One hour of reading
The reading hour is 12,000 words, which is 200 words a minute, the pace we use for planning. A slower reader takes more days and a faster reader fewer.
The Mystery Tradition
Every requirement of the six grades, set out in full: the reading, the counts of the practice, the chapter tests, the journal, and the weeks each part takes. The counts are rules of the School, so two students of the same grade do the same amount of work.
The Mystery School takes students from the Summer Solstice 2027. Entry $297, then $19 a month. All counts and times from Ritual Praxis and Instruction, Chapter 1.
The basis of the work
We ask no more than two hours a day of anyone. A grade is complete when its work is complete, and its length depends on the hours the student keeps, so the School counts the work by performances, recorded sessions and chapters read, and computes the weeks from those counts.
The reading hour is 12,000 words, which is 200 words a minute, the pace we use for planning. A slower reader takes more days and a faster reader fewer.
The yoga, the meditations and the rite. A Tarot throw is a full study day with its journal entry, and a rite of a gate, a planetary meditation or a level takes the practice hour of its day.
Written at the close of the practice while the session is fresh. The journal holds the rites, the record of every session, the throws and the nativity pages.
Gaps of days and of weeks are planned for, since illness, travel, work and family make them certain. A gap undoes no grade, and the student goes on from the last entry.
The hours of a week
Two points set by the calendar
A student who begins the first grade needs the Central Doctrine, Ritual Praxis and Instruction, The Divine Arcana Tarot, the deck of that name and a journal. Entry to the Mystery School includes every book and material of the School as digital PDF files, The Divine Arcana Tarot among them with all seventy-eight cards pictured. The deck itself is printed and ordered on its own.
The six grades
A student holds the title of the grade in which the student is working, and the title of the next grade is given on completion of its work and the examination of its journal. Each of the first five grades opens with an initiation that the Head Master, or an officiant he permits, performs for you live. Each grade below gives its reading, its counts of practice, its tests, its journal and its weeks.
Grade 1, under Hermes
The Aspirant enters through the yoga, the reading of the Central Doctrine and the study of the Tarot, and performs no rite yet. The nativity study begins in the first week and runs through every grade after it.
About 78 hours in the reading hour, with about 35 more hours of the Tarot book read in the practice hour.
Grade 2, under Apollo
The Arcana Adept learns the Theurgic Ritual of the Pentagram by building it in levels, then invokes the planetary gods and the signs through their gates. The reading follows the practice, each chapter read in the days before the practice that depends on it.
About 77 hours, with about 10 more for The School Layman Explanation, done inside the 172 sessions as the practice calls for each part.
Grade 3, under Hecate
The work of the third grade is the Decan Year, the 36 windows of the Sun’s year, each a span of ten days in which the Sun stands in one decan. The year opens at the first equinox or solstice after the title is given, or at a later one the Ritual Theurgos chooses.
About 34 hours, 7.5 reading weeks inside the year at the typical pace.
Grade 4, under Prometheus
The work of the fourth grade is one rite, the Natal Blueprint Invocation, in which each of the ten bodies of the nativity is invoked in the sign it held at birth, every gate the chart needs opened once, and the personal daemon enthroned.
Ritual Praxis and Instruction, Chapters 56 and 57, read in the second grade, are performed here.
Grade 5, under Aion
The fifth grade works with time through the transits. The Agathos Theurgos follows the transits of the sky against the nativity and creates five rites based on time, each answering one configuration of consequence.
Ritual Praxis and Instruction, Chapters 58 and 59, read in the second grade, are performed here.
Grade 6, under the planet that rules the Ascendant of the chart
The sixth grade is the continuing work. It has no count, no test and no further title. The patron is the planetary god who rules the Ascendant of the Magister Aionis’s own chart by traditional rulership.
Ritual Praxis and Instruction, Part VIII, read in the second grade, is lived from here on.
A woman may take the title Mistress of the Temple in place of Master. The yoga, the journal and the study of the nativity that open the first grade continue through every grade after it.
How the grades are tested
The open-book tests of the grades are taken chapter by chapter. Every chapter of each required book has its own test, answered online with the books and the journal open. Every answer must be correct. A wrong answer returns the student to the section that holds it, and after rereading it the student takes the test again.
Each test has 3 to 10 questions, about one question for every 2,500 words, in multiple choice, yes or no, select all that apply. Each student also receives a workbook of the questions of every chapter, without the answers, to mark while reading, so that the reading and the test move together.
We test what can be tested, careful reading and a practice that has been kept. No student is tested magically, and no title is given for an experience, a vision or a power. The journal stays with the student. At the end of each of the first five grades its pages are scanned with a phone into one PDF and sent from the Backoffice, and the Head Master returns his notes with the title of the grade. The examination of a journal takes weeks, and no table counts them.
| Grade | Book | Tests | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aspirant | Central Doctrine | 67 | 344 |
| Aspirant | The Divine Arcana Tarot | 57 | 198 |
| Aspirant | Ritual Praxis and Instruction: Preface, How to Use and the Primer (Chapters 1 to 8) | 10 | 43 |
| Arcana Adept | Ritual Praxis and Instruction: Chapter 9 to the end, with the appendices | 65 | 461 |
| Arcana Adept | The School Layman Explanation | 9 | 50 |
| Ritual Theurgos | WaveForm Astrology | 38 | 192 |
| All three tested grades | 246 | 1,288 | |
The fourth, fifth and sixth grades have no test. Their work is the rite itself and its record in the journal.
Reading follows practice
The first grade reads the Central Doctrine through before any rite. From the second grade on, the chapters of Ritual Praxis and Instruction are read a chapter or two before the level or the gate run they teach, and WaveForm Astrology is read during the Decan Year, a block at a time between windows.
The whole reading is 2,803,000 words, about 234 hours at 200 words a minute.
| Part | Chapters | Read in | With the practice of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction, Primer | 00a, 00b, 1 to 8 | Grade 1 | the yoga, the journal, the nativity study |
| II. The Call | 9 to 15 | Grade 2, first weeks | the planetary meditations |
| III. Preparing the Vessel | 16 to 23 | Grade 2, first weeks | the planetary meditations (Ch 23) |
| IV. The Theurgic Ritual of the Pentagram | 24 to 33 | Grade 2 | the levels G1 to P4 |
| V. The Planetary Gods | 34 to 47 | Grade 2 | the planetary gate runs |
| VI. The House of the Sun | 48 to 55 | Grade 2 (48 to 54), Grade 3 (55) | the sign runs, the Celestial rehearsals, the Decan Year |
| VII. The Natal Seal and Divine Timing | 56 to 59 | Grade 2 read, Grade 4 (56, 57) and Grade 5 (58, 59) performed | the birthday rite, the transit rites |
| VIII. The Return of the Double | 60 to 63 | Grade 2 read, lived thereafter | continuous correspondence |
The time table
We computed the weeks from the word counts of the books and the counts of the grades, at three reading paces and three numbers of study days. Each road below is cut into the parts that make it.
Gaps, illness and travel add about 15 percent. The examination of a journal takes weeks that no table counts. A student finds a place on the tables by choosing a reading pace and a number of study days, and then adding the two waits the calendar sets.
| Pace (words a minute) | 4 days a week | 4.5 days | 5 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 150 | 25.9 | 23.0 | 20.7 |
| 200 | 22.5 | 20.0 | 18.0 |
| 250 | 20.8 | 18.5 | 16.6 |
| 4 days a week | 4.5 days | 5 days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second grade: 172 sessions (the reading, with the Layman, is shorter at every pace) | 43.0 | 38.2 | 34.4 |
| Third grade: the Decan Year | 52 | 52 | 52 |
| Third grade: wait for the entry | 0 to 13 | 0 to 13 | 0 to 13 |
| WaveForm Astrology, reading weeks inside the year (150, 200, 250 words a minute) | 11.3, 8.5, 6.8 | 10.0, 7.5, 6.0 | 9.0, 6.8, 5.4 |
At 150 words a minute the reading hour sets the length of the grade, 103.6 days of reading against 101.8 of practice. At 200 and 250 words a minute the practice hour is the longer, 90.1 days against 77.7 and 83.1 against 62.1, because the Tarot book is read in it.
The whole road in numbers
What the student works with
The program reaches the student through two parts of the School’s system. The Head Master defines what each holds at each stage.
The student’s private part of the School’s system. It opens the program one stage at a time, in the order of the reading and the counts above, and the student works a stage, marks it complete, and the next stage opens.
The School’s software for the rite. It gives a ready ritual sheet for any operation the student is to perform, built by the gate law of Ritual Praxis and Instruction, and each sheet holds only its own rite.
Associate Membership
Associate standing is membership of the Inner Order and significant in itself. It stands outside the six grades and is no condition of entering as an Aspirant. It carries no credit toward any count, test or journal of a grade, and an Associate who takes up the grades begins at the foot of the first grade, as every Aspirant does. A person who pays the $19 a month and works through this course is a Contributor to the School. On passing both tests the Contributor is an Associate, an Associate Member of the Inner Order. A person who enters the Mystery School is an Aspirant by initiation.
Test 1 · M01
The recorded training, watched in the Backoffice at the start of the course. After each segment comes a test of 3 to 5 questions, passed at 100%, and a wrong answer means watching the segment again.
Test 2 · Exam
Fifty questions in five parts of ten, answered online with the manual and the journal open, after the practice is complete. Every answer must be correct, and a wrong answer comes back with the section of the manual to read again.
The practice before the examination
The journal is required of every Associate. It stays with the Associate, and the School never collects or reviews it.
About Associate Membership →Questions
About 163 weeks, or 3.1 years, on the typical road of 200 words a minute and four and a half study days a week with average waits. The shortest road is 111 weeks and the longest 206, and with 15 percent added for gaps the three are 128, 187 and 237 weeks.
A grade has no length in months and is complete when its work is complete. Two points in the road are set by the calendar, the opening of the Decan Year at an equinox or a solstice and the Natal Blueprint Invocation on the birthday.
The test returns the section of the book that holds the answer. The student rereads it and takes the test again, as often as needed, until every answer is correct.
Anyone may apply to enter as an Aspirant directly. Associate standing is membership of the Inner Order in its own right, and an Associate who takes up the grades begins at the foot. During the course, before both tests are passed, the person paying the $19 a month is a Contributor to the School.
Entry into the grades is $297, then $19 a month. Each entry into a new grade is a further $297, and it opens that grade with its initiation. The $19 a month continues.
A student can cancel the $19 a month. A grade, once earned, stays the student’s title. While a student is not a paying member, the School does not recognize the standing, and the student has no access to the Backoffice or to the Zoom events of the Inner Order held once a month. A student can start again at any time, right where they left off, with no new entry fee: the return costs only the $19 month, and the $19 a month resumes.
Whether the record is complete and whether the instruction was followed. Nothing in the grades depends on what a student saw or felt in a rite. It depends on whether the rite was performed the required number of times, the reading done and the record kept.
One whole window without the Celestial rite means starting over at the next equinox or solstice and working all 36 windows again. The earlier journal is kept as it is.
Begin at the foot
The Mystery School takes students from the Summer Solstice 2027. Entry is $297, then $19 a month. Students of the Mystery School receive the whole library with their entry.
Each entry into a new grade is a further $297, and it opens that grade with its initiation. The $19 a month continues. A student can cancel the $19 a month. A grade, once earned, stays the student’s title. While a student is not a paying member, the School does not recognize the standing, and the student has no access to the Backoffice or to the Zoom events of the Inner Order held once a month. A student can start again at any time, right where they left off, with no new entry fee, and the return costs only the $19 a month, which resumes.
The fees keep the School in operation and pay for the work its members rely on: the Backoffice, the Ritual Builder, the election engine and the WaveForm suite.