The Etiquette of Alternate Reality

There are two ways that I know of to visit another world. (There may be more, but I don't know about them yet.) One is traditionally referred to as "journeying" (if you're Pagan), or "faring forth" (if you're a Heathen seidhr-worker), or "astral travel" (if you're a New Ager). It consists, at its most simplest, of removing your astral body from your physical body (leaving it connected by a cord of energy) and taking it elsewhere. Some do it alone, others in a controlled ritual with people present to monitor the body and hopefully "pull back" the astral body if the journeyer gets in trouble.

The second method I have come to call pathwalking, and it is a little more difficult, but it can sometimes be utilized be people who can't leave their physical bodies for whatever reason. I will go into both these methods in succeeding chapters, because most people who visit the Nine Worlds get there by one or the other of them. But this brings us back to the question that should have been implicit at the beginning of this book: why bother? Why travel the Nine Worlds, or any other worlds, at all? After all, it likely won't pay your credit card bills, find you a girlfriend or boyfriend, or get you a better job. Wouldn't you be better off concentrating on this world?

Frankly, I'm not going to say that everyone ought to be out walking other worlds. Most people probably shouldn't, especially if they have no training and no understanding of what they are getting into. But like sex among teenagers, some people in the Pagan and Heathen demographics are doing it anyway, with various levels of skill and knowledge. Some of them are going places that are more real, and thus more dangerous, than they expected. Some are getting into trouble. If they are going to be doing it anyway, it seems that they ought to be aided rather than merely admonished and left to their own devices.

Long ago, before the age of easy travel, explorers made maps of the place that they had traveled. Often there were large empty places where they'd never made it through; these might have borne signs like "Here Be Monsters". Strange people and animals lived there, in uncharted (to them) territory, people and animals who might object strenuously to the presence of strangers wandering through. Each explorer grew the map a little larger and a little more detailed, so fewer travelers stumbled in and never came out again. This book, with its collected experiences from many different worldwalkers, is rather like one of those old maps. There are still plenty of unexplored places where we suspect there are monsters....and there are plenty of well-marked places where we know there are monsters, and travelers should beware.

Here I need to put in a word or twenty on the nature of reality, and of these alternate worlds. A guided meditation, as we'll go into in the next chapter, is not the same as journeying. That doesn't mean that when people do a guided meditation together, they aren't going anywhere but their own heads. They might be going somewhere in their own heads, or they might be visiting a kind of archetypal world-space that seems to exist as a cosmic construct attached to the collective unconscious. This cosmic construct, like a Star Trek holodeck, is sensitive to those who touch it, and can become a kind of idealized facsimile of wherever it is that they are trying to go, be it Asgard or Brooklyn. Most people who go there realize suddenly that they're somewhere besides their own heads - wow! - and decide that they are really, truly in Asgard or Olympus or wherever it was that they were trying to go. This can happen with early attempts at journeying, too. In fact, some people never get beyond this place.

The problem is that it's not really Asgard or Olympus or even Brooklyn. Going there is rather like going to Disney's Epcot Center World Showcase and then saying that you've been to China, Italy, and Mexico. In fact, those of us who worldwalk regularly refer to it as "the Disney ride". In a Disney ride, everyone speaks your language, is friendly and helpful, wants to make sure that you have a good time, and never tries to kill you. If you throw popcorn at the waving god puppets, the worst that will happen is that you might get bounced out.

In the actual Nine Worlds - or the many otherworld equivalents - inhabitants are not there to teach you, mentor you, or even talk to you. Some of them might be friendly just because they're that sort; some will lie to you. Some will not want you there, and may try to throw you out, or prevent you from entering, or worse. Every animal you meet is not your potential totem or spirit animal. Some of them may consider you to be an intruder, or food. Every hall whose door you bang on is not going to let you in with no payment and no questions asked. Things aren't always aesthetically pretty, especially if you're among nonhumanoid types. People don't act the way you expect them to. In fact, they may be unable to - or refuse to - speak your tongue.

Those of us who want to world-walk for real need to get over the idea that otherworlds exist for our own edification and amusement. They do not, any more than the denizens of foreign cities exist to help you find your way around, teach you the native arts, let you invade their homes to gawk, and politely ignore your rude and crass ignorance of their manners and customs. We also need to get over the idea that we have an automatic right to be there, which we don't. We are there by the sufferance of the Gods and spirits who order those realms, and those worlds are their territory, not ours. We need to stop acting like superior tourists; it is not in our best interest to play the archetypal Ugly American all over the multiverse.

The divine equivalent to the Disney ride is the divine answering machine. This is a phenomenon that those of us who work closely with deities have observed for quite a while. If you approach a deity who does not wish to speak to you directly, you get the cosmic equivalent of their answering machine. A deity's cosmic answering machine is complex, impressive, and it can do a lot of things, including give advice, recite key statements, receive prayers, and put out a little power for appropriate magicks. It is not, however, the voice of the deity itself. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, although one may be fooled into thinking that the voice of man (or an archetype) is the voice of deity, no one could ever mistake the actual presence and voice of deity for anything but what it is.

Approaching the deity without believing in them is almost sure to get you the answering machine, and if you've never heard anything else, you might not ever know the difference. The sole exception to that is if a deity takes an interest in you, and decides to make sure that you really believe in them. If that happens, they generally win, if you're important enough to them. If you keep your eyes staunchly closed, they may give up and move on, deciding that you're not worth it.

On the other hand, some people may scream into the void repeatedly and be denied an answer, never be spoken to by divine voices. I am not certain, myself, whether this is because they don't know how to listen, or because it is their orlog this time around to make their own decisions (and mistakes), and not be guided by other hands. Perhaps they are not yet at a time in their life where they can hear the Gods and spirits and not simply argue with them, or perhaps it's something else entirely. However, this has always been the real schism in any religion or spiritual community....not between those who believe and those who don't, or between two different sets of beliefs, but between those who follow what's written down or taught because they have no other experience, and those who the Gods and spirits bother and pester, and who take their beliefs from that. Mystics have always been the real troublemakers, even more so than infidels.

Today, those who have conversations with Gods and spirits are dismissed as nutballs. I'm always annoyed by the attitudes of anthropologists who write about native shamans and spirit-workers with the subtle attitude of "So tell me about these alleged spirits of yours." I'm also annoyed by anthropologists who write about their practices and include only those details that they find interesting, or quaint, or shocking, or as proving some thesis. Part of this is personal; many of us have been involved for years in the practice of uncovering and researching the shamanic roots and practices of northern European and Eurasian religions, especially the ones that have been lost and have few or no surviving practitioners. There's nothing more infuriating than reading the account of some snooty Victorian scholar telling how he observed a shaman or spirit-worker doing some now-lost rite, and he merely comments about how the shaman "did something odd with piles of herbs", and the little ding goes off in my head as if to say, "You're supposed to learn that," and I scream at the empty pages, "What! What kinds of herbs! What did he do!"

I was recently interviewed by an anthropology student, and I pointed out to her that we were once again, ironically, in the same position as those long-deceased scholars and tribal spirit-workers. I stressed that she should keep in mind, while writing any paper that might be published and added to a body of permanent work, that someday someone might be desperately trying to reconstruct something from books because they no longer have access to human beings who hold that information orally. I told her to keep that in mind for anything she wrote; to consider what would be most helpful, not just in getting her a good grade, but for that possible future researcher and would-be shaman. What would he or she read in that paper that would help to confirm their course, or give them useful advice? It's a challenge I hold out to all academic writers on the subject matter.

Many books on shamanism stress that world-walking is entirely safe, or mostly safe as long as you don't go into those nasty areas, which will of course be clearly marked in a way that a modern Westerner will find symbolically meaningful. When I read or hear this, I have to assume that they're all on the Disney ride. Not that there's anything wrong with that; the Disney ride is put there for a reason. I'd rather have ugly Americans being ignorant and obnoxious at the China World Showcase than in Beijing, and I'd rather have seekers trying to enrich their lives and learn more about themselves during guided meditation to the "archetypal spiritual holodeck", as a friend put it, than actually bothering real nonhuman individuals on their own territory.

To actually walk other worlds, you should have a reason for going there besides your own amusement or even your own personal growth. The nine-day journey that I describe in this book was on the order of an orientation tour; it was meant to get me familiar with the territory so that I could go back there for purposes of doing work for others. I've since been sent back to one world or another for a variety of duties: bearing messages (that's a common one), finding lost pieces of people, asking advice for seekers who can't (or shouldn't) go themselves, and so on. Part of being a real shaman is being a public utility, a servant for the community. (I'll go into that in another chapter.) While a certain amount of wandering about to get the lay of the land is useful, it's only preparation for other tasks. If you don't have a good reason to go there, don't. This should not be something that people do because they are bored on a Saturday night, or want to think that they're cool and powerful.

Going to the otherworlds to gain personal wisdom is a reason that can be both good and bad. While a quest for wisdom is always honorable - after all, Odhinn did it - please don't go in with the attitude that your spirit teacher is waiting for you there (unless you've been specifically told that, in which case they will make arrangements to get you to their door with a minimum of wandering about) or that everything and everyone that you meet is going to be willing to teach you something (besides the lesson of minding your own business so that you don't get hurt). Imagine going on a quest to find knowledge and teachers in the slums of Los Angeles or New York City. It's not that there aren't any, but you don't want to be buttonholing every stranger hanging out on a stoop and asking them to teach you. It could be unhealthy. Parts of the Nine Worlds can be like that.

If you do go, there are some basic rules to follow. Many of these rules, ironically, can be found in folktales of fools and jacks and maidens who go on journeys themselves - so many of them, in fact, that one wonders if some of these folktales existed to subtly teach worldwalking etiquette, just in case. In her wonderful article "Guidelines For Travel In Other Worlds", Ragnheid lists quite a few rules skinned from folktales, some of which I will paraphrase here:

1. Be vigilant; stop and analyze a situation before leaping in. Look carefully at the participants and how they are interacting with each other; remember that you are in an alien culture and people might not be reacting in familiar ways.

2. See if all the individuals or objects involved are really what they seem. This means that you had best learn to see through glamour, if possible. Some glamour will still probably fool you, but if you stop and check before jumping in, you might notice that disguised pit at your feet. Many a folktale has a brave lad or lass saved because they had anti-glamour precautions.

3. If you want to approach someone or something, pause within their field of vision, bow or otherwise give a nonverbal signal that says you would respectfully like their attention, and check their reaction. If they ignore you or glare at you, keep walking. If they acknowledge you in a neutral or positive way, approach and speak to them as courteously as possible.

4. If you are asked questions, be truthful. The one exception to that is telling your true name to faeries, and we'll address that in the chapters about the Alfar realms. But if they ask you where you are from, don't be shifty, or assume that they wouldn't know where Cincinnati is, so why bother to tell them. That's not the point; your truthful answer, even if it is unfamiliar to them, will be more proof to them of your trustworthiness. Don't assume that the individual you are speaking to cannot sniff out lies. If it's important to you to get your home place across to them, you can say, "the sister-world of Midgard", which many of them know of, or at least will nod and move on.

5. If someone or something asks to travel with you, you should probably accept their company, unless your intuition screams otherwise (we'll cover how to tell friend from foe in another chapter), but don't assume that by doing so they are automatically putting themselves in the position of "native guide".

6. If they do offer to be your native guide, or do some other sort of useful task for you, ask them how you can repay them for it. The Nine Worlds are very definitely "no such thing as a free lunch" sorts of places. They may tell you up front about the conditions for their help; you might want to do some divination to see if it is worth your while. If they don't say it up front, ask, politely, putting across the assumption that of course you will repay them in whatever way is possible. Make sure you get the price fixed before you accept the services. Don't try to cheat them, or get the better of the deal; your honor and your maegen is on the line here, and is being judged. You can always invoke the name of Syn (Frigga's handmaiden who watches over lawful and fair contracts) when you agree, and ask them to do the same. (Don't settle for a price of merely owing them a nonspecified favor at some point in the future. That could get you in trouble.)

7. If someone or something asks for your help, and you can give it out of generosity with little loss to yourself, do it. That especially goes for sharing food - bring more than necessary, and share it with any who ask, or who look at you hungrily when you get out your lunch. If they ask for help on something that seems beyond your powers, ask if they can tell you how to do it; they may not know how ignorant you are about their world, and it might not have occurred to them to give the details in the original explanation. Unlike accepting help, don't set a price on it. Just do it, and then let them owe you the favor and be in your debt, and then you can (gently and courteously) bargain for a favor, or just let it be a mitzvah, as it were.

8. If you promise you will do something, do it. No exceptions. If it is truly impossible, ask if there is something else that you can do instead that will be a fair substitution. Don't substitute anything yourself, assuming that you know best.

9. If someone or something gives you a token of some sort, keep it. It might be useful later, if only to prove to someone else you might meet that you really did speak with that person.

10. If you undertake a task for someone or something, do it to the best of your ability. If you can't do it alone, ask for help. It may be that the Powers That Be will send some. Be smart enough to recognize it when it comes.

11. Don't judge nonhumans by human standards of beauty or behavior. Don't flinch when someone you find physically ugly touches you; that's an insult.

12. If someone screws you over, before taking any kind of revenge, figure out if they did it because it is a function of their nature....in which case they will not learn from your vengeance, and it's a waste of time. A better thing to do would be to lay a changing spell on them, although that may not work.

13. If you run across someone or something who is bound to help or serve you because of a geas or spell placed on them, ask if there is anything that you can do to help them. On occasion, just asking can break the spell, or perhaps there is something you can do, but they can't tell you unless you ask of your own free will. If there is nothing you can do, then be as kind and polite and considerate to them as possible while they do their job, and get it over with quickly so as to make yourself as little burden as possible.

14. On the other hand, if you run across someone who offers to serve you because it is their job to do so and they are proud of that job, accept the service graciously, treat them courteously, and don't tell them that they ought to be off living their own life.

15. Don't hare off on adventures with people that you meet without getting good information on where you are going, what that place is like, and why you are bothering. Don't take the advice of strangers who tell you about interesting places and cool treasure.

16. Be careful what you eat and drink. You can always pour it out as a libation to the Gods, and they usually will not gainsay you. We'll get to food in a later chapter....

17. Don't assume that you know best the about needs for any other being in the Nine Worlds. You don't.

If you can go with this kind of respectful attitude, then maybe you can get through without creating too much havoc. Actually, the best reason of all to go is that the Gods and spirits (or some combination of the above) are telling you that you have to. If you're not sure, go to a good honest runemal and get some divination. Don't do it yourself; you won't be objective enough. Do pray, though, and talk to your patron deity, or a deity that you trust.

And be willing to take no, or not yet, for an answer.

Raven Kaldera
cauldronfarm@hotmail.com

[Pathwalker's Guide to the Nine Worlds]