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Copyright
1985-1998 by Karl Hans Welz
All rights reserved. This course may not be reproduced as a whole or in part,
transmitted, or utilized in any form by any means, electronic, photographic,
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing by the author.
Published by Magitech Press P.O. Box 1298, Woodstock, GA 30188
Letter of Instructions
# 13
The Rune BAR
  
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by Karl Hans Welz
Welcome to the Rune BAR! Welcome to BAR, the thirteenth Rune. BAR is your first Rune to experience after your initiation as a Knight of Thor. With this Rune you have an opportunity to touch on the realms from which existence sprouts, especially life. In ancient mythology this state carries the name of Chaos. Chaos is that mysterious state before time and space, or at the root of time-space. Since it is before time, Chaos IS. With the Rune BAR you learn to experience that the formation of worlds, of universes, and of life itself is not a process that happened eons ago. With the proper understanding of time, a person cannot help but being utterly amused at the famous Sunday school question as to "where this all came from." Bar teaches that the universe comes from chaos rather than having come from chaos long ago. Creation is a continuous process and the Eighteen Sacred Futhork Runes are among the first manifestations of creation. Bar touches the threshold of creation. It is not structure yet. The beginning creative structures are expressed by UR, Rune of the root of time space and by YR, Rune of the three Norns, goddesses of destiny. In its esoteric expression BAR is the realm to which the Rune Master descends to be born again, certain of resurrection. While TYR represents the self sacrifice that preceded the taking of new form, BAR represents the process of rebirth itself. Mythologically speaking, the god descends back into chaos, back into the womb, before experiencing rebirth. In Christian mythology Jesus descended "to hell" before resurrecting. The Catholic credo reflects that. Catholic priests feel a bit uneasy when confronted with the question why Jesus did go to the devil. Often they conveniently invent a realm that is sort of a den to hell. Religious outfits are as credible as chemical corporations who manufacture “safe and effective” drugs! In all patriarchalistic religions with their typical rage against women and life, the original meaning of this process was forgotten. BAR is decomposition as much as it is life that sprouts from it anew. Old structure goes to make place for new structure. In this respect BAR carries a characteristic of the planet Pluto. It is a prime Rune of life force of the origin. BAR provides freedom from restrictions of space-time. Therefore BAR is an ideal Rune to use when you begin to explore new capabilities such as clairvoyance and ESP. It is a Rune that introduces you to meditation practices that can lead to the depths that are useful to acquire these skills. In this case BAR helps decompose the old rigidified structure so that you can acquire new skills. By means of deep meditation BAR loosens up the rigid structures of indoctrination that have been imposed on all of us. Therefore BAR is one of the primary Runes that you can use to enhance your psychic and magical powers. BAR helps you free yourself from the restrictions of time itself. This practice compares to the following: You may envision time like the map of a city. As long as you are in one of the streets of the city, you see something that lies before you and something that is behind you. At times you come to crossroads and you feel a need to choose. When you elevate yourself above the city you see that whole of it at once. You see what's behind, what's before, and the crossroads. With the Rune BAR you can elevate yourself beyond the confines of space-time into the eternal Now that shows you past, present, and the infinite mesh of time-lines. The mathematician sees this mesh as a Gaussian ("curved") space. The Rune GIBOR and, even more so, the FYRFOS (fire foot) represent this structure of the eternal Now beautifully. BAR represents the eternal creative Now. It teaches us that the zero is not a nothing but that it may well be regarded as a balance of forces. Once you touch the equilibrium of this balance you create "out of nothing." Ancient mythologies saw in chaos the realm that contained everything and nothing. According to ancient mythology it is from chaos that the "oldest" gods come from. These mythologies recognized an important fact, namely that gods are created. They did not yet fall into the fallacy that postulates that some well-structured deity created the universe way in the past "with his hands". However, having no valid concept of time, they usually put the emergence from chaos way back into the past rather than recognizing it as a continuous process that happens at the roots of time. Time is "created at all times," or time emerges continuously from roots that are ubiquitous as do many other phenomena. Some modern pop-physicists call this state the "zero energy". BAR opens us up to an important realm: the realm of the threshold of chaos where structure begins to emerge. In its most simplified meaning, BAR represents death and birth, day and night, life and light. It represents these things not as isolated but as an all encompassing unity. Structure in space-time is light energy, forming life relates to darkness and chaos. We are living beings in a structured universe of light. Here we have to refrain from attaching emotional values to the terms of light and life. Such misguided emotional values are the result of indoctrination by one sided patriarchalistic religion which by its nature is hostile to life. The structured universe by itself is an illusion. It gains reality when we connect it with life. Love brings life to the lifeless universe. With BAR you learn to see life as a whole from a point beyond. You perceive life in its wholeness that encompasses all its aspects. Therefore BAR is truly a Rune of birth as well as it is a Rune of death. Bar perceives the human being as a whole. It perceives the human form as a whole consisting of that which lives in the universe and that which exists in transition. BAR contains all aspects of creation. It contains life and death, sprouting and decomposition, time and time-lessness. The Higher Self manifests at the precise point where Chaos is touched. This is a truth that religionists will never grasp as long as they worship a personal male god who, structure himself, usually claims to "have created" the universe. The idea of a gaseous mammal of the male sex who lives above the clouds prevents us effectively from deeper insights into the workings of the universe. Our innermost being is also our outermost one. The depth of our life experience touches upon the farthest reaches of the structured universe that consciousness causes us to experience. The concepts of BAR reach far beyond any one of the concepts that organized religions can ever hope to offer. To benefit from these concepts is very simple. So simple indeed is the loving union of formative chaos and established form that it takes most of us decades, even lifetimes, to learn. Going back to chaotic experience is near impossible for the person who has been conditioned to perceive structures only, nothing but structures, and then still more structures and hierarchies of existence. Too many persons who try to gain knowledge of the universe do so in the typical Luciferian way of gaining more and more knowledge about it. They do not know the simple fact that, regardless how many formulas they create and how much they describe in terms of knowledge, there will always be characteristics left out. BAR teaches us the lesson that knowledge has to combine with the loving touch of the threshold of Chaos. Those persons who are unwilling to take the risk of simply letting go and immersing themselves into the female forces of formation and creation are the "living dead" in the meaning that Jesus gave to this word. Jesus himself "descended to hell," which means that he touched upon the chaotic threshold of creation before being born again in His resurrection. We have to let go of our cherished way of identifying with the maps of our experiences or, worse still, to identify with the maps that a collective subjectivity tries to indoctrinate us with. Bar teaches us that the root to our spiritual rebirth is within ourselves. The external form, or creed, that may lead to it is a help at best. It cannot do the job for us. BAR helps you in your descent into the underworlds. This descent is a metaphor for getting in tune with the threshold of creation. You find it in most religious systems. From this descent the shaman is born again. From this descent the founder of a world religion resurrects, giving the mythological example of what we have to do to reach Divinity. Descent to the underworld, eternal birth and transition, and eternal transformations are ideas of which most large religious systems can only give hints without understanding the deep realities that lie behind their pompous myths. The practitioner of evocative magic understands the touching of the creative reality as a descent to the mothers. Here we tend to experience the eternal creative life force as mother. It is a dangerous path for the magician who is incapable of letting go of cherished mappings. This is so because this descent confronts the magician with the formless, shapeless, and unstructured energetic ocean from which life comes forth in its manifold manifestations. Bar is the "womb" from which the phenomena that we experience are born and it is the grave to which they return. Time as we experience it is one of these perceived phenomena. Being of such a flexible nature, BAR will reveal many of its uses with practice and with practice only. |
ROBES Ceremonial magicians give much importance to the clothing that they wear. Of special significance is the color of the robe, sometimes the shape of the robe and especially the symbols that are attached to it. All of this reflects the ceremonial that the wearer of the robe intends to perform. Some practitioners, especially those who are part of the old religion, operate nude. They understand nudity as an expression of their freedom. Robes are magical utensils. When you use a magical utensil repeatedly you attach ideas, or energies, onto it. When you perform a ceremonial with such a "charged" utensil present you need no longer use your powers to bring in these energies that the utensil represents. The more routine the use of a specific energy or group of energies, the more useful is a utensil representing it. On the other hand it makes little sense to create a utensil that you use just once. When you use a utensil you can ensure that the energies the utensil represents are present. You can the focus your attention on more specific parts of the ritual that you perform. You can see utensils as part of a machinery on the spiritual levels that you have present to perform very specific tasks at each ritual. Robes are no exception to that. They take the aspect of magical utensils and so do a painted body and even nudity. Another function of a robe, of a painted body, or nudity, is equally important. A ceremonial operation requires to some extent that the practitioner gets rid of his/her limitations of the everyday world and enters another realm of existence. A cleansing ritual such as a ritual bath or fasting does that to some extent. With the robe, nude body or painted body the practitioner creates a new set of energies. This procedure then alters the practitioner's view of the universe. A new set of limitations is valid. More important still, the old limitations are no longer as strong as in everyday life. When the practitioner uses the robe, nudity, or body paint to be born into a realm that transcends everyday limitations, envisioned change becomes possible, even easy. In this respect, the wearing of a robe, nudity, or body paint connect with the Rune BAR. Perhaps you will understand this situation of being born into another realm better after you will have considered the following: Under "normal circumstances" you experience many limitations. Some limitations are good for you while others are blocking you. The average person tries to overcome some of the undesirable limitations such as psychological difficulties from within a state where these same limitations are active, i.e., from the normal waking state. Quite often their friendly neighborhood psychologist or counselor encourages to do so, for a hefty fee, of course. The person who makes such an attempt is confronted with a catch-22 situation that makes the task of overcoming a specific situation very difficult, if not impossible. On the other hand, when the person who desires change alters his/her consciousness, e.g., in a hypnotic state, a new set of limitations emerges. The strength of the limitations of the "normal state" is considerably reduced. Consequently change is possible, quite often even very easy, in such an altered state. If you develop the skill of changing between many different sets of limitations, or states of consciousness, you will have the tool of dynamically achieving nearly everything that you envision. The hypnotist is well aware of this fact and so is the preacher of a charismatic church. This points out the importance of a robe or of changed appearance after a ritual cleaning off the old limitations. The robe or nudity allows shift into new states of consciousness with alternate limitations without any long induction or introduction. The power of such a rebirth and the depth of the new state of consciousness is a result of the practitioner's own imagination and of the specific appearance of the robe and the surroundings that the practitioner builds for this purpose. The spiritual name that the practitioner may have is another such tool. It too relates to a state of rebirth. The same thing that we have said about robes or nudity applies to the spiritual name that the practitioner uses. Baptism and cleansing rituals belong to the realm of the Rune BAR. From this point the robe, nudity, or body paint emerge. |
Robes in Runic Ceremonials Most of the time the robe of a magician represents the form of energy that is present in the ceremonial. For each planetary energy there is a robe in the color of the planet: gold for the Sun, silver or white for the Moon, green for Venus, red for Mars, blue for Jupiter, yellow for Mercury, and violet for Saturn. Runes too have their colors, but these colors are more flexible than the planetary colors. There is no rigid color code per se but rather some preferences of several colors for each Rune. Most of the time FA will appear in red or orange, sometimes in blue or green and much less frequent in any other color. UR likes black when referring to its quality as root energy. It is appearing in green, the color of Venus, when its creative energies help the processes of healing. Likewise is YR black when relating to its quality as maker of destiny and green when needed for love. Color appearance of each Rune adjusts to the purpose for which you use the Rune. It is obvious that you cannot afford hundreds of robes in order to adjust to the specific requirements of a Runic operation. Nudity is a good alternative when circumstances allow it. Body paint can help. A good Runic robe is one that brings you in good contact with the creative realms. The closer it relates to the chaotic roots of creation the more powerful the symbolism of the robes will be. Therefore the black robe will provide you with the dynamics of being born again. The white robe in Runic work refers to structure in creation. A good all round robe is in blue color. Use golden color for sigils on the robe. Where
the situation allows you should wear the robe over the naked body.
The traditional material for the robe is linen. Cotton is fine.
Silk gives good protection (insulation) and so do synthetics. |
Practice -- the Rune BAR 1.
Set up your outer Rune realm, enter your inner Rune realm and tune into
the energies of BAR. |