Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

not generally open to the public, and seldom adver-

tised. The description I gave at the beginning of this

Class depicts a typical outdoor Pagan festival—and

there are hundreds of these going on every year, all

over the world. Ones I’ve been to range in size from

less than a hundred participants to over 1,500. While

most are held outdoors, there are also several Pagan

hotel conventions held in different cities each year—

such as Pantheacon, held every February in San Jose,

Califia. These are very much family events, and if your

family is Pagan, you will have already been to some.

However, minors are not admitted without legal guard-

ians (or at least signed permission slips), so if your

folks aren’t Pagans, you’ll have to wait to attend such

a gathering.

Lesson 4. Working With Others

During your early apprenticeship, you will probably

be doing much of your magickal studies and prac-

tices alone. Hopefully, though, you will soon be meet-

ing other Magikids at school. When you do, you may

want to form a “magicklub” or study group. There’s a

lot of stuff you can do as a group that you can’t do all

by yourself.

Forming a school study group: Most high

schools have all sorts of special-interest study groups,

and if you have some friends interested in Magick and

Wizardry, you might want to form such a study group.

You will need the sponsorship of a teacher. Find the

coolest teacher you know—especially someone who

really likes Harry Potter—and ask for help. You will

have to arrange a meeting time and place. A study

group is not a place to do actual magick, spells, or

rituals, but you can talk about your magickal studies,

share ideas, discuss magickal books you’re reading,

do divinations for each other, play games, and make

things together, following the instructions I’ve given

throughout this Grimoire. You might even do some of

the exercises I’ve given you to develop your psychic

powers. And, of course, you can play various magickal

games (see the next Lesson).

Once you have a Wizardry or Magick study group

meeting, you will have plenty of other kids wanting to

join it, so you might consider giving them some as-

signment, such as reading a certain book that every-

one else has read, before you can just let anybody in.

I recommend that, once you have the first little group

together, any new member should come in only by

the agreement of all those members already in.

Forming your own magickal group: Once you

have a group together, you might want to decide on a

place to meet where you can set up a temple or circle

and actually do some magick. You will want to pick a

regular time to get together for this—once a month is

the usual practice (“...and better it be when the Moon

is full,” said Aradia to the Witches). But if you’re

meeting indoors, you may have other considerations

than the phase of the Moon. Each day of the week

has its own magickal associations (see Tables of Cor-

respondence in the next Class), and you might even

want to try and meet on different days to do different

kinds of magick.

And of course you will want to have a cool name.

You might name your group after a mythical creature,

a magickal symbol (like ankh, pentagram, caduceus,

etc.), something from a favorite story, or anything else

you want! One of the most famous magickal groups,

for instance, was called the Order of the Golden Dawn,

and the 5th book in the Harry Potter series is called The

Order of the Phoenix.

Networking online: At the time of this writing,

there don’t seem to be any online websites or chat

groups dedicated to Wizardry or Magick that are suit-

able for teens, and that aren’t specifically Pagan or

Wiccan-oriented. Paganism and Wicca are religious

orientations, whereas Magick and Wizardry are stud-

ies and practices that are independent of any particu-

lar religion. And I’d like to keep it that way! So we

have created a special online Grey School of Wiz-

ardry for you at http://www.GreySchool.com where you may

further your studies and meet other students.

Finding a magickal group: There may already

be a Magickal group in your area. Again, check with

your local occult store. Sometimes semi-public groups

will leave flyers or notices at such stores. They may

host a monthly open house, or occasionally offer a

class or introductory presentation through the store.

If you find there is an open meeting that you can at-

tend, bring along a couple of your magickal friends; if

your parents are interested and sympathetic, you might

want to bring them along too. Some groups do have

special programs for teens, but you will have to have

parental permission to participate. Still, you might at

least get to meet some of the people.

However, I do not recommend that you go out

and try to join any existing group at this stage. First,

you should get to know the folks in a number of dif-

ferent groups, so you will have a basis of compari-

son. You are still an Apprentice, and the best way for

you to learn the wizardly arts is to study these les-

sons, do these tasks and Quests, work with your clos-

est friends, and build up your own little Circle of

Magick. Learn everything you can from others, of

course—read any books that interest you, attend

workshops and classes, ask lots of questions (Ques-

tion Authority!), and make friends of those you re-

spect. There’ll be plenty of time to join a group later

on, if you want to—after you’ve developed your own

sense of what’s what and who’s who.

126 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

Corrected pages 3rd printing.1.p65 43 6/10/2004, 3:00 PM