Invisible Hermetic College
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LETTER TO THE VISITOR
(The passages in red work as a summary of the following letter's main points.)
Dear visitor,
Despite the name, there is no organization or institution behind this site, esoteric or otherwise. I used to teach correspondence classes (via e-mail) on the Western Esoteric Tradition and practical magic to anyone who would bother to ask. As it turned out, this was a bad didactic decision on my part. Even if I am to be considered a subpar instructor in these matters, the truth is most of my students were attracted by mere curiosity, which unfortunately led to a majority of them undervaluing what they were receiving. I imagine those who did so, considering I never charged anything for the instruction, figured they had nothing to lose but everyone's time. Consequently, everyone's time was massively wasted.
The major problem with attracting the merely curious as students is that this type of student will be initially delighted by the opportunity to have a little taste of "the occult"--such an exotic thrill--but will easily give up the endeavor at the first sign of difficulty or demand for any work to be performed. And there is real work to be done in esoteric practice: occultism makes for a poor hobby, an even poorer source of income, and a very demanding craft whose fundamentals may take up a lifetime. A few correspondence lessons, no matter how good they may be, are not going to allow anyone to learn much of anything unless they do the work associated with them. This is the core of the matter: to advance in an esoteric path, one must be willing to do the basic work. Most never do.
All considered, I decided to create this website to gently guide those seeking their first steps into a Hermetic way of life and/or Western style practical occultism. Each page in the website contains a basic lesson and leads to further instruction. If the prospective student manages to follow the instructions in each lesson, diligently doing the work required, they will eventually be able to decide to commit to occult practice for life. Or, perhaps, they will be sure that they do not want to have anything to do with it. Either result is fine, especially because no time will have been wasted.
The Invisible Hermetic College is not a work of scholarship or academic philosophy. It has a very definite and instrumental goal, which is the following: to offer you, the reader, a streamlined, safe, accessible and effective system of magic that may be learned and practiced on your own or in collaboration with like-minded individuals. The website was created mostly for those who have not yet found their way of entrance into practical occultism. It will be especially useful to students who present three basic characteristics: (1) they honestly consider themselves to be beginners in the subject--i.e., they want to learn instead of simply confirming previously acquired notions; (2) they are ready, able and willing to do the work required; and (3) they have not yet felt that other magical traditions are a good fit for themselves. This site was planned to appear in a style that would offer instructions that are easy to understand and reasonably easy to follow, with as few digressions and parenthetical explanations as possible, and free of assumptions about the readers’ previous knowledge.
Regardless of specific reasons for not already belonging to a magical tradition, sincere students will find in the Invisible College an excellent system of magic that, in time, can be adapted to individual preferences and needs. Additionally, perhaps I can hope that even more experienced occultists will find in these pages something to add to their journey, either by suggesting them good ideas or offering something to disagree with. Be as it may, the focus of the Invisible Hermetic College will remain the study of a self-sufficient system of magic. This website is intended to not only be "about" magic, but to have a magical nature.
I sincerely wish that you, dear visitor, may find what you are looking for in these pages. Maybe more!
Light on your path,
C. I. Theon