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Mysticism in Iceland
| Article
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18936 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1991 |
4,258 Words |
| Author
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Sandra A. Thomson and Kristin H. Petursdottir
Sandra A. Thomson is a free-lance writer in Los Angeles and a
practicing psychologist. A former travel editor for a
community newspaper, she has published more than one hundred
travel and feature articles.
Kristin H. Petursdottir is the records manager of the
National Bank of Iceland in Reykjavik and the author of many
articles about information science. |
If sociologist Richard Tomasson is correct when he writes, "Few Icelanders have ever been intense pagans, intense Catholics, or intense Lutherans," then mysticism--generally considered to be an intense spiritual or religious experience--cannot exist in Iceland.
On the other hand, a review of Iceland's settlement makes it clear that, mystical or not, the entire island is sacred. In order not to offend the landvaettir (guardian spirits of the earth), Viking sailors approaching Iceland remove the fierce carved heads with wide open beaks, intended to scare sea monsters and whales, from the prows of their ships.
Nearing land, many soon-to-be settlers threw overboard pillars carved with images of the gods, which they had carried from homeland temples. They landed where those pillars washed ashore, letting the gods decide their future homestead.
According to the Eyrbyggja Saga, Thorolfur Mostrarskegg (Bearded Man of Most) flung overboard pillars from his shrine to the god Thor. Once on land, Thorolfur marked the sites where he would live and rebuild Thor's temple and then designated his property border by lighting fires around it.
The Landnamabok (Book of Settlements) says that no one could claim more territory than he could walk around with fire in one day. This was both a legal measure and a religious procedure for hallowing every part of the land. In this way was it won from the landvaettir, who were thus written into the first laws of the country.
Existent place names indicate that some settlers hallowed the land in the name of the god they most favored: Thorsnes for Thor, Njardvik for Njordur, Freysnes for Freyr.
Modern mystical experience
A 1975 survey of nine hundred Icelanders showed 97 percent of the respondents considered themselves quite, somewhat, and slightly religious. In the first of its kind survey, conducted by University of Iceland parapsychologist Erlendur Haraldsson, 25 percent of the respondents also reported having had a vivid religious or spiritual experience, which correlated with a belief in psychical phenomena.
Dultru (mysticism) breaks down into dul (something not apparent) and tru (belief, faith, religion), a belief in
...
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