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.

Most 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, distress, misery; necessity, emergency, trouble, urgency, difficulty, danger”, so it is not as simple as the English ‘Need’…

Shou connects    Not with Arthur Schopenhauer’s concept of Willpower [Wille ] and references Schopenhauer’s book The World as Will and Imagination  [Die Welt als Wille und Vorstelung]  (1859). 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 that the Swastika    is the Solar-Wheel, the Sign-of-Salvation, and the High-Need-Sign (or High-Not-Sign):

“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)

 

 

Download the Handout for this class:

 

– = Read the NEXT PART = –