runes
The Seba library treats Rune in 9 passages, across 7 authors (including von Franz, Marie-Louise, Jung, Carl Gustav, Campbell, Joseph).
the creative product of the long crucifixion was the discovery of the runes — a new manifestation of cultural consciousness which originally consisted in reading the moment of Fate.
Von Franz interprets Wotan’s runic discovery as a depth-psychological event: the runes embody a new form of cultural consciousness oriented toward divination and synchronistic time.
, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, 1970thesis
the creative product of the long crucifixion was the discovery of the runes — a new manifestation of cultural consciousness which originally consisted in reading the moment of Fate.
An identical formulation from the parallel edition confirms von Franz’s central thesis that the runes represent fateful cultural consciousness born of initiatory suffering.
, Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood, 1970thesis
he understands the runes and can interpret fate.
Jung assigns runic knowledge to Wotan’s intuitive-mantic aspect, integrating the rune into his broader account of the Germanic unconscious as archetype of inspired, fateful wisdom.
, Civilization in Transition, 1964thesis
Othin (Woden, Wotan), self-crucified on the World Ash as an offering to himself, to gain the occult wisdom of those runes, which is clearly a Hellenistic motif.
Campbell places runic initiation within a Hellenistic comparative framework, reading Wotan’s self-sacrifice as a mytheme of occult wisdom-acquisition paralleling Mediterranean mystery traditions.
, Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV, 1968supporting
This is the secret meaning of the runes: I hid here power-runes, undisturbed by evil witchcraft. In exile shall he die by means of magic art who destroys this monument.
Campbell documents inscriptional evidence for the rune’s dual magical and mystical valence, showing how historical monuments encode the apotropaic and aggressive power attributed to runic script.
, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume III, 1964supporting
In contrast to the magic runes — which must be used with literal exactitude (on pain of losing their force) — the Finnish folk-singer, for whom verse and measure are sacred, is much freer of the word in the epic runes.
Rank contrasts the rigid, literal obligation of magic runes with the creative freedom of oral epic, illuminating a fundamental tension between bound formulaic power and expressive artistic license.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
runa-stafr is the ‘stroke of runic writing’, magical (runa means ‘secret’). Bok-stafr relates to Latin writing and the writing of the holy book.
Benveniste’s etymological analysis establishes the semantic core of runa as ‘secret,’ distinguishing it from Roman writing and situating it within the conflict between oral-magical and literate-sacred civilisations.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
she would ‘pull a rune or a tarot card or go to the library for fun and to see what turned up.’
Romanyshyn records a graduate researcher’s use of rune-drawing as a synchronistic heuristic device for overcoming resistance within alchemical hermeneutic research.
, The Wounded Researcher: Research with Soul in Mind, 2007aside
the Hagal rune from Nordic traditions, and our DNA.
Keltner notes the Hagal rune as one instance of a recurring sacred geometrical hexagon linking Nordic symbolic tradition to natural and biological patterning.
, Awe The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can, 2023aside