Category: Announcements

Tyriel Requests Your Patronage!

Hail, friend!

You may know me as Tyriel, author of “The Book of Rune Secrets”, but in every day life, I am simply James. I come to you today seeking support and patronage to bring my recent work on the runes to fruition, using Patreon, at http://patreon.com/jscrawley.

I have been a quiet observer of the Rune Secrets Community a few years now, and engaged in an overwhelming amount of personal correspondence from those interested in the runes, hailing from all over the world. It has sometimes been a challenge to know what to do next, things have gotten so big.

You have been a part of this journey. You have at some point heard the runes call to you, just as I have. You feel how deep they go. The time has come for you and I to gather our courage and go further.

My task is to produce the greatest work of my life to date, in the form of a new book entitled “Questioning the Runes” and a 24-track album, “Rune Songs for the 21st Century”. I do this for my love of rune wisdom, and for you, who have long been on a similar path.

There is a huge gap in the resources available for today’s rune practitioners. The previous generation has written at length on ritual, history, tradition and beliefs, on Norse myth, or Asatru and Heathen ideas. The runes have been popularized in book stores by Ralph Blum. And yet, I always felt there was a void, a blind spot. Something that wasn’t being explained! I think you have felt it too.

We want to produce observable results with the runes. The world has radically changed since the time the runes were first carved, nearly two thousand years ago. I believe they have also evolved with the times, fresh and relevant to our unique challenges in the 21st Century. In many cases, we simply need to use the runes to learn how to ask better questions.

We also know better that there is a dark side, a shadow, an unconscious element at work in spirituality, magic and psychology. The positivity of the New Age wears thin. I have finally gathered the courage to venture into exploring the murkstaves, the negative aspects or hidden and uncomfortable truths of the runes. I have increased my understanding of Jungian psychoanalysis, evolutionary psychology, and social power dynamics. All of this has formed an incredible rune system for me. I absolutely must share these ideas with you, because they are important to all of our lives, and our understanding of the world at large.

Writing this new book & composing music for each rune’s specific energy will take a huge amount of my time and I need your support in the form of patronage. Rather than try a kickstarter, I want to invite you into my personal creative life long-term, not as only ‘Tyriel’, but more humbly as James, using http://patreon.com/jscrawley.

There are some great benefits of working like this:

  • Spiritual studies are very personal for both you and I. Patronage is a much more personal relationship.
  • I do not wish to ‘take over’ the space I have created for others by using the Rune Secrets Study Community a platform for unfinished work. It’s too important that others speak there.
  • By founding patronage on the principles of Fehu, Gebo and Othala, I tie the financing of this work and the runes together, in practice rather than theory. It is a symbol of the seriousness of this task.
  • Patronage helps me identify who amongst the community truly desires to invest themselves in helping me bring an important work into the world of rune studies.

Perhaps greatest of all:

  • The work has early feedback from you. As you learn and ask questions, I am able to write a better book and provide greater resources, customized to your needs. As you comment on my music, I am able to refine my style to suit the ears of an audience I care so much for.

With your patronage and support, I can dedicate the next part of my life’s journey to the overwhelming task of writing “Questioning the Runes” and composing “Rune Songs for the 21st Century”. The challenge is both financial and community-oriented. I cannot do this in a bubble, alone. I need you.

Help me provide you one of the most powerful and useful rune resources available. I welcome you, Patron, and look forward to growing closer to one another in our explorations of the mysteries and secrets of these fresh rune teachings.

Learn more and become a patron at http://patreon.com/jscrawley — I cannot thank you enough for your part in this, though I will certainly do my best to make the experience rewarding!

James Stratton-Crawley,
Known as Tyriel

Author of “The Book of Rune Secrets”
& Creator of the Rune Secrets Study Community at http://runesecrets.net

A Social Network Exclusively For Rune Study?

[Update: We’re now beta testing the new social network for rune study! WANTED: Volunteers … click here!]

Have you been as frustrated as me in finding an online community exclusively for studying the runes? What is the solution?

Most people I talk to — and I include myself among them — seem dissatisfied with the old forum-style community. Now that we have powerhouses like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, social interaction on the web has been redefined. Forums become obscure places lorded over by passive aggressive admins and small cliques of users who dominate any discussion to the point where the discussion doesn’t happen often because it descends into arguments.

But I don’t think that’s the main reason there’s no ‘major’ (ie. central) rune community online. We’re a diverse bunch of misfits, clearly dissatisfied with the mainstream and rightly distrustful of anything that looks mainstream. I can’t help but giggle the odd time I get feedback that suggests that Rune Secrets is somehow mainstream (as if I were secretly Justin Beiber?)

Some of these forums and cliques are thinly veiled online focal points for dogmatic cults, which of course I’ll have nothing to do with. I am a solitary and anonymous practitioner, period. That Rune Secrets has become so popular is a freak occurrence. Readership decided that — I never bothered with advertising, search engine optimization, link exchange or any of that nonsense. I’m interested in one thing only: deep understanding of the runes.

The runes saved me from the brink of oblivion, reorganized my mind, and revealed such touching wisdom… but demanded I repay the favor by sharing what I’d learned. It was only after I gained a deep understanding of the runes that I developed a strong sense of responsibility toward the global community.

But there is no functioning and healthy community, no social network, for people who share this interest in the runes themselves, directly. The symbols. The meanings. The uses. That’s all… no cryptic utterings, no mysterious play-acting, no exclusive ‘club’ and no one claiming they have some private monopoly on rune wisdom.

I demand clarity, order and honesty, and so should you.

 

So what do we do?

I dislike Facebook — the system is geared toward turning users into advertising revenue, not toward actual community. Their design philosophy is abhorent and their privacy policy so unethical that I felt I had to delete the rune secrets fan group in order to protect my readers.

But there is a framework I could use once I have generated some revenue from booksales (it costs a couple hundred dollars per year on top of other expenses I already pay to run this site). We could set up our own social network, and begin an ambitious project: the first collectively written study of rune meaning.

The internet allows us to collaborate in a way that dozens and perhaps hundreds of people could purposefully come together and hash out a brilliant work of genius that one person could not possibly hope to write themselves. Then we could release this work under a creative commons license (free to use, distribute, modify, build upon — but never sell for profit), format and self-publish it as a hardcover/paperback and offer it at cost for collectors or at nothing as a pdf or on a website dedicated to it.

We’d need to come up with a contemporary, forward looking, rune system, based soundly in psychology and philosophy, that would profoundly inspire anyone who was exposed to it, regardless of prior beliefs. With a properly discussed methodology and a carefully programmed social network (personal blogs integrated with activity feed, twitter/facebook/youtube integration, the works — I’m thinking NING.com at the moment) and a core group of dedicated people we could easily generate an open, crowd-sourced manuscript of some size.

I’ve made major inroads with “The Book of Rune Secrets”, which is almost ready to hit the press. I’m confident that the work will speak for itself. If it is worthy, I know it will reach the people who need it — after all, this website has. But after focusing and channeling, I have come face to face with my own limitations. In order to exceed them, a community will be necessary, and a community that works, not just some obscure forum.

I just wanted to talk that over with everyone, and try to generate some feedback. I can build this, and make it work with your help. But I need discussion!

What are your thoughts on the online rune communities you’ve encountered? Are you a part of any? Would you share their URL in the comments? Any experiences, positive or negative?

What kind of things do you wish a community could DO or BE, on the net? What would help you the most? What features would you like to see? What kind of people would you hope to find there — like minded, or very diverse?

My thanks for considering this,

Tyriel