Rune Might: The Secret Practices of the German Rune Magicians - Edred Thorsson 2018
The Armanic Renaissance
Background
(1904—1919)
The bloom of the runic spring lasted from about 1904, when the Guido von List Society was founded, to the beginning of the First World War, in 1914. This conflict brought the spring to a stormy end and heralded even more disastrous times to come. But the runes are no strangers to strife.
Above all others, the figure of Guido von List (born October 5, 1848, in Vienna; died May 17, 1919, in Berlin) looms over the history of the revival of runic occultism. It is back to List that the origins of almost all of the subsequent works of rune magic and runic esoterica can—at least to some degree—be traced. List was the son of a wealthy Viennese businessman, but instead of following in his father’s foot-steps he turned his attention first to the writing of journalism, then to novels and dramas, and finally, in the last fifteen years of his life, to overtly esoteric studies. It is important to understand that List never published anything of a practical magical nature. He was nevertheless in many ways a magician, and many of his insights were used in practical ways. (See, for example, the use of his linguistic theories in the construction of mantras in chapter 8.) It is obvious that he wanted to keep his practical teachings of rune magic secret. Many details of List’s life and ideas can be found in my translation and study of The Secret of the Runes (Destiny, 1988), List’s seminal work. A more in-depth look at the life and times of Guido von List is provided by Wotan’s Awakening, by Eckehard Lenthe.
In Das Geheimnis der Runen (The Secret of the Runes, 1908), List reveals his theory that the original rune row was an 18-rune futhork (otherwise previously unknown in the annals of runology). This system is based on the scriptural evidence of the “Rúnatals þáttr Óðins” (Odin’s Rune Song)—the last twenty-eight stanzas of the “Hávamál” found in the Poetic Edda. List then went on to write several more books outlining many facets of the esoteric culture and religion of the ancient Germanic folk, or Aryo-Germanic peoples, as he called them. List’s methods of research were largely mysto-magical, but not entirely subjective. He would gain visions of the ancient ways and then corroborate them through somewhat more conventional means of literary research. He established certain methods of analyzing language, symbols, and signs to cause them to reveal their secret meanings. Apparently some of his secret methods also involved the raising of long-dead ancestral spirits to gain their wisdom. The greatest single outside influence on List’s later esoteric thought was Theosophy. List’s researches were in fact supported by several wealthy industrialists in German-speaking central Europe. A Guido von List Society (Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft) was founded to publish the master’s works and to support him financially. None of the fantastical stories told about him in the propagandistic work by Trevor Ravenscroft titled The Spear of Destiny are supported by any evidence. Members of the Guido von List Society included some of the leading figures from political and industrial circles, as well as from various occult groups. Within the Guido von List Society there developed a more esoteric inner cell called the Order of Armanen (Armanen-Orden). Although this group apparently never had much of a formal structure before List’s death, it was the root of many runic developments to come.
List’s visions and constructs were so compelling and his personality so dominant that his mystical system was the general rule in German runic occultism until the early 1990s, when the more traditional forms of runelore began to find their way into German esoteric circles as my own books Futhark, Runelore, and Runecaster’s Handbook were translated into German. In the period before World War II, the only voice in runic occultism significantly independent of List was that of Friedrich Bernhard Marby.
List left behind a sizable corpus of literature. The material produced in the last two decades of his life were almost entirely esoteric in nature. The works provided a blueprint for his later followers. The Secret of the Runes (Das Geheimnis der Runen, 1908) was his seminal runological text. Die Armanenschaft der Ariogermanen (The Armanen Tradition of the Aryo-Germanic Folk, 1908 and 1911) is a work divided into two parts. The contents of these volumes lay out in esoteric terms List’s ideas of social, political, and historical development and organization. Die Rita der Ario-Germanen (The Cosmic Law of the Aryo-Germanic Folk, 1908) focused more narrowly in ideas of law and the rituals and customs that belong to the idea. The word Rita is taken from the Sanskrit rta, meaning “cosmic order.” Here, as elsewhere, List approaches the topic from within his esoteric vision. In Die Namen der Völkerstämme Germaniens und deren Deutung (The Names of the Tribes in Germania and Their Interpretation, 1909), List applies his esoteric linguistic theories to the names of the various Germanic tribes mentioned by Tacitus in his book Germania. An example of this would be where he analyzes the name of the Burgundians by writing that the first element bur = “origin, farmer” [Ger. Bauer], pur, “red (purple),” and “pure-”; and the second element gund = “hidden, contained, struggle, decision.” From this several interpretations result, of which the most meaningful is “Those who arose out of darkness of the Ur (primeval state).” These are esoteric etymologies. List was especially suited to the “hieroglyphic” interpretation of symbols. This was the subject of his Die Bilderschrift der Ario-Germanen (The Image-Writing [or: Pictography] of the Aryo-Germanic Folk, 1910). (Romantic and esoteric ideas regarding the “hieroglyphic” nature of symbols, artificial objects, as well as even natural objects are discussed in appendix C.) The most extensive book published by List was Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen (The Original Language of the Aryo-Germanic Folk, 1914), which laid out his elaborate system of word analysis. Two additional books of great significance are Die Religion der Ario-Germanen (published in English as The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk [Lodestar, 2017]) and Der Übergang vom Wuotanismus zum Christentum (The Transition from Wuotanism to Christianity), which originally appeared in 1909 and 1911, respectively. The second of these (Der Übergang . . .) reflects List’s ideas about how the ancient Armanic wisdom survived the Christianization process. List’s last book was to have been on the “Kabbalah of the Aryo-Germanic folk,” but it was never published. Controversy surrounds the fate of the manuscript of the book. From the many references made to it in List’s published works, it is clear that the Armanismus und Kabbala (Armanism and Kabbalah) book would have essentially been a study of esoteric numerology.
Among List’s students, one of the most immediately influential was Philipp Stauff (born March 26, 1876, in Moosbach; died July 17, 1923, in Berlin), who joined the Guido von List Society in 1910. He was present with List and several other pilgrims at the founding of the Armanen-Orden in Vienna in 1911. Stauff was an anti-Semitic journalist active in a number of nationalist organizations in Germany. He was also a leading member of the Germanen Orden and was the living link between that historically significant group and the Guido von List Society. In 1912 he moved to Berlin and in that same year published his greatest contribution to the history of runic esoterica, a book titled Runenhäuser. In this book Stauff theorized that the patterns made by the wooden beams in the half-timbered (Fachwerk) houses had a runic significance and that one who knew the code could actually read the hidden meaning of the “rune houses.” This would later become a very popular aspect of esoteric runology. After List’s death, it was Stauff who became president of the society and continued to publish the works of the master from the new headquarters in Berlin-Lichterfelde. On July 17, 1923, Stauff committed suicide at his home. The reasons for this suicide seem to have been rooted in Stauff’s experiences in the First World War. After Philipp Stauff’s death, his widow, Bertha, took over the organization, meetings, and publishing house of the Guido von List Society.
A thorough reading of the works of Guido von List reveals that his own vision and philosophy were not as political or racially ideological as his latter-day, post—WWI followers made this work appear. Nor was it as political as his latter-day critics have made it out to be. List was endowed with the spirit of an artist and visionary, not that of a politician or political organizer. Often his sometimes positive statements about other cultures or organizations such as the Freemasons had to be “revised” or “explained” by later followers such as Stauff. On page 'Appendix B' of the first volume of Deutsch-mythologische Landschaftsbilder (German-Mythological Landscape Portraits), List gives expression to the common moral position of the truly völkisch individual: “I love my fatherland with passion, but I do not hate any other people!”
One of the most curious chapters in the first phase of the runic revival concerns a man at first known only by the magical name “Tarnhari.” In the Listian code-language this name essentially meant “the hidden lord.” Tarnhari sent a letter to List in November of 1911 in which he claimed that his family traditions, which had been handed down from time immemorial, served to corroborate all of List’s clairvoyant researches into Germanic prehistory. It is interesting that another rune-occultist, Karl Maria Wiligut, would later make similar claims of “occult kingship.” Tarnhari, who was in actuality Ernst Lauterer, was very active in völkisch political organizations and was even a part of the post—WWI circle around Dietrich Eckart, the man who was Hitler’s mentor and to whom Hitler would dedicate Mein Kampf.
Among the many esoteric and political groups that promoted what they thought to be Germanic ideals, perhaps the one most involved with runic practices was the Germanen-Orden (Germanic Order), founded in 1912 by Hermann Pohl. In 1916, Pohl broke away from the order he had founded and set up an independent Germanen-Orden Walvater, which published the periodical Runen (Runes). Runen contained many articles on runelore and even some of an informative nature on rune magic. The order also made talismanic bronze rings inscribed with magical runes available to its initiates. An illustration of one of these rings as it appeared in a 1919 issue of Runen can be seen in the figure below.
The fundamental magical and mystical ideas promulgated in the Germanen-Orden were based on the system of Guido von List, coupled with the sometimes pseudoscientific racialism of the day. It was from the ranks of the Germanen-Orden that the famous Thule Society was formed in 1918 as a cover for the inner workings of the deeply mystical and political Germanen-Orden itself. The main force behind this was the personality of Rudolf von Sebottendorff, who had traveled in various dark corners of the world collecting arcane lore. An introduction to Sebottendorff and an example of his work can be found in my translation of his book Secret Practices of the Sufi Freemasons (Inner Traditions, 2013).
To gain any sort of true perspective on this time and place in history, one must realize that Germany and Austria had just been plunged into internal chaos by their political and economic defeat following the Great War (1914—1918) and that the whole region continued to be under attack by Communist revolutionary forces. Bavaria itself was under Communist rule for a few months in 1918—1919 and was for a while even declared a “Soviet Republic.” The Communists knew well that the Thule Society was an important cell of Nationalist resistance and even took hostages from the society and eventually executed them. Again, to put this in perspective, the Communists were not merely a vague threat—they had actually seized power; they did not just give lip service to “internationalism” (i.e., the obliteration of nationalities) but practiced it in the fact that the revolution was being run by the Russian Soviets. The worst nightmares of those who had dreamed of a Pan-Germanic culture had come true. Ultimately, however, the situation simply served to radicalize and more deeply politicize the groups involved in the restoration of the national traditions of their own folk.