Israel Regardie
Regardie's works on western mysticism tradition
highly influenced me in term of my occult philosophy. I've already
discussed the reason I've become interest in the occult sciences,
i.e. uniting microsm with macrocsm. (For that particular discussion
please cick here). The basic idea is that modern sciences has illustrated
that there are strong possibility of the inseparable nature of mind
and the universe. Occultism, based on western ceremonial magick rooted
in Jewish Qabalah and hermeticism, tried to study the relationship
between the internal (mind) and external (physics) universe. It allows
the possibility of viewing and experiencing the world in one's own
mystical subjectivity. It's an experimental philosophy where the object
of study and the subject conducting the study are inseparable. It's
a sciences of subjective experiences.
To understand the formation of psychological reality
and realized the illusion behind it with a knowledge of influencing
them. Regardie, in his famous book, the tree of life, truely assist
me in the understanding of the philsophy and experience it subjectively.
Although, Qabalah based on the monotheist concept, with a careful
study, one could interprets its god as the single mind of the universe
which emanates into all earthly illusions which parallel to the “Anatta”
of Buddhism. One should always remember that Buddhism does not eliminate
the idea of magick or other planes of reality. It simply just tells
the true nature of all realities which are but illusion but Qabala
goes on to view the illusion and divided into 10 different aspects
.i.e. the dialectic manifestations of the mind to physical universe.
At least, it fit very well with complexes theory
in depth-psychology, through Qabalistic techniques, one can access
the archetypal complexes to learn and integrate them into one's own
growing personality. The magickal view of the universe as the manifestation
of the mind, or to put it psychological, as the projection of unconcious
archetypes, it allows us to sense the existence of psychological reality
that are pararel but often neglected to the socioeconomic reality
of different aspects in our life. Like the ancients has known for
thousands of years, it helps us in understanding the harmonic relationship
between mind, matters and the society in general in a very broader
sense compare to a pure physical based scientific view.
But to live in modern day, it is even better as
we could synthesize both way of thinking (psychological vs. physical)
about the world in general more easily. Regardie was heavily influenced
by Jung in the more balance view of magick than his mentor Aliester
Crowley. In all, Regardie has paved the way to understand occultism
in a much systematic and logical manner, although it is a metaphysical
logic that we are dealing with here. He allows me to expand my mystical
view of the universe and allow me to explore my own subjective experiences
to develop under the same principle of dialectics and logical subjectivism.
My study in occultism has allow me to further arrive at a more insightful
meaning of Jungian psychology, the transformation the willed imagination
into practical reality and to find a harmonic position of myself in
the marriage of internal and external universe.
(links for more
information)
