“Holy Mother, in Whom we live, move and have our being, from You all things emerge and unto you all things return.”

Evolutionary Witchcraft: A Course with T. Thorn Coyle, founder of Morningstar Feri

This is a course for people ready to take the next step spiritually and magically. This is not a course for complete beginners.

I designed the two to three year trainings for many reasons, the first of which was to build a strong foundation, for people’s spiritual practice in general and to help them manage the large amounts of energy that intensive work sets free. The work is dangerous, life changing and extremely potent. That is why committed (sometimes tedious) daily practice is paramount in my training – it builds a good foundation for all other integrated work. I believe we can evolve, and the trainings are a step in trying to teach my own attempts in that direction. Whether or not people want to go on to study Feri Tradition over a longer period (as we know, it is a long apprenticeship!), the tools of Feri Tradition and the practices I’m laying out for self-awareness, spiritual commitment and development of will can be helpful to anybody willing to look at themselves and engage.

There will be daily work and weekly work to practice and the group will meet physically once a trimester for 2.25 years. The course is set up in the shape of the casting of the Feri sphere. We will be diving into the Elements from a Feri perspective, working with tools both physical and meta-physical. We will work with the wand as a tool of air and the blade as a tool of fire. We will work with both cube and pentacle in the north. We will use the cup of compassion, the black mirror of space and the cauldron of below. We will study our Triple Soul and learn how to align ourselves. We will explore the Iron and Pearl Pentacles, the Black Heart of Innocence, Feri Fire, Astral Travel and the Warrior’s ethic. We will work with the Guardians and Gods of Feri Tradition over time including the Peacock God and the Star Goddess. We will learn specific ways of cleansing and unbinding life-force. We will work with the Fey and learn how to become more fey ourselves. We will step further into our own Divinity and expand our humanity. The basic work follows the text of Evolutionary Witchcraft, though other work will be passed on and the magic, of course, shifts depending on the participants.

You will need to sit with yourself every single day. You will begin to observe your habits – physical, mental, emotional and around food, sex, work, posture. You will learn your stories and name your fears. In our exploration of the Feri sphere, you will expand your capacity to hold contradictions and grow larger and stronger. On top of this, you will have special weekly work, monthly rituals to do and our weekend meetings to attend. Are you willing? We all struggle with the work and I ask that you be willing to engage in the struggle.

This work requires commitment and daily-ness. I have continuously told my current students “If you are not doing the work, I won’t be able to help you six months or a year from now.” And this is true. Those who work, I can help. Those who don’t do work, don’t have the foundation and internal language to be helped by me.

Is this meant to scare you? No. But it is meant to ask you to think quite clearly about why you want this training at this point in your life. I ask you to do a lot of work in order to share power with you. I ask myself to do even more. Spiritual authority is a lot like anarchy – it requires effort and responsibility and growth.

All of the people in this training will have some amount of magical experience. Some will have years of training and even be initiates or teachers themselves. This will be of help to the whole group – I cannot carry the energy alone, everyone’s presence is required. While I know that some people have experience with some or all of the Feri concepts, not all have an in depth practice of them. It is that which I hope to cultivate. These are things I’ve developed from my study with Victor and are immersed in the soup of my own work and years of practice, of course. My other primary influence is the work of G. I. Gurdjieff, though I tend to intersperse insights from many spiritual traditions into my teaching. It is my way, not the Feri way, or the only way to magic and spiritual growth. This work has had a huge affect on my life and I am grateful for it.

Part of the commitment to the work and the group is financial. This money will pay for all the homework, for online e-time to discuss the work and get questions answered, for the Thorn’s teaching and travel, space rental and stipends for the other group leaders.

Please confirm your interest with the organizers of the training so they can compile an accurate roster and get an e-list started. Please also fill out our Registration Form and our Statement of Understanding.

Thorn would like a letter of intention from you to be received before the full moon in June (June 18) addressed to T. Thorn Coyle POB 460783, San Francisco, CA 94146. Please answer the following: What is your magical or spiritual background? Why do you want this training? What kind of work are you thinking to engage in? Are you willing to make a commitment to the work, the process and to yourself? The answer to that last question is the contract to the training. Include your email address so I can respond if necessary. I will only contact you if I see any issues we may need to discuss before I can let you into the training. Otherwise, after two week’s time, you may assume you are in. Please include your email address in the letter, and keep a copy for your files as this letter is your contract to yourself, the work, Thorn, and to the group.

Also, please begin to sit with yourself in silence for 10 minutes daily as preparation for this work. Sit with your spine straight and even out your breathing. Then just see what arises.

Mystic and magic worker T. Thorn Coyle has been a spiritual seeker her whole life, and a student of the Craft for 25 years. An initiate in the Anderson Feri Tradition of Witchcraft, she was fortunate to study with its founder, Victor Anderson, in the years before his death. She is also a priestess in the vital Reclaiming Tradition and has studied other esoteric traditions. A musician, dancer, activist and poet, Thorn teaches internationally and lives in San Francisco. Her book is Evolutionary Witchcraft (Tarcher/Penguin). For more information, please visit Thorn's website