The Golden Dawn Middle Pillar Exercise is, to all intents and purposes, a Magical Ritual of Self-Initiation. That is, it is a magical method of commencing the subtle and inevitable process of uniting human consciousness with the divine consciousness, which is symbolized universally by the Light. In other words, it is a dynamic method of the Great Work, and it is worthy of vast attention from those who are truly serious about engaging themselves in the Great Work.

    The Middle Pillar Exercise is a proper magical method of commencing the process of making contact with the Light and bringing it into conscious manifestation. But this Light of which we speak has naught to do with the mushy metaphysical mumbo-jumbo prattled and preached by the credulous critters of the so-called Metaphysical or New Age movements. Rather is it a metaphorical symbol for the Holy Guardian Angel or one's Central Self so often symbolized by the Lord of the Solar System, the Sun. It is LVX, the Light of the Cross. It is Khabs, the Light of a Star. The Middle Pillar Exercise is an inner recognition of that Light in the five Spheres of the Middle Pillar of Consciousness. It is a technique for concentrating and crystallizing into being the Light and bringing that Light down into conscious manifestation.

    The Middle Pillar Exercise serves as an excellent prelude to any type of spiritual working, for it aligns the human personality with the Divine Self of Kether. All true spiritual work is done under the guidance of Kether. By performing the Middle Pillar Exercise you literally manifest the Light of your own Divine Self, concentrating it into being from your own limitless nature, as a sign thereof, and you gradually bring that Light into the sphere of your own human consciousness which is then transformed into a higher form of potential consciousness of your own True Nature.

    The student should perform the Middle Pillar Exercise slowly and with great care and attention. It is a most effective magical method for awakening the higher currents within, and must be used with great patience and earnest aspiration. This cathartic exercise purifies and nourishes the Aura or Sphere of Sensation with the Divine Light from above. Thus it is a highly potent and serious method of the Great Work. Let the student begin visualizing each Sphere five minutes separately, vibrating each Name as many times as he/she feels inclined, however five times per Sphere seems an appropriate limit. The Ritual should take no more than 30 minutes to perform. To become identified with the Divine Energy of each of the five Spheres, periodically visualize yourself as a little person existing and moving inside each Sphere. Try to maintain this visualization within each Sphere for a period of five minutes. It is also a good practice in this respect to periodically visualize in the Spheres the letters that make up the God Names of each Sphere. In this way you enhance the meaning and power of each Sphere in your archetypal model of the Middle Pillar.

    The White Sphere above the Head is the place of Kether on the Tree of Life. The Indigo Sphere at the Throat is the place of Daath on the Tree of Life. The Yellow Sphere at the Heart is the place of Tiphareth on the Tree of Life. The Violet Sphere at the Genital is the place of Yesod on the Tree of Life. The Green Sphere at the feet is the place of Malkuth on the Tree of Life. These five Spheres naturally correspond with the four Aristotelian Elements (Fire, Water, Air and Earth) and the Quintessence or Spirit (the so-called fifth Element). Thus they also correspond with the five Tattvas or Elements of Eastern Philosophy. Kether is Spirit/Akasha, Daath is Air/Vayu, Tiphareth is Fire/Tejas, Yesod is Water/Apas, and Malkuth is Earth/Prithivi. The student may find it a valuable practice to visualize in the five Spheres of the Middle Pillar their corresponding Elemental Tattvic symbols. These Tattvic symbols are an Indigo Ovoid for Spirit/Akasha, a Blue Circle for Air/Vayu, an upright Red Triangle for Fire/Tejas, a Silver Crescent for Water/Apas, and a Yellow Square for Earth/Prithivi.

    The Middle Pillar Exercise may be performed while standing, sitting, or even lying down. There is no strict rule concerning this matter; it must be left to the experience of the Magician to determine what position shall suit him/her best in this practice. However, it is the more common method among members of the Order to stand erect while performing the Middle Pillar Exercise. In this way we maintain an active conscious role in the practice, less inclined to enter into a passive state of trance or sleep. The Middle Pillar Exercise is capable of inducing a certain species of trance if it is performed for a long period of time in a relaxed or passive state. There is nothing wrong in this, but the object of the Middle Pillar Exercise is to actively manifest the Light in the consciousness of the Magician, to dynamically expand his/her awareness of that Light. It is therefore suitable to stand.

    Concerning the formulation of the Talismatic Atom. See the Light ascend vertically in front of you from your feet to the Sphere of White Light above your head, and then feel it descend vertically down your back to the feet again. See it forming itself into a Circle of Light moving rapidly around you. Then visualize another Circle of Light forming itself and moving rapidly around your waist area. The idea here is to build up the Talismatic Image of the Atom, so that you will now need to form two more Circles of Light moving rapidly around you. Visualize one circle forming itself, moving up from your left foot to your right shoulder and back to your left foot from behind you, and then visualize another circle forming itself, moving from your right foot to your left shoulder from behind you and back to your right foot in front of you. Visualize all four Circles moving rapidly at the same time.

    The Atom is one of the most significant of all symbols for the modern Magician to understand and apply. The symbol of the Atom, like the Atom itself, is a source of vast potential energy and its value in the world of modern Magick is simply inestimable. The symbol of the Atom does not only represent one of the minute indivisible particles of which, according to ancient materialism, the Universe is composed, but is a symbol of the Whole Universe itself. Its formulation in the Aura of the Magician helps to circulate the Light invoked through the Middle Pillar and awaken his/her consciousness to a more universal mode of awareness or a higher circuit of cosmic potential.

    This practice of the formulation of the Talismatic Atom also helps to fortify the Magician's power to concentrate. In this Talismatic Image we must concentrate on four distinct yet parallel parts to make up the whole of the single image of the Celestial Atom. In this simple practice is contained much wisdom for those who have eyes to see.

    Concerning the formulation of the Qabalistic or Thelemic Golden Dawn Cross. This helps to equilibrate the Light in the Aura or Sphere of Sensation. The Cross in itself is an invocation of the Divine Light of Kether and an equilibration of that Light in the four elemental quarters. By ending the Middle Pillar Exercise with the Cross you are sealing the ritual with the Light of Kether. You also formulate in your Aura the Cross of Light and seal your Aura with that Light. It is a suitable idea at this final point of the exercise to increase the size of the Cross, so that its vertical and horizontal bars extend into infinity. It is this which is the fulfillment of the Golden Dawn proclamation, "Khabs Am Pekht. Konx Om Pax. Light in Extension." After the formulation of the Talismatic Image of the Cross in the Aura, the Magician may find it a suitable practice to compose him/her self in the Sign of Silence, assuming the God-form of Harpocrates in the Egg of Blue.

    The Middle Pillar Exercise creates neurological changes in the student. That is, it acts upon the Nervous System of the student in such a manner to effect vital changes within him/her. It is a magical method for inducing brain changes at Will, and it can assist one to make direct contact with the Metaprogrammer in the Nervous System. The Middle Pillar, once truly mastered by the aspirant, brings about a literal metamorphosis in his/her consciousness and a complete change of perception. This new awareness is the realization of oneself as the Programmer of one's programming; it is the comprehension of the fundamental fact of oneself as the Lord in control of the Robot of Life. By performing the Middle Pillar Exercise in the appropriate magical manner, one can gradually reach such a high state of consciousness that one can literally work the process of re-programming one's robot self. In other words, in the state of consciousness symbolized by the Light of Kether, reflected by the Middle Pillar, one can work upon oneself in such form to recreate oneself in accordance with one's True Will.

    The Middle Pillar Exercise stirs into motion certain neurological forces of a dynamic nature which awaken in their turn higher circuits of consciousness, allowing for the Magician to realize and experience his/her Multidimensional Kether Self as represented by the God Hoor-Paar-Kraat. This Exercise, if used correctly, is literally a method of mutating consciousness. It can literally expand the sphere of consciousness by inducing quantum changes in the brain. It brings us en rapport with our Universal Self, whose symbol is the White Light of Ecstasy and whose image is the Babe in the Egg of Blue, that is, Harpocrates or Hoor-Paar-Kraat.

    The Middle Pillar is the Great Key to the Royal Path of Initiation. Thus the Middle Pillar Exercise can be used as an actual method for initiating oneself into the Mysteries of the Light. Initiation is a conscious realization of the Light. It is the beginning of the process of the gradual development of self-awareness and of self-actualization. The initiate is one who has come to a conscious realization of the Light of his/her own True Self, whose consciousness is one with his Inmost Self, with the Star of his/her own celestial nature.

    The Light is a metaphor for pure Consciousness, or the unstained awareness of one's True Nature, which is the Eternal Matrix of one's being. It is Awareness of one's Universal Self, that great part of us all which is one with every other thing in the Infinite Universe, that majestic part of our own beings which we so often term the Holy Guardian Angel. It is what the foolish folk call God, and we call the Ideal Identity of our inmost nature. It is the Quinta Essentia or QUINTESSENCE of our being. It is the Light of the Star that we are in truth, and the Burning Radiance of our Eternal Self coursing through the great Heavens of Nuit. It is the Great Mystery of all Prophets and Sages, and the Goal of all Philosophers. It is That to which all men and women attain at their appointed time of death.

    The Light within us all is the true essence of our being. However, let us not think of this essence in an Aristotelian static sense, in the form of an essence or self which never changes and is eternally one. Let us rather conceive of it as a dynamic Multidimensional Self which is not a self at all. Buddha, Nietzsche, and Rajneesh, being the great thinkers they were, insisted that there is no essential self or static ego in man. We have a variety of different potential selves rather than one unchanging Self. That which we so commonly call our True Self in the Philosophy of Magick is not "in essence" a single self. It is only one insofar that is many. It is not a monistic or monotheistic reality of any commonly accepted sort; it is rather a polytheistic or multiple reality. (Illustration: If you analyze a computer, part by part, it is no more a computer. It is only a computer when its various parts are properly connected and functioning as a whole.) We cannot assume any existential meaning when we analyze ourselves part by part. In the final analysis we can only assume that we are the product of the various parts which constitute our manifold existence and that our true individuality arises by being everything that we must be according to the direction of the various models of expression or reality-tunnels of our Multidimensional Self, fulfilling all of our possibilities.

    Remember always "existence precedes essence." The essence of the self is the fruit of the existential or phenomenological expression of the Multidimensional Self, which is really not a self at all. We are only one "in essence" when we are expressing all of our potential selves in a multidimensional manner. A true Initiate of Thelema is one who expresses him/her self in a multidimensional manner, fulfilling all of his/her possibilities of expression. He/she is not only a Man of Earth, Lover, or Hermit in the language of initiates, but is all three simultaneously, and this in a multiple manner, constantly undergoing modifications or changes in his/her forms of expression for the fulfillment of his/her True Will. It is infinite variety, which is not only the spice of life, but also the key to evolution.

    The Hermit, who represents the Qabalistic Yechidah or One Self in the symbolism of the Tarot, is only such by way of his being the Many. One in itself means nothing. Life demands multiplicity of expression. Only thus can true integration be achieved. Union or Oneness is a meaningless reality without division and multiplicity of expression. It has been said that All is a mask of the One. It is more appropriate in this place to say that THE ONE IS A MASK OF THE ALL. We need to banish that old demon of monistic thinking and stop interpreting god, self or reality as one, replacing this ancient linear and self-centered belief with a New Vision of seeing things in a multidimensional manner. This we must do if we are to genuinely realize The One in the midst of The All, to attain the sublime Starry Consciousness of Yechidah, and to truly live as a Hermit of Kether in the Center of it all. THE ONE IS THE MANY. A flower is a reality of Nature due to the existence of its various petals. Take away its petals and it is no more a flower. Each of us is a flower of the earth, a unique and beautiful phenomenon of Nature made such through our multiple parts or models of expression which are the various petals of our being, the diverse aspects of our life which define our existential reality on earth and which make us a whole person or an integrated individual or, more accurately yet more paradoxically, a Multiple Unit or Multidimensional Monad.