Modernity would see the Anglo-Saxon runes as historic and archaic; letters and words of a bygone era, superseded by the Roman script and Modern English language. Kennan sees the reverse to be true; that the runes comprise a system with symbolic depth and spiritual significance, which modern language and speech has generally lost contact with. Exploration of the Anglo-Saxon runes restores Old English as the foundation of Modern English; being a mythic, ecological and soulful sensibility, with rich imagery and a symbolic foundation. Letters, words and language can be more than conveyors of routine information and communication; the runes provide this, as well as a means of spiritual inquiry and magical usage that has been lost... to our modern collective detriment. Kennan's journey in medicine and psychology led him to his heritage, where a retrieved shamanic sensibility helped explore the historical and ancestral roots in his personal and professional life. In the broader Anglo-Celtic culture he discovered a perspective of the Soul that his religious upbringing had lost. The runes greatly assisted this process and gave him a creative perspective of magic and its use in everyday life, and with it an individual pathway to spiritual realisation through the restoration of the Soul.