Quareia
The Apprentice
by Josephine McCarthy
Module 1 Core Skills
Lesson 1 Meditation techniques
There is a very good reason why meditation is the very first skill that you learn in magic:
without knowing how to use your mind properly, there is no magic. To be still, to clear your
mind and to direct your thoughts are necessary skills for operating magically. To be able to do
those things, one must meditate daily. When an aspirant first begins to meditate it can often be
a struggle: the mind and body can be difficult beasts to tame, but with perseverance, meditation
eventually becomes a normal part of your everyday life. Once you get to adept level, you should be
able to close your eyes and immediately go into a very deep space where you can draw upon power
and where your inner (psychic) senses are always ready and available. How you get there is through
practice, practice, practice, but not fight, fight, fight. It is a skill that for most people takes a long
time to master, and little without struggle is better than longer sessions that are a battle.
1.1 Practical Considerations
There are a few practical considerations that I would like you to pay attention to before you start
your meditation practice. These considerations can have a bearing on how well your meditations go.
Meditation does not need to be done on the floor with your legs twisted like a pretzel. If you already
sit that way, through practising yoga etc., then all is well and good. If you are not used to doing
yoga and have not meditated before, then do not think you must struggle to sit in a position that is
not easy for you. Sit in an upright chair, or on a mat on the floor – you meditate briefly on a train,
or waiting in line for something; it is a condition of mind, not an action of body. The only thing
I would advise against is lying down: you are not going to sleep, you are meditating. Lying down
will encourage your mind to go into sleep mode, which is not what you want at all. So if you were
considering lying down, stop being a wuss and sit in a chair.
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Wear comfortable clothing. Have a silent clock or watch placed nearby so that you can see it if
you open your eyes. During the first stages of magical training, you will be observing your timing.
Have a window open if at all possible, even if it is noisy: the fresh air and the energy within the air
is good for you. If possible, choose a room that is not near a road so that you can open the window
and not breathe in fumes. Turn off phones etc. Have a candle, a plain white small candle or tea light.
If you are in a place where you cannot have a candle lit, then just place the candle before you or near
you as a focus with the intention that one day, you will light it. If you function best in the morning,
then get up an hour earlier than normal and meditate first thing in the morning. It will be a strug-
gle at first, but it will set up your mind for the day. If this is not possible (i.e. you already get up for
work at 5am) then meditate late afternoon, or early evening. If you are a night owl, then meditate
at night. But magically the best time to meditate is dawn, though few of us have the luxury of
such in today’s crazy work world.
If you already meditate and are able to still your mind, don’t skip this lesson as there are a couple
of techniques introduced here which are vital to this course. You will just find it much easier
to do these exercises if you already meditate. Just learn the basic techniques and then move on.
Students have often asked me how long they should spend on this lesson, and some poor souls have
battled this lesson for a year without moving forward. Don’t fall into the perfection trap; rather get
the basics so that you can sit and be quiet for ten minutes, and then move on to the next lesson
while continuing to meditate. Don’t beat yourself up if you have bad days or even bad weeks with
meditation – it can be like that and it is not a battle. Learn to flow with it. And you can enhance
your practice with a simple technique; when you are bored and waiting for something, don’t reach
for your phone to entertain you. Put it on silent, and just daydream. Daydreaming out of boredom
is a major component for a magical mind later on.
1.2 First meditation exercise
Light a candle, note the time, sit down and close your eyes. Turn your head to the right, take in
a deep breath and then breathe out. Turn your head to the left, take a deep breath, and then
breathe out. Face forward, take a deep breath and then breathe out.
With your right hand (regardless of whether you are right or left handed), place your thumb and
fourth (ring) finger on either side of the root of your nose where your eyes and nose meet, and place
your index finger on your forehead just above the nose/eyebrow line (third eye area).
Sit and breathe normally, being aware of your finger on your forehead. Focus on your finger.
Every time your mind wanders and you begin to think about mundane things, bring your focus
back to your finger.
Once your arm is tired, drop your arm and keep focusing on that spot on your forehead. See your-
self breathing in white smoke and breathing out grey or black smoke. As you breathe in, imagine
that the white fresh energetic smoke is filling your body and pushing out the stale black smoke.
Every time your mind wanders, pull it back to the spot on your forehead. Once you feel you cannot
focus any more, open your eyes and check the clock. If you have not sat for at least ten minutes,
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close your eyes and continue. If you have sat for longer than ten minutes, close your eyes again
for a few moments and tap on the third eye area with your right index finger while taking good
deep breaths through your nose.
Get up. Stretch up with your arms and then, keeping your legs straight, stretch down to put your
hands on the floor. Hold for a few seconds. Stand up, turn your body right while keeping your hips
facing forward, arms outstretched to your sides, and hold. Turn and repeat on the opposite side.
Stand facing forward, arms outstretched to the side, and look at what is before you. As you look at
what is before you, also think about what is behind you, what furniture, wall, door, etc. Stand and
make sure your brain can process looking at one thing while thinking about something else.
Finally, turn to the east, bow, and finish. You are bowing in recognition of every adept who has
gone before you, every student who has made real adept level and beyond. You are bowing in rec-
ognition of all the inner and outer teachers. And it is also practice for when you come to work in
the inner worlds. This is a deep sign of respect in magic: do not just mindlessly bob your head or
body in a meaningless gesture. Think about what you are doing. As you bow, be aware that you are
entering a line of historic magicians, an ancient line, an ancient tradition that deserves your respect.
Remember, twenty minutes or even ten minutes a day of meditation is far better than one or more
hours once or twice a week. Little and often is the key. If you cannot meditate every day, then do
your best while being honest with yourself. This is lone practice and no one is supervising you or
watching you – you are expected to have the maturity to know that all of this work is for your own
magical development. If you get lazy and try to fool yourself, then think about the level of maturity
needed to handle power magically. This is where power training starts, with self discipline. But if
you are sick, then don’t meditate, just sleep and heal. Short meditations can become your solace
when needed, and that comes from regular meditation so that it becomes second nature.
1.3 Second meditation exercise
Once you have mastered the previous meditation exercise, keep practising it for ten minutes a day, and
practise the following technique for a further ten minutes or more a day. End your session with the stretch
and bow outlined in the first meditation exercise.
Once your system is settled and you are used to the basic meditation technique outlined in the first
exercise, then it is time to work with colour. This is the foundation of learning how to move
power in, around, and out of your body. The advanced technique begins here. First you learn
how to move colour in and out of your body; then you learn how to trigger the regeneration and
cleaning of your inner energies. You are going to work with three colours, red/left, blue/central,
and white/right: action, fulcrum, silence, life developing, fulcrum, life harvested.
Starting with the right side, block your left nostril by pressing against it with your left index finger.
Breathe in through your right nostril and as you breathe in, imagine the right side of your body
filling with white smoke. Breathe out through your mouth and imagine that you are breathing out
white smoke. Breathe in white, breathe out white. Repeat this whole sequence three times.
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Now press on your right nostril with your right index finger and breathe in through your
left nostril. Imagine you are breathing in red smoke that fills the left side of your body and
breathing out red smoke through your mouth. Repeat this three times. Place your hands on
your lap and breathe in through both nostrils, imagining that you are breathing in blue smoke
that fills the centre-line down your body from head to toe, and breathing out blue smoke from
your mouth. Repeat this three times. If you cannot visualise colour, then know that it is red or blue.
Using the mind by ‘knowing’ helps you to develop your own unique form of visualisation, which
may not have any visuals at all, but a deep sense of knowing.
Once you have finished, sit quietly and imagine the blue channel flowing down through your centre,
the white channel flowing down the right side of your body, and the red channel flowing down
the left hand side of your body. Spend some time just sitting and being aware of the three colours
flowing in your body.
Finally, spend a little time sitting quietly and allowing the mind to silence itself. If you find your-
self remembering things or thinking about things, just gently stop thinking about them and
return to silence. This is the hardest skill of all to learn in meditation, and it is best to build it up
a few minutes at a time until eventually the bulk of your meditation time is spent being still.
Be aware that this can take years for many people, as stillness is the hardest of all things to reach.
Two minutes or even a minute of stillness is progress, and your mind will adapt in its own time.
1.4 Third meditation exercise
Once you are accustomed to visualising in meditation then it is time to learn the meditation
of the inner flame. This is the start of a skill set that once you have mastered it, will be one of
the many tools you can engage to help protect you, transport you, heal you and energise you. It is
an ancient method of magical meditation and something you will use throughout your magical life.
Again, like the other meditations, it takes time to develop the skill and it will not happen overnight
for most people.
Essentially this meditation works with the image of a flame. This image will be slowly connected,
through your training, to a state of mind and a state of power called the Void which is reached
through stillness. This power is something that exists within all living beings, and all elements,
substances and patterns: it is the nothing from which all things flow. To connect with that
power you must first learn how to work with it in meditation, and for that we work with a flame.
You must learn to visualise a flame in front of you and a flame within you in the place you consider
your ‘centre’ or core. For most people that is the space in the abdomen below the ribs and above
the pelvis. The flame is not a burning or heating fire, it is a pure energy of life that can eventually
be tapped into to work with.
For now, you will learn the very basic meditation of the ‘flame within.’ Close your eyes and do one
of your simple breathing exercises until you are settled. Using your mind’s eye, imagine a flame
burning gently in the centre of your body, however that imagined or ‘felt’ visualisation works
for you. It does not harm you, it does not burn you; it is a flame of vital force that energises you,
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and it is an aspect of your life force. As you breathe in and out, be aware of the flame within, ever
constant, ever present. Notice its colour. Notice how it moves gently as you breathe.
Every time your mind drifts away from the flame and thoughts start to crowd into your head,
gently stop the flow of thoughts and remember the flame in your centre. Focus back on the flame,
on the feeling of its warmth through your body. Notice how safe it feels and how beautiful it is.
If you feel confident about it, in your mind, reach into the flame with your hands and wash your
hands and arms in the flame. Cup some of the flame in your hands and see or ‘know’ yourself
washing your face with its power.
Open your eyes and check your clock. If you have been sat for ten minutes or more, get up, stretch
and do your bow. If you have only been sat for a few moments, close your eyes and focus your mind
back on the flame in the centre of your body. Do your best, but don’t ever turn meditation into
a battle; learn to let it become your safe and peaceful place. If that means stopping early sometimes,
so be it. Let it be your best, not the best of someone else.
1.5 Magic and Meditation
Meditation is a central and core skill for magic, as magic uses the mind in many different ways and
learning how to operate the mind consciously is very important. A still mind allows the magician
to focus power, and the ability to consciously use the imagination to build images in the mind’s
eye allows the magician to form patterns and doorways that allow their consciousness to expand
beyond their body. It is a skill that is developed slowly over years, and in the life of a magician
the form it takes varies as the magician develops their magical skills. Some magicians use lengthy
meditations, some use very short but focused meditations, it all depends on what works best
for you. But to get to that point, the basics are first developed and then practised.
In today’s world of constant noise, media, and chatter, it can be very difficult for the aspiring
magician to learn how to be quiet, how to listen, and how to be still. The way to overcome that
difficulty is to work at it. For some of you, your mind or your body or both will rebel. Don’t turn
your meditation sessions into a battle of wills; rather turn them into a rhythm. Remember as
a child not wanting to brush your teeth or wash your face, or to sit quietly until the adults had
finished eating? It was hard as a child to do such disciplines, and yet as an adult you move through
such things without even thinking about them. So it will become with meditation. And that stage
is arrived at by doing it every day.
I used to practise meditation with a baby on my lap, or on the bus on longer journeys: I would keep
my eyes open but focus on the flame within, or the colours, and then slip into stillness with all
the noise around me. That put me in good stead for later years when I would find myself suddenly
facing a powerful being or a dangerous situation – I could instantly become still and focused.
Magic flows from that still, focused place. Robes and tools and altars are a part of magic, but if
they become a crutch then you are doomed to destruction or failure. A magical attack will not
wait patiently for you to finish what you are doing, put on a robe and pick up a sword: it will catch
you unawares in the midst of a busy day. As you will learn in your training, while you will use
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magical tools, your body is also all of those tools combined, and your mind is the most potentially
powerful tool you can use. That power comes first from meditation, and then from the use of
visionary magic.
1.6 Task: Daily meditation
Meditate each day for a minimum of twenty minutes. Initially, start with just the first meditation.
Once you have understood and are able to do the first meditation, add the second meditation.
Once you are comfortable with the first two meditations, then go on to work with the flame
meditation. Once you have mastered all three forms, start a regular daily routine that incorporates
all three in succession. Meditate for a minimum of twenty minutes each day, but do not meditate
for more than an hour a day – you are training to be a magician, not a monk. You will find that
after a few weeks of struggle and failures, you will start to fall into a habit that works for you.
Once you are comfortable with working with the three meditations, move on to the next lesson
while still practising and improving your meditation skills. It will take you a few modules of
training work before you find you can meditate more easily.
1.7 Task: Keeping notes
Keep short notes in your journal of your progress in your meditations: list how long you meditated
(and be truthful!), whether you felt it was easy or hard, and how you felt afterwards. The meditation
journal is just for you, and it can be used to track reactions to external influences. The journalling
of early days training can be invaluable to you in the future, and today, ten years on from the birth
of the course, students bemoan the fact that they failed to journal properly in the early part of
their training.
Your early warning system
The reason for keeping a daily note of how you felt at the end of your meditation is that eventually
it will show you how your early warning system is developing. As the weeks pass and you become
more experienced in meditation, there will be times when you emerge from your meditations
feeling slightly ‘off ’ or ‘jangled.’ This can often be an early warning of trouble or illness. It is like
a very, very quiet whisper at first, something you can barely feel.
But as you work more, and as you practise other core skills, slowly but surely you will start to
recognise your ‘good’ energy feeling, your ‘bad’ or ‘getting sick’ energy feeling, and your early
warning system of ‘something is not quite right.’ Once you have recognised the distinctive feel of
the early warning system, you can use other core skills to identify what is potentially going wrong,
or if you are in some sort of danger.
The more you recognise these signals, the stronger they will become over time. Sometimes it is just
your own consciousness playing tricks on you, but you need to learn to feel the difference when
that happens. Because everyone senses things in slightly different ways, the only way to truly learn
what your own feelings in stillness are telling you is by observing them through a daily journal.
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If you get sick, look back a few days in your journal to see how you felt after meditation. Sometimes
the body gets a little energy high twenty-four hours before sickness: this is your immune system
gearing up for the attack. Others feel out of focus, and some people describe feeling like they are
the ‘wrong shape’ just before they get sick. If something bad or difficult happens, again, look back
over your journal. A couple of words each day are all that it takes. As you start to see a pattern
develop through your descriptions, you will begin to recognise the quiet warnings that your inner
energy or body tries to give you. So write them down each day without fail.
Note: If you find that during meditation you see beings or feel a presence, turn your attention
away from that contact regardless of how shiny, angelic or special it may seem. You are training
to focus, to not be interrupted, and you are also training to recognise parasitical beings that may
try to take advantage of you while you are meditating as a beginner. This is very important, and
a major first magical lesson – do not allow distraction, do not allow flights of fancy in the mind,
and do not allow spirits to interrupt you. If it is a genuine being that means no harm, they will
realise what you are doing, and that you are a beginner. They will return if necessary under better
conditions and when you are able to fully converse with them. It is not unusual for a contact that
first becomes aware of you while you meditate, to leave and then return sometimes years later when
you are ready to work with them. But most intruders of meditation are beings or spirits that are
parasitical by nature and want to suck on your vital force.
Meditation will become an aspect of your magical life for the rest of your life, so get used to it!
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