The Covert Side of Initiation

For decades, members of the esoteric community have considered anyone with magical skills and abilities to be a magician. As a result, there are few magical training systems designed to turn students into magicians, and many magical training systems designed to turn students into people with magical skills and abilities. The magical training system developed by the Czech adept Franz Bardon and contained in his three books-‘Initiation into Hermetics’, ‘The Practice of Magical Evocation’, and ‘The Key to the True Quabbalah’-is designed to turn students into magicians. Unfortunately, many students of the system seek only to become people with magical skills and abilities rather than genuine magicians. For this reason, they often spend years stuck on the system’s basic exercises. In this book, Virgil discusses some key components of magical training that are hinted at but not expounded upon in the text of Bardon’s books. Completion of these components is what distinguishes people who are magicians from people who merely possess magical skills and abilities. In the process of discussing these components, Virgil also elaborates on magical principles explained in his previous books, offers helpful advice for common problems magicians will encounter during their training, and elucidates one of the most misunderstood exercises of Bardon’s training system.