Spirit of the Runes – Lesson Four by Daniela Simina & Asra Lokakona

Misappropriated Runes

These Pagan Portals are all current works in progress, serialised here on the Pagan Collective blog with each chapter being open for comment. In due course the entire script will be published as a Pagan Portal book.

Over the next few months, we will be running weekly Spirit of the Rune lessons on this blog. Follow along and learn the runes!

People often wince around someone wearing jewelry or tattoos representing runes. Seeing a person wearing symbols which are related to Norse-Germanic spirituality may lead to the assumption that they participate in a form of spirituality that not only condones but actually promotes racial discrimination. Unfortunately, such an assumption is based on a historically accurate fact: modern white supremacists made use of runic symbols. Yet no, the runes are not inherently a Nazi thing. And no, not every Norse/Germanic Pagan, or Heathen, is a proponent of white supremacy. Quite the opposite: those who promote discriminatory views are a minority among modern Heathens, though their organization and outspokenness make their numbers appear more significant.

Uncomfortable as this may be, we cannot talk about runes without addressing their mingling with white supremacy. So instead of sweeping the inconvenient facts under the rug, it is best to learn about them and debunk what needs to be debunked, so that in the future we won’t be bamboozled by anyone spreading fabricated stories.

Nineteenth-century Romanticism, a social and cultural movement, emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution, which had pushed people farther away from nature and deeper into aggressive materialistic thought. Combined with the phenomena of colonialism and imperialism, Romanticism also gave rise to strong nationalistic feelings, which prompted people to seek reconnection with a heroic past, whether historical, mythical, or simply stories made up to serve specific narratives.

In Northern Europe, the Vikings became fashionable as “noble savages” and symbols of a “race” characterized by fierceness, courage, physical strength, and stoicism. This idea fed into white nationalism and gained particular traction in Germany. In reality, “Viking” describes an occupation, something akin to piracy, and not a race or a specific nationality. Still, the idea of Vikings as a race stuck around for a long time, and it is still difficult to get it out of many people’s heads.

In interbellic Germany, a supporter of Hitler named Guido List claimed that while recovering from cataract surgery, he had a vision of the “runic alphabet” used by an ancient order of priests at Irminsul, an ancient site in Germany. While we know that the Irminsul site was real and the famous Irminsul pillar was destroyed by Charlemagne, we actually know nothing about the priestly activities carried out there, what knowledge Irminsul priests possessed, or what kind of runes they were using: there is no record or proof that is not counterfeit. The process by which List developed the runes is valuable, as a result of a deep, transcendent state. It’s what he did with those runes that makes it problematic. Guido List built himself a following and continued his esoteric work. Some of the runic script he invented made its way into the set of symbols used by the Nazis. Both the doubled Sowilo rune, SS, and a modified Othala rune appeared on Nazi uniforms.

Hitler-sympatizers with an interest in the occult, like Himmler and Guido List, worked hard to tie esoteric practices (supposedly belonging to ancient Norse-Germanic heritage) into the Nazi Party ideology. Their success was partial. While the Nazis adopted some runic symbols, Hitler distanced himself from the occult side of things, and many of the proponents of the “ancient Norse-Germanic magico-religious practices” ended up in jail or outright disappeared once Hitler took power.

Today, Neo-Nazis worldwide also use runic symbols, and in 2016 the American Nazi Party adopted the modified Othala rune as their emblem.

Given all these, it is no wonder that many people feel very uncomfortable upon seeing markings they believe are runes. Very few individuals are able to tell the difference between real runes and modified runes turned Nazi symbols. And so, many people throw Norse-Germanic Pagans together with white supremacists because they don’t know the difference.