Be Yourself A Guide to Relaxation and Health

by Israel Regardie, James Wasserman, Jivananda Bhagavan (Foreword)

When the Rosicrucians of old announced themselves to the world in 1614, they described their primary mission as healing. Dr. Israel Regardie 1907-1985 remained true to that purpose. He wrote several books on healing, thereby distinguishing himself from most other practitioners of the Western esoteric tradition at least those working within the Golden Dawn and Thelemic magical currents he so eloquently promulgated in his numerous writings. Dr. Regardie brought somatic consciousness to the forefront of his work in the occult community. He shared his philosophy of the necessity of physical health as part of one s spiritual discipline. His teachings gradually spread among more and more people and yoga and diet have become important parts of modern spiritual practice. The utility of relaxation is based on the simple premise of economics. If you re filled with unconscious tensions that inhibit the flow of blood to your vital organs, you cannot possibly make full use of your body s energy. Magick presupposes a link between the physical and the spiritual. As above, so below. What Regardie is telling us is that if we can learn to overcome the tensions of our social world and the daily stress of life born of the fight for survival and the restrictions of our upbringing and cultural conditioning we can free ourselves to be vital, powerful, functioning people living up to our true potential. In Crowley s that in us may be health and wealth and strength and divine pleasure according to the Law of Liberty.

86 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2016

About the author

Israel Regardie (born Francis Israel Regudy) was considered by many to be the last living Adept of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. At an early age, Regardie worked as Aleister Crowley's personal secretary. In addition to his extensive writings, Regardie practiced as a chiropractor and as a neo-Reichian therapist. He taught psychiatry at the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic and contributed articles to many psychology magazines.

Reviews

[Victoria Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is essentially just Regardie going through the process of how he relaxes his clients and why it's so important that we learn how to do this ourselves. There are some great examples in here, visualisations and processes to help the relaxation process. It's very short, reads like a paper or a talk that was given. Interesting read but I don't know that I took a huge amount away from it more than just that being able to relax the body is much more important than most of us realise, but then again, that was a pretty powerful take away! If you are holding a lot of tension in the body this may be a useful read for you!

[James Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Israel Regardie outlines how the majority of us hold stress in our bodies in the form of unnecessary muscular tension and sets out to provide potential remedies to this issue.

The book points out that surplus energy can be made available when the body is more often in a state of deep relaxation. This energy can be put to use to develop mental acuity.

Regardie provides a series of useful and practical pointers on how to relax more deeply and even directly promote positive activation of various parts of the body.
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“Remember, always, that pressure will only hurt if you resist it. The more tense you are, the more pain is felt from the pressure”

[David dharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, but not great

The book shows the importance relaxation and proper rest, but little else. The exercises are a useful test, but this really needs to be paired with a good meditation book or instructor.
Even the most dedicated Regardie fans could skip this one without missing out on much.

[Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical and concise guide to relaxing the body and mind.
Easy to immediately put the intro exercises into practice--immensely worthwhile to spend more time on the latter ones.