two attentions

Today I'd like to outline our two attentions, two minds, two ways of perceiving reality.
Are there more than two? Yes. Exploring these two will open the doors for exploring others.

There are many names for these two attentions. I'll touch on several of them to give you multiple angles
of perception and understanding.

As you are reading this post, one of your two minds is going to digest it.
It's like someone made a batch of soup and you've never tasted it before...
Do you ask what's in it, or do you just taste it?
These are the two minds. In a nutshell:
One wants to understand before/in order to experience.
The other wants to experience before/in order to understand.

The attention that wants to comprehend, grasp, understand... is also called the mind, in that it has no
tangible reality. It is lunar, mind, mens, imagination. It is based on knowledge and knowledge is the
known, the past. When you build reality based on the mind, it is called Saturn.

This attention is also the idea of oneself as the illusory ego, knowledge, past, mind.
When the mind is based on what is real, the present, it is called Jupiter.

Notice the qualities and correspondences of the two.
Saturn is black, dense, contraction while Jupiter is associated with white or sky blue, the air and sky,
and expansion.

Here is another way of relating the cross of matter to the lunar crescent of mind - the anchor and the trident:

The anchor weighs us down (saturn), keeps us fixed while the trident is the reverse - freeing one from
old ways and seeing things anew, as represented by Siva, the destroyer.

Let's observe another system's use of these attentions...
In the Kabbalah, we see two glyphs or autiot, one representing the open, creative hand (Yod - 10),
and the other the closed or grasping hand (Kaf - 20).
Yod is related numerically as an extension of Aleph - 1, and unfolds into Qof - 100.
Aleph is the Ox, the creative force, and Qof is the back of the head, that is, the seat of the Subconscious,
the cerebellum.

In contrast, Kaf - 20, the grasping hand, is an extension of Bet - 2, a house, dwelling or container, and
Resh - 200, is the head or face, the frontal lobe, seat of the personality.

So we can make the connection between the subconscious, open, creative hand with Jupiter/expansion,
and the personality, closed, grasping hand with Saturn/contraction.

The closed hand that wants to "grasp" or "comprehend" wants to know reality through knowledge, the past,
or by dissecting it, separation. It is like the Zen saying where the guy comes to learn with a cup already full.
The grasping/closed hand is already full of knowledge. It will pollute the present with that knowledge.
The open Jupiter/expansion creative hand is empty, ready to receive the present as a true "present"/gift.

Luke 5:37
"And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins."


Let's take a look at what Castaneda had to say about the two attentions...
I'll paraphrase or give my own summary in order to save space:

The first attention: ordinary awareness, the assemblage point fixed to its habitual position, the tonal,
the known, reason, the attention trained to perceive and interpret infinity as the mundane physical  world.

The second attention: extraordinary (heightened) awareness, the assemblage point shifted or moved to
assemble new, unknown emanations/frequencies as realities, the Nagual, the unknown, the attention
re-trained to be fluid, open-minded, to receive the unknown instead of project the known.

I just came across this relative quote:

"You must let go of your desire to cling. The very same thing happened to me. I held on to things, such as the food I liked, the mountains where I lived, the people I used to enjoy talking to. But most of all I clung to the desire to be liked. Those things are our barriers to losing our human form. Our attention is trained to focus doggedly. That is the way we maintain the world. Now is the time to let go of all that. In order to lose your human form you should let go of all that ballast."


Notice the terms "cling" (grasping hand) and "ballast" (the Saturnian anchor).
When we turn that anchor upside-down we have an umbrella (Latin umbra = shadow) or a parasol (beyond
the sun).  We also have a mushroom which is a doorway to the second attention.


There is a latin phrase familiar to Theosophists: "Demon est Deus Inversus"
Demon = devil = satan = Saturn
Deus = Dieu = Dieu Pater = Jupiter


But in alchemical terms, the seed of Gold lies in Saturn; or the alchemist transmutes lead into gold.
What is this transmutation? Inversus. Turn it upside-down and let nature/gravity do its thing.

From William Blake's "The First Book of Urizen"
Does this not suggest "turn your reason (Urizen) upside-down"?


Bhagavad Gita, chapter 6, verse 5:

"A man must elevate himself by his own mind, not degrade himself. The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul, and his enemy as well.
For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his very mind will be the greatest enemy."



Finally, my personal view on these two modes of perception is to call them past-now and future-now.


The past-now (Saturn) is the way we perceive this moment through the dirty filter of the past/knowledge.
In this mode, we are only able to re-assemble items/images of the past which we project onto the present.
It is an active mode - we are doing something - trying to "create" better than God/what is.


The future-now (Jupiter) is an expansive and receptive mode. We receive the future instead of projecting
the past. We receive the unknown, because we are not using our knowledge/reason.


To create and control takes effort and stress. And guess what - you're going to receive whatever comes
anyway. So why not relax and receive the moment. Simply observe what stress/grasping does to your 
body compared to relaxation/receiving. You can row your boat all you like, or let the current take you.


The same has been observed about breathing: Do you take a breath, or do you receive a breath?


In reference to the "Inversus" and the mind being a friend or enemy, you can see that one
can set oneself up against the flow of the future now, thus perceiving god as satan/adversary.
When we try to control through the past now, obstacles are often thrown in our way.
(Diabolos = to throw between) Is it a stumbling block or a stepping stone? Do you see shit 
or flowers? (do you flow, or row against?) Lead or gold?




In this blog, we have only looked at the relationship between mind/moon and matter/cross.
What do you think is the difference when substituting the sun for the moon?

Always Perfect, Always Changing

I think it's safe to say that most of the time we see ourselves and our world as
out of balance and inharmonious, fractured... and that we are engaged in the task of
correcting or restoring the balance or healing (making whole).

But there is another way to perceive ourselves and our world.
If you really think about it, or SEE it, it's quite impossible for the Universe to be out of balance;
same goes for the microcosm.

What I see in my greatest clarity is a perfect manifestation.
But it's interesting because we usually ascribe a fixity or conclusion to perfection because we think of it
as something to be attained... the end product. "It is finished."

But there is no end. It's a perfect FLUX! Perfect volatility.
Always perfect, yet always changing.

It's quite a different way of perceiving.
Imagine a Rubick's Cube, completed, with all faces one uniform color.
If you "change" the cube by rotating a part of it, the "perfection" is lost.
But the Universe is different... no matter how it is changed, no matter how it evolves,
it has some innate balancing mechanism that results in an always perfect manifestation.
This "perceived lack" over here is balanced by that "perceived abundance" over there.
The "error" is to imagine them as two separate conflicting manifestations.

Deuteronomy 6:4
"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, is One."
שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד


Note - Israel means "God strives"
The literal text uses IHVH, for the Lord, and says it twice:
"Hear O Israel, IHVH is our God, IHVH is One."

My translation:
Listen you striving gods! Existence is God!. Existence is One!
i.e. there is nothing to strive after.
THIS, existence (that which is), is all there is.
The All is One; One the All.

Communication - Part 2

I was just seeing how I create cycles by swinging or chasing my tail.
For me it becomes apparent in the desire to communicate.
One perceives a separation from their fellowman, their lover, their friend, neighbor...
and endeavors to bridge the gap, to make a union.
But the funny thing is, there is no communication in union!
There must be two to communicate.

So we can't find it in separation or union!!
It's a search for a non-existing, non-actual, assumed thing.
And yet, there is found, at times, something which satisfies the desire for communion.
I guess we sometimes get "close enough" to call it good.

Perhaps the most unified we can get is to realize that we don't know what the hell is going on. :)
To be enamored by/with the mystery. To share the silence that words cannot convey.

Quest-ions - Part 2

I found some great videos that happen to elucidate what I
have pointed at in my original Quest-ions post.
The first clip's laughter is so delicious!
The second clip is the unveiling.
The third clip is a short follow-up

Jeff Foster - All that's left is laughter...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UuaOye9VyI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeOhJ8-aGiE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI-f88aYg30&feature=related

Poem - 12/8/2010

Weighing the soul
   the truth and the lying
Opened my heart
   to laughter and crying
Seeking to balance
   the living and dying
Stretching my limbs
   now crawling, now flying

Cosmopolite
   transcending the Earth
Hermaphrodite
   the virgin gives birth
Roots in the heavens
   leaves in the dirt
The first shall be last
   and the last shall be first

This mind a steel trap
   this body my jail
This soul is held hostage
   'til Spirit posts bail
Hang me from a tree
   until Isis unveils
Within's the way out

   I've swallowed my tail

Love

From some perspectives, it seems that there are few things as wonderful as being in love.
But most of the time we watch this love turn into something else, or be replaced by something else...
sometimes jealousy, sometimes taking for granted, sometimes co-dependence, 
sometimes a 'team' to pay bills and maintain the family's needs, sometimes hatred...
More often than not, being "IN" love is replaced by "I love you", which can be very different things.
You can still say "I love you" and mean it and believe it while falling into any of the above categories I mentioned.
"I love you" can be for "all the years/experiences we've had" and not be IN love anymore, hearts beating, passion...

You know I'm a word-smith. Something people rarely realize is that passion is the opposite/complement of action.
Passion is passive, action is active. But people don't think that way - they think passion is active;
they try to DO passion instead of letting passion DO you.
You don't make yourself be IN love; you just find yourself IN love.
And why do we so frequently find ourselves OUT of love?
Because we falsely/mistakenly identify love with a personality.
We say "I am in love with Kim" or "I am in love with Greg".
But there is no "I" in love; the "I" is not what loves.
Love loves! And love loves itself! Love falls in love with love!
That's all that's ever happening! The "I"s just get in the way and fuck things up.
Love begins relationships and one "I" or two "I"s end them.
The "I" was never capable of love.
So "I" love "you" is doubly wrong and very difficult to maintain and even if you manage to
maintain it you probably fall out of love.

If two people could see that "Love loves Love" instead of "I love you", that could be an amazing relationship.
What freedom! What ease!


Please read these enlightened words of Kahlil Gibran on Love:
http://www.katsandogz.com/onlove.html


Think of how different the world would be if people knew that Love was loving love.
How could there be an ending to Love loving love?
There's only endings to "I love you".
Passion is passive. 


It's the same with non-duality's perception on meditation:
If YOU are meditating, then you're doing it wrong.
Meditation does you.




Try applying the same PASSION to sex, work, etc...

Some of you may notice a conflict - "we're not supposed to let things DO us...
We're supposed to be in control, use our will, create reality and not be a victim of it..."

Are you sure? Consider how to exercise will without an "I". Can you do it?
This "I" will be the death of you.

Love loving love...
Life living life....
Sacrifice your free will. That is the secret.

The Eye

This post will attempt to briefly touch on many aspects of the eye as it relates to spiritual and alchemical practice. This subject could fill several books, so to remain brief, many things will just be mentioned and pointed at and you will be left to contemplate and emphasize what you will.
I am also writing this post as a consideration of the alchemical First Matter.
Expect it to jump all over the place. :)

First a bit of alchemical, mythological, green language background:

dragon
early 13c., from O.Fr. dragon, from L. draconem (nom. draco) "huge serpent, dragon," from Gk. drakon (gen. drakontos) "serpent, giant seafish," apparently from drak-, strong aorist stem of derkesthai "to see clearly," from PIE *derk- "to see." Perhaps the lit. sense is "the one with the (deadly) glance." The young are dragonets (14c.). Obsolete drake "dragon" is an older borrowing of the same word. Used in the Bible to translate Heb. tannin "a great sea-monster," and tan, a desert mammal now believed to be the jackal.
NB - don't miss the link between tannin and the oak, oak galls/apples, grapevine.
leviathan
late 14c., from L.L. leviathan, from Heb. livyathan "dragon, serpent, huge sea animal," of unknown origin, perhaps related to liwyah "wreath," from base l-w-h- "to wind, turn, twist."
NB - notice the wreath on the World tarot trump in my very first blog. Also levi = "branch" or "vine",
also "joining" as in yoke/yoga.
medusa
"jellyfish," 1758, as genus name, from the name of one of the three Gorgons with snakes for hair, whose glance turned to stone him who looked upon it (attested in English from late 14c.). Her name is from Gk. Medousa, lit. "guardian," fem. prp. of the verb medein "to protect, rule over" (see Medea).
Pegasus
winged horse in Gk. mythology, late 14c., from L., from Gk. Pegasos, usually said to be from pege "spring, font" (pl. pegai), especially in "springs of Ocean," near which Medusa was said to have been killed by Perseus (Pegasus sprang from her blood).

The Hebrew letter Ayin (O) means 'eye' and 'fountain' and has a numerical value of 70 (or 130 with final N).
The Hebrew words for secret (SVD) and wine (IIN) also = 70.
The aries glyph is a symbol of a ram's horns and also a fountain.
One might consider the 'eye' of a hurricane and the Primum Mobile or the "Commencement of Whirling Motions" in kabbalah.

"The light/lamp of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single/simple, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness." - Luke 11:34

The greek word for "single" is haplous, which is defined by Strong also as "folded together".
NB - enfolding-unfolding universe.

The greek for evil is poneros, whose english equivalent is pernicious, but also similar to ponderus -
of weight, density; also ponder = contemplate, reflect. If in contrast to single (sol), we may think dual or
many (antimonos). In contrast to enfolded, we may think unfolded.

Latin translation  -

Lucerna corporis tui est oculus tuus si oculus tuus fuerit simplex totum corpus tuum lucidum erit si autem nequam fuerit etiam corpus tuum tenebrosum erit.

Simplex = simple, single, uncompounded, unmixt (think of alchemical use of mixt)

Nequam = worthless, good for nothing, vile, bad, rogue

In reference to haplous, Hapy, the Egyptian god of the inundation of the Nile, means "flowing, running
water" - i.e. mercurius.
Interestingly, Hapy is a blue-skinned pregnant male with full belly and breasts, kind of like Hindu Shiva.

"During the Nineteenth Dynasty Hapy is often depicted as a pair of figures, each holding and tying together the long stem of two plants representing Upper and Lower Egypt, symbolically binding the two halves of the country around a hieroglyph meaning 'union'."  - wikipedia

Note - here Hapy is dual, twin, mirror. Also consider the two halves of Egypt as our white and red twin waters

emanating from our Oak, the Tau cross symbol.

The Hymn to the Flood says:

"Lightmaker who comes from the dark

Fattener of herds

Might that fashions all

None can live without him

People are clothed with the flax of his fields

Thou makest all the land to drink unceasingly, as thou descendest on thy way from the heavens."

Let's study another New Testament reference to the eye:

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam/log out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote/speck out of thy brother's eye." - Matthew 7:5

In studying the greek, we find some interesting words and translations.

Hypocrite = stage actor, also 'one who answers'. I love the latter in reference to Krishnamurti and leaving questions unanswered/unknown.

First is proton in greek.

To cast out = ekbale, which consider the root:

bole
early 14c., from O.N. bolr "tree trunk," from P.Gmc. *bulas (cf. M.Du. bolle "trunk of a tree"), from PIE *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell" (cf. Gk. phyllon "leaf," phallos "swollen penis;" L. flos"flower," florere "to blossom, flourish," folium "leaf;" O.Prus. balsinis "cushion;" O.N. belgr "bag, bellows;" O.E. bolla "pot, cup, bowl;" O.Ir. bolgaim "I swell," blath "blossom, flower,"bolach "pimple," bolg "bag;" Bret. bolc'h "flax pod;" Serb. buljiti "to stare, be bug-eyed;" Serbo-Croat. blazina "pillow").

The "log" could be our bole, or oak. The greek used is dokon, which think Dogon - refer to post #7 here:

http://forum.alchemyforums.com/showthread.php?1602-Alchemy-and-the-concept-of-generation

Much of this verse is about the subtle and the gross in or emanating from the "eye".

Again, as in Luke 11:34, we have "to see clearly" - diablepseis from the roots dia and blepo. (What the blepo

do we know?) :D

The "speck" is greek karphos which means to wither or dry up as in a small dry twig, stalk or straw.

None of these are what one would think of speck-sized! Consider the roots kar (body) and phos (light) -

again remind us of Luke 11:34

"From your brother" is actually adelphou - from the womb. 

So there's a lot of greek cabalism to be considered.

http://biblelexicon.org/matthew/7-5.htm

The log in the eye may also suggest log-os: the Word.

The third eye - single and invisible - as the pineal gland is one of the seven "fruits" on the tree of life.

The rods and cones of the human eye may suggest two waters emanating from one fount/eye. The cones are

adapted to perceive detail and color, while the rods, which are far more numerous, are adapted to the dark

and perceiving motion and peripheral vision.

Our dual fountain is also represented biblically by two miraculous births:

Mary, a virgin womb, gives birth to Jesus - the ShIN/fire

Elizabeth, a "dead womb", gives birth to John - water

Communication

Communication is governed by Mercury-Hermes-Thoth and air. So you might consider that there is
a "trick" to it. In many ways, successful communication has to do with our new mind.
Most people can't read alchemy and understand it because it is often written in Green language
which requires an analogical mind capable, not of "thinking about", but merging with.
In successful communication, two must merge into one, like Gemini's twins.
Analogical communication also requires that we drop our preconceptions.

Not being able to communicate, misunderstanding, is a sign/curse/consequence of "the Fall".
And it is not a product of merely speaking different languages, as one might interpret the biblical
story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). We could have two "masters" of the English language
that still don't understand one another. On the other hand, we could have a St. Francis capable of
communicating with animals.

So what is communication and why is 'healing' our ability to communicate so important?

For me, when I saw how much communication is assumed to be happening and how much is actually
happening, I felt compelled to do something about it. Why communication breaks down is because
it is packed with subjective associations. If I ask three people to draw me a picture of a cock,
a chicken rancher may draw one thing, a porn star another, and a third may slap me and walk out of
the room: three different reactions to one suggestion. This is a simple example. As Gurdjieff taught,
things can be looked at from many levels:
http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/articles/NArtEvCon.asp
So here we can see that we can't talk about man as if he were one constant expression, as if everyone
should agree on what a man is and what he can do. Man #1 is quite different from man #2 and
sees/interprets the world quite differently. Even more different is man #4, and #7 is nearly beyond
description!
So it is a great error if man #3 assumes that everyone else sees the world through the intellectual center,
or that this is "the right way" to view the world. How will #1 and #3 communicate? If these cannot
communicate, is it any wonder why "aliens don't make themselves known", or "if there is a god, why
doesn't he/she/it reveal itself?" Perhaps the question should be, "are we capable of receiving their
communication?" rather than assuming that they don't communicate.

So you can see that it takes a bit of self-knowledge even to realize that there is a communication issue,
let alone to begin to correct it.

Are we content to live in a world where we are rarely understood? Is that just the way it is?
Or is there some relatively objective level where we can meet and truly communicate and break this
spell of aloneness?

For me, the objective world exists, but the laborers are few.
Consider telepathy, or even sympathy and empathy, and other forms of NVC (non-verbal communication)
and Robert Monroe's "rotes"...

Consider why Alchemists, Gurdjieff, Robert Monroe, Castaneda, and many more "invented" "new"
languages to communicate their experiences... mercury, the second attention, Focus 15, Kundabuffer...
Why? Perhaps to try to get around the associative mind which assumes it already knows everything.


To be continued...

Answers

Quest-ions

There are questions that we answer,
questions left unanswered, and questions unanswerable.

The unanswerable are the best, and the hardest to accept.
What is life? Who am I? What is my purpose? Is there any meaning to it all?

The answer to these questions cannot be written, yet they can be discovered.
And once discovered, they disappear into the next moment of discovery.
Life leaves no footprints. Followers never live.

It's the unanswerable questions that destroy you, that triturate you,
that pound you to nothing. Who am I to interview infinity?

I have reached out to you, but grasped nothing.
I have visited you, searching for some reflection, only to be swallowed in utter darkness.
How can you forsake me when I am your only son?

So I walk into the wild, alone.
Alone? How can I feel so alone when I only exist relative to something else?
Unanswerable questions. You are driving me mad, you know.

I must live again.
And to live I must die.

Another unanswerable question... how to die?
But it can be discovered.

I love you Hermes.
I love you, you elusive, mother fucking, serpentine temptress, trickster...
The search is over.
You win.
I have no more burning questions.
The flame has gone out.
Nirvana

New Mind - Pt. 2

Generally, we are inclined to think materialistically. So we are tempted to think of
alchemy, Philosophical matters, in physical terms. But the Philosophers have warned us
against this repeatedly. Our gold is not the vulgar. Our Principles are not the vulgar.
Even the four elements are not the ones we grasp with our senses, or at least not only that.

Here Basil Valentine - "Neither be anxious to ask whether I actually possess this precious treasure. Ask rather whether I have seen how the world was created; whether I am acquainted with the nature of the Egyptian darkness; what is the cause of the rainbow; what will be the appearance of the glorified bodies at the general resurrection; what is the most indelible colour. Of you that rightly understand this little book, I will enquire whether you have seen that great salt sea, without any corrosion, raise a sufficiency of the moisture of all nature to the summits of the highest mountains..."

In "Catechism of Alchemy", Paracelsus asks, "What road should the Philosopher follow?

That exactly which was followed by the Great Architect of the Universe in the creation of the world."

So how do you imagine the Great Architect thought?

And with what substance did it create the universe?


Suppose that the most important aspect of alchemy is not the material, but the way one works it.
The essence of alchemy is solve-coagula, volatile-fixed, subtle-dense... Circulation.
And this is concealed by many names, hermetic pairs...
moon                               sun
mercury                          sulphur
female                              male
water                               fire
serpent                           eagle...

Whether two, or three or four, these are always in rotation/circulation.

A simple experiment:
Take anything, and put it to work/rotation.
If it is an earth, dissolve it and then congeal it...
If it is a salt, deliquesce it and then evaporate it...
If it is a metal, melt it and then let it cool...
If it is an air, cool it and then warm it...

Is this not how we observe all things to evolve, even ourselves...
through repetition, circulation, swinging to opposites...

"They told me this was bad. I avoided it for a while.
Then I tried it and it was good. But too much of a good thing can be bad.
Now it's neither good or bad. It is what it is. It's wisdom."


Add to this "theory" another essential of alchemy, that of death/putrefaction,
and that's alchemy in a nutshell.

Pitchblende

Albert Cau has studied the properties of pitchblende and uranium and believes it to be the subject of the sages:
http://albert.cau.free.fr/English/Pechblende.html

This information has been around for a while. What I post here gives some weight to the argument.

"The cause and nature of radioactivity is at once an atomic phenomenon and the
accompaniment of a chemical change in which new kinds of matter are produced.
The two considerations force us to the conclusion that radioactivity is a
manifestation of subatomic chemical change.
If man ever achieves this control over Nature, it is quite certain that the last
thing he would want to do would be to turn lead or mercury into gold—for the sake
of gold. The energy that would be liberated, if the control of these sub-atomic
processes were possible . . . would far exceed in importance and value the gold."
- Rutherford and Soddy

Wikipedia - "Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896 by the French scientist Henri Becquerel, while working on phosphorescent materials. These materials glow in the dark after exposure to light, and he thought that the glow produced in cathode ray tubes by X-rays might be connected with phosphorescence. He wrapped a photographic plate in black paper and placed various phosphorescent salts on it. All results were negative until he used uranium salts. The result with these compounds was a deep blackening of the plate. These radiations were called Becquerel Rays.

It soon became clear that the blackening of the plate had nothing to do with phosphorescence, because the plate blackened when the mineral was in the dark. Non-phosphorescent salts of uranium and metallic uranium also blackened the plate. Clearly there was a form of radiation that could pass through paper that was causing the plate to become black."

Black - al khem.

Uranium - Ouranos - Heaven

Pitch/Pech = Perch:

"Perun (Slavic Jupiter/Zeus/Ammon) is strongly correlated with the near-identical Perkūnas/Perkons from Baltic mythology, suggesting the existence of an ancestral Balto-Slavic deity, which ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo European thunder god whose original name has been reconstructed as Perkwunos. The root "perkwu" originally probably meant oak, but in Proto-Slavic this evolved into per- meaning "to strike, to slay".

In Egyptian Mythology the goddess Neith is associated with many names that we find identify

our initial subject - Laton, Copper, crocodile, the Nile Perch...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neith

Alchemists have concerned themselves with the radiation/rays of the sun and moon. Perhaps an earthly

sun would not be the metal gold, but a substance that radiates like the sun - a black sun.

Before the discovery of radioactive materials, pitchblende was considered worthless and left in heaps

outside of mines for anyone to cart away.

Radioactive elements are known to cause mutations and transmutations. :)

Light

In many ways high alchemy is the science of light.
We see light as the first being emerging from the Void in Genesis.
One should understand this, not as the narrow band/spectrum of visible light alone,
but as the entire electro-magnetic spectrum. Light is also infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma, hertzian...
E=Mc2

"Oh Lord my God, Thou coverest Thyself with light as if a garment" - Psalm 104:2

In quantum physics, photons are the carriers of light. These, again, represent a certain frequency
of the EM spectrum/Ouroboros. Photons are a mercury of sorts, the way electrons communicate.
In mythology and alchemy and various religions, there is placed much importance on light -
the light of Gnosticism, of Kabbalah, the Lucifer, the Phosphorus...

Alchemy stresses the significance of colors in the work, and colors are light.
In The Alchemical Manuscripts series, "The Betty Story", we see a green light having mysterious
effects on alcohol.
Schwaller claimed that the secret manuscript which Champagne found was about colors.
Newton, the alchemist, also studied gravity, magnetism, optics, light...
Manfred Junius makes it a point to mention three types of tartar according to their relation to light.
And we know that one of the things that separates alchemy from chemistry lies in exposing the
matter to the rays of the sun and the moon.

So I just want to remind that when considering alchemy, one should contemplate this light.

Here is an interesting link to Karl von Eckarthausen's "Catechism"
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://cosmogono.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/karl-von-eckarthausen-catecismo.doc&ei=stPkTP7NJoS8sAPp8L2xCw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=9&sqi=2&ved=0CF0Q7gEwCA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DEckarthausen%26hl%3Den%26prmd%3Div

The Emperor's New Mind

I would like to try to compile some evidence for the need to come to alchemy with a different
mind than you would chemistry, because we are so often looking for things, concrete substances - an ore, a mineral, a salt... whatever. Allow me to repeat here a summation of the words of Sendivogius:

We require a Mercury that is Homogenous, having no opposite nature, undetermined to mineral, animal or vegetable kingdoms.

"... a certain Truth, that God the great architect of all things did create the whole material world (for this we are now only to speak of and not of your antetype or intellectual world) out of nothing and in Time, yet not so that all your parts of this world thus directly were created, but only your first Matter, and that she hath been produced out of meer nothing, out of which afterwards the most principle bodies and that they by way of separation were produced and out of them were made all kinds of mixed bodies and that by way of composition."

"But the Cabal which from God hath recieved your Light of undoubted Truth, and knows your genuine sense of your [placed] Genesis, and keeps with Her, its true interpretation, she, though she doth admit three divers acts of creation equal to the forsaid acts received in the common schools viz:
1. A Production of Matter out of Nothing which probably is Creation.
2. The Division of the same Matter into single Bodies.
3. The Fabrication of the mixture out of those divers simple Bodies."

Notice the words "our antetype and intellectual world!" This is the dualistic mind which is
not suitable for alchemy. We need a mind devoted to God - that is Oneness - not religion or dogma. Listen to the words of the great Qabalist Carlo Suares, and believe it when they say alchemy, kabbalah and the study of stars go hand in hand:

"I begin our study by saying that the Qabala is a science and that The Sepher Yetsira is a precise and accurate treatise on the structure of cosmic energy, written in hidden code... 
The mystery of the Qabala is simply due to the fact that the cabalists are not aware of what its language is, and to their ignorance both of the analogical mode of thought characterising this language... In studying the Qabala, and The Sepher Yetsira in particular, one must be prepared to think in a new way, entirely different from one's usual, habitual manner, because its language is analogical and inclusive."

I had a teacher who used this very word - analogical - to teach of the two minds which we possess. It may be best understood in contrast to the rational, dual mind. The dual, or binary, mind perceives an object separate from itself, whereas with analogical mind subject and object are one - instead of seeing and thinking about a goat, for example, you are the goat, perceiving as it perceives. 

VandenBroeck repeats the same themes which he observed under Schwaller:
"true knowledge is inaccessible to the rational mind."
"Thus he (Schwaller) actively believed in oral transmission of a kind of knowledge best called 'gnosis'."

In alignment with the hermetic axiom, "As above, so below" (and vice-versa), we must also think of solve-coagula as "the hidden and the revealed". And you must know that gnosis is acquired through experience/initiation.
Knowledge is to Gnosis as rational mind is to analogical mind; as head is to heart, etc.

The best way I've heard it put, and this may be bumping it up a level, that really helps me to see it is by my friend Androgynus - what is human want compared to the Void's need/thirst/vacuum...

We'll come back to that when we discuss Genesis, which, as Suares tells us, is the recounting of the Involution/Evolution of the infinite unmanifest into manifest, spirit into mass. I will tell you the secret to understanding these things. You have to realise that the Bible code, just as the alchemy code, just as the mythology code... is not talking about many characters/matters, but about the involution/evolution of the One Thing. So we are back to Sendivogius' something from nothing.

If there were a beginning and a creator, then it had to create from itself since there was nothing else and it was/is omnipresent.
So matter is "god". Substance/salt is congealed soul/sulphur, which is congealed spirit/mercury.
At the high/short/subtle/fast frequency end of the electromagnetic spectrum, we call it spirit. At the low/long/dense/slow end we call it mass/matter.
But this is One Thing - Ouroboros; a Rainbow Serpent, a Tree of Life...

So when you contemplate Our Sea (R.C.), Al-khem - transcend the four qualities/elements and go to the black, infinite "Void" - Castaneda's "Dark Sea of Awareness". Recall Genesis: 
"And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be Light."
Now we're talking real alchemy. This is Universal Mercury, Aqua Vitae, Chaos of the Wise...


Thus John Reid says, "For our immediate purposes then, we will consider the energy of the sun and stars as the power outlets of God."
And Moby says, "We are all made of Stars."

Carlos Castaneda on the Eagle and The Wheel of Time

"The basic premise of sorcery for a sorcerer is that the world of everyday life is not real, or out there, as we believe it is. For a sorcerer, reality, or the world we all know, is only a description.
For the sake of validating this premise I will concentrate the best of my efforts into leading you into a genuine conviction that what you hold in mind as the world at hand is merely a description of the world; a description that has been pounded into you from the moment you were born.
Everyone who comes into contact with a child is a teacher who incessantly describes the world to him, until the moment when the child is capable of perceiving the world as it is described. We have no memory of that portentous moment, simply because none of us could possibly have had any point of reference to compare it to anything else. From that moment on, however, the child is a member . He knows the description of the world; and his membership becomes full-fledged, perhaps, when he is capable of making all the proper perceptual interpretations which, by conforming to that description, validate it.
The reality of our day-to-day life, then, consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations which we, the individuals who share a specific membership, have learned to make in common.
The idea that the perceptual interpretations that make up the world have a flow is congruous with the fact that they run uninterruptedly and are rarely, if ever, open to question. In fact the reality of the world we know is so taken for granted that the basic premise of sorcery, that our reality is merely one of many descriptions, can hardly be taken as a serious proposition."


"The core of our being is the act of perceiving, and the magic of our being is the act of awareness. Perception and awareness can be a single, functional, inextricable unit with two domains. The first one is the attention of the tonal ; that is to say, the capacity of average people to perceive and place their awareness on the ordinary world of everyday life: our first ring of power; our awesome but taken-for-granted ability to impart order to our perception of our daily world.
The second domain is the attention of the nagual ; the capacity to place our awareness on the nonordinary world. It's our second ring of power , or the altogether portentous ability all of us have, but only sorcerers use, to impart order to the nonordinary world.
What I have struggled to vanquish, or rather suppress in you, is not your reason as the capacity for rational thought, but your attention of the tonal , or your awareness of the world of common sense. The daily world exists because we know how to hold its images; consequently, if one drops the attention needed to maintain those images, the world collapses."

"When I talk about time, I am not referring to something which is measured by the movement of a clock. Time is the essence of attention; the Eagle's emanations are made out of time; and properly, when one enters into any aspect of the other self, one is becoming acquainted with time.
The wheel of time is like a state of heightened awareness which is part of the other self, as the left side awareness is part of the self of everyday life. It can physically be described as a tunnel of infinite length and width; a tunnel with reflective furrows. Every furrow is infinite, and there are infinite numbers of them. Living creatures are compulsorily made, by the force of life, to gaze into one furrow. To gaze into it means to be trapped by it, to live that furrow.
Will belongs to the wheel of time. It is something like the runner of a vine, or an intangible tentacle which all of us possess. A warrior's final aim is to learn to focus it on the wheel of time in order to make it turn. Warriors who have succeeded in turning the wheel of time can gaze into any furrow and draw from it whatever they desire. To be trapped compulsorily in one furrow of time entails seeing the images of that furrow only as they recede. To be free from the spellbinding force of those grooves means that one can look in either direction, as images recede or as they approach."

http://www.scribd.com/doc/387479/Carlos-Castaneda-Missing-Chapter-From-Carlos-Castanedas-Eagles-Gift