The Supernatural

[bernadette]

I guess Hel's human afterall. Not to say she's in every woman. [present company excluded ] but in the same mythology we find stories of seers [female] who it is lored had trolls [another name for a trow]. [Celt.] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandin...olklore#Trolls

One most notorious female seer was vilsinn vǫlu, [companion of the seer/seeress. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lva

Quote..The völur were known for their art of seduction, which was one of the reasons why they were considered dangerous. One of the stanzas in Hávamál warns against sexual intercourse with a woman who is skilled in magic, because the one who does so runs the risk of being caught in a magic bond and also risks getting ill. Freyja, who is the mistress of seiðr, has a free sexual life that gives her a bad reputation in certain myths.
One of the methods for seducing men may have been the use of drugs. In Fyrkat, the grave of a völva revealed the use of henbane, a drug which not only produces hallucinations but can also be a powerful aphrodisiac. If Freyja was the goddess of love in Asgard, the völva was her counterpart in Midgard.unquote..

Sex and Drugs and Lore.

Any women around like that today?

Any women around like that today? I very much doubt it!

Its interesting that women always carry the can for being attractive to men. The girl had to be gang raped before being sacrificed to the Gods. The Gods demanded it. You will note they never, ever demanded such a sacrifice from the high priest and what are the odds the chosen sacrifice also just happened, pure coincidence, to be the most attractive girl in the tribe. Sure we wouldn't want to sacrifice an ugly girl to the Gods would we.....

Drugs and wine have always been used as a shortcut to spiritual awareness. I don't believe drug induced halucinations have any connection to spirituality. Interestingly and why I mentioned Tantra which as you know is part of many Eastern/Indian religions. The spiritual high mentioned there is so its said possible through yoga, meditation and, of course it would be, some tantric sexual practices, I think searching for spiritual awareness is a question of meditation and concentration.

According to some men and many priests all women are also demons skilled in magic. Its the excuse men still use to keep women subjugated. Its visible in Muslim countries. The women must wear the shroud/berqa in case some poor man finds them irristible......which would of course be the womans fault.

I don't think I've ever believed in aphrodisiacs to the extent of believing any of them could overcome free will.

[Trow]

I don't think I've ever believed in aphrodisiacs to the extent of believing any of them could overcome free will.

Depends which ones you use. Some certainly would have the affect of you losing your inhibitions and altering libido.

[bernadette]

Depends which ones you use. Some certainly would have the affect of you losing your inhibitions and altering libido.

If someone wanted to add something like oysters or similar to the dinner menu that would be harmless and some people like oysters for their actual taste. If however they need something stronger they're probably better off asking their doctor for viagra.

Some people think the old ways are about liberation, sexual, emotional, whatever. I agree that its liberating from the rigidity of christianity, islam judaism etc and faith in the old ways does give confidence in oneself and in the environment but its not the answer to anyones inhibitions.

The supernatural is littered with stories of sexual escapism but I suspect anyone involved was too busy indulging themselves to write about it, which makes you wonder where the stories originated.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Probably a reactive element to the constraints imposed on human sexuality by religions of one kind or another which always seek to control all human instincts.

In our own society psychologically we are only recently emerging from a miasma of psychological warfare from childhood determined to change the view of human sexuality itself towards something which can only be sanctioned by a corrupt priesthood who are and were far from mentally healthy themselves.

One of the greatest crimes beyond those in the modern era imposed by that particular foreign cult was the culture of fear of sex and its attempt to license it.

The damage done in our culture because of that was immense.

[fluffybiscuits]

Probably a reactive element to the constraints imposed on human sexuality by religions of one kind or another which always seek to control all human instincts.

In our own society psychologically we are only recently emerging from a miasma of psychological warfare from childhood determined to change the view of human sexuality itself towards something which can only be sanctioned by a corrupt priesthood who are and were far from mentally healthy themselves.

One of the greatest crimes beyond those in the modern era imposed by that particular foreign cult was the culture of fear of sex and its attempt to license it.

The damage done in our culture because of that was immense.

Sex is the one thing that binds humans together, we all have a sex drive of sorts that rules us in our attractions and that state of ecstacy that we feel was denied to so many because it was seen as been the forbidden fruit. Spiritually the intimacy drives us close together and enables us form bonds which we may not have otherwise done, sexual tension in a friendship can add a spark to a friendship. Freud did create a proposterous backbone to psychoanalysis that is still used today in that it appears everything seems to stem back to childhood and our relationship with our parents. In druidic circles , sex is seen more as a liberator of people rather than a constrainer. (Maybe Im wrong but that is my understanding of it!)..

[Trow]

If someone wanted to add something like oysters or similar to the dinner menu that would be harmless and some people like oysters for their actual taste. If however they need something stronger they're probably better off asking their doctor for viagra.

Some people think the old ways are about liberation, sexual, emotional, whatever. I agree that its liberating from the rigidity of christianity, islam judaism etc and faith in the old ways does give confidence in oneself and in the environment but its not the answer to anyones inhibitions.

The supernatural is littered with stories of sexual escapism but I suspect anyone involved was too busy indulging themselves to write about it, which makes you wonder where the stories originated.

Have they made ''Viagra'' for females yet? Nature has. No need to run to doctors, less they be witch doctors,

This big Earth provides all the answers and much of our medicine originates from plants and animals. Would'nt have to walk too far to extract gums from trees and plants that when burned, ingested, mood set, alter libido and overcome any sexual inhibitions, should there be any.

I would'nt dwell too much on sexual escapism or desire, there are greater highs to be had when you guard your chastity in accordance with your spiritual practice/beliefs.

Christianity and other religions will dictate similar but for different reasons. I enter periods of abstinence in preparation for the kinds of voodo i do.

[bernadette]

FluffyBiscuits

Yes sexual tension can add an extra dimension to friendship. Religions in general have tried and for many years/centuries succeeded in shaping our attitude to sex. I think the control of our sexual natures has harmed us as people.

Freud was one of the first to recognise the connection, although reading/skimming some of his work its almost easy today to say that he had problems of his own.

I don't think ancient cultures would have been as inhibited as we still are but nor do I think sex was a wild dance or a prelude to human sacrifice. I think the people would have been less inhibited because sex is or should be natural so to them it would have been.

Trow

No idea! But, I think its used for some medical purposes nothing to do with libido.

Escapism is something we're all entitled to provided it stays in the mind or is a harm none trip abroad. It seems to me that you're referring to a more natural high although some of the most dangerous mind altering drugs are natural herbs.


Its been suggested that days before forming a circle or casting one should abstain from sexual activity, nothing to do with worship but rather a gathering of power and is I think understandable as such. It was almost certainly something the ancients practised since sex is energising/exhausting often simultaneously!

Guarding chastity is more or less where I came in some very grusome articles were pictured and I think that's where I must leave it.

[Trow]

Trow

No idea! But, I think its used for some medical purposes nothing to do with libido.
.

Erectile disfunction. [Viagra]
At the risk of sounding vulgar i'll go onto say and quote your own words ''A wand is what you make it.'' Love, sex and magic.

If you were a man and suddenly you were gifted with a magic love wand/staff it would soon alter libido.

Remember i told you about how some underworld entities when they possess you can have that affect on your sexual desire? It's one of the reasons the Hellfire club in Ireland receives so many requests for visits.

Once one woman complained about having been possessed by a demon there during a visit and went on radio to tell of how it turned her into a sex craving whore what do you know but next thing 5,000 women are ringing booking visits.

Does the same to men.

[bernadette]

Erectile disfunction. [Viagra]
At the risk of sounding vulgar i'll go onto say and quote your own words ''A wand is what you make it.'' Love, sex and magic.

If you were a man and suddenly you were gifted with a magic love wand/staff it would soon alter libido.

Remember i told you about how some underworld entities when they possess you can have that affect on your sexual desire? It's one of the reasons the Hellfire club in Ireland receives so many requests for visits.

Once one woman complained about having been possessed by a demon there during a visit and went on radio to tell of how it turned her into a sex craving whore what do you know but next thing 5,000 women are ringing booking visits.

Does the same to men.

The trinity again.

Yes it would but would it still be you? Viagra gives you impetus...maybe and various other substances may also assist. Possession is very different.. Leave the underword to itself I don't think you're ready for it yet.

A sex craving whore? Is there such a creature? A highly sexed man is a heck of a lad. A highly sexed woman is a sex craving whore...

Its about free will. Whatever we do, generally but particularly sexually, must be our choice. The priests and priestesses who sacrificed the girls and possibly boys to the gods chose to do so.

Of course that brings us to the other, possibly greatest, aphrodisiac: power. The priests and priestesses would have been very powerful people. I don't even like the idea of that although many women are said to find powerful men attractive regardless that they may look like and be the size of the back of a toy town bus.

[Trow]

A sex craving whore? Is there such a creature? A highly sexed man is a heck of a lad. A highly sexed woman is a sex craving whore...

The lady's own words, not mine. And like i said, that affect works the same on a man. Libido changes with demonic possession, no drug required.

Of magic and Males...Quote..Men who practiced sorcery or magic were not received with the same respect but killed like animals and tortured to death, because they were dealing with a practice that was held to be in the domain of women. Unquote.

Laws of the day.....Quote...The disappearance of the völur was due to the Roman Catholic Church, which along with civil governments had laws enacted against them, as in this Anglo-Saxon Canon law:
"If any wicca (witch), wiglaer (wizard), false swearer, morthwyrtha (worshipper of the dead) or any foul contaminated, manifest horcwenan (whore), be anywhere in the land, man shall drive them out."

"We teach that every priest shall extinguish heathendom and forbid wilweorthunga (fountain worship), licwiglunga (incantations of the dead), hwata (omens), galdra (magic), man worship and the abominations that men exercise in various sorts of witchcraft, and in frithspottum (peace-enclosures) with elms and other trees, and with stones, and with many phantoms." (source: 16th Canon law enacted under King Edgar in the 10th century.) unquote..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lva

Interesting that the Roman Catholic Church and others should pour such scorn on all of this practice and then go about placing carvings like this on their Church buildings....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela_na_gig [Goddess of creation and destruction] used to ward off evil.

Quote...Sheela na gigs (or sheela-na-gigs) are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva. They are found on churches, castles and other buildings, particularly in Ireland and Britain, sometimes together with male figures. One of the best examples may be found in the Round Tower at Rattoo, in County Kerry, Ireland. A replica is located in the County Museum in Tralee town. Another well-known example can be seen at Kilpeck in Herefordshire, England.
Ireland has the greatest number of known sheela na gig carvings, McMahon and Roberts cite 101 examples in Ireland and a further 45 examples in Britain. Such carvings are said to ward off death and evil. Other grotesques such as gargoyles and hunky punks are frequently found on churches all over Europe and it is commonly said that they are there to keep evil spirits away (see apotropaic magic). They are often positioned over doors or windows, presumably to protect these openings.unquote.

I'm carving one at my gate to ward off the clergy.

[bernadette]

The lady's own words, not mine. And like i said, that affect works the same on a man. Libido changes with demonic possession, no drug required.

Of magic and Males...Quote..Men who practiced sorcery or magic were not received with the same respect but killed like animals and tortured to death, because they were dealing with a practice that was held to be in the domain of women. Unquote.

Laws of the day.....Quote...The disappearance of the völur was due to the Roman Catholic Church, which along with civil governments had laws enacted against them, as in this Anglo-Saxon Canon law:
"If any wicca (witch), wiglaer (wizard), false swearer, morthwyrtha (worshipper of the dead) or any foul contaminated, manifest horcwenan (whore), be anywhere in the land, man shall drive them out."

"We teach that every priest shall extinguish heathendom and forbid wilweorthunga (fountain worship), licwiglunga (incantations of the dead), hwata (omens), galdra (magic), man worship and the abominations that men exercise in various sorts of witchcraft, and in frithspottum (peace-enclosures) with elms and other trees, and with stones, and with many phantoms." (source: 16th Canon law enacted under King Edgar in the 10th century.) unquote..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lva

Interesting that the Roman Catholic Church and others should pour such scorn on all of this practice and then go about placing carvings like this on their Church buildings....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheela_na_gig [Goddess of creation and destruction] used to ward off evil.

Quote...Sheela na gigs (or sheela-na-gigs) are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva. They are found on churches, castles and other buildings, particularly in Ireland and Britain, sometimes together with male figures. One of the best examples may be found in the Round Tower at Rattoo, in County Kerry, Ireland. A replica is located in the County Museum in Tralee town. Another well-known example can be seen at Kilpeck in Herefordshire, England.
Ireland has the greatest number of known sheela na gig carvings, McMahon and Roberts cite 101 examples in Ireland and a further 45 examples in Britain. Such carvings are said to ward off death and evil. Other grotesques such as gargoyles and hunky punks are frequently found on churches all over Europe and it is commonly said that they are there to keep evil spirits away (see apotropaic magic). They are often positioned over doors or windows, presumably to protect these openings.unquote.

I'm carving one at my gate to ward off the clergy.

All part of the demonisation of the old ways and again strongly indicitive of the male takeover and domination of religion.

Christianity has always stolen from the old ways when it suited them or when they could not destroy the faith. We have Bridged here and obviously there are others gargoyles and the green man found on churches which were often built on pagan religious sites.

To be fair to christianity, and its hard, they were no different to other earlier religions in that respect. Each new leader became a god of whichever faith.

The enlarged vulva is also interesting because I think, but will need to check further to confirm, that the vulva was and in some cases still is is a feature of some Indian/eastern religions, and that, and as I say I would need to check, takes us back to our eastern origins and the sacred female.

I must find time to do some brass rubbing. Its a really fascinating subject.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

The hints of eastern or as Laurence Granville noted in his 'Brehon Laws' hints of the 'Hindoo Laws' in Brehon Laws as distinct from early Roman Law are interesting. The fertility figures of the Shelagh-Na-Gig are very similar in parts of North Africa as well and one wonders about the trade routes for such cultural artifacts.

It could be given Spain's proximity to Africa and the better knowledge we have now of interaction in trade going back possibly thousands of years up and down the Atlantic route to Spain from the west of Ireland that there may have been some artistic crossover there- or it may be that the female fertility figure is common in the origins of Indian philosophy and western European and North African as well.

We are at such a tantalising distance from original movements of people across Europe, Asia, Africa that the only real hope we have now of determining facts from conjecture lie in DNA mapping and such arcane sciences as forensic archaeology and reconstruction of the lands as they appeared in ancient times so as to link peoples across areas.

The veneration of the fecundity of the female seems to be a common theme across ancient cultures and is closely associated in a time before the mechanics of conception were known to be associated with the fecundity of the seasons and the land.

The great cultural shifts of moving from oral to symbol to language based communication in early societies leaves hints but are also curtains across ancient history. DNA studies and the simply incredible advances in forensic archaeology move those curtains a little bit for us at times.

So much of our early history is also obscured by our cultural assumptions of today. You almost have to shift into or inhabit a different psychology like putting on a different suit of clothes in order to be able to peer back that far.

I'd say that is part of the fascination. The thing is going back to the subject of this thread that the supernatural simply cannot be discarded as a clue to the psychology of the people of the past as that is a map where they kept their knowledge and their fears and their explanations for the world around them. By working back forensically through superstitions and what we know of the supernatural symbols of the past we are indulging in a form of speculative archaeology and delving into the psychology of our ancestors.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

A little side note for my friend Trow- we were speaking recently of numbers and you asked me to recall my mention of the number '9' in an exchange with Sam. I was in work mode at the time and drew a blank on the reference but having done my little trick of summoning the fat youth on his fat pony and sending him off to my inner archives I can report that as I was lying in bed contemplating Laurence Granville's essay on the Brehon Laws and the cultural thunder in it there was a knock on the inner door and on opening it the fat youth handed me a scroll with the information I wanted.

The number 9 came up when I mentioned having worked in a clearing bank many years ago on a nightshift- I learned that when the computers were scanning the lists of cheques going through the system sometimes a cheque would be skipped or a damaged magnetic strip on it would cause the system to skip. Then the batch of cheques would have to be taken out of the system and put through manually by hand by an operator keying in each amount and sort code.

The most common mistake was that an operator would reverse a number- '27' would become '72' or '29' would become '92'.

That of course meant that that batch of cheques did not balance with the overall report sent to the bank and we would have to investigate.

I learned to check immediately if the sum we were out by was divisible by '9'. If it was the chances were that an operator had reversed a number while keying in manually a batch of cheques.

It was always divisible by '9'. That number became the symbol which told me a story of what had happened in the system and after a few months doing this I could almost cast my eye down the list of entries in a batch and find that my pencil would hover above the most likely reversed number. One could get very good at it almost by 'feel' because one became familiar with the sequences of numbers that bored operators were most likely to 'see' in the reverse. There was a pattern available.

Amazing how quick you could get at almost psyching your way to the problem by asking is the amount we are out by divisible by nine and then half-closing one eye and allowing your pencile to drift down the numbers until .... 'that'll be the lad there'.... and hey presto you would turn out to be right. The operator had reversed the number on that particular cheque from '27p' to '72p' in error.

'9' became a key which unlocked the door to a story of a tired or bored operator at a machine allowing the mind to drift as the cheques appeared in the screen on his machine and flicked past when he glanced at the amount and keyed it in to 'pass' through the counter.

I learned to recognise numbers divisible by '9' that summer as an old friend

[Trow]

Yes Capt, i was searching for that post by Sam in relation to the number 9 and how it is dividable in an effort to explain the 9 realms/worlds in Norse mythology.

We've spoke of Hel recently, which is one of the realms and thought best to include the rest for reference in any discussion.

I find some similarity in belief and practice between the Celts and Norse at least in the mythology surrounding underworld beings such as elves, giants and so on.

Quote...The cosmology of Norse mythology has 'nine homeworlds', unified by the world tree Yggdrasill. Mapping the nine worlds escapes precision because the Poetic Edda often alludes vaguely, and the Prose Edda may be influenced by medieval Christian cosmology. The Norse creation myth tells how everything came into existence in the gap between fire and ice, and how the gods shaped the homeworld of humans. unquote.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_cosmology

''The gap between Fire and Ice.?'' Is this telling of an event such as the ending of an ice age?

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I'd say there is evidence for a fair amount of cross-cultural exchange in Norse and Celtic symbology Trow... There was a fair bit of exchange between the Anglo Saxon and Norse symbology as far as I can recollect from my reading.

Then again there wouldn't have been such a gulf in belief systems except for that promoted by differing landscapes. It is a known trait- that belief systems are heavily affected by the landscape of the people involved.