Few people today have even heard the word 'Runes'. Among those of Scandinavian descent and among readers of Tolkien, yes, a light goes on. But that's about the extent of it.
An ancient alphabetic script, each of whose letters possessed a meaningful name as well as a signifying sound, Runes were employed for poetry, for inscriptions and divination, yet never evolved as a spoken language.
Next to nothing has been written about the Runes as a contemporary Oracle.
Both the alphabetical ordering and the letter interpretations found in The Book of Runes are non- conventional.
The interpretations of the Runes as used for divination are lost to us. While legomonism - the passing on of sacred knowledge through initiation - was practiced among Rune Masters of old, their secrets were not recorded or, if recorded, did not survive. In ancient times the Runes and their symbols were employed by warriors bent on conquest.
It is my hope that the Runes, in their contemporary use, will serve the Spiritual Warrior, the one whose quest is doing battle with the self, the one whose goal is self-change. The Bhagavad Gita in Chapter 6, verse 5, says it succinctly:
Lift up the self by the Self And don't let the self droop down, For the Self is the self's only friend And the self is the Self's only foe.
The Book of Runes has been written as a handbook for the Spiritual Warrior. Free of anxiety, radically alone and unattached to outcomes, the Spiritual Warrior practices absolute trust in the struggle for awareness, and is constantly mindful that what matters is to have a true present.
It takes a long time to grow in wisdom, to say nothing of the time it takes to learn to think well.
Following the Warrior Way is not for everyone, although it is available to all who are willing to undergo its challenges.
To embark on this path is to cultivate the Witness Self, the Watcher Within, the one who can profitably converse with the Runes.
Before beginning to write, I consulted the Runes about the timeliness of undertaking this work.
The three Runes drawn were Inguz, the Rune of Fertility and New Beginnings; Nauthiz, the Rune of Necessity, Constraint and Pain; and Dagaz, the Rune of Breakthrough and Transformation. The Book of Runes was conceived in one fertile sleepless night.
The constraint required during the long hours spent in editing and reworking the first half of the book was certainly not without pain.
[*] Throughout The Book of Runes, the term self is used to represent the little self or ego-self, and Self to signify the Higher Self, the God Within.
Yet through it all, I remained mindful of the French saying, Tain is the craft entering into the apprentice.' Working with the Runes has been a source of transformation in my own life and, through their introduction to the Runes, the lives of many others.
All along the way, since beginning this book, there have been positive signs and omens. The final sign came as I completed the Afterword.
Since the last Rune Masters lived in seventeenth-century Iceland, it seemed to me fitting to close with an Icelandic blessing.
In order to check the spelling of Gud blessi thig, the Icelandic for 'God bless you', I placed a call to the Icelandic Consulate in New York.
The woman who answered confirmed the spelling. When she heard about The Book of Runes, she paused a long moment, then said, 'My name is Sigrun. It means "Rune of Victory".'
During the years since this book was first published, a number of new techniques have suggested themselves. Certain of these are now being included in this revised and expanded edition of The Book of Runes.
The Five Rune Spread (p. 53) is helpful when you need to go deeply into an issue, to see it illuminated from several different perspectives.
Runes of Rectification, Water Runes, and Runes of Comfort for the Bereaved, first presented in somewhat different form in Rune Play (Michael Joseph, London, 1987), are here grouped in the chapter entitled Runecraft: Three New Spreads (p. 67).
A Destiny Profile, 'a grid within which a human life can be framed', stands in a chapter on its own (p. 74). For the many people who have written to ask about the pronunciation of the old Germanic Rune names, a pronunciation guide is now included (p. 150).
As time goes on, other techniques and practices may be added to the original text since function determines form, use confers meaning, and an Oracle always resonates to the requirements of the time in which it is consulted.
