Israel Regardie

Francis Israel Regardie (/rɪˈɡɑːrdi/; né Regudy; November 17, 1907 – March 10, 1985) was an occultist, a writer, and Aleister Crowley's personal secretary and transcriptionist, widely known for his books and commentaries on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Early life

Regardie was born Israel Regudy on 17 November 1907 off of the Mile End Road in London's East End, then a poor area.^[1] His parents, Barnet Regudy, a cigarette maker, and Phoebe Perry, were poor orthodox Jewish immigrants from Zhitomir, Ukraine.^[1][2] His family changed their surname to "Regardie" after a clerical mixup resulted in Israel's elder brother being enrolled in the British Army under that name.^[1][2]

Regardie emigrated with his parents to the United States in August 1921 and settled in Washington, DC.^[1][2] Regardie's parents were Orthodox Jews who believed that the Talmudic stories were literally true.^[3] With a Hebrew tutor he gained a linguistic knowledge which would prove invaluable in his later studies of Hermetic Qabalah.^[4] In his teenage years, Regardie rejected this parental faith, coming to describe Judaism as "a load of rubbish".^[5] He began reading the work of Helena Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy.^[6] From there, he read Hindu texts like the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita as well as Buddhist texts like the Dhammapada and the Milinda Panha.^[7]

Regardie became secretary for Aleister Crowley

Interested in becoming a painter, he studied at an art school in Philadelphia.^[1] He also joined the Societas Rosicruciana in America at around this time.^[8] While in Washington DC he came across a discussion of yoga in Book 4, a work by the occultist Aleister Crowley.^[9] Impressed by it, he wrote to Crowley via the latter's publisher, receiving a response eight months later.^[10] Crowley advised Regardie to meet with Karl Germer, his agent in the United States. Regardie visited Germer in New York City, where he purchased the ten volume of Crowley's periodical, The Equinox.^[10]

Through Crowley's work, Regardie moved from the practice of yoga to that of ceremonial magic.^[11] When Crowley asked Regardie to travel to Paris to serve as his personal secretary, the young man agreed; he told his parents that he would be studying with an English painter in Paris.^[12] In October 1928, Regardie sailed from New York City to Paris.^[12] Regardie hoped that Crowley would personally instruct him in occult practices, but this did not occur; Crowley expected his pupils to learn things for themselves and only seek his advice when in difficulty.^[13] Crowley urged Regardie to overcome his inhibitions, including by visiting prostitutes to lose his virginity.^[14] Regardie spent much time studying Crowley's material, both published and unpublished.^[15] As a magical name, he took "The Serpent".^[16] Through his involvement with Crowley, Regardie came to know Gerald Yorke, although the duo never became friends.^[17]

In March 1929, Regardie's sister—who had become aware of the content of Crowley's writings—contacted the French authorities to urge them to investigate what had happened to her brother. The Sûreté Générale did so, discovering that Regardie did not have an identity card permitting him residence in France. He received an expulsion notice giving him 24 hours to leave the country; Crowley was soon also ordered to leave.^[18] Regardie moved to Brussels in Belgium, where he began a relationship with Miroslava.^[19] Crowley had returned to England, and in late 1929 Regardie joined him there, living in Knockholt, Kent.^[20] Crowley could no longer afford to keep Regardie as his secretary and the pair parted amicably.^[21] Regardie then became secretary to the author Thomas Burke, who encouraged his own literary intentions.^[21]

In 1937, Regardie and Crowley fell out. Regardie sent Crowley a copy of his latest publication; the latter's response made fun of Regardie's use of the name "Francis", calling him "Frank", and including an anti-semitic slur. Regardie wrote an angry letter back, calling Crowley "Alice" and describing him as "a contemptible bitch".^[22] Crowley then circulated a document attacking Suster, accusing him of exploiting his benefactors and of contracting gonorrhoea.^[23] This incident led Regardie to distance himself from occultism for several years.^[24]

Career

After reading Part I of Book 4 by the occultist Aleister Crowley, Regardie initiated a correspondence which led to his return at 21 to the U.K. at Crowley's 1928 invitation to become his secretary. When the two parted company four years later, Regardie distanced himself from Crowley personally, but still retained a great deal of respect for his writings.^[25] In 1931 he wrote A Garden of Pomegranates, a primer on Qabalah based on notes he had taken while working for Crowley.

In 1932 Regardie published The Tree of Life, a book many consider his magnum opus. In it he states:

According to the traditional philosophy of the Magicians, every man is a unique autonomous center of individual consciousness, energy and will – a soul, in a word. Like a star shining and existing by its own inward light it pursues its way in the star-spangled heavens, solitary, uninterfered with, except insofar as its heavenly course is gravitationally modified by the presence, near or far, of other stars. Since in the vast stellar spaces seldom are there conflicts between the celestial bodies, unless one happens to stray from its appointed course – a very rare occurrence – so in the realms of humankind there would be no chaos, little conflict and no mutual disturbance were each individual content to be grounded in the reality of his own high consciousness, aware of his ideal nature and his true purpose in life, and eager to pursue the road which he must follow.^[26]

Regardie would later write a biography of Crowley, The Eye in the Triangle, and continue to edit and republish Crowley's works up until the 1970s.

In 1934 Regardie joined Stella Matutina, a successor organization of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.^[2] When the group disbanded, Regardie acquired the bulk of the Order's documents and compiled the book, The Golden Dawn, which earned him the enmity of many of the other former members and the reputation of being an oath-breaker because of the information it revealed. However, the book transformed the work of the Order into an entirely new branch of the Western Occult Tradition. As Regardie observed in his work A Garden of Pomegranates, "...it is essential that the whole system should be publicly exhibited so that it may not be lost to mankind. For it is the heritage of every man and woman – their spiritual birthright."^[27] The various occult organizations claiming descent from the original Golden Dawn, and the systems of magic practiced by them, owe their continuing existence and popularity to Regardie's work.

In 1937, at the age of 30, Regardie returned to the U.S., entering Chiropractic College in New York City. In addition, he studied psychoanalysis with Dr. E. Clegg and Dr. J. L. Bendit, and psychotherapy with Dr. Nandor Fodor. He opened a chiropractic office and taught psychiatry – Reichian, Freudian, and Jungian – moving to Studio City, California in the 1970s,^[28] before retiring in 1981 at the age of 74, when he moved to Sedona, Arizona.^[29]

Death

Regardie died from a heart attack in the presence of close friends during a dinner at a restaurant in Sedona, Arizona on March 10, 1985 at the age of 77.^[30]

Legacy

Regardie is a principal reliable source for much of what is known about the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His writings and the students he taught or influenced provide much of the foundation for modern Western occultism. In addition to preserving the knowledge, Regardie also preserved a valid branch of the initiatory lineage of the Golden Dawn in America:

The second significant task carried out by Regardie was, as an Adept, to bring a valid branch of the initiatory lineage of the Golden Dawn to America the alchemical melting pot where the New Age was incubating. Such tasks are not always easy. A. M. A. G. waited here four decades until the threads of the pattern came together. Then, in one of those graceful synchronicities which often play midwife to significant magical events, a couple in Georgia were inspired—at that time scarcely aware of what they were undertaking — to build a Rosicrucian Vault, the powerful ritual chamber required to pass on the Adept Initiation, at precisely the time when two magicians (one on the east coast of the United States and one on the west coast), unknown to each other or to the Georgia couple, came to be ready to receive that Initiation. And A.M.A.G., with the right to confer the Initiation in such a Vault, was the connecting link among them. And so, in one remarkable weekend, Regardie presided over two Initiations into the Inner Order, the first and the last which he ever performed; and the Lamp of the Keryx was passed into American hands. — Forrest, Adam P. in Cicero (1995), p. 541

Note: in the above paragraph, A.M.A.G. refers to Regardie. Participants in the Order took on a pseudonym or magical motto. In Regardie's case, his motto was Ad Majorem Adonai Gloriam which means "To the Greater Glory of Adonai".

In his biography of Regardie, Gerald Suster described him as "one of the most important figures in the twentieth-century development of what some have called the Western Esoteric Tradition".^[31]

Partial bibliography

• A Garden of Pomegranates, 1932
• The Tree of Life, 1932
• My Rosicrucian Adventure, 1936
• The Art of True Healing, 1937
• The Golden Dawn, 1937-40 (4 vol.)
• The Middle Pillar, 1938
• The Philosopher's Stone, 1938
• The Romance of Metaphysics, 1945
• The Art and Meaning of Magic, 1964
• Be Yourself, the Art of Relaxation, 1965
• Twelve Steps to Spiritual Enlightenment, 1969
• The Eye in the Triangle, 1970

See also

• List of occultists

References

Further reading

• Cicero, Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero (1995). Secrets of a Golden Dawn Temple. Llewellyn Publications. ISBN 0-87542-150-4
• Regardie, Israel (1936), My Rosicrucian Adventure, Chicago: Aries Press
• Regardie, Israel (1998a) [1972], The Tree of Life: A Study in Magic, York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, ISBN 0-87728-149-1
• Regardie, Israel (1998b), The Middle Pillar: The Balance Between Mind and Magic (3rd ed.), St. Paul: Llewellyn, ISBN 1-56718-140-6