Well of course as in most traditional cultures the peoples of Northern Europe didn’t distinguish much between religion and culture. They were seamlessly connected.

As such I feel that when I do things like make sauerkraut or read about European history, well, this is a spiritual practice just as much as preparing a rune sigil or calling on a deity. I am an animist – like my ancestors I see everything as being sentient. So everything we do is spiritual, although of course if we do things in unright ways then that spiritual power can be occluded.

As for religion and spirituality…to me what we call religion is a form of art, a string of images and practices which at their best can provide doors through which we can step into a direct relationship with the divine. In a sense even the runes fall into this category, since that is what they seem to be: doors into a wider bandwidth of experience and understanding.

All of this makes learning about historical culture, mythology, and runes very fruitful for modern folk interested in the runes. The more we dip into the well of memory the more water we have to nourish new gardens.

There is a lot more information about the historical dimensions than you might think, and it is always growing as archaeologists discover more (and archaeology seems to be a better source for understanding the past than a lot of the written records, so this is a double bonus). Runic Amulets & Magic Objects (Mindy MacLeod & Bernard Mees) is a deeply inspiring place to start, you can read a review on my site:

http://www.elhazablaze.com/2010/03/review-runic-amulets-magic-objects-mindy-macleod-bernard-mees/

H

I totally agree with you that we need to understand the Runes in the historical and spiritual context. I find It interesting, too, that the larger spiritual, community context of the runes has been raised in several places over the last few days. Divination is often the initial attraction to the Runes. I think that this is because of the deep innate drive we have to better understand ourselves and our existence. It is to be hoped that this initial interest develops into deeper probing and I do think that is what the open encouraging atmosphere on Rune Secrets promotes.

I would like to pose a question for consideration about spirituality versus organized religion. Is the northern runic tradition and honouring the ancestral deities a religion (in the contemporary understanding of organized religion)? Or is it a spiritual way of being – a pathway in the worlds?

Unfortunately, we don’t have many historic sources of reliable information about pagan traditions such as the Northern pathways or Druidism. There is even less on the Norse and Germanic Runic traditions than on Druidism and most of what exists is recorded through the eyes of ‘christian’ invaders. I think that we have to turn to these sources and the recorded mythologies and try to discern through intuition and communication with the Deities the spiritual pathways in the present time.

This is such an important area for discussion. It would be great if there was someone in the Rune Secrets community that is into the historical research who would be willing to do a guest article! Meanwhile, I would really like to hear other views on the religion- spirituality debate.

Totally with you on your scepticism about titles and runic gurus.

One though I have…you mention the runes are not a religion. That’s true of course, but they are deeply connected to a mythological culture. Archaeologically speaking the use of the runes declined largely into triviality after the coming of Christianity. They seemed to do much better in a pre-Christian / Heathen spiritual context.

I mention this because while I dig your call for people to take personal, subjective responsibility for their learning, it might be also beneficial to remember that the mythology situates the runes, just as the runes are deeply connected to imagery from pre-Christian Germanic culture and are more easily deciphered if one has some historical understanding (not just reading the Icelandic Sagas, which were written centuries after the Conversion and probably don’t reflect much real information about Heathen magic at all).

For me personally, the runes are bound up in my devotion to Odin. Looking at archaeological finds and myths it appears that the gods Thor and Frey had a bit to do with them (and perhaps Bragi, too), and the mythic poems explain that there were runes for men, gods, dwarves, elves, etc, etc. Mysteries upon mysteries open up when we look to these sources.

None of this is to say that anyone has to make a religious commitment in order to use the runes…but rather than it is helpful (and indeed inspiring) to grasp the runes’ original spiritual and historical (and cultural) context…and also respectful to both the runes and their creators to do so. This is an important area where Blum falls down, incidentally – his books may get people into runes, but many folk (myself included) soon find them to be superficial and vacuous. Then the search begins with fresh determination…

Keep up the good work,

Henry

>>You are not ‘Enlightened’ just because someone else says you are so.

I love this site, and have great respect for how you present information here. The above 2 quotes from your cautionary posting are a great example of why I resonate with so much of what you have to say. Both statements are so true, it is sad they have to be stated … but I am glad you do. As we each own the part we play in giving birth to ourselves, we gain a perspective that can’t easily be put in words. Runes are a wonderful tool to that end, but they are just that: a tool.

Thank you so much for being a wonderful resource!

and allows this imagination to come to existence and also the different mainframes within this imagination that allows one to understand things better.
Its like one either have a place of which we can create knowingly or one does not.

Why does two becomes three?

Like today i noticed that the less we have the more we share.
When i was eating meatballs and macaronis so to not get just macaronis i had to cut the meatballs in half to make one piece.
“More is less” depends how we value and to what degree can one change the values one has?