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From Maleck comes this topic:
"Negotiating and dealing with spirits that are less than friendly, from neutral to outright hostile."
Caveats and Recommendations
I am going to start this post with caveats because I know there are a range of folks who follow my blog, and especially for those who might click on it. Before dealing with spirits who may be hostile or unfriendly to humans or at least human-shaped folks, I recommend the following:
- Have solid, well-established, and healthy relationships with other spirits. These can be Gods, Ancestors or spirits like landvættir. If not, do not engage with less than friendly spirits. This seems obvious to me, yet I have met folks who wanted to dive right into working with unfriendly spirits and had no backing from anyone else. I do not recommend this. At all.
- Have solid, well-established, and healthy relationships with Ginnreginn (Gods, Ancestors, and/or vættir) who are related to, rule over, or already have some kind of relationship with the spirits you are trying to engage with. When it comes to Álfar I recommend folks establish relationships to Freyr and Freyja. Cat Heath recommends this in her book Elves, Witches, and Gods.
- Have solid, well-established ideas of what you want to do, how you want to do it, and why you wish to engage with less than friendly spirits. If you want to fuck around and find out, why? Mere curiosity is fine, but you should know what kinds of things you want to do well before establishing contact with any spirit, let alone a less than friendly one.
- Research what you can of the spirits in question, including their likes, weaknesses, Who may be in charge of Them or if They are the equivalent of free agents. Research both historical ways in which these spirits were banished, destroyed, or avoided, and modern experiences from folks who interact with Them regularly. Be sure that the means you have researched and what you are choosing to do is safe, sane, legal, and is as ethical for you to engage in as you can be.
- What means are you willing to employ to communicate or interact with these spirits? What talents, skills, and means do you have available? Be clear and honest in your abilities, skills, talents, and means of doing these things. They will be vital in how you interpret spiritual interactions with Them, and what expectations, obligations, responsibilities, and/or offense you may cause. Some spirits do not want to be seen, and trying to spiritually see Them is actively a hostile move on your part.
- Are you qualified to be doing this? Do you have the relevant skill, experience, and talents to engage in this? Are you empowered through your Ginnreginn and communities to engage in this work? This is especially a potent question because your actions here can have knock-on effects to all of your relationships.
- Less than friendly spirits may test you. They may actively do you harm if you cause offense. Be absolutely sure you want the obligations, responsibilities, oaths, or any other kind of outcome that can be possible from a less than friendly spirit. Really weigh whether this is a good, wise, or prudent relationship to build, or spirit to affect.
- What are your limits? What does a breakdown in negotiation or communication look like to you? What does a given hostile action on the part of a spirit call for, and in what way(s)? Define ahead of time what successful negotiations or interactions look like. Decide what full success for everything you want to receive out of an interaction looks like, and what a decent success where you get some of the things you need in an interaction looks like. Decide what a breakdown in communications for your part looks like, and next steps to rectify things if possible.
- Decide ahead of time what scenarios, requests, or desires on the part of a given spirit are off limits.
- If this is to affect a change, cleanse a space, or to otherwise affect an outdoor area, get clearance from the local vættir before you do anything.
- Have spiritual hygiene practices that you can access at need.
In short, you need to know what the fuck you are doing. You need to know what steps to take should things go really poorly. You need to know the vættir as well as you possibly can prior to interacting with Them directly. You need to determine the relationship(s) you want with the spirits and how you will achieve that.
It might seem a bit aggressive and odd that I am advocating for all of this prior to negotiating. Some vættir simply do not like humans. Some are actively hostile to our interests. Some will cause discomfort, pain, illness, bad luck, curses, or the like for a perceived slight. Some vættir are either obscure to our ways of thought or do not operate in a reality we readily understand. Going into a potentially quite hostile situation with your options and means being clear will allow you to react in accordance with what is most safe for you and anyone else with you should that need arise. Doubly so if you are going into a situation where the spirits are unfriendly or hostile.
Please do not take this to mean that I think you should show up to a vættr armed to the teeth with a trap ready to spring. That can cause its own offense, rendering negotiations completely moot. For hostile vættir, and for the demeanor of some vættir I hold relationships with, including some Jötnar, the expectation is for me to show up spiritually armed to the teeth. In my experience most will be understanding if you show up with the equivalent of a sidearm or knife, though it is expected to be kept sheathed, and perhaps peacebonded. This requires a level of understanding the vættir you hope to interact with and what is and is not acceptable at what stage of relationship you are at. If nothing else, ask, and have spiritual backup in the form of both vættir and fellow practitioners.
It is worth keeping in mind that if we can employ divination, magic, and spiritual specialists for backup then vættir may, even are likely, to have Their own. In the case of Álfar, They are renowned for employing álfshot when offended, although some will just shoot humans because They can. For more on this I recommend Claude Lecouteux's works, especially The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind, and Demons and Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices. I do not have and have not yet read The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of Invisible Realms, but given his work in the previous books, it is on my to-buy list. My understanding and experience of Them is that They have spiritual specialists available to many of Them, or are Themselves able to carry out many of these things not unlike modern spiritworkers, witches, occultists, etc. here in Miðgarðr.
I cannot hope to understand all Álfar any more than all Dvergar, Jötnar, Æsir, etc. though I have relationships among all these groups of vættir. My experience of Them is filtered through all the knowledge, understanding, biases, skills, training, expertise, and experiences I have brought to my relationships. Whatever the vættir, I would beware of understanding a given vættr or group of vættir through one lens, even it was a highly informed one. After all, these are people, and treating Álfar or an individual álf as a monolith is as hazardous and fraught as treating humanity or individual humans that way. Caveats and recommendations made, let us move on to negotiation with spirits.
Negotiation
The Cambridge Dictionary defines negotiation as "the process of discussing something with someone in order to reach an agreement with them, or the discussions themselves". The point of negotiation is to achieve some kind of end. How we approach negotiation and in what spirit we engage once we have agreed to negotiate is important. It structures how we understand our place in things and what the point of the discussion is.
When it comes to negotiating with vættir, I would ask everyone to take inventory and really ask themselves what it is they can bring to the table with a given vættr. What are you providing that is so vital to a spirit that They would be willing to make a deal or forego something? Are you able to do something that They cannot do or would be far harder or more expensive? In other words, do you understand the value, not just to yourself but to Them, of what you can bring to the table when negotiating?
As we are dealing with people some vættir are going to value certain things more than others. Some vættir may care a great deal about, say, how you treat your local waters where other spirits have zero concern about that. Some vættir may want you to bring Them a gift to even begin proverbially sitting down to speak with you. Many, if not most vættir in my experience, expect some kind of good faith offering even if it is not the one most ideal to Them. In my experience, most vættir will make do with an offering that is widely accepted by vættir, such as water, if it is given in a clean vessel and made in a respectful way. When we are first coming to understand each other in good faith, non-hostile vættir often will make allowances for small faux pas or or errors in judgment if we work to do better next time.
We may negotiate with vættir for a number of reasons. It may be we have a project we want to collaborate on, in which case we are looking to bring in vættir as collaborators. The framing for this is likely to be different from negotiating with vættir we want to leave us alone, eg to get a vættr to stop messing with a loved one. Where we may be quite willing to negotiate on the scope the vættir have for a work project and the negotiations may be quite cordial, though serious, a negotiation with vættir for letting folks alone may be more stolid or fiery. The feeling around laying down boundaries in such different needs for negotiations may be dramatically different, though all negotiations ideally have good ground rules.
Negotiating with vættir may also take place in a number of contexts. This will depend on the talents, abilities, and skills you have with taking in, processing, and discerning spiritual information. If you are skilled at útiseta or reading the Runes, where the negotiations take place may be out in nature, under the cloak, or on a divination cloth/skin as appropriate. I highly recommend having at least one to three folks you talk with about the negotiation, ideally who have good and deep experience with the spirits you are meeting with, especially if these negotiations are taking place with spirits you have just struck up a relationship with. If you cannot find folks who have experiences with the particular vættir you are working on negotiations with, then I would do your best to find folks who work with spirits in the milieu those spirits are from, or at the very least swim in the same cosmological waters.
Ideally, we negotiate from places of strength, respect, and hospitality rather than weakness, disrespect and inhospitality. Sometimes we do not have choices, such as when a vættr is messing with a loved one and will not leave. In this case, aggressive negotiations, with appeals to a given vættr's peers, family, or, if there is a spiritual head or ruler you can appeal to, are usually my first go-to. Stepping up to a given spirit's 'supervisor', head, or ruler may break down negotiations with the vætti/r in question, but it may be the only way to not get into a full-on conflict. If a given spirit is supported or at least not dissuaded in their conduct by these appeals, I will usually go on to the next step: Dealing With Vættir.
Dealing With Vættir
This step tends to come forward when negotiations have broken down or were not an option to begin with, but the situation is not deteriorated to the point of impasse or combat. Dealing with Vættir is the step where I try to either stop a situation from getting worse or, hopefully, to improve it. In the case of situations where I have wronged the vættir and it is possible to recover the situation, this is where I make apologies and offerings commensurate to right that wrong. In the case of situations where the vættir have wrong my client, loved one, or I, this is where I give Them the grace or space to correct the wrong done. Where communications have not completely stalled or stopped, skuld (Old Norse term meaning 'debt', also one of the Nornir's Names) or weregild ('man price' from Anglo-Saxon) may be decided upon by one or both parties, or a new negotiation opened up so things do not spiral down worse.
In the case where dealing with a vættir is no longer cordial or without animosity, dealing with vættir may be as straightforward as going your separate way and doing your level best to avoid one another. For those relationships that are souring, dealing with a vættr may be employing protections or non-combative techniques of banishment or warding against a vættr. An example of this might be bells which were said to drive away trolls and keep Them away. Passive protections, such as keeping iron, salt, protective bindrunes, or sacred herbs in a pouch on oneself, would be another. More passive forms involve forming boundaries and barriers, and more aggressive would involve active defense of oneself and others.
Impasse
Impasse is a situation in which "progress is impossible, especially because the people involved cannot agree". In spiritwork, impasse is where negotiations have broken down or the vættir are unfriendly enough that we cannot make some kind of deal, and merely avoiding one another is not possible. It may be that our needs, wants, or demands of community play a part in us pushing for a particular end that cannot be negotiated out of, or an offense is so great that, while one or both parties do not wish to engage in combat, we are not negotiating either. In such a scenario, dealing with each other through more formal channels, such as skuld or weregild, may be unavailable or unsuited to what is causing the impasse. It may be disagreement on suitable payment for such is what is at issue.
Whatever the case, impasse is where we find ourselves when we are unable or unwilling to agree on a course of action with vættir. An impasse may give us breathing room and motivation to find alternative solutions should we keep our end of it up, such as being unwilling to negotiate with a vættr on messing with a loved one. Where a vættr may be unwilling to totally breach the peace and engage with us in Combat in order to mess with a loved one of ours, we may, and the Impasse can be held should we hold that option available to ourselves. Impasse can be held between host and guest, particularly if demands on both are contrary to the other, with the expectation being on both parties that open conflict is to be avoided. I have found the Impasse step often leads folks back to Dealing With Vættir or Negotiation steps because of a desire to avoid Combat on one or all sides.
Combat
I thought about calling this section a few different things. I went with Combat because this stage tends to be fairly straightforward, and is about employing some kind of violence. Do note that subterfuge and underhanded methods are available to all parties here, and the use of the term Combat does not imply encounters will be straightforward, fair, or balanced. Where a vættr in the Dealing With stage may just default to something like a noise or spiritual feeling of malaise to ward a space, encouraging us to not encroach on Their home, Combat might be something like álfshot, where the álf shoots and then leaves us to suffer with it from thereon. Some vættir default to this option, though I find that even for more aggressive vættir that is seldom the case for no discernible reason. If a given person keeps saying "I'm under attack! Why do spirits keep attacking me?" I hope they are curious enough to ask these questions to a diviner rather than wallowing in drama. If a vættr is going out of its way to harass you, or actively engage you in some form of Combat, nine inches out of ten, there is likely something you need to do in another step, such as Resolution, to make that stop. Combat is an incredible commitment of energy and resources. Few vættir, ourselves included, willingly engage in it without good reason.
As Combat is an incredible commitment of energy and resources, I recommend it as the absolute last resort when dealing with any vættir. None of us, divine parentage or whatever else we may be included, escapes our mortality. It is entirely possible to lose and die due to spiritual combat. If you decide to piss off everything around you, the response from the local vættir may not even register as a direct attack to you. A swarm of bees attacks you randomly, and oops, there's a bee allergy you did not know you had. If we, as body-inhabiting beings, can work with magic, manipulate spiritual energies, and manifest physical and non-physical results through these things, so too can the vættir we share the Worlds with. Álfshot often manifested and may still manifest as physical ailments such as headaches, body aches, illnesses, and the like. We can make each other quite miserable.
It is worth noting at the close of this section that no one acts alone. You are entangled in multiple relationships, including that of your families, friends, any tribe or Kindred or group affiliations you have, initiatory lineages, and all the varieties of Ancestors you may have. You have push and pull on all of the relationships you are in, and those webs may pull folks into your conflicts, willing or not. Autonomy does matter, and sometimes we find ourselves in situations where Combat is necessary, and not engaging in it exposes those in our communities to risk. So, if you are going to engage in the step of Combat, being sure your Ginnreginn are with you on it and you both are fully committing to it is key. Being successful in its use is necessary both for your own wellbeing and that of anyone you are in community with.
Committing to this step fully also does not need to mean being vicious. Sometimes a vættr will not respect a boundary unless it is well-defended, and once shown that they are maintained with resolve They may be quite willing and interested in pursuing relatively peaceful, or even cordial means of maintaining good relationships. The equivalent of tearing someone to pieces over stepping on your foot is not only out of proportion to the offense, this overreaction prevents any furthering of relationship and may escalate aggression from aggrieved friends and relatives, involving you in a regular cycle of Combat that wastes time, resources, and ruins what could have been good, gainful relationships on both sides.
Resolution
This step comes after any of the previous. Resolution is "an official decision that is made after a group or organization has voted", "determination", and "the act of solving or ending a problem or difficulty". You and a vættr may find Resolution after a quick negotiation where you make a mutually beneficial agreement. You may find Resolution in Dealing With Vættir by erecting wards that repel certain energies you do not desire in your home. Resolution may be reached after a protracted Impasse where you could not agree on how to proceed from a bitter disagreement. After Combat is ended, Resolution is resolving differences, picking up the pieces of whatever is left, how peace is made, weregild is paid, or how truces are struck. Sometimes the exchanges in Combat are so contentious there is nothing to be done in Resolution outside of a recognition that given fight may be over but that conflict may come again.
I should note that throughout this examination of negotiating and dealing with less than friendly spirits I have not touched on things like vættir affected by specific things like environmental destruction, war, etc. Providing a general basis was what I was going for here, rather than digging into specifics. Some vættir may be completely against any kind of Resolution, or are unwilling to come to terms unless the original issue is addressed. If the perpetrators of the environmental destruction, war, etc are dead and/or unwilling to address it, there may be nothing you can do to resolve things. If we are just another kind of vættr, then we both can be traumatized and unable to move on. Likewise, we also the capacity to heal. It may not be in this lifetime that that has to, or can, occur.
Conclusion
Much of the point of my writing this post in the first place is to give folks a starting ground if they're going to interact with less than friendly vættir. I have avoided going into great detail on how to engage with things like specific forms spiritual combat because there is a level of responsibility there that I do not wish to take on at the moment, and in any case, the recommendations I might have may be inappropriate to the needs of a given situation. Your approach, needs, and reasons for doing what you do are going to be different from my own even if we share many or all of these factors.
So much of the interaction with less than friendly and hostile spirits takes place with regards to one's placement with the Ginnreginn, in community, and any history and politics that play a factor in the unfolding of relationships that lead us to reach out to unfriendly or hostile vættir in the first place. Maintaining an awareness of your place in things and what proper conduct looks like in what scenario helps to avoid faux pas, overreach, overreacting, or being a victim to vættir taking advantage of you. Not every vættir is out to get you, but it is foolhardy to throw prudence and caution to the wind.
Being aware of the cosmology you inhabit, what is yours to do, what vættir are local to you and may interact with you, all are ways to maintain solid relationships and avoid issues. To be sure, there is no avoiding every issue, and yet, it is amazing how much harm you can reduce just by being aware, respectful, and careful. Even with those relationships with vættir that are contentious, unfriendly, or even hostile, keeping a steady state of relative peace between you can be far easier if your approach is based in respect and hospitality. For those times where grið ("a truce, peace, pardon; friðr is the general word, grið the special, deriving its name from being limited in time or space (asylum)") or frið ("peace, but also personal security, inviolability") is not possible, having prepared for disagreement and conflict will allow us to adapt, and may put the advantage when conflict is unavoidable in our favor, and may in some cases allow us to establish or reestablish grið or frið.
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