Post by Ophiuchus on Sept 8, 2011 13:53:46 GMT -6
[glow=silver,2,300]ALCHEMY[/glow]
Alchemy is an irreducible fusion of science and art that also happens to be therapeutic or growth-promoting and hints at illumination. The process begins with doubts and lack of conviction but time spent on self-knowledge is amply rewarded. Alchemists are contemplative researchers versed in the science of personal transformation and the art of inner magic.
Spiritual alchemy is a grand experiment you perform on yourself with critical introspection and objective investigation. You can discover your deeper nature as a multidimensional synthesis of subjective/objective, qualitative/quantitative, mind/matter, wave/particle.
It is the responsibility of each individual to bring about their own transformation and be free to reincarnate now, to embody that transformation fully. The outer is the inner, and the inner is the outer. Lived reality is only experienced reality and is always transformed before it is experienced.
Alchemy increases your capacity to relate to inward-flowing content. You can regenerate yourself. You are the world and the world is you. You can deny or affirm the sacred. By changing yourself, you change everything. You can be a light unto yourself, lit by yourself. You are the cosmos and the cosmos is you.
Alchemists sought the experience of Unus Mundus, the one world united through material, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects. Science illuminates the spiritual quest, and spiritual tech illuminates the deep nature of matter and our nature. Paradoxically, when we look into the depths of matter, we look into the depths of ourselves. Scientists and mystics report similar phenomena in their models and phenomenology. Spiritual technologies, the software of sacred penetration and amplification, virtually predicted the fine nature of matter as nothing but a complex illusion - what we have come to understand as a hologram. Mystics have also always emphasized the primal nature of Light, and claimed that we are in fact made of light itself. Science has confirmed this in numerous ways.
"The secret of alchemy is this: there is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call a 'field of force.' The field acts on the observer and puts him in a priveleged position vis-a-vis the Universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work." ~ Fulcanelli, 1937
“The changing of bodies into light and light into bodies, is very comfortable to the course of nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.” ~ Opticks, Sir Isaac Newton
“Ultimately, the Stone should be considered a catalyst to instruct the body code to overcome its inherited weakness and rebuild a better, stronger vital metabolism that is not just self-repairing, but building to an optimal state of health. . .The Stone has the seed of all DNA in an archetypal form and gives the correct, original instructions to the potential new cells. This enables generations of mutation/adaptation of the organism to self-correct.” ~ Dr. Ross Mack
In the 20th Century, Carl Jung described alchemy in terms of depth psychology and shed new light on an old science. Contemporary 21st Century alchemy can be viewed as a dynamic process in terms of Chaos Theory and its related sciences. Dynamics is a revolutionary universal tool, a novel practice which helps us grasp the processes of development in ourselves, in nature, in our world and the cosmos. Dynamics is a synthesis of recent scientific advances and theories: system dynamics, living systems, general systems, chaos, edge-of-chaos, complexity, emergence, complex adaptive systems, quantum gravity, attractors, homeodynamics, and self-organization.
Alchemy is the Great Work, a process of separation, transformation and integration. This is just as true of the substances worked experimentally in the retort as it is of the personality undergoing the transformative process. The mindbody is a crucible for refining the vehicles of consciousness. By altering your own consciousness, you alter your relation to the universe, and this changes your world.
Alchemy is an accelerated pathway to self-mastery, to self-realization. It is an alternative, pre-scientific spiritual and philosophical interpretation of life, encompassing its physical, emotional and mental aspects. It is an elegant worldview still relevant in contemporary life. The alchemist is the catalytic agent of this spiritual chemistry.
There are many ways to articulate the dynamic process. Process is a way of doing, not what is being done. Alchemy is a process-oriented path, emphasizing awareness of internal experience over external striving and emphasizing a connection with the sacred. It demands self-honesty, self-responsibility and an overarching desire to live life as a spiritual path. More than simply developing self, the alchemist transforms chaos to Cosmos.
There are three primary aspects of alchemy:
1. Alchemy as theory, is a comprehensive philosophical vision of the cosmos, built on the universal correspondence system.
2. Alchemy as practice may be viewed as a creative discipline, an art-form, involving one in the imaginal realm of soul-making.
3. Alchemy, as a transcendental search or quest, has the primary goal of liberation from the world. This is the knowledge of immortality, through the union of opposites.
Paracelsus described alchemy as the voluntary action of man in harmony with the involuntary action of nature. If the center of the creative process takes place in the "heart of man," his intentions take on profound significance. They can now affect, or influence, the destinies of the cosmos. Attainment of this state is known as the production of the Philosopher's Stone or Diamond Body.
The Philosopher's Stone may be equated with the Body of Light (Photonic Body; Scalar Field Body), the Resurrection Body, or the Immortal Body. Alchemy strives for the experience of spiritual rebirth through the union of opposites, or the sacred marriage. The Philosopher's Stone is also a symbol of the embryonic Self. It is the product of the sacred marriage, which has been characterized in alchemy as the royal union of the Sun (+) and the Moon (-).
Polarized positions may be symbolized variously as positive-negative, male-female, god-devil, spirit-matter, mother-father, etc. This marriage creates a bond by which opposites are united in an image which transcends both original potentials. The whole art of alchemy is contained within the image of a magical or divine child. One of the alchemical goals is to create an eternal body for post-mortal continuation of the spirit and the soul, a radiant body of coherent photonic Zero-Point energy, a Rainbow Body.
The process of making the Philosopher's Stone is a repitition of the creation myth via imagery. The imagery reverses the evolutional direction. It begins with animal images, then proceeds through images of plant life to more fundamental forms. The final goal is symbolized by metal, stone, or crystal.
The deep nature of the Photonic Body, the energy body, is this same Light. We all have a light-filled body, but more are real-I-zing that Light is our truly fundamental nature. We can embody the evidence of that Brilliance. We are nothing but Brilliance; "Nothing", but Brilliance. Transformation is real-I-zation at ever-deeper levels of existence. Yet psychological resistance is as real as electrical resistance.
Absolute space is the womb of creation and the physics of virtual photon fluctuation reflects not only Nature, but our nature. Spiritual traditions have spoken about emanation within the Divine and Illumination since the dawn of human history. But only now are we learning just how literal that experience of Light is, and the interactive mechanisms it engages in our holistic psychophysical Being.
Post-Postmodern Alchemy
The topic of ancient and medieval alchemy was rescued from obscurity largely through the efforts of C. G. Jung. Jung gleaned psychological illumination from alchemy and other spiritual technologies. As modern alchemists we can build our lived understanding of alchemy with psychological insights as well as experimental work. As exemplified in the prime directive, "Solve et Coagula," the raw material of self and world is deconstructed to facilitate emergent self-organization at a higher level. This is nature's way, as chaos theory has shown us.
Alchemy is a poetic process in which we can act and suffer in a creative way. Discovery excites us. Aesthetic response is an awakening that drives us. To pursue alchemy, we must love it, utterly. Vulnerability opens us to breakthrough that fosters commitment. We surrender our hearts to the creative process that moves us into liberation. We respond to the impetus to realize our full potential. Thus, alchemy is an aesthetic education that leads us beyond normalcy into our gifts and talents. As such, it is a compassionate act of self-care.
Soul (anima) is an active intelligence that forms or plots our fates. Being-in-Anima (esse in anima) is to be ensouled. Soma Sophia, the Body of Wisdom is inherent dwelling within the body of Anima Mundi. Psyche is immersed in imagination, metaphor, poetry and myth, including scientific and spiritual technologies. Fantasy deliteralizes the illusory concreteness of matter. Images and fantasy are the carriers of meaning. The language of alchemy provides archetypes for the world as it is phenomenologically constructed. Inspiration replenishes the world, the wasteland of the nigredo.
Alchemy is a Way of being in soul with its own common language that anchors the narrative of each alchemist's life. We are deepened through the instruction of these inherited cultural symbols. Alchemy is a language of the soul, a matrix of transformation. It allows us to play with ideas about the nature of reality and our own spiritual and practical nature. Alchemy configures our soul, aligning us with a deeper life. The identity of our story is welded to the identity of our character.
Arcane Meaning
There is a unity of existence underlying psyche and matter, mind and body. We live life in terms of our story. We construct a reality accessible only through that alchemical language of earthiness and the transcendental, the mundane and the intangible. Alchemical metaphors appear spontaneously in the psyches of all individuals, largely unnoticed.
However, we can choose to notice them. Do we choose alchemy or does it somehow choose us? Some are moved toward alchemy as something to live in and through, a way for soul to find itself in life, to find the multidimensionality of the "one that is many." Pondering the burning questions of life leads to self expression that functions as a reciprocal feedback loop between the sacred and profane. We penetrate the Mystery even as the dynamic impulse penetrates us. This inspiration is why we make art and explore our spirituality. Our works lead toward bliss because they are life-changing.
Choosing alchemy as an artful lifestyle transmutes chance into fate. We live life in terms of our alchemical story which makes meaning possible. Literal events become metaphorical enactments, deepening events into meaningful experiences. Alchemy is a cosmological myth ("As Above, So Below") that reunites us with the sacred, with the divine. We are involved with the world in a new way, no longer inhibited by reductionistic culture. The Philosopher's Stone is a state of consciousness.
Jung felt that art is a healing response to collective cultural norms. The alchemical art connects the individual psyche to esoteric history and underground currents of occulture. Alchemy's ideas are tools that help us animate the literal and superficial by moving us immediately beyond literal objectivities into the mythic perspective of ambiguity, multiplicity and inherent meaning. The alchemical art lies in inducing the synchronistic unification of psyche and matter as a numinous reality. It is a resurrection of spirit in the realm of matter that raises consciousness by reframing our personal history.
Aesthetic Arrest
Clarity is artistic discovery of the universal. There is enchantment in the quality of wholeness. There is beauty in the rhythms of nature and our nature. Aesthetic response is an essential emotional aspect of alchemy that lends flow and harmony to the process of balance, rhythm and synthesis of immediate perception. That flow is lyrical, epic and dramatic. Aesthetic signification is one thing, but the deep emotional impact of aesthetic arrest -- being suspended for a thrilling radiant moment in the eternal -- stops us in our tracks in a moment of realization.
We dissolve in the mysterious ground of being, the sublime wellspring of creativity. The mind goes still as primal awareness expands into wholeness. Something without physical form shines forth from the hidden world in that very moment. These luminous experiences, true works of art, drive us onward in the Quest. We are struck with divine inspiration and the passion to see it through to completion. Sensuous cogniton of beauty is a revelation, an astonishment.
Aesthetic arrest blows apart the illusory differences between the sacred and the profane. We are inspired in the A-ha moment, utterly dissolved in the momentary ego-death of its solutio that blows apart illusory nature. This aesthetic experience is an act of surrender that is an epiphany. It makes us gasp for air and sparks a cascade of pleasure. We are connected to beauty and wholeness. We know what it means to exist rooted in the mysterious creative ground of being.
Soul is made by narrating events in terms of myth, the metaphoric and symbolic dimensions of our experience. Poetics brings the archetypal into participation with the mundane by tending the currents of life. The alchemist in us is an imaginative variation of our mundane character through which some of us come to recognize our life story. Our enlivened art speaks to our depths. Alchemy is a direct way of knowing -- experience-based knowledge.
THE MODERN ALCHEMIST
The elements of alchemy still power the world with fire (solar), earth (geothermal), air (windpower) and water (hydro). They likewise power us internally, including the fifth element quintessence -- our bioplasmic life energy. All are rooted in the negentropic zero point potential.
STATE OF THE ART - The ancient art of alchemy was the search for spirit in matter. In modern life, it is a way of contacting and deepening your own relationship with the sacred dimension of life. We "die to live" in meditation daily. The undying state does not mean living in the physical body forever, but living the Eternal in each and every moment fully aware of our multidimensional existence. We can touch the timeless realm in any instant by moving from mind to awareness. Enlightenment can come at anytime from NowHere. We can draw from the nourishing essence of our negentropic Source. We can feed the energy body with living light, and practice identifying with that finer body as the vehicle of our consciousness. Meditation is preparation for merging with the eternal, consciously and purposefully.
STATE OF THE HEART - Alchemy is a heartful path of living dedication, symbolized by the relationship of mystical brothers and sisters. You are the alchemical vessel and the contents of your psyche is the means and object of transformation so you can realize your potential. There are deeper dimensions of soul and spirit beyond ego gratification. Active evocation of the imagination reveals your invisible depths. Practice and service ground these in life. You embody the principles. Understanding of your own essence is like a beacon that draws you into an even deeper connection with the sacred.
SPIRITUAL & PRACTICAL ALCHEMY
There is theory and practice in science, and two applications in alchemy -- spiritual alchemy and experimental alchemy involving literal lab work. You can work either method separately or both in concert. Like mystics of all paths who have gone before, we make the experiment on ourselves. Our true selves are beyond what our conscious awareness alone could ever make of us.
Both Jungian and Transpersonal psychology deal far more clearly with the same process we find in alchemy. Here the nonlinear process is described. Astrology, kabbalistic and even chemical elements are seen as archetypal, symbolic forces operating in a holistic system.
The Magnum Opus and the Philosopher' s Stone
Some of the most beautiful, mystical and philosophical writings, are found in the ancient works and literatures of the Hermetic masters, and philosophers.
These beautiful works are true works of art, and as one begins to penetrate their most wonderful allegories and metaphors, one realizes a depth and a profundity of a symbolic language that is inspiring and elevating in a very mystical and magical way as they possess and captivate one.
They speak in archetypal manners to the very soul of the adept who dares to embark on that noble work, which leads him to the great quests of the mythological heroes, the noble knights in search of the holy grail, the alchemists in search of the elixir of life, and to us as Rosicrucians who seek that which is the highest goal of all human life, cosmic consciousness.
In his 'De signatura rerum', Jacob Boehm reveals to us an axiom upon which this unique knowledge rests, this tradition that claims for itself universality and primordiality: he says, "Between Eternal Birth, Resurrection from the Fall and the discovery of the Philosopher' s Stone, there is no difference." In a work entitled," The Golden Tractate of Hermes" we read the following declaration by the philosopher' s stone itself.
" Understand then, O Son of Wisdom, what the Stone declares; protect me, and I will protect thee, increase my strength that I may help thee! My sol and my beams are most inward and secretly in my own Luna, my light, exceeding every light, and my good things are better than all other good things. I give freely, and I reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory, riches, delights; and them that seek after me I make to know and understand, and posses divine things."
So where would we seek this blessed thing? Where would we start looking for this most marvelous thing, this ultimate reality that all men and women truly seek, whether consciously or unconsciously without which man could never truly be happy ?
On the portals of the Temple of Delphi it is written,
"My advice to you, whoever you may be, Oh you who desire to explore the Mysteries of Nature; if you do not discover within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it without. If you ignore the excellence of your own house, how can you aspire to find excellence elsewhere? Within you is hidden the treasure of treasures. Oh Man! Know thyself, and you will know the universe and the Gods.
Within us lies an excellence, a most wonderful presence, and it is this inner essence as the "Beloved Master Within" that we all truly yearn for and seek union with. This union of entity with the universal is the true magnificent formation of the Philosopher' s Stone.
Steve Kalec
Alchemy is an irreducible fusion of science and art that also happens to be therapeutic or growth-promoting and hints at illumination. The process begins with doubts and lack of conviction but time spent on self-knowledge is amply rewarded. Alchemists are contemplative researchers versed in the science of personal transformation and the art of inner magic.
Spiritual alchemy is a grand experiment you perform on yourself with critical introspection and objective investigation. You can discover your deeper nature as a multidimensional synthesis of subjective/objective, qualitative/quantitative, mind/matter, wave/particle.
It is the responsibility of each individual to bring about their own transformation and be free to reincarnate now, to embody that transformation fully. The outer is the inner, and the inner is the outer. Lived reality is only experienced reality and is always transformed before it is experienced.
Alchemy increases your capacity to relate to inward-flowing content. You can regenerate yourself. You are the world and the world is you. You can deny or affirm the sacred. By changing yourself, you change everything. You can be a light unto yourself, lit by yourself. You are the cosmos and the cosmos is you.
Alchemists sought the experience of Unus Mundus, the one world united through material, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects. Science illuminates the spiritual quest, and spiritual tech illuminates the deep nature of matter and our nature. Paradoxically, when we look into the depths of matter, we look into the depths of ourselves. Scientists and mystics report similar phenomena in their models and phenomenology. Spiritual technologies, the software of sacred penetration and amplification, virtually predicted the fine nature of matter as nothing but a complex illusion - what we have come to understand as a hologram. Mystics have also always emphasized the primal nature of Light, and claimed that we are in fact made of light itself. Science has confirmed this in numerous ways.
"The secret of alchemy is this: there is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call a 'field of force.' The field acts on the observer and puts him in a priveleged position vis-a-vis the Universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work." ~ Fulcanelli, 1937
“The changing of bodies into light and light into bodies, is very comfortable to the course of nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.” ~ Opticks, Sir Isaac Newton
“Ultimately, the Stone should be considered a catalyst to instruct the body code to overcome its inherited weakness and rebuild a better, stronger vital metabolism that is not just self-repairing, but building to an optimal state of health. . .The Stone has the seed of all DNA in an archetypal form and gives the correct, original instructions to the potential new cells. This enables generations of mutation/adaptation of the organism to self-correct.” ~ Dr. Ross Mack
In the 20th Century, Carl Jung described alchemy in terms of depth psychology and shed new light on an old science. Contemporary 21st Century alchemy can be viewed as a dynamic process in terms of Chaos Theory and its related sciences. Dynamics is a revolutionary universal tool, a novel practice which helps us grasp the processes of development in ourselves, in nature, in our world and the cosmos. Dynamics is a synthesis of recent scientific advances and theories: system dynamics, living systems, general systems, chaos, edge-of-chaos, complexity, emergence, complex adaptive systems, quantum gravity, attractors, homeodynamics, and self-organization.
Alchemy is the Great Work, a process of separation, transformation and integration. This is just as true of the substances worked experimentally in the retort as it is of the personality undergoing the transformative process. The mindbody is a crucible for refining the vehicles of consciousness. By altering your own consciousness, you alter your relation to the universe, and this changes your world.
Alchemy is an accelerated pathway to self-mastery, to self-realization. It is an alternative, pre-scientific spiritual and philosophical interpretation of life, encompassing its physical, emotional and mental aspects. It is an elegant worldview still relevant in contemporary life. The alchemist is the catalytic agent of this spiritual chemistry.
There are many ways to articulate the dynamic process. Process is a way of doing, not what is being done. Alchemy is a process-oriented path, emphasizing awareness of internal experience over external striving and emphasizing a connection with the sacred. It demands self-honesty, self-responsibility and an overarching desire to live life as a spiritual path. More than simply developing self, the alchemist transforms chaos to Cosmos.
There are three primary aspects of alchemy:
1. Alchemy as theory, is a comprehensive philosophical vision of the cosmos, built on the universal correspondence system.
2. Alchemy as practice may be viewed as a creative discipline, an art-form, involving one in the imaginal realm of soul-making.
3. Alchemy, as a transcendental search or quest, has the primary goal of liberation from the world. This is the knowledge of immortality, through the union of opposites.
Paracelsus described alchemy as the voluntary action of man in harmony with the involuntary action of nature. If the center of the creative process takes place in the "heart of man," his intentions take on profound significance. They can now affect, or influence, the destinies of the cosmos. Attainment of this state is known as the production of the Philosopher's Stone or Diamond Body.
The Philosopher's Stone may be equated with the Body of Light (Photonic Body; Scalar Field Body), the Resurrection Body, or the Immortal Body. Alchemy strives for the experience of spiritual rebirth through the union of opposites, or the sacred marriage. The Philosopher's Stone is also a symbol of the embryonic Self. It is the product of the sacred marriage, which has been characterized in alchemy as the royal union of the Sun (+) and the Moon (-).
Polarized positions may be symbolized variously as positive-negative, male-female, god-devil, spirit-matter, mother-father, etc. This marriage creates a bond by which opposites are united in an image which transcends both original potentials. The whole art of alchemy is contained within the image of a magical or divine child. One of the alchemical goals is to create an eternal body for post-mortal continuation of the spirit and the soul, a radiant body of coherent photonic Zero-Point energy, a Rainbow Body.
The process of making the Philosopher's Stone is a repitition of the creation myth via imagery. The imagery reverses the evolutional direction. It begins with animal images, then proceeds through images of plant life to more fundamental forms. The final goal is symbolized by metal, stone, or crystal.
The deep nature of the Photonic Body, the energy body, is this same Light. We all have a light-filled body, but more are real-I-zing that Light is our truly fundamental nature. We can embody the evidence of that Brilliance. We are nothing but Brilliance; "Nothing", but Brilliance. Transformation is real-I-zation at ever-deeper levels of existence. Yet psychological resistance is as real as electrical resistance.
Absolute space is the womb of creation and the physics of virtual photon fluctuation reflects not only Nature, but our nature. Spiritual traditions have spoken about emanation within the Divine and Illumination since the dawn of human history. But only now are we learning just how literal that experience of Light is, and the interactive mechanisms it engages in our holistic psychophysical Being.
Post-Postmodern Alchemy
The topic of ancient and medieval alchemy was rescued from obscurity largely through the efforts of C. G. Jung. Jung gleaned psychological illumination from alchemy and other spiritual technologies. As modern alchemists we can build our lived understanding of alchemy with psychological insights as well as experimental work. As exemplified in the prime directive, "Solve et Coagula," the raw material of self and world is deconstructed to facilitate emergent self-organization at a higher level. This is nature's way, as chaos theory has shown us.
Alchemy is a poetic process in which we can act and suffer in a creative way. Discovery excites us. Aesthetic response is an awakening that drives us. To pursue alchemy, we must love it, utterly. Vulnerability opens us to breakthrough that fosters commitment. We surrender our hearts to the creative process that moves us into liberation. We respond to the impetus to realize our full potential. Thus, alchemy is an aesthetic education that leads us beyond normalcy into our gifts and talents. As such, it is a compassionate act of self-care.
Soul (anima) is an active intelligence that forms or plots our fates. Being-in-Anima (esse in anima) is to be ensouled. Soma Sophia, the Body of Wisdom is inherent dwelling within the body of Anima Mundi. Psyche is immersed in imagination, metaphor, poetry and myth, including scientific and spiritual technologies. Fantasy deliteralizes the illusory concreteness of matter. Images and fantasy are the carriers of meaning. The language of alchemy provides archetypes for the world as it is phenomenologically constructed. Inspiration replenishes the world, the wasteland of the nigredo.
Alchemy is a Way of being in soul with its own common language that anchors the narrative of each alchemist's life. We are deepened through the instruction of these inherited cultural symbols. Alchemy is a language of the soul, a matrix of transformation. It allows us to play with ideas about the nature of reality and our own spiritual and practical nature. Alchemy configures our soul, aligning us with a deeper life. The identity of our story is welded to the identity of our character.
Arcane Meaning
There is a unity of existence underlying psyche and matter, mind and body. We live life in terms of our story. We construct a reality accessible only through that alchemical language of earthiness and the transcendental, the mundane and the intangible. Alchemical metaphors appear spontaneously in the psyches of all individuals, largely unnoticed.
However, we can choose to notice them. Do we choose alchemy or does it somehow choose us? Some are moved toward alchemy as something to live in and through, a way for soul to find itself in life, to find the multidimensionality of the "one that is many." Pondering the burning questions of life leads to self expression that functions as a reciprocal feedback loop between the sacred and profane. We penetrate the Mystery even as the dynamic impulse penetrates us. This inspiration is why we make art and explore our spirituality. Our works lead toward bliss because they are life-changing.
Choosing alchemy as an artful lifestyle transmutes chance into fate. We live life in terms of our alchemical story which makes meaning possible. Literal events become metaphorical enactments, deepening events into meaningful experiences. Alchemy is a cosmological myth ("As Above, So Below") that reunites us with the sacred, with the divine. We are involved with the world in a new way, no longer inhibited by reductionistic culture. The Philosopher's Stone is a state of consciousness.
Jung felt that art is a healing response to collective cultural norms. The alchemical art connects the individual psyche to esoteric history and underground currents of occulture. Alchemy's ideas are tools that help us animate the literal and superficial by moving us immediately beyond literal objectivities into the mythic perspective of ambiguity, multiplicity and inherent meaning. The alchemical art lies in inducing the synchronistic unification of psyche and matter as a numinous reality. It is a resurrection of spirit in the realm of matter that raises consciousness by reframing our personal history.
Aesthetic Arrest
Clarity is artistic discovery of the universal. There is enchantment in the quality of wholeness. There is beauty in the rhythms of nature and our nature. Aesthetic response is an essential emotional aspect of alchemy that lends flow and harmony to the process of balance, rhythm and synthesis of immediate perception. That flow is lyrical, epic and dramatic. Aesthetic signification is one thing, but the deep emotional impact of aesthetic arrest -- being suspended for a thrilling radiant moment in the eternal -- stops us in our tracks in a moment of realization.
We dissolve in the mysterious ground of being, the sublime wellspring of creativity. The mind goes still as primal awareness expands into wholeness. Something without physical form shines forth from the hidden world in that very moment. These luminous experiences, true works of art, drive us onward in the Quest. We are struck with divine inspiration and the passion to see it through to completion. Sensuous cogniton of beauty is a revelation, an astonishment.
Aesthetic arrest blows apart the illusory differences between the sacred and the profane. We are inspired in the A-ha moment, utterly dissolved in the momentary ego-death of its solutio that blows apart illusory nature. This aesthetic experience is an act of surrender that is an epiphany. It makes us gasp for air and sparks a cascade of pleasure. We are connected to beauty and wholeness. We know what it means to exist rooted in the mysterious creative ground of being.
Soul is made by narrating events in terms of myth, the metaphoric and symbolic dimensions of our experience. Poetics brings the archetypal into participation with the mundane by tending the currents of life. The alchemist in us is an imaginative variation of our mundane character through which some of us come to recognize our life story. Our enlivened art speaks to our depths. Alchemy is a direct way of knowing -- experience-based knowledge.
THE MODERN ALCHEMIST
The elements of alchemy still power the world with fire (solar), earth (geothermal), air (windpower) and water (hydro). They likewise power us internally, including the fifth element quintessence -- our bioplasmic life energy. All are rooted in the negentropic zero point potential.
STATE OF THE ART - The ancient art of alchemy was the search for spirit in matter. In modern life, it is a way of contacting and deepening your own relationship with the sacred dimension of life. We "die to live" in meditation daily. The undying state does not mean living in the physical body forever, but living the Eternal in each and every moment fully aware of our multidimensional existence. We can touch the timeless realm in any instant by moving from mind to awareness. Enlightenment can come at anytime from NowHere. We can draw from the nourishing essence of our negentropic Source. We can feed the energy body with living light, and practice identifying with that finer body as the vehicle of our consciousness. Meditation is preparation for merging with the eternal, consciously and purposefully.
STATE OF THE HEART - Alchemy is a heartful path of living dedication, symbolized by the relationship of mystical brothers and sisters. You are the alchemical vessel and the contents of your psyche is the means and object of transformation so you can realize your potential. There are deeper dimensions of soul and spirit beyond ego gratification. Active evocation of the imagination reveals your invisible depths. Practice and service ground these in life. You embody the principles. Understanding of your own essence is like a beacon that draws you into an even deeper connection with the sacred.
SPIRITUAL & PRACTICAL ALCHEMY
There is theory and practice in science, and two applications in alchemy -- spiritual alchemy and experimental alchemy involving literal lab work. You can work either method separately or both in concert. Like mystics of all paths who have gone before, we make the experiment on ourselves. Our true selves are beyond what our conscious awareness alone could ever make of us.
Both Jungian and Transpersonal psychology deal far more clearly with the same process we find in alchemy. Here the nonlinear process is described. Astrology, kabbalistic and even chemical elements are seen as archetypal, symbolic forces operating in a holistic system.
The Magnum Opus and the Philosopher' s Stone
Some of the most beautiful, mystical and philosophical writings, are found in the ancient works and literatures of the Hermetic masters, and philosophers.
These beautiful works are true works of art, and as one begins to penetrate their most wonderful allegories and metaphors, one realizes a depth and a profundity of a symbolic language that is inspiring and elevating in a very mystical and magical way as they possess and captivate one.
They speak in archetypal manners to the very soul of the adept who dares to embark on that noble work, which leads him to the great quests of the mythological heroes, the noble knights in search of the holy grail, the alchemists in search of the elixir of life, and to us as Rosicrucians who seek that which is the highest goal of all human life, cosmic consciousness.
In his 'De signatura rerum', Jacob Boehm reveals to us an axiom upon which this unique knowledge rests, this tradition that claims for itself universality and primordiality: he says, "Between Eternal Birth, Resurrection from the Fall and the discovery of the Philosopher' s Stone, there is no difference." In a work entitled," The Golden Tractate of Hermes" we read the following declaration by the philosopher' s stone itself.
" Understand then, O Son of Wisdom, what the Stone declares; protect me, and I will protect thee, increase my strength that I may help thee! My sol and my beams are most inward and secretly in my own Luna, my light, exceeding every light, and my good things are better than all other good things. I give freely, and I reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory, riches, delights; and them that seek after me I make to know and understand, and posses divine things."
So where would we seek this blessed thing? Where would we start looking for this most marvelous thing, this ultimate reality that all men and women truly seek, whether consciously or unconsciously without which man could never truly be happy ?
On the portals of the Temple of Delphi it is written,
"My advice to you, whoever you may be, Oh you who desire to explore the Mysteries of Nature; if you do not discover within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it without. If you ignore the excellence of your own house, how can you aspire to find excellence elsewhere? Within you is hidden the treasure of treasures. Oh Man! Know thyself, and you will know the universe and the Gods.
Within us lies an excellence, a most wonderful presence, and it is this inner essence as the "Beloved Master Within" that we all truly yearn for and seek union with. This union of entity with the universal is the true magnificent formation of the Philosopher' s Stone.
Steve Kalec
