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

THE COMPLETE GOLDEN DAWN SYSTEM OF MAGIC
white, to show that before you can discover the manifestation in concealment of the
Rose, the Cross of the manifestation of life in Tiphareth must reclose its arms in a state of
purity. (The Second Adept, having led the Candidate with the Sun, to the western end of the
Altar, returns to his place. The Chief Adept rises and turns inwards towards the Altar,
without leaving his place. The Candidate now sees the diagram of the Hanged Man, with a
Rainbow above, and the head of the Giant below.)
Chief.
Associate Adeptus Minor, you will remember that the letter Mem occupies the
middle position in the series of the Three Mothers. It is said in the school of the Zohar that its
open operation is through the descent of its influence to the abyss, and thus it restrains the
rising of those great waters by which the earth would otherwise again be inundated. In its
closed operation it restricts the power of judgment from the downward course thereof. It is
also said that it is like a vessel which in turn is sealed and unsealed, according as there is
inhibition or indulgence of its influx to the emanations which are below. In our own
Rosicrucian system the symbolism of Mem is developed after a peculiar manner in its
correspondence with the 12th Key of the Tarot. With the more general import of the
Hanged Man you will be already familiar; but in this Grade you are invited to regard it after a
new manner, which can still be brought into harmony with the previous forms of
interpretation, since it is simply an advance thereon. The enforced sacrifice and
punishment, the involuntary and fatal loss, which are ascribed to it in our Tarot teaching,
are here connected with the Divine death, with the sacrifice of God himself. That death
connects closely with the true meaning attached to the High Ceremony of the Dies C.,
wherein the Chief Adept typifies at once the Founder of the Rosicrucian Order and the
Founder of the Universe. Year by year the Order is withdrawn for one moment of time that
it may be again formulated out of chaos, the Builder is also withdrawn into the concealment
of the Tomb, as you are told in the Symbolism of the 5-6 Grade. The Maker of our
Rosicrucian Fraternity was taken hence that Light should come to His disciples, and the
Maker of the great world entered into another concealment, for God dies in order that man
shall live, and shall not only seek but find Him.
The symbolism with which we are here dealing also recalls the Apocalyptic figure of
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and in correspondence with previous
explanations, it indicates that the palmary misfortune of the universe, which is exoterically
called the Fall of Man, exercised a species of incomprehensible compulsion upon the
Divine Nature, so that the scheme of what is familiar to everyone under the name of
redemption comes before us in a certain manner as an eternal necessity and as a
consequence of the free will rather of man than of God. The importance which has been
attached throughout the Grades of our two Orders to Egyptian symbolism should also
remind us that Mem, through the sacrifice of Christ, has analogy with the legend of the
dead Osiris, one of whose appellations was the shipwrecked or drowned Mariner, even as
this terrible Key, which you see now in its true form, represents a drowned giant.
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