The material on this site can be read in a week and cannot be absorbed in less than a year. This course arranges it into twelve monthly stages, each with a theme, some reading, a daily practice and a single task. It is designed for a person with a job and a household, and it asks for about twenty minutes each morning, a few minutes each evening and an hour or two of reading a week.
In brief
- The course is free, self directed and has no examinations, grades or certificates.
- Each month builds on the last. Do not skip ahead, and repeat a month if it was not really done.
- The daily diary and the monthly review run through the whole year.
- Read ethics and safety before you begin.
How to use the course
Begin on the first day of any month. Read the month's pages in the first week and reread them in the third. Do the daily practice as described on the daily practice page: the morning session, the midday pause and the evening review. Carry out the month's task. On the last day, write your monthly review and decide honestly whether to go on or to repeat.
The standard for going on is not that the month went well. It is that you practiced on most days and recorded all of them.
First quarter: foundations
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Month one
The record and the seat
Read: Start Here, The Magical Diary, Ethics and Safety, Daily Practice. Practice: stillness, five minutes rising to fifteen. Task: establish a fixed time and place, and make a diary entry every day, including the days you do not practice.
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Month two
Breath and attention
Read: Meditation, History of the Tradition, What Is Magick?. Practice: the fourfold breath and counting the breath. Begin the evening review. Task: start the exercise of seven weeks, seven lenses with the seven principles, which runs into month three.
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Month three
The rite and the tablet
Read: The Structure of Ritual, The Emerald Tablet, Will and Attention. Practice: learn the rite of the center by heart and perform it each morning before meditation. Task: fourteen days with the tablet, and thirty days of the daily resolution.
Second quarter: the elements
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Month four
Earth
Read: The Four Elements, The Hermetic Texts. Practice: concentration on an object. Task: make the elemental inventory. Give the month to earth: order your place of working, your papers and your hours of sleep. Read treatise I of the Corpus Hermeticum.
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Month five
Water
Read: Alchemy, Shadow and Integration. Practice: visualization, beginning with the elemental triangles. Task: thirty evenings of the review with its single line. Keep the list of irritations.
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Month six
Air and fire
Read: The Hermetic Cosmos, The Great Work. Practice: meditation on a symbol, taking one elemental sign each week. Task: for air, write a clear two page account of what you have learned so far. For fire, choose one thing you have been avoiding and do it. Repeat the elemental inventory and compare. Write your statement of aim.
Third quarter: the planets and the tree
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Month seven
The seven
Read: Planetary Magick, the Tables of Correspondence. Practice: meditation on the planet of each day, using its symbol. Task: a week of the seven, repeated four times. Learn the table of the planets by heart and use the planetary hours for a week.
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Month eight
The ascent
Read: reread The Hermetic Cosmos. Read treatise XIII of the Corpus Hermeticum. Practice: the evening ascent through the seven spheres, in place of the ordinary review. Task: perform one simple planetary working for a quality you lack, on its proper day and hour, and record it in full.
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Month nine
The tree
Read: The Hermetic Qabalah, Symbols. Practice: meditation on one sphere each day for three days, from Malkuth to Tiphareth, then repeat. Task: draw the Tree from memory daily until it is perfect, and assign each day's chief event to a sphere.
Fourth quarter: application and review
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Month ten
The sign
Read: Sigils and Talismans, Divination. Practice: one card or figure each morning, recorded and checked each evening. Task: make and charge a first sigil for a small aim of your own, with a written date of review.
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Month eleven
The text
Read: the Asclepius, slowly, and the essay on how to read an old book of magic. Choose one further text from the reading list. Practice: meditation on a sentence chosen from the day's reading. Task: keep a commonplace book of passages copied by hand, with your comments.
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Month twelve
The year
Read: your own diary, from the first page. Practice: your choice of the exercises, held steady for the month. Task: write a review of the year in three parts: what was done, what changed, what was learned. Revise your statement of aim. Review your sigil. Draw up a plan for the year to come.
The year at a glance
| Month | Theme | Meditation | Principal task |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The record and the seat | Stillness | Daily diary |
| 2 | Breath and attention | Counting the breath | Seven lenses |
| 3 | The rite and the tablet | Counting the breath | The rite; the tablet |
| 4 | Earth | Concentration | Elemental inventory |
| 5 | Water | Visualization | Thirty evenings |
| 6 | Air and fire | Symbol meditation | Statement of aim |
| 7 | The seven | The planets | A week of the seven |
| 8 | The ascent | The planets | A planetary working |
| 9 | The tree | The spheres | Drawing the Tree |
| 10 | The sign | Card or figure | A first sigil |
| 11 | The text | A sentence | Commonplace book |
| 12 | The year | Your choice | Review of the year |
After the year
A student who has completed the twelve months has a steady daily practice, a working knowledge of the symbolic language, a first acquaintance with the sources and a year of honest records. That is a foundation. It is not an attainment, and the tradition would say that the real work now begins.
There are several ways forward. One is to repeat the year at greater depth, giving a full month to each element and each planet. Another is to take a single primary text and live with it for a year. A third is to seek out others who are doing the same work, with the cautions set out under groups and teachers. Whichever you choose, keep the daily form and the diary. They are the part that does not change.