The Magic of Shapeshifting

Samuel Weiser, Inc.

Contents

CHAPTER 1

Beginning the Shapeshifter's Journey

Did werewolves ever exist? If so, were they anything like what we "know" about them fromthe main source of the modern werewolf stereotype: movies and novels? The answer, Ibelieve, is "yes" to the first question, and "not exactly, but sort of" to the second.

Consider these events: In the recent past, a young anthropologist named CarlosCastaneda agreed to become apprenticed to an American Indian shaman. In the course ofhis apprenticeship, he experienced many "impossible" things, including transforming into acrow. And, according to many of the locals to whom he talked, the "diablero," or were-animal,still exists among the Hispanic and Indian populations of the AmericanSouthwest. Carlos Castaneda wrote a number of books about his experiences withshamanic magic, and became quite famous among New Agers. How many others haveexperienced transformations like Castaneda's? How many similar events have occurredabout which no books were written? Judging from the similarity of Carlos' account to theshapeshifting folklore of the region, I would say that quite a few people may have hadsimilar experiences.

Consider another example: A young man had constant vivid, realistic dreams of being awolf, and of turning into a wolf. In these dreams, he was always himself, but his mindwas entirely the mind of a wolf. All his life, he constantly felt as if he were somehow awerewolf, but he did not identify at all with the type of werewolf depicted in movies andnovels. Later in life, he happened to go to a ritual meditation held by Native Americans.During the meditation, he felt himself change into a wolf, even though he was awake, and,for the first time, he experienced a mixture of human and wolf mentality while"transformed." After the meditation, one of the Indians said he had seen him turn into awolf. Others said he had remained human the whole time, but turned into a wolf in theirvisions. Some also saw his wolf spirit guide, and described the guide in detail, completelyaccurately. Is this young man a werewolf?

A young woman I know was meowing soon after her birth. Later in life, she found she hada very special relationship with cats. She developed the ability to project herconsciousness into animals. She could see what they saw, feel what they felt, and couldeven sometimes move their bodies as if they were her own. This all occurred without herousting the original resident mind, which was in there with her and also seeing, feeling,and walking. She could even find out secrets this way, seeing places only cats could getinto. Was this young woman a werecat? In more superstitious times, she would certainlyhave been considered one.

Another young woman had all the typical signs of being a "shifter" her whole life. As agirl, she started having mental shifts. Later in life, she began having very vivid, realisticexperiences of running as a wolf at night, and her clothes were often muddy in themorning. She considered this as dreaming, combined with sleepwalking. One night, duringone of these experiences, a dog she knew ran with her and kept bothering her. Shegrowled at him, but he wouldn't leave. She bit him hard on a front foot, and he yelped andlimped away. The next morning, the dog had a front paw split open to the bone and wasvery afraid of her, but had never been afraid before. Is she a werewolf?

A man I knew, who is a shifter, once felt lonely for some friends who lived far away. Hehad a vision of going there as a wolf, and trying to play with them. His friends laterreported that, at the same time as his vision, a ghostly wolf with glowing eyes hadappeared in their apartment and scared them to death by trying to "get" them. Both agreedon all particulars of this visit. In his wolf mind, the man had been puzzled by their fear andkept trying to play with them.

In another relatively modern account, the famous occultist Dion Fortune had someskirmishes with another woman occultist who was a rather unsavory character. Once, thiswoman sent a ghostly form resembling a giant house cat. Another time, Dion herself wasunder psychic attack while in a trance, and awoke with many cat scratches on her body.On questioning, she found that this woman was well-known for these scratch marks. If thiswoman had lived in the Middle Ages, would she have been called a werecat?

These are all modern examples of the phenomenon of shifting. I chose more modernexamples, including some that have happened to friends, partly because I wanted to showthat these things do still happen. They have not all died out, as some believe. And theolder legends, even some that aren't that old, are extremely numerous, existing in everyculture and every era (see figure 1, page 4). We know that "30,000 cases of lycanthropywere reported to secular and church officials between 1520 and 1630" in Europe. Thirtythousand in just about a century! And 1520 is after many of the educated people inEurope decided that shapeshifters didn't exist. In even earlier times, especially before1000, missionaries and clergy found it nearly impossible to get people to give up beliefs inshapeshifting. In 970, Baianus, a prince of Bulgaria, was said to be able to turn himselfinto both a wolf and a bird. He was said to transform frequently in public, in front of all thepeople, who were amazed at his transformations.

Figure 1. Distribution of werewolf and shapeshifting folklore in Europe. This map showswhere werewolf and shapeshifting lore are most common. Note the "werewolf belt" alongEastern Europe, from Greece in the south to Scandinavia in the north. This belt includesthe land of the Neuri and the famous Carpathian mountains, known in former times asTransylvania. Some other features of interest are the haunted werewolf cave of BenMacDhui, and the Fontana del Nobiet near Cimapiasole in Italy, which is reputed to be alycanthropic stream. (Map is approximate only.)

This just scratches the surface of the tradition in Europe, where, historically, shapeshiftingfolklore has been least common. By reading books about werewolves, which mostlyconcentrate on the later famous French trials of individual werewolves, many people areled to believe that shapeshifters were rare, solitary, and unusual cases. On the contrary,hordes of shapeshifters are reported in much of the folklore.

Take, for instance, the time when hundreds of werewolves overran Constantinople. Thishappened in the year 1542, when Constantinople was a major city. It was reported thatpacks of werewolves roamed the streets and alleys of the city. Things got so bad thatSüleyman II, with his Janizaries, hunted many down, killing at least 150 of them. Can youimagine that? Hundreds of werewolves, roaming about a large, major city, in front ofcountless witnesses, after educated people declared they didn't exist!

And this is not the only case of numerous witnesses reporting large masses ofshapeshifters. The Neuri were a nomadic people living in the area that is now Poland andLithuania who were reported to be hereditary shapeshifters and sorcerers. Whole clansof the Irish were also supposed to be hereditary shapeshifters.

Consider the legend of the leaping wall. This wall was the last remaining portion of an oldcastle that stood between Lithuania, Livonia, and Courland. It was said that thousands ofshapeshifters used to come together at a certain time each year to celebrate at this oldcastle. They held contests such as leaping over this wall. It was also said that many ofthese werewolves were rich nobles.

From old-time Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania come reports of packs of werewolves thatgathered each Christmas in many villages, breaking into people's beer cellars and havingdrunken celebrations. This may sound ridiculous, but there were far too many peopleseriously reporting it, and even complaining to the authorities for something to be done, forit to be simply a "tall tale" or a children's fairy tale. Modern werewolf books that discussthese cases attribute these events to gangs of thugs in werewolf costumes, but the peoplewho made these claims certainly believed otherwise—especially since the werewolveswere said to be in full wolf form when they did this, indistinguishable from natural wolvesexcept by their behavior of breaking into beer cellars and getting drunk. It is hard tobelieve that ordinary wolves would do this, let alone on a particular holiday and never atany other time. It is also hard to imagine that anyone could create "real wolf" (not"wolfman") costumes that could fool people into thinking they were normal wolves.

These cases are just a small sampling of the enormous body of shapeshifting folklore outthere, a fair amount of which is substantiated by multiple witnesses, with impeccablereputations. Moreover, there are similarities across different cultures that couldn't haveinfluenced each other's legends. Shapeshifters certainly existed in former times, and stilldo, albeit weakened and in much smaller numbers.

There is even a fairly significant belief in shapeshifters today. Beliefs in shapeshifters arenot just found among superstitious hunter-gatherers. "Walton Brooks McDaniel found thatmany people of modern Italy believe lycanthropy can be induced by a full moon,witchcraft, or a birth at precisely midnight on particular holy days, including Christmas."Nor are the only witnesses of shapeshifting superstitious and uneducated people. On thecontrary, many of the witnesses in the last centuries were respected, truthful, down-to-earthpeople, which is why people took them so seriously when they claimed they sawshapeshifting. Even in this century, educated people have claimed to witness physicalshapeshifting, as in the case of Dr. Gerald Kirkland, a government medical officer whosaw two were-jackal transformations while stationed in Zimbabwe on March 23, 1933.In the USA, people are still reporting sightings, and still believe in shapeshifters.

I will discuss some of the basic facts of esoteric study first, so that the rest of the book willmake more sense. For those of you who are already familiar with the study of esotericphenomena, I will present my particular perspective and the terminology that I will beusing, for perspective and terminology can vary widely from one student of esoteric studyto another. Where, you may ask, did I get my information? It's all well and good for me tosay that I have detailed information on modern-day shapeshifters, but I don't expectanyone to believe me unless I show them how to prove to themselves that many peoplewho follow such beliefs actually exist. The answer to this question can be found in theepilogue.

The Paranormal and Supernatural

The paranormal comprises those things that science does not explain, such as the powersof the psychic, the telepath, and the telekinetic. It also comprises sightings of ghosts,monsters, angels, spirits, the "fairy" folk, poltergeists, and other quasi-physical beings. It isthe entire collection of things that are beyond the natural—thus the word "supernatural."The paranormal is in operation when the normal rules of this world seem to besuperseded by the rules of some other type of reality.

Esoteric students believe that they know what these other realities are like and how theyoperate. The basic teachings about the paranormal have arisen again and again, inbasically the same form, in every culture. They appear to have very little connection toeither culture or religion. The basic facts of the paranormal are notions arrived at bystudying the most basic of phenomena. Because the basic facts are true (that is, foundedin basic phenomena), the cultural beliefs and interpretations of observers have little to dowith how the phenomena happen. For example, ghosts have had similar characteristicsthrough all time and cultures, even though many cultures have different doctrines aboutwhy people become ghosts, or how theology relates to ghosts. The interpretations may bedifferent, but the reported phenomena are always astonishingly similar.

Paranormal teachings say that the physical world is only one of many worlds. Most ofthese worlds, such as the "fairy realm," have very little to do with our world. Two of these"worlds," however, have a lot to do with our world, albeit in subtle ways most of the time.These are called the astral plane and the etheric plane. Our physical universe is called thephysical plane. These realities, including our own, are visualized as planes, one atopanother. This is not truly how they are, of course. In the physical direction of up, there isnothing but sky and the endless expanses of outer space. Yet the planes operate almostas if they were stacked like this, and they have been traditionally visualized this way. Ourphysical plane is on the bottom. Just on top of it is the etheric plane. The etheric planeconsists of "matter" that is like a shadow of physical matter. Etheric matter is not physical,yet it is not as "refined" as astral matter. There is something of the physical about it. Theetheric plane "overlaps" with this plane. Many physical "objects" of this plane, especiallyliving things, have a counterpart in etheric matter, a counterpart that looks much like acarbon copy of the physical object. The etheric plane is the entire "universe" of theseetheric objects, plus etheric objects that do not correspond directly to things in this plane,as well as other "stray" etheric matter. Etheric matter is of a much "finer" substance thanphysical matter. It almost never breaks. If put under some sort of stress, it deforms andthen reforms. Stray etheric matter tends to flow and stretch and form itself as if it wereliving water or living clay. Etheric matter has an almost infinite ability, at least incomparison with physical matter, to condense or diffuse. Unlike physical matter, ethericmatter can also occupy the same three-dimensional space as other etheric matter.

The astral plane is visualized as the plane directly on top of the etheric plane. It alsocorresponds to the physical plane in many ways, particularly in that many objects,especially living beings, have astral counterparts. However, the astral plane has manymore objects and "stray" astral matter that directly corresponds to nothing in this plane.The astral plane also has a bewildering array of "spirits" and "entities" that are native toit—many more than exist in the etheric plane. Moreover, the astral plane has onecharacteristic that the etheric plane does not: there seem to be entire regions of the astralplane that do not share the same three-dimensional space as our physical plane. They areregions unto themselves. Astral matter is of a much "finer" consistency than ethericmatter. The astral plane resembles a great sea of astral substance, with its own featuresand cycles, slowly changing all the time.

There is one more plane that bears mention here, though it generally has little to do withsupernatural phenomena directly. This is called the mental plane, found directly on top ofthe astral plane. This plane does not share the same three-dimensional reality as ourphysical plane at all. Indeed, direction and distance and dimension are largelymeaningless in the mental plane. It, in fact, contains very few "objects" that correspond toanything in the physical world. Living things do have an aspect of themselves on thisplane, but it is a high, lofty aspect, often (at least in non-saints) seeming to have little incommon with the ego and the normal waking self and its desires. Yet this is the one partof us that is eternal—our soul, our true self. In modern New Age terminology, this is the"higher self," above the astral and etheric bodies, even above the world of the mind andideas, which are, after all, very much a product of our species and culture, not of our trueself. Many believe that there are more planes above the mental plane, but very little isknown or even guessed about them.

One of the most basic and universal teachings about the supernatural is that living things,particularly human beings, are comprised of more than the merely physical. Even themodern forms of Christianity have preserved a garbled part of this teaching in theirteachings that humans have a soul and spirit. Esoteric study teaches us that we live,simultaneously, on at least four different planes of existence. For the most part, we onlyperceive the physical plane and our physical body that is resident on it. But we also havean etheric body, an astral body, and a pure form on the socalled "mental" plane ofexistence. The etheric and astral bodies, and their interactions with the etheric plane andthe astral plane, have much to do with certain forms of paranormal phenomena.

The etheric body looks almost exactly like our physical body. It overlaps the physical bodyand normally occupies exactly the same threedimensional space. Thus, it is difficult foreven psychics to see. There are two conditions, however, under which psychics, andsometimes even ordinary people, can see the etheric body. When people lose an arm or aleg, they do not lose that same part of their etheric body. People who have lost a physicalleg still have both etheric legs. More often than not, the etheric leg still sends sensations,still feels as if it were there, even itches or develops pains! Because this etheric part is notshrouded by any physical part, those who are psychic enough might see it.
(Continues...)Excerpted from The Magic of Shapeshifting by ROSALYN GREEN. Copyright © 2000 Rosalyn Greene. Excerpted by permission of Samuel Weiser, Inc..
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