About us

Who are we?

The Academy for Hermetic Arts and Sciences is a contemporary Western Mystery School, founded as a Dutch educational foundation by Ina Cüsters-van Bergen. The Academy is devoted to the living transmission, study, and embodiment of the Hermetic Arts and Sciences, bringing their timeless wisdom into the heart of modern life.

Our mission is to translate the classical Hermetic Mystery Tradition and its consciousness-transforming practices into forms that resonate today. The Hermetic Arts and Sciences offer a coherent, interwoven system for personal growth, ethical maturation, and the cultivation of higher states of awareness.¹ This lineage is not static; it flows through experienced practitioners, entrusted with the delicate art of guiding the next generation along a path of insight, responsibility, and inner realization.

The Academy weaves together modern therapeutic and developmental methodologies — including NLP, hypnotherapy, and systemic work — with the philosophical foundations and magical praxis of the Western Hermetic Tradition. Our curriculum is designed to help students integrate these teachings into daily life and professional practice, allowing knowledge to become living wisdom rather than abstract theory.²

Learning here is not only intellectual; it is initiatory. Knowledge is embodied, experienced, and ethically carried forward, supporting each student in their personal evolution and their capacity to guide others.

Education is offered through online programs, lectures, events, group work, and residential retreats. All offerings are designed to nurture discernment, critical reflection, and deep experiential understanding, honoring the structured progression that has always been central to initiatory practice.

Lineage

The Hermetic Arts and Sciences flow through a layered, initiatory lineage. Knowledge has always passed from teacher to student in direct, experiential transmission, weaving through scientific, monastic, philosophical, and aristocratic circles.³

Within this living lineage, hierarchy and titles are not symbols of rank or control. They are functional markers of mastery, responsibility, and the ability to guide others through the work. Authority emerges from lived practice, integrity, and devotion to the continuity of the tradition.

The lineage draws upon the mystery temples of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, later enriched by Gnostic Christianity, Judaism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Anthroposophy, and Theosophy. Across these currents, hierarchy and titles serve the work itself — ensuring that wisdom flows with clarity, depth, and ethical grounding.

Within the Academy, students explore Tarot, Astrology, Kabbalah, High Magic, and Alchemy in a contemporary framework, enriched by hypnotherapy, NLP, and systemic approaches. This synthesis allows the teachings to be living systems, guiding both inner transformation and practical application. Angelology and the mythological frameworks of Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Avalon illuminate the symbolic and practical landscape of our work.

The Academy offers a complete three-level initiatory structure, transmitted through a continuous lineage of initiates, including (proto-)scientists, magicians, alchemists, clergy, and members of the nobility. Progression within this structure reflects depth of practice, ethical maturity, and readiness to carry responsibility for the work and its future.

This lineage includes figures such as Samuel MacGregor Mathers, Theodore Moriarty, Dion Fortune, Bishop Robert King, Ernest W. Butler, and Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki. Today, it continues through Ina Cüsters-van Bergen, Director of Studies, who safeguards the integrity and continuity of the tradition while translating its living wisdom into contemporary practice.

The Academy functions today as an independent institution devoted to the responsible transmission of a living tradition, grounded in experience, ethical awareness, and conscious continuity.

The Academy is affiliated with CAT (Collectief Alternatieve Therapeuten) in the Netherlands.⁸

Footnotes

  1. https://themagicalbuffet.com/blog1/?p=2708
  2. David V. Barrett, Secret Religions, 2011, pp. 238–239.
  3. Interview with Ina Cüsters-van Bergen, PDF
  4. http://web.archive.org/web/20041213094043/http://servantsofthelight.org/aboutSOL/lodges.html#daughter
  5. Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, foreword in De weg naar de oude mysteriën, 2007, pp. 15.
  6. Nick Farrell, Initiation Rights, https://www.nickfarrell.it/initiation-rights/ — discusses mechanisms of initiations and group dynamics relevant to these experiences.
  7. Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, personal statement on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=116771951826729&id=113839735453284&scmts=scwspsdd&extid=aIaXOFq4PZFixEiT — an independent perspective on the situation. (Access depends on privacy settings.)
  8. Andy Cooper, personal statement on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=115438121960112&id=113839735453284&scmts=scwspsdd&extid=He76kwzzABwz8qIU — another independent perspective. (Access depends on privacy settings.)
  9. Ellic Howe, Magicians of the Golden Dawn. A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887–1923, 1978.
  10. Review in Inner Light Magazine 03/2010.
  11. Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, Inleiding, in: Ina Cüsters-Van Bergen, De weg naar de oude mysteriën, 2007, pp. 15
  12. Ellic Howe, Magicians of the Golden Dawn. A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887–1923, 1978.
  13. Gareth Knight, Foreword, in: Ina Cüsters-van Bergen, The Temple of High Magic, 2010, pp. xi-xii.
  14. Review: The Temple of High Magic. Initiations in the Western Mystery Tradition by Ina Custers van Bergen, in: Inner Light Magazine 03/2010.
  15. Ina geeft les in hoge magie – Ik wil de zwarte band onder de spirituele scholen zijn. Interview met Ina Cüsters-van Bergen, in: Paravisie 02/2011, pp. 59–61.
  16. Jacob Slavenburg, Een reis langs de mysteriën: Van het Oude Egypte tot Carl Gustav Jung, hoofdstuk “De hermetische Orde van de Gouden Dageraad” , 288–302 (Zutphen: Uitgeversmaatschappij Walburg Pers, 2017), 302.
  17. Van Schaik, J., & Slavenburg, J. (2021). Geschiedenis van de westerse esoterie, hoofdstuk “De Nieuwe Tijd” (pp. 689–695). Kampen: Uitgeverij Van Warven, p. 694
  18. Public narratives or online representations not arising from direct participation in the Academy’s educational programs, such as messages from former students who have continued their path elsewhere, do not reflect the Academy’s teaching, practice, or lineage.

We are connected to  CAT, Collectief Alternatieve Therapeuten in the Netherlands.