The Sorcerer Guild is an independent fellowship of practitioners who study, perform and teach ritual magic as a craft. It was founded in Baltimore in 1971, is governed by its own members, and is affiliated with no church, lodge, school or commercial body of any kind.
Most people who find their way to this page have already read a good deal. They have a shelf of books on ceremonial magic, a notebook of half-kept practices, and a suspicion that reading about the Art is not the same thing as doing it. The Guild exists for the second thing. It offers what books cannot: a graded course of practical work, a daily discipline to hang it on, and the company of people who will look at what you have done and tell you honestly what they see.
A guild, not a church and not a lodge
The founders chose the word guild with care. A church gathers people around a belief. A lodge gathers them around a ritual and a rank. A guild gathers them around a skill. Its members are not believers or dignitaries but workers at different stages of the same trade: apprentices who are learning it, journeymen who can practice it, and masters who can teach it.
That model shapes everything the Guild does. Instruction is given at the bench, by showing. Advancement is by work presented and examined, never by fee, seniority or favor. Titles describe what a member has demonstrated and carry no authority over anyone's conscience. And because a craft is judged by what it produces, the Guild asks one question of every method it teaches: when this was done carefully, and written down truthfully, what followed?
What members do
- Keep the daily practice. Every member, from the newest Apprentice to the Guildmaster, keeps the Lamp, the Gates and the Record each day. This takes about half an hour. See The Daily Practice.
- Follow the course. Written Papers arrive month by month, each with reading, exercises and a piece of practical work to be done and reported. See The Course of Study.
- Work together. Members who live near a Chapterhouse meet in its Hall, usually twice a month, to perform rites and to examine them afterward. Members at a distance work with a mentor through the Hearth Course.
- Keep the Convocations. Four times a year, at the equinoxes and the solstices, the whole Guild works the same rite on the same night. See the Calendar.
What the Guild is not
It may save the reader time to say plainly what will not be found here.
- The Guild is not a religion. It has no creed, no scripture and no worship that members are required to offer. Its members belong to many faiths and to none.
- It is not a secret society. Its existence, aims, structure and methods are public, as this website shows. What it keeps private is the names of its members and the wording of its rites of admission.
- It is not a business. It sells no spells, readings, charms, courses or initiations. Its officers are unpaid, and its costs are met by modest annual dues.
- It is not a substitute for medical, psychological, legal or financial help, and its officers will say so to anyone who appears to be seeking one.
- It does not perform workings for the public. Letters asking the Guild to cast, remove or reverse anything are not answered.
Why "sorcerer"?
The word comes down through Old French from the Latin sors, a lot: the marked token drawn to learn one's portion. A sorcerer was in the first place a caster of lots, one who put a question to the unseen and read the answer. The founders liked the word because it is plain, because it names a worker and not a priest, and because nobody had yet made it respectable.
Magus is what you call yourself. Sorcerer is what the neighbors call you. We may as well answer to it.
Ambrose Tolland, at the adoption of the Articles, 1974
The Guild in brief
- Founded
- Thursday, September 23, 1971, in Baltimore, Maryland
- Founders
- Ambrose Tolland, Imogen Castellane and Margit Anselm
- Mother Hall
- Lantern House, Frederick County, Maryland
- Membership
- About 900 members in good standing
- Local bodies
- 14 Chapterhouses and 31 Workrooms in 11 countries
- Grades
- Seven, from Apprentice to Elder
- Government
- A Guildmaster and seven Wardens, elected by the General Convocation
- Motto
- Opere et Silentio: By Work and by Silence
Where to go next
Those who wish to understand the Guild better may read its history and its aims and principles. Those who want to know what is actually taught should begin with The Art of Ritual Magic. And those who already know that they wish to ask for admission will find the procedure set out under How to Petition.