.png)
The Middle Pillar exercise is a Western esoteric technique with a variety of purposes, including meditation, healing, and spiritual development. It is a simple but powerful practice that can be used by anyone, regardless of their experience with magick or spirituality and has demonstrable health benefits…
The Middle Pillar exercise is said to have originated in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society founded in London in 1888 that studied and practised Western esotericism, including Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and alchemy. The ritual describes the exercise as a way to "balance and harmonise the forces of the body."
The Golden Dawn’s system is still practised today and although the goal of the system is spiritual attainment, there are multiple physical and psychological health benefits to practising these techniques.
The exercise was further developed by Israel Regardie, a Golden Dawn initiate who wrote extensively on magic and occultism. In his book The Middle Pillar, which was published in 1938, Regardie provides detailed instructions on how to perform the exercise.
The Middle Pillar exercise has since been adapted and used by a variety of Western esoteric traditions. It is a simple but powerful exercise that can be used for a range of purposes such as Increasing vitality, improving concentration and strengthening resilience and overall wellbeing.
How To Do The Middle Pillar Exercise
Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed.
Sit or stand in a comfortable position.
Close your eyes and fall into an easy rhythm of breathing.
Visualise a shining sphere of pure white light above your head, the bottom of it just connected to the very top of your crown. Breathe deeply and vibrate (chant in a deep voice which comes from the diaphragm, as you release your breathe, try and make it feel as if it ‘vibrates’ throughout the whole body) “Eh-hey-yay” at least three times, visualising the light getting brighter and more vivid each time.
Now visualise a bright shaft of white light beaming down from the bottom of this sphere, through the crown of your head until it reaches your throat/ the nape of your neck. Here you visualise a sphere of grey light shining (try your best to picture a bright and luminous grey light). Vibrate “Yod Hey Vav Hey El-oh-him” at least three times, visualising the light getting brighter and more vivid each time.
Now visualise a bright shaft of white light beaming down from the bottom of this sphere, down to the very centre of your chest. Here you visualise a sphere of gold light shining brightly like the sun. Vibrate “Yod Hey Vav Hey El-oh-ah Vey Dah-ath” at least three times, visualising the light getting brighter and more vivid each time.
Now visualise a bright shaft of white light beaming down from the bottom of this sphere, through your stomach until it reaches the area around your lower abdomen and groin. Here you visualise a sphere of bright purple light shining. Vibrate “Shahd-deye El-Chah-eye” at least three times, visualising the light getting brighter and more vivid each time.
Now visualise a bright shaft of white light beaming down from the bottom of this sphere, through your legs and connecting with the Earth beneath you. Visualise a sphere of shining black light, its top just covering your feet and touching your ankles, and the rest of it shining up from inside the ground. Vibrate “Ah-doe-neye Ha-ah-retz” at least three times, visualising the light getting brighter and more vivid each time.
Keep breathing deeply and slowly and visualising the spheres of light and the beam running from the top to the bottom of your body, connecting Earth to the very top of the universe.
Take a deep, slow breathe and visualise the white light at the top flooding with light and energy and shining even brighter as you breathe in. Hold the breathe in your chest for a moment while you focus on that light and then, as you slowly breathe out, visualise all that light and energy flooding down the beam running down the centre of you filling each sphere with light until it reaches the bottom sphear at your feet, filling it with glowing light. Try and wait a moment after letting this breathe out to focus on feeling the refreshingly warm, bright light shining throughout your body before taking in your next breath.
Repeat Step 10 at least three times.
Taking in a deep, slow breathe, visualise the light starting at the top sphere but as you let it out, instead of travelling down the central beam, visualise the light circulating and spiralling down around the outside of your body until it reaches the bottom sphere.
Keep repeating your cycle of deep, slow breathing and with each exhale, visualise the light flooding that spiral around the outside of your body, try and hold for a moment before inhaling again and visualising the look and feeling of being wrapping in a cocoon of energising light. Repeat this at least three times.
Continuing your breathing cycle, visualise the light now descending down the left side of your body as you exhale and settling in the ground. With your next inhale, visualise that light shining again in the sphere at your feet and then rising back up through the right side of your body as you exhale. Repeat this cycle at least three times.
Repeat Step 14 but instead of the light descending down your left side, it descends down the front of your body and floods up through the back. Repeat this cycle at least three times.
Maintaining your breathing cycle, visualise the black sphere of light at your feet glowing brightly with light as you inhale and spiralling up around the outside of your body as you exhale until it reaches the sphere at the top. When it reaches the top, visualise a shower of the bright light flooding down covering your entire body and everything around you. Repeat this step at least three times.
Finally, continuing your cycle of deep and slow breathing, focus on visualising the spheres and beams of light shining in and around you for a moment. Then, while inhaling, visualise pulling all of the beams and spheres into the gold sphere in your chest so that it shines as brightly and vividly as you can imagine. As you exhale, visualise it glowing as it radiates that light throughout your body.
Now, slowly return your breathing to normal and gently turn your focus back to your surroundings. For some people it helps to perform an action such as clapping or stamping your foot to end the exercise.
Important Notes
Beginners may struggle at first with this exercise as it involves quite a lot of concentration and mental focus. Try not to get frustrated or discouraged and break it down into stages, such as only practising Steps 1 to 10 until you are able to complete them fully before moving on. Regular meditation and concentration exercises will help support your progress with this.
The above description is based on the Golden Dawn’s version of the technique but there are many other adaptations you can explore.
This exercise, like any other, will yield best results when practised regularly and although many people do report experiencing immediate changes, benefits can take time to accumulate. Be patient and persistent; The Middle Pillar exercise is a powerful tool, but it takes time and practice to master.
Bare in mind, when first performing this exercise many people report experiencing physical reactions such as profuse sweating or feeling like crying. Do not try to resist these reactions and please know that they are only temporary responses to this exercise and will stop with consistent practice.
When you are proficient, this entire exercise should take only take about 10-15 minutes to complete and yields many benefits. This can be done by anyone, with no equipment and almost anywhere which is why it is still an integral part of many people's daily routines even now.
How Does The Middle Pillar Exercise Benefit You?
The Middle Pillar exercise, when practised properly and regularly, can have the following health benefits;
Improved sleep quality
Reducing stress and anxiety
Lowered blood pressure
Boosted immunity
Helping with weight loss
Improved heart health, reducing the likelihood of stroke and heart disease
Improved memory
Reducing pain and supporting chronic pain management
Increased focus and concentration ability
Increased levels of mental and physical resilience
Overall improvement of mood, outlook, confidence and self esteem
Improvement in problem solving and decision making abilities
Reduced signs of ageing
Decrease or reduce symptoms of many mental health conditions
Improvement to overall health of lungs, skin and digestive system
This may seem like an unrealistic amount of benefits to claim for such a simple exercise, but these are just the ones that can be scientifically demonstrated- I’ve not even mentioned the spiritual benefits claimed when practised in the context of the Golden Dawn or other Mystical systems.
So how does it provide us the above benefits? The key is to break this exercise down into its component parts as this is actually a form of Ritual Meditation which also utilises the techniques of Visualisation, Breathwork, Chanting/Vibration and Affirmation; all of which have been scientifically demonstrated to bring their own health benefits. Here’s a quick breakdown of what's going on here:
Ritual
A ritual is any series of actions which are completed in the same sequence repeatedly over a course of time and can range from anything from skin care routines to pre-game sports preparations to religious customs. Studies have shown that the human mind not only finds comfort in the familiarity of rituals but that they can actually improve people's confidence and self-perceived ability to achieve goals and perform tasks successfully.
Meditation
The term Meditation covers a range of different techniques and disciplines from a variety of different cultures and traditions, all of which focus on the discipline of engaging and utilising the power of the mind beyond its regular conscious and subconscious usage. This is done by either engaging and focusing the consciousness in a particular way or by exercises designed to silence the mind and detach it from engaged states of conscious thought. While the benefits of meditation are becoming increasingly recognised in the west, scientific studies into it are still in their early stages but it has already been indicated to help with reducing pain, stress and anxiety, improving sleep and memory and increasing overall resilience and ability to focus. The Middle Pillar exercise is a form of meditation which originated in Western culture (with Eastern influences) and so a lot of people in the West find it easier to engage with than some Eastern meditation disciplines.
Visualisation
Visualisation is the act of mentally engaging a concept so vividly that the experience is like reality; despite the name, it is about mentally experiencing an idea via all the senses and emotions. Studies show that this powerful technique can actually stimulate the same areas of the brain when properly visualising an action as if the body were physically doing it, which could have profound influences on how we look at fitness and physical healing. It has also been indicated to help treat mental health conditions, overcome phobias and even help to manifest successful outcomes. When doing this exercise, you are visualising the refreshing, energising beams of light completely engulfing and flowing throughout you, healing and rejuvenating you.
Breathework
Breathwork is the intentional control of breathing to improve physical and mental health. It is a practice that has been used for centuries in many different cultures. The many benefits of breathwork include reducing stress and anxiety, improving mood, increasing energy, boosting the immune system, reducing pain, improving sleep and even reversing some of the effects of ageing.
Chanting/ Vibration
Chanting and vibration are both powerful tools that can be used to improve physical and mental health. Chanting is the repetitive utterance of a word or phrase, often in a rhythmic way. It is a common practice in many cultures and religions, and it is often used for spiritual, meditative or healing purposes.
The benefits of chanting and vibration are many, and they include reducing stress and anxiety, Improved sleep, reducing depression, improving the immune system, reduced pain, Improved focus and concentration and enhancing creativity.
Affirmation
Naturally, not only is the act of chanting beneficial but it is enhanced by the words we are using. Affirmations are words or short statements which are repeated to embed a particular outcome or state of being deeply in the mind and therefore bring about its reality, similar to Setting Intentions. This may sound far-fetched but scientific studies have actually demonstrated that affirmations work in such areas as improving academic ability, addiction recovery, increased problem solving ability, treating anxiety disorders and generally improving resilience.
So what are we chanting here? Each of the individual chants that you vibrate for each sphere represents a Hebrew name for God and when put together they create a phrase which roughly translates to “I am, The Living God, The Infinite Potential of Actualised Enlightenment, The Almighty Loving Existence, Ruler of The Earth” which is about as powerful as an Affirmation can really get, but it may feel uncomfortable or controversial for some…
Is This Exercise Okay To Do?
From a physical and mental health standpoint, this exercise is completely safe and beneficial, but the inclusion of Hebrew God names and the phrase they make up when combined can give some people a feeling of reluctance, usually on one of the following three grounds- concerns around cultural sensitivity, concerns that this may be blasphemous or be otherwise forbidden in their religious tradition or concerns that they are being asked to accept a religious or spiritual concept that do not believe in.
Although these concerns are each very understandable, they are, thankfully, unfounded. The first concern around cultural sensitivity is usually centred around the use of Hebrew names for God and any offence this could potentially cause. Hebrew is a language which is spoken by many people all over the globe and not just by Jewish people; there are many Muslims, Christians and Atheists who live in Israel and speak Hebrew everyday as it is the country’s Official National Language. Nor is the Middle Pillar a part of Jewish tradition, while some members of the Golden Dawn were Jewish, the majority were not and it was created as part of a Western mystical system, influenced by some aspects of, but not connected to Jewish religious tradition. There are multiple reasons why Hebrew was used, far too many to explore here, but there is a huge amount of depth and meaning in each syllable that relates to occult philosophy and it is also a great language for chanting.
The second concern about this being blasphemous or forbidden to any religious tradition can hopefully be cleared up by looking at what these names mean; they are not ‘Names of God’ in terms of how we might think of Zuess, Thor or Athena (or even Jesus or Allah) these are more like ‘names for God’ such as ‘the almighty’ or ‘good lord’ and so are not actually referring to any specific God (although it is worth noting that in Jewish tradition they worship the same God as Christians and Muslims). Only the “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey” parts refer to a named God, which is where current Christianity derived the name ‘Jehovah’ from, and this is actually a pronunciation of the Hebrew letters which make up the name (often referred to as the Tetragrammaton) as in some Jewish traditions it is forbidden to pronounce it fully. The pronunciation of the name as letters also detaches it linguistically from any specific God (more on that below) and means that this exercise can fit into any religious perspective. Nor is the overall phase made up by these names as blasphemous or indulgent as it may first appear; “I am, The Living God, The Infinite Potential of Actualised Enlightenment, The Almighty Loving Existence, Ruler of The Earth” can seem extremely conceited at first glance but this is not actually about claiming to be God, this about identifying with each of these principles, such as being an incarnation of the totality of existence as a whole and the empowerment that this philosophy brings (also more on this below).
Lastly, to those from a more atheistic or non-spiritual perspective, this may seem like you are being asked to accept the existence of God or at least some belief system in order to participate in this exercise, but this is not the case. Firstly, as mentioned above, the only part which refers to a religious concept of God is the Tetragrammaton, “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey” which is pronounced as the letters that compose the name, rather than the name they would spell, “Yahweh”. The reason that I mentioned above that this detaches it linguistically from any specific religious tradition is down to one of the philosophies which underpins the Hebrew language; that each letter has its own intrinsic meaning, numerical value and personality along with phonetic pronunciation and that each word should be made of letters whose meanings combine to describe the object or express the concept that the word represents. In this case “Yod” carries meanings that roughly translate to ‘original creative spark’, “Hey” can mean ‘to breathe’ or ‘to observe’ and “Vav” can mean ‘a hook’ or ‘vine’ and symbolises ‘connection’ or ‘taking root’. So “Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey” could be taken to be describing the philosophical concept of an original creative spark, breathing out or expanding, securing and establish itself and then expanding further- a pretty good description of “existence” and known reality; the word which it actually spells being derived from a verb meaning “To be” or “To Cause To Become/Pass”. This has even further layers of meaning when you factor in the implications of the “Hey” also meaning to observe, but esoteric philosophy is not the focus of this article so hopefully this explains the point adequately.
Finally, the statement made when combining the Hebrew words which roughly translates to “I am, The Living God, The Infinite Potential of Actualised Enlightenment, The Almighty Loving Existence, Ruler of The Earth” is, as mentioned above, more about embracing the philosophical principles behind these names/words and how words used in regular mundane conversation can also carry profound connotations about the very nature of being. This is about embracing the best conceived version of human potential by telling your mind repeatedly and in a dramatic way that this is what you are.
Alternative Versions
If you are still unsure about using the Hebrew names for God then many people substitute them with the Hebrew names for each of the spheres of light which are, from top to bottom, Kether, Daath, Tipareth, Yesod and Malkuth, meaning Crown, Knowledge, Beauty/Glory, Foundation and Kingdom, respectively. Again there is so much more to explain about the esoteric philosophy behind all of this but the point of this article is to introduce the exercise for its mental and physical health benefits and not as part of a mystical system.
Some occult traditions also substitute these names with other names or words, either representing their own Gods or concepts and values that they wish to embrace and embody.
I hope you have found this article helpful and feel ready to begin practising the Middle Pillar exercise. Please remember it can be difficult at first and can take time and patience to master but the benefits are definitely worth the effort.
Comments