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Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List (October 5, 1848 – May 17, 1919) was an Austrian/German (Viennese) poet, journalist, writer, businessman and dealer of leather goods, mountaineer, hiker, dramatist, playwright, and rower, but was most notable as an occultist and völkisch author who is seen as one of the most important figures in Germanic revivalism, Germanic mysticism, Runic Revivalism and Runosophy in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and continues to be so today. He is the
author of Das Geheimnis
der Runen (The
Secret of the Runes), which is a detailed study of the Armanen Futharkh,
his intellectual world-view (as
realised in the years between 1902 and 1908), an introduction to the
rest of his work and is widely regarded as the pioneering work of Runology in modern occultism. Guido von
List was born in Vienna in the Austrian Empire to Karl Anton List, a
prosperous middle class leather goods dealer, and Maria List (née Killian). He grew up in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna. Like
the majority of his fellow Austrians at that time, his family was Roman Catholic,
and he was christened "Guido Anton List" as an infant in St Peter's
Church in Vienna
on October 8, 1848. In 1862 a
visit to the catacombs beneath the Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral in
Vienna) made a deep impression, and List regarded the catacombs as a pagan shrine. As an adult he
claimed he had then sworn to build a temple to Wotan when he grew up. This he
recounted in volume 2 (page 592-593) of his book Deutsch-Mythologische
Landschaftsbilder: It
was in the year 1862 - I was then in my fourteenth year of life - when
I, after much asking, received permission from my father to accompany
him and his party who were planning to visit the catacombs [under St. Stephen's
Cathedral in
Vienna] which were at that time still in their original condition. We
climbed down, and everything I saw and felt excited me with a kind of
power that today I am no longer able to experience. Then we came - it
was, if I remember correctly, in the third or fourth level - to a
ruined altar. The guide said that we were now situated beneath the old
post office (today the Wohlzeile House No. 8). At that point my
excitement was raised to fever pitch, and before this altar I
proclaimed out loud this ceremonial vow: "Whenever I get big, I will
build a Temple to Wotan!" I was, of course, laughed at, as a few
members of the party said that a child did not belong in such a place…
I knew nothing more about Wuotan than that which I had read about him in Vollmer's Wörterbuch
der Mythologie.
Despite
these artistic and mystical leanings, Guido was expected, as the eldest
child, to follow in his father's footsteps as a businessman. He appears
to have fulfilled his responsibilities in a dutiful manner, but he took
any and all opportunities to develop his more intense mystical and
naturesque interests. The trips that List had to make for business
purposes gave him the opportunity to indulge his passion for hiking and
mountaineering. This activity seems to have provided a matrix for his
early mysticism. His
father died in 1877 when List was 29 years old. It appears that neither
he nor his mother had his father's keen sense of business, and as
economic times became difficult List quit the family business to devote
himself full time to his writing, at this time still of a journalistic
kind. During this time List wrote articles for newspapers, such as the Neue Welt (New World), Neue deutsche
Alpenzeitung (New
German Alpine Newspaper), Heimat (Homeland), and the Deutsche
Zeitung (German
Newspaper), which dealt with his earlier travels and mystical
reflections on the Loci (land spirits). Many of these written newspaper
articles were anthologised in 1891 in his famous Deutsch-Mythologische
Landschaftsbilder. He also had articles appear in the Leipziger
Illustrierte Zeitung and
on a regular basis in the newspaper Ostdeutsche
Rundschau (East
German Review), owned by the powerful publicist and parliamentary deputy
Karl Heinrich Wolf. At this time he also came to know well Georg von
Schonerer, a leading political figure and Pan-German member of
the Imperial Parliament. He also had many articles appear in
periodicals such as Laufers
Allgemeine Kunst-Chronik, Der
Sammler, Das
Zwanzigste Jahrhundert, Die
Gnosis, Der
Deutsche, Neue
Metaphysische Rundschau, Die
Nornen, Österreichische
Illustrierte Rundschau and
Johannes
Balzli's occult magazine Prana. In 1878
List married his first wife, Helene
Föster-Peters. However, the marriage was not to last
through this difficult period. Through
the years 1877 – 1887 List was also working on his first book-length
(two volume) effort, Carnuntum,
an historical novel based on his vision of the Kulturkampf between the Germanic and Roman worlds centred at Carnuntum around the year 375 CE that
was published in 1888 by the Wannieck family's
organisation and publishing house Verein
"Deutsche Haus" ("German
House" Association) in Brno,
where List made the acquaintance of the industrialist Friedrich
Wannieck. This association was to prove essential to List's
future development. Throughout
this period in List's life he devoted himself to writing more
neo-romantic prose, such as Jung
Diethers Heimkehr ("Young Diether's Homecoming") in 1894 and Pipara in 1895. An anthology of
his earlier journalism Deutsch-Mythologische
Landschaftsbilder was
published in 1891, and List developed his writing skills in poetic and
dramatic genres as well. In 1892
he delivered a lecture on the ancient Germanic cult of Wuotan to the Verein Deutsche
Geschichte (German
History Association), and it is said that numerous other associations
allied with this one proliferated in Austria at this time. Another
group, the Bund
der Germanen (Germanic
League), sponsored a performance of List's mythological dramatic poem, Der Wala
Erweckung ("The
Wala's Awakening") in 1894. In another performance of this drama in
1895, which was attended by over three thousand people, the part of
Wala was read by Anna
Wittek von
Stecky, a young actress who in August 1899 became List's second wife. During
the years 1888 – 1899 List was involved with two important literary
associations. In May 1891 Iduna,
which had the descriptive subtitle of "Free German Society for
Literature", was founded by a circle of writers around Fritz
Lemmermayer. Lemmermayer acted as a sort of "middle man" between
an older generation of authors (which included Fercher von
Steinwand, Joseph Tandler, Auguste Hyrtl, Ludwig von
Mertens, and Josephone
von Knorr) and a group of younger writers and thinkers (which
included Rudolf Steiner, Marie Eugenie
delle Grazie, and Karl
Maria Heidt). The name Iduna was provided by List himself and is
that of a North Germanic goddess of eternal youth and renewal. Richard von
Kralik and Joseph Kalasanz
Poestion, authors with specifically neo-Germanic leanings, were
also involved in
the circle. The other organisation List was involved with was the Literarische
Donaugesellschaft (Danubian
Literary Society), which was founded by List and Fanny Wschiansky the year the Iduna was
dissolved in 1893. At this time List met Rudolf Steiner and Lanz von
Liebenfels but
his association with Liebenfels did not develop until Lanz had left the Heiligenkreuz
monastery in
1899. In August
1899, List married Anna
Wittek von Stecky. In 1871,
List's writing talents were given full rein as he became a
correspondent of the Neue deutsche
Alpenzeitung ("New
German Alpine Newspaper"), later called the Salonblatt.
He also began to edit the yearbook of the Österreichischer
Alpenverein (Austrian Alpine Association), of which he became
secretary in that year. List
was an ardent, enthusiastic mountaineer and hiker. On one of these
adventures List came very close to losing his life. While climbing a
mountain on May 8, 1871 in the Großes
Höllental (Larger
Valley of Hell) leading up to the Rax mountain in Lower Austria,
a mass of ice gave way under his feet and he fell some distance. He was
apparently saved only by the fact that he had landed on a soft surface
covered by a recent snowfall. In memory of his good luck and to help
others, at his own expense List had the track equipped with a chain put
up and officially opened by him on June 21, 1871. It was also named
(now called Gaislochsteig)
after him the "Guido-List-Steig". Between
1903 and 1907, he began using the noble title von on
occasion, before finally settling on it permanently in 1907. As this
was only permitted for members of the aristocracy, he faced an official
enquiry. Here he produced evidence supporting his claim, which was
accepted by the officials heading the inquiry. In late
1918, the 70 year old List was in poor health during the final
stages of World War I in which the naval blockade
of the Central Powers created food shortages in
Vienna. In the
spring of 1919, at the age of 71, List and his wife set off to
recuperate and meet followers at the manor house of Eberhard von
Brockhusen, a List society patron who lived at Langen in Brandenburg, Germany.
On arrival at the Anhalter Station at Berlin,
List was too exhausted to continue the journey. After a doctor had
diagnosed a lung inflammation, his health deteriorated quickly, and he
died in a Berlin guesthouse on the morning of May 17, 1919. He was
cremated in Leipzig and his ashes laid in an urn and then buried in Vienna
Central Cemetery, Zentralfriedhof,
in the gravesite KNLH 413 - Vienna's largest and most famous cemetery
(including the graves of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Strauss.)
in Vienna's 11th district of Simmering. Philipp Stauff,
a Berlin journalist, good friend of List and Armanist, wrote an
obituary which appeared in the Münchener
Beobachter called "Guido von List gestorben" on May 24,
1919, p. 4. Guido von
List was strongly influenced by the Theosophical thought of Madame Blavatsky,
which he blended with his own racial religious beliefs, founded upon Germanic
paganism. List called his doctrine “Armanism”
(after the Armanen,
supposedly the heirs of the sun-king, a body of priest-kings in the
ancient Ario-Germanic nation). Armanism was concerned with the esoteric
doctrines of the gnosis (distinct from the exoteric
doctrine intended for the lower social classes, Wotanism).
List claimed that the tribal name Herminones mentioned in Tacitus was a Latinized version of
the German Armanen,
and named his religion the Armanenschaft,
which he claimed to be the original religion of the Germanic tribes.
His conception of that religion was a form of sun worship,
with its priest-kings (similar to the Icelandic goði)
as legendary rulers of ancient Germany.
List claimed that the dominance of the Roman Catholic
Church in Austria-Hungary
constituted a continuing occupation of the Germanic tribes
by the Roman empire,
albeit now in a religious form, and a continuing persecution of the
ancient religion of the Germanic peoples and Celts.
This conception bears strong resemblance to many other 19th century
romanticised ideas of ancient polytheistic religions in Europe; a
comparatively similar text in the thematic elements and overall textual
bias is the famous Oera Linda forgery from the Lowlands
region of western Europe.
He also
believed in magical powers of the old runes.
In 1891 he claimed that heraldry was based on the magic of
the runes. In April 1903, he had sent an article concerning the alleged
Aryan proto-language to the Imperial Academy of
Sciences in Vienna. Its highlight was a mystical and occult
interpretation of the runic alphabet.
Although the article was rejected by the academy, it would later be
expanded by List and become the basis for his entire ideology. Among
his ideological followers was Lanz von
Liebenfels. More controversially, some allege that, in his
pagan-Theosophical synthesis, List developed the direct precursor of occult Nazism.
His defenders counter that any influence was indirect and
inconsequential; in Nazi Germany the strongest occult influence upon Heinrich Himmler,
the head of the SS, was
Brigadeführer Karl Maria
Wiligut who
believed List's Armanism to be a heresy from his own ancestral religion
of Irminism and had various of List's
followers interned in concentration camps. List's concept of renouncing Christianity,
a Semitic religion intertwined with Judaism,
and returning to the pagan religions of the ancient Europeans did
nevertheless find some supporters within the Nazi party and is favoured by some
advocates of Neo-Nazism and White
Nationalism in
their turn. Germanic paganism has, as a result, been linked to Nazism
since the early twentieth century — unfairly, in the eyes of many pagan
revivalists. List’s
Ariosophy was closely related to the philosophy of the Thule Society
which founded the German Workers’ Party (DAP), the predecessor of the
Nazi party (NSDAP). List’s prophecy that a “German Messiah” would save
Germany after World War I was popular among Thule members. Thule member
and publicist Dietrich Eckart expressed his anticipation in a poem he
published in 1919, months before he met Hitler for the first time. In
the poem, Eckart refers to ‘the Great One’, ‘the Nameless One’, ‘Whom
all can sense but no one saw’. When the Thules met Hitler in 1919, many
believed him to be the prophesied redeemer. As most Thule members were
socially and politically influential, their faith was crucial to
Hitler’s meteoric rise. The row
of 18 so-called "Armanen Runes",
also known as the "Armanen Futharkh" came to List while in an
11 month state of temporary blindness after a cataract operation
on both eyes in 1902. This vision in 1902 allegedly opened what List
referred to as his "inner eye", via which he claimed the "Secret of the
Runes" was revealed to him. List stated that his Armanen Futharkh were
encrypted in the Hávamál (Poetic Edda),
specifically in stanzas 138 to 165, with stanzas 146 through 164
reported as being the 'song' of the 18 runes. It has been said this
claim has no historical basis. The Armanen runes are still used today
by some Ásatrú adherents who consider the
Armanen runes to have some religious and/or divinatory value. List
noted in his book, The
Secret of the Runes, that the "runic
futharkh (= runic ABC) consisted of sixteen symbols in ancient times.".
As a side note to this, in the English translation of the work, Stephen Flowers notes that "(the
designation futharkh is based on the first seven runes it is for this
reason that the proper name is not futhark -- as it is generally and
incorrectly written -- but futharkh, with the h at the end; for more
about the basis of this, see the Guido von List Library number 6, The
primal language of the Aryan Germanic people and their mystery
language)". List's system was allegedly based on the structure of a Hexagonal
Crystal. You can shine light through a crystal at different
angles and project all 18 of the Armanen runes. List's
rune row was rather rigid; while the runes of the past had had sharp
angles for easy carving, his were to be carefully and perfectly made so
that their shape would be a reflection of the 'frozen light',
a pattern that he had found in his runes. All of his runes could be
projected by shining the light through a hexagonal crystal under
certain angles. Rune Hagal is so-called 'mother-rune'
because its shape represents that hexagonal crystal. Karl Hans Welz states that the
"crystalline structure of quartz is
the "hexagonal system" which is also one of the bases of the Runic
symbolism (the hexagon with the three inscribed diameters)." and that
"The hexagonal cross section of quartz and the fact that all of the 18
Sacred Futhork Runes are derived from the geometry of the hexagon is
the basis of an enormous increase in crystal power when it is
associated with Rune images."
A look at
the signatories of the first announcement
concerning support for a Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft (Guido von List Society),
circa 1905, reveals that List had a following of some very prestigious
people and shows that List, his ideology and his influence had
widespread and significant support, including that amongst public
figures in Austria and Germany.
Among some 50 signatories which endorsed the foundation of the List
Society (which had an official founding ceremony on March 2, 1908) were
the industrialist Friedrich
Wannieck and his
son Friedrich Oskar
Wannieck, Jörg Lanz
von Liebenfels, and Karl Lueger (the mayor of Vienna).
These supporters also included occultists such as Hugo Göring (editor of theosophical
literature at Weimar), Harald
Arjuna Grävell van Jostenoode (theosophical author at
Heidelberg), Max
Seiling (an
esoteric pamphleteer and popular philosopher in Munich), and Paul Zillmann (editor of the
Metaphysische Rundschau and master of an occult lodge in Berlin).
List's
influence continued to grow and attract distinctive members after the
official founding of the society in 1908. From 1908 through to 1912,
new members included the deputy Beranek (co-founder of the "Bund
der Germanen" in 1894), Philipp Stauff (a Berlin journalist and
later a founding member of the Germanenorden), Franz Hartmann (a leading German
theosophist), Karl
Heise (a leading figure in the vegetarian and mystical Mazdaznan cult at Zürich),
and the collective membership of the Vienna Theosophical Society. As
the list demonstrates, the growth of nationalism within Germany during
the late 19th to early 20th century, culminating in the Third Reich of
Nazi Germany, provided an ideal audience of people who were already
predisposed to accept List's ideas and unidentifiable personal gnosis
of the Armanen way. The register shows that List's ideas were
acceptable to many intelligent persons drawn from the upper and middle
classes of Austria and Germany. So impressed were they that these men
were prepared to contribute ten crowns as an annual society
subscription. The main part of the Society's assets derived from the Wannieck
family, which put up more than three thousand crowns at the Society's
inauguration.
The Society's inner circle was called the High Armanen
Order or Hoher Armanen Orden. |