Alchemy

Alchemy is not a way of producing behavioral changes in the machine; it is a way of notating change that occurs on a much deeper level. It is not a cause, but an effect, a reflection of the inner evolution of the essential self.

It seems that much, if not all, of inner spiritual work is a footnote to one form of self-observation or another. (There are other important steps and processes that are not related to self-observation, but more about those later.) Alchemy. It’s practice and concepts have a mythic place in spiritual work. Here E.J. Gold is telling us to hold the idea that alchemy is not the process, but, rather a method of notating progress.

We are working with awakening the machine through “the application of inexorable and unwavering attention.” As the machine awakens, the essential self is left to expand to free itself on its path of development. When the machine starts to loose its grip, and the essential self becomes a leader (The Master), the machine is affected by this process. As it changes those changes are objectively notated as alchemical changes. Thus, alchemical notation is a way of seeing how we are doing. Is the essential self gradually starting to be the leader?

As the essential self comes forth it changes the machine and the machine is changed as well, coming into its own. The machine then can work more effectively as a transformational partner to the essential self. They continue in a fluid dance of mutual reciprocal initiation.