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If I read the signs of the times aright, the veil of
the Temple of the Mysteries is being drawn back at the present moment. There
are phases in the spiritual life of mankind just as there are weather cycles
extending over periods of years, and the tide which began to move during the
first decade of the twentieth century is gathering head as it proceeds. The signs
of the times are to be seen in the publication of certain books on magic in which
the genuine secrets are given, and given in a form available for any reader with
a capacity for metaphysical thoughts. Among the most important of these are
Israel Regardie's two books: The Garden of Pomegranates and The
Tree of Life.
The Garden of Pomegranates, oddly enough, deals with the Tree of Life, the
famous glyph of the Cabbalists, which is used as a card‑index system in
which are filed all ideas concerning man and the Universe according to certain
well‑understood systems of association, and which by means of the pattern
of its arrangement, is used to discover the correspondences and relationships
between them.
The Cabbala is increasingly being recognised as the
basis of Western Occultism. Anyone who wants to appreciate esoteric philosophy
as taught in that system, and more especially anyone who wants to make
practical use of it, whether in magic or meditation, needs a working knowledge
of the Tree of Life. Information on this decidedly recondite subject has
hitherto been to seek in a number of books, some of them rare and hard to come
by, and many of them confused and elusive in their wording. Mr. Regardie has
given, in a lucid and concise form, and Messrs. Rider
have issued at a moderate price, a most admirable handbook on the technical
system of the Tree. It is lucid, comprehensive and concise, and performs a very
useful service in correlating the Cabbalistic, Eastern, and Egyptian systems. It
is thus possible for the student to trace out the interrelation between the two
systems which are worked together in the West, the Egyptian and Cabbalistic;
and for the Theosophist to recognise the classification with which he is
familiar, when it is applied to the glyph of the Tree in the technical methods
of Western occultism.
Mr. Regardie has the inestimable advantage of knowing
the Hebrew language; in this, as an occultist, he is unique; for although most
occultists working the Western tradition have enough Hebrew to transliterate
the Words of Power for inscription on pentacles and talismans or for
numerological work, they number no Hebrew scholars among their ranks, but are
all dependent on translations; even MacGregor Mathers and Wynn Westcott did not
translate from the original Hebrew but from Latin versions, and they have
saddled the Western schools with some tiresome errors of transliteration and
pronunciation.
Mr. Regardie gives a classification of the Tree and the
constitution of man according to the Cabbalists, and of the correspondences
between them, which is much more lucid and illuminating even than that given in
McGregor Mathers' admirable introductory essay to The Qabalah Unveiled,
for he gives the correspondences in terms of modern psychology as well as of
metaphysics and the psychic states.
The sections of the book, however, which will be of
chief interest to students of the occult, and which will cause bitter
heartburnings in certain quarters, are his chapters on the attributions and
correspondences of the Ten Holy Sephiroth and the Twenty-two Paths between
them. These attributions have been among the special preserves of certain
occult schools; but Mr. Regardie gives them, even to the jealously guarded secret
of the correct attribution of the Tarot trumps. There will certainly be
heartburnings!
Mr. Regardie does not specifically state his
authorities, but it is unquestionably the system taught in the "Order
of the Golden Dawn", founded by the late S. L. McGregor Mathers, that
he is using. If I have been a Rehoboam who has scourged occult secrecy with
whips, Mr. Regardie is a Jeroboam who is using scorpions!
However, he has my unqualified blessing, for what it
is worth to him. There is no legitimate reason that I have ever been able to
see for keeping these things secret. If they have any value as an aid to
spiritual development, and I for one believe that they have the highest value,
there can be no justification for withholding them from the world. 
The only
reason of which I am aware, and one which I suspect of being a weighty one with
those who have so long sat resolutely upon the lid of occult secrecy, is that
for purposes of priestcraft and prestige a secret system is a useful weapon. A
weighty reason, this, human nature being what it is, but not a justification in
the eyes of those who have the welfare of humanity at heart.
It has always been the custom of the "Golden
Dawn" to wrap itself in the utmost secrecy. To a certain extent this
secrecy is unquestionably necessary, for many eminent people have at different
times belonged to the Order, and they would not have dared to have done so if
they could not have been sure of preserving the secret of their interest in matters
occult. Consequently the strict secrecy concerning the names of members and the
places of meeting was and always will be essential.
Secrecy is also necessary concerning initiation rites
if they are to be psychologically effective; for they should have an element of
surprise for the candidate; and the possession of their secrets, from which the
rest of the world is excluded, builds up a group mind out of the pooled
mentalities of the initiated brethren according to certain well-understood
psychological laws.
Secrecy concerning practical formulae of ceremonial
magic is also advisable, for if they are used indiscriminately, the virtue goes
out of them. All these formulae have unwritten astral workings attached to them;
if they are used in ignorance by the uninitiated, and without the astral
workings, the magnetism which has been worked up in the symbols is given off
and not replaced; but when they are used by the trained occultist, who performs
the astral workings with power, more magnetism is worked up than is given off,
and the symbols become stronger. That is why the old formulae, which have been
used by generations of trained adepts, are so extraordinarily powerful.
Beyond this I do not think occult secrecy ought to
go, and I am certainly not prepared to assist it. It is not possible to keep
back the tide. Save for the reservations regarding the actual rituals, the day
of occult secrecy is over. Whosoever profit by the teachings ought to have
them.
Mr. Regardie handles, very wisely, the section of his
book dealing with the ceremonial rites, for he gives the principles without the
actual formulae. The only formula he gives in full is that of the Banishing
Ritual of the Lesser Pentagram. I was at first inclined to quarrel with him for
giving this, for one feels instinctively that a formula which is messed about
by all and sundry will not long retain its value for anybody. But on second
thoughts I am inclined to acquit him. It is this formula which is given to the
student immediately on initiation, long before he is taught any practical
working, in order that he may be in a position to protect himself
in case of astral trouble. If Mr. Regardie is justified in drawing back the
veil at all, then he is, undoubtedly, justified in providing the necessary
protection against anything untoward that may come through that veil. The
Lesser Pentagram is of the nature of a fire extinguisher, and it is very
necessary to have some such device handy, when one adventures into such highly
charged levels of the Unseen as are contacted by the methods he describes.
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