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

VOLUME ONE
As one becomes proficient in the work of the Order and one's insight and understanding
develops, it will become apparent that all of these methods may be tied together and unified to become
a magical engine by means of which the Mountain of Initiation may be scaled and the Kingdom of
Heaven reached, so that man aspires to God and God aspires to man.
The Order is a magical one. But its mysticism is by no means to be separated from its magic.
At first they may seem to be entirely different methods of attaining to the highest. And indeed so
they appear to be. But it is the mark of real adeptship when the student comes to realize that there is
no real separation between these methods, and that at the end they are one and the same.
In other words, to come back to the initial theme stated at the outset of this chapter, there is much
more to the Order than the initiatory and other types of rituals. There is so much in the Neophyte and
Adeptus Minor rituals that are of value to the aspirant, that even if one were to assume that the Order
work is essentially that of ritualism, one would really not be far wrong. They contain so much. For
example in the Neophyte Ritual, one of the first exhortations one hears is that coming from the
Hierophant who states by names and images are all powers awakened and reawakened.The newly
initiated Frater or Soror into the Order could spend considerable effort and time meditating on just
what this means. When he does this, he will be led into the deepest mysteries of the teachings of the
Order, and into some kind of understanding of what all the variety of Order techniques amount to. I can
come to rest here about warning the student to dispense with any superficial evaluation of the Order
method arrived at by a rapid reading of the several rituals, or of the book itself. The whole system needs
to be studied carefully. Don't be misled by the apparent simplicity of the system. It is enormously
complex and complicated - and at the same time so beautifully simple. It may take the student some
time, perhaps years, to appreciate the simplicity of the Order system, but the expenditure of that time
will be found to be worth the effort. Though meditation is not exactly harped on throughout the text, it
is mentioned here and there. And my hope is that the good student will do a great deal of meditation
upon what he learns and does with the Order work. There is much to be gained. So much is not stated in
specific words, but it is in this "non-statement" or understatement that much of the essence of the
system is contained.
Just recently (Easter, 1983) another comment was made, one which I have heard before from
one of the Order "failures," that there is a dearth of the devotional element in the Order work.
Ordinarily, this comment might be expected from a former Church goer steeped in the Bible - or,
which amounts to the same thing, a member of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, the name of the
Waite version of the Golden Dawn.
Ordinarily, this criticism is not worthy of note, save that in the last instance when I heard it, a
younger student had just returned from one of the Ashrams in India where he had heard a great deal
about bhakta yoga. I can understand this criticism because bhakta is certainly not stressed in the overt
sense within the Order work. But I have to remind students that if they study the Order work very
closely - as closely as they have been taught
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