by Michael Kelly

Runes are often used in a manner that suggests that they are somehow separate from and outside of the everyday business of life.  They will be consulted in divination, or carved and sent in an operative Working, but only in a place set apart for that purpose.  It is essential to set aside a time for these operations and to create a hallowed ground (even if only temporarily) in which these rituals can be worked.  But so long as your runes remain in that place only, their effectiveness will be severely diminished.

Runes are generally used for two purposes:  to determine the influences and probable outcome of a given situation (divination), or to manipulate runes in order to effect a specific outcome for a situation (magic).  In the former instance, we cast the runes in a manner which allows us to trace the meaningful patterns in the way they fall, reading the way the world is in relation to the question.  In the latter instance, we send forth the runes in a manner that allows us to imprint a meaningful pattern, changing or enhancing the way the world is in relation to our purpose.

But the part that many armchair magicians forget is that once you have read or cast a pattern of manifestation in the world, you need to live according to that pattern in order to bring it into full manifestation.  You need to live and to act in the realisation that change has occurred.  Nothing will ever be delivered to you on a plate.  If we take Egil’s Saga as an example, we do not see some conjurer in an ivory tower.  Egil was a mighty runemaster, but he was also a man of action.  We need to write our own runes in the same vital way.

There is a reason for this.  The heroic soul who goes out into the world in active pursuit of his Will is exercising that part of the soul called the hamingja:  crudely put, the storehouse of luck.  But as with anything, exercise and training will actually increase the hamingja, making the person luckier.  This is not a simple statement of, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  It is far more expansive than that.  Increase of effort builds to an increase of successes, but in ever greater proportion.  The go-getter becomes exponentially ‘luckier’ over time.  There is also the question of just how much your Will really counts for.  If it is truly your Will to gain something, you will get off your backside and set off to get it.  Sit in your chair and wait for it and you’re sending yourself entirely the wrong message.

Let’s examine a few examples of how this works.  Take divination, for instance.  The principle of divination is easy:  you consult the runes in order to decide what you should do.  Is this really the way it should be?  We pride ourselves on being creatures of Will, who act rather than react.  So make your mind up for yourself as to what course of action you will take.  Then when you consult your runes, you can inquire the best possible approach to carrying out your plan and achieving your goal.  This places the decision back in your own hands whilst still allowing you the benefit of divinatory insight to tweak the course of action you have already decided upon.

Similarly, when you use rune magic to effect some change upon the world, it is up to you to then behave as if that change has happened.  If your Will isn’t sufficient to change yourself and your own attitude, it sure as hell isn’t going to impress the cosmos!  So if you create a bind rune to obtain money, go out and make some money.  This leads us to another important point:  asking for what you really want.  How many people really want money?  I certainly don’t.  What I want are the things that money can obtain for me.  So if you want enough money to buy a new car, specify that you want a new car, because that is your real goal, not the medium with which to barter for it.  Always keep your real goal in mind, don’t restrict that goal to a certain path of realisation, and always go after your goal as if it was already yours.

If you want a new job, go out and look for one, don’t just sit there and wait for your magic to conjure up a phone call out of the blue offering you the perfect position.  If you want to travel to a certain place, but have never been able to do so because of the expense, don’t wait to win a dream holiday from a cereal packet; start setting aside as much as you can afford towards your goal.  Set yourself targets and start working to meet them.  I know a person who once visited a fortune teller in May who advised him he would meet a new lover in September.  He then sat in his home and didn’t bother making any attempt to meet people because he’d been told he’d meet someone in September.  You can guess what happened:  nothing.

It may sound like I am playing down the role or the power of magic, as if I am suggesting that it cannot do these things, that the runer must do them for himself.  This is not true, I am a magician of many years’ experience and become more convinced of its efficacy with every passing year.  But I am also a great believer that magic helps those who help themselves.  I will reiterate that if your magic is insufficient to motivate your own self into acting according to the change you have wrought, the signals you send to your subconscious will be negative ones:  if you haven’t noticed the difference, why the hell should the world at large?  Your magic will serve to accentuate the deeds you go on to do, endowing them with power and precision, making the world responsive to them.  Both you and the world will be changed in consequence.  I am not saying that you will not gain money if you scribble a fehu rune and sit waiting for the post.  But it would be a paltry thing, likely carrying a hidden price somewhere along the line, and your soul would decrease rather than increase in consequence.  Your Will must be put into action if you are to gain increase of Being.

To throw yourself into your Work like this will increase your store of luck as an active principle; it will create larger currents of change to ripple into your future where they may Remanifest; it will balance and restructure your mind-body-soul complex as a coherent and mighty Being.  Almost as a side benefit of this, your magic will meet your demands in ways you would not previously have believed.