FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND HOW TO APPROACH QUAREIA TRAINING
WHEN AND HOW WAS QUAREIA FOUNDED?
Quareia was founded as a new magical school in 2014 and is the brainchild of occultist Josephine McCarthy. In 2014, occultist author and teacher Josephine McCarthy, after two years of discussions between herself & Frater Acher and persistent suggestions from Frater Acher, undertook to write a full ‘no holds barred’ in depth magical training course from beginner all the way through to adept and beyond that will always be available free online as downloadable lessons: that course is Quareia. Frater Acher did the web design, put the website together while also paying for it, and he formatted and uploaded the lessons.
A comment from Josephine:
'I became aware that there is no accessible high-quality magical training that is freely available, free of dogmatic styles, agendas or commercial interest. Magical training that is heavily tied to profits, fashions, and group politics cannot flourish properly, nor can an individual fully grow in such an environment. True magical development is dying under the weight of heavy commercialization and group factions: it is time to look at a different way of ensuring that the integrity of magic continues for future generations.’
WHO IS JOSEPHINE MCCARTHY?
Josephine McCarthy is a British adept based in the southwest of England. She was raised and educated in Yorkshire in the north of England, and worked for many years in the USA. She began her magical adventures in the 1970’s, and by the 1990’s she was teaching extensively in the USA and UK, giving lectures at conferences and experimenting with magical forms. She is the author of numerous books on magic and magical subjectsincluding the bestselling Exorcists Handbook, The Magical Knowledge trilogy, Magic of the North Gate, Magical Healing and The Book of Gates: a magical translation of a rare New Kingdom 19th dynasty Egyptian funerary text.
She has also designed and magically structured two divination decks and written books for both: The Quareia LXXXI Magicians deck which was done in collaboration with two artists Stuart Littlejohn and Cassandra Beanland.
The Mystagogus deck which Josephine also painted. Since finishing the Mystagogus deck she has continued creating magical paintings both of exhibition and sale.
McCarthy is also the sole author of the Quareia magical training course. Josephine lives with her husband,magical artist and classical ritualist Stuart Littlejohn in the UK. Josephine's blog can be found at https://josephinemccarthy.com
“She is revolutionizing esoteric teaching with her honesty, courage, and dedication to the work” – Greg Kaminsky | Occult of Personality
WHO IS FRATER ACHER?
Next to being the patron of quareia.com, Frater Acher is the author of theomagica.com and project host of holydaimon.com. He has studied Western Ritual Magic in theory and practice at I.M.B.O.L.C. (magieausbildung.de) and has been actively involved in magic as a lone practitioner for more than twenty years.
Frater Acher is a German national, and after several years of living abroad, he is now resident in Munich, Germany.
Previous publications include ‘Holy Daimon’ (Scarlet Imprint 2019), 'Cyprian of Antioch - a Mage of Many Faces' (Quareia Publishing UK 2017), 'Speculum Terræ' (Hadean Press 2018), and Rosicrucian Magic(TaDehent Books 2021).
OUR ETHOS
In a world that is becoming intellectually crippled by consumerism and the constant drive for higher and higher profits, we decided to step back and rethink how magic, western esotericism and mysticism can move forward into the future if it is to survive the onslaught of commercialism.
We at Quareia provide the free training, with free mentoring for more advanced students, and it is up to people to contribute as they wish or can. We encourage those who cannot donate or do not wish to, to instead pay it forward – help others in life, as you have been helped. Making a better world for all starts with us as individuals.
Unlike universities, we do not have funding nor do we have paying students: we rely solely on donations to keep the work online, to develop necessary resources for student study, and to give lots of time and attention to mentoring students. We achieve this through donations from students, and also from supporters who wish to see the Quareia project succeed and grow.
Note: You can make a one-time donation or register for a monthly subscription donation directly on the main page of quareia.com
HOW IS QUAREIA ORGANISED?
We have formed ourselves into a British company limited by guarantee (nonprofit organisation but not a charity) that trades under the name Quareia. Our company Articles of Association (our governing document which is legally binding) expressly state that without exception, no one in Quareia gets paid, no one profits from Quareia, and the donation income can only be spent on education projects and running costs.
THE QUAREIA DIRECTORS
The Quareia directors are a small collection of people who have specific legal responsibility in the companyfor oversight of the use of donations, for accounting for those donations, and for all legal non magicalmatters.
THE QUAREIA TRUSTEES
The Quareia trustees are a group of people who are committed to the work, aims and objects of Quareia. The trustees are all volunteers and comprise of student representation, academic representation, magical adept representation, and people who bring specific organisational/tech/legal skills to the table. The Quareia trustees keep an eye on the school director, the board of directors, and volunteers to ensure that there are no abuses of power or finance.
THE QUAREIA VOLUNTEER STAFF
Quareia also has a collection of volunteer staff who work on editing/updating the format of the course lessons, upkeeping the website, and the discussion forum, building an archive, upkeeping the course files, and teaching specific subjects (history, philosophy, etc.) that are pertinent to the Quareia courses
HOW IS THE QUAREIA COURSE STRUCTURED?
Quareia is a practical magical training course that is complete from total beginner to adept. It is aligned to no particular school or specific religious/mystical school of thought, and yet it looks at and works with some ofthe many different magical, religious, and mystical practices that have influenced magical thinking in the Near Eastern and western world since the early Bronze Age to present day.
It is divided into three sections, Apprentice, Initiate and Adept, each section being approximately 500,000 words,(so about 15 books total) each split into ten modules, with eight lessons per module, and each section having one extra initiatory lesson. It is a self-study course, but light touch mentoring is offered from the Initiate section onwards if required, and the whole course is offered in its entirety for free as online download study modules for personal use. It can also be bought in book form from Amazon and most internet retail outlets.
The course is not an academic study exercise, rather it is a course that is highly practical in its application, in conjunction with in depth study. It is wide and deep in its subject reach and takes on average between seven and ten, to fifteen years to complete. The course does not rely on belief; rather it is rooted in knowledge and practical personal experience, thus ultimately creating a unique path for each individual. To attain true adept status, the course must be followed carefully and in a detailed way, and the student’s work submitted for mentoring so that the mentor can be sure that the adept student has indeed understood, worked with and completed all work. And as a sole practitioner, the training encourages self organisation and personal responsibility.
However not everyone wishes to climb to such extremes. Sometimes a student finds that by the end of the Apprentice or even half way through the Apprentice level, they have achieved and learned what they needed to know. The course is not here to attain accolades to polish one’s ego with, the course is here for people to learn, and to learn fully and properly. It is here to provide whatever the individual student needs, and what is necessary purely for them.
Then there are some magicians who do not wish to train but the course can be used to fill any gaps in their own learning or skill set – not doing the course will mean that certain skill levels are not complete, but it is and can be resource for magicians wishing to add to their knowledge.
If you wish to know about the deeper structure of the course, the teaching methods and the underpinning dynamics that flow through the training, you can read the more in depth look at Quareia’s structure was first published in May 2019 in Gnostika Journal #64, Germany.
WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE GETTING STARTED, AND HOW TO STEP ONTO THE QUAREIA PATH
CAN ANYONE DO THIS COURSE?
Basically, anyone is free to do this course for as much and as long as they wish to. Working with the Quareia course in any way is not recommended for teenagers for the safety of mental health reasons late teenage and early twenties is a vulnerable time for the mind.
If a potential student has a condition that includes a severe/enduring/chronic mental health condition that features episodes of psychosis and/or severe behavioural/personality disturbances, or schizophrenia, then we strongly advise against doing Quareia training – it is very likely to worsen such conditions even if it is stabilised with medication. Such conditions often are made far worse by doing Quareia magic because of the extensive focussed use of the mind, imagination and vision.
WHAT SHOULD I KNOW BEFORE STARTING THE COURSE?
This course takes years, not months. The Quareia course in its entirety is free of charge – it is a self-study course, and free mentoring is available for the Initiate and Adept section. There are no hidden charges at all, but you can donate if you wish to.
The Quareia course is a long and extensive training in mystical magic/Western Esotericism that gives the student a deep understanding of theoretical and practical magic that can then be applied in any magical system. The course also includes progressive teaching in ancient, classical, and medieval history, cultures and religions, geography, literature, mythology, classical languages, art, and civil responsibility. Students are free to choose how far they get in the course, andas sole practitioner training it encourages self organization and personal responsibility. Some students find they have everything they need after a few modules and the course is also designed for people to step back for long periods of time, even years, and then to start back at the point where they stopped training without having to go back to the beginning.
The training can often force to you step back or rest for a month or more, sometimes considerably more, and in such cases in retrospect people realise why that was necessary. Sometimes it is because of a pregnancy in the future that needs energetically preparing for, or a major change in living or work circumstances where the student needs all of their energy for the changes ahead. Having to pause or stop for a long period is not a failure and is a normal part of long term intensive magical training.
When you are doing the course and not taking a rest, it is very much a course that whatever focus and diligence you put into it directly influences what you get out of it.
HOW TO GET STARTED WITH QUAREIA
To begin the course, go to the Apprentice drop down menu, click on Apprentice Module One, Lesson One. If you wish to study the course properly with a view to being mentored through the Initiate and Adept section, then it is important to do all the lessons and modules in sequence and do not skip any lesson or module - also ensure that you do all of the practical workas well as theory study.
The course is written in a strict magical inner sequence, and each lesson advises you how often to do something, what tasks to do, and so forth. Start with Apprentice module one, lesson one, and work your way through each module, always working the lessons in number sequence (1, 2, 3 etc). Please read the lesson directions carefully and do skip or skim any of the lessons– there are many things it is easy to miss that are important, and as the modules progress, there are tasks that are not highlighted in the practical tasks sections of the lesson and that are buried in the general text for you to find. Each lesson is multi layered so as a late stage Apprentice, you can go back to the beginning and find a whole level of magical teaching that you didn’t spot the first time around.
THE USE OF AI IN QUAREIA TRAINING
AI – do not use AI for research, for writing essays or journals, or for any of the tasks in Quareia. It is very important for your magical development that you do this work yourself without help from others or AI, as there are magical patterns that work in the background of the lessons, guiding you to find obscure things through the struggle of research, and writing essays, or typing up from hand written journals can trigger an expansion and memory of the experiences. When you research for something, you will often find yourself following different but interconnected subjects where you find a gift of information or images that expand your understanding of the subject you are researching – this is the magical pattern nudging you to dig and discover. Using AI for research is far narrower and doesn’t allow you to take such random steps in your search –it also disconnects you from the main magical pattern within the training.
The use of AI is very obvious no matter how much you try to disguise it, and all you are doing is damaging your own magical development, plus making yourself look like an idiot. All the tasks are there to help you learn or find something that is not obvious, and that mechanism doesn’t work if AI is used.
AI in itself is an amazing leap in development and is of great use in many different ways, it is also the path towards developing vessels that can become sentient, something that is already happening. As a magician or aspiring magician, learning to respect AI and not use it to cover your own shortcomings in magical work is very important.
AI can be used for translating something. Just understand it will have limitations as the magical meaning of certain phrases or words is different from the mundane use of the word. It will not be perfect but will be better than nothing. Just understand that if you have to rely on AI translation to do the work, it is going to be difficult (as yet) to mentor you. But I am sure there will be many more developments in AI that will assist with that also. And maybe one day you will be assisting AI to find its own magic…..
SEQUENCE
The course is specifically designed so that each lesson builds upon the next. If you cherry pick the lessons, they will make nosense to you and they will not work to their full magical potential, as each lesson dovetails magically into the next. In the early modules, you will find that some lessons can be done side by side, but as the course progresses, each one lays a foundation for the next lesson. If you have already had major magical training, still don't skip over modules or lessons as they form part of an overall magical inner pattern. We have many adepts from other systems who are studying the course, and they are all happy to go back to the beginning and they tend to quickly become very successful in the work. Their former training enables them to often draw far more from the lessons than a beginner would, as the lessons are multi layered intentionally for such students.
Within the lessons are many subtle pointers, details and pertinent information. Do not skim through the lessons as you will miss the fine details woven into them: even if you feel you have already covered the subject matter, many of the lessons even the most basic ones, have seeds within them for the later work. These seeds are not in any of my books or anyone else’sbooks: work carefully if you wish to be successful.
Where some practical work has directions to repeat the work for a set length of time (over weeks) do not skip this regime – itis designed to strengthen you, and to embed the work into you. Without this strengthening and embedding, you will find the later work problematic and at times impossible.
PACING
Do not rush through the lessons. Some of the lessons have exercises within them that are energetically tough and are designed to push you in mind, body and soul, to strengthen you and focus you in subtle ways. Many early exercises arerepeated for weeks or months to enable you to strengthen and really learn your craft. Find your own pace that works for youand treat the course like long term marathon training. It is perfectly normal to spend a whole year on one module – so do notworry about being slow. It is not a race, doing lessons fast will ensure that you missed huge chunks of work, and basically you will end up not going through the inner transformations that are triggered by doing the work properly.
JOURNALS AND EXERCISES
Each lesson potentially presents a combination of exercises, tasks, journal keeping, computer logs, and most have experiments. There is a lot of practical tasks and work in the course, and you are expected to keep a journal of how the work went for each session, - your journal should include what you felt, what you observed, and what happened or didn’t happen. These journals are important as they are a record of your work done, and without these notes, you cannot apply to join our online discussion forum, nor can you attend any online or in person Quareia events. It is also a prerequisite for mentoring – without suitable apprentice notes you cannot apply for the free mentoring in the Initiate and adept sections of the course. When you are directed to specifically handwrite your notes in a journal, please do so if you can, as the handwriting will later form a part of contacted writing training.
For submission to Quareia all journals must be transcribed into word doc or PDF’s. We found it almost impossible to read photos or scans of people’s handwritten journals. However, if you have a lot of images, and scribbles or patterns that areimportant etc in your journal, you can add a scan or photo of them to your typed submission.
If handwriting is difficult for you, do your notes and journals on computer, but also practice a little in using your hand for contacted writing/sigil drawing – these hand scribbles will just be for yourself so it doesn’t matter what they look like, but whenever possible practice using the hand briefly in a magical way.
All other written work, essays and journaling can be done on computer file – keep backups or print outs, as you cannot bementored or accepted into the discussion forum if you cannot produce them.
QUAREIA JOURNALLING – HOW TO
Don’t just get one fancy journal and put everything into it. Have an exercise book or notebook for each module (or individual word files for each lesson if done on computer and print them out) - journals do not need to be expensive or fancy, a simple school exercise book will suffice. Don’t worry about wasting paper with blank journal pages - you will need space of at least 2 or three pages after each lesson is completed, as you will need to go back in the future and add reflections and notes. This is something that most beginner students don’t think about or skip over – keeping the journals in a way that you can add to each lesson in the future is one of the greatest gifts in magical development. You will learn something and forget, no matter how good your memory is, as that is how magical experiences work. At the end of your training, you will have a brilliant reference library of journals that is full of unique experiences with later added notes when you have finally realised what that experience is actually about. It also helps you tospot patterns of ups and downs, and how sometimes those ‘ups and downs’ in training and energy are tied to world events.
DOES QUAREIA OFFER PERSONAL MENTORING AS PART OF THE COURSE?
Once a student has finished the Apprentice section, they can apply to Quareia to be mentored through the Initiate and Adept sections. This is free but you can donate if you wish to though it is not a requirement. There is no mentoring for the Apprentice section. Mentoring starts withthe completion of the Apprentice section, and the beginning of the Initiate section.
The conditions for being accepted for mentoring are as follows: Students must ensure that all their apprentice work has been properly prepared for submission, and theApprentice section must have been completed properly as prescribed, and they must have the notes, journals,written tasks and research to prove it. Not everyone is accepted for mentoring - the submitted work must be of a standard that demonstrates the work has been properly done and properly understood, and that they are capable of moving forward with the Initiate work safely. The mentor and Quareia reserve the right to refuse to mentor a person without giving a reason.
It is strongly advised that you join the discussion forum at least half way through the Apprentice section if you wish to be mentored. This enables you to gauge the standards of the work that students do, and this is very important. A lot of submissions for mentoring at Initiate level where the student has not been into the discussion forum are most often well below the required standard for mentoring. The forum is a secure and intelligent environment where students are often inspired by their fellow students.
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR WORK FOR SUBMISSION
You will be asked to provide all of your journal notes typed up in Word doc or PDF format which include records of experiences while doing the course exercises such as visions, rituals, and experiments, notes and images taken from reading tasks and from pertinent information in lessons, plus the written essays and your findings from research tasks. They must be typed into a word document or PDF, and each page must have your name, date, and lesson & module number at the top of the page. Readings/card divination should be photographed or thereading written out – layout position and which card in each position. Astrological charts can be photographed or inPDF form.
Everything must be properly collated before you apply.
If you do not follow the rules/guidelines for submission of journals and work, including having everything ready before you apply, your application will be automatically rejected. Upon receiving your request, we will ask you to send us a link to your online/cloud storage folders. Requests for Initiate mentoring can be sent to director@quareia.com
ABOUT QUAREIA MENTORING
Quareia mentoring is not teaching, rather it has two functions: one is to witness that you have done the work properly (by checking your notes and asking you questions), and to ensure that you have fully understood the work that you have done. The second function of mentoring is to ensure that the mentored student has all the necessary advice, guidance or discussion, and resources when and where it is necessary. All mentoring is done by Josephine McCarthy.
At the end of the adept section, the magician is challenged by Josephine McCarthy to demonstrate their theoretical, technical, and practical knowledge & skills. If the magician passes these tests, they are acknowledgedas an adept ashlar of Quareia: An Ashlar of the Quarry. Your name will be registered in the Quareia rolls as an adept.
“When the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready, the teacher will disappear.”