elementalism – Page 47

Alchemical Gold, Gold Magic and Gold Magicians

In alchemism, the Elementary Masculine Perspective divides reality into four elements of increasing value: clay, iron, silver and gold. Previous articles looked at alchemical iron and alchemical silver, what they represent, and what sort of person embodies them. This article looks at the fourth of the four masculine elements: the radiant and enigmatic substance known as gold.

The primary masculine division is into precious and base. The secondary masculine division is the further division of the base, as well as the further division of the precious into silver (colourless precious) and gold (colourful precious), with the latter more precious than the former.

That gold is shiny and colourful means that it represents the highest frequency of all, namely that of God, that which makes all things possible. The chemical symbol ‘Au’ comes from the Roman word aurum, which shares a root with the modern word aura. It was believed that the substance possessed an aura such that it was holy, or from God.

Elementary alchemy has it that the division between yin and yang can be represented as the division between clay and iron, with the first passive and soft and the second active and unyielding. Silver relates to a balance of iron and clay that is more correct for the current situation than either extreme, and represents how according with the World of Forms is more valuable than simply being an animal.

Gold is a second order of balance, between and beyond all of silver and clay and iron. What this means is that gold is unafraid to act as pure iron or pure clay, should the situation demand it. This makes it different to silver, which attributes value to the middle ground between the feminine extreme of clay and the masculine extreme of iron, and which is reluctant to act as either.

Silver is prone to a particular form of the balance fallacy called the Conceit of Silver. Essentially this means that silver always believes that it’s of the highest value (i.e. that it is of gold). Gold is willing to place itself below silver – and that is precisely why it is more valuable than silver. Gold is without ego.

Gold represents a kindness that none of the other elements are capable of. Silver is too conceited, iron too harsh and clay too soft. This kindness is something extremely valuable, because without it this world is something of a hell. It is why Aleister Crowley was impelled to write “Love is the law, Love under Will.”

Kindness given of the free will of the giver, and not to secure some future advantage, is real gold, and invaluable. Without it, nothing else in this world can have any real value, for gold gives meaning to things.

Being the most malleable of all metals, gold is softer than both silver and iron. This relates to the fact that it is also the most expansive. One gram of physical gold can be beaten out into a sheet a square metre in size; by similar means, a tiny amount of alchemical gold is enough to make a tremendous number of things possible. Therefore, gold is pliable enough to achieve things that silver cannot (much less iron or clay).

Gold relates to the widest, broadest, most fundamental and most deeply hidden knowledge. It is the esoteric to the exoteric of silver. Knowledge of gold is knowledge of the metaphysical fundamentals, what Plato called the World of Forms. Silver is knowledge of the material world; gold is knowledge of the immaterial. Silver is knowledge of the current state of affairs; gold is knowledge of the eternal.

Metaphorically, gold refers to that of the greatest value. No element is more valuable than gold: therefore, gold is perfection. Gold also relates to God, which is to say that it cannot be described, on account of being more fundamental than language. It is consciousness to the intellect of silver, the muscles of iron and the viscera of clay.

Gold magic relates to a person’s frequency of consciousness. If a person can overcome suffering and come out the other side neither pacified nor cruel, then it can be said that they are in possession of spiritual gold. A human being that has never suffered will be something like the silver. One who has suffered and become cruel as a result is like the iron, and one that has suffered and become meek is like the clay. To remain kind even when one has suffered is like the gold.

Psychological and spiritual healing fall under the rubric of gold magic. Successful gold magic will induce a depressed person to be more happy, an anxious person to be calm, and a despairing person to find meaning. Silver cannot do any of those things because its nature is cold and austere. Silver cannot impress with warmth of kindness. Gold causes those suffering in its presence to feel that everything is going to be okay.

This an esoteric quality possessed by gold magicians. You could never trust a person who said that they were a gold magician, and any gold magician would know this, and therefore they would never say it. Anybody claiming to be a gold magician could be confidently said to actually be a silver magician, because a real gold magician wouldn’t go around bragging about how wonderful they were – they would be content that their behavioural example was such that they would be sufficiently rewarded.

The presence of alchemical gold is felt on such a fundamental level that it causes its possessor to radiate warmth. Unlike silver, which can be measured in IQ tests and university achievements, gold cannot be measured. This is a feature of its divine origin. It can only be sensed – and some people sense its presence where others do not, which is another reason why it defies description.

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Why There’s Nothing, Fundamentally, To Be Afraid Of

Some people wonder why the great sages, such as Buddha, are always depicted smiling. It seems like there’s some great and uplifting secret that they are privy to, knowledge of which has liberated them from all the suffering in the world. Buddha knew a great many things. One piece of knowledge he shared with Alan Watts: that there’s nothing, fundamentally, to be afraid of.

Essentially there is no reason to ever worry or to feel bad about things that might happen in the future. This seems like an article of faith, and perhaps an irrational one, until one looks at the philosophy behind it.

Most people think that they know what lies in store for them as a human being on this planet. That they will die, and suffer as they do so. What lies in store is growing older, more tired, more decrepit, and eventually more sick, until a major organ fails and one dies painfully. Probably this death will be preceded by several decades of increasing pain in joints and muscles, as well as eyesight, hearing, bowel and bladder failure, and maybe even a stroke or two.

It follows from this that life itself is suffering, and increasingly so as one ages. We can conclude that we know we’re going to die, and that this death is going to be painful. Therefore, we know that an attitude of apprehension and even fear towards the future is rational. This is why almost everyone has one – we know that the future brings immense suffering.

But do we really know this?

One knows that one is conscious. Thinking about it, it’s possible to realise that this is all one really knows. This is the one and only single fact that one can ever state with certainty. Everything else is a matter of probability, even questions like “Will the Sun rise tomorrow?”. It’s not certain that the Sun will rise tomorrow, because the Earth could be destroyed at any time by a comet, rendering the question of sunrise meaningless.

Because nothing else can be known, nothing else can be stated as an eternal fact about reality. Only the fact that one is conscious can be stated as such. All else belongs to the category of contents of consciousness, which is to say that all else is merely “things that one is aware of”. These phenomena are not facts in the same way that one can state “I am conscious” as a fact. Rather, they are probabilities.

Let’s say that life is suffering. Fair enough, life is suffering, and it gets worse until the physical body dies. So what? There is no reason to think that one will still be aware of the suffering of one’s physical body after its expiration. One is conscious now, and one is conscious of a physical body, and this physical body suffers – so what?

There is no reason to think that consciousness is still aware of the suffering of the physical body after death. Indeed, consciousness might then become aware of a new body, or might dream up something else entirely. Therefore, any physical suffering can never be any more permanent than any other phenomenon of Nature, such as the ebb and flow of the tides. Birth, death, doesn’t matter: all is just an oscillation from pain to pleasure, with high points and low points.

For this reason, there is no need to fundamentally be afraid of the decay and death of one’s physical body. There’s every reason to think that on the other side of death is the absence of all suffering, and all pain is just a shadow of death. All suffering is an effect of material phenomena, which are all transitory in nature. If there is no reason to fear death, then there is no reason to fear pain either. All suffering will pass.

Note that the argument here is that there is nothing fundamentally to be afraid of. There might be plenty of things to be superficially afraid of – death and pain being the foremost of these. It makes sense to be afraid of getting hit by a train, not because the consequences of getting hit by a train would be permanent, but because one has a role to play here in this dimension of reality in which we find ourselves, and one’s role is (in all likelihood) one that avoids getting hit by trains. Not to be fundamentally afraid does not imply that one ought to behave recklessly or without regard for one’s physical well-being.

There is no reason, fundamentally, to be afraid of anything, because all suffering is a phenomenon that will pass. We do not need to be afraid of pain merely because pain is painful – this is sufficient reason for pain to be avoided, but not for it to be feared. We can appreciate that pain, like all natural phenomena, comes and goes, and that we remain the observer of it, as we remain the observer of all material phenomena.

The Four Elements of Health

Alchemism holds that the metaphysical world is comprised of four masculine elements of clay, iron, silver and gold. Because we can apply the maxim as above, so below, we can reason that there are patterns within the physical world that reflect this. This essay look at personal health through the prism of the four masculine elements.

The first element of clay relates to eating well. There are two aspects to this.

Fundamental to physical health is simply getting enough food. This fact has long been forgotten in the West on account of our centuries of abundance, but it’s still a biological reality for all creatures. The primary survival challenge for creatures similar to us in a state of Nature is to gather enough food resources to meet their metabolic needs. If this is not possible it will lead to hunger, then weakness, then death.

Another important aspect is that one gets the right food. It’s not simply a matter of filling one’s stomach: one must eat food that is actually healthy. Acting correctly at the level of clay will see a person avoid sugar and fatty cheeseburgers in favour of fruits, vegetables and home-cooked meals. Someone who has mastered life at this level will act as if food is medicine.

Iron relates to physical discipline in the pursuit of health. There are also two aspects to this.

Most obvious is exercise. The body has to be used, otherwise it will fall into decay. Humans were very active during the biological past, and this is reflected in the biological present. Properly applying the element of iron to one’s health means that one will get up and stay fit, whether through walking, running, swimming or biking. thereby one becomes physically hard, like iron.

Iron is the masculine element, and as a consequence it is the element that imposes boundaries. Therefore, part of the realm of iron is preventing unwanted substances from entering one’s body. This is obviously true in the case of poisons, but become trickier when applied to drugs and medicines. Acting correctly in the element of iron will see a person keep harmful things out of their body.

Silver relates to intellectual exercise. This shares elements of both clay and iron, and like clay and iron there are two distinct aspects to silver.

The former relates to what you put into your head. This relates to quality of information. A person acting at the level of silver will take care to not read low-information sources. They will tend to avoid gossip mags and FaceBook. Someone succeeding at this level will read full books from start to finish, and will cross-reference claims made in the media with other sources before believing them.

The latter relates to the discipline necessary to keep using the mind. The brain is like a muscle: you will lose it if you don’t use it. It’s important to keep reading everyday, and thinking about what one has read, as well as challenging what one thinks is known. Part of the realm of silver is intellectual debate, and a healthy individual at the level of silver will be able to do with words what the man of iron does with a sword.

The element of gold relates to spiritual exercise. Again like the previous elements, this is achieved in two ways.

The first is to keep incorrect thoughts out of one’s head. Gold is different to silver here because the realm of gold deals with frequencies, and not information like silver. So this does not relate to keeping bad information out of the head, but rather bad frequencies. Correct application of gold to health involves avoiding people and situations that cause bad energies, as well as patterns of thought that lead to same.

The most important spiritual exercise, of course, is meditation. Only through meditation does an individual arrive at the peace of mind and self-knowledge necessary to make correct decisions. Meditation is the final transmutation of the previous three elements into the gold of enlightenment. This brings what is usually referred to as “mental health”, involving a calm acceptance of things.

These four elements combine to create a complete picture of health. An individual who succeeds in applying these four elements to their health will be physically, mentally and spiritually healthy.

The Bogan-Faggot Spectrum

This essay introduces a new concept in psychology: the B-F spectrum. This is short for Bogan-Faggot spectrum, which is a way of measuring maladapative personalities on a scale from 1 to -1, with a score of 0 a good healthy medium that will allow for well-adjusted behaviour in most instances.

At one far end of the B-F spectrum is the Bogan Pole, represented by the extreme value of 1. This is essentially the pole of maladapted masculinity, or an excess of masculinity. This is so named after the hyper-aggressive, low-intelligence bogans that make life really hard for working-class people, by causing society to think of them when they think of the working class.

Here we find a masculinity so stubborn and unyielding that parents regularly hit and verbally abuse their children, reasoning that the children need to grow up “hard” in order to cope with the challenges of life. At the Bogan Pole, all emotional expression is for faggots. Expressing an emotion is a sign of weakness because it is evidence that one has lost one’s self-composure.

At the Bogan Pole, there is to be no similarity between men and women. Men are hard, women are soft, end of story. There are a set of actions and displays that are only permissible for men, and there are others that are only permissible for women. Any man or woman who performs an action or display characteristic of the other gender is subhuman.

At the other end of the B-F spectrum is the Faggot Pole, represented by the extreme value of -1. This is the pole of maladapted femininity, or excessive femininity. It is named after the hyper-passive-aggressive, overly sensitive faggots that make life really hard for homosexual people, by causing society to think of them when they think of homosexuals.

This is a kind of toxic femininity that demands that everyone and everything be forced to be equal. It is a kind of slave morality, in that it demands that everyone be meek and self-effacing, lest they be shamed into it by the collective. At the Faggot Pole, all assertive expression (such as the setting of boundaries) is for bogans. Anyone who has a high self-esteem has to be ripped down the level of the collective.

At the Faggot Pole, there is to be no difference between men and women. An individual can possess any characteristic whatsoever, or fail to possess any characteristic whatsoever, and still assert that they are either man or woman (or anything else). Anyone who claims otherwise is a filthy bogan, because they are setting boundaries and that is masculine.

Also at the Faggot Pole is a relaxed attitude to sexual abuse of children. In much the same way that people at the Bogan Pole, being hyper-masculine, don’t consider violence against children to be a bad thing, neither do people at the Faggot Pole, being hyper-feminine, consider sexuality towards children to be a bad thing. People at this pole are far more likely to believe that they are doing children a favour by molesting them.

The B-F spectrum is an alchemical triangle in the sense that the healthiest behaviour lies in the middle. Both the Bogan Pole and the Faggot Pole represent extremes of behaviour that are not well adapted to the challenges that our society offers. The central position, represented by 0, refers to behaviour that is neither hypermasculine nor hyperfeminine – just balanced, intelligent, appropriate behaviour.

It could be that some situations genuinely demand the taking of a particular position on the B-F spectrum, or at least one close to one of the poles. If an individual goes to war, it makes sense to take a B-F position closer to 1 on account of the violence and deprivation that they will encounter. If an individual makes love, it makes sense to take a B-F position closer to -1 on account of that one is in a situation where boundaries are dissolved.

It’s worth noting that the poorer a person is, the more likely they are to approach the Bogan Pole, and the wealthier a person is, the more likely they are to approach the Faggot Pole. This is a long-observed phenomenon. The most common downfall for any man mighty enough to make himself into a king was having a son who becomes effeminate as a result of the wealth and comfort in which he lives, and who thereby becomes too weak to maintain his position.

There is, as of yet, no questionnaire that will estimate where an individual is on the Bogan-Faggot spectrum. Future research will have to identify variables that correlate with excessive masculinity or excessive femininity, and from there it will be possible to develop a set of questions. In any case, intuitive estimations might still have some use.