Israel Regardie - The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic.pdf

THE COMPLETE GOLDEN DAWN SYSTEM OF MAGIC
and that abuse confers the consciousness of self. Consequently, the realisation of
sorrow as it impinges on the personality and an understanding of its causes must inevitably
constitute the first impetus to perform the Great Work, even as it comprises the motive first to
seek the services of the analytical psychologist. This impetus and this self-consciousness
are the prime implications of Daath. Its signification is a higher type of consciousness, the
beginning of a spiritual rebirth. It acts as a self-evolved link between the higher Self on the
one hand at peace in its Supernal Eden, and the human soul on the other, bound by its fall
to the world of illusion and sense and matter. But until that self-consciousness and acquired
knowledge are turned to noble and altruistic ends, sorrow and suffering are the inevitable
results. Continually will the Red Dragon, the inverted power of the eros, ravish the little
kingdom of self until such time as we lift ourselves up to the diviner parts of our human
nature, thus conquering the foe by driving it back to its proper realm, using but neither
ignoring nor repre:,sing experience and its fruits to transcend our own personal limitations.
Let me quote a few especially appropriate lines from Jung in connection with this
Fall, when the fundamental basis of the Ruach has been attracted to the kingdom of shells,
and when Malkuth has been completely cut off from the other Sephiroth.
"Consciousness thus torn from its roots and no longer able to appeal to the authority
of the primordial images, possesses a Promethean freedom, it is true, but it also partakes
of the nature of a godless hybris. It soars above the earth, even above mankind, but the danger
of capsizing is there, not for every individual to be sure, but collectively for the weak
members of such a society, who again Promethean-like, are bound by the unconscious to
the Caucasus." It will not do, then, for the Adept to be cut off from his roots, but he must
unite and integrate his entire Tree, and train and develop the titanic forces of the
unconscious so that they become as a powerful but docile beast whereon he may ride. (The
diagram discussed in the next paragraph will be found in the colour plate section.)
The Adeptus Minor grade continues the theme of these two diagrams. Escorted into
the Vault, the Aspirant is shown the lid of the Tomb of Osiris, the Pastos wherein is buried
our Father Christian Rosenkreutz, and on that lid is a painting which brings fulfilment to
the narrative of the preceding diagrams. It is divided into two sections. The lower half of
the painting depicts a figure of Adam, similar to his presentation in the Practicus grade,
though here the heads of the Dragon are falling back from the Tree, showing the Justified
One, the illuminated adept, by his immolation and self-sacrifice rescuing the fallen kingdom
of his natural self from the clutches of an outraged eros. But above this, as though to show
the true nature behind the deceptive appearance of things, is illustrated a noble figure of
majesty and divinity, described in the Ritual in these words. "And being turned I saw seven
golden light-bearers, and in the midst of the Light-bearers, one like unto the Ben Adam,
clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt with a golden girdle. His head and his hair
were white as snow, and his eyes as flaming fire; his feet like unto brass as if they burned in a
furnace. And his voice like the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven
stars, and out of his mouth went the Sword of Flame, and his countenance was as the Sun in
his strength."
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