Book excerpt: Originally published in 1986, based on the author's 1984 doctoral dissertation, this volume has become the leading academic study of the topic of rune-magic. When originally released only 250 copies of this work were printed in a prohibitively expensive edition. This new revised and updated version allows more readers to discover the revolutionary contents of this book which presents a comprehensive history and theory of the concept of magic in connection with the ancient Germanic runes. It also catalogs, categorizes and analyzes the many magical formulas used by the most ancient rune-masters and shows how these formulas were utilized within the traditional Germanic cultural frame of reference. No mater what your level of interest is in the runes, this is the most in-depth text you will find. This is the third edition of this masterpiece, with numerous corrections.