Historical Supplement
Peryt Shou’s “New Will” and the Runes
In 1920, an author named Peryt Shou (real name Albert Christian Georg Schultz) published an interesting book entitled The ‘Edda’ as Key to the Coming Age! [Die “Edda” als Schlussel des kommenden Weltalters!] . This appears to be the first publication of a specific exercise associated with the Runes.
Much of the book is related to the 
Not- or ‘Need’-Rune and its significance. However, the German word Not can be translated in a variety of ways: “need, want, adversity, distress, misery; necessity, emergency, trouble, urgency, difficulty, danger”, so it is not as simple as the English ‘Need’…
Shou connects Not with the symbol of the Cross, as well as with some of Nietzsche’s and Schopenhauer’s writings. In the section of his book called ‘The Tabernacle of the new Will’, he explains a concept that he calls the neue Wille or “new Will”, saying:
“If we follow the way of the Edda, there is one kind of Need [Not ] that we suffer through blindly and another kind that we suffer through while seeing; this is a divine Need [Not ], which leads to Salvation [Erlösung ].
Why doesn’t it work in time? Why doesn’t this victorious one descend from the cross?
The Edda gives the answer. Certainly, the one hanging on the World-Tree (Cross) will come after the Nine Nights…
He will awaken all Peoples to the Need that has gloomily and mortifyingly seized them.He will project his divine, glaring light into the general state of suffering, by means of a holy operation: “Bow down Wuotan and ‘pick-up [nimm ]’ the Need-Rune.”
Then within thyself will be ignited the higher Will, the new Will, that shall be born into humanity, that all of a sudden unfolds itself in you and turns the Need:
“When ye shall be those who Yearn with a single Will and when this Turning of all Need is also something which is a Necessity.” [Nietzsche]
These words by Nietzsche are actually a call in the direction of the new Volition [neuen Wollens ], but … this does not come from the intellect, not from beautiful Words, but rather from harmonization with this Will itself…
The new Will-Impulse [neuen Willensimpuls ] must be embodied/incarnated [verkörpern ]; it means the Turning of all Adversity [Wende aller Not ]:“O, Thou, my Will, Turn every Need [Wende aller Not ]” (Nietzsche)
But this Will is not the passionate craving of the masses for whatever sort of material pleasures, but it really is – Will.
And woe unto whosoever does not obey it!
This is how the new Will Flows-Through or Permeates [Durchströmung ] into Humanity.
Liberation [Lösung ] from the stunted, egotistical Self-Will can only be achieved through Suffering [Leiden ] and through Hardship [Not ].
Humanity is blind until it lives in the new Will!
According to Nietzsche, the eternally Ascending, the eternally Powerful lies in the Will itself!…this Will functions in a wholesome manner… this is the prototypical language of a Cosmic-Community of all conscious beings.
Precisely because Will is not Craving, nor Desire, but instead is a constructive Force in the Universe (see Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Imagination [Die Welt als Wille und Vorstelung] [1859]), it works in a divine way.
In a secret Prototypical-Language, in its “Runes”, this Cosmic-Will [Welt-Wille ] speaks in an ascending way out of Need and Death [Not und Tod ] and Mud, and it is stronger than anything else for the one who knows these Characters [Zeichen], and who stands there in the Tabernacle of the new Will.”
Again, for Shou, this ‘new Will’ [neuen Willens ] is not Craving or Desire, but a “constructive Force in the Universe” that “works in a Divine way…”
He goes on to say the the Swastika .jpg){kind=small}
is the Solar-Wheel, the Sign-of-Salvation, and the High-Need-Sign (or High-Not-Sign) and further that:
“It is the sign of the Sons of Mercury (Odin)… which opens the Gates of their spiritually-divine Power and they respond to those with knowledge of the Yggdrasil [World-Tree] with Streams [of energy or All-Waves].
This is the Esotericism of Wuotan. It is none other than the Intelligentsia Mercurii , and interplanetary Radio-Network that Broadcasts to us from the planet Mercury…
Whosoever understands how to “turn” it possesses the Secret of the “Brothers-of-Hermes” [Hermes-Brüder ], the secret of the Ygg-dra-sil , of the World-Cross (the drasil -Cross, the Gallows) and of the World-Tree! Wuotan descended from it, and he knows about the Law of drasil (the Generation of “Salvation” through “turning”)…
Wuotan is not an Individual-Being in the human Sense, but rather he is the Community of the Brothers-of-Hermes, who bear the concealed Name: “League of Truth”. (In this name the movement of the Wheel occurs.)”
Shou then refers to a special posture, which he says “corresponds to the ‘Guardian of Yggdrasil’ or [to the ‘Guardian] of the Tree-of-Life’ ”. The corresponding posture is to stand up with the arms out the sides and palms facing outwards.
This Guardian, he says:
“speaks the holy Word of Disenchantment and [of] Liberation from the Tree-of-Heaven here under the ‘eight-fold Star’.
Through the magical Power of a sacred Gesture, the Solar-Word frees and, in a living way circulates through the Body and thus delivers the one who is “Crying out in Need [Not ]”…”
Thus, Shou is saying that by using the Not- Rune (which he says is related to understanding the “new Will” and his “Ninth Night” practice) we can “tune in” to the “Send-Waves” [Sendewellen ] from the Brothers-of-Hermes and come under their protection. He goes on to say that the Brothers-of-Hermes answer the “Call-Waves” [Rufwellen ] of the mantram “Æpandi nam”.
The Practice of the “Ninth Night” According to Peryt Shou
This mantram (“Æpandi nam”) is a phrase that comes from a section of the epic poem Havamal called the Rúnatal , stanza #139. In the previous stanza (#138), Odin/Wodan explains that he hung for 9 days on the “windy tree” before he received the Runes, a tree “of which nobody knows from what root it arises”. Then Odin/Wodan tells us:
| They dealt me no bread, nor drinking horn. I looked beneath, I took up the runes, crying out, I took them up, and fell back from there. |
Við hleifi mig seldu né við hornigi, nýsti ég niður, nam ég upp rúnir, æpandi nam, féll ég aftur þaðan. |
This phrase is divided into 2 parts:
1) ‘Æpandi’ meaning “Calling/yelling/screaming/crying out” and
2) ‘nam’ meaning “I took them [up]” or “I learned them”.
Thus, Odin/Wodan ‘took up’ or ‘learned’ the runes by ‘Yelling/Calling’ them.
Let’s take a look at how Shou says we should combine this mantram with “sacred Gesture” (palms facing outwards):
Short Practice
A very brief version of Shou’s “Ninth Night” Practice is as follows:
a. Cross position (Arms laterally stretched out like an antenna) with the mantram “Æpandi nam”, pronounced “O-Pan-Di Nam”
b. After speaking the formula, lower arms (palm on the hips, elbows at a natural angle).
Repeat the formula.
Longer Practice
a. Start in the Basic Is -Rune position and pronounce the first part of the mantram “Æpandi nam” (“Aaaaaaaaaap”) while visualizing the energy rising from the feet up to the center of the chest (Thymus gland).
b. Then take up the Cross position (Arms laterally stretched out like an antenna) and pronounce the second part of the mantram “Æpandi nam” (“Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnd”, emphasizing the “AN”) while visualizing the energy going from the center of the chest out to the palms of the hands. You may notice a slight prickling sensation in the hands.
c. Now, while still in the Cross position, pronounce the third part of the mantram “Æpandi nam” (“Iiiiiiiiii”) while visualizing the energy rising up to the crown of the head.
d. Repeat these 3 steps (a,b,c – including the corresponding mantrams) and gather up energy into the body. If you need to rest, temporarily place the hands on the hips, before returning to the Cross position for steps e,f,g.
e. Once you have the energy gathered enough, then visualize the energy circulating around (from right to left) making a large circle (with the distance of the outstretched palms as the diameter of this circle). This is the activation of the “Antenna” enabling communication with the “Brothers-of-Hermes”.
f. As a result of the circulation in the previous step, another smaller energetic circle will be established (from the crown of the head, to the elbows, to the solar plexus) and which also circulates in the same way (from right to left).
g. Hold the Cross position as long as possible, pronouncing the mantram “Ap-And-I” and doing the visualization. When you can not hold you arms up anymore, then place them on the hips and pronounce the last part of the mantram “Naaaaaaaam”. With this a third circulation begins (another smaller circle from the center of the chest to the creative organs) which also circulates from right to left.
According to Shou, “the awakening of the Not- Rune [and, therefore, the ‘New Will’] excites new powers in the human mind, opening the hidden channel in the heart and the voice of the World Spirit as a great, invisible, spirit community.”
-Paraphrase from The Edda as Key to the Coming Era
[Die Edda Als Schlussel Des Kommenden Weltzeitalters] (1920)
by Peryt Shou (aka Albert Christian A. Schultz)
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