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
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