Dante Gabriel Rossetti - How They Met Themselves (1860-64 circa). Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. The belief in what can be called soul(s) appears to be a universal aspect of human culture. The similarities between one culture’s concepts and the next, regardless of what separates them in terms of time and space, are truly fascinating. Most importantly, a close study reveals that soul beliefs arise from people’s direct experiences and observations - they are not simply products of blind faith or philosophical speculation. Unfortunately, most Westerners remain confused about the concept of the soul. Our beliefs are poorly defined and often contradictory, owing in large part to the influence of Judeo-Christian religion and modern science, both of which discourage us from seeking - much less trusting - any direct personal experience of the sacred.
I was raised a Catholic, and what meager instruction I received regarding the nature of the soul is this: the singular soul, created by God, is the immortal part of mankind destined to reside permanently in either heaven or hell after death, and it remains mostly passive in life. The soul is considered pure and closer to God, in direct opposition to the body and the corrupt material world. This Cartesian dualism and the materialism also embraced by modern science has served to cloud the earlier pluralistic soul beliefs of our ancestors - even if we follow a different spiritual path now, we have been influenced by these beliefs. One worldview teaches that the spiritual world of deities, angels and the dead is far removed from material existence, and the other teaches that all that exists is physical matter, that all phenomena arises from material processes. Humans in this understanding are comprised of body and soul/spirit, or body and mind.
I was raised a Catholic, and what meager instruction I received regarding the nature of the soul is this: the singular soul, created by God, is the immortal part of mankind destined to reside permanently in either heaven or hell after death, and it remains mostly passive in life. The soul is considered pure and closer to God, in direct opposition to the body and the corrupt material world. This Cartesian dualism and the materialism also embraced by modern science has served to cloud the earlier pluralistic soul beliefs of our ancestors - even if we follow a different spiritual path now, we have been influenced by these beliefs. One worldview teaches that the spiritual world of deities, angels and the dead is far removed from material existence, and the other teaches that all that exists is physical matter, that all phenomena arises from material processes. Humans in this understanding are comprised of body and soul/spirit, or body and mind.
By contrast, the animistic understanding of the soul is complex, pluralistic and is shared by indigenous cultures all over the world. Three appears to be the magic number - for shamanistic peoples, the soul is commonly a trinity. There are several exceptions where the number of souls is more than three, or less than three, however this is often just a matter of separating or combining different soul aspects. In general, there exists a body-soul (which can be divided into a physical life-soul and a mental ego-soul) as well as what is called a free-soul (this soul,also called the wandering soul, is capable of temporarily leaving the body in its own form and traveling to other realms). This model is based on the study of Indo-European religions, and does not always apply to other religions outside of this group. We can easily see, however, how this soul complex can roughly apply to the New Age body, mind and spirit. And, of course, this earlier concept has been carried forward into Western occultism and mysticism in the form of “subtle bodies”. Most contemporary pagans appear to be more familiar with these concepts (or those of aboriginal shamanistic cultures not their own) than with traditional pre-Christian European perceptions of the soul.
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Cover art, Witches, Werewolves and Fairies. Inner Traditions. The Germano-Scandinavian Double in the Middle Ages
Claude Lecouteux’s Witches, Werewolves and Fairies was the first book I read that opened my eyes to the soul beliefs of my own pre-Christian ancestors. The book uncovers the shamanistic, pagan roots of the medieval European soul cluster. The belief in the Double explains many of the phenomena we encounter in European folklore and mythology such as metamorphoses or shapeshifting, bilocation, premonitions, mythological twins, visions, unnatural illness, soul flight, etc. I certainly had many “light bulb” moments as I read the book, because it revealed connections I hadn’t previously recognized and I became obsessed with learning more about these Doubles and their relation to life, death, fate and sorcery. In particular, it led me to examine witchcraft narratives of the early modern period in search of the remnants of shamanistic visionary traditions. It also encouraged me to delve more deeply into the Germanic roots of witchcraft, and I have sought to learn more about the shamanistic sorcery that is Norse seidr in particular, because I believe within that lore is preserved much material that was once shared by other related European cultures. All of this will be discussed further in other blog posts.
In his book, Lecouteux explains that the Double is “an independent alter ego freed from the body when the body is dulled by sleep, frozen in trance, weakened by illness, or immobilized in coma”. Based on his readings of Scandinavian and Germanic material, each individual has three souls: a psychic or spiritual Double (fylgja, daimon, genius), a material or physical Double (hamr, shamanistic “bone soul) and a third soul which is the breath of life. The Double is able to travel to faraway places, both in the material living world and the Otherworld. Indeed, Lecouteux goes on to say this:
Claude Lecouteux’s Witches, Werewolves and Fairies was the first book I read that opened my eyes to the soul beliefs of my own pre-Christian ancestors. The book uncovers the shamanistic, pagan roots of the medieval European soul cluster. The belief in the Double explains many of the phenomena we encounter in European folklore and mythology such as metamorphoses or shapeshifting, bilocation, premonitions, mythological twins, visions, unnatural illness, soul flight, etc. I certainly had many “light bulb” moments as I read the book, because it revealed connections I hadn’t previously recognized and I became obsessed with learning more about these Doubles and their relation to life, death, fate and sorcery. In particular, it led me to examine witchcraft narratives of the early modern period in search of the remnants of shamanistic visionary traditions. It also encouraged me to delve more deeply into the Germanic roots of witchcraft, and I have sought to learn more about the shamanistic sorcery that is Norse seidr in particular, because I believe within that lore is preserved much material that was once shared by other related European cultures. All of this will be discussed further in other blog posts.
In his book, Lecouteux explains that the Double is “an independent alter ego freed from the body when the body is dulled by sleep, frozen in trance, weakened by illness, or immobilized in coma”. Based on his readings of Scandinavian and Germanic material, each individual has three souls: a psychic or spiritual Double (fylgja, daimon, genius), a material or physical Double (hamr, shamanistic “bone soul) and a third soul which is the breath of life. The Double is able to travel to faraway places, both in the material living world and the Otherworld. Indeed, Lecouteux goes on to say this:
To the pagan Germanic and Celtic mind-set, man remains permanently in contact with the supernatural side of reality through the intermediary of his Double or Doubles - so apparitions, visions and dreams become not fabrications...but instead evidence of reality. If the soul connects the Christian to God, the Double links the pagan to the entire cosmos, including the otherworld. But the otherworld, it seems, rather than being the world of the gods, is that of the dead, from where all knowledge comes. It is the reservoir of the potentialities of each individual and each family.
Lecouteux explains that all Doubles are connected to each other in the invisible world - part of the reason why they can instantly affect and communicate with each other. The material Double is in some sense corporeal because although it is usually invisible except to those with second sight, and it can travel as a spirit copy of an individual, it can be wounded and if it suffers wounds while traveling, the physical body will bear those marks as well. This ‘physical’ Double, corresponding roughly to the Norse hamr, can survive death but since bones are its carrier, it may disappear with the complete disintegration of the body. The spiritual Double, by contrast, is generally considered immortal - it is usually called the fylgja in Norse materials, the “female follower”, although it often takes animal form as well, in much the same way as the witches’ familiar of later times. There is a great deal of confusion between fylgja, hamr and other terms (such as hugr or hamingja) among medieval writers, so it is difficult for us to clearly distinguish the Norse parts of the self.
The Doubles in Scandinavian and Germanic belief are especially interesting because of their clear connections with destiny and sorcery. The fylgja acts as a tutelary or guardian spirit to a living person and is closely tied to the concept of fate. This may be because of the nature of the otherworld of which the fylgja is a part. Lecouteux explains:
The Doubles in Scandinavian and Germanic belief are especially interesting because of their clear connections with destiny and sorcery. The fylgja acts as a tutelary or guardian spirit to a living person and is closely tied to the concept of fate. This may be because of the nature of the otherworld of which the fylgja is a part. Lecouteux explains:
The otherworld appears as a reservoir of Doubles. Time there is nonexistent, and everything coexists at the same moment. The other part of ourselves, which comes from this other world without totally detaching itself from it, materializes our potentialities and our destiny.
As a spiritual Double permanently connected to the other world, the fylgja has knowledge of the destinies of others as well as of the living person it is bound to, and it is in many ways responsible for assisting us in manifesting our destiny or fate. In the sagas, the fylgja often appears in female or animal form in order to warn of upcoming events.
The Norse term hamr translates to “shape” or “skin”. There are many terms used in the sagas that link hamr to shapeshifting, such as skipta hömum, hamramr, eigi einhamr, and hamleypa. Lecouteux believes the hugr, which translates as mind or thought, can take on and animate the Double/hamr. This shapeshifting Double can travel outside the body if someone is dreaming, in trance, or under severe stress, in order to engage in various activities. One of these is the gandreidr (the “witches’ ride”).
In the next post, we will further discuss the use of the Double in witchcraft, sorcery and divination.
References and Further Reading:
Ellis, H.R. (1968). The road to hel: a study of the conception of the dead in Old Norse literature. New York: Greenwood Press.
Frecska, E., Móró, L., & Wesselman, H. (2011). The Soul Cluster: Reconsideration of a Millennia Old Concept. World Futures,67(2), 132-153. doi:10.1080/02604027.2010.532464
Kvilhaug, M. (n.d.) Fylgjur - guardian spirits and ancestral mothers. The fylgja-motifs in Norse literature. Retrieved from http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/?page_id=14. [This is Maria Kvilhaug’s summary and translation of Else Mundal’s 1974 thesis Fylgjemotiva i norrøn litteratur.]
Lecouteux, C. (2003). Witches, werewolves and fairies: shapeshifters and astral doubles in the early Middle Ages. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
Price, N. (2002). The Viking way: religion and war in late Iron Age Scandinavia. Uppsala: Dept. of Archaeology and Ancient History.
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