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| The Middle Pillar: The Balance Between Mind and Magic | 
 enlarge | Author: Israel Regardie
Creators: Chic Cicero, Sandra Tabatha Cicero
Publisher: Llewellyn Publications
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95 (39.90 RON)
Buy New: $11.53 (27.14 RON)
You Save: $5.42 (12.76 RON) (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 45108
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 312
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 1567181406
Dewey Decimal Number: 133
EAN: 9781567181401
ASIN: 1567181406
Publication Date: September 1, 2002
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 16 | | NEXT » |
 MAGIC and PSYCHOLOGY May 18, 2008
WOW, WOW, WOW! BANG! This is great! I really like this. Everything is explained very well. The endnotes are informative. After reading this book through carefully, I felt I had a thorough understanding of the content and felt confident enough to begin the exercises. There were areas I wanted to gloss over, but made myself wade through them and was glad I did. Although I personally prefer the Hebrew version of LBRP and the Middle Pillar exercises, it is nice to know there are other versions available. I became interested in this technique after reading Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig, but felt I needed more information before I began to work with it. This book definitely fills in the blanks! The price of this book is nothing compared to the value. Kudos to Israel Regardie and to the Ciscero's!
Bridging the gap March 21, 2008
The Middle Pillar exercise is a very powerful process, and yet as you go through this book you will discover so much more. There is also the lesser banishing ritual.
You may be interested to know how Jung bridged the gap between spirituality and psychology with his many concepts. I find this chapter alone to be worth many times the value of this book, particularly the picture of the Jungian model, which justifies buying the book.
You will learn about the process of individuation in easy to understand language, our meeting with the shadow, and the higher self, and dealing with archetypes. Also included are ideas from other psychiatrists such as the controversial Wilhelm Reich, which I found very helpful.
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 magic as yoga, yoga as magic December 7, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Dion Fortune famously called kabbala and magic the yoga of the west, and Israel Regardie's The Middle Pillar is an excellent introduction to the system for anyone interested in the topic.
Regardie's original book was a very clearly written walk through of the Middle Pillar ritual, as well as some additional relaxation and meditational techniques. Regardie's writing is somewhat long-winded - the important concepts of the rituals have been covered by other writers, including Kraig and the Ciceros, in just a few pages - but he is very clear, enthusiastic, and thorough on explanations. The reader has a very clear understanding of words and definitions, sounds and pronunciation, movements, and the overall feelings of the experience. The overall internal peace and sense of strength and calm achieved after practicing the meditation consistently is deeply rewarding.
Further, this book is NOT a manual on magick or the Golden Dawn. While Regardie drew his early education and inspiration from Crowley, and only later literally wrote the book on the Golden Dawn, the Middle Pillar Ritual, while used in both systems, will also be quite familiar to practitioners of yogic techniques, particularly Kundalini. It is a way of drawing in, channeling, and releasing energy, nothing more and nothing less.
The Ciceros' contribution to this edition of the book more than doubles its length. Besides the excellent footnotes they add to Regardie's text, they go into alternate religious and mythical traditions, comparing and contrasting them to Regardie's system, and also add a great deal of psychological information. While useful for the hardcore student of this material, the added material is not necessary to the gaining of the benefit of the exercises presented by Regardie, and makes what started as a relatively short manual directly addressing the point into a much longer study.
A Precious Treasure! August 7, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is perhaps Regardie's best book concerning high magic. The author begins by explaining the connection between the mind and the soul, psychology and magic and how the practice of magic can aid both spiritual and emotional balance. Also detailed is the alignment of the psyche on the Qabbalistic Tree of Life. Regardie goes on to explain how and why one should perform The Ritual of the Middle Pillar.
Part two consist of further clarifications and techniques by the Ciceros, who knew Regardie well and are senior adepts in the Golden Dawn System.
I highly recommend this book.
. . .uh, is this the right edition ? December 13, 2003
38 out of 45 found this review helpful
(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 efforts as Golden Dawn historian are concerned. Not all Cicero editions of Regardie's work enjoy such endorsements, apparently: the Francis King endorsement appearing on the new, larger Cicero edition of 'The Tree of Life,' is really an endorsement of the original edition, unadorned by the Ciceros. It therefore cannot be construed as an endoresement of the Cicero's editorial and annotationial efforts on Regardie's original.
At this juncture, I must register another protest. All this modifying of Regardie's original text, seems to me a bit dangerous. The assumption that Regardie was too difficult, or wrote in an outdated 1930s style, or something like that, is short sighted. The material must be gone over and over again, to make real useful sense of it. Attempts to abridge or shorten the process of real work, as Regardie originally perceived it, is a denial of this.
I won't blame Llewellyn too much, as they have a right to make a living generating books for the not-too-serious occultist. However, why Regardie must endure insipid popularization, seems questionable to me.
However, if this edition includes new Regardie material, I am interested. (Apparently, they at least left his introductory material intact.)I probably will get a copy eventually anyway, as I got rid of my Llewellyn edition copy I got in the late 80s, and have missed it ever since (it was smaller, more convenient, and largely a reprint of the 30s edition with additional Regardie material from the early 70s.)
It may be presumptuous of me to consider the Cicero's as superfluous. They may be entirely approved of by Regardie, wherever he is now! (RIP.) Regardie may have intended for some like the Cicero's to carry the banner.
Still, basically, all you need is the Golden Dawn volume, several of Regardie's books, and the ten or twenty other books, (many of them non-occult), like Reich's 'Function of the Orgasm,' Jung's 'Two Essays in Analytical Psychology,' Rama Prasad's 'Nature's Finer Forces, ' Frater Albertus's 'Alchemists Handbook,' Dion Fortune's 'Mystical Qabalah,' several psychology books recommended in the New Falcon 'Complete Golden Dawn System' book, or the shorter list provided in his 1968 introduction included in the current Llewellyn edition, the several basic books on magic by W. E. Butler (hopefully soon to be reprinted) and some others. However, as Regardie suggests in an out of print title ('Ceremonial Magic,' Aquarian Books, hopefully soon to be reprinted ), the purpose of all this work is not to overburden the student with tons of 'expensive books.'
These are the reasons I find the bulking out of Regardie's books so objectionable. He has a lot of other recommendations for 'the foundations of a sound occult library' as it is already.
Still, the presence of these larger editions, may at least, in a colorful and somewhat superficial way, serve to draw attention to Regardie's work overall. When that process has completed itself for the present population, perhaps we may see re-releases of Regardie's original editions, hopefully in the original typefaces, for us authenticity-seeking purists ! (It's a little tedious for people to be circulating home made photocopies of the older material.)
Admittedly, some of the new writers, like the Cicero's, may be making a worthwhile contribution. I would be a purist, however. I do not wish, at least initially, to stray too far from Regardie's original efforts, as he was very bright. By the mid 80s, he had also lavished the better part of his 70-plus years lifetime on these techniques. I would not want to stray too far, at least at first, from his initial recommendations.
(Actually, my role as 'purist' comes not from fanaticism, but from over twenty years of studying Regardie, burning my fingers until I realized the intelligent unity of his overall work. I would transfer the understanding of that unity to anyone sincerely interested in Regardie.)
If you really want to know the basics, there are two essential volumes. Regardie would have you own the Golden Dawn, either in the new Falcon or an older, unmodified Llewellyn ( I can't believe Regardie would approve of messing with the original Golden Dawn material the way Llewellyn has let some do) and a copy of his 'Gems from the Equinox,' a book of Crowley's magic material, arranged so the student 'can make his way through the maze more easily.' You can read about Regardie's view on the place of these two volumes in the student's library, in his introductions both to 'The Tree of Life,' and in his 'One-Year Manual,' no doubt also soon to be reprinted, as people rediscover Regardie.
(Those who wonder why Regardie would have ought to do with Crowley, haven't spent enough time with the material to figure out why yet. Earn the privilege of understanding! Pay your dues! I think you may find it well worth it, to understand Regardie's practical view, on just about everything, really.)
Still, I will probably get this new edition of 'The Middle Pillar,' as it is still worthwhile, and as the page quantity is tempting ( seems to be twice as long as the earlier edition) and because no other editions seem to be available at this time.
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