Shivering River…

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The traditional number of runes stands at twenty-four.

A colt has twenty-four milk teeth.

Sleipnir is a colt.

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The runes are usually depicted in tablet form

as three rows of eight runes apiece.

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The facts here tend to support the poetic thesis.

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There is, though, an important distinction to be made.

‘Heaven’ is not here viewed as a navigable place,

which is how we might have been led to regard it but, rather, as a space,

that is, a ‘head-space’ or a state of consciousness.

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The runes give access to this consciousness

through the process known as ‘divination’.

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So, keys, yes but not on a ring or chain,

and ‘heaven’ is not somewhere we are destined

to arrive at or not but, rather,

a state mind, or realm, which can be accessed by all.

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NUANCES OF NICOLL

The Keys to Heaven

Stuart France

Available via Amazon

Psychologist, Maurice Nicoll studied under Fourth Way exponents G.I Gurdjieff and  P.D. Ouspensky, and presented his own philosophy in a series of works published during the Mid Twentieth Century.

In his seminal work, Living Time… he makes no bones about insisting that the psychological states and concepts that he is expounding, and their utilisation, are ancient and stretch back through Christianity, Judaism, the Greek Philosophers, and on into the mysterious climes of Pre-Dynastic Egypt…

In re-presenting these ideas as a series of poetic explorations, author and essayist, Stuart France uncovers a series of links with the Mediaeval Traditions of the Northmen and the Matter of Britain!

What is the original story of our week? How does the moon harrow hell? Prepare to be enthralled, entertained, educated, and enlightened, as new light is shed on the enigmatic figures of Wotan, Merlin, and King Arthur.

They do not write books like this anymore if indeed they ever did!

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