Alchemy
- Transformational Art
- Transformational Music
- Archetypal Psychology
- Personal Transformation
- Modern Alchemy
- History of Alchemy
- Laboratory Alchemy
- Alchemical Healing
- Social Alchemy & Relationships
Alchemy 101, by Iona Miller
http://spiritualalchemy.iwarp.com/rich_text.html
http://spiritualalchemy.iwarp.com/rich_text.html
The Modern Alchemist, Iona Miller
http://books.google.com/books?id=b3bV-pbLLzUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=b3bV-pbLLzUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Transmodern Alchemy, by Iona Miller
Spiritual Technology, Chaos Theory & Dynamics in Personal Transformation
Physics for Alchemists
Can We Ever Discover the Fabric of Reality?
http://transmodernalchemy.weebly.com/
Spiritual Technology, Chaos Theory & Dynamics in Personal Transformation
Physics for Alchemists
Can We Ever Discover the Fabric of Reality?
http://transmodernalchemy.weebly.com/
Spiritual Alchemy, by Iona Miller
http://spiritualalchemy.iwarp.com/
http://spiritualalchemy.iwarp.com/
Analytical psychology is fundamentally a natural science, but it is subject far more than any other science to the personal bias of the observer. The psychologist must depend therefore in the highest degree upon historical and literary parallels if he wishes to exclude at least the crudest errors in judgment. Between 1918 and 1926 I had seriously studied the Gnostic writers, for they too had been confronted with the primal world of the unconscious and had dealt with its contents, with images that were obviously contaminated with the world of instinct. Just how they understood these images remains difficult to say, in view of the paucity of the accounts which, moreover, mostly stem from their opponents, the Church Fathers.
It seems to me highly unlikely that they had a psychological conception of them. But the Gnostics were too remote for me to establish any link with them in regard to the questions that were confronting me. As far as I could see, the tradition that might have connected Gnosis with the present seemed to have been severed, and for a long time it proved impossible to find any bridge that led from Gnosticism or Neo-Platonism to the contemporary world.
But when I began to understand alchemy I realized that it represented the historical link with Gnosticism, and that a continuity therefore existed between past and present. Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed the bridge on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections.
It seems to me highly unlikely that they had a psychological conception of them. But the Gnostics were too remote for me to establish any link with them in regard to the questions that were confronting me. As far as I could see, the tradition that might have connected Gnosis with the present seemed to have been severed, and for a long time it proved impossible to find any bridge that led from Gnosticism or Neo-Platonism to the contemporary world.
But when I began to understand alchemy I realized that it represented the historical link with Gnosticism, and that a continuity therefore existed between past and present. Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed the bridge on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious. ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams and Reflections.
CHAOS NATURAE: Chaos, Complexity & Alchemical Process
By Iona Miller, 2009
"Whence will come the chamaeleon of our chaos in which all secrets are hid in their potential state."
Sacred Science
We are agents of chaos. The secrets of chaos are embodied and revealed in alchemy and chaos theory. Alchemy and chaos theory are metamodels, demonstrating we are verbs, not nouns - holographically interconnected dynamical processes, not separate things. The whole is contained in the part in reiterated patterns of nested structure. Chaos is the transformative energy. We have the capacity to transform utterly in any given instant of pure potential.
Alchemy rightly identifies chaos as a chamaeleon -- ever changeable yet the same. Chaos is complete in itself, internally harmonious. Creation is a self-contained, organic process of development. Layered complexity automatically surfaces the features it is critical to work on at a different level. We do not have to take apart, analyze or interpret the complexity of images but learn to flow with them just as they are presented in the stream of consciousness and experience. Each flowing image brings a morphological epiphany, "I am that."
We are always in dynamic balance between order and chaos. Nature's way also expresses our deepest nature, precreative chaos. Paradoxically, we initially have to separate ourselves from it to become more intimate with it. Mining the soul through mindbody cultivation, we disassemble ourselves to recongeal in purified or refined form, reintegrated at a holistic level of dynamic functionality. We revert to chaos in meditation as the body stills and thoughts slow down and cease in universal resonance. Healing emerges by immersion in the undifferentiated chaotic consciousness.
Chaotic material comes in many forms with structure at a global level. Chaos is present in the universal set of building rules, networks, events, coherent wholes, dimensional embedding, the nonlocal mind and the synergetic achitecture of life and biological organization. Matter is not passive but spontaneously active. Order is created in this random activity.
Chaos underlies global behavior and the dynamical system of the mind, panpsychism, psychological complexity, sentience and emergent properties, pattern recognition, genesis of intelligence, reality discrimination, raw awareness, attention, meaningfullness, perception-cognition loops, refocusing, creative inspiration, consequences, memory, self-sustenance/structure maintenance, perceptual chunking, time distortion.
There is chaos in our dreamlife, fantasies, mythologizing, in the complex interactions of the neural firing patterns of our brain, and the dynamics of thought especially during REM, creative imagination, connectivity, even enlightenment--the biology and psychology of consciousness itself with its tightly knit fabric of subprocesses, and especially in point of view/relativity, significance/correspondence (beliefs, concepts, attitudes, emotions, behavior), attributions, restructuring, adaptive learning, spontaneous healing.
We don't need to worry about the mathematics or geometries here, except to know chaos and self-referential fractals validate the assertions foreseen long ago in alchemy, such as "As Above, So Below," holism, and the urobouric feedback of circulatio and turbulent vapors. Chaos is sensitively dependent on initial conditions. It kindles heightened response patterns. This kindling is synonymous with the alchemical fire of calcinatio. Chaos turns up the psychic heat.
Jung related the deep structure of the psyche, prima materia to the collective unconscious, our transpersonal being. Our minds shape our perceptions of the environment according to innate categories. Our nature is not separate from the nature of matter or the nature of the world. We are always in flux. We are one with the matrix of all creation, primordial awareness, the unmoved groundstate of our being.
When the mind is stripped of its contents by sublimation of our being, we experience the pristine natural mind. Prima materia is the "mother" and a return to this most fundamental state is a return to the womb for rebirth. This initial state is the raw material from whch we make gold by pursuing the experiment with ourselves. Our understanding of the true nature of the work deepens beyond concepts into experience and direct knowing.
[The Sympathetic Nervous System [Anima Mundi] is the Mother of the Cerebrospinal System [Brain.]
The “vestigial” sympathetic nervous system, an apparently fortuitous tangle of ganglionic nodes that regulate the vegetative functions of the body in an
astoundingly purposive way, becomes the matrix of the cerebrospinal system, whose crowning miracle, the brain, seems to our fascinated gaze the controller of all bodily processes.
Nay more: the sympathetic system is, for Schleich, the mysterious “cosmic nerve,” the true “ideoplast,” the original and most immediate realization of-giving World Soul, and, ultimately, the architect of the brain, this newest achievement of the pre-existent a body-building and body-sustaining World Soul, which was there before mind and body came into existence.
The Hyliaster of Paracelsus is thus stripped of its unfathomable creative secret. Once again the solidity and tangibility of matter, so fervently believed in and so convincing to the senses, dissolve into Maya, into a mere emanation of primordial thought and will, and all hierarchies and all values are reversed. The intangible, the psyche, becomes the ground and substrate, and the “merely vegetative” sympathetic system the possessor and realizer of unthinkable creative secrets, the vehicle of the life-giving World Soul, and, ultimately, the architect of the brain, this newest achievement of the pre-existent creative will.
What lay modestly hidden beneath the overwhelming grandeur of the cerebrospinal system, which, as the vehicle of consciousness, seems to be identical with the psyche as such—this same sympathetic system is “psyche” in a deeper and more embracing sense than is the interplay of the cortical fields of the cerebrum.
Nothwithstanding its quantitative and qualitative insignificance, it is the exponent of a psyche far excelling consciousness both in depth and scope, and is not, like this, defencelessly exposed to the potions of the endocrine system, but itself creates these magical secretions with single minded purposiveness. ~Carl Jung; The Symbolic Life; Page 464 [Forward to Essays written by Ludwig Schleich.]
The “vestigial” sympathetic nervous system, an apparently fortuitous tangle of ganglionic nodes that regulate the vegetative functions of the body in an
astoundingly purposive way, becomes the matrix of the cerebrospinal system, whose crowning miracle, the brain, seems to our fascinated gaze the controller of all bodily processes.
Nay more: the sympathetic system is, for Schleich, the mysterious “cosmic nerve,” the true “ideoplast,” the original and most immediate realization of-giving World Soul, and, ultimately, the architect of the brain, this newest achievement of the pre-existent a body-building and body-sustaining World Soul, which was there before mind and body came into existence.
The Hyliaster of Paracelsus is thus stripped of its unfathomable creative secret. Once again the solidity and tangibility of matter, so fervently believed in and so convincing to the senses, dissolve into Maya, into a mere emanation of primordial thought and will, and all hierarchies and all values are reversed. The intangible, the psyche, becomes the ground and substrate, and the “merely vegetative” sympathetic system the possessor and realizer of unthinkable creative secrets, the vehicle of the life-giving World Soul, and, ultimately, the architect of the brain, this newest achievement of the pre-existent creative will.
What lay modestly hidden beneath the overwhelming grandeur of the cerebrospinal system, which, as the vehicle of consciousness, seems to be identical with the psyche as such—this same sympathetic system is “psyche” in a deeper and more embracing sense than is the interplay of the cortical fields of the cerebrum.
Nothwithstanding its quantitative and qualitative insignificance, it is the exponent of a psyche far excelling consciousness both in depth and scope, and is not, like this, defencelessly exposed to the potions of the endocrine system, but itself creates these magical secretions with single minded purposiveness. ~Carl Jung; The Symbolic Life; Page 464 [Forward to Essays written by Ludwig Schleich.]
Global emphasis on urgent ecological awareness implies a reflowering of the Neo-Platonic and alchemical notion of ANIMA MUNDI the Soul of the World. Anima Mundi is not an archetype, but an archetypal way of seeing -- seeing through the world. Our narcissistic tendency is self-absorption, over-valuing individual subjectivity at the expense of the real problems of the world. The language of Anima Mundi includes beauty, aesthetics, depth, inner life and political activity -- psychological practices of larger groups.
We are all engaged in making the world soul even as she shapes us. We have a drive to love the world, even an erotic desire for anima mundi. She invites us into a relationship of intimacy with the world and its objects and processes. The psychic reality of the world soul is available to all in images and imagination. We cannot separate our souls from the souls of others and the environment.
Care of the soul doesn't mean isolating ourselves from the reality of the world and its phenomena -- experiences, substance and objects. Soul makes images that add a depth dimension to concrete life, that go beyond literalness to psychological metaphysics that expresses our legitimate need to go further, even beyond mythical fictions through imagination to speculative freedom.
Thus, anima mundi is the field of infinite meanings, created from metaphors of different places, points of view, and narratives. New understandings arrive with new images at the surprising edge of things, new expressive forms that arise of their own accord.
"ANIMA MUNDI: Soul-Filled World"
By Iona Miller
“God redeems humanity, but nature needs to be redeemed by human alchemists, who are able to induce the process of transformation, which alone is capable of liberating the light imprisoned in physical creation.” ~Stephan Hoeller, Sufi Journal, Issue 67, Autumn 2005
"Let us imagine the anima mundi neither above the world encircling it as a divine and remote emanation of spirit, a world of powers, archetypes, and principles transcendent to things, nor within the material world as its unifying panpsychic life-principle. Rather let us imagine the anima mundi as that particular soul-spark, the seminal image, which offers itself through each thing in its visible form. Then anima mundi indicates the animated possibilities presented by each event, as it is, its sensuous presentation as face bespeaking its interior image--in short, its availability to imagination, its presence as a psychic reality. Not only animals and plants ensouled as in the Romantic vision, but soul is given with each thing; God-given things of nature and man-made things of the street." ~James Hillman, “Anima Mundi,” Spring, 1982
NUMINOUS & LUMINOUS PSYCHE
Anima Mundi, the feminine principle or mode of Being was historically considered the "soul of the world," the fertility of human, animal and plant life. Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno said the World Soul “illumines the universe and directs nature in producing her species in the right way.” She is the magical world of creative mystery.
Our geocentric understanding of ourselves has expanded to the realization that we are an intrinsic part of Cosmos. The Universe is also literally within us. No longer limited merely to our planet, Anima Mundi is the personification of the whole natural world – the Universe. This light, the dynamic reality of the energy field, is within us as within everything. Embodied nature is the link between the archetypal and formative worlds, the hyperdimensional matrix of eternal patterns with sacred proportions and unique manifestations. She is also infinite potential, the possibility of bringing creative ideas to birth, to manifestation.
In the deepest sense, she is the universal wave function, the unmanifest ground of our being, spacetime and the radiant light of virtual photon fluctuation, which underlies all matter and manifestation. Kabbalist Azriel of Gerona claimed "faith" meant entering into a relationship with one's "nothingness" and the "unknown" of the infinite, the ultimate ‘yin’ of non-existence that is the mother of all form.
In ancient times Anima Mundi declared her impenetrable mystery by reiterating that "I am Isis; no man has lifted my veil." This Muse of superconsciousness is bathed in the Light and concealed by it. Thus she alludes to herself as dazzling Solitaire in her virgin nature, that sense of wholeness within oneself, which is the Feminine source of wisdom, magic and meaning.
The natural light of the soul is illumination, embodied in the pineal light of the “spirit molecule,” DMT. Likewise, alchemists seek the divine spark, the light hidden in matter. To work creatively in the world, the Light of Nature needs to be released through inner alchemy. Our own light or divine spark is part of the light of the World Soul, so we can understand the mysteries of creation and the secrets of nature. The tools of inner transformation help Anima Mundi reveal her divine light.
Whether called Isis, Shakti, Maya, Shekinah, Sophia, Demeter/Persephone, Mary, Great Mother, White Goddess or any cultural variant, Anima Mundi is the universal animating principle, the upwelling spring of the creative Imagination, the dynamic flow of imagery, pattern, and form. She is personified internally as a soul guide or Initiatrix and externally embodied as the Soror Mystica. Glimpsing inspiring inner workings of our soul helps us realign our lives, our hopes and our dreams.
ANCIENT & CONTEMPORARY MODELS
Spiritual alchemy has long been informed by depth psychology. Carl Jung’s work in this area is well-known. Less known is that of the main proponent of archetypal psychology, James Hillman who places Anima Mundi as center of his psychological theory. This archetype of the psyche is inherent in the prima materia. It fosters the return of psychological subjectivity to the outer.
Alchemy works in just this projective, animated manner with a deeper level of participation. Phenomenology is the art of dissolution, a natural alchemy, learning how to see again, a way of being in the world between thinking and perceiving. In this aesthetic paradigm, Hillman asserts that images derive autonomy and operate according to their own will, similar to gods.
Gods and goddesses are an intrinsic part of Hillman's archetypal psychology, as they are in alchemy. In mythical perception, gods, metals, plants, minerals, animals, scents, colors, planets and more correspond with one another through the Doctrine of Signatures. Different forms share the same essential nature.
The symbolic nature of metals is the skeleton of spiritual alchemy. The word ‘metal’ means ‘search,’ strongly suggesting the nature of our alchemical work. We don’t seek a natural metal but the virtual metal, it’s essence. The lunar metal of Anima is silver and the white earth (albedo). Jung said, “Earth and moon coincide in the albedo.” (CW14, para. 154)
Silver is washed into veins in faultlines in the earth, and we can take advantage of the analogous process in our psyche. It takes place in that egoic illusion called “mine.” We can mine our own psychic faultlines. Silver is found in lead-silver vein mineralizations, sometimes with gold and zinc. Silver, the seed of the moon in the earth, is refined from the dross of lead-silver concentrate into the silvered mirror of the mind. Solutions emerge from our puzzlement. Reflection gives shape to the imaginal.
MINING THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
Insights can tarnish, losing their shiny clarity. Just as silver is prone to blackening, this phase of the Great Work can be derailed by Saturn’s depression, the destructive illusion of separation. But the depression is the mine. Albedo emerges from blackness, transpersonal release, and emotional relief from the nigredo of personal identity. But the urge to white is not an escape from black – a whitewash -- since there is no soul without body.
Each object or body is also an imaginal image. We can extract silver moments from our leaden body – motions and emotions that regulate the neurochemistry of the body. Alchemical silver can be mined for many rich metaphorical associations (aha moments), just as silver requires polishing for reflection. Friction leads to clarified reflection. Shame is washed away.
Without shadow, whiteness becomes blankness. Shadow that is built into psyche’s body becomes transparent. Shadow is built into the nature of whiteness, as all colors unite disappearing into white. The world becomes an alchemical dream – the terra alba of anima inspiration.
Imaging itself is a mode of mining silver, psychical facts and essences, sometimes by speculation, resonance and artful listening. We may temporarily become a bit of a “lunatic” in the transmutative process The mysterium coniunctionis is moon-madness combined with solar brilliance.
It takes intense heat, intense introspection in the depths, to refine our inert nature. Then the luminous consciousness of the worked on soul arises. Dissolved by desire from its old ground for fusion in the dissolution of gender, anima no longer is exclusively feminine. Passive fantasy becomes transcendent active imagination, revealing the images within nature, the secret heart of nature.
IT IS BUT IT ISN’T
Virtual places, phenomena, and experiences can be just as “real” as material perceptions. The brain responds to the virtuality as if there is no neurological difference between imaginal and externally stimulated imagery. In this sense, imagination is reality. We perceive the sensate world through the non-linear imaginal world, its enfolded imaginal potential.
Anima Mundi embodies the pandemonium of all forms in external and internal perceptions. She bridges our perceptions of the world by stimulating the imaginative faculty. Yet, being attached to materialistic images is not the same as being attached to Mater, matter and earth.
As alchemists, we have to build a relationship with the very essence of the world. Being in soul is a continuous intentional process. The Astral Light is synonymous with the alchemical Anima Mundi. Jung’s idea of the Collective Unconscious as the treasure house of fluctuating imagery is a modern description. This light represents the immanence of the world-soul. She dwells in us and we are enlivened by her Being.
Aristotle conceptualized soul as the form, or essence of any living thing, not a distinct substance from the body it inhabits. Only possession of soul (of a specific kind) makes an organism an organism. The notion of a body without a soul, or of a soul in the wrong kind of body, is completely unintelligible. Soul mediates between mind and body, idea and matter, actualities and the Beyond.
James Hillman (1975) observes that soul, “refers to the deepening of events into experiences; second the significance of soul, whether in love or religious concern, derives from its special relationship with death. And third…the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy—that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”
Paracelsus thought the soul was beyond the individual, beyond our control. Plotinus saw all individuals as one soul. Gerhard Dorn said the third degree of the alchemical coniunctio, the most mature phase of individuation, is the personal realization of communion with an original unitary reality. Grounded intuition of a centered sphere of soul opens a microcosm that mirrors the Cosmic macrocosm: "As Above, So Below.”
PSYCHOLOGICAL FAITH
We need a new cultural proving ground, a new paradigm for the energetic potential of the bodymind and the culture for which it is the ground. In our culture, the body and our fantasies about it have come to represent the lost Feminine element of deep interior processes.
We have lost touch with our primal femininity, the animating principle (nature, body, instinct). We have become estranged from the body through the mechanistic mind/body split, which is also non-relativistic. We talk a good game about 'wholeness' but don't really connect as much as nostalgically yearn for it.
Spontaneous imagery soulfully joins spirit and body. It doesn’t solve our troubles (pathologies) nor "save" our souls. Direct engagement, meditatio, with images for soul-making deepens us through personal experience.
No longer divided against thinking, imagination becomes the ground of certainty. Direct knowledge, gnosis, is demanded by the silvered mind so the soul can understand itself. Conjunctions come when we no longer focus on opposites or meaningful coincidences or conjunction. Imagination is as elusive as the goal of the alchemical process itself.
Through illumined senses we can see through the nature of apparent reality for ourselves, if we but try. Things become transparent, shine and speak. Signs echo within us. Then we develop our own philosophy, apart from consensus. When it comes to questions of speculation on the unknown, we can either accept what others have said, or look for ourselves, perhaps even into delusional lunacy.
The wounded-healer typically passes through a period of madness. Is it avoidable? Perhaps only by educating the psyche with alchemical training, giving it a silvered voice and attentive ear to avoid clinical literalism, paranoid delusion, vitrification, and dissociation. Even then, there is no guarantee lunacy can be avoided.
POESIS
Anima Mundi is NowHere…the very spirit of life, the ethereal angel of our destiny, the animated archetypal ground and individually the radiant subtle body. More than just the life-spirit, the sacred field body is a natural force, the cosmic energic principle of primordial Consciousness, implicate order – the essence of being and sacred embodiment.
Primordial mankind saw everything as saturated with meaning, both human and cosmic. We, too, can see ourselves as full participants with the interior life of the natural world and cosmos. Not only signs and symbols can be read in the multidimensional environment, the metaphorical nature of symptoms – ours and the world’s – can be discerned. Fantasies open to one another in resonance, recognition, insight, and astonishment.
Alchemy is a poetry-science whose language and experimentation has a naturally therapeutic value. This poetic art and science of experientially reclaiming this relationship and worldview raises conscious recognition of anima mundi. Let the images come into your body. Tuned responses receptively embrace the image. This art is not separate from life, but is infused with life. The substance of the insubstantial is what makes psyche matter. And it is an intrinsic part of alchemical method.
Ancient philosophers proclaimed the world soul, a pure ethereal spirit, is diffused throughout all nature. The notion of soul as imaginative possibility, in relation to the archai or root metaphors, is what Hillman has termed the “poetic basis of mind.” Whitening into psychic reality is embodiment of spirit and inspiriting of body, eliminating oppositional tension.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESONANCE
In alchemy, Anima Mundi acts as the soul-guide to our heights and depths. Beauty is simply manifestation, the display of phenomena, the appearance of the anima mundi. Union with her is consciousness of our primal existential self, and our deepest ecological self, right down to the virtuality of the Void – the primordial field.
Beneath the alienation from nature, which our culture has created, lies a deep resource we can tap which is fundamental wisdom about the unity of life. We are embedded within that seamless fabric of Cosmos, the Feminine source of wisdom. The importance of the present depends on its effect in the realization of a specific future. An experience is important if it suggests or fulfills visionary sight.
Anima Mundi is the secret powers of nature. We need those powers to heal and transform. The intentional use of imagination and image building is a foundation of mysticism. This wisdom is deep ecology, which reveals the way of living in balance through intuition. She is the dark of the Void and the natural Light of the Soul--illumination. She bridges our perceptions of the world by stimulating the imaginative faculty.
Alchemy is a meditation science and art that purposefully cultivates a human relationship with Anima Mundi. To experience psychic reality means to be in soul, in the realm of the imagination, as if interacting with its inhabitants and locales. Inner visionary experience, be it wrathful or beatific, is an expression of soul. Through images the unconscious affects our worldview, health and relationships. Imagination not only conditions our reality, it is our reality. Soul is the middle world between gross materiality and the spiritual world.
This is a psychological approach to art and life--giving voice to soul, living life as art. It means the return of a subjective feminine eye on reality. It means the enlivening of our bodies and the world of nature with imagination. When we see soul as the background of all phenomena, we become aware of the animating principle and direct relationship with Her. The point is not to dissect her soul, but celebrate her body.
LIGHT OF THE SOUL
The soul generates images unceasingly, purposefully ordering our lives. Artists are able to capture and express some of that ceaseless flow. The soul lives on images and metaphor, especially epistemological metaphors--how we know what we know. These images form the basis of our consciousness. All we can know comes through images, through our multi-sensory perceptions. So, this soul always stays close to the body, close to corporeality, to what "matters."
Physical reality becomes psychic and psyche becomes real. It "matters." The difference between soul and external things no longer matters. Inner and Outer worlds are real. They are One World. Image, metaphor and symbol bridge the abyss between matter and spirit. They are integrated with feeling, mind, and imagination through wonder and awe. We can see soul in all natural objects. We can notice our fantasies constantly conditioning our experience of reality.
When spirit as energy and matter as form are in balance, the body becomes the living "Temple of the Spirit." A sense of immortality deepens the sacred dimension of life. Soul’s immortality is sensed in direct experience of non-spatial, non-temporal, nonlocal, four-dimensional reality. Real alchemical work is for the sake of the whole of which we are a microcosm.
REFERENCES
Hillman J. (1977). Re-Visioning Psychology. New York: Harper Perennial.
Hillman, James (1980). “Silver and the White Earth, Part I.” Spring, 1980, 21-48.
Hillman, J. (1981). “Silver and the White Earth, Part II.” Spring, 1981, 21-66.
Hillman J. (1982). “Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World.” Spring, 1982, 71-93.
Hillman, J. (1985). Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion. Dallas: Spring Publications.
Jung, C. G. (1963). Mysterium Coniunctionis. Collected Works, Vol. 14. Princeton N. J.: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C.G. (1968) Psychology and Alchemy. Collected Works, Vol. 12. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.
We are all engaged in making the world soul even as she shapes us. We have a drive to love the world, even an erotic desire for anima mundi. She invites us into a relationship of intimacy with the world and its objects and processes. The psychic reality of the world soul is available to all in images and imagination. We cannot separate our souls from the souls of others and the environment.
Care of the soul doesn't mean isolating ourselves from the reality of the world and its phenomena -- experiences, substance and objects. Soul makes images that add a depth dimension to concrete life, that go beyond literalness to psychological metaphysics that expresses our legitimate need to go further, even beyond mythical fictions through imagination to speculative freedom.
Thus, anima mundi is the field of infinite meanings, created from metaphors of different places, points of view, and narratives. New understandings arrive with new images at the surprising edge of things, new expressive forms that arise of their own accord.
"ANIMA MUNDI: Soul-Filled World"
By Iona Miller
“God redeems humanity, but nature needs to be redeemed by human alchemists, who are able to induce the process of transformation, which alone is capable of liberating the light imprisoned in physical creation.” ~Stephan Hoeller, Sufi Journal, Issue 67, Autumn 2005
"Let us imagine the anima mundi neither above the world encircling it as a divine and remote emanation of spirit, a world of powers, archetypes, and principles transcendent to things, nor within the material world as its unifying panpsychic life-principle. Rather let us imagine the anima mundi as that particular soul-spark, the seminal image, which offers itself through each thing in its visible form. Then anima mundi indicates the animated possibilities presented by each event, as it is, its sensuous presentation as face bespeaking its interior image--in short, its availability to imagination, its presence as a psychic reality. Not only animals and plants ensouled as in the Romantic vision, but soul is given with each thing; God-given things of nature and man-made things of the street." ~James Hillman, “Anima Mundi,” Spring, 1982
NUMINOUS & LUMINOUS PSYCHE
Anima Mundi, the feminine principle or mode of Being was historically considered the "soul of the world," the fertility of human, animal and plant life. Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno said the World Soul “illumines the universe and directs nature in producing her species in the right way.” She is the magical world of creative mystery.
Our geocentric understanding of ourselves has expanded to the realization that we are an intrinsic part of Cosmos. The Universe is also literally within us. No longer limited merely to our planet, Anima Mundi is the personification of the whole natural world – the Universe. This light, the dynamic reality of the energy field, is within us as within everything. Embodied nature is the link between the archetypal and formative worlds, the hyperdimensional matrix of eternal patterns with sacred proportions and unique manifestations. She is also infinite potential, the possibility of bringing creative ideas to birth, to manifestation.
In the deepest sense, she is the universal wave function, the unmanifest ground of our being, spacetime and the radiant light of virtual photon fluctuation, which underlies all matter and manifestation. Kabbalist Azriel of Gerona claimed "faith" meant entering into a relationship with one's "nothingness" and the "unknown" of the infinite, the ultimate ‘yin’ of non-existence that is the mother of all form.
In ancient times Anima Mundi declared her impenetrable mystery by reiterating that "I am Isis; no man has lifted my veil." This Muse of superconsciousness is bathed in the Light and concealed by it. Thus she alludes to herself as dazzling Solitaire in her virgin nature, that sense of wholeness within oneself, which is the Feminine source of wisdom, magic and meaning.
The natural light of the soul is illumination, embodied in the pineal light of the “spirit molecule,” DMT. Likewise, alchemists seek the divine spark, the light hidden in matter. To work creatively in the world, the Light of Nature needs to be released through inner alchemy. Our own light or divine spark is part of the light of the World Soul, so we can understand the mysteries of creation and the secrets of nature. The tools of inner transformation help Anima Mundi reveal her divine light.
Whether called Isis, Shakti, Maya, Shekinah, Sophia, Demeter/Persephone, Mary, Great Mother, White Goddess or any cultural variant, Anima Mundi is the universal animating principle, the upwelling spring of the creative Imagination, the dynamic flow of imagery, pattern, and form. She is personified internally as a soul guide or Initiatrix and externally embodied as the Soror Mystica. Glimpsing inspiring inner workings of our soul helps us realign our lives, our hopes and our dreams.
ANCIENT & CONTEMPORARY MODELS
Spiritual alchemy has long been informed by depth psychology. Carl Jung’s work in this area is well-known. Less known is that of the main proponent of archetypal psychology, James Hillman who places Anima Mundi as center of his psychological theory. This archetype of the psyche is inherent in the prima materia. It fosters the return of psychological subjectivity to the outer.
Alchemy works in just this projective, animated manner with a deeper level of participation. Phenomenology is the art of dissolution, a natural alchemy, learning how to see again, a way of being in the world between thinking and perceiving. In this aesthetic paradigm, Hillman asserts that images derive autonomy and operate according to their own will, similar to gods.
Gods and goddesses are an intrinsic part of Hillman's archetypal psychology, as they are in alchemy. In mythical perception, gods, metals, plants, minerals, animals, scents, colors, planets and more correspond with one another through the Doctrine of Signatures. Different forms share the same essential nature.
The symbolic nature of metals is the skeleton of spiritual alchemy. The word ‘metal’ means ‘search,’ strongly suggesting the nature of our alchemical work. We don’t seek a natural metal but the virtual metal, it’s essence. The lunar metal of Anima is silver and the white earth (albedo). Jung said, “Earth and moon coincide in the albedo.” (CW14, para. 154)
Silver is washed into veins in faultlines in the earth, and we can take advantage of the analogous process in our psyche. It takes place in that egoic illusion called “mine.” We can mine our own psychic faultlines. Silver is found in lead-silver vein mineralizations, sometimes with gold and zinc. Silver, the seed of the moon in the earth, is refined from the dross of lead-silver concentrate into the silvered mirror of the mind. Solutions emerge from our puzzlement. Reflection gives shape to the imaginal.
MINING THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
Insights can tarnish, losing their shiny clarity. Just as silver is prone to blackening, this phase of the Great Work can be derailed by Saturn’s depression, the destructive illusion of separation. But the depression is the mine. Albedo emerges from blackness, transpersonal release, and emotional relief from the nigredo of personal identity. But the urge to white is not an escape from black – a whitewash -- since there is no soul without body.
Each object or body is also an imaginal image. We can extract silver moments from our leaden body – motions and emotions that regulate the neurochemistry of the body. Alchemical silver can be mined for many rich metaphorical associations (aha moments), just as silver requires polishing for reflection. Friction leads to clarified reflection. Shame is washed away.
Without shadow, whiteness becomes blankness. Shadow that is built into psyche’s body becomes transparent. Shadow is built into the nature of whiteness, as all colors unite disappearing into white. The world becomes an alchemical dream – the terra alba of anima inspiration.
Imaging itself is a mode of mining silver, psychical facts and essences, sometimes by speculation, resonance and artful listening. We may temporarily become a bit of a “lunatic” in the transmutative process The mysterium coniunctionis is moon-madness combined with solar brilliance.
It takes intense heat, intense introspection in the depths, to refine our inert nature. Then the luminous consciousness of the worked on soul arises. Dissolved by desire from its old ground for fusion in the dissolution of gender, anima no longer is exclusively feminine. Passive fantasy becomes transcendent active imagination, revealing the images within nature, the secret heart of nature.
IT IS BUT IT ISN’T
Virtual places, phenomena, and experiences can be just as “real” as material perceptions. The brain responds to the virtuality as if there is no neurological difference between imaginal and externally stimulated imagery. In this sense, imagination is reality. We perceive the sensate world through the non-linear imaginal world, its enfolded imaginal potential.
Anima Mundi embodies the pandemonium of all forms in external and internal perceptions. She bridges our perceptions of the world by stimulating the imaginative faculty. Yet, being attached to materialistic images is not the same as being attached to Mater, matter and earth.
As alchemists, we have to build a relationship with the very essence of the world. Being in soul is a continuous intentional process. The Astral Light is synonymous with the alchemical Anima Mundi. Jung’s idea of the Collective Unconscious as the treasure house of fluctuating imagery is a modern description. This light represents the immanence of the world-soul. She dwells in us and we are enlivened by her Being.
Aristotle conceptualized soul as the form, or essence of any living thing, not a distinct substance from the body it inhabits. Only possession of soul (of a specific kind) makes an organism an organism. The notion of a body without a soul, or of a soul in the wrong kind of body, is completely unintelligible. Soul mediates between mind and body, idea and matter, actualities and the Beyond.
James Hillman (1975) observes that soul, “refers to the deepening of events into experiences; second the significance of soul, whether in love or religious concern, derives from its special relationship with death. And third…the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy—that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”
Paracelsus thought the soul was beyond the individual, beyond our control. Plotinus saw all individuals as one soul. Gerhard Dorn said the third degree of the alchemical coniunctio, the most mature phase of individuation, is the personal realization of communion with an original unitary reality. Grounded intuition of a centered sphere of soul opens a microcosm that mirrors the Cosmic macrocosm: "As Above, So Below.”
PSYCHOLOGICAL FAITH
We need a new cultural proving ground, a new paradigm for the energetic potential of the bodymind and the culture for which it is the ground. In our culture, the body and our fantasies about it have come to represent the lost Feminine element of deep interior processes.
We have lost touch with our primal femininity, the animating principle (nature, body, instinct). We have become estranged from the body through the mechanistic mind/body split, which is also non-relativistic. We talk a good game about 'wholeness' but don't really connect as much as nostalgically yearn for it.
Spontaneous imagery soulfully joins spirit and body. It doesn’t solve our troubles (pathologies) nor "save" our souls. Direct engagement, meditatio, with images for soul-making deepens us through personal experience.
No longer divided against thinking, imagination becomes the ground of certainty. Direct knowledge, gnosis, is demanded by the silvered mind so the soul can understand itself. Conjunctions come when we no longer focus on opposites or meaningful coincidences or conjunction. Imagination is as elusive as the goal of the alchemical process itself.
Through illumined senses we can see through the nature of apparent reality for ourselves, if we but try. Things become transparent, shine and speak. Signs echo within us. Then we develop our own philosophy, apart from consensus. When it comes to questions of speculation on the unknown, we can either accept what others have said, or look for ourselves, perhaps even into delusional lunacy.
The wounded-healer typically passes through a period of madness. Is it avoidable? Perhaps only by educating the psyche with alchemical training, giving it a silvered voice and attentive ear to avoid clinical literalism, paranoid delusion, vitrification, and dissociation. Even then, there is no guarantee lunacy can be avoided.
POESIS
Anima Mundi is NowHere…the very spirit of life, the ethereal angel of our destiny, the animated archetypal ground and individually the radiant subtle body. More than just the life-spirit, the sacred field body is a natural force, the cosmic energic principle of primordial Consciousness, implicate order – the essence of being and sacred embodiment.
Primordial mankind saw everything as saturated with meaning, both human and cosmic. We, too, can see ourselves as full participants with the interior life of the natural world and cosmos. Not only signs and symbols can be read in the multidimensional environment, the metaphorical nature of symptoms – ours and the world’s – can be discerned. Fantasies open to one another in resonance, recognition, insight, and astonishment.
Alchemy is a poetry-science whose language and experimentation has a naturally therapeutic value. This poetic art and science of experientially reclaiming this relationship and worldview raises conscious recognition of anima mundi. Let the images come into your body. Tuned responses receptively embrace the image. This art is not separate from life, but is infused with life. The substance of the insubstantial is what makes psyche matter. And it is an intrinsic part of alchemical method.
Ancient philosophers proclaimed the world soul, a pure ethereal spirit, is diffused throughout all nature. The notion of soul as imaginative possibility, in relation to the archai or root metaphors, is what Hillman has termed the “poetic basis of mind.” Whitening into psychic reality is embodiment of spirit and inspiriting of body, eliminating oppositional tension.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESONANCE
In alchemy, Anima Mundi acts as the soul-guide to our heights and depths. Beauty is simply manifestation, the display of phenomena, the appearance of the anima mundi. Union with her is consciousness of our primal existential self, and our deepest ecological self, right down to the virtuality of the Void – the primordial field.
Beneath the alienation from nature, which our culture has created, lies a deep resource we can tap which is fundamental wisdom about the unity of life. We are embedded within that seamless fabric of Cosmos, the Feminine source of wisdom. The importance of the present depends on its effect in the realization of a specific future. An experience is important if it suggests or fulfills visionary sight.
Anima Mundi is the secret powers of nature. We need those powers to heal and transform. The intentional use of imagination and image building is a foundation of mysticism. This wisdom is deep ecology, which reveals the way of living in balance through intuition. She is the dark of the Void and the natural Light of the Soul--illumination. She bridges our perceptions of the world by stimulating the imaginative faculty.
Alchemy is a meditation science and art that purposefully cultivates a human relationship with Anima Mundi. To experience psychic reality means to be in soul, in the realm of the imagination, as if interacting with its inhabitants and locales. Inner visionary experience, be it wrathful or beatific, is an expression of soul. Through images the unconscious affects our worldview, health and relationships. Imagination not only conditions our reality, it is our reality. Soul is the middle world between gross materiality and the spiritual world.
This is a psychological approach to art and life--giving voice to soul, living life as art. It means the return of a subjective feminine eye on reality. It means the enlivening of our bodies and the world of nature with imagination. When we see soul as the background of all phenomena, we become aware of the animating principle and direct relationship with Her. The point is not to dissect her soul, but celebrate her body.
LIGHT OF THE SOUL
The soul generates images unceasingly, purposefully ordering our lives. Artists are able to capture and express some of that ceaseless flow. The soul lives on images and metaphor, especially epistemological metaphors--how we know what we know. These images form the basis of our consciousness. All we can know comes through images, through our multi-sensory perceptions. So, this soul always stays close to the body, close to corporeality, to what "matters."
Physical reality becomes psychic and psyche becomes real. It "matters." The difference between soul and external things no longer matters. Inner and Outer worlds are real. They are One World. Image, metaphor and symbol bridge the abyss between matter and spirit. They are integrated with feeling, mind, and imagination through wonder and awe. We can see soul in all natural objects. We can notice our fantasies constantly conditioning our experience of reality.
When spirit as energy and matter as form are in balance, the body becomes the living "Temple of the Spirit." A sense of immortality deepens the sacred dimension of life. Soul’s immortality is sensed in direct experience of non-spatial, non-temporal, nonlocal, four-dimensional reality. Real alchemical work is for the sake of the whole of which we are a microcosm.
REFERENCES
Hillman J. (1977). Re-Visioning Psychology. New York: Harper Perennial.
Hillman, James (1980). “Silver and the White Earth, Part I.” Spring, 1980, 21-48.
Hillman, J. (1981). “Silver and the White Earth, Part II.” Spring, 1981, 21-66.
Hillman J. (1982). “Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World.” Spring, 1982, 71-93.
Hillman, J. (1985). Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion. Dallas: Spring Publications.
Jung, C. G. (1963). Mysterium Coniunctionis. Collected Works, Vol. 14. Princeton N. J.: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C.G. (1968) Psychology and Alchemy. Collected Works, Vol. 12. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.
(c)2013; Iona Miller; All Rights Reserved
(On Chaos & Psychophysics: Knowing Nothing More)
by Iona Miller
"There is a generic process in nature and consciousness which dissolves and regenerates all forms. The essence of this transformative, morphological process is chaotic -- purposeful yet inherently unpredictable holistic repatterning. The Great Work of the art of alchemy is the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, a symbol of wholeness and integration. The liquid form of the Stone, called the Universal Solvent, dissolves all old forms like a rushing stream, and is the self-organizing matrix for the rebirth of new forms. It is thus a metaphor or model for the dynamic process of transformation, ego death and re-creation." -- Iona Miller, ‘Chaos As the Universal Solvent’
ABSTRACT: Physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychologist Carl Jung suggested, “We should now proceed to find a neutral, or unitarian, language in which every concept we use is applicable as well to the unconscious as to matter, in order to overcome this wrong view that the unconscious psyche and matter are two things.”
Jung thought both alchemy and physics mirrored the psyche and were central in the process of transformation, the Great Work. Alchemist Fulcanelli (1937) claimed that Great Work involved “…a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call a 'field of force.' The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-a-vis the Universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy.”
Today we understand that primal unitive field is holographic in nature and we are embedded within it. Electromagnetic energy and particles arise from the virtual vacuum flux of subspace – the Void, which is the metaphysical root of all form. We are embedded within that field and our existential root is Likewise constantly in local virtual photon fluctuation. The fine vehicle of that interaction has been called the ‘energy body,’ ‘body of light,’ ‘diamond body,’ ‘astral body,’ ‘Merkabah,’ and a variety of cultural variations.
The classical magical operation known as The Middle Pillar provides a way of nourishing the energy body by feeding off that virtual light, connecting with Cosmos, our primordial Source or Groundstate for renewal. Alchemy provides a Unitarian language that reconciles the tension of opposites between magic and physics, between psyche and matter. A transmodern view of virtual vacuum physics allows us to employ the language of alchemy to move medieval natural philosophy into the 21st Century.
Transmodern Alchemy & Chaos
Alchemical philosophy supports the phenomenological notion that the universe exists primarily as we perceive it through what we know. Therefore, by changing perception, we can essentially change the universe and ourselves. Transmodern scientific imagination confirms this transformative postulate as the basis of matter/consciousness in dynamics, holographic and chaos theories.
Trans- is the prefix that guides the vision of reality as virtual and fluctuating process. At the subquantal level, virtual photon flux, “cosmic zero,” or zero-point energy is the literal and metaphysical substrate of manifestation. An ocean of energetic flux boils into and out of existence as virtual vacuum fluctuation. The fiction of substantive ‘reality’ is revealed and nature’s transparent veil is ripped away.
Alchemy is a science-art and tradition of participatory wisdom. Medieval alchemy was couched in the archaic language of its time, but we are not limited to that, or to theological, Hermetic, Masonic, Theosophical or New Age jargon. Philosophies and sciences evolve in articulation, theory and practice. New discoveries and statements of meaning inform our practice at all levels. In many cases, alchemy anticipated them.
Like the cryptic tomes and dense texts of alchemy, unfamiliar scientific or philosophical theories require thoughtful reflection until they take root in our awareness. Models from many disciplines weave together, amplifying the meaning of alchemical process and patterns. Old experiments can be revisioned in a new light while new dynamical phenomena remain to be discovered. We can even revision the alchemical formula for surviving death.
At the zero-point time is no longer a flow, projection or hope. It accelerates at overwhelming speed, turns back on itself and becomes compressed and plays itself out. Instantaneously, everything takes place before us simultaneously, including retrievals of the past and projections of multiple futures. We have a greater understanding of deep time, earthly cycles and cosmic process than ever before. We communicate at light speed. We talk of supraliminality -- faster than light potentials. Light is our essential nature.
Learning each technical or symbolic language is like learning a foreign language, but becomes second-nature once we sense the overall gestalt. It takes contemplation and consideration of implications. We unpack them one metaphor at a time as we descend into finer domains of existence, from particles to the subquantal world of the microcosm.
Motivation theory suggests if we adopt a mastery orientation to our subjects, we exhibit all the productive learning behaviors we know will work. Even when challenged, we have the natural ability to learn and to keep at it while understanding grows. Simple concepts, not mathematical details, from dynamics and physics are all that is required for illuminating alchemical practice.
Please follow the link to continue the article:
http://ionamiller.weebly.com/transmodern-alchemist.html
HIGHLIGHT FROM IONA MILLER LINK:
DIAMOND AWARENESS
In this dynamic model there are no “things”, just energetic events. Light and sound (acoustic cymatics) modulate all matter. This “holoflux” includes the ultimately flowing nature of what is, and all possible forms. All the objects of our world are three-dimensional images formed of standing and moving waves by electromagnetic and nuclear processes. This is the guiding matrix for self-assembly, and manipulating and organizing physical reality. It is how our DNA creates and projects our psychophysical structure.
Our brains mathematically construct ‘concrete’ reality by interpreting frequencies from another dimension. This information realm of meaningful, patterned primary reality transcends time and space. Thus, the brain is an embedded hologram, interpreting a holographic universe. Supernal light emerges from this ground of being, both in the cosmos and our human brains and bodies.
All existence consists of embedded holograms within holograms, fractally embedded waves within waves of clear light. Their interrelatedness somehow gives rise to our existence and sensory images. When we embody this intimate wisdom, our bodies become temples of the living spirit.
Absolute space is the womb of creation and the physics of virtual photon fluctuation reflects not only Nature, but also our nature. Only now are we learning just how literal that experience of Light is, and the interactive mechanisms it engages in our holistic psychophysical Being.
by Iona Miller
"There is a generic process in nature and consciousness which dissolves and regenerates all forms. The essence of this transformative, morphological process is chaotic -- purposeful yet inherently unpredictable holistic repatterning. The Great Work of the art of alchemy is the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, a symbol of wholeness and integration. The liquid form of the Stone, called the Universal Solvent, dissolves all old forms like a rushing stream, and is the self-organizing matrix for the rebirth of new forms. It is thus a metaphor or model for the dynamic process of transformation, ego death and re-creation." -- Iona Miller, ‘Chaos As the Universal Solvent’
ABSTRACT: Physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychologist Carl Jung suggested, “We should now proceed to find a neutral, or unitarian, language in which every concept we use is applicable as well to the unconscious as to matter, in order to overcome this wrong view that the unconscious psyche and matter are two things.”
Jung thought both alchemy and physics mirrored the psyche and were central in the process of transformation, the Great Work. Alchemist Fulcanelli (1937) claimed that Great Work involved “…a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call a 'field of force.' The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-a-vis the Universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy.”
Today we understand that primal unitive field is holographic in nature and we are embedded within it. Electromagnetic energy and particles arise from the virtual vacuum flux of subspace – the Void, which is the metaphysical root of all form. We are embedded within that field and our existential root is Likewise constantly in local virtual photon fluctuation. The fine vehicle of that interaction has been called the ‘energy body,’ ‘body of light,’ ‘diamond body,’ ‘astral body,’ ‘Merkabah,’ and a variety of cultural variations.
The classical magical operation known as The Middle Pillar provides a way of nourishing the energy body by feeding off that virtual light, connecting with Cosmos, our primordial Source or Groundstate for renewal. Alchemy provides a Unitarian language that reconciles the tension of opposites between magic and physics, between psyche and matter. A transmodern view of virtual vacuum physics allows us to employ the language of alchemy to move medieval natural philosophy into the 21st Century.
Transmodern Alchemy & Chaos
Alchemical philosophy supports the phenomenological notion that the universe exists primarily as we perceive it through what we know. Therefore, by changing perception, we can essentially change the universe and ourselves. Transmodern scientific imagination confirms this transformative postulate as the basis of matter/consciousness in dynamics, holographic and chaos theories.
Trans- is the prefix that guides the vision of reality as virtual and fluctuating process. At the subquantal level, virtual photon flux, “cosmic zero,” or zero-point energy is the literal and metaphysical substrate of manifestation. An ocean of energetic flux boils into and out of existence as virtual vacuum fluctuation. The fiction of substantive ‘reality’ is revealed and nature’s transparent veil is ripped away.
Alchemy is a science-art and tradition of participatory wisdom. Medieval alchemy was couched in the archaic language of its time, but we are not limited to that, or to theological, Hermetic, Masonic, Theosophical or New Age jargon. Philosophies and sciences evolve in articulation, theory and practice. New discoveries and statements of meaning inform our practice at all levels. In many cases, alchemy anticipated them.
Like the cryptic tomes and dense texts of alchemy, unfamiliar scientific or philosophical theories require thoughtful reflection until they take root in our awareness. Models from many disciplines weave together, amplifying the meaning of alchemical process and patterns. Old experiments can be revisioned in a new light while new dynamical phenomena remain to be discovered. We can even revision the alchemical formula for surviving death.
At the zero-point time is no longer a flow, projection or hope. It accelerates at overwhelming speed, turns back on itself and becomes compressed and plays itself out. Instantaneously, everything takes place before us simultaneously, including retrievals of the past and projections of multiple futures. We have a greater understanding of deep time, earthly cycles and cosmic process than ever before. We communicate at light speed. We talk of supraliminality -- faster than light potentials. Light is our essential nature.
Learning each technical or symbolic language is like learning a foreign language, but becomes second-nature once we sense the overall gestalt. It takes contemplation and consideration of implications. We unpack them one metaphor at a time as we descend into finer domains of existence, from particles to the subquantal world of the microcosm.
Motivation theory suggests if we adopt a mastery orientation to our subjects, we exhibit all the productive learning behaviors we know will work. Even when challenged, we have the natural ability to learn and to keep at it while understanding grows. Simple concepts, not mathematical details, from dynamics and physics are all that is required for illuminating alchemical practice.
Please follow the link to continue the article:
http://ionamiller.weebly.com/transmodern-alchemist.html
HIGHLIGHT FROM IONA MILLER LINK:
DIAMOND AWARENESS
In this dynamic model there are no “things”, just energetic events. Light and sound (acoustic cymatics) modulate all matter. This “holoflux” includes the ultimately flowing nature of what is, and all possible forms. All the objects of our world are three-dimensional images formed of standing and moving waves by electromagnetic and nuclear processes. This is the guiding matrix for self-assembly, and manipulating and organizing physical reality. It is how our DNA creates and projects our psychophysical structure.
Our brains mathematically construct ‘concrete’ reality by interpreting frequencies from another dimension. This information realm of meaningful, patterned primary reality transcends time and space. Thus, the brain is an embedded hologram, interpreting a holographic universe. Supernal light emerges from this ground of being, both in the cosmos and our human brains and bodies.
All existence consists of embedded holograms within holograms, fractally embedded waves within waves of clear light. Their interrelatedness somehow gives rise to our existence and sensory images. When we embody this intimate wisdom, our bodies become temples of the living spirit.
Absolute space is the womb of creation and the physics of virtual photon fluctuation reflects not only Nature, but also our nature. Only now are we learning just how literal that experience of Light is, and the interactive mechanisms it engages in our holistic psychophysical Being.