Version of October 5, 2026.
Please read this before you create an account. It is written plainly so you can know exactly what you are agreeing to. If anything is unclear, ask before you begin.
What the Steps are
The Steps of Initiation are a path of daily Hermetic practice: ten steps of training for spirit, soul and body, after Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics (1956), taught in the Temple's own words. You practise at home, morning and evening, keep a practice diary, and meet with a guide. You move on when a step is steady in your daily life, never on a schedule.
The platform also holds the Temple's course on preparing for ceremony and integrating afterward, which is open to every accepted member.
What it is not
The Steps are spiritual practice. They are not medical care, psychological care or therapy, and they do not replace a doctor or a therapist. The Temple makes no promise about your health. Nothing in the Steps is meant to treat any condition.
Guides are fellow practitioners who walk beside you. They are not therapists, and they do not diagnose or advise on medicine. A guide confirms your practice, never your spiritual status.
What the practice asks
- Time: usually twenty to sixty minutes a day, growing slowly.
- Honesty: an inventory of your strengths and failings, written with kindness. Your soul mirrors stay on paper with you.
- A practice diary: a plain record of what you practised and what happened.
- Patience: each step takes months, sometimes years.
Every physical practice has an equivalent for anyone who cannot do it as written, because of the body, health, or a sense they do not have. The equivalent counts in full. Tell your guide what you need.
The risks
Most people find the practice steadying. But intensive meditation, breath work and inner imagination can have hard effects for some people, sometimes weeks into practice. Known effects include:
- trouble sleeping,
- anxiety or panic,
- feeling unreal, or that the world is unreal,
- old memories or feelings surfacing strongly,
- numbness or feeling cut off from others,
- unusual body sensations, and
- rarely, seeing or hearing things others do not.
These are more likely if you practise far longer than the lessons suggest, push through warning signs, sleep too little, or are going through a hard time in your life. Tell your guide before you begin if you have a history of psychosis, bipolar disorder, dissociation, or severe trauma. That does not rule you out, but your guide will go more gently, and you may be asked to talk with your own clinician first. Please do not stop or change any medication because of the practice; talk with your prescriber.
The care rules
Stop and tell your guide if you sleep under five hours for three nights, feel panic, feel unreal for more than a day, see or hear what others do not, or have thoughts of harming yourself. Breath work is never done in or near water.
In crisis, call or text 988. For support after a psychedelic experience, call Fireside Project at 623-473-7433. For immediate danger, call 911.
The Safety protocol says in full what you and your guide do when things get hard.
Your freedom
- You may pause at any time, for any reason, without losing your place.
- You may stop altogether, and come back later.
- You may change guide without giving a reason.
- You may raise a concern about a guide with people outside your guide's line, at contact@templeofhermes.org.
- No one may touch you as part of the practice. None is needed.
The sacrament is separate
The Steps are a sober daily discipline, kept separate from the Temple's ceremonies. Intensive practice pauses about a week before each ceremony and for two to four weeks after. No stage is ever given for anything experienced in ceremony, and plant medicine is never used to advance on the Steps.
Who can take part
You must be 21 or older. Each new account is reviewed by a member of the Temple before the lessons open. To walk the Steps, you also ask to begin, and a guide is matched with you.
What the platform stores, and who sees it
The platform runs on the Temple's own server. Nothing is sold, and no outside service receives your records.
| What | Who can see it |
|---|---|
| Your name, email and a scrambled form of your password | You, and the Temple's admins (not the password) |
| Which papers you agreed to, and when | You, and the Temple's admins |
| Your stage on the Steps, and when you reached each one | You, your guides, the Temple's admins |
| Diary entries you keep private | Only you |
| Diary entries you choose to share | You, and your guides |
| Replies from your guide | You, and your guides |
| Short safety notes written by a guide | You, your guides, the Temple's admins |
The platform never shows your private entries to anyone else. The people who maintain the Temple's server could in principle open the database, and they are bound not to read members' entries. Please do not write anything in the diary you could not bear anyone else to read; keep the most private work, like your soul mirrors, on paper.
From your Account page you can download a copy of everything held about you, or delete your account. Deleting removes your account, diary, replies, notes and stage record for good. Backup copies are replaced within 30 days.
If this paper changes
If the Temple changes this paper or the Safety protocol, you will be asked to read and agree again the next time you sign in.
By creating an account you agree that
- You are 21 or older.
- You understand the Steps are spiritual practice, not medical or psychological care, and come with no promise about health.
- You have read the risks above and the Safety protocol, and you will follow the care rules.
- You will keep the Steps separate from ceremony, and pause intensive practice before and after each one.
- You understand what the platform stores and who can see it.
- You may pause, stop, or change guide at any time.
Questions about this paper go to contact@templeofhermes.org.
