Dark Rûna: Containing the Complete Essays Originally Published in Black Rûna

by Stephen E. Flowers

This is an anthology of works done for the Order of the Trapezoid in the 1980s. The body of the book contains seventeen articles Mysteries of the Graal, On the Way of Wotan and the Left-Hand Path, The Command to Look, Trapezoidal Runology, Runes and Angles, Graal Mythos in Old English Runes?, Runic Origins of the “Peace Sign,” Set and Wotan, Walburga in Khem, Trapezoidal Cinema, Austin Osman Spare and the Track of the Trapezoid. There are also articles on the use of occult techniques by the Germans in the 1930s— in myth and reality.

94 pages, Paperback

Published August 5, 2019

About the author

American Runologist and proponent of occultism and Germanic mysticism.

Flowers is an advocate of "Esoteric Runology" or "Odinism", an occultist version of Germanic Neopaganism

Flowers has graduated in Germanic and Celtic philology.

Reviews

[Rodrigo]

A bunch of articles on supposedly dark side of Nordic paganism and runes, and how they are used at the Temple of Set, I will admit, some of his insights are not that bad at times. Other articles seem to me like an apology to nazi occultism which I think it's outdated and unnecessary. Also, Stephen's view of the left hand path is, in my understanding, lacking and shallow

[Julie]

A good read. I highlighted a few areas to return to in order to further read about.
I am now more curious.

[Tiegel]

Had a hard time deciding on a rating. I would not recommend this to anyone and it made me laugh where it should've been inspiring. The whole "left hand path" needs better writers.

The book itself maybe was fine around the time of print. With access to modern day technology this is mostly pointless. Tiny opinion piece articles with barely any depth talking about possibilities. It'd be fine if it was something like a free handout pamphlet at some meeting. Maybe...but that intro.

Look, I get the idea around empowering symbols on the left hand. But the intro says individualism and self-deification, but how does one get on that path? Oh, be like this and oppose that. Yes, to self-deify and be independent you must not be this and you must be that.

"True practicioners of the Left-Hand Path will have the spiritual courage to identify themselves with the cultural norms of 'evil'. There will be an embracing of the symbols of conventional 'evil,' or 'impurity,' or 'rationality,' or whatver quality the conventional culture fears and loathes." ... "in order to gain the kind of inner independence necessary" ... "the purposeful reversal of conventional normatives: 'evil' becomes 'good,' 'impure' becomes pure,' 'darkness' becomes 'light.'"

Or my favorite latter on:
"In summary, to be a practitioner of the Left-Hand Path, one must at some point reject the forms of conventional 'good' and embraced those of conventional 'evil,' and have practiced aninomianism, as part of the effort to gain a permanent independent, enlightened and empowered level of being. This self-deification is not sufficient without this 'Satanic' (ie: 'antinomian') component which acts as a guide through the quagmire of popular sentiment and conventional beliefs."

Maybe they define Individualism or Self-deification oddly? Let's look:
"Self-deification - attainment of enlightened (or awakened), independently existing intelligence and its relative immortality.
Individualism - the enlightened intellect is that of a given individual, not a collective body"

Seems problematic. You know what this reminds me of? Slave morality where you're opposing something rather than being for something:
"Unlike master morality, which is sentiment, slave morality is based on ressentiment—devaluing what the master values and what the slave does not have. As master morality originates in the strong, slave morality originates in the weak. Because slave morality is a reaction to oppression, it vilifies its oppressors. Slave morality is the inverse of master morality. As such, it is characterized by pessimism and cynicism. Slave morality is created in opposition to what master morality values as good; it starts by defining everything the master values as "evil" and defines "good" as the lack of "evil". " (wiki)

I think the root problem that caused this is the definition used of white hand versus left hand and being oppositional rather than claiming ANY source of power for your own. The intention of the author is likely not as ridiculous as it sounds in print, but it DOES sound ridiculous. I can give a charitable reading and understand what is being said as a concept, but if your "individualism" is following a rubrick of you have to be for this and you have to be against then it's the literal same dogmatic nonsense under a different guise. Which is why it needs better writers as it deserves better.