We present a concise manual for self-initiation into technical Hermetic practice. It is an urgent publication, one that we rush to have for those that want to embrace the Equinox and alchemical season of Spring for their theurgic and noetic rites of renewal. It is composed as we arise from our own alchemical retreats, the brutal winter of training and encountering the putrefaction phase of life in this valley of sorrows. Out of such lashing anguish and estrangement from every joy and peace, we arise renewed, having tasted the darkest filth of the outer and inner darkness. The calcinating fires of the Spring must commence. Thus our Labors of Hermetic Research now shifts to missionary works to True Human Beings.

We practice a radical Hermeticism, distilled from the late intrusions of the counter- and anti-Traditions. Radical, meaning both extreme and to the roots, of alchemical practices of the Philosopher-Shamans. These are the combined esoteric currents of Hyperborean, Orphic, Pythagorean, and Neo-Platonic Mysteries that were destroyed in the Occult Wars that eclipsed the Classical Period. What arose to compete in this vacuum of the destruction of the intiatory centers was a spiritual war, a weaponization of the Mysteries. It is the pursuit of this Lost Wisdom, this Grail-like quest, through the labyrinth of traps and deadends, that is the Trophy of the Hermetic Way.

The temples were scattered, the libraries burnt, the Masters assassinated, and the lore and mythos, the Master Narrative, was cast to the winds as fragments. The Way of Hermes arose again as a personal, intimate, solitary means of recovering from the amnesia-inducing spell of the Occult Wars. The Gnostic cults arose sensing this alien intrusion in this realm, this archonic enchantment that profaned, seduced, and obliterated all in a parasitic corruption of the Way of the Gods. Nearly all that could not be destroyed was appropriated, inverted, stolen, distorted, used as bait to lure into ensnaring, toxic systems (kabbalah, masonry, pop-occult, New Age, and most left hand, neo-pagan derivatives that claim to be the Western Tradition) that open one up to be a conduit for such forces.

The Traditionalists articulate this crisis of the modern age with the concept of anti- and counter-Tradition, the manufactured traps that lure the naive, the ignorant, into such rituals and rites, tethering them to entities and intelligences that corrupt them like a virus or a parasite. The Hermetic path is personal, there is no one to tell you lies other than the ones you might tell yourself. There is no master, no secret texts, no hubristic titles or grades, but the encounter and confrontation of the alone with the alone, the self to Self. It is simply a guide of ancestral knowledge, of a thread of Hermetic seeking of the Memory. There is no hatred of the body, nor extreme of hylic materialism, but an integrated and balanced pursuit of the immortal gnosis. It is the Master Narrative to allow one to engage thought, word, and action into the Great Work.

Gods in exile, entombed in the body, confined in matter and longing, yearning for Return. All true Philosophy is concerned only with immortality. The adept, seasoned as a wayfarer and wanderer, thus aids those in exile, estranged and forgetful of their meaning and lost in purpose. The adepts give the maps and point the way, but the path is reclusive, solitary and later with a partner or trusted few. Thus, one becomes a living repository of ancestral exoteric and esoteric knowledge and wisdom to counsel or assist, perhaps, those certain few.

One must emerge changed, transmuted from an initiation or it was a failure. It is a Rite of Rebirth, a true preparation for confronting and enduring the Abyss. This is a personal manual, a glimpse into theurgic Hermetic rituals used to heal, used to aim and guide the visionary ordeals and training and as the catalyst for alchemical operations. Some aspects seem overwhelming, but let no excuse allow you to penetrate to the essence and core of these practices and strive with every effort to begin the practices and evolve into their perfection over a life time or whatever remains of your precious incarnation.

60 pages, saddle-stitched, 65lb ivory coverpaper.