The Rune Magic Cards come in a box with their own instruction booklet. Unlike other recent sets of rune cards that have made their way onto the market, the Rune Magic Cards are not mere pretty pictures intended in some vague way to suggest the meanings of the runes to which they are related. This unfortunate practice stems from the Tarot trumps, which are symbolic pictures that over the centuries have been related to sets of occult correspondences by magicians such as Eliphas Levi, A. E. Waite, Aleister Crowley and S. L. MacGregor Mathers.

The designers of these rune decks have failed to understand that a rune is not a mere arbitrary symbol which stands for other matters that may be better represented with an image. The runes are complete in themselves. Their power lies in their very forms. It is not possible to translate the occult virtue of the runes into pretty pictures without losing it.

Consequently, almost the entire surface of each of the Rune Magic Cards is occupied by a single large Germanic rune in blood red. These runes were painted by me during an intense three day ritual working using a system of meditation and reflexive artistic expression similar to that employed by Japanese Zen calligraphers. In this way it was possible to actually project the living power of the runes into the cards. This will quickly become evident to anyone who gazes upon a card for more than a few minutes. The rune will begin to move and dance with vital energy. Each card is a potent talisman of the rune it carries.

I also painted the front and back dragon designs for the cards, and did several rough versions of the small images that occur at the top and bottom of each card. These thumbnail images, which were drawn in their finished form by the talented artist Robin Wood, were designed by me as the best possible graphic expression of the magical meanings of the runes. They are intended to act as a reminder to those just becoming acquainted with the runes, who might otherwise have trouble remembering their meanings.

ISBN: 0-87542-827-4. Price: $12.95. Llewellyn, 1988.