In this episode, I talk with author and researcher Judith Dillon to explore her latest book, Futhark Rune Mysteries: Origins of Magic and Divination in the Primal Alphabet. Judith brings more than 40 years of study into the relationship between early alphabets, Mystery Traditions, language, and sacred symbolism.
Together, we explore the hidden lineage of the runes, tracing their possible journey from Egyptian hieroglyphs through Phoenician and Semitic writing systems into northern Europe. Judith reveals the runes not just as letters carved into stone or wood, but as magical symbols, spiritual portals, and initiatory tools connected to divination, myth, transformation, and the deeper architecture of reality.
We also dive into Norse sagas, runic poems, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the ancient understanding of passage through life, death, and the afterlife. At the heart of this conversation is the mystery of language itself: the idea that alphabets may have been far more than practical systems of communication, carrying encoded wisdom, ritual power, and secret knowledge about the soul’s journey and its return to the light.
This conversation opens a doorway into the living power of symbols and the ancient belief that language itself could shape reality. It is a journey through history, mythology, magic, and the sacred codes hidden within humanity’s earliest alphabets. An incredible episode... Drop in!
https://berkeley.academia.edu/JudithDillon
Judith Dillon Bio:
Judith Dillon is an author and researcher whose work explores the relationship between ancient alphabets, sacred symbolism, runes, oghams, Hebrew, Phoenician, and the Western Mystery Traditions. She holds a degree in Near Eastern languages and anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and has spent more than 40 years studying the hidden spiritual and esoteric dimensions of early writing systems. She is the author of Alphabets and the Mystery Traditions and Futhark Rune Mysteries: Origins of Magic and Divination in the Primal Alphabet.
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