Israel Regardie his favorit student remembers by Frater Stonehenge Equinox

ISRAEL REGARDIE
HIS FAVORITE STUDENT REMEMBERS

By Frater Stonehenge Equinox
(As told to Lon Milo DuQuette)

It wasn’t long after Israel Regardie met me that his health began to fail. Even though we met in person only twice I still managed to have a profound effect upon his life. They say you never have a second chance to make a good first impression, and, if I say so myself, Regardie’s first impression of me was a lasting one.

At the time I did not know his address, so I staked out his Post Office box in Studio City. After three days he finally appeared to pick up his mail. He almost missed his chance to meet me for, alas, I had fallen asleep on the sidewalk near the newspaper racks in front of the building. Destiny, however, could not be thwarted and the gods guided his tiny footsteps to tread upon my left hand and forearm. Luckily he was not hurt badly in the fall, and as I helped him gather his mail from the gutter I seized the opportunity to introduce myself.
"Equinox is my name, Stonehenge Equinox. You’re the reason I’m into magick."

He responded with an astounding display of mental telepathy.
"I don’t suppose you’re insured?" he asked (not concealing the fact that he already knew the answer).

I followed him to his car where I displayed my tattoos and treated him to an impromptu performance of my original Diagonal Pillar Ritual. He feigned disinterest, but I could tell he was favorably impressed. Great magicians don’t need words to communicate with each other, and so I was not surprised to see him speed off in his car without uttering a sound (although he did gesture).

Our next meeting was more intimate. As providence ordained, I found his phone number on the restroom wall at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore and immediately gave him a call. Playfully disguising my voice I told him I had thrown my back out and made an appointment for a chiropractic adjustment. There’s no question that the man was omniscient but he seemed genuinely surprised to see me when I and my (then) girlfriend, Diana Ishtar Sophia Morgana, appeared at his door.

The dear man asked if I had come for the spinal adjustment, and voiced his delight that I had brought someone to help me home. What a saint! And you know, he was right. After his treatment I was unable to walk for three weeks!

Thus began a five-year odyssey of intense spiritual correspondence. Every Friday I mailed him my magical record, dream diary, and excerpts from my (still) unfinished novel, Sex Wizards of Phlegm. Each week, like clockwork, my letters and packages were returned to me seemingly unopened and unedited. However, to a trained clairvoyant like myself, adept in traveling in the spirit vision, they were a treasure-chest of deeply personal magical instruction and encouragement. Each page dripped with his energy and all were alive with psychically transmitted practical advice, initiatory ordeals, and occult secrets. I was in this manner that he consecrated me "Psychopomp of North Hollywood."

Then, shortly before his death, he chose to abandon our astral correspondence and communicate to me on the material plane by actually writing me a letter. It was in this last letter that he poignantly revealed his deep personal affection for me by beginning his message by addressing me as "Dear." It was also in this letter that he revealed a precognition of his own death. After advising me on matters of metal health, personal hygiene and proper use of the English language, he closed with these chillingly prophetic words…
"It will not be necessary for you to ever contact me again!"