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

VOLUME SEVEN
never consciously heard the voice. The time may be long or short, but it comes about
in due season that they who have entered by the door, or those at least who have not at this
stage suffered the calamity of abortment, are received into the 5-6 Grade, in which the
powers of life are manifested, and for a period which is for symbolic reasons fixed at six
years, they pass through the varied experiences which symbolise material existence. Herein
they are after the manner of men whose eyes have been opened recently; they behold many
things in a distorted light and some others are inverted. They are to a certain extent in the
wonder-state of childhood. They discern things of the occult order in place of true things
which are mystic, and there is given to them almost, it may be, of necessity, the slight
substitutes of magic in place of the processes which belong to the Greater Mystery. They
make for themselves baubles and playthings from patterns which have indeed their higher
significance, but this has not been communicated, and they are subjected in their own
degree to all the illusions which are connected with the astral region of existence. In this
Grade also they make strange marriages and accept the phenomena of Theurgy for the Path
of the Union. It is a period for the exercise of divination, for the telling of fortunes, the
study of Astrology, the placing of fantastic constructions on Grades and Liturgies; and they
believe that they are in possession of great and secret knowledge if in some strange and
reverse direction they revolve the wheel of fortune. But it is not after this manner that
Sapiens dominabitur astris.
In the latter dejections of such a transitory stage some of them drop aside
altogether, while others remain only, with an artificial and automatic concern in the things
of their spiritual progress. Others, as it is unnecessary to say, are never wholly deceived by
the illusions of the threshold, or satisfied with the partial lights which shine beyond it to
encourage them on their way. They have their own tribulations, but they have no cause to
fear those who dwell at the doorways, as they have no inclination to mistake the false gleam
for the true radiance that is to come. They will be led after many manners to the proper use
of the powers of life in the search for the Holy Symbol of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world, of that Builder buried in the Tomb of his own creation. In dying
that man may live, He has left His Life and Power outside the place of His interment, that
they may be assumed by man in the Great Quest.
It is only when the Candidate is willing to restore the life and power to Him Who gave
it, that equilibrium, in return, is bestowed on himself; that he hears the Voice of the Symbol,
that he beholds the way of his manifestation from the Tomb. It will be understood that the
conscious realization of this symbolism at the stage in question is not expressly supposed,
and, as said previously, the quality of direction varies; but, in any case, the time arrives
when every guided member of the 5-6 Grade begins to realise that the sequence of Rites in
the Order, apart from the Sephirotic scheme, supposes that beyond the Adeptus Minor there
is and must be some higher stage of knowledge, even as in material life, for all thinking men a
moment also comes, when they realise, however dimly, that the things of earth are not the
grand totality. It is the symbolical experience of this other side of the existence
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