It is wise, I think, to pen some words on the matter of what makes a good student of occultism. A lot of focus seems to be put on what may make a skilful and effective tutor, but few students, I think, consider what makes a good pupil, beyond a desire to study.

The notes I have scribbled below are based on my experience of having tutored, personally, in the esoteric sciences, several dozen males and females, from eighteen years of age to individuals well into their 60’s, since about 1989. My opinions about the behaviour of these students is based on this experience, and is effected by my knowledge of human psychology, which I have studied since I was nine years old, and gained qualifications to practice in during my mid-20’s. It is also based on my own experience as a student of the mysteries seeking effective initiation, and as a tutor who believes he has a professional knowledge of the details of the formula that governs the process of soul maturation (commonly called initiation). A good deal of this knowledge, also, was gained both in tutoring in private, one-on-one, and in groups such as organized lodges of occult students.

The concept of what makes a good student is really quite simple, but often not accepted by the vast number of students of the occult that shuffle through the threshold of the many and various esoteric training situations that exist today.

I might begin by dividing the stages of student activity and growth into three levels or groups. The first level, into which the complete novice enters, is that which involves a certain degree of personal and relatively solo investigation of literature and ideas expressed through various other media such as videos, television and now the internet. Simple curiosity kicks a process off which will soon lead for many in the first level into a deliberate, enthusiastic search for information. Once enough information is consumed to convince the individual that he or she likes what he sees a quiet but resolute decision is made to consider oneself an occultist of some type.

After reading about magickians, rosicrucians, alchemists, witches, etc, etc, the seeker at the first level of interest will often quickly identify with one of these expressions of occultism. At this point those who want to advance in their chosen area of interest will usually decide that simple reading is not taking them far enough, and that if they want to really learn they must gain some kind of deeper education in these matters. Once a preference for some particular school of thought concerning occultism is reached we find that the field of players divides into two teams. In one team we have those who decide it is best to be self-educated. In the other team we have those who will seek education from a personal teacher. It is not unusual for many seekers to be trapped at this stage for years, often changing teams because of the benefits they may see in now being self taught, or now being taught from someone else.

It might be argued, though, that many of the persons on the 'solo or teacher' merry-go-round lean with a heavy bias towards self-tuition. We can see this situation expressed through the greater preference, these days, for learning occultism by correspondence (at a distance), or by joining a group where the teaching is provided primarily through written material, not by individual personal tutors. In this way many students fool themselves into believing they are being trained in an ‘Order’ or ‘Lodge’ or whatever, sharing thus with other individuals fraternally, when in fact the major source of training they are getting is impersonally from the author(s) of the lectures they study. This method leaves the student in a situation where he or she is largely left up to their own devices as to how they interpret information, and how seriously they apply practical exercises. Therefore all this type of situation really is is a glorified version of what they previously experienced where their information came largely from reading or other media, and therefore still belong to group one, the solo student.

In most cases at the end of a life of studying in this fashion all that the student will have accomplished is the acquisition of information, with a small degree of familiarity of some popular practical exercises. He dies a well-informed student but with relatively little spiritual progress under his belt (in consideration of the bigger picture). I realize this statement will be hotly argued against by people who are in this position, particularly those in later life. But such an argument can only be made by persons who dwell in circles of students who experience a similar lack of progress and who have little or no experience of the degree of actual progress they could have made if they made the switch from the ‘solo student’ team to the ‘teacher-pupil’ team.

My personal experience demonstrates that there are many aspirants who have brief flirtations with the teacher-pupil relationship. Many will leave such a relationship either seriously disappointed (for whatever reason) or feeling that the short and unproductive experience they had was very productive and all that was required at the present time.

Here we come to the concept of what really is required from a student in order to make real progress, beyond the pop occult merry-go-round, into an area of experience which can truly be called occult, that is – hidden and uncommon – the second level of student activity.

It is known that we can only progress so far by reading and by trying to teach ourselves, without any firm commitment to an experienced guide or teacher. I sincerely believe that if the adept occultists of the classic ages and beyond had learned that the bulk of us could find nirvana without aid they would never have established so many fraternal training institutions. The greatest mystery schools in history were not made up of people who were totally self-taught. They were fraternities and sororities that prized group experience and personal training above self-tuition.

The simple, clear, and demonstratible fact about occult training, which is aimed at helping the student attain a greater degree of enlightenment, as opposed to those that only teach magick tricks, is that the individual quickly reaches a condition where he or she cannot progress without aid from outside. Anyone who denies this has either never been near this second level of student activity, or they do not understand the formula of spiritual evolution itself, or they are already amongst the rare and highly evolved souls who have enough personal power to progress without aid.

The rational for our claim is this. No matter what system of spiritual development we may follow they are all based on the same essential formula. Only the techniques and the outer clothing vary. There are many paths towards the goal, but there is only one journey. This path or universal formula consists of a reintegration of the passive and receptive powers of the unconscious mind with the aggressive and active powers of the conscious mind. This is the oft talked about mystic marriage or alchemical wedding that produces the occult androgyny, the perfect immortal master of the mysteries of Nature

Any attempt at trying to accomplish this goal is by its very nature dangerous. And this is why. The first stage of this process is what the alchemists called the negrido. This term refers to either a dissolution, or putrefaction, if you like, and blackening (metaphorically speaking) of the psyche. It involves the orientation of the waking conscious mind towards the sleeping unconscious mind. This is usually achieved through some kind of meditation. The result of even a half successful attempt at this reorientation is that the functions, the integrity and mechanism, of the conscious mind, the ‘I’ that we think we are, are broken down by the powerful forces of dissolution in the unconscious.

Our ‘I’ is the focus of our ability to maintain some degree of sanity, or rational approach to life’s demands. It is our stable island in the vast tumbling ocean of life. The unconscious is itself the ocean of live. It is huge, powerful and deep. Any attempt at trying to break down the superficial structure of the ‘I’ with the solvent properties of the unconscious, therefore, leads to an increase in non-rational behaviour. A mild psychosis sets in. We find we are now more easily prone to anxiety, paranoia, depression, self-delusion, hallucination and above all … irrational behaviour.

The upshot of this condition, which is an unavoidable prerequisite to real spiritual progress, is that we increasingly sink into a mental state where we cannot easily at all make productive rational decisions about some very simple things, let alone the complex and almost entirely foreign stage of progress we now find ourselves in. Under these conditions the only way not to find ourselves quickly turned back to the comfort of our old outworn selves is to put our trust in an external guide to navigate for us the rough seas of the unconscious.

Without such a guide we may either altogether avoid the preliminary stage of dissolution, thus remaining in the first group of students, which is the most common reaction, or we may enter the turmoil only to be spat out again finding ourselves hardly any better off and shaken to some degree. This is relatively common to, and serves, often, as a basis for a degree of fear, which keeps us from ever again risking the danger of the deep again, in preference for the sunny slopes of the unevolved ‘I’.

The difficulty, then, is not in getting into the first stage of dissolution, because many occultists experience this sooner or later to some degree. The difficulty is in crossing the ocean to find the new country, the next level of progress, on the other side of the uncharted territory. Any attempt to do this alone is like trying to navigate the Congo without a map our experienced guide. The result will almost always be death or becoming irretrievably lost (insane).

The student who therefore finds himself in the middle of an attempt at crossing from level one student (solo) to level two (guided) in the middle of the dissolution phase is the individual who is in the middle of a struggle against the fear that there is no God (omnipotent controlling factor in Nature) and a need to trust the guide.

How did I jump to such conclusion? It is simple. The desire to control our own progress totally, that is to remain in group one, is based on the premise that we know what is best for us and that to trust someone else with our spiritual progress may at the least be a waste of our time, or, at the most, be a great risk to our sanity or life. The belief that we must try to control all the factors of our spiritual progress ourselves, then, presupposes that there is no omnipotent controlling factor in the universe. “I can’t trust in the existence of God (a universal plan), therefore my personal safety is in my own hands” we might find such a student exclaiming ... if he was honest with himself.

This is an interesting natural barrier to reach, then. It is what I refer to as the first serious crisis the student undergoes in his attempt to realize that his safety is not in his own hands, but is in the hands of a greater power. If we must go through the dissolution phase, then, and that phase includes our loosing rational control of our ability to make productive (spiritual) choices where our training is concerned, hence the need for a guide, and we reject the guide, then we are immediately stalled from further progress forward.

This is the true ‘gate’ to the ancient mysteries, which we are either turned away from, or enter in through, if we know the key to admission.

On the other hand if we trust in the omnipotence of the universal cause, and can therefore trust our guide, and we are landed on the far shore of the first phase of the Great Work, then we learn, during that journey, that there is a Greater power, one which assures our safety and which has a definite plan for our future.

The question of trusting the tutor’s guidance is a very big problem to be faced with. For most aspirants, as we have said, the question is one they simply would never entertain. With such a choice made they have turned back from the threshold to the mysteries without, often, even realizing they were groping at its porch. For yet one more life such a person will, usually, not leave the outer school, struggling with finding comfort in their reading, in visiting social gatherings of other occultists, of listening to the words of those who also turned back from the brink. In their old age they will tell themselves that it takes many lives to progress, ignoring the possibility that they already have lived many lives turning back from the entrance to the hidden realm. Many, finally, mumbling upon their death bed the sad refrain … I am perplexed.

“But,” we hear you insist, “you don’t just expect that we should pick any tutor and trust him or her implicitly without a care for whether or not that teacher is capable, sane or trustworthy?” This, of course, would be foolish. There is a point, early on in the process of seeking tuition, where the person of average intelligence, who has not as yet waded waste deep into the first stage of dissolution, and therefore is still in possession of his or her normal faculties of judgment, that one is capable of making a reasonable character assessment of any proposed choice of tutor. It therefore goes without saying that if we believe we have a very poor ability to judge a persons character then we should avoid seeking a tutor at all.

The difficulty is not so much found at the outset of the enterprise, where we are still capable of making a reasonably good character assessment of a chosen tutor, but is in fact at the point where we are in the dissolution phase, and we are irrational, and we start to, naturally, fear the tutors advice and decide to ignore it or alter it.

The last type of student, he or she who has advanced to the third group or level is that person who, having been guided through the dangers of the fearful ocean of the unconscious, now has a rudimentary knowledge of both sides of his reality, the hidden and revealed, and can now continue on his path of discovery knowing with the utmost surety what is essential to further progress and what is not.

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