The Middle Pillar: The Balance Between Mind and Magic: Formerly the Middle Pillar

by Sandra Tabatha Cicero, Chic Cicero, Israel Regardie

Book Overview

The classic book on working with the energy of the body for spiritual purposes, The Middle Pillar by Israel Regardie, is now more complete, more modern, more usable, and better than ever.

The exercise known as the Middle Pillar was devised by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Regardie expanded upon it and made it public over 60 years ago in the first edition of this book. Since that time, the exercise has been altered and adapted for...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B009XQ4QSO
• ISBN13: 9781567181401
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

. . .uh, is this the right edition ?

(revise/augmented, 1/10/'04) Great to study 'The Mystical Qabalah' by Dion Fortune after learning the Mid Pillar technique. Also useful, 'Foundations of Practical Magic,' five essays by Regardie. From there, I disagree with muddying up the picture with books by Ophiel and sych. Regardie didnt. See his book list he recommends in ' Ceremonial Magic,' Israel Regardie. For the beginner, we must offer at the outset, that one of Israel Regardie's other books, 'The Art of True Healing,' is the best basic book on the Middle Pillar ritual and its practical uses. Anyone who wishes to make use of the multi-faceted advantages of the Middle Pillar ritual, ought to procure a copy of 'the art of true healing'(check reviews.) This volume entitled 'The Middle Pillar,' is an expansion on the ritual itself, yet does not offer the overall, integrated assistance as to the utilization of it in body- and life-healing that the 'Art of True Healing' essay offers. It is Regardie's volume entitled 'the art of true healing' that can be used for 'physical body, ...character, financial, marriage, social, and other problems - in fact, any problem type of which one can think...' (Israel Regardie.) Anyone who knows Regardie's work, probably knows that he still considered this early book "useful." Much of it's purpose was taken up by 'The Art of True Healing,' but he still liked it as a tool for students of the Golden Dawn material, and there were plans by New Falcon press to release Regardie's revision ( entitled 'Sceptre of Power,' I believe) somewhere in the past twenty years. Did they ever do so ? I don't know. The only thing that bothers me about the Cicero editions of Regardie is, I am still not sure Regardie would approve. They make his books more expensive to get, and I am not so sure Regardie had any such intention. Better to focus your resources on acquiring the large 'Complete Golden Dawn System' book from New Falcon Press that Regardie had issued before he died, or the Llewellyn edition. Falcons editiion is Regardie's revised edition of the Golden Dawn rituals, and is to be preferred over the Llewellyn edition, which since Regardie's death has been 'worked over, 'annotated,' and modified to some extent, by newer 'contributors.' I truly wish people would just leave the original material alone... this goes for Regardie's 'Middle Pillar' book as well. What the reader hopes, however, is that whatever the editor/annotator's vagaries, they at least knew Regardie. Thereby, they may have something to offer up with their 'additions' and 'innovations' which mirrors some of the 'crumbs from the masters table' Regardie may have been able to transfer to such as the Cicero's. The careful reader, hopefully, may thereby be rewarded. Actually, and its worth mentioning: the high praise RA Gilbert offers up on the back cover of this new edition of 'M Pillar.' This is encouraging, as it is my understanding that Regardie largely approved of RA Gilbert, at least as far as his eff

advanced states

Spiritual development and psychological evolution take many forms. Regardie happened to be one of the most interesting purveyors of magick in the tradition of Crowley and even further back, the original mystics and occult greats.What is fascinating to me is that despite Regardie's well-known ego clashes with Crowley, the original theories are expounded upon in a similar tradition to that of Jung carrying Freud's theories forward. Regardie took the intellectual baton from Crowley and ran with it in a particularly enriched, highly articulate way. Lots of good stuff here.

An expanded edition of a classic

The Middle Pillar is one of Regardie's best works. It lucidly explains the correlation between the Tree of Life and the human body, and how certain energy centers are activated for magick. This edition expands on the original. Included are the musical notes for the various rituals, versions of the rituals in languages other the Hebrew, and an essay on Regaries feelings about psychology. The hope is to present basic magical technique as a dovetail to therapy. The additional material contains good information in this area, mostly based on conversations between the Regaride and the Cisoeros. As occultism and psychology are both interests of mine, I loved this book. Recommended for intermidiate magicians and psychotherapists.

Don't know if I hate it or like it....

I love the original version of the Middle Pillar. It made "magick" a real form of "yoga" for me. Doing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is great, and the Middle Pillar itself really charges up your "aura" with energy. The feeling of energy is sort of like the feeling of qi energy from doing tai qi or qi gung, but at a different "level."The last edition of this work (that was by Regardie alone) had a nice cover with the spheres superimposed over the body, which really helped the visualization. The problem I have with this new edition is that Regardie tends to run a little long-winded, and his style is a little dated (originally written in the '30s!). However the original book was mercifully short. The Ciceros have added their own even more long-winded material. To top it off, they are somewhat scholarly to the point of distraction (but at least they edited Regardie's material to conform the spellings of the Sephiroth to traditional Western occult usage). The point of the Middle Pillar is, DO IT. Not study it. (I also have a personal irk. They are strongly Golden Dawn in outlook, and Judaeo-Christian on top of that, while some of the best works out there today are in the Thelemic line of practice. It's as though they are afraid to mention the "Crowley" word, although Regardie's main if not only magickal influence was Crowley.) On the other hand, as a reference work, the Ciceros footnotes to the original Regardie material are sometimes excellent. Also, some of their additional material is truly helpful, although probably overwhelming for a beginner. My advice for a beginner (and I have a friend in this predicament) is to just read chapters 3, 4 and 5 at first, since these lay out the actual practice. Save the rest for later, don't confuse yourself. If you want a really well-rounded curriculum for self study, I highly recommend the two books by Ophiel - Art and Practice of Astral Projection and Art and Practice of Creative Visualization (this second book looks like a "seven laws of success" book on the surface but is much deeper than it appears at first - it is really about how we create our whole world and how we can take an active hand in increasing positive results). The Astral Projection book essentially gives you something fun to work on after mastering the Middle Pillar, which is all about "building a body of light." (The Astral Projection book also has the best explanation of the different forms of astral bodies - etheric, low astral, high astral, mental, causal.) And these two Ophiel books are SHORT!

Another great beginner's guide by our man, Regardie!

Israel Regardie's genius shines through, once again, as he uses his experience in the field of psychology to show us the direct connections between Magick, Spirituality and the human mind. If you have a serious interest in Magick, general Occultism, any form of religion or spirituality, or psychology/psychiatry, this is certainly a book that would help a lot with your studies! And, yet again, the Ciceros have shown us their wonderful understanding of Magick. But this time, they've added psychology to their accomplishments! This book is a must-have for all Occultists!