An Introduction to Arcanorium College

From The Chancellor, Peter James Carroll:

Throughout history, people have debated and spread Magical ideas by word of mouth or by books. Despite that magical ideas have so often inspired tremendous human advances; such word of mouth and printed transmissions have frequently faced suppression or even burning at the stake. Magicians have had smuggle books across borders and hide from the eyes of inquisitors. The ideas of magic have usually threatened the status quo.

Nevertheless, so much of our technical knowledge has its roots in magic.Astrology gave rise to Astronomy and Cosmology,Alchemy underlies Metallurgy and Chemistry, Numerology gave birth to Mathematics and Cryptography, and both Medicine and Psychology owe a huge debt to Magical and Mystical ideas.

Magical ideas have almost invariably underpinned the foundations of all the world's religions. Miracles remain both the ultimate justification and the Achilles' heel of all faith based systems.

So what does magical thought have to offer the 21st century? I suspect that it has a seminal role to play, much as it has for the last 25 centuries.

Like most technical advances, the internet took off as a military innovation to decentralize command, control, and intelligence in the event of nuclear attack, and then it got used by science as a means of exchanging papers by hypertext. Recently it has become dominated by commerce, entertainment, and pornography, which seem to reflect humanities greatest interests at the time of writing. The military now has an alternative network.

However, whilst a relative state of anarchy and absence of censorship prevails on the internet, we will take advantage of it to explore what the magical perspective has to offer.

Accordingly I have asked a number of the finest Adepts of my acquaintance over the last 4 decades to prepare material for a planet-wide disscussion of The Magical Perspective.

The College provides a variety of discussion and workshop facilities which remain open throughout the year, 24 hours a day, plus specialist lecturers give courses which normally last about 6 weeks. Our academic year consists of seven by six week semester periods with breaks of a week or two between each. Arcanorium College usually has 2 courses going on simultaneously during the semester periods. Members may participate in as many of these as they wish.