Part One: The Middle Pillar - iPage

Intvoduction to the Second Edition xxix
Once he has gained control over h s mental processes, the stu-
dent can then learn to stimulate and direct his emotions. This
becomes will. So complete and interlocking are the details of this
system, that the emotions can then be utilized as a tool to be used
in directing and holding the mind steady on a given objective. For
fervor and conviction are essential to activating the productive and
creative agency w ith man.
In the process, over a period of time, life becomes consecrated
so that all one's energies become automatically concentrated in a
continuous devotion to God or the one life that courses through all
of us. In short, the student acheves a perfect and harmonious iden-
tification with divine power, life, and love. And then he will know
that "existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows;
they pass and are done.. . ."9
The Middle Pillar was originally dedicated to S. L. MacGregor
Mathers and Dr. William Wynn Westcott who were chiefs of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, to which I owe so very much.
The book is merely the simplest possible representation of some of
the elementary practices of that order. In actuality, it is an attempt
to simplify and combine the practices both of the Golden Dawn
with the insights and later developments of Aleister Crowley.10
The real virtue of the book lies in its correlation of the practice
of magic to modern psychotherapy. For magic places the achieve-
ment of self-awareness second in importance only to the achieve-
ment of unity with God. And Jung's definition of psychotherapy
was that whch enabled one to become conscious of what hitherto
was unconscious.
For untold thousands of years, man has lived in subjugation to
the unconscious forces of nature-powerful instincts and drives
which led him to act without deliberation or conscious volition,
and in complete ignorance in fact of the forces at work which really
motivated him. The Great Work recognizes that in these deep
unconscious levels lies a great storehouse of power, awareness, and
vitality which must not only be awakened but recognized and
equilibrated for the human being to function at maximum capacity
and efficiency. This in short is the major purpose and function of
the teachings of ths book.