Welcome to the first ever episode of the chimeraZ podcast. In this episode, we are interviewing our guest Grimalf on the topic of Norse paganism, Gods, and spirituality.
Find him on his podcast site @ The Northern Paths • A podcast on Spotify for Podcasters
Visit our website @ The chimeraZ Podcast (buzzsprout.com)
Consider joining our official Discord server
For all associated links visit our Vista Page
Welcome to the first ever episode of the chimeraZ podcast. In this episode, we are interviewing our guest Grimalf on the topic of Norse paganism, Gods, and spirituality.
Find him on his podcast site @ The Northern Paths • A podcast on Spotify for Podcasters
Visit our website @ The chimeraZ Podcast (buzzsprout.com)
Consider joining our official Discord server
For all associated links visit our Vista Page
hello welcome to the first ever chimeraZ podcast episode in this episode we will be discussing the topics of Norse paganism gods and spirituality if you enjoy this podcast make sure to leave a like share and subscribe to your producers at chimeraZ I am your host Kelvin and this is our first ever guest please introduce yourself hello my name is a grimalf I am a Norse Pagan I've been a Norse Pagan for about I would say we're getting closer to 5 years now um I'm 24 and I've been reading up on paganism since I was about 14 so I have all kinds of fun experiences and all in all kinds of groups and all kinds of weird uh I guess experiences with spirits and the gods of Norse paganism which we can we can discuss some of that later excellent all right could you elaborate on the different types of spirits recognized in Norse Pagan spirituality and their roles well um in in in many ways how the saying goes you know art imitates life I mean a lot of the spirits in Norse paganism they have their roles but they are almost completely outside of ourselves and have their they have their own agendas and do their own things so to break it down we have levels of spirits I mean we have the gods we have um the spirits of humanity and those Associated spirits to it that are there to help humans and then you have more um outside forces from the gods such as the elves or the Giants or another word for the Giants in North paganism is yatar and then you have the durar or the dwarves or and some believe them to actually be just Dark Elves or black elves it's very it's very hard to get a clear answer on some things like this because a lot of times there were so many tribes in one area that thought a million in one things about the same topic and because their experiences were very different from person to person tribe to tribe so generally you have you know the gods Spirit regular Spirits even just like spirits of the land or ghosts and then elves dwarves Giants you know stereotypical fantasy stuff sometimes excellent um now would you say you have any personal experiences with any kinds of external external Spirits in your everyday life well that's a that's an interesting question because all my let me let me preface this by saying that growing up I was Christian I I my grandfather was a pastor my mother was very devout but she had always kind of told me there are gray areas and you need to figure that out and figure out where you are in that whole world because like her I have these weird experiences all the time with Spirits I have like this six sense when it comes to those types of beings and them these almost in a way creatures um and and it goes as far back is when I was like one or two years old I mean my first experience with the spirit was I would see this person in my closet at night and it would rush me and be in my face screaming and I would start screaming and no one knew what was going on just that I was screaming in the night oh that must have been scary I can still remember the nightmares that I had afterwards cuz for the longest time I thought that was a nightmare I I really did and my mother explained like know that that legitimately happened your grandfather would hear it he was the only one who did and he would wake me up and like try and get me to help you but I didn't know what was going on at first and then she figured it out and braided the spirit out all right all right so what was a defining moment for you in your spiritual journey with Norris paganism H to come to my mind but I think the re the really defining moment was this this is going to sound crazy to some people but when I was I had joined this group who were supposedly Norse Pagan which I don't want to particularly talk about that group because um I I in my opinion that was a cult and I a lot of things happened that were not exactly great and they of led me astray From the Path I was meant to be on but one moment that really kind of made me start kind of trying to think outside of like my Christian upbringing was I was outside at night in I lived in Florida at one point and I was just running around the street because I was just so angry I was so confused I didn't understand what was going on because I was having these kind of like these moments like like some medical professionals would probably call it just an episode of high anxiety and possible hallucinations which I didn't feel like it was that and I was running and I just it was the only time like I was having a quiet moment and it was not storming but um there's this phenomenon called heat lightning where you know you'll have lightning dance across the sky and light up everything and there was a moment where there was a Flash and then I looked up another flash happen happened right after it and I saw a man a massive man in the clouds from that shadow of just clouds and he wielded this hammer and then it was gone as quickly as I saw it and I just felt like this weird overwhelming sense of just power like n like the power of nature in a weird way if that makes sense yes uh when you mentioned a hammer uh that comes to that brings to mind Thor in Norse mythology would you say that you experienced a physical interaction with the god Thunder Thor or is it the God of Thunder it's it's the God of Thunder but I mean Thor has millions of names I mean you look at anything and really start trying to connect dots but I I like to think I did or at the very least I saw someone else's experience with Thor if that if that kind of makes sense like because sometimes not everyone's experience spiritually is going to make sense because there are some people who are able to pick up on the spiritual interactions between a God and another person and they can see it physically happen it's it's the most amazing thing once you actually see it oh something like a near-death experience for some yeah I mean there there is ratings writings and actual accounts of like some people who Proclaim themselves Shaman like I do and their spiritual experience is just being ripped apart and then being put back together like like pieces in a puzzle and then the certain part isn't there for whatever work that Shaman's meant to do and when this happens some Shaman are not the same like there there's a change that occurs physically it's the weirdest thing a change um so one one Shaman that comes to my mind and I mean this person is very uh divisive in the Pagan Community some think charlatan whatever but Raven Caldera is a good example like if I I might be getting this wrong so I mean don't entirely quote me but I'm I have some of the basics Raven Caldera was a woman I believe and she had this experience and this Vision that occurred where she was being ripped apart and put back together and when that happened it was in the form of a man and when they when Raven went through everything to you know kind of change it was so much faster than it should have been supposedly like it didn't make sense to a lot of medical professionals it's like well your body is taking really well to the testosterone and all this other stuff like I I don't understand it interesting interesting all right so can you describe a specific ritual involving spirits and it significance in your practice um one ritual because there are some rituals I kind of like try to keep closer to my chest and make sure I don't say too much about this one is pretty it's pretty simple pretty easy a lot of people can do it it's it's based off of what the the actual Vikings and Norse people would do is they would go out into the woods find a tree and they would just drink Mead which is like a honey wine and wait and sit out there in silence and meditation until the spirits of whatever ancestors the land Spirits elves any number of things begins to come to that person and kind of convey messages or visions or any any type of thing depending on the person all right so have you uh you mentioned me is that something that you use frequently in your rituals um for what I do I don't really use ritual a whole lot I I'll use it for important things mind you but yes me is a very like it is a Cornerstone to a lot of spiritual practice and Norse paganism or well original Norse paganism and what ancestors practice because one of the major stories of Odin is about the meat of inspiration this this this object and liquid that was meant to help give him more wisdom once he had become you know the king of Asgard and everything else he needed more wisdom to understand everything and be able to conquer any threat that was in front of him all right very interesting all right so how do runes influence your practice and beliefs well for for me runes um to preface this uh runes are essentially the building blocks of reality itself these are the I know it's like just you know symbols on a piece of wood or whatever you have on on a piece of paper but the deeper meaning to it is each Rune represents a concept or a fact of Nature and the cosmos that is represented through these rooms and a lot of times like for me personally right now now I'm using the runes to help understand myself and understand my abilities and my sense of self and I mean it it covers everything like there is there's a rune about fire and it's the deeper meaning to it is not just fire but the the drive to begin a journey of the eso into the esoteric Mysteries of the universe like it's it it it influences a lot it it changes a lot of what people think and what people see once they're a part of it and once they figure out that code and that those Secrets because an interesting bit of fact is run comes from the word secret oh is that a uh a Latin translation um I forget what it was I mean it could have been proton Norse it could have been Proto Germanic I mean it it could have been any number of things but to my to my memory the actual base meaning behind Rune is secret and that that that gives you a good idea right there and then yes uh I'm sure there's a lot of runes uh everywhere in nature that are influencing our lives every day I mean definitely it's just once you start going into it and you for me I had to just wait and be told okay you are ready by the spirit and by a close friend of mine who has much more experience with ruines than I do all right so how do you interact with other practitioners who may have different roles or beliefs within North North paganism with this when I when when you had sent me this whole list of questions and when I read this my immediate thought wasn't like um because in in paganism you have of course different pantheons that are respected and honored by different people this question made me think more about because I'm a shaman and or at least I call myself a shaman I mean go from take that as you will but there are these people called the vidy who are wi in a sense they're Are wizards but they the purpose of the vidy is to understand the universe and influence it into what they want so you have like very almost Lord of the Rings type of idea of like these Wizards who are some want you know peace and they want this just peace to go across the land and then you have the ones that want to conquer things and want to control people like so the different roles and the different beliefs kind of stem from their experiences so for me I experience what I experience I am not going to try and tell a vid key that their experience is wrong or that they that something isn't right if it's really like they're telling me like oh yeah um this Spirit told me I needed to throw myself in a fire like H I don't I don't think that meant you know literally my friend I think that meant more figuratively but I tried to take it in stride and like take into account what they're saying and compare it to what I know and see where where is the middle of it because a wizard a pagan who is who calls himself a wizard and a pagan who calls himself a shaman and a pagan who calls himself a warrior are all going to be very different in terms terms of application of the Pagan beliefs and rights all right so when you mentioned Viki am I pronouncing that right uh would you say that they are a very influential group in modern society I would say at one point vidy were influential let's let's let me take it this route and in the histories if you read up about just uh the history of Norway you have this figure this king um Olaf trivison he was a Christian king of Norway and one of the things that he did was he drowned dozens if not hundreds of vidy all at once because he did not want their power to influence his Rule and he wanted to eradicate paganism from Norway so I believe there are some Bloodlines that are connected to those vidy alive still do I think some are influential into you know General paganism I I do but I don't think they realize it yet all right that's something to think about okay so what is the most common misconception about your practice and how do you address it um so I think the most common misconception would be the um belief that I am like stealing the the term Shaman from native folk or from other people and it's like number that is like the most Mis like giant misconception I've ever had doing this so far and I hav been doing it long but I always kind of have to explain that I use the word Shaman because there is this moment of being torn apart and being reformed and and to be a tool for what the spirits or the spirit world or whatever God is in charge of you it it is making you a tool for them and that is what shamans were so I'm not saying I'm a shaman I just have no better word for it because there was no word for what I was at least not today there is no surviving text or anything oh okay so as you are describing yourself would you say that your role as not a shot but AG kind of Shaman um how do you fulfill your role every day in your life uh being what you are well there are times where I don't feel like I'm fulfilling it in the way I should it's it's kind of like that weird thing where you have apprehension towards certain stuff and you have apprehensions towards putting yourself out there like oh well if this doesn't work then what am I going to do it's it kind of this is this is what all of this is like me making my podcast starting to you know open up into Reddit and start like kind of like talking about these things like pursuing what I can this that that is me trying to I don't know try and get what I'm supposed to do out there you know yes I understand I I can relate on a spiritual level I guess so I mean I also started podcasting as a way to release some of my spiritual desires so if that's something similar then that's great you know yeah I mean back in the day they people had to write books and like try and figure out well who's going to buy them will that will this reach enough people and now we have like these new tools of the internet that we can use to not spread but trying to enact that purpose that will that we have deep down in our spirit and to do it properly and now it's like you could just use any type of application app website and get it done it's it wasn't like that when I was like you know in high school or an early early young man all right so what resources or practices would you recommend to someone new to Norse Pagan spirituality no that that that's that's harder to answer without you know going into like a 20-minute rant but I will try and like break this down as small as I can and as quickly as I can um it really just depends on what you're trying to get out of it if you see the Norse spirituality as nothing but stories and I guess archetypes like from like like fictional books then I would say you know go for the Reconstructionist religions of like Asatru and then the Lesser branches of vanatru but if you're trying to understand the Norse Pagan Faith as it was intended as an actual belief into gods and Spirits I mean a lot of what I got was through experience but some of it was through this awesome little we it group called uh Northern tradition paganism and I I'm not getting paid by them or anything I I have not spoken to them because like I said I like to keep what I do separate sometimes because I'm going to have conflicts and I'd rather just say my peace and let people confer from it as they will because we are all intelligent humans whether some of us think so or not we have that right to try and figure it out for ourselves all right uh before we move on on I was wondering um if you um had time to uh answer just four four or five more questions yeah absolutely all right so uh how do modern practitioners adapt ancient Norse practice to fit today's world well yeah that's it it it depends on how you see what what some historians say is what they did what they didn't because you mean you look at the Romans who had barely any interaction with the Norse and more with the Germanic tribes before and they would tell you oh well they sacrificed babies or they sacrificed like random things and of course you can't do that today but I would say a lot of modern pagans that I've seen will they will adapt it to where it's like safer or less demanding of the person to you know put themselves on the line of because for like some folk I mean like let's talk about the Berserkers a little bit for them part of their faith was to go into battle absolutely drunk or high on something and go crazy and just fight we can't do that today so it's like how how do you break it down into a more controlled environment that's a little safer right and I guess how can they use modern technology to uh enhance what they have I guess yeah I mean a lot of times I mean I've seen random blogs or websites about just uh spiritual experiences or spiritual teachings that they've had through a certain God or spirit and that that end of itself is an adaption because a lot of the Norse people didn't write down anything not like you know not like the English did at the time or any other people because in their minds what they what was to be taught didn't need to be written down it was why why would I write down on a piece of paper what I learned if I can just go to the person and say hey here's what happened figure it out okay so how does Norse Pagan spirituality contribute to your understanding of cultural heritage well Norse paganism kind of influences or contributes to my understanding by well let me I'll put it this way part a lot of paganism real real paganism very very few actual pagans exist today like a lot of Christianity Buddhism and other type of religions of this nature have kind of pushed the Pagan ideology away but at its core it's about ancestry like understanding where you came from and like trying to take that step to see like to say like I don't know who exactly were my ancestors but I can still take this time to respect them and honor them for what they've done to get me here and like I was just on a call with a friend of mine about talking we were talking about this and to say uh Hinduism it is a distant cousin of paganism of European paganism so if a lot of times look at what they do I mean it it it helps them connect to their roots and what they understood back then and even now oh I did not know that about Hinduism all kinds of fun things all right so are there ethical considerations when working with spirits and Norse paganism um yes you it's for some for some of the Gods some of the spirits it's like you're talking to someone who was in the military and it's like you're a private they're a an officer you cannot speak to them however you please you have to show them respect you have to treat them as if you know some of them are nobility or royalty because yeah they represent those um Concepts and ideas so you can't just look at like let's say I go to Odin like the the god of wisdom king of Asgard and I just say hey bro what's up how's it going man what what are you here to show me and it's like yeah no that Odin's not going to take that very well and he won't answer you he'll just brush you off because I'm not gonna waste my time with you that that's my experience though so now uh what Spirit would you say that you've worked with most personally uh yeah um I would say right it changes it it changes per for per time period of my life but um at first I would say I interacted more with uh Frey the vanic god of royalty uh fertility and agriculture But as time has gone on my focus has had to shift from my more um vaner focus towards the AER so now a lot of my dealings is more with Odin and and that one is more about what version of Odin I'm dealing with so right now I'm dealing with Odin the not quite the shaman but the um the teacher of ancient ways for the spirit workers or The Magicians all right interesting interesting so what kind of support system system exists within the north Tagan Community for practitioners well um personally I know they're out there I've never actually pursued trying to find them because I have my people and I found them through that group I was in that I probably shouldn't have joined but these guys are good they we've all kind of wised up to what was going on and we all left but for me that's my support system but that's another key concept to paganism is finding your tribe and that tribe doesn't always have to be blood related it's people that like deep down you know they are meant to be a part of your life and you theirs so I I can only speak for myself I don't I don't really know about the wider Community all right s would you say that during your time in that group there were it was uh focused on specific Spirits or centered around specific Gods it it was um now whether to say they are real like they said they were or they were just I I I that that group there's a lot of times where looking back I realized there was a lot of like probably a scam going on but there's also things that they knew that doesn't make sense like it's it's like things that happened that hadn't happened yet and they were already talking about it but it was I would I I will say that a lot of their focus was on the Yar or the Giants more more than anything all right all right we have time for two more questions so are there specific rituals or practices you've developed that reflect your individual approach to spirituality yes um mine is always been and it's it's not something I've developed but it's something that I use more than anything it's just plain and simple meditation I mean my a lot of my meditations focus on I'm trying to figure out something or understand something so I'm focusing on an event or a concept and I let my mind wander and develop these kind of Visions to help me see and understand it all right and when you say meditation is there is there a deviation from normal meditation like is there any specific Pagan uh aspects to it well I mean many would say meditation in and of itself is a pagan ritual but not the point um um for me it's just because meditation is meant to help you be in the moment it's what it's meant to be it's making your brain not see the past or the future it's to be present so but for me to be present I have these weird visions that occur so all right all right the last question so where do you see the future of Norse spirituality heading especially for paths like yours that do not fit the typical mold I would say the future of North spirituality it's heading towards a more developed more reasoned um approach to it I mean we're not ever going to get back to what our ancestors were doing we're not going to be able to it's just there's too much influencing from like Christian upbringing in Christian culture which is still rampant today but we will start to see I think we will start to see a world where Christianity and paganism are working at the same time in their own little uh fields and spheres of influence oh wow I did not know that there was this many ties to Christianity and paganism especially now yeah especially nowadays all right so is there anything that you'd like to say before we end off this podcast um yeah I mean if you liked what I was saying and you you enjoyed my ramblings I mean not my ramblings aren't for everybody and that's okay um you can find me on the Northern paths on Spotify and if there's anything that you anyone wants me to talk about I mean I I have a Q&A section so tell me all right guys you've heard it here first Northern paths on Spotify go check out Grim elf He is very versed on North paganism and spirituality and this is our conclusion to the first crai podcast thank you for tuning in and we will see you on the next one goodbye