The second edition of First Workings is now in the Library. It replaces the first edition, which circulated from June 2011, first as a photocopied pamphlet and later on this site.
Of everything the Order has published, First Workings is the text we most often come across in other people's hands. In nearly fifteen years it has been copied, translated, and adapted more times than we can count. Many of the changes in this edition come from seeing what readers did with it, and especially from noticing where they went wrong.
The Four Changes
No purchased tools
The first edition suggested, though it never required, a small number of objects for the working space. Some readers took the suggestion as an instruction and spent money they did not need to spend. Others took it as a reason to delay beginning until they had everything. The second edition removes every such suggestion. Nothing in the primer requires anything you do not already own.
A shorter stillness exercise
The daily stillness exercise has been shortened from twenty minutes to ten. Twenty minutes is not too long for someone who has been practicing for a while, but it is too long for most people who are just beginning, and the result was that many readers abandoned the exercise in the first week. Ten minutes kept every day is worth far more than twenty minutes kept for six days and then given up.
A clearer opening gesture
The description of the Gesture of the Open Ring has been rewritten so that it can be followed without guesswork, and a new section states plainly what the gesture does not do. It is not a spell, it summons nothing, it banishes nothing, and it protects no one. It marks a boundary in time. The first edition did not say this clearly enough, and some readers came to rely on the gesture in ways it was never meant to bear.
A chapter on when to stop
The most important change is a new chapter, When to Stop, which lists the signs that a practitioner should set practice aside and return to ordinary life, and which says plainly that persistent difficulty calls for qualified help. The first edition should have had this chapter from the beginning. We are sorry that it did not.
The First Edition
The first edition remains in the public domain, as everything the Order has published always will. If you have a copy, you are free to keep it, share it, or republish it. Anyone who republishes it will spare their readers some confusion by saying which edition it is, though nothing requires them to.