Welcome to Real Magic School!
And thank you for
joining us in what may well become the best source of magical and psychic
training on the Internet! Between us, your Headmaster Isaac Bonewits and
Headmistress Phaedra Bonewits, we have more than 70 years of magical and
psychic experience. This is not, as Phaedra likes to put it, “one year of
experience 70 times.” We have spent those years learning everything we could
find about magical, psychic, spiritual, artistic, and “supernatural” stuff.
We’ve both been teaching others, almost from the beginnings of our careers.
That teaching has taught us as much as it taught the students!
At Real Magic School,
you’ll have an opportunity to learn everything you always wanted to learn
about magical, psychic, and spiritual ideas and methods. Our focus is on the
practical needs of Neopagans and other polytheists, but we’ll cover other
cultural and religious approaches too. We may even have some stuff to teach
modern parapsychologists (scientists who study psychic experiences) -- and
their debunkers -- about the complexity of what they are studying.
Isaac is the author of
several books on these subjects, including the classic beginner’s book,
Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow
Magic. Phaedra has co-written a book with Isaac, Real Energy:
Systems, Spirits, And Substances to Heal, Change, And Grow. These two
books, including the updated edition of Real Magic that we are now
writing, will be the core of what we teach here.
Other writings by the
two of us, including never-before published materials and excerpts from new
books, will see the light of day here at Real Magic School for the first
time. In addition, in the months and years to come, we will be inviting
people we know and trust to create new lessons for you based on their
writings and experience.
The structure of Real
Magic School can be thought of as similar to a college. Topics will be
divided into Departments and students wishing to earn a Certificate of
Magical Arts and Sciences will need to finish a minimum number of courses in
each Department. Introductory (non-credit) classes will be available for
each Department and will be free to all visitors at RMS. For-credit classes
will require students to become subscribers and will include beginning to
advanced materials on each subject covered. The introductory and beginning
lessons will be written for students in their mid-teens and older, with
later material becoming more challenging. We hope to have plenty of stuff to
say to experienced adults as well!
As we open our virtual
doors on February 29th, here are the Departments we envision:
1.
Magical
and Ritual Arts
2.
Psychic
and Divinatory Arts
3.
Mundane
Arts and Sciences
4.
Metaphysical and Magical Traditions
5.
Philosophy
and Polytheology
6.
Pagan
Studies
7.
Magical
and Occult History
8.
Clergy
Training
9.
Weird
Studies
All classes will be
numbered with four digits. The non-credit Introductory classes will all
start with zero, while the for-credit classes will start with a one, two,
three, etc., to indicate the complexity level or year. The second number
will indicate the Department and the last two numbers will be for individual
classes. So the Introduction to the Laws of Magic class, for example, would
be Course #0101, while the first year’s full class on the Laws of Magic
could be Course #1102.
Most lessons will end
with a multiple choice test, which you must pass in order to move on to the
next lesson. Some advanced classes may have essay or performance tests in
addition to or instead of multiple choice ones. Intermediate and advanced
courses will list suggested pre-requisite classes. If a student fails
such a class, however, they must take the pre-requisites before retaking the
course they failed.
In addition to the
lessons that will be available here at Real Magic School, we will have a
chat room, a private messaging system, and occasional live video chats with
the Headmaster and Headmistress (which will be recorded for downloading as
podcasts).
Although we’ve never
done anything like this before, and we know it will take a few months to get
off the ground and flying, we are very excited about the possibilities
offered by this adventure. Welcome aboard our jet-propelled brooms!
