Stephen Flowers

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Stephen Flowers bigraphy, stories - American Author

Stephen Flowers : biography

1953 –

Stephen Edred Flowers (born 1953) is an American Runologist and proponent of occultism and Germanic mysticism. The Bonham, Texas-born author has over two dozen published books and hundreds of published papers on a disparate range of subjects. He is also known by the pen-name Edred Thorsson. Flowers advocates "Esoteric Runology" or "Odianism", an occultist version of Germanic Neopaganism.Runelore: A Handbook of Esoteric Runology (1987), p. 172.

Criticisms

In 1989, Flowers was expelled from the Odinic Rite following his Open Letter to the Leadership of the Asatru/Odinist/Troth Movement wherein he detailed his involvement with the Temple of Set.Odinic Rite Briefing No.86, 14 July 1989

Sweyn Plowright, a former member of the Rune-Gild who resigned from the organization in 2000, has referred to the philosophy of Flowers as being "neo-Satanic" and antinomian.

Education

Flowers did his graduate work in Germanic and Celtic philology under professor and scholar Edgar Polomé at the University of Texas at Austin from 1973-1984. In 1981-1982 he studied the history of occultism at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Medieval Studies in 1984 with a dissertation entitled Runes and Magic: Magical Formulaic Elements in the Elder Tradition. From 1984-1989 he was a lecturer in the Departments of English and Germanic Languages at the University of Texas and was last known to be teaching Classical Philology at Austin Community College.

History

Flowers was instrumental in the early establishment of the Germanic Neopagan movement in North America. and has also been very active in Left-Hand Path occult organizations.

Flowers joined the Church of Satan in 1972 though he reportedly never became involved with the organization beyond his receiving their newsletter, "The Cloven Hoof." On November 11, 1983 he founded a small group to explore what he saw as the dark, futuristic undercurrent of Odinism called The Order of Shining Trapezohedron or "O.S.T." which was closed on January 13, 1984. The O.S.T. served as a segue into his involvement with the Temple of Set, an organization in which he currently holds the degree of Ipsissimus VI°. Within the Temple of Set he served as Grand Master of the Order of the Trapezoid from January 1987 until June 1996."Runes: The Journal of the Order of the Trapezoid" Vol XIV Number 2

Flowers was one of the original members of the Asatru Free Assembly. In 1979 Flowers founded the Rune-Gild, an initiatory order focused on "the revival of the elder Runic" tradition, advocating runic magic.

Flowers currently is the executive officer, or Yrmin Drighten, of the Rune-Gild. As a project of the Rune-Gild, Flowers founded the Ásatrú organization the Ring of Troth in 1987 (which is now simply called the Troth). Flowers is no longer affiliated with the Troth. Flowers has also had contact with the Armanen-Orden, the Order of the Triskelion and other occult orders.

Flowers is currently the director of the Woodharrow Institute of Germanic Studies and the owner and operator of Runa-Raven Press.

Partial bibliography

Stephen Flowers

  • Runes and Magic: Magical Formulaic Elements in the Elder Runic Tradition, 1987 ISBN 0-8204-0333-4
  • The Galdrabók: an Icelandic Grimoire, 1989 ISBN 0-87728-685-X
  • Fire & Ice: Magical Teachings of Germany’s Greatest Secret Occult Order, 1990 ISBN 0-87542-776-6
  • Black Rûna, 1995
  • Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Magical Papyrus of Abaris, 1995 ISBN 0-87728-828-3
  • Green Rûna: The Runemaster’s Notebook, 1996 ISBN 1-885972-03-2
  • Lords of the Left-Hand Path: A History of Spiritual Dissent , 1997 ISBN 1-885972-08-3
  • Red Rûna, 2002
  • Carnal Alchemy: A Sado-Magical Exploration of Pleasure, Pain and Self-Transformation, 2002
  • A Concise Edition of Old English Runic Inscriptions
  • Travel-Report As it Concerns the Scandinavian Rûs – Ibn Fadlan – Introduction and Commentary by Stephen Flowers
  • Johannes Bureus and the Adalruna
  • Rúnarmál I
  • A Source-Book of Seid (with James Chisholm), 2002
  • Studia Germanica Volume I
  • Wendish Mythology: Divinities and Religious Practices of the Western Slavs
  • The Magian Tarok: The Key Linking the Mithraic, Greek, Roman Hebrew and Runic Traditions with that of the Tarot