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I joined two orders but left them both within a year. I've decided I need to chart my own course. Outside of those orders, I've never told anyone IRL that I practice magic, but it would be nice to have a friend or two to perform rituals with.
I started with lots of study. Lots and lots of study. So much study that in my early occult career everyone loved to call me an armchair. I also joined a few orders but they were more a social club than getting anything done. The benefit was meeting more adept occultists than I who introduced me to new ideas and concepts.
I like to listen to occult podcasts and esoteric YouTube thats informed academically as it helps me keep a pulse on what's happening in our scene and points me towards new material to study and read.
A large part of learning is practicing. Not being afraid of experimentation. Practice is a better teacher than any guru or book, though being a good researcher and student will take you farther than your peers. Most of my developments in practice and guidance today comes directly from the spirits and diety. They point me towards what to read, hand me down technique, and inspire revelation and gnosis.
I begin every morning at sunrise with an hour of meditation, devotion, and prayer. I conjure spirits at night 3-4 times a week. Though I do take breaks from conjuration when I notice myself getting a little detached from reality or manic and refocus on enjoying my mundane life for a month.
A little, a little, a bit. At least 99% of everything I've learned has been through trial and error/experience. As to exercises, I do divination to determine how often I can do an exercise and still have it be safe and helpful. This varies tremendously, both by exercise, and by what else I am doing at the time.
My craft, by definition is mine so no learning.
From my perspective, there are at least two types of magic practitioners, the ones who create magic and the ones who recreate magic.
I create the path I walk on and it is impossible to fail.
my grandma was a moroccan kabbalistic but i haven't learnt anything from her -since that is kind of frowned upon over here- beside what i witnessed so i refuge to books and grimoires, sometimes spell crafting (reading the theory and applying it through "handmade" rituals/spells) and i do exercise everyday, i have a pile of notebooks that's full of rituals each that worked and each that failed and generally just journaling through the journey, what is important is getting the knowledge that u might find through books or people
i was actually initiated into the path by someone else with decades of occult experience who said i was ready, but sadly, that does not mean much when people will say you are still doing it wrong despite their own practice being underwhelming and ineffective.
Learning is a process, allow me to lay it out from my understanding: Abstract concept (books), Intentional Preparation (meditation), Experimentation & application (Practice), Mastery.
Ramana Maharshi said that a seeker searches for truth like a person who's hair is on fire seeks a bowl of water. Curiosity burned in me, it still does, if you don't have a fire within you it doesn't matter what method you use, work without passion is fruitless. To get far in The Great Work, you need to desire freedom like a prisoner on Alcatraz. Success will galvanize your Practice too as you go along, so don't be wary, most of us start with just embers.
I started with books, at first they were pretty mundane because I started out as a strictly scientific atheist psychologist, but when I read the Bhagavad Gita I experienced a feeling of mysticism for the first time, and have been pursuing that feeling ever since, like a man after water in the desert. Reading is a great start primarily because it exercises your focus and discipline which you'll need to pursue the path. Honestly exercising these muscles will be more use to you than anything you'll read early on, cause let's be honest retention in our monkey-brains isn't great. Imagine it like exercising at the gym, and your magical practice as actually playing your preferred sport, you do much much better if you're fit and know the limits of your muscles.
It may be hard to grasp this, but words and thoughts are ultimately useless, they're something we've created (fake) to point to something much more abstract that we naturally experience directly (real). You can try and define love, or anger, or a tree using adjectives but honestly if you focus on experiencing these sensations directly, the experience is beyond the ability of description. This direct experience is where the magic happens, and to access it, you need to understand the situation the only way you can, through using books, but you have to let go of them at some point, otherwise you'll stay on the armchair.
Meditation is not optional, I'm sorry to break it to you, but if you don't meditate, you'll be like parrot trying to do calculus, you can squawk words and formula, but they'll be useless to you and you'll just be a pretentious petty Armchair Magician. Meditation is useless without discipline and focus, and this builds Will. Will is where your power comes from, it's your most Divine and intimate nature, it's your magical lamp, the voice which commands and makes magic possible. Will commands the mind, and the mind commands the body. It is your Will you arm with the sword, wand, pentacle, etc. It is through the Will that change in the Subjective and Objective universes are made in union and the only way to get into contact with the Will is through meditation.
I would say only after you come into contact with your Will and begin to learn how to wield it that your practice really begins, and you actually start to understand what magic even is, until then it's all theory and conjecture. From then on it's experimentation with the will through trance, ritual, meditation, etc. Finding the right books, practices, and materials will be as easy as trying to find good food, you can just smell if it's any good or if it's got mold, I'm not kidding you'll even find smart things to incorporate into your practice from sources as offensive as pop-culture. When you do find good books at this stage, they'll be extraordinarily more insightful and rewarding when you pick them up because you'll be reading them on an experiential level and with unyielding focus, absorbing them directly into yourself and taking notes like a good boy.
This is also the stage where you can begin to get insight from non-human intelligence and most importantly your HGA or whatever mouth-noise you want to use to describe it, it exists objectively and all faiths / practices acknowledge it in one guise or another. Your perspective shifts with greater knowledge, your purpose shifts with greater perspective, and your practice will change with your purpose. You begin to see the coils of Apep and the shell of the egg, etc.
I wouldn't claim to be a master, I'm just an adept at the experimental stage. I practice pretty much all the time, entertainment and casual mundane life are so banal, idle conversation and television don't give any nourishment, though when I need to let my mind rest pursuing a hobby like painting or a video game are still useful, any time dedicated to a singular task with uninterrupted focus is time well spent.
i was actually initiated into the path by someone else with decades of occult experience who said i was ready, but sadly, that does not mean much when people will say you are still doing it wrong despite their own practice being underwhelming and ineffective.
I read an awful lot of books (and some awful books )
I don't do regular exercises. When I feel the need, I will design an exercise for a specific purpose. I like magic to be spontaneous, and I am a lazy bastard
I have been fortunate enough to learn from my boss at my work, however I will also admit that through personal revelations, studies, and various online medias (Library of lain, YouTube, etc.) that I have became an adept in the ever evolving mysteries.
I'm academically inclined, so books are my friends.
