Rolling Thunder

Intertribal Medicine Man

in Sweden 1982

At this time, an inter-tribal Medicine Man from the culture of the Red Indians was something new that we had not yet been confronted with.

The 70s had brought a lot of new vibrating methods to manipulate the mind into altered states of consciousness, but from the Red Indians, we had not yet heard much.

Fire and thunder.

The 70s.

At this workshop nothing really happened. It just gave the impression that “something more of this kind might happen”.

Like making an action that only has the purpose of initiating a new trail and a new little pattern. Such an action can be called ceremonial as there is no immediate visible result from it. 

The result is "somewhere else", somewhere on the Dreamtime.

 A spirit trail had been formed, a link between Native American Indian wisdom and people in Sweden.

Tiiu Serenander, Jörgen I Eriksson, Rolling Thunder and Paul Simma

Jörgen I Eriksson, Rolling Thunder and Paul Simma

Jörgen I Eriksson, Rolling Thunder and Paul Simma

But why did not Jörgen wear a nice folk dress?
Yes, actually we should have dressed up in nice colours, all of us!

Jörgen I Eriksson, Rolling Thunder and Paul Simma

"You, white people, 

you have to wake up the ceremonies again!"

Ceremonies?

What did he mean?

He probably did not mean that we should 

start going to church on Sundays.
Or... did he?
Would any kind of ceremony do?

Yes, but... 

a ceremony? 

What is that? 

And why?

Is it just anything that one has invented, or... 

do you have to follow ancient traditions?

Or... maybe...

maybe we can we invent new traditions?

And... what happens if you

misunderstand something

and do a ceremony in the wrong way?

And why does the drum 

play a central part in his ceremony?

Would it be OK with a violine?

Or... maybe a flute?

And besides... 

should we really make ceremonies 

just for the purpose of making ceremonies?

Just because Roling Thunder has said so?

In ceremonies they mention spirits 

and it can be the Holy Spirit, 

nature spirits or Krishna or... 

Can it be just anything?

Excuse me, Your Excellency!

What is a spirit?

Is it a ghost or a God?

Does a ceremony have a structure?

Or can you just make it up 

in any way you want?

Rolling Thunder obviously means  something

and maybe he takes for granted 

that we understand what he says.

But in that case

we would already have known it

and he would not have had to say anything.

I suspected that all the other participants

knew something that I did not know.
I had been in bed in my tent with headache the first evening

so maybe I had missed the most important part of the teachings.
Yes, probably.

To the right: Dale N LeFevre, author of books about "New Games"

It must have been around midsummer

because it never got dark in the night.

Jörgen I Eriksson and Bernardo Bauder

To the right. Dale N LeFevre

Those were the days!

Dale N LeFevre had been on Rolling Thunder´s workshop and when I came back to Stockholm he was there too, among my friends. He had been interviewed about his book New Games and he was on the front cover of the paper Sökaren.

A playful guy!!!

I forgot to ask him if he had understood the meaning of ceremonies. But as he was fully occupied with his games he was maybe not so interested in ceremonies.

But others were interested in performing ceremonies like Mikael W Gejel and from now on he and his friends were often making ceremonies in the forests north of Stockholm, based upon old Swedish traditions and mythology.

Once the authorities had decided that an old forest should be cut down and Mikael and Jörgen and the others made a ceremony in that place to "save the forest".
When the work was about to start the temperature went down so much that the machines did not function. When the temperature rose again the authorities had changed their mind about the forest.

The drumming

That was fine, but I was still wondering about the "inner basics, rules and functions" of this mysterious concept of "ceremony". Every question produced an answer about how to do it, but never any answer about why to do it this or that way. I slowly more and more suspected that maybe people just did not know and they were maybe not even interested.

Just do it without thinking so much! 

Away from intellect and back to nature!

Some people were disappointed because “nothing happened” at this workshop. But... it made people start making ceremonies in the old ways and it made me think about a lot of new questions.

Red Indians (at least some of their Elders) say that you do not answer a question before the question is made.

So far Thunder had just been Rolling over our mountains without producing any drastic effect.

But that is how Thunder works!
Thor does not strike every time.