The Four Magical Pathways (excerpt from the Rune Course)

Four magical paths that people can follow: the path of faith, service, search, and the path of sorcery. Transformation of consciousness. The path of faith, the path of service, the path of search or knowledge, and the path of sorcery.

Four Magical Paths

There are four magical paths a person can follow: the path of faith, the path of service, the path of search or knowledge, and the path of sorcery.

The Scheme of the Three Circles shows the mechanisms by which a person can naturally move from the inner circle to the outer one. For this, there is a mapping of the paths laid between the proto-foundations (PF) of the inner and the second circle. They are represented by straight lines, and there are four such paths. If consciousness is allowed to develop naturally, and its proto-foundations are filled to a certain degree, it will seek to move further — beginning to work directly with the second circle. At that point, it has four possible paths it can follow.

The first path is from the proto-foundation of Love to the proto-foundation of Good. This is a direct path that people choose quite often.

It is a wide, well-trodden road followed by the majority — the path of Faith. Love is equated with Good, established within consciousness, and this equivalence forms a broad highway. It is realized through the feeling of faith — through acceptance without criticism. What is Good is understood not through personal experience, but through certain algorithms that are preloaded into consciousness.

The second path is from the proto-foundation of Life to the proto-foundation of Tradition — this is the path of Service. This path is also well established, but not many walk it, as it is connected with real actions and physical challenges. The path of Service is for warriors; it is followed by the loyal. By shaping their life in accordance with Tradition, and proving through personal example what Tradition truly is, they walk this path. Just as the founder of a kin embeds a part of their consciousness into it, after which the lineage structure itself begins to form — this is the path of Service.

The third path is from the proto-foundation of Hate to the proto-foundation of Evil. Everyone wants to walk this path, but very few truly can. It is the path of Search, or what would now be called the path of science. The path of Search rejects everything natural — it even, perhaps, rejects the self. On this path, there is nothing one can trust; everything must be questioned, dissected, and taken apart, regardless of whether you love it or not. Nothing is loved on this path. Only a very few walk the path of true Evil, although many speak of it.

The fourth path is from the proto-foundation of Death to the proto-foundation of Freedom — this is the path of Sorcery. Few walk this path as well, because the proto-foundation of Death is associated with destruction — of everything that binds one to the collective. It is a severance, a transformation of nature from Water to Air, a transition from the proto-foundation of Death to the proto-foundation of Freedom.

Which Path to Choose?

Here are the four paths. Which one to choose is revealed to us by the Yggdrasil Tree (as we are undergoing its mystery), showing these paths through the runes.

The first path is the path of Faith. The proto-foundation of Love is connected with the world of Midgard, and the proto-foundation of Good is connected with Alfheim. There is a connection between these worlds, but there is no rune. This means that this connection is not meant for humans. We recall the knowledge passed down by Odin in the Hávamál — that some runes were given to humans, some to the alfar, some to the Æsir; in other words, each people received their own runes. This means that each group has its own keys of access. Human runes do not indicate that one has a key, in the form of a rune, to this passage — and therefore, the path of Faith is not the Northern path. One who follows the Northern path does not walk the path of Faith. If a person of the Northern tradition transforms themselves, then perhaps they must leave this concept behind entirely, because it is not their road.

The second path on the Yggdrasil Tree runs from the proto-foundation of Life to the proto-foundation of Tradition — Midgard to Jotunheim. This path is laid out for us as a double road, and you have already traced two vectors in your consciousness through the formulas Jera–Jera–Nauthiz and Jera–Dagaz–Nauthiz — they teach how to work with truth and falsehood. These two vectors are connected with the path of Service, so that by walking it, a person can govern the structure of the world through these mechanisms — through truth.

The third path is the path of Search — Midgard to Svartalfheim. Here, too, no rune is given to humans, and access is closed — people do not enter by this path. Beings of other worlds do — gods, for example, have walked it. Loki moved back and forth along it.

No rune has been granted to humans here, which suggests that this is not a human path at all. The path of true Evil, the denial of everything, is not very human — it is akin to vivisection, something fundamentally inhuman.

The fourth path is the path of Sorcery. On the Yggdrasil Tree, it runs from Midgard to Vanaheim, and this path does exist — the runes are already established, and the vectors have been laid out in previous lessons.

In the Northern tradition, as Odin tells us, the path of Sorcery is the ability to work with one’s desires, to connect everything with everything while understanding the Law of Balance, to regulate the measures of Chaos, and to work with the cycles of Nature. By following this path, one can move beyond the ordinary, dense human world into the priestly, governing realm.

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