Alchemy Of Secrets Quotes

The real alchemy consists in being able to turn gold back again into something else; and that's the secret that most of your friends have lost.

These days vampires gravitated toward particle accelerators, projects to decode the genome, and molecular biology. Once they had flocked to alchemy, anatomy, and electricity. If it went bang, involved blood, or promised to unlock the secrets of the universe, there was sure to be a vampire around.

The secrets of alchemy exist to transform mortals from a state of suffering and ignorance to a state of enlightenment and bliss.

We live through myriads of seconds, yet it is always one, just one, that casts our entire inner world into turmoil, the second when (as Stendhal has described it) the internal inflorescence, already steeped in every kind of fluid, condenses and crystallizes—a magical second, like the moment of generation, and like that moment concealed in the warm interior of the individual life, invisible, untouchable, beyond the reach of feeling, a secret experienced alone. No algebra of the mind can calculate it, no alchemy of premonition divine it, and it can seldom perceive itself.

Nicholas: One of the oldest secrets of alchemy is that every living thing, from the most complex creatures right down to the simplest leaf, carries the seeds of its creation within itself. Josh: DNA.

Fear and sorrow inhibit action; anger generates it. When you learn to make proper use of your anger, you can change fear and sorrow to anger, then turn anger to action. That’s the body’s secret of internal alchemy.

What can I tell you about the alchemy of twins? Twins are two bodies that dance to each other’s joy. Two minds that drown in each other’s despair. Two spirits that fly with each other’s love. Twins are two separate beings conjoined at the heart!

The possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of people, are a kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting thing in life. The liar is someone who keeps losing sight of these possibilities

Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light from them and to draw them away from it. p.104-5

There is no quarrel between science and spirituality. I often hear people of science trying to use it to prove the nonexistence of the spiritual, but I simply can't see a chasm in between the two. What is spiritual produces what is scientific and when science is used to disprove the spiritual, it's always done with the intent to do so; a personal contempt. As a result, scientists today only prove their inferiority to the great founding fathers of the sciences who were practitioners of alchemy. Today's science is washed-out and scrubbed-down and robbed of everything mystical and spiritual, a knowledge born of contempt and discontent. Or perhaps, there are a few who wish to keep those secrets to themselves and serve everyone else up with a tasteless version of science and the idiots of today blindly follow their equally blind leaders.

Forgetting is like a great alchemy free of secrets, limpid, transforming everything to the present. In the end it makes our lives into this visible and tangible thing we hold in our hands, with no folds left hidden in the past.

The more we are illuminated, the more we want others to experience that also. We can't help but be generous and giving, because self and other is one, and the nature of self and the nature of other is one; it is true nature giving itself to itself. (p. 9)

There are many paths leading to One. These herbs carry within their fragile essence a secret of Life, Universe, Creation, and the secrets of Enlightenment. We all carry the Truth within, and every drop of water, every flower, every man intuitively knows it, no matter what the path we choose to follow is.

We can roam the bloated stacks of the Library of Alexandria, where all imagination and knowledge are assembled; we can recognize in its destruction the warning that all we gather will be lost, but also that much of it can be collected again; we can learn from its splendid ambition that what was one man’s experience can become, through the alchemy of words, the experience of all, and how that experience, distilled once again into words, can serve each singular reader for some secret, singular purpose.

The Secret of Enlightenment is not in Perfection but in Completeness. Everything that is below the Abyss carries the imperfection within. After the Infinite establishes Divine Order, the Life of Duality as we know it on Earth begins. It is Yin and Yang in its Manifestation, and only through the two meeting, marrying, merging, they both reach God.’ Ama Alchemy of Love by Nuit Quote

The real mystery does not behave mysteriously or secretively; it speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature. I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is “secret,” i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown. The real nature of matter was unknown to the alchemist: he knew it only in hints. In seeking to explore it he projected the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it. In order to explain the mystery of matter he projected yet another mystery - his own psychic background -into what was to be explained: Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius! This procedure was not, of course, intentional; it was an involuntary occurrence.

Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts the beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most deformed; it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes: its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of its forms.

The secret is that only that which can destroy itself is truly alive. Life that just happens in and for itself is not real life; it is real only when it is known.

He tore himself away long enough to grin at her, a shy, boyish grin that splintered her heart. She couldn’t believe she’d ever thought him scowly, cold, and unreachable. He was the purest alchemy, lead to gold. Each time he looked at her, it was like he was looking at her for the first time, and each time he looked at her like that, she was lost.

Emotion is energy in motion. When you move energy, you create effect. If you move enough energy, you create matter. Matter is energy conglomerated. Moved around. Shoved together. If you manipulate energy long enough in a certain way, you get matter. Every Master understands this law. It is the alchemy of the universe. It is the secret of all life.

I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor.

Behind the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of old temples and on the blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or marvelous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the cryptic emblems of our old books on alchemy, in the ceremonies practiced at reception by all secret societies, there are found indications of a doctrine which is everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed.

In her kiss lay wonders - the humming of firefly wings and the secret of alchemy. On her tongue was the ghost of roasted plums, forgotten poems.

Outside the store, beauty and mystery struggled to come together. Inside, they held hands, giggled to one another, and whispered secret messages.

To discover the source of this alchemical love within is to uncover the deepest secrets of the soul. It is to unearth and align with the ultimate truth of who we are.

I have no intention of living on alone. After this battle is over, I will erase my life, along with the secret to flame alchemy that's led good men to madness.

If you would understand the true secrets of Alchemy, you must study the works of the Masters with patience and assiduity. Every word is often an enigma; and to him who reads in haste, the whole will seem absurd. Even when they seem to teach that the Great Work is the purification of the Soul, and so deal only with morals, they most conceal their meaning, and deceive all but the Initiates.

They, the women, were like the gargoyles, Mattie thought. Respected in words, but hidden from view of those who ran the city and managing to live in the darkness, in the secret interstices of life.

The art of the alchemist, whether spiritual or physical, consists in completing the work of perfection, bringing forth and making dominant, as it were, the “latent goldness” which “lies obscure” in metal or man. The ideal adept of alchemy was therefore an “auxiliary of the Eternal Goodness.” By his search for the “Noble Tincture” which should restore an imperfect world, he became a partner in the business of creation, assisting the Cosmic Plan. Thus the proper art of the Spiritual Alchemist, with whom alone we are here concerned, was the production of the spiritual and only valid tincture or Philosopher’s Stone; the mystic seed of transcendental life which should invade, tinge, and wholly transmute the imperfect self into spiritual gold. That this was no fancy of seventeenth-century allegorists, but an idea familiar to many of the oldest writers upon alchemy—whose quest was truly a spiritual search into the deepest secrets of the soul—is proved by the words which bring to an end the first part of the antique “Golden Treatise upon the Making of the Stone,” sometimes attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. “This, O Son,” says that remarkable tract, “is the Concealed Stone of Many Colours, which is born and brought forth in one colour; know this and conceal it . . . it leads from darkness into light, from this desert wilderness to a secure habitation, and from poverty and straits to a free and ample fortune.

We went to places where we felt - like all lovers - that we were the first. We discovered the body of a lover has secrets that never end. We discovered that at times the same secrets reveal different truths.

He spoke kindly, "Remember, wine is from grapes, grapes from seeds, the seeds from the soil." "You are speaking of alchemy?" "Not of alchemy but the secret to survival. Just as substances change, human beings must change.

Read Nietzsche. Reject all mainstream religions. Your objective is not to worship God, but to become God. Only God has all the answers to the mysteries of life. Therefore if you truly seek those answers then you are seeking the ultimate secret: how to transform yourself into God. It is precisely with this quest that the Philosopher’s Stone and the Holy Grail are intimately involved. That is why they have supreme spiritual power, why they command such enduring fascination.

As part of the ordinary life, one should try to constantly self-reflect and contemplate rather than constantly comparing oneself with others. By doing so, one would constantly remain in the state of light reflex. This would be one of the proactive applications of this technique.

What was essence? It referred to energy of life. [In Taoism, it is believed that the human life originates from this energy of life.] Spirit referred to light. Mind / thought referred to both the chest / heart area (middle “dan tian”, an acupoint on the body) and the third eye.13

I've been thinking about what it means to bear witness. The past ten years I've been bearing witness to death, bearing witness to women I love, and bearing witness to the [nuclear] testing going on in the Nevada desert. I've been bearing witness to bombing runs on the edge of the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge, bearing witness to the burning of yew trees and their healing secrets in slash piles in the Pacific Northwest and thinking this is not so unlike the burning of witches, who also held knowledge of heading within their bones. I've been bearing witness to traplines of coyotes being poisoned by the Animal Damage Control. And I've been bearing witness to beauty, beauty that strikes a chord so deep you can't stop the tears from flowing. At places as astonishing as Mono Lake, where I've stood knee-deep in salt-water to watch the fresh water of Lee Vining Creek flow over the top like water on vinegar....It's the space of angels. I've been bearing witness to dancing grouse on their leks up at Malheur in Oregon. Bearing witness to both the beauty and pain of our world is a task that I want to be part of. As a writer, this is my work. By bearing witness, the story that is told can provide a healing ground. Through the art of language, the art of story, alchemy can occur. And if we choose to turn our backs, we've walked away from what it means to be human.

Because real alchemists understand that the test tube is just a vehicle. Alchemy is about the process of transformation, my boy. Not of lead to gold, but of the spirit. Understanding the universe. Applying the secrets of the ancients to the follies of the present. The elixir, the philosopher’s stone: they’re not just recipes. They are life itself.

An Alchemist’s journey is really a struggle to continue individual existence long after physical death, long after the bubble has burst. Another way to say this would be to say that an Alchemist’s journey is about changing the nature of the bubble that is his individuality, so that it becomes superfluid, unbound, unbreakable by the tides of the Dark Sea.

The clockwork men and women fated to maneuver the oars twenty-four hours per day until the ship reached its destination had turned their silent voices to song as they bent their backs to row. They sang not in any human language but in the secret language of the mechanicals. A shanty sung in the click-tick-click of clockwork bodies, the crash of tapped feet, the clatter of metal hands gripping banded wooden spars.

The life of the dreamer, that is a projectionist, is a life of duality. A projectionist is a being that exists in two worlds simultaneously. On the one hand they participate in what at first seems to be a rather static existence, surrounded by human beings that oftentimes don’t have an inkling of the marvels possible to them. And on the other they explore and take part in fantastic adventures in worlds beyond rational description.

I belong to myself. Always. Eternally. Without question. My own safe house. My own sheltered harbor. I am my own solid ground. I am the lighthouse beacon. I call the ships safely home from sea. I am the North Star and the compass. I am my own port in the wildest storm. I am the spell caster and the spell breaker. I am a witch of alchemy and transformation. I am the pages in the grimoire of knowledge, I am the source of all the magic ever known. I am the kiss that wakes us all from slumber. I am the white horse knight in shining armor. I am my own happily ever after fairytale godmother. I am my own rest stop on the longest journey of living. The final destination on every treasure map I will ever need. I am my own primary relationship, my own till death do us part. I am my own center and saving grace, my own best-kept secret. I am the lineage of wisdom itself, the home of my own belonging. I am my own. And my own. And always my own.

The projectionist’s intent, if focused on long enough, becomes a command (an energetic truth), which allows a person to move conscious awareness beyond the confines of the physical body. Not by waking up in a dream state or by having someone else manipulate your awareness, but by consciously and deliberately expanding the conscious range available to the awake individual in a methodical manner. In this way, the power and flexibility of this ghost-like self are slowly amplified, until a new type of self is birthed (a Unitary Entity that is usually seen in certain Alchemical symbolism as a Phoenix that never needs to touch the ground again).

Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, every one- from the commonest Liebfraumilch to the imperious Vueve Clicquot- a humble miracle. Everyday magic, Joe had called it. The transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams. Layman's alchemy. Take these six in Jay's cellar, for instance. The Specials. Not wines really meant for keeping, but he kept them all the same. For nostalgia's sake. For a special, yet-to-be-imagined occasion. Six bottles, each with its own small handwritten label and sealed with candle wax. Each had a cord of a different color knotted around its neck; raspberry red, elderflower green, blackberry blue, rose hip yellow, damson black. The last bottle was tied with a brown cord. Specials '75, said the label, the familiar writing faded to the color of old tea.

The proper balance of sugar and salt was the key to perfect barbecue sauce. Of course, when it came to barbecue sauce, everybody had an opinion about the combination of acid, aromatics, fruit, and flavorings---the ineffable umami---that made each bite so satisfying. But Margot Salton knew with utter certainty that it all started with sugar and salt. She'd even named her signature product after it: sugar+salt. This sauce was her superpower. Her secret. Her stock-in-trade. When she'd had nothing---no home, no education, no family, no means of support---she had created the powerful alchemy of flavors that made grown men moan with pleasure, cautious women ignore their diets, and skeptical foodies beg for more.

In my book (and this is my book!) magical thinking is the alchemy that you can use to visualize and project yourself into the professional and personal life that you want. I’m not talking about stuff like The Secret self-help book, which basically tells you to tape a picture of a car to the wall and then sit on the couch and wait for someone to drop it off in your driveway. I am talking about visualization that works when we actually get off our asses and do stuff. How totally crazy is that? Each time you make a good decision or do something nice or take care of yourself; each time you show up to work and work hard and do your best at everything you can do, you’re planting seeds for a life that you can only hope will grow beyond your wildest dreams. Take care of the little things—even the little things that you hate—and treat them as promises to your own future. Soon you’ll see that fortune favors the bold who get shit done.

In my book (and this is my book!) magical thinking is the alchemy that you can use to visualize and project yourself into the professional and personal life that you want. I’m not talking about stuff like ”the secret self-help book, which basically tells you to tape a picture of a car to the wall and then sit on the couch and wait for someone to drop it off in your driveway. I am talking about visulatization that works when we actually get off our asses and do stuff. How totally crazy it that? Each time you make a good decision or do something nice or take care of yourself; each time you show up to work and work hard and do your best at everything you can do, you’re planting seeds for a life that you can onlye hope will grow beyond your wildest dreams. Take care of the little things – even the little things you hate- and treat them as promises to your own future. Soon you’ll see that fortune favors thhe bold who get shit done.

It is significant that Gnostic philosophy found its continuation in alchemy.29 “Mater Alchimia” is one of the mothers of modern science, and modern science has given us an unparalleled knowledge of the “dark” side of matter. It has also penetrated into the secrets of physiology and evolution, and made the very roots of life itself an object of investigation. In this way the human mind has sunk deep into the sublunary world of matter, thus repeating the Gnostic myth of the Nous, who, beholding his reflection in the depths below, plunged down and was swallowed in the embrace of Physis. The climax of this development was marked in the eighteenth century by the French Revolution, in the nineteenth century by scientific materialism, and in the twentieth century by political and social “realism,” which has turned the wheel of history back a full two thousand years and seen the recrudescence of the despotism, the lack of individual rights, the cruelty, indignity, and slavery of the pre-Christian world, whose “labour problem” was solved by the “ergastulum” (convict-camp). The “transvaluation of all values” is being enacted before our eyes.

This Is Not an Elegy At sixteen, I was illegal and brilliant, my fingernails chewed to half-moons. I took off my clothes in a late March field. I had secret car wrecks, secret hysteria. I opened my mouth to swallow stars. In backseats I learned the alchemy of guilt, lust, and distance. I was unformed and total. I swore like a sailor. But slowly the cops stopped coming around. The heat lifted its palms. The radio lost some teeth. Now I see the landscape behind me as through a Claude glass— tinted deeper, framed just so, bits of gilt edging the best parts. I see my unlined face, a thousand film stars behind the eyes. I was every murderess, every whip- thin alcoholic, every heroine with the silver tongue. Always young Paul Newman’s best girl. Always a lightning sky behind each kiss. Some days I watch myself in the third person, speak to her in the second. I say: I will meet you in sleep. I will know you by your stillness and your shaking. By your second-hand gown. By your bruises left by mouths since forgotten. This is not an elegy because I cannot bear for it to be. It is only a tree branch against the window. It is only a cherry tomato slowly reddening in the garden. I will put it in my mouth. It will be sweet, and you will swallow.

It was the secret no one told you, the thing you had to learn for yourself: viz. that in the antiques trade there was really no such thing as a “correct” price. Objective value—list value—was meaningless. If a customer came in clueless with money in hand (as most of them did) it didn’t matter what the books said, what the experts said, what similar items at Christie’s had recently gone for. An object—any object—was worth whatever you could get somebody to pay for it. In consequence, I’d started going through the store, removing some tags (so the customer would have to come to me for the price) and changing others—not all, but some. The trick, as I discovered through trial and error, was to keep at least a quarter of the prices low and jack up the rest, sometimes by as much as four and five hundred percent. Years of abnormally low prices had built up a base of devoted customers; leaving a quarter of the prices low kept them devoted, and ensured that people hunting for a bargain could still find one, if they looked. Leaving a quarter of the prices low also meant that, by some perverse alchemy, the marked-up prices seemed legitimate in comparison: for whatever reason, some people were more apt to put out fifteen hundred bucks for a Meissen teapot if it was placed next to a plainer but comparable piece selling (correctly, but cheaply) for a few hundred.

there is no such thing as "magic" Daoism, "daojia" and "daojiao" had different meanings way back then, and now. The priginal term dao jia 道家was counterposed to rujia,儒家 the folks who swore by Confucius, and fajia 法家realists who (legalists), like modern day republicans equated money, weapons w political power. Daojia was the category for every one else, ie those who were neither.Confucian or Legalist. Daoism, “the way that never parted,” is a great river flowing thru all of China's history, fed by many streams. Many of the "modern" "western" people such as "sex hygiene" 房中 and other "Dao for $$$" folk (eg a multi-millionaire in Pacific Grove - 17 Mile Drive) have made fortunes by claiming to teach "Daoist Secrets", in a system that forbids taking recompense of any kind for receiving true Daoist teachings. So much more to say, the writings of the late Anna Seidel show how what we call "Dao Jiao" 道教(Dao teaching), which includes liturgy as well as inner alchemy meditation, derives from the Guweishu 古緯書, ie the ancient "wei" (parallel threads or "woof" thread), human compassion for each other and oneness with change in nature, as opposed to the "jing" 經 vertical (Confucian, political up-down) threads that support the Imperial governing power. Buddhism appears as sacred art painted on the surface of the Chinese cultural fabric, which is eventually accepted because it won the hearts of the people by praying for the deceased, something that was not a part of the original Buddhist teachings from India, but essential in China." [Saso FB Post May 4th 2015]

Throughout the longest period of human history—one calls it the prehistoric period—the value or non-value of an action was inferred from its CONSEQUENCES; the action in itself was not taken into consideration, any more than its origin; but pretty much as in China at present, where the distinction or disgrace of a child redounds to its parents, the retro-operating power of success or failure was what induced men to think well or ill of an action. Let us call this period the PRE-MORAL period of mankind; the imperative, "Know thyself!" was then still unknown.—In the last ten thousand years, on the other hand, on certain large portions of the earth, one has gradually got so far, that one no longer lets the consequences of an action, but its origin, decide with regard to its worth: a great achievement as a whole, an important refinement of vision and of criterion, the unconscious effect of the supremacy of aristocratic values and of the belief in "origin," the mark of a period which may be designated in the narrower sense as the MORAL one: the first attempt at self-knowledge is thereby made. Instead of the consequences, the origin—what an inversion of perspective! And assuredly an inversion effected only after long struggle and wavering! To be sure, an ominous new superstition, a peculiar narrowness of interpretation, attained supremacy precisely thereby: the origin of an action was interpreted in the most definite sense possible, as origin out of an INTENTION; people were agreed in the belief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention. The intention as the sole origin and antecedent history of an action: under the influence of this prejudice moral praise and blame have been bestowed, and men have judged and even philosophized almost up to the present day.—Is it not possible, however, that the necessity may now have arisen of again making up our minds with regard to the reversing and fundamental shifting of values, owing to a new self-consciousness and acuteness in man—is it not possible that we may be standing on the threshold of a period which to begin with, would be distinguished negatively as ULTRA-MORAL: nowadays when, at least among us immoralists, the suspicion arises that the decisive value of an action lies precisely in that which is NOT INTENTIONAL, and that all its intentionalness, all that is seen, sensible, or "sensed" in it, belongs to its surface or skin—which, like every skin, betrays something, but CONCEALS still more? In short, we believe that the intention is only a sign or symptom, which first requires an explanation—a sign, moreover, which has too many interpretations, and consequently hardly any meaning in itself alone: that morality, in the sense in which it has been understood hitherto, as intention-morality, has been a prejudice, perhaps a prematureness or preliminariness, probably something of the same rank as astrology and alchemy, but in any case something which must be surmounted. The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the self-mounting of morality—let that be the name for the long-secret labour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright, and also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones of the soul.

It is often surprising and illuminating to see what happens when things that were never intended to be placed next to each other are. Frequently, juxtaposition—this encounter within a private space—triggers alchemy. […] Open yourself to the pictures and you may find a secret waiting, not a secret about art, but a secret about life.

Every act of his is marked by an unstable ambivalence. He is the god of calculation, arithmetic and rational science; and he also presides over the occult sciences, astrology and alchemy. He is the god of magic formulae, of secret accounts, of hidden texts. And so he is the god of medicine. The god of writing is the god of the pharmakon…

Second, I love him because by means of love and ascetic discipline his soul conquered reality—hunger, cold, disease, scorn, injustice, ugliness (what men without wings call reality)—and succeeded in transubstantiating this reality into a joyous, palpable dream truer than truth itself. He discovered the secret so sought after by medieval alchemists: how to transubstantiate even the basest metal into pure gold…. [Through] the miracle of mystical alchemy, he subdued reality, delivered mankind from necessity, and inwardly transformed all his flesh into spirit….

The association of magic and cryptology was reinforced by other factors. Mysterious symbols were used in such esoteric fields as astrology and alchemy—where each planet and chemical had a special sign, like the circle and arrow for Mars—just as they were in cryptology. Like words in cipher, spells and incantations, such as “abracadabra,” looked like nonsense but in reality were potent with hidden meanings.

We have seen that the process of stellar alchemy takes time – billions of years of it. And because our Universe is expanding it needs to be billions of light years in size if it is to have enough time to produce the building blocks for living complexity. A universe that was only as big as our Milky Way galaxy, with its 100 billion stars, would be little more than a month old.

One of the most prominent authorities is named Maria—sometimes called Maria Judaea or Mary the Jew—and Zosimos credits her with the development of a broad range of apparatus and techniques. Maria’s techniques include a method of gentle, even heating using a bath of hot water rather than an open flame. This simple but useful invention preserved the legacy of Maria the ancient alchemist, not only for the rest of alchemy’s history, but even down to the present day. It is her name that remains attached to the bain-marie or bagno maria of French and Italian cookery.

The author concealed behind the pseudonym of Geber is probably an Italian Franciscan friar and lecturer named Paul of Taranto.

Analyzing the name of a thing can thus reveal something about the thing itself. The same thinking forms the basis of that branch of Jewish Kabbalah known as gematria, and its Christian versions that were explored in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Truth! Certainty! That in which there is no doubt! That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one thing. As all things were from one. Its father is the Sun and its mother the Moon. The Earth carried it in her belly, and the wind nourished it in her belly, as Earth which shall become fire. Feed the Earth from that which is subtle, with the greatest power. It ascends from the Earth to the heaven and becomes ruler over that which is above and that which is below.

And now that mulch of dead imaginings beneath the feet of Temperance ladies, union-affiliated Vaudevillians and maimed men home from Europe has contaminated the groundwater of the upstart country's nightmares. Immigrants in their illimitable difference come to seem a separate species, taciturn and fish-eyed as though risen from the ocean waves that bore them in their transport, monstrous in their self-contained communities with bitter scents and indecipherable ululations, names, unsettlingly unpronounceable ensconced at isolated farms where beaten track is naught save idle rumour stagnant families nurse grievance, dreadful secrets and deformity in solitude; pools of declined humanity entirely unconnected to society by any tributary where ancestral prejudice or misconception may become the plaint of generations. Fabled and forbidden works of Arab alchemy are handed down across years cruel and volatile, trafficked between austere and colonial homes by charitable fellowships with ancient affectations or conveyed by fevered sea-captains, fugitive Huguenots or elderly hysterics formally accused of witchcraft. Young America, a sapling power grown suddenly so tall upon its diet of nickelodeons and motorcars, has sunk unwitting roots into an underworld of grotesque notions and archaic creeds, their feaful pull discernible below the weed-cracked sidewalk. Buried and forgotten, ominous philosophies await their day with hideous patience. Well! I think that's pretty darned good for a first attempt. A little over-wrought, perhaps, and I'm not sure about the style - I can't decide if its too modern of it's too old fashioned, but perhaps that's a good sign. Of course, I guess I'll have to introduce a plot and characters at some point, but I'll wrestle with that minor nuisance when I get to it. Perhaps I could contrive to have some hobo, maybe literally a hoe-boy or travelling itinerant farm labourer who's wandering from place to place around New England in the search for work; somebody who might reasonably become involved with all the various characters I'm hoping to investigate. Being a labourer, while it would lend a feasibility to any action or exertion that I wanted in the story, wouldn't mean that my protagonist was lacking in intelligence of education: this is often economically a far from certain country for a lot of people, and there's plenty of smart fellows - maybe even an aspiring writer like myself - who've found themselves leaving their homes and families to mooch around from farm to farm in hope of some hay-baling or fruit-picking that's unlikely to materialise. Perhaps a character like that, a rugged man who is sufficiently well read to justifiably allow me a few literary flourishes (and I can't help thinking that I'll probably end up casting some imagined variant of Tom Malone) would be the kind of of sympathetic hero and the kind of voice I'm looking for. Meanwhile I yawned a moment or two back, and while I'm not yet quite exhausted to the point where I can guarantee a deep and dreamless sleep, perhaps another six or seven vague ideas for stories might just do the soporific job.

Wings of fire It was a strange sight, That brought feelings of excitement and fright, A butterfly with wings of fire, One representing wishes and the other meant to hoist her every desire, There seemed to be no place where she could not go, I had never seen her before, not even long ago, Wherever she went, she set all flowers on fire, Creating blazing gardens of endless desire, Where wishes like pollen dust scattered everywhere, Lifted by the ever rising flames and then dispersed here and there, And wherever it fell, There was no beauty to be felt and no stories to tell, Because the flames turned the dust into a secret alchemy that resembled the inferno of hell, Gardens burned, lands were parched, it was a diabolic sight that no words can explain well, So, wherever the butterfly with wings of fire went, It left trails of fire and devastation, with nature’s will broken and completely bent, The butterfly used to be beautiful once, It loved to fly and freely dance, Until it was caught in a man made drought, Leaving it exhausted and distraught, As its wings stiffened and fell, And it began collapsing into the hell, There somehow she developed wings of fire, To claim her unfulfilled wishes and her every desire, And since then she has been on a rampage, Nature too does not want to contain her in the cage, Because she is avenging its losses, So, now she recklessly all heights and every length crosses, Wherever she goes the world of blazes and fires blooms, With just one prospect, that of gloom and endless dooms, Her desires are infinite, so her wings will never lose their fire now, There is only one way to stop her, via a kiss of love, But who would dare to kiss the wings of fire, Let alone the act, the very thought does scare and tire, Maybe the world, her world and our world will soon be reduced to cinders, And we can only hope that someday she forgives us all, her offenders, But behold the act of providence, Her only means of guidance, The wet drops of rain are soothing her hot and blazing wings, And as her wings regain their natural and colourful shades, she once again sings, Hopefully this spell of beauty lasts longer, And humans and beautiful butterflies will once again learn to live together!

She had thought that industrial production was a value not to be questioned by anyone; she had thought that these men’s urge to expropriate the factories of others was their acknowledgment of the factories’ value. She, born of the industrial revolution, had not held as conceivable, had forgotten along with the tales of astrology and alchemy, what these men knew in their secret, furtive souls, knew not by means of thought, but by means of that nameless muck which they called their instincts and emotions: that so long as men struggle to stay alive, they’ll never produce so little but that the man with the club won’t be able to seize it and leave them still less, provided millions of them are willing to submit—that the harder their work and the less their gain, the more submissive the fiber of their spirit—that men who live by pulling levers at an electric switchboard, are not easily ruled, but men who live by digging the soil with their naked fingers, are—that the feudal baron did not need electronic factories in order to drink his brains away out of jeweled goblets, and neither did the rajahs of the People’s State of India. She saw what they wanted and to what goal their “instincts,” which they called unaccountable, were leading them. She saw that Eugene Lawson, the humanitarian, took pleasure at the prospect of human starvation—and Dr. Ferris, the scientist, was dreaming of the day when men would return to the hand-plow.

As the handsome guardian’s hand closed around my neck now, his beautifully engraved gauntlet reflecting the glare of the twin suns overhead like a golden mirror, it was a miracle I didn’t crack open and yield my secrets like a piece of overripe fruit.

O pious of the heart, I am lost in a love, so great O pain the hidden secrets will become open debate. Shipwrecked we just float, O favorable wind arise, May we one more time gaze upon that familiar trait. Passage of time and the stars, are but what we fantasize For compassion and kindness, it is never too late. In the circle of wine and roses, nightingale’s song is prize With the aroma and the wine your senses satiate. O Thou compassionate one, life giver and the wise One day bestow thy grace upon this mendicant’s state. For peace of this world and the next, understand what I advise Magnanimity the lot of friends, and with foes try to relate. In the land of repute, our passage they will dispute If this will not suit, don’t stay mute, and transmute dictates of fate. When destitute and in need, let your love and passion breed Life’s alchemy, essence and seed, unimagined wealth shall create. If unruly with pride, with a candle’s zeal your flame will rise Beloved turns stone to lava, and molten wax manipulate. The Grail contains but wine, if only you realize Then the Kingdom of the world, at your feet prostrate. The good and wise Magi, forgivers of lives and lies Bearer bring good news, drunkards’ wine consecrate. With this wine stained robe, Hafiz would never disguise O untainted pure Master, exempt us from this fate

Maarifa unayoyatafuta katika Biblia, Kurani au Yoga ('Oriental Yoga': 'esoteric knowledge': maarifa ya kujua siri ya uumbaji wa Mungu ya 'Kabbalah' ya Kiyahudi au 'Kalachakra' ya Kibudha ya bara la Asia; siri ya sayansi ya kurefusha maisha ya mafundisho ya kiroho ya 'Arcanum' ya Misri – au Kemia ya Mungu au 'Alchemy'; mafundisho ya kiroho ya 'Rosicrucia' ya bara la Ulaya tangu mwishoni mwa karne ya kumi na nne; 'sex magic', 'sex magic' inaweza kukupa utajiri au umaskini hivyo kuwa makini; n.k.) ni hekima na busara. Vingine vyote vitajileta vyenyewe.

we can learn from its splendid ambition that what was one man's experience can become, through the alchemy of words, the experience of all, and how that experience, distilled once again into words, can serve each singular reader for some secret, singular purpose.

The Watchers spread out over all the land, claiming their peoples and unveiling secrets to the sons of men — dark occult secrets that humanity should never have known. They taught mankind the ways of sorcery and alchemy, incantations and the cutting of magical roots, casting of spells and the arts of divination, necromancy, and astrology. Elohim fast became a distant memory for mankind as they worshipped and served the creation instead of the Creator.

The act of writing, through its peculiar alchemy whereby the fruits of the mind are transformed into symbols intelligible to all literate minds—this is the greatest magic, perhaps.

950 years. After the flood, the lifespan

Life is revealing. It is not only human beings who speak; if only the ears can hear even plants and trees and all nature speak, in the sense that nature reveals itself, reveals its secret. In this way we communicate with the whole of life. Then we are never alone, then life becomes worth living.

Such powerful nations as Russia and Germany, who could ever have thought that they would fall down in a moment; nations which took hundreds of years to become strong and to build themselves up? But when their time came their downfall did not take long. If such great powers are subject to falling in a moment and their whole construction can be broken, if that is the nature and character of life, no thoughtful person will deny the fact that there must be some mystery behind it, some secret of which he would like to find the key. At least he would want to know what life is and what is behind it.

It is possible to access secrets of mind reprogramming with effortless methods. However, they are very dangerous to apply, and often, the consequences and implications, unpredictable as well. They are known only to members of secret societies. But even they often pay the price for applying high levels of magic. This universe has its own rules, and they should never be broken. There is a very big price to pay when that happens, and many times, if not with loneliness and severe levels of depression, with death itself. That is why, the vast majority of those who know this, focus on conscious methods. They are safer, imply more responsibility, and are easier to explain and understand. The secret path is secret for a very good reason - it is not meant for the common mortal. The common human needs to go through rituals of preparation before he is ready to accept such secrets, and it can take years. It often takes a whole lifetime for the common person. The conscious method is a safe path to the unconscious. Knowledge is a good and well-rooted path. But it's also true that some books are made to access the subconscious mind more than others. Meditation, on the other hand, can reveal to you how ready you are to acquire what you want and what you need to do next if that is not the case. But most forms of meditation are wrong or incomplete and can lead to madness and apathy. Zen meditation is the most efficient, but before you practice, you must know what that is within your heart, not with your mind. After that point, you will understand alchemy. That is how you bridge your mind with your heart. Nothing can enter your heart before your mind is ready. Finally, it is in the heart that you find all the answers you seek, including the ones that nullify the relevance of any of your questions. Know that, when I speak or write, I always speak and write to the heart. Those that focus on my words or the emotions I cause on them, are not listening and never will. To them, all secrets remain hidden because they are in the darkness.

Having set its mark on the generation before Cocteau’s, symbolism expressed a form of inner dissidence confronting the narrow-minded materialism and utilitarian obsession of the industrial revolution, and hence a reaction to triumphant naturalism, in literature at least. Nourished by medieval, Renaissance, and Romantic art, symbolism, probably the last great backward-looking movement hatched in the West, had given rise to a desire to explore the secrets of the world and the confines of the soul. Beyond its androgynous Mercuries, its pale Narcissuses, and its Orpheuses borne by rosaries of angels, it gave rise to a whole misty alchemy wherein some found their way into esotericism and even into the religious, since the Universe was only the symbol of another world into which entrance was gained not only through poetry, spiritualism, dreams, and the Ideal, but also via the play of analogies and the study of ciphers.

BOOKS The Alchemist’s Handbook: Manual for Practical Laboratory Alchemy, Frater Albertus (Red Wheel/Weiser, 1987) Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, Titus Burckhardt (Fons Vitae, 2000) Alchemy: The Secret Art, Stanislas Klossowski De Rola (Thames & Hudson, 1973) Ars Spagyrica – being a rendition of the Alchemical Arte of Spagyrics, G St M Nottingham, (Verdelet Publishing, 2005) Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer, Michael White (Fourth Estate, 1998) Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician, Lauren Kassell (Oxford University Press, 2007) On Becoming an Alchemist: A Guide for the Modern Magician, Catherine MacCoun (Trumpeter Books, 2009) Path of Alchemy: Energetic Healing and the World of Natural Alchemy, Mark Stavish (Llewellyn Publications, 2006)

What is it about dogs that allows them to touch our souls so deeply? Denied the gift of human speech and comprehension, what magic happens, what potent alchemy spins out from their soft paws, wagging tails, and lolling tongues, from their cold, damp noses and warm doggy breath? What hidden channels, what secret languages of exchange allow messages to pass, wordlessly yet powerfully, from their hearts to ours and back again? What habits, gestures, and expressions allow us to know each other better than we know ourselves? Dogs believe in us; by accepting our love, they grant us the wings to become our better angels and rise above our lesser selves.

The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath" About the Song: The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath delves into the dark and haunting theme of a lover poisoned by a sinister concoction found in the medieval Grand Grimoire. The song narrates the tragic tale of love tainted by the cruel hand of death, where a forbidden potion is meticulously prepared with arcane ingredients. The song's lyrics evoke a gothic atmosphere, intertwining elements of medieval alchemy and romantic tragedy. The potion's ingredients—Red Copper, Nitric Acid, Verdigris, Arsenic, Oak Bark, Rose Water, and Black Soot—are transformed into metaphors for the slow, inevitable demise of the lover. This deadly recipe becomes a symbol of both the destructive power and the twisted beauty of forbidden love. The music captures the essence of gothic black metal with its somber melodies, eerie harmonies, and intense, brooding instrumentals. Each note and lyric serve to illustrate the dark journey of love poisoned by betrayal and malice. The song's atmosphere is thick with melancholy and dread, inviting listeners into a world where passion and death intertwine in a tragic dance. Copyright Notice: The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath © 2024 Umbrae Sortilegium. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, or distribution of this song or its lyrics is prohibited. The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath. (Verse 1) In an ancient tome of shadowed lore, A secret poison to settle the score, A lover’s whisper, a deadly art, The composition to tear us apart. (Pre-Chorus) Red copper gleaming, nitric acid's burn, Verdigris and arsenic, from which there’s no return, Oak bark and rose water, a fatal serenade, Black soot to bind it, in darkness, it’s made. (Chorus) The composition of death upon your breath, A kiss that leads to the silent depths, In your arms, I fall to eternal rest, Poisoned by the love that you professed. (Verse 2) A new, glazed pot, the spell's design, A potion brewed, in shadows confined, Your lips, a chalice of cold despair, In each embrace, a whispered prayer. (Pre-Chorus) Red copper gleaming, nitric acid's burn, Verdigris and arsenic, from which there’s no return, Oak bark and rose water, a fatal serenade, Black soot to bind it, in darkness, it’s made. (Chorus) The composition of death upon your breath, A kiss that leads to the silent depths, In your arms, I fall to eternal rest, Poisoned by the love that you professed. (Bridge) In your gaze, the twilight's fall, A lover's kiss, the end of all, The Grand Grimoire, its secrets told, In every kiss, the poison’s cold. (Breakdown) A potion brewed from darkest sin, Your breath the gateway, let death begin, A recipe of doom, our fates entwined, In your arms, I lose my mind. (Chorus) The composition of death upon your breath, A kiss that leads to the silent depths, In your arms, I fall to eternal rest, Poisoned by the love that you professed. (Outro) The final breath, a lover's sigh, In your arms, I’m doomed to die, The composition, a lover’s theft, Death upon your breath, my final bequest. Lyrics and ALL Vocals yours truly. Lead Guitar & Symphonics Raz Wolfgang Drums Alexander Novichkov Bass Auron Nightshade Guitarist Kael Thornfield

Allison Coudert has argued that Leibniz was almost certainly influenced by Jewish Kabbalah, with its own esoteric use of combinatorial procedures for exploring the mysteries of the Godhead through gematria and other arithmosophical theurgies.7 Despite the arcane sources of his inspiration, however, Leibniz was not alone among mainstream early modern philosophers in the quest for a “science of sciences,” nor was he alone among moderns in his quest for secret knowledge, as evidenced, for example, by Newton's vast writings on alchemy. Even Descartes, who argued for a rigid distinction between mind and matter, had insisted on their practical unity at the level of “the living.” As Deleuze puts it in his preface to Malfatti's work, “Beyond a psychology disincarnated in thought, and a physiology mineralized in matter,” even Descartes believed in the possibility of a unified field “where life is defined as knowledge of life, and knowledge as life of knowledge” (MSP, 143). This is the unity, Deleuze asserts, to which Malfatti's account of mathesis as a “true medicine” aspires. Deleuze explicitly refers to mathesis universalis at several key points in Difference and Repetition, particularly in connection with what he calls the “esoteric” history of the calculus (DR, 170). As Christian Kerslake has argued, Deleuze's reference here is not merely to obscure or unusual interpretations of mathematics, but to the decisive significance of Josef Hoëné-Wronski, a Polish French émigré who had elaborated a “messianism” of esoteric knowledge based on the idea that the calculus represented access to the total range of cosmic periodicities and rhythmic imbrications.8 The full implications

Now He, (the Father) is One, for whilst he contained that Power within himself he was single; nevertheless he was not the First, although he was pre-existent, but when he was manifested to himself out of himself, he became Second, (or dual). And neither was he named the “Father”, before that Power called him Father. In the like manner therefore as the drawing-forth himself out of himself manifested unto himself his own intelligence, so did this Intelligence also, when manifested, not create, but contemplate Him; and thereby stood-up the Father within herself, that is to say, the Power. And this Power (dunanis) and this Intelligence (epinola) like wise is both a male and female Power, on which account they answer to one another, for the Power differs not all from the Intelligence, being one and the same. From that which is above, indeed, is formed the Power, from that which is below, the Intelligence. Of the same kind therefore is the Unity, which is manifested out of them both; for being one it is found to be Twain; both male and female, containing within itself the female. In this manner the Mind exists within the Intelligence; which, when severed from each other, although they are One, are found to be Two.” - The Gnostics and their Remains, “Simonianism”, Page 68, quoted in The Secret Doctrine

To those who preach morals — I do not wish to promote any morality, but to those who do I give this advice: If you wish to deprive the best things and states of all honor and worth, then go on talking about them as you have been doing. Place them at the head of your morality and talk from morning to night of the happiness of virtue, the composure of the soul, of justice and immanent retribution The way you are going about it, all these good things will eventually have popularity and the clamor of the streets on their side; but at the same time all the gold that was on them will have been worn off by so much handling, and all the gold inside will have turned to lead Truly, you are masters of alchemy in reverse: the devaluation of what is most valuable. Why don’t you make the experiment of trying another prescription to keep from attaining the opposite of your goal as you have done hitherto? Deny these good things, withdraw the mob’s acclaim from them as well as their easy currency; make them once again concealed secrets of solitary souls; say that morality is something forbidden That way you might win over for these things the kind of people who alone matter: I mean those who are heroic. But to that end there has to be a quality that inspires fear and not, as hitherto, nausea Hasn’t the time come to say of morality what Master Eckhart said: “I ask God to rid me of God.

But the word more likely has a Greek origin, given that Greek was the language both of the earliest alchemical texts and of literate Greco-Roman Egypt. The “chem” of alchemy and chemistry very probably derives from the Greek cheō, which means “to melt or fuse.” Cheō also gives rise to the Greek word chuma, which signifies an ingot of metal.

And now that mulch of dead imaginings beneath the feet of Temperance ladies, union-affiliated Vaudevillians and maimed men home from Europe has contaminated the groundwater of the upstart country's nightmares. Immigrants in their illimitable difference come to seem a separate species, taciturn and fish-eyed as though risen from the ocean waves that bore them in their transport, monstrous in their self-contained communities with bitter scents and indecipherable ululations, names, unsettlingly unpronounceable ensconced at isolated farms where beaten track is naught save idle rumour stagnant families nurse grievance, dreadful secrets and deformity in solitude; pools of declined humanity entirely unconnected to society by any tributary where ancestral prejudice or misconception may become the plaint of generations. Fabled and forbidden works of Arab alchemy are handed down across years cruel and volatile, trafficked between austere and colonial homes by charitable fellowships with ancient affectations or conveyed by fevered sea-captains, fugitive Huguenots or elderly hysterics formally accused of witchcraft. Young America, a sapling power grown suddenly so tall upon its diet of nickelodeons and motorcars, has sunk unwitting roots into an underworld of grotesque notions and archaic creeds, their feaful pull discernible below the weed-cracked sidewalk. Buried and forgotten, ominous philosophies await their day with hideous patience. Well! I think that's pretty darned good for a first attempt. A little over-wrought, perhaps, and I'm not sure about the style - I can't decide if its too modern of it's too old-fashioned, but perhaps that's a good sign. Of course, I guess I'll have to introduce a plot and characters at some point, but I'll wrestle with that minor nuisance when I get to it. Perhaps I could contrive to have some hobo, maybe literally a hoe-boy or travelling itinerant farm labourer who's wandering from place to place around New England in the search for work; somebody who might reasonably become involved with all the various characters I'm hoping to investigate. Being a labourer, while it would lend a feasibility to any action or exertion that I wanted in the story, wouldn't mean that my protagonist was lacking in intelligence or education: this is often economically a far from certain country for a lot of people, and there's plenty of smart fellows - maybe even an aspiring writer like myself - who've found themselves leaving their homes and families to mooch around from farm to farm in hope of some hay-baling or fruit-picking that's unlikely to materialise. Perhaps a character like that, a rugged man who is sufficiently well read to justifiably allow me a few literary flourishes (and I can't help thinking that I'll probably end up casting some imagined variant of Tom Malone) would be the kind of of sympathetic hero and the kind of voice I'm looking for. Meanwhile I yawned a moment or two back, and while I'm not yet quite exhausted to the point where I can guarantee a deep and dreamless sleep, perhaps another six or seven vague ideas for stories might just do the soporific job.

Indeed, an entire generation became acquainted with the stone and one of its supposed possessors, the medieval Parisian notary Nicolas Flamel, by means of the first of J. K. Rowling’s wildly successful books: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. (Regrettably, American publishers corrupted the substance’s ancient name into the meaningless “Sorcerer’s Stone.

Art is spiritual alchemy. It necessitates being completely open to new ideas, just as your playful inner child is inside of you. And it also requires that you are willing to look at what is working and what is not working so well in your life.

He'd never seen the galaxy like this before, so close, so clear, parallel tracks of stars merging and separating, all of it wheeling as one unit across the horizon. It was a secret, he thought, hidden entirely from view when the sun was up, readily forgotten by day. But it was ever present, dominating reality, determining fate, perhaps, its true nature revealed only when the sun went down, only in the alchemy of night. He looked beyond the nebula, into the emptiness that cradled those blazing suns and galaxies all the way to the beginning of time, but as intently as he stared, he still could not fathom it. Never had he felt like such a single, tiny passenger on such a fragile, spinning, speck of a planet as he did right here, in the middle of a desert miles and miles from anyone else.

a simple principle: how our habitual patterns take shape and are reinforced. And it holds the secret of what we can do to break free of destructive habits.

Fulcanelli explained that cosmic disasters happen in a predictable cycle, and that alchemy was never about creating gold from lead, but was a veiled allegory about properly restoring a golden age after the next cataclysm.  Fulcanelli said that secret societies have been passing down knowledge of these cycles for thousands of years, and that the monument at Hendaye is just one of many monuments in stone that “pointed to a specific time period, the intersection point of several celestial cycles” regarding the galactic center.  “The symbols and teachings encoded in the cross at Hendaye offer us a new understanding of the cosmos, especially with regard to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and its effect on us… ancient knowledge of the location of the center of our galaxy and from that knowledge a way to estimate the date of a celestial event of eschatological magnitude.”[227]  He also warns that a “double catastrophe” for the world is due soon, “when the solstices cross the galactic axis – the time, according to Fulcanelli, of the cyclic catastrophe”[228] which Weidner and Bridges interpret as Judgment Day, due in the early 21st century.

...all projections of consciousness are indeed movements by the self from one place to another, from one dimension to another, and even though the physical body may not seem to move, it is nevertheless deeply affected by these journeys. Moreover, these journeys are not only powerful inner actions that can allow a person to escape the physical dimension and work through a great deal of repression and personal dis-balance, these real journeys provide access to a pool of knowledge and power that is staggering in its magnitude. Indeed, the most staggering of these possibilities is the energetic fact that we are indeed far more than the physical body, and that thanks to the non-physical aspects of our whole being, we have the possibility of surviving physical death!

One of the best ways to understand just how inadequate words can be when it comes to talking about subjective experience, is to realize that there are often multiple ways to describe inner action, and that even though these definitions can sometimes seem to contradict themselves in some ways, they are nevertheless quite valid.

The rational world view that is maintained by the waking conscious self is a perfect cage; it limits our potential so much that even the contemplation of the possibility of another greater reality is interpreted as insanity, guaranteeing that few will ever even suspect the marvels hidden in the depths of the Second World. But that is the price we all are willing to pay I suppose, to also protect the cozy sensible human world from the titans beyond the gate.

The linear order of time then is only true during wakeful states, only during the OUT cycle of consciousness. But again, wakefulness is not a constant linear thing, it is constantly fluctuating even when most of us think that we are quite awake and alert. The only way for humanity to maintain any linear order within physical time at all, is to use external physical devices (like clocks) or to focus the attention and record changes (like in calendars) in the First World. In this way, we may keep track of the physical cycles like the shift of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the seasons. Indeed, the written word, and the keeping of historical records, are ways for the outer self, the conscious ego, to maintain a semblance of linear and stable order within time.

Please note then that conscious dreaming truly is after death training for the ghost in the machine, because its experiences when the conscious self is turned off every night, are what it will truly experience when physical life ends. Dreams are a real experience of after physical death realities.

Everything that I have ever taught in my books is about training and empowering your ghost in the machine!

For me, as an Inner Alchemist, there is no body and soul; the body and the soul are one indivisible thing. The soul then IS the body in a certain vibrational range. As such, there is no Out There or In Here for an Alchemist. Duality and separation are a good way to teach at first, they help to create demarcations that can certainly help to maintain a type of sanity in a young mind, but they are illusions that must be left behind as the intellect grows.

So, what are your thoughts about this symbol, Kate?" he asked mildly. "Well, you see, the picture jarred my memory. Actually, I can't believe that I forgot---but, then again, I was just a wee thing at the time." "Forgot about what?" he asked impatiently. "My mother's book!" He eyed her warily, recalling at once the book he had seen the Count DuMarin's veiled daughter, Lady Gabrielle, holding tightly to her chest on the night she had been handed over into the watchful care of Captain Fox. Rohan had assumed it was a Bible. "My mother brought a book with her from France containing this same symbol!" Kate explained. "It was a big thick tome, with all kinds of strange symbols and diagrams and writings. It had little maps and puzzles of different sorts figure out. Back when I was a little girl on my father's ship, my parents were constantly poring over it." He frowned. "Rohan, it was all about Valerian the Alchemist!" she exclaimed. "I don't know if the book was by him or simply written about him, but it contained clues to the secret location of his tomb. They were on a treasure hunt!" He narrowed his eyes. The Alchemist's Tomb? But it had passed into legend long ago. "Alchemy---you know!" Kate was saying excitedly. "Changing base metals into gold? There was supposed to be a horde of hidden treasure buried with him.

When Nicholas Flamel – one of the few who, according to the mystics and alchemists, was supposed to have discovered the Philosopher’s Stone – bought a papyrus [19] book in Paris, reputedly “at a small price,” it was a baptized Jewish physician, not a kabbalist, who in 1378, in the pilgrimage town of Santiago de Compostela, disclosed to him the meaning of the writing and therewith the secret of alchemy.

Writing poetry, to me, is alchemy. Take the marriage of ink and paper, together they create an offspring of unspeakable beauty. Words can cause great harm or great pleasure, sometimes both. Often, poetry emerges fully fledged onto a blank page, other times it has a long gestation and requires much love to shape it into something to be proud of. In my first book Weaving Wyrd, I delved into the secrets of the invisible threads that bind everything living.

If that focus is off and you are easily distracted, then there is no redoubling of hard effort and extra pain. Instead there is a waking up to the fact that your mind has become distracted, a ‘remembering’ of who you are and what you consciously want, and a gentle re-direction of that distracted attention back to focusing on that original conscious desire. You then repeat this process over and over again, until a change is made which happens slowly sometimes, faster at other times, but whatever the case, it is not painful and it’s not hard, it just requires time and attention.

Shelly’s alchemy with other people’s money and Social Security numbers went on for a very long time. Some years later, when Sami tried to get an apartment, her application was rejected because she had bad credit. There was a debt of $36,000 associated with her Social Security number. It wasn’t her name on the account, however

The same concern about the coming of the Antichrist lay behind much of what Roger Bacon—also a Franciscan friar—wrote to the pope about sixty years earlier: the church will need mathematical, scientific, technological, medical, and other knowledge to resist and survive the assault of the Antichrist.

Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it [the Mason] calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it.”548