In
the course of writing both my journals The
Astral Explorer and The
Cosmic Traveller It awakened memories of
many lives lived in ancient Egypt. I'm sure many people today lived in
those times. We believed then that the Pharaohs were gods, but today we
know that they were the descendants of the co-creator gods who used biogenetic
alchemy to create the slave race that upheld the lifestyles of the upper
class, the Pharaohs and their families and friends.
The life I remembered the most was that of a friend and an artist for
the royal household of Akenaten. In a lifetime before the Egyptian era
I was what was known in the middle ages as an Alchemist.
The alchemist's quest
has always been self-development, attempting to integrate the many facets
of personality to attain psychic wholeness.
Alchemy, as an esoteric art, is almost as old as civilisation itself.
It wasn't until the 12th or 13th Century, in the aftermath of the Crusades
and the Arabic influence, that it filtered into western Europe via Sicily
and Spain. Alchemy derived its origins from ancient Egypt, where it was
associated with the worship of Thoth, who later became known as Hermes
Trismegistus.
Alchemy required infinite patience, subtlety of appreciation and dedication
to the Art, often at great personal sacrifice.
The work of an alchemist
(priests) in ancient Egypt was an inner psychological repetition of the
external cosmology. The alchemical process was a complete reversal of
our contemporary notion of biological evolution. Its final 'goal' was
the transformation of both organic and inorganic matter.
In other words, the biogenetic alchemy's operations deliberately broke
down the natural order of things in order to renew creation. That is why
they were seen as GODS by the slaves, but now I regrettably perceive,
that it was a work against nature in order to free the psyche from its
material and natural view of itself and of the world.
The alchemist from the past, like the metallurgist today, pursues the
transformation of matter, its perfection and transmutation. I also recall
in my dreams that the whole operation of mining created the mythical belief
that to ensure the 'marriage of metals' in the smelting process, a living
being must be sacrificed in order to 'animate' the operation.
Today many fables and fantasy stories, rites and mysteries, are played
out upon the alchemist's imagination as a metaphor for the generative
and degenerative powers of nature; its ability to constantly renew and
refashion itself. Believe me that those fantastic fables about the elemental
kingdom with its fairies, pixies and dragons holds lots of information
known by the Alchemists of the past!
For the alchemist within me, the world was understood through substances,
with alchemy itself being a means of entering the realm of imagination.
The world was seen in terms of imagination interacting with concrete substances
through impersonal, objective operations. It was thus a discipline built
entirely on the psychological phenomenon of projection. The alchemist
projected his psychic state onto matter. It was a dual process, a mirroring
back of physical operations on substances, each one resonating with all
human experiences hitherto lying dormant within the personal psyche. That
is why I have become known today as a dreamer. I have the ability to astral
travel, which I describe in my journal.
Through my friend Vinny, a psychologist, I learned that the Swiss psychologist,
Dr Carl Jung, who began studying alchemy when aged 53, realised that the
alchemist was really working symbolically on the transformation of his
own psyche. He found in alchemy's bizarre fantasies and afflicted imagery
a metaphor for individuation and an ideal portrait of soul-work. Jung
believed that an individual's psychological state can be assessed alchemically,
so he took the four basic substances found in alchemy (sulphur, salt,
lead, and mercury) as metaphors for the way the personality operates in
life. Jung was also able to elucidate the stages of alchemy and relate
them to his own insights into the individuation process.
Soul, the collective consiousness of Spirit
It was then that I understood
why symbolised light images, that reflected qualities of soul, were of
major importance to the ancient alchemist who believed that the 'Gods'
forced themselves symptomatically into awareness through birth, and that
the language of light was a divine process working in the human soul.
By dissolving rigid ego boundaries, we can begin to challenge the ideas
we have about ourselves and the world; questioning the 'truths' we unequivocally
take to be reality. Therefore the mystery of alchemy for me is about a
reconciliation of the opposites; by connecting, for example, the macrocosm
with microcosm, personal with impersonal, masculine with feminine - and
bringing them together into a paradoxical relationship, as exemplified
by the hermetic motto 'As Above, So Below'.
To achieve this union of opposites, the alchemy of the past attempted
to move in two directions simultaneously; keeping things both apart and
together.
Today
our scientists are also exploring; tampering with genetics, and sometimes
they are sponsored by institutions who lead them up the garden path. Could
that have been happening millions of years ago during the creation of
a specie that could do the hard labour of mining for gold? Who, which
GOD (g) was in control of this slave race?
I've often wondered, could it be that today we are following in the footsteps
of our original creators? Did we inherit their genetic traits? The indoctrinations,
dogma and belief systems that are so very much part of our society today
seems to dis-empower people; so much so that the most crushing consequence
of Christianity's ordering, control and defeat of nature was... the loss
of soul...
The disconnection
with Nature Spirits.
When soul is lost..(without
soul awareness, relationship and connectedness) people suffer. Though
physically present, we may walk through busy, crowded areas of daily life
like a stranger who sees it all as if it were happening behind a glass
panel. Most people are only half conscious, only a small amount of brain
cells are used and our connection with for example nature spirits is almost
nil.
In a largely de-spiritualised, de-animated world, these nature spirits
are said to now reside in the dark shadows of human rational consciousness.
Annelies has even suggested that the gods, deities and spirits have become
our modern day dis-eases and that they exist in our personal lives as
moods, odd fascinations, delusions, erotic fantasies and whatever else
lurks in the depths of the unconscious. It seems as though we are trapped
in the materiality of our being, with nature reduced to the human experience
of it.
That is why it is important to bring as much SOUL into our lives in order
to awaken our true blueprint. Alchemy emphasised that soul begins in the
moist, solid earth, the realm of ordinary experience. Without this there
could be no soul. Maybe we need the tangles and problems, hurt feelings,
pains and depressions, just as much as we need our exhilarations, joys
and pleasures, of everyday life in order to wake up!
Alchemy attempts to 'see through' what lies hidden in the matters of life;
in our repressed unconscious mind where contamination takes place, so
let's awaken the Alchemist within.
Love Richard
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