The original reason for starting this blog was trying to create guidance to bridge the gap between Wicca 101 books and more advanced subjects such as Astral Projection, Advanced ritual energy dynamics, Possession and states of mystic ecstasy. There seemed to be a bit of hand holding to get people started and then a great abandoning. Readers were left with ritual scripts, but little understanding of their meanings, litle understanding of what they were inspired by and what subtle energy actions were needed to complement the ritual words and often it was not enough to get readers much further. They were plonked on the magical path with grandiose promises and very little means to deliver them.
I face one difficulty. Having practiced some form of “Magic/Magick” for around 25 years sympathising with a mid-level practitioner is often hard to do. What do they already know, what is obvious to me but would not be included in their Wicca 101 book that brought them here. So I want to look at a few training courses that encourage and enable people to move from basic to advance and I fully hope and expect I will learn something as I work through it.
There’s a few good courses out there which bridge these gaps, but many poor offerrings. I could sit here and winge about all the bad ones, but instead I would like to promote and make accessible an already known one. One that could probably do with a bit of modernizing, but otherwise the practices provide a unique guide from basic to complicated ritual work.
The works of Franz Bardon particularly “The Path of the True Adept”, more commonly known as its English title “Initiation Into Hermetics“, is one of the best courses that goes from basic through mid-level magical practice to advanced. With 10 steps each focused on a trinity of mental, coporeal and soul-related challenges. I have worked from this book for many years in a row and complimented it with his other two works. As far as books go it is surprising just how much I learn from its pages and its exercises even when I have read them so many times before.
Before we proceed a disclaimer, there is no best course on all aspects of magic. Some courses focus more on astrology, some focus more on the wheel of the year, some focus more on healing, some focus more on power and quite a few focus on the appropriate attitude with which to approach magic. So not one single course stands as the ultimate. Each course has its own value.
However, we like Franz Bardon because it shows a smooth progression from the first aspects of pore breathing, through energy work, to creating energy larvae (or thought forms) and developing the ability to psychically perceive and in his next book, we a similarly guided all the way to summoning genii. There is no break in the chain for Franz Bardon. There’s no point where you’re left with a few minor energy work skills, a few spoken spells and no instruction to weave the two together.
I see a lot of people get drawn to books that provide information they already know, and I am often drawn to this trilogy of books, partly because I struggle to do many parts of it, so it is a challenge. In studying magic I am always trying to learn something I don’t know yet. So some of my next few posts will be focused on learning from Franz Bardon’s the Path of the True Adept or Initiation Into Hermetics as it is most commonly called in English.
Why I think Franz Bardon’s trilogy of books, Initiation Into Hermetics, Magical Practice of Evocation and Key to the True Qabalah, are the best:
- The practices are hierarchical. Each practice builds on what was learned in the previous one, enabling the reader to go into deeper, more profound and more useful exercises.
- The course was created to fit around a normal life with work and home life. It’s not all-consuming, it doesn’t require constant ritual purity, and it can be slightly adjusted to fit your timetable.
- It works based on a series of formulas and doesn’t demand a certain devotional practice that might be to a deity you do not know or don’t like.
It’s not all amazing. In fact, if it was perfect, I would just encourage you to go get the book yourself rather than extract its more useful contents to my blog. I still encourage it, but be aware of the following criticisms:
- His terminology is outdated. He often refers to the Electic fluid when he means Fire Energy. He often says Magnetic fluid when he means water energy. He says Electic-Magnetic fluid when he means Air energy. And the tetrapolar magnet is the perfected human soul. This often makes his work hard to read in a modern context.
- His relationships between the elements are unique to his view and not shared by other Hermeticists.
- His Stage One is so difficult to achieve that many people try to just skip it or drop the training altogether.
- His relation of the elements to the humours, an outdated medical theory, has him often associating personality traits that would be assigned very differently than in groups that use zodiac personality traits instead.
- This training lasts a long time, as any serious training will. But not a lot of people have the perseverance to continue on through it. In fact, I must have started this at least 5 times, and I never completed steps 9 and 10. Sometimes I took a break for some other learning and returned to it later, only to discover my meditation skills had atrophied.
I hope to approach this material by making articles that enable people to proceed through its training material using more modern terminology that fits with work from other groups, such as Wiccan Covens, Hermetic Orders and so on. I hope to break down some of the training in Step One’s meditation work to make it easier to understand.
In the near future, I hope to work through some other books and courses, but for now, this is the main one. You will note that I’ve been doing energy work since around 2001, and that relates closely to the content of these books, so there will be many added exercises to fill in further gaps that he has left.
I hope that while going through this process, I make some good content to share with you all.