Revival of the Runes: The Modern Rediscovery and Reinvention of the Germanic Runes - Stephen E. Flowers Ph.D. 2021

The Reawakening of The Rune-Gild
The Rise of Contemporary Scientific Runology and the Re-Emergence of the Rune-Gild

Since its genesis in the mid-1970s, its establishment and growth between 1980 and 2011, and its organizational transformation following 2011, the Rune-Gild has been a remanifestation of the guild of runemasters of old. The Gild counts among its ranks an accomplished array of individuals meant to rival the Florentine academy of the Medicis. This evolution can be experienced in many of its nuances in the volume titled History of the Rune Gild (Thorsson 2019), so I do not need to delve too deeply into it here.

Most importantly, the myth—the esoteric level of self-understanding—of the Gild is that the organization itself, and the individuals within it, represent, in essence, the reawakening of the ancient network of runemasters. The material contained in the present volume and in History of the Rune Gild constitute a record, as brief and incomplete as it might be, of the long process of this reawakening. Recalling the methodological lens used in my book The Northern Dawn, for reawakenings of older paradigms to occur, we need to have four factors present: motivation, freedom, sources, and methods.

Motivation is the desire of individuals or groups to undertake the work of reawakening slumbering paradigms. This volition is the primary factor; without it, any “study” or “contemplation” of archaic patterns is sterile antiquarianism.

Freedom is a factor that has two edges: inner freedom (the psychological freedom to seek the reawakening) and outer freedom (a political or cultural condition that allows individuals and groups the engage in such pursuits). Today this freedom, which in the recent past was taken for granted, is once more facing challenges.

Sources constitute the concrete data (written or traditional) necessary to effect a reawakening. In the case of the runes, this factor required centuries of hard work by scholars to once more bring to light the contents of runic inscriptions and the literary material that supplemented and expanded this knowledge base.

Methods are the intellectual resources necessary to interpret the source data. These are refined and improved over time, but it is not always the case that the most recent methods or approaches are the best. The humanities are especially susceptible to prejudices—be they religious, philosophical, or political. For this reason, methods can be rapidly corrupted by external considerations. The traditionalist wants to uncover the mysteries of how our predecessors thought and conceived of the runes in order to be informed by these ideas today. We do not seek to make use of these ideas to further an agenda external to the prime directive of seeking the mysteries.

All of these factors must be present and cultivated to assure a true reawakening. A review of the contents of this book shows how the presence of these factors guided and aided the process of the runic revival and how their absence or corruption disrupted that process.

Essential to the reawakening of the Gild and of the power of the runes was the development of the esoteric workbook titled The Nine Doors of Midgard. This was first published in 1991 and went through several additional editions over the years. This is the best and most complete guide to runic studies on an esoteric level, and its program has even been adapted to other traditions as well.

In some corners the runic revival is increasing in its quality and velocity as we enter more fully into the twenty-first century. In other corners is it just as off-base as it ever was. This revival, or reawakening, faces many challenges, both from within regarding the enhancement and growth of the quality of the ideas and works related to it, and from without as runes and the Germanic are frequently targeted by the thursic forces of “political correctness.” These two challenges are inexorably linked. The attacks from the outside cannot be allowed to affect the authentic and inner-driven qualities of the ancestral runic spirit. Most objective observers would have to agree that it is within the Rune-Gild that this spirit lives and where it is cultivated. The impeccable scholar of Western esoteric traditions, Prof. Joscelyn Godwin, Ph.D., writing in his book The Golden Thread, refers to Edred Thorsson as the most “active and erudite spokesman” of the philosophically based neo- Germanic movement (Godwin 2007, 165). The Rune-Gild transcends the polarized mundane world of contemporary politics, with its often-superficial conflicts, and reflects the original intertribal network of the runemasters who freely and authentically sought the mysteries.