Book Review: The One Year Manual by Israel Regardie

In The One Year Manual, Israel Regardie crystallizes his immense knowledge and experience of contemplative practices into a concise, step-by-step guide to practical mysticism.

In my latest blog post, I wrote about “reverse engineering enlightenment” based on the work of cognitive science professor John Vervaeke and his 2019 lecture series “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”. He describes the process of reverse engineering enlightenment as one of creating an ecology of practices which can help us avoid self-deception and cultivate wisdom and meaning. But long before then Israel Regardie came to the same conclusions about enlightenment.

He too saw enlightenment not as some permanent state only attained in the distant past by the rarest of men but as an ongoing process supported by an ecology of practices which anyone can cultivate. And in his book The One Year Manual, formerly titled “Twelve Steps to Spiritual Enlightenment”, he provides instructions for just such an ecology of practices and guidance on implementing them into your life over the course of a year, or possibly longer. In his preface he states:

“…it must be self-evident that though designed for a twelve month period, it is more likely that the student may need to spend a good five years working with these simple methods. Some exercises may be completed and mastered in the month prescribed. Other procedures may require anywhere from three months to a year before any real mastery or noticeable result is achieved. It is important therefore to stress patience as a supreme necessity where this course of study is concerned. Some exercises have as a secondary gain the acquisition of a higher degree of patience.”

It’s a phenomenal book, one I refer to more often than possibly any other, and to give you an idea of how ahead of its time it was, it was first published in 1969!  He also anticipated another one of John’s insights, propositional tyranny. There are many kinds of knowledge but we’ve forgotten and devalued every kind except propositional knowledge. Unfortunately, propositional knowledge utter fails to provide meaning and produce wisdom. Israel understood this and chose to write this book very differently than most, even his own. It consists of almost entirely procedural instructions on the different practices covered and is incredibly succinct.

“The occult student, at the outset of his studies, is besieged by hundreds of books describing dozens of practices of every kind. They promise, directly or otherwise, to bring him to the very heights of spiritual attainment, no matter how that attainment is defined. But by the very wealth of material is he overwhelmed. And the result is that, generally speaking, he does nothing except read. Reading does very little to bring one to any kind of realization of one’s divine nature.

In this manual, it is proposed to burden the student with very little theory, but to outline a course of procedure which, persisted in for at least twelve months, will bring him a good way along the Path. This course of procedure will describe a certain number of classical practices which are calculated to produce certain types of results. There will be no attempt to dazzle him with startling but vague promises, with fantasies of great achievements, with misleading claims leading nowhere.”

You can see from that quote alone how very different Israel was, and is, from other authors and teachers in this field. I consider him one of the true sages of the 20th century. Today if you attend nearly any conference or gathering on magick, mysticism, mindfulness, or the occult you will find almost nothing but attempts to dazzle people “with startling but vague promises, with fantasies of great achievements, with misleading claims leading nowhere”. All of which, I admittedly have little patience for. And Israel certainly could have gone that route. Writing this book at the end of the 1960s he could have appealed to the masses with shallow New Age rhetoric and his book probably would have sold a lot of copies before quickly fading away into meaninglessness. Thankfully, he chose a different route.

The One Year Manual presents a linear course of study which includes thirteen practices. Each chapter gives instructions for a specific practice which is meant to be performed daily for at least one month until mastered before moving on to the next. These are:

1. Solar Adorations
2. Body Awareness
3. Relaxation Techniques
4. Rhythmic Breathing
5. Mind Awareness (Mindfulness)
6. Concentration and Mantra
7. Developing the Will
8. The Rose Cross Ritual
9. The Middle Pillar Ritual
10. Symbol of Devotion
11. Practicing Sensing the Presence of God
12. Unity–All is God
13. Prayer

You may be wondering, isn’t it supposed to be twelve practices not thirteen? And that is a good question. The first practice he covers, the Solar Adorations, is not included within the twelve steps. It is meant to be a daily practice which is performed everyday during the course of study and thereafter, whereas each other practice is sequential. One being practiced until mastery before moving on to the next.

This course of study has the potential for radical personal transformation by developing intuition, mental and body awareness, developing skills such as visualization, concentration, and directing energy, and techniques for altering consciousness and calming the mind and body. It then moves into more elaborate and complex rituals and unitive practices once the required skills have been developed. Rituals which have the capability of producing gnosis and powerful spiritual awakenings. I adapted his version of The Rose Cross Ritual for my own system of mysticism.

If you’re interested in magick, mysticism, spiritual practices, or personal development and are looking to start with something short (Only 70 pages!) but somehow also comprehensive, it doesn’t get any better than this. Seriously, it’s really remarkable. It’s almost unbelievable that a book which is only 70 pages long can provide a comprehensive path to enlightenment, but it does.

(Link to purchase: The One Year Manual)