The Armanen Futharkh

Some consider the eighteen runes of the Armanen Futharkh to be 'controversial'. This blog is dedicated to Germanic Mysticism, therefore, von List's runes are not controversial here.

Due to a cataract operation, von List - a German occultist, mystic and Germanic revivalist - was blind for eleven months. During this time of dark reflection, twilight contemplation, and black thought, Das Geheimnis der Runen were revealed to him.

Of this experience, von List explained to a friend, "..it would have been impossible to begin to work mentally on my intended unravelling of the secret of the runes", had it not been for this prolonged blindness.

And it was this experience that led to von List becoming the 'father' of Völkisch Runic Mysticism, commonly known as Armanenschaft occultism.

According to von List, the eighteen runes that "showed themselves" while blind, match the eighteen strophes of Havamal's Runetal section. If so, it is the most modern and most outstanding runic insight to be affored rune scholars since Wodan himself "took up the runes, screaming".

Those who off-handedly discount von Lists revelation do so based on the 'authenticity' of the Elder, Younger or Anglo-Saxon futharks, do so at the peril of ignorance. For, who first carved those upon a runestone? Can anyone say with certainty that they were or were not divinely inspired, or brought about due to madness, illness or internal conflict?

Germanic Mysticism is inspired commentary and revived spirituality, therefore it is streaming fluidity. It never commands the old to be forsaken, but for the Zeitgeist's evolution to be acknowledged.

Germanic Mysticism is quite unique - because it is free from reactionary spiritual fantasy and Chrisitan social anxiety.

Gebt uns Besseres und wir werden Euch folgen!

Odic force is the vital energy discovered by Baron Carl von Reichenbach in mid-19th century Germany (common era). Reichenbach derived the name from the Germanic god Odin.

The Odic force permeats all living things and is a key element in the unified theory of vitalism.

Odic force resembles chi and prana but is not associate with breath; it main component is electromagnetic energy. Comparably, Wilhelm Reich identified a similar life-force energy that he termed Orgone.

Emerald Tablet of Hermes

"The Sense of this Table may sufficiently convince us that the Author was well acquainted with the Secret Operations of Nature, and with the Secret Work of the Philosopher's; he likewise well knew and believed in the True God. It has been believed for several Ages that Cham, one of the Sons of Noah is the Author of this Monument of Antiquity. A very ancient Author, I do not recollect his name, who lived several centuries before Christ, mentions this Table, and says that he had seen it in Egypt at the Court; that it was a precious Stone, an Emerald, whereon these Characters were represented in bas-relief, not engraved. That it was in his time esteemed above 2,000 years old, and that the matter of this Emerald had once been in a fluid state like melted glass, and had been cast in a mould, and that to this flux the Artist had given the hardness of the natural and genuine Emerald, by Art."
-Bacstrom's Original Alchemical Manuscripts

Leontocephalic Kronos

"At the pinnacle of the divine hierachy and at the origin of all things, the Mithraic theology, the heir of that of the Zervanitic Magi, placed boundless Time. Sometimes they would call it Saeculum or Saturnus; but these appellations were conventional and contingent, for he was considered ineffable, bereft alike of name, sex, and passions."
-Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra

"Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect:
Yet a wisdom not of this Æon,
Nor of the Dæmonic beings Who Rule the Planets,
Which are coming to naught:
But we speak the Demiurge's words of mystery,
Even the mystery that hath been hidden,
Which the Demiurge foreordained before the Æons unto our glory:
Which none of the Dæmonic beings Who Rule the Planets knoweth:
For had they known it,
They would not have crucified the son of Demiurge."
-Corinthians I, 2:6-8

Witches And Wizards Chorus - Visions And Dances Witches

Now to the Brocken the witches hie,
The stubble is yellow, the corn is green;
Thither the gathering legions fly,
And sitting aloft is Sir Urian seen:
O`er stick and o`er stone they go whirling along,
Witches and he - goats, a motley throng,

Alone old Baubo`s coming now;
She rides upon a farrow sow.

Honour to her, to whom honour is due!
Forward, Dame Baubo! Honour to you!
A goodly sow and mother thereon,
The whole witch chorus follows anon.

Which way didst come?
O`er Ilsenstein!
There I peep`d in an owlet`s nest.
With her broad eye she gazed in mine!

Drive to the devil, thou hellish pest!
Why ride so hard?
She has graz`d my side,
Look at the wounds, how deep and how wide!

Witches (in chorus):
The way is broad, the way is long;
What mad pursuit!
What tumult wild!
Scratches the besom and sticks the prong;
Crush`d is the mother, and stifled the child.

Wizards (in chorus):
Like house - encumber`d snail we creep;
While far ahead the women keep,
For when to the devil`s house we speed,
By a thousand steps they take the lead.
Not so, precisely do we view it; -
They with a thousand steps may do it;
But let them hasten as they can,
With one long bound `tis clear`d by man.

Come with us, come with us from Felsensee.
Aloft to you we would mount with glee!
We wash, and free from all stain are we,
Yet barren evermore must be!

Witches and Wizards (chorus):
The wind is hushed, the stars grow pale,
The pensive moon her light doth veil;
And whirling on, the magic choir
Sputters forth sparks of drizzling fire.

Stay! stay!
What voice of woe Calls from the cavern`d depths below?
Take me with you! Oh take me too!
Three centuries I climb in vain,
And yet can ne`er the summit gain!
To be with my kindred I am fain.

Witches and Wizards (chorus):
Broom and pitch - fork, goat and prong,
Mounted on these we whirl along;
Who vainly strives to climb to - night,
Is evermore a luckless wight!

Demi:
I hobble after, many a day;
Already the others are far away!
No rest at home can I obtain -
Here too my efforts are in vain!

Witches Chorus:
Salve gives the witches strength to rise;
A rag for a sail does well enough;
A goodly ship is every trough;
To - night who flies not, never flies.

Witches and Wizards (chorus):
And when the topmost peak we round,
Then alight ye on the ground;
The heath`s wide regions cover ye
With your mad swarms of witchery!

-Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Germany is one of the few countries where female werewolves still thrive.

Gold und Rosenkreuz, the Prussian occult society founded in 1747 CE, where the inheritors of the Golden Fleece. Part of this inheritance is the Decile Renewal, the last occuring in 1997 and the next in 2007. The bright red invitation for this event I know hold in my hand.

There is only Ding an sich - pure rational apprehension. This is what Kant refers to when he wrote Critique of Pure Reason; Ding an sich is the essence beyond the knowledge of appearances.

"Ich dagegen sage: es sind uns Dinge als außer uns befindliche Gegenstände unserer Sinne gegeben, allein von dem, was sie an sich selbst sein mögen, wissen wir nichts, sondern kennen nur ihre Erscheinungen, d. i. die Vorstellungen, die sie in uns wirken, indem sie unsere Sinne affizieren. Demnach gestehe ich allerdings, daß es außer uns Körper gebe, d. i. Dinge, die, obzwar nach dem, was sie an sich selbst sein mögen, uns gänzlich unbekannt, wir durch die Vorstellungen kennen, welche ihr Einfluß auf unsre Sinnlichkeit uns verschafft, und denen wir die Benennung eines Körpers geben, welches Wort also bloß die Erscheinung jenes uns unbekannten, aber nichtsdestoweniger wirklichen Gegenstandes bedeutet. Kann man dieses wohl Idealismus nennen? Es ist ja gerade das Gegenteil davon."
-Kant, Prolegomena, 1783 (emphasis my own)

I woke-up with a headache. My Tante Guda placed thin slices of raw potato on my forehead. The headache was gone in ten minutes.

Book I am currently reading:


Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night
by Wolfgang Behringer
ISBN 0-8139-1788-3

"Wolfgang Behringer teaches at the University of Munich and the University of Bonn and is the author of numerous books on German history and witchcraft."

Seidhr definitions/interpretations from the WWW:

"Seidhr is used as a ‘hand of glory’ when Kotkell Grima puts Hrutr’s entire family to sleep with it, except for Hrutr’s twelve year old son Kari. When the boy wakes up he walks out the door and immediately falls dead."
-Laxdæla saga, chapter 36

"Seid, -en, (recently taken from ON seidhr): 1) about old norse conditions, lower species of trolldom (magic) that was performed under certain (offensive) ceremonies and powerfull conjurations, usually by women, to gain knowledge about the future or to cause death and disaster (cf. galder): o/ve seid [to excercise seid]/ is it true Thorolf, that your father sat three nights in a womans frock with the gyver [female troll] ... and boiled seid, before he dared take on the duel with Jo/kul? (Ibsen, The Warriors.., 64)/ seid and galder reigned at the pact of gods and giants (Welhaven, II, 167). 2) literature, poetry, trolldom: without glitter and courage, the forrest steps up along the mountain side, as if someone had thrown seid at its root (Bjo/rnstjerne Bjo/rnson, S.D. II, 245)”
-Riksmalsordbok

'Vanlandi deserts a woman named Drifa who seeks out a seidhkona named Huld who she hires to bring him back or kill him. Vanlandi begins to come back when his men realize he has been enchanted so keep him from leaving. Later that night he dreams that he is being “trodden upon by a mare”. His mean try to help him but this ‘nightmare’ eventually kills him by crushing his head."
-Islenzk fornrit, 26

"The seidhmann Thorgrimr is hired to keep Gisli from finding any safehaven, he accomplishes this by causing Gisli to have ‘nightmares’."
-Gísla saga Súrssonar, chapter 18

“In the Icelandic sagas, the term 'seidr' is used for magic, often negative, performed chiefly by women, sometimes by men, with male seid-workers referred to by the derogatory term 'ergi'. In today's North America and Europe, seidr is a growing practice within Heathen (Ásatrú or Northern European pagan) spirituality.”
-Jenny Blain,
Seidr, Magic, and Community: Reinventing Contested Northern Shamanic Practice,
http://www.thetroth.org/resources/jenny/blain-sac99.html

"Queen Gunnhildr uses seidhr against Egill Skalla-Grimsson so that he will “never bide peacefully in Iceland before” she sees him. Her form of seidhr causes restlessness and depression to the point of death. He is rescued by Odinn’s gift of poetry."
-Egils saga, chapter 59

"Thordis used seidhr against Gunnar so that he could not sit comfortably at home or away, causing a state of desparation and despair to “fall upon him”. Gunnar offered to pay Thordis to remove the seidhr against him by offering “weregild”."
-Islenzk fornrit, 14

“The Heathen scholar Eric Wodening maintains that seiðr is basically an art of soul manipulation.”
-Miercinga Ríce,
http://www.ealdriht.org/spaefaq.html

"Kotkell and his family perform seidhr on Thordr Ingunnarson and his men so that they will drown. In this case Kotkell and his family used galdr to create “hard-wound chants”, so that this could be an example of seidhr being used with galdr or galdr being used to enhance seidhr.
-Laxdæla saga, chapter 35

“Seiðr. Of these terms, seiðr is the most common, as well as the most difficult to define. The term seiðr is most commonly translated as "witchcraft," and is used to describe actions ranging from shamanic magic (such as spirit journeys, magical healing by removing "spirit missiles" such as elf-shot from the body, magical psychiatric treatment in the form of recovering lost portions of the soul-complex, etc.), to prophecy, channeling the gods or the gods' voices through a human agent, performing magic that affects weather or animal movements, as well as a wide range of malefic magic. The single most characteristic element of seiðr, however, seems to be magic of a type which works by affecting the mind by illusion, madness, forgetfulness or other means. The practitioner of seiðr was known as a seið-kona (seið-wife) or seið-man, but these terms tended to suggest a "black magician," so that frequently a seið-worker is called a spá-kona or spae-wife instead to avoid blackening their name with the negative connotations of seiðr. This "politically correct" title usage for the seið-worker has resulted in much confusion over the types of native Scandinavian magic since the categories between seiðr and spá became blurred by later writers. seiðr could give the worker knowledge of the future, but rather than directly perceiving ørlög or fate, as a spá-kona or völva would, the seið-practitioner summoned spirits to communicate the knowledge of the future. Other terms in common use for those practicing seiðr include fjölkunnigr-kona, "full-cunning-wife, knowledgeable women" and hamhleypa, "hamingja-leaper, shape- or skin-changer" (Simpson, 183).

Seiðr was a solitary art, where the seið-witch was not a member of a coven, as in found in other European witch traditions, although a seið-practitioner might have attendants or a chorus to assist her in the practice of her magic. In a very few rare instances only do the sagas report a group of seið-workers practicing together, there they are usually kin folk, such as a pair of sisters, a father and his family, and the like (Ellis-Davidson, 37-38).”
-Viking Answer Lady,
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/seidhr.shtml

"Thuridhr Sound-filler uses seidhr to stop a famine when she calls fish to fill a sound. This practice is describe as being performed by Saami shamans."
-Landnamabok, chapter 116, and Historia Norwegiæ

“The etymology of seidhr, however, suggests indigenous development, perhaps retention of Indo-European practice. The mysterious term is cognate with French séance, Latin sedere; Old English sittan, and thus with a large group of terms based on the Indo-European root *sed-. A seidhr, then, was literally a séance -- a "sitting" to commune with the spirits.
-Shamanism and Old English Poetry, page 97

“Seid. The shamanistic trolldom that in Norden primarily was performed by women (volver). Also some of the gods such as Odin and Fro/ya, practised it. Because of his seiding, Odin was accused of being unmanly. Seid had the same character as the Siberian and Samic shamanism. The seidwoman would fall into a trance, while a choir of other women would evoke her guardian spirit to come to her aid. I her inspired state the spirits would inform her concerning the things she had been asked to ask; about what the weather was going to be, about events that would occur, about happiness and misfortune for man, acre and cattle. It also happened that her soul travelled to other worlds to fetch knowledge while the body lay lifeless. As a goddess of the Vanir, Fro/ya introduced the art of seid with the Aesir, and it is said that it was she who had taught this strange art to Odin. When seiding Odin could see into the future and affect people with disease, lunacy, misfortune and death. It seems as if he changed his sex when seiding.”
-Ake Hultkrantz, Swedish researcher

“Thor perform seidhr”
-a runic inscription inside a cross, the Korpbron Stone, late 10th century CE

“Seiðr was a very active magic; its practitioners could bring harm to others, deceive senses, shift emotions, and foresee the future. Its users were for the most part regarded with suspicion, and if male were usually actively condemned by the community.”
-Robert Berlet, Gender and Identity in Viking Magic, http://www.publiceye.org/racism/Nordic/viking-magic.html

“Þórbjörg lítilvölva .. is never called a seiðkona: she is always a spákona, and treated with the highest respect. The word seiðr is used only to describe her action in a specific instance: she requests that a particular chant be chanted 'at fremja seiðinn', to carry out seiðr (Eiríks saga rauða, ch. IV, Íslenzk fornrit IV, p. 207), with the specific purpose, according to the saga, of satisfying outside powers who were gathered about and who spoke to Þórbjörg as part of her seiðr. //and// The prophetic aspect of seiðr, if the terminology of Eiríks saga can be trusted at all, appears to be a form of mediumship more similar to spiritualism: the beings are called into the stead and entertained by the recital of a specific chant before they will reveal their knowledge of what shall come to pass to the völva. Further, the emphasis on the description of Þórbjörg as a spákona rather than a seiðkona may suggest that her chief function was as a prophetess, and that her use of seiðr/mediumship was a last resort rather than a normal activity - as also suggested by her difficulty finding someone who knows the particular song which is necessary for seiðr and the reference to her having been shown many things that she had been denied before.”
-Kveldulfr Gundarsson, Spae-Craft, Seidhr, and Shamanism,
http://www.thetroth.org/resources/kveldulf/spaecraft.html

“Seidhr was expressed as the magical art that gives the most power and might. The Seidhr-tradition is attached to two archetypal beings: the god of Wisdom: Oden (Odhinn) and the witch-goddess Freja (Freyja). Seidhr is The Way of Knowledge, in where to research (intellectual work) and use (intuitive work). Through these ways of learning the magician gained a visionary spirituality.”
-Temple of Set Hyperborea,
http://www.xeper.org/hyperborea/seidhr_eng.php

“Seidhr is, very roughly speaking, the trancework and magical/shamanic practices of the Germanic/Heathen/Asatru faith.”
-Seidhr yahoo list,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seidhr/

“A good place to begin one's Quest for Chaos Magick is in the Seidhr (approximately pronounced "sayther") practices of the ancient Germanic peoples. I began my Quest with a talk with my friend Edred Thorsson, founder and Yrmin-Drighten of the Rune-Gild, Grandmaster of the Order of the Trapezoid of the Temple of Set, at his academy Woodharrow in the Lost Pines region of Texas. //and//

DW: What is Seidhr and how is it connected to the idea of Chaos?

Mr E: Now it is generally imagined that Seidhr is a kind of evil magic practiced by Norse shamans -- especially female ones. Indeed, Seidhr is an ancient form of magic practiced by the Scandinavian peoples at least since the Viking Age. Seidhr is generally connected with the Gods and Goddesses, called the Vanir, and especially with Freyja, whose name is really the title "Lady".

Seidhr is also generally contrasted with another word for "magic" in the Northern tongue: Galdr. Seidhr is connected to the concept of "Chaos" in the sense that the theory upon which Seidhr works is very similar to that upon which Chaos Magic works. Both are based on a materialistic paradigm -- what Peter Carroll calls "Ether" and the ancient Germanic peoples called Ginnung, or Chaos. This paradigm is, by the way, to be contrasted with the essentially symbolic theory underlying Galdr -- a theory which is semiotic and linguistic in character, not substance-based. The underlying theory of Seidhr is pretty much the same as "the magical paradigm" described by Carroll in his Liber Kaos. However, that general theory does not account for Galdr, which is independent of the flows of the time/space continuum.

DW: What is the cosmological model which Seidhr presupposes? Chaos Magickians represent the relationship between the ego-portion of the psyche and the rest of the Cosmos with a circle with eight arrows bursting forth -- an image copied from the fantasy works of Michael Moorcock. Do you suspect the resonance of this symbol to be a remanifestation of Seidhr practices?

Mr E: Yes, the symbol itself seems to be a noumenal atavism of the common Germanic cosmological map which is centered on the "earth" (or ego) and which radiates out in a total of eight "directions", only six of which can even by symbolically "located" in three-dimensional space. The other two -- Hel (the Realm of the Dead) and Asgard (the Realm of the Gods and Heroes of Awakened Intelligence) -- exist in hyper-space at acute angles to all the other axes of the map simultaneously. The cosmological model that is presupposed is that Ginnung is present in everything. The German scientist Karl Reichenbach coined the term "Odic Force" -- named after the Norse God Odin -- to represent this substance.

//and//

Mr E: Well, first of all it must be emphasized that indeed such a synthesis must take place in order for the Will of the individual magician to rule. Order is a relatively rare event, and is one which is anterior to the existence of Ginnung. Order is something which is Willfully impressed upon, and out of, Chaos. It is the progressive impression of Order out of Chaos that characterizes self-development, or Initiation. The chief barriers to this process are that magicians may reject (demonize) either the Order or the Chaos, thus un-balancing themselves, or that they will succumb to the chaotic material within themselves -- which is by far the predominant mass of the self -- and begin to mistake the inherent patterns of the chaos for their own Wills. This latter path defines a sort of mysticism, but is to be distinguished from magic because the all-important component of the Will, or individual consciousness, has been negated. In Seidhr one temporarily loses consciousness in order to effect conscious aims -- but unconsciousness is not the aim in and of itself.

DW: What mental/spiritual attitudes or moods help the Magickian to get the best results when dealing with Chaos?

Mr E: Interestingly enough, the mood of Seidhr is an extremely serene, tranquil and fearless one. In the face of psychic turmoil and what most would consider frightening imagery -- that of darkness, death and even dismemberment -- the seidh-man or seidh-wife often evidences moods diametrically opposed to the expected ones. In Seidhr the worker is often virtually in a state of suspended animation, and most always in a trance-state of some kind. But the worker of Seidhr is not a world-renouncing mystic. Seidhr is a magic of this world, for gaining effects in this world on the level plane of existence.

DW: What would be a practical piece of Seidhr I could do?

Mr E: With a clear and urgent Need, and with a precise question, go to a graveyard where one of your family members is buried. It's better if the person is the most distant ancestor you can find. Sit on the grave and imagine yourself descending into the grave, to be with that family member in Hel -- or at least that part of the person which remains there. When you have a sense of the presence of the person, pose the question to him or her -- and listen for the answer."
-Don Web interviews Edred Thorsson,
http://www.runegild.org/edred1.html

The Cathars were members of a religious sect who practiced a form of Gnosticism during the middle of the 12th century CE. The name Cathar in Greek means "pure ones". The Catholic Church determined the Cathars were heretics so sought to eradicate them from all of Europe.

Cathar doctrine was anti-sacerdotal meaning they opposed the Catholic Church. The Cathars actively protested Catholic corruption as carried out by the clergy onto the populace, primarily the Catholic tendency towards both singular and mass persecution against those of another religion.

The Cathars referred to themselves as "goodmen" and "goodwomen". Unlike Catholics, the Cathars did not insist upon baptism, initiation, or asceticism. While on their death bed Cathars received the consolamentum, or the "consolement" of baptism. In this ceremony prayers were said over the dying while laying hands on their body, and the Gospel of St. John was placed upon their head. The Catholic Church condemned this act as "heresy" and several Cathar Elders were put to death for performing this deed.

Cathars proclaimed that all humans contained a "spark of divine light" and that this light-spirit is corrupted when born on earth, which is a world created by a "lesser god", not the "true god". This god of earth was known to be "lesser" because he proclaimed "I am the only god!" The Cathars identified this "lesser god" as Yahwah, also known as the Demiurge or Satan. Therefore the Cathars recognized the god of the Catholics as an imposter and abomination of the Divine Light that is withing all humans, and that the earth is a place created by this imposter god to control and corrupt the Divine Light.

Cathars believed that "liberation" could be had by "awakening" to the truth of Yahweh, the god of the bible, to "realize" that the dogma set down by this "lesser god" and his Church was "ecclesiastical dogma". Once this existential reality was had the the fetters of servitude to this lesser god could be broken. The Cathars believed in reincarnation so that if this lesson was not learned, how to free the Divine Light from the grip of the lesser god, then they would be born again and given another opportunity to realize the truth of their "Divine Nature". The idea of life after death explains the importance of the consolamentum, so that in the next life the likelihood of realization was greatly enhanced.

The Cathars looked upon Jesus as an example of Divine Light freed from the fetters of the lesser god. The Gospel of St. John was their most sacred text because it spoke on the freedom of the "old ways", a reference to the Old Testament, which the Cathars felt was a book influenced by the lesser god.

The Catholic Church actively suppressed the Cathars, seeking to rid them from all of Europe. Because the edict came from the Vatican, initiated by Pope Eugene III in 1147 CE, this was a Holy War that raged for over 100 years. The most famously known incident regarding the Cathars came during this Crusade against them when the town of Beziers was overrun by the papal legate (soldiers who hide behind the clothing of a monk). Arnaud, the Cisterian abbot-commander was told that the town contained both Catholics and Cathars, to which Arnaud infamously replied, "Kill them all - the Lord will recognise his own". And so it was that 7,000 men, women, and children were brutally murdered at the hands of the Catholic Church on July 22, 1209 CE.

There are many witch towers in Germany, locally called ‘hexenturm’. Originally they served as prisons but when the Christian Church began its campaign against 'witchcraft' they become known, and still are today, as 'witch towers'.

This one is in Landsberg am Lech (Upper Bavaria):
http://www.itcwebdesigns.com/tour_germany/hexent1.jpg

This one is in Neben der Liebfrauenkirche:
http://photos.imageevent.com/ralf/germany/guenzburg/icons/PIC13158.jpg

This one is in Hessen:
http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/9393/witchtower_s_.jpg

This one is in Gelnhausen:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Gelnhausen_Hexenturm.jpg

This one is in Bergfried:
http://www.nassau-info.de/idstein/hexenturm1.jpg

This one is in Forschungsstadt:
http://www.juelich.de/bilder/hexenturm-gr.jpg

This one is in Mellingen:
http://www.mellingen.ch/Bilder/Fotogalerie/Hexenturm2_gross.jpg

This is an excellent website on the Abby of Hildegard. It is in German but English speakers can enjoy the many wonderful pictures found here:
http://www.abtei-st-hildegard.de/hildegard/

This is a lovely picture of Hildegard von Bingen:
http://www2.csbsju.edu/museum/graphics/beuron/hildegard.jpg

She is bathed in light as her eyes look upward, not at the light, which is coming from the upper left, but above her, perhaps into her third eye or at the flame that rises above her head. She has a quill in hand and a lyre at her feet to show her dual talents, and the entire picture denotes that these talents were divinely inspired.

Albrecht III, der Fromme, Herzog von Bayern-München, Duke of Bavaria-Munich.

Albrecht secretly married Agnes Bernauer, a serving made from Augsburg, in 1432. His father was against this marriage (presumably because Albrecht married beneath his rank). In 1435 Agnes, the Duchess of Bavaria-Munich, was accused of witchcraft. Her punishment was to be thrown into the Danube River and drowned. This sentence was carried out while Albrecht was away on a hunting trip.

Several years later, Albrecht married Princess Anna of Braunschweig-Grubenhagen-Einbeck; they had ten children.

"If any wicca, or wiglaer, or false swearer, or morthwyrtha, or any foul contaminated, manifest horcwenan, be anywhere in the land, they shall be driven out."

"We teach that every priest shall extinguish heathendom, and forbid wilweorthunga (fountain worship), and licwiglunga (incantations of the dead), and hwata (omens), and galdra (magic), and man worship, and the abominations that men exercise in various sorts of witchcraft, and in frithspottum (peace-enclosures) with elms and other trees, and with stones, and with many phantoms."

-16th century Canon Law under King Edgar

July 4, 1942:
U.S. air offensive against Nazi Germany begins.

July 4th, 1944:
1,100 U.S. guns fire 4th of July salute at German lines in Normandy.

Anton Praetorius was born in Lippstadt, Germany in 1560. He was a Protestant pator who actively spoke against the persecution of witches.

In 1597 he was appointed as pastor to the Earl of Büdingen-Ysenburg in Birstein (near Frankfur am Main today). While there he personally witnessed the torture of four women accused of witchcraft.

According to the court records of the Birstein Witchcraft Trial, 1597, Reverend Praetorius was so upset about the torture of the accused women that he demanded the stop of the trial. The court records note his actions: "As the pastor has violently protested against the torture of the women, it has therefore been stopped this time." However, the Earl (preciding over the trial) dismissed Praetorius from attending any further trial hearings.

He returned home to Laudenbach-Bergstrasse (near Heidelberg) and wrote the book,
Gründlicher Bericht über Zauberey und Zauberer (A Thorough Report about Witchcraft and Witches), to protest against torture and the prosecution of witches. Initially he published the book in 1598 under the name of his son, Johannes Schulze. Then, in 1602 he dared to publish the book under his own name. A wealthy patron commissioned a third printing in 1613, and a fourth printing was made posthumously in 1629.

Praetorius was the first person to describe the deplorable condition of prisoners and to loudly protest against their torture. In his book he railed against the Church (both Roman Catholics and Protestants) for allowing such atrocities to occur.

http://www.anton-praetorius.de/

Karl Vollmõller was a German playwright and screenwriter (1875-1945). He is famous for two works:
-Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel), and
-Das Wunder (The Miracle).

The latter is the movie that made Marlene Dietrich famous. The film is a religious spectacular about a legend from the Middle Ages about a nun who runs away from the convent, meets a knight, has a series of mystical experiences, and is accused of witchcraft.

While she is gone, a statue of the Virgin Mary at the convent comes to life and takes her place.

This movie was so popular in Europe that it was filmed twice as a silent film and again as a 'talkie'. Later, it became a play in German (1911), then in London, and on Broadway (1924). An American film verson was made in 1959.

Johann Albrecht Adelgrief was a German prophet, son of a Protestant minister, born in late 1500CE. He was well schooled and showed a gift for ancient languages.

In his twenties he claimed to be in contact with seven heavenly angels who asked him to banish evil from the world; primarily by scourging the then reigning monarchs with "rods of iron".

He was arrested for heresy (being a "heathen") in Koenigsberg, accused of witchcraft, and condemned to death. He was executed on October 11, 1636.

All his writings were suppressed by the Church.