Purpose of Yggdrasil and the Runic Tarot

 

 

The objective of the online course Yggdrasil is to provide

• tools for the exploration and development of Jungian archetypes and the collective unconsciousness.

• tools and a map for ritual magic. Where ritual magic should be seen as a system of practical psychology like psychodrama.

• tools and exercises for personal development and to obtain spiritual enlightenment.

 

Not an attempt to go back

Many times I have encountered people, who thought that I longed for primitive times and a primitive life-style. I do not. Yggdrasil and the Runic Tarot are not about 'going back to the old Teutonic ways', 'to live like a Viking' or 'to restore the old Germanic mythology and cosmology'.

 

Not about 'White supremacy' or Nazism

According to DNA-research, all 'out-of-Africa' people descended from a tribe that left Africa about 65.000 years ago. Caucasian people are not much different from other people throughout the world. The color of the skin is coded by a few genes and is not important. The idea of 'races' is an evil root of racism.

I do not believe that Caucasian people are superior or better than other people. Yggdrasil and the Runic Tarot are not instruments to promote such a believe.

 

Not an attempt to explain the old Germanic cosmology

I believe, that the worldtree Yggdrasil was a central idea of old Germanic mythology and cosmology. But we should not believe, that all people believed the same things during a period of over 5.000 years. See also Truth about the Germanic people

I believe that Yggdrasil was a central idea. But I do not believe, that everyone had the same ideas. When astrophysicists talk about their ideas of the universe, they have very different ideas. It would be wrong to take the ideas of one person and then say, that every astrophysicist believes that. And it would be wrong to state, that all Germanic people had a cosmology as described by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda. And I do not believe, that Germanic people from 2.000 years ago had a cosmology remotely like my cosmology. I grew up with ideas of a universe with many galaxies, each galaxy with billions of stars. Heathen people lived in a completely different world.

So this is not an attempt to correct the Prose Edda or to show what Germanic people believed. I have never met a tribesman or tribeswoman from Europe from 1.000 BC. So I can not know what these people believed.

 

Jungian archetypes

Jung got the idea, that humans are born with a nervous system with some basic instincts hard-wired in it. And not only humans are born with such a nervous system. All mammals and birds are born with such a system. That is why a kitten is not afraid of the mother cat and why a mother cat does not eat her kittens as if they were rodents. What a novel idea. Entirely unscientific. LOL.

When we are born we know how to behave towards our mother. We are born with a neural circuit, that controls our behavior towards 'Mother'. This neural circuit is the Mother-archetype of Jung. But we can not directly access this circuit. Tools to influence this circuit are images of archetypical mothers. Like 'Mother Earth', 'The Great Mother', 'Mother Mary'. et cetera. And mother goddesses like Isis or Frigg.

See wiki Jungian archetypes or What Are the Jungian Archetypes?.

 

Yggdrasil the world tree

In Jungian psychology the world tree is a central idea. Search on Jung worldtree.

In western culture there are two well known world trees:

• Yggdrasil, the world tree of the old Icelandic Edda's.

• The tree of life from the QaBalAH. See What is Yggdrasil#zohar and Tree of life (Kabbalah).

 

When I was about 15 to 17 years old, I read a lot of books about the QaBalaH. Some of them I found disgusting. Christian writers that took their idea of Jesus and put it on the QaBaListic tree for the glory of their idea of Jesus. Many books were written without serious knowledge of Jewish culture. Later I learned, that some orthodox Jews are offended, when you claim that the QaBaLAH is Jewish.

Since I do not know much about Jewish culture, I do not use the tree of life from the QaBaLaH. Not because I dislike Jews, but because it is a completely different culture. And then I discovered the old Germanic mythology and the Edda's. And I learned about Yggdrasil. The advantage of Germanic mythology is that it is a very primal mythology. It is rough and close to the archetypical source.

The main part of old Germanic mythology is written by Christian writers whose parents or grandparents were real primitive heathens. They wrote down what they remembered, without polishing and refining. Because of this, we find in the old Icelandic writings treasures, that are not tarnished by sophisticated people. The old Germanic mythology is really useful for Jungian psychology and for the development and exploration of archetypes. But some Christian writers have written texts to undermine the pagan faith. So you should not assume, that the old texts are accurate. See How reliable are the Edda's?

 

The Runic tarot

When I first published my book about the Runic tarot in Dutch I started with the joke: "Tarot comes from Tá Rota" which translates to "the path of Rota". Rota is one of the tree norns that spin the fate of the universe. Unfortunately people did not realize that is was a practical joke. Many books about the tarot begin with an attempt to explain the origin of the tarot. Some people want it to be Egyptian or Chinese. Others claimed that it came 'from the gypsies'. I do not know were the tarot comes from. I know what it is now.

The tarot has two parts, a Great Arcanum and a Small Arcanum. The Great Arcanum has 22 archetypical cards. The Small Arcanum has four sets of cards for the four elements fire, air, water and earth. Each of these sets has two parts. One part has cards numbered from 2 to 10. The other part has five cards. These are named Ace, King, Queen, Knight and Page. See Rider Waite_Tarot

The Runic tarot is similar like this:

• In stead of the Great Arcanum there are 24 Runic cards, corresponding to the Runes. Runes are magical signs. There is a 25th Runic card, because the rune 'B' is in two different implementations with different meanings: Birkan (birch twig) and Bjarnkanna (knowledge of the bear).

• In stead of the Small Arcanum there are

  • Four sets of class cards with the classes Ace, Warrior, Leader, Freeman, Bondsman. The four Aces of the Runic Tarot are Óðinn (Odin, Wodan, Woden), Týr (Tiwaz, Thijs), Þórr (Thor, Donar) and Loki. These deities belong to the Æsir. The Æsir are often interpreted as 'gods' of the Germanic people. That is a misconception.

  • Four sets of world cards numbered from 0 to 11. These world cards correspond to the worlds of the worldtree Yggdrasil.

• And there is a nothing card which shows Ginnunga-gap , the void in which Yggdrasil was created.

 

Purpose of the Runic Tarot

The tarot is often used for divination. Many people believe in predictive powers of the tarot. I do not deny the possibility of such powers. But I do not encourage such use.

The cards of the Runic Tarot all have very strong archetypical content. When you lay out some of these cards and you try to understand what 'the cards are telling you', you make a connection with your unconscious mind and with deep emotions and sentiments. When you know the myths behind each card, you can communicate with your unconscious. In this way the Runic Tarot becomes a tool for exploration of the unconscious.

• Sometimes psychologists test people with the Rorschach test. The Runic Tarot provides something similar, but with a much stronger content. Behind each picture there is a whole world of mythology. When you stimulate free association using the Runic Tarot cards and the mythological worlds behind it, it becomes easy to connect with the Collective unconscious

Another use of the Runic Tarot is astral traveling. You can focus on a Runic Tarot card and imagine, that it is a door or portal to another world. Then you can imagine that you go through this portal and that you enter this other world. There are special TRANCE-FORMATIONS to help you travel to these other worlds.

Note: I am not dogmatic about the nature of 'these other worlds'. You may believe that they are in your own imagination. Or that they are in the 'collective unconscious', whatever that is. Or that they are as real as the physical world.

 

Purpose of Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil is the archetypical worldtree. It is a tree with many worlds growing on it. It is not a tree in the physical world, but a tree-like structure in your unconscious or in the Collective unconscious. The worlds are places in your psyche were you can go to. And these worlds grow every time you visit them.

You can use this worldtree as a map for your unconscious. And by travelling through this tree, you can visit other worlds in your psyche and explore and develop them. While you do that, you integrate your psyche. And you become a greater person. That is the purpose of Yggdrasil. It is a system for the development and integration of your psyche, so that you become a greater person or shaman. When you integrate your psyche, you become really great.