Mysticism and Psychotherapy

excerpts from The Observing Self, by Arthur Deikman (1983) Psychotherapy arose in response to human suffering, and, as far as we can tell, human suffering has always existed. The ancient lineage of psychotherapy is seldom appreciated because Western culture considers psychotherapy as a relatively recent development of psychiatry, one of its subdivisions.  If we define psychotherapy as the treatment of mental distress through psychological means, we find records of such practices from the origins of civilization whenever priests, shamans, and witch doctors appear. While psychiatry, a category of scientific medicine, is a modern development, psychotherapy has been associated with the sacred for thousands of years. Historians of psychotherapy acknowledge priests and shamans as the first to heal the psyche. A sorcerer, his head crowned with deer's antlers, is depicted on the wall of a cave In southern France, dating from 15,000 B.C. Psychotherapists of one sort or another have been around a long time.    Formal psychotherapy originated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when treatment was taken over from the clergy by rationalistic medicine and eventually became the specialty of psychiatry. Psychiatry at first dealt primarily with madness, but Freud's psychoanalysis extended psychiatry and psychotherapy to neurotic and character problems as well. The scope of formal psychotherapy has been progressively enlarged and is now concerned with problems of existential human suffering, the traditional domain of religion, from which psychotherapy historically originated.    Psychotherapy appears to have come full circle. Although the modern version is quite different from the archaic ceremonies that featured magic, taboos, gods, and dramatic rituals of exorcism, there have been changes other than appearance. Its marriage to rational medicine has given psychotherapy a systematic understanding of neurotic and psychotic syndromes and refined technical procedures. And an entirely new dimension, the enhancement of the observing self, has been added.    However, Western science is characterized by a split between the sacred and the rational, which has left modern psychotherapy less well equipped than the superseded ancient, primitive versions to handle certain problems. The loss of dramatic placebo devices is not the difficulty. The issue goes deeper, involving the most fundamental assumptions of Western thought. Freud's view of reality and that of most contemporary theorists of  psychotherapy is based on a nineteenth-century physical and biological scientific model that is far too narrow to encompass human consciousness. Consequently, certain sources of suffering cannot be dealt with from within a Western framework. We are faced with major problems that call for broadening our perspective and extending our science. THE MYSTICAL TRADITION    The mystical tradition is also ancient in origin. The oral teachings recorded in the Upanishads, Buddhist sutras, and similar records go back thousands of years and provide evidence that mystical teachers of widely different cultures say remarkably similar things. Also concerned with human suffering, they propose that human beings are ignorant of their true nature and that ignorance leads to lives of pain and futility. The sages describe a Way that leads to a higher level of existence, one infinitely more desirable than the level on which most people conduct their lives. The mystical tradition does not offer therapy in the usual sense of that word, but  achieving the goal of mysticism -‑ experiencing the Real Self  — is said to cure human suffering because its very basis is thereby removed.    Often confused with religion, the mystical tradition occupies a place of its own. Durkheim suggested that human beings developed religions through their perception of the tiered, a superior realm impalpable through the five senses but one that can nevertheless be experienced. Religion and mysticism are both concerned with the sawed realm, but most religions tend to associate the sacred with a deity, Whereas mysticism associates the sacred with the unrecognized Real Self of each human being. Thus, followers of formal religions often try to affect the behavior of a god -‑ propitiating, phasing, and seeking aid. In contrast, the mystical tradition asserts the equation: I (Real Self) = God. While "I am God"” is the fundamental realization of mysticism, it is blasphemous in many religions.    Because both religion and mysticism respond to the perception of the sacred, the work of mystics historically took place within a religious context although it remained distinct from the activities of everyday religious practices. For example the wandering monks for whom the Upanishads were mitten did not perform Hindu sacrifices and rituals, but followed special practices imparted in secret by their teacher.    The monks, usually thought of by laypersons as part of an established religious tradition, were actually following a teaching that said the ordinary forms and concepts of that religion were illusions one must transcend. A similar situation prevailed for Zen monks who pursued their training in the context of Buddhism.    Western culture often overlooks the distinction between religion and mysticism, especially in the psychological and psychiatric literature. This is unfortunate because the mystical emphasis on self‑development makes it consonant with modern psychotherapy. The mystical tradition has been concerned with the very problems that modern psychotherapy has been unable to resolve. It makes sense, therefore, to investigate mysticism with a view to dealing more effectively with those problems and gaining wisdom as human beings. THE PROBLEM OF MEANING    Human beings need meaning. Without it they suffer boredom, depression, and despair. Increasingly, psychotherapists are called on to deal with these symptoms as people confront aging and death in the context of a society that is coming to realize the possibility of its own decline and extinction. The religious framework that formerly defined meaning has been replaced by a scientific world view in which meaning does not exist. "What is the purpose of human life?" and "Why am I?" are questions that are said by most scientists to lie outside the scope of science or to be false, since they assume that the human species developed by chance in a random universe. According to this view, human beings are complex biochemical phenomena, of considerable scientific interest but not essentially different from anything else that science examines.    Western psychotherapy is hard put to meet human beings’ need for meaning, for it attempts to understand clinical phenomena in a framework, based on scientific materialism, in which meaning is arbitrary and purpose nonexistent. Consequently, Western psychotherapy interprets the search for meaning as a function of childlike dependency wishes and fears of helplessness or, at best, a genetic disposition toward intellectual control, preserved and enhanced by natural selection because of its survival value.    Such explanations, however tidy they may be, do not offer much help to adolescents and young adults seeking a life path, to persons confronting the anxieties of the nuclear age, or to those who experience despair as death approaches, unable to find significance in life goals based on personal acquisition, unable to find meaning in the purposeless universe of scientific empiricism. Not only are patients affected; psychotherapists fall prey to the same ailment. Consider the following extract from an article in the American Journal of Psychiatry reporting the experience of a group of therapists, aged thirty-five to forty-five, most of whom had a psychoanalytic background. The group met ostensibly to obtain peer supervision but soon became a therapy group to deal with a crisis all the members were experiencing:    This depressed, resigned outlook should not be dismissed as peculiar to that particular group; it is, in fact, an approved psychiatric standard. The American Handbook of Psychiatry articulates its contemporary "wisdom" as follows:    Here, the meaning of life is death, which provides an end to the fatigue of the elderly. What a vision!    The greatest problem Western psychotherapists face may be the absence of a theoretical framework to provide meaning for patients and therapists alike. Clearly, those struggling to overcome neurotic problems are likely to be badly handicapped when the context within which they view themselves provides neither meaning, direction, nor hope. It is also clear that science's vision of an orderly, mechanical, indifferent universe can provide no purpose for life. Yet our lives and our psychological health depend on a sense of purpose. Mere survival is a purpose, but not enough for human consciousness. Nor is working for the survival of others sufficiently meaningful if one believes that the human race has no place to go, that it endlessly repeats the same patterns, or worse.    The "midlife" crisis with which the psychotherapists grappled probably reflects the fact that at midlife one's own death becomes less theoretical and more probable. Goals of money, security, fame, sex, or power might formerly have peen purpose to life. With experience, the limited nature of such satisfactions becomes increasingly evident. As one grows older an awareness surfaces that one is on a relentless slide toward extinction, making self‑serving goals seem utterly futile. Even altruistic goals  can wear thin without a larger picture of the human race than the one our scientific culture provides. As life progresses, the search for meaning becomes increasingly urgent. Profound despair and dull resignation are symptoms of failing in that search. The pervasive use of alcohol, sedatives, and narcotics in our society might well reflect many people's attempts to suppress despair at their purposelessness, to substitute heightened sensation for meaning.    This widespread malady need not be inevitable, for it is possible that the conclusions of scientific materialism are wrong. From time to time we sense a larger reality than the pot science provides, a subtle perception pointing to a better, Meaningful existence. The dissonance between the scientific view and the one we intuit produces restlessness and a need for resolution. Even the pursuit of material goals may be a blind response to the urge to attain a dimly sensed reality in which purpose and meaning are facts, not fantasies. Our ability to progress in that direction is severely hampered by our not understanding the nature of the problem, by restricting reality to the empirical realm. Indeed, Western psychological science tends to regard the very consciousness through which we know the physical world to be no more than a product of that world, an epiphenomenon less real than that which it comprehends. No wonder meaning vanishes. A physicist commented on this assumption:    It is as if Descartes had been stood on his head and made to declare, "I think; therefore, the world exists and I am an illusion."    Pain and dysfunction inevitably result from the denial or distortion of reality, a consequence clearly demonstrated in the effects of the fantasies of those suffering from psychosis or neurosis. It is equally true of the fantasies and beliefs promulgated by an entire culture. Our culture's belief in positivistic empiricism  — only the tangible is real‑produces increasing symptoms at the individual, social, and political levels. A person who seeks psychotherapy may be suffering from a distortion of reality. not only at the interpersonal but at the metaphysical level, and neither the person nor the psychotherapist is aware of that.    A basic tenet of mysticism is chat reality as ordinarily perceived is indeed a distortion' and that human suffering is the consequence of believing in that distorted view. According to mystics, the problem is compounded by human beings' inherent need to progress in their ability to perceive the reality that underlies the phenomenal world, which can result only from the development of a higher intuitive faculty, a process called "conscious evolution." People whose evolutionary need is frustrated experience a persistent dissatisfaction with the course of their lives. On the other hand, fulfillment of that developmental goal enables people to perceive the meaning of their own lives and the purpose of human existence. Thus, in the mystical tradition, meaning is a perceptual issue.    The problem of limited perception -‑ as encountered in biology ‑- has been described by C. F. Pantin:    Similarly, it is possible that the meaning and purpose of human life are outside the spectrum of ordinary consciousness, whose widening and deepening are the concern of the mystical tradition. In fact, some see the evolution of consciousness as the principal task of the human race. Western psychology, in its often vain attempts to explain away the sense of meaninglessness and its attendant symptoms, may havemuch to learn from  mysticism, which sees meaning as something real and accessible to consciousness, provided the appropriate perceptual capacity has been developed.    The fundamental questions, "Who am I?" and "What am 1?" arise increasingly in the struggle to find meaning and purpose in life. Therapists hear them as explicit queries or to indirect form: "Who is the real me?" or "I don't know what I want  — part of me wants one thing and part of me wants something else. What do I want?" Western psychology is severely handicapped in dealing with these questions because the center of human experience  — the observing self  — is missing from its theories. Yet, at the heart of psychopathology lies a fundamental confusion between the self as object and the self of pure subjectivity. Emotions, thoughts, impulses, images, and sensations are the contents of consciousness: we witness them; we are aware of their existence. Likewise, the body, the self-image, and the self‑concept are all constructs that we observe. But our core sense of personal existence ‑- the "I" ‑- is located in awareness itself, not in its content.    The distinction between awareness and the content of awareness tends to be ignored in Western psychology, its implications for our everyday life are not appreciated. Indeed, most people have trouble recognizing the difference between awareness and content, which are part of everyday life. Yet, careful observation shows people that they can suspend their thoughts, that they can experience silence or darkness and the temporary absence of images or memory patterns ‑- that any element of mental life can disappear while awareness itself remains. Awareness is the ground of conscious life, the background or field in which all elements exist, different from thoughts, sensations, or images. One can experience the distinction simply by looking straight ahead. Be aware of what you experience, then close your eyes. Awareness remains. "Behind" your thoughts and images is awareness, and that is where you are.    What we know as our self is separate from our thoughts, memories, feelings, and any content of consciousness. No Western psychological theory concerns itself with this fundamental fact; all describe the self in terms of everything but the observer, who is the center of experience. This crucial omission stems from the fact that the observing self is an anomaly  — not an object, like everything else. Our theories are based on objects: we think in terms of objects, talk in terms of objects. It is not just the physical world that we apprehend in that way; the elements of our mental life are similar. Seemingly diffuse and amorphous emotions are localized and observable; they have definite qualities. emotions, like fluid objects, are entities we observe. Images, memories, and thoughts we objects we grasp, manipulate, and encompass by awareness just as we do the components of the physical world. In contrast, we cannot observe the observing self; we must experience it directly. It has no defining qualities, no boundaries, no dimensions. The observing self has been ignored by Western psychology because it is not an object and cannot fit the assumptions and framework of current theory.    Lacking understanding of this elusive, central self, how are we to answer the essential questions "Who am I" "What am I?" that lie at the heart of science, philosophy, the arts, the search for meaning? To find answers we must step outside the boundaries of our traditional modes of thought.    Here too the mystical tradition has focused on an area ignored by Western science. Both Yogic and Buddhist metaphysics and psychology emphasize the crucial difference between the observer and the content of consciousness and use meditation techniques to heighten the observing self. As with meaning, mystics hold that answering "Who am I?" and "Why am I?" requires a special mode of perception. That claim is not surprising, considering the anomalous character of the observing self. To understand the "I," we should first learn what the mystical tradition can teach us about it.

--  Arthur Deikman

Spiritual and Utopian Groups

Evaluating Spiritual and Utopian Groups by Arthur J. Deikman, M.D. An early version of this paper was presented at the conference on “Conversion, Coercion and Commitment in the New Religions”, sponsored by the Center for the Study of New Religious Movements, Berkeley, June 11–13, 1981. A later version was published by the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vo1.23, No.3, Summer 1983, 8–18. Published by the Institute for Cultural Research, 1988.     Spiritual and utopian groups will always exist because they answer to fundamental human needs. However, not all of those needs are spiritual or utopian and that is the problem. Some groups may fulfill their announced goals, benefiting their members and society, others may turn into a nightmare of exploitation, fear and violence. So it becomes necessary to have a way of evaluating groups, avoiding those that are, at best, ineffective and, at worst, injurious.    In order to do this one must recognize that the experience of the truly spiritual is not a fantasy, a delusion or an emotional binge but a valid aspect of human life known to almost everyone to some degree. Even today, in a culture that has embraced the scientific world view, most people have intimations of a larger, more perfect reality that transcends the material world. This intangible perception has been shared by some of the principal physicists who established modern science, such as Newton and Einstein. The intuition of the spiritual does not require esoteric, dramatic ecstasies; in its most convincing form it is part of everyday consciousness. There it is reflected in our awareness of "the good".    Tolstoy describes this perception in his novel, Anna Karenina. At the end of the story, Levin, who has been struggling unsuccessfully to find meaning in life and is close to suicide, is talking to Theodore, a peasant worker, about two other peasants, Mityuka and Plato. Theodore comments:    "Oh well, you see, people differ! One man lives only for his own needs: take Mityuka, who only stuffs his own belly, but Plato is an upright old man. He lives for his soul and remembers God."    Theodore's words spark a transformation in Levin's understanding of his life. He sees that the value of his life has been linked to an inherent knowledge of goodness, a knowledge that lies outside reason:    "I looked for an answer to my question. But reason could not give me an answer  — reason is incommensurable with the question. Life itself has given me the answer, in my knowledge of what is good and what is bad. And that knowledge I did not acquire in any way; it was given to me as to everybody, given because I could not take it from anywhere.    "Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love my neighbor and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason! Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable." 1    Unscientific as it may be, the spiritual shines ahead of us through the darkness and we seek its source. Even in dealing with material existence, the sense of a potential for unlimited love, beauty, and unity gives rise to utopian visions and repeated attempts to create a society in which suffering will be absent and people will lead joyous, satisfying lives. This wish has led many to join groups that promise such fulfillment. Spiritual groups have union with God as their goal, utopian paradise on earth. They both share a fervor, idealism and sense of mission that indicates their kindred origin although their stated aims may be at different levels. Both reflect a similar impulse, a similar hope of realizing a higher state. These hopes should be respected.   History records waves of such activity. The most recent was in the sixties when the United States experienced a proliferation of New Age spiritual and utopian groups. Although that wave began to decline in the late seventies, Christian fundamentalist and charismatic organizations then went through a similar phase of rapid increase. But throughout these recent decades there have been many casualties. The most notorious incident occurred when the members of one group committed mass suicide at the direction of their leader. In other less publicized groups members have been harmed by being sexually and financially exploited, and quite a few leaders, spiritual as well as utopian, have turned out to be other than they seemed, falling far short of delivering what they had promised.    The mystical tradition insists that despite the overabundance of such misguided, ineffective and damaging enterprises, effective spiritual groups have been in operation in all eras, including this one. .2 The fact that spurious groups also exist is not surprising. "Counterfeit coins are accepted because real coins exist". So we are left with a pressing questions, "How can one separate the genuine from the counterfeit?", "How can one judge a spiritual or utopian group and its leader?"    The first step in answering the questions is to realize that confused with intimations of the spiritual are longings and impulses derived from childhood. Thus, although a person may wish to find meaning and certainty, to serve God and humanity, he or she may also want to be taken care of, to find a home, to be praised and admired, protected and loved. These latter yearnings are seldom acknowledged because adults are not supposed to be motivated by them. Nevertheless, in seeking to gratify those wishes we are drawn to join groups that seem to be new families and to accept leaders as surrogate parents. Covertly, the "bliss" that is sought and frequently experienced is that of children who have been rescued from uncertainty and responsibilities, who have found a home.    Furthermore, we are social beings and derive benefits from joining with others. Groups can provide a gratifying sense of belonging, support and purpose while leaders can teach and inspire. As I will show, these aims may be important and valuable but they are not spiritual, no matter how pious their outward presentation. Correspondingly, our motivations for joining a spiritual or utopian group may be other than we realize or wish to know. Detecting such covert purposes enables us to evaluate a group's legitimacy.    Judging a spiritual group is complicated by the fact that spiritual leaders often present a unique problem. The outsider as well as the member may be intimidated by the claim that the leader has special knowledge, is "enlightened", able to perceive and know what the ordinary person cannot and, therefore, immune from ordinary criteria of behaviour. Such leaders say that what they might do in their wisdom may make no sense to the unenlightened. Indeed, the mystical tradition in the various forms it has taken throughout history has been quite consistent in defining its teachers as people whose spiritual development had progressed to the point that they could "see" what others could not. If we grant that such people do exist, how can it be possible for the ordinary person to judge them?    Actually, the problem is not as difficult as has been thought, for the spiritual traditions are quite consistent about their goal and the requirements for reaching it. It is this fact that permits us to make a functional assessment of spiritual groups and thereby avoid cultural bias. We can make a judgement based on how well the activities of a group and its leader are suited to its stated aims.    A careful study of the literature of the mystical traditions  — Vedantic, Taoist, Zen and Tibetan Buddhist, Sufic, Hasidic and that of the English and Spanish Catholic mystics, as well as the writings of such people as Jacob Boehme and Meister Eckhart  — shows that they share the same basic goal. Their diverse procedures represent different ways of reaching that goal, according to the type of people being taught and the culture in which the teaching is taking place. The aim of the mystical traditions is the development of the ability to perceive directly (intuitively) the reality that underlies the world of appearances, whatever that reality may be called. All the traditions agree that the primary requirement for the development of this capacity is that a person shift from a self‑centered orientation to one of serving the Truth. This service must be without concern for personal gain. As one saint put it:    O Lord! If I worship you from fear of hell, cast me into hell. If I worship you from desire for paradise, deny me paradise. 3   The shift away from self-centredness is not a matter of being virtuous but is a functional necessity. The type of consciousness we employ is that which is appropriate for our intention. Thus, self-preservation and acquisitive activity call for the "object mode" of consciousness featuring distinct boundaries, focal attention and logical thought, enabling one to act on the environment. In contrast, to receive, to take in, requires a shift to a different mode, one featuring diffuse attention, the dominance of the sensual over the formal and a blurring or merging of boundaries.4 The two modes of consciousness are different because they address different tasks. Thus, our consciousness is a function of our underlying intention, it adapts to our motivations, to our purpose. You can grasp a stone but to scoop water from a stream you need to cup your hand. Similarly, if you wish to perceive a world of connectedness, of unity, you cannot rely on the same mode of consciousness you use to attack or defend. For unitive perception, for that access to the spiritual domain, a selfless orientation is required in which the Truth is served for its own sake.    This selfless orientation is referred to in a variety of ways, depending on the tradition in question. For example, in the Upanishads it is referred to as "the purified heart"; in the Buddhist literature it is the attitude of "non-attachment". We might call it serving the task, rather than the self. To serve the task a carpenter might finish the underside of a chair out of a sense that it was called for, whether or not the carpenter gained anything from doing what was correct. Developing that selfless orientation requires years of the right kind of effort — there are no shortcuts. Although brief glimpses of the larger reality are possible to almost anyone without such development (as in the case of spontaneous mystical experiences), it is a different matter to establish such perception as the ongoing basis of one's actions in the world. To do so necessitates a long period of skillful work.   This fact, that enlightenment requires an enduring change in a person's motivations, has a number of interesting consequences. The most important is that "the secret protects itself”. No matter what you may say or do, if your underlying intention is selfish, and even if you are unaware that this is the case, no perception of the Truth is possible. It follows that a teacher cannot bestow the Truth on someone else. The capacity for the perception of the Truth must be developed  — there is no short cut. Teachers who imply that enlightenment is in their gift are frauds.    These requirements provide a basis for assessing both new religious movements and traditional ones as well. A genuine spiritual organization is run in such a way as to assist the student in making the shift from a self‑centred life to one that is centred in service. Almost all groups advocate service and their members will work long hours for a bare subsistence. However, at the same time self-centred emotions and desires may be stimulated.    An organization whose methods of operation enhance self‑centred intentions can be judged dysfunctional, no matter how much overt self‑sacrifice is demanded of its members. For example, the members of one quasi‑Christian group were told that if they left the Church they would be damned. In another group, members were told that terrible things had happened to people who had defected in the past. Fear for one's safety or fear of being damned is not the sort of motivation that promotes spiritual development.    Some groups make little use of fear but appeal directly to the members' greed. They maintain that only group members will receive the divine bliss that the leader can convey. Indeed, extensive use may be made of procedures that bring about dramatic alterations in consciousness and these unusual experiences are then interpreted as proof that "paradise" awaits faithful followers. Initiation into one Indian guru's group featured a procedure causing members to experience a bright white light in the center of the head. Other sensory experiences are induced, as well. These experiences are called "knowledge" and are interpreted as validating the claims and promises of the guru.    Sometimes it is not bliss that is promised but power. A well-known group advertised a series of meditation sessions that would enable participants to levitate! Such a group might do a good job of meeting other needs, but it is not actually engaged in spiritual development. Consequently there is no basis for its leader to claim the special status and authority of the enlightened spiritual teacher.    These examples are relatively crude, although very prevalent. There are more subtle behaviours indicating that a group is not really spiritual. Often one can see that considerable use is being made of flattery, of appeals to the members' vanity. It was common practice of recruiters for one organization to direct "love bombs" (lavishly bestowed attention and praise) toward potential converts. Lonely young people found them hard to resist. Most groups convey the message that the new member has shown marvellous spiritual discernment by joining them. The leader may be a potent dispenser of flattery, calling attention to converts' good qualities and promising great things to come. Indeed, attention alone may be enough to accomplish seduction, whether it is delivered in the form of praise or as a severe rebuke. Such appeals to egotistical concerns indicate the corrupt character of a group and its leader.    The manipulation of guilt is another sign that a group is spurious. Lifton has documented its central role in "thought reform" or "brainwashing". 5 Basically, it establishes a dependent, regressive relationship to the leader and group; the member tends to feel like a bad child.    Many groups rely heavily on indoctrination. We can understand the general problem of indoctrination procedures by remembering that real mystical schools are aiming at a type of development. Indoctrination is not development, it is substituting one belief system for another. If a group makes rise of the components of indoctrination it is a sure sign that its purposes are mundane. It is not hard to determine if this is the case because the principles of indoctrination are well known. They include: the arousal of guilt; group rejection alternating with group approval; repetition of accusations and dogma; restricted access to information; restricted privacy; and attacks on a person's previous affiliations and way of life.    When one surveys new religious movements as well as traditional religions, it is very striking how few are free from the components of indoctrination. This is in contrast to the mystical literature's emphasis on the need to acquire freedom from fixed assumptions and culturally derived beliefs about the self, God, causality, good and evil. Furthermore, indoctrination is antithetical to the expression of individuality and the mystical literature makes clear that individuality is crucial to the developmental process and must eventually manifest itself. A Hasidic anecdote relates that Rabbi Zusya on his deathbed told his assembled disciples:    "When I get to the world to come they will not ask me `Why were you not Moses?', they will ask me, `Why were you not Zusya?'” 6   Spiritual development requires the opposite of indoctrination: learning to discern how the perception of the world is influenced by egocentric thought and motivations. To the extent that groups employ indoctrination components they are not legitimate spiritual groups, no matter what other valuable functions they may perform. Accordingly, their leaders are not entitled to the authority claimed by genuine spiritual teachers, an authority that would otherwise render them immune from conventional criticism. This is an extremely important point because bogus leaders fall back on the argument of spiritual authority as justification for the most exploitive and destructive acts. Without relating a leader's behaviour to the requirements of spiritual development, there is no adequate reply to the argument.    It is because the leader's role is functional rather than magical that genuine spiritual teachers can be seen to obey implicit rules. Despite the general impression that great teachers indulge in any and all behaviour, careful attention to traditional teaching stories and anecdotes reveals that there are certain principles that are never violated. For example, I can recall no anecdote depicting a teacher ordering one student to harm another or condoning such an action. Nor are there examples of students being encouraged to compete for the teacher's attention. There are no examples of teachers entering into sexual relations with their students or enriching themselves with their money. All these examples have been common among current and past "spiritual" groups.    The reason why such examples are absent in authentic spiritual groups is that real teachers do not use their students to advance their own personal interests. In this matter the mystical literature is quite consistent and clear: a spiritual teacher does not have licence to exploit students in any way or for any cause ‑ the only legitimate basis for the teacher's actions is the advancement of the student along the spiritual path. This is not to say that larger purposes may not be served at the same time; indeed, such synchronous activity is said to be the norm but it is never at the expense of the student's development. The fact is, far from having unlimited licence, a genuine spiritual teacher obeys functional requirements that far exceed the restraints most people are accustomed to impose on themselves in the name of religion or common decency. The behaviour of many spiritual leaders is a travesty of the authentic situation. Utopian Aims    Some groups that do not have explicit spiritual goals speak in terms of rehabilitative and therapeutic aims (e.g. teaching convicts to be responsible, law-abiding or curing emotional problems) or the more general idea of self-development, of actualizing one's potential. These groups may promote themselves as an ideal society that provides its members with all they need to live and develop in a wholesome, satisfying and creative way. Here, too, we have the means for evaluating the authenticity and genuineness of such an organization and its leader by the use of functional criteria.    A good place to start is with Freud's definition of a healthy individual as someone who is reasonably able to work and to love. The simplicity of the definition is deceptive. For example, to be able to work a person must have sufficient impulse control to persevere until a given task is completed. It is also necessary that he or she be able to detach from emotions and fantasies to the extent necessary to perceive the task requirements accurately and carry them out. Furthermore, for the work to be satisfying it must in some way be expressive of individuality, even if that expression is in terms of the quality of the work rather than in some unique design or process. The ability to be individual, creative or innovative is not an automatic capacity of human beings. For some, it is achieved only after years of effort; for others, it never takes place.    The ability to love is also complex. We can understand that phrase to mean the capacity both for intimacy and for unselfish concern for another person. Intimacy is measured by the extent to which two people can be unguarded with each other, expressing their most personal feelings, thoughts, fantasies and wishes. To do this requires three things: 1) the capacity for trust; 2) a basically positive evaluation of oneself; and 3) sufficient acceptance of one's own thoughts, feelings and desires to be able to accept those of another without rejecting the other person or engaging in dis‑identification: "How could you possibly have such (childish, cruel, sexist, filthy, selfish, etc.) thoughts!" Unselfish concern requires the ability to set aside self‑protective and acquisitive strategies — and that is not easy. Thus, to work and to love is an achievement often requiring considerable learning and effort.    Despite the wide ground that Freud's definition covers, it is helpful to supplement it by looking at health from another perspective, that of autonomy. Autonomy is measured by the capacity to stand alone; it is the mark of adulthood. To stand alone means to be able to decide for oneself what one should and will do. It does not mean amorality or lawlessness but, rather, "the experience of being the author of the law you obey". 7 To have that experience, one must be willing to give up the idea that there are Big People to whom one looks (up) for answers and to whom one assigns responsibility and power. Autonomy exists only in an eye-level world. In contrast to autonomy, dependency is the readiness to structure one's relationships, both real and fantasised, on the model of parents and children. Although the dependent person is assumed to be the one who takes the role of the child, a person who plays the role of the parent is also participating in the fantasy and has not reached a sufficient stage of autonomy to give the fantasy up.   With these three functions in mind  — work, love and autonomy we are in a position to assess the validity of organizations that aim at competency in any or all of these areas. Just as in the case of spiritual groups, it is important that a prospective member be able to discriminate between effective and ineffective organizations. The least ill effect of the latter is to waste time and resources; the worst effect is to retard and damage the psychological growth of those participating in them. This is especially true of groups that set themselves up as utopian communities within which their members are expected to live their entire lives.    Many groups are successful in achieving improvement in the basic work skills of their members. They offer support, behavioural contracts, attention rewards from the leader, and a ready‑made work structure  — all of which contribute to the ability to carry out tasks and be productive. Indeed, since the work performed by the members is in most cases the source of income for the group and its leader, it usually receives top priority and may, in fact, be the only priority‑apart from recruitment  — no matter what else may be said to the contrary. Unfortunately for individuality, its expression through a member's work is not really necessary for the economic success of the group. Since individuality is also perceived as a threat to group cohesiveness, it is seldom encouraged.   Individuality requires autonomy and when it comes to achieving autonomy the requirements are more difficult than in the case of basic work skills. This is due to the fact that the very thing that is often most attractive to potential members ‑ a charismatic leader ‑ tends to accentuate dependency. When leaders exploit this situation by making promises of what they will bestow through their power or largesse, it is clear that autonomy is not likely to be achieved. Pressure towards conformity to group standards and ideals, inhibition of critical thinking and reliance on the magic of the leader are also factors working in the wrong direction. One of the common signs that the development of autonomy is being impeded rather than assisted is the aping of the leader in dress or manner. The basic difficulty here is that the authority of the group and the leader tends to be challenged by autonomous individuals and such confrontations are seldom welcomed. Despite these problems, it is possible for a group to enhance autonomy. If it does not inhibit or punish challenge and criticism, if it refuses to play parent to its members and if it discourages their magical expectations, it can help reach that goal. Otherwise, it is likely to be a hindrance.    The goal of intimacy is also not easy to attain. Because issues of trust are strongly based on earlier life experience, therapeutic processes are often required to bring about improvement in that area. Furthermore, the group and the leader must sanction the development and maintenance of strong emotional ties between members, "pair bonds", if members are to have the opportunity to learn how to be close. It is a fact, however, that the power of the leader and the sense of security of the group is diminished by strong pair formation because it sets up conflicting loyalties. This has been illustrated by those who managed to leave powerful exploitive cults. In many cases it was the competing needs of children or the love for a spouse that finally brought about the break with the group. Arranged marriages; the breaking of relationships by order of the leader or the group; pressure towards promiscuity or chastity; sexual relationships with the leader; interference with bonds to children and to parents  — all these are signs that individual intimacy is being sacrificed to increase the members' ties to the group and the leader. Since the group and the leader together constitute a parent‑child structure, neither adult intimacy nor autonomy are fostered by such policies but are impeded. In fact, what often takes place is a regression of psychosexual development.   From one point of view, this is not surprising. After all, for many converts the last thing they want is the complex demands of adult sexuality and true intimacy, to say nothing of real autonomy. The organization may function as a haven and the restricted relationships within the quasi-sibling group may well be a relief after the difficulties the members had been encountering prior to joining. That this is often the case is suggested by research that found that the fewer social ties a convert had before joining, the more likely that he or she would remain in the organization. 8    Of course, there is nothing wrong with a haven or a moratorium for people wishing to regroup their forces, heal their wounds or solve their personality problems before proceeding further with their lives. However, to be therapeutic a group must not only comfort, it must help resolve its members difficulties and move them further along the development path. Fixation at the level of a sibling group is non-­therapeutic. People leaving such ineffective or exploitive organizations are likely to be in the same developmental phase they were in at the time they joined  — only worse off because they are older and more out of step with the life of their contemporaries.    There are two further reasons why progress in the ability to be intimate does not take place in most religious, spiritual or New Age utopian groups. The first is that it requires therapeutic skill and experience to be able to uncover and clarify the barriers to intimacy that may exist in any one individual. Few people in such organizations have the necessary skill and it is rare for time to be given to formal psychotherapeutic activities. Secondly, resolving the conflicts that interfere with intimacy requires that the person become aware of transference reactions; that is, inappropriate feelings and attitudes derived from childhood relationships. These feelings tend to be experienced towards parental and sibling surrogates without the person being aware that that is what is taking place. To clarify such misperceptions requires that group members examine their attitudes toward the leader and towards the quasi-sibling group. Such an examination is likely to diminish the emotional bonds that maintain and contribute to the power of the leader and the organization. For this reason, authoritarian organizations are not usually advocates of psychotherapy.    Any organization that purports to be a complete or ideal society must be capable of providing the means for its members to progress in the areas of work, love and autonomy. Otherwise, the organization is functioning as a haven, nursery, business, or summer camp, but not as a society that enables its members to mature and make their individual contribution in the world. The fact that a small society may be economically successful and have many members does not make it ideal, spiritual, therapeutic or even harmless.    It must be acknowledged that no organization can be pure. No matter how skilled the leader, no matter how sincere the group members, human imperfection will manifest itself to some extent. Any group will tend to be exclusive and dependent; leaders are not omniscient and they all have distinct personalities. The spiritual traditions have been well aware that organizations in the world partake of its imperfections. Here is a story from the Sufi tradition that deals with this reality: The Celestial Apple    Ibn-Nasr was ill and, although apples were out of season, he craved one.    Hallaj suddenly produced one.    Someone said: "This apple has a maggot in it. How could a fruit of celestial origin be so infested?"    Hallaj explained:    "It is just because it is of celestial origin that this fruit has become affected. It was originally not so, but when it entered this abode of imperfection it naturally partook of the disease which is characteristic here".9   Human activity is always flawed. Nevertheless, there is a difference between an apple with a maggot in it and one that is rotten. A small area of imperfection can be isolated, it can be avoided and corrected. When corruption is pervasive the apple must be discarded. It is expected that whatever personality flaws a teacher may possess, they will not be allowed to interfere with the teaching activity; certainly not to determine it. Whenever inappropriate group behaviour occurs it is to be noted and eliminated. The important and obvious point is that the behaviour of the teacher and the group must contribute to achieving the stated goal.    These considerations make possible a preliminary judgement of a leader or of a group. Such a judgement need not be an esoteric matter but one that is possible to a sufficiently sophisticated observer. It is true that much of what a genuine spiritual teacher or a New Age leader/therapist might do could be quite incomprehensible or misunderstood by an outsider but the basic functional relationships I have outlined will hold and provide a basis for making a judgment:    Furthermore, there is no evading this assessment; indeed, we make judgments of groups all the time, whether we wish to or not. We decide whether to join or not to join, whether to support or to discourage, and it is necessary that we do so, both for ourselves and for others who look to us for guidance in these matters. As I discussed earlier, the unsatisfied hunger for spiritual fulfilment may take highly inappropriate forms and lead people to embrace organizations and leaders whose destructive activities can be extreme. In the case of less pernicious groups, precious time and resources are squandered and the person may be left with a barren and cynical outlook. For this reason alone it is necessary that we judge the legitimacy of a group and its leader.   Protection is not the only issue. If the mystics are correct, each of us has a need to develop our own capacity to perceive the fundamental nature of the reality in which we live and the self that is at the core of our being. Valid mystical schools exist to bring about that perceptual development. It is of considerable importance that we become able to detect the existence of genuine groups amid all the counterfeits so that progress in this area can be made.   The functional criteria I have presented permit at least a provisional assessment of spiritual and utopian organizations that is not heavily biased by the observer's social class, religion or political affiliation, because it makes use of criteria based on the spiritual literature itself, as well as on our psychodynamic understanding of individuals and groups. Since judge we must, we may as well judge skillfully, as befitting members of a culture in which our knowledge can provide a basis for our doing so.  -- Arthur Deikman REFERENCES 1. Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina (New York: W.W. Norton, 1970) p. 170. 2. Shah, Idries. The Sufis (London: The Octagon Press, 1982). 3. Shah, Idries. The Way of the Sufi (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co, 1970 and London: The Octagon Press, 1980) p. 219. 4. Deikman, Arthur. The Observing Self (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982) pp. 65–76. 5. Lifton, Robert. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (New York: Norton, 1963). 6. Buber, Martin. Tales of the Hasidim, Early Masters (New York: Schocken Books, 1947) p. 151. 7. Knight, Robert P. ‘Determinism, “freedom” and psychotherapy’. Psychiatry, 1946, 9, 251–262. 8. Galanter, Marc. ‘Psychological induction into the large group: Findings from a modern religious sect’. American Journal of Psychiatry, 1980, 137 (12). 9. Shah, Idries. The Way of the Sufi, p.256.

Alchemical Operations (II)

by Walter Lang (1976)



The material of the Egyptian Book of the Dead was said to be old already when it was assembled by Semti in the First Dynasty some five thousand years ago.


Perhaps due to the second law of thermodynamics (which may be as relevant in biology and psychology as it is in dynamics) the evolutionary ferment of Egyptian alchemy began to involve. Maybe the mechanism of its degeneration was a shift in the level of will from which it proceeded. An evolutionary technique would thus become increasingly enlisted for involutionary ends. Alchemy, God-orientated, would become magic, self-dedicated. Such would be the dying Egypt against which Moses inveighed.


As always, however, knowledge of the technique was compressed; a torch was lit; an ark was launched. Before Egypt became totally submerged in idolatry, the Great Secret was transmitted.


The seeds of alchemy were scattered. Some fell on good ground and flourished; some fell on stony ground and died.


Egypt seems to have sown chiefly in Greece and Israel, perhaps also in China.



Strange as the idea may be, Greece appears to have made less of her chances than she might. The Glory That Was Greece may have been a poor shadow of the Glory That Might Have Been.



Also, Greece stood to Rome as parent to offspring, and Rome proved to be a delinquent child and a degenerate adult in the community of human cultures. The plant of alchemy flowered only briefly in Greece and the seeds that blew to Rome never germinated at all.



The transmission from Egypt to Israel was initially one of great promise but again the promise was not realized. Whether wilting of the plant in Israel was due to the Dispersion or whether the Dispersion was a consequence of the Jewish failure to manage their alchemical inheritance, is not known. The Elders of Jewry at any rate were unable to find conditions within which their inheritance could be brought to its full actualization.



To ensure its survival in some measure, they were obliged to compromise dangerously. They externalized some of it in the Zohar and maintained a small initiated inner circle. It may be that this circle, very greatly depleted, survived in Europe in isolated pockets like Cracow until the thirties of the present century.



While Greece sowed abortively in Rome during her lifetime, she also sowed posthumously—and successfully in Arabia. Here the alchemical energy chanelled through the esoteric schools of Islam and through exceptional individuals like Jabir externalized in the veritable explosion of Mohammedan art and science of the eighth to twelfth centuries.



The wave of Islam's expansion reached Spain where two streams appear to have joined up. In Seville and Granada there were initiated Jews who carried the Egyptian transmission. They met Arab initiates who carried the Greek transmission and the latter were perhaps reinforced from a permanent powerhouse from which all evolutionary operations are directed.



If it is true that some 'beads of mercury* were reunited through Mohammed, two more were reunited in Spain. Out of this confluence grew a very large part of the whole of Western civilization which we have inherited and whose origin hardly one man in a million has ever suspected in seven centuries.



The current which flowed from the beads of mercury which were reunited in Spain flowed into an immense invisible force field over Europe. The nature of this noumenal structure can never be glimpsed and its functions in a higher dimension cannot even be imagined. It externalized into the common life in a series of culture components which in aggregate constitute a large part of Western civilization.



A selection of these factors at random would include the Christian pilgrimage (based on the form established by the Cluniacs to St. James of Compostella); the Crusades; Heraldry; the orders of chivalry (cheval-ry: from the horse as a glyph of the alchemical 'volatile'?); castle architecture; the Gothic cathedrals; illumination and embroidery, the Troubadours, Albigenses, Cathars and Minne-sanger; the Courtly Romances; the Arthurian Quest Theme (reuniting the Celtic pre-Christian Grail Quest); the Cult of the Virgin in Catholicism; the theological philosophy of Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas; the cosmology of Bacon; the devotional systems of St. Francis, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa; the Wandering Players, Jester, harlequinades and Mystery Plays; specialized dancing; falconry and certain ball games; Free-masonry and Rosicrucianism; gardening (the Spanish Gardens); playing cards; die Language of the Birds concept; the Craft Guilds; archery; some medicine like immunology (Paracelsus) and homoeopathy, and cybernetics (Raymond Lully).   All the foregoing were the externalized forms of a major alchemical operation at an invisible level. Only one aspect however, that of chemical alchemy, used the terminology which has been subsequently identified with the word.



For some hundreds of years alchemy existed in Europe as a real science of transformation at many levels. At one level it was concerned with the ultimate transformation of human souls.



Perhaps because Christianity had rejected the wisdom component of its total revelation—a decision in which Constantine was probably crucial—alchemy, being concerned with the totality, had to operate in disguise. Precisely because orthodox religion was defective in the wisdom component, any modality which contained it was, ipso facto, heresy.



The genuine Christian alchemists—estimated to number four thousand between 1200 and 1656—readopted a chemical code which had served in similar circumstances in the past. A certain principle of nature (rendered in the codex attributed to Hermes, 'as above, so below') ensured that the alchemical process at its hidden level could be represented with full integrity by the terminology of a lower discipline. This lower discipline—metallic chemistry—was all that the common fife of Europe ever understood by the word alchemy.



Since Jung's work in alchemy began to infiltrate modern psychology, alchemy as a 'mental' or at any rate a non-physical process, has become a fashionable acceptance. Typical of the 'reductionist' attitudes of the twentieth century is the current belief that alchemy has now been explained. It is 'nothing but' an early and crude study of psychology and perhaps of ESP. Dazzled by the success of science in providing a label for everything, few have bothered to inquire whether the aphorism of Hermes 'as above, so below' might not require a process valid at mental level to be equally valid at physical level.



A label has been affixed, and therefore the mystery is no more. No-one, it seems, notices any conflict between the Jungian 'psycho-logical interpretation' and the documented historical record of men like Helvetius and the Cosmopolite (Alexander Seton?) who demonstrably did make tangible yellow twenty-two carat gold. That which is above is as that which is below' might never have been written.



Throughout the whole European record of Alchemy, its genuine practitioners appear to have been under certain obligations which may in fact apply to 'artists' in the Work of every age. It seems that they are required to leave behind them some thread which those who come after may use as a guide line across the web of Ariadne. The indications provided must be in code and the code must be self cancelling; that is, an inquirer who does not possess the first secret must be infallibly prevented from discovering the second. 'Unto him that hath . . .' is nowhere better exemplified than in the attempt to study alchemical texts.



Given that the inquirer knows the first secret, search and unceasing labour may wrest from the code, the next step following but the searcher will need to have made progress in his own personal practice before he is able to unravel a further step. Thus the secret protects itself.



In the course of his work the alchemist may come to understand that certain familiar legends have a wholly new, practical and unsuspected meaning. He may suddenly discover what Abraham was required to sacrifice and why; what the star in the East really heralds; what the Cross may symbolize; and why the veil of the Temple was rent.



The strictly alchemical aspect of The Great Work has been quiescent in Europe for about three centuries but rare and exceptional individuals still find their way through the maze—perhaps by making contact with a source outside Europe—and achieve one or other of the degrees of the Magnum Opus.



Few such instances come to the knowledge of the outside world but one exception to the general rule is the case of the modem alchemist who has come to be known as Fulcanelli.



In the early 'twenties, a French student of alchemy, Eugene Canseliet was studying under the man now known as Fulcanelli. One day the latter charged Canseliet with the task of publishing a manuscript—and then disappeared.



The manuscript was the now famous Mystere des Cathedrales and its publication caused a sensation in esoteric circles in Europe. From internal evidence the author was a man who had either completed, or was on the brink of completing, the Magnum Opus. Interest in such an individual, among those who knew what was involved, was enormous.



For nearly half a century, painstaking research has gone on in an effort to trace the vanished Master. Repeated attempts by private individuals to pick up the trail—and on at least one occasion by an international Intelligence agency—have all ended in a blank wall of silence.



To most, the conclusion seemed inescapable: Fulcanelli, if he ever existed, must be dead.



One man knew better—Fulcanelli's former pupil Canseliet. After a lapse of many years, Canseliet received a message from the alchemist and met him at a pre-arranged rendezvous. The reunion was brief for Fulcanelli once again severed contact and once again disappeared without leaving a trace of his whereabouts.



One circumstance of the reunion was very remarkable—and in an alchemical sense of the highest significance. Fulcanelli had grown younger. Canseliet has told the present writer: The Master' (when Canseliet had worked with him) was already a very old man but he carried his eighty years lightly. Thirty years later, I was to see him again, as I have mentioned, and he appeared to be a man of fifty. That is to say, he appeared to be no older than I was myself'.


One other possible appearance of the mysterious master alchemist is reported by the French researcher Jacques Bergier.



While working as assistant to Andre Helbronner, the noted physicist who was later to be killed by the Nazis, Bergier was approached one day by an impressive individual who asked Bergier to pass on to Helbronner a strange—and highly knowledgeable— warning. This was to the effect that orthodox science was on the brink of manipulating nuclear energy.



The stranger said it was his duty to warn that this same abyss had been crossed by humanity in the past with disastrous consequences. Knowing human nature, he had no hope that such a warning would have any effect but it was his duty to give it. The mysterious stranger then left. Bergier is convinced to this day that he was in the presence of Fulcanelli.  



Treatises have been written to prove that Fulcanelli was a member of the former French Royal Family, the Valois; that he was the painter Julien Champagne; that he was this or that occultist.



Not a few were driven to the conclusion that Fulcanelli was a myth and that no such person had ever existed. This theory is a little difficult to sustain in view of the existence of Mystere des Cathedrales. This work is authoritatively accepted as the work of a man who had gone far—very far—in the practice of alchemy.




The myth theory is also untenable against the testimony of Canseliet. In September 1922, in a laboratory at Sarcelles and in the presence of the painter Julien Champagne and the chemist Gaston Sauvage, Canseliet himself made an alchemical transmutation of 100 grammes of gold using a minute quantity of the Powder of Projection given to him by his teacher. Thus there is a European, alive at the present time, who personally testifies not only to the existence of Fulcaneli but to the veridical nature of an event which modern science regards as an absurd myth. Legend has it that this transmutation took place 'in a gasworks'. The account seems the plainest possible statement of a purely physical event. Alchemists, however, warn repeatedly that when their descriptions seem plainest the camouflage factor is highest. The alerted reader will certainly consider here that a gasworks is a site where a volatile substance is produced from a heavy mineral and will recall that alchemy is a process of 'separating the fine from the gross'.



In being allowed to perform an alchemical operation with energy lent him by another, Canseliet thus joins a remarkable band of privileged—and perhaps bewildered—people who through history have recorded the same experience. These include Johann Schweitzer (whose experience was investigated by Spinoza) Professor Dienheim of Fribourg in 1602 and Christian II Elector of Saxony, in the following year.



But for all practical purposes Fulcanelli has vanished as though he never existed. Only his contributions to the literature of alchemy remains, Mystere des Cathedrales.



It has long been believed that the Gothic cathedrals were secret textbooks of some hidden knowledge; that behind the gargoyles and the glyphs, the rose windows and the flying buttresses, a mighty secret lay, all but openly displayed.



This is no longer a theory. Given that the reader of Mystere des Cathedrales has even begun to suspect the first secret, Fulcanelli's legacy is at once seen as an exposition of an incredible fact: that, wholly unsuspected by the profane, the Gothic cathedrals have for seven hundred years offered European man a course of instruction in his own possible evolution.



About one thing it seems impossible to have any doubt. The unknown who wrote Mystere des Cathedrales KNEW. Fulcanelli speaks as one having authority. By pointing to a glyph in Notre Dame or a statue in Amiens and relating an unknown sculptor's work to some ancient or modem text, Fulcanelli is indicating steps in a process he has himself been through.



Like all who truly KNEW, from Hermes through Geber and the Greek and Arab artists to Lully, Paracelsus and Flamel, Fulcanelli masks and reveals in equal measure and like all before him, he is wholly silent on the initial step of the practice.



But in his method of repeatedly underlining certain words and perhaps in some curious sentences on the rose windows, he suggests, as explicitly as he dares, the mightiest secret that man may ever discover.



*Behold,' said Boehme, 'he will show it to you plain enough if you be a Magus and worthy, else you shall remain blind still.'




-- from the Introduction to Fulcanelli's Le Mystere des Cathedrales.

Alchemical Operations (I)

by Walter Lang (1976)




TWO UNIVERSES: the universe of science and the universe of alchemy.



To the scientist, alchemy is a farrago of medieval nonsense which enlightened materialist method has rightly consigned to the discard.

To the alchemist, the scientific universe is no more than an abstraction from a much greater whole.

Behind science, says the alchemist, there is Science. All unsuspected, except by a negligible few in every age, there exists a technology of noumena as superior to the technology of phenomena as a supernova is to a candle flame.  


To the alchemist, all the phenomena of the universe are combinations of a single prime energy inaccessible to ordinary senses. Only a minute cross section of the total cosmic spectrum is 'bent' by the senses and so rendered tangible. Science has defined this minute abstraction as its total concern and is therefore condemned to turn endlessly inside a nutshell of its own making, learning ever more and more about less and less.


Since alchemists are popularly regarded as at best deluded and at worst deranged, a claim that alchemy is not only science but Science, not only a religion but Religion, is apt to be dismissed out-of-hand as derisory.


The scientific standpoint begins by being consistent. Man has certain senses and he has developed extensions of his senses which he calls instruments. So equipped, he investigates the universe around him—and occasionally—the universe inside himself.


As there is no sensory evidence for any other kind of universe, why drag one in? Dragging in hypotheses which are unnecessary to explain encountered facts is an affront to the principle of Occam's Razor and therefore to scientific good sense.


In so far as any discipline is entitled to define its own concerns, this is entirely legitimate. What is not so tenable is to imply that because science has selected one possible universe, the universe of fact, and has been superbly successful in charting it, no other universe can possibly exist. Science, to be fair, does not exactly say this but it is very happy to see the implication accepted.


The situation is really the Plato's cave allegory one stage up. In Plato's cave, the shadow men live in a seemingly logical world. To them, a more solid world, and one inhabited by men with real eyesight, is a hypothesis unnecessary to explain the shadow world they five in. The shadow men say in effect: 'We know nothing of this superior world you talk about and we don't want to know. We have our own terms of reference and we find them satisfactory. Please go away.'


This is precisely the attitude of modern materialist science to alchemy: 'In terms of the universe we measure and know, your supposed universe is nonsense. Therefore we have no hesitation in asserting with complete confidence that your ideas are delusional.'   In effect: 'No case, abuse the plaintiff's counsel.'

But is there no case? For some thousands of years, some of the best intellects of all cultures have been occupied with the ideas of alchemy. Weighed solely on statistical probability, does it seem likely that an entirely imaginary philosophy should attract ceaseless generations of men?


The impasse is worse than it need be because of an almost accidental factor. Alchemy, so far as science has heard, is concerned with making gold and such an activity is so associated with human credulity, cupidity and unscience generally that ordinary philosophy begs to be excused from involvement in anything so obviously puerile.


Is alchemy concerned with making gold? Only in a specific case within a total situation. Alchemists are concerned with gold in much the same way that Mesmer was concerned with hypnotism. The twentieth century took a single aspect of 'Mesmerism', truncated even that, and used the fragment for its own egoistic ends. It declared that it had investigated Mesmerism, exposed its ridiculous pretentions and rendered what was left 'scientific'.

Goethe has a word for this process:
 
Wer will was Lebendiges beschreiben und erkennen, Sucht erst den Geist hinaus zu treiben. Dann hat er, zwar, die Teile in der Hand, Fehlt leider nur das geistige Band.

  Truly science drives out the spirit from the whole and proudly displays the separate bits. Dead, all dead.

 
If alchemy isn't gold making, what is it? Wilmshurst has deemed it as 'the exact science of the regeneration of the human soul from its present sense-immersed state into the perfection and nobility of that divine condition in which it was originally created'.


However, he immediately goes on to offer a second definition which clearly implies that, as with gold making, soul-making is again only a specific case. By inference, a general theory of alchemy might be ventured. Alchemy is a total science of energy transformation.  



The action of an Absolute in differentiating a prime-source substance into a phenomenal universe is an operation in alchemy. The creation of galactic matter from energy and the creating of energy from matter is alchemy. God is an alchemist.
The decay of radium into lead with the release of radioactivity is alchemy. Nature is an alchemist.
The explosion of a nuclear bomb is alchemy. The scientist is now an alchemist.
All such energy transformations are fraught with great danger and the secrecy which has always surrounded Hermeticism is concerned with this aspect among others.
Nuclear energy was undoubtedly foreseen thousands of years ago. Chinese alchemists are said to have told their pupils that not even a fly on the wall should be allowed to witness an operation. 'Woe unto the world,' they said, 'if the military ever learn the Great Secret.'
The Military have learned the great secret—or at any rate one specific aspect of it—and woe indeed to the world, for in the arrogant alchemy of nuclear science there is no place for Goethe's geistiges Band.


But if it has taken Western technology so long to uncover a single aspect of the subject, how is it that Bronze Age Egypt and Pythagorean Greece reputedly knew the whole science? Here even the most guarded speculation must seem outrageous.


Materialist science is content—or was until very recently—to suppose that life began as an accident and that once the accident happened, all subsequent steps in evolution would, or at any rate could, follow as the mechanical consequence of the factors initially and subsequently present. Perhaps the process was improbable but it was possible.


Recent consideration however, appears to show that by its intrinsic nature, chance expressly excludes such a possibility.


For evolution to take place, there is required at every step a shift away from less-organization towards more-organization. The mechanistic view asserts that this enhancement of organization, this negative entropy, could be progressively established from the mechanical consolidation of favourable' variations. Recent work in applying mathematical theory to biology suggests that there is a very big hole indeed in this particular bucket.

Even if an increase in order arises fortuitously, this accidental shift must survive if it is to be built upon by the next similar accident. But its survival is by no means assured. Indeed it appears to be vulnerable to collapse in proportion to its achievement.


Even in the case of primitive life forms and certainly in higher life forms, the number of possible combinations present at every stage is enormous—so enormous as to require that entropy must always increase at the expense of chance arisings in the contrary direction.*


Statistically, evolution could not happen. As it demonstrably did happen, it must have done so not merely against probability but actually against the possibilities present in a closed system. The conclusion seems unavoidable: the evolutionary process was not a closed system.


By extension, evolution and its present end-product, man, must have been contrived by forces outside the system (the biosphere) in which it occurred. Such an operation, involving the conscious manipulation of energy levels, may be taken as an operation in alchemy.


Whether the 'artist' who accomplished this great work was a single Intelligence or a consortium of Intelligences seems immaterial: but the myths and classical traditions of demigods is in the highest degree suggestive.


If it is an acceptable proposition that man was the result of a carefully contrived alchemical operation by Higher Powers is it not at least possible that he was given, in addition to consciousness, an insight into the transformation technique that produced him? On this assumption, modern man might have, in his own subconscious, fragmentary data which exceptional individuals could recover and assemble into a technology of alchemy. Inevitably such men would be aware of other men who had made the same immense leap and such groups would combine to create schools of alchemy.


 There are other theories. One of the most arcane of human traditions suggests that the humanity of our Adam was not the earth's first human race. Some very advanced alchemists have hinted at a range of previous humanities in excess of thirty. If this is the true but wholly unsuspected history of our planet, much knowledge may have been selectively accumulated span of existence which imagination is inadequate even to visualize.


At each successive apocalypse, an ark would go out, encapsuling not only the germ plasm necessary to found the next humanity but with it also, some vehicle, some psychological micro-dot, containing the totality of accumulated knowledge.


On this assumption the technique of alchemy would have reached us as a transmission from ancestors whose existence we do not even suspect.


A third possibility is that the Master Alchemists who made man in a solar laboratory have an interest in yet another transformation: the alchemization of man into planetary spirit. Their work may not yet be done. On this assumption, isolated scraps of suitable material would from time to time be selected for further processing in a solar alembic.


The base metal in this case would consist of exceptional human beings and since they would be at the level of incipient conscious energy, they would co-operate in their own transformation.


Whether any, or a combination of all these possibilities is the explanation of the presence of alchemy throughout human history, it is clear that alchemy existed at the dawn of the human story we know.



* The difficulties inherent in any theory of 'fortuitous' evolution have been indicated by a number of distinguished specialists, among them Professor H. E. Blum (Form and Structure in Science, 1964 and in Nature Vol. 206, 1965) and by Maurice Vernet (The Great Illusion of Teilhard de Chardin). The mathematical and philosophical arguments against the arising of man by the accumulation of accidental increases in order—that is, by mechanical evolution—are developed with great power by J. G. Bennett in The Dramatic Universe (London 1966). These arguments contribute to his unified theory in which man is seen as the work of high (but limited) Intelligences.




-- from the Introduction to Fulcanelli's Le Mystere des Cathedrales