Magic is one of the fundamental ways in which we humans construct our worlds. It’s as fundamental as Science, Art and Religion as ways of making sense out of life. But only a tiny minority of people actually engage with it as a technology for wholeness and power. So it’s not at all surprising that magic is present in every human culture, buried under the strata of Monotheism and Scientism, the two last great fashions in religion.
The Germanic magical layer is directly underneath the Christianity stratum. It contains elements which are well-preserved, such as runes, and technologies which fell fouler of the overrunning Christian authorities, such as the trance and spirit work we now call seidh, and the work of the aura and the body’s energies, of which only hints remain in the traditional writings on soul-lore. A modern student of the Runes samples as many magical experiences as possible. He does practical magic, for health, security, prosperity and so forth. She does this for results, but also to experience the miraculous nature of reality, to step outside of the black iron prison of Scientism. He invokes higher consciousness as a living engagement with mythic truth.
Staves
Runes are the esoteric language of Germanic tradition. They were gained by Odin as a result of his hanging on the tree Yggdrasil, bringing himself to the brink of death to gain the secrets of the world. Runes are gateways to those secrets, to the forces, deities and wights that make the world as seen through the eye of the magician.
The first thing the student of runes needs to do is to make the runes their own, by such deep and repeated exposure to their natures that they never have to look up the meanings again. Then the student will carve, paint and sing the runes to transform himself and his world. The surviving technologies for this include galdor, or rune-song, and the makings of bindrunes and their use in runic spells.
Spirits or Wights
The most ancient layers of magic all treat the world as full of living, conscious beings, an ecosystem of occult intelligences. There is always a layer of ancestor work. Reverence for and celebration of our ancestors can help us to understand who and what we are, and to recover powers that are part of our heritage.
In the Germanic mysteries there are non-human wights, such as elves, giants (of both the etinic and thursic kind) and of course the gods and goddesses themselves. The student may be drawn to working with other wights, such as the spirits of the land, of the place you are in, of the intelligences of other species and of non-organic parts of the natural world.
Sensed Energy
The Norse creation story, in which Odin and his two brothers form the first human beings, contains hints of working with the sensed energies of the mind, the breath and the desires – wode, athm, and astyr. These three principles can be used as the basis for a scheme of sensed-energy cultivation built from the Northern European magical tradition.
