Stage II: Intermediate
Alchemy and Inner Transformation
To hold the laboratory and the soul in a single view, so that the alchemical terms you meet become operations you can recognise rather than images you only admire.
Separabis terram ab igne, subtile ab spisso, suaviter, cum magno ingenio.
You shall separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently and with great skill.
- Stations
- 6
- 5 marked chapters · 1 book
- Episodes
- 5
- 4 h 5 min in full, across 3 of 5 timed
- Of marked passages
- 9 min
- Where each station opens; listen on as long as you like
The route
6 stations, walked in order
The Great Work in both of its registers: the formula of dissolution and recombination, the laboratory in which metals are opened and oils distilled, and the initiatic rite in which the self is taken apart and rebuilt.
Keep each station as you finish it
Your place is kept in this browser alone.
Station IListen· Kept
Learn the formula
Episode 8Your Truth Vs The Good, Weighing the Heart & Freedom as Natural Law (Freedom PT 2 )Lands on Letting go of assumptions to learn truth Listen from 45:061 min chapterTransmutation, initiatic or otherwise, requires that one undergo the nigredo, and the truth will not show itself to one who already believes he knows it. Alchemy is then presented not as an analogy laid over the spiritual life but as a formula found in everything: break apart what is there, separate it, preserve what does not die in the fire, exalt it, and recombine it with spirit at the summit. The Tetragrammaton and the Pentagrammaton are read as formulas of rectification, and any great upheaval, the Tower of the tarot, as alchemy at work.
Sit with this
Recall a time your life was broken apart. What survived the fire, and was it joined again to anything higher?
Station IIWatch· Kept
Enter the laboratory
Episode 33Daniel Wiseman : Metallic Alchemy & The Animating Spark of LifeLands on Death, Rebirth & Distillation Cycles Watch from 30:003 min chapterDaniel Wiseman, an operative laboratory alchemist and clinical herbalist, gives the doctrine in its simplest form: the universal spark of life, held in a particular body, expresses itself uniquely, and that is what alchemy calls a soul. He describes the wet and dry ways of working metals and, as the conversation moves into its reincarnation analogy, the opened metal joined with the alkahest to bring forth an oil, and the gentle distillation that carries part of the volatile soul over as a philosophical death.
Sit with this
Where in your own work must something be opened before it can be purified, or purified before it can be opened?
Station IIIWatch· Kept
Die before you are rebuilt
Episode 25Hekalot Literature, Astral Gates, Imaginal Faculty, Ontology, The Underworld & OsirificationLands on What is “Osirification” in Initiation Rituals Watch from 16:381 min chapterOsirification: the initiatory formula in which the candidate is bound, kept in darkness or otherwise shown as dead, and which is more than symbolic, since what is done in the body answers to work at higher levels of consciousness. The ritual implements are then separated as Osiris was cut apart and scattered, and the components of the lower Ruach, the psyche, are taken apart. They are gathered again in the same ceremony, and the elemental grades of the Golden Dawn, each allotted an element and a Sephirah, carry the alchemical work forward.
Sit with this
Which part of your persona would you be least willing to see taken apart, and what does that reluctance tell you?
Station IVListen· Kept
Visit the interior of the earth
Episode 9The Stone That Says I AM: Balance, Humility, and the Alchemy of Freedom (Freedom PT 3)Lands on VITRIOL and the hidden stone Listen from 1:02:213 min chapterThe third Freedom conversation between Sky Mathis and Ike Baker reaches V.I.T.R.I.O.L. and the hidden stone: visita interiora terrae, rectificando invenies occultum lapidem, visit the interior of the earth and by rectifying you will find the hidden stone. Across the episode freedom is presented not as indulgence but as rectification, with humility before the higher genius, and the balance of mercy and severity on the Tree of Life, taken up in a later chapter.
Sit with this
What would rectification, rather than self-improvement, mean in your life this month?
Station VListen· Kept
Keep to the source, not the gloss
Episode 6Esoterica & Cryptographia, Trithemius, Ramond Llull, Quabalistic Pathworking & The Light BodyLands on Raymond Lull: mystery, alchemy, and speculation Listen from 45:382 min chapterTurning to Ramon Llull and the alchemical manuscripts attributed to him, the speakers pass on the advice of the friend who sent them the documents: set the commentaries aside, study the source works without preconceptions, and leave the code words as open variables until familiarity makes them clear.
Sit with this
Choose one alchemical term you believe you understand. Can you hold it as an open variable for a week, noting every context in which you meet it?
Station VIRead· Kept
Read the Emerald Tablet
Read alongside
The Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina)
Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus
The brief and enigmatic text that later alchemists treated as a charter of the Work: what is below is like what is above, the operation of the One Thing, the separation of the subtle from the gross. It is known in Arabic before it reaches Latin, and it can be read in a single sitting.
Sit with this
Read the Tablet aloud, then mark each of its verbs. Which of the operations on this route does it name?
End of the route · its last question goes with you