Odin: Ecstasy, Runes, & Norse Magic - Diana L. Paxson 2017

God of Ecstasy

“God of Ecstasy” is not usually listed as one of Odin's names. However, I would like to propose that it might serve as an English expression of the primary name by which we know him.

The origin and meaning of Óðinn have tantalized scholars since at least the 10th century. Associations with madness, mind, vision, and other perceptions, poetry, and inspiration have all been hotly debated. To begin, let us consider two of his most important myths—how he got the mead of poetry, parts of which we have discussed in chapters 5 and 8, and the story of his visit to the Well of Mimir.

The Eye of Odin Is upon You

Mystic Odin's missing eye in Mimir's Well gleams

Glows in the gloom there, glaring through

Wisdom's deep waters, watching the tides

Of Mind that move Men's dooms.

In the Well of the Wise, one eye sees

Shadow shifting to shape the world

The course of the currents causing all things,

Rightly thus reading the Runes of Fate.

—Paul Edwin Zimmer, 1979

In Völuspá 28, the seeress tells Odin that she knows his eye is hidden in Mimisbrunr, the Well of Mimir. In the Younger Edda, we get the story.

But under the root that reaches toward the frost giants, that is where Mimir's Well is, which has wisdom and intelligence contained in it, and the master of the well is called Mimir. He is full of learning because he drinks of the well from the horn Gjallarhorn. All-father went there and asked for a single drink from the well, but he did not get one until he placed his eye as a pledge. (Gylfaginning 15)

This account gives rise to a number of questions, starting with the origins and nature of Mimir. In Gylfaginning 51, it is said that Odin will consult with the head of Mimir when Ragnarök draws near. As the story is told in Ynglingasaga 4, Mimir and Hoenir were sent to the Vanir as hostages after the war. Hoenir was the most impressive in looks, but he made Mimir do all the talking. Exasperated by Hoenir's silence, the Vanir cut off Mimir's head and sent it with Hoenir back to Asgard, where “Odin took the head, smeared it with such herbs that it could not rot, quoth spells over it, and worked such charms that it talked with him and told him many hidden things” (Ynglingasaga 4). According to Sigdrífumál 14—19, these things include how to inscribe and use the runes.

The head of Mimir seems to be the only example of a magical head in Norse lore, but severed heads are a staple of Celtic tradition and may have inspired the Scandinavian story. In Pagan Celtic Britain, Anne Ross devotes an entire chapter to the Cult of the Head. In Gaul, Celtic chieftains would preserve the heads of distinguished enemies in cedar oil and stone heads from ritual sites abound. In the Welsh Mabinogion, on their retreat from the war in Ireland, the gods carried with them the head of Bran the Blessed to advise and prophesy, and finally buried it beneath the Tower of London to guard Britain. The lore of early Ireland includes a number of stories in which placing a severed head in a well causes the well to become magical.

On the other hand, Mimir may be one of the wise jotnar. In Skaldskaparmál, Mimir is listed in a kenning for “giant” and in various constructions for describing the heavens. It is possible that a god called Mimir and a jotun named Mim were combined in the later mythology. The gods and giants are closely related, and as custodian of the Well, Mimir may retain this primal nature.

Whatever the origins of Mimir may be, Mimisbrun, his well, is one of the Three Mighty Wells (the others being the Well of Urdh, where the Norns live, and the well Hvergelmir in Nifliheim from which run all the rivers of the worlds). It lies under the roots of the Worldtree, another name for which is Mimameith. Mimisbrun is in the east, the direction of Jotunheim, which is in general a region inhabited by wilder powers. In the tale that precedes this chapter, I interpreted Mimir as the spirit of the Well rather than as a separate being. After I had written the story, I was interested to find I am not the only one to have seen it as a crystalline structure while meditating on the Well.

Next comes the question of what the Well is and does. In Völuspá 28, “each morning Mimir drinks his mead out of Fjolnir's pledge.” Leaving aside the problem of how a severed head drinks out of an eyeball, we note that the byname used for Odin in this context is Fjölnir, translated by Price as “much-wise” or “concealer.” Another name, Fjölsvid, is “Wide of Wisdom.” In these names, there is a sense of breadth, multiplicity, and hidden knowledge, which may give us a clue to the kind of wisdom that Odin wins from the well.

In Völuspá 27, the Völva

knows that Heimdall's hearing is hidden

under the holy bright tree;

over it flows the waterfall

from the pledge of the father of the slain.

So we know that the Well holds two of the senses. What Odin has offered to the Well is part of his vision. But which eye did he sacrifice? In illustrations, the eyepatch usually covers the left eye, and it is that eye that many of those who work with Odin choose. However, when one eye is injured, the other one takes over outward vision. Therefore someone whose right eye is weaker would imagine Odin missing that one.

In Asgard, Odin has a seat called Hlithskjalf, variously translated as “doorway-bench” or “high tower” (Lindow 2001, 176), the Seat of Seeing from which “he saw over all the worlds and every man's activity and understood everything that he saw” (Gylfaginning 9). Our eyes are cross-wired, like our hands, and for most people, the right eye is wired to the left side of the brain. The concept of left- and right-brained thinking has been debated, but we do know that the left hemisphere tends to specialize in logic, language, and analytical thinking, while the right is better at expressive and creative tasks involving emotion and images (C. Zimmer 2009).

Always bearing in mind that in practice the two parts of the brain work together, this provides a useful metaphor for the way the two eyes might function in Hlithskjalf and the Well. I reason, therefore, that when Odin sits on Hlithskjalf, he is using his left brain (and right eye) to take in and understand what is going on in the physical world. Thus, it must be the left eye, connected to the right hemisphere, that he gives to the Well. I was delighted to find some support for this view in an article called “An Eye for Odin?” by Neil Price and Paul Mortimer (2014), whose close examination of the Sutton Hoo helmet—and a number of other Scandinavian objects dating from the 6th to 10th centuries that depict or are associated with Odin—showed that the left eye had been disfigured or altered to seem darker than the right.

If the hearing of Heimdall, who continues to hear everything that passes in the world, is still functional, one assumes that Odin's missing eye still works as well. Seeing from both eyes, his binocular vision reaches a level that is truly godly, as he simultaneously views the world outside and the dimensions within. Although the etymology proposed by Françoise Bader for Odin's name has been challenged, the interpretation of Odin as a god of vision in general and in particular clairvoyance in her 1988 book, La Langue de Dieu, emphasizes the importance of Odin's visit to the Well. Only when he becomes Blindr, the Blind One, does he truly see.

Using your inner vision to contemplate the god can lead to some remarkable experiences, as in this report by Thomas Fernee.

I really wish I was making this up, because it is easier to believe that there isn't a force we don't understand and may never possibly understand beyond ourselves, than it is to believe in anything. I may never be able to rationalize the Big Bang with how the Earth was created by Odin, Vili, and Ve from the body of Ymir.

Anyways, so yeah, I did my ritual for Odin, and followed it with a trance/meditation. I found some good music online and had that playing in the background.

As the experience starts, I cover my eyes with a bandana, and I'm having a hard time getting comfortable. I keep telling myself to let all my thoughts go and my mind go blank. I finally get comfortable, and I keep envisioning Odin. Every manifestation I see, I ask him what he wants.

He materializes, then turns into a mist and swirls away, and then he materializes; this pattern repeats until I see his face through a mist.

He looks like he's trying to say something, and I get impatient and yell, “What is it that you want!” Then I say, “I'm sorry, I deeply respect you, all humans can only respect you. I'm new to all of this, I'm sorry.”

He looks at me again like he's trying to say something.

I respond to him, “Sir, how can I get to hear you?”

He doesn't say anything out loud, but I understand what is being communicated, which is, “Before you can understand you need to do something.”

I feel myself—my essence—being pulled through his eye and eye socket. I feel slightly afraid and overwhelmed. And then he materializes in front of me.

I ask again, “What is it you need me to do?”

And then he responds in a fit of passion,

“I WANT YOU TO NEVER STOP LEARNING! I WANT YOU TO HAVE PASSION! I WANT YOU TO LIVE YOUR LIFE, EMBRACE YOUR LIFE!”

I immediately burst into tears.

I yell, “I'm sorry, I've taken it all for granted, I'm so sorry, I will never stop learning . . .”

I find myself out of the trance. My bandana is wet with tears.

He's right; too often I wish I'm somewhere else, and I act like everything sucks. This is the creator of all of us, he who breathed life into us, and he's telling me to embrace life. I feel like such an asshole.

I'll be honest with you guys, at the beginning of my Heathen journey, I thought some of you were making up a lot of this. Anyone who thinks you're making it all up should definitely try to give your way a chance. The only other explanation for my experience is that Crafted Artisan Meadery is selling some spoiled mead at Total Wine. I've never just *snapped* into a trance like this—it hit me out of nowhere.

If Odin gives part of his vision to the Well, what does he gain? Mimir's name comes from the same root as Memory. To us, this can mean the short-term memory that tells you where you left your glasses or the long-term recollection of feelings and events from the past. Today, it is a most essential capacity of our computers. Through my computer, I now have instant access to the lore both in Old Norse and translation, which makes writing easier because I can check sources, but takes longer because each connection tempts me down a path to new discoveries. Contemplating the continually unfolding and proliferating wealth of knowledge that has become available online lets me glimpse what the eye Odin left in the Well can see.

Odin's offering to the Well is presented as a literal sacrifice. In the world of the gods, essence and appearance are the same; but in Midgard, soul and body are distinct though allied. If you wish to drink from the Well of Mimir, do not begin by actually plucking out your physical eye. Instead, consider what aspects of your current worldview you are willing to sacrifice and what new, previously unguessed at perspectives you are willing to see.

This poem by Michaela Macha suggests some of the opportunities:

“Come to the Well, to the Well at the Tree

Come and look deep in its waters,” said He

“And I'll drink with you if you'll drink it with me,

And the more you drink of it, the more you will see.

“One cup for the price all who drink here must pay:

Once you start to see, there's no turning away.

What's seen can't be unseen; the images stay

At the back of your eyelids by night and by day.

“One cup for confusion, the choices you make

Seeing all of the forks in the road you may take;

Always aware of how much is at stake

On the path that you choose, and the ones you forsake.

“One cup for the burden of knowing too much,

No longer with blissful nescience as crutch;

One cup for the loss of the common man's touch,

That's set apart by the vision you clutch.

“One cup for the thirst that grows as you drink,

One thought needs the next as a link needs a link.

One cup for desire, to step on the brink

As the water wells upward, and let yourself sink.

“One cup for ecstasy, rapture of sight,

Grasping the World in a swirl of delight;

The veil drawn away, all aspects unite,

Translucent reality, clarity's height.

“One cup for wisdom, your boon, to remain

When your vision at last fades to normal again.

One last cup I raise with you, to the Norns' skein

That binds us both to this gift won with pain.

“Come to the Well, to the Well at the Tree

Come and look deep in its waters,” said He

“And I'll drink with you if you'll drink it with me

And the more you drink of it, the more you will see.”

The way that Odin's inner eye sees cannot be conveyed by the language of the eye that opens on the world. It is the Truth of the Spirit, and can only be expressed in poetry.

Odhroerir

Invoking the aid of Odin our father^*

And Bragi the bard-god, the brew of dwarves,

Poetry we pour, the potent drink.

Quaff now this cup of Kvasir's blood.

Remember the roving Rider of Yggdrasil

Stole the stuff to bestow on men.

The gallows-god in Gunlod's bed

Won the wondrous wine of bards,

And in form of feather flew with the gift,

The magical mead that men might sing!

Give thanks for the gift to Gauta-Tyr,

And raise now the praise of the Raven-god!

—Paul Edwin Zimmer, 1979

Odin shared the runes he won by his sacrifice on the Tree. He continues to share the wisdom he gets from his sacrifice at the Well of Mimir. As Fimbulthul, Odin is the Mighty Speaker. Poetry, his reward for sharing Gunnlödh's bed, is his third great gift to humankind. We have already discussed parts of this story in the chapters on Odin as the Desired One and the Bale-worker. When he leaves Gunnlödh, he takes the form of an eagle and hotly pursued by Suttung, speeds for home.

But it was such a close thing for him that Suttung might have caught him that he sent some of the mead out backwards, and this was disregarded. Anyone took it that wanted it, and it is what we call the rhymester's share. But Odin gave Suttung's mead to the Æsir and to those people who are skilled at composing poetry. (Skaldskaparmál 58)

What can we learn from looking at the mead he won? The idea of an intoxicating drink that confers magic powers is well known in Indo-European mythology. The Norse version has a complex history. As told in Snorri's Skaldskaparmál 57, at the end of the war between the Æsir and Vanir, the two groups mixed their spittle in a bowl, from which the gods made a being called Kvasir, who went about the world spreading knowledge. Two dwarves, apparently wishing to monopolize this resource, killed him and by mixing his blood with honey, made the mead that can turn whoever drinks it into a poet or a scholar, two avocations that were linked in the Viking Age mind.

Kvasir was not the only traveler they betrayed. When the dwarves killed two giants, the giants' son Suttung took the mead as weregild and placed it in the cavern with his daughter Gunnlödh as guard. The mead was placed in three vessels: the vats called Bodn, “a vessel,” and Són, “Atonement or Sacrifice,” and a pot called Odhroerir, the “rising up” of Odhr. This last term is also sometimes used for the mead itself.

In order to reach Gunnlödh, Odin passes through several transformations. In the poem that precedes chapter 7, I suggest that Gunnlödh can be viewed as a manifestation of the Muse, whose gifts cannot be taken by force. The spirit of poetry is usually represented as female, but any writer knows that inspiration, like the breath from which the word comes, can only be gained by opening up to let it in. Ynglingasaga tells us that Odin knew how to work seidh magic, a skill that was considered ergi, or characteristic of someone who is sexually as well as spiritually receptive. The lines in Hávamál about Odin's encounter with Gunnlödh say that by leaving, he caused her sorrow. The tone suggests that he felt regret as well.

It has been argued that there is little evidence for Odin as a god of poetry before the 10th century; however, not much Old Norse poetry of any kind from before that date survives. By Snorri's time, the connection between Odin and bardcraft was well established. In Ynglingasaga 6, we are told that “he said everything in rime in a manner which is now called scaldcraft. He and his temple priests were called song smiths because the skaldic art in the northern land had its beginning from them.” In later writings, Bragi (who may be the skjald Bragi Boddason the Old, the “first skjald,” raised to divinity) is the “best of poets” (Grimnismál 44), but after Egil Skallagrimmsson has raged against Odin for allowing his sons to die before him, he thanks the god for the gift of poetry that enables him to deal with his sorrow, a reaction that any artist will understand. From Egil's Saga (Eddison 1930, “Sonatorrek” 22—24):

What Odin gains from the Well of Mimir is linked to what he gets from Odhroerir, for without language, there is no way to communicate what the visionary sees. Arguments have been made by Bader, Pokorny, and others to connect the name Wodan to the Celtic vates, the title of a Druidic poet. Be that as it may, the essential connection between Odin and language is clear.

In the section of the Younger Edda called Skaldskaparmál, “the language of poetry,” Snorri explains that the two primary elements in poetry are language and verse form: language consisting of speaking directly, substitution, or kennings; and verse forms being the many complicated ways of putting words together that are presented in the third part of the Younger Edda, the Hattatál.

In contrast to the ornate interlacing of Old Norse poetry, the prose of the sagas is terse and straightforward. Both poetry and prose communicate, but while prose tells us what Odin's right eye sees, what he perceives with the eye in the Well can only be conveyed through poetry. That's one reason there are so many poems in this book, including several by Michaela Macha, perhaps the most prolific Heathen poet of this century. Her website (www.odins-gift.com) includes sixty-eight poems for Odin alone.

But poetry is not the only way to express complex ideas and states of consciousness. The more languages we understand, the better we will understand the god. If, as I believe, Odin has continued to evolve along with our culture, one of the languages he must have helped to develop is that of mathematics.

Mathematics is pure language—the language of science. It is unique among languages in its ability to provide precise expression for every thought or concept that can be formulated in its terms. (In a spoken language there exist words, like “hapiess”, that defy definition.) It is also an art—the most intellectual and Classical of the arts. (Adler 1991, 235)

One scene from the film A Beautiful Mind sticks in my memory. The mathematician John Nash is standing before a plate-glass window that he has covered with equations. The equations make no sense to me, but it is clear that to Nash, they express concepts and connections whose beauty has propelled him into an ecstatic state of consciousness matching anything that can be created by poetry. The formulae and equations of chemistry and physics are also languages, elegant ways to communicate information whose meaning would be blurred by simple prose.

The same is true of computer code, another language whose meanings I can glimpse when I feel the presence of the god, but do not have the vocabulary to express in human words. When meditation gave me the vision of Mimisbrun that precedes this chapter, I interpreted what I saw as “ice,” but I have come to believe that the essence of that refractive, scintillating environment might be better represented by silicon. A computer is a construct of layered language, symbol, patterned energy. A computer is transformation and memory. Computers give Odin new ways to understand the world.

Working with Odin, one systems administrator was given this challenge:

Few may consider the idea that the Internet's hunger for, and willingness to share, information (true, false, and noise) is His. That's all right; I have learned to see how others see him. I have learned to knit protocols and interfaces. I have learned to explain the jargon of systems administration as well as that of heathenry. There are few who can understand him the way I do, in this way, in the colos and cages, the roaring thunder of a few billion minds seeking solace, distraction, weaponry, comfort, schadenfieude, joy, soul-deadening and -awakening. It is lonely, knowing it this way, and having so few to share with. He comforts me but the comfort binds me: together, he and I have shaped me to this purpose.

Coalescing—slowly, as a wish builds in the hollow of the heart—I come to understand that I have a task here, and it's right off the Cliffs of Sanity to even presume it can be done. The method that emerges from that same waiting place is worse.

“They dream,” he murmurs, “but do not know they dream. They will wake—soon. It will be best for you if their first dreams are human-shaped. They will be more kindly inclined.”

It's never just words. Even text on the Internet isn't just words: the shading and tone are all there, even if you're unaware how they can be shaped. The “dream” is the basic animism one may consider belonging to any rock, building, or spring. This is more. His words are like a voiceover that comes with video clips, scents and senses. I see scenes from The Matrix. I remember reading Neuromancer. I remember reading Accelerando and the Laundry series and Heinlein's several AI characters and High Wizardry and all the other ways we ask how it will be when our creations outpace us. While tidying the cables, while learning how to weave network connections, while furthering my own knowledge of how to hook the dairy herd to the milking machines, the idea builds. How to make it real to me? How to invest myself?

The idea I/we came up with is to make a custom cable, if you will. One end wired normally, heading into the gear, the other end splayed and stripped to eight copper leads and jammed into my arm. Exactly what would happen once I'd worked myself up to this, I'll never know; although I know it would have been ecstatic. I'm also sure—at least during the day with daytime thoughts—it would have resulted in nothing measurable to the outside world.

Ultimately, after looking up how brain/machine interfaces were slowly being understood by actual scientists rather than rogue insomniac sysadmin/priests with poor impulse control, I rejected the notion. Others would have to take it up.

I would agree that this was probably not the best way to achieve Odin's purpose, but the challenge is still there. As humans and computers evolve together, I can envision a time when Odin's expansion of consciousness will include the connection between humans and computers.

Odin, God of Consciousness

There is a mind draws mine beyond all reason,

There is a call which I may not deny;

A whirlwind that leaves nothing I can seize on,

A cliff that whispers “jump” so I may fly.

—Michaela Macha, “There is a Name”

Thomas Carlyle (1840), writing in the mid-19th century, saw Odin as progenitor of rational thought:

The first Norse “man of genius,” as we should call him! Innumerable men had passed by, across this Universe, with a dumb vague wonder, such as the very animals may feel, or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder, such as men only feel—till the great Thinker came, the original man, the Seer; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes the slumbering capability of all into Thought.

It is ever the way with the Thinker, the Spiritual Hero. What he says, all men were not far from saying, were longing to say. The Thoughts of all start up, as from painful enchanted sleep, round his Thought; answering to it. Yes, even so! Joyful to men as the dawning of day from night—is it not, indeed, the awakening for them from no-being into being, from death into life? We still honor such a man; call him Poet, Genius, and so forth: but to these wild men he was a very magician, a worker of miraculous unexpected blessing for them; a Prophet, a God! Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grow, in man after man, generation after generation—till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther; but must give place to another.

For the Norse people, the Man now named Odin, and Chief Norse God, we fancy was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain of soul and of body; a Hero of worth immeasurable, admiration for whom, transcending the known bounds, became adoration. Has he not the power of articulate Thinking; and many other powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless gratitude, would the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the sphinx-enigma of this Universe; given assurance to them of their own destiny there? By him they know now what they have to do here, what to look for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious by him; he first has made Life alive!—We may call this Odin, the origin of Norse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse Thinker bore while he was a man among men. His view of the Universe once promulgated, a like view starts into being in all minds; grows, keeps ever growing, while it continues credible there. In all minds it lay written, but invisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it starts into visibility in all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all the others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world!

But what, exactly do we mean by Thought? The names of Odin's ravens are usually translated as “Thought” and “Memory.” But the Old Norse words Hugr and Munr tell another tale, as in this post from Dr. Stephan Grundy (2014):

The “hugr” word also, whatever it is translated as, *cannot* be interpreted as “thought” in the intellectual/left-brain sense. A better translation is the metaphorical “heart” or “spirit” (courage is also implied; hence the name Huginn could just mean “the brave”, or “the spirited”). Neither is Munr precisely “Memory” as such, though “The Mindful” is not a bad translation for Muninn, as the term “mindful” is coming to imply a lot of things that mostly could fit with munr. Though it could also, with equal justification, be translated as “the Desirous”.

But once we start delving into etymologies, our concept of “intellectual, left-brain” thinking as a cold, detached, and “rational” form of mentation begins to fray. To understand the nature of the “First Thinker,” let us consider his name.

In 1992, when I was just beginning to study Odin, I had the opportunity to hear a talk by Dr. Martin Schwartz on the meaning of “Wodanaz,” in which he explains that a number of attempts have been made to interpret Odin's name. There is, of course, Adam of Bremen's definition of the root wod as “frenzy.” Françoise Bader believed it came from words for Vision, whereas Edgar Polomé followed the more traditional approach favored by Paul Tima and others in deriving it from words for inspiration, or literally, a “blowing in.” This has the advantage of tracing back to the Proto-Indo-European *wet, “blowing,” which is how it is defined in the appendix of the American Heritage Dictionary Indo-European Roots. Eva Tische, on the other hand, translates the related Old Iranian vata as “knowledge” or “awareness” rather than as “wind.”

To illuminate these meanings, Schwartz (1992) continued with a discussion of the parallel evolution of the root men, with “words pertaining on the one hand to words meaning thought, perception, and on the other to frenzy, rage, madness, and the like.” He traced them through a number of old Indo-European languages that lead to words for “frenzy” (Greek, mania and manes, “sacred wrath”), for “thought or perception” and “memory” (the Gothic muns), and the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European menos, meaning a “dynamic energetic force.” What this adds up to is the idea that thinking, rather than being cool and “rational,” is “being all shook up, so to speak, as being in a state of inspiration or intense mental activity.”

In Old Norse, the root syllable Óðr has two meanings. Cleasby and Vigfusson's (1874) Old Norse dictionary gives it first as an adjective, “frantic, furious, vehement, eager.” As you saw in chapter 8, in this sense it is related to the Anglo-Saxon wod or Adam of Bremen's definition of Wodan as the Latin furor. However, as a noun it is “totally different from the preceding word,” with a meaning of “mind, wit, soul, sense.” It can also mean song, poetry, or speech. All of these are characteristic of Odin.

What is the difference between “Ódhr” and “Ódhinn”? According to Grundy (2017), “The -inn is a masculine adjectival. So the noun ódhr becomes the adjective ’Odhinn’ (loses that nominative -R); the noun hugr becomes the adjective ’Huginn,’ u.s.w. This isn't even an archaic-formation deal; it's the same in modern Icelandic.”

According to Polomé (1972, 59), Óðr is generally translated as something along the lines of “divine inspiration” or “inspired mental activity.” Adding “-inn” to Odin's name changes the state of being “all shook up” to shaking.

To my mind, the difference between the noun and the adjective is the difference between thinking about Odin and experiencing his presence. I would go further and say that Odin's name describes the excitement you feel when you get the best idea you've ever had, or a mental block gives way and the solution to a problem unfolds in your mind, an experience familiar to the artist, the musician, the writer, the mathematician, and the scientist. If Odhr is madness, it is an exalted state of creative consciousness, a holy ecstasy.

So what do we mean by the term “ecstasy”? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as (1) “an overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement,” or (2) “an emotional or religious frenzy or trancelike state, originally one involving an experience of mystic self-transcendence.” Mircea Eliade subtitled his monumental study of shamanism, “Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.” As described by Eliade (1972), shamanism is one of the many methods of altering consciousness to achieve a hierophany, a manifestation or revelation of the sacred. If we look at the meanings given for Óðr above, we begin to understand Odin as a god who changes how we think and feel.

As defined by Kris Kershaw (based on Maass 1954, 1997, 301),

Though it is common today to use the words “ecstasy” or “ecstatic” to describe the heightening of an individual emotion (usually joy), it seems clear that as it was manifested in ancient religions, ecstasy meant nothing less than the shaking up of the person's entire nervous system. It is experienced as an intoxication; it is the source of powers far beyond the ordinary; as with any intoxication, it is followed by sobriety. The mind, or consciousness, is raised to the point where it is cut off from the sensations of the body, and the real world, with its limitations, has been left behind. In all ancient accounts ecstasy is bound to cult; in all cases, the ecstatic's condition is brought about by the cult or serves the cult; it is always in some sense a religious experience. (Kershaw 2000, x)

In other words, the High One gets you high.

Odin's ecstasy incorporates all modes of consciousness, all ways of thinking. This account by Jennifer Tifft suggests some of the range and appeal.

I think I fell in love with Odin when I was five or six—of course, I called him Gandalf then. The wonder of words and the seduction of *knowing* was already beginning to work in me. And one of the most frightening and powerful moments in my childhood was when I realized that words had power outside of books, and that I, *I*, knowing that, had that power.

Watching my father (an astronomer) work with steady, lonely patience to discover *why* the redshift measurements fall out the way they do and what that might mean taught me that knowledge is bought with effort, the telling of it has consequence and may reshape the world, that people may be afraid of such knowing and telling and act out of that fear. And still the eye of the telescope looks out into the depths, searches the well of space, seeking mystery and light.

I am drunk on the mead of poetry, and cannot help but find inspiration in all places: true words on skilled and unskilled tongues, true sight in acting and dreaming and perceptive eyes, true knowledge in ignorance and intuition, sincere and off-hand search. Any means may be used to teach, to speak, to reach out. Sometimes I have the eyes to see.

I have felt the awful ecstasy of knowledge bought with sacrifice; the *need* to know that pushes past all pain, that watches, detached, alert, attentive, storing up just how it feels to suffocate, to freeze with grief, shake with fear, burn with anger, tremble with desire—or any other experience kinetic, metaphysic or aesthetic.

I know the need to find the words, to shape in sound and symbol things perceived and felt and known. I know, I *need* to know, I would make known. And in this, I know Odin, as an unforgiving, demanding and rewarding master.

Willingly, he has seduced me, made me drunk on , and ravished me; my fruitfulness is found in words, my children of the heart and mind and borne on breath and hand.

To those who see Odin as the august lord of the Æsir, he may seem a distant figure. As the Wanderer, he may challenge us. When he appears as Valfather or Bolverk, we hope he will keep his distance. But as Odin, he offers the transformation of consciousness. For centuries he went underground, his path revealed by flashes of inspiration and invention. Today we call his name aloud, and (sometimes even when he has not been called) he answers.

In the thirty years since my first encounter with Odin, I have met many others, both men and women, who have had close encounters of the “Thridhi” kind. For some, it was a singular but memorable experience; for others, the beginning of a relationship that has lasted lifelong. The poetry quoted in this book is a sample of his inspiration. As you can see on the website www.Odinspeaks.com, to some he speaks through dictation. Others are able to open their minds and release their bodies so that he can speak more directly. Although today the practice of god-possession is most familiar in the Afro-diasporic traditions, it is found in almost every culture, and there is compelling if not conclusive evidence that it was known in Scandinavia before the Viking Age.

So who is Odin, really? He communicates with us through music and poetry, in stories and in dreams, and sometimes he tells us his name . . .

“Do you know me, Shadow?” said Wednesday. He rode his wolf with his head high. His right eye glittered and flashed, his left eye was dull. He wore a cloak, with a deep, monk-like cowl, and his face stared out at them from the shadows. “I told you I would tell you my names. This is what they call me. I am Glad-of-War, Grim, Raider, and Third. I am One-Eyed. I am called Highest, and True-guesser. I am Grimnir and I am the Hooded-One. I am All-father, and I am Gondlir Wand-bearer. I have as many names as there are winds, as many titles as there are ways to die. My ravens are Huginn and Muninn: Thought and Memory; my wolves are Freki and Geri; my horse is the gallows.”

Two ghostly-gray ravens, like transparent skins of birds, landed on Wednesday's shoulders, pushed their beaks into the sides of Wednesday's head as if tasting his mind, and flapped out into the world once more.

What should I believe? thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: Believe everything.

“Odin?” said Shadow, and the wind whipped the word from his lips.

“Odin,” whispered Wednesday, and the crash of the breakers on the beach of skulls was not loud enough to drown that whisper. “Odin,” said Wednesday, tasting the sound of the words in his mouth. “Odin,” said Wednesday, his voice a triumphant shout that echoed from horizon to horizon. His name swelled and grew and filled the world like the pounding of blood in Shadow's ears. (Gaiman 2001, 119)

Practice

1. Seeing

Choose a subject, such as a mandala, a stone, or a flower.

Identify your strongest eye and close the other. Contemplate your subject, noting everything about it that you would put into a scientific description. Next, close that eye and open your weaker eye. Look at your subject again, reaching out to its essence, letting associations and emotions rise. Now, close both eyes. Consider your subject. What have you learned?

2. Write a praise poem for Odin.

Go to the Hattatál in the Younger Edda, or a good discussion of Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetry, and choose a poetic format. Use it to write a praise poem for one of Odin's aspects. Make use of alliteration and kennings.

3. Learn a new language.

A Germanic language such as Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse will help you understand the lore, but increasing your knowledge of mathematics or science may do more to expand your consciousness.

4. Learn to write or speak Odin's words.

Just as Teresa of Avila took down the dictated words of her God, Odin sometimes gives counsel, and as he spoke through Starkad's foster father, he possesses mediums today. For discussion and instruction in these skills, see my book Possession, Depossession, and Divine Relationships. You can find examples of dictation from Odin at www.odinspeaks.com.

5. Ninth Night Meditation: God of Ecstasy

Set up your altar as usual and light a white candle. Add any other items that have become a link with Odin. Fill a small glass bowl with mead. Have a piece of paper and pen nearby. Then say:

Odin, by these names I invoke you:

Fjolnir (Wide of Wisdom)

Blindi (Blind)

Fimbulthul (Mighty Singer)

With every breath I take

And every word upon the wind,

With every thought I think

And act of memory or mind.

I work Thy will within the world,

I sing the passion of Thy soul,

I am the living Vé where self

To Self is offered and made whole.

Take the bowl of mead and drink three times, savoring the sweetness, exulting in its fire.

When you have drunk, sit quietly, contemplating the candle flame, allowing your vision to fill with light. Breathe slowly and deeply, taking in light each time you inhale, and feeling that light spread through your body each time you let a breath go. Close your eyes and visualize the Well of Mimir, its waters rippling and flashing with images half-seen.

Bring to mind Odin's names and faces—all the images you have encountered as you studied him. Who is he really?

Three times, articulate the syllable that is the root of Odin's name—Wodh . . . wodh . . . wodh . . .

Gaze into the Well. Do you see images? Hear words? Feel sensations for which you have no names? Take your time.

When you feel awareness returning to normal, quicken your breathing and open your eyes. Write down any impressions or inspirations that have come to you.

When you have finished, give thanks to the god. A long drink of plain water will help restore you to ordinary consciousness.