THE TOOLS OF THE ALCHEMIST
Transmuting darkness into light, discovering more of ourselves, and uncovering the Truth.
 Grand rising, dear Alchemist:
People really like throwing the word ego around in all sorts of situations these days. Usually, ego is used as a way to insult someone. Insinuating that an egoistic person is someone who thinks highly of themselves. Of course, this isn’t true. Some of our most insecure thoughts are deeply rooted in our ego. A better way to understand our egos would be to think of them as programming - a kind of inner network of functions that trigger us to act in certain ways, depending on external stimuli. Someone who is ego-centric will have difficulty seeing through their own programming. They will be limited by the commands set for them through their conditioning and trauma. You may be thinking at this point that the ego is bad for us and we should simply transcend it. However, this wouldn’t be taking the full picture of what the ego is into account. Our minds evolved for millions of years to be the masters of information processing that they are today. The ego is a symptom of our intelligence and is therefore inexorably connected to our conscious mind. And, as we already know, our consciousness is responsible for creating nearly all of our experiences. Luckily for us, the ego is very adaptive. We can pick and choose the kind of programming we want to align ourselves with. If, for example, a part of your programming makes you look at life more optimistically, creating positive expectations which then manifest into reality - obviously keep it. On the other hand, if you notice yourself being triggered by a particular topic or even a single word, it is a sign that there is a tangled mess in your mind that must be cleared away through meditations and healthy self-expression. Follow the pace of your thoughts. Try to notice which thoughts stem from a place of security and which are brought about from feelings of fear or anger. The nexus between our survival minds and our ego is strong. The ego tends to have a bias for building itself around experiences it doesn’t want to have and tries to train us to avoid pain. But sometimes we need to endure pain to overcome something - what’s important is that we can consciously choose to confront that pain without our ego speaking over us. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council  Good day, Fellow Alchemists:
Beliefs are the building blocks of our reality. They dictate our behavior, our willingness to overcome obstacles, and how we view our own limitations. Yet, isn’t it possible that some of our beliefs are based off biases and muddled perspectives? We put so much faith into the stories we tell ourselves but the fact of it is, most of the things we believe to be true are not based in reality. This has been true of almost all previous beliefs held by people. All we can do is make observations and come to conclusions about the world around us. We’re bound to make some mistakes along the way. However, if our perceptive ability is somehow tainted with an inability to accept something as it actually is, we become unable to see the most simple truths of life. It is for this reason that people meditate on the concept of death - to actualize it into their understanding of life. The same goes for conceptualizing life and seeing how it unfolds. We can pinpoint where we are exactly in the story and follow it through to the end, or possibly redirect it. By not seeing reality for what it is, we can get stuck in situations where we don’t know what we want out of life or what direction to move ourselves in. It can also severely limit us by binding us to a false narrative in which we are powerless or lacking in some aspects. When you find yourself imagining life, think about this phrase that artists use to draw realistic paintings: Draw what you see, not what you think you see. Of course, that’s not to say that imagining what could be isn’t also helpful. Seeing things clearly isn’t about limiting creativity. Rather, it is the exploration of fundamental truths, which usually results in profound self-liberation. Like an artists painting a beautiful scene before their eyes. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council  Good Day, Fellow Alchemists:
It is believed that our conscious mind is comprised of only a tiny fraction of our full mental experience. Our brains perceive so much information on a day-to-day basis, which our conscious mind deems unimportant or irrelevant to our immediate survival. This could be something as simple as the face of the mailman from your childhood home. You may think you’ve completely forgotten it, yet it remains in the deepest recesses of your mind, which is why random characters seem to appear in your dreams. Either you remember your mailman entirely, or the dream may use his face for a new dream character. This ability for our dreams to use all the information available to us is not limited to memory. Many people believe that dreams are a way to connect with our unconscious selves. And at times, that unconscious self may have messages for us. The result of that communication is our strange, often enigmatic, dream sequences. While the events that occur in our dreams may seem random and at times, just an amalgamation of what happened the day before, there is a very unique language being spoken within them. Our dreams are a language of symbols, or as Carl Jung referred to them, archetypes. Archetypes can be thought of as the pinnacle of human imagination. And that pinnacle usually reaches limits that is collectively shared amongst all people. By having all of our imaginations, more often than not, reaching similarly symbolic conclusions in relation to our thoughts and emotions, a representation is formed. Dreaming of your teeth falling out? For most people this a sign of being self-conscious about ones appearance. Do you find yourself operating a vehicle in a dream, only to lose control at a later point? This usually represents a loss of control in the direction your moving in in your waking life. Crashing planes can mean a fear of failure, climbing a mountain can mean overcoming difficulty - the list goes on and on and covers just about every dream imaginable. If you’d like to get a better grip of the language of dreams, a good way to start would be to find a dream dictionary and begin reading through it. Also, writing down your dreams first thing in the morning will help you remember your dreams better and more vividly. Dream interpreting offers a profound insight into the nature of our own existence, allowing us to understand what we want and need on a much higher level. By bringing awareness into the unconscious aspects of ourselves, we also become less controlled by our shadow, and in a sense, we are psychologically and spiritually liberated. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council  Good day, fellow Alchemists:
Since the time we were born, all that we have done is chase our own desires. By moving towards what attracts us, we manifest a reality in which we have what we want. In a sense, desires are like the primordial force that sustains the Law of Attraction - like a kind of fuel that makes an engine run. And of course, there is nothing wrong with this. It is natural for living things to crave more than what they already have. It’s what drives us to procreate and aided in our evolution as human beings. This is true for us biologically as a species, and personally as individuals. Just as we shape the world in order to fit our ideal, we, ourselves change due to the path our desires take us on. But what’s interesting is how our desires change over time. A child will begin to have cravings for candy and will do things in order to get as much candy as possible. This could mean getting the approval of his parents in order to receive candy as a reward, or it could mean stealing a piece of candy when no one is looking. As you can see, it’s not only our desires that shape us but the way we try to fulfill them as well. Once the child gets the candy, his desires don’t end. They change. The child grows older and gains social awareness, creating a need for approval from his fellow classmates. Eventually, a desires for a partner will emerge. Then a career, a bigger house, retirement plans, summer homes and so on. Desires don’t go away, they simply change in form. But if you dig deep enough into our psyche, all any of us are really craving is still just candy. And candy, after all, is just a form of gratifying the ego. It is not until we meet all of our desires that we eventually come to terms with the one thing we want most of all. To give of ourselves to others. It is a conclusion that most people will eventually arrive at. Need proof? Look no further than to your own grandparents, who more often than not, give of themselves to their family until their last days on this planet. It’s also the reason why monks are trained to focus on the meaning of compassion. To set themselves free of the self-serving ego and give to the world by reaching enlightenment. We can all find fulfillment in life, both by having our desires met and by serving those around us. We are free to have both. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council  Good Day, Fellow Alchemists:
Do you feel how the world is changing all around us? How old paradigms are beginning to crumble before our very eyes? There is a very powerful transition that is occurring on our planet right now - a move towards the spirit. In order for us to understand what that means, we must first look at our role in all of this. While it may seem like the events around the world are at their worst, it’s all a symptom of this great change. Remember Alchemist, before order comes chaos. Within the cocoon, a disorganized mess of an organism is waiting in darkness to come out in its final form. This transition is the cause for most of our confusion. With the added perspective of spirituality, it’s like we’re trying to look in two directions at once.It’s not the first time a shift like this happened either. Our current experiences are the direct results of smaller shifts that began not too long ago. The last major shift happened when we disconnected from organized religion and put our faith in science. We completely moved away from anything spiritual and only trusted what could be verified by our senses. And who could blame us? The innovations made by scientific pioneering brought the world into the modern age. People across the globe were pulled out of poverty, were given clean water, and bright lights filled the streets, banishing the darkness once and for all. However, it wasn’t long until those bright lights began to blind us. The darkness wasn’t gone, we just weren’t looking at it anymore. With all the mental anguish that has built up from humans being forced to live in cities and work jobs they are unhappy with, we, as a society, are forced to look at our own darkness once again - to step into our shadow. It is a turbulent time, but we must remember that we chose to be here for it. We will all come out the other side and live together in the golden age that is to come. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council  Grand rising, dear Alchemist:
Existence is an absolute mystery to us humans. No matter how much we try to delve into the the most basic principles that comprise our reality, we always seem to be missing information. This is true for both scientific and spiritual pursuits. What science lacks in its explanations of the world is an all encompassing meaning - a Why factor. Spirituality on the other hand, lacks verifiable evidence for the existence of anything beyond the physical. It is dependent on individual experiences. Perhaps this is the way it should be. The universe, after all, is not obliged to make sense to us. But what if we try on a spiritual perspective and view it through the lens of a scientific mind? Maybe by blending the best of the two beliefs we can derive an even deeper truth. Alchemist, there is a common spiritual axiom which states that all is mind - everything is created through thought. But the word thought is not exactly accurate here. If it were simply our thoughts, the universe and all of existence would be quite fickle. The correct verbiage would be: the imagination. It is through the imagination that we discover ourselves. It is a gateway to psychological archetypes talked about by Carl Jung, which dictate how we view the world as a collective. Imagination is also the direct result of having an animal who thinks in words and can see days and weeks into the future - that would be us. Scientist and spiritual gurus can agree that the act of imagining is something uniquely human. So when we think of the world and how it was shaped and how it changes, we need not cling to the idea of a static reality but instead one created by conscious beings. A reality woven together so tightly by individual imagination that penetrating it is almost impossible, creating an illusion of consistency. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council  Good day, fellow Alchemists:
Growing up in our society has a way of flattening and chiseling out our uneven ends. What doesn’t fit the mold of acceptable roles is cast aside as unimportant. The things that make us the happiest are downgraded and invalidated by referring to them as hobbies; as urges to be acted upon only after the real work is done. The years pass us by and, lo and behold, we become unhappy adults leading unhappy lives. It’s almost as if we put our need for meaning and fulfillment after our need for acceptance from others - as if life wasn’t hard enough. And even once our work is finished, we find ourselves in a new conundrum; not knowing what makes us happy. The gap between our sense of self and the image of who we project outwardly to others widens to an unreachable point. What a great sin it is to limit and hide our true self, only to maintain a deceitful outward appearance. Living to work to pay for our stuff, so we can continue to work, to pay for our lives, which again, is only dedicated to working. It’s madness. If we claim to be beings of logic and reason, it is only fair that we abide by it. Alchemist, it is your mission to dive head first into the deepest realms of who you are and bring forth your true self and your true desires. Anything less than your greatest dreams are not worth your time. Some might say this is wishful thinking, or that life doesn’t always go as planned. They are right about one thing. Life DOESN’T always go as planned. Sometimes the Universe intervenes and makes fools out of the meticulous planning of us earthlings. And to that, we should be grateful. For it is the blind pursuit of our own inner truth, despite any setbacks or hardships, that we discover our destiny. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council  Good day, fellow Alchemists:
We often talk about how our power is limitless; how, the only limitations we may run into stem from our own misguided beliefs. While this is true, there are some systems of energetic exchanges we should be aware of when confronted with a state of lacking. Alchemist, throughout time immemorial, humanity has lived in communities in which everyone has a role to play. Each person living in a community supports one another by accomplishing separate goals and dividing up work evenly. This allows for a greater amount of success within any given organization because no one person can do everything by themselves. This fact has not changed, even in our modern society. Whether if it’s giant corporations, governments, sports teams, or even just a small family, authority is delegated as evenly as possible while stay maintaining a hierarchical structure. Of course, as we know, sometimes there are pitfalls and control issues between members of a group, but for the most part, humans tend to get along well. You might be wondering: what does this have to do with returning my own power back to me? Well Alchemist, part of this system relies on individuals giving up parts of their own power to others in order to fulfill their wants and needs. Some of us might have fantasies of living on a remote island, picking fruit off trees and being completely independent from society, but eventually desires for technology and modern comforts will creep in and you’ll be forced to make a choice. Our desires lead us to giving up portions of our own power. Not that there is anything wrong with having desires. But if you ever feel drained or overextended, you should ask yourself: Have I let my own wants weaken me energetically? It is entirely possible Alchemist, that some of the things you may think you want are actually unnecessary to your own well-being and happiness. It is likely for this reason that minimalism has gained such popularity and recent years. It may also shed some light on why Yogis remove themselves from society and relinquish all their worldly desires. The return to power is a great transition that clears ones mind and frees the soul. After all, the choice is always ours to make - meaning of course - that we are indeed limitless,. With love and sincerity, The Alchemy by LA Council |