Alchemy and the Chemical Change

We arrived in Hong Kong in search of the secret of turning lead into gold. We purchased an old scroll from an Old Sage in Fai Hai and were making our way to the dock when were way laid by the evil Fu Man Chu and his associates.
“Give me the scroll of the Golden Flower of the Dogs' Bollocks* for long have I sought the secrets of Alchemy and the ancient sages have not given them unto me,” said Fu Man Chu.
“And if we don't?” I replied, clutching the scroll to my chest.
“Then you will suffer the curse of 1000 deaths without medical insurance,” he said.
My associate Little Tim yelled “Run” and we fled to the docks, closely pursued by Fu Man Chu and his men.
We arrived in the Hong Kong docks and found thousands of junks waiting for the morning tide.
“Quick,” I shouted. “Board that Junk.”
“But which one,” asked Little Tim.
“It does not matter," I replied. "When it comes to Alchemy you can get away with any old Junk.”

* The phrase loses a bit in the translation.


Over the weekend we had a number of initiations and I was playing with the chemicals in the chemical change to make sure the proportions were right and we didnt end up with mud instead of something red.
Our temple uses Mohrs' salt which is a double salt of ammonium sulphate and ferrous sulphate. It's blue green colour turns red when it is exposed to Sodium salicylate. Both in solution are clear. In the old golden dawn the mix was a little different but the idea was the same. Iron indicator and Iron which turns red. Strangely Mathers' AO attributed the Iron mixture to Venus and the indicator to Mars. In the coming revision to Mathers' Last Word, I suggest it should be the other way around.
Anyway, during the ritual the candidate is told that the experiment conducted in front of the is to show what happens if they break their oath. This has lead some to think that it is where the oath is hardwired into the candidate's sphere of sensation. But there are couple of things wrong with this idea. The most obvious is that the chemical change happens after the candidate's elements are bought back together by the Kerux (since this was probably not a mini-ritual carried out by the early GD or the AO it might have been less important).

However as I was playing with the elements I noticed that he Mohr's Salt gave a greenish tinge to the water. Worried that there might be something else in the water that it might be reacting to I looked it up. Achemists would have called Mohr's Salt Green Vitriol. Which is represented by the symbol of the Green Lion. It often means the vegetable life force.
 Then it occurred to me that by adding the Sodium Salicylate I was turning the Green Lion Red. Thus, under the cover of the threat of an oath violation, you were taking the lower aspects of the candidate and causing them to develop.
Now the reason I preface this with the silly story is that the Golden Dawn did not use Mohr's salt or Sodium Salicylate. Mohr's salt had only recently been discovered and certainly it would not have been available to alchemists. In short although the discovering is interesting and can be explained using Alchemical terms, it does not mean that the GD wanted this chemical change to evolve the candidate's vegetative self. Yet, it would be equally possible for someone to cloud this part of the ritual with alchemical symbolism to have it make sense. As I say above... you can get away with any old junk when it comes to Alchemy.  It might be leading to new insights, but it equally it might not.

Announcing Kerubim Press

DUBLIN, IRELAND – Kerubim Press, independent publisher of occult books, officially announces its existence today, giving the esoteric community a valuable array of texts on topics ranging from ceremonial magic to paganism.

Kerubim Press authors deliver thoroughly researched topics presented in an accessible, yet scholarly format and/or easy to follow guidelines for practical magical work.

Books are published in both a limited hardcover edition of 100 signed and numbered copies, standard paperbacks for a more affordable budget, and multiple ebook formats for the revolutionary digital book age, which Kerubim Press plans to be major mover in.

The first two books in Kerubim Press' lineup are Nick Farrell's King Over The Water and Dean F. Wilson's Enochian Magic In Theory, both scheduled for release in February 2012. Pre-orders for the special limited edition of each will be available before release. Pricing has yet to be decided.

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Over the years many myths have built up about one of the founders of the Golden Dawn, Samuel L. MacGregor Mathers. Many of these have been created by those who wish to damn the Golden Dawn and its system of magic or by those who want to naively believe a bogus magical story about the Order and its founders.

In King Over The Water, Golden Dawn magician Nick Farrell paints a picture of the founders of the Golden Dawn becoming out of their depth as the Order began to create magicians. Rather than painting Mathers as an eccentric genius, Farrell sees him as an autocratic fantasist. He sees Mathers struggling to keep up as his students rapidly became better than him at the system he created, and shows how he was unable to raise his game to help the Order develop further.

In what will be a portrait of the problems that could befall any esoteric leader, Farrell (author of Gathering The Magic, a textbook on magical group dynamics) reveals how Mathers' later rituals were an attempt to remove the magic from the system he created so that he could milk it for money.

Included will be previously unpublished papers from Mathers' own version of the Golden Dawn, the Alpha et Omega, including the unexpurgated version of the Tarot manuscript, the full version of the Book of the Tomb (a key document for creating a Vault of the Adepts), the original method for the consecration of the sword, and much more.

King Over The Water is the prequel to Farrell's groundbreaking exposé on the Alpha et Omega, Mathers' Last Secret (2011, Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn), and provides another look into the mind of a magician that helped develop the magic we use today.

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The first of Dean F. Wilson’s eagerly awaited Enochian Magic series, detailing John Dee and Edward Kelley’s magical system in extraordinary detail, from the Heptarchic system to Enochian proper.

Wilson provides a unique mix of thorough research with his own experience and understanding from using the system for many years, resulting in a book that is both scholarly and insightful.

He explores the history behind the famous magician and seer, shows how the system was delivered, explains why it is such a powerful magical tool, and answers many of the questions that people have asked about the nature of the angelic beings.

Gain an indepth knowledge of Enochian magic. Learn how to derive the names of angels from the various tablets. Discover the purpose of the tools. Ponder the mysteries of the more obscure parts of the system, with Wilson’s suggestions for what they might mean.

This tome provides a comprehensive overview of the Enochian system for both scholars and magicians, with excerpts from Dee's diaries and insights from a number of Enochian magicians over the last century.

Enochian Magic In Theory is the first of a two part series on Dee's angelic system, with Enochian Magic In Practice providing the practical instructions for how to put the magic into use. The latter is scheduled for a late 2012 release.

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Like the Kerubim of Ezekiel, Kerubim Press aims to look in all directions to provide one of the most comprehensive selections of occult books on the market, while remaining committed to quality in everything it publishes.

Spread the word about Kerubim Press by telling your friends and colleagues.

Bookmark Kerubim Press' website:
http://www.KerubimPress.com

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Alchemy and Golden Dawn Ritual

Alchemical ideas are starting to be battered around the blogsphere again. As usual this is thanks to the output of Pat Zalewski. It seems that Pat only has to cough an idea these days and people will flood the internet saying they thought of it first and Zalewski got it wrong.

Part of the problem, and it is not a problem for Pat, is that Alchemy means different things to different people. The symbolism is so obtuse that some, like the psychologist Carl Jung decided that it was all archetypal processes of transmutation and not meant to be taken literally. Others, like Israel Regardie, nearly killed themselves trying to create the Philosophers' Stone in a test tube. My own experience of physical alchemy has been what I have seen others achieve. I was around at the Zalewski house in the 1980s when I saw a created plant stone in action. I have also seen a person who managed a peacock's tail transformation during some metal alchemical work. At the time I thought it was fairly interesting, but did not seem to create much in the way of spiritual transformation. The Peacock's Tail for example was a multicoloured oxide coat which I had seen when I used to make toy soldiers (I think it was to do with the oils). Equally I do not believe those who claim they have turned base metal into gold, simply on the principle that it is clearly a sales ploy. I find it incredibly unlikely that, given the personality transformation required to archive the Stone, that anyone who claims to have done so must be practically of saint-like status. Most of the people I have met who claimed follow Alchemy as a spiritual path have been arrogant wankers with glass egos and a love of belittling other people's efforts to re-enforce their flaccid egos. Mind you the same can be said of ritual magicians.

As a metaphor, alchemy is an important way of understanding magical processes. It is a set of symbols which can be used as an allegorical language to understand some of the more subtle ideas in magic.

The Golden Dawn was a little soft on the use of Alchemy. It is fairly clear from some papers, that Mathers had a passing interest in the subject. Certainly alchemical ideas flow into the rituals. Even without going into details it is possible to see an alchemical idea being expressed in the transmutation by the Kerux.

It is the idea that the Golden Dawn rituals can be interpreted alchemically that Pat Zalewski has latched onto in his book. The idea is simple but can be taken to depths which could end up with you trying something out in a test tube.

You start with the candidate being the base matter. Each grade is an alchemical process which leads to the refinement of the personality. To Pat, the entire outer order is part of the blackening process with different phases of whitening and yellowing.

These are all alchemical terms and when others use them they are inclined to make your head spin. But by rooting them into the Golden Dawn ritual it is easy for anyone who follows this tradition to understand.

For those who are using the Golden Dawn system, this book unlocks a layer of understanding that they would otherwise not have got, even if they were experienced alchemists. Alchemists tend to live in their own world and are not used to applying their system to something as involved as the Golden Dawn. They will spend days writing long smug a treatise which says that the Golden Dawn Alchemy shown in the Z documents is “wrong” and not understand that it is wired into the 0=0.

Zalewski covers this point smoothly and tells it like it is. It is also a very different book from what he has written previously. His previous contributions to the Golden Dawn tradition were written many years ago. This one was written this year. It shows a considerable maturing both in writing style and thought. Gone are the days of quoting his teacher Jack Taylor. In Alchemy and Golden Dawn Ritual, Pat is standing on his own with his own ideas and it is an approach he can fell justifiably proud. It is a little book of 128 pages but it points you in the right direction for how you need to see the rituals to get them to work correctly.

One of the downsides to this approach is that you can say any old rubbish with an alchemical gloss and get away with it. It is possible to sniff that “of course you were not using the 12 step method or the method insisted on by Father Bacon for storing cheese”. However Pat's approach does not have that problem. Instead of obscuring, the approach clarifies.

Anyway, it is a book well worth buying http://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Golden-Dawn-Ritual/dp/0982352182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315997849&sr=8-1 .