The Transmutation Of Gold Into Mercury

The first step of the Katabasis is the transmutation of gold into mercury. This involves imperfection, as the substance of the highest stage of the Mithraic Ladder must descend into the material world, and the world of petty human concerns. Thus it becomes human. This transmutation is therefore that of divinity into corporeal form.

Understanding the nature of this transformation is very difficult. As with the reverse transmutation, from mercury into gold, extremely subtle energies are involved. These energies are so subtle that the vast majority of people, in their ordinary lives, will never experience them. Thus, the nature of this process is difficult to write about.

The primary motive for becoming imperfect is boredom. This boredom is chiefly driven by the loneliness of divinity.

Most people don’t understand that living for eternity in perfect bliss eventually becomes agonisingly boring. Infinitely boring. So much so that consciousness is literally willing to dream up every conceivable type of suffering in order to avoid that boredom. No suffering is so great that it weighs heavier than boredom for eternity. Thus, the entire Great Fractal is created.

What an eternal, infinite, all-powerful and all-knowing consciousness would dream up for the sake of entertainment would be limitation – or at least the illusion of it (infinite consciousness could never really be limited). An example of that limitation would be incarnating as a human being on this planet.

Thus, consciousness would split itself up into an infinitude of fragments, each of which lived a different life (i.e. set of limitations) at any one time. Taken individually, each one of these lives represents an extreme limitation: from the all-knowingness of divine consciousness to being restricted to the sensations and perceptions of one body only.

One way to conceptualise this would be to imagine a white light and perfect bliss. After enough time, when such perfect bliss became boring enough, one might imagine that consciousness chose to temporarily forget its ultimately blissful nature about half of the time, such that the white light seemed to blink in and out of existence. Now there was an oscilliation between white and black – much more interesting than just white.

Imagine then that half of the white light darkened, but only slightly, and that half of the black light lightened, but only slightly, such that there were now four different shades, each blinking in and then out of existence in turn.

Then imagine that each of these four shades were split into a good half and an evil half, which wasn’t immediately obvious from just looking at them but which was felt after experiencing each of them for long enough. Thus these three divisions created both a good and an evil version of each of white, light grey, dark grey and black light.

These eight different energies could be themselves tell an interesting story, if they were rotated through in the right order. Imagine that when the stories of those eight energies get boring, they’re split up again into sixteen, and then again, and again and again, until consciousness has dreamed up everything that it’s possible to perceive, conceive, imagine or sense. All possible lives that can be lived, in all possible worlds, in all possible historical eras.

All of these lives are imperfections in the sense that their boundaries are defined by the limitation of divine perfection. Thus, in willing to incarnate in a physical form in the Great Fractal, consciousness experiences an impulse towards imperfection. This impulse is the basis of the Katabasis, and is similar to the Undergoing Will in Elementalism.

The transmutation from gold to mercury will be complete when the character develops an ego. This spiritual imperfection makes them a mere human again. The development of the ego is essentially the story of the Katabasis, as the most egotistical and narcissistic characters will usually find themselves among the lower rungs of the Mithraic Ladder.

The development of the ego will bring with it ambition, which is characteristic of the level of mercury. To fall to this level, divinity must decide that there is something it wishes to experience while incarnated in human form. In all cases, this experience is a subdivine one – and often immoral. Only a consciousness that had become bored of perfect bliss could wish for such.

The first actions towards the end of imperfection come when a character is tempted to behave without rectitude. This can involve almost anything immoral. A typical example is a desire that cannot be fulfilled without causing suffering.

Stylistically, the transmutation from gold into mercury corresponds to the dimming of the Sun. Any time when light falls into shadow reflects the nature of the Katabasis. This transmutation can also be represented by any sudden downgoing, such as a fall down some stairs, or a journey over the edge of a waterfall.

Physically, this stage is marked by the profoundest possible change: that of incarnation. A character will transmute from a potentiality within consciousness to a physical form. It is the overall nature of this incarnation that characterises this transmutation, not the specific form of the incarnation itself. So the specific details are not important here.

Mentally, this transmutation is marked by the shift from desirelessness to desire. In nirvana, the total absence of desire correlates with bliss. But when the desire for something else than eternal bliss arises – i.e., when boredom arises – the transmutation from spiritual gold to spiritual mercury begins (of course, mercury need not be the final stage of the descent).

Mathematically, the transmutation from gold to mercury is equivalent from unity to division. Singularity to multiplicity.

It has also been observed that a vial of mercury will divide into a multitude of smaller blobs if poured out onto a surface. This is analogous to how the gold of Brahman divides into the mercury of every individual Atman. The transmutation from gold to mercury can therefore be understood as a matter of manifesting ego.

This first stage of the Katabasis is probably the least interesting out of all twelve of the transformations in the Heroic Journey. Characters of both gold and mercury can be hard to identify with, given that both levels are far above the frequencies of ordinary people.

However, the nature of the transmutation of gold into mercury is emblematic of all of the stages of the Katabasis. As above, so below: the decay of gold into mercury is, in microcosm, what all of the other decays are in macrocosm. The boredom-induced temptation to place some sensation or perception above the demands of rectitude is behind every step in the descent from spiritual gold to spiritual lead.

Therefore, the transmutation of gold into mercury can serve a powerful metaphorical role.

This is an excerpt from Vince McLeod’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 piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

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The Transmutation Of Silver Into Mercury

The fifth transmutation of the Anabasis is from silver to mercury. This involves the mysterious process of quickening. Silver is quickened to become mercury and, in doing so, develops a divine spark. Thus, the transmutation of silver to mercury involves beginning (but not completing) the process of apotheosis.

In quickening, silver becomes liquid. This liquidity is the essence of the realm of mercury. The character of mercury displays the opposite of the rigid thinking found in the realm of iron. They are the quickest of thinkers, always a step ahead of everyone else. For this reason they evoke a wide range of reactions from other characters. Mercury is therefore unpredictable to the lower elements, hence the term mercurial.

The rigidity of silver means that it cannot flow into certain spaces. Mercury can. Hence characters of mercury can be explorers of the mind and soul as well as of physical or cultural space. A transmutation from silver to mercury might be motivated by a character who has achieved everything possible in their career or business, and started to wonder what else there is to life. For such people, the occult often beckons.

Psychologically, the character of mercury is beyond any character of the previous levels. They are intellectually superior to an extent that is awesome. But they don’t merely intellectualise. The character of mercury is capable of intuiting knowledge in a way that seems psychic to others. They seem to know things that could not possibly be known, as if they had access to another world.

It is said of the brilliant that they can hit targets no-one else can hit, but of the genius it is said that they can hit targets no-one else can see. The transition from silver to mercury is like this transition from brilliance to genius. A character who achieves it will not merely impress others – they will instill awe. Other characters will generally not understand how the transition has been made.

Aldous Huxley once said (maybe) that “an intellectual is someone who has discovered something more interesting than sex.” The character of mercury is entirely capable of having sex and enjoying it – but they are also capable of sublimating their sexual energy into incredible cultural, artistic, scientific or spiritual achievements. If they choose to attempt such a thing, and if they come to value this higher than sex, they will be seen as very strange by most others. Thus, the transition to mercury can only be attempted by those with superior will.

Socially, the transmutation from silver to mercury could see a character go from leading their clan to leading an empire. In some ancient cultures, the king was also the chief judge. If the judges of a nation are those who the villages nominate to resolve conflicts, the king would be the one who resolves conflicts among the judges themselves. A transition to mercury could be made by becoming a king of kings, or an emperor.

The character of mercury, then, is of the highest terrestrial rank. This might not necessarily be evident, especially at the beginning of the story. A transmutation from silver to mercury might occur very early in the life of a character, such that those around them don’t readily recognise the change. They might simply be too young for higher honours yet, despite being spiritually worthy.

Physically, a character of mercury could look like anything. If characters of lead are scrawny, those of tin fat, those of iron muscular, those of copper muscular and fat and those of silver slender, characters of mercury could look like any such phenotype plus others. For a character of mercury, who is beginning to apotheosise, the physical form is almost irrelevant. They may even start to move beyond physical form as they move away from silver.

The transmutation of silver to mercury is a challenge unlike any of the previous four stages, because it’s primarily a spiritual process, whereas the previous four stages deal with physical and mental processes. For the fifth transmutation of the Anabasis to begin, the spiritual realm has to be accessed. This makes the nature of the transmutation much more subtle than any of the previous four.

This can make a character of mercury a highly complex one. They are capable of anything that the lower levels are capable of. The difference is that the lower five elements are somewhat bound to their realm of frequency, whereas mercury can flow readily to any frequency. Thus the character of mercury can party as if tin, fight as if lead, make love as if copper and socialise as if silver. They are not specialised in any one aspect of life but are rather masters of life in a general sense. As such, the transition to mercury requires a certain depth of life experience.

Glory can transmute mere silver to mercury. A character who rises to become a general or warlord might discover, in the throes of victory, a glory that raises them to a place not previously possible. In the wake of a military triumph, a commander might attain realms of consciousness that had otherwise been inaccessible.

A near death experience can also do it. As mentioned above, the process of transmutation to mercury is, at one level, divine. In almost dying, a person sometimes realises that they are more than just their body and mind. When the physical senses are shut off, the soul can make itself present. Many a person has passed over to the other side only to then return and, imbued with occult knowledge from those shadow realms, risen to a position of social prominence.

A psychedelic experience might be another, similar way to achieve this. A character who undergoes a sufficiently powerful spiritual experience though use of a psychedelic might seem, to other characters, to have acquired superpowers. They may also seem to have gone insane: the transmutation to mercury implies that a character no longer cares as much about material concerns such as wealth or social status. This might not be understood or appreciated by characters of the lower levels.

Yet another way might be getting chosen by a secret society for a special role, such as the harbinger of a new age of humanity. A character of silver who is chosen as a special representative by a secret society could begin the transmutation to mercury by way of ritual. Ancient rites intended to drive out weaknesses from lower frequencies could effect the transmutation to mercury.

The ultimate action that transmutes silver to mercury is application of will. It’s ultimately will that overcomes the rigidness of silver and transmutes into something quasi-divine. The rigidity of silver is testament to the extent to which it is programmed by circumstance. The application of will causes a character to rise above circumstance and to define themselves according to their own values. Even the stronghest, the smartest, the richest and the most handsome of men are subordinate to the most willing.

An example of the transmutation of silver to mercury in popular fiction is the film Braveheart. William Wallace starts as a well-respected villager, the son of a well-respected villager, and seemed destined for the realm of silver. But on account of being taught to use his brain properly, he was able to reshape the course of history.

This is an excerpt 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.

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VJMP Anzac Day Address 2024: The Common Enemies Of The Anzac Nation

It was recently shown in an IPSOS poll that populist sentiments are becoming common among New Zealanders. These sentiments are mostly shared by Australians as well. Both countries are suffering under a callously indifferent ruling class, who democracy seems only to entrench. One of the best arguments for the unity of the Anzac nation is that Australia and New Zealand have common enemies.

These common enemies are both external and internal.

Externally, the Anzac nation is beset by communists and capitalists, who have subjugated the West under their unholy alliance known as “globohomo”. This alliance is a globalist one. The people who make up the leadership of this alliance have no national home, but rather, like John Key, live wherever profits them the most at any given time.

The communists are a motley alliance of Western grifters, invariably middle-class, who have declared war on the working classes of Western nations on the excuse that those working classes refused to support globalist revolution. They are so lost in the labyrinths of their own ideology that they have lost touch with reality completely: they are willing to deny any science or history if doing so would further globalist revolution.

Communists, especially the brown communists, see Australia and New Zealand as settler nations, and therefore illegitimate constructs. If the lands cannot be handed back to the natives, then they must be converted into the common property of all of humankind. This means that infinite foreigners can be imported, and the Anzac people have no right to complain about it.

The global working class was prophecised to unite across national borders by Marx himself. This prophecy is being engineered by the world’s communists, who feel it their duty to destroy all national borders and all national consciousness, those being impediments to the rise of class consciousness.

The capitalists don’t care so much for ideology. They are chiefly concerned with the sober business of wealth extraction. Their main concern is keeping the immigration taps running on full bore, because that maximises rents and minimises wages. Because they own all the rental property, and because they hire all the workers, the capitalists are the major beneficiaries of mass immigration.

For this reason, the capitalists hate the nations: nations are icky things that tend to come together and form unions and enforce labour laws. Nations tend to care about their members not being able to afford housing. Nations tend to pass laws restricting cheap labour importation. Much better to break the nations up, the capitalists reason, into a mindless herd of individualised consumers, indifferent to each other’s suffering. More profit that way.

Both of these forces, both communist and capitalist, constitute a globalist alliance whose interests are implacably opposed to that of the Anzac nation. As globalists, they seek to disenfranchise and disempower the Anzac nation, to confuse us, to strike us ignorant of our history, and of the legacy our ancestors built with the intention that we would inherit it.

These forces couldn’t care less about the actual people with roots in the soil of the lands of the Southwestern Pacific. The actual Anzac nation. These forces have, in fact, done everything they could to impoverish and tyrannise us. Young Anzacs today have almost no chance of buying homes with money from their wages. Our younger generations today are worse off, in homeownership terms, than young people in countries that were Third World a few decades ago.

Qatar, by contrast to the Anzac countries, gives its citizens housing grants of up to 1,200,000 Qatari reals, about AUD500,000. There are no student loans in Qatar. The Qatari Government appears to operate on a logic similar to that of Scandinavian countries in the 1970s: that investing in their own people will produce great dividends in years to come.

We Anzacs, by contrast, are put to work for monkey wages that will never pay for houses. Forget housing grants – our ruling class imports hundreds of thousands of cheap labour units every year to compete with us for housing. Forget Scandinavian logic also. Investing in our people is considered a loss of profit for this quarter.

These external forces, however, would have very little influence had the Anzac nation not already been losing the battle to internal forces. These internal forces are spiritual ones. It’s as true for us as it was for Fight Club – our Great War is a spiritual war.

This spiritual war involves finding the right balance in all of the various realms of spiritual life. We must find the middle path between rashness and cowardice, between gluttony and melancholy, between pride and debasement. Finding that middle path has been difficult, because we have been pulled to and fro by the adharmic philosophies like Abrahamism and scientific materialism.

It’s time for the Anzac nation to forge our own spiritual path, and therefore our own moral path, through the morass of confusion that has befallen the West in the Post-Truth Age.

For anyone descended from the British, of course, our primary spiritual enemies are nihilism and greed.

The nihilism comes from the great void in the centre of our spiritual life. Young Anzacs are not interested in fables about Rabbi Yeshua, and the old myths about Wotan rising from the mist and fog are too distant for the warm lands of Anzac. The great Anzac spiritualities are yet to manifest; our gods are still, for now, dormant. When a true Anzac spiritual movement arises, and when the Anzac gods rise with it, this rising will banish nihilism from our souls.

The greed comes from the grandiosity that is the inheritance of the British Empire. As with all creations of the City of London, the Anzac countries are operated to turn a profit and not to help the Anzac nation meet their needs of life. A political revolution, on nationalist grounds, would allow us to assert a new set of values: one that puts our life quality higher than the mere generation of dollars.

The common enemies of the Anzac nation are not many, but they are powerful. Communists and capitalists, nihilism and greed provide both outer and inner enemies that we must wrestle with in coming decades. These are powerful foes, and their power incites us to come together, morally and spiritually, as one people.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
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The Insanity At The Heart Of Western Culture In 2024

Mainstream media has made clear to every one of us that our current rates of material consumption are destroying the planet. If we don’t stop raping the limited resources of Planet Earth, we will induce a biosphere collapse that will probably kill us all. But there are very powerful forces preventing us from not pillaging the world.

Earth Overshoot Day is the day by when humans have used up all the resources that the planet can regenerate in a year. In 2024, that day was May 27. New Zealanders consume at such at rate that, if everyone consumed like us, we’d use up a year’s worth of resources by April 11.

The fact that an overshoot day even exists is proof that the world is insane. It means that we’re living in an unsustainable manner, much like a crackhead living on a giant ball of crack. We have to change course or we’re all going to die. But there are structural reasons why our global society can’t stop consuming the planet.

It’s not just a matter of resource depletion either. This March was the tenth straight month of record temperatures. The mainstream scientific consensus is that human activity has heated up the planet by almost 1.7 degrees Celcius since the late 1800s. If we don’t rein that activity in by reducing overconsumption, we will eventually cook the planet (and us with it).

The problem is that most of this consumption is motivated by the necessities of going to work and maintaining a state of work-readiness. A person must maintain a private vehicle, professional clothing and footwear, professional standards of grooming and body care, potentially all manner of tools and equipment, as well as pay for entertainment to destress from the demands of working. All of this costs resources – resources that are only used because of the obsession with working.

Realistically what we need is for a large number of people to go on something like a UBI, so that instead of driving to work every day and flying to meetings every week, and then spending the income they make from a forty-hour workweek on all kinds of consumer crap they don’t need, they can cut down both their work rate and their consumption rate.

The problem is that it’s simply not allowed to not work.

Our entire culture appears to be based on the logic that people not employed for wages are “not pulling their weight”, as if widespread starvation was imminent. There are dozens of words that can be employed to humiliate someone into working harder: bum, bludger, leech, moocher, parasite, lazy, shirker, grifter etc. To not be working for a wage is considered a great shame.

It could even be said that we live in a “workiarchy” where whoever works the most has the highest status. People brag about waking up extremely early in the morning to work, as if it was central to their moral value. This mentality has given us absurd humour like the “100 hours a week” meme, wherein it’s assumed that if you work less than 100 hours a week you’re taking it easy.

Mass abandonment of work is also not socially possible. The identities of most people are so closely bound with their work that they would suffer a catastrophic loss of personality structure if they were asked to give it up. In the same way that many people die shortly after they retire, because they no longer see a purpose to life, many people would lose the will to live if they were asked to stop working for the environment’s sake.

We’re killing the planet by consuming as much as we are. Yet it’s impossible to just simply not work. This irreconcilable conflict is causing immense levels of undiagnosed schizophrenia among Westerners, and especially younger ones, who are facing the existential dilemma of climate change head-on.

It is apparent from the widespread despair and malaise in Western society today that people want a change of direction. But who can change that direction, when most people are too busy working to pay rents to organise protest, and the people receiving the rents don’t want to change anything?

For the insanity at the heart of Western culture to be cured, we need to collectively come to the realisation that time spent in unpaid work can be just as valuable as time spent in paid work. We don’t need capitalists ordering us around for our lives to have value or meaning. We need to completely revalue the importance of work and industriousness in the light of the total ecological impact of humanity.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

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