Category
Armanen Runes
18 entries. Click any to see everything it connects to.
The eighteen Armanen runes are a rune row devised by the Austrian occultist Guido von List, who published it in 1908 after reporting a vision during a period of blindness. It is not a historical futhark: List built the row from the eighteen charms of the Old Norse Havamal and reinterpreted the letters through his own Germanic mysticism. It became influential in early twentieth-century Germanic occultism, including in circles connected to Nazi ideology, and it is recorded here as a documented modern system rather than an inherited one.
Facts
Overview
- Entries in the Atlas
- 18
- Size of the Traditional Set
- 18 runes 1
Contested Use
- Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
- List's Armanism, and the Ariosophy it fed, were explicitly völkisch and racial-nationalist; the row was taken up by figures around the Nazi movement and is still used in neo-völkisch and far-right circles. It is not a historical futhark. 1
Origins
- Origin Period
- 1902-1908: List reports the row in a vision during his blindness after an eye operation in 1902, and publishes it as Das Geheimnis der Runen in 1908 1
- Place of Origin
- Vienna and the German-speaking völkisch milieu of the early twentieth century. 1
- Creator / Originator
- Guido von List (1848-1919), Austrian occultist and founder of Armanism 1
- Origin of the Name
- From List's "Armanen", a supposed ancient Germanic priest-caste for which there is no historical evidence. 1
Structure
- Structure
- Eighteen runes, one for each of the eighteen charms Odin lists in the Old Norse Havamal. The forms are adapted from the historical futharks but the row of eighteen is List's own; no inscription attests it. 2
Status
- Standing as a Comparative Category
- Largely abandoned as a comparative category 2
Learn More
The eighteen Armanen runes
The eighteen Armanen runes are a rune row devised by the Austrian occultist Guido von List, who published it in 1908 after reporting a vision during a period of blindness following an eye operation. It is not a historical futhark: List built the row of eighteen from the eighteen charms of the Old Norse Havamal, the "Song of the High One", in which Odin lists eighteen spells he knows.
Each Armanen rune is given a name, a meaning and an esoteric significance, and the row became foundational for the Armanist and Ariosophist currents of early-twentieth-century German-speaking occultism, and for later runic esotericism.
A modern occult row
The atlas treats the Armanen runes as a modern esoteric invention, distinct from the historical futharks: List derived the eighteen from a literary source and a personal vision, not from the runic inscriptions, and the system carries the marks of its time and milieu, including associations that later fed into problematic ideologies, which the atlas notes soberly.
The atlas gives each Armanen rune its name, form and meaning. The historical runes it should not be confused with are treated in the rune category, and the Armanen row belongs among the Modern Revivals.
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