How the Magic of a Skratta Works

The physical Earth is full of energy, it surrounds us at all times and permeates everything. It is in the harnessing and directing of this energy that magic happens.

Dwarves are Masters at this craft. It is, in fact, their purpose and they excel at it. They are the architects of the physical realm, responsible for upholding the laws governing physical reality. This task was set to them by Odin at the dawn of memory. Without these divine laws, the physical universe would fall apart.

Dwarves live in the rocks and stones (bones) of the Earth. The Dwarven Realm is, in fact, inside of the Earth. It is a part of Midgard, though it vibrates at a different frequency to the realm humans inhabit, and is thus accounted a different realm. Therefore, one normally needs to access this realm through the non-physical doorways of the mind/soul.

If one cultivates a positive relationship with the Dwarves, it is possible to hire them to manifest desired personal outcomes on Earth. This is advantageous because the Dwarves are able to harness and utilize much larger quantities of energy at any given time than one human, or even a few humans together, ever could.

The general gist is thus: in the game of life, positive outcomes and negative outcomes are meted out on the basis of both skill and chance. You receive a basic skill set upon birth, which can be augmented by both education and practice. What life then makes of you and your skills, however polished they become over your lifetime, also has roots in that element of chance. This is where the Dwarves can be very handy, indeed.

Suppose there is an author who wants to be successful, but so far, he hasn't found a publisher. He's pretty sure that what he produces is higher quality than what's normally on the best seller list. Is he a candidate for this sort of magic? If he's certain that he's got the talent as a writer, and that he's done his due diligence in hiring the best agent he can to find himself a suitable publisher, then maybe he is. But there's another important aspect to consider before magic of this sort should be employed. Is he divinely inspired? Is he convinced that his mission in life is to get his divinely-inspired word out to a large segment of the population in order to positively shift the mental and spiritual course of the Earth? After all, thousands of probably quite excellent manuscripts languish without publishers, most never see the bookstore shelves. Why should his, written for the benefit of the Earth, be one of those?

For those whose skills are very polished already, and who are divinely inspired, but have been lacking in that "break" they need in order to come out on top in their chosen field, Dwarves can be powerful allies, indeed. Even divinely-inspired souls must play the game of life according to the rules set down for physical manifestations. Upon employing a skratta to contract with the Dwarves, our hypothetical writer probably would find his agent suddenly gets that big break for his manuscript, as if by "magic." And that sales come through "better than expected."

One of my Dwarven contacts has told me, emphatically, "You've got to give us something to work with!" What he means to say is, the work the Dwarves do will augment the natural and acquired talents the client already has. They won't create or provide for the client talents and skills that the client doesn't possess.

Once the desired outcome has been decided upon, and the contract with the Dwarves finalized, the Dwarves will then proceed to use the energies of the Earth sent to them by the skratta in order to skew probability in the client's favor. Picture a game of Snakes and Ladders, with the client being "lucky" enough to receive mostly ladders, thus climbing to the top relatively without hindrance.

There are drawbacks to this sort of magic, however. The snakes have to go to someone, somewhere. And this is one of the reasons why employing a skratta can be incredibly useful for the ambitious ladder climber.

In the movie Office Space, the protagonists insert a computer virus into their employer's computer system which siphons off a tiny percentage of money from every transaction logged on the system and deposits it into a bank account accessible by the creators of the virus. Great, right? Instant large wad of cash! What would be the drawback to that? The protagonists of the movie became instant millionaires.

There is a drawback, though. Notice that in this scenario, there are losers. The losers would be everyone who made a deposit logged by the system. Each time a deposit was made, some money that rightfully had belonged to them, would be given instead to somebody else.

Any magician seeking to skew probability in his client's favor needs to keep this in mind. When the positive energy of the magic is redirected from the universe to the client, there is a deficit of positive energy in some random people's energy accounts. Energy cannot be created, it cannot be destroyed. It can merely be redirected if one has the skills. One cannot re-create positive energy that is lost for the people who lose it, and constantly shuffling energy around to refill random people's accounts would eventually drain the magician. So in employing these magical techniques, random people end up losing minute portions of their positive energy accounts. This isn't a good thing, and is one very good reason why one needs to consider carefully whether magic needs to be utilized at all in order to produce the desired outcome, or if plain old mental and physical labor alone might suffice.

But wait, there's more involved, and more to think about. The Dwarves don't just re-direct positive energies to the client. They have to also deflect any major negativity away from the client that would disrupt the intended goal. The Dwarves will re-direct this negativity, but energy can't be destroyed. Some of it can be used by the Dwarves and transformed into positive energy. But negative energy has an important role to play in the functioning of the Earth, and it cannot be entirely transformed.

Where then to send this remaining negativity that has been removed from the client? When the Dwarves ask the skratta to designate a recipient for the remains of the deflected negative energy, there is but one ethical answer he can give. He can't in good conscience send this negativity out to inflict even a random person whom he does not know with more than his fair life's allotment of it.

"Give it to me," is the only ethical response the skratta can make.

One might ask why, then, does the skratta perform this magic? And there is a very good response. The best of them is born with the blueprint of this magic woven into his very soul. It is his reason for being. He was formed from the Earth at the dawn of time in order to perform this function for his client, and he does so out of the deepest love and reverence for both the client and the deity the client represents on Earth.

On the Nature of a Skratta

I find that there is a huge gap between what modern-day people understand after reading the sources of ancient Norse and Germanic lore (or any lore, really), and what may have actually been meant by the authors of such lore. For one, modern-day people have a tendency to take the lore as literal, rather than metaphorical, truth. And for another, they tend to not understand the metaphors and implications even when they are presented as pointedly obvious by the authors, simply because the cultural language has been eroded over the centuries since Christianization. We simply don’t recognize the clues given to us in the lore because we’ve lost the ability to interpret them.
As an example of something that is culturally obvious, in modern-day North America, you are reading a story and a character is introduced who is a fat old man with a long, white beard, wearing a red suit, carrying a large sack on his back, and whose catchphrase appears to be, “Ho, ho ho!” If I then ask you, “What is that guy carrying in the sack?” would your answer be:

A) kits and cats
B) the contents of the buffet at the Golden Corral restaurant
C) all of those “ho’s” he is talking about
D) Lots of toys for good girls and boys

If you answered “D”, you are probably a bona fide comprehender of modern North American culture. I didn’t even need to tell you that this man’s name is Santa Claus. You just knew who he was, or made an assumption that that was who the character was meant as. I don’t need to tell you that he has eight tiny reindeer pulling his sleigh, even if they aren’t tagging along with him in this particular story, you know he *has* them. You know his home is at the North Pole, and he surrounds himself with Elves, who are the ones making all the toys he carries around with him.
In reading the ancient lore, unless you have that sort of cultural understanding, you won’t be able to grasp the entire meaning behind even the smallest passages, and, in fact, might miss the majority of the intended meaning.
One of the things that should be standard in translations of lore is that English translations of personal names should be explained. If they are not understood, a huge part of the meaning behind the character’s motivations is lost.
In the tale about Odin stealing the mead of inspiration for the Gods, he claims the name of Bolverk. If one doesn’t understand that the name means “Evildoer” or “Evil Deed” then one is missing an important point of the story.
There is a culturally significant character presented in the ancient Norse lore that has gone almost entirely unnoticed. People hearing the traditions passed down orally would have recognized this character, and understood the significance of what they were hearing without having it explained to them explicitly. The character has the following characteristics:

A) He’s associated with snakes and monsters.
B) He can shapeshift, especially into women or female animals.
C) He can perform feats of magic (he’s a wizard or sorcerer.)
D) He receives these powers through his connections with a Goddess or Goddesses.
E) He can walk between the worlds and talk to spirits or other-worldly beings (he is a spirit-walker or what is commonly called today a “shaman.”)
F) He can obtain magical items or favors from the Earth Elementals (Dwarves.)
G) Is strongly associated with sex, usually sex that is outside the realm of what is socially acceptable to the time period.
H) Is strongly associated with other activities that are outside the realm of socially acceptable behavior.

We’ll call this character a skratta, which was an Old Norse term that had several connected meanings, including sorcerer, eunuch, hermaphrodite, monster, and prostitute (or promiscuous.) Yes, a eunuch was considered sexually voracious! Eunuch priests of the Goddess have been referred to as such for thousands of years. Sacred sex has been their specialty.
This character was *well known* to the ancient Norse, as well known as Santa Claus is to us today.
People hearing the stories back then wouldn’t need to be told what sort of activities Loki was engaged in with Odin, they would *already know* this information, just as surely as we know that Santa Claus is going to eat that cookie we leave out for him. Not because I need to tell you Santa likes cookies, but we *already know* he likes cookies.
Just like the followers of Cybele knew that Her priests, called Attis, after Her castrated son/lover, performed such services for their male clients. Did I mention that Attis means “goat?” No? Well, skratta has a meaning, too. Look it up, just for laughs.