IGJUGARJUK, ON SUFFERING AND TRANSFORMATION, ALCHEMY, THE EMERALD TABLE, AND OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNION

” True wisdom,

is only to be found

far away from people,

out in the great solitude. “

Igjugarjuk

Knud Rasmussen quoting on Inuit shaman Igjugarjuk

“When I was to be a shaman, I chose suffering through the two things that are more dangerous to us humans, suffering through hunger and suffering through cold. First I hungered five days and was then allowed to drink a mouthful of warm water, the old one say that only if the water is warm will Pinga and Hila will notice the novice and help him. Thereafter I went hungry another fifteen days, and again I was given another mouthful of warm water. After that I hungered fro ten days, and then could begin to eat…

Later, when I had become quite myself again, I understood that I had become the shaman of my village, and it did happen that my neighbors or people from a long distance away called me to heal a sick person, or to inspect a course if they were going to travel. When this happened, the people of my village were called together and I told them what I had been asked to do. Then I left tent or snow house and went out into solitude: ahiarmut, away from the dwellings of man…

If anything difficult had to be found out, my solitude had to extend over three days and two nights, or three nights and two days. In all that time I had to wander about without rest, and only sit down once in a while on a stone or a snow drift. When I had been out long and had become tired, I could almost doze and dream what I had come out to find and about which I had been thinking all the time. Every morning, however, I could come home and report on what I had so far found, but as soon as I had spoken I had to return again, out into the open, out to places where I could be quite alone…

These days of ‘seeking for knowledge’ are very tiring, for one must walk all the time, no matter how the weather is like and only rest in short snatches. I am usually quite done up, tired not only in body but also in head, when I have found what I sought.

We shamans in the interior have no special spirit language; and believe the real angatkut do not need it. On my travels sometimes I have been present at a séance among the saltwater-dwellers, for instance among the coast people of Utkuhigjalik . These angatkut never seemed trustworthy to me. It always appeared to met this saltwater angatkut attached more weight to tricks that would astonish the audience, when they jumped about the floor and do tricks, nor does he seek by the aid of darkness, by putting out the lamps, to make the minds of his neighbors uneasy. For myself, I do not think I know much, but I do not think that wisdom or knowledge about things that are hidden can be sought in that manner. True wisdom is only to be found far away from people, out in the great solitude, and it is not found in play but only through suffering. Solitude and suffering open the human mind, and therefore a shaman must seek his wisdom there.”

Suffering is the key word of the Spiritual work, it is a birth labor, a shedding of the skin, a furnace were the Soul it is transformed in to a luminous being, a crucifixion were the ego is put to die, not an easy work, now days with so many people searching for Spirit and in consequence the many self anointed spiritual guides of all kinds of nature, it is easy to believe  the Spiritual path it is an easy, and joyful ride, full of magical, and extraordinary experiences, yes there are many of those, but not without been brought by a lot of work, suffering, and the taming of ego.

Why Suffering?

Suffering it’s necessary for the soul in order to detach of the objective, and realize the subjective, it’s the shedding of the skin so to speak of the serpent, so it can grow, the pain of birth that brings a new being, along with happiness and joy. It’s the realization that we are here to be a shining mirror of Spirit, and it’s necessary for us to be better polishing ourselves, and realize that even if we are made of flesh, and bones, this is not our final destination, but the place were we are tested, thrown in to the river bed as rough rocks rubbing off the sharp corners, pebbles tossed in fast flowing waters become beautiful to be transformed in to polished pebbles by the continuous rush of the water.

Life, and living  itself is the furnace of the alchemist where base metals are transformed in to gold, by the relentless heat, and the long time it requires for these elements to transform, which it is a lifetime pursue, and the the explanation as to the title of my blog KONE KRUSOS KRONOS

KONE=   The furnace

KRUSOS=  The Gold

KRONOS= The Time

The Emerald Tablet

• This true without lying, certain & most true.

• That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing

• And as all things have been & arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.

• The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse.

• The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.

• Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.

• Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.

• It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior.

• By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world

• & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.

• Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing.

• So was the world created.

• From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world

• That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended.

Devour by a Bear

The selection and initiation process of the Inuit Angakoq is slightly different from that of the Noaidi, although it does follow the same traditional patterns of spiritual death, rebirth, and contact of spirits for aid. Unlike many Noaidi, who are typically selected by a personal spiritual calling, the older Angakoq selects the new pupil as a young child. These are usually children that have either already demonstrated unusual dreams/visions or seem especially gifted for the position. As demonstrated earlier with the reference to attacks by tuurngait, the initiation process of the Angakoq is a bit more inclined towards the aspect of spiritual death and metaphorical dismemberment than the initiatory sequence of the Sámi Noaidi. “The anagkok teaches him to isolate himself in a lonely place—beside an old grave, by a lake—and there to rub two stones together while waiting for a significant event. ‘Then the bear of the lake or the inland glacier will come out, he will devour all your flesh and make you a skeleton, and you will die. But you will recover your flesh, you will awaken, and your clothes will come rushing to you’” (Eliade 2004). In other stories, the Angakoq is ripped apart or slowly drowned at the bottom of the sea. “The ecstatic experience of dismemberment of the body followed by renewal of the organs is also known to the Eskimo. They speak of an animal (bear, walrus, etc.) that wounds the candidate, tears him to pieces or devours him…” (Eliade 2004). Then, he is reborn into his old body with a new sight. It is often described as light pulsating through the shaman’s body and interweaving through the eyes to create new vision.

Dionysus

The idea is to die to the body to be reborn in the Spirit, a symbolic image that it’s recurrent in all myths, and Religions; Jonas in the belly of a whale, Christ crucified, the Dionysus myth the bacchants Cultic rites associated with worship of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus (or Bacchus in Roman mythology), were allegedly characterized by maniacal dancing to the sound of loud music and crashing cymbals, in which the revelers, called Bacchantes, whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited one another to greater and greater ecstasy. The goal was to achieve a state of enthusiasm in which the celebrants’ souls were temporarily freed from their earthly bodies and were able to commune with Bacchus/Dionysus and gain a glimpse of and a preparation for what they would someday experience in eternity. The rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied feats of strength and madness, such as uprooting trees, tearing a bull (the symbol of Dionysus) apart with their bare hands, an act called sparagmos, and eating its flesh raw, an act called omophagia. This latter rite was a sacrament akin to communion in which the participants assumed the strength and character of the god by symbolically eating the raw flesh and drinking the blood of his symbolic incarnation. Having symbolically eaten his body and drunk his blood, the celebrants became possessed by Dionysus. Is this not communion analogous to the celebration of mass and the sharing of the body of Christ?