Guido von List and the Great Transition
Introduction to a New Translation
Introduction to the Book:
The Transition from Wuotanism to Christianity
by
Guido von List
(Abridged)
The works of Guido von List can be divided into several categories. He wrote poetry, short stories, novels, dramas and descriptions of landscapes in addition to his expository works on myth, legend and ancient esoteric traditions. The Armanic (esoteric) works for which he is best known today can also be divided into major categories. One category of his work, which might be called analytical, is highly dependent on the German language to be fully intelligible. These are works on Germanic tribal names, primeval language and heraldry, for example. Another group is formed by works that frequently make use of his idiosyncratic linguistic theories, but are not primarily based on these practices. These works, such as Das Geheimnis der Runen, Die Religion der Ario-Germanen, Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen and this piece, Die Übergang vom Wuotanismus zum Christentum are far more suitable for translation into the English language.
The general topic of this book is one that many people find very fascinating: the way in which Christianity absorbed pagan ideas and carried them forward in the guise of Christianity. List had a highly-developed attitude toward this process. He was not as pagan as some people would like him to have been, but his own “defense” is that Christianity itself was largely “paganized” in that it merely carried forth the eternal ideas of the one true and only “religion,” Armanentum— the esoteric or secret doctrine of the initiates. So, List, just as his ancestors had done, merely understood the Christian symbolism in terms of the indigenous traditions of his own people. As it turns out, List was not as “anti-Christian” as many today would have him be. This is simply because he saw in the Christian imagery just another expression of the inextinguishable permanence of the Armanic way. It is in this book more than any other that List makes this general point most extensively.
Over the past century and a half many important scholarly studies have been devoted to the topic of the “Christianization” of the Germanic tribes. If one were to read only one of these, I would recommend James Russell’s The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity (Oxford, 1994). There Russell makes the reasonable point that any and all peoples subjected to coerced and widespread “conversion” from their own native or indigenous cultural values to ones from the outside and ones often at odds with their deep-seated values, will in various ways “resist” this process and will in fact re-interpret the new symbols in terms of their old and familiar ones. Today most people are familiar with the “creole” (i.e. syncretic) religious found in the Caribbean which mix Christian symbols with African and indigenous American elements. This process is by no means unique to the Caribbean, but rather is the normal and expected mode of cross-cultural interaction everywhere and throughout history. The same processes active in Haiti in recent centuries were the same as the ones made felt in Europe a thousand years ago.
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One essential Listian concept comes forth in the course of this book is that what he called Armanentum, or the Armanenschaft, was and is an esoteric tradition which lies at the root of many, but not all “religions.” It appears that to some extent List identified Armanendom with the “secret doctrine” as promulgated by the Theosophical Society by which List was greatly influenced. List believes that there was an original universal religion which he designates with the term Wihinei which is identical with what he also calls the Armanenschaft. It is purely esoteric and philosophically abstract. As misunderstanding arises in humanity, what he calls “religious systems” or “religion-systems” are developed in which mythic symbols are employed. Wuotanism is the religion-system indigenous to the Germanic folk. Such religion-systems can help people return ot the level of understanding of Wihinei (as Wuotanism does) or they can lead people further astray. This philosophy underlies the whole text of this book.
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Guido von List, of course, approached this whole topic from his own perspective. I would like to point out that only recently a major biography of Guido von List by Eckehard Lenthe entitled Wotan’s Awakening has been published by Dominion Press. That book should be read in conjunction with any writings by “der Meister.” Lenthe does not give a particularly “objective” viewpoint about the work of Guido von List, as his attitude is more that of the true believer, and is valuable for that reason. A more scholarly view is offered in the introductory material to The Secret of the Runes (Destiny, 1988).
In the present work, List expresses many of the underlying ideas about ethnicity, culture and history that were prevalent in the German-speaking world of the late 19th and early 20thcentury. As one deeply steeped in the study of German history and culture, these are clear and obvious to me. However, these concepts can appear to be extremely esoteric on the surface in the 21st century. The first several pages of this book are devoted to an explanation of the esoteric cultural history of “Germany,” which List understands as a Pan-Germanic realm. In his discussion of the Ing-fo-onen, the Ist-fo-onen the Armanen [or Semanen], he foreshadows the theories of Georges Dumézil.
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This work, like the rest of List’s published work, speaks directly to the question of how Guido von List’s “magic” worked. List was not a ceremonial magician, although he did sometimes stage ceremonies which operated on a magical level. Writers who were directly influenced by him, e.g. Friedrich Bernhard Marby, Siegfried Adolf Kummer and E. Tristan Kurtzahn did engage in such practices influenced by his theories. List practiced what could be called “Raja Yoga” — an intellectual and analytical approach to the mysteries leading to levels of knowledge based on mystical insight.
The text of this work poses the usual challenges faced by anyone attempting to translate the idiosyncratic style and usages of the German language used by List. In recent times, some have attempted to “translate” List’s works by means of a computer-generated translating program. Sometimes the results are mixed, to say the least. Frequently, because many of List’s points are made by indicating the sound-qualities of his “mystery language” and Modern German words or words in other languages, I have had to resort to including the original word in square brackets with an indication of the language of the original word.
The ideology of Guido von List still requires a vast amount of unbiased scholarly investigation. Unfortunately, the academic study of the works of Guido von List has up to now been marked by extreme bias. I have sometimes been accused, especially by establishment scholars working in Western academia, of having a sympathetic or “indefensibly non-judgmental” attitude toward subjects of the Germanic renaissance of early twentieth century Germany. Of course, I could say a good deal about the ideological and financial pressures these people are obviously under to write such things. I expand on these ideas further in my book The Revival of the Runes (Inner Traditions, 2021). At the same time, I have been even more often chided by the “true believers” among those who identify as the Armanen of today who revere List unconditionally and believe that every word he wrote constitutes a sort of gospel. Both of these camps often do not much appreciate my approach. My method is best described as “sympathetic objectivity.” My aim is first to convey to the reader the actual ideas and systems promulgated by the early twentieth century German thinkers, second, in my commentaries or notes I occasionally attempt to inform the reader where there are errors of fact in what List says. In the analysis, I will also point out what I think is motivating List (or other related writers) based on a deep knowledge of the culture and historical context from which they sprang. This hermeneutic approach to the texts is often not much valued in this early twenty-first century world, divided as it is between two highly uncritical ideological camps. In my defense, should I be thought to need one, I hope that most readers will appreciate my respect for them as students, and that from what I offer they can make up their own minds about things in a way that is meaningful for them individually. I am also writing material that I hope will still be respected in the far future. Many write for the present, I try to write — and even translate — from beyond the limits of the mundane.
Stephen E. Flowers
Woodharrow
June 21, 2021