Thursday, July 20th, 1978

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

July 20, 1978

ALCHEMY: ALCHEMICAL WHEEL

TOPIC: Alchemy

SUBJECT: Alchemical Wheel

SUBSUBJECT: Liberated Order

CONTENTS:

Alchemical wheel placed within Liberated Order circle; hints at work of Demiurge in evolving the unit of life

Twelve stages of alchemical process

Stages correlated with Liberated Order and nidana chain

Cyclical nature of the process

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT (hence V10). From 1978 0720 Alchemical wheel C.PDF. THERE ARE NO AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES EXTANT.

• All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation corrected, abbreviated word spelled out.

1978 07/20 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Alchemy: Alchemical Wheel

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Notes on Alchemical Wheel--7/20/1978

This whole system of functioning may be seen now as referring to the evolving unit of life, developing within the system of nature to a perfection of qualities and functions. If we place the alchemical wheel within the Liberated order circle, we have a hint of the work of the Demiurge in actualizing, differentiating, perfecting the essence of the individual.

1. Calcination: Here you are reduced to what you really are. Whatever is an I or a One rejects all that is not I--starts with itself alone. OED: Calcination is the reduction by fire to a powder--to the purest form by driving off all excess, perishable, or volatile contents. To burn to ashes. (Chemically, calcination takes a solid to a solid.)

Psychologically, this is a reduction to the basic aseity of the individual--the destruction of the rational intellect to get to the pure residue of your life stream. Jupiter in the Liberated order is the provider of the life essence.

2. Congelation: The residue of calcination is now conformable to your own essences or samskaras. Congelation is to gel. (Chemically takes liquid to solid.) OED: Congelation is the becoming solid by cooling, clotting or coalescing into a concrete mass. By reducing all to the aseity, there can congeal around the "I" a mass of what is really your own samskaras. Vesta is the subsistence in self--the fire at the center of the earth. This indicates that the calcinated fire is at the heart of every samskara.

3. Fixation: A conformity to one's own essence allows for an individual to appear in consciousness. Also, the prior processes of calcination and congealing are reflected here. OED: Fixation is the process of rendering stable or non-volatile. It is a reducing of a volatile spirit to a permanent bodily form by amalgamation. (Chemically, takes gas to solid.)

The individual consciousness appears here as a combination of 1 and 2.

4. Dissolution: The dissolution or immersion of the individual in the entirety of names and forms. Dissolution also means the separation into constituent elements, and the dissolving into a liquid state. In the Buddhist system this is the place of entry of the biotic force or antarabhava. The individual consciousness is dissolved in the waters of life in which it will grow. Or, looked at more mentalistically, there is a necessary separation of the constituents of the individual so that they may be assimilated.

5. Digestion: All that can he known of the 4th house is pictorialized by sensation. Through sensation the soul digests the contents of its own being (which were dissolved in 4).

6. Distillation: The particular contents of sensation are distilled out by force, and the essence of the sensations are extracted. What is experienced is one's own self, through which experience is distilled out a content.

7. Sublimation: The contents (or rather qualities) distilled out are forced to a "higher" level--i.e. are made reflectively available as thought. Or, the sensed content is given meaning through becoming felt, or feelings. There may also be an idea of the universalization (into air) of the particular qualities distilled in 6 (earth). (Chemically, this function vaporizes a solid then condenses it again.)

8. Putrefaction (also purification): Whatever qualities are sublimated into thought through reflection are ripened and matured, transformed in 8. There is a renewal of life through the putrefaction of the qualities which have been sublimated to the mental level in 7. The process in 8 indicates how a level of functioning may change, otherwise life will endlessly remain on the same level.

9. Incineration: The purified essence may now become incorporated--or we may put it that having purified a function it can now be burned and cleared of the particular contents. Once the psychic quality has been transformed in 8, it must be lived out until it becomes you--it is combusted. Once you do something well, you can drop it, or rather now make use of it or apply it.

10. Fermentation: There is now a brewing of the qualities or functions which are a part of you in the solvent of existence, or an application of these qualities in life. Fermentation also means agitation and unrest--becoming or putting what is learned into activity. The actual process of fermentation uses enzymes or bacteria to take complex organic compounds and reduce them to simpler structure.

11. Multiplication: The qualities which have brewed can go on to constitute an endless variety of forms, multiplied over and over.

12 Projection: The variety of forms of experience are projected in the 12th as the actual experience. In the Liberated order this house belongs to Diana, through whom there is a restitution of forms back to nature. Whatever has been borrowed from the system of nature in this process has been restored, and what is left may go on to be calcinated in 1. Or, the individual is restored to nature, a harmony is achieved within life.

1. Jupiter, Avidya, Calcination

Jupiter is that through which life is given.

Whatever is I rejects the not-I.

2. Vesta, Samskara, Congealing

Vesta rules the subsistence in self.

Samskaras are your essences.

Congealing gels the residue of calcination conformable to your essences.

3. Hermes, Vijnana, Fixation

Vijnana is an individual stream of consciousness.

Fixation combines 1 and 2 as a continuing individual.

4. Ceres, Nama-rupa, Dissolution

Ceres is the supplier of nourishment and nurture to souls.

Nama-rupa is the entirety of what is conceivable and perceivable--the matrix of existence.

Dissolution indicates the dissolving of the individual in one's own contents.

5. Neptune, Manas and 5 [Senses], Digestion

Individual digests the contents/qualities of one's being through sensation (or perception).

6. Minerva, Contact, Distillation

Minerva preserves the heart of intelligence.

Contact means a contact with the experienced contents.

Distillation extracts the particular contents of experience by force.

7. Venus, Feeling, Sublimation

Sublimation forces you into a higher view--through thought or through feeling.

8. Juno, Desire, Purification/Putrefaction

Juno rules the subsistence in other.

Transformation of qualities sublimated to the mental in 7.

Separation of essential from adventitious.

9. Vulcan, Attachment, Incineration

Vulcan fabricates the mundane vehicles for the soul.

Through incineration the separated qualities are incorporated into an organ of experience (vehicle).

10. Mars, Becoming, Fermentation

Mars divulses or separates forms.

Fermentation is a process of the becoming or growth of the incinerated and combusted qualities, or a breaking down of complex compounds into simpler ones.

11. Apollo, Birth, Multiplication

The fermented living essence evokes a variety of experiences.

12. Diana, Decay and Death, Projection

Diana rules the restitution of forms to nature.

The projection or end-product of experience is also the death of experience, the end of a cycle of activity. It may lead, through a burning of the dross, to a new view of the I (in house 1 again) and a continuation of the whole process.

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