in the lore–ancient and modern–the warriors clearly do appreciate it!
Other God-Halls
I’d like to add here another note about God-Halls and afterlife locations. In the old lore, as we all know, there was much emphasis on warrior culture and the afterlife of warriors in Valhalla. But in the prose Edda, several other abodes are mentioned in connection with Odin, including Gladsheim, Vingolf, and Valaskjalf, where his high seat Hlidskjalf was said to be located. It’s not very clear; in one reference Vingolf is the hall of the Goddesses together, in another it’s one of Odin’s halls. Gladsheim, too, is in one context said to be a central location for all the Gods, in another it’s one of Odin’s places.
Actually, it all makes sense to me: the Gods and Goddesses often gather together for feasts and meetings, so why shouldn’t some of their places be considered as much gathering-places as any individual Deity’s abodes? But where I’m going with this is that I believe Odin has one or more other Halls, other than Valhalla, where people who’ve worked closely with Odin in ways other than fighting may choose to gather in the afterlife.
I see Valaskjalf in particular as one of those, named for the powers of seership, and the location of his high seat where he sees, ponders, and learns much of his wisdom–and which, it is said, he shares with Frigg. I think that people who follow Odin’s path of wisdom rather than the path of the warrior may find a good afterlife home in Valaskjalf, or in Gladsheim, or Vingolf–the Hall of Friends (vin = friend).
I also want to wrap up this comment by noting that, following the ideas of soul lore that I’ve researched and developed, I think that the souls we’re talking about here are the Ghost-souls or spirits, who are naturally drawn to the God-Homes after death. I also think that we have other souls, the Saiwalos (this is the proto-Germanic word from which our word ‘soul’ descended’). The Saiwalos, as I understand it, have their natural home in Hel. After death, our Ghost goes to a God-Home, or spends time in several of them, while Saiwalo pursues its existence in Hel, the Womb of Souls.
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 (Episcopal) 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, 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 which cause significant harm 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. 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 shaman-type practitioners who have indeed found Christian souls lost and wandering in Hel or in the metaphysical layers of spirit-life here in Midgard. 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. But those are occasional exceptions, not the general rule.
While on the subject, I’ll just mention that my spiritual explorations of our Hel-World and the souls at home there have led to quite a different picture than images of any place called ‘Hel’ usually bring up. If you’re interested, I’ve written at length about this in my articles “Hel-Dweller,” “The Soul and the Sea,” “What Happened to Heathen Saiwalo-Soul?” and my 6-part series on the “Alchemy and Ecology of Hel.”
Past and Future Ragnarök Events
A number of modern Heathens I know, and I as well, consider “Ragnarök” to be a cyclical event. Some great devastation occurs that may include both human cultural devastation as well as various forms of natural disasters. The fall of the Roman Empire and of Byzantium. The Bubonic Plague in Europe and the East. Invasions and colonizations of one conquering culture into another culture that happen around the globe, involving many different peoples. The word Ragnarök refers to the doom of the Gods, the Regin, the Rulers, but humans and Midgard are connected with their fates as well, and these kinds of disasters often involve radical changes of religion as well, for example the Native American Ghost Dance movement in response to the destruction of their religions and cultures.
I think, and I know some Heathens who agree with this, that the Ragnarök that is described so powerfully at the end of the Voluspa is an event that already happened: it describes in symbolic terms the tumultuous events of the conversion of Heathen lands and peoples to Christianity, and the years of Christian hegemony and the imposition of its imperial power. This is certainly something that affected our God/desses and religion as well as mundane life, political power, and everything else. (I write about some aspects of that time and the role of wyrd / orlog and the Norns, in my article “Webs of Luck and Wyrd: Interplays and Impacts on Events.”)
Holy Baldr was killed and went to dwell in Hel; Nanna joined him there. Njorð heads off to Vanaheim, apparently deciding to sit this one out, though his son Frey joins the Æsir forces (maybe Freya, too). The other elder male Æsir die during Ragnarök, taking their foes with them. (I assume that they, like Baldr and Nanna, go to some otherworld realm of waiting.) Much fighting of forces occurs, then a conflagration. Earth sinks under the sea, out of the light of sun and moon. There is an age, now, where silence reigns about the old things, the old ways and beliefs–they are forcibly or willingly shoved underground, into the subconscious.
But then the Earth rises again, out from the sea. Tokens of the old times are found by the younger Gods who survived Ragnarök, and presumably the Goddesses too. Baldr and presumably Nanna return. Hoenir casts the rune-tines anew. Vidar, Vali, and Hodhr, Magni and Modi are younger Gods who inherit the ‘windy world.’ A new world arises, a new time where God/desses and Heathens renew their knowledge of each other, their ties, their customs, their beliefs. We all crawl out of the underworld, so to speak, into the light of day. The other Gods return, as Baldr does, from whatever other World they went to after their deaths. The old cycle of Ragnarök spirals around on itself and another spiral begins.
But unlike in the poem, symbolic and poetic, the old / existing world is still here, still with some issues the old Heathens dealt with plus many, many more we’ve generated in modern times. The Ragnarök that comes next may not involve hand-to-hand combat with giants and monstrous beings, wolves and phantoms from Hel. Though of course it could involve that: the issues and problems of our world could take those shapes again.
But where I’m going with this is that I think we who live in this world today can see many dangerous issues, situations, precedents developing across the board–everything from how children are influenced as they grow up today, to changing world orders, to climate change, to the fact that when life grows intolerable and impossible for them, people and animals and plants do what they have always done: try to migrate to a new and better place to live. But those places are taken now; the world is crowded and many conflicts arise.
I don’t have to go on; we’re all familiar with these lists. The point is: our next Ragnarök may require other skills in addition to those of the physical warrior. I’m sure that Odin and the other Deities are well aware of this and are taking steps accordingly, in terms of human souls they recruit or welcome to their Halls, and train to help them in the afterlife. (Though I am not saying that preparing for the next Ragnarök is all that God/desses and Ghosts in the afterlife are doing; there are many more purposes and activities as well.)
In this broader picture of the roles of human Ghosts in the afterlife, I see every God/dess and God-Hall as having something to contribute. Like Thor’s huge Hall that holds the farmers, the crafts-folk, the everyday workers, the fathers and mothers who gave everything to support their families, the practical-minded and stout-hearted backbone of human life. Frigg’s Hall where she and her Ladies offer so much support with the skills and graces and healing of everyday social and family life, and powerful love in all its forms. Where would we be without those? We often feel that these great powers of human life are crumbling and we need help to restore them here in Midgard. Tyr and his focus on law and lawful assemblies, and the power to keep them lawful and frithful. And on and on.
The point is, many new skills may be needed–really, already are needed–as the next challenges of human life and the rumblings of the next Ragnarök develop. Honorable folk of all kinds, not only warriors, will be needed–each one loyally offering the gifts they have to offer and working with the Holy Ones whose focus and skills they share. I hope that my own skills of wordcraft and idea-craft will also be useful in their own way, however they transform as I arrive in the God-realms!
That’s my picture of what cyclical Ragnarök is, and the roles of the God/desses, and our Ghosts or Spirits who can support and work with them, each of us in our own best ways, for the good of all.
Naströnd and ‘Punishment’ in the Afterlife
I’m glad to respond to your question with thoughts about Naströnd, but have to emphasize that these are my ideas and may or may not be entirely in agreement either with ancient or modern Heathens!
In my understanding of Heathen values and ethics, and of how our pursuit of these relates to metaphysical realms and the afterlife, I see much less emphasis on “punishment” than others might see. There was great emphasis in ancient Heathen times on “vengeance,” and to the modern mind there may be little difference between the two. I think there are subtle differences, however, that have metaphysical consequences. I write more about this in my article “Threads of Wyrd and Scyld,” in the section “Step 2: Paying your Shild.”
To put it very briefly, vengeance is meant to rebalance a situation where one’s honor and hamingja have been damaged by someone else’s deeds. Wergild can serve as such a rebalancing mechanism, where the wergild reinstates the lost hamingja and honor by its intrinsic value. Blood vengeance, though obviously problematic, was valued more for the reinstatement of their concept of honor—“honor has been satisfied” by a duel or by winning a fight—than it was considered actual punishment.
We can see this is true by understanding that to the old Norse, secretive killing of someone was defined as murder and was considered dishonorable no matter the circumstances. If ‘punishment’ was sufficient to reinstate honor and hamingja, it wouldn’t matter if the perpetrator was punished by being secretly murdered–but it did matter, very much. No honor was gained thereby, but only dishonor. Honor could only be regained by honorable vengeance, not punishment by any means.
(I am emphatically NOT suggesting that these particular notions of honor should rule us today–there are huge and obvious problems here; I’m just trying to hone in on conceptual distinctions between vengeance and punishment in elder times.)
Punishment such as imprisonment could not serve the metaphysical purposes of vengeance: imprisonment reinstates nothing, gives nothing back to those who have lost hamingja and honor by the crime. Vengeance, especially in the form of imposing wergild, is an act or a deed that has results within a Heathen metaphysical view of things. Punishment, especially as implemented by imprisonment in Midgard or in an afterlife world of punishment, is not a deed in a metaphysical sense; it is a negative state of being that has no positive results for any of the people involved. Obviously, it does prevent the perpetrator from committing more crimes, but I’m speaking of metaphysical acts and consequences here. Again, please note that I am not at all advocating vengeance, I’m simply clarifying some elder-times metaphysical principles!
For me, this idea carries over into concepts of the afterlife. Honestly: what is the point of punishing people in perpetuity in the afterlife? It achieves nothing. I realize that this concept is used in many religions to scare people into behaving themselves according to the religion’s ethics. But let’s look at this as Heathens: is behaving a certain way, just because you’re scared of what will happen to you in the afterlife if you don’t, really consistent with a Heathen worldview, values, way of life?
To me, it is not: we should not be motivated by fear, but by aspirations. Namely, we want positive reinforcement (aspirations, honor, reputation) rather than negative reinforcement (fear of punishment) to power the virtuous Heathen life. I do think that if we look at all the old poetry we’ll see that this perspective is, indeed, a truly Heathen one. Ancient Heathen heroes are not motivated by fear, but by aspirations, by the pursuit of what was, to them, honor and glory, a shining reputation, status in their community, and all the rewards that come with them. And, importantly, hamingja and luck, as well. The rewards meant much more than the threat of punishment. If Beowulf did everything that he did out of fear of punishment if he didn’t, would the old Heathens have revered him as a hero? Or would we?
I think that the imposition of punishment is very much more a Christian thing than a Heathen thing. Christian life in medieval times was full of rules governing every tiny aspect of life, and punishments for disobeying them (even unwittingly). Which doesn’t mean there was no punishment in Heathen life–of course there was. But for smaller transgressions the punishment was a lessening or loss of the respect and status, the honor and glory, of the perpetrator. For the worst transgressions, it was being cast out as an outlaw, or being killed. It wasn’t being locked up forever in some awful place, in Midgard or in the afterlife. What they were really doing was very practical: reducing the person’s influence on the community, in cases of lesser misdeeds, and removing the person from the community entirely, for greater misdeeds. They were not simply inflicting punishment for the sake of punishment.
Do I think there are consequences for wrongdoing, in this life and the afterlife? Yes, I do, but I think it is the Norns and the Well of Wyrd that impose those consequences, not an afterlife place of punishment. Evil deeds bring evil consequences, sometime, some way. Unworthy deeds lack significance; they don’t matter, they are nothing, and if our life consists of unworthy deeds or no deeds of worth at all, then it counts for nothing, it is meaningless, we lay no layers in the Well of Wyrd. This is what the old Heathens were most afraid of. I think the ultimate consequence for the worst of misdeeds and failures-to-act in Heathenism is *erasure*: it is Wyrd and the Deities and posterity ignoring that person and that life out of existence, not endless, pointless punishment.
So what about Naströnd? Well, Nastrond is the ‘strand or beach of corpses.’ They’re dead. People in Hel aren’t dead; they’re not ‘alive’ in Midgard terms, but they have existence, and they interact with the living in Midgard. I don’t believe in the gloomy portrayal of everyone in Hel that Snorri and other poets and writers gave us; I think that it was overly influenced by Christianity and by the literary style of moral allegories used at that time. And for that matter, simply influenced by what physical graves and burials look like: wet, cold, muddy, miserable, decaying, horrible. Hel isn’t a physical place, and it isn’t the analog of the grave, either. And it’s not a place of punishment; it’s the place of the ancestors, the natural residence of souls / Saiwalos.
Naströnd is somewhere else, something else; it’s not the same as Hel. It’s the place of corpses, where even souls are dead and decaying. I don’t, honestly, put that much credence in it, myself. But if it does exist, those soul-corpses are what happens when we live life after life in total worthlessness, not achieving or trying to achieve or even dreaming of achieving anything worthwhile by any measure of worthiness. Where we care for nothing and want to care for nothing, not even ourselves. Where we empty ourselves of all good and choose paths of ill and harm and ugliness and poison and debasement solely for their own sakes, not even with the mistaken notion that they will lead to some kind of good.
If Naströnd does exist, I think that only the ultimate levels of evil or abysmal and irreparable unworthiness would send souls there to decay, not human weaknesses like adultery or oath-breaking. Those have their consequences, laying dire orlog for us, to be sure, and those consequences must be endured and repaid, but not as a corpse in Naströnd…
There may be a number of people, at any given point of time, who are living in that kind of state in Midgard. But I have my doubts that they persist in these ways life after life after life–assuming that reincarnation does occur–and never, ever, learn anything from experiencing these lives in Midgard, any learning or experience that drags them out of that state into at least a slightly better one. There is a great deal of hard learning that occurs in Midgard lives, without needing to resort to entire afterworlds devoted to perpetual punishment.
Oath-breaking, adultery, and murder received plenty of punishment in Midgard, for that matter, among people whose lives and wellbeing really depended on their community and on their reputation in their community. The fear of Midgard-consequences for one’s misbehavior is a very valid one that can serve to prevent such misdeeds for many. If one is motivated by true honor and worthiness–in the eyes of one’s community, the Deities, and Heathens in general–then I don’t see the need for any additional motivation from fear of Nastrond and the like.
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. (Note that there is no mention of Valhalla for this Heathen warrior-king, in this non-Norse context, only Hel as the place of the ancestors where all Heathens go. I have more to write about this subject, sometime when I have time!)
Here is what I think: the afterlife is a state of mind, if you will–a matter of perception, as is so much of our life here in Midgard, as well. 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 Ghosts (all Ghosts) not as a fixed state with physical-seeming surroundings and beings, not 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 of being 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 interleave or inter-layer themselves and shift around to different ‘places’ and contexts. The same thing 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 “both-or-all” 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) 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
That multidimensional 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 actually offer some insight on this subject if one reads it with a Heathen mindset: “The Great Divorce.” (The ‘divorce’ here is that 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 both 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 wastelands, and if those who dwell there cannot perceive us or do not care to, we can be of no benefit to them, or 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
You’re asking for some clarification 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 a simplification of the concept ‘a state of mind,’ we can look at a scientific perspective, a 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 the Heathen soul lore: in modern English we have no words for some of our souls, and we don’t have the concept of 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 world-view.
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 which is governed by physical laws and properties that don’t change depending on our perspective. So 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–all our souls–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–they 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 will 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. 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.
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 through the perception of my heart, simultaneously.
‘Space’ has nothing to do with this experience, and therefore the limitations of physical objects in space doesn’t, either. I don’t worry about ‘how many God/desses can fit in my heart’! Nor about how many Deities my heart 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. And I feel that this practice is of great use in preparing all my souls for more immersive afterlife–and during-life–experiences.
Maybe this clarifies things for you, maybe not! As I said, it’s easier to experience this lack of spatial limitations than it is to conceptualize and describe it. We actually need to change 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.
Note: I’ve written more about the afterlife of the Ghost, including paths of wyrd, in this article: https://heathensoullore.net/thoughts-on-the-afterlife-of-the-ghost/