GUIDO VON LIST

O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the
limits of the possible." ..................Pindar, Pythian III

In Vienna in the year of 1862 a fourteen year old Austrian boy, visiting the catacombs beneath St. Stevens cathedral with his father made this inspired prophetic proclaimation: "When I get big, I will build a Temple of Wotan!" The young boy was Guido Von List, and that youthful heartfelt adjuration to the Teutonic gods and lore would remain with him for the rest of his life.
While List was directing his early studies to the Eddas and runes, a volkish awakening was already taking place in Germany through the Wotan inspired musical compositions of Richard Wagner, Here was a music vastly powerful and dramatic unlike any previous classical style which could greatly stir the primal Aryan soul.
While the writings and ideas of List began to mature and gain attention, he published his first book, "Carnuntum", a historical novel of the 4th century A.C.E., and soon followed by a second book titled, "German Mythological Landscapes". By 1908 List began to emerge as an important esoteric personality and a Guido Von List society was founded in his honor. At the close of WWII the List Society was disbanded, but refounded again in 1969. List firmly believed that he possessed the gift of an intuitive or clairvoyant memory of the distant past, and that he was the last of an ancient gnostic order which he referred to as the "Armanen". Not only did he live up to that roll but looked the part as well with his foppish soft cap and flowing white beard. List believed that the inner circle of his group possessed the collective powers to unlock the secrets of the universe.
With ample supportive interest behind him now, he was able to publish the substance of his own personal discoveries in Wotanism and the runes. Among the books issued under the societies imprint were, "The Secret Of The Runes", (1908) "The Armanism Of The Ario-Germanens" (1908-11) "The Rites Of The Ario-Germanens" (1908) and "The Transition From Wotanism To Christianity" published in 1911.
As the List Society continued to grow, an offshoot hierarchical mystical brotherhood began to develope on its own volition. This society was known as the H.A.O., the "Hoher Armanen Order". Lance Von Liebenfels, a Teutonic mystic in his own right also had a devoted following involved in ancestral Aryan mysticism originally founded as "The Order Of The New Templers" which was aptly described as the European intellectual underground of the time. The word "Armanen", means, "The Heirs Of The Sun King" , while their priesthood was called, "The Armanenschaft".
List was known at times to tell his followers, "We must read our souls the landscape which archeology reconquers with the spade". List was of the opinion that much of the mystical teachings of Wotanism that have been lost over the many centuries remained stored within our genetic memory and with the proper clairvoyance, communion with ancestral spirits and the mystic orders themselves are attainable. Dr. Gustave Carl Jung held similar ideas and added that the collective unconscious is the sediment of all the experience of the universe of all time. Both were of the belief that non corporal spirits not only watch over our activities in the physical world but at times intervene in the corporal activities of our dimention as well.
The arcane pagan religions and early stellar cults referred to these guiding spirits of the corporal planes as, "The Watchers", "The Old Ones", "The Grigori", or more commonly known today as "Guardian Angels".
The works of Dr. Carl Jung and Guido Von List viewed the Teutonic god Wotan as the central deity archetype and ancestral spirit of Aryan man. Both delved deeply into the study of Wotanism and ancient initiations found in the Aryan mysteries.
Guido Von List derived his legendary Armanen from a particular ancient Teutonic tribe, "The Herminones", who are also known as the "Irmionen", mentioned in the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus. It is believed that the Irmin god had roots with the pre-Wotan god Tyr. According to List, the word, "Irmionen" meant "Children Of The Sun". The chief symbol of the Irmionen was the great Irminsil Pillar.
During the late 1800's there existed various 'Sun' or 'Light' religions and cults in Germany. The sun expresses the nature of divinity more appropriately than the best conceptual expression. Sun worship was always the original natural religion of the ancient Aryan peoples. Rudolf John Gorsleben (1883-1930) a Thule Society member, who had cultivated the Armanism of List, concluded that God and race were identical. He claimed that the Aryans were "The Sons Of The Sun, The Sons Of Gods, The Suprem Manifestation Of Life" and described their world view as heroic, in so much as the Aryans sacrificed individual benefit for the good of the world. Indeed, their vocation was the settlement and conquest of the whole world. Gersleben a highly decorated war hero often quoted the works of List with high approval.
List proclaimed that the sacred books of the Armanen, were
written in a double language, whose meaning was obscured to the profane outsiders but could be understood by initiates. He observed that the traces of Armanen symbolism were evident in old heraldic devices and even in the wooden exterior beams of old houses where such runic significance could be clearly interpreted. A further condition he stated, for the correct understanding of these "holy signs", "runes" "symbols" and "hieroglyphs..... and one which may never be ignored....lies in the clear comprehension of pre-Christian ethics, as well as pre-Christian morals".
One member of the List Society was the volkish journalist
Philipp Stauff, who went on to become founding member of the secret German Order, "The G.O." He was heavily influenced by the runic works of List and served as the formost esoteric authority and Erulian (runemaster) of importance outside of the H.A.O. Through the early 1900's Lists Aryan ethic and runic ideas began to take root, paving the way for a variety of other notable rune occultists such as Friedrich Bernhard Marby, Siegfried Adolf Kummer and Karl Maria Wiligut. List believed that Wotanism set for itself a final goal of bringing into being a noble race, whose destiny it was to educate itself and the rest of humanity as a primary task. Unlike the alien spiritual paths which deny the physical world and the primal laws of Nature, Wotanism ultimately leads to spiritual as well as physical heroism, and to the highest potentials that one can hope to attain, sometimes referred to as "The Ubermensche".
In an outline of German philosophy titled "The Invincible", written in the year 1898, List states: "Doing their best through the centuries to destroy and wipe out our special (national) characteristics, those in power, those who control the education of the people, have pursued the unattainable mirage of a complete equalization of all tribal differences. They have been guided by the unwholesome intention of heading toward the fabrication of a unified type of humanity. People were blind to the clearly manifest phenomena of history of the evolution of the human species, people were deaf to the resounding revolations of the divine will in the governance of the forces of Nature; blinded by misguided brotherly love, they proposed an insane doctrine which promotes a world community(cosmopolitanism) among all folk-groups with the false conclusion, pregnant with ruination, of having a single flock with a single shepherd."
List further concluded: " The highest goal of the education
of the folk, is only attainable when the irrevocable laws of evolution, according to which the All is formed, whereby each advances the development of its own kind and race, are taken into account, but these goals can in no way be attained if a foreign, and even hostile, spirit is forced upon the folk-soul which strives against the thoughts and feelings of that very folk-soul and against the eternal laws of creation and development."
List styled his renewed path of Wotanism upon the foundation of a new Pan-Aryan realm strongly opposed to the decay and moral corruption of the modern world. In his time List was an avid supporter of the Hapsburg monarchy and imperial dynasty, which he hoped to transform into the figure-head of a new Armanist dynasty. As List found his calling as a leading pioneer in the revival of Teutonic folklore and mythology, he also formulated a new runic futhark system known as the "Armanen Futhark" which consists of eighteen runes as opposed to the more common twentyfour rune, "Elder Futhark". List maintained that the eighteen-rune system was the true "primal" Aryan Futhark.
Siegfried Adolf Kummer and Friedrich Bernhard Marby, Erulian rune magicians in their own right had developed an interesting system of "Rune Yoga" and gymnastics, Kummer points out in his book, "Rune Magic" the magical powers of the runes and key words involved in the practice of yodeling. In addition to these rediscoveries List points out as well how the vowels, A-E-I-O-U were used in the language of yodeling and how it was derived from ancient Germanic tribal customs.
Rudolf John Gorsleben died at an early age due to a heart ailment. Inspired by the works of List he too had procuced much in the runic science. Gorsleben regarded the runes as conductors of a subtle energy that animated the entire universe and therefore as devices which could be used to influence the world and the course of events. The runes were a link between the macrocosm and the microcosm of Aryan man, a representation of God in the world. The runes had arisen from the original relationship between the human racial spirit of the god-sons and the world spirit, and they could lead the seeker back to his cosmic homeland and offer a union with God.
The philosophy of Guido VonList is as valid today as it was one hundred years ago, for no people and culture will ever survive for long without a sense of national identity. In the year 1898, Guido Von List wrote these following words: "The salvation of our descendants can only come to flower by means of a well-planned cultivation of a directed development of the folk in a strictly nationalistic sense. For this reason any education of the folk proceeding in this direction must be founded on a renaissance, wholesomeness and empowerment. The same is true where centuries of repression have weakened or spoiled this education. It can be once again enforced and established. Wherever it seems to have fallen asleep, it can be awakened to new life. We must work in the direction of steering the folk to fulfill higher, and even the highest of accompishments in a future and at the same time to strive for the goal of reaching the ennobling of the folk all of which is attainable."
The contributions of Guido Von List to ancestral Euro paganism, the runes
and the awakening of the Wotan consciousness and spirit can still be felt today. His ideas live on and penetrate past, present and future as do all those rare enlightened beings we come to know as sage. Guido Von List died while on a visit to one of his followers in Berlin on 17,May 1919. His body was cremated and placed in an urn in
his native Vienna.

"In the entire life history of a people,its holiest moment is when it awakens
from its powerlessness..... a people which, with joy and love, grasps the
eternity of its nationhood can, at all times celebrate its festival of resurrection."
.......................Friedrich Ludwig Jahn

 

RonMcVan

Posted in: Editorial,Eugenics,Indo-European