Part One: The Middle Pillar - iPage

The Two Pillars of the Temple 23
9. From the Neophyte Ritual. Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 129.
10. See The Secret of the Golden Flower, translated by Richard Wilhelrn with foreword
and commentary by C. G. Jung (London: Paul Trench and Triibner, 1931).
11. In Hebrew doctrine this energy is linked to the Shekinah, the feminine "pres-
ence" or "dwelling place" of God.
12. Or Geburah. The Hebrew letter Beth has the dual sound of either "b" or "v!'
13. Applying gender to something as abstract as the Sephiroth can be a tricky
thing. In some schools of thought Chesed is seen as feminine and Geburah
masculine. For the most part each Sephirah contains certain aspects of both
sexual polarities. No one Sephirah is simply all masculine or all feminine.
14. The Buddhist doctrhe of moderation-the avoidance of extremes.
15. The system referred to here is Thelema, as envisioned by Aleister Gowley.
16. From the Adeptus Minor Ritual. Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 237.
17. A severe mental disorder. Psychoses are commonly characterized by derange-
ment of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration
of normal social functioning.
18. See Part Two, Chapter Six for a ritual on regression.
19. From the Adeptus Minor Ritual. Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 237.
20. Groddeck's books include The Book of the It (Intl. Universities Press, 1976)
and The Meaning of Illness: Selected Psychoanalytic Writing (Intl. Universities
Press, 1977).
21. Any mental or emotional disorder, arising from no apparent organic lesion or
change and involving symptoms such as insecurity, anxiety, depression, and
irrational fears.
22. Chronic inflammation of the kidneys.
23. This is unnecessarily confusing. Regardie's definition of the Pillars here (the
Left Pillar as the side of Mercy and the Right Pillar as the side of Severity) only
applies to the alignment of the Tree of Life as it is reflected onto the human body
in magical workings, not as it is seen in diagrams of the Tree. These Pillars are
almost always described as they are seen in the diagram. That is, the Left-
hand Pillar (Binah, Geburah, and Hod) is known as the Pillar of Severity and
the Right-hand Pillar (aokmah, Chesed, and Netzach) is known as the Pillar
of Mercy. The two Pillars retain these these traditional titles whether one is
looking at or backing into the Tree.
24. From the Neophyte Ritual. Regardie, The Golden Dawn, 125.
25. From the Neophyte Ritual. Regardie, The Complete Golden Dawn System of
Magic, Volume Six, 13.
26. In psychology, repression refers to the unconscious exclusion of painful
impulses, desires, or fears from the conscious mind.
27. The student of western magic must be especially vigrlant against inflation of
the ego.