The Supernatural Entities of Norse Spirituality 

Unlike popular belief, pre-Christian Scandinavian ordinary people understood the "gods" to be spirits of the natural world and/or played a secondary role in these people's daily lives. A bigger focus on the gods starts with cultural migrations from the south and it was a stronger religious panorama among aristocracy. Ordinary people maintained contact with the supernatural reality not through worship but through cultic practices such as charms, incantations, magical performances, offerings, and several other magico-ritual activities that created proximity between human and the supernatural through action and participation in action. Spirits of place and animistic conceptions were far more important, and it was far more meaningful participation in ritual and festivity, rather than worship. Gods became a bigger focus with the introduction of Roman religious perceptions in Continental Germanic territories; in Scandinavia gods become more important after the Migration Period, precisely due to Classical influences among the Continental Germans who brought that tendency into the North, and it's in that period that legends of the gods start to appear, precisely. With Snorri Sturluson, in the 13th century, he gives us an idea that it was all about the gods, giving a wrong image about a structured pantheon and the importance of the Gods, and out of mythology he almost triedto pass on a religion itself parallel to Catholicism when writing the myths to his Christian compatriots. In the urban centres, and great centres of power and trading, things were different, of course, due to the amount of different peoples and religions from all over Europe coming together and exchanging ideas in those places. Mythology is not religion, and in pre-Christian Scandinavia folk belief and folk magic was far more important than worship, and far more practiced and stronger. So, contrary to what many believe, the Norse deities are almost completely absent in Scandinavian folk magic. The few exceptions are Odin, sometimes implored for help with money, favours or crops; Thor, who occasionally occurs in formulas of power; and Freyja and Frigg mentioned in a few spells concerned with seeing one's future husband or to increase crop-luck. The gods in Scandinavian folk magic appear not even in 1% of all the known incantations, formulas, charms, talismans and other magical performances. The absence of Norse deities in Scandinavian Folk Magic isn't due to the Christian church having effectivily dominated the religious scene, but because the gods in Heathen times played a secondary role, because worship and belief was not essential; they were still very animistic and as such what was essential was a recognition of existence of spiritual entities in the world. It's with Christianity that we start to have more accounts about the gods, in an attempt to create parallels with the new religion for an easier implementation of said religion, introduced by the aristocracy to their subjects. If the absence of gods in Scandinavian Folk Magic had been provoked by the church, then spiritual entities such as elves, tomte and trolls would have also been absent, and yet, these supernatural entities are far more recurrent in Folk Magic than the gods and highly widespread in the last millennium.

Thank you for such an informative overview. This was very interesting to watch. I am Canadian and am part Indigenous Canadian but also part north western European/Scandinavian. I was raised in an Algonquin understanding of the world and spiritual relating and when I listened to this I see a 95% correlation to the ways I was raised. Different stories and different names for the same primordial energies. I had no idea that Norse folk magic was so similar. When explained as you did here anyways it really is almost identical. Just wow.

I have only recently become a heathen/pagan (labels aren't important) and your videos are the reason. It is spiritual knowledge with history to back it up. Thank you so much for making my journey more knowledgeable and enjoyable.

My week will be better and more peaceful, this is a serious youtube channel, the transmission of knowledge is formidable, I love listening and understanding the research work you do to build your videos with exceptional professionalism! Thank you for another excellent video! Until the next Mr. Arith. I wish you much health and success.

Thank you for helping me connect with my ancestors through an understanding of the daily reality of their spirituality.

If people would respect the earth and water as they should , maybe we would not be in the mess we are in today ? Makes you wonder how pissed off you would be if someone dumped waste into you after you provided them with food and shelter ? Give thanks daily for the gifts of the land and hope it never stops giving to us.

I'm so grateful for your videos. You put words into what my subconscious knows, like a whole new level of awakening and understanding. Thank you.

I came as soon as I saw the notification 😍

You have a real skill in explain concepts that are far from our reality in a clear way,i feel this is really the call of your life,many blessings.

Thanks you for sharing today's lesson 🙏✌

I so enjoy listening to you videos while I walk the nature trails in my area. I’m so grateful for the wealth of information you share and the easy to listen to way you share it .

Intro was beautiful. My family and I live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Hear nothing but Hawks, doves, quail, and crows all day. Relaxing. Loved the vid. We, as individuals, are responsible for our present and future. Love ya, Brub.

This is amazing. So much deep insight.

The more video’s i watch The more information i look for and work through The more i feel strengthened in all i have always felt and thought And adding so much more to it Thank you Arith for all the energy and work you put in to educating the curious And doing this so well

Our host's degree of erudition and his ability to express same with great clarity are both astounding. So too, his own humility and deference to the sterling concepts he presents.

I've been watching/ listening to your videos for a few years now and have learned so much. Thanks again for another great video!

Deeply grateful for the wealth of knowledge that you share! Looking forward to future videos although this one needs time to percolate for a while 🖤🔥🖤

Uploaded on my birthday! What a pleasant gift

BRILLIANT video! And totally in alignment with my experiences :)

As I’m listening to this I’m watching the bushes move in the breeze behind you and seeing many green man faces and in the tree you’re standing in front of also many faces. It’s amazing especially considering the subject of beliefs, I believe that maybe the Fae little people are enjoying hearing you speak of the old ways and days of their ancestors as well as we do. 🙂

I can personally attest to the fact that the other worlds overlapped with the human realm: as my grandmother told it, my Norwegian great Grandmother said that she once heard trolls as went across a mountain pass.

A fascinating and enjoyable video. Thank you and please keep up the good work

You and your work/education I’d appreciated Arith. Peace and blessings to you and your brother 🙏🏼

What a great overview explanation of Pre Christian Spirituality

Hi Arith!! Wonderful content. Thank you, Sir!💕

Awesome! Thank you Arith. Very useful indeed! Much appreciated. ☺️🍂🍁,😃

I was so waiting for it and love to listen to Your always nice explaining

Exactly the video I needed right now! Thank you ☺️

What a pleasant way to spend my morning! I hope someday you do an analysis of the sagas. That'd be delightful!

Un video con mucha informacion, para volver a ver de vez en cuando y reemplantearse conceptos. Muy bueno, como siempre

You're truly an international treasure brother. Thank you

This video is extremely important, thank you for giving one hour of your knowledge to the community. I've been in between, standing by on my path because i was unsure what to do about what i was hearing from the spiritus of the land wanting from me. Is not the whole of it but makes it much clearer than it was. Thanks again.

great video arith, I've enjoyed it immensely

The work you do is SO important - thank you!

I have been preparing for initiation for over 5 years. You have been a large part in the past month or so in regards to the information in the videos I have been asking my…… helper……. To help remove the veil….. I’m tired of reading the ancient books and the less than ancient works such as Blavatsky, Steiner, Crowley, etc. even a little Damien Echols; a pseudo-Crowley here in America…. I truly admire you speaking on these sacred topics. When the student is ready; the teacher truly shall appear. Thank you. 🙏 Your body of work

Thank you for this affirmation of how spiritually should be understood. In my own practices and work in spiritual activities with nature and her denizens of the veil it encapsulates, the most important aspects of the human practices is the realization of mindfulness, value, and intent of both ourself, and the spiritual side of nature, and all it connects. Which lines up with what you spoke in this video. I appreciate your wisdom greatly.

Thanks love background visual 💓

Great video. New subscriber and I'm particularly interested in Slavic paganism, but it's tough finding good material on that. Really great though, I've watched 3 of your videos just tonight!

Turn on an Arith video- immediately turns down volume to have have ears blasted off. I LOVE this channel and I love these videos but it is impossible to let a playlist play. I can help you with your levels, EQ and mixing if you'd like. This video wasn't a problem but many of the others have a HUGE spike in levels at the intro video.

I have watched all your videos at least once. I watch this and parts of the self the most

Hello from France . I like all your videos. Thank you very much.

Soooo Beautiful

EXCELLENT PRESENTATION AS USUAL...THANK YOU

I appreciate you so much, thank you for confirming what I have always felt in my spirit regarding belief being personal, contrary to modern religion.

Wowwww. I love your channel .you reslly make it so easily to understand and thank you for talking about the anima animus. .👃

Really enjoy your videos. Ita interesting to hear about what people thought and how they thought not too long ago.

"Daddy of the sky" lol! Love your videos.

Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld - The three Norns. "The Past, The Present, and The Outcome"

Shamanism/spirituality is gloriously free from the dogma of religious "structure ".

I think many of us here would read a book of yours.

Some of what you talk about are things I have personally experienced, sensed, felt, or seen but I had no way to understand or make sense of it at the time

If we could embrace this view of this dimension again,ooooh it would be so beyond words, the realities we would open...

This all starts to take on a whole new meaning almost 5yrs on my path and probably the 5th time through this series. Lol, life is a journey

I think I should write with caution, but so many of the things you speak about ring true for me and my life. I wish you luck and good fortune just for revealing these things to me that seem completely relevant. I was born in the sign of the moon as a water spirit and brought up in Christian science, but after much rebellion adopted Buddhism and yoga, I empathized with these religions because the people were brown and I am mixed with Spanish and Mexican. Yet I always knew I had to confront my mothers side as my father abandoned me and my mother was always with me. My brother had done this long ago from an early age. My Mom was German and Norwegian, but only seemed to skim the surface of spirituality in my eyes, though fasting every day only eating one small meal at night. Though I never quite knew what it meant me and my friends would refer to ourselves as trolls and I was often called a giant by friends and neighbors standing at 6'4" I did get a lot of exercise in school and had periods of wandering, I love nature and this quarantine is sparking much anger that I can't get into nature. I do have a meditation practice which has been said to curtail the powers of Mara. Yet in reality seems to immerse me in reality and help me confront the unknown aspects of my self and the self. I bought a snorri book a while back and just couldn't believe it it seemed like propaganda to me and now that you say he was a Christian, I suspect this even more. Who has the truth it seems to be interchangeable, I think time periods align with things of the past or the future and that makes a certain era or age in existence. Though I have died in life, with stillness I can regenerate. With the words or sights of others I am reborn, through love I am sworn into Godhood the hermaphrodite. I never valued money, but took a platonic approach and so my needs were met and I lived comfortably.

Enjoy your freedom out of quarantine

ARIIIIITH HAAAARGERRR!!!

They never went away, they just went into the norse folklore, culture and lived on until today. Dispite what some today thinks or believe what they "know".

Doesnt it make sense that the jotnar represent the previous cultures of Scandinavia that became entangled with the indo-Europeans when they arrived? Has always felt like a pretty classic colonial dynamic to me. And also feels to me that the Vanir are the remaining God’s that were syncratized into the old Norse mixed cultural society from previous agrarian cultures. The rest of the Vanir gods having been more replaced or incorporated in the Indo European gods that replace them. What I read so clearly into these entanglements is a colonial type dynamic that I am used to seeing more recently and presently in other parts of the world. So I guess I could say I recognize it in the old stories.

Awoo

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can you suggest scientific sources about the pre-Christian Scandinavian believe system, please?

I don't think 'val-' in Old Norse meant valiant? I too thought that, but apparently 'valr' comes from proto-germanic 'walaz' which means corpse or carnage?

When you was describing the hidden people I thought you said the “who da fuck”? 🤣

Brief preface, he gets to the core topic around 13:40.

Date 1.

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The subtitles translating Yggdrasil to Ignácio 😂 Foda-se xD

When i look at current woman her spirit came out of her body and it was red hair and troll looking like she became huge big teeth like fangs but from lower lip. No offense to her but i seen it

Paranormal perhaps but, there is no such thing as Super Natural

Giant's on the other side

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lol our Ancestors knew not to engage the Trolls _CENTURIES ago!_ And SO Many people TODAY _Still_ can't get their heads around this Obvious Law of Nature!

Should "racism" even be considered a Fault, if it does not include Denigrating narratives of the "Others"? Like, finding your community to be your Favorite, who fill you with Pride and Inspiration is GOOD! Meanwhile I find the variety of "Other" cultures positively Beautiful, and full of Wonder. West is Best, but we DO have some stuff we could Really stand learning and incorporating from across the world. I'm just gonna go ahead and decouple any "programmed" disapproval from the word "racism", and just judge people from a different angle if they rely on denigrating other Folk to substitute being Lifted Up by "Racial" Pride...

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