This is the first of what I hope to be an ongoing series – Student Stories. I feel it is important that people see meaningful progress if they decide to trust us here at Perseus with their most important commodity, time. So, in this ‘Student Story’ we hear from Jenneke of Exile and their story relates to the Sixty Skills Master Course. They are a great example of a new student coming into a curriculum with no preconceived ideas as to how long it should take. The progress of this student may seem unbelievable to some, but it is by no means rare in the community with many others having a similar timeline. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments and if you would like to share your own story, please send an email to contact@perseusarcaneacademy.com.
Master Course Experience by Jenneke of Exile
Franz Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics is widely regarded as the pinnacle of an occult training manual. And yet, it is not an easy read, as many of us can attest. Having heard of it some years ago, I ordered it eagerly but then immediately put it on the shelf after the first handful of pages. It seemed impenetrable, written for a different type of consciousness entirely. It sat there, biding its time, until I came across Bob Smith of Sixty Skills at a Hermetics conference.
Bob was giving a talk on the Key to the True Kabbalah. Many of the topics similarly went over my head: the energies of various letters, side effects of practice, etc. But the way he described the topics, as advanced as they were, made it clear they were well within reach of any occultist who truly set their mind to mastering them. Encouraged, I ordered Bob Smith’s Master Course a few days later and began working through it.
The course is a modern reworking of Bardon’s system of initiation, with the important and grounding additions of body training and pranayama. I had immediate success mastering vital and astral energy, which encouraged me to move onward toward practicing the elements and accumulating the requisite 40 hours of cumulative practice in order to attain elemental equilibrium. From this point, I advanced to deep experiences of akasha and nondual light. Before I knew it, six months had passed and I had worked through the entirety of the course, experiencing initial successes in even advanced practices such as elementary creation and working with the astral temple. I spent the following year on advanced coursework following the Master Course – Bob’s letter and planetary magic classes.
About a year after completing my first run through the Master Course, I resolved to read IIH from beginning to end. By this point, its content was familiar, not arcane. Many nuances of Bardon’s teachings which would have been inaccessible to me were now surfaced.
Bob has a true gift for encouraging the novice student to believe in their ability to experience the depths of magical success, as well as keen insight into how to best sequence one’s development. The community that has grown up around the course is also a gem. As with any course, what you get out of it is related to what you put into it, but Bob has done the work to make sure the multiplier on effort is exceptional.
The ancient Chinese sages spoke of jing, chi and shen. The Hermeticists of old spoke of vital, astral and mental energies. Both spoke of ways to convert one energy into another. And the Three Transformations were born!
Ever wonder how to do this exactly? Wonder no more. It turns out this is not some mysterious thing that exists only for the greatest of saints. All the details behind how to convert one of the basic natal energies into another, why you would want to perform the Three Transformation and the various issues involved are included in this SixtySkills course.
What follows is a ‘Student Story’ generously provided by a student who has now completed all three parts of Ceremonial Magic and the Franz Bardon Tradition. Many thanks to them for taking the time to share their experience.
Student Story
“The method used by the modern initiate for interpreting the language spoken by the ancient myths is a very simple and effectual one. He finds in the Qabalistic Tree of Life a link between the highly stylistic pagan systems and his own more rational methods…
…Upon the Tree of Life with its Ten Holy Sephiroth the modern occultist bases both a metaphysic and a magic. He uses a philosophical conception of the Tree to interpret what it represents to his conscious mind, and he uses a magical and ceremonial application of its symbolism to link up with his subconscious mind. The initiate, consequently, makes the best of both worlds, ancient and modern; for the modern world is all surface consciousness, and has forgotten and repressed the subconsciousness, to it’s own great hurt; and the ancient world was mainly subconsciousness, consciousness having been but recently evolved. When the two are linked up and brought into polarised function they yield the superconsciousness,which is the goal of the initiate”
Dion Fortune, the Mystical Qabalah
Many versions of The Golden Dawn’s flagship rituals have existed before this set, created by Andre Consciência. A great deal of these are available online for free, even more versions in books, and perhaps a few more versions behind the doors of lodges to which I do personally do not belong. The question is then begged as to what is the point in learning yet another version of these staples of western occultism. What does this offer that other versions do not? Why should you even bother?
Assuming instead that you are a practitioner of Franz Bardon’s more yogic systems of western occultism, what is it that is contained outside of those methods? If Initiation into Hermetics is a self contained path to Adepthood, why would you need something else beyond that? The Ceremonial Magic and the Franz Bardon Tradition course address these questions, not through amalgamation but through synthesis.
The truth is you do not need another version of The Ritual of the Pentagram or the Middle Pillar nor do you need anything outside of Franz Bardon’s works to reach Adepthood. This course is actually something different than both of those things. Is it instead the marriage of both of these methodologies into a whole that leverages each while simultaneously creating essentially a third esoteric mini-system that carries the student from basic magical skill to ascending the mantle of assuming the Godhead. It is not so much a crash course to the finish line as it is a condensed form of practice, a more direct and surgical Theurgy.
The Ceremonial course created by Andre Consciência uses his knowledge of both of these systems (and others) to access each set of skills and rituals in a manner where they enforce each other, creating a much more direct and efficacious system then when used separately. The advantage here is not in the lower hanging fruit of better direct energy management and engagement that is the hallmark of the Bardon system. When approaching aspects of rituals like the Middle Pillar these sorts of things seem self-evident, and honestly any ritual magician worth their salt would and should be able to reproduce these sorts of energetics, at least inside the framework of the ritual itself. It is instead the use of Bardon’s Quabbalah and Evocation techniques, the use of depth point and planetary magic, and the use of intertwined Godnames and Deity Yoga that push this over the edge from “just another version of ritual X” to something that is unique.
That being said each section makes use of the techniques of Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics as the base for each ritual making knowledge of Bardon’s first text advantageous, though not entirely necessary. The course itself is guided by Andre directly, piece by piece, to monitor any adverse changes and also to help the student down any rabbit holes they might find along the way. The guidance might not be needed assuming that the practitioner is either an Adept in Bardon’s system or the Golden Dawn, but use of Bardon’s Quabbalah and Planetary energetics can cause adverse reactions in those not prepared.
Per the Rabbit holes; practitioners of Bardon may not be used to the effects of practicing ritual magic, the results of which can be somewhat unpredictable as the mind interacts with the symbols, energies, and words of power. Bottom line is, Initiation into Hermetics lends itself to a great deal of control while ritual magic tends to leave the results to form as they may: oftentimes somewhat unpredictability. Each side has its benefits and practitioners of either (or both) can benefit from the other. The level of self mastery granted by Bardon’s methods only enhance any Ritual Magician’s repertoire, while I’m sure there are many Bardonist’s who could use some objective reactivity in their pursuit of “perfection”. There is no actual dichotomy in play here anyway, which is essentially the point of the course. The separation between methodologies does not actually exist. They come to full fruition when used in tandem.
Additionally, as it is somewhat of a mini-system each lesson learned pulls double duty as being part of the rituals themselves as well as skills that can be put to task in typical magical work. Many of the techniques used in the course mirror the same basics in Initiation into Hermetics with a slight twist or expanded contents. Creative magicians should find new skills to cut their teeth on and clever new ways to think about how to use skills they already have.
Each ritual is densely packed with information and follows the basic framework of the originals but not slavishly, still leveraging the magic and symbols of the original rituals of the Golden Dawn. The major touchpoints of many of the rituals are compacted and reiterated through the impact of Bardon’s three manuals while still retaining the core and efficacy of the original Ritual of the Pentagram and Middle Pillar. Because of this the performance of these rituals becomes more than the sum of its parts. Needless to say, the warning provided by Andre for those who might be sensitive or have adverse reactions to altered states of perception should be heeded.
The Grand Ritual of Purification
As to the courses themselves, the magician begins with the Grand Ritual of Purification in step one, using the Middle Pillar as its base. The lessons lead the student through the creation of the center pillar of the Otz Chim in their astral body, starting with a specialized form of equilibrium and introductions to the energies involved in the course. These energies include about half of Bardon’s Cosmic Letters, so students should be prepared to put their nose to the grind stone, especially as they learn the lexicon of the course itself. This may be somewhat of a turn off for less tenacious students and also an additional learning curve for people less familiar with these systems. However, it is rare in the entirety of the course that it is required to succeed at an exercise for more than 10 minutes and in this it follows the spirit of Initiation into Hermetics: that the sum of its parts is indeed more valuable than any exercise individually.
Once one has the basics down these energies are compiled into the Middle Pillar, Sephirot by Sephirot, step by step. Each energy is a lesson and serves to build the efficacy of the ritual and part of these step stones is stability. Many of these skills aren’t just being used one by one but are stacked to function simultaneously with other skills, requiring the magician to learn to operate from multiple points of consciousness. This may require an immediate recalibration for some practitioners as by the end of just the first course one will be managing volts, hand rituals, incanting multi-letter formula, all while holding depth point.
That being said, the end results of this ritual serves up a platter of invoked god states, quabbalistically incanted altered perceptions that serve to purge the magician as well as prepare for later courses. It is a multi-tiered event, combining multiple forms of equilibrium stacked on top of each other, interwoven with the energies of the Middle Pillar and effecting multiple levels of the magician.
From my own personal experience with the first course, there is definitely an energetic adjustment period with many of the steps and the full completion of the ritual itself has its own adjustment period. There are ways to “loop” the ritual, presented in the course, where in the more rotations increase the strength and depth of the resulting trance, but I never found it necessary to do more than 2-3 rotations. Depending on the skill of the magician and the desire for depth, the ritual itself can be completed in less than 10 minutes to an easily extended 30 or more minutes without even beginning to loop the ritual.
While I found each of the sections of the course equally impactful, the first section was especially memorable as it sets the tone for the rest of the course and adapts the magician to the primary methods being used going forward.
Grand Ritual of Evocation
The next section is the Bardonization of the Ritual of the Pentagram and as the description on the side of the box implies, it is focused on evocation. Rather than imagine a few sensations and some ephemeral visualizations, the course now leverages Bardon’s Practical Magic of Evocation to summon the four archangels to the four corners.
Before we get to the evocations, though, there is review on the opening and closing of the ritual right before a rather intensive multi-tiered exploration of Vacancy of Mind which also serves as a study of the Pentagram. This was one of my favorite parts of the course and the beginning of what I felt was the most artfully arranged of the sections as the aspects that are understood in these lessons will be repeatedly seen to change form and representation through the rest of Course 2, serving as a common theme.
Now the evocations of the Archangels presented in this course are pure Bardon, no tools, and one hundred percent raw dog (if I may be so crude). Because of this it must be stated that these evocations are rather concentration hungry. Like the first part of the course, there are a lot of moving parts and all these parts serve to negate the need for these sorts of devices by the mind doing its duty in reproducing these tools’ functions ( or one could say the tools do the duty of the mind’s function). Building tools is a magic in its own right, however, and before getting to the evocations proper I had created two tools for my use (the belt and magusband) and procured a third (the magical dagger). I found it valuable to learn this evocation method with and without tools, the former to build my skill and strength with the art itself and the latter to both enhance and reduce mental bandwidth needed.
There is a bit of a shift in skills between the 1st and 2nd courses. Aside from some of the Quabbalistic incantations, the Grand Ritual of Evocation is the right hand to the left hand of the, The Ritual of Purification and both of these courses represent the framework of Bardon’s three book methodologies with the content of the Golden Dawn rituals.
The Grand Ritual of Invocation.
The 3rd course is the crown jewel of this set of theurgies.
The final ritual is the combined efficacy of both previous rituals, now coupled with a full methodology of God Form intensive practice. Just as stacking the fundamental skills that Franz Bardon presents in IIH formulates the foundation of the work, we now stack rituals on top of each other to create one “Mega-Ceremony” that takes advantage of everything we’ve already learned so far and presents it in one mind-altering package.
The Deities (yes, multiple) chosen for this are Vedic and not Egyptian which is an interesting choice as it actually leans into Franz Bardon’s exposure to culture and not the Golden Dawn’s. Without going into too much detail, each God Form is built on a specific characteristic that builds the deity yoga and thus the relationship and indwelling of the deity. All of this dovetails seamlessly into the ritual structure so instead of adding more ceremony you are actually building atop the foundation you have already created. The characteristic sets and visualizations for these deities are extensive and detailed, however at this point in the course it should truly prove to be little difficulty for the magician if they have made it this far.
As far as more specific details…relationships are personal. This is one you will have to experience for yourself as well as the “results” of the ritual.
Conclusion
Overall this is an excellent course and has many of the necessary ingredients to both engage experienced magicians as well as bring neophytes from “Zero to Hero”. Each course is quite meticulous but once traction is made in the learning curve of the first course, sailing should be mostly smooth aside from any personal barriers (or meandering side quests!) that one may encounter. While certainly this course can be learned in a year’s time as suggested this becomes advanced work very quickly. Unless one is already well trained or a savant it can be well conceived to take more. Each skill section is also accompanied by required time periods of study, and these time periods are part of the magical formula of the course itself so while one may learn one of these skills in one or two sittings, practicing for the required amount increases the efficacy of the “charge” of the skill. From my experience with the course, I would say that it also pays to build and keep momentum in this course as the tantric style build up and release of energy can be incorporated to sling shot the practitioner through the course itself, which can be quite transformative on its own.
This is quite a journey but you are not at it alone. André is quite attentive in helping through these and is concerned, not just with the course material, but on making sure the magician leaves this practice in an equilibrated state as well. And just like the understanding of the Tree of Life and why one might build the Middle Pillar into the astral body, the course work is just the map: the student is actually the objective.
