BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Runes

 
 
Vainamoinen
06:34 / 26.01.02
Just a newcomer to these boards - they found me so I guess I'd better say hello. Wondering if any here have any experience with the runes. Tarot, Psychic arts etc have all been easy enough for me but the Runes still call me strongly and I have done a lot with them including constructing powerful sigils with them - wondering if any here have taken some other route that I have not.


-= Vai =-
 
 
Rev. Jesse
11:27 / 26.01.02
I use mine mostly for divination. Never tried enchanting with them, give me some recipes and I will give a try though.

Speaking of which, I cast them last night, check out this casting on got last night:

3 rune spread, from right to left:

Odin's Rune (the Blank One), Disruption, and Breakthrough...

Now when I cast them last night I did it from right to left, I was tired, forgot to do it left to right. Reading it left to right seems to make a bit more sense.

At least it is (sorta) good news either way as I have not been completely satisfied and a breakthrough with the disruption of my problems maybe just what I need.

-Rev. Jesse
 
 
Vainamoinen
12:36 / 26.01.02
I'm a bit of a strange sort - divination is not what I need most times - I'm more bent toward understanding things that fall outside my grasp and 'controlling' things/events/people. I say 'controlling' as I don't believe its possible to truly control something without destroying the nessecary balance - I do however manage to exert significant influence by falling into sync with things and thinking as what I wish to control. I'm very disassociative in my mentality by nature so this is the easiest route to take.

Divination with the runes is very accurate by my experience - as is 'marking' items in combination with intent. The runes fall naturally to my nature - I'm scottish by descent - the direct line of my family leads all the way back to Ljot - a Nord. (for those historians among you - yes my name is McLeod), and so the celtic druidic runes are also of great interest to me - I've as yet not managed to find a reference to the entireity - I don't want to start playing with anything I don't have the full picture of - if anyone here has a source for more information it would be appreciated.

Disruption and Breakthrough? I only know them by the original names - as they have many meanings I'm a bit lost there :> Thurisaz and? Rhaido?

-= Vai =-
 
 
Rev. Jesse
12:50 / 26.01.02
I dunno... 'fraid I am at work and they frown on casting runes as a customer service exercise. Can't imagine why, the pig-entrials seem to be great for troubleshooting servers...
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
00:10 / 27.01.02
I love the runes. The more I work with them, magically and divinatory, the more I love them.

I personally stay away from the modern creation of the 'blank' rune.

I find them to be as versatile as chaos magic sigils and a lot more efficacious for me.

There are some old Rune threads in the Magick archive here on Barbelith that can clue you into various people's favorite authors (usually Edred Thorsson, Freya Aswynn, and Nigel Pennick are among the top three).

Also check out Rex and my thread on the Elder Futhark.
 
 
Vainamoinen
06:05 / 27.01.02
Nice to know there are others out there...

Did you two make your own set of casting runes?

They are as effective as they are due to them being a symbol set of all the primary concepts that applied to the world at the time of their creation - and those same concepts still hold fast today as primaries. Any series/pattern of concepts can be rendered into runeform - accurately.

The sigils that I've made with them are powerful - sometimes too much so - one of them put my life on a very different path for 4 years.

Anyway - I'm rambling - would like to hear of any experiences that any of ya have had.

-= Vainamoinen an 't Fionn =-
 
 
Rev. Wright
08:18 / 27.01.02
Gotta catch them all!

Yep, self confessed rune head, been using them as my main symbol and only recently been approaching the Tarot again.

I Agree with Lothar and avoid the use of the 'blank' rune. Though I hear Lothar's fave Kenneth Meadows attempts a good justification.

Not to spoil the thread of the Barbelith runes, but how long are we gonna get to post? I would love to post, but would like a grace period of say a week. It is inspiring my to do the practice of digesting the runes (written on cakes) and meditating on the days events, rune in mind (and body)

I made a set of runes from a single piece of Ash, burning the symbols on. Initially I found them too powerful and confusing, resorting to use bought sets, until I was capable enogh to use them.

[ 27-01-2002: Message edited by: Will 'it work' Wright ]

[ 28-01-2002: Message edited by: Will 'it work' Wright ]
 
 
Rev. Jesse
13:36 / 27.01.02
I just use some store bought ones, they seem to work fine. I have a friend though who burned her's into small animal bones. That is really cool.

-Jesse
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
14:51 / 27.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Will 'it work' Wright:
I Agree with Lothar and avoid the use of the 'blank' rune. Though I hear Lothar's fave Kenneth Meadows attempts a good justification.


Well, considering that Meadows attributes Freya Aswynn with his main knowledge of the runes (even going so far as to put her in the 'special thanks to' area) and SHE doesn't put any stock in the 'blank' rune I'm not sure that his justification is really worthwhile. But, I'm a bit of a purist that way.

quote:
Not to spoil the thread of the Barbelith runes, but how long are we gonna get to post? I would love to post, but would like a grace period of say a week. It is inspiring my to do the practice of digesting the runes (written on cakes) and meditating on the days events, rune in mind (and body)


I think the Tarot threads had about a week between them as well so that sounds like a good idea. Plus, there's no 'deadline' on posting on any of the threads. Lots of people joined in on the tarot ones late in the game. The more the merrier.

I also highly recommend the ingesting of runes. Very powerful.

quote:
I made a set of runes from a single piece of Ash, burning the symbols on. Initially I found them too powerful and confusing, resorting to use bought sets, until I was capable enogh to use them.


For my divination lots, I made my own out of clay mixed with my own blood and colored with a paint and blood mixture.
 
 
Rev. Jesse
15:03 / 27.01.02
Anyone know of an online dictionary of runes?

I'm not really sure what you guys are talking about right now, not sure if my runes are the same as yours. I could a frame of reference.

Little help?

-Jesse
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
15:14 / 27.01.02
The site I linked to in the Elder Futhark thread has some info as well as links to other sites.

Then there's this site which is sponsored by the rune-gild USA.

I'm sure there's more out there too.
 
 
Naked Flame
19:16 / 27.01.02
Made mine from a green oak branch I cut in Scotland (thanks again to the tree for that one) and then carved 'em with a specially enchanted Stanley knife, leaving the bark on. Inked the carved runes with red ink and then oiled them (give them a drop more once in a while.) A friend gave me a bag for them: they've been in it for years now and they feel very friendly.

I use the blank rune: I don't read it as 'Odin', though, rather it's there to give the runes the right to refuse an answer. Divination is handy, but I like surprises. I also find that drawing the blank rune never fails to alert me to flaws in my line of reasoning and questioning.
 
 
Rev. Jesse
20:00 / 27.01.02
(slightly off topic)

I did a tarot reading today for a friend. This recalled why I had set them aside for a few weeks. It is a little scary how well it works.

This would be on the Thoth tarot. My Vertigo tarot is a little shiftier.

(back to runes)

So shoot me some cook-book recipes to work with runes! I wanna try enchanting with them.

So, uh, how do they work? What do they do? Where's the on switch?

-Rev. Jesse
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
09:26 / 28.01.02
They're not as 'simple' to get up and running with as sigils are. I also think that a certain affinity, love, and passion with them and the Norse cosmollogy (the more I work with the Runes the more I'm convinced the two are completely intertwined) is necessary to start really working with the runes.

That being said, here's a pretty good article on learning the runes.

Then, there are a couple different approaches that can be done at the same time.

1) Read good authors on the subject. Edred Thorsson is still my favorite with Freya Aswynn and Nigel Pennick coming in 2nd and 3rd for me respectively. Other people like Pennick or Freya best but the three of them are usually considered the best ones to read from. Donald Tyson, I don't dislike but he's not one of my favs. either. I really don't recommend Lisa Peschel or Ralph Blum.

Especially, stay away from Ralph Blum.

2) Meditate and work with the runes. Bring them into your being and get to know them intimately. Different authors and practitioners have different ways of doing this and you'll know which way is best for you.
 
 
Vainamoinen
09:26 / 28.01.02
My introduction to the runes was almost fated. I came across a book (One of Nigel Pennick's) and started reading. (I read non-stop ) and soon found myself creating sigil type things within a week by using runic charaters as a base - the meanings they portrayed were incredibly powerful and soon took over what they originally represented - much to my detriment and anothers.

That was my quick introduction into their power and a crash course into not messing with what you don't fully understand. This is not related here to serve as a warning or any somesuch - merely to fully point out that it is not wise to be fooled into thinking that like so many other things their power is purely your own mental energy - far far from it.

These symbols have had thousands of years of thought and intent poured into them by some very powerful minds - almost all the energy they were filled with originally was intentional, directed, focussed and controlled extremely tightly.

In the past knowledge of the runes was passed on from individual to individual - not en masse via some text as today. Their power is rampant and unwielded, unfocussed and unharnessed in the 20th century - I'm glad to see that a forum such as this is a viable means for the transmission of this knowledge in a manner that is personalised - that questions can be asked and that the knowledge is desired. This will go a long way toward the recreation of their fullness.

-= Vainamoinen an 't Fionn =-
 
 
—| x |—
09:26 / 28.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Vainamoinen:
Disruption and Breakthrough?


Likely Hagalaz and Dagaz.

(jus' 'cause the question went unanswered)

modulus
 
 
Rev. Wright
09:26 / 28.01.02
quote: That was my quick introduction into their power and a crash course into not messing with what you don't fully understand. This is not related here to serve as a warning or any somesuch - merely to fully point out that it is not wise to be fooled into thinking that like so many other things their power is purely your own mental energy - far far from it.



I have discovered that it not so much 'you' mastering the runes, as the runes mastering 'you'. To clarify, I feel saturated by the runes now, and I find them dropping into place, bursting with energy and suiting up for protection, with much less conscious thought as the years go by. Its like your body, physical and astral, become saturated by the symbols and the mythos.
Like Lothar I advise anyone wishing to engage the runes to read up on the Norse myths, especially a good translation of the Poetic Edda (bloody expensive, I'm still using fragments). Come to understand the use of 'kennings'.

All this talk has got in the mind to go back and start afresh. Never a bad thing.
 
 
Rev. Jesse
13:29 / 28.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Lothar Tuppan:
Especially, stay away from Ralph Blum

Ummm...

Why?
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
14:00 / 28.01.02
Most authors and modern practitioners consider Ralph Blum's 'The Book of Runes' to be a pretty shoddy work.

His research on the historical aspects of runes is very sloppy and his interpretations are VERY different and 'New Agey' than most people's experience with the runes. He's also the one who created the 25th blank rune without understanding the numerical importance of the 24 rune Elder Futhark which is made up of 3 rows of eight (each row is an 'Aett').

3 and 8 (and the subsequent 24) are considered very 'sacred' or 'magical' numbers. Numerological significance can greatly add to the power of the runes when used in magic.

There is also a balance in the 24 rune sequence when either looked at linearly (as Freya Aswynn does) or cyclically (as Edred Thorsson does). This balance is ignored by Blum's treatment of the runes, especially by his addition of the 25th rune.

IMHO
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
14:08 / 28.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Will 'it work' Wright:

Like Lothar I advise anyone wishing to engage the runes to read up on the Norse myths, especially a good translation of the Poetic Edda (bloody expensive, I'm still using fragments).


That's why I love the public Library system. The Prose and Poetic Eddas should be mandatory reading for up and coming rune magicians but they take a long time to digest and can be daunting. And over-focusing on the literature can distract them from forming their own relationships with the runes.

Getting them out of the library and giving them a read (at whatever level you feel comfortable - no need to be a Norse scholar) and then going back to them in 3 or 6 months and reading them again may be more effective than trying to get them at a single sitting.

More cost effective too.
 
 
cusm
15:32 / 28.01.02
In a way I like the blank rune as wyrd, but lately I'm agreeing more with Freya on its meanings being included in preexisting runes already, making it unnecessary. Perthro covers enough of that already. I don't know, it doesn't feel right. I don't use it.

I've found I use the symbols less for divination so much as for magic directly. I 'cast' them by visualizing it in front of me in energy, and then charging and releasing as with any sigel. That works well for me. Slinging runes about feels a lot like 'spell casting'. Its neat, and makes sense to me. Forming bindrunes this way is a challenging mental exercise.

I use them in energy work as well, reiki and the like. Again with visualization and casting as a method of tuning the energy I need, and projecting it. By casting, I push/release the visualization away so that I see it moving away, as though spatially, but more in the 5th dimentional sense than the 3rd. Casting at targets helps to open channels of that sort to the target.

As for diviniation, I don't actually use a physical set of them right now. I started investigating the runes again (at about 12 I used them as an alphabet for sekret writings) when I started randomly seeing them in things: rocks, twigs, spraypaint on streets, that sort of thing. They knocked on my door, so I let them in and they deply became a part of how I work. Now that I've initiated myself into their escoteric meanings well enough to use them, I still divine that way. If I see a rune somewhere (and they just sort of jump out at me when they do), I take that reading. I've always been big on free-form divination that way, the "one foot in one foot out" shamanic style of dealing with the world.

As for the Eddas, I researched them on Amazon, and came up with these two as the best of the lot:

Snorri Sturluson - Edda (Everyman Paperback Classics)

Lee Milton Hollander - The Poetic Edda

Snorri's is the Prose Edda, a more readable translation. The Poetic Edda attempts to recreate the rhyme and meter of the original Islandic, and so reads more as poetry, so may be a bit harder to read. I haven't read them yet, but they're coming up real soon on my reading list I'm knee deep in a course of study with Asatru currently, except for occasional interruptions from the land of voodoo.

Ever feel like the Gods are running you through a crash course to get you up to speed to do something? Its been like that for me lately.
 
 
Vainamoinen
17:12 / 28.01.02
Essential reading for those unfamiliar with the runes and those who are and wish to get a feel for the era and use of the runes in the daily lives of those who knew them true -the Volsung-Nibelung saga is a great place to start - Rhinegold is a good rendering of the tale - its a novel by Stephan Grundy that is one of the more meticulously researched versions available. Please read it.

-= Vainamoinen an 't Fionn =-
 
 
cusm
17:34 / 28.01.02
Ayup. Here's the version I picked up.
 
 
Wyrd
09:59 / 30.01.02
I'd agree with Lothar et al about reading up on Norse mythology, and understanding the cosmology. The runes evolved directly out of this culture, so it's a good idea to have some idea about it.

The runes take a long time to settle into you, so don't expect quick results - though they get on better with some people than others.

I view the runes as distinct entities, each one having it's own energy and form, and it takes quite some time to become aquainted to them all.

Book learning can be useful, Thorsson, Asywnn, etc., but in the end of the day you have to develop your own relationship with the Runes, and from that both magic and divination will flow.

I don't use the Wyrd rune, but know other people who do and get damn fine results in their divination. It all comes down to what suits you I guess.

Expect Odhinn to show up at some point if you are serious about the Runes. He's always interested in those who are serious about them.
 
 
grant
09:59 / 30.01.02
I did a little research in runes (mainly, uh, for passing notes, as mentioned elsewhere) but became fond enough of the Anglo Saxon hard "g" to put this on me body permanent-wise:


(uh, only skinnier lines, and not in red)
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
20:09 / 30.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Wyrd:

I view the runes as distinct entities, each one having it's own energy and form, and it takes quite some time to become aquainted to them all.


Yes! Distinct holographic entities that when understood individually also combine in great detail as a whole hyperdimensional holographic representation of reality!

Oh shit, I'm drooling again aren't I?

quote:
Expect Odhinn to show up at some point if you are serious about the Runes. He's always interested in those who are serious about them.


I completely agree. My question, which is based on admittedly limited experience talking with other Rune magicians, is: Doesn't it seem that Odhinn likes to visit the ladies a bit more than the men?

Where, with guys, we might be lucky to exchange a few friendly words with him where with women, he likes to hang out and...*ahem*... talk all night.
 
 
Wyrd
09:32 / 31.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Lothar Tuppan:
I completely agree. My question, which is based on admittedly limited experience talking with other Rune magicians, is: Doesn't it seem that Odhinn likes to visit the ladies a bit more than the men?

Where, with guys, we might be lucky to exchange a few friendly words with him where with women, he likes to hang out and...*ahem*... talk all night.


Heh, well, you know I've heard this from other women who work with the Runes and Odhinn, especially Heathens. Odhinn has never got frisky with me, but we get on really well.

Now, Herne on the other hand... Once He appears in those leather trousers, He's pretty damn irrestiable. It's a good job I don't work with Him very often as I'd be very distracted.
 
 
Indigo
23:54 / 04.02.02
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I made a set of runes from a single piece of Ash, burning the symbols on. Initially I found them too powerful and confusing, resorting to use bought sets, until I was capable enogh to use them."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"For my divination lots, I made my own out of clay mixed with my own blood and colored with a paint and blood mixture. "

My first set were shop-bought and my second set were made for me by a friend who's been using runes for years. he collected 24 stones and painted each rune in red on them. One of the best birthday presents I ever received.
 
 
Ierne
19:11 / 05.02.02
Doesn't it seem that Odhinn likes to visit the ladies a bit more than the men?– Mezcal Man/Lothar Tuppan

That's interesting, because in my dealings with the Runes Hel seems to come up a great deal more than Odin...am I strange?

Though I've also dealt with Mimir, and I've found similarities between Mimir and my good buddy Bran the Blessed(disembodied well-preserved heads, wisdom, prophecy...), albeit with a well instead of a cauldron.
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
14:14 / 07.02.02
Next time Hel shows up, ask her why you see her and not Odhinn. Her answer will probably be fascinating.

Hel's shown up for me a few times. I'm not sure whether we're getting on ok or not.

In some ways I prefer Kali's cut your head off, shit down your neck, and laugh as you put the pieces back together in a hopefully better way approach.

At least then you know where you stand.
 
 
) + (
08:10 / 12.02.02
Lothar Tuppan quoteistinct holographic entities that when understood individually also combine in great detail as a whole hyperdimensional holographic representation of reality!


Dude.
Talk to me.
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
13:41 / 12.02.02
quote:Originally posted by the city-zen known as Rex:

Dude.
Talk to me.


I'll send you an email in the next day or so after the M.O.B. New Moon festivities have been completed.
 
 
) + (
17:42 / 12.02.02
Can't wait...
 
 
grant
14:13 / 28.03.02
bump (cuz it talks about making your own sets)
 
  
Add Your Reply