Untimely Meditations: The Armanen Runes

Written between 28 March and 13 June 2021, "Untimely Meditations" borrows its title from Nietzsche's Unzeitgemässe Betrachtunge. This essay is intended to serve a dual purpose. It is to serve as an introduction to my series of Meditations on the Armanen Runes providing background for those unfamiliar with this Futhorkh and its main proponents. It will also serve as part of Treatise that I am preparing for my Knights of Runes course work. In Nietzsche's volume, he wrote, "Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would carry you across this river; but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead? Do not ask, go along with it." His thought is likely both as accurate and as untimely as the day he wrote it.

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Why would anyone use or spend time studying the Armanen Runes today? Most Heathens have long since embraced the Elder Futhark for everything from divination to tattoos. This is largely the case also for followers of other pagan pathways and even for those who approach the runes from an occult perspective. Today the Armanen Futhorkh is unknown to most. For many who are more informed, it seems to be little more than a better-forgotten footnote in the long history of runes; but for others still, it is the foremost esoteric rune system—one imbued with the power for positive internal and external transformation.

As most reading this know, the Elder Futhark is the earliest “alphabet” of runes. This early Germanic system, comprised of 24 symbols, was in use from perhaps as early as 150 BCE up until about 500 CE. Carvings utilizing this system sprinkle Northern Europe. In the years that followed, and throughout the Viking Age, an evolution occurred reducing the number of symbols to 16 and resulting in what scholars have branded the Younger Futhark. This Younger system was used up until approximately 1050 CE and is found on stone carvings that are widespread throughout Scandinavia. Detractors would say that the Armanen Futhorkh in contrast has quite a modern origin.[1] The Armanen system is attributed to Guido von List’s mystical revelation while recuperating from cataract surgery in 1902-03.[2] List’s vision helped him to discover “the secret of the runes”[3] –that there was a specific rune associated with each of the 18 strophes from the section of the Hávamál known as "Odin's Rune Spells" (ON: Rúnatáls-þáttr-Óðins). Before considering List’s insights, it is critical to understand the zeitgeist of this age and the history that led to it.

From the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries there was a growing interest in runes and several theories and interpretations were documented.[4]  This was a time of monumental change in the course of human history. As Luther’s Reformation challenged the excesses of Roman Catholicism, it also inspired a burgeoning spirit of nationalism that stood in defiance to Rome’s empire. Standing up to threats of persecution by the Church, scholars translated the Bible into the vernacular. Such challenges to long-held doctrine resulted in a new spirit of humanism that also included tremendous breakthroughs the sciences and the arts.

By the late nineteenth century, throughout Europe, there was a whirlwind of competing and supporting ideas. Politically and economically the benefits of reorganizing disparate city-states into larger national unions were exemplified by Italy in 1861 and Germany in 1871. In 1885, Friedrich Nietzsche published his completed magnum opus, Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra). In the world of music, Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs) had its public debut in Bayreuth in 1876. Wagner’s four-day total work of art (Gesamtskunstwerk) utilized age-old Germanic mythology to inspire, among other things, an answer to the question that he himself posed in his article “Was ist Deutsch” (“What is German?”).[5] The West was at its zenith. It’s people had no doubt of their greatness and its scholars and artists began to look deeper into their collective and national past to better comprehend their origins. It was into the spirit of these times that Guido von List was born.[6]

In his youth List was an avid outdoorsman. He spent considerable time boating and mountaineering. He also dedicated himself to the study of history, archeology and anthropology. His thoughts on a wide range of subjects were recorded in numerous articles. As a journalist, his articles were published in several newspapers including the Neue Welt, Neue Deutsche Alpenzeitung, Heimat, and the Deutsche Zeitung.[7] In 1888, he published his first novel, Carnuntum, an historical novel centered around the old Roman city on the Danube that archeologists began to excavate in 1853.[8] List’s philosophy and ideas matured and took on a more mystical bent by the turn of the twentieth century. There is no doubt that he became familiar with the ideas and works of Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophical movement around this time.[9] He was also influenced by the rising tide of nationalist and völkisch thinking prevalent in Germany and Austria. Most importantly however, for those interested in the runes, was the publication of his Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes) in 1908.

Das Geheimnis der Runen documented List’s explanations of the meanings of the runes. List’s discovery (or rediscovery) was that, “according to the Edda, in the “Rúnatáls-þáttr-Óðins” [the runic futhorkh] consisted of eighteen such signs.”[10]  Beyond associating each of the 18 identified runes with a strophe from the Hávamál, List sought to derive the root words for each from a primal Germanic language. He noted that most of these runic root-words were monosyllabic primal words.[11] It is from these ancient Indo-European primal or Ur-terms that he deduced meaning through what has been described as folk-etymology.[12] Von List’s ideas on such primal terms were based on an adaptation of Indian doctrines on the mystical content of seed-words or syllables (bijas).[13]

While List is credited as being the first to identify a rune with each of the 18 rune songs of the Hávamál, nowhere in Das Geheimnis der Runen does he call them the “Armanen Runes.” Rather his introduction to a rune-by-rune explanation is simply,

“…the song [Hávamál] presents characterizations of the eighteen runes with mystical interpretations. When these strophes are paired with the names of the runes they enlighten us in a very special way and essentially provide the solution of the ‘secret of the runes.’”[14]

Interestingly, while the term “Armanen Runes” is often used to describe List’s system, key followers of List also avoided this term. Siegfried Kummer, for example, refers to the “18 Rune Row according to G. v. List.”[15] Rudolf John Gorsleben refers to them as “Eighteen cosmic runes” and “the Rune Futhorkh of the Edda.”[16]. Karl Hans Welz typically refers to this system as the “Eighteen Sacred Futhork Runes.”[17]

“Armanen” was a term coined and utilized elsewhere by List in his writings. For List, “Armanen” referred to the “men of knowledge.” He wrote of a split within the old primal Germanic religion (Wihinei) into two groups:

“These were the secret doctrine belonging to those of knowledge (esotericism), which is here to be called ‘Armanism’ for the sake of brevity, and into the general religious doctrine of the people (exotericism), which for the sake of easier understanding will be termed ‘Wuotanism.’”[18]

The Armanen were a leadership class that could be equated with the Brahman caste of the Indians. They were essentially teachers, priests, and judges all rolled into one.[19] List considered the balance then of the Aryo-Germanic people Wuotanists. Wuotan is the Old High German language equivalent of the god more commonly identified as Wotan or Odin today. Wuotanists then are more commonly understood as followers of Odin or Wotanists or Odinists. In an ancient society in which few were literate, it makes perfect sense that there was some specific order that maintained the “secret knowledge” including the writing of the runes. In fact, Edred Thorsson maintains this opinion even today and has commented in various places that he intends to write a history that will provide the evidence for the existence of an ancient Germanic rune gild.[20] Others have suggested that such a group may have been called Erulians (Erilaʀ) a word interpreted to mean Rune Master or magician.

List biographer Eckehard Lenthe notes that from about 1912, List began to speak of a contemporary Armanenschaft as a “free spiritual union.” He writes:

“It was not necessary that they know each other personally or know about one another. List also called the Armanenschaft a ‘great, free, Ario-Germanic spiritual league. In accordance with their spiritual bearing, the members of the Guido von List Society automatically belonged to the Armanenschaft; alternatively, each Armane will also come across List’s teachings and the Guido von List Society without necessarily having to join the latter. One can therefore also describe the Armanenschaft as a collective designation for the ‘unknown Ario-Germanic initiates’ of every degree who were scattered across the whole of Germany.”[21]

It becomes clear then that since the contemporary followers of List were designated “Armanen,” just as List asserted the ancient keepers of the secret doctrines were known, that such followers were also familiar with List’s solution to the “secret of the runes.” The runes themselves, as secrets or mysteries, were revealed and properly understood only by this elite group of Rune Masters known as Armanen. It would then be more precise to say that it is not the runes that are Armanen, but rather some elite gild with special knowledge, some group of scholars, teachers, or priests who might rightly be called “Armanen.”

Von List’s ideas appeared at a time when the Lebensreform (Life reform) movement was sweeping through German society. This movement, sometimes considered an early twentieth century “hippie” movement, espoused a back-to-nature lifestyle. Adherents of the movement embraced a wide-range of ideas including vegetarianism, organic foods, nudism, sexual liberation, alternative medicines, and even abstention from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and vaccines. Some too embraced völkisch ideas about naturally grown communities bound together by race or ethnicity.[22]

Rune Masters Siegfried Kummer and Friedrich Marby were very active through this period. Today they are most well known for incorporating the idea of forming the runes through postures – namely Rune Yoga or what Marby termed Runengymnastik (Rune Gymnastics.) Kummer also provided what can best be described as Rune Magick techniques in his book, Heilige Runenmacht (Holy Rune Might). These concepts included meditation, visualization, and self-development. Kummer also wrote of Rune Dance, bind-runes and sigils, the relation of the runes to the Zodiac, the powers of stones, and rune hand-postures (mudras).

Marby and Kummer each led organizations with hundreds of members. Marby founded the League of Runic Researchers, and Kummer led his Rune School Runa.[23] While Marby primarily worked with the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc, his extensive work in runic occultism, rune gymnastics, and his description of channeling of rune might were incredibly important for both his contemporaries and the rune masters who would follow. Both Marby and Kummer were influenced by the society in which they lived, and as such there are passages in their books that were not only völkisch, but even deemed supportive of the nascent National Socialist movement that had come to power in Germany. Despite what might, by twenty-first century standards, seem approving of the Hitlerian regime,[24]  both Marby and Kummer suffered at the hands of the Third Reich. Marby was arrested in 1936. His property was seized and his printing presses were destroyed. He was imprisoned in various concentration camps. He spent ninety-nine months shuffled between Welzheim, Flossenburg, and ultimately Dachau where he was liberated by American forces on April 29, 1945.[25] Kummer ran into similar difficulties and his organization was banned in 1934. While it seems that he too may have been arrested, the events of those years are uncertain with disparate reports of his having left Germany to live out his life in South America, having died during the firebombing of Dresden in 1945, to having become a bureaucrat in East Germany in the years following the war. Regardless of his fate, his final known rune publication was Runen-Magie (Rune Magic) of 1933. A.D. Mercer is undoubtedly correct when he writes, “The simple fact is that the Armanen Masters did not fare well under the Nazis and were forced underground and, in many cases, completely disappeared.[26]

In the years following the Second World War, and down to the present day, the runes are smeared by their usage by the Nazis. The first major attempt to rehabilitate the runes and to cast them in a more universalist context free from the nationalist or völkisch language of the past was done by Karl Spiesberger. Spiesberger published his groundbreaking volume Runenmagie (Rune Magic) in 1955.[27] Spiesberger has been called an “eclectic occultist.”[28] He was a member of the Fraternitas Saturni (Brotherhood of Saturn), the oldest continuously running magical order in Germany. The Brotherhood was and remains specifically concerned with the study of esotericism, mysticism, and magic.[29]

Karl Hans Welz took up the tradition of Armanism after having studied under Spiesberger. In 1984 he established his organization Knights of Runes upon his arrival to the United States from Austria. Throughout the 1980s his organization grew to a membership of nearly 1000. Welz created several rune courses that were ultimately all made available through his website.[30] Following in Spiesberger’s footsteps, Welz overtly espoused a universalist perspective in his teachings. He also further incorporated eastern philosophical and esoteric concepts including chakras into his rituals and courses. Welz emphasized elements of ceremonial magic in his courses and even incorporated the term “magick” coined by Aleister Crowley.[31]

While not a proponent of the Armanen system, I would be remiss to exclude mention of Stephen Flowers aka Edred Thorsson in this review of relevant personages. Flowers is largely responsible for reviving interest in the Armanen runes throughout the English-speaking world. His book Rune Might, first published in 1989 presents many of the ideas of Kummer, Marby, and Spiesberger and remains easily accessible through most booksellers. He also translated List’s Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes), Der Unbesiegbare (The Invincible), Die Religion der Ario-Germanen (The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk), and other works.[32]

Still, I have yet to answer my own question, set forth at the beginning of this essay: Why would anyone use or spend time studying the Armanen Runes today? Thorsson himself attempts to answer that question in his recent publication, Revival of the Runes. There, he seems surprised by the recent reawakening of interest. He speculates that it may be the result of “polarized political feelings.”[33] Thereby suggesting that it is the “political incorrectness” of this Futhorkh that draws adherents. Besides political polarization, he notes that the famed Armanists of old expressed “ideas and developed practices that are highly accessible to the contemporary Western mind” and that such ideas remain “compelling for some.”[34]

To be fair, I must offer my own answer to this question. At the heart of my answer are the runes themselves. We must recall that runes are more than the carved symbols that most have come to identify with the term. Rather they are ultimately cosmological ideas. Their very name suggests “mystery” or “secret.” While contemporary academics have focused their energies on the linguistic concerns of the runes and snubbed more esoteric considerations, so too more generally has an age versed in skepticism and arrogant scientism. Even popular rune books published by esoteric and occult publishers often emphasize exoteric explanations and almost exclusively describe the Elder Futhark runes. The popularity of various films and television series including the History channel’s “Vikings” have resulted in mundane usage of the runes to spell out names, serve as tattoos, or to be emblazoned on t-shirts with all-too-frequent misspellings of the names of the gods of the Norse pantheon. Perhaps, as Flowers stated, there is a polarization in our society. But polarization also exists in ways other than the political. There are those who remain unsatisfied with runic pop-culture. They remain unsatisfied also with simple exoteric explanations for these profound mysteries. We few embrace the other current running through contemporary thought. That current is one that is open to and aware of alternative ideas about the great mysteries of our world and cosmos. We embrace a wide-range of ideas and remain open to even those that seem fantastic and beyond our normal comprehension. Those who seek beyond the mundane and easily explained are likely to discover the magical practices of the Armanen. There we find a wide-range of practices from meditation to yoga and, if dedicated to our studies, we quickly learn that such practices really work. Before long, the burgeoning rune master will literally feel the rune energy pulsing and traveling through his or her body. We witness the success of our rituals in healing and for other purposes including, perhaps most importantly, self-development. So why might one utilize and work with the Armanen Runes in the twenty first century? Ultimately because as A.D. Mercer states, they are the “quintessential esoteric rune row.”[35] Indeed, the Armanen Runes exemplify the mystery of the runes unlike any other rune row. For those seeking the mysteries, those willing to explore the old secrets, those willing to eschew contemporary taboos, there can be no runes that better satisfy and provide answers. Certainly the Armanen Runes are not for all—they never were. Rather, as always, they are intended for the keepers of the ancient secret knowledge – the Armanen.

All of this leads up to my practice of meditation on the 18 Futhorkh runes. My method entailed recording key ideas in my Galdor Book or what Welz calls “The Book of Ceremonials.” These ideas included importantly the text of "Odin’s Rune Song" from the Hávamál, each of Welz’s Rune Songs, as well as key runic ceremonies, my personal insights, and diagrams of the Rune yoga postures and Rune mudras. For each rune I recorded key information including the relevant passages from the Rune Poems, related keywords, Von List’s mottos, as well as my own insights. In addition, I read the related passages from each source in my collection of rune books from my personal collection.

My actual meditation on a rune-by-rune basis was conducted in a ceremonial magick setting in which an outer rune realm or rune circle was created. Within that circle, I established an inner rune realm, performed autogenic relaxation techniques, and lit candles and incense as part of the overall ceremony. I performed both the Rune Yoga postures and hand mudras for the particular rune that was the target of my attention. From my Book of Ceremonials, I murmured Welz’s Rune Songs prior to establishing a meditative state. During my meditation, my primary objective was to fully clear my mind and simply to “watch” the images that formed behind my closed eyes. These ranged from plain darkness to vibrant and colorful shapes and patterns.

I discovered that insights into the runes sometimes came during my meditation time. This was, for example, exactly what happened when I worked with the rune THORN. At other times, I believe the meditative work “released” ideas that would become clear later in the day, in my night time dream state, or in the days that followed. Sometimes such results were clearly in alignment with the ideas of the Rune Masters who had gone before. When my meditations however presented more unusual results, I always sought verification from the lore. Perhaps the best example of this comes from my work with THORN. That third rune is often interpreted in a very exoteric way –with many authors simply suggesting that it’s meaning is that of “a thorn” as one might find in nature. During my meditation however the image of Ymir, the ancient thurs—the primeval frost giant –invaded my mind. It was an image that I couldn’t avoid and it remained startling even following the ceremony. I poured over interpretations from various authors and found none that mentioned Ymir. Could I be the first to make such a connection? Could my method and idea be incorrect? These questions kept turning over in my mind until I opened my copy of Snorri Sturluson’s Skaldskaparmal (“The Language of Poetry”). There in that twelfth century work, I discovered that “Thorn” was a kenning for Ymir.[36] This rune undoubtedly suggested and related to the primordial thurs, Ymir.

While the process that I used to make such a discovery seemed fantastic, I found it shockingly accurate. The revelation about THORN and Ymir also stimulated my desire to delve deeper into the secret and esoteric meanings of each of the remaining runes. I had no doubt that the poets of old had obscured the meanings of each within their poems. Whether the purpose of such obscure expressions was to demonstrate their personal poetic prowess, to prevent discovery from Christian rulers who often violently dealt with dissent, or to record deep esoteric meanings for discovery by future keepers of the ancient secrets is uncertain.

In my recorded meditations and thoughts on each of the Sacred 18 Runes that follow, I will provide my insights –the results of my studies of the Armanen Futhorkh. While I hope to shed some light and remove layers of obscurity, I fully appreciate the subjective lens under which my ideas developed. While it is my hope that some few in a future generation may serve as the keepers of such knowledge –indeed as society’s Armanen, I also hope that they find some value in my meditations. Ultimately however, it is up to each seeker to discover the answer to the secret of the runes as part of their own personal journey.

Notes:

1. Some Armanists would argue that the Armanen Futhorkh is the earliest Futhark, and most believe that it is at least as old as the relevant verses of the Hávamál (tenth century). 

 2. List’s first cataract surgery was performed in April 1902. He had eight such surgeries and essentially remained in darkness until March 1903 when the bandages were finally removed. While considered a success, List would remain forever blind in one eye. 

 3. Guido von List, The Secret of the Runes, trans. Stephen E. Flowers (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1988). 

 4. Stephen Flowers, Revival of the Runes: The Modern Rediscovery and Reinvention of the Germanic Runes (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2021). 

 5. Richard Wagner, Richard Wagner’s Prose Works Vol. IV: Art and Politics, trans. William Ashton Ellis (New York: Broude Brothers, 1966), 149-169. 

 6. The life of Guido von List is best documented by Eckehard Lenthe in his Wotan’s Awakening: The Life and times of Guido von List 1848-1919, trans. Annabel Lee, (Dominion, 2018). 

 7. Von List, The Secret of the Runes, 4. 

 8. Lenthe, 50. 

 9. Von List’s 1910 publication, Die Religion der Ario-Germanen in ihrer Esoterik und Exoterik (The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Esoteric and Exoteric) makes several references to Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine which was translated into German in 1901.

 10. Von List, 42-43. 

 11. The exceptions to his rule are the runes HAGAL, GIBOR, and OTHIL. 

 12. List would later expand his esoteric theories on the secret meanings of primal root words by the development of a system called, kala. Kala provided a method to determine the meaning of any word and was explained in his final work, Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen und ihr Mysteriensprache (The Primal Language of the Aryo-Germanic People and Their Mystery Language.) For more information see: Edred Thorsson, Rune Might: The Secret Practices of the German Rune Magicians (Rochester VT: Inner Traditions, 2018). 

13. Guido von List, The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk, trans. Stephen Flowers (Bastrop, TX: Lodestar, 2014) vi. 

14. Von List, The Secret of the Runes, 49. 

15. S.A. Kummer, Rune = Magic, trans. Edred Thorsson, (Bastrop, TX: Lodestar, 2017), 44. 

16. Rudolf John Gorsleben, Hoch-Zeit der Menschheit (Peak-Time of Humanity) trans. Karl Hans Welz, https://www.runemagick.com/gorsleben.pdf 282-83. 

 17. Karl Hans Welz, Letter of Instructions # 1, The Rune FA, https://knightsofrunes.com/rune_magic01.html 

18. Von List, The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk, 2. 

19. Lenthe, 261. 

 20. Edred Thorsson, History of the Rune Gild: The Reawakening of the Gild 1980-2018 (North Augusta: Gilded Books, 2019), viii. 

 21. Lenthe, 262. 

 22. It is interesting to consider the broad embrace of such ideas even today under the banner of “New Age.” There is a wide acceptance of alternative lifestyles, alternative medicines, anti-vaccination, and even “identity politics” arguably a parallel contemporary equivalent to the völkisch movement a century earlier. 

 23. Thorsson, Rune Might, 20-21. 

 24. In 2019 an English translation of Siegfried Kummer’s Holy Rune Might became available through a print-on-demand publisher and for a brief time was widely available through Amazon and other on-line book dealers. In an ironic turn, presumed supporters of democracy and liberalism harangued Amazon and Lulu until the title was removed from sale and publication –ultimately “burned” in a modern act of censorship by those intolerant of ideas with which they disagree or misunderstand. 

 25. Thorsson, Rune Might, 20-21. 

 26. A.D. Mercer, Runen: The Wisdom of the Runes (Aeon Sophia Press, 2016) 22. 

 27. Spiesberger’s book is still widely available and widely read. It is very influential in Armanist circles albeit even today it has yet to be translated from its original German. 

 28. Aelfric Avery, Armanen Runes and the Black Sun in Modern Heathenry Vol. I (Vavenby, CA: Woodharrow Gild Press, 2018) 28. 

 29. Ibid. 

30. https://runemagick.com/ 

 31. Crowley used the term “magick” to differentiate “real” magick from parlor tricks and illusion so often associated with the word “magic.” 

 32. Flowers, Revival of the Runes, 187. 

 33. Ibid. 

 34. Flowers, Revival of the Runes, 188. 

 35. Mercer, 13. 

 36. Sturluson, Edda, trans. Anthony Faulkes (North Clarendon, VT: Everyman, 1995), 84. See also the “Annotated Index of Names” at the conclusion of the volume, 254.