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Creating Bridges: The Spiritual & Philosophical
T eachings from the Western Mystery Traditions:
The Esoteric "Paths of Return"

Alchemy: The Great Opus

by Jacquelyn Small
The process of becoming more evolved and expanded is known as spiritual alchemy, a refinement or purification process each of us on "the path" will undergo every time we make a leap in consciousness. Alchemy functions as a chemical process for the inner life that "separates the wheat from the chaff" or takes the "dross" of our earthly experiences and refines it into the "pure gold" of spiritual qualities. In this manner we soul becomes substantial, or real-ized, in the world of the mundane, while the ego becomes more and more transparent and light-hearted. With more understanding of this amazing inner process, perhaps our transformation will gentle down.


The Hermetic alchemists placed the highest value on Love. The subject who is being transformed becomes the object of Love. We become the real essence of The Beloved. More and more we put off the limited ego and take on the qualities of God. We learn to do this, not all at once, but by gradations. These are usually known as Initiations.


In the alchemical process, that which rises as "steam" through the "cooking" we undergo in the heart is the soul rising into the higher regions, while the ego dying to its personalistic demands. When we do this inner work in alignment with our true nature, the supernatural becomes natural; there is no longer any difference: Nature - and our nature -- is raised to divinity. We know that we are living a higher life, because we can look upon things with a higher viewpoint. We have learned to "turn lead into gold." We always must regulate our intention to that which we truly desire to produce. We follow the parable that "grapes are not gathered from thistles...." and we1ll stay true.


Living within the Tension of the Opposites

The alchemical psychic operations balance all opposites within us. Desire is the root of all our affects. Desire is love and love is desire. However, our desires will always manifest themselves in pairs. For example joy corresponds to a desire fulfilled; sorrow, to one that is thwarted. Fear is the opposite of hope.


All opposites come and go with time. And we must be careful to notice all desires, high or low -- to not judge them, but to let them show us to what we are attached. This is how the alchemist1s work differs from the moralist1s. When two opposites -- love/hate, pleasure/pain, body/spirit -- are active within us, an alchemical function is taking place. We say, "I am cooking." We1ll learn from our own experience that the love for the transitory will defeat us. If we1ll stay with it, and learn to desire the everlasting, through consciousness we will eventually arrive at a "third and higher thing." In the Bhagavad Gita (II, 23 ff.) we are taught that he who can bear the opposites of pain and pleasure with equanimity, who learns to rise above this agitation, is ripening for immortality:


"Swords cut him not, fire burns him not,
Water wets him not, nor does the wind wither him.
Not to be cut, not to burn, not to get wet, not to be withered,
He is constant, above everything, continuous, eternal, immovable."


Our living process in this world is designed so as to unify these opposites, containing types of experiences and realizations that have the effect of waking the soul, making it aware of itself. In this manner we gain wisdom and become loving individuals. For this purpose alone have we come into this world!


But unfortunately, we get here and we get lost, forgetting we came to learn the ways of this world. We become diverted into pleasure-seeking and enjoying the outer things and forget what we were to strive for. To withdraw our desire nature from outer transitory objects, we must seek after inner ideals. By focusing upon a high ideal, we give it a nucleus to build something new around and we water it with our own life force. In this "magic," a new aspect of the Self is formed.


There will always be seven stages to any alchemical process, though we can order them differently if we choose. These will be:

Calcination - the body is the Cause where the water is retained.

This is a process of heating to drive off all watery emotions. When this process activates, the soul vaporizes to escape the denseness of our ego1s defenses, and all presumptuousness and false power are burned up, sublimated to humiliation in the face of the ego1s true authority, the Self.


Sublimation - the water is the Cause where oil is preserved so that it will not ignite into fire.

Here a solid is heated and passes into a gaseous state and ascends to the top of its container. There it re-solidifies when "cooled." This is the psychic process that volatizes and elevates matter. We rise above our conditions and see them with no investment.


Dissolution - oil is the Cause that retains the tincture.

During this stage we are required to humbly submit and stand within our pain. The play of the opposites holds sway while we swing back and forth between the right and wrong, the highs and lows of a situation until we know both sides equally. A swollen ego is dissolved by its own excesses.


Mortification - the tincture is the Cause of colors appearing.

This process is experienced as defeat or failure; it is brought on by some circumstance outside us. When this hits, we enter the cave, go into the blackness, and we die. We are killing off some desire or attachment so we can move to a more inclusive state.

Distillation - color is the Cause of showing the white.

Here, the opposites that had been so entwined will separate off from each other, making room so the truth can be seen on each side. Once we understand how both sides function, the tension dissolved from holding these opposites apart, and the issue is no longer an issue.


Coagulation - the white is the Cause that keeps the volatile thing in a state of steadiness.

Our egos dissolve and coagulate over and over as we ascend up the evolutionary ladder. We must continue to be made into something solid to operate in this world. Through this process, we begin to trust the process of death and rebirth.


Tincturing - the thing is no longer volatile; it is transmuted.

This is the unification stage also known as conjunction. It is the culmination of the Great Opus, the mystical marriage of the inner male and female principle. The personality and its shadow become one. And on a higher level, the ego and the soul marry. All one-sidedness is rectified and we are in a state of wholeness.


So these are the energies of the archetype, Transformation, as explained in alchemical terms.


The true spiritual alchemist is always ethical on all levels of reality. What is to be sewn in the new world is Love; a crop of new Love is to arise. And with Love the new world will be saturated and Love1s laws will hold forth. Let's all hold this vision!
And always remember that this transformative process necessitates great persistence and willingness to "own one1s stuff." In the life of the seeker of truth, states of Love and aspiration for God will always alternate with feelings of spiritual helplessness and times of barrenness. So from morning to evening, everyday, we must pursue with the remembrance that we are already connected to this higher knowledge desiring to manifest here on earth, through each one of us.






Jacquelin Small,
Spiritualist, Clairvoyant Psychologist

JACQUELYN SMALL, LMSW, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in human psychology and clinical social work. She is a licensed non-denominational minister and a licensed psychotherapist who works with both spiritual and psychological concerns.


Jacquelyn is a popular presenter and consultant in academic settings, new-thought churches and new paradigm conferences and mental health settings, known for her easy-going, self-disclosing, humorous style of intimate relating with her audiences.


She has a long history in addiction counselor training, consulting and counseling, and trains all kinds of health professionals in the emerging field of spiritual psychology. She is one of the teachers who has been selected by Unity Church for their national TV ministry. She served as the Director of Training for the Texas Commission on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse for nine years, and served on the adjunct faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Stanford, California for four years.


Jacquelyn has authored eight books about soul-based psychology and the process of personal transformation, some of which have become classics in the counseling and consciousness fields. She is represented by the Tom Grady Agency. She has many audio tapes as well through Eupsychia's publishing company, Eupsychian Press.


Her published books are:

* Becoming Naturally
Therapeutic (Bantam)

* Transformers, the
Artists of Self-Creation
(DeVorss & Co.)

* Awakening in Time
(Eupsychian Press)

* Embodying Spirit (HarperSanFrancisco
/Eupsychian)

* Rising to the Call with
co-author Mary Yovino (DeVorss & Co.)

*Becoming a Practical Mystic (Quest Books)

* Psyche's Seeds-The 12 Sacred Principles of Soul-Based Psychology (Tarcher/Putnam
/Penguin)


Jacquelyn is a regular columnist for Science of Mind Magazine and is featured often in other magazines. Among the many conferences and programs for which Jacquelyn has keynoted or presented programs, include:


*The Association for Humanistic Psychology

* Association for Transpersonal Psychology

* Omega Institute
including their Body &
Soul Conferences

*Tracor and Texaco, Inc.

* Church of Religious Science Annual
Conference

*Great Lakes Addiction Conference

*Whole Life Expo

*The College of William & Mary's Annual Addictions Conference

* Most major universities
in the United States

*U.S. Department of Heath, Education and Welfare

* Omega Institute's
Body & Soul Conferences

*New Age Magazine's Bahama Teaching Cruise
The ConferenceWorks!


She has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, America's Talking, Wisdom Television and Radio, New Dimensions Radio, NPR's People's Pharmacy and a CNN's series on Alternative Healing and continues to make regular guest appearances for radio and television.


Jacquelyn Small serves on the Advisory Board of the International Psychosynthesis Association, the National Council on Codependence, and The Holistic Alliance of Professional Practitioners, Entrepreneurs and Networkers, Inc.


She is the Founding Director of Eupsychia (pronounced u-si'-ki-a) Institute which means "good psyche" or "well being" in Greek, a not-for-profit professional training and healing program in Soul-Based Psychology and Integrative Breathwork. With her staff of dedicated, experienced spiritual therapists, she conducts workshop intensives throughout North America on a regular basis.




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