THE TRANSMODERN ALCHEMIST
THE TRANSMODERN ALCHEMIST by Iona Miller, 2009
Find the book at THE TRANSMODERN ALCHEMIST Science-Art Mystics "The secret of alchemy is this: there is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call a 'field of force.' The field acts on the observer and puts him in a priveleged position vis-a-vis the Universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work." ~ Fulcanelli, 1937 "We expect artists as well as scientists to be forward-looking, to fly in the face of what is established, and to create not what is acceptable but what will become acceptable . . . a theory is the creation of unity in what is diverse by the discovery of unexpected likenesses. In all of them innovation is pictured as an act of imagination, a seeing of what others do not see . . . “creative observation.” (Bronowski, 1958). “Scientists search for a ‘real’ and hidden, internal visibility (invisible to the naked eye) which will confirm the limits of identity. . .This is an act of limitation which inverts its own criteria by relying on a ‘depth’ model of identity, which is invisible, but gives visibility through microscopic magnification. Yet this search for an invisible core of identity remains open to a visible transgression via artists who are constantly exposing these new certainties as constructs.” (Sargeant, 1999). "Any given state of consciousness is permeated by the clear light of primordial awareness. However solid ice may be, it never loses its true nature, which is water. In the same way, even very obvious concepts are such that their 'place', as it were, their final resting place, does not fall outside the expanse of primordial awareness. They arise within the expanse of primordial awareness and that is where they dissolve." (Dalai Lama) "Somewhere in the welter of Quantum Theory & Chaos Theory the paradigm is already bom, & waits for us to assist at the mystery of its naming, of its transmutation from potentiality to actuality. In this action poets & physicists may play equal parts, for the glory of Quantum Theory is that by restoring consciousness to its theorems it has turned science once again into a type of "Natural Philosophy" -- or alchemy." (Hakim Bey) Emanation: Creative Source Alchemy calls Chaos the prima and ultima materia. In this chaosophical philosophy, all systems emerge from and eventually dissolve back into chaos. The trancendent principle "emanation" is primordial. All derived or secondary things proceed or flow from the primal Source. It eliminates will from the theory of creation. There is no hand of a supreme artisan who finds matter at his or her disposal. All things, actually or only apparently material, emerge or flow from the dynamic primal principle. Unlike evolution, the process of development, emanation declares the immutability of the first principle. Emanation involves a series of descending stages, a subjective gnosis, not a developmental evolution that goes from less to more perfect. Thus, chaotic excitability is a paradigm of emergence, transcendent yet immanent potential. The undecomposable domain of Chaos is not an emptiness, but a rich, generative source -- a bornless nothingness from which all form proceeds. There is an unmanifest fundamental reality, a virtual field, which is an invisible flux not comprised of parts, but an inseparable interconnectedness. In this dynamic model, there are no "things", only energetic events. This holoflux includes the ultimately flowing nature of what is, and also of that which forms therein. This subquantal domain marks the limit of our ability to peer into the Mystery of nature at cosmic zero, the undifferentiated matrix. At the human scale, we are blinded to this primal creative field, virtual photon flux. Chaos theory as holism without wholes allows us to describe both psyche and matter in terms congruent with physical reality. This is simply the way nature works, and the way our nature works, too. Chaos provides a comprehensive psychophysical metaphor for uniting physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual realities. Global recruitment is characteristic of chaotic patterning. It allows the best balance between random fluctuations, permitting discoveries and innovations. Changing the activity of just one element can unleash an avalanche of changes in the patterns that might have otherwise occurred (“butterfly effect”). A structural perturbation is a permanent transmutation for the functions of a network. Metaphorms Because interconnectivity is more than metaphorical, realizations translate across disciplines. Metaphors reflect the interdependency of mind and body, and the embodied nature of metaphor holistically reflects the unity of individual and world. The events and experiences of our lives become embedded in our structure and metabolism. We might call this nonlocal entangled embodiment "metaphorms." Fractals are a new way of thinking about structure and form. Soul is made in the imaginal field, in the fractal reiteration deepening experience by muting or facilitating expression and inhibiting or modulating participation or choice. Our universe is a system of interactive field phenomena, consisting of princples, domains or levels of observation (biology, physics, chemistry, etc.). Our anatomical shape displays motion (digestion, respiration, growing, moving, reproducing, thinking, etc) and emotion (open, closed, animated, repressed). Experience is sensuous. We see, feel, hear, taste and use metaphors of sensory experience to describe our emotions, thoughts, desires, intentions, and the processing and storing of the elements of experience itself. Mind is metaphysical, a reflection of experience in which we store and sort information in the form (shape) of our experiences. Experience is primary, our only test for truth, our only standard of knowledge. We want knowledge so we can improve our experiences by understanding the principles governing them. Metaphors are how we know what we know and what it's "like." Metaphoric language helps us intuit there is ‘more to the picture’ than we ‘real’ize. So do science, art and Hermetics with its system of correspondences. A metaphorm is any object, image, concept, or process that we compare to something else in the whirling chaos of unprocessed elements. Metaphorms imply relationships between things that we cannnot explicitly compare nor literally equate. It matters little whether a metaphorm is literally true or not. What is important is that it binds our lives to the vast unconsumable life of the universe, giving us a taste of immortality. Intuition involves both discovering new connections and innovative solutions. This is a synergetic process. Metaphorming encompasses all forms of metaphor including analogy, allegory, allusion, symbolism, and figures of speech. Compressed information is embodied in the fractal nature of imagery and symbols. Illustrative art in alchemy uses reiteration to solidify meaning. Each image contains a fractal-like representation of the past. We can involve all of our physical senses in a synesthesia using every mode of thinking and felt-sense (stomach, abdomen, chest, throat) of our sensory-motor nervous system to create an identification or state change. Outer Body Experience An outer body experience is one of vastly expanded awareness. We aren't out of the body but recognize our vast potential connections as oceanic experience. We are wave upon interpenetrating waves of virtually infinite potential. Alchemy is all about enhancing psychophysical imaginal capacity. We can tap the holographic memories of our existential blueprint, becoming transparent to transcendence, rather than operating well below our optimal capacity at the plateau of consensus reality or 'normalcy.' Felt-sense is our physical awareness of life processes. The body takes precedence in bottom-up processing. Felt-sense helps us know what is at the edge of our thinking. We learn to articulate our implicit knowing. Focusing attention inward in the body, we learn to sense fear, tensions or openness in centers in our energy body. There is no disowning, but a re-embracing and expansion of the body in amplified identification, including cosmic zero-point. Old Millenium notions, (medieval, classical and Theosophical), of astral projection meant consciousness left the physical body in the subtle body of light and was free to roam the astral plane or travel to other places on Earth. It involved dissociation from the physical body to which the aspirant remained attached by a Silver Cord. It probably developed from Near-Death Experiences (NDE), the shutting down of certain brain processes in biological crisis, commonly including a tunnel of light. New Millennium soul travel is a slightly different approach, requiring no disowning of the gross material body in order to incorporate subtle aspects of the universal. In this sense, it stays perhaps closer to the alchemical phase state, One World. Rather than entering a trance state, the aspirant remains lucid, engaging in breathing and visualization practices. To journey outward or inward is essentially the same. Transmodern "etheric travel" means folding space and time, travelling without moving about one's conceptually expanded Being. It has been called cosmic consciousness. We can view ourselves as all parts of the gestalt, including the primordial ground as well as any systems within it. There is simply no sense of separation. It is a subtle but important shift in awareness. We can experience the whole spectrum of the taxonomy of altered or discreet states of consciousness (Tart), the "heavens and hells" or bardo states (Leary, et al) of other models. The field patterns of the finest organization of energy and matter also affect the evolution of the cosmos. You are a nonlocal quantum field entity in coherent connection with All. The energy “rush” of meditation comes when either the hyperarousal or hyperquiescent state “spills over” into stimulating its complementary system. When both parts (sympathetic and parasympathetic) of the autonomic nervous system go online simultaneously, the limbic system goes wild with emotion, total absorption and oceanic bliss. This phase space is reflected in the transgender reunion of male-female imagery of the kundalini serpent power and the yin and yang of the Tao and the royal wedding of Frater and Soror Mystica in alchemy. When both systems go into maximal discharge, this neurochemical flux is subjectively perceived as Absolute Unity of Being, boundlessness, timelessness, and sacredness. Our relationship to humans, earth, and cosmos is no longer one of a relationship to the Other. All sense of false self evaporates as ego dissolves. The unfathomable ocean of our virtuality is a dynamic energetic infusion, an expanded sense of NowHere, a leap of faith into the Abyss. We are challenged to fully comprehend the truth of our existence. This is how we become more than we formerly thought we were. As William James said, "My experience is what I attend to." Negative time extracts massergy from the limitless ocean of roiling subspace making negentropic or syntropic transformation in a nanosecond a real potential. The quantum vaccum is a highly anomlous universal energy realm of pure potential. We are that nondual dynamic "ocean of active information" in wave form. It is both the source and destination of all matter in the universe, and thus of any form of consciousness which may emerge through its autopoeitic process. The human brain, with its pronounced and constant state of chaos, could receive and amplify such signals, expressed both consciously and unconsciously in our biophsyical self and our ephemeral thoughts and intuitions. We integrate through our immediate experience of paranormal potential. We can live as uncollapsing quantum superpositions in that bountiful ocean of soul and spirit. Distractions cease, replaced by the direct impact of oceanic expansion of the energetically superdense quantum vacuum -- purely informational scalar force. We are modified physically in this way by breathing as the negentropic potential (bioplasma) of cosmos. Scalars are massless and vectorless -- neither ‘light’ nor ‘matter’, but longitudinally propagating fluctuations below the energy-threshold of particle pair-creation. This produces a self-generating cosmological feedback cycle which translates into interference patterns created by the motion of charged particles modifying the local topology of the vacuum. The modified vacuum field modifies in turn the motion of the particles and your being is transmuted. In a system driven beyond equilibrium, the subtle interconnectedness beneath its surface emerges to reshape the system itself. Even visual images can be derived from non-visual sources. Metaphorms are ways of implying likeness between things, such as the macrocosm and microcosm, the cosmos and the weird world of the quantum and subspace domains. Alchemy tells us, "As Above, So Below." In this way it anticipated our discovery of scale-invariant fractals. What is true for subspace is true for superspace. Our brain imposes its dynamics on everything we make--from concepts about the universe to techniques used to test or represent these concepts, from chaos to order. Process morphs connect us with everything we create and are influenced by. Metaphorming is a principal means of exploring the world, relating information from one discipline to another, connecting potentially all sources and forms of information. Metaphorms are expressions of nature's unity.
"There is a generic process in nature and consciousness which dissolves and regenerates all forms. The essence of this transformative, morphological process is chaotic -- purposeful yet inherently unpredictable holistic repatterning. The Great Work of the art of alchemy is the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, a symbol of wholeness and integration. The liquid form of the Stone, called the Universal Solvent, dissolves all old forms like a rushing stream, and is the self-organizing matrix for the rebirth of new forms. It is thus a metaphor or model for the dynamic process of transformation, ego death and re-creation." (Miller, 1992, "Chaos As the Universal Solvent")
"When nature must correctly respond to a sequence of events whose nature and arrival time are essentially random, then nature uses the richness of chaos to nondeterministically solve its problem, probability one. Using direct or indirect feedback, nature uses and controls chaos to achieve its goals. But should not this fact embolden us to accept the challenge: 'What nature can do; man can do better'? Indeed, man has already begun to use and control chaos..." (Joseph Ford, The New Physics)
Physicists, artists and alchemists are metaphorming when tthey create words or images for describing novel relationships or creative visualization. Visual metaphorms, in particular, inspire hypotheses, and vice versa. Alchemists, scientists and artists take two facts or experiences that seem separated, and find a likeness in them, and create a unity by showing the likeness.
All science-art is the search for unity in hidden likenesses. Somtimes they reveal themselves in synchronicities. Synchronicity is a bubbling up of ever-fresh forms, patterns, and connections that transcend all boundaries between mind and matter, the physical and the spiritual.
Dynamics Physics deals with the energetic aspect of the world, how elements bond together and interact. Information theory deals with the communicational or patterning aspect. Fractals, nature's dynamic self-organizing pattern, exist in the paradoxical space between dimensions, levels and forces of existence. They arise at the interface between processes, at boundary zones where they serve both to connect and separate multiple levels. They translate information/energy, structuring dimensions by adding or recursively removing structure, embodying process. Fractal dynamics escalate change from tiny to large scales. Self-organization is an emergent property of systems and organisms, from the cosmos to human beings. Chaotic dynamics governs the emergence of this new order from apparent randomness. The deep coherence of the overall process implies hidden or missing information for holistic patterning within the apparent "noise" or randomness of chaotic patterns. Transformation can involve several, nonlinear phase changes. When a complex signal is propagated through a network with feedback or feedforward paths, some networks remain stable, and other network values "explode." The art of the therapeutic transformation means using "controlled accidents" in the ever-changing context of resonating mental spaces. The "accidentals" are intuitive communication from the unconscious, from the whole. The concepts of chaos and chance just describe our gaps in awareness, the phenomena of which we are ignorant. Consciousness, like creativity, is an emergent phenomenon patterned by strange attractors which govern the complexity of information in dynamic flow. Our consciousness appears co-temporaneously with our embodiment, creating the imaginal flux of representational and nonrepresentational perception - the stream of consciousness. The cosmic trinity of chaos, matter, and attraction appears at the heart of modern chaos theory and alchemy. The Vedas identify all creative intent and substance as a manifestation of primal consciousness, which is considered the basis of all manifestation. In this worldview, there is nothing but consciousness. Complex dynamics is implicated in the energetic translation of "waves of unborn nothingness". Healing is the biological equivalent of creativity. The more complex a system, the more stable and self-correcting it is. Coniunctio The objective (frater) and subjective mode (soror mystica) are not divorced from one another, anymore than the left and right hemispheres of the brain. They marry in the mystic, in entanglement with Cosmos. Science adapted the artist’s sense that the detail of nature is significant. Like yin and yang, they rely on one another in a dynamic meld that lies beyond the dialectic in the tension of opposites. Synthesizing and transcending opposites is the theme of alchemy. The metaphors of science have gained increasing relevance in the artworld and transmodern mysticism. Art and science begin as imaginative speculation that guesses at a unity or gestalt. The same holds true for alchemy. Metaphors reflect universal or holistic references and processes, connecting concepts across disciplines. There is a dimension of reality that transcends mind and matter. The creative act is one of uniting the unmanifest with the manifest world in a meaningful, often symbolic way. Such conception is relevant to consciousness, organization, structure, faith, subconsciousness, emotion, even spirituality. Above all, creativity means trusting the process. Investigation of the negentropic criterion helps us move toward a truly transdisciplinary doctrine for the artistic field of influence. It facilitates feedback via creative regression: de-structuring, or destratification by immersion in the flow of psychic imagery through identification with more and more primal forms or patterns--a psychedelic, expanded state. Chaos Theory provides a metaphorical language for describing the flowing dynamics of the chaotic process of psychological transformation. The Hermetica included works on magic, alchemy, astrology, healing, gnosis, theurgy, ritual, and philosophy. These texts were based on sympathetic magic, that like substances sharing an essence could influence one another through resonance effects, synchronicities. Like cures like. As the god who presides over boundaries, Hermes is able to transcend them. He is therefore also the ruler of ceremonial magic, which transcends the limits of ordinary consciousness, communing with the divine. Identification with a given energy is accomplished by a three-fold ritual, which echoes the generic creative process: Myths, according to d’Aquili, present themselves as systems of antinomies, or opposites: heaven/hell, good/evil, life/death. Because of a basic function of the brain he calls that ‘binary operator.’ This function abstracts qualities of things and arranges them as pairs of opposites, or dyads, whose meaning is intimately related to its partner. He conjectures that it is located on the inferior parietal lobe of the dominant side, and is one way the mind seeks to understand the world. Myths play on these antinomies and propose solutions to them.
The alchemical operation Solutio, the Universal Solvent is called "the root of alchemy," corresponding with the element water. It implies a flowing state of consciousness, "liquification" of consciousness, a return to the womb for rebirth, a baptism or healing immersion in the vast ocean of deep consciousness. It is a dissolution that precedes recrystallization.
1). Separation from the profane or ordinary state of consciousness. Dissolution of the ordinary state of conscious.
2). The transition stage, or twilight zone which lies between them. Creative or chaotic consciousness.
3). The new order or perception of reality which occurs in the sacred time of the soul. Identification with ehanced sense of self, greater well-being.
Hermes is The Magus, the magician, the lord of boundaries, or doorways, the threshold or liminal area. The inbetween, or twilight zone, enables a state of receptivity to become established. It allows an emptying process, a letting go. Ritual acts reawaken deep layers of the psyche. This brings the mythological or archetypal ideas back to memory.
Myths are like collective dreams; ritual is an enactment of myth. So, we create myths to satisfy our need to understand our environment and give us some sense of control over it, or an understanding of our place in it. A given myth has stability of structural relationship and meaning. In science we call them ‘models’. Like metaphors, they provide a reference point without defining a reality.
What's New with My Subject?
Alchemy is an irreducible fusion of mysticism, science and art that also happens to be therapeutic or growth-promoting and tantalizingly hints at illumination. The process begins with doubts and lack of conviction but time spent on self-knowledge and spiritual exercises is amply rewarded.
Alchemy is unbound. It evolves like any science or artform through revolutionary paradigm shifts that revision or reframe its philosophy of practice. Chaos theory is an organic model of creation. Chaos prevails from the infinitely small to cosmic levels. Dynamic processes are deterministic though unpredictable. All experience is subjective. Intuition is an informational source that is non-linear and therefore can create quantum leaps in consciousness. Using imagination, we can ‘see through’ to a deeper level of reality.
The Universe is a fractal manifestation of the interaction or interdependence of chaos and order. Nature and evolution are complimentary systems evolving at the edge of chaos the source of the genesis of new forms. Like a fractal, the individual embodies the whole, to a greater or lesser degree. We are neither exclusively biological nor psychospiritual beings we are both/and psychobiological.
Alchemists seek understanding of the relationships between all the elements. Holistic vision is developed with experiments on matter and self, fantasy and meditation. In alchemy, meditation is reflection, inner dialogue and an extended act of active imagination fired by awareness and libido, "an inner colloquy with one's good angel." Transpersonal experience creates a new interpretation, or perspective on reality. Systems arise from positive feedback and amplification. Thus, archetypes introduce erratic behavior that lead to the emergence of new situations, including creative insight.
Both perception and cognition can be modeled as a transition from a state of chaos representing the unrecognized condition, or the unresolved problem, to a state of order. Creativity or learning can emerge spontaneously, from exploring states of confusion, to the instantaneous insight of a “Eureka” moment, or knowing state through bifurcation to a new attractor, to chaotic resolution. The trick is experiencing "emptyness" as the initial condition of consciousness. The openness of empty awareness is the key.
At supercritical junctions we either breakdown (emergency) or increase adaptation (emergence) with more creative solutions. Creativity is an excited-exalted state of arousal with a characteristic increase in both informational content and the rate of information processing. Creative holistic repatterning is introduced into the human system through the psyche as nonmanifest yet phenomenological images, symbols, and patterning information.
Imagination is embodied, objectified, expressed in the creative process. It is knowing through living through, distinctionally different from knowing about. It carries a sense of immediacy. Imagination is the voice of creativity. It is the primary way we experience soul; imagination embodies it’s own reality. It is self-revelatory. Meaning dwells in the image like consciousness dwells in the body.
Alchemy is also a thought experiment that plunges one into the upwelling spring of Nature feeding the roots of matter and psyche. Ultimately, these cycles of experimentation and reflection are warming acts of love that keep the gentle fires of the alchemical transformation going. The formula "VITRIOL" encodes the various operations of the alchemical process.
In the Transmodern union of opposites, the real and the unreal are no longer opposed. The concept of reality emerges, no longer bound to the material world but turned into fiction because of it. Reality and existence are no longer synonymous – it is a type of reality that continues to “be” even when it may not “exist” and does not comply with the simple status of simulacrum -- virtuality. Thus alchemy shares much in common with quantum mysticism and the holographic paradigm which seek the secrets of nature's subquantal realm. Doing so creates a hyperreality, revealing a glimpse of the future.
The problem becomes not one of how to know something radically new, but how to learn something radically new. Thus metaphors are instructive. They are a central Way of leaping the epistemological chasm between old and new knowledge, old and new ways of essential being. Metaphors help us makes this leap, help us enter a problematic situation in order to solve it, to explore it, and explore the world restructured by this metaphor.
We can tap the source of creativity, healing and holistic restructuring through imagination and metaphor. The possibilities for concepts and thought are shaped in very special ways by both the body and the brain that evolved to control it, especially the sensory-motor system. Conceptual metaphors appear to be neural maps that link sensory-motor domains in the brain to regions where more abstract reasoning is done. This allows sensory-motors structures in the brain to play a role in abstract reasoning (Lakoff, 1999).
In fact, when metaphors are synchronistic, emergent, spontaneous, self-organizing expressions of our dynamic stream of consciousness, they are an imaginal encoding of information that bridges the domains of conscious and unconscious worlds, material and transpersonal realms. Such metaphors can be deeply transformative -- more than mere language. They are a technology for changing our behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Intentional contact and immersion in these metaphors can transform our spirit and soul.
The problem becomes not one of how to know something radically new, but how to learn something radically new. Thus metaphors are instructive. They are a central Way of leaping the epistemological chasm between old and new knowledge, old and new ways of essential being. Metaphors help us makes this leap, help us enter a problematic situation in order to solve it, to explore it, and explore the world restructured by this metaphor.
We can tap the source of creativity, healing and holistic restructuring through imagination and metaphor. The possibilities for concepts and thought are shaped in very special ways by both the body and the brain that evolved to control it, especially the sensory-motor system. Conceptual metaphors appear to be neural maps that link sensory-motor domains in the brain to regions where more abstract reasoning is done. This allows sensory-motors structures in the brain to play a role in abstract reasoning (Lakoff, 1999).
In fact, when metaphors are synchronistic, emergent, spontaneous, self-organizing expressions of our dynamic stream of consciousness, they are an imaginal encoding of information that bridges the domains of conscious and unconscious worlds, material and transpersonal realms. Such metaphors can be deeply transformative -- more than mere language. They are a technology for changing our behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Intentional contact and immersion in these metaphors can transform our spirit and soul.
Melting Point of Formation
Alchemists are contemplative researchers versed in the science of personal transformation and the art of inner magic. Alchemical insight ultimately short-circuits self-referential feedback loops, leading to breakthroughs in perception and quality of being. At the groundstate, mind is utterly emptied of all contents. Both physical and mental space dissolve in this exploration.
A dynamic vacuum state of consciousness opens paranormal states of awareness and healing. In much ado about Nothing, the bubble of illusion (all mental and physical phenomena) bursts in primordial awareness. In the highest potential energy state, space, time, mind and matter dissolve into their Source -- the "melted vacuum" of physics, the "clear water" (Cole, 2001) of the alchemists (Lambspring). This unencumbered non-dual state is innate radiant potential. The upwelling geyser of all internal and external phenomena emerge from this dynamic absolute space beyond all internal structure.
According to King, ‘If a series of small bifurcations occur resulting from successive [quantum] computational steps, we would say the conclusion was arrived at deductively, but if however a major global bifurcation is required to reach self-consistency, an intuitive leap of understanding may result.'
The transition from chaos models the sudden moment of insight -- the "a-ha" or "eureka", deductive cognition, sensory recognition and decision-making -- or the bursting bubble into primordial awareness. Computational predictivity is thus complemented by conscious anticipation enabled through quantum transaction and manifested in the transition from chaos.
The fear, danger, anxiety and stress produced during confrontation with the transpersonal psyche can create a personal catastrophe, a spiritual emergency. Catastrophic chaos usually leads to what is called a bifurcation or splitting of the energy in two different directions. The experience may be shattering. The interface of the conscious ego and the numinous must be effected with some care so the later doesn’t take over.
But sometimes regression serves the process of evolution and leads to creative transformation and renewal of the self on a higher level. Therefore, the potential benefits of the transformative path make the risks worthwhile. Rather than breakdown, it may lead to artistic, scientific, or spiritual breakthrough, creativity and expression.
Alchemy is a science-art, a tool to describe and mold reality using experimental and meditative techniques. As an art medium, alchemy helps us illustrate nature and our own nature in contemporary terms by creating new paradigms and environments. Alchemists manufactured and articulated theories of reality and healing fantasies of the body/soul/spirit, as well as dyes, paints, and medicines or improving the quality of metals and glass.
Alchemy is a tradition of particpatory wisdom. Medieval alchemy was couched in the archaic language of its time, but we are not limited to that, nor to theological, Hermetic, Masonic, Theosophical or New Age jargon. Philosophies and sciences evolve in articulation, theory and practice. New discoveries and statements of meaning inform our practice at all levels. In many cases, alchemy anticipated them. Our worldview has evolved to include quantum physics and dynamics in our models of reality. In the 20th Century, Carl Jung described alchemy in terms of depth psychology and shed new light on an old science. But that discipline continues to redefine itself. Jung's notions of a heroic, striving Self have been transcended with imaginal, nonlinear models of consciousness, archetypes as strange attractors and healing fictions. Can we expect any less from 21st century alchemy itself? Alchemy is a multidisciplinary pursuit focusing on mystic technologies, life sciences, metallurgy, chemistry, dynamics and physics. We can take a revolutionary view of today's alchemy as dynamic process in terms of Chaos Theory and its related sciences. There are analogies between contemporary practice of sacred psychology, chaos theory, quantum theory, scalar physics and alchemical processes, some of which are more than metaphorical. Emergence Metaphor is Nature’s language. Matter has lost its central role in physics. Mass/energy and light are interacting abstract oscillating excitations of the vacuum. Nothing actually oscillates. There is aesthetic pleasure in finding likenesses between things once thought unalike. It gives a sense of richness and understanding. The creative mind looks for unexpected likenesses, through engagement of the whole person. Negentropy, like art, is ‘in-form-ative.’ It is related to mutual information exchange. Information is embodied in the fractal nature of imagery and symbols, which compress the informational content of the whole. Creativity is an emergent phenomenon patterned by strange attractors, which govern the complexity of information in dynamic flow. In the artistic process, collapse is consistent with focus; focus is consistent with selection; selection is consistent with the resonance or stimulus. The stimulus is consistent with the physical reality and reality is consistent with collapse. In quantum chaos, this collapse is a cascade leading to an entirely new organization – to emergent creativity. Starting from an essential Flammarion Woodcut
We can draw from the organic metaphors of illumination, quantum physics, field theory, and chaos theory to illuminate the state of the arts. Physics describes the interrelationship of chaos and order as field relationships, while chaos theory describes nature’s own methods of creation and self-assembly. Entropy is the tendency for any closed part of the universe to expand at the expense of order. It is a measure of randomness and disorder -- chaos.
Negentropy is the generative force of the universe. The "melted vacuum" of absolute space, where quarks, electrons, gravity and electromagnetism are the same, is an infinite supply of radiant energy -- virtual photon flux. Negentropy (emergent order from chaos) is a nonlinear higher order system, a dynamically creative ordering information. Thinking, science, and art are therefore negentropic.
The whole process is a flow or condensation of potential of consciousness. The gauge is the perspective of consciousness or imagination. We are free to choose our perspective. The essence of our time-bound experience is receptivity to experience, to flow within the vortex. When we experience our timeless nature – our unbound self -- there is no flow, only resonance. We have the freedom to choose our point of focus or resonance. We can be stimulated by probability or chance, by the chaotic creative process underlying all reality itself.
We cannot predict what will come of it, what will emerge from entering that creative vortex, nor should we even try. All we can do is let go and open ourselves to the morphing power of the transcendent imagination, to bring our awareness into resonance with it. As we transcend the vortex we narrow our freedom to select our perceptual view of the physical world.
primal singularity containing the fundamental cyclic cause of
electrodynamic and geometric laws, governing the mutually dependent
arising (out of the ZPE singularities in ubiquitous absolute space)
of both subjective consciousness and objective matter... Leading to
their ultimate phenomenal interconnections (on the informational
level) of radiant mind and memory fields that surround every zero-
point of absolute space, centered within every radiant field and form
of ponderable matter within our total physical spacetime
gravitational field. (This is in addition to the higher order
precursor fields at the meta- or hyper-physical super-cosmic level).
See:
http://leonmaurer. info/ABCimages/ Cyclic-paths- cosmogenesis. jpg
It's only when the cosmic fields descend to the fourth lowest order
physical spacetime field that the QED laws of physics come into play
-- which governs the nature and interrelationships of the
fundamental particle-wave forms and their combinations into atoms,
molecules, etc.
In this model (of fundamental physical/material reality within
overall cosmic reality) if we follow its analogous fractal involved
hyperspace progression, it becomes patently obvious that both mind
and memory are coenergetic (resonant) information carrying fields
that act as the medium between the sensory processing mechanisms
(neural correlates) and the unconditioned awareness/will (as
potential phenomenal functions of unconditioned absolute or primal
space).
Thus, the difference between the latent consciousness of a stone, and
the active or phenomenal consciousness of an organic, self
replicating sentient being -- is the ability (or inability in the
case of the stone) to link sensory information with awareness/will
through a chain of electrochemical (neural) processing stages and
their resultant, assembled EM information field, coupled with higher
frequency phase order, fractal involved harmonic (wave interference
patterned information carrying, phase conjugate adaptive, resonant)
radiant energy fields -- that are generated, along with the neural
field, from a common (or holonomically entangled) zero-point center
of consciousness.
