VL-IV pgs. 98/99: Postmodern Mysticism

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Israel Regardie's "The Tree of Life" [1932] also got reprinted by
Samuel Weiser (my paperback edition is from 1972); Regardie's book
is, together with Dion Fortune's "The mystical Qabalah" (very useful
for practical work!), the best introduction to the kabbalistic teaching
of the Golden Dawn. For more see the complete documents of the order of
which there are several editions (including one by Regardie).

If you really want to go for it, you not only have to learn astrological
signs, Tarot, hebrew letters plus hindu, egypt and christian iconology,
but also practice each and every day for many many years. Basic stuff as well
as fully developed Rosicrucian rituals. Some years of psychotherapy (Bodywork
à la Reich works here best!) are a must in order to distinguish pure
projection from real results (as rare as they may be). Meditation helps, too.
A very powerful tool which you can start with right now is the exercise of
the middle pilar:
 
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=MbaVwz8Mdhk
 
This will provide you with the necessary energy to dig deeper ...
 
(Anyway, if you have traveled that Golden Dawn way for a decade or longer,
you will reach a, now, crossroad, fall through phases of complete disbelief
and, eventually, come to mind on a different plateau, where you start a 
new project, say Chaos Magic or Voodoo ... Map is not territory ... And then,
some day out of the blue, you will find yourself adopted by a Higher Entity 
... Feels very strange in the beginning, but I tune in more and more ...
Enough said, perhaps already too much ... 'tschuldigung, soll nicht wieder
vorkommen) 
   
 
kfl


>
> Once upon a time in New York City on Fourth Avenue below 14th Street was an
> area known as 'Rare Book Row of America'. In actuality both sides of the
> avenue was lined with second-hand, rare bookstores. But the time I got there
> in the late Sixties it's golden age was gone but still many bookstores
> remained. One the last remaining one was the Pageant which was featured in
> quite a few movies, the one that comes to mind is Woody Allen's 'Hannah and
> Her Sisters' --- the scene with Michael Caine and Barbara Hersey. The
> Pageant closed in the early 90's from it's last location on 9th St and 4th.
> Anyway to the point, one of those bookstores was Samuel Weiser's, which I
> believe was founded in the 1920's and then run by his son Donald, and had
> over the years evolved in to specializing in rare, secondhand, and
> out-of-print books on the occult, mysticism, and comparative religion. and
> since had moved many times and since, I believe disappeared to Boston. But
> when I first frequented the store it was located on Broadway and Waverly.
> They also became a publisher of reprint in this area. In the late Sixties
> Weiser's sold a chart which consisted of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life where
> all the connecting paths between the Sefiroths was illustrated with one of
> the Waite Tarot deck of the major Arcana. That is 22, also the number of
> letters of the Hebrew alphabet.