lashtal.com
Teachers, Disciples and Students, Friends and Enemies - Regardie and A.'.A.'.
bune63 - Aug 26, 2008 - 07:21 AM
Post subject: Regardie and A.'.A.'.
93 Forum,
I've been researching the life of Israel Regardie, and I'm looking for info about his belonging (or not belonging) to the A.'.A.'..
Does anybody have reliable info on this? Who took him as Student/Probationer? Are his Oaths been published somewhere? How far did he go?
Any answer would be greatly appreciated.
93, 93/93
B.
PRCVL - Aug 26, 2008 - 08:10 PM
Post subject:
101. Israel Regardie (1907-1985), Frater NChSH (Serpent), on 28 October, 1928, in the presence of [blank: presumably Aleister Crowley]
bune63 - Aug 27, 2008 - 07:00 AM
Post subject:
Quote: › 101. Israel Regardie (1907-1985), Frater NChSH (Serpent), on 28 October, 1928, in the presence of [blank: presumably Aleister Crowley]
93,
are you saying that the Oath is not signed? This would make it doubtful, even if Regardie was not a man playing tricks.
The 101 before the info seems to refer to a catalog or something similar, care to enlarge?
Thank you
93, 93/93
B.
uranus - Aug 30, 2008 - 03:30 AM
Post subject:
Regardie was admitted to 0=0 by Crowley as PRCVL posted but he never went beyond the 0=0 grade under Crowley (not a judgement, just a statement, big Regardie admirer here)
Horemakhet - Aug 30, 2008 - 12:00 PM
Post subject:
... just off the top of my hat....
From what I recall, Regardie most likely progressed to a Neophyte, because he enjoyed a personal correspondance with Crowley. AC must have thought him a promising young jedi. In fact, he even invited him to come & stay with him for awhile (location? France?). He was there, most likely, inducted as a secretary & a neophyte.
The problems arose after their very short time together. Israel sent a barbed letter to AC. He also started to copy AC, &, in his own mind : became 'greater' than him in a seemingly " respectful" niche of society.
Oh yeah, big admirer here too ... 
PRCVL - Aug 30, 2008 - 12:41 PM
Post subject:
are you saying that the Oath is not signed? This would make it doubtful, even if Regardie was not a man playing tricks.
The 101 before the info seems to refer to a catalog or something similar, care to enlarge?
Yes, I am saying that the Oath is not signed by the Admitting Neophyte. There are a few other examples as well in which that information has been omitted, eg. the Oaths of James Thomas Windram, Vittoria Cremers, and Herman Wijers.
Sorry about confusing you about the 101. Please disregard the number (it refers to a list of A.'.A.' members that I have compiled).
Bringer_Of_Light - Aug 30, 2008 - 05:38 PM
Post subject:
93 folks!
Count me in too as another Regardie fan. 
Yep, in Paris I believe it was when he was invited by AC, and although they had the falling out (Crowley apparently wasn't too happy about Regardie's first book The Tree Of Life, a few nasty pieces of correspondence later and the two never conversed again). Regardie in later years though defended him, giving him his proper due as one of the, if not the most, important spiritual teachers around. His biography of AC (albeit written through the lens of Regardie's psychology glasses) defends him against the more "salacious" aspects of AC's reputation. Lol, in true Regardie style he does take a poke at John Symonds biography, and you can almost hear the buzzing of the wasp as he spits out what he dislikes about it.
Of course being a Regardie fan, I thought it rather good, but then again any biography is better than Roger Hutchinsons terrible hatchet job in my opinion.
Was Regardie the actual author of The Middle Pillar exercise? For some (probably silly reason) Id always assumed this was a Golden Dawn one?
uranus - Aug 31, 2008 - 04:04 AM
Post subject:
Horemakhet wrote: › ... just off the top of my hat....
From what I recall, Regardie most likely progressed to a Neophyte, because he enjoyed a personal correspondance with Crowley. AC must have thought him a promising young jedi. In fact, he even invited him to come & stay with him for awhile (location? France?). He was there, most likely, inducted as a secretary & a neophyte.
The problems arose after their very short time together. Israel sent a barbed letter to AC. He also started to copy AC, &, in his own mind : became 'greater' than him in a seemingly " respectful" niche of society.
Oh yeah, big admirer here too ...
Regardie was put into direct contact with Crowley because he wrote to Crowley after having read Book 4 part 1 (I believe). The invitation to come to France was a matter of employment and not magick. Regardie's "barbed" letter was in response to a slight from Crowley though, immature it was, it was not unprovoked. Crowley even poked fun at Regardie's chosen name of Francis. I have never heard of anyone, even Regardie, refer to him as a Neophyte of the A.'.A.'. and we know how a few of his followers have in recent years tried valiantly (?) to show how much of a Thelemite Regardie was...
uranus - Aug 31, 2008 - 04:13 AM
Post subject:
Bringer_Of_Light wrote: ›
Was Regardie the actual author of The Middle Pillar exercise? For some (probably silly reason) Id always assumed this was a Golden Dawn one?
He extrapolated, anonymously, the Middle Pillar from the Portal papers so he didn't create it so much as found it. Kind of like the Watchtower Ritual, he used previous material to create the ritual.
Bringer_Of_Light - Aug 31, 2008 - 07:06 PM
Post subject:
Thanks for the heads-up on that one, Uranus.
faustian - Sep 03, 2008 - 01:27 AM
Post subject:
Yes. Regardie was with Crowley in Paris in the 1920s, but was expelled from the country for this association - a fact he was very ashamed of for many years. His best book was the Middle Pillar. The Golden Dawn rituals published later is more of a compendium, but not so explanatory as the Middle Pillar, which is a first rate introduction to the Kabbalah and the Tree of Life.
luxinhominefactum - Sep 04, 2008 - 08:06 PM
Post subject:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
caveat: i am Not a regardie admirer
while regardie did sign an oath and task, he did not attain to neophyte.
even if he had, his theft of karl germer's work on "magick without tears," publishing a text that he had no right to publish after germer's death, while sofie slowly starved to death in california without seeing a dime of residuals, would be more than enough to sever his link.
his publication of "gems from the equinox" was bad enough - yes, volume one of the equinox was in the public domain by that time, so the theft is moral rather than legal, but "magick without tears" was a truly criminal act on many planes.
as for regardie's "defense" of crowley, i am certain it was not genuine. remember that this came after his denunciation of crowley in regardie's introduction to "the golden dawn," where he said that crowley stole all he ever knew from the GD and got it all wrong anyway.
when germer kept publishing crowley material, and it kept selling, those dollar signs rolled around in regardie's eyes. by the end of the sixties, regardie's earlier disparagement of Crowley was no longer credible - so up he comes with "Gems." after all, The Equinox Volume One had become available again by that time, and any serious student would see quite quickly that the material in "the temple of solomon the king" was light years ahead of regardie.
and then! THEN! while germer, who had celebrated his greater feast by then, had published the vision and the voice in a very small edition, regardie snatched that up, "edited" it, and added his own idiodic notes to the text without so much as bothering to distinguish his garbage from crowley's gold! that's right, folks, regardie tried to pass himself off as the prophet of the aeon in footnote form!
did sophie see even a solitary red cent? not even one.
i do not understand the adulation of francis "israel" regardie. i do not believe that i ever will. this is a man who stole from everyone and gave to no one, and a man who left sofie germer literally dying a slow death of starvation rather than mitigate his greed with honesty and respect to those who made his good fortune possible. fortunately, there is death for the dogs.
just as an aside, how does one make a list of A.'.A.'. members? there are thousands of us. is it just famous ones you're interested in?
Love is the law, love under will
the_real_simon_iff - Sep 04, 2008 - 08:52 PM
Post subject:
93!
Just an aside and before anyone is as confused as I until the second to last paragraph, you are obviously talking about Sascha Germer when pitying Sofie...
Love=Law
Lutz
OKontrair - Sep 04, 2008 - 09:54 PM
Post subject:
"that's right, folks!" ?
The introduction to the vision and the Voice in the Germer edition was written by Regardie in 1929 in Paris. This was why AC asked him to come - to do this sort of work. He used the initials E.N.L.
If anything, Germer was reprinting Regardie's work. I am surprised this matters to anyone today. The notes in V&V were transcriptions of AC's marginalia from two separate copies of the Equinox and all Regardie had to do was collate them but to do so was his work. In Regardie's 1972 Sangreal Press edition the only changes made were to replace, for example, the Hebrew character 'aleph' with the word aleph etc. It is completely clear which notes are which.
Germer's editing of Magick Without Tears was minimal. He added the words: "This has now been done." to Crowley s introduction, prepared the index and, I believe, did much of the physical typing himself; no mean feat but even so... Regardie's edition in 1973 omitted a small amount of material. I'm with Germer and Jefferson on this one. 'They edit best who edit least.'
Regardie did not make much money from publishing. He is on record as saying that Llewellyn cheated him of the money. His 'fortune' did not come either from his regular work as a Reichian therapist which was his main living. He had made a talisman to get some money, shortly thereafter got some inside information on an investment from one of his patients - it paid off in a big way and he retired.
Moral: get Regardie's book 'How to Make and Use Talismans' .
When these books came out in the 1970's I for one was glad to get them; I would not have given a damn if they had been published by the Vatican Press. I did not get the Germer editions until much later; they were published in editions of 200 and in the 1950s this was an optimistic sales forecast.
OK
OKontrair - Sep 04, 2008 - 11:04 PM
Post subject:
I have just re-looked at the Germer and Regardie editions of the Vision and the Voice.
What Regardie has done is expand any astrological signs etc and put cryptic stuff into readable English. Remarks of his own aside from that are in brackets. Some of Regardie's original 1929 notes in the Germer ed. are just a series of signs. Also, and I never noticed this before, the section in the Germer on p7 called "a Brief Synopsis of the Contents of the Calls of the Thirty Aires Or Aethyrs" is a different version of what appears in Regardie V&V p255 as "a Comment on the Natures of the Aethyrs." This last is obvious Crowley and both fuller and more comprehensible.
In the prefaces to Regardie's V&V and MWT he discusses in detail his editorial changes and the reasons for them.
I have no axe to grind pro or con Regardie but at the time he was doing this it was almost impossible to get the Equinox, John Symonds was either blocking or at least not promoting Crowley's work and the American OTO had yet to win their court cases.
What's a poor boy to do with a penny in his pocket and nothing to read?
OK
luxinhominefactum - Sep 04, 2008 - 11:06 PM
Post subject:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
i have no idea why i continually mix the names "sofie" and "sascha" up. it doesn't just happen with mrs. germer, either.
but "a small amount of material?!" we're talking nearly 25,000 words, here. i have an unexpurgated version published in the eighties; what got cut out is worth reading and has the added bonus of making some of the more obscure letters actually make sense. i'll endeavor to make it available at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Love is the law, love under will
faustian - Sep 05, 2008 - 01:27 AM
Post subject:
I am not a huge personal admirer of Regardie, either, as he blew me off back in the late 1970s. However, one must separate personal deficiencies from intellectual accomplishments: AC being perhaps the prototypical example of this.
I come back to the Middle Pillar - which I have yet to find a better scholarly work on the Kabbalah for. Unlike AC, Regardie is not an original, but he was a great transcriber of the events that took place.
Dogstar - Sep 05, 2008 - 01:29 PM
Post subject:
93
I am very thankful for all the stuff mr Regardie has made available to people like myself. But I do find his texts a bit too heavy sometimes. Not with facts, but with just words.
93 93/93
uranus - Sep 06, 2008 - 01:44 AM
Post subject:
Sascha wasn't starving to death or anything in Barstow following Germer's death it has been shown. Motta wasn't in contact with Sascha Germer for long following Germer's death and Motta would have no idea if Mrs. Germer were starving or not. I am a big Motta supporter, but he made a lot of conclusions in regards to Mrs. Germer. She also had no right to the money generated from profits in Crowley material. She wasn't an OTO member and she wasn't Germer's heir in Thelema. As was shown in the UK in the last decade, nobody had the right to make a profit on Crowley's works because he was an undischarged bankrupt and his copyrights belonged to his creditors. Motta was wrong about Mrs. Germer's situation.
lashtal - Sep 06, 2008 - 02:09 AM
Post subject:
Dogstar wrote: › I do find his texts a bit too heavy sometimes. Not with facts, but with just words.
A great expression: we'll all be using it soon...
alysa - Sep 06, 2008 - 02:18 AM
Post subject:
Uranus; thank u for the reply if thats the truth,than you can see how simple the truth sometimes can be. I myself think the Regardie materials of very great importants, because when I started to read them, I for the first time in my live started to enjoy the thought that there were finely some writings in the world concerning Hermetism that were more easely to be read than some other materials about the same subjects and I am able to enjoy them very much (ofcourse I know that the Regardies materials aren't Crowley's, Grants and so on, but for a starting student in the esoteric world I think it is important that there once was an author such as Regardie).
faustian - Sep 06, 2008 - 02:36 AM
Post subject:
Having gone back to my library, I now realize my mistake - I meant the book called "Tree of Life" 1932, not the "Middle Pillar" as one of the finest introductions to the Kabbalah around.
And yes he is a little wordy; he does not have the wit (nor perhaps the sarcasm) of AC.
DIAOL - Sep 06, 2008 - 11:43 AM
Post subject:
Regardie was а member of A.'.A.'., I don`t know his degree (selfinitiation etc.), but Crowley was his superior first time. After Crowley`s death Regardie helped Wolf & Meral to "re-create" A.'.A.'.
I know that Regardie had A.'.A.'. students. One of them was 93-writer Gerald Suster (Fr. Uranus).
You can find a scan of Regardie's admission into the A.'.A.'. (and a scan that he was IX O.T.O.) in the book "What You Should Know About The Golden Dawn", by Israel Regardie: New Falcon Press, Fifth edition, 1983.
uranus - Sep 07, 2008 - 02:16 AM
Post subject:
Just to be clear, I'm not Gerald Suster... LOL
uranus - Sep 07, 2008 - 02:24 AM
Post subject:
OKontrair wrote: ›
I have no axe to grind pro or con Regardie but at the time he was doing this it was almost impossible to get the Equinox, John Symonds was either blocking or at least not promoting Crowley's work and the American OTO had yet to win their court cases.
Not crapping on them but the American OTO didn't exist at that time, the reformulation occurred in the mid 70s after an earlier failed attempt. Symonds was publishing Crowley throughout the 60s and into the 70s as well and Weiser had an edition of the Equinox available in 1972. Symonds was being selective in what he published, focusing on Magick, the commentaries and the diaries. Many people were publishing zines with other unpublished material as well in the early 70s. Grant was actively recruiting as was Motta in Brazil and in other countries around 1975.
alysa - Sep 07, 2008 - 02:46 AM
Post subject:
I am very pleased with the last three answers, it is fot me interesting to know some more about Regardie, whom for me is an esoteric author of some kind of interest, this is a very interesting thread for me.
zardoz - Sep 08, 2008 - 11:34 PM
Post subject:
Regardie is an important contributer to contemporary occult literature. His books and presentations of G D exercises have been invaluble to me. He is a giant. He introduced many to, including Robert Anton Wilson, and brought insight and understanding to the works of Aleister Crowley and the G D at a time when accurate and useful information was difficult to find.
phthah - Sep 09, 2008 - 01:06 AM
Post subject:
93 bune63 and all,
Regardie was in the A.'.A.'., however to my knowledge he never passed beyond probationer. To give you an idea of how Crowley and Germer felt about him, we have the following from Motta in his book called Sex and Religion.
"On the 28th of February of 1954 e.v. Mr. Germer wrote us a letter from which we quote the following paragraph:
"You tell me that you are studying Israel Regardie's books! So I must tell you a little about him. He is a clever and intelligent Jew. Came to A.C.'s books in 1928, A.C. wrote to me in New York. I saw Regardie in Washington where his father lived. He was eager and hard-working. We agreed to hire him, sent him to Paris as secretary to A. C. He lived there for three years, and later in London. 666 put him through some severe tests, and he fell down. He separated from the Great Work, went back to California and lives there a shameful life. All that he knows was from Crowley. Yet in the books that he has written it is as if it was Regardie who was the big I Am! He speaks condescendingly of his Master, who initiated him only into the lower things. So Regardie is spiritually dead, rotting on the spot where 666 had permitted him to go. If you read Zanoni, he represents Glyndon, I think the name is. This and possibly further incarnations are doomed for him."
luxinhominefactum wrote: › but "a small amount of material?!" we're talking nearly 25,000 words, here. i have an unexpurgated version published in the eighties; what got cut out is worth reading and has the added bonus of making some of the more obscure letters actually make sense.
I have to agree with this lux on this one. IMO Regardie's "editing" of MWT was pretty bad. Uranus wrote: › Sascha wasn't starving to death or anything in Barstow following Germer's death it has been shown. Motta wasn't in contact with Sascha Germer for long following Germer's death and Motta would have no idea if Mrs. Germer were starving or not. I am a big Motta supporter, but he made a lot of conclusions in regards to Mrs. Germer. She also had no right to the money generated from profits in Crowley material. She wasn't an OTO member and she wasn't Germer's heir in Thelema. As was shown in the UK in the last decade, nobody had the right to make a profit on Crowley's works because he was an undischarged bankrupt and his copyrights belonged to his creditors. Motta was wrong about Mrs. Germer's situation.
Wow, I guess that's it then. Thanks for clearing that up for us. 
I take it you were there then? For someone who claims to be a "big Motta supporter", this sounds strangely like an edict direct from the McOTO! I do not agree with anything you say here. Do you honestly think that a decision made by the court (or whoever) in the last decade has anything whatsoever to do with that situation?
93 93/93
uranus - Sep 10, 2008 - 12:57 AM
Post subject:
NO, definitely not an edict from the COTO. You do know their stance on Regardie right? And no, I wasn't there with Sascha bu none of the evidence indicates that she was starving or any such matter when she died. Just because I contradict Motta doesn't mean I don't support him, I just don't believe that Mrs. Germer was in the state that Motta wanted us to believe, especially considering he wasn't in contact with her for years before her death. He made an assumption. As to Germer's comments on Regardie, they should be taken with a grain of salt because it is obvious that he did not lead a shameful life and it is obvious that he learned more than what Crowley taught him as he was a member of the Stella Matutina and worked with Dion Fortune and after his seperation from Crowley. In fact, Regardie seems to have gone on to have a successful life not just as an author and magician but also as a therapist and chiropractor in California before having retired to Sedona, AZ. Did he do a hack job to Magick Without Tears? Without question but Germer's assessment is not based on actual knowledge of Regardie and his life following Crowley anymore than Motta's belief that Sascha Germer was starving to death.
phthah - Sep 11, 2008 - 03:22 AM
Post subject:
93 uranus,
uranus wrote: › I wasn't there with Sascha bu none of the evidence indicates that she was starving or any such matter when she died.
Well, since you put it that way.......wait a minute that's exactly what you said before. 
Rather than continue to argue about it, I will just state that it is my contention that there is evidence to indicate that Mrs. Germer became destitute in the last years of her life.
uranus wrote: › As to Germer's comments on Regardie, they should be taken with a grain of salt because it is obvious that he did not lead a shameful life and it is obvious that he learned more than what Crowley taught him as he was a member of the Stella Matutina and worked with Dion Fortune and after his seperation from Crowley. In fact, Regardie seems to have gone on to have a successful life not just as an author and magician but also as a therapist and chiropractor in California before having retired to Sedona, AZ.
You can feel free to take it with a grain salt if you want, but I must point out that you are completely missing the point. To Crowley and Germer, it did not matter what Regardie would do with his life, successful or not, the damage was already done.
uranus wrote: › Did he do a hack job to Magick Without Tears? Without question
Well, at least we can agree on something.
93 93/93
uranus - Sep 11, 2008 - 04:33 AM
Post subject:
My point was that Germer and Crowley were obviously wrong. What Crowley and Germer assert on the issue does not matter, whether they believed the damage was done they tried to paint Regardie as a failure in life and that he didn't know anything about magick outside of what Crowley taught him of the outer mysteries. Obviously their assessment is about as accurate as saying Hitler was a hero. Sure, in some people's eyes but those people are ignorant or choose to ignore the facts. Crowley and Germer were wrong and there is nothing wrong with saying they were wrong, or that Motta was wrong or that anybody else was wrong. To take these peoples' opinions as true when the facts deny them is a great fallacy and a great miss.
As to Mrs. Germer being destitute I haven't seen any evidence to that regard just that she was a little bit on the crazy side. Motta painted her situation to suit his needs. I you have evidence outside of Motta's testimony that she was destitute I'd like to see it. Nobody else's testimony bears out Sascha being anything but a little left of center.