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

THE COMPLETE GOLDEN DAWN SYSTEM OF MAGIC
exists imprisoned in a body, but there will come a day when we shall see it set free
from its present limitations and manifested as a pure, fixed, intelligible, constant fire. We
know otherwise that the Mercury described by the philosophers is a fluidic or volatile
substance, and that to fix it is the work of wisdom. These statements are rendered readily
intelligible by a mode of interpretation which is peculiar to this Grade, for which Mercury
signifies thought. It is in fixity, rest and simplicity that consciousness exceeds the material
bounds which encompass it, and receives, according to its measure, the mode of the
Universal. There is here set forth a certain great operation of the will which does not die,
the concentration of thought by a high act of intentness. Remember the Apocalyptic
promise to him that overcometh, and the last conquest is that of the logical understanding,
so that thought may be reduced by thought to the point at which it vanishes for a period,
but returns subsequently, made splendid by the transmutation of a great experience. You
know that the natural mind of man is earthly above all things, and that the Path of our ascent
of the mystic Mountain must carry us far from earth, far from the ways and forms of the
material mind. You know further that ordinary thought is wandering and volatile, and this is
the Mercury which the Adept is called upon to fix. I have spoken on the Authority of the
Alchemists concerning our imprisoned and liberated Mercury; which are also the forms of
thought, one of them errant in the Material and confined therein, the other emancipated; the
one volatile, the other fixed by wisdom. Their correspondences in Egyptian symbolism are
AN U BIS, the Guardian of the Egyptian Tomb and preventing entrance therein, the Mystic
Tomb being the Gate of Life; and THOTH, who enables man finally to penetrate therein.
This is the Word which is sought in all initiations, which is reversed and transliterated, is
substituted after all manners, to be recovered finally in the vestures of another sense, as it
is said by St. Paul: We shall not all die, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye. It is in the silence of thought that we shall hear the Word of Life. The
Absolute exceeds thought, but in a certain suspension it enters to fill the heart, and it is in
this way that God is truly with us.
Associate Adeptus Minor, I now ask you to remember that the dead Gods are
useless, whether Christ or Osiris. If the Titan immersed beneath the great waters can never
more waken, there is no need that we should have part in Him, for we are seeking the fuller
life, that truth and beauty which are ever ancient yet ever new. But even as in the old legend
the communication of a Grand Hailing Sign awakened the Princess from a sleep of one
hundred years, so is the slumber of the gods precious to the soul of the Postulant at the Gate of
the Holy of Holies, because of that Centre wherein is the utter stillness of a great activity.
They are not dead but sleeping; it is for us to manifest them without by the penetration of
the Centre, and it is in this way that the Divine will awaken within us. It is for this reason
that the limbs of the Titan correspond in their posture to a form of the Fylfot Cross, for
though he appears to be dead and has suffered a real death, he is yet the source of life and
activity in the universe; for this reason also the direction of the face of the Titan symbolises
the appeal of God to man. (The Chief Adept turns to the East and points to the door of the
Tomb, whereon is the symbol of Mercury.)
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