Germanic Rebirth, Not New Age Reincarnation

In today's New Age movement there is a lot of nonsense spoken and written about reincarnation. The modern doctrine of reincarnation is the watered down Kali Yuga distortion of the Aryan and Germanic concept of the Eternal Return. Whilst it is true that the Germanic peoples and the original Aryans believed in the concept of Rebirth that is not the same thing as New Age reincarnation which seeks to democratise an ancient and valid belief.

The pre-Christian Teutonic peoples believed in Rebirth and their concept of the 'soul' was a complex one. As Dr Stephen Edred Flowers makes clear in his remarkably informative books Sigurd: Rebirth and the Rites of Transformation  (Runa Raven 2011, Lodestar 2015) and Runelore (Samuel Weiser, 1987) our ancestors believed that body-soul complex consisted of many parts: the lik (the body itself), Hugr (the mind), Hamr (shape-substance), Odhr (faculty of ecstasy), Ond (vital breath), Minni (memory), Sal (the soul), Fylgja (the Fetch-following spirit of the opposite gender) and Hamingja (luck).

I do not intend to go into any detail about the individual parts of the Germanic body-soul complex but the reader will notice that I have referred to 9 parts. This is significant and is related to the 9 worlds of Norse cosmology. Interestingly Anglo-Saxon cosmology knows of 7 rather than 9 worlds. Again this is not something I am going to elaborate on right now but these 7 worlds are divided between 3 realms. Occultists relate the 9 and 7 worlds to a 9 or 7 chakra or wheel system.

Returning to the issue of rebirth it is clear that if the body-soul complex is divided into 9 parts, on their dissolution after death they will not all go or return to the same place and may not even survive at all. Germanic mythology curiously knows of many dwelling places of the dead and this subject is elaborated on in detail in Hilda Roderick Ellis's The Road to Hel (1943, republished by Cambridge University Press in 2013). Hilda Ellis (Davidson) examines the evidence for the Germanic afterlife from archaeology and literature and finds from their burial customs that in addition to Valhalla and Folkfang the dead also resided in burial mounds, the halls of the sea Goddess Ran and the underworld of Hel. The dead as draugr (a form of vampire or zombie) also visited the living. Encountering the dead could have either beneficial or malignant results. This is why it is imperative that when undergoing any esoteric work the magician carry out the necessary protective rite which for us in the Northern Tradition is the Hammer Rite.

Dr Flowers makes it clear in his works that the different aspects of the body-soul complex depart on death to different regions. The Hamingja for instance continues by being transferred to the new born of the family, clan, tribe or race. It does not die and the naming of a child after a recently departed ancestor helps to assure the transference of the Hamingja from one generation to another. Families often used the same prefix in given names. He gives an example from the Sigurd book in the early genealogy of the Cheruscans: Segimer, Segestes, Segithank, Segimund etc. The luck of the individual was really the luck of the family, clan, tribe or race.

In terms of individual consciousness, for the greater mass of mankind death produces forgetfulness and loss of memory of previous lives in the Eternal Return, for the personality, that which makes them individual gradually fades away and dies. As Viktor Rydberg states in Teutonic Mythology Volume 1:

"In Saxo we find an idea related to the antique Lethe myth, according to which the liquids and plants which belong to the lower world produce forgetfulness of the past. Therefore, Thorkil (Thorkillus) warns his companions not to eat or drink any of that which Gudmund offers them. In the Gudrun song (ii, 21, 22), and elsewhere, we meet with the same idea." (Chapter 49)

         "Five hundred doors and forty more methinks are in Valhalla. Eight hundred heroes through
          each door shall issue forth against the wolf to combat."(Gylfaginning, Prose Edda, translation             by I.A. Blackwell and Rasmus B. Anderson, 1906)




540 x 800 = 432,0000. I believe this is certainly a symbolic figure for reasons I have stated in earlier articles for this figure is the number of years in the Hindu Kali Yuga but it could represent an actual known number of Woden Initiates. Certainly the idea of there being a large but limited host chosen by All-Father Woden is clear from our sacred writings.

It is the task of the incarnated hero, the Vira to REMEMBER who he or she is, to AWAKEN and thus awakened, to ACT. On remembering who he or she is the Vira KNOWS what his or her life's work is and devotes himself or herself to it which in essence is the winning of personal immortality, a God-like existence and to break free from the necessity, the Not of Eternal Recurrence, which is the lot of the beast-man. In returning to the celestial realm of Asgard the Vira has a face.

The Quest of the Aryan Vira-Escape From the Eternal Return

The awakened Aryan realises that he is a vira, a hero-warrior of semi-divine origins who has an obligation to fight in the greater spiritual war that has engulfed the planet and the solar-system. The Aryan initiate is a would-be Sonnenmensch who seeks to escape the damnable Eternal Return, to achieve individuation, the stage of absolute personality so that on physical death the integrated personality survives and travelling up the invisible Irminsul through Iring`s Way reaches the void of the Black Sun, the Schwarze Sonne (SS), the ancient immobile sun, the point of origin for the divyas who arrived on this planet millennia ago prior to their mixing with the "daughters of men". We will have escaped the limitations of our humanity and become as Gods. This is the destiny of the awakened Aryan but only the awakened as this requires effort-not belief or `faith`, which is the great Christian lie.

Charlemagne or Karl the traitor as I prefer to call him may have destroyed the physical Irminsul but the invisible one-the real one remains and one finds its location at the point of the North Pole, the land of the Hyperboreans-the divyas. This Irminsul is the Irminsul in macrocosm. There exists in microcosm in each Aryan an invisible Irminsul which occupies the same space as the spinal column. Through the practice and mastery of the principles of Rune Yoga the initiate can achieve altered states of consciousness and full awakening via the realisation of the Ich-the I as symbolised in the Isa Rune.

We have in this a teacher, a master-Woden, the Lord of the Runes who by His sacrifice of Himself to Himself rediscovered the lost Runes, that body of lore which had been lost by the divine divyas prior to their degeneration. For nine nights He hung upon the world ash-the Irminsul. On each of these nights He visited each of the nine worlds and acquired knowledge. In other words He activated each of the nine chakras, the swastika wheels which represent these worlds and states of consciousness. Each of these swastika wheels is governed by a Rune and its mantra must be mastered. There are five elements involved in Rune Yoga: breathing techniques, visualisation, meditation, the mantra and the Rune form itself. The master is able to engage in all five disciplines simultaneously.

Through this process we are able to achieve personal awakening and the the awakening of the Blood Memory or what Jung called the Racial Collective Unconscious. Most of our people fell asleep long ago and have become little more than robots or cardboard cut-outs destined to keep returning in the Eternal Return and learning nothing each time. They have effectively lost their semi-divine status and will never achieve awakening. Woden knows those who belong to Him and He has called us out to fight in this great war.

The robots are cannon fodder, foot soldiers for the demiurge Jehovah, the evil lord of this world. Scientists are predicting that within a decade or two the polar icecaps will have melted. If this does take place-and it has many times in the past then I predict that archaeologists will make great discoveries as the lost civilisation of the Hyperboreans comes to light.

For those interested in the subject of the polar origins of Aryan man I can recommend Tilak`s Arctic Home in the Vedas, originally published in 1903. Recently his work has been re-examined by Professor M.M. Ninan in Tilak and the Aryan Origins: Are his findings still valid? Not only does the professor support Tilak`s theory but he provides additional evidence via modern scientific techniques not available to Tilak.

It is significant that in the Eddas there is reference to the 12 major Aesir who daily sit in council, the ancient Greeks knew 12 major deities that likewise took council on Olympus. We also know of the 12 knights of the Round Table under the leadership of Arthur or Ar-Thor, an ancient Aryan sun deity. No doubt the 12 signs of the zodiac also represent the houses of these deities. The major Gods have the primary task of offering leadership in the great war and are guardians of the invisible Irminsul and Iring`s Way (the Milky Way). These guardians are prefigured in the 12 Sig runes of the Black Sun. The Irminsul may be imagined to take the form of Gungnir the spear of Woden or the lance of Parsifal, pointing the way towards the swastika constellation, behind which is hidden the Black Sun. Irmin is strongly identified with this column and He is cognate with Aryaman, Airyaman, Ariomanus, Eremon and the Germanic hero Hermann or Arminnius.

Reincarnation and Time According to Guido von List

In Listian teaching Germanic time was not a simple matter of past, present and future. Our ancestors did not think in such simplistic terms and linear time was not an Aryo-Germanic concept. Today many of us are used to thinking in linear time but this is no doubt a left-over from our unfortunate enforced Christianisation. As anyone who has studied the bible will be aware the Semites in general and the Jews in particular do think in linear time and frame their prophecies in this way.

In contrast according to the most ancient sacred texts of the Aryan peoples Aryan man conceived of time as being a progression of cycles, not in the sense of going round in a circle for things and events to repeat themselves incessantly but as a series of cycles moving forward like the waves on the ocean, moving forward rather than round and round. According to the works and teaching of Guido von List man repeatedly incarnates. There is nothing new in this doctrine for this was a well known teaching in the ancient Aryan world both in the East and the West but what makes his teaching slightly different is his use of cyclical time within this concept, i.e.

Entstehen>Werden/Wandelns>Vergehehen zum Neuerstehen

Arising>Becoming/Change> Passing Away to New Arising

This formula can be applied to not only humanity but the entire organic world. All creatures, all things animate and inanimate go through this tripartite process.

One can see this reflected in the three Norns:

Urd Verdandi SkuldUrd=Became, Verdandi=Becoming, Skuld=Blame[result of Karma or to use the Listian term, Garma].
The German verb warden (to become) is used rather than sein (to be) because it conveys the feeling of continuing change and evolution. This continuing change, development and evolution is to be strived for in a progressive sense. Our aim in essence is to rediscover the" lost master word":

"Dieser Name wird als das `verlorene Meisterwort`, der `verlorene Name` in den Mysterien bezeichnet, das der Meister suchen soll, denn dieser Name gaebe ihm alle Macht und Kraft der Gottheit selbst."

My translation:

 "This name is described as the `lost master word`, the `lost name` in the mysteries, that the master should seek, because this name would give him all power and strength of godhood itself."

 In other words we are to rediscover the key to our own divinity, to realise the god within, that we are god-in the making or becoming. The tripartite formula generally is to be discovered in many aspects of the pre-Christian Indo-European world, in the caste systems of the Indo-Europeans and even in the ancient triune representation of deity which undoubtedly was plagiarised by the Christian church. This tripartition is expressed by von List as dreieinig-dreispaeltige Dreiheit or the trifidic-triune triad as translated by Dr Stephen Flowers (Edred Thorsson) in The Secret of the Runes (Das Geheimnis der Runen).

In Die Religion der Ario-Germanen in Ihrer Esoterik und Exoterik Guido von List explains that we are in effect our own ancestors and our own descendants being reincarnated continually within the same race, nation, tribe and clan.

"Darum errichteten sie Familien und Familiengueter, da sie wussten, dass sie ihre eigenen Nachkommen sein werden...…"

My translation:

 "That`s why they established families and family goods, because they knew, that they will become their own descendants........"

Wendhorn, the Rune of Turning and the Eternal Return

The Swastika as I have remarked upon before is primarily a polar rather than a solar symbol although it has over the course of time and the wanderings of the Aryans taken on this latter and subsidiary meaning.

The reason why it is so closely associated with the Aryan peoples is because of their original northern Thulean homeland, their Ur-heimat. Even when some of them migrated towards the southern hemisphere they took their lore and polar symbolism with them. This is why we see traces of the Swastika across many parts of the world.

Connected to the Swastika or Fylfot is the Irminsul or Caduceus which sustains it. Joscelyn Godwin in Arktos. The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism and Nazi Survival, 1996 makes the point that in the West it is the caduceus as a 'prime symbol' of the 'world axis' which connects the swastika (which he states is the 'prime symbol of the Pole') and the Pole. 

The Caduceus came into the possession of the Greek God Hermes (Roman equivalent: Mercury) who was compared by the Romans to our own Woden. I feel that this is significant for Woden is the master of travel (like Hermes/Mercury) between the nine worlds via His steed, the eight-legged Sleipnir. As Woden Initiates we emulate Him and seek to attain similar powers in travelling between different worlds or dimensions-or states of consciousness which we attempt to do via the spiritual disciplines of Rune Yoga, self-hypnosis and meditation.

It is no coincidence that the Aryan system of chakras or wheels are situated along the spinal column. It is via this column or world tree (Irminsul-YR-MAN-SOL) that we travel to experience new worlds (chakras/wheels) and attain varying states of consciousness and new experiences.

Elizabeth Goldsmith in her Ancient Pagan Symbols likens the Caduceus to the sacred Tau symbol, which as we know is associated with the Hammer of Thunor. Eugene Goblet d' Alviella in his The Migration of Symbols (1894) refers to the presence of this symbol on the monuments of the Aryan Hittites. However the latter writer considers it to be primarily a solar rather than a polar symbol.

Via the pole which connects the earth (Midgard) to Asgard the soul of the Arya travels prior to birth and after death of the physical body. This fact is represented symbolically by the 15th and 16th Runes of the Armanen Futhork, Man and Yr, representing life and death respectively. The fact that one follows the other in the Futhork sequence is significant in this regard.

The Arya chooses the moment of his birth or rebirth and the circumstances surrounding it. It is not by pure chance. One single physical lifetime may not be enough for us to fullfil our task, our mission. The Einheriar understands this and for that reason has no fear of physical death. It holds no terrors for him.

The Man Rune whilst signifying life, the shape of a man with outstretched arms to the Gods (the mode of prayer of Germanic man), is paradoxically more indicative of the soul which has left the physical body and is returning to Asgard, whilst the Yr Rune which signifies death ("Think about the end!")  is yet the soul travelling down from Asgard to the awaiting physical incarnation on Midgard. This teaches us that our physical incarnation in life is really a form of death-"in the midst of life we are in death", whilst our true abode is most definitely in the incorruptible home of the Gods, Asgard.

Here on Midgard we can see things only dimly, as through a veil but in Asgard we shall know and be known! In Virgil's Aenid the dead must drink from the waters of the river of forgetfulness, the river Lethe, in order that they can forget their previous incarnation in order to be reincarnated. Viktor Rydberg found a Germanic parallel to this myth as he writes in Teutonic Mythology Volume 1:

"In Saxo we find an idea related to the antique Lethe myth, according to which the liquids and plants which belong to the lower world produce forgetfulness of the past. Therefore, Thorkil (Thorkillus) warns his companions not to eat or drink any of that which Gudmund offers them. In the Gudrun song (ii. 21, 22), and elsewhere, we meet with the same idea. (Chapter 50)"

In Chapter 51 of the aforesaid work Rydberg identifies Mimir as being the same person as Gudmund. 

The Man and Yr Runes are stylistically combined in the Wendhorn Rune. Nigel Pennick in his The Complete Illustrated Guide to Runes states regarding this Rune that it has the concept of everything going in circles and that we have to experience both good and bad in life.

Surely life and death is part of the cycle of continuous Arising-Becoming-Passing Away-New Arising? The Woden Initiate should consciously take this Rune to be a sign of his own eternal becoming. Pennick relates this Rune to the changing phases of the moon and silver is its associated colour. Guido von List in his Das Geheimnis der Runen, translated by Dr Stephen Edred Flowers (Edred Thorsson) as The Secret of the Runes refers to Wendhorn refers to Wedehorn representing the crescent moon which he states is the Rune of Freya in her promotion of childbirth.

He does not however include the Wendhorn in his Armanen Futhork. The German verb wenden means to turn. One could thus consider it to be a Bindrune of Man and Yr and a most powerful one at that.