The curious poetic kenning “thing of dreams” appears in the Scandinavian heroic poem Helgakvitha Hundingsbana II from the Poetic Edda. In Henry Adams Bellows’s translation, this kenning drew a footnote to which various editors have speculated that the line in question may be a spurious addition, depending on who was saying what at the time in the poem. The passage in question says:
“Now if I would come, if I could come,
the son of Sigmund, from the throne of Othin;
Hope dims of the hero’s return
When eagles perch on the branches of the ash trees,
And men seek the meeting of dreams.
(Verse 49, emphasis added).
Bellows highlights the more literal translation of “dream meetings” as “dream thing” in his footnote. This, of course, ties the concept of dreaming back to the Germanic “althing,” the legislative assembly ruled by Gothic priests and overseen by the Asgardian god of war, Tyr. The literal sense of Old Norse poetry would point out that the “dream thing” is simply a kenning for sleep. However, the broader translation as “dream assemblage” suggests that kenning is a form of seed for a common concept in occult circles that extends even beyond Indo-European cultures. Not surprisingly, when we look for parallels to the concept of the “dream thing” outside of the Northern tradition, we simultaneously find sources of inspiration and frustration.
One of the first attempts to revive Germanic religion and culture was made by the Swedish antiquarian Johannes Bureus, as recounted in Stephen Flowers’ book Johannes Bureus and the Adalruna. The Swedish royal family commissioned Bureus (1568-1652) to learn all he could about the ancient rune pentagrams that still exist in the Swedish countryside. When Bureus finally published his works on his runic discoveries, he showed evident signs that he had been influenced by the mystical fraternity of the “Rosicrucians” or Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians. It seems clear to researchers like Flowers that Bureus was in fact an early member of that fraternity. Thus, from very early in the efforts to revive Gothic culture, the Rosicrucian fraternity has been a conduit of influence between Germanic religion and esoteric Christianity. What is interesting here, however, is that in the Fama Fraternitatis, the manifesto proclaiming the existence of the fraternity in Germany in 1614, there is a reference to what we might call a “dream assembly.” The manifesto stated that it was a rule within the fraternity that all members must meet in the “House of the Holy Spirit” on a specific day of the year, or provide the fraternity with an excuse for their absence. This “House of the Holy Spirit” was said to exist as a kind of “heavenly fortress” on the Astral Plane.
First, though, let me step back to state what should be glaringly obvious: if a Google search could collect every last time words were used in the language of a search, and the words “holy spirit” were typed into the search machine. , then never in all of history has a taller and heavier pile of steaming verbal excrement been assembled for human consumption. And yet, at the bottom of the pile, the greatest treasure of the Jewish Kabbalists would remain intact and undiminished. It was the ramblings piled high on Judaism by Christianity, this bullshit about Judaism’s most sacred mystical practices, which was among Christianity’s most stinking offenses. Through an endless stream of “holy ghost” chatter, mainstream Christians have managed to hide the fact that originally there was a very important set of mystical practices that fell under the heading of what in English we call “holy ghost.” .” Modern Kabbalists have written about the practice of “ruach ha kadosh” (Hebrew for “holy spirit”) in books such as Rabbi David Cooper’s “God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism” (Riverhead Books, 1997).The practice was of paramount importance in reaching higher states of consciousness necessary for enlightenment and ascending to higher worlds.
However, within the “clandestine” of Christianity in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Brotherhood of the Rosicrucian carried out a practice known allegorically as reaching the “House of the Holy Spirit”. Given the aforementioned pile of verbiage, the Rosicrucians have been able for centuries to hide the vestiges of a sacred teaching in plain sight, mostly unsuspected. A remnant of these teachings, and by extension a remnant of the Kabbalistic teaching of the ruach ha kadosh, can be preserved in H. Spencer Lewis’s monograph, Liber 777, not to be confused with Aleister Crowley’s book of the same title. In Liber 777, the Rosicrucian initiates of AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis) are taught to reach the “celestial sanctum” through a series of visual exercises, concentration and relaxation techniques. The results of such practices are brilliantly expanded upon in Raymond Bernard’s Messages of the Celestial Sanctum, published by AMORC. Bernard describes in detail his regular meetings with the “ascended masters” of the Great White Brotherhood in the fortress’s vast Gothic cathedral on the inner planes. In the Rosicrucian Manual it is stated that beyond the 9th Degree of the Temple of AMORC, the initiation takes place only within the psychic planes. (The technique for “psychic projection” is taught in the 7th Degree of the Temple.) The officials of the aforementioned “Great White Lodge” would perhaps be the emissaries of those whom in the northern tradition we would call “ginnregin” or “divines”. advisers”.
German researcher Willy Schrodter speculated in his Rosicrucian Notebook (Weiser, 1992) that the Rosicrucian Order may have absorbed their trance and out-of-body techniques from Arabs and possibly even a secret remnant of the Cathars in southern France (not to mention Jewish occult practitioners). from ruach ha kadosh). What is clear, however, is that Rosicrucians have always believed that “the first initiation is in dreams,” as Schrodter summed up the ideas of one of the early Rosicrucian thinkers. Yet that same Rosicrucian teaching, authentic as the notion may have originally been, has also proved to be the undoing of the fraternity. If all a person has to do is astral project to the psychic temple of a great Tibetan guru, that opens the door to all sorts of foolish suitors. After all, astral initiations would leave no trace of initiation records, certificates, and due cards on the physical planes. Needless to say, there has always been an endless stream of claimants who claim to have received “Rosicrucian” initiation in secret temples on the inner planes, and their work tends to present them as fakes and phonies. This phenomenon has been to the horror of careful and pompous academic researchers of the Rosicrucian movement such as Arthur Edward Waite.
However, just because there have been a myriad of abuses in what Stephen Flowers affectionately calls the world of the “occult fool”, does not mean that we should completely rule out the possibility of the existence of such dream encounters. I could cite my own experience in which for three nights in a row I dreamed of a dark-haired woman wearing a black velvet blouse and a silver bracelet. I intuitively felt that she was some kind of “gothic priestess”. (As if the silver bracelet itself wasn’t a dead giveaway.) Then after the third night of dreaming, I put this same woman down the aisle of the dollar store looking for underwear. I immediately felt that there was something mysterious about the woman and we struck up a conversation in the underwear aisle. I found out that she was interested in shamanism, and Native American shamans would normally recognize her as a shamanic priestess at first sight. She invited me to meet her pet bobcat named “Cheyenne.” It wasn’t until she put on the velvet blouse and silver bracelet I’d seen in my dreams that I made the connection to the woman I’d dreamed of for the past three nights. As it turned out, she claimed that in those same three nights she had dreamed of a man who later realized that she was me. Knowing that I myself was not lying, I believed what she said. Also, if I hadn’t dreamed about her, I might not have engaged in a conversation with her in public and I never would have had the experience of having an oversized snow-white bobcat walking up to me and rubbing its head against my torso as I did. he sniffed the armpits. They told me that the female lynx had not been bred and that she liked my male pheromones. Whatever the “authenticity” of my dream encounter may be to religious history purists, I really don’t care, as it led to an experience that could truly be described as “shamanic.”
In any case, people experienced in lucid dreaming and astral projection sometimes come across these human-made places or frat clubs in the inner landscape. In his book Dreamgates, Robert Moss describes encountering a Rosicrucian site that resembles Le Mont San Michele in Normandy, France. This island citadel with a Gothic cathedral fits descriptions of the Rosicrucian “heavenly sanctuary,” so it’s no surprise that the fraternity’s astral clubhouse resembles Le Mont San Michele. There Moss describes having read a book written by himself in the future within one of the libraries of the “Invisible College” of the Rosicrucians. Incidentally, the location of Le Mont San Michele and Saint Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, England, were associated with the Celtic god Lugh, according to Celtic researcher Jean Markale. Lugh is often seen as the Celtic parallel to the Germanic god Odin. So I find it interesting that the template for the Rosicrucian inner fortress is located on what amounts to an ancient Druid/Gothic holy site.
In hermetic occult circles the teaching of the creation of “egregores” or “psychogones” subsists. These are humanly created beings on the inner planes who live to perform some service, usually related to the maintenance of the esoteric organization itself. It is literally the group spirit incarnated in human or animal form. By repeatedly visualizing this creature, initiates add strength, vitality, and a modicum of self-awareness to the astral creature. The same principle could be applied to the notion of celestial strength on the inner planes. Except, in this case, the initiates would be visualizing a landscape instead of a creature. Taken from another angle, one could even say that the Poetic Edda tradition itself helps foster this type of construction of holy places on the inner planes. Every time a person reads about Valhalla or Asgard buildings, we imagine the places in our mind, adding our energy to the visualized place. Occultists believe that these visualized accumulations have actual existence on the astral planes. In that sense, Valhalla could be seen as a collective mindscape that could potentially function in a similar way to the “Invisible College” of the Rosicrucians.
It can be argued that the concept of “dream thing”, as developed here, existed at least in seed form within Old Norse poetic kennings. Or, we can agree with some scholars and their footnotes that the line in question may be a spurious insertion, and thus the notion derives from Jewish Kabbalists rather than having roots in tradition. from North. I believe that the notion of dream-thing should have a place within our tradition. Just because abuses of parallel concepts have been the undoing of many in the world of “occult idiots” doesn’t mean we should shy away from exploring such possibilities. Experience may yet show that our best galdraholl (room of magical enchantments) is the “thing of dreams.”