Rune of activity, of the active mind (the symbol of the master of the sword), of active exchange, Thor's Hammer. Rune of opposing polarities: Life and Death, hot and cold, light and darkness, etc., and of joining opposites. Rune of eternal return. Mystery of the THORN that awakens from sleep. Burning thorn bush. Lightning and thunder. Rune of the dowsing rod. Rune of magnetic transfer. Rune of mental telepathy. Uses: THORN awakens the will to act. It helps to get in touch with the continuous change of day and night, of waning and waxing, of life and death. Protection against attacks. Strengthens Aura, especially the mantra.
Welcome to THORN, the third Rune. With FA and UR, you learned already important basics of Rune practice. You learned how to draw Rune energies, how to experience Runes, and how to use Runes for healing. THORN is the Rune that helps you project Rune energies—and any other energies. With this lesson you will learn a powerful discipline that helps you in your path to becoming a Rune Master. This is a discipline that will cause your body, mind, and emotional body to be a cleaner more powerful tool. It is Rune Yoga.
RUNE YOGA
Rune Yoga is a large body of knowledge. In this lesson, you will learn some of the basic principles of this powerful discipline. To get beyond the basic knowledge that you learn in this lesson, I suggest that you study the Rune Yoga course. After passing the course of Rune Yoga, you can ask for certification to teach Rune Yoga and in classes and workshops.
As you know, Runes open many potentials for you. Much of this knowledge is not known to you yet and I have to ask you for a bit of patience. With time everything will fall in place. As you continue with your practice and studies many before unknown mysteries will open up to you almost effortlessly. This is so because of the creative power of the subject of your studies: the Runes!
You can apply the appropriate Rune practice to overcome any challenge in life that you feel the need to cope with. Rune practice is even more powerful when you practice it with a group. In fact, there is not only a difference in degree of intensity, but an essential difference in Rune practice, depending on your practice. You will have entirely different experiences with a group, with a single partner, or by yourself. Therefore I suggest that you experience Runes on all levels possible.
Your success of Rune practice will increase when you prepare yourself to be a clear and powerful channel for the energies that you draw from the workshop of creation. One of the practices of preparing yourself to be a powerful channel is Rune Yoga.
Much of what we know about Runes has been handed down to us from an ancient and mysterious past. Some of it came from the very dawn of mankind. Some Rune Masters such as Karl Spiesberger claim that there was an Atlantean Yoga that was at the root of all existing Yoga systems. I do not agree with this claim. However I think that it is not antiquity that makes Rune Yoga such an exceptional tool, but the effects that it has on you when you practice it.
Rune Yoga encompasses the whole of the person. Its practice will be beneficial to your body, mind, emotions, and will power.
Rune Yoga is a unique combination of body and hand position, controlled breathing techniques, Rune Mantras, focus on specific shapes (Rune symbols), meditative awareness of realms within, and ceremonial settings. Rune Yoga is an excellent way to achieve balance. It helps opening your chakras. Like Hatha Yoga, it can help you to a slender, healthy body. A very important aspect of Rune Yoga is that it can intensify your power to project healing energies and Light. Rune Yoga gives you the power to project energies at any target, no matter how distant this target may be. It is a gateway to deep mystical experiences.
Rune Yoga is easier to practice than the Indian Hatha Yoga system. This is so, because Rune Yoga is rooted in the principle of SHAPE INDUCED ENERGIES in a multi-sensual and multi-focused experience. Such experience that involves as many of your sensory organs as possible and several mental foci at the same time is very effective. The body positions of Rune Yoga are much easier to practice than the rather difficult contortions of the Indian Hatha Yoga.
We generate (or attract) shape induced energies (shape vibrations) whenever we use a specific shape as structural link to connect with an energy of a higher order such as (in the case of Runes) energies of creation. The word, shape, can mean any one of many different things. A graphical outline is a shape. A mantra is a shape that involves sound frequency and time. Your hands and your body as a whole are ideal tools to posture shapes. The shape of the body or the hand posture then can be a trigger of the cosmic energies that it represents. For you to understand what I mean here, I remind you of a pyramid. It is relatively irrelevant of what material the pyramid is made, for it to develop pyramid energies. On the other hand, the shape of the pyramid is very important. Therefore, we say that pyramid energy is a shape induced energy, or a shape vibration.
Posing a Rune easily connects with the Rune energy pertaining to this shape. So does the "mudra," or hand position of the Rune. Both of these you have practiced in the previous lessons.
Because of the conductivity of the human body, SHAPE-posing with your hand or body, sometimes with both, is one of the most effective methods available to generate powerful fields of Rune energy. Shapes, or body postures of the Hatha Yoga are beneficial for the health of the body and mind. The practitioner of Rune Yoga is AWARE of the energies that come from the realms of creation when he/she draws them with a body or hand posture. You can feel these energies easily. Consequently you are capable to progress more swiftly, smoothly, and, especially, with much more ease when practicing Rune Yoga.
The Eighteen Sacred Futhork Runes allow you to establish an intimate connection with the realms of creation. Naturally this facilitates your development of mental, psychic, and spiritual powers.
Consequently, if you study Rune Yoga, you can develop yourself to be a powerful receiver and transmitter of cosmic creative energies.
The Rune THORN is your first step towards getting in touch with deeper and more elaborate methods of sending and receiving energy. You will then experience the energies in much more complex and powerful forms than possible with many other methods with which you are familiar. Practicing Runes, you will gradually become acquainted with methods of sending and receiving that transcend space-time as we generally understand it.
The practice of Rune Yoga includes all steps of yoga, or discipline, which are part of most spiritual developments.
1. Purification and control of your body with diet.
2. Special methods of purification with Runes (addressed in lesson 7 -- HAGAL) and with Rune positions that are beneficial for the well-being of your body.
3. Purification and cleansing of your aura and chakras. For this type of purification you can use special Rune methods that you will learn in lesson 9 -- IS.
4. Control of breath, especially with Rune visualizations.
5. Special practices with Rune sounds.
6. Control of emotions, achieved with Rune practice, especially the practice of IS.
7. Ridding yourself of obstructive distraction.
8. Opening up to higher psychic powers.
9. Recognizing your True Ego, which is unencumbered by everyday distraction, and getting in touch with your Higher Self in the practice of Rune Empowerment as experienced in your initiations.
10. Expansion of your consciousness into the realms of the Cosmic-Divine and active participation in the process of Creation-Eternal.
Only the power of truth, the power of true thought, the power of responsibly directed will, the power of well-managed emotions, will lead us to the original realms of creation-eternal. Practice of Rune Yoga will help you achieve this goal. Once you master the steps of Rune Yoga, you will be capable of consciously tapping in the centers of power that lie beyond the confines of our physical worlds, and you will be capable of triggering forces of manifestation that you are drawing from the realms of eternal creation.
Most students are familiar with the positions of the Eastern Yoga. Those positions may appear grotesque to some people. They also demand a good degree of flexibility of the body. If practiced correctly, exercises of the Eastern Yoga (Hatha Yoga) lead to excellent health, since they supply all organs well with blood, develop a strong nervous system, supply the cells of the body, cause harmonious glandular functions, and well-balanced hormonal distribution.
Rune positions are not as difficult as the asanas of the Hindu Yoga. They are much easier to practice for many people. They lead to similar results for the body. When you pose a Rune you are not so much concerned with squeezing some parts of your body, while other parts are expanded. Rune positions act mainly as structural links to energies pertaining to the realms of creation. Therefore the specific shape symbol of the Rune, positioned with your body (or hand) draws energy from these realms of Creation. Naturally there will also be an impact upon the more subtle parts of your body in a true holistic experience, besides a beneficial impact upon the health and well feeling of your body. Practice of Rune positions teaches you control of your body, emotions, mind, and will powers.
ASCETICISM
From the most remote past of human history, many religions and esoteric training systems have regarded asceticism as a very important tool for spiritual progress. In fact, some systems put so much emphasis upon asceticism that they ended up causing irreversible damage to body and soul by gross exaggeration and wild excesses in "mortification of the flesh." Some organizations use milder forms of asceticism to cause an imbalance in perception and thinking in potential members. As a consequence they become more susceptible to their mind control techniques. Watch for Kool-aid and cookies in those weekend-intensives!!!
Vegetarianism is not implicitly important for the mental progress or for individual development, unless it is used as a remedy to clean the body from slags. Some magical and religious systems require a temporary abstinence from meat or animal food for specific ceremonials as a way of preparation, and then only for a specified period of time. The same holds for sexual abstinence.
The idea that, by eating the meat of an animal, the "impurities" of the animal would be conveyed to the person who eats it, is nonsense and originates in ignoring the perfect and primal laws. Such thinking is very kin to the thinking of the cannibal who tries to acquire the courage of a slain warrior by eating his flesh. The Rune Master does not pay attention to such misconceptions.
In the interest of your development, you should be moderate in eating and drinking and observe a reasonable mode of life. It is impossible to present precise rules or prescription, since the way of life is individual. No doubt, for many persons vegetarianism is an excellent tool, especially when they live in a country where, on the one hand, there is much overemphasizing of and misinformation about meat eating, and profit oriented reckless pollution of meat on the other.
You must know what best agrees and disagrees with you, and you must then act responsibly. Naturally, health is your responsibility. Should your body be out of shape, consult a good nutritionist. Needless to say, non-foods and drugs are a no-no.
During your training, you will exercise three kinds of discipline:
1. Intellectual or mental discipline
2. Psychic or astral discipline
3. Physical or material discipline
The first kind has to do with the discipline of thoughts, the second is engaged in ennobling the soul through control of passions and instincts, and the third kind is concerned with harmonizing the body through a moderate and natural way of life.
CONTROL OF BREATH
Rune practice is unthinkable without proper control of your breath. In fact, every Rune practice contains three elements: a body or hand position (or both), a breathing practice (which includes sometime singing or chanting of the Rune), and a single or multiple focus: the point from where you draw or where you project Rune energies.
If Rune practice provided us alone with benefits of proper breathing, this alone would be reason enough to practice Runes daily. You need to be aware of the importance of breathing, proper breathing, which is beyond just material-physical benefits. Few human beings are breathing correctly. Consequently their body cells do not receive sufficient oxygen. Waste materials are not sufficiently eliminated and will accumulate consequently. Diseases of all kinds, emotional disturbance, tiredness, and many more imbalances are the consequence.
Besides supplying the body with oxygen and eliminating waste materials, correct breathing also massages your inner organs continuously. When you inhale, then the diaphragm gently presses upon the intestines, stomach, spleen, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. When you exhale, then the diaphragm gently massage your heart and lungs. In continuous change, one group of organs is gently massaged while the other group is relaxed and has space to expand.
Breathing also supplies you with life energies. The Yogi calls this energy "Prana." Others call it Chi energy. In the West, we are talking about Odic energy, or Orgone energy. This energy can be measured with scientific instruments. More important so, this energy can be directed consciously to various parts of your body, and transferred to other people. You can actually generate Odic practices. Odic energy can be dynamized by attaching specific Rune energies that will benefit on the material, etheric, and other planes.
RITA = right. RIT is the Rune of original law, of Divine law. It connects with the powers of all-justice. RIT signifies religion, inner strength, and ritual. It is the Rune of the cosmic rhythm of the worlds. RIT symbolizes movement, rotation, wheels, and spiralling development and unfolding. It is the Rune of the rolling Sun-wheel, of rhythmic and of dance.
Uses: RIT allows you to tune into the rhythms of the worlds. It awakens higher powers. It strengthens inner guidance. It increases your experience of ritual. RIT directs thoughts toward inner guidance. It strengthens your power of visualization and establishes psychic links with any target.
Time of the year: March 21 through April 12.
Number: 5
Mantra: rrrrrr, rrrriiiit
KA is a sexual Rune. It is the Rune of capability, the occultist, and of higher mysteries.
Uses: Like THORN, KA is a Rune of protection against magical attacks. KA gives intuition, inspiration, and it connects with the universe. KA connects with higher polarity. It increases courage.
Time of the year: April 13 through May 5.
Number: 6
Mantra: k-k-k-k-aaaa.
Fire refers here to "the fire of thirst." HAG-ALL = take care of the universe. It contains the symbolism of the omnipresent and all-penetrating creative energy. HAGAL is the symbolism of the builder-architect of the worlds. The seven is the rhythm of the Solar System. It connects with The BNE ELOHIM, Venus-entities (Venus = 7), who create the world in an eternal NOW. HAGAL is the Rune of the world tree, of the world, of the tree of life. It is a combination of MAN and YR, NOD and EH. HAGAL is maintenance and equilibrium of the moving universe. It is the Rune of the zodiac, and mother of all Runes that signifies continuous change. HAGAL leads to the spiritual leader. In the microcosm it represents man, in the macrocosm it represents the universe.
Uses: HAGAL gives protection and harmony. It serves as the solid point within the flight of phenomena. It eliminates the burning thirst for thing that are not important in life. It provides consciousness of Oneness with the Divine. It brings spiritual powers and wisdom. It increases the functions of the pineal gland and of the solar plexus.
Time of the year: May 6 through May 28.
Number: 7
Mantra: hag-all
NOD is the Rune of karma. In the Northern tradition, NOD is the Rune of the Norn, goddess of destiny. It is the Rune of karmic debts (the Norn SKULD), of karmic law, of karmic need. NOD signifies Divine justice that balances. "Hate" in the song refers to unresolved karma. Nod helps to master your karma after you have accepted it. NOD symbolizes the appearance out of the infinite, out of the undefined. It connects with the Divine that manifests itself within the finite universe, for "a god who does no manifest itself is dead" (Feuerbach).
Uses: NOD makes you aware of your karmic debts and it helps dissolve karma. It leads to truth and fitting into the cosmic order, or the Divine Plan. NOD brings the protection of high spiritual entities of our Solar System. Use your karma and live it consciously.
Time of the year: May 29 through June 20.
Number: 8
Mantra: nnnnnnnn, nnnnoooooddddd, aepandi nam.
BODY POSITION: Standing upright, feet together, left arm angles, hand on hip, palm touches hipbone.
HAND POSITION: The tips of thumb and ring finger of the left hand touch each other. Other fingers pointing upward.
BODY POSITION: Standing upright, left leg lifted, pointing forward, tips of toes pointing downward, left arm parallel with the left leg. Variation: Right leg pointing to the side (instead of forward), right arm parallel to right leg pointing downward.
HAND POSITION: Thumb and index finger of the left hand form circle.
BODY POSITION: Hands above head, palms touching each other, legs apart.
HAND POSITION: Thumbs and index fingers form the shape of OTHIL, other fingers touch. Practice on solar plexus.
BODY POSITION: Standing upright, left arm at angle (like THORN), left leg lifted.
HAND POSITION: Left arm upright, left index finger and thumb touch on the tips, other fingers point downward, parallel to palm.
BODY POSITION: Standing upright, both arms point upward, palms point downward. Hands touch each other.
HAND POSITION: Left hand: all fingers point upward, thumb in right angle to palm, pointing upward.
BODY POSITION: Standing upright, arms crossed in front of chest.
HAND POSITION: Both hands forming the letter "H," palms parallel, thumbs touching each other.
BODY POSITION: Right arm in angle upward, left arm downward. Variation: Right arm upward, left leg to the side. Variation 2: Cross-position, after speaking "Aepandi nam" bring hands to hips.
HAND POSITION: Right hand, fingers point upward, thumb to the side, a bit more than with KA. Variation: With both hands above head, index fingers form shape of the Rune NOD.