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

VOLUME ONE
that there is infinitely more to the Golden Dawn System of Magic than the initiatory
and other types of rituals. Not that I want to minimize the importance of their role in the
entire system but it comprises so much more that it puzzled me how anyone could avoid the
realization that the performance of the rituals satisfactorily depends on so much more. If the
student has thoroughly studied the Z-1 and Z-3 documents, it should have dawned upon him
that efficacy of any ritual depends entirely on all the participants having acquired considerable
skills in the magical work prescribed by the Order.
Apart from the rudimentary art of invocation by means of the Pentagram and
Hexagram, there is a vast repertory of techniques which must be used and mastered, not
merely to gain advancement to a higher grade in the Order, which is not too terribly
important by and of itself, but in order to become a proficient student of Magic these must be
not merely known but wholly mastered. For example, assumption of God forms and the
ability to build up Telesmatic Images, more or less along the same line, these two are the
very foundations of practical theurgy. Then there is the Middle Pillar technique whose
importance simply cannot be overemphasized in any way. The student who has neglected to
achieve considerable proficiency in this particular practice will find himself frustrated at
every turn. And finally there is the vibratory formula of the Middle Pillar. I cannot
conceive of a ritual of any kind being successfully consummated without being adept in the
use of the vibratory formula. I have elaborated this in a rather new way, I fancy, in that
section dealing with this matter, and I urge the prospective student of magic to pay
particular attention not only to this, but to all the techniques I have just mentioned.
Nor is the main thesis of the Order the memorization of dry Qabalistic knowledge
from the Knowledge Lectures or from any other text for that matter. This material represents
the dry bones of Order knowledge, the basic alphabet of what has come to be known as the
Magical Language. Every science and every Art has its own language without which there
can be little communication. A great deal of undergraduate university work consists mainly of
learning different kinds of languages that belong to the various sciences one is learning about.
For example, physics has its own terminology without which little headway can be made in
mastering its complex mysteries. The same is true of geology which must forever remain a
mystery to those who will not master its language. Even in the behavioral sciences a whole
new jargon or language must be assimilated. Eventually many students learn to use the jargon
so satisfactorily and skillfully that they become unintelligible in their everyday
conversations leading their critics to condemn the jargon in which they have steeped
themselves. Nonetheless, it is a language of its own. It must be learned, mastered and used in
order to become an effective means of communication. Much the same is true of the
magical language. It is a highly complex one, and most of this work lays down the elemental
principles of this language. The student will do well to take his time mastering it - that is if he
has never been exposed to it before. But when he does become familiar with this language,
he will never fall into the booby trap that The Complete Golden Dawn System of
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