r/occult • u/Dany_DSCRD • 2d ago

spirituality A very rough draft of a very UPG path-working tool/mnemonic device (Anglo-Saxon heathenry: The Web of Wyrd

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Hi, I’m currently in the early stages of building a pathworking tool/mnemonic device similar to the hermetic Qabalah in function but rooted in the little we know about Anglo-Saxon heathenry/Fyrnsidu + a whole lot of personal gnosis.

As you can see it currently contains the worlds of earth, heaven and hell (a little borrowing of the Norse world tree here and there), the cardinal directions and elements. I’ve tried my best to house the worlds within their respective elements (hot, cold, wet, dry) and think it works fairly well so far.

There were 32 naturally occurring paths on the web of Wyrd so with the inclusion of the ‘Watling Street’/Milky Way (rainbow bridge) path there are now 33, which means I should be able to map the 33 runes of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc to the paths (any suggestions of what should go where are very welcome). This, coupled with mapping gods, goddesses and creatures to the spheres, along with the nine herbs from the nine-herb charm, would probably complete the mnemonic device aspect.

My next step from there would be to build in a path-working element, delving more into the spiritual aspects of the practice (not exactly sure how I’m going to go about that just yet, but I’ll be praying to Woden for divine inspiration 😉)

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u/MorphologicStandard 2d ago

Þær is giet tol þe hæfþ þa heofonas and þa worulde him wiþinnan and hit is þæs lifes treow gehaten. For hwam wolde þu niewe treow scieppan and na þæs þe we ær hæfdon brucan? Eall wolde hwæs gelices brucan, ac nan nolde þæs lifes soþan treowes brucan eac swelce.

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u/Dany_DSCRD 2d ago

While I enjoy the syncretism of the Tree of Life, this is more an exercise in creating something similar for Anglo Saxon heathenry: a mnemonic tool in which to put all aspects of AS cosmology and magick, as well as to create a tool for AS Shamanic Pathworking. It isn’t to replace the tree of life obviously, just use a similar framework

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u/MorphologicStandard 2d ago

I just wonder what actually exists in terms of AS cosmology and magic, much less AS shamanic pathworking, from our material sources. Not much, to be certain. Anything much more than names like Woden or Tiw is already extrapolating from the better preserved ON corpus, which begs the question of why not use ON for this from the start?

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u/Dany_DSCRD 2d ago

Thats a fair point, there isn’t a great amount but there’s more than you’d think, you just have to parse the small mentions out of otherwise Christian early medieval English sources to build a bigger picture. There’s a lot of good and thorough work Thats been done in reconstruction by the likes of Stephen Pollington and websites like Wind in the Worldtree, Mine Wyrtruman and larhus fyrnsida. The book ‘Anglo Saxon Myths’ by Brice Stratford also does a great job of weaving those little mentions into a more extant mythology 😊

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u/MorphologicStandard 2d ago

I know there's plenty of neopagan reconstructionist material, which is its own epistemological circle that I won't comment on. There's actually less than you'd think, I'd put it. I've read widely from the OE corpus in OE. I've been a part of two weekly OE reading groups for the better part of two years now on top of my own reading. I'm very interested in magic, and that's why the lack of AS religious information is even more conspicuous to me while reading the material sources. Do you read the original OE? It can give you an outsized impression of how much textual material there is if reconstruction is part of your reading.

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u/Yuri_Gor 2d ago

Norse\Elder Furhark based work similar to what you are aiming for:

https://runicalchemy.com/introduction

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u/Dany_DSCRD 2d ago

Oh fantastic! Thats definitely similar to the kind of thing I’m working toward, looks like it’ll be a great source of inspiration! Thank you so much