GUEST: I have two manuscripts of my uncle Francis Israel Regardie, plus one of his books that is annotated with a message on it. I have had these about 20 years, the manuscripts. I got them from my father, and he had them. But they're from the 1930s.
APPRAISER: Israel Regardie was your uncle?
GUEST: Yes, that is correct.
APPRAISER: Well, as you already well know, Israel Regardie, along with Aleister Crowley, were the two men of the modern occult movement of the early 20th century.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Mr. Regardie was originally Aleister Crowley's secretary in the Golden Dawn, or the more fuller name, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn was a secret society of alchemists and mystical people and occultists that came out of the 19th century and really coalesced under Aleister Crowley in the early 20th century. It was an extremely secretive order, and their rites and rituals were only allowed to initiates. Israel Regardie respected Aleister Crowley a lot, and he created a great stir in the modern occult movement when he published their secret rites and rituals in this very book before us, The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie. This is a family copy, I believe.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: It has the bookplate here of your father.
GUEST: It's my father, right.
APPRAISER: And then this inscription reads, "For Mom and Dad, with love, Izzy."
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: The Golden Dawn is really regarded as the book that started the modern occult movement. With it today, you've brought two important original manuscripts by your very famous uncle, including a partial manuscript here of The Golden Dawn itself.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: It's not the complete book, but just the introductory pages.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And we have a second manuscript over here that had an interesting story in that the title got changed. Can you tell me about that?
GUEST: Well, you can see on the title here, it says, "Light in Extension." And he crosses out "Light in Extension" in the book and puts in "My Rosicrucian Adventure."
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: And that's the name the book got published under.
APPRAISER: These two Israel Regardie manuscripts were written throughout the 1920s, but The Golden Dawn wasn't actually published until 1938. Do you have any idea of the value of the material?
GUEST: None whatsoever. In fact, I've had them for about 20 years now, and I was thinking, are they worth keeping or not?
APPRAISER: I would value the two manuscripts and the family signed book at retail between $20,000 to $25,000.
GUEST: My goodness, very nice.
APPRAISER: Incredibly unusual to find Regardie manuscript material.
GUEST: I wish I had more of it.
