List’s Secret Armanen Wisdom
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An important, but often overlooked, concept in Guido von List’s Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes)[1] is that the ancient Armanen (the societal class comprised of priests, skalds, magicians, and kings) concealed key philosophical principles within the mysterious symbols known as Runes and the Eddic passages they wrote to describe them. List reveals several layers of secrets of the Runes in his most famous volume. First, he recognizes the 18 verses of the Hávamál referred to as the Rúnatal or Odin’s Rune Song corresponded to an 18 Rune Futhorkh. The next secret has to do with the interpretation of the meaning of these ancient symbols. To provide that, List takes the approach of interpreting the known Rune Poems,[2] the relevant Hávamál verses, and the etymological roots of words extending their German and Old High German definitions to the ancient time of the Aryo-Germanic people. In order to understand List’s perspective and approach, it is critical to understand what he meant by this term. List’s intent was to reach back to a pre-historical time when the earliest Germanic tribes / peoples first came into existence, springing forth from an even earlier “root race” which he called “Aryan.”[3] Essentially, he was seeking ancient origins and considering the earliest peoples and their religion. This followed Helena P. Blavatsky’s theosophical idea that modern religions all share a common origin with common ideals and principles. For Blavatsky, the high teachings were carried out by men of knowledge, “Masters” throughout the ages.
For List, the Armanen were “the men of knowledge.” They maintained and understood the holy secret language throughout the ages even as the uninitiated forgot the meaning of the primal symbols, the holy language, and the original ideas. Throughout several periods of religious transition, the old Armanen ideas had to be maintained in a secret way to avoid persecution by adherents of new practices. List attributes the preservation of the old Armanic ideas to the work of the Kalendars. The Kalendars were priests and laymen (both men and women) who were members of an Armanic or Wuotanic[4] priesthood who had the special role to preserve the old ideas secretively. As the old traditions were suppressed, the Armanic Kalendars incorporated the key concepts into the new teachings. The Armanic ideas, which preceded Wuotanism and then continued to be practiced in parallel with Wuotanism, were worked into Wuotanic and even Christian rituals and traditions. Returning to the Hávamál and the Runes, List asserts, “No other lay of the Edda gives such clear insight into the original Aryan philosophy concerning the relationship of spirit to body, of God to the All.”[5]
The ancient philosophical ideas of the Armanen are concealed in the Runes themselves. So, for example, List discovered that Hávamál verse 145: “The first promises to help helpfully in the struggle and in misery and in every difficulty” corresponded with, or otherwise described, the Rune FA. In Das Geheimnis der Runen, he goes on to provide an explanation of FA by discussing the root-word (from the original Aryo-Germanic language which he asserts was unisyllabic as were other ancient primeval languages). At the conclusion of his explanation, List provides what is sometimes referred to as a “motto.” These mottos, which appear at the conclusion of the explanation of each Rune, are not definitions of the Runes themselves, but rather original Armanen high-philosophical ideas which are hidden within the secretive symbolic form known as Runes. Here it is worth reminding that “Rune” means “mystery” or “secret.” The F-Rune then means so much more than, as many today would suggest, “movable wealth.” In FA, List found the foundational principle of one of his key ideas, that all life goes through a three-fold process of “arising,” “being,” and “passing away to a new arising” (Entstehen-Sein-Vergehen zum neuen Entstehen). In FA, he notes the “transitoriness of existence” but also the stability of the “Ich” which is in constant transformation. The “Ich” means something other than the Freudian term “ego” suggests to modern minds. It is the true “I,” beyond the physical trappings of the body, the divine-spirit-within which is both eternal and reincarnates over lifetimes. The Ich is the divine spirit in all people that arises anew following the passing away of the physical body. His “motto” or more properly, his secret Armanen principle is “Generate your luck and you will have it.” This high idea refers to the importance of karmic or as List would render it “Garmic” principles. While List does not write of Garma in Das Geheimnis der Runen, the concept is clearly presented on several occasions. He will not define this term until two years later, in 1910 in his Die Religion der Ario-Germanen in ihrer Exoterik und Esoterik (The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Exoteric and Esoteric). There he describes Garma as destiny. He writes that Garma is “making one’s self transform within one’s self, by means of one’s self.”[6] If a person’s deeds are good, good credits accrue ultimately resulting in positive outcomes. Such positive results may occur even over multiple lifetimes. Therefore one generates one’s own luck (good or bad) and realizes the outcome of such behavior in this or subsequent lives. Our Garma, or destiny, is self-created.
The Hávamál verse attributed to UR is: “It is useful for people who practice the healing hand. It chases disease and all pain. It cures hurts and all wounds.” List provides the principle, “Know yourself, then you will know all.” Again, he emphasizes, without explicitly stating as much, the principle of Garma. He states that everything that manifests is the result of some primal “Ur” cause. The primal cause leads to some effect which in turn is the cause of some other effect and so on. Understanding the primal or Ur cause of a phenomenon enables us to know the noumenon —or thing in itself. Therefore knowing ourselves and our actions —our Garmic causes—allows us to alter cause and recognize false “luck” for it is not luck at all, but rather the Garmic result of prior actions. Our ability to heal is based on knowledge which sprouts from the original knowledge-based-wihinei or religion, Armanism.
The corresponding verse to the Rune THORN is: “If urgency tells to tie the opponents with magic, Then I dull the steel of my foes so that their swords will not cut any more.” Here List reveals the Armanic principle, “Preserve your ego!” (or more precisely), “Preserve your Ich.” With THORN, we return to the principle of Reincarnation (Passing Away to a new Arising). While death itself may be viewed as “sharp,” the pain is dulled by THORN. In THORN we have opposites at play. List refers both to “the thorn of death” and the “the thorn of life.” The power of death is dulled by understanding that there is a renewal of the spirit —the true Ich in rebirth. THORN then reminds us that our Ich—the divine-spirit-within —is preserved, thereby overcoming physical death.
OS is associated with the verse: “Should an enemy put a tie onto pliable limbs; Then I speak the spell, the shackles break from the feet.” The ancient Armanic principle is “Your Spiritual force makes you free.” Here List refers to higher spiritual and intellectual abilities. The higher spiritual force overcomes physical force. We see this played out through the secret work of the Armanic Kalendars. In the face of persecution, the old ideas are hidden in plain sight —but in a secretive way so only those “men of knowledge” can understand. OS speaks to the power of the Skalds, the Minnesangers, or “Memory Singers” and the Rune magicians who maintained the high religious principles in the face of physical persecution.
The Hávamál verse for RIT is: “If in hostile flight, An arrows shoots into the crowd; No matter how it threatens, I block its force by grasping it tightly with the look of my eyes.” The Armanen principle is “I am my rod (right), this rod is indestructible, therefore I am myself indestructible, because I am my rod.” This principle is surely a response to that of the Twenty-third Psalm, “thy rod and thy staff comfort me.” List likely thought that the psalm perverted the original meaning by shifting justice and morality to a God “up there in the starry heaven” as he comments sarcastically. In List’s phrase we find that the Armanen were conscious of their own godliness. He describes the term “internity” as “to be with one’s Self is to be with God.” He goes on to explain that as long as a folk or people possess their original or primal “internity” that they have no cause to worship an external divinity and that such worship is only made necessary when one is not able — or no longer able—to find God in one’s own innermost being. The Rita or cosmic law is expressed through divine-internity. The principle explains that as a divine-Ich, that one is their own moral right, and that the divine spirit within is ultimately indestructible. Again, even though the physical body will perish, the Spirit, as part of the Divine-ALL will live on and reincarnate (pass away to a new arising). Therefore, the arrow of the Hávamál verse is not threatening. It is only a physical force that holds no power over the divine-eternal-spirit.
The Hávamál verse corresponding to KA is: “If a man hurts me with the root of a strange tree; the ruin he threatened me with does not hurt me, but consumes him.” List provides the principle, “Your blood is your highest possession.” Here List emphasizes the preservation of the tribe (in Armanic terms), or the race is to be “purely preserved.” He juxtaposes the tree Yggdrasil as a tree of the Germanic tribes versus the tribal trees of “foreign races.” There should be little doubt that beyond any theories of race from List’s own time, that his focus was on the primal and early Germanic peoples. For this principle he likely based his ideas on the ancient historian Tacitus who wrote in his first century account of the Germanic tribes, “The Germans themselves are the original inhabitants of the country, so I incline to believe, and have very little foreign blood from admixture through invasions by other people or through friendly dealings with them.”[7] Tacitus goes even further, “I myself accept the view of those who judge that the peoples of Germany have never been contaminated by intermarriage with other nations that the race remains unique, pure, and unlike any other.”[8]
HAGAL corresponds with the verse: “Should the hall blaze high in flames above all the people; no matter how it burns, I save them all: This magic I know to perform.” The Armanen principle is “Harbor the All in yourself, and you will control the All!” Here again List returns to the idea the God within. He writes of “the consciousness to bear […] God with all his qualities within.” This God-within bestows a magical power. This positive magical power provides control over both the spiritual and physical realms. List describes this key point,
“The main points of this one religion, which are indelibly, even if often obscured, ingrained in the heart of every human being, are based on the knowledge and recognition of a spiritual being that is intimately and inseparably connected with the universe and the dependence of the world on it.”[9]
The Armanen are conscious to the ALL within, and through that consciousness are able to control the all (without) — both the physical and spiritual worlds. Even the literal or figurative “flames” of the hall may be controlled through such internal divine will and consciousness.
NOTH corresponds with the verse: “Quite useful to hear for all the people in danger and need. Should hatred arise between man and man: This I settle fast.” Here, the ancient principle is “Use your fate, do not strive against it.” This principle echoes that of UR. List writes, “Whoever is able to grasp the primal cause of a phenomenon, and whoever gains knowledge of organically lawful evolution and the phenomena arising from it, is also able to judge their consequences just as they are beginning to ferment.” List returns to the concept of Garma and the organic causality of all phenomena. Recognition of the primal causes leads to an understanding of the present and future results. We don’t strive against fate, but rather use it to our advantage. In response to the verse, one can seek out the origin of the strife and settle it through awareness and understanding of the primal root cause.
For IS, List identifies the Hávamál verse: “A ninth I grasp, when for me need arises to protect my ship on the ocean: then I will still the storm on the rising sea and calm the swell of the waves.” The Armanen principle that List provides is “Win power over yourself and you will have power over everything in the spiritual and physical worlds that strives against you.” This principle emphasizes the “forceful will of the spirit.” List notes the association of the the word “waves [wellen]” to the word “will [Wille]. All of life is ultimately obedient to the will of the Armanen. For List, even modern hypnosis is an example of the power of this Rune joined with the will of the practitioner. Far from the concept of denial of ego or self, this Rune emphasizes the power of the will to achieve both personal control and external achievement of that which is willed. List comments that the ancient religion “declares the individual ego to be an inseparable part of the All-I, the All-One-I, and subordinates it to it, without however depriving the individual ego of it individual rights.”[10]
The corresponding verse for AR is: “I use the tenth, when through the air ghostly riding-women fly: when I begin that magic, they will fare confused in form and effort.” The ancient Armanen principle is “Respect the primal fire!” AR is a reference to the primal fire (urfyr) —God. The powers of darkness are vanquished by the Urfyr. The ancient Aryans were the sons of the Sun, sons of the Urfyr and hence their name reflects that of AR. The Eagle, in German Aar, is ancient symbol of these people. List relates the Eagle to the Phoenix as yet another sign of rebirth and reincarnation as a key principle of the cosmic Rita (law).
The verse of the SIG Rune is: “An eleventh still I also know in the fight, when I lead the dear one: I sing it into the shield and he is victorious in battle he fare hale hither and hale home again he remains hale everywhere.” The Armanen principle hidden in SIG is “The creative spirit must conquer!” Here List relates the Rune not only to the name SIG (victory) but also to SAL (sal-vation). He refers to the “millennia-old Aryan greeting,” “Alaf sal fena!”[11] Here List provides little to explain his meaning. To gain clarity, it is necessary to consider some key Theosophical principles as presented by H.P. Blavatsky. For Blavatsky, “spirit” is oneness with the absolute. The “creative spirit” then is a reference to Divinity without and within. It is the internal “creative spirit” that comes from the Divine. Blavatsky writes in The Secret Doctrine that the Progenitors of Man are called “Fathers” in India. These “Fathers” or Pitara are the creators of our bodies and lower principles. “They are ourselves, as the first personalities, and we are they.”[12] Returning to the greeting, “Alaf sal fena,” it is not simply regarding the “ability to reproduce” or “procreate” but that through this process that we return in a process of on-going improvement or what List calls “a still more glorious future life.” It is through this internal esoteric process that we are conquerers and not through physical exoteric matter.
TYR is associated with the verse: “A twelfth I have: if on a tree there hangs a man throttled up on high; then I write some Runes and the man climbs down and talks to me.” The Armanen principle hidden within this symbol is “Fear not death—it cannot kill you!” With TYR, we return to the concept of rebirth and passing away to a new arising. List refers to the reborn and renewed Wuotan who has climbed down from the World Tree. As with AR, List refers to the fanisk or phoenix rising up out of the ashes. List states that every magical belief moves in parallel to a mythic pattern. Therefore in a variation from the Hermetic principle, “As above, so below,” List suggests a principle in which we might say “as in mythology, so below.” Hence, as Wuotan returns from his self-sacrifice on Yggdrasil in a renewed body, “so does every single person return after every life in human form with a renewed body through a rebirth.” TYR then is a “victory Rune” for it once again demonstrates the principle of the arising that follows death.
The verse corresponding to BAR is: “A thirteenth I name, I sprinkle the son of a noble in the first bath when he goes into battle, he cannot fall, no sword may strike him to the ground.” The Armanen principle is “Thy life stands in the hand of God; trust it in you.” Here List explains the ideas of chance and fate. He states emphatically that “the Germanic people did not recognize any ‘blind fate.’” By this he means that there is actually no such thing as chance as all such events are part of a great web of fate (wyrd). There are no random or “lawless” occurrences rather such happenings are incalculable and therefore appear like “chance.” He makes the distinction however that the ancient Germanics did believe in destiny, but understood that many “chance accidents” may stand in the way of fulfillment of such predestination. Due to the free will of men, “dark chance” rules and negatively impacts the lives of most people. To survive and succeed in light of such dark destiny, List suggests that newborns should be consecrated with the “water of life” —baptized. Here it should be understood that the sprinkling of infants with water was a ritual that predated Christian baptismal practices. Life is both “sanctified” and “charmed” by the practice of baptism.
The verse corresponding to LAF is: “A fourteenth I sing to the gathered folk by naming the divine names for all of the Ase and Elven kind I know as well as any.” For this verse, List provides the principle, “First learn to steer, then dare the sea-journey!” List writes of an “intuitive knowledge of the organic essence of the All” as a foundation of the ancient sacred teaching. This refers to an awareness of the singular divine essence in all things—the overall oneness of the Cosmos. He goes on to explain that such esoteric knowledge was “communicated to the folk in symbolically formulated myths.” This is one key to his overall thinking and ideas. That is, that the majority of the people could not understand the primal law and primal sacred ideas anymore than “the physical eye can see the whole oceans” or the unschooled or uninitiated can see see, even with their inner-spiritual eye, the “endlessness of life in the ALL.” The typical individual must then learn to “steer” their own life and understand the exoteric message of the mythology while only the Armanen or those initiated into the secret teachings are prepared to “dare the sea-journey”—the understanding of the ALL and the impact of such understanding on one’s life.
MAN corresponds to the verse: “A fifteenth I tell, which Folk-rast the dwarf sang before the Doors of Day to the Ases for strength, to the Elves for might, to myself to clear my mind.” Here the secret principle is the easily misconstrued admonition, “Be a man!” List explains that the root word is both associated with the moon, and with “ma” —to mother. The primal word is then associated with “mothering” and propagation of the human race. There is an occult correspondence with the Moon and an association with the procreation of mankind. The root “ma” is also associated with the concepts of “man,” “maiden,” “husband,” “wife,” “marriage,” and “menstruation.” The primal Ur-word means “increase” which is ultimately the unifying theme of these terms. List brings unity to these disparate ideas according to the principle of “multiune-multifidic multiplicity.” That is to say that one is many and many are one. Gorsleben writes, “The fifteenth Rune is the sacred Rune of humankind and it introduces us to the mystery of being human.”[13]
The Rune YR corresponds to the verse, “A sixteenth I speak to a coy maiden to get me goodness and luck: that changes and turns the wishes and mind of the swan-white armed beauty.” With YR, the Armanic principle that is taught is, “Think about the end!” YR is a inverted MAN Rune. Etymologically it is associated with the bow, be that the rain-bow, or the weapon bow. The moon correspondence of MAN remains, but now, rather than a full-moon, YR designates the waxing and waning moon. As such, it is related to the “mutability of the feminine essence.” It is also identified as the “Error-Rune.” It may cause confusion that can lead to victory —but List tells us that such victory is illusory. Here the principle is contrasted with that of OS. Rather than bringing true victory through a spiritual conquest, here the conquest is brought on by pretext and illusion—and the material. As such, the mutability or phases of the moon demonstrate change and passing. The material is associated with mortality and Indian concept of Maya - or illusion. As we “think about the end,” we realize that the material world is one of illusion and that our spiritual essence is indeed divine.
The Rune EH corresponds with the verse, “A seventeenth helps me with a lovely maid, so that she will never be able to leave me.” As the etymological link of this word relates to “marriage,” List announces the age-old secret principle, “Marriage is the raw-root of the Aryans!” He writes that the “marriage [Ehe]-rune confirms the concept of lasting love on the basis of marriage as the legal bond between man and woman.” Here it is likely that List turned once again to Tacitus. In Germania, Tacitus wrote, “Nevertheless, the marriage code is strict there and there is no aspect of their morality that deserves higher praise.”[14] Writing of women, Tacitus continues, “They are content with a single husband, just as they are content with one body and one life. She has no thoughts beyond him, nor do her desires survive him. They must love not so much the husband himself as their marriage.”[15]
Finally, we come to the 18th Rune, GIBOR, or GE, or GI. The Hávamál verse is “The Eighteenth I will eternally never tell to a woman or maid; it forms the best end to the lays— which only One of All knows, except for the lady who embraces me in marriage or who is also a sister to me.” Here List explains that “while the exoteric doctrine teaches that ‘man emerged from God and will return to God,’ the esoteric doctrine knows ‘the invisible cohesion of man and divinity as the ‘bifidic-biune dyad.’ His final Armanic secret principle is the “Man—be One with God!” With this principle, we return to that which we had glimpses of from the earlier Runes. God is the giver, as is the Earth. Here we also return to the principle of “rebirth.” The GIBOR Rune conceals the ancient fyrfos symbol of the Armanen —the highest of Armanen symbols. It reveals esoterically that God may be found in the innermost spirit of man himself. The message concealed in GIBOR is that the spirit of humanity is unified with the divine.
In conclusion, beyond the Eddic explanation of magical uses of the Runes, and List’s etymological explanation of Rune definitions based on analysis of language, the Runes were used by ancient Skalds and Kalendars to conceal the ancient Armanen philosophy. The symbols referred to by the mysterious verses of Odin’s Rune Song, when properly understood, describe the original religious principles of the earliest Germanic peoples. These high ideas and principles were embedded in the mythology and folk-tales for multiple reasons. Perhaps foremost among these were that the common people had little ability to understand such principles beyond a basic exoteric understanding of such stories. Secondly, during times of persecution, it was critical to maintain the original teachings in a concealed way. For those who can understand the symbols, the hidden world of the Skalds and the Kalendars becomes evident all around—from place names, to architecture, from coats of arms, to fairy tales. But of all the clues that one might find, none convey the ancient philosophy better than those mysterious hieroglyphs known to us as Runes.
Notes:
1. All quotes from Guido von List’s The Secret of the Runes are from Stephen E. Flowers’s translation (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1988).
2. List would have likely have only had access to the Old English Rune Poem at the time he was writing.
3. The author has planned an article to explain what List meant by his frequently used terms, “Aryan” and “Aryo-Germanic.” His view on this matter likely evolved overtime and was, by the time of his mystical writings, strongly influenced by Madame Blavatsky. In short, the Aryan was the latest (fifth) root-race from which all peoples originated. From this root there were several divisions which had further divisions. The “Aryo-Germanic” people were one step removed from the root. Therefore, when analyzing ancient German / Deutsch culture and religion, List sought to explain religion, society, and culture as practices by the earliest Germanic peoples. He believed that at the time of the primal root, that all practiced the same religion and were of the same race.
4. Wuotan is the Old High German form of Wotan, the German equivalent of the Scandinavian god, Odin.
5. List, Secret, 46.
6. Guido von List, The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Esoteric and Exoteric, trans. Stephen E. Flowers (Bastrop, TX: Lodestar, 2014),
7. Tacticus, Agricola and Germany, trans. A.R. Birley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 37.
8. Tacitus, 39.
9. Guido von List, “Buddhismus, Christentum und Armanismus” in Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen (Graz, AUT, Geheimes Wissen, 2015), 253.
10. List, “Buddhismus,” 265.
11. Stephen Flowers translates this phrase as, “All solar salvation to him who is conscious of power! (able to reproduce).
12. H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II Anthropogenesis (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 2022), 88.
13. Rudolf John Gorsleben, Hoch-Zeit der Menscheit, trans. Karl Hans Welz, (https://www.runemagick.com/gorsleben.pdf) FA-NOD-SIG, 508.
14. Tacitus, 46.
15. Tacitus, 47.
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