Writing Characters Of Gold

The highest possible spiritual level is the element of gold. This represents perfection. Gold is the most precious of the metals known to the ancients. As such, its presence had the greatest influence on their behaviour. Gold is very much the fulcrum around which the world turns, and for this it has long been worshipped.

In the ancient world, gold represented the Sun, the life-giving force. The Sun was also worshipped by all of the ancients at some point or other, most notably in the Roman cult of Sol Invictus. This was due to the realisation that if the Sun did not return to the world after the Winter Solstice then all life on Earth would perish.

In an alchemical sense, gold represents God. The uppermost pole of the alchemical spectrum belongs to God, and the raising up of any of the lesser elements is to imbue them with God’s energy. Characters of gold, then, are divine. Characters of mercury might be messengers of God’s will, but characters of gold are direct expressions of it.

Viewed metaphysically, a character of gold is every bit as important to the world as the light of the Sun. Without the moral rectitude afforded by the character of gold, the human race would regress into a pre-civilised state. We would go back to being animals, God’s light being entirely absent. The characters of gold, and their messengers in the characters of mercury, are the force that imposes moral order upon the world.

The real power of the element of gold is its subtlety. Being perfect, it need not use any force or coercion. It is already in accordance with the Will of God, and consequently it acts without resistance. Its power is exemplified in the fable of Aesop, in which the Sun and the wind compete to induce a man to take off his coat. The Sun wins, because its gentle power does not inspire resistance.

The essential characteristic of characters of gold is radiance. Whereas the characters of silver are learned and the characters of mercury brilliant, the characters of gold radiate a divinity that comes from a consciousness that is perfectly attuned to the Will of God. They are wise – a quality that is not appreciated by all, although all benefit from it.

This radiance will set all of the other characters in their presence at ease. Being around a character of gold will incline the anxious to calmness, the angry to peace and the lustful to temperance. The ambitious characters of mercury will switch to enjoying their lives rather than exulting themselves. This is the power of the character of gold – to create peace.

In contrast to the characters of iron, who dominate with physical force, and to the characters of silver, who dominate with psychological force, the characters of gold dominate with spiritual force. They have no need to twist other characters’ arms or trick them with contracts; they influence the world by living in accordance with the Tao. This causes other characters to look up to them.

A character of gold will be one that other characters tend to speak about very fondly. This is a reflection of the generous personal warmth that the characters of gold exude. The character of gold will recognise the gold in others. As such, it will feel good to be around them.

The greatest motivation of the character of gold is to alleviate the suffering of all sentient beings. This is true to a lesser extent of the characters of mercury, silver and copper, but only the character of gold represents the perfect expression of this. The character of gold wants for nothing more than an end to the suffering in the world, and they are happy to put themselves second to this goal.

Gold is the most malleable of all metals. This softness is one of its prime characteristics. A character of gold will seldom be prickly, bad-tempered, abusive or impatient. If directly insulted, they will be extremely slow to take offence or to show anger. This may not work out to their advantage when other characters, interpreting the situation through their own base lens, come to think them weak.

This malleability is such that, in the physical word, one gram of pure gold can be beaten into a sheet one square metre in size. That the tiniest piece of gold can create something that shines so brightly captures the essence of metaphysical gold. The smallest amount of it is potentially enough to completely upend the order of the world.

Concomitant with this softness is a reluctance to cause divisions or separations. However, gold is still a metal, and still has enough of an edge to cut if necessary.

The ability to expand itself beyond the capabilities of the other elements is reflective of the ability of characters of gold to see the bigger picture. A character of gold will never be motivated by short-term instincts. They have perfected themselves to the degree that impulses not in accordance with their true will no longer arise.

Characters of gold, despite their glorious radiance, are entirely capable of being destroyed by the envy of baser characters. Characters of iron can run a sword through them; characters of silver can destroy their social standing. In no sense are characters of gold superheroes with special powers. They are simply people of a higher spiritual frequency to all the others.

A character of gold can be of any age. Young or old doesn’t matter because alchemical gold is an expression of the spirit. As long as they are good, they are gold. In practice, a character is more likely to be of the gold if they are either very young or very old, because the former will not have been corrupted yet and the latter will have entire lives to mine for wisdom.

In practice, it will be almost impossible to portray a character of gold with true accuracy if the author themselves are not of the gold. This doesn’t matter, as long as the reader can be induced to believe that the character of gold is perfect.

Perhaps the closest example fiction has seen to a character of gold is that of Michael Valentine in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land. A modern real life example might be Jiddu Krishnamurti, an ancient one Socrates.

A character of gold in your story might be a legend that informs your story world, rather than an actual character that appears and speaks lines. They might be the legendary founder of the state in which your protagonist resides, someone whose perfection has created a space for an entire nation to thrive.

A character of gold might otherwise be someone who only makes a fleeting appearance, and that to change the direction that a character or the story is going in. Like Gandalf in Lord of The Rings, they appear to move the other characters in the direction of absolution.

Characters of gold have warm feelings towards characters of all of the baser elements, but they have a special fondness for the characters of mercury, who are their messengers. Characters of gold are often in opposition to characters of silver or below, on account of that the latter are frequently acting under the influence of baser instincts.

This article is from Viktor Hellman’s The Alchemy of Character Development, the sixth book in VJM Publishing’s Writing With Psychology series. This book will show you how to use alchemy to create deep, realistic and engaging characters for your creative fiction.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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Debunking The “Structural Racism” Conspiracy Theory

The most prevalent conspiracy theory of our time is so prevalent that it’s accepted as truth by most media entities. This theory has it that black and brown academic and economic underachievement can best be explained by structural racism and white supremacy. The truth is that, like most conspiracy theories, this theory goes directly against the relevant science, and can be disproven by it.

When 9/11 happened, a popular conspiracy theory said it was an inside job. One particular version claimed that, as the melting point of steel is higher than the burning point of jet fuel, the twin towers could not have collapsed on account of being struck by aeroplanes (the official explanation). They had to have been taken down by explosives placed within the structure of the buildings.

The way to refute this theory was to ask people qualified in the relevant science. You could say to a civil engineer or a physicist “Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams,” and they would tell you that it doesn’t have to melt the beams, it just has to heat them up enough so that they become too soft to support the weight of the building, at which point it will collapse. This is what happened in the case of the twin towers. Conspiracy theory debunked.

Anyone wanting to test other conspiracy theories can do likewise. If you want to know whether the Earth is flat you could ask an astronomer. If you wanted to know whether the Earth was 6,000 years old you could ask a geologist. If you wanted to know whether humans landed on the Moon you could ask an aeronautical engineer. And if you wanted to test whether the structural racism conspiracy theory was bullshit, you could ask a psychologist.

This is what a psychologist would tell you.

The science of IQ is the most robust and heavily supported of any social science. There is more evidence backing the validity of it than there is backing anything else. Most importantly, IQ also has more predictive power than any single other variable known to Psychology.

If you disagree about its predictive power, consider the following analogy.

You have two 13-year old boys. One is tested to have an IQ of 115, i.e. one standard deviation above average. The other is tested to have an IQ of 85, one standard deviation below average. The two boys are followed up ten years after the test. Without knowing which boy is which, you’re told that one has recently completed an accounting degree, whereas the other dropped out of school and drifted into petty crime.

Can you guess which is which?

Almost everyone would guess that the boy with an IQ of 115 became the accountant. And, in the vast majority of such cases, they’d be right. Accountancy is intellectually challenging: far more accountants have IQs closer to 115 than to 85. Likewise, far more petty criminals have IQs closer to 85 than to 115. Almost everyone knows this, and almost no-one questions it.

The fact is that IQ is so powerfully predictive that we can already get a rough idea of how a person’s life will turn out just from accurately measuring their IQ. The average person with an IQ of 85 will have much greater trouble learning and recalling information than the average person with an IQ of 100. Their impulse control, measured by ability to delay gratification, will be significantly inferior.

Because their intellectual ability and their discipline are poorer than than of the average person, they will be less able to meet the demands of the modern workplace. As such, they will be marginalised into unemployment and underemployment more often. Any population of people with an average IQ of 85 will be much poorer and much more criminal than any population with an IQ of 100 or higher.

85 is also the average IQ of black Americans and Pacific Islanders, with Maoris being slightly higher (around 90). This we know from the research compiled by researchers like Richard Lynn in books like Race Differences in Intelligence.

Psychological science, therefore, can predict on the basis of IQ alone that black Americans and brown Kiwis will be poorer and will be more involved in the criminal justice system than white Americans and white Kiwis. This can be confidently predicted even in the total absence of structural racism or white supremacy.

At this point, a believer in the structural racism conspiracy theory will argue that structural racism not only makes blacks and browns poorer and more likely to be involved with the criminal justice system, but it also makes their IQs lower on account of things like teachers ignoring them more often during class or discouraging them from study. Therefore, even if they do have lower IQs, it’s still white people’s fault.

For one thing, we know that this contention can’t be true because intelligence is mostly genetic and not environmental. Although the environment can have a powerful effect on the intelligence of young people, the effect of environment on IQ is no more than 0.2 by adulthood – a phenomenon known as the Wilson Effect. Therefore, low adult IQ is primarily a genetic phenomenon.

For another thing, we can observe the experience and outcomes of other racial groups who have similar IQs to white people.

105 is the average IQ of Far East Asians. The structural racism conspiracy theory would predict that Far East Asians do worse than white people, on account of that white people deny them opportunities for advancement and discriminate against them in business and politics. After all, white supremacists don’t like Asians any more than they like blacks.

The psychological science theory would predict that Far East Asians do as well or better than white people, on account of that their high IQs lead to successful careers and less criminality. Being high IQ and having good impulse control, they should study hard and get decent jobs.

As it turns out, Asian Americans earn 7% more than whites at the median. They are also significantly less criminal, despite that more of them are from poor families and many are even refugees. This directly refutes the structural racism conspiracy theory and directly supports the psychological science theory.

Ultimately, the main reason why blacks do worse than whites in America, and the main reason why browns do worse than whites in New Zealand, is because of low IQ. This low IQ leads them to make more impulsive decisions, which leads to poverty. This isn’t at all controversial among those who have studied the relevant science.

The conspiracy theory that says blacks and browns do worse because of white racism is bullshit. This means that the poorer outcomes of blacks and browns cannot be explained by white racism, but by factors inherent to the blacks and browns themselves.

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Clown World Chronicles: Who Is Waifu?

The suffering of Clown World brings with it great longing. Some people long for respite, others long for vengeance, others long simply for the warm embrace of a devoted wife. Those in the latter category might find themselves pining for the sweet touch of Waifu, one of the Elders of the Clown World pantheon.

As has been described earlier in this book, relations between men and women are at an all-time low. Not only is distrust and misunderstanding between them worse than ever, but young people are having less sex than ever.

This lack of positive relations with the opposite sex – one of the most fundamental pleasures in life – is one of the leading causes of the resentment that exists in Clown World. Worst of all, these poor relations aren’t primarily the result of autism or social fashion – they’re a function of will.

Many men feel that women are now hopelessly degenerate – that they’ve all turned into some kind of roastie. As such, they don’t want to be involved with the average woman. It doesn’t seem worthwhile to devote energy to a relationship with a woman who only wants to drink booze and who will leave you as soon as she gets bored. As such, many men have dropped out of the dating game – but their basic desire for female companionship has not abated.

This combination of feelings has led men to lust after their idea of a perfect woman, the opposite of the roastie. This is the Waifu.

Not being promiscuous, Waifu is deeply devoted to the one man. She is not at all interested in the “cock carousel”. Waifu doesn’t go out drinking with the girls. She’s more interested in social bonding for the sake of creating the perfect family. Her baking skills are more sophisticated than her cock sucking skills.

Waifu relates to Stacy as the Elder Goddess of the Positive Feminine Axis relates to the Younger One. Whereas Stacy is the unrealised positive feminine, Waifu is the realised form. Stacy has the potential to develop into a Waifu or to jump on the carousel and become a roastie. In Waifu, the waveform has collapsed into perfection.

Because so many men have withdrawn from the world to watch anime and to play video games, a large number of them have encountered idealised versions of female companions in those media. Naturally, many of those men come to fantasise about having some of these ideal women as real-life companions. Collectively, these ideal females form the spirit of Waifu.

‘Waifu’ is just a transliteration into Japanese of the English word ‘wife’. It comes from the idea that women in Far East Asia are more devoted, and far less degenerate, than their Western counterparts. Whether or not this is true, there are many Western men who have imagined themselves happy together with an ideal woman.

Waifu is the essence of all of these perfect fantasy wives, distilled into one divine form. She is the Elder Goddess of the Positive Feminine Axis because she represents the ideal feminine in its perfected form, i.e. as a self-actualised version of Stacy. Waifu is the natural companion of Boomer, who is able to sit back and chill thanks to Waifu’s devoted care.

In practice, there are two Waifus: a Western one and an Eastern one.

The Western one is known as the Tradwife. She is usually portrayed as a female Wojak variant, with lustrous blonde hair and wearing a blue dress with a daisy pattern. Sometimes the trad Waifu is depicted as Bavarian or Swiss, the idea being that these places have escaped the moral decay that has afflicted the Anglosphere.

The Eastern one is like the one shown on the waifu pillow in the image at the top of the page. This one is black-haired, usually Japanese, and inevitably depicted in anime form. She is usually blushing, being so wholesome that she considers it improper for another man to gaze upon her.

Many men feel that Clown World has cost them the opportunity to have a Waifu of their own. Much of the rage directed at society comes from this perceived loss. However, these men mostly don’t understand that relations between men and women have always been tough. Lysistrata proves that things were challenging even at the peak of Western civilisation.

This is why the common longing for a return to the 1950s is mistaken. For one thing, 1950s devotion was forced in many ways, which brought with it a great deal of resentment. This was often masked with drinking: 1950s relationships involved a great deal of alcohol and violence. A return to the 1950s would also require that males conform to 1950s workplace expectations, which no-one really wants.

For another thing, attracting a devoted wife is primarily a matter of demonstrating sufficient rectitude oneself. Regardless of how corrupt one’s environment is, there are always men and women who have enough spiritual fortitude to express themselves despite their surroundings. Those who are best able to do this are the gods of the Clown World pantheon.

The spirit of Waifu will always exist, and will always be worshipped, as long as there are men who are unable to find real-life women who can meet their emotional needs. And, even if they do she will still be worshipped, because those real-life women will appear to them as avatars of Waifu herself.

This article is an excerpt from Clown World Chronicles, a book about the insanity of life in the post-Industrial West. This is being compiled by Vince McLeod for an expected release in the middle of 2020.

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Writing Characters Of Mercury

The second-highest element on the spiritual hierarchy is mercury. Being one level higher than silver, mercury is the realm a person enters when they are close to perfection. This is represented by the liquid nature of mercury, which reflects a great intensity of spiritual power. Metaphorically, this liquidity suggests that mercury is close to moving beyond the material.

The ancients considered Mercury to be the Messenger of the Gods. This reflects the fact that mercury is the closest to the divine element of gold. Mercury is the closet planet to the Sun, so the Sun shines on Mercury before it shines on anything else. Characters of mercury ought to be able to instill a sense of awe in the characters made of baser elements.

Like silver, mercury is lustrous. Unlike silver, mercury is a liquid at room temperature. This is why it was once known as quicksilver, or water-silver. Alchemically, this property of being a liquid suggests that silver has been quickened to reach the stage of mercury. It suggests that something extra has been added to mere silver, some invisible energy that has had visible effects, and which has transmuted that silver to a higher state.

This quickening is from where we get the term ‘mercurial’. The term mercurial is used to describe people whose behaviour is hard to predict. There’s a more precise meaning – people whose behaviour is hard to predict because they are more closely attuned to the Will of God than anyone else. The characters of mercury are semidivine.

The characteristic quality of mercury is genuine intelligence in the form of a divine spark. This is where it contrasts with silver. Although a character of silver might have a rudimentary intelligence, perhaps enough to give them an advantage over the characters of baser elements, characters of mercury are more intelligent still. They are easily able to perceive the weaknesses of characters of silver, let alone the lesser elements.

Characters of mercury are more intelligent than the others, but they are not always more humble. Although they can be megalomaniacal, they are not prone to the Conceit of Silver, on account of that they are too closely attuned to God’s will. A character of mercury will not resent someone greater than themselves, but will rather co-operate with that person as a way of drawing God’s energy into the world. This disinclination to fight presages the frequency of the characters of gold.

Reflecting this humility, characters of mercury have more compassion than characters of baser elements. They are rarely motivated by purely egoic concerns. Rather, they work to end the suffering of others around them, and as such serve as messengers of the gods by expressing the will of the divine.

However, not being perfect, characters of mercury are still vulnerable to any of the lusts, rages and arrogances of the baser elements. They are just much less likely to fall prey to such impulses, and, when they do, they make amends much more readily. As such, they are clearly more noble in nature than most other people, and they tend to get treated as such.

The big danger of the character of mercury is that their ambition can cause great suffering. Although a character of mercury would never torture someone like a character of iron would, and they wouldn’t steal from someone like a character of lead would, they are still capable of causing immense suffering. Alexander was a character of mercury, if anyone was – and his conquests left piles of bodies in their wake.

The example of Alexander mentioned above perhaps best exemplifies the essence of a character of mercury. Being so close to perfection, they are, in a sense, above being judged by normal men. Chararacters made of baser elements have trouble enough understanding characters of silver; characters of mercury are beyond their understanding. To these baser characters, the characters of mercury appear as forces of nature.

Hindu Yogis associate mercury with the third eye chakra. This chakra is itself associated with intuition and foresight. A character of mercury will have great foresight, being able to see into the metaphysical world. This grants them the ability to predict the future and to see into people’s souls. A character of mercury will have powers of perception that the baser elements may not even believe are possible.

These powers of perception distinguish them from characters of silver. Although a character of silver might be able to accumulate a great amount of knowledge and apply it to, for example, building a bridge, this knowledge is limited to knowledge of the physical world and the phenomena in it. The character of mercury can see into the metaphysical world – something that most other characters don’t even believe exists. As such, they are very much the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

The concept of a third eye relating to spiritual awakening gives away the essential nature of the character of mercury, which is someone who is almost enlightened. Although not perfect, their every action will be permeated with this greater illumination – which is precisely what makes them seem mercurial to the baser elements. Because the baser elements cannot see into the metaphysical world, they cannot understand why the characters of mercury make the decisions they do. Characters of mercury can easily appear mad to those of baser elements.

Characters of mercury are the sort of people who set the course of history. They can be found leading kingdoms and empires. A character of mercury is sufficiently impressive that even characters of silver feel awestruck in their presence. As such, they are capable of provoking immense resentment, as did Julius Caesar.

If your story involves a character of mercury, it’s feasible that resentment for them can provide the impetus for the plot. A character of silver might become envious and try to take them down, perhaps employing a character of iron to do so. A character of copper who serves as a priest, resenting the influence that a character of mercury has among the townsfolk, might assemble a mob to drive them out of town.

If not in politics, characters of mercury can be great artists or scientists. Here they distinguish themselves from characters of silver as genius distinguishes itself from mere brilliance. The characters of silver may be exceptionally skilled at applying methods and techniques to create a masterpiece, but only the characters of mercury have the power to create something truly original.

A modern representation of a character of mercury is William Shakespeare in the film Shakespeare in Love, or John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Such characters clearly stand out from those around them, even if those around them are of silver or copper.

It’s very tempting to have a character of mercury as the protagonist of your story. Being genuinely intelligent, it’s easy to write a story in which they overcome the challenges placed before them. However, being already of the second-highest element, this leaves little room for the character to develop over the course of your story.

If a character of mercury serves as a minor character, it may be to enlighten your protagonist. Your protagonist might work in their service, or they might engage the character of mercury to teach them about some important issue. In either case, the character of mercury will likely be fundamental to the plot.

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