Individuation as an alchemical process

[tsuki]

An interesting perspective on spiritual growth form the point of view of ancient alchemy.
What do you think? In my opinion, it could explain many methods people use to attain enlightenment.

[lmfao]

@tsuki I don't really have the patience to watch this lol. Could you mention one or two ideas on how understanding alchemy might help spiritual growth?

[tsuki]

4 hours ago, lmfao said:

@tsuki I don't really have the patience to watch this lol. Could you mention one or two ideas on how understanding alchemy might help spiritual growth?

It's been a while since I watched this lecture and this is what sticked with me:
Lecturer draws parallels between Jungian psychology and ancient alchemy and suggests that Jung read ancient alchemical books as inspiration.

Psyche in its most basic form is pure chaos. It is made of archetypes that are inter-personal, universal across cultures and languages.
Psyche is not something internal, but it is equally external. Chaotic, basic, psyche means a chaotic world that is impossible to understand and exploit to fulfill our own needs.

Out of this chaos Ego arises which is a set of beliefs that are held as basic. We grasp to some aspects of reality and call them 'true'. We do that so we can reason about the world. Trust in family members is a good example of egoic grasping. When you are betrayed by your mother or father - your world shatters and you feel immense suffering. Most people would rather not admit the betrayal and lie to themselves than face reality of what happened. Patriotism is another example. There are people that grasp so hard to idea of a nation as a baseline for reality that they would rather give up their life than see it destroyed.

The lecturer says that the ancient alchemy devolved into 'chemistry' of matter to protect itself from Christianity. It was not originally about matter, but about psyche. It was an art of shattering Ego and returning psyche into its archetypical form.

In this context, Enlightenment may be seen as permanently returning to chaos and willingly staying there. Many different spiritual schools have practices that torment Ego so that it sees its own unstable nature.

Edited April 19, 2018 by tsuki

[cetus]

@tsuki I was just reading something yesterday that said "fluids come together and the "I" is created".

Also "The "I" is a condensed form of consciousness"- I like this one!

[phoenix666]

@tsuki that resonates with me, specially

5 hours ago, tsuki said:

Out of this chaos Ego arises which is a set of beliefs that are held as basic. We grasp to some aspects of reality and call them 'true'.

and the trust in early authority figures, whom we take all those beliefs from. they construct our reality. and our ego. from a logical standpoint I can definitively say that I identify with a persona I constructed unconsciously, based on the feedback I got from my environment whilst growing up. I still have to fully grasp the significance of that. it means that the self is just a projection/illusion and that there is no actual self. 

my mind seems to grasp it, but only on an intellectual level for now..

[tsuki]

48 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

"fluids come together and the "I" is created"

I'm not a psychologist and my understanding of Jung is certainly not academic, but this is very much true from what I've gathered.
This is basically the link between alchemy and spirituality - the idea of breaking a substance/Ego down into its constituents so that something new is born. Rebirth is not transcendence in a sense that one becomes 'better' than his previous self, but different. The whole point in my opinion is to see that your current self is fundamentally incidental. It is no better or worse than any other 'I' that could come out of this process.

There is great value, however, in staying in this basic, chaotic form that has no structure. From what I have observed in myself - letting go of your precious foundations of reality that the Ego is made of, such as family for example, is at the same time synonymous to healing. I don't know why these foundations build themselves when we become chaos, but structure always returns, eventually. All I can do is to observe them and let them dissolve when they are no longer needed.

The standard notion of Ego that is created out of fear of the unknown doesn't stick with me, because the chaos from which it arises cannot be harmed. There is nothing that can be done to it that it would have to fight against and create the Ego. On the other hand, Ego is always fearful of return. Transcending this fear is what is I think that is learned from repeated Ego deaths.

1 hour ago, phoenix666 said:

I still have to fully grasp the significance of that. it means that the self is just a projection/illusion and that there is no actual self. 

The self is real. Any self that is constructed is as real, as the no-self in my view.
The no-self seems very appealing from the point of view of the self because there are practically no no-self selves out there.
The no-self self makes the self so unique that it cannot resist not pursuing it. Pursuit of enlightenment is egoic in this sense.

There are however valuable lessons to be learned from pursuing it, which I still do.