The Course
Quareia is a new and completely open magical school - without basic fees, structures of hierarchy or imbalances of power between students and teachers. It is a place to be shaped for every magical practitioner who is searching for a new way of learning, integrating and practicing magic. All the way from beginner to adepthood. Learn more on QUAREIA.com.
The Course
Quareia is a new and completely open magical school - without basic fees, structures of hierarchy or imbalances of power between students and teachers. It is a place to be shaped for every magical practitioner who is searching for a new way of learning, integrating and practicing magic. All the way from beginner to adepthood. Learn more on QUAREIA.com.
Welcome to the Quareia Course
Advancing magical training with integrity and authenticity in a way that is accessible regardless of income, race, or gender.
procul este profani
Quareia course, and website content Copyright © Josephine McCarthy 1993- 2025 All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or using the material for video/audio presentations without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Announcements
The Magical Training of Quareia Volumes
In 2024, a group of Quareia students volunteered to go through the course to find old dead links, typos, edit errors, colloquialisms, and so forth. Josephine Joined them to look at where things could be explained a bit better, or where something needed adapting or updating to ensure it lasts for generations to come. We also looked at the size of the three gigantic course books of Apprentice, Initiate and Adept. Their current size and weight make them all but impossible to carry around so while those huge tomes will still be available, the new edition volumes feature between 3 and 4 modules plus accompanying texts and chapters necessary for study. Pertinent chapters from Josephine's books have also been added to the Appendix.
The Magical Training of Quareia Volume I and Volume 2 are now available at most internet retailers and Amazon.
They can also be found here at slightly cheaper prices for customers in the US and UK
PLUS!!
The uploads of the 10th anniversary new editions of the lessons has begun! Quareia student volunteers have been going through the course and highlighting dead internet links, errors, and editing mistakes, and Liza has been doing an overhaul on the presentation and design. They will be uploaded module by module as they are finished. It is a slow process so thank you for your patience.
For people looking for the Quareia Magicians Deck - available from the print on demand company thegamecrafter USA which ships world wide.
Who we are
Quareia is a new school of magic for the 21st century. It is open to anyone, everywhere. Its content is entirely free of cost - there is no sign up process, or registration, and no fees to pay at all. The Latin term quareia refers to the place where stones are squared. That is what this course aims for: to equip you with the magical tools to work on the rough stone that you are.
Quareia was founded by Esoteric adept Josephine McCarthy who is Quareia’s director. She is a world wide known teacher and author of nearly 30 books on magic. Frater Acher is Quareia’s patron and also the original Quareia web designer.
Please note: Quareia does not have any study groups and we do not endorse, agree with or recommend joining any study groups. For clarifications on the reasoning of this rule, please read the clarification of lone study in the next section: how this works.
What it is
Quareia is a practical western esoteric magical training course that is complete from total beginner to adept. It is aligned to no particular school or specific religious/mystical school of thought, and yet it looks at and works with some of the many different magical, religious, and mystical practices that have influenced magical thinking in the Near Eastern and western world since the early Bronze Age to present day. It does use some Egyptian magical patterns, but only where it serves a purpose to teach a student ritual and visionary methods. It is the mechanics that are important, not the dressing.
What Quareia is not, is witchcraft, nor is it strictly ceremonial magic. Many different skill sets are explored within the course, and once the basics are learned in the Apprentice section, the student magician is encouraged to explore, experiment and ponder. The approach is often shamanic in its nature, with a strong emphasis on personal responsibility and self-honesty.
For a full length in depth explanation of the course, what it is, how it is structured, and why, can be found here.
How This works
Quareia is a lone self-study course. For clarification on what lone study means, please click here. We would also like to point out that we do not recommend study groups and we certainly do not give permission for anyone to teach Quareia material or host study groups.
The course is organised in three sections (Apprentice, Initiate and Adept); each of the three sections contain ten modules; these are broken down again into eight lessons for each module. To access all of this content there is no cost, nothing to sign up for, and no registration - all lessons are freely available for study on this website.
Course contents: click on the images below to read the contents list for each section of the course. These content listings are taken from the print version of the course - the page numbers are only relevant for the books, not the web files. The course in Ebook and print formats can be found on Amazon and most online web retailers on all worldwide platforms.
Click the image to read the contents list of the Apprentice section.
Click the image to read the contents list of the Initiate section
Click the image to read the contents list of the Initiate section
To start training, go to the apprentice section in the drop down menu and start on apprentice module one lesson one and work your way through the course. Quareia’s goal is to advance magical training with integrity and authenticity, and in a way that is accessible regardless of income, race, or gender.
If you prefer to work from printed books instead of the online lessons available here, you can also purchase the three Quareia section volumes from amazon.
To get started, please explore our FAQS page on Quareia, how it works, what you need to do, and who we are as an organisation. We would also suggest reading The Apprentice Study Guide, to get additional insights on how to best set out on the course. Also, you can find further resources and free materials at the end of this page, and on our free books page.
Finally, personal Mentoring with Josephine McCarthy is freely available to students who have fully completed the Apprentice section and have the notes, work and evidence to prove it. For further information on how to apply for Mentoring, and how your notes should be organised please refer to our FAQS PAGE.
Please note: all texts and files on this website are fully copyrighted. You may download and print them for your personal use only. Uploading any content from this website onto any other site on the internet is a breach of International copyright law.
How to support
Please consider supporting the work of Quareia with a monthly subscription. All Quareia donations are used for running costs and for keeping Quareia’s free works available to anyone, as well as continuously expanding its free material/texts/videos, along with organising events where possible - they do not go to Josephine McCarthy. No one at Quareia is paid - all workers at Quareia are volunteers, including Josephine McCarthy. Further information on how we use the donations, and what oversight we have in place, can be viewed on our faqs page.
Please know you are deeply appreciated, and without you, Quareia would not exist: thank you, all of you.
Monthly donation.
A-Friend £5 | B-Supporter £15 | C-Sponsor £25
One time donation
Read on for resources, information and contact
Go further
Go further
Go further
Explore Additional Study Resources & Materials.
Quareia Study Guide
If you are interested to learn more about the practical Quareia Training Course and its material, this document is for you. The Apprentice section of the Quareia course does not offer personal mentoring, which makes it the most difficult part of the magical training to complete. The Quareia Apprentice Study Guide provides answers to basic questions, details the structure and approach of the course, examines some of the common training issues, and explains the core concepts presented in the course.
Free Study Texts and books
In keeping with Quareia’s code of ethics, wherever possible, supplementary texts that are necessary or helpful for the course study can be found here as free downloads. The page also contains free PDF’s of many of Josephine’s books, articles and fiction writing.
Please note that all related texts, unless otherwise specified, are fully copyrighted, and are intended for personal use only.
IS THERE A COMMUNITY FORUM DEDICATED TO QUAREIA PRACTICE?
For students who are actively studying the course in its prescribed manner and have completed at leastApprentice Module One there is an online closed forum for discussion. It is not a form of social media for hanging out and posting memes, it is a discussion group that centres around the Quareia course material and other subjects pertinent to the training.
The rules of the discussion group are strongly enforced and include a rule that if you are not actively joining in discussions on a regular basis you will be removed – it is pointless joining a discussion group if you are not going to join in discussion regularly. We do not allow people to stay in the shadows and the usual rules about good behaviour are in place. We also do not allow people to enter the forum and then just comment every so often in order to keep in the forum. Such will get you removed.
There are four main boards with some smaller sub boards for specific projects. The main boards are: The Porch Entrance for new members, The Apprentice board for those who have completed module 3 and have submitted their 3 modules work for evaluation, The Initiate Board, and the Adept Board.
If you wish to join the forum, use the contact form below. Please use the header ‘forum request’. In the message box, please put the email address you would like to use, and include your age, name (no pseudonyms), country of residence, what date you started the course, plus what module and lesson you are currently working on.
Can anyone join?
The minimum age for joining the discussion group is 18yrs old.
What will I need to submit to the school Secretary?
You will be asked to provide all of your journal notes which include records of experiences while doing the course exercises such as visions, rituals, and experiments, notes taken from reading tasks and notes taken of pertinent information in lessons, plus the written tasks and your findings from research tasks.
They must be typed into a word document or PDF, and each page must have your name, date, and lesson & module number at the top of the page. Readings/card divination should be photographed or the reading written out i.e. listing the cards in each layout position, and your interpretations. We do not need journal notes from Lesson one – meditation. However, if you have not been doing those exercises, it will quickly become apparent in your other work. It is pointless trying to be dishonest as you are only hurting your own training.
None of the work you submit must have used AI, either for writing notes, research, essays etc, and that is true for the whole course. You may use it for translation purposes only but you must say that you have used AI for that purpose. Quareia is not against AI at all, it is for magical reasons that you must do things for yourself. It doesn’t matter that it might look and read better if AI did it, but that is not the point – you are in training, so train.
The minimum work you can submit is the finished work of Apprentice Module one. If you have completed more, then submit those modules too.
Everything must be properly collated in to modules and lessons before you apply.
If you do not follow the rules/guidelines for submission of work, your application will be automatically rejected. Upon receiving your request, we will send you a link to a folder where you can put all of your folders and files.
If you are accepted into the forum, upon joining the forum please read the forum rules and also introduce yourself. Not reading the rules is not excuse for not following them, and if you do not introduce yourself within a week of entry, you will be removed.
Quareia Forum
The Porch Community
The contact form for applying for entry to the porch has been removed for now. Applications for admission are on pause - The contact form will reappear when the Porch is open again for applications.
Quareia Blog
Stay connected by following the Quareia blog - posts are infrequent, but are done when necessary. This is the place where we share Quareia related news, experiences and everyday advice. Written by Josephine McCarthy, she offers practical insights on how to live a magical life without losing neither purpose nor humour, and how to avoid the many pitfalls that come as natural features of the territory.
Quareia Publishing
Quareia Publishing/TaDehent Books is a small business that is not connected to Quareia financially, and is how Josephine and Stuart make their income, through writing, publishing, and art.
The main imprint of Quareia Publishing is used for publishing the Quareia course books and directly related texts. Quareia Publishing also has a second imprint named TaDehent Books which is used to publish a wider variety of esoteric books by Josephine McCarthy and Frater Acher, along with various authors.
The Deck
The Deck
LXXXI - The Quareia Magicians Deck & Book
A divinatory card deck for the experienced magician.
Demonstration videos of the Quareia Magicians deck in action can be viewed on Quareia’s Video, transcript and Podcast page
What it is.
LXXXI - The Quareia Magician's Deck is a unique magical tool for 21st century magicians. LXXXI is a collaboration between magical artists Stuart Littlejohn and Cassandra Beanland, and magical adept Josephine McCarthy. All of the paintings are original works of art in oil, acrylic, or water colour, and are the result of three years painting and collaboration.
The deck has 81 cards, a mystical number that relates to completion, and it is divided in to four realms: the Divine Realm (red title background), the Inner realm (blue title background), the physical world (green title background) and the realm of death and the underworld (black title background). The further away from humanity a being or place is, the less human it becomes. This is reflected in the deck, and can teach a magician a great deal about how beings function and why.
LXXXI - The Quareia Magician's Deck is not based upon any tarot system, but rather it draws upon the mythic, mystical and magical powers that underpin the magical systems that tarot eventually developed out of. It is based upon real inner realms, real inner contacts, beings and forces that the practitioner of magic is very likely to involve themselves with.
Because of this approach, the deck works as a contacted deck, i.e. used magically the images can act as gateways to inner realms, inner beings and magical patterns. It can be used for magical or mundane divination, or as a direct connection to inner contacts, as gateways for meditation, magical visionary work , soul exploration, or contacted ritual work. To ensure that the images do not become entangled in magical misconceptions, we have moved away from the relatively modern use of set ‘names’ for the beings in the images, and instead we have reverted to a very ancient way of presenting inner beings: wename them according to what they do. That way, there is no ambiguity about what a being actually is.
In order to magically work with LXXXI you have to hold physical cards in your hands. Unfortunately therefore it was impossible to make them available for free. In line with Quareia’s ethos, however, we made them accessible at the lowest possible point of cost.
For Quareia Initiate and Adept students who are being mentored, the LXXXI deck is mandatory for study. In order to ensure no one is excluded from study because of lack of income, Quareia Publishing who publish the deck have 25% of the stock held back from sale - these decks are available for free to any mentored student who cannot afford to purchase the deck.
Get Your Cards.
For people in the USA or world wide, the 4th edition unbordered deck is now available from thegamecrafter print on demand site in the USA:
For the Jumbo sized edition (same size as our previous editions) click here
For the handy tarot size edition please click here
TAIWAN AND CHINA
Friends of Quareia in China and Taiwan: Copies of the first edition style deck with an ebook in Chinese, for purchase in China or Taiwan can be found here.
buy the book on Amazon
The LXXXI Quareia deck book is now also available on all Amazon outlets for purchase
Get the Book for Free
The LXXXI Quareia Magicians book (2nd edition) accompanies the Quareia Magicians card-deck. The 2nd edition vastly expands upon the original deck-book, and has full page colour images of the cards, mundane as well as magical interpretations, and a wider selection of spreads/layouts. It is a book that can be useful to the Quareia Magical student as the powers in each card relate directly to the Quareia magical path.
In keeping with the ethos of Quareia, the complete LXXXI Quareia Magicians Book (2nd edition) is available as a free download below - both in English and Spanish. It is a required tool for the Initiate and Adept section of the Quareia course. Additionally, the print version of the book is available on all amazon retail outlets.
LXXXI Quareia Magicians Book
2nd edition | English language
LXXXI Quareia Magicians Book
2nd edition | Spanish language