Neophytes (newbie's) guide to magic. 
	Materials consumption order

1st:
	Listen to The Hero's Journey song, it will explain what this path is and what it means

2nd:
	Read The Kybalion, it illustrates universal magical axioms. Very useful foundational material.

3rd:
	Read The Book of Knowledge and/or You Forever, they both contain good entry level exercises and understandings

4th:
	Your choice, if you want the complete view of metaphysics, from the cosmically large to the quantum mechanically small, everywhere inbetween and the the theory to apply it, read Transcending the Matrix Control System. Or if you want more practical exercises read Initation into Hermetics.

Xth:
	Ageless Living, can be read anywhere inbetween. No prerequsite knowledge is nessary to apply it and it's pretty easy to digiest.



Lyrics of Hero's Journey:

The hero’s true journey begins at the point at which he crosses the threshold separating the ordinary from the extraordinary world. Jim Morrison said, "There are things known and things unknown and in between are The Doors."

When the hero opens the door that takes him from the world of common data to the uncommon world, his life changes forever. One way or another, he will never be the same again. He is leaving behind the familiar to venture into the Great Unknown where there is no comfort zone, and no safety net. The sheeple stare curiously at the strange door that leads to the new world. For a while, it seems enticing but as they shuffle closer, saying "baa" all the while, the door exudes a terrible power. 

It creates an invisible force field that keeps away all but the finest members of the human race. Even to reach the door is an impressive feat. To actually go through it means you are capable of becoming God. You are ready to be initiated into the highest mysteries. The sheeple watch in awe as the door swings open and the hero steps through. Instantly, he vanishes from sight, and the door swings shut once more. The sheeple turn away and go back to grazing. "Oh, we’ll be heroes in our video games," they say. "Doing it for real is so much hassle. A virtual hero’s as good as a real one." 

The hero – on the other side of the door, the side that only higher humanity ever experiences – has nothing but his inner divinity to sustain and guide him. There are no sheeple here. There are no easy paths, soft options or lazy dreams. You did not come here for instant gratification. You came to transform yourself from clay into alchemical gold. 

You have chosen the hardest path, the path that mercilessly punishes all weakness. The bones of failed heroes lie strewn everywhere. Almost all of the Grail Knights – mightiest and most magnificent of men though they were – perished here. If they couldn’t make it then who can? You seriously think you can accomplish the impossible? 

The hero immediately finds himself travelling downwards, into ever deepening darkness. The blackest and most forbidding mountains arise around him. The path is stony and painfully hard. He reaches the densest, darkest of forests and hears the most terrifying noises...human screams. Just as Dante did, the hero will have to open the gate of hell and venture into the Inferno where all of his deepest fears reside. On the other side, Paradise awaits, but how many can ever get there when hell itself stands between them and their goal? 

Hell is the ultimate road of trials. Here you are subjected to every torment, everything from which you have fled in your ordinary life. Here you must reconcile all of the things that have troubled and disturbed you. You must encounter your Father and Mother and come to terms with them, not as their child, but as an equal adult who has put childish thing behind you. You must confront all the bullies who bid you down, every one who harmed you, all those who screwed you over. You must relive all of the things you fucked up in your life and understand why. You must encounter your anima/animus and resolve all the issues you have with the opposite sex. 

You will encounter every demon, temptress, conman and monster. You have to overcome them all, and that means reaching into your own soul and summoning forth your Higher Self, that part of you that already has one foot in the divine order. Your task, you now realise, is to replace your lower self with your divine self. Your lower self does not have a prayer of surviving in hell. 

Your lower self is weak, trivial, stupid, cowardly and soft. It wants easy pleasures and to fit in with the flocks of sheeple. Your Higher Self, on the other hand, is immortal and, when fully conscious, indistinguishable from God. The gap between you and God is both infinitely wide and trivially small. 

It is gnosis allows you to bridge the unbridgeable. Gnosis is ultimate intuition. Gnosis is about listening to the pulse of the cosmos. Gnosis is about separating your mind from the mortal world of ordinary consciousness and linear thinking and embracing the immortal and infinite world where everything is interconnected. 

You must transcend yourself. You must reach for a miraculous ladder that disintegrates rung by rung as you climb it. There’s no way back. At the top of the ladder is another door, the one that takes you out of the darkness and into the infinite and eternal light. 

What is the hero’s task all about? It’s about descending into your deepest self with absolute honesty and conviction, about getting rid of all the bullshit and delusion, all of the expectations of others that are fundamentally about them and nothing to do with you. 

It’s about asking yourself – "Who am I? What do I want? What really makes me tick? Do I have the courage to pursue my highest ambitions even though there is no guarantee of success, even though I will have to make enormous sacrifices and will become estranged from the sheeple who were once my friends? My status in their eyes may drop to zero. My family may disown me. The world will think I am mad. Yet how can I ignore my inner voice, the voice that tells me who I really am and of what I’m really capable?"

The hero is fearless, dedicated, irrepressible. He is self-defining and self-creating. He will not stop. He will not give in. He will do whatever it takes. That’s what makes him different from everyone, they are incapable of making sacrafices. The hero knows that nothing great can be achieved without sacrifice. 

The hero must endure pain to enjoy the highest heights of human greatness. The hero’s journey is always the same. He descends into the underworld where he must endure a ghastly ordeal in which his lower self perishes. Only then can the hero taste an astonishing spiritual rebirth where he is initiated into the higher mysteries. 

He takes hold of the sword of knowledge and with it he cuts through all unknown things and reveals their secret contents. He has penetrated to the Source. At last, he is able to get to the top of the sacred ladder and open the exit door. The first sight that greets him is the great boon he has been searching for all his life – the Holy Grail itself. Is that a sight you want to see too? 

Then what price will you pay?