Announcements

ALCHEMERGY FILM PROJECTS

The Alchemy Guild is sponsoring new film projects about the application of the principles of alchemy in the modern world. Members are invited to participate in the development, production, and distribution of the films.

http://www.Alchemergy.net/  

Join our groups at Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/502708786451724/ 

http://www.youtube.com/alchemergy

https://twitter.com/alchemergy

For additional information about this exciting new project, go to:

http://www.alchemyguild.memberlodge.org/films

MANNA FESTIVAL - ALCHEMY & ORMES

Chapter News

In This Issue:

• Announcements 
  
• Chapter News
  
• From Readers
  
• Did You Know?
• Op Ed
• Wisdom of Humor

Spotlight On . . .

• New Books
• Lectures
• Classes
• Forums
• Alchemy Study
• Links

The number 8 is the next step of the 7 planetary operations.

The number 13 is the next step of the Zodiac or stellar operations.

It is the House of Hermes beyond the traditional 12 houses of constellation of stars.

Source: Dennis William Hauck

"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom - but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind."                                  Khalil Gibran

From Our Readers 
 

In November 2011 I turned 41 years old, and like many people at that point in life, I began looking back on my accomplishments and lack thereof.  I didn’t achieve my career in music and I was rather unsettled about that.  

So I began searching for a “replacement” if you will--something that I was meant to do and to fill my void.  A few days later a friend and I were chatting about esoteric and occult things, and somewhere in the conversation he mentioned the word Alchemy in passing.  I can’t remember anything after that because that beautiful word resonated with me like no other word had.  I immediately researched the word, and it bloomed within me and has been growing ever since.  Saying and seeing the word has a power all its own to me.  I respect it so much that I capitalize it every time I use it.  

I could kick myself for not latching onto The Art earlier in my life but I realize two things:  I can’t remember hearing or seeing the word Alchemy in my life, and also I was so focused on music since my teens that I probably wouldn’t have appreciated the meaning anyway.  All I know is that Alchemy is now my path...for life. I devour every book and video/audio I can.

Alchemy is much more to me than a career in music ever was and yet I don’t consider it a replacement or something that’s filled the void music left but it is something I was meant to do.  I feel that I’ve been knocking on Alchemy’s door all my life. Actually...Alchemy has been knocking on MY door all my life.  Below is a list of some of the things that I believe have been subtlely guiding me to Alchemy from my earliest memories:

• My first chemistry set.  
  
• Fascination with emeralds, gold, silver and mercury.
  
• I love how lead is soft and very heavy and melts easily.
  
• Favorite planet is Saturn.
  
• Favorite color is green.
  
• Love peacocks.
  
• Life-long active interest in astronomy.
  
• Fascination with fire.
  
• Love nature and many plants.
  
• Fascination with owls.
  
• Drawn to symbols.
  
• Egypt and its pyramids.
  
• Drawn to small glass tincture bottles (yeah, a little silly but true).
  
• My Great-Grandmother was a mountain medicine woman.
  

More things will reveal themselves to me as time goes on but this small list validates to me my decision to choose the Alchemical path and to continue the Great Work of Alchemy.

Humility is a characteristic of all truly enlightened people. The louder someone is proclaiming his/her mastery, the less likely he/she is to actually be a master of anything, except possibly the fine art of BS. ~Sister Truth

  Did You Know?  

Op Ed

CLEANING GLASSWARE as a MEDITATION - Manifesting the Inherent Luminance  by John H. Reid III

The job of the Alchemist is to explore and master his inner worlds by reconciling the apparent opposites. For the Alchemist, all apparent opposites are fundamentally connected, and at their core are relative manifestations of the One Only Thing. There is no separation of matter and spirit – all is spirit, in differing degrees of density. In all things, the Alchemist seeks to unfold this spirit by manifesting its Inherent Luminance.

When I first started out in lab alchemy, washing glassware seemed more like a burden than anything that could remotely be considered spiritual. Yet over time, I began to question why I met such tasks as cleaning glassware – and even household dishes – with aversion. To my astonishment, while meditating at length on my aversion to cleaning glassware, I began placing some of my very basic assumptions associated with the task under enlightened scrutiny, ultimately inviting the Inherent Luminance of the situation into my consciousness.

The first aversion to fall under the microscope was: What made me feel that washing glassware (or dishes) was a menial chore? The truth of the matter is humbling. It is the exact reverse of the stigma I had placed on this task, or to be more precise, on the professions associated with it (janitors, cleaning crews, etc.). To put it metaphorically, I realized that if the hospital is not kept clean, all of the physician's skill is, if not in vain, then severely handicapped. This caused a humbling inside of me, and I must admit to a subsequent feeling of shame. I had up until that point looked somewhat condescendingly on people who performed janitorial services for a living. If it were not with active prejudice, then it was at least with subconscious aversion. This also opened my eyes to the fact that we are all – from the King and the CEO to the street-sweeper and the dish-washer – engaged in some form of service. We all, in our own way, are manifesting the Inherent Luminance, no matter how apparently mundane or grandiose the task at hand might seem.

Next on the list of scrutiny came my aversion to filth. One day, after just having finished dinner and placing my plate into the sink, it struck me how odd it was that as I went to wash the dish, I only wanted to handle it with my fingertips. A plate that had just 30 seconds ago held a meal that was still being relished in my mind (and gut) was now considered a tactile anathema. Why was I filled with revulsion at the thought of even touching any of the remnants of the meal? What had changed in those 30 seconds as the plate and food transitioned from the “acceptable” table to the “unclean” sink, and was the change real or a mere construct of my mind? What gives our minds the impetus to label something as filth, and what makes us adverse to touching it – to confronting it? For we know that in the end, to manifest the Inherent Luminance of the dish, our hands must become one with the filth, transmuting it into brilliance.

Even though cleaning lab glassware may still seem to be a chore, it amazes me how easily a certain calm comes over my mind when I integrate this so-called mundane task as an actual part of my inner alchemical work. We like to, and should, associate the matter inside the flask with the matter inside ourselves. But now the flask itself represents the inner work on a chakra, a nerve-complex, an aspect of self, a prayer for a friend or the world. As we transmute the last bits of matter which cling to its inner walls into relative cleanliness, we evoke the manifestation of its ever present and crowning Luminance so that it may be used again and again in further Works.

But all this talk of filth and cleanliness would be misleading if I failed to remind you that we do not seek one to the exclusion of the other. In my prayers (meditations) for myself, persons, or the planet, I do not ask that these final remnants of matter be removed, but only that their true nature be revealed and that the divinity of the situation may be seen. For if we truly accept the words of the Emerald Tablet – that all things arise from One Only Thing by adaptation – we should not be seeking to label a given occurrence or matter as good or bad, but rather we should seek to understand the spiritual significance or lesson of what we are experiencing.  

We live under the Law of Duality. But the Alchemist knows that within every ounce of Lead lies, weight for weight, the ounce of inherent Gold. Within every speck of apparent filth, lies a Universe of Inherent Luminance. There are two aspects to each thing, and it is only by recognizing both as valid and necessary manifestations, that we can begin and then accomplish the reconciliation process. That's not to say we should repress human reactions such as sadness, regret, pain, or anger in the face of tragedy. Rather, it is to say that if we can recognize both aspects of the manifestation we initially termed “tragedy," we can artfully unfold their balance within ourselves.

Even in cleaning glassware, this balance is always sought to be maintained. As the flask goes from a state of relative “cleanliness” to a state of relative “filth," a contrast is developed, which in itself acts as a catalyst to achieve something more than what presently is. The flask has manifested as clean, and now finds itself relatively dirty. At some point, if we are to move the Work forward, we must through our Art manifest it again as clean only so that we may make it dirty once more. The One Only Thing is eternal, and in this case it is represented by the Flask.  Its dualistic states of manifestation are relative.

So, gentle reader, the next time you find yourself swirling the waters you hope will bring purity to your Flask, perhaps you will meditate on these words: Though I find you now filthy, I accept you, and allow you now to be clean. May the glassware be cleaner; and thus so may my consciousness become more aware of the ever present Inherent Luminance.  Copyright 2013 John H. Reid III

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The Wisdom of Humor