Bind-Rune Basics

Bind-Runes are a subject that's been covered in a few rune-books, but most have not covered it well. It seems that somewhere in the process of creating interesting activities for people to replicate, most rune authors seem to lose the aim and intent of bind-runes somewhere along the wooded path.

A bind-rune is simply a combination of runes that are stuck together or overlapped in some way - the term binding referring actually to weaving, as in the old Nordic term Nalbinding, or needle-knitting.

A bind-rune, itself bound onto a woven wool hat, woven in Norse Nalbinding method.
Now how's that for a double (or triple) bind!

The use of bind-runes, however, was probably more common in carving the runes rather than literally binding, or weaving them. The purpose of carving bind-runes could in theory be almost anything, but in historical examples is nearly always for some form of enhancement of one's luck (hamingja) or for protection (ward). The runes would be chosen based on the sort of energies one wished to invoke onto the carved or painted object. However their arrangement was entirely up to the practitioner, and could take many forms even when using the same few runes.

There are primarily three types of bind-rune structures.

1. Linear bind-runes

2. Radial bind-runes

3. Multi-axial bind-runes

These can be understood as different ways of arranging the same message, however it is important to know what they do differently.

1. Linear, or single-stave bind-runes. These are made from several runes with a vertical element, with all the vertical lines merged into one long stave. This type of bind-rune is most common on weapons, tools, and commemorative runestones, implying that they were usually meant as spells of protection or remembrance of a great warrior. They tend to be runes of a strongly directed singular purpose, usually of attacking either a foe or a problem, or to honor a victory.

A linear bind-rune turned on its side. When turned vertical, it reads downward "Runar" or Runes. The "R" is represented as a small hash mark above the Ur-rune, as is common in Norwegian Younger Futhark inscriptions.

2. Radial, or Galdr-stave bind-runes. These are often temporary rune-spells, intended for a specific time and place, and often carved or painted onto temporary substances. Most notable are modified Galdrastafir like the Ægishjálmur and Vegvísir, but there are are others known only from Icelandic medieval grimoires or oral folk traditions, many of which were meant to be carved on food and then eaten, or painted in blood on soil, and in some cases were carved on an object which was then burned to send forth the spell.  The radial arrangement is primarily for defense, as to symbolically deflect energies from various directions.

Although they do not appear to be for long-term use in ancient contexts, it is possible that some far more powerful symbols were concealed as bind-runes. The Sonnenrad, the Fylfot (swastika) and the Thor's Cross can all be interpreted as radial bind-runes, and in those rare-cases where they were made into objects, it was always in a permanent material like stone or metal (such as in rune-stones, medallions, or ceremonial armor and weapons). These are symbols of eternal power, far more sacred than a simple spell for protection of cattle. As a result, it was unusual for those who were not warriors, magicians, or leaders to have such objects made. One can construct custom radial bind-runes with their ends connecting in the center, or crossing over each other at the center. Typically radial bind-runes have four, six or eight spokes, though other arrangements are possible. In Armanen rune-work, it is also common to create a bind-rune using one of the main Hedge-Runes as the central point itself, so that the center is not without its own power (Hagal being the most obvious such rune).

3. Multi-axial bind-runes. This is the most seemingly random arrangement, with possibilities for arranging runes with multiple vertical axes, with runes all upright or with some of them being rotated and bound onto diagonal lines of other runes. One very basic type is the "G-A" or "Gibu Auja" (give luck) bindrune, common in Migration Age (Elder Futhark) artifacts, which consists of a Gebo rune with the upper right arm being merged with a smaller Ansuz rune. More complex bind-runes may have multiple overlapped vertical and diagonal elements. Generally bind-runes, like simple letter-runes, do NOT have horizontal lines (though a few rare exceptions are found in late medieval offshoots of the Younger Futhark).

Probably the simplest multi-axial bind-rune: Gibu Auja. 

The ordering of the runes in the visual structure of these bind-runes generally follows their sequence in the spell, but it may also depend on the central syllable or concept in the rune working. Multi-axial bind-runes generally are not for attack or defense, but for subtle influence of surroundings and manifesting a desire into reality. There are all sorts of these bind-runes, from bind-runes for love spells to peaceful sleep spells to bind-runes for the removal of a specific hex or illness, and even to mitigate the intoxicating effects of ale and make it function as a medicine. This is where the complexity can start to get out of hand, as blending the rune meanings for some of these purposes may require more than just a couple of runes.

Elder Futhark bind-rune for sleep by Bjorke Heska.
Note the various rotations and axes, and the unusual arrangement with the square rune Ingwaz at the center.
With Armanen runes this would be far simpler, as there are short runic formulas known for sleep, some quite ancient.

As it stands though, apart from some well-established formulas found in old texts and some of the better-quality rune stones and metal artifacts, there are many possible ways to construct a bind-rune that has no preserved precedent. Also there is the possibility that some of the bind-rune inscriptions on ancient stones, bone combs, and everyday objects, were not necessarily carved by skilled masters, so there may be some mistakes (as in, what the carver intended is not what he ended up carving). So while looking at historical rune-decorated objects is a good place to start, not necessarily everything that survives is equally reliable. Egil's saga recounts that there were bad rune-risters as well as good ones, and perhaps the bad ones were all too common.

METHODS TO THE MADNESS:

As for how to arrange and construct your bind-runes, there are different theories on the subject, but the one I generally go with is simplicity. And at the end of the day this comes down to the concept of the "perfect" being the enemy of the good. Endless detail and "perfection" of making each element stick out is often counterproductive, especially when a far simpler bind-rune was used in ancient times for the exact same effect. Since there are many ways that elements of runes can be merged or overlapped, sometimes there may be some ambiguity in what a bind-rune really means. While overly academic types may complain that this makes interpretation difficult or even meaningless, the reality is that now as in ancient times, there is always an element of mystery to all but the most standard bind-runes, with their ultimate purpose being known only to the practitioner, the Gods (if the rune-spell invokes any) and the universe they send them out into.

As with carving or painting of regular runes, intoning or chanting the runes used in a bind-rune is common if not more or less required during the carving or painting process. As with rune-inlaid swords, where the swordsmith would often invoke Tyr while creating the Tyr-rune twice (usually stacked) on the hilt, as the Volsunga Saga recommends to do. 

In the 6th verse of the Sigrdrífumál, which tells the same story as the Volsunga Saga, the Valkyrie Sigdrifa (Brynhild) instructs the warrior Sigurd:

Winning-runes shall you learn,

if you wish to have victory,

And rist [runes] upon hilt of sword;

Some on the grip,

and some on the guard,

And twice name Tyr. 

Galdr is a big part of bind-rune work. This all involves practice, so too often a beginner will get frustrated their first attempts aren't producing results, and will give up. Often results will come once the basic bind-runes have been tried many times in the right situations. So do not give up. Nobody is a master all at once. Each time, meditate upon the runes you choose, with less distraction. Eradicating all distraction at once is not the goal, but to slowly make it moot.

First– Determine your intent

The first step you should take it sit down and think, really think, about what it is you want to accomplish. Think of it not just in terms of end results, but how you get there, and what you need to do, or need help with to accomplish. To carve and invoke runic energies in a bind-rune, your intent must be clear. You cannot make the effect of a bind-rune any clearer than its intent, but it is possible to do things that will muddy the effect far beneath what you intended! Take your time in choosing your intent. This will help you not only in focusing your energy, but also in picking your runes. Then, visualize and feel the energy of taking that action, of getting there. You want to not just be a thinking runer, but a feeling one as well - feel the energy that success will bring you, and you will find the energy that will bring you success.  If you need to, think a thousand times before taking a decision, but the intent you reach should be so clear that after taking that decision, you never turn back even if you run into a thousand difficulties. 

Second– Choose your rune set and your runes

Decide which rune system you prefer to work with - Elder, Younger, Anglo-Saxon, or Armanen. In terms of actual literature about their meanings, the Armanen and Younger rune rows are the strongest choice, but it's important to be familiar with all four systems and their somewhat different cultural contexts. Once you have a preferred rune system, examine each rune in it, and its meanings, both esoteric and exoteric, and think about whether that rune fits with your goals. Some runes will be obvious "yes" or "no" choices. However there are often ambiguities in the pertinence of other runes, and it helps to meditate on each relevant rune individually, and explore the possibilities.

Third– Decide on your arrangement

After you’ve gone through your runes, look at what you’ve got. Do you have too many? (generally more than 4-5 is too many for a clear goal), or too few? If you have too many, your thoughts and follow-through may be unfocused. If you have too few, its possible you aren’t considering all the possibilities in terms of achieving your goal. Then, combine them in the arrangement that best fits your goal (linear for attacking a problem, radial for protection, or a multi-axial or overlapping bind-rune for manifesting a reality). At this point you also have to choose your material (wood, metal, stone, paper?), your tools (knife, gouge, brush?) and your method of invocation after Galdr and risting (i.e. staining carved wood or stone bind-runes with ochre, or burning wood or paper ones as an offering).

Finally - DO IT. Carve, chant, paint, and send. If the sending is not by burning, it can be by placing the bind-rune object in a sacred place - be it a forest, a river, a Ve (enclosed grove), a Horgr (outdoor stone altar) or a home altar. Call on the runes for power and guidance. If the runes you use include the name or attribute of a God, that is one more possible invocation you can add, though it's usually not required in rune magick. Then conclude the ritual with a closing line, to declare that it is done. There are various ones you can use (denn so ist gemacht in German), (og svo er thadh in Icelandic) though my preferred one is the Armanen closing "Iey Sar, Iey Sey, Iey Fyor, Peyrow Kvan Ike Iser" (I see, I say, I know, for Now It Is) - which references ancient pan-Aryan root words of both the east and west branches, and is far better than the sappy "so mote it be" used by... well... unwitting new-age sheep blindly imitating certain people.

GENERAL TIPS:

Usually with bind-runes it is considered best to follow the templates used by ancient runers. Like it or not, they had reached these particular formulas over thousands of years, and as Karl Spiesberger says, it's best to use what works. Some bind-runes (such as Gibu-Auja if you're using Elder Futhark) are repeated so often in artifacts or Lore from multiple periods in Heathen history, that the inevitable answer is that they worked, for people to be using them so often over so many centuries. So it's a good idea to find pictures of such artifacts and look for common patterns in bind-runes.

That said, we know that the runic path is not a dogma, and is very possible for the practitioner to test out new bind-runes and find new ways of manifesting runic power - but one must be experienced in the old established rune formulas, in whatever system, to do this safely - as both Egil and Kummer warn us, it's best to avoid using runes or rune combinations you do not understand:

"Runes none should carve, who knows not how to read them,
for it befalls many a man, to stumble [into disaster] upon a murk-stave"

- The Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson, chapter 75

"[these are] rune-formulas passed down from ancient times, but I advise every Runer who may perhaps utilize them to approach such work most carefully; everyone is personally responsible for his own actions. The conscious and noble Runer will never reject laws or utilize powers whose effect he docs not understand and has not sufficiently tested. Let no one misuse unknown magical formulas on his blood-brothers and sisters—he could not escape the avenging might of the Runes. Whosoever carves Runes, let him carve them in wood; whoever writes them, let him write them on paper, so they can be burned at any time. Spiritual meditation is always important for the carving and writing of Runes."

 -Siegfried Adolf Kummer, Runen-Magie

When constructing basic bind-runes (those with three or fewer runic elements), the simplest combination using the fewest lines is usually the best. With more complex rune-work there is no one fixed roadmap, however you can get inspiration from some of the Sagas including Egil's saga, which mentions several times this famous rune-master used bind-rune magick to survive murder attempts, heal the sick, and defeat his enemies. Again here it is best to consult what has worked before, as Egil warns that carving and invoking runes without understanding them well can lead to disaster. However you do it, the meanings and powers of each rune should be understood, which in my view requires knowledge of all four major systems, especially the Armanen system for esoteric work.

The best bind-runes, in my view, are the most concise, even if this apparently causes ambiguity in terms of how many runes (and which) are in a bind-rune. Generally they should have the minimum amount of detail needed to tell the presence of the different runes used. For example, the simple monogram for Harald Bluetooth, which is also the modern symbol of "bluetooth" wireless technology in cellphones and other devices. It is simply "HB" or Hagal and Bjarkan from the Younger Futhark, overlapped along their vertical lines. Hagal's diagonals overlap with the two central diagonals of Bjarkan perfectly. Yet you can still tell this is Hagal and Bjarkan without having to turn them into a vertical linear bind-rune with Hagal completely above Bjarkan with all the diagonals exposed. 

Even though the overlapped bind-rune could also theoretically contain the runes Rit/Rad, Laf/Logr, and Not/Nodh, it doesn't, and there's no point in worrying over it. If it did, they could be arranged so as to be more visible, at least halfway visible rather than totally merged and overlapped with Hagal and Bjarkan - perhaps merged onto a side diagonal rather than the main vertical axis. Thus, simple without being confusing. Alternately, they could be stacked as linear bind-rune (for focus) or as spokes on a radial bind-rune (for defense) or linear stacks inside of radial spokes.That said, if you are trying to make a bind-rune out of more than three runes, the choice of runes and the intent of combining their energies must be clear, and not just done "because they look good". Arguably one of the esoteric reasons why Icelandic rune-magick declined from a powerful and often deadly rite of warrior-skalds in the days of Egil, to a quaint system of charms to keep the cows calm or to keep mice away from the grain barn in latter years, is that it became far too crowded and complicated, used non-runic elements like curved lines, circles and various Hermetic symbols, and thus diluted the potency of Rune magick by taking it outside its context. 

It's true that Christianity also played a role in the suppression and eventual weakening of transmission of Runic practices and methods, but this on its own does not explain the extreme change in bind-runes from things like this...

Bind-rune by Graham Butcher, Stav master

...to things like this:

The Veldismagn, a late Medieval Icelandic Galdr-stave

And yes, before anyone starts nitpicking, Galdrstafir are bind-runes, at least they originally started out that way. Runes were arranged radially for defense in various situations in early Galdrastafir, and the Ægishjálmur is essentially a runic shield for protection in battle, composed of eight Algiz runes, which are a Migration-Age rune of protection. But by the Medieval era, Icelandic bind-runes were using so many curved lines, right angles, horizontals and circles that many of the more complex ones had ceased to be recognizably runic. And most oddly of all, they had become maddeningly complicated, with so many elements merged that the overall meaning became indecipherable, and so one had to say "well, this is for protection" (very generic), or "this is for happiness" (again, very generic and undirected). They had become far too much like hermetic or kabbalistic symbols, which were also suppressed by the Church, though they had evolved for centuries among court mystics, astrologers, and royal "wizards" as well as common village mystics, with its tacit approval. 

Bizarre as it may sound today, in the early Middle ages the Roman Church had actually only considered believing in "witches" or "sorcery" as real to be a heresy, as opposed to the practice of magick itself being heresy - thereby leaving occult groups and folk magicians more or less free to carry on their rituals in private, and discouraging all potential informers and spies from reporting them - in fact, even as late as 1258 CE, Pope Alexander IV declared that church officials should ignore diviners, soothsayers, witches and the like as nothing more than madmen or petty charlatans, and instead focus their time and efforts on "manifest" heretics who openly criticized Catholic doctrine, as well as the possibly wavering loyalties of the Papal chivalric orders amid the ever-present threat of invasion by the Mongols. This strangely secular "look the other way" attitude persisted in Rome for centuries, at least up until Pope John XXII made a dramatic about-face in 1320, declaring all forms of magick to be not only real, but also a potent threat to the Church, and ordered the Inquisition to specifically persecute "witchcraft and sorcery" in 1320 CE, though repeat famines and plague outbreaks delayed the order's implementation by local bishops and secular authorities. In Germanic lands, it was not until 1484, when Pope Innocent VIII commissioned the Malleus Malificarum ("Hammer against Curse-workers") and hired the first professional witch-hunters, that this effort to sweep away "sorcery" actually got off the ground (pardon the pun). The Malleus, a manual for witch-hunters, reversed the Church's old position and claimed (with Pope Innocent's blessing) that not believing witches and sorcery to be real was now heresy.

His crime was theological dissent, not sorcery.

In all that time, all over Europe, the proliferation of newly available Hermetic, Arabic, and quasi-Judaic occult systems spread to every corner, from Spain to Iceland. And in Iceland, there seemed to be a marked transition from the height of Runic mastery, to a sort of "witches' brew" of various Mediterranean systems whose spread into the North was made possible by the Church's conquest of Europe and its general apathy to all forms of occult practices until 1484. Indeed, the Church did not compile the Index of Prohibited books until 1559, by which time a plethora of Hermetic, Kabbalistic and proto-Rosicrucian books had spread all over the continent, most of which made use of symbols involving curved lines, astrological circles and "daemonic" dot markers. One may wonder why bind-runes seemingly melded with these hermetic sigils in Iceland, or why simplicity was abandoned for complexity and excess. The fact is simply that these traditions were part of the "dark underbelly" of a cosmopolitan Christian society. Though the Church condemned all "pagan" traditions as bad, there was a sense that those which drew on some sort of Greco-Roman or Levantine background were "less bad" because they were a known quantity to the upper echelons of Christian society, and quasi-Judaic systems were even less persecuted than that due to their alleged Solomonic/biblical connection. It may, in the end, be a question of will - was the will of Iceland's intellectuals to be part of this new Europe greater than their will to preserve their culture intact? Or were they simply preserving what they could of their ancient magick system by disguising it in a more "acceptable" Mediterranean garb, hoping to avoid its near-total loss as in mainland Scandinavia?

The irony is that, from a magickal standpoint, too many runes (not to mention other, extraneous symbols) stuck into a bind-rune can cause energetic ambiguity even when they are distinct enough as to all be clearly visible. This isn't kabbalism where huge complex nets of inexplicable lines and dots are required to reach some effect. And it also is not a parliament or senate legislative process, where various pet projects and earmark bills for special lobbies are simply tacked onto totally unrelated laws as a condition for majority approval by an assembly composed of far too many professional litigators, and far too little common sense. Simplicity is the key to bind-rune magick, not excess noise. Too much complexity chokes a bind-rune, often with too many elements and energies canceling each other out. I shall elaborate more on this simplicity ethic in a later article.

The Sonnenrad

Earlier we took a look at the fylfot (swastika) and its connection to, and meaning for, Yule and the New Year. While there is much that can be expanded on therein, it is basic to note that the fylfot is connected integrally to fire, creation, rebirth, the return out of darkness, and specifically connected with Freyr, Odin and Thor. We also uncovered the connections of Freyr and the swastika to the greater Indo-European stream of knowledge, with his proper name Ingwi being of the same origin as the Indo-Aryan Agni, and likewise Thor being Thur-Agni or Thuragna among the Asuras. And subsequently, the mythology of the breath of life being blown into Ask and Embla, or Mashya and Mashyana, and the gift of Vayu-Wotan to the children of the Sun - the Urfyr, or Fa. The rune Fa, doubled and inverted upon itself, forms Gibor, the concealed swastika, and thus the fire-whisk, or creation.

Now we take a look at an even more mysterious symbol of the Runic paths, one which may be thought of as the fylfot's completion and ascendance. Like the fylfot, this symbol has long been honored by the noble, shunned by the ignoble, suppressed by the herder, and despised by the sheep. Like the fylfot, there is much disinformation being spewed about it, insomuch as it is mentioned at all outside of Runic circles.

We are, of course, speaking of the Black Sun. Or more specifically, its Germanic form, as the Sonnenrad (sun-wheel) or Schwarz-Sonne. For there are similar symbols in the Slavic and Scythian traditions as well, though not all of the same esoteric meanings carry over.

What is this mysterious, mesmerizing, and (some would say) fearsome symbol?

We have two streams of information on this ancient holy sign. The first is the ancient lore, some archaeological, some esoteric, passed down through "Armanist" or "Irminist" family traditions over the centuries. The second is purely modern, tying into Wewelsburg castle, the spiritualists of the Third Reich, and the more clandestine circles of the Vril and Edda societies, as well as postwar mystics who resumed their quest for power beyond the purely earthly, viewing runes and solar symbols as wisdom of alien origin, and the first Aryans as a not-quite-earthly people, whose culture influenced all ancient civilizations from Greece to Babylon to Tibet. In some ways these two currents of knowledge are in stark contrast with each other. One cannot truly say that everything the more traditional Armanist/Irminist clans believed about the Black Sun has anything in common with what people like Karl von Sebottendorf, Maria Orsic, Miguel Serrano or the UFO chasers understood from it (and even these did not share one unified view on the greater Indo-European cosmology of which it is such a major part). So the meanings of it have to be viewed through as initiatory a lens as possible.

We are not saying it is an alien symbol from a cosmic race in the Aldebaran system, though that doesn't mean it can't be. We are also not saying that it is a direct revealed message from Odin in the earliest times of the Ur-Aryan tribes - though that doesn't mean it can't be. More important than any such assertions by convinced adepts of either path, is the esoteric meanings of this symbol, in which there is significant overlap between the Armanic traditionalists and the Vril-Babylon modernists, regardless of whatever else they may disagree on.

The Armanist Narrative

The true origin of the Black Sun symbol, in the archaeological record, is likely to be some time before the Migration Age (1st millennium BCE) in Eurasia, as we know that the Alamanni, Goths and other Germanic tribes with both a western and and eastern presence at the time, made bronze brooches with a similar sunwheel design. These ornamental disks, or Ziercheiben, were found in Alemannic women's graves in Germany. The significance of these symbols in women's graves of the period is not lost on people who understand one of the Sonnenrad's major meanings: the Black Sun is in one sense a womb, the mother of all things, the darkness from which creation emerges. In a theosophical sense (and here we speak of "theosophy" in a general vein as the synthesis of science and spirituality, not as the movements founded by Blavatsky, Gurdjeff, etc.), the Black Sun symbolizes the gigantic Black Hole at our galaxy's center, which is indeed the mother of the galaxy, for by its gravity waves and magnetic waves spinning the gas into a spiral, it triggers eddies of star formation, literally birthing entire systems. Yet there is also a chaotic and destructive side to the Black Sun, as getting too close (literally, too oft attached) can result in being torn apart. This understanding of the primal feminine energy was integral to the Cult of Nerthus, for much as this primal Goddess of the Depths gives, she also takes away.

This however was not the only meaning of the Black Sun, nor perhaps even the foremost. Nor was it considered a symbol of femininity in an overt sense, as lunar symbols sometimes were in the Nordic-Slavic centers in Kievan Rus, but in this aspect, more of a primal energy of the creative mother which is a sort of supernatural archetype of vitality for women to seek out. Yet because it is also a solar symbol, and thus a manifestation of primal fire (Fa), it also has a strong masculine creative aspect of which the female wearers of these brooches were also aware. For it is Odin's fire-whisk and Thor's thunder-cross manifested threefold. A man embodying both the Odinic (commanding and beguiling) and Thoric (purely dominant) essences was their ideal man, the ideal singularity of strength around which the Black Sun can rotate. This is a fundamental truth of traditional societies, and of genetics.

The sun-wheel itself has been represented in many different forms throughout the Indo-European experience. One thing that can be agreed on, is that many ancient cultures began as solar cultures before later incorporating lunar and planetary symbols into their lore. The Sonnenrad can therefore be seen as a primal manifestation of solar symbols stretching back into the prehistory of the Aryan mind. We know that some of the earliest Middle Eastern societies to build lasting monuments, such as the Sumerians and the Egyptians, began as sun-tracking cultures under the influence of southern Aryan tribes from Aratta, Urartu, and Dilmun, which contrary to mainstream scholarship, was not in Arabia but rather in northern Iran on the Caspian Sea, which kept the name Deylaman into medieval times. (Notice something about these terms: Aratta, Urartu, Dilmun. How do they carry over into other IE languages? Ar-Ata, Ur-Ar-Tu, Dey-La-Man in Iranian languages. In proto-Germanic, Ar-Asa, Ur-Ar-Tiw, Dag-Laf-Man.) These are all runic names! These are all primal Aryan runic epigrams, easily convertible into Armanen runes. They are also the oldest known civilizations in the "Middle East", predating the literacy and agriculture of Mesopotamia's semitic cultures by at least two millennia. 

In fact, one does not even need to be a convinced Armanist, let alone Ariosophist, to understand that these ancient Aryan kingdoms taught the Mesopotamians of Sumer, Akkad, Asshur, and Bab-Ilu literally all they knew of maths, science, farming, astronomy, medicine, building, metallurgy, and time. We know this because the mythology of the semites says so, in fairly explicit terms. These seemingly divine teachers of knowledge, the Mesopotamians called Abgallu, literally "water-men" or "fish-men", describing them as gods in human form, covered in fish-like scales and pointed helmets like the head of a fish, riding on the backs of gigantic sea serpents down the rivers of Abzu (water-rush), most likely the Arvand-Rud. It is the longest river in western Iran, and fits with the description of the fundamentally agricultural and metallurgic mastery of the Dilmuni people. The mainstream view of Dilmun being located in Bahrain (coastal Arabia) is clearly false, as Bahrain was historically a cluster of coastal sandy islands with no rivers, no mountain springs that could produce rivers, and no fertile soil for agriculture to speak of. Bahrain at the time produced only stone-age herdsmen, not technologically advanced farmers and builders. The mainstream view serves to obscure reality.

While pop-conspiracy crackpots such as Zechariah Sitchin spread wild rumors that the serpents refer to alien UFOs and "reptilians" from "Nibiru" trying to enslave humanity, there is a far simpler and more solid explanation of far more worth to the Runenmeister: The Abgallu were not aliens, not "nephilim", not reptiles - they were proto-Aryans, the historical "Atlanteans". The fish scales were not literal scales, but scale-mail armor, which is referenced in the ancient tales of Persian epics going back millennia before Greece and Rome. The fish-heads were not literal fish-heads, but ornamented conical helmets, the spangenhelm, which were a common feature of Iranian, Slavic, and Germanic tribes in the Bronze Age, with the Greeks referring to them as "barbarian helmets". The serpents on which they rode, were advanced boats similar to Scythian river vessels, and the ancient forerunners of Viking ships. It is interesting that mainstream history expects us to believe that the Viking longboat seemingly appears out of nowhere in the 7th century, whereas Armanism takes the view that all Germanic technologies evolved out of an earlier pan-Indo-European cultural heritage. Perhaps loons like Sitchin spread disinformation regarding the true origin of the Abgallu for their own interests, to further inter-ethnic fragmentation and weaken any awareness of a greater ancient connection between north and south Arya. Weak attempt, Zechariah. We know the tactics of your ilk.

Migrations of southern Aryan branch. The Abgallu were the western migration into Ubaid

As the legend goes, the Abgallu rowed down the Abzu (Arvand-Rud) to the region of Ubaid (now known as Sumeria), swiftly dazzling all who saw their shining scales, their serpent-like ships, their seemingly otherworldly technology, and their (sometimes) golden hair. We know of course that in Iran and Anatolia, they clearly didn't all have the same hair color (even among Swedes there are plenty of brunettes), but golden hair was unheard of among Sumer and Akkad, so they chose to emphasize this trait in their accounts of these advanced strangers. Note that the fish and the fish head below are highly stylized, indeed even the gill slits form the triple horns on either size of the crowns worn by Babylonian gods.

Among the earliest symbols that came with the Abgallu to Mesopotamia was the sun-wheel, and this was represented among the Assyrians and Akkadians as a solar cross. In fact, this equilateral cross was thousands of years older than Christianity or crucifixion, and represents the real origin of the equilateral crosses of Europe; for as the Abgallu took the solar Aryan symbols south, so did their kin north of the Caucasus take them north. The Assyrian sun cross is in appearance no different from the Germanic knight's cross, which was also a brooch emblem dating back thousands of years. Critically, in both contexts the message is the same; this is a solar symbol of divine kingship, not a torture device. In Assyrian carvings it is almost always shown above the head of a king. In Germanic brooches, it is found in the graves of kings. Though not the Sonnenrad, it represents a related aspect of the solar powers, namely the resplendent aura (Farr) of divine favor, bestowed by Freyr/Fravar/Faravahar upon the worthy kings. The natives of Mesopotamia knew nothing of these symbols until the Abgallu ruled over them as kings wearing these symbols, but later as the races mingled somewhat in the late Bronze Age, they wholeheartedly accepted these solar symbols as their own. 

Thus as its various forms, the sunwheel embodies various meanings. As the fylfot, the fire-whisk, which ancient Persians called Gardune-Mehr or "cyclone of light", it is a symbol of unconquerable power and triumph over circumstance, with the breath of Vayu-Vata making man of a higher order than the mere instinctive beast. As the solar cross or knight's cross, it is the embodiment of divine favor and holy kingship, something that was stamped on everything royal to legitimize a dynasty in nearly every people influenced by Aryan culture, from the Anglo-Saxons to the Achamenids.

The Sonnenrad itself is more mysterious. It has twelve arms or branches, each of which resembles a Sig-rune. So this could be taken as a sign of victory. The 12th rune of the Armanen system, which is the rune row culturally most attuned to the same tradition as the Black Sun, is however not Sig, but the following rune, Tyr. Hence, Sig is repeated Tyr number of times. Twelve victories is symbolic of Tyr, of literally God-like status. 

Its importance may also be tied to the seasons. There are twelve months to a solar year, and four seasons, three months in each. The Sonnenrad can be said to compose three swastikas of various tilt, with four arms to each, hence twelve. As representing the turning of the seasons, this is an obvious connection.

The Black Sun as a calendar, with the 12 original solar months of the Teutonic year, as named by Guido von List in The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk, Esoteric and Exoteric.

However, we come back to the question of the Black Sun in its mystical significance: why black? And is it literally black, or simply "hidden"?

In the German rune traditions, the notion of the Black Sun was more oral than written. Even today there is precious little information about it, and most of what one does find is extreme postwar Allied propaganda about some supposed top-secret SS ritual in Wewelsburg castle with Himmler presiding over the obligatory Hollywood blood sacrifice/satanic mass/[insert favorite paranoid zionist fantasy here]. In reality, the original Black Sun - the ancient Germanic symbol - is far more elegant than the hype, and has a mystical aspect little revealed outside the Armanist/Irminist circles of Germany and Austria. The Schwarze Sonne's true origins are hidden in the mists of time, much like the origins of the Runes and indeed the Odinic Journey itself. This fact is generally not disputed by people with a real interest in Indo-European cultures who delve deeper into the past. The symbol's history is far older and deeper than the brief period from 1933 to 1945. Here are a few basic insights.

There are, to put it simply, different kinds of light. Of course in science we understand this all too well: visible light in white or yellow wavelengths wakes us up, whereas gamma rays will destroy tissue and in large amounts kill you. In a metaphysical sense, light also is of different forms. Much like the visible sun - the "white" or "yellow" sun we see - illuminates the earth, the eyes, the physical world; so does the black sun or the invisible sun illuminate the mind of man. 

Much as visible light guides the steps in Midgard, the invisible energy of this Dark Sun guides the inner work of the enabling of the Runenmeister towards excellence in all focused actions. Habit is modified by ritual. Ritual is guided by Immanence (if it is sincere ritual felt in the bones and blood, rather than a mere repetitive tradition handed down by rote). Immanence has a source. 

The ultimate source of Immanence, creative fury, and Will to Power, is the void from which Being emerges, and into which Non-Being is annihilated - the Black Hole, the Black Sun, the Deep of Yggdrasil, the greater universal Hel, the Event Horizon, the Schwarzschild radius. Thus a connection with the Black Sun energy is a microcosm of the Odinic Journey of the Runes, a rebirth in miniature, that informs the soul, in ways not quite intelligible to one who has not experienced the connection, of the simple yet radical changes that must be taken so that all obstacles can be toppled.

Unlike the "light" of Kabbalists and Freemasons, who work only with the low-tone vibrations of material concepts and materialist symbology (tools, walls, enclosures, pillars, candles) which can easily be manipulated, the energies of the Runenmeister are beyond the material plane, beyond either extreme of enslavement to it or denial of it, on the very essence-level of movement behind matter and energy on a primal level. This is a high-tone vibration of the solar essence of resonance, and to master its use requires far less formality and far more intuition - far more Immanence, and this is not something which just any person can master. Indeed it ultimately requires going far outside the comfortable mainstream of "bliss-seeking" and navel-gazing which popular mysticism of various flavors has degenerated into. It often requires one to go against the herd, to risk controversy, to have the spark of desire to seize karma by the throat whenever possible, to burn with the craving not to be "at one with Odin", but rather, to become for oneself, as Odin is. It requires one to understand the cycles of Deep Time, and when necessary, to defy it. Only then can one be reborn greater in any desired sphere, and not merely meander about with one's mind already asleep and catatonic in Hel.

Thus, the Black Sun is the key to understanding not just the annual solar wheel, but the wheel of Time itself, from origin back to origin, or literally S'ur-T'ur, Zu Ur von Ur. Surtur, in the Armanic sense, is not the simple crude fire-giant that the Surt of late Icelandic lore was reduced to, but rather the Eldest of existences, the agent of change since before Gods and Giants began to be. Thus Surtur ruled Muspellheim and fired the cosmos with power before any giants, even Ymir, had life. Surtur is time itself - the march of the wheel of Time. Surtur, corresponding to Saturn in the Roman tradition and Zurvan in the Iranian (and oddly the German Zu Ur von Ur seems cognatistic with this) is the supreme deity of Time itself. From Time much can be learned, but it ultimately kills its students.

From Surtur much can be wrested, but only by racing against him; only by opposing the blind conformity of one's own Age can the deeper truths of life be discovered; only by standing against Time can one rise above one's own. Thus Freyr does not stand passively by as Surtr ages the worlds towards Ragnarok. Odin does not stand idle despite knowing what will happen. He still opposes the decline; for without augmenting the self and opposing entropy, how can one get a better result in the rebirth? What is the next incarnation worth, if the current one was neglected and thrown away? What happens in an age, when the people of the previous one let everything they inherited go to waste? 

And yet in the end, as Guido von List reveals to us, Surtur is really the primal form of All-Father - not a demon, but a prime mover. Odin or Wotan is the personal manifestation of Allfather, whose source-state is Surtur. Though largely amoral and impersonal, Surtur is essential to the cosmos both as undercurrent and adversary. Meister von List elaborates:

"The oldest divine triad to be named is: "Wuotan, Wili, We," later they are called "Wuotan, Hoenir, Lodur," ... and in the Younger Edda they appear once as "Har, Jafnhar, Thridi." Wuotan or Odin is always the First One and his name remains unaltered, while the Second and Third change their names. Even more telling is the third triad: "Har, Jafnhar, Thridi," which literally means: "the High One (Har = Ar = Sun, Right, the High, etc,), the "Just-As-High," and the Turner (trie = to turn [drehen], to wind, not "the third"). The Ases can only shape the form of humanity, and only Wuotan provides humanity with spirit, the human soul, while Hoenir conveys the lower soul or intellect, and Lodur gives the material body. The name Wuotan or Odhin (Od-in = spirit within), however, indicates that its bearer is the most powerful of the three, and that he himself is actually the One and Only. But this singular One is actually the second manifestation of the divine spirit revealing itself through materialization. He is the Second Logos, and as such he is the "All-Father," who can be portrayed in a human form superimposed over Wuotan, while he can also appear in human form as Wuotan himself. All-Father, who is also called Surtur (the Dark-One, not the Black-one), as his name indicates, is the All-creator and Wuotan is his reflection in human form, and as such Wuotan is also rightfully called the "All-Father -- for he is "One with his Father in Heaven."

That which concerns the essence of the Triad of Gods as such symbolizes the three stages: "coming into being -- becoming -- and passing away (toward new arising)," and this is expressed by all groups of names in all mythical triads." 

- Guido von List, The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Esoteric and Exoteric (translated by Stephen Flowers, PhD)

Thus, the term "Black Sun" can be treated in a similar context; Schwarze Sonne, or Svart Sunna, is not literally black in color, but hidden, darkened, concealed. Surtur, for the Armanen, is the concealed primal form of All-Father, as Wotan is the personified, refined form. In times of breakdown and crisis, a conflict is forced between Surtur as "Father Time" and the conscious manifestation of All-Father as Wotan. This is not due to any hatred between the two forms, but rather the accumulation of regressive karma (en-karma) in the cosmos due to the chaotic aspect of the Od force overpowering the ordered form in the actions of beings - a classic "Kali-Yuga" paradigm. Wotan seeks to fight this process as long as possible, whereas Surtur, the unconscious and impersonal turn of the wheel of Time, has no qualms of pushing through it to its fruition; a brutal cosmic cleansing and rebirth. Thus he is a wider principle, beyond mere "good" and "evil", the inexorable gravitas of change between higher and lower states of complexity. Surtur does not change in the next cycle without Wotan, the active manifestation, pushing for a change in this one. Likewise, the Black Sun is the primal form of the solar principle, holding, as it does, an entire galaxy in its orbit, but the energy of the Black Sun can only be unlocked by ritual changes in one's actions. The yellow sun we know is only a temporal manifestation, as reflection of its power, one of many, just as Odin, Vili, Ve, Grimnir, Sigtyr, Hangatyr, Hroptatyr and so forth are multiple manifestations of the All-Father, in a means far more accessible to man than the primal mover of the Time-wheel, Surtur. The Arya-aware man is fully cognizant, at last, of the tendencies of Odin and Surtur present within himself as microcosm of Yggdrasil, the universe.

For all of that, the Black Sun is the illumination of the soul, the exposing of the lie of absolute peace and passivity, and the revelation of action in the cosmos, and interactions and indeed conflict between different karmas, different Wyrds, as the cause of all increase and manifestation. To manifest a reality, there must be passion and action. There must be the vortex, the inward flow, the concentration of will. There must be the Sonnenrad, in microcosm, in the man.

Most people never manifest a reality worth being proud of, even to their own minds.

Yet another ancient interpretation hints at the days of Ragnarok, the end of the current great cycle and the start of the next. The black sun in that sense is an actual phase of the cosmos in transition, and a time of both destruction and rebirth. This is attested in the Völuspá:

54.

Now valiant comes Valfather's son,
Vidar, to vie with Valdyr in battle,
Plunges his sword into the son of Hvedrung,
Avenging his father with a fell thrust.

55.

Now the son of Hlodyn and Odin comes
To fight with Fenris; fiercest of warriors
He mauls in his rage all Midgard;
Men in fear all flee their homesteads;
Nine paces back steps Bur's son
Retreats from the worm of taunts unafraid.

56.

Now death is the portion of doomed men,
Red with blood the buildings of gods,
The sun turns black in the summer after,
Winds whine. Well, would you know yet more?

57.

Earth sinks in the sea, the sun turns black,
Cast down from Heaven are the hot stars,
Fumes reek, into flames burst,
The sky itself is scorched with fire.

58.

I see Earth rising a second time
Out of the foam, fair and green;
Down from the fells fish to capture,
Wings the eagle; waters flow.

59.

At ldavollr the Aesir meet:
They remember the Worm of Midgard,
Ponder again the great twilight
And the ancient runes of the Ruler of Gods.

Ponder indeed. For only by plunging to the darkest depths of Yggdrasil were the runes gained. Only in the deepest void was their source found. And only in the Black Sun is there a symbol anywhere in the Runic paths that is both "void" and "source" in one. It is both the concentrator and dissipator of power. Both the attractor and the accelerator. Dark Matter draws together, Dark Energy scatters apart.

And so on.

The Wewelsburg Narrative

The second and perhaps more hyped-up story regarding the Sonnenrad is related to its significance as a floor mosaic in the Remaissance castle of Wewelsburg, a three-towered triangular fortress which was purchased and repaired by the NSDAP (more specifically the SS) from 1933 to 1943 at the direction of Heinrich Himmler. It is here that the story surrounding this symbol takes a sharp detour from the metaphysical to the downright insane.

Mainstream history tells us that Himmler restored the castle to be an occult center for his SS commanders, as sort of Camelot-Vatican hybrid for the 'black knights' of his planned SS warrior aristocracy to use as both a spiritual and political center. Mainstream history also tells us that Himmler invented the Black Sun symbol and ordered the installation of the Black Sun mosaic in the North Tower, that there were allegedly ancient "occult" pagan rites performed in the same room under Himmler's direction, that there were runes and runic shields everywhere on the property, and (paradoxically) that satanic "black masses", child sacrifices, and the entire litany of paranoid Christian Fundamentalist delusions from the "satanic panic" of the 1980s actually took place there. All this tall tale is missing is "Ilsa the She-Wolf" and a few of her faux-leather BDSM companions for maximum tabloid cheesiness. 

The Black Sun mosaic (actually green) at Wewelsburg today. The castle is now a youth hostel, complete with Ikea bookcases and beanie pillows.

Mainstream history does not tell us the reality of Wewelsburg's reconstruction - that Himmler's original plans for the North Tower did not make any mention of the Black Sun floor mosaic. Mainstream history also does not mention that the Schwarze Sonne in various forms predates the Third Reich by thousands of years, and that even in its modern 12-spoked form, was already present on the Bismarck memorial in Hamburg in 1906, long before the National Socialist ideology (let alone the party) was even formed. Himmler never mentioned the Schwarze Sonne in official documents took no interest in the ruined North Tower, occult or otherwise, until 1935. We were not told that there is no actual evidence that Himmler had the mosaic installed, nor that its precise age is not even known! There is also no confirmed evidence that Himmler ever planned any sort of rituals in the North Tower beyond a remembrance ceremony for slain SS generals, and that would have been in the cellar crypt of the tower, several meters below the floor that contains the Black Sun mosaic. Mainstream history also does not provide any verifiable proof of the existence of any actual private SS rituals, apart from marriage ceremonies, which were purely secular affairs, with no mention of the Old Gods or anything distinctly "pagan" or "heathen" (unless one insists on taking an explicitly heathen meaning from terms like "blood and soil"). Likewise there is no evidence that anyone at Wewelsburg combined ancient Germanic rituals with "black masses" or "satanic" child murders, which historically were little more than paranoid fantasies of the Catholic Church, and later, various Protestant churches and had no connection to Germanic heathenry. We were lied to.

The Crypt at the North Tower - beneath the mosaic floor.

This false linkage of the Black Sun to the National Socialist era (aside from the aforementioned delusional rumors and lurid tall tales) lies primarily due to Heinrich Himmler's and his personal mystic Karl Maria Wiligut's misguided interest in Germanic Heathenish spiritualism, Wiligut's own personal quasi-runic magickal system, and their shared interest and usage of Wewelsburg. On a side note, Wiligut had so little regard for traditional Germanic rune-masters that he personally abused Guido von List's Armanen rune row, which was far older than Wiligut's and was far more influential then, as it is also today - in favor of his own invented one. Wiligut also fabricated German history with a false conspiracy theory about Wotanism supposedly usurping Germanic religion from a fictitious "cult of Krist" which he invented, claiming "Christ" was actually a Germanic deity predating Odin/Wotan (never once considering that the roots of the name Vili-Ve-Wotan predate Germanic identity itself). He also cooked up impossible dates and timespans for his imagined ancient sect which do not merely stretch credulity - they snap it past the breaking point.  

That said, the facts about Wewelsburg are interesting on their own merits. It is a rather unusual castle, being shaped as it is, and it is known that Himmler and some of his friends believed it to have ancient esoteric significance and to rest on an ancient site. Yet as it dates from the Renaissance or Late Medieval era, there is nothing to link it to Germany's Heathen past, and all its original decorations and inscriptions were Christian ones. Precisely why Himmler would have attached an occult significance to it, apart from scanty rumors of witch trials in the area in centuries past, is not well-understood. The mundane reality is that very little is known for sure about what Himmler actually planned for Wewelsburg; there isn't even a sense that the various occultists he was alleged to have employed besides Wiligut even agreed on what to do with the place, beyond using it as a meeting hall for senior SS officers - many of whom despised Wiligut. Rumors that Himmler believed the castle to be the original location of the Holy Grail, or that the 12 spokes of the Black Sun floor mosaic represented the 12 knights of King Arthur, are just that - rumors. We simply do not have many hard facts about this place, much less hard dates about the mosaic or other "occult" features in the tower.

Nevertheless, it is important to avoid the tendency for fanaticism. There is a pathological tendency on the part of many academics to censor free discussion of this period or to demonize any symbol that was associated even indirectly with it, with a blinding brain-fog of "political correctness" replacing conscious thinking about runic and quasi-runic symbolism. Even well-meaning academics are too quick to distance themselves from the Sonnenrad, the Swastika, various runes, and other Germanic symbols for fear of being called "racist" simply because the Third Reich adopted (I repeat, adopted) such symbols for its various internal organizations. Leaving aside whether 'racism' in the modern dog-whistle identitarian sense even had any place in the Reich (as opposed to racial idealism, the belief in the improvability of all races), the groupthink of mainstream academia has largely stopped any sort of rational discussion about the true meanings and merits of these spiritual symbols. 

For that matter, even many things that were actual inventions of the Reich were not overall detrimental. The first enforceable animal rights and conservation laws, the first anti-smoking campaign, the first effective cancer treatments, the first regular use of x-ray machines in private clinics, and many of the first national workplace health and safety regulations we take for granted in the Western world, were enacted first by the "evil Nazis" in the Third Reich period. A great deal of technology we take for granted today, from synthetic motor oil to jet engines, was literally funded by the Reich, at a time when much of mainstream science dismissed it as unworkable. Scientists working in Germany had in many cases far more leeway to innovate radical new technologies (some of which we are still just beginning to understand) without fear of losing funding or public face to the arbitrary machinations of "industry consensus" (i.e. corporate collusion). A Werner von Braun, a Walter Horten, a Viktor Schauberger, or even a Heisenberg likely could not survive today in the parsimonious and gossip-enslaved conformist climate of today's western scientific institutions. It's time to grow out of the postwar groupthink and take the good with the bad from every era.

On a spiritual and anthropological level, it is also to be understood that despite the misinformation put out by some Reich organizations such as the Ahnenerbe, and despite the rather ironic suppression of German's own runic traditions under Wiligut, the general understanding of ancient cultures among German universities of the time was at a very high level. The achievements of Babylon, Persia, India, and even the obscure kingdoms of China's western regions, Khotan and Tibet, were more extensively researched by German archaeologists in the 1930s than any other nation. It also comes as a surprise to many people raised on a nonstop diet of Allied propaganda since childhood, that the Reich's official understanding of who is an Aryan, was far more inclusive than most of the race laws in America and Britain at the time. The same Fuhrer who was fingered as "the evil racist" by self-admitted apartheiders and eugenicists Roosevelt and Churchill turns out to be the same man who denounced colonialism throughout Mein Kampf, praised Reza Shah and the Persian Empire as founding Aryans, and offered citizenship to India's Subhas Chandra Bose as a fellow Aryan.

To His Imperial Majesty, Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shahanshah of Iran – With the Best Wishes – Berlin, 12 March 1936

- Adolf Hitler

So an honest discussion of the Sonnenrad in the context of the Third Reich period will have to do away with all emotional rhetoric. There are some texts from "esoteric Hitlerist" circles after the war which deal with the understanding such groups had of the Sonnenrad. These materials are still obscure to most people, and of varying quality. Some may be based on ancient family traditions like those of the Armanen, others are the personal synthesis of powerful authors like Miguel Serrano, in which personal gnosis is difficult to separate from hidden traditions simply because of its author's potency as a writer, and yet others are pure speculation of the UFO/Aldebaran variety. Whether any of these beliefs can be traced for certain to actual Third Reich figures is uncertain at best, as we are speaking of "occult" i.e. secret knowledge that people would not have publicly admitted to believing in, particularly given the still-powerful influence of Christianity in the public opinion of the time.

However, a few basic concepts can be gleaned from the existing postwar sources.

1. The Black Sun in Reich-era mystic circles (not necessarily Reich-approved, just from the same time period) was viewed largely through an alchemical context. This means there was extensive reference to medieval and Renaissance grimoires regarding its position in the refinement of the human soul, which metaphorically was referred to as the transmutation of base metal to gold.

2.  There was often reference made to Jung, in his understanding of the alchemical process as a psychological one of transformation. In this sense the Black Sun (though originally not represented by the Sonnenrad in alchemical texts) represents the first stage of awakening, the nigredo, in which you are forced to confront your "shadow aspects" or the uncomfortable truths about your own nature and past, before a conscious change in your life path can be made.

3. There was also input from non-European cultures in the Reich-era (and slightly earlier) Ariosophic circles about the Black Sun, ranging from ostensibly Aryan-influenced mythologies such as the Vedas, to seemingly unrelated Black Sun legends among the Mayans and Aztecs. This may seem odd given that we have been bombarded with so much Allied propaganda painting Ariosophy as morbidly racist, but the reality is that many Volkisch-spiritual organizations such as the Germanen-Orden, the Edda Society, as well as Thule and Vril, had a comprehensive knowledge of many ancient cultures and their mythologies, and a healthy respect for the Lore of solar cultures worldwide.

It also may have been a common belief in at least some of these circles, that every solar-centric culture around the planet was the successor to a society founded by a few Aryan migrants fleeing the destroyed Thule or Atlantis. It was no coincidence to the Volkisch mystics of the early 1900s that nearly all major solar cultures throughout history were also great farmers and great builders of stone monuments, nearly all of them circular or pyramidal, with the circles tracking the sun's motion and the pyramids representing its power. It was also no coincidence in their view that all such cultures also had a mirror image, the Black Sun, representing the forbidden connections of death and birth in the underworld unseen by human eyes - we see only the zenith of the Sun's progress, not the nadir.

In general these were the primary sources of Black Sun material in the 1920s and 1930s. There is little in the written Germanic lore that references the Black Sun. However a cyclical Indo-European understanding of the sunwheel as wheel of time was seen as important to Germanic mystics, and so this forms the fourth source of solar Lore:

4. The Germanic Lore (Eddas, Sagas, Nibelunglied, Beowulf, etc.) Here the Völuspá was considered the most important text due to actually mentioning a black sun, then the Hávamál, as its account of the Odinic Journey resembles the Aztec concept of the Black Sun in the underworld, transformatively. Where there were not obvious proofs for an Ariosophical concept in Germanic texts, German translations of ancient eastern Aryan texts such as the Avesta were consulted. The Vedas and the Mahabharata were also well-known in these circles, and it is alleged that Tibetan texts regarding the underworld were also studied.

In the first instance, there were plenty of old Renaissance-era texts to draw from. However these were taken in with a view towards purifying them of contradictory and (supposedly) kabbalistic material.

In a text ascribed to Marsilio Ficino three suns are described: black, white, and red, corresponding to the three most used alchemical color stages. “The body must be dissolved in the subtlest middle air: The body is also dissolved by its own heat and humidity; where the soul, the middle nature holds the principality in the colour of blackness all in the glass: which blackness of Nature the ancient Philosophers called the crows head, or the black sun.”

The black sun is used to illuminate the dissolution of the body, a blackening of matter, or putrefaction of the ignoble or impure husk in the brightly illuminated German grimoire Splendor Solis, and Johann Mylius’s Philosophia Reformata.

The Dark Sun page in Splendor Solis. Note the butterflies.

In the second view, Jungian archetypes were viewed as tools or keys to unlocking the inner states of man as defined by Aryan societies in the past.

In the third view, the Atlantean theory dominated. The Black Sun became a metaphor for a hidden knowledge or energy that had been lost, leading to the decline of man. In this context, the mythology of the Maya and Aztecs was seen as a far-removed dilution of an Atlantean solar culture brought to its shores by ancient Aryan explorers in much the same way as the Abgallu raised the Mesopotamians to a major world culture. In this, the Ariosophists found many parallels between Aryan mythology and at least a fraction portion of the New World mythologies.

The Black Sun in Mesoamerican mythology has many mystical meanings, among them it is connected to the solar god Quetzalcoatl and his penetration in the Underworld through the west door after his daytime passage in the sky. For the Aztecs there were two suns, the young Day Sun and the ancient Dark Sun, which is unseen by the naked eye, but nonetheless is the greater of the two, and exerts its pull on the Day Sun. Some scholars regard the mythological Black Sun as a primal mother of all, it is both tomb and womb. This way, it is the oneness that uniformly integrates unawareness, death, and yet an expectation of fertility. This is remarkably similar to both the Germanic cult of Nerthus as well as our modern understanding of the galactic center.

 

                                                                    Entrance to Nerthuz                              Entrance to Itzpapalotl

The Aztecs associated the passage of the Black Sun, on its nightly journey through the underworld with the image of a butterfly. The butterfly, in turn, is an archetypal symbol of the transcendent soul (it was also seen as such in Germany for centuries, hence its presence on Beethoven's grave long with Jormundgandr/Ourboros), transformation and rebirth, and it was also seen in the figure of the frightening earth goddess Itzpapalotl, the "Obsidian Butterfly," that took souls during solar eclipses, while the Aztec underworld was the eternal dwelling place of the souls (i.e. Helheim).

According to the Codex Ríos, the underworld was made of nine layers (the primal number of the cosmos in Aryan mythology as well). The first level was the Earth's surface, which also had the entrance that gave access to the other eight lower levels.

The connection with the Black Sun is also ascribed to the god Tezcatlipoca, son of the primordial god Ometeotl who was a god of dualities (which parallels Buri). Dark Tezcatlipoca, as he was known, was one of the Five Suns of the creation myth of some Nahua peoples; he was known as “Dark” because he was cloaked and rarely revealed himself to people, and ruled over the north, winter, night, sorcery, and judgment (parallels Odin/Vayu-Vata). Another interpretation holds that the sun god Huitzilopochtli crossed the underworld during the night bestowing “light” or new life to “lost” souls whose names had been forgotten (again, parallels with the inhabitants of Hel, and the steady cycle of reincarnation towards Valhalla in the Armanen understanding of the Eddas). However, he demanded blood as payment for his work (which parallels the practice of offering Blot on behalf on ancestors). Before his nightly effort, Huitzilopochtli was accompanied from zenith to setting by the Cihuapipiltins, the souls of women who had died in childbirth, which then reappeared as crepuscular moths on Earth (parallels moths being associated with Odin as symbols for both ravens and Valkyries; a point which Tolkien also made use of in the cloaked Gandalf imagery).

At archaeological scenes, the Plumed Serpent shows a man beneath a black sun within a yellow sun. In this manner the spinning of the sun and black sun shows a wheel crossing with an obfuscatory motion where four black rays move out of four yellow rays. According to some authors, these sets of four rays relate to the four cardinal points and the four quarters, they represent the governance held by the gods over the human race since its infancy, as well as the annual rotation of the heavens, and the universal rulership portrayed in the great dance called "Mitotiliztli," which reproduces the appearance of a wheel.

Now where else have we seen a solar symbol with four rays rotating like a wheel?

Note the solar cross and feathered serpents in the Aztec version. On the right is an Anglo-Saxon brooch.

Triple this (clearly for the Armanic understanding of Arising, Being, and Passing towards New Arising) and you get...

... the twelve spinning rays of the Black Sun.


In the fourth instance, the Black Sun became emblematic of the Odinic Journey itself. For one must awaken to one's own inner darkness, to reshape into a being taking ownership of his destiny. The Black Sun is hence both a symbol of death and rebirth, for before every great transformation and ascendance, comes a great sacrifice, a great renunciation of what has been holding you back. This holds true for both an Armanist or a historical Runic approach, as well as for a modernist mystic one.

It is not a symbol for everyone, but the true reason for this is internal rather than external. Those who prefer a quick fix in life, or even believe that another can offer it, need not pursue this symbol. When fully implemented, it is the Singularity - the point of no return.

The question to be asked with this symbol, is: what do I have to sacrifice, to achieve those things I truly desire? What part of my old self do I have to sacrifice, myself to myself, so that a superior self can emerge unshackled? And what must I cast off forever in order to do so?

Wisdom in Nature

A Powerful Meditation: Do as Nature - validate yourself from within.

Fortunate is he
who has within himself
praise and esteem as staves;
Treacherous is that
which a man must own
from within the breast of another.

- The Hávamál, verse 8 

"One must flee those places where life throbs and seek out lonely spots untouched by human hand
 in order to lift the magic veil of nature" 

- Guido von List  

Ar Kar Har Gar. Alaf Sal Fena!