The present epoch of change and uncertainty has seen the revival of many traditional, and hitherto suppressed, expressions of religious-magical practice such as pantheistic shamanic paganism which has been lately revived as revivalist Wicca.

Alongside the pagan school, whose magical practices in the post war era involved heavy borrowing from medieval grimoires such as the Key of Solomon, the widespread interest in ritual magick has stemmed from the mysticism of the Qabalah of the Old Testament. Until relatively recently much of this revival of interest seems to have been rooted in the reaction of modern man against the restrictive influence of the stale morality of Christianity.

The onset of the 1990's has however seen the leading edge of esoteric movements embrace spiritual tools and perspectives from horizons beyond the Christian ethos; even from outside the pure source of their own traditional and historical origins.

Rites and techniques of magical practice are now commonly originated 'in the spirit' of the fragmented pagan traditions, from sources which the traditionalist or purist might regard as uneasy bedfellows.

Alongside a more open minded approach, there has occurred a homogenisation of interests amongst the esoteric community. Today, Magick is increasingly regarded as a developmental art form where the 'destiny' and 'state of grace' of the adherent lies very much within the hands of the individual; and because of this perception, traditional methods are having to make way for new esoteric working practices.

Modern pagans, or Wiccans, are nowadays as likely to perform ceremonies adopted from the curriculum of ceremonial magick as they are to pay attention to ritual demonstrations of their fertility religion.

Similarly, practising ritual magicians who work within the Rosicrucian tradition popularised by such authorities as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, etc, are as likely to involve themselves in rites of sex magic in addition to the ceremonial practices for which they are so well known.

A common thread which binds many of these previously unconnected disciplines together places the committed seeker upon the path of self discovery leading to the knowledge of the higher self or 'Over-Self'. This aspect of esotericism, of contacting the Genius within ? of whom our everyday personalities are only a reflection, is of very recent development in the West.

Even as recently as the Nineteen Sixties, when Wicca gained lurid public exposure in the popular media, the general focus of the arts targeted wish fulfilment rather than self development. Similarly, in the field of ceremonial or ritual magic, the traditional focus of attention has concerned itself with the acquisition of power and 'mind mastery' over the elements and the forces of Nature.

Of late, paganism has benefited from the influence of Shamanism which has brought a strong flavour of 'inner plane working' and exploration of the landscapes of the racial 'sub' and Unconscious realm of archetypes. Although Wiccans and pagans continue to exalt the themes of fertility and sexuality, the shamanic 'experiencing' element has only recently resurfaced in the approach of western practitioners; introducing a self developmental edge to pagan magick.

The major changes in methodology concerning the practice of High magick also seem to lie in the area of self developmental work.

Whereas the practice of High magick has traditionally been associated with less than altruistic purposes such as the uncovering of hidden treasures and striking down enemies at a distance ? one only has to consult any medieval grimoire for illustration ? its present aims and directives seem to be focused upon 'switching on' higher mental and spiritual circuits. Traditionally, the ritual magician might seek to manifest a particular spirit or entity within the world of materiality through rites of evocation.

Nowadays a more subtle approach prevails; with a variety of occult schools teaching methods and exercises designed to attune the aspirant to higher planes of existential awareness, in order that the aspirant may commune directly with other?world entities on their plane of origin.

It is thus evident that the tools of magick are being put to revolutionary new usages. The psychological objectives of present day initiates belie a sophistication of approach that has taken the art beyond the glamour of wonder working and religious awe.

It is a sad fact that whenever each of us find in our first footsteps on the traditional pathways a measure of 'truth' sadly lacking in the state Christianity which we find so restrictive, the first stirring of idealistic fervour begins grips us.

Just as converts to any newfound religion, especially 'born again' Christians, find themselves gripped by evangelical righteousness ? we too can find ourselves ensnared in the same net. It is part of our job to incorporate this factor into our dealings with our Inner Selves and, as candidates worthy of initiation, learn to turn the tables to our own advantage.

The impact of pagan, or ritual, initiation and acceptance into an esoteric working group appeals to the same elitist urges within us, whichever path we may find ourselves upon.

This principle is common to human nature, and is not only applicable to religious or spiritual affairs. One has only to consider the gripping effect of the tidal wave of participation in drug experimentation that has swept through our culture in the past fifteen years or so, to find a revealing illustration of this. Only a few years ago, the introduction of the drug 'Ecstasy' into our culture sparked off a 'consciousness culture' which manifested in the short lived and ill fated underground movement known as 'Ecstasy Enlightenment'.

Such is the power of any agent, spiritual or narcotic, to lift the quality of consciousness to the degree that those involved feel admitted to an elite who share a clear vision of reality. The urge to share such an experience with those who are often 'unfortunate' enough not to have attained such a blessed perspective will be recognised by anyone who has themselves attained any measure of such a privileged vision of 'the light' or 'the Way'.

This evangelical urge points towards one of the graces inherent in our human nature that may well be the saving of us. It is fitting that those who have found their 'Way' do react in a manner that urges each to bear witness to the truth as it has been revealed to them. It bodes well that the altruism of 'sharing' is a factor common to the enlightened. It is only when such identification with the 'elite in spirit' turns into a 'them' and 'us' world view, bringing with it a 'master race' mentality that affairs become dangerous. Those 'of the Way' will instinctively know that more people who are brought to the light are blinded by it than illuminated and purged by its intensity.

Those amongst us of the mainstream 'pagan' disposition can be generally considered to fall into two camps; those who may be regarded as pagan by the nature of their devotional and religious approach to spiritual archetypes, and those engaged upon a programme of inner development whose approach takes them outside of the narrow parameters of the host Christianity of the West.

Relating to this distinction, I would like to refer two of the three 'Orders of Being' taught by J.G. Bennett ? that is to those of us who belong to two distinct categories of human beings: Psycho?Static individuals ? who only seek the gratification of their immediate needs, temporal or spiritual ? and Psycho?Kinetic individuals who are comprised of those who are actively involved in the inner work with the intention of developing their quality
of spiritual 'Being'.

The greatest danger to initiation is inertia. The word initiation infers an ongoing process and is a verb rather than a noun. One may attain the status of Initiate by beginning a cycle of work. Maintaining ones status is dependent upon the continuing momentum of ones actions within, and beyond, that cycle of work.

There is much hankering after initiation on the part of those who interest themselves in the ways of enlightenment. Often, individuals move from one group to another, even crossing the socio?cultural barriers of differing esoteric traditions to gain 'initiation' into cult after cult. This is not magickal initiation; merely channel hopping.

The traditions of those who style themselves witches are manifold. There is no corporate litany or dogma. Many of the historical sources who originated the teachings that are often referenced by contemporary practitioners as 'authentic' were self starters; practising under the authority of an assumed mandate.

In the field of Wicca, Gerald Gardner was a member of this confraternity, as was Alex Sanders. Neither could produce cast iron credentials when asked to do so.

Gardner was once a member of the fourth degree of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis, or O.T.O., which did not signify a particularly exalted level of magical competence and he had amazingly little practical experience of Witchcraft let alone a mastery of it.

In a similar vein, Alex Sanders was a self initiate. The story of his sexual initiation into the Craft at the hands of his grandmother was a smoke screen designed to divert the attentions of the undiscerning away from his 'self invention'. It was a smoke screen which has been seen to have backfired on the Craft in the long term however, as it is this story in particular which
many evangelical Christians quote in their efforts to tarnish the Craft with allegations of sexual abuse.

Both of these examples of self initiation illustrate how far one may proceed on ones own mandate; whether it be along the highway of historical glory, or merely 'up the garden path'. Gardner is credited with the 'invention' of a tradition of Witchcraft that has passed for the genuine article until comparatively recently since the early nineteen fifties. Sanders was much feted as the 'King of the Witches' in the popular press throughout the Nineteen Sixties.

In other areas of the magickal tradition, a similar scenario prevails. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded on a fraud; this being the forgery and authentification of a set of cipher manuscripts by William Wynn Westcott who produced them as evidence of his having achieved contact with an elite school of Rosicrucian initiates.

Were it not for the intervention of MacGregor Mathers, who originated an extraordinary system of rituals and cross correspondences from the skeleton key of the cipher documents, Westcott's Order of the Golden Dawn would never have flourished. We would then have found ourselves in a world in which the likes of A.E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, W.B. Yeats, Israel Regardie and their kind would never have found their 'inner selves' through working the rites of the Order.

Like the term 'magick', the word 'initiate' should be regarded as a verb rather than a noun by the practitioner. Start, and ye shall be called 'Initiate'. Advance and ye shall be known as 'Adept'.

One's status as an initiate can only be maintained whilst one is actually moving in a particular direction, and the only way for the new age initiate to maintain his or her evolutionary momentum is to continue to practice the magical rites of their art with self disciplined regularity.

Earlier I mentioned two of the three states of human development taught by J.G. Bennett; these were the Psycho? Static state and the Psycho?Kinetic, which the human condition may generally be classified under the headings of. Bennett's classification system has been attacked by some modern commentators as leaning towards the fascistic due to it's hierarchical bias. Such 'authorities' seem more content to sit on the fence of political correctness and arbitrate over such matters with egalitarian remoteness. Those of us who hope to make any sense of the value and significance of the human condition must be prepared to use such models as Bennett's, merely for the sake of getting things done.

It is the third state of development referred to by Bennett, which he terms 'Psycho?Telios'. Bennett's term, Psycho-Telios, certainly succeeds in personifying the state to which those of interested in self?development seek to aspire.

In the mystery tradition of the Rosicrucian Qabalah, individuals who have successfully developed their inner nature to a measure of perfection are believed to reincarnate as members of that elect body of evolved masters who constitute the angelic host known as the "Ishim", or perfected ones.

Similarly, in the field of revivalist Wicca, evolved individuals are held to join the host of discarnate masters who direct the course of evolutionary trends on Earth.

The linguistic 'technology' of the Bennett school seems equally applicable to both the Qabalistic and the Wiccan school, amongst a diversity of other disciplines.

The task which confronts most seekers after the light at the outset of their quest will be to make the transition from the Psycho?Static state to the Psycho?Kinetic. To have achieved this feat will itself qualify the individual as initiate upon the path.

The 'knack' which he or she must learn, as if by second nature, is to maintain the developmental momentum in a focused form. Momentum is one thing to be desired - directional focus is the factor which determine whether that momentum is evolutionary or anti-evolutionary.

Only by maintaining the discipline to set oneself an esoteric work programme composed of achievable goals can the aspirant hope to achieve this with any measure of success. The rites and exercises which follow in these pages are intended to provide the aspirant with the prima materia to achieve this success, for they are not only teachings intended to arm the individual with the keys to power but also to help engender receptivity and an intuition for the unseen forces which the occultist works with on a daily basis.

Most Adepts will inform their pupils that it is the very simplest exercises that provide the means by which the aspirant may steer his or her course through the mysteries. Often, when involved in experimental work of an advanced nature, occultists will return to the simplest of exercises to regain their original momentum; using these rites as anchors to pull themselves back from beyond the boundaries of the chaos and uncertainty of hitherto unexplored psychological territory.

During the major part of the aspirants development towards the attainment of the Psycho?Telios mind?set, he or she will be brought to confront many of the unbalanced aspects of their psychological make?up in order to 'make their peace' with these internal forces of dissent and distraction.

The mainstay of esoteric thought, present in the majority of traditions, teaches that at the core of every individual lies a unit of 'experiencing' which underlies the inconsistencies of the human personality. This is held to be the seat of the 'True Will' and is thought to be that spark of the divine essence lent to us from on high for the duration of our earthly incarnation.

Through performing the rites of magick, and attuning oneself to the forces summoned through meditation during the height of the rituals themselves, the individual may come to intuit that inner core of the True Will: at first, in a passive way, by recognising the existence of this seat of consciousness. Then, in a dynamic sense, through intuitive control; calling upon the voice of the True Will to exercise it's authority on behalf of the mortal self.

Like riding a bicycle, such control cannot be taught; only learned through ones own disciplined efforts. Where you begin is, in the main, dependent upon your own preferences. Only persistence, determination and consistency will carry you forward towards the attainment of the Psycho?Telios mind?set, for the keys to initiation lie in your own hands.

At the outset of any spiritual quest, your footsteps will only be illuminated by the lights of the spiritual gems which you carry with you yourself. As the alchemists of elder days were so fond of saying: "He who would make gold must first possess gold" which is, when all is said and done, another way of saying that if you seek to gain something, then you must first cultivate your capacity to recognise what you are seeking in order to find it.

In elder days, prior to the puritan Christianisation of mystical enquiry, the practice of magic in the West was inseparable with the dynamic self-transcendence of the shamanic
role. The most modern schools of esoteric thought have accepted and integrated this approach into their game plans and the main arena of debate nowadays concerns itself with the self transformative ambitions of practitioners.

Following the intellectual acceptance of the concept of evolution by the mainstream of the physical sciences in the late nineteenth century, the goal posts were changed in the game of aspirations played by the occultists too. Long gone was the now banished ideal of Man as the perfected, and unchanging, ideal as a Microcosm of the Divine Plan; a theory which gave the medieval practitioner of magick his mandate of authority as a force created 'higher than the angels'. Occultists now began to understand themselves as a species still in the grip of an evolutionary process of 'becoming'. A process which could, theoretically, be accelerated by appeal to higher dimensional powers and forces which, by their operations, they
sought to access.

Alongside the growth in subtle theories of human psychology, a school from which the Magi have unashamedly borrowed, Magicians have developed their own models regarding the meaning and consequences of existence; often independent of the teachings of their own tradition.

The teachings of most contemporary schools of magic imply a belief in an unconditioned realm of existence, where lies the seat of the soul, that underpins the noumenal world of the senses - the conditioned realm in which our everyday consciousness is enthroned.

Some anthropologists known as 'Structuralists' have defined culture as a 'set of symbols.' Practitioners of Magick have gone further than this and regard the entirety of perceived reality as the interplay of symbols sets and psychological belief systems. Symbols however are by nature ambivalent, being suggestive rather than descriptive. They are firmly rooted in the conditioned realm yet may suggest non-Euclidean dimensional twists giving intuitive glimpses beyond the limitations of the dimensions recognised by
consensus perception.

It is from beyond such limits as these, if we are to follow the evolutionary plan of the Magi, that lie both our roots and our destiny. The argument of the initiates appeals to simple logic. If higher dimensions of existence can be intuited, even through the suggestive means of symbols and the geometry of higher mathematics, then they must exist. And, if they do exist, then a part of us must exist within these dimensions simultaneous to our existence in Height, Length, Depth and Time.

Sceptics may argue that our relationship with these 'extra dimensional' aspects of the Universe, given that they do exist, may only hold in that these extra dimensions may have existed only as points of origin for us at some point in the distant past of the universe.

Even so, argue the initiates, Time itself is a dimension that is given definition only by relativistic events. Everything that once was, still endures and may be accessed by a change in the relativistic stance of the observer. Before the sceptic loses
patience with this proposition he or she should remember that many modern theories of physics possess a similar outlook. Models of Relativity and Quantum Probability allow not only for the possibility of events in a kind of relativistic 'Eternity', but also for the possibility that every event since the 'Big Bang' has occurred in a simultaneous duplicity of Time Continuums.

Our joint existence, both within the unconditioned realm and within the conditioned realm may not therefore imply a irresolvable paradox.

Our inability to accurately perceive our full identity as pan-dimensional beings is explained allegorically by magicians of the hermetic Golden Dawn school in their interpretation of the Biblical account of the Fall of Man. This account implies that there is something missing from our psychological and mental make-up, something which we have become separate from, that precludes us from a true perspective in our appraisal of our position in relation to the Universe and its destiny.

In the same way that Quantum Mechanics informs us that we cannot accurately detect in the present moment the actual position and velocity of an atomic particle, so are we disenfranchised from a true appraisal of our own spiritual co-ordinates.

Before we can even begin to posit the existence of a spiritual realm, or an astral realm where those involved in the practice of magic seek to draw their inspiration or change the details of the blue print underlying reality, we must explore the nature of 'being' itself. This is the issue to which modern practitioners of magick are seeking to address their efforts - this exploration of the nature of 'being'.

J. G. Bennett, a modern philosophical commentator and leading exponent of Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teachings introduced to the West by Gurdjieff, of whom he was a star pupil, has written eruditely upon the nature of Being. Writing in his four volume magnum opus "The Dramatic Universe" he coined the phrase "Hyparxis" to signify "the ability to be" as one of the four determining conditions of existence alongside Space, Time and Eternity.
In terms that are both philosophical and magickal, Bennett has introduced an element of sophistication into the way we may define our Universe.

Recognising that by reducing the expression of the deterministic factors of existence to simple equations is a step in the wrong direction, Bennett is one of a growing number of esoteric enquirers who has applied himself to assist us in our understanding by seeking
to increase the parameters of our verbal symbol systems - vocabulary and syntax.

Initiation and Magick, therefore, are spiritual verbs, wrapped up in the 'process of becoming' through which we discover our potentia: expressions of the affirmatory process of living by which we not only create our future but by which we define our present.