A Personal Anecdote about Loki

Here's an interesting article about possession from Phil Hine:

"Possession remains a powerful form of magical work. It can be used to derive oracular information (as used by the Greeks and Tibetans), to charge magical weapons, to share in the power of the God (as in ritual Masses) or 'live' a particular mythic transformation. In constructing possession-workings, it can be useful to examine magical and religious paradigms where possession is a recognised and culturally-defined technique. The experience itself can be related to wider phenomenon such as religious conversion, hypnosis, and abreactive therapy. As with all types of magical technique, it's use requires careful analysis and evaluation if it is not to devolve into a habituated limitation. In general, magical possession is both useful and enjoyable, if a little hair-raising at times."

And here's an anecdote about a friend of mine who was working with the Norse god Loki:
It was either friday or saturday, I was with my friend who invoked Loki, but stopped right at the point where she had gotten Loki basically over her shoulder. Then the overarching ritual was literaly rained out and so we had to pack up and leave. I told her she should thank Loki for coming and then dispell him. But she didn't. She was strangely very excited about his presence, and mentioned a sensation around one of her shoulder blades, as well as just the sensation of something behind her.

This actually lined up with later web research we did on Loki interaction people had had over at Barberlith which you can read here. At any rate, before I left her house she went on and on about her excitement and enthusiasm for Loki and intended to build an altar and work with him one on one. Later I talked to her when I got home, and she talked about how she felt that she had always had this identification with Loki but never had a name for it or a feeling for it. Basically she was very up on Loki at the time.

So then the next thing that happens is two days later, I talk to her about Loki, and she brings up a dream, which on the surface doesn't have to do with Loki, but I'll relate it anyways. The gist of the dream was she was at a lake and she saw a turtle pop out of the water. This is significant because we were also working with Eshu the Yoruban god of the crossroads, and one of the things he likes is turtles. At any rate, she was frightened by this and ran into her house and locked herself inside. While this was going on, another spirit we dealt with the Coyote, which is a native american trickster god, who actually is much like Loki, took the turtle in it's jaws and bit it in two. So symbolically just using the metaphors of the gods in play, you have the trickster god running in on the god of the crossroads, fortune, misfortune, death and life, who my friend was afraid of, and snapping it in two, which brought her relief.

So we have that dream. But then the other thing that's going on, is she has this event in her life take a sudden very bad turn on Monday. And I mention to her, that it may somehow be connected with Loki, in that it may be an overarching trick. Because typically Loki's blessings come through a roundabout route where they initially seem quite hellish and wrong. He seems to have wronged you, and then he gives you a magical horse. That sort of thing. But she took this as a reason to hate Loki. And basically said to hell with Loki, and immediately dispelled him from her. Then was quite miserable for the rest of the evening.

Then later that evening she gets a call, and the thing that had gone bad, suddenly turned into something extremely beneficial and exciting--ala the magical horse.

There would seem to be two interpretations that you could have here in terms of these spiritual metaphors: 1. That Loki was a malevolent spirit in her life, and as soon as she got rid of him, things in her life righted. OR 2. That the nature of Loki is that he plays tricks to get a reaction and rise out of the people he's with (usually Odin or Thor) and then once he has achieved the reaction he wants, then he gives a blessing. And that he tricked my friend and got the reaction he wanted from her which was that she was justifiably pissed. And then after that he gave his blessing.

If it's the first thing, then she should have nothing further to do with Loki, I would think. If it's the second thing, then I think she owes him some kind of sacrificial thanks.

Oh. There's a third way to look at this. That there was no magical influence. Life just happened. Stop thinking about it. Blah blah blah. And that's definitely TRUE. But the reason that you would accept the magical metaphor in a world view is because it is a kind of a trip. We all have to live life regardless, but why live a boring one dictated by your material situation? When you can live a trippy fantastic one? There are things you can learn about yourself as well through magic. Things that you can strengthen about yourself through magical metaphor. In the end, even if you don't believe in it, and I certainly do and don't--it's a powerful psychological metaphor for dealing with the conscious and sub-conscious.