Before Initiation Into Hermetics was published, František Bardon translated 3 books, and put them together into one practical system of initiation for his inner circle, and this book was called the Textbook of High Magic, and these 3 books that made it up are called:

1. Seven Hermetic Letters by Georg Lomer, and Bardon also included, The Eighth Letter by Georg Lomer (originally published later after the Seven, yet Bardon included both together);
2. Rune-Magic by Siegfried Adolf Kummer;
3. Book 4 Part I & II by Aleister Crowley.

 

The above three books, together in that order, make up a system of initiation, which Bardon considered to be too advanced for the public to work through. It is well known that Bardon visited Lomer, along with Kummer in person, and also wrote to Crowley. There is no question of the significance that the above books had on Bardon and his students.

 

Some are unable to make the connection with Bardon and Lomer’s two systems, even when they know how they both contain many of the same exercises, only written differently, and with a different energy current. In this sense, the saying, “secrets hidden in plain sight”, would be appropriate.

 

We offer for the first time, an original page from Bardon’s Textbook of High Magic, which was published in private hectograph print. Bardon sold each of the above 3 translations that he did through Czech occult magazines, and there were even copies of all three put together into one book, which made up the Textbook of High Magic.

 

Of particular interest, is how Bardon took out anything that could have been considered racist from the Ariosophical viewpoint of Kummer’s Rune-Magic. From this perspective, Bardon was actually way ahead of his time, as he was separating the racism from the Armanen Rune ideology, way back in the late 30’s. Something which mostly became popular after their misuse in the Second World War.

 

František Bardon was also still using the Textbook of High Magic with his inner circle, even after Initiation Into Hermetics, The Practice of Magical Evocation, and The Key to the True Kabbalah were published, and still considered the Textbook of High Magic to be too powerful for the public, as his other books were created with the intention of initiating people on a public level, and did not expand upon the full mysteries that one of Bardon’s students would experience in his inner circle.

 

Matthew Blankenburg