Reviews for Jun Q'anil: One Who Walks the Way

The average rating for Jun Q'anil: One Who Walks the Way based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-05-14 00:00:00 Anna Cooper Suster's (1951-2001) biography of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) is presently the largest and most complete biography of Israel Regardie (1907-1985). The book covers, in detail, Regardie's early life, his experience with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's offshoot ' the Stella Matutina ' his dealings with and influence from Crowley, and a rather full account of his occult philosophy. While Suster largely eschews the impartial descriptive approach of academic historians, the book is, at present, the only book length biography of Regardie, and as such remains the standard reference when dealing with the details of his life. While I found Suster's interpretations of Regardie's ideas to be somewhat idiosyncratic and, at time, at odds with what Regardie himself wrote, this book has the benefit of having been written by someone who was a student and personal friend of Regardie ' giving Suster a unique insight into Regardie's personality. In terms of my research, Suster's work was far more valuable as a reference source for the mundane details of Regardie's life and education than it was his thought, since the latter sections dealing with Regardie's negotiation between modern psychology and Golden Dawn magic was obfuscated by Suster's (sometimes mis-) understanding of Regardie's ideas.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-02-05 00:00:00 Anthony Kern Israel Regardie was an occultist and chiripractor who died in the 1980s, and who was Aleister Crowley's secretary, typing up several of Crowley's books. He was also a disciple of Crowley until a rather public falling-out in the 30s, and was also a member of the Golden Dawn organazation in it's waning years in England. Regardie took it upon himself to publish the secret teachings of the order, in a form still available today, when he felt that it's leadership had become detrimental to the teachings' future. These and many other of his experiences can be read about here. Regardie also was a proponent of Reichean psychoanalysis, and claimed that the "orgone" that Reich believed in and the force behind "magick" were the same thing. He was a lay psychoanalyst and treated many neurotics in his practice and so felt he could speak as an authority on the subject. I think this is a great account of a little-known but important life from the mid-twewntieth century.