Jennifer Belsham opens the doors to a real-life Hogwarts

The A.O.M.is born out of a desire to preserve the occult teachings from varied traditions, and to teach these systems in a serious scientific and academic environment. The mainstream “neo-pagan” revival has watered down the serious study of occultism into something resembling a mummy hunt, with empty rituals being employed by groups of people without any serious study of the art and science of magic.
Within the Academy’s matrix, we find many methods and semantic systems which, when stripped down to their essence, include many obscure and unusual subjects. The serious student should appreciate that this is an abstruse subject, touching on matters such as herbalism, language skills, mythology and folklore, numerology, astrology and astronomy, construction and understanding of talismans, symbolism, magical alphabets and other skills such as the obvious spell casting. Many of these disciplines are predicated upon historical perspectives, for which simply relying upon translated works or judicious use of dictionaries proves woefully inadequate!

We are approaching the subject of magic from a scrupulously academic point of view, and anticipate that our institution may be well respected as the pre-eminent university within its field.
The Academy is run by a Council of Elders, all of whom have proven specialities within their own fields. We encompass a wide range of disciplines and spiritual traditions, ranging from herbalist through rune master or vitki, native shamanism and ritual magician to Buddhism. It is our stated aim to become a repository for all forms of magical tradition.
We are conducting an occult investigation concerning the aura colour of various towns and villages throughout the country and the nature of those same communities.
We are looking for volunteers with level 2 sight (able to see auras etc) to take part and paint or draw the auras over their local town, village or community on all or any of the following six days: 20 December and, next year, 27 January, 21 March, 31 May, 14 June and 28 June. Alternatively, volunteers may choose significant days of their own.
All participants are asked to include details such as the day, date, time, the weather and what was happening in their community at the time.
For further information, contact Jennifer Belsham at aura-project@academy-of-magic.org, visit www.academy-of-magic.org
or call 01273 679992.