Welcome ...

... to your fourth Rune on your path to be a Rune Master.  OS has a special meaning in this path.  It  is the Rune that teaches you to accept the fruits of your efforts.  It provides you with the spirit -- or attitude -- to accept these fruits without setting up new limitations for yourself.  Your Runeing of the Song of OS has a powerful consequence:  It will provide you with the understanding of acceptance-in-freedom.

OS will increase your psychic powers.  It contains powerful spiritual energies that lead to freedom.  To those who need it, OS can give the power of convincing speech.  OS readies you to accept the highest astral and mental energies.  These are the energies that belong to the astral and mental planes.  While FA is a Rune of sending, OS is a Rune of receiving.  Better yet:  FA is a Rune of the first spark, or of the fire that kindles an event, while OS provides you with the results.

In many ceremonials, OS is used to receive and to accept energies.  In the practice of transferring healing energies and light, OS is one of the most powerful tools.  It is to be practiced by persons who receive the healing energies.  In a group situation each person may signify one specific Runic vibration.  A group practice of Runes produces more powerful results: your practice will be more effective and the energies that you will harness will be more abundant.

RUNIC HAND POSITIONS

On many statues of Hinduism, Buddhism, and many other religions, you may have noticed hand- and finger-positions.  The same positions you will notice with some Asiatic dances, especially those of the island of Bali.  These positions will trigger something inside us ... almost without exception.  Yet, most people are not aware of just WHAT hand positions will trigger.  Western culture has never provided us with the appropriate experience.  Seeing the positions of the hands always reminds us of ceremonials.  We get hints about deep mysteries being tapped.  Hand positions of this kind hardly ever fail of causing us to be aware of realms much beyond of the realms that appear tangible to us.  This is so especially when the hand position appears in combination with a body position that expresses the same thing as the hand position.  Persons who are aware of psychic energies may notice shifts of realms of levels of reality when of finger- or hand-positions are practiced.  We know that the Hindu Yogis are using finger- and hand-positions for specific spiritual and psychic purposes.  The yogi calls these positions "Mudras."

Rune hand positions serve in the main to attract energies from the realms of creation.  Like body-positions, hand-positions are triggers of "shape vibrations" or shape induced energies.  We remind the reader that pyramid-energy is such an energy that is induced by a shape.  Shape induced energies can be verified various means, including technological devices.  In fact, the symbol of the HAGAL Rune produces effects similar to the effects of pyramids.  Shape induced energies may be triggered by many symbols, not just pyramids or Runes.  Persons who mastered the realms of shape induced energies are capable of charging these energies with their specific requests, ideas, or wishes.

Whenever you shape the symbol of a Rune with your hand or with both of your hands you draw the energies of the Rune into your body.  From there you may direct it anywhere.  One of the effects of Runic hand-positions, or mudras, is that they align the polarity of your body molecules with the Runic energy that you attract with your hand position.  Here, I understand the term "molecule" from a hyperphysical point of view!  I give you a hint about Runic methods that are rooted in the relation of the 18 Sacred Futhork Runes with the periodic system of elements.  As a result of continuous practice of Runic hand positions you become increasingly aware of the more subtle components of your body.  The same practice will also bring awareness of the more subtle parts of your universe.  You are then capable of restructuring, realigning, and balancing those parts.  Again, be aware that the full benefit of practicing Rune mudras does not come over night, nor will a weekend workshop provide you with "Instant Runes!"  When you practice Rune mudras, especially in a group situation of mutual exchange, you will effect a general healing cleansing of your body and of your Aura; and you will charge and awaken your chakras, or spiritual centers.  In a group situation, this general healing and cleansing will affect the group as a whole.  Runic hand positions have a very special role in the balancing, awakening and developing of chakras, especially in group practices!  More details of these very powerful practices are in the Rune Yoga/Rune Healing course.  Gradually, you will be introduced to knowledge of the benefits of Rune Mudras.

A very effective way of practicing Rune Mudras is to mentally chant the mantra of the Rune while inhaling.  While exhaling you feel then the Rune energy stream through your hand (the hand that poses the mudra) into your body.

CONTROL OF BREATH

Runic practice is unthinkable without proper control of your breath.  In fact, every Rune practice contains at least three elements:  A body-or-hand-position, or both, a breathing practice, which sometimes includes singing of the Rune mantra, or of a Rune song, and a single or multiple focus to dynamize and direct the Runic energies.  All three elements will shift during the course of the practice.  When, while working the lesson of UR, you have practiced healing with Runes, you already employed these three principles.

You need to be aware that breathing is very important.  However, few human beings are breathing correctly.  Consequently, their body cells do not receive sufficient oxygen and waste materials are not sufficiently eliminated.  Diseases of all kinds, emotional disturbances, tiredness, and depression, are but a few of the many consequences of improper breathing.

Breathing also supplies us with life energy.  In the East, this energy is called "prana."  In the West, scientists gave it many names: Animal Magnetism (Mesmer), Orgone energy (Reich), or Odic energy (von Reichenbach), Solar Ether (Korschelt) to name but a few.  Orgone can be measured with scientific instruments, accumulated with orgone accumulators (the first ones wer built by Franz Anton Mesmer some 200 years ago) and generated with the Welz Chi Generators.  Still more important is the fact that Odic energy can be directed consciously.  Furthermore, you can attach energies of a higher order to this energy, thus modulating it for specific effects.  Then you can dynamize it and send it anywhere you decide to produce results on the material, etheric, astral, and higher planes.

You need to be aware that with normal -- non conscious -- breathing the body is supplied with only as much Odic energy as is necessary for its normal functioning.  The situation is quite different when you practice conscious breathing!  Conscious breathing can supply you with huge quantities of Odic energies is a relatively brief time.

If you visualize or imagine a thought, an idea, or a Rune into the air to be inhaled, it will connect with the Odic energy, pass through the lungs into the blood vessels, and charge not only the body with raw life force, but it will stream through the astral matrix into the astral body, from there through the reflective mental matrix into the spiritual body.  This process, understood correctly, explains the secret of breathing from an esoteric point of view.  Many theologies use techniques of conscious breathing for instructive purposes, as does the Hindu Yoga system, without completely being aware of the processes involved.  In fact, there are people who have suffered severe damages to their health as a consequence of some of the extreme breathing exercises demanded by some of the Yoga schools.  In most of these deplorable cases, the inexperienced reader has been persuaded to do the breathing practices, because they were promising an acquiring of psychic and occult powers.  If you want so, you will reach those goals much more easily sooner with the help of the Runes.

As you have been reading the preceding, you have become aware that it is not the quantity of the inhaled air which matters, but it is the quality.  Quality is enhanced by the Runes with which you are impregnating the Odic component of the airflow into your body.  Therefore it is not necessary, in many cases not even advisable, to pump the lungs full with a lot of air and putting needless strain on them.  Do your breathing exercises slowly and calmly, without haste, tension or strain.

As an exercise, sit down in a comfortable position, relax the whole body, and inhale slowly through the nose.  As you inhale, you imagine that, with the inhaled air, the Odic energy is very powerful, and imagine that this Odic energy is filled with the energy of the Rune UR.  You know that UR causes your body to feel healthy and calm.  Imagine UR being around you.  Whenever you inhale, you draw UR into your body, and whenever you exhale, you distribute the healing energies of UR into all parts of your body.  You feel the healing energies in every part of your body.

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE RUNES

At this point, it is useful to go into more detail about symbols in general, and the symbolism of Runes in particular.

There are may researchers who claim that a symbol becomes an active symbol (having effect on the material conscious planes), once it is made to be a true symbol (according to their model), namely by charging it with energy.  Others claim that every symbol emanates some radiation by itself, because of its shape proper.  They say that charging is not necessary at all.  As an example they mention the symbolic shape of the pyramid, where pyramid energy can be measured, but also other shapes such as the pentagram, hexagram, yin-yang, etc. seem to corroborate their claims.  At this point, the first group will say that charging indeed has been done, subconsciously, by expecting the symbol to act in a specific way.  Or they use the label "archetype."  At best this latter label is a construct that is used to fit anything.

So we find various polarizations of beliefs concerning symbols.  One group which claims that the symbols themselves contain the energy, another group of people who believe that it is necessary that a symbol is charged, a third group which puts the charging back some millennia, a fourth that only the belief of the person who works with the symbol is energizing it.  The arguments go on and on, and the truth may be somewhere in between.  It seems that we need an all-encompassing theory of symbols, which includes all the know facts, rather than fruitless discussions of what is "true" or "false" according to metaphysical mental acrobatics.  People who discuss metaphysics of symbolisms have yet to reach the scientific insights that allowed quantum mechanics in physics emerge, which is a theory encompassing various facts that are apparently at odds with each other.

The type of "truth" which scientifically untrained and ignorant metaphysicists (the bulk of them, I am sorry to need to point out) try to achieve belongs to the purely verbal levels.  Verbal levels of this kind are based on a language that developed thousands of years ago and which necessarily reflects the primitive metaphysics of these times.  Using such a pre-conceived mapping, these metaphysicists fall victim to the structures inherent in language, they squeeze the facts that they examine into it and consequently they reach theories as inadequate as the primitive metaphysics that shaped the linguistic structure to begin with.  Consequently, there is no progress, just endless philosophizing.  While arguing in terms of language-based "truth," this class of metaphysicists becomes totally oblivious of the factual basis of their theories, and that raw experience and usefulness of a method are criteria much more valid than volumes of fruitless logical and philosophical treatises, discussions, and speculations.

Seen from this point of view, it is of little concern to us whether or not symbols are inherently charged, invisibly and inaudibly pink, and what not.  For our convenience, we talk about shape vibrations that can be found in Rune symbols and positions, as well as in the sounds of Rune mantras.  The effects of such structural links can be demonstrated with relative ease (see the course "Magic of the Future").   What is of interest here is that we have several useful methods of working with Rune symbols, that we consequently can observe effects on the material and conscious planes, and that we are able to formulate natural laws, or convenient mappings which explain the interaction of Runes with the material planes, and that we can apply the laws thus found for devising new methods, or technologies, of applying Runes for many purposes.

With Runes, we have not only a set of symbols, but we have a symbolism.  Before I am going to talk more about this symbolism, let me first explain what I mean when I use the word "symbol."

Symbols have several aspects:

1.  They have an outline, or some kind of SHAPE.  This shape may be graphic, such as any symbol that we can draw on paper, or it may be in space, such as a pyramid.  The shape may also be of an other access system of our perception, such as an auditive shape.  An example for such a shape may be a mantra.  Some symbols, the Runes included, have several shape representations:  outlines, mantras, etc.

2.  A characteristic of symbols is what we call their symbolic aspect:  some meanings of the symbol may be derived from its shape, or outline, as it stands within the context of the symbolism.  This symbolic meaning does not necessarily emanate any energy.  In other words, the symbolic aspect of the symbol does not necessarily need to be active.

3.  Next, we have an evocative aspect of a symbol.  This is an aspect that is not necessarily found in the outline itself, but the symbol serves as a trigger that gives access to the specific evocative meaning.  The evocative dimension of a symbol may change throughout history, and it may be important to consider the dimension of time (the timeframe) when the metaphysicist accedes the evocative dimensions of the symbol.  One method of coming in contact with the evocative dimensions of a symbol is to meditate over the symbol.  This evocative dimension of symbols has been used to attach specific initiatoric wisdom into symbolisms and symbols, as a means of preserving this knowledge for the future.

4.  The energetic aspects of a symbol may be derived from its symbolic and/or evocative meaning.  The symbol serves as a trigger that gives access to its energies.

5.  A symbol may be part of a symbolism.  When I say symbolism, then I mean an ORDERED ARRANGEMENT of symbols, in which the order of the symbols and their position to each other is of key importance.  The symbolism, containing all symbols, is a symbol in itself.  It is a symbol of a higher order than the symbols that are its constituting parts.  In a symbolism, each symbol that is part of it relates to all other symbols because of its position within the symbolism.

In a symbolism which we call linear, such as an alphabet, each symbol is numbered.  The number given to the symbol determines its position within the linear symbolism.  This number does not describe the symbol in a "numerological sense," nor does such a number add its own, non-numerological or other, meaning to the meaning of the symbol.  Other symbolisms may be laid out in a plane, such as the zodiac (which is numbered too).  In such a symbolism, the relations are more complex than in a simple linear symbolism.

The realm of a symbolism encompasses more than the sum total of its individual symbols.  On the other hand, an arbitrary array of symbols has hardly any dimension of symbolism beyond the mere sum total of its individual symbols.  In an array of symbols, the position of each symbol to every other is of no importance.

Symbols in general represent a form of mapping of the realms for which they are relevant.  The symbolism of chemistry, for example, is base on the periodic system of the elements.  It is valid for the realm of chemical reactions of matter.  The fact that we do no know of anything material which we could not express with chemical formulas does not mean the symbolism of chemistry constitutes some kind of all-encompassing world-mapping, or world-formula, which may be used to describe everything, from life functions to nuclear explosions.  Chemical formulas can describe some aspects of all those phenomena.

Similarly, we may state that we do not know of anything that does not have aspects that we can describe with the symbolisms of physics, astrology, mathematics, the cabalistic symbolism, etc.  Yet, none of these symbolisms should be viewed as a world formula.  They may be useful mappings, no more.  But there are people out there who confuse that which they can describe with the mapping itself, hence the "world-formula syndrome" found in many metaphysical circles, among astrologer, cabalists, and in circles of many "skeptics" whose background is a mere pop science (this horrible distortion of useful science that takes on many of the negative aspects of a fanatic religious creed).

Esoteric, metaphysical, or hyperphysical, symbolisms have an essential distinction from purely materialistic symbolisms, such as physics, chemistry, or materialistic biology.  These symbolisms are standing for energies of a higher order.  This means that they generally contain a system of gradual initiation which reaches into realms of thought and into planes that are beyond the purely material planes, while in a purely material-planes based symbolism the dimensions of finer densities may be omitted.

The 18 Sacred Futhork Runes have all characteristics of a hyperphysical symbolism.  They are hyperphysical, because Runes reach into dimensions well beyond the confines of the limited space time continuum which physics, chemistry, etc. describe.  The 18 Sacred Futhork Runes are a symbolism and not a mere array of Runes.  They are a linear symbolism, or a numbered alphabet, where the position of each Rune is important.  They are also a symbolism of higher order, which may be arranged in the zodiac, or in a plane, with its own, specific, interrelations from Rune to Rune.  Positions within the symbolism allows to derive meanings of the Runes valid for the specific context of the symbolism.  The mantras of the Runes constitute another, sound based, symbolism.

Runes and their symbolisms represent mappings of the Realms of Creation, which give us useful methods of interacting with those realms and relating them to the world in which we live.

The 18 Futhork Runes represent a path of initiation (which is beautifully shown in Odin's Rune Song), provided the student elevated him/herself to the level where the deep symbolic meanings of the various Rune documents can be understood.  Odin's Song shows you how to experience Rune initiations, while the  "magical poem" provides you with a system of triggers that gives you access to the transcendental energies of the Runes.  To experience the depths of Odin's Rune Song is an important step toward gaining full access to the Rune Realms of Creation.  After you experienced Odin's Rune Song and after you experienced the 18 stanzas of the magical poem, you will no longer have any doubt as to whether you should work with the 18 Sacred Futhork Runes, or whether you should dabble in some incoherent arrays of "Runes,” “Anglo-Saxon" (there are some 35-plus arrays of them), "elder," and what not.

The symbolism of the Runes is multi-ordinal and stratified knowledge.  First, you will get acquainted with each individual Rune, and you will experience the realm of this Rune.  With your Runic empowerments, first as a Knight, and then as a Rune Master, everything will fall in place, and the symbolism of the Eighteen Sacred Futhork Runes will communicate itself to you.  Form then on, you Runic work will be backed by your connection with the realm of the symbolism as a whole.  It is also backed by the group energy of the Knights of Runes and Rune Masters, past, present, and future.  After the first initiation, you may again go the path of each individual Rune, now with increased contact with the realm of the symbolism, to a more advance level, up to your next initiation.  Initiations are optimally experience as part of a special ceremonial, performed by a group.

EXERCISES

1.  Copy the Song of OS is your book of ceremonials (if time allows).
2.  Murmur the Song of OS and practice OS.
3.  Practice the hand positions of FA, UR, THORN, and OS, and combine those hand positions with the breathing technique described under "control of breath."  While inhaling, mentally sing the mantra of the Rune.  Feel the flow of Rune energies, and experience the Runes within yourself.
4.  Same exercise while you are connected with a Welz Chi Generator (Transfer disk). Set the frequency at 6.3 Hz

PREVIEW FOR THE NEXT LESSON:
THE RUNE   R I T

Candles and their use is simple Runic rituals.