Isaac Bonewits and a Degree in Magic

I was honoured to receive the first UK Masters Degree in Western Esotericism, but someone beat me by 38 years to the B.A. and in a curious sense, served as my role-model for academic studies of the subject. I was delighted to find this again in my archives! It’s from 1970 and is an article on Isaac Bonewits receiving a “Degree in Magic”. Apparently, the University were so embarrassed by the resulting publicity they dropped any further inclusion of the subject from their Degrees. It’s good to know that now three or four universities now study western esotericism with a more inclusive academic approach!

Gotta love that Pipe! Click on the image for a full-size version.

If you want to learn to fly a broomstick, then firstly you have to get the stick in the right direction.  This illustration from 1892, which pictures the witches of Salem, shows the correct position for flying, both in broom direction and posture. Having observed the correct etiquette for flight, the first step is to observe one’s hands in activity prior to taking to one’s bed of an evening. Spend ten minutes as you attend to your boudoir, noticing your hands in motion. Then rest and sleep as your normal habit. Repeat this for several days with intention, and you may notice your sleep pattern changing or becoming disrupted with occaisonal waking-starts during the night. This is when you observe your hands in your dreaming state and due to the anchoring of your sight to your attention, you are brought to full awareness, awakening you.

For a further three or four nights, add into your routine a certain sense of gentle curiousity. That is, start to idly wonder if what you are seeing as you ready for bed is in your awake state or your asleep state. Is is usual for the lightswitch to be there on the wall, the giraffe in the corner, and so forth? Remain unattached but curious - cultivate a certain sense of bemusement.

If this works for you, you will suddenly find yourself in a dream-state, observing your own hands, whilst maintaining a certain curiousity that does not awaken you physically. You are now lucid dreaming.

After a few false starts and sudden awakenings from this state, you will be able to maintain it long enough to look around you, find a broomstick in the most appropriate location for the setting, and take flight. Be careful to avoid chimney-tops and power-lines, and notice if you will your response to any audience that you may have in the dream. Record this in your magickal journal, or Liber Somniorum (Book of the Dreamers) if you maintain that as a separate record.