er with fear of group involvement have caused a recent trend toward a more solo path.

This would
be fi ne if we lived in cities with thousands of magicians and lots of social support. This is not the
case and this path is lonely as it is, without our isolating ourselves from others on it. We need
magical temples even more now than we did in the recent past. The world is seeing the rise of
religious zealots who would like to push us back into dark times. Magical lodges are important places
for magicians to band together and protect their way of life. Even though they are not perfect, such
lodges continue to serve as sources of living teachers to students of the occult. As the number of
books on the market increases, beginners are getting bombarded with confl icting information. It
takes years to sift through the rough for the diamonds, time better served in the practice of magic.
Good teachers can provide the much needed experiential guidance that few books can provide. Still,
books and m agic are entwined. The linguistic origin of m agic is in the root word Magus, which
means wise one and stems from the ancient Persian language. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then
that magicians love their books. In actuality, books have been the primary means of preserving our
heritage over the centuries. There are still

few or no alternate sources of media that serve the needs of magicians. Books and now the Web
will continue to hold that special place for the foreseeable future. Books like this one can’t make you
a magician, but they can provide the tools with which you can become one. Possibly, you already are
a magician and when you picked up this book, you were just searching for new information. That is fi
ne too. This book is designed to serve as a magical reference as well as a primer. Throughout the
book we will be presenting our craft from the perspective of a newcomer to magic, so if you are
experienced, keep this in mind. Another difference between this book and others of a like nature is
that we present a grass roots approach to our craft. Even though the ancient techniques we are
presenting have been slightly modifi ed for modern Western sensibilities, they retain their original
spirit and effi cacy. Our practices had to adapt to our environment, but that doesn’t mean that we
abandoned the ancient methods altogether. Magic has a living organic tradition, but it is a tradition.
The fi rst step in becoming a magician is not to memorize rituals or learn spells, but to develop a new
way of thinking. The practice of Tai Chi without belief in Chi will only take you so far, if far at all.
Modern magicians don’t all believe the same thing of course. There are those that believe in high
versus low magic, and those that divide magic into