FAQ

The Servants of the Light School of Occult and Psychic Science is a modern Western Mystery School that teaches through online courses; we previously taught via correspondence lessons. We keep the teaching tradition of W.E. Butler on the Mystical Qabalah alive for modern students.

Our method of teaching utilises the language and symbolism of the Mystical Qabalah, and we also teach meditation, theurgic ritual and ceremonial magic. We define “magic” as the art of changing consciousness at will.” We explore levels of psychic awareness and consciousness in the human soul and how we are connected to nature and the wider cosmos.

Our school began as “The Helios Course,” founded by Gareth Knight and John Hall as part of their business, The Helios Book Service, in the early 1960s.  Both men had been members of The Society of the Inner Light, founded by Dion Fortune.

Gareth Knight and John Hall asked W.E. Butler (1898-1978) to further develop the course they began as the Director of Studies of the Helios Course. This work commenced with the blessing of Arthur Chichester, who was the Warden of the Fraternity of the Inner Light at the time. W. E. Butler was a highly respected occultist, clairvoyant and author who was initially a pupil of Robert King (1869-1954), who worked as a psychic, spiritual medium, theosophical lecturer and early Liberal Catholic Church bishop. Butler was also a personal student of Dion Fortune and an initiated member of her Fraternity of the Inner Light from 1926 onwards.

Butler worked with senior supervisors Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki and her then-husband, Michael, who were also trained in the Society of the Inner Light and initiates of the Fraternity. Olive Ashcroft, Tom Oloman and Mariton Geikie were among the senior supervisors of the Helios Course that helped with early teaching and administration.

Butler developed the Helios Course, eventually writing 50 lessons, which became independent of the Helios Book Service in 1973 and which was renamed “The Servants of the Light Practical Course on the Mystical Qabalah” that was administrated by the Servants of the Light Association, founded in 1973 by W.E. Butler, the Nowicki’s, Tom Oloman, Olive Ashcroft and Mariton Geikie with the blessing of Gareth Knight and John Hall.

W. E. Butler trained his successor, Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki, who became the second Director of Studies of the school on October 31st 1976. Dolores expanded and developed the SOL school for many years and is also well-known and loved as an author, lecturer, and esoteric teacher.

Dolores trained her successor, Dr Steven G. Critchley, for several years while he worked in the SOL as her Assistant Director of Studies.

Steven became the third Director of Studies of the Servants of the Light School on 11 June 2018, following the retirement of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki. He brings a background in the Wiccan tradition; he was a member of the Sheffield Coven in the 1990s, led by the High Priestess, Patricia C. Crowther, who initiated him through all the Wiccan degrees and taught him about ritual magic as she had learned it working with friends such as the magician William G. “Bill” Gray (1913–1992).  During his training in SOL, Steven was ordained a priest in the Liberal Catholic Church. This continues an interesting continuity within the School, as both W.E. Butler (ordained 9 June 1956) and Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki were also ordained within the same tradition, alongside their wider work in Western esotericism.

Steven’s primary work is as an esoteric teacher, guiding students in the Mystical Qabalah and the Western esoteric tradition through structured training. Alongside this, Steven has also served in many Spiritualist churches as a spiritual medium, delivering public services, sharing philosophy, and demonstrating evidential mediumship. He was president of Longton Spiritualist Church for several years and trained in methods of working in the tradition of Gordon Higginson (1918-1993) and his mother, Fanny Higginson (1889-1978), through several mediums trained by them. He worked for decades in Wicca and in Spiritualism, as well as training in the Qabalah with Servants of the Light and with key teachers in private.

SOL is an esoteric teaching school that is now over 50 years old; we have a pluralistic teaching philosophy,  and we also have an international network of Lodges and practical study groups that work together employing ritual techniques and patterns. The Western Esoteric Tradition, in which we work, is a conglomerate of ancient and modern, or revivalist, traditions. Thus, in the Western Esoteric Tradition, there are streams of influence arising from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as from the cultures that influenced their teachings, such as the Chaldean (Babylonian), Assyrian, etc., and from the Pagan, Hebraic, and Christian mystical teachings. Ancient Druidic, Celtic, Norse and Saxon influences can also be discerned.

Absolutely not. We are not a religious body and welcome students from any faith. SOL is not a church, and we were not established to promote any religion or creed, but rather to explore belief systems. SOL is an educational body devoted to the study of philosophy, symbolism, and esoteric traditions. It does not hold public worship, require adherence to a creed, or promote a particular religion. We are a school. We teach through online courses, and the school is organised with a loose structure precisely to avoid sectarianism and encourage independence and free thinking. We do not interfere in our members’ private lives or belief systems.

The aim of Servants of the Light is to help in spreading the esoteric knowledge in an ethical way to all who want to receive it, regardless of religion, gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation, age, social status or financial situation. We also teach students about psychic awareness and the reality of the human soul’s immortality.

Dion Fortune defined magic as “the art of changing consciousness at will”. Magic has been described as the Yoga of the West; Yoga simply means “union”. It has the same ultimate goal as the Eastern systems: that of service to, and ultimately union with, the Divine. Its methods are especially suited to Western students. The esoteric sciences are the tools that allow us to pursue this path of spiritual development. Some of these tools are meditation, contemplation and ritual. The meditative, contemplative and ritual techniques we teach are ‘scientific’ in that they follow a specific methodology that produces specific results. In our work, it is consciousness and how consciousness shapes personal understanding of the self, and how we experience living practically in the world, in the light of the knowledge we receive, that concerns us.  

No. We are a correspondence school an heart and teach remotely all over the world using online courses. All work can be undertaken in the student’s own home.

Magic and sorcery are not the same thing. The technology of magic is neutral. The operator’s intention determines whether the magic is black or white. For this reason, occult schools have carefully screened their candidates throughout the ages. This school, as our name, Servants of the Light, implies, is concerned only with serving the forces of the Light. The aim of occult training is, ultimately, to enable the student to become a conscious collaborator with these high spiritual forces.

SOL is not dependent on any other organisation. We do not involve ourselves, as an organisation, in any religious or political issues, so we do not promote one religion or philosophy above another, though our members are free to be members of whatever political or religious organisations they choose to be part of.

Politicised religion is proven to be a cause of human (and animal) suffering in many ways; however, there are many paths to the Light, and we respect them all when followed in truth and with love and compassion. One of the first things an occultist has to learn is tolerance and understanding of other religions. We do not force any particular religious viewpoint on our students, and there is no pressure to conform in any way. We consider ourselves fortunate to count Alchemists, Buddhists, Christians (including priests and nuns), Druids, Hermeticists, Hindus, Isis worshippers and other Neopagans, Shamans, Wiccans and other witches, and many others among our students.

Since 1964, first as the Helios Course and then from the early 1970’s as The Servants of the Light School, the SOL has taught over 6000 people in many different countries. Many of those who have trained with us in the past are still members of the school and volunteer as Supervisors. We also have a number of Lodges that are led by Magi who began their work in the SOL as correspondence course students. Of course, we train many people who move on into different paths or fields of esoteric work, and we are glad to have helped many along the way of their personal quests.

Our Courses are written in English, and we teach in the English language.

The Qabalah (this spelling usually designates the Hermetic Mystical interpretations of the earlier Hebraic systems), or Kabbalah (often used to designate the original Hebraic schools), as it is sometimes spelt, has been the foundation-stone of the Western Mystery tradition for several hundred years. It is a flexible system of relationships that allows us to comprehend abstract realities that would otherwise be beyond our reach. It is a powerful symbolic language and a system of cosmology, theology and psychology. The Tree of Life, its central symbol, has rightly been called “The mighty, all-encompassing glyph of the Universe and the Soul of Man”. The student will find that, once the principles of the Qabalah have been understood, all other systems, equally valid in their own right, can be explained in Qabalistic terms.

Not necessarily, but a belief in some kind of higher force or guiding power can be of great help. Atheists rarely feel the urge to do this kind of work, but we do have a number of agnostics in the school.

There are no membership fees. The correspondence courses are now completely online and funded by lesson fees kept as low as possible. Each phase of The New SOL Practical Course on the Mystical Qabalah comprises several week-long modules, each with several lessons, and each phase costs £60. The modules are clustered in modular form, containing videos, text, PDFs, and illustrations.

No. Daily work is necessary for our training and can be done in manageable portions of time (usually under an hour a day).

No. They are correspondence courses and are designed to be studied online from your own home. In fact, there is nowhere to travel to, since there is no physical school building! We sometimes offer workshops, which you can attend if you wish. Our teaching included practical training in ritual, theurgic magic. We also have practical groups that meet where there are enough students called “study groups” or “Lodges.” All SOL Lodges are administered by Magi who make local membership decisions and often offer their own Lodge training too.

Yes,  you need to reserve  20-45 minutes each day (six days a week) to meditate and to read the lesson material.

No. We do offer workshops in ritual magic. Contrary to what the popular press might say, ritual in its true form is not weird at all – it is simply a form of externalised meditation. Like meditation, it needs to be practised with insight and care. You choose how you work with the material; we support mystical paths and ritual paths.

Yes, we offer three degrees of ceremonial initiation to dedicated students who wish to follow that path in practical ritual work. However, initiation simply means to begin, and no ceremony can make you an initiate. Genuine initiation is a constantly unfolding process from within the deeper Self that transforms the whole person. Your ongoing and disciplined practical work in the teachings of the Western esoteric tradition is the true ground of your initiation; public ceremonies can only confirm what you attain in private work. Some members of our school never feel the need for ceremonial work or formal initiations. Also, many people are initiates of a very high degree who never work with ceremony, magic or the Qabalah, but who express their spirit and soul through humanitarian, artistic, or other work that serves the whole of which we are each a part.

It is true that some occult authors in the past reflected cultural biases and attitudes of the time in which they wrote. We are a progressive school, and anyone from any background can work in the initiatory mysteries of the Mystical Qabalah if they are disciplined in study and practical work. A gay man was a founder member of our school in the 1960s; he was trained by W.E. Butler and worked as a senior supervisor in the SOL. Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki was the first head of an esoteric order and school to openly welcome, train and initiate LGBTQI+ people. The school welcomes all serious students who want to do the work.

We have supervisors and mentors who help students with their work at various times, as arranged by the Director of Studies. However, Steven Critchley personally mentors all our online course students.

Yes. You can leave the SOL at any point in your studies and for any reason, freely and without prejudice. You do not have to state your reasons for leaving. We will not try to stop you from leaving us, nor will we hold on to you in any way, since we recognise that each individual has their own path to follow. Should you find that our particular school is not what you are looking for, we will be happy to recommend other schools if you so wish.

However, if you wish to return after having left, certain rules will apply. If you were a beginner in your studies, you would be required to start at the beginning again. If you are further advanced in your coursework, we will consult with you regarding a point of recommencement.

We offer several courses. For our core training, if you work every day without taking any time off, you will complete our courses within 4 years. However, given holidays and vacations, the odd flu or cold, pregnancy, etc., a more realistic time frame is five years.

Yes. It is a thorough course that will deliver results. Regard it as the equivalent of university studies.

It depends on what you mean by the word. Everyone has psychic or clairvoyant faculties, but some have them closer to the surface. Studies within a contacted Mystery school, such as Servants of the Light, will strengthen the links between the various levels of your being, and this in itself tends to bring these hidden faculties closer to the surface. The results vary widely from person to person. We do not guarantee that our students will develop into fully-fledged psychics or clairvoyants. However, many do develop an increased awareness of the hidden levels of existence. Others may find it takes longer, and in some, the psychic abilities are too deeply buried in the psyche. We do not aim to develop powers of psychism or mediumship in our students, and if talent does emerge, we train those who develop to be “positive psychics” rather than “passive psychics.”

This, too, varies with the individual. Some find that the psychic faculties seem to disappear for a time, which can be disconcerting. This is because we teach definitive opening up and closing down in the work, and we do not pursue manifestations of power but the development of character and what we call the magical personality.  However, those who persevere with the training will find that the psychic faculties return in a more reliable and controlled form. Some, on the other hand, do not go through a “dry phase” but instead experience a steady deepening of their psychic abilities. Yet others find it makes no difference at all. We seek to support our students in their development. Steven has worked as a spiritual medium, often in Spiritualist churches, and is an experienced psychic and medium; other members of the school are experienced in these matters too.

Traditionally, it has been taught that: drugs and magic do not mix. Taking illegal drugs or any other psychotropic or chemical substance for ‘recreation’ can be dangerous, and combined with occult training, this is even more applicable.

Each student should take personal responsibility for what they do where they live, keeping regional laws in mind.

Certainly, we would not advise doing the meditations we teach in our courses whilst drunk or under the influence of any mind-altering substance. Nor would we advise performing rituals whilst intoxicated (or in any unbalanced state of mind or body).

In our training, you will need to be in the best possible shape, with plenty of energy and stamina. The physical body earths and processes spiritual, mental, and emotional stresses and tensions, as well as any physical substances we ingest. Therefore, taking care of health and general well-being is vital in esoteric work. The body is a temple and a part of our spiritual life, and our work honours incarnational spirituality.

Esoteric training sometimes causes pressures mentally and emotionally that can become overwhelming if people cannot stay calm and react to pressure in a balanced and healthy way. Therefore, those who are medically diagnosed as being clinically depressed or who are receiving treatment from a psychiatrist or psychotherapist for clinically diagnosed mental illnesses should consider whether they are stable before training in esoteric work of any kind.

We recognise that everyone struggles at times and many of us have periods of depression or suffer from stress and anxiety that often resolve in time as we change and adapt. However, no one should begin esoteric training who is currently depressed or going through a tough time with stress or anxiety management, etc…

It is best to have fully recovered from depression or other mental illnesses and to have it well managed before taking up the discipline of the work we teach. The mind affects the body, and the body can influence the mind: we recommend that students pay attention to diet, engage in physical exercise, and adopt a generally healthy lifestyle to enhance well-being and cope with stress.