In the second journey, the relaxation experienced by the student whilst falling down the hole comes out of her skill in being able to let go, something she has learned in her Middleworld explorations. Her wits are used to free her from her dragon’s prison, and there is a skill and courage in the way she handles the whole experience.
One of the many rewards of these Upperworld and Lowerworld journeys is that before long the skills a student uses within them unavoidably filter through to many different situations in life, so Otherworld exploration is always a useful tool for strengthening inner reserves and gaining inner confidence.
The landscapes in both Upper and Lower worlds are always vastly different from the landscapes in the more balanced and sedate Middleworld. It is a difference one could equate with the fast and slow lanes of a major highway. In the slow lane - or the Middleworld - you must proceed at a modest pace, whilst in the fast lane - or the Upper and Lower worlds - a different set of rules apply and you must move at a more brisk pace in order to move with the flow. The sedate slow lane may not give you the feeling of speed, but it is necessary for each individual to start off there.
The Upper and Lower worlds are so dramatic in their characters, we could look upon them as giant beings. To look upon these worlds as beings rather than places may sound strange, but it is in fact a more fitting description. The Otherworld landscapes may be described as dramatic, powerful, fierce, intense, bold, graceful and exquisite - and these descriptions are apt, for the fact that the emotional content does in fact comprise the landscape itself!
In old Romani lore ‘soul’ is as much in the landscape as it is in human beings and animals. In the light of this we could say that the Upper, Lower and Middle worlds might really all be living individuals in their own right, perhaps giant super-beings! Although this is very much a more ancient interpretation and understanding of the Otherworld, I believe it can probably answer a great many questions for us.
For instance, if we think about this idea long enough we might well come up with the religious concept of ‘God’, for if Otherworld realms have a sensitivity and life of their own, they could, collectively, constitute an extremely all-powerful being, a super-giant of some kind whose head was in the Upperworld - or sky - and whose bowels were in the Lowerworld - or earth. I have sometimes thought that this could have relevance when looking at the development of the idea of God, and the idea of the Cosmic Man, common in some ancient cultures. It can draw our attention to how the ancient Otherworld might have changed as we became more ‘civilized’ human beings. The Otherworld has certainly been pulled completely out of shape in the developing modern world, compared with the way it used to be.
The Lowerworld could very likely be where we acquired the picture we have of Hell, the place where everything: senses, feelings and experiences, can rage so violently that no one really wants to go there. An apt place to send people who need to be punished perhaps! The Otherworld realms in their many forms, have certainly constituted a place where we can go to learn how to behave more appropriately, and in times when we lived in primitive tribes this aspect would more than likely have been used to help individuals ward off anti-social behaviour.
The Lowerworld has undergone many a transformation. Previously perceived by the old Romani gypsies as a place of great learning and then in more religious times outlawed because it was a place to be avoided (unless you were an experienced Chovihano, in which case you were brave enough to tackle it), more recently it has become a ‘trendy’ place to visit where many modern and inexperienced spirit travellers feel they must go to remain ‘in vogue’. As soon as they begin any Otherworld training it becomes their purpose to be initiated into some kind of shamanic practice.
This way of viewing the Otherworld is not only inaccurate but also extremely disrespectful. You are far better exploring the Middleworld until you know deep in your soul the Lowerworld isn’t the kind of place you visit for a holiday or to do your shopping! Not everything in the Otherworld is good and not everything in the Otherworld is pleasant, and far too many people are chasing mere shadows in their attempts to travel to the Lowerworld causing a great muddle for themselves, and in fact making their relationship with the Otherworld worse than it might already be. The Otherworld has a very negative side as well as a very positive side. We need to take this fact into account, especially as it has become a feature of ‘shamanic’ exploration here in the West in modern times to believe that the Otherworld is only ever ‘good’. We have sadly forgotten the realities in our modern times - or perhaps we have chosen to ignore them!
I have visited the Lowerworld when I have needed to, as it is the Chovihano’s task to familiarize himself with all realms of the Otherworld, and the intensity there is really no picnic. It can be unbearably strong, as anyone who has ever really been there will testify. One does not return to such a place without a good reason.
Jack Lee recommended that one should never take the Lowerworld lightly, as it can be your worst nightmare waiting to come true as well as the seat of your great fears. Everything you’ve ever really feared can lurk in the deepest darkest recesses of the lower realm of the Lowerworld and it is a fight, even for the hardiest to come and go from it with ease. I learned that everything in the Lowerworld can be so razor sharp: feelings, thoughts, senses, literally everything, that you can be cut to pieces by a single thought. It is a place in which you can easily ‘burn up’ if you stay for any length of time! Hell indeed!
Probably the closest we can ever come to describing the experience of the Otherworld is to describe the dream state. Time and space have a completely different set of rules when we are sleeping and in a dream we don’t question where we are or how we got there - until we are awake.
I once dreamed that I was eating a large slab of cake, which seemed to be a chocolate cake, but it was a piece of fruit cake and a piece of bread pudding as well! All these flavours were somehow intertwined, and within the dream, eating this quite strange combination was completely normal. Only when I woke did I wonder what kind of cake it was really supposed to be.
The dream and all its symbolism contains the reality whilst we are sleeping, just as the Otherworld and its lessons contains the reality whilst we are journeying, or travelling through it. If in a dream we are in our sitting rooms at home one minute and then in a foreign country the next, we do not, ordinarily, question how we got from one place to the other, but simply seem to accept it. A part of Otherworld travel that is very close to this is what is known as ‘time travel’, ‘astral travel’, or what some might term, ‘shamanic flying’.
Much of the time in Otherworld explorations I have people walk about in their Middleworlds before they learn how to travel in this sense, or fly. Learning to have our feet on the ground is sensible, as it contributes very much to learning how to lift our feet off the ground when we need to! We cannot do one without having learned to do the other first. After all, birds don’t!
I have mentioned that I have people make contact with the ground in the initial stages of Otherworld exploration - fingering the soil etcetera - as this initially enhances an understanding of ‘grounding’ as a fundamental part of Otherworld experience. So, when people fly about their Otherworld landscapes, particularly at the beginning, I encourage them to make perhaps more contact with the ground than usual, as they may often have a tendency to fly off as a means of escaping the pressures of having to look at themselves, and the object of the whole exercise is to bring the life back into the self, and ultimately the ground, so that the spirit within the self is reunited with the spirit of the ground. Getting people not only to finger the soil but to roll in it, bury themselves in it if they wish and to spend as much time with it as they can inevitably helps them not to be afraid to ground themselves.
Almost as soon as life comes back into the soil, then - or as soon as the individual gives respect back to the Earth - the person is freed in very many ways, able to identify with him/herself at last, and able to identify with the Ot
herworld in a way probably never experienced before. Flying off will then be a more enjoyable and balanced exercise, and will be looked upon in a very different way.
For my great-grandfather, the art of what could be called ‘shamanic flying’ was most aptly demonstrated by birds when taking flight. He considered that birds would know how to leave and enter various worlds because they kept their respect for Bavol, the Air Spirit, and for Ravnos, the Spirit of the Sky. Birds were therefore important and it was advantageous to observe and copy them.
When birds deliver their bodies to the air they are sacrificing themselves to the strength of their wings and need to respect the laws of the sky if they want the sky to keep them safe. This is something we human beings never experience in a physical capacity, simply because we are not naturally fitted with wings, so it takes us longer to learn such a thing. We can nevertheless learn that much of flying is all about respecting other birds’ space. For instance, how many times do birds crash into each other? Rarely if at all. In large flocks they perform the most brilliant and perfect aerial displays, creating the most intricate patterns in the sky. I don’t believe that birds fly simply because they have wings; I believe they are able to fly because they hold Ravnos, the Spirit of the Sky, in great esteem. Their wings developed as a result of this respect.
I have flown many times to the Otherworld and around the Otherworld. It can be an exhilarating experience flying low over the landscape, close to the tops of trees and down into the Earth and up again, through numerous realms where both giants and Bitee Fokee dwell. I wasn’t able to do this without undergoing a good deal of training with Jack Lee and my ancestor, and of course, with birds. But my ability to fly only resulted from my ability to relate to the Otherworld landscape, and more importantly, myself.
The Otherworld has always been so important to the Romani Chovihano, it was not uncommon for these medicine men in past times to offer much of their souls and bodies in order to learn its laws. This is doubtless the meaning behind sacrifice, which I will go into in more detail in the next chapter. But it was normal in many folk tales for the hero to slice flesh from his body to offer to the Earth and her spirits in return for gaining access to the Otherworld. The Chovihano may not always have sliced up his own body to give to the Otherworld - although who can tell to what lengths devout medicine men would have stretched in past times - but the giving of one’s blood as fair exchange for knowledge would have been more usual.
Without doubt, the Romani way of identifying with the Otherworld as a world with a more ‘earthy’ flavour can prove helpful in times when belief in the imagination has almost disappeared altogether. A Romani story, which I often use to remind myself, and others, of the way we can so easily diminish Otherworld power, perhaps best explains the relationship between the Romanies and their very real Otherworld.
The story is called The Sevenfold Liar and, briefly, it is about a traveller who meets a deaf and dumb man on the road and asks him how far it is to the next village. The deaf and dumb man replies, ‘Quite a way. Perhaps three to four miles.’ The traveller moves on, next meeting a blind man and asking him what the time is. The blind man looks at his watch and says, ‘Ten to three.’ The traveller moves on again, next meeting a naked man, whom he asks for a smoke. The naked man obliges by producing from his pocket a pouch of tobacco. The traveller moves on again, and next meets a man with no arms wheeling a sack of potatoes along, whilst being chased by a man with no legs who is crying, ‘Stop, thief, stop!’ The traveller soon arrives at the village where he meets a man who is over 100 years old. The old man is sobbing. ‘I was living with my grandfather,’ he weeps, ‘and he has just thrown me out because he’s getting married again and doesn’t want me around.’ The traveller finally reaches the centre of the village and as he passes the church a coffin moves past, and the lid of the coffin is lifted and a face looks out and recognizes the traveller. ‘Would you like a pint of beer?’ the body in the coffin asks. The story ends with the storyteller saying, ‘That’s the truth. No truer words have ever been spoken!’
So they haven’t! The whole story, so typically full of Romani humour, seems to make a mockery of the so-called truth of physical law as we have developed it today. The Sevenfold Liar is all about telling the truth - but perhaps the truth according to the Otherworld! In the story daily life as we know it is turned completely upside down - perhaps a message that real ancient life as it was created is linked with the Otherworld, where our wholeness and freedom can always be returned to us.
Again, the magical effects of numbers appear within the story, such as number three, suggesting that by the time the traveller reaches the village, three miles will have been covered - or a valuable lesson would have been learned, a lesson in how not to believe that the physical is the only world, perhaps. The presence of the number seven is also significant, seven being the magical number often associated with clever lies or tricks which can aid in bringing luck, as in the Bari Hukni, when the gypsies professed to be wandering Europe as Christian penitents for seven years! As mentioned before, the number seven would be more important than the fact that the storyteller is considered to be a liar, for if he achieves something seven times over, he has truly mastered the art of luck!
Where the Otherworld is concerned, I believe that in modern times we have become so accustomed to the ‘imaginary’ or the ‘dream state’ being ‘unreal’ that we have lost the ability to tell the difference between the justifiably real and the more incomprehensible illusion, or when we are being fooled, and we’ve therefore become so muddled that we have created realms of existence where perhaps none existed before. I believe we are faced with numerous shadow worlds, modelled on upper, middle and lower existences of the past, which we have created and superimposed over the Otherworld in order to suit the needs of our time, or any time in which we happen to dwell.
These shadow worlds, I believe, are often what we refer to as astral worlds, or astral planes, but in reality they are more like ‘mental projections’. In the last few hundred years, or perhaps even the last few thousand years, many people have ‘lived’ in these places, or had an awareness of them, with the result that the shadows have grown exceptionally long there.
In earlier years I became quite involved in these shadow existences myself, when I used my Otherworld skills to contact the spirits of the dead on behalf of others who were still in this physical world. There were advantages and disadvantages to these experiments. On the positive side I was able to re-educate people on Otherworld dimensions and laws: how we could live with the natural landscape, how we could nurture what lay beyond the material influence within our psychology. On the negative side I was taken on an extremely lengthy journey through numerous shadow worlds where I got caught up in their very sticky webs, but the experience nevertheless taught me exactly what the shadow worlds are all about and how to deal with them in a practical way.
A good many people who experience the death of a loved one so desperately wish to communicate with that person that they will do anything to receive vital evidence that the individual still exists. They will turn to those who are called ‘mediums’ in Spiritualism for such reassurance. When many people got to know that I was capable of providing such a facility, they naturally turned to my ancient Chovihano skills for the same purpose.
Spiritualism has been so closely linked with the Romani gypsy magical culture and folk traditions that I believe many facets of it have been borrowed from Romani Otherworld practice, particularly where communications with the dead are concerned. Without question, such traditions involving spirit communications have a much earlier root; tribes in India and Africa were known to communicate with their ancestors over many thousands of years in much the same way. It goes without saying that there are special rules to take on board when you are reproducing or remodelling such practices and if these rules are not observed, problems can arise. There remains a vast difference between spirit communication in ancient indigenous tribes, and spirit communication
in the modern civilized world.
Certain aspects of my people’s culture would have been modified or even excluded to aptly fit more modern social needs, especially when Spiritualism gained popularity during the two world wars of the twentieth century, when so many people were dying. The ancient Romani gypsy belief that a soul must have a clear space and an allotted degree of time in which to journey to the ancestral world was not observed by Spiritualists in earlier parts of the twentieth century. When answers were desperately needed and deaths compensated for regarding loss of life during war, especially when so few knew little or nothing at all about what occurred after death, what we may call an ‘afterlife’ needed to come into existence, to be created, as a means of helping soothe the pain of the bereaved. It also served to guarantee that those who had died so young and in such tragic circumstances could still contain life on the ‘other side’. Many people began not only communicating with the dead during these difficult times but, understandably, were also loath to let the dead go. The ‘place’ we can refer to as the ‘other side’ was created to answer the misappropriation and sheer non-acceptance of death, a place that didn’t exist in previous centuries in the same way.
It is of course possible to ‘prove’ life after death, but at what cost to the soul? The soul may be far better off being released, as in ancient times, so that it can move on to wherever it may need to go. Are we not, after all, once our grieving time has passed, merely holding on to someone for our own benefit? That is how my people would see it and that is how the Chovihano sees it.
One lady I got to know had lost a daughter through suicide. The girl had been just 20 years old and the mother felt sure that she was not at rest because she had died in such terrible circumstances. I contacted the girl, who was indeed travelling about in the shadow realms, including this physical one and who badly needed to have her soul rescued. She spoke to her mother many times through me and the best I could do for both of them, according to old Romani lore, was to try to exorcize the girl’s spirit so that she could travel on into ancestral worlds and live her Otherworld life with whatever it brought for her, away from the physical world. This was traditional in my culture, but it was difficult for the mother to accept, because she was uneducated in these matters and was upset by the thought of her daughter shifting into another reality and being lost to her altogether.
We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Folk Tradition and Culture Page 18
