Alchemy, shmalchemy!

Tags

Adam, Adam McLean, Alchemy, Binding of Isaac, Gustav Meyrink, Kabbalah, Moon, Robert M. Place

Are you one of those venerable spiritual tourists  seekers who, like me, somehow doesn’t happen to have at their disposal four to five years which should be spent in self-imposed isolation, studying some ancient texts and awkward illustrations coded so heavily that all of it seems to be a rather impossible mission?

Do you really believe something, anything can be turned into gold? Bupkes, neither do I! And even if it could be – i mean, really, there are several  easier ways to get gold, especially for a girl, if you know what i mean!

Why bother? Why turn your place into some medieval laboratory and cramp your head with weirdest of formula? Nah, i don’t get it either! Except if, like me, you happen to hang around some  knowledgeable folks where you sort of feel that your thorough ignorance on the matter is rather inappropriate AND/OR you overdosed on Gustav Meyrink‘s novels and now wonder what is it all about?!

I hear you, but i am equally lost here! One way around it is to get yourself The Taoist I Ching translated by Thomas Cleary and start from there; MA in Chinese Philosophy and fluent Mandarin are not obligatory – but indeed are recommended.

Or you can always get yourself a proper Alchemical Tarot , created by someone as wise as Robert M. Place and – after taking 3 to 4 years to learn Tarot itself, you can launch full frontal attack on Alchemy from there. (That’s what i tried to do, yet Alchemy resisted by completely defending itself!)

You can also get Adam McLean’s fantastic courses on Alchemical symbolism, but i’ve done courses with Adam and he means business – no patting on the back from him, no ‘alchemy for dummies’ stuff – so this alternative, i believe, is filed as a part of those initial 4 to 5 years, which, as it is, i don’t see myself devoting to Alchemy!

But, if seriously, why 4 to 5 years? Well, it’s the 10000-hour rule. In his book Outliers: The Story of Success,  Malcolm Gladwell goes in-depth into how successful people become successful and the 10,000 hour rule refers to the fact that most people get really, really good at something after 10,000 hours.

That’s about 3h a day for 10 years – or, if you are ambitious, 6h per day, during 5 years. Right. I know many will scream: it doesn’t take that long! It does. Try a foreign language, Kabbalah studies, violine, anything; if you want to be good in it, that’s what it takes (if not more).

The way i am wired, i hate things superficial – think of  Stellium in 8th house, my natal Sun, Moon and Mars being in the house of occult – and you get an idea where i am coming from.

There is that famous kabbalistic story of a newbie who, having been dismissed by other sages, approached Hillel the Elder asking him how to learn Kabbalah while standing on one leg – which is in briefest possible period of time (there is also a more religious version where it’s a convert asking about Torah); and the answer was: “Love thy neighbor as thyself,  now go and learn!”

So it’s the intent that matters in the first place. I can’t recall misers who got great at something. Right, we are all human and there is, as they say, ‘plenty of good in the worst of us and plenty of bad in the best of us’, but i really don’t remember encountering  a mean person who achieved impressive knowledge; it seems that latter requires  a kind of thinking which, in its turn, somehow includes love for the proverbial neighbor. Or something like that.

I read numerous hostile texts where various authors – who presumably achieved greatness in some rather obscure by ordinary criteria fields – were going like: don’t think you can achieve this and that without the metaphorical blood spitting! Oh, yes, you can. Not that every path doesn’t have it challenges – of course it does, but if it’s meant for you, you’ll somehow have all the endurance it takes.

I am all for free will concept and although, obviously, absolute freedom is an abstract category – i am keen on Swedenborg who, for what i know, was the only philosopher/ mystic who claimed we keep the free will even after physical death.

That being said – nobody knows exactly where desire arises; discipline is great, but on it alone, without the desire no one arrived too far. Who or what grants us the desire – is another topic.

I had that desire – and still do – for several (for the lack of better wording) ‘occult’ subjects, but sadly, Alchemy per se doesn’t seem to be one of them.

I meddle with all the Alchemical sources i listed above – but not on a regular bases and while lacking that drive, that incapability to be get busy with anything else – except the chosen subject.

I pulled a card randomly from the Alchemical deck, which was gifted to me by an amazing author and one of the most popular figures in the worldwide Tarot tribe, my dear friend and spiritual sojourner, Frances Ajamian Ktenas.

Here is what the accompanying book has to say on the Nine od Stuffs: “A wolf is sacrificed in a fire. This is an alchemical symbol representing the restoration of the king, who was devoured by a wolf.”

Hmm, knowing Robert’s work, i am certain he does know what he is talking about – but i certainly don’t! I have a vague feeling it has something to do with restricting one’s negative impulses and, like, “sacrificing ” those for personal empowerment which – inevitably – has to go together with the highest good of everyone involved.

But then, that’s Kabbalah and the story of Binding of Isaac when read in-depth, where the horror-like depiction of the presumably capricious and potentially cruel Deity who commands the poor guy to slaughter his own son  – turns into a manual on keeping cool and tempering one’s desire to receive for the self alone with the desire to receive for the sake of sharing, if you know what i mean.

Further, the book says: “the message also suggests sacrifice, especially for a higher purpose, like suffering for the good of others, or being a martyr, or subduing the animal passions for spiritual purpose.”

Right, so my intuition was not all that off! But, if you are counting on me to come up with Philosopher’s stone – please, don’t hold your breath!

 

 

Adam McLean’s website : http://www.levity.com/alchemy/

Bonnie Cehovet’s excellent review of newly relesed book by R. Place: http://theworldoftarot.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/review-alchemy-and-the-tarot/

Alchemical Tarot: http://alchemicaltarot.com/

Frances Ajamian Ktenas’ website: http://www.nineofcups11.com/

The Unexpected Tale of Jönathan K. and Abraham Van Helsing

Tags

Bram Stoker, Dracula, Robert M. Place, the Vampire Tarot

Ok, ok, so i have a thing for catchy titles… Jönathan is an online friend of mine – one of those people whom, upon cyber-meeting them, you think to yourself – right, all those hours spent surfing and browsing the www were not wasted. Because on occasions you get to meet people who, albeit living on the other side of the planet, have the same questions you do – and they come up with better answers faster than you ever could.
Like… remember that kid in the school who always thought of the right answer to some challenging question? And they would have already answered it while your own mind was wandering somewhere far, far away, absolutely incapable of an abrupt movement and verbal equilibristic bravado it takes for your thought to break through the surrounding confusion and shine brightly in the heavy classroom’s atmosphere?
Yeah, all of us had a classmate like that and i guess you can recall that feeling of amazement when they would come up with such perfectly executed, out of standard bookrules, Rocker Double Three, while you still couldn’t figure out how to perform a compulsory Circle Eight on the thin ice of your own corner of the skating hall in your head.
Alas, i digress.
You see, this is how it started – i had posted the following status update on facebook:
“I hear your resentment when you say “you don’t really have any problems”. But, you see, i earned this ephemeral easiness of being. You won’t guilt trip me about your own stupidity which led to the apparent dead end you are inhabiting. Don’t expect me to feel remorseful for being less vain and more self-aware than you are. And, all in all, save your anal retentiveness for yourself or pay a therapist; indeed the antagonism you are experiencing is none of my problems. There, i said it.”
I might come across as a cold blooded, cynical b*tch here… and of course, hardly anything can be further from truth. I am one of those guys who mustn’t go to the movies because my convulsive sobbing and laborious gasping over most pathetic of the Hollywood’s production upsets the audience to such extent that more often than not i am kindly escorted to the exit by the theater’s personnel, given Kleenex and a glass of water and placed in a cab which will take me home.
I have no idea how that happens, is it empathy or some kind of neurosis – or both, but the thing is that i have tough time differentiating between my own emotions and those of others. That, in turn, makes my personal boundaries so weak that more or less any trespasser can vandalize into my private space, unthrone me from my blissful non-attachment and send me down the whirlpool of emotions so strong, that it gets scary.
I did contribute to my “condition” by devotedly practicing kabbalistic Teshuva in tradition of famous Isaac the Blind – for years, each night as i would retire to bed,
i’d diligently recall all the people i had met and had spoken to during the day, while placing myself into their proverbial shoes.
And, in full honesty, i don’t mind the result. That kind of emotional shapeshifting became my modus vivendi long time ago and i am glad it’s so for when human motivation is understood, when you feel the abyss of pain behind some seemingly inconsiderate behavior … you can’t judge, you understand and forgive – those others and yourself in the first place. As spiritually uplifted as it sounds, any empath would tell you it’s actually quite simple – and indeed it is. It’s not that you are more spiritually advanced than others – it’s just that you get to a place where they come from and once you do, once you get out from your own teeny-weeny socially conditioned prism, where you arrive is – compassion. And i know that most who’ll read this essay will know exactly what i am talking about. ‘Alike attracts alike’, we all know that, but…
That’s how we get down to the subject of this writing – how exactly the ‘unlike’ gets attracted to your aura?!
How those individuals who feed on your energy and drain you manage to slip under your radar?
Is it because nowadays there is increased awareness about aggressive sociopaths, yet the equally damaging whining sub-kind is overlooked?
Is it because we learned to defend ourselves against bullying, yet instinctively feel sorry for someone who comes across as weak?
I believe it’s not instinctual – because in nature it’s the fittest who make it, yet knowing that the societies’ overall progress is measured by the care it takes of it’s weak – i think we get to the slippery ground where we confuse those less fortunate than us who should be helped – with those who should not.
I think it’s there, through that very gap, where those emotional black wholes squeeze into your life and start sucking your life juices, if not your very blood.
What i find genius about Jönathan’s comments in the thread – is the swift and succinct definition he came up with – it’s vampirism, you see.
I did attend workshops on energetic vampirism and psychic self-defense; i read numerous occult and self-help books on it, i did hours of grounding and visualization to protect myself… yet on occasion it still happens.
In theory i know the difference between Solar and Lunar energetic vampires – former being the abusers and latter the perpetual whiners and complainers.
I know from my Kabbalah teacher that i should distant myself from people with victim mentality, yet… it still happens.
We are pushed on that noble idea of the proverbial turning of the other cheek. We are perpetually made feel guilty for just about anything. We are thought that the ” meek shall inherit the earth”… and all of it so sublime, that even if you consciously refuse it – it’s there, all around you, that message that you should somehow sacrifice yourself. I beg your pardon. One should sacrifice their negative inclination – that’s actually the message there. And, of course, one should give of themselves – as much as they can, but without depleting their own sources.
It’s 1/10th you see… of your money, time – everything, that belongs to… GOD.
Call it Universe or Goddess or Spaghetti Monster – the point is that it’s not really yours, at least not all of it and that you need to give back.
But you (i, he, she) do not owe to people who choose to be abysses of negative emotions and only want to pull you down with themselves.
Their influence on you is the same as if they physically pierced you with a knife, and if you were exposed to psychic attacks, you know exactly what i am talking about!
The feeling of exhaustion, the tiredness, the depression, insomnia, loss of appetite, headaches. Why would we do that to ourselves?
Because the social conditioning is based on that, because individuals are too difficult to manipulate and because that’s why we are all guilt-tripped and pushed into submission.
And the brighter you shine – the more thirsty vampires you’ll attract, it seems to be a universal law – for Light seems to be forever stalked by darkness. I am sure there is some wise kabbalistic explanation to this all, but i need a remedy – an instant garlic- and-a-rose-branch thing to ward off the wanke*s – and i need it now!
So, i got Robert M. Place’s Vampire Tarot and did a general reading – the picture of it is attached; the busy coffee table in my living room is where i do most of my readings and castings.
The eye-catching image of the chained woman depicted at 8 of Swords is the base of the reading; it’s related to VIII Justice in this deck – and here is the perfect ‘outline’ for the reading – here we get concise depiction of the mental anguish i am describing.
Posh Knight of Swords is the gate card, in the center – and to me it says to deal with such influences ruthlessly as he would; far to his left is Van Helsing, denoting the Hierophant in this deck and to his right is the experienced Magician, who seems to be doing some banishing ritual under the waning moon…
Fictional Dutch doctor with numerous academic titles was not named Abraham by Bram Stoker by chance.
Except being life-long friend of Pamela Colman Smith, who created the most famous Tarot deck in existence, the author of “Dracula” was friends with two founding members of the Golden Dawn. (For further reading, see R.M. Place’s excellent book accompanying the Vampire Tarot deck.)
So what is amazing Robert’s artwork telling us through the multitude of hermeneutic associations in this very reading?
As i see it, to strengthen (Strength to the right of gate card) the Knight’s contagious idealism by making the right choices (Lovers to the left of the gate card), to use all the theoretical knowledge you have from various texts (Bible included) and to apply your magickal skills so to unchain your Anima depicted on the base card from that wall of shame.
With three Major Arcanum cards which came out in this reading, the matter seem to be quite urgent.

I’d use this opportunity to thank Jönathan K. for the long overdue in this case diagnosis – because, as all the doctors, Abraham Van Helsing among them, know – diagnose is the half of the cure.
Copyright ©2012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: THE VAMPIRE TAROT ©2009 by Robert M. Place, All Rights Reserved

ADDITIONAL COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
Death card seen in background of the picture is from Tarot of Prague published by The Magic Realist Press (Tarot of Prague©2005, Alex Ukolov and Karen Mahony, All rights reserved)
The Crowley-Harris Thoth Tarot is currently published by A.G. Müller and distributed by A.G. Müller and by U.S. Games as the Aleister Crowley Thoth Tarot
Vaudeville Tarot©2011 by Francisco J. Campos, All rights reserved
(Published by OKF, Cetinje)

review of the Vampire Tarot St. Marin’s Press, June 2009):
http://us.macmillan.com/thevampiretarot/RobertPlace

interview with the artist Robert M. Place: http://www.ata-tarot.com/reflections/06-05-09/the_immortal_work_of_robert.html