My soul has declared to me that, while I am a magician, I need to be first and foremost an alchemist. Both magic and alchemy fascinate: their use of esoteric symbolism awakens my soul through the twin calls they make to both the intellect and the imagination. However, in alchemy lies a stronger and clearer invocation to action one’s visions and create one’s destiny. The duties of an alchemist are clear in ways that a magician’s are not: make volatile the dense nigredo of the personality and give form to the soul-contracted promises of the albedo through the action of the rubedo. Only through this process can gold be brought into existence and shared with the world.
An alchemist has no magic wand or set of spells by which to manifest their heart’s gold. Instead, alchemists attend constantly to their crucible, observing and learning through an ongoing process of transformation how to raise the vibration of that which is heavy, dull and restrictive to that which is light, bright and freeing. They are passionate about the process of transformation itself, knowing that despite its frustrations, growing and changing through vision-inspired action is the only way to escape the grumbling misery of the discontent soul. When gold is produced, the alchemist celebrates through releasing their creation into the world where some will marvel at it, and some will not yet have eyes to see its true nature. The alchemist is not fazed by either response, since they know that its true value lies in it having brought a part of their soul into existence.
Alchemy is revealed through the doing. While the basic premises and structure of the alchemical process can be taught, each alchemist must attend to their own ingredients in their own crucible with their own fire. Each alchemist’s initial ingredients will be subtly different; therefore, while they may gain some useful information from observation of the tools and methods of others, ultimately each alchemist has to trust their own intuitions in attending to their own creation. In witnessing how others have created gold from the structure of the alchemical process, apprentice alchemists can develop trust in the structure. However, we need to recognise that it is only in attending carefully to the substances in our own crucible that we will learn how to keep the nigredo at bay, and give space for the albedo to arise and inform us as to the type, amount and timing of the addition of the red tincture. With patience and equanimity, we wait for the gold to appear, developing our ability to recognise it, so that we can extract it whenever it appears and give it currency in the world.
For the apprentice alchemist, there are several traps into which she or he can fall. Some apprentice alchemists fill their crucible with ingredient excitedly chosen from the finest on offer in the land of plenty of the albedo, only to find they have neglected to dissipate the nigredo before starting the process. The nigredo, the ability of which to abort the alchemical process correlates with the degree to which it remains unacknowledged, quickly begins to coat the ingredients from the albedo with a black sludge, leaving the apprentice staring in dismay at the congealed black mess in their crucible. Of course, there is nothing to stop the apprentice from cleaning out their crucible and starting again, but often the apprentice will be tempted to look at the mess and use this as proof that they are not meant to be an alchemist due to some lack of knowledge, ability or capacity within themselves. Alternatively, they may reject the whole process of alchemy for being either too demanding of their resources, or somehow inherently flawed. In these cases, the apprentice allows the nigredo to possess them by using the beliefs and addictions of the personality and the comfort of the known and familiar to pin them further to the cross of matter.
Other apprentice alchemists are more aware of the nigredo and attend to their crucible with various tools, determined to make the nigredo dissolve once and for all so that they will have a clear window of opportunity in which to finally add the albedo. It’s grim work however, for just as they find a way to make the nigredo disappear, it reasserts itself in a slightly different form, subtly reinforcing a suspicion that their nigredo is stronger and more powerful than that of others or that they lack some resource or inner quality that would provide the solution. While they are waiting for the creation of the space in which the albedo can arise, they often experiment by adding the red tincture to the negredo just to review the action of the rubedo. They feel no qualms about this since they have ready access to the rubedo, which they know to be not of the same profound and mysterious quality as the albedo. They are often willing to lend their red tincture to others who are also locked in struggle with the nigredo, and this keeps them busy and makes them less depressed about their failure in getting rid of the negredo, and distracts them from the fact that they still haven’t explored the qualities of the albedo. They too are crucified by their beliefs about the need for ongoing struggle against the nigredo if they are to prove their worthiness in assuming the mantle of alchemist. Not surprisingly, without the leavening beauty of the albedo, such apprentices will succeed only in proving to themselves that they do not have what it takes to be an alchemist.
Other apprentice alchemists have no trouble temporarily dissolving the nigredo and accessing the albedo. They add great quantities of albedo to a crucible kept separate from that in which they dissolved the nigredo. Applying the fire of imagination, the volatile becomes even more volatile producing shimmering and enchanting dream-like vistas of such beauty and grandeur that it seems a shame to risk spoiling them by adding the red tincture. While its fragility and volatility mean that it is impossible to stay very long in the albedo, regular visits will go some way to appeasing the pain of living out if the nigredo; in fact, some apprentices become adept at using the remembered vibration of the albedo to coat the creations that by default arise from the interaction of nigredo and rubedo with an attractive glowing varnish that is capable of fooling both themselves and some others as to the true essence of the creation. However, ultimately, the varnish wears and the apprentice is left surrounded by leaden creations and they have to face the pain of the chasm they have reinforced in their consciousness.
These are only some of the traps for the apprentice alchemist. However, the only real danger for apprentice alchemists is in allowing the fact that we will fall into such traps at times to prevent us from cleaning out the crucible and setting to work again. As pure creative spirit embodied in physical form, we are created and creator, alchemical matter and alchemist, being and becoming. In incarnating, we have agreed to take part in a creator’s game of hide and seek in which our powers remain hidden to us until we acknowledge them and act to claim them. Learning to create consciously from our soul, in fulfilment of the contract under which we signed up to play the game, is our purpose. If we now turn around and choose not to play according to the rules we chose, it is like turning up with a cricket bat to play tennis, an invitation for struggle and frustration. We need to see past the veil of the personality’s beliefs and certainties, reconnect to why we are here and act on it.
I’m dispelling myself of the illusions that magic equates to discovering the magic spells that will fix your life forever. Instead, I’m choosing to be an alchemist who knows that the work of bringing their heart and soul into the service of creation itself is forever more.
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