Runes Today Options

Howdy all-

I was having a thought today, and thought I'd post it here.

Runes are generally thought to be a very powerful magick, right? In my experience, though, they don't seem to be very well fit for spellcasting today. I've been trying to think of a reason why that'd be. I was thinking that perhaps it was because for us today, the runes do really have any meaning. I mean, before I started looking into magick I had no idea what they were or meant, and even still, there's no real connection for me, with them.

I was thinking how I could remedy that and I came up with an idea, but I'm not even sure if it's a good idea, but I thought I'd toss it out here to get some input.

Runes were powerful for their originators because they had strong meaning to them, and they put their power into them. For us today, though, I think that disconnect probably significantly weakens what we can do with them. Yeah, there's an allure to working with something ancient, but personally, I think that a personal connection is probably more important.

Then I thought: "why doesn't everyone work with their own runes"- I think it'd be a decent idea, but then there isn't that universal power that everyone using them puts into it.
What if we created our own rune system- it could have a personal connection, and the benefit of a large body of users putting their energies into it?
The downside that occurs to me is that by not using the current, ancient-based runic system, we'd be disconnecting ourselves from that source of ancient power.

I would think that this downside would be a pretty big one, and I can't really think of a way to rectify it. Perhaps by keeping some of the ancient runes, and mixing them up some.

What do you guys think? I realize this would be a really difficult thing to do, I mean, getting enough people to put their energies into it to empower the marks.

Any input would be most appreciated.

Good luck with that, it sounds like an interesting project.

Runes were used as much for their artistic value as for their inherent power. When it comes to spellwork I've had good luck with bindrunes, which are runes combined together in artistic designs. Often the whole is far more powerful than the sum of its parts--at least if you perform the rituals correctly.

Oftentimes scrying and/or meditation on the runes and what they mean can help you combine them into something meaningful and therefore powerful for you. I still have a little polymer clay tag that I made up w/a bindrune for wisdom. After 15 years I've acquired a great deal of cynicism. People call me wise, but I'm not so sure. Anyway, it worked in that I saw and learned a hell of a lot more than I ever expected to about a lot of things. I'm sure that other people who created bindrunes for other purposes have had results too.

Let us know how the whole thing works out...