A Portrait of Friedrich Bernhard Marby

This portrait of Friedrich Marby was begun on 28 December 2024. Marby is one of those figures that is filled with contradictions. His work, as perhaps the first modern Rune Magician, however is highly influential on most who practice Rune Magick today. Some simply avoid mentioning him while others distort his life based on their own political and social outlooks.

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Friedrich Bernhard Marby was born on 10 May 1882 in Aurich, Ostfriesland, a historic region in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany. A pivotal figure in esoteric and magickal Rune practice, Marby was the first to develop the concept of forming Rune postures with the body—a practice he called Runengymnastik (Rune Gymnastics), which is now more commonly known as Rune Yoga. Marby provided detailed occult explanations for the energies and benefits associated with his practice. However, like many early 20th-century Rune Magicians, much of what is said about Marby consists of half-truths and distortions—shaped by both his fiercest critics and his most devoted followers.

Marby began his apprenticeship as a printer in Hannover, Germany, in 1896, where he lived until 1915. In 1906, he married a woman he referred to as "Else" in his later writings.[1] It was during this period that he is believed to have started developing his Rune theories, with some sources suggesting that he began formulating his ideas as early as 1907—just a year before Guido von List published his groundbreaking work, Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes).[2] In the years that followed, Marby was undoubtedly influenced by List's writings. However, it wasn't until 1911 that Marby felt confident enough to publicly discuss his Runic theories.[3]

In 1917 Marby moved to Stuttgart where he worked as an editor of a regional newspaper. It was in Stuttgart that Marby began to combine his study of astrology with his Rune theories. As an outlet for his work, he started his own publication, Der eigene Weg (The Own Way). From 1931 through 1935 he wrote and published his most well-known work, the Marby-Runen-Bücherei (Marby Rune Library) that explored various magickal and esoteric practices with the Runes including: Rune Gymnastics, meditation, and other occult practices designed to enhance health.[4] It is important to note that, despite what several authors have asserted, Marby’s runic investigation were concentrated on the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc.[5] The Anglo-Frisian Futhorc is made up of a total of 33 Runes. While today, it is understood by scholars to have been in use from approximately the 5th through the 11th centuries, Marby believed it to be both the oldest and most complete Rune-row.[6] At this time, Marby also established his League of Runic Researchers in which he coordinated daily projections of Rune might amongst its members.[7]

By the 1930s Siegfried Kummer began his own investigation of Rune postures, which he called Runenyoga (Rune Yoga) and described in his volume, Heilige Runenmacht (Holy Rune Might) of 1932. Marby viewed Kummer as a competitor and even a plagiarist of his ideas.[8] While Kummer undoubtedly owes many key ideas to Marby, his work went further in describing the Rune postures and significantly focused on the Rune row of Guido von List, that which has come to be known as the Armanen Futhorkh.

Marby embraced the idea of an electrically charged cosmos, influenced by recent discoveries in radiation and the expanding applications of electricity. He believed that the Universe was permeated by cosmic rays, which humans could both receive and transmit. Marby also posited that the beneficial effects of these rays could be amplified by adopting specific physical postures that mimicked Rune forms. By combining these postures with the chanting of Runic sounds, practitioners could direct the energies and currents of both the Earth and the cosmos according to their will.

In 1933, the National Socialists came to power in Germany. While Marby’s writings are filled with many völkisch and racial theories, it was also clear that he intended to remain an independent voice. Marby’s refusal to submit to the new ideology ultimately led to his arrest and confinement in the concentration camp system through the Nazi defeat in 1945.[9] Marby, along with Siegfried Kummer, was criticized by name in a report made to Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of the SS by his chief esoteric Runologist, Karl Maria Wiligut.[10] In 1936, Marby was denounced and arrested as an “unauthorized occultist.” All of his property was seized and his printing presses were destroyed.[11] For the next 99 months, Marby was incarcerated first at the Welzheim concentration camp, then Flossenbürg, and finally at Dachau where he was freed by American forces in April of 1945. During his time in the Nazi Concentration Camp system, Marby is said to have instructed other inmates in the practice of Rune Gymnastics.[12] While many who suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime were subsequently compensated, Marby was denied any such compensation for his detention due to his early written support of National Socialism.[13]

In 1952, Marby resumed his occult research and wrote new books and continued to edit his magazine Forschung und Erfahrung (Research and Experience). In 1957, he published his mystical autobiography, Die drei Schwäne (The Three Swans), a book that while completed prior to his arrest in 1936, is filled with notes and explanations of his system.[14] In the period following the Third Reich, the concepts of Rune Gymnastics and Rune Yoga, and Runes themselves were tainted by the use of the Runes by the Nazis. Initially the work of Karl Spiesberger[15] and later the work of Stephen Flowers (Edred Thorsson) and Karl Hans Welz were successful in shedding racist and Nazi ideological principles from the esoteric and magickal practices of the Runes.[16]

Marby passed away on 3 December 1966. By the 1980s, the term "Rune Gymnastics" had largely been replaced by "Rune Yoga," the term popularized by Kummer, likely capitalizing on the widespread appeal of yoga. Today, the practice of Rune Yoga owes much to the contributions of Friedrich Marby and Siegfried Kummer. Without their pioneering efforts, sacrifices, and struggles, it’s likely that many of the principles of Rune Magick, Esotericism, and Rune Yoga as we know them today would either be vastly different or might not exist at all.

Notes

1.Edred Thorsson, Rune Might: The Secret Practices of the German Rune Magicians ( Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2018), 19.

 2. Vor Trú Issue 69. While Marby asserts this timing himself, there is no direct evidence of it. In his writings Marby spends considerable time asserting that he was the first to develop and promote his ideas. 

 3. Thorsson, Rune Might, 19. 

4. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 161. 

 5. Several sources assert that Marby used the “Armanen Futhorkh.” This is simply untrue. Marby in fact illustrated many pages of his Marby-Runen-Bücherei with the 33 Runes of the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc. 

 6. Edred Thorsson, ALU: An Advanced Guide to Operative Runology (San Francisco: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2012), 18. 

 7. Thorsson, Rune Might, 20. 

 8. Stephen E. Flowers, Revival of the Runes: The Modern Rediscovery and Reinvention of the Germanic Runes (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2021), 131. 

 9. Vor Trú Issue 69. 

10. For information on Karl Maria Wiligut see: Stephen E. Flowers and Michael Moynihan, The Secret King: The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism (Waterbury Center, VT: Dominion, 2007). 

11. Thorsson, Rune Might, 20. 

12. Stephen E. Flowers, The Reform of Life: Germany’s Early Reform Movements and Their Influences (Bastrop, TX: Lodestar, 2023), 119. 

13. Stephen E. Flowers, The Occult in National Socialism: The Symbolic, Scientific, and Magical Influences on the Third Reich (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2022), 103. 

14. Edred Thorsson, Rune Might, 38. 

15. See especially Runenmagie: Handbuch der Runenkunde (1954) and Runenexerzitien für Jedermann (1958). 

 16. Flowers, Reform of Life, 119.