Meister Guido von List
ᛉ October 5, 1848 - May 17, 1919 ᛦ
Meister Guido von List (1848-1919) was an Austrian playwright, author, and esotericist. He was the founder of Wotanism, which was an integral precursor to the reforging of Ásatrú.
Born on October 5th, 1848, he was the eldest son of a wealthy family in Vienna, the capital of the former Austrian Empire. As was the custom in the area at the time, his family was Roman Catholic, and he was christened as a baby. He had a happy childhood and enjoyed trips with his father to the Austrian countryside.
On one such trip, in 1862, he and his father visited the catacombs beneath St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. Meister von List had come to strongly believe that there was formerly a shrine to one of the Æsir in those catacombs. He felt so strongly about this that he knelt before a destroyed altar and swore that he would one day construct a temple devoted to the All-Father.
Over the next 15 years, Meister von List joined the family leather business. During his free time, he sketched and wrote countless pages about pre-Christian Germany, as well as hiking and exploring the various Roman and Germanic ruins around the countryside. He even spent Miðsumar night alone on top of the Gieselberg hillfort, as a sign of devotion to the faith of his ancestors.
When his father passed beyond the veil in 1877, he left the leather business and became a journalist. He wrote for many nationalist publications, as he was a big proponent of folkism, mostly covering the practices and culture of the rural Austrian people. He also spoke to various groups about the “ancient priesthood of Wotan,” which was his understanding of Goðar devoted to Óðinn. While his information was likely fragmented, he was clearly devoted to the Æsir and was doing his best to bring more people home to their birthright.
In 1902, Meister on List’s ideas of Ásatrú developed a more occult and esoteric component, which many people now call Armanism. He received cataract surgery, and was left blind for nearly an entire year. During this time, he relentlessly studied Germanic language and the sacred runes. Once he regained his sight, he immediately wrote a manuscript explaining that the runes were the original language of the Aryan people. He claimed that a new Futhark of runes came to him via a vision during his blindness, and these are now known as the Armanen runes.
Although Meister von List passed away in 1919, he spent the rest of his life promoting his Armanen runes and spreading what he knew about Ásatrú to his Folk. His devotion to the Æsir was so deep that he held that troth until he passed to the next life.
While his version of Ásatrú was something of a rough draft compared to what we have now, his writings and sketches provided an invaluable pathway to everything that we have now. His interpretation of the runes is still used to this day in esoteric work, even practiced by many in the AFA. While Meister von List did not build a “temple to Wotan” as he promised in the catacombs of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a man named Stephen McNallen DID devote a Hof to the All-Father a mere 96 years later in the United States. This “temple to Wotan” is Óðinshof, founded in 2015 by the Asatru Folk Assembly, and it contains a dedicated shrine to the memory and works of Meister von List himself.
May we never fail in remembering where we came from! May we honor forevermore the brave men who laid the bricks so that we could walk this sacred path!
Hail Meister Guido von List!
Hail the Asatru Folk Assembly!