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Inner alchemy archives - Alchemy and its effectsBack to alchemy forum page . Back to Inner alchemy archive.Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 03:41:16 -0800 From: Victoria GaVoian A.M.W.House, Thank you for answering my questions as to alchemy and its effects. I have questions in regards to your answer in regard to what to expect to acheve in relationship to alchemy: You had said: >An old adage in alchemy is about evolution:"Nature unaided fails" Is not life motivated to descend into form to partake in life's labors, to somehow compensate life, the creator of life? How does nature fail? Perhaps being so new, I have completely misunderstood, can you please elaborate. >"All things are in a state of ever becoming", these axioms are telling >us about a perception of growth. The power to accelerate nature >beyond where we found her. What if we accelerated nature only to find ourselves in that great beyond? And why accelerate nature? Isn't there a natural life- unfoldment? Could it be that the laws of nature, subject to the slow rythm of time, may be germinating on collective scale, completing its process. Just as we? When you speak of nature, are you refering to the nature of man or nature as in the world? world) is the ne plus ultra for an alchemist. This control over the astral world, what would you do, if you could? Does Alchemy have its own set of initiatory obligations or practices that one must achieve? Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 21:47:57 -0800 From: Anthony M. House Hello Victoria, Motivation may not be the term to use for descending to three dimentional space/time. Evolution is movement, growth, both of which occur without motivation. Involution, which is the separation from the NO-thing occurs by necessity. Qabalists insist that where there is no time/space there is no evolution. Nothing can be done there as there is no 'there' in which to do anything...To understand this it's necessary to involute to a dimentional space/time where action and reaction can take place. Here, now, something can be done. > How does nature fail? Nature is the natural world of physical space/time. The elements of nature are guided and formulated from invisible layers of inner non-space. Time does exist there, in the sense we know here, yet time can pass there as seconds equalling hours, minutes equalling days, and so on..Nature fails to produce perfection such as gold, or the philosophers stone. Unaided, nature as consciousness desires the help of man to bring her progeny to the ultimate in this space/time. > Perhaps being so new, I have completely misunderstood, can you please > elaborate. Elaboration is the goal of alchemists.... > >"All things are in a state of ever becoming", these axioms are telling > >us about a perception of growth. The power to accelerate nature > >beyond where we found her. > What if we accelerated nature only to find ourselves in that great > beyond? And why accelerate nature? Isn't there a natural life- > unfoldment? Could it be that the laws of nature, subject > to the slow rythm of time, may be germinating on collective scale, > completing its process. Just as we? In order to accelerate natures progeny we must know what her intention is for whatsoever thing she has produced. Taking up where she has left her offspring. If we understand her purpose, which she cannot complete by herself, we will achieve the perfection of the world and of nature, discovering the great inner beyond of the NO-thing. Unfoldment of natural things is a slow process which alchemists have seen as requiring an acceleration to go faster toward unity or oneness. > When you speak of nature, are you refering to the nature of man or > nature as in the world? The power of reproduction and growth in this space/time, equal to lifeforce in this world = nature. > > world) is the ne plus ultra for an alchemist. This control over the astral world, what would you do, if you could? I would perfect all that is below the perfection of gold and that which the philosophers stone can reorganize. Ultimately, the powers of inner worlds before atoms would be at my evocation. They would be the engine of my vehicle/soul/body ready to my command and capable of productions at my will... > Does Alchemy have its own set of initiatory obligations or practices > that one must achieve? Each develops to each ones own capability. There are no obligations or practices that anyone MUST do. However, to achieve the high goal of making the P. Stone does require the discipline to initiate and sustain the effort to obtain the wisdom. There are five steps to wisdom: 1.superstition. 2.belief. 3.knowledge. 4.understanding. 5.wisdom.. Through knowledge, comes understanding, understanding properly applied leads to wisdom...I hope these words help you to understand...;-) House. Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 01:48:00 -0500 (EST) From: Edward DeVito Dear Mike (Pleased you like the name) I've found an interesting side effect of this name is that it helps me to mind my head. (Chuckles). Your approach was not aggressive, at all, but rather, stimulating, good sir (Ardent = Andrew, is my given, middle name). You opened a door into a great hall, where the royal banners are white, for the pure hearts who bore them there. Your approach was not aggressive, at all, but rather, stimulating, good sir (Ardent = Andrew, is my given, middle name). A door is opened into a great hall, where the royal banners are white, for the pure hearts who bore them there. I struggled with words to validate what is beautifully sustained in the illustration of the lamas, tsawa'i, or 'root', lama, and, lama dampa (best, holy or real lama). I once formulated this exchange as, "the criteria of 'divine' perception, which has something to do with realization." And, was left trying to explain what I meant. Not so pretty; so, kept coming back to the "active symbols & signs". This is good stuff. Thanks! Keeper (Edward DeVito, Portland Oregon) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 17:14:46 -0600 (CST) From: George Leake >From: Mike Dickman [edited for brevity] >Externally "anyone who has completed a three year, three month, three day >retreat" is technically a lama, that is to say, 'someone who has fully >activated his potentiality'... The ego-filled horrors of this in occedens for >the moment need not be gone into... Isn't it a tip-off when you end up reading more about some personality rather than actual teaching? >Certainly enough, this scenario (in the real sense of that term) is to be >found in each and every initiatic system, and of this there can be no doubt. >However I cannot but return to the fast-descending stick... Or the light of the diamond of discrimination cutting through? (nice touch, Mike; I wish I could find a way to actualize this stick in certain email exchanges) >PS - Forgive me if the tone seems aggressive: please read it, rather, as >ardent/intense. >Getting oneself checked out, and subtly reoriented wherever one is more, or >less, out of line seems to me to be fundamental >God knows, I don't claim to know the first thing about anything at all! Not to worry. I find this thoroughly enjoyable myself. I suppose we can apply this to other lessons in life and alchemy... George Leake Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 23:40:01 -1000 From: Gary Whiting > Alchemy, i.e... Why they feel the need to include its influence in their > lives. What they expect to achieve, and how it is to live under its > influence. I am new to this, and hope these observations are taken with the respect for our mutual endeavors that they reflect. I think there has been a lot of discussion of the "gold" in these pages, that aspect of the work that we hope to achieve, and relatively little talk of what is "worked", the lead. It seems to me that the initial step is to "stay with" those aspects of psyche that are difficult, confounding, demoralizing, depressing, i.e. "leaden". "The unconscious is always the fly in the ointment", as Jung said somewhere; that side that is in "shadow", anything but perfect, perverse and out of control and chaotic. Yet this is a fecund chaos, if consciousness can "encompass" it (the "vas" as central to the Art), work to bring order. But the lead is the starting point (potentially toxic and overpowering, poisonous); only by acknowledging and experiencing the ways that we are a mess (massa confusa) are we are in the middle of the work. That's what in us needs working. And it goes deeper than that: I have had recurring dreams where I have somehow lost everything; am in a new town, knowing no one, no job, no skills, no family, totally bereft and destitute, starting with nothing and just existing, with a deep ache and sense of loss and alienation. I wake up wondering what this signifies: my life is full, with a strong marriage and children and friends and successful profession--why this sense of emptiness and despair that is so poignant, even powerful: enduring something of immense weight. Lately in reading Mysterium Coniunctionis, came across the section in which the lapis is referred to as the "orphan", the "son of the widow", something alone and solitary, "solitaire". The spark of light is "trapped in the stone", something holy and pure that has been thrown into this dark realm of a world and forced to "work" from within this horrific 3-D prison to bring it to the likesame purity, if possible. But as Holderin and Nietzsche knew: "Where danger is, so also is salvation": without the very real risk of light being overwhelmed by corrupt nature, there would be no motivation, no need to do the work. Jung says that depression prompts "an involuntary introversion of attention"--it is often clear to me that depressive symptoms prompt deeper work on life for people, though their need to seek psychological help is initially seen as anything but a blessing. James Hillman is aware of this "symptoms as harbingers" aspect. I respect alchemy for recognizing and committing itself to working on the world, for engendering an idealistic sense that there is something that "calls out" to be rescued (the King, drowning in the sea). Jung was aware that alchemy represented a continuation of the redemptive work of Christ, turned now outwards, now that our souls have been saved. Yet it seems essential to me that we are alive to the anguish of existence (the "dukkha" or suffering that Buddhism teaches) to be doing the work. The lure of gold itself corrupts the work; this is the dragon that always guards the treasure, the last temptation. Thank you for your reading and attention; these issues are very sensitive and close to me--careful comments appreciated. Best wishes, Gary Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 14:13:47 -0800 From: Victoria GaVoian In regards to letter by M. Dickman: "There are not different kinds of mind," as old Huang–po so kindly pointed out..." - Could he please elaborate on what aspect of the mind he is referring to, or his view of what the mind is, in which he is referring. Also to fellow alchemists, I am new, and would like to know more about their relationship to inner Alchemy, i.e... Why they feel the need to include its influence in their lives. What they expect to achieve, and how it is to live under its influence. I know this is a lot to ask, but pretend we're in a typing chat room and someone gives you the "one" and only one, brief and golden opportunity to answer simply as possible... Best regards Victoria GaVoian Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 13:13:04 -0500 (EST) From: Dan Denlinger Victoria, Thank you for your pointed and profitable question. To respond to your question on what one might expect to achieve through a relationship to inner alchemy, I expect to develop a neural net which will allow tangible consciousness of subtle states and aspects of life. As to why: why do seeds sprout and grow given proper conditions? How? In the beginning we must regulate and clarify our life and mind. Blessings Dan Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 20:02:21 -0800 From: Anthony M. House > From: Victoria GaVoian > I am new, and would like to know more about their relationship to inner > Alchemy, i.e... Why they feel the need to include its influence in their > lives. In brief: The effects of alchemy are felt everyday Victoria as personal growth and learning is pursued. Even when these are not pursued the effect is also felt. In the realm of depth the psychology of influence is to act as a conduit for the Grandfather (universe) and to earth the powers of nature through her study. >What they expect to achieve. An old adage in alchemy is about evolution:"Nature unaided fails" or, "All things are in a state of ever becoming", these axioms are telling us about a perception of growth. The power to accelerate nature beyond where we found her. For instance to achieve a 'stone' from a plant is a process that she (nature) cannot do alone. Gaining insights into the natural world and the non-physical world is the ideal in alchemy and the control of this world and the other (astral world) is the ne plus ultra for an alchemist. >and how it is to live under its influence. There is a dual influence active here. The previously stated goals activate an inner contact with the Grandfather (universe) that sends you to night school. At this celestial university you will learn the elementary lessons of reading and writing there first, such as dream practice and activating your senses in this astral kingdom. Further lessons involve a catalyst from our world which comes from our laboratories and the Great Work of obtaining the Philosophers Stone. The use of the Stone of the Wise gives more permanent effects on the astral world which allows longer contact with eternity. Time/space is transcended there, and hours become days, days, weeks...etc. With each new initiation we will obtain new powers of the many levels of the qabala tree as we ascend to unity... Peace to you and yours... A.M.W. House Date: Fri, 10 Jan 97 16:38:28 UT From: Mike Dickman To Victoria GaVoian, Thank you for taking me up, and please - in advance - excuse any regrettable but possible inevitable 'psycho-waffle'! "Mind" as referred to here - and particularly as Huang-po meant it, although the definition I'm paraphrasing actually comes from the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition - might tentatively be defined as "a primordial and unborn awareness, empty in essence and radiant by nature, whose energy is all-pervading". As far as I can make out, as regards a prima materia, there is nothing prior to this. Before I make a real fool of myself on this score, however, I'd like to shut up. You also ask 'Why alchemy?' - for my own part it is, if you like, the occidental coming-together of the various things I study and teach... Inasmuch as it has managed to remain outside the manipulations of religions and politics (and - worse yet! - religious politics) to a large degree, I have the - unfounded, perhaps, I grant you - feeling that it really does contain the very quintessence of the da-da-dah! "western tradition" in its purest and most supra-sectarian forms. Respectfully, Mike Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 17:44:23 -0500 (EST) From: Edward DeVito Mike Dickman, responding to Victoria GaVoian, states: << I grant you - feeling that it (Alchemy) really does contain the very quintessence of the da-da-dah! "western tradition" in its purest and most supra-sectarian forms.>> Can there be any doubt that this is the case? My investigations in Western Magic have revealed the sibling relationship with Alchemical Thought that seems to have its roots in Egyptian Tradition as either passed down through, percieved by, or mytholigized in the later, Hellenistic Hermetica. The core "tool" - elemental -symbolism is the same, and though emphasis varies, I often see them as versions of the "Raja Yoga" of the West. Date: Mon, 13 Jan 97 17:01:23 UT From: Mike Dickman Edward deVito, hi! No. I was just being cautious is all. One enormous difference with the orient, though, is the question of 'lineage' - that is to say, of direct, untrammelled, unbroken and un-tampered-with transmission and, more importantly, 'critical evaluation' from master to student down the ever-lengthening line... Particularly over the last thousand-odd years... ... Not that the teacher can 'create', as it were, enlightenment in the pupil, but that a damn good whack with a stick occasionally might have saved many of us and many others a hell of a lot of wasted time... ... Just thinking through my fingers... Love and all, Mike Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 20:47:38 -0800 From: Victoria GaVoian Thank you for responding to my question regarding Alchemy and its effects along with what one might expect to achieve through a relationship to inner alchemy. You had said that you "expect to develop a neural net which will allow tangible consciousness of subtle states and aspects of life." In reference to "neural states," why neural? In regards to "consciousness of subtle states," where are you including the aspect of awareness. As to why: why do seeds sprout and grow given proper conditions? How? In the beginning we must regulate and clarify our life and mind. Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 02:35:20 -0500 (EST) From: Keeper (Edward DeVito) Dear Mike, In a message dated 97-01-13 13:39:15 EST, you write: << One enormous difference with the orient, though, is the question of 'lineage' - that is to say, of direct, untrammelled, unbroken and un-tampered-with transmission and, more importantly, 'critical evaluation' from master to student down the ever-lengthening line... Particularly over the last thousand-odd years... >> I will hazard that the Western Tradition has its "Line" as well. It is well established and quite alive on the inside. We know we have grasped it when the appropriate "symbols & signs" become activated. Everything is "just right." The bridge then, to students, is still by word of mouth (bearing witness). Love & Light! Edward Date: Fri, 17 Jan 97 21:24:35 UT From: Mike Dickman Keeper (intriguing name, that... I like it immensely), You say I will hazard that the Western Tradition has its "Line" as well... We know we have grasped it when the appropriate "symbols & signs" become activated. Everything is "just right I would certainly agree that lineage is connected with as (and only as) its internal symbolism begins to take on real life and meaning in the experience of the practitioner, and that the presence of some smiling (or severe-looking, for that matter) gentlemen with know-it-all eyes and questionable reputations is not of the essence... The Tibetan (for example) terms lama (bla.ma), tsawa'i lama (rtsa.ba'i bla . ma) and lama dampa (bla.ma dam.pa) - (forgive me: half my life is spent translating this stuff) - express this rather interestingly... Externally "anyone who has completed a three year, three month, three day retreat" is technically a lama, that is to say, 'someone who has fully activated his potentiality'... The ego-filled horrors of this in occedens for the moment need not be gone into... The tsawa'i, or 'root', lama is, in the words of 'Jamyang Ky'entse, Chokyi Lodro, (1893-1956), "one's own enlightenment projected before one in the form of one's main teacher". The tsawa'i lama is that lama who finally gets the disciple to recognise his own mind as identical with primordial awareness as the root and source of 'all this', 'all that is'... ... Which recognition, and its subsequent enactment as compassion following a genuine stabilisation of this 'view', is referred to as the lama dampa, the 'best, holy, or real' lama, the existence and pre-emenence of which it is the tsawa'i lama's only and sacred business to point out... Certainly enough, this scenario (in the real sense of that term) is to be found in each and every initiatic system, and of this there can be no doubt. However I cannot but return to the fast-descending stick... '"Some of us," said Lin-ch'i to his chief disciple (who's name now escapes me), "prefer the shout and some prefer the stick. Which do you prefer?" "I would not choose," the disciple wisely replied. "Yes, but if you had to," Lin-ch'i pressed him. The disciple shouted. And Lin-ch'i hit him...' We're not talking about fools. The bridge then, to students, is still by word of mouth (bearing witness) ... Mmm... Yeah... Mind your head, Mike PS - Forgive me if the tone seems aggressive: please read it, rather, as ardent/intense. Getting oneself checked out, and subtly reoriented wherever one is more, or less, out of line seems to me to be fundamental God knows, I don't claim to know the first thing about anything at all! Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 16:05:30 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Patz >From: Mike Dickman >The tsawa'i, or 'root', lama is, in the words of 'Jamyang Ky'entse, Chokyi >Lodro, (1893-1956), "one's own enlightenment projected before one in the form >of one's main teacher". The tsawa'i lama is that lama who finally gets the >disciple to recognise his own mind as identical with primordial awareness as >the root and source of 'all this', 'all that is'... Would you suggest then that alchemical transmutation is our own transmutation projected before us in the same fashion with the same subsequent recognition of ourselves being identical with prima materia? >...Which recognition, and its subsequent enactment as compassion following a >genuine stabilisation of this 'view', is referred to as the lama dampa, the >'best, holy, or real' lama, the existence and pre-emenence of which it is the >tsawa'i lama's only and sacred business to point out... This stabilisation of view - is this what is meant by the Wish-fulfilling Gem? (I am making the jump from stabilisation to stone). Richard Patz |