Helrunar: A Manual of Rune Magick Paperback – January 1, 2006

For me this book could be the end all. Yet I would recommend some simpler books for beginners just working with the runes. After you have read some others you will find that this one is one of the best.Jan Fries breaks through the dogma and forced patterns that bind most magicians and stifle their creativity. He tells you to find your own way whick is just as valid as any of the traditional ways. Gods bless the freethinkers like him who liberate our minds. Jan Fries is one magician who believes that the deities are reflections of the deep mind or our subconscious. Our magic must reflect this.Jan Fries knows his stuff. HE has done the research and yet he is both humble enough and knowledgeable enough to know that what he has printed is subject to change. New research comes about that disproves the old. Many old research techniques are flawed. Science is based on as much faith as religion is with just about as much accuracy. The tastiest part of this book is the man's overview of history. He gives it straight no dogma or ideological constraints.The book covers a broad history of Europe and then goes into several exercises to enhance our magical and spiritual abilities. At the end there is a sort of glossary describing the runes. The description gives us the runes, their meaning, the rune poem statement and the body posture associated with it. Jan Fries is a believer in ecstatic dancing to reach gnosis and his approach is very Chaos Magick.Early man survived some pretty tough vicissitudes in ice age Europe. They were nomadic and forced to hunt large animals. They lived in small family units. Homo Habilis was a lot more advanced then they were given credit for. They hunted in packs, had tools and were well organized. After the Ice Age many of the power animals went further north. There were some people who followed them and others who stayed behind. Those who stayed behind became more sedentary agriculturalists. Neanderthals came about or were existing along side them for several hundred to maybe thousands of years. The Neanderthals had burial rights and were aware of or had the concept of the soul. Caves seem to have been used for religious purposes. Several drawings indicate Shamanistic behavior. Later on came the Cro-Magnon who is said to have wiped out the Neanderthal. Of course new research is showing that they lived side by side and maybe even interbred with each other. The Cromagnon had a lot to learn about survival from the Neanderthal.Religion went through many changes. The Early men believed in power animals an totems. later on they would believe in Gods. The Norse gods went through changes. For example Odin the all father to the Vikings started out as Wotan a storm god. He would later evolve into a god of ecstatic trance. Tyr the one handed God who subdued Fenris started out as a bisexual or dual sexual god named Tuisto who bore Mannus. Later he would evolve into a male. Odin's original wife was Freya as the myths evolved. His wife would change to Hela and then finally to Frigga. Hela was an underworld Goddess who was charged with running the world of the dead.History is not so clear cut as to who were the Celts and who were the Germanic tribes. There was no real unified religion among the groups and many customs were similar between the Celts and Germans. It is speculated that they came from Indo-European tribes that originated in Central Europe. For the invading Romans it was hard to tell the two apart. More Germans tended to be concentrated in then north and the further north you went the more isolated and independent they became.The techniques covered in the books go over divination, using runes for magic , chanting and body postures. There is a lot of interdisciplinary input to this as the author pulls from Ceremonial Magic techniques, Chaos magick techniques and far eastern mediation techniques. For the intermediate to advanced practitioner you will find this book a worthy addition to your library. The end got a little bit slow but other then that this book is an awesome read.

This was the first book I have begun by this author. I had heard that it was strange, and I was told I would likely not enjoy it. So far none of this is true. In fact, I find that I am greatly enjoying this book. So much so that I have started reading another of his simultaneously and again, I am very much enjoying that one as well.So far, Jan is attacking issue after issue with a well researched and very educated form. I have not gotten as far into the book to hit the rune material but based on everything up to this point I am expecting a well researched approach to that as well. Something that lacks greatly when it comes to the runes. If I find that this is not the case I will update this review but felt that the Author deserved an early rating as it may take a while to finish.I will also leave this one piece of advice. If you have any interest in studying the runes or you have been doing so for ANY amount of time I can not stress enough reading "The Rune Primer" by Sweyn Plowright. This is by far, without compromise, the best book on the subject. It's a quick but vital contribution to a subject full of false "facts" and will give you a very important set of tools to take with you when you proceed with your studies. Please, give The Rune Primer a read as well.

I have only latterly become aware of Fries' work and find it an exciting contribution to the field, particularly with his perspective of freestyle shamanism. His books differ in approach and style, something I find refreshing, and this one provides a much more detailed historical and archeological background than you will find elsewhere. His insights to some of the runes are amusing and idiosyncratic. However, here as with his other writing, the relatively frequent typological and grammatical errors are an unnecessary distraction and lessen the quality of his work.

I initially read the 1989 version of this book. I liked it so much that I had to obtain this book all over again. The first half of the new revised version is basically historical and archeological. I think it is cool how the author traveled around and has hand drawn all the artifacts he has come across. He really put a lot of time into this. The latter half goes into detail about the specifics about the runes

Everyone thinks this book is so great, not so sure about that, all I have to say is this guy can go off on some wild tangents. Reign it in a bit, almost intrigued to see where this Seidways book is going to go next.

Jan Fries is a breath of fresh air. Eminently readable style, informative, well-documented and researched, and innovative work. I have a large collection of rune books and this is one of the best.

A great book worth buying just for the historical information on ancient European culture alone. Definitely will be recommending this book to anyone I know that is interested in the subject.

Lots of great info to learn Rune Magic

Excellent discussion of the runic characters from pre neolithic inscriptions to the present, great ideas for the employment there of and forming deeper relationships too. Some novel ideas that can be applied as much too runes as they could be too sigils or other talismanic figures.

Absolutely packed with information, a great book for those long winter evenings or the current rubbish summer ones. All Jan Fries' books are meaty, informative reads for people of a pagan or spiritual persuasion and Helrunar is no exception.

Excellent. Simply Excellent.

This is a superb book, and highly recommended! For someone interested in the Runes, this book fills a mid level nitch.

A very studious exploration of the topic. If you can cope with the approach taken you will find a lot of very useful information here, but I felt the author was being, in turns, both patronising and egotistical.I deeply appreciated the contents of this book, but I personally found the writing style close to intolerable. I had to make myself read it, rather than finding it a pleasure to read.The paperback edition is quite floppy, but the production values are good otherwise. A nice book to handle. Possibly go for a hardbackif there is one, though; it's a book you will refer to a lot once you have managed to absorb it.