Thinking About – Multiverses

Thinking About – Multiverses

A nice light topic for a Tuesday morning. As is often the case the talking stick session of our local moot has inspired me to write a blog post.

Some people go down the pub to relax, watch a bit of Sky Sports on the big screen with a lager and a packet of crisps. Laugh exceedingly loudly at their mates’ jokes, and when they leave the pub they shout very loudly ‘see ya John, yeah mate, later! Hyah Hyah!’ And stumble home. Alternatively you could go to a rather lovely town pub that doesn’t have a big screen, no jukebox, and no pool table, sit around a round table and discuss quantum mechanics and alternate universes. So that’s what we did.

The topic was ‘What do you think of the concept of multiple universes, and do they bleed into ours at times of crisis?’ 

So. What do I think of the concept of multiple universes?

Right now I’ve taken the plunge and I’m working my way through the Stephen King Dark Tower series of books. They are all about multiple universes with Jake at once saying, Go then! There are other worlds than this! So once more the moot topic is right there even in my leisure time. But what is the Multiverse Theory? If you are shaking your head thinking I have no idea, check out this Wiki page.

Or, in a nutshell:

The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of possible universes, including the universe in which we live. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that describe them.

The various universes within the multiverse are called “parallel universes”, “other universes”, or “alternative universes”.

So while I’m sitting here typing, there is another Damh who isn’t a musician but owns his own corporation, who is polishing his Ferrari, ready to take it for a spin around Miami. All things are possible. There is another parallel universe where the Labour party accepted their new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, with enthusiasm, respected the democratic decision of its membership, pulled together in a mature and adult fashion, and currently he is ahead in the polls in the approaching General Election. I know. Sounds crazy and impossible, but according to the multiverse theory, it’s happening. Right now.

I know a lot of Pagans who are into science. I’m one of them. So how does the idea of multiverses fit in with the Pagan view of the world? If we accept the multiverse theory and then look at the Pagan concepts of the Otherworld things start to combine very easily. What if that hidden place we call Annwn is one of those universes? What if the Fey are from that world? What if they not only bleed into our world, but we bleed into theirs? If we look at the lore of the Otherworld we will find that the entrances are often found to be ancient burial chambers, barrows, fogous, stone circles, sometimes graveyard trees.

Time to consider the second part of the moot question – do they bleed into our at times of crisis?

Some of the places traditionally associated with entrances to the Otherworld are actually places of death and mourning. Long barrows are tombs that held the dead thousands of years ago, and were often in use for generations. We don’t know exactly what stone circles were used for. I’ve heard some people say they might even be goat pens. I call rubbish on that one. They are all over Albion, and feel as if they are associated with ritual of some kind. Once we become aware of our own mortality, it makes sense that stone circles have some spiritual connection to survival, honouring those who have gone before, and the cycles of life and death. So this connection makes them places that are connected with crisis, with trauma, with loss. Maybe that heightened emotion opens doors.

In stories surrounding poltergeist activity the focus in often a teenager, most often a girl, just beginning her menstruation cycle. Teenage years are often traumatic, as the young person tries to understand the changes that are happening to them, in a world not set up to respect young adults as anything other than older children. Ghosts too are the results of trauma. Images usually linked to a person who has passed over, yet images, ghost-like forms still continue to be seen. In car accidents people often report time slowing down, and sometimes that even allows them to take action and survive. Are these things Other realities bleeding into ours? In another universe did that person not survive the car accident? In another universe is the person who appears as a ghostly apparition still alive, and bleeding through into ours? Were those traditional portals into the Otherworld, the barrows, circles and trees, created by the heightened emotions of those who built them, there to bury their dead?

The Pagan worldview does acknowledge other realities. Maybe even the myths of Ys, Avalon, Tir na Nog, and many other stories were inspired by real encounters with other universes. Who knows. When we cast our magical circle with intent, some say we using the tool of the Wand or Athame to shift our magical working space away from this reality and into another. Again I’ve been in, and led, so many magical rites where, as soon as the circle is cast, the rain stops, or the wind dies down, or the temperature increases. And the moment it is uncast, the rain returns, the cold bites once more. I think we traverse these worlds all of the time in our magical and Pagan practices.

What do you think?

11 responses to “Thinking About – Multiverses”

  1. Im working my way through the Dark Tower series as well! The multiverse idea has always fascinated me, and I love what Stephen King is doing with it.

  2. It is exactly I believe too Damn. The World Tree whether it leads to three worlds or nine Maybe there is something in us (spirit, soul, quantum mind) that lets those who know how to shift their awareness into the Otherworlds.

  3. It’s an interesting hypothesis Damh…we’ll never, I suspect, be able to have definitive answers whilst we are so aware of ourselves in the here and now.
    A related topic is how we view time. As I sit writing this I can hear the clock ticking, in half an hour I’ll put the kettle on for a brew…we perceive the passage of time as linear. If, however, time ought rather to be perceived as curvilinear then there might be points of intersection where those with a sense for such things might notice things from the past or future appearing in the now.
    I live not far from York where there are well-attested accounts of people seeing Roman soldiers marching. An interesting part of this is that these marching soldiers seem to be partially below ground level…no doubt reflecting what was ground level in Roman York. Isn’t life fascinating…John /l\

  4. Very intriguing. I’ve often wondered about parallel universes. What is, what was and what could have been, and are they all intertwined and happening in real time. It reminds me of a lyric by Roger Waters, ‘my possible pasts’. If that makes any sense, in this universe.
    Good read Damh
    Blessed be
    / | \

  5. I read The Dark Tower series many years ago & thought ‘at last someone has been able to describe what I’ve been thinking most of my life!’ I believe totally in multi-universe(s) & many times have thought that, especially during my meditation or my dreams, that I have visited them. Places are familiar to me, however, they have slight tweaks in them that make them different from the one in which I usually inhabit. Oh, it would be great if the one in which Jeremy Corbyn is accepted by all the Party & everyone pulled together for a great victory on June 8th!

    Blessings

  6. Interesting topic! My Spirit Allies come from the Alternates. I usually just say they live on the Astral, but that isn’t really accurate. The ones who are my Allies live here with me, even though they came from Elsewhere and even though I can’t see their bodies. I’ve been connected at various times with my counterparts in the Alternates, also–not anything I would really recommend, because it allows too many psychic parasites to get through, really snarls up the energy lines, and drains a person. The Alternates I’ve connected with have all been very similar to me and to the life I’m living here in this Solid World. I know there are those who are very different from me, but those Alternate worlds are also different from this one and it seems to me that similar Alternates are closer and different ones are farther away, less likely to interact with this one. Of course, that’s my perception and other people may experience it quite differently.

    The weirdest thing I experienced through this happened when I realized that my Alternates were praying to me as if I were a goddess. Many of them were under attack and when they connected with me, I perceived those attacks as if they were happening directly to me, so I defended myself and got rid of the attackers–which naturally got rid of them for my Alternates–and so they got in the habit of connecting to me each time they prayed. I couldn’t let it continue because it was destabilizing me, pulling me between this reality and their multiple realities. It took a lot of work to get completely disconnected from all of them and to put up barriers which prevented reconnection.

    It sure made me wonder about people who get diagnosed with mental illnesses. What if some of them are also subject to that kind of pull from multiple Alternates? What if that’s the source (or maybe the partial source) of their destabilization? I admit, for a while I was very much afraid I would end up on the other side of sanity, and that’s a big part of the reason I had to put a stop to the whole Alternate-connection thing.

  7. Ive yet to finish the last of that series!..also..weaveworld..another multiverse book! I believe that all moments are a crossroad..to all possibilities..

  8. I love this topic – its fascinating. I wonder if we don’t constantly move through multiverses, if time is non linear and if there are infinite multiverses absolutely anything can happen.

    I tried to explain my theory but it made me sound like I was nuts. I guess I see multiverses more like a cosmic web of interconnectedness. I think that in each ‘now’ that we have, we travel through this web, as if it were bejewelled with drops of mist, we travel from drop to drop, multiverse to multiverse, led by our beliefs, our energy and our emotions – and also those of others around us.

    Since it is infinite literally anything is possible but because we are human, and because of the way we are as a society we are severely limited. Maybe shamans are able to break free of these constraints for a while, maybe magic and ceremony is also a way of finding a little glimpse of possibilities we can’t usually see.

    Thank you for this thought provoking post 🙂

  9. hmmm….fascinating topic! i have to say i do believe in other realities or dimensions. i used to astral travel a bit some years ago and just from those experiences i had while doing so, i came to understand something…that we can be in 2 places at once, or rather perhaps certain needed parts of us split off and go into those other realities temporarily to experience what we are seeking in them. i have done meditations that involved things from one person’s life experience manifesting in my meditation. that is the best i can explain that without writing an essay here lol) very cool stuff…so, i believe all these “realities” are interconnected somehow and that we get glimpses of them, or sometimes more than a glimpse, in this world we are dwelling in. lately i have experienced some moments where things do not seem “right”…where time has sped up or backed up or i may have been in another dimension for a few seconds and then was snapped back quickly. can’t quite explain it as well as i wish i could but i feel something is happening now…something i don’t quite understand but that i shall come to understand when the time is right. either that or i am losing my mind! 🙂 only time will tell! blessings!

  10. or sometimes more than a glimpse, in this world we are dwelling in. lately i have experienced some moments where things do not seem “right”…

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