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masque12For a concept that is all about mystery, I think that Runa is probably the Aeonic word I have the easiest time understanding. (The rest of this article will probably be woefully wrong because I said it was easy, but oh well.) Runa is the unknown, the mysterious, the yet-to-be-discovered. Runa is that which we don't know. In effect the concept of Runa is a goad to inspire the initiate to continually seek out wider and clearer forms of understanding. I see Runa as a perpetual teaser; Runa says, "This is the boundary of your understanding, I dare you to cross that boundary and find me!" You cross the boundary, and you do expand your understanding, but there Runa is again, just on the other side of boundary, sticking its tongue out and waggling its fingers in its ears at you. Runa is doing it to help you, because after all, if the boundaries of knowledge and understanding didn't keep getting pushed back, and we were able to know or understand everything, things would get rather boring. "Reyn til Runa!", we say. Seek the Mysteries. The quest for Mystery is not a quest with a goal, it is the quest itself that is primary, and it is the stuff that one picks up along the way that is valuable. One must always strive to expand the borders of their knowledge and understanding so that they will always have the best tools available to them when making informed decisions, whether in the World of Horrors or in their initiatory life.
If the Black Flame is the spark of Isolate Intelligence that makes it possible for us to seek to Xeper and Remanifest, Runa is the bellows that keeps that flame burning. All human progress, innovation, discovery, even the fact we ever came down from the trees is due to the fact that we were drawn by Runa, the drive to find out what is behind that boulder, or what happens if I use this bone in a fight, or what will happen if I try giving this moldy bread to a sick person.
To show a personal example of how Runa drives my life, I point at my very joining of the Temple of Set. I wanted to find an organization that would help me find out what this thing called "initiation" is, anyway. I can't say I fully understand what it is yet, but I have a better understanding than when I joined. I know that it isn't all robes and funny words, a lot of it involves simply getting my mundane life in order. I know that to successfully perform magic it takes a lot of work and willpower to even get into the RC, let alone to slog through the basic preparatory work (I start working through Nine Doors of Midgard tomorrow). Hell, I know that there are people who know what they're doing, as opposed to the random jokers you find praying over crystals and other bullshit in the "pagan" community. Almost every day I learn something new, and I learn how much more there is out there that I don't know. That is Runa.
If the Black Flame is the spark of Isolate Intelligence that makes it possible for us to seek to Xeper and Remanifest, Runa is the bellows that keeps that flame burning. All human progress, innovation, discovery, even the fact we ever came down from the trees is due to the fact that we were drawn by Runa, the drive to find out what is behind that boulder, or what happens if I use this bone in a fight, or what will happen if I try giving this moldy bread to a sick person.
To show a personal example of how Runa drives my life, I point at my very joining of the Temple of Set. I wanted to find an organization that would help me find out what this thing called "initiation" is, anyway. I can't say I fully understand what it is yet, but I have a better understanding than when I joined. I know that it isn't all robes and funny words, a lot of it involves simply getting my mundane life in order. I know that to successfully perform magic it takes a lot of work and willpower to even get into the RC, let alone to slog through the basic preparatory work (I start working through Nine Doors of Midgard tomorrow). Hell, I know that there are people who know what they're doing, as opposed to the random jokers you find praying over crystals and other bullshit in the "pagan" community. Almost every day I learn something new, and I learn how much more there is out there that I don't know. That is Runa.
