Over the past six months, I have taken on a serious study of the magical exercise known as the Middle Pillar.
This powerful ritual serves as the basis for many of the more advanced workings in the Golden Dawn tradition, and it serves as an incredible tool for introspection and energetic healing. It is regarded as one of the necessary rituals to advance into deeper mystical training.
Having studied fairly broadly in mysticism through yoga, chakras, the tree of life, and meditation, I came to the Middle Pillar ready to take this final step as a magician, as a manifestor, into a practiced adept.
Doing so has surely saved me suffering and grief over the past week.
A member of my family is in a Tower period. All of her readings (from different readers and different decks) keep showing the Tower card.
8 days ago she fell and broke her arm. She has yet to get surgery, and she has had multiple difficulties in her life all growing upon each other. Her fear and worry has multiplied and manifested.
To protect myself while in her presence, I have relied heavily on The Middle Pillar. I have been unable to perform it every day, due to time, family, work, and travel priorities that have left me breathlessly busy. A few Qabalistic Crosses every day has served to maintain the Cross of Light within me, but what has really helped me weather the storm has been the Middle Pillar.
I feel it as a golden shell packed close around an inner layer of my aura, just beyond my body. The negativity and pain emanating from her have washed off of this shell, allowing me to dedicate myself to a calm and positive mindset.
During the few times that the negativity has crept through, and I react out of frustration or mild anger, the repercussions have unanimously been torrential. If I reply to something shortly, she invites a great conflict, and I must pull back and recede like the tide, allowing her grasp to slip off of me.
In the description of the Tarot card the Tower read to me by my wife this morning, ‘anything that you grasp on to will be destroyed.’ I can see those things that she is grasping on to are deteriorating, and were I one of them, I would surely be swept up in the fury of the tower.
Instead I back away, allowing the Tower experience to happen. My offers of assistance have been met with quick anger, which I politely decline to escalate. My assistance has been sidelined, and she can be allowed to have her necessary experience, without me being a necessary part of it.
I am sure that without the Middle Pillar I would be more involved in her catastrophes, holding stronger opinions, taking a stronger hand, making more of a fight. My energy would then be pulled down the vortex, and I would participate in the destruction.
Instead, I have found a place of calm, right outside the range, protected and shielded. I will forever be grateful for having this exercise in my arsenal.