rune logix

Great Optical Illusion

found at http://www.richrock.com/illusion.html

Does the United States own the Moon?

We did after all put our flag on it first.

Rune Dice by Alchemy Gothic

Alchemy Gothic the fine UK maker of occult and gothic fetishes has released a fine set of pewter rune dice.  Each die has the Elder Futhark printed on the corner of each of the six sides.  The dice come with their own tin and short instruction manual.  The dice are an excellent companion to the Rune Magician that wishes to have the runes in physical form available with them where ever they go.

 

Although Runes are not my first choice for a divination tool, I really wanted to give these a try.  I was awestruck when I first came across this set, I never thought of putting the Elderrow on a cube!  As a Cube the Runes display an inherent unity among themselves that contain ramifications for both Inner and Outer Runewerk.  Laid out in a linear line it is difficult to sense the dimensional reality of the runes, but when folded unto themselves they lock right into a living vital space.  So for the last several months I have been using them in the following way: before my alter I'll take the dice in hand and express my inquiry to the Aesir (Northern Pagan gods) most relevant to the question.  I'll take the runes in my hands, cupped, and shake them until I receive the Call to let them fly.  Usually I look at the runes in the order in which the first three runes that catch my eye as being the answer from Beyond.  I usually let the Runes themselves decide for themselves in what order and what sort of gravity they have.  I've never been a fan of the rigid Past --> Present --> Future order of meaning when the runes themselves are gnarly forces that don't like to be boxed in.

One of the things that struck me about the arrangement of how the dice fall is an atypically frequent occurrence of pointing in the cardinal directions.  This then rang a bell as the Tree of Wyrd as conceived by Stephen Flowers:

 

is based on those vectors of space.  In this symbol, the Nine Worlds of Yggdrasil of the Northern Mysteries is displayed in a super symmetry of nine points as though they are subdivided along a Unicursal Hexagram.  From this I intuited a form of Runecasting as a secret relay of Challenges and Kennings from the Four Worlds lying in the cardinal directions of Midgard (North, South East and West).  For a Rune to point in a cardinal direction gives the Runemage an indication to what kind of spiritual forces the communication is dealing with.  Certain easy yo follow rules for the Four worlds in questions can be made, e.g., a Rune pointing to the East in Jotenheimr the Land of Giants presents obstacles and problems for the issue while to the West in Vanaheim the answer lies in the realms of emotions (and or a variety of sexual interpretations) again all depending on what rune is facing that direction. Depending on the nature of the will and intent of a Werking, a Runemage can contact Otherside beings in the Tree for Spiritwerk.  How one goes about this is up to the individual Runemage, but I suggest a midnight Darkwood in the light of the full Moon in solitude.  The general key to success seems to depend on the clear quality of the communication with the Entities involved. 

I use the method of interpretation above with one more element if I wish to make a conjuration.  When summoned, the Spirits can converse per each throw of the dice, the resulting Runes should contain a string of letters and words that make up the response, in your native tongue, those of antiquity, or be the secret laws of language that are often studied in conjunction with the caballah.  The Runemage can interpret these castings with the aid of a Scribe, astrally, or by writing down the results and translating the communique into a sensible message.  When a relevant and topical conversation to your questions can be had with this method your can measure the success of the Spiritwerk based on the messages you received.  Different entitles will always be experienced in different ways and have different protocol by which they communicate.  This can be unintelligible or even hostility. Don't be disappointed if nothing responds to your Call the first time or two, you are after all snooping into other dimensions!  I myself have had the most success with the Ljossalf.  But anyway, I've been constantly surprised by the results I received from this method.  If you proceed to try the Summonings yourself, be sure to have your Realignment Ritual (also known as banishing) before and after the werking, theres no point in allowing an unstable energy form around your persons outside of ritual.

Anyway, these have been my experiments with this Runeset, a set I highly recommend for others to try!  Alchemy Gothic has earned my well deserved respect for this product.

Erowid Funding Appeal

I happened upon the Vaults of Erowind today and noticed an appeal for funds I thought I would share.  The link is at http://www.erowid.org/general/about/ and if you have some money you can donate this is an excellent way to say thanks to a service that has kept the net an interesting place since 1997.

What Im reading

Since returning from London with a dozen new books the only one I wanted to read was The Pleasure Garden of Shadows by Daniel Schulke that I had bought some months earlier.  I have been reading it for the last several days and it is really one of the most magickaly mind expanding book I've ever read.  I've been reawkened with a whole new way of looking at trees and green magic in general. A difficult book to get as there are only 576 copies published.  If you have read it or have an interest in the book feel free to comment your thoughts about it, I'd like to hear from you.

Hail Ostera

To welcome the goddess of Spring I evoked Eadon, my goddess for poetry, to good effect. Praise be with you!

God vs. Satan

found at http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hprajani/phun/