The Middle Pillar: The Balance Between Mind and Magic

The Definitive Edition of a Timeless Classic

This third edition of The Middle Pillar is more complete, more modern, and more usable than ever. Extensively edited and expanded by Chic Cicero and Sandra Tabatha Cicero, close friends of Regardie and Chief Adepts of the Golden Dawn, this classic work is highly accessible and relevant to today's practitioners.

The exercise known as the Middle Pillar, created by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, activates the five psychic centers on the Tree of Life's Middle Pillar. This exercise draws divine light through the body's energy centers, clearing and strengthening them for magic. Designed to bridge the divide between psychology and occultism, the Middle Pillar exercise was little-known until this book's first edition. Since then, it has become a mainstay of many Western traditions of magic.

This edition features:

• The complete original text with spelling standardized to Western traditions
• The Ciceros's notes on each chapter
• Clearer, modern illustrations
• More than five techniques to enhance relaxation
• The connection between the Middle Pillar and the chakras
• How to charge talismans and do healings using the Middle Pillar
• Egyptian, Greek, Gaelic, and shamanic versions of the Middle Pillar rite

The Middle Pillar is a step-by-step, accessible examination and extension of the single ritual that has become the very embodiment of magic.

Francis I. Regardie, born in London, England, November 17, 1907; died in Sedona, Arizona, March 10, 1985.  Came to the United States in August 1921, educated in Washington D.C. and studied art in school in Washington and Philadelphia.  Returned to Europe in 1928 at the invitation of Aleister Crowley to work as his secretary and study with him.  Returned to London as secretary to Thomas Burke 1932-34, and during that time wrote A Garden of Pomegranates and The Tree of Life.

In 1934 he was invited to join the Order of the Golden Dawn, Stella Matutina Temple, during which time he wrote The Middle Pillar and The Art of True Healing, and did the basic work for The Philosopher's Stone.

Returning to the United States in 1937 he entered Chiropractic College in New York, Graduating in 1941, and published The Golden Dawn.  Served in the U.S. Army 1942-1945, and then moved to Los Angeles where he opened a chiropractic practice and taught psychiatry.  Upon retirement in 1981, he moved to Sedona.

During his lifetime, he studied psychoanalysis with Dr. E. Clegg and Dr. J. L. Bendit, and later studied psychotherapy under Dr. Nandor Fodor.  His training encompassed Freudian, Jungian and Reichian methods.

Both Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero are Chief Adepts of the Golden Dawn as reestablished by Israel Regardie: Tabatha is the current G.H. Imperatrix and Chic is the G.H. Imperator Emeritus. The Ciceros have written numerous books on the Golden Dawn, tarot, and magic, including Golden Dawn Magic, Golden Dawn Rituals, Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition, and The Essential Golden Dawn, and they have provided updates, annotations, and introductions to classic Israel Regardie texts such as The Philosopher's Stone, The Middle Pillar, and A Garden of Pomegranates. Both are Rosicrucians: Chic was the Chief Adept of the Florida College of the SRICF from 2016 to 2023 and Tabatha is the current Imperatrix of the SRIA in America.

Both Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero are Chief Adepts of the Golden Dawn as reestablished by Israel Regardie: Tabatha is the current G.H. Imperatrix and Chic is the G.H. Imperator Emeritus. The Ciceros have written numerous books on the Golden Dawn, tarot, and magic, including Golden Dawn Magic, Golden Dawn Rituals, Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition, and The Essential Golden Dawn, and they have provided updates, annotations, and introductions to classic Israel Regardie texts such as The Philosopher's Stone, The Middle Pillar, and A Garden of Pomegranates. Both are Rosicrucians: Chic was the Chief Adept of the Florida College of the SRICF from 2016 to 2023 and Tabatha is the current Imperatrix of the SRIA in America.