Introduction
Welcome! Here, we have the best guess of an alchemist trying to make some sense of chaos. How foolish. This particular person thinks they know a thing or two about alchemy. So, they gave an honest effort at explaining centuries of ancient alchemy using some hip and cool buzzwords to make sense to modern minds. This work was written by a lunatic, for lunatics. As we all dance through the hallucinogenic world of being, here is the map to one particular psyche. We must observe this lunatic with a critical lens. Do not believe everything they say to be true and final. Be warned! Everything in this book is up for careful consideration and introspection before jumping into conclusions. We must all keep an eye out for Dogma. This careful compilation will attempt to open your mind to new perspectives, questions, and challenges to ask yourself.
This is going to hurt. If you are not ready to face the rebirth process, consider putting this book down for a considerable amount of time. Then, in twenty years, pick this book back up and try again. By this point in life, every single aspect of yourself will be completely different from when you previously considered this book. Maybe now you will be ready to face the complete disassembly and reimagining of your entire being. If you’re still not ready, gently place this book on your coffee table indefinitely. It will make for a beautiful decoration piece. May your grandchildren inherit this book and follow in your footsteps, by using this book for decor purposes only. Now that the lunatic has explained themself, we can go onto the madness with a clear expectation.
Chapter 1: Prime Materia (What are you?)
Everything that has happened up until this point has shaped you into what you are right now. Please define what you are right now_____________________.
While you linger on this empty space and have zero understanding about how to answer this question, think simultaneously: Why am I asking this? What answer do I want out of you? Then proceed to disregard these questions in your mind because you have no means of asking me this directly. You are reminded this is a workbook, not a lecture. But, since you so kindly asked, I’ll answer. I want the answer that shows you what you are. If at any point this book angers, frustrates, or upsets you. I want you to remember this moment and understand that I am simply the guide. This is your life and your fill in the blank, how did you get here? What are you?
To assist answering this question, allow me to point you to some areas to reflect on:
What is the summary of your life up until this point? Keep this as simple as possible.
If you feel uncomfortable condensing your extremely complicated life into a simple summary, good! This is a resistance to oversimplification.
Ask yourself about everything that has led up until now. What have you become with all of these experiences, traumas, imprints, and so on. What have you learned, tried, spoken, found out, thought about, almost, then did, then regretted, then accepted and embraced. What have you become?
If you don’t like where this is going, keep going. If you like where this is going, stop and consider if you’re painting too idealized of an image of yourself. Are things truly as they seem, or could something bigger be at play here? Regardless of how you feel about it, what you are right now is true. This isn’t your final form, this isn’t permanent. What you are right now is simply what is. It is the state that is what it is, and isn’t what it’s not. You are what you are, not because it was anyone’s fault, it’s just what happened.
Now that you know What You Are, or at least have an idea of it. Let’s find out What’s Inside of What You Are.
Chapter 2: Calcination (What is burning?)
What is burning? What is deep in your soul, mind, heart, that keeps calling out? Gnashing and screaming for attention. Begging to be listened to. What is being thrown into the fire without a second thought? What is the call for change that feels white hot and painful? Scalding your mind and nerves each time you feel that all the same burning. What is trapped in a burning building but you won’t go through the pain to bring it to safety?
It is sharp, it bites back, it is the flash of sweat when you awake from a nightmare. It feels like gripping your hand so tight around a pencil before it snaps into pieces and you are disgusted with yourself. The fleeting anger that crosses your words before they almost slip past the teeth security. What is almost making you risk everything for a chance to be seen? To be heard? Finally told that everything is okay now? What is wrong with being so mindlessly happy? Why not numb the pain forever and escape facing what you are? Why aren’t you happy pretending everything is okay when it isn’t?
For further information, ask What Is Burning? What Is Burning should be able to point you in the right direction. It is located at the base of your spine, speak to the front desk on the first floor and ask to speak to What Is Burning? If the room is on fire, seek emergency services by using your phone to answer an email you’ve been meaning to get back to. Then stare at the floor for a moment before remembering what you opened your phone for, and then snap back when you remember it was to call for emergency services. Realize the fire is out already, and brush it off as a lucky coincidence. Now that the fire is out, assess what you were unable to save due to your mindless neglect. Frozen in flames are the ashes of previous ambitions, suppressed expression, and most painfully, your hopes and dreams. How could you be so reckless? If only when you smelled something burning, you asked What Is Burning?
Pour the ashes into water to see what they become, this is the only thing to do with ashes now that What Could Have got badly burned. It’s okay though, we all leave food in the oven for way too long sometimes. Just be sure to get up and respond the next time you smell something burning.
Now that you see the ashes, can you see What Is Burning?
Chapter 3: Dissolution (What is dissolving?)
What is dissolving? You put the ashes into a bowl of water. Watching the ashes fall gently to the bottom, float around arbitrarily, you feel calmer. It's weird looking at a bowl of ashes and water. What are you doing? You’re just making a mess at this point. What good is putting what remains of What Could Have into the waters of Now What? You watch the water become a new color, what color is this?
Confused and lost? Go to the second floor, by the reproductive organs, and ask for What Is Dissolving? If the room contains a circle of people sitting together in a meeting, find a seat and quietly listen. Each person one by one cries and cries, no one has said anything but each one takes their turn crying for a period of time, before the next person picks up where they left off. You have a feeling your turn is coming up, the welling up of emotions inside you. It’s your turn, let it all out. You don’t have to say anything, nobody else is. You cry longer than the others, they stand up and give you a large, interconnected hug. A smile breaks out in contagion, starting with you, spreading to everyone in the group.
A long time spent without Dissolving can lead to side effects of numbness, headaches, loss of connection, loss of empathy, not crying during sad movies, not caring about others feelings, losing relationships due to callousness, invulnerability, invincibility, strength that inevitably crumbles, the loss of all you fought hard to never lose. Call your doctor if you experience any of these side effects and schedule a visit to artificially induce crying because you won’t let yourself anymore.
You wonder when this stopped being a fill in the blank workbook.
Did you find What Is Dissolving? I can’t see it anymore, it must have Dissolved.
Chapter 4: Separation (What is yours?)
Remember that embarrassing thing you said and everyone was thinking about how terrible you are? I sure don’t. Are you sure you aren’t just making all this up in your head? The author says while making all of this up in their head. Your perception matters, just not as much as you think.
What is yours? And What isn’t yours? What’s mine isn't going to matter to you, you don’t care about what's mine unless you love me or want something to gain for yourself. So, the typical stranger isn’t going to care about What Is Mine, and certainly won’t care about What Is Yours.
What Is Yours might not be all it seems either, it could be What Is Your Mother’s, Father’s, or Anyone’s in disguise. Keep an eye out for Anyone’s in Yours clothing. They can look like meaningful self correcting, but turn into blatant self punishment. They slip into What Is Yours under the guise of being helpful to your development, maybe asserted in such a way that declares itself as The Only Way or The Only One. If The Only One has become Yours, that means it’s everyone else’s, then it isn’t Yours anymore. It’s Everyone’s.
What Is Yours is located in the stomach on the third floor, you passed it up rushing to Where You Belong, a theoretical place outside of your body. Where You Belong isn’t real, like Santa Claus and social constructs. Where You Are is real, and You Are Here. Make way to What Is Yours, it’s a beautiful door decorated exactly how you’d want to look, inside is everything that Is Yours. All those old stuffed animals, the joy you got that no one else understood, some old pictures of when you could smile and feel the smile everywhere. What Is Yours looks exactly like you’d want this room to look, along with everything that Used To Be Yours that was lost in the fire.
What Is Yours is untouchable, no matter how many people try to sculpt and pry it out of your hands. It Is Yours. Clutch it with all of the strength you have and hold onto it. If you ever lose What Is Yours, you can find it in the incinerator called What Is Burning. You know What Is Burning, it’s What Is Yours that was left behind for so long, we swept it up and threw it away. You weren’t using it so it was just taking up space, sorry you didn’t see this sooner.
When you find What Is Yours, staple it to your sleeve to avoid misplacing it again.
Chapter 5: Conjunction (What is integrating?)
Everything is different, what has this book done to you? Are you sore and tired? Are you hungry for more? Reflect briefly on your attitude towards this book and make the judgement if this is good for you or doing harm. I will wait for your response.
Thank you for considering this, and with your permission I’d like to continue poking at your mind.
Are you asking questions like this in your waking life? Are your dreams making a little more sense suddenly? Do you feel gears shifting and turning at new and janky speeds? Is this upheaval too much or too soon?
Get a pencil and paper. Assess where you are in a linear progression of transformation. Draw a horizontal line and place a dot with how close or far away you are from changing. Then flip the paper over, and write in massive letters: INCORRECT MAP. Save this document for future reflection.
What have you learned about yourself so far? What Is Integrating?
What Is Integrating can be accessed by climbing up to the heart, on the fourth floor. When you get to this room, don’t knock. You don’t want to startle yourself and give you a heart attack, God forbid! Open the door slowly and cringe at the creak and sound of a rusty hinge. This hasn’t been opened in a long time. Where did everyone go? Where’s the party? You see only one person, running on a treadmill. They’re alone. It is empty, cold, and heartless. On the treadmill they sprint at abnormal speeds, chasing something, being chased by another thing. They pant and sweat and look like they’re about to pass out any minute. But they keep going, and going, and going. You start to panic, this display of dangerous behavior is unsettling you. You shake the treadmill begging for the person to stop doing this to themself. Scream and shout all you can but they remain unbothered and determined, chasing and being chased. It’s only when you unplug the treadmill from the wall they are able to stop and look around. They see they are alone, not being chased, and really tired. Catch them as they pass out and gently lay them to finally rest. Call management to dispose of the body, it’s going to What Is Burning.
You have a certain love for certain things. You see your own pain better and understand how we (you and you) got here. There is a certain love you only give certain things. It seems a bit different than what it looked like 4 chapters ago. What changed? What loosened or tightened? What is becoming more clear? What is planting roots into you? What Is Integrating? Are you a certain thing you can give that certain love to now? Are you still running endlessly? Or can you finally rest now?
What Is Integrating? Probably realizing you’ve been very alone and very busy trying to not notice that. How can you connect to others when you won’t connect to yourself? It’s easy to dismiss others' emotions when you do it to yourself all the time. All you have, historically, is yourself. Isn’t it about time you start taking care of this Flesh Estimate Of The Divine Soul like the sacred temple it really is? Oh, it isn’t? Well, it was just an idea. No, really, it’s okay. We can forget it, it’s probably too soon anyways. It was a silly idea.
If it hasn’t clicked yet, maybe you can ask What Is Integrating? It probably isn’t finished yet, give it time.
Chapter 6: Putrefaction (What is dying?)
What is that SMELL? I swear, What Is Dying? It smells rigid and inflexible. It has notes of being helpful with ulterior motives to put someone down. Did you do this? Did you kill this perfectly innocent idea called Order? I knew Order from our years together at school. He grew up to be quite intelligent, he just quickly fell into the wrong crowd. I mean can you blame him really? He just wanted to fit in. Sure he’s a total dickhead now and really has that stick so far up there, but at least he gets the job done. The job IS done, right? Wait no, it can’t be done, because you killed it. I don’t want to hear the argument that he has done terrible things, Order is the reason we are all here! Order is the only thing holding us together! Didn’t you hear him declare himself as The Only Way? And you killed THAT? We are all doomed! You monster! How will we live without Order telling us everything to do and not to do! I can’t think for myself, are you crazy? This is why we need Order, for people like you who want to get a little rebellious and Question Things. THAT is what you should have killed! By Questioning Things, Odor can’t lie to you!
What? I said Order, not Odor. What’s that smell? What Is Dying?
What Is Dying is located at the throat, on the fifth floor. You aren’t allowed to speak in this room. Other’s voices echo in and out of your ears. This echo chamber is sacred to Order. If you contribute your voice, the walls will be verberated with Questions that make this room weaker. What are you doing? Shut up! You can’t say that here! Why are you standing up for yourself? Why won’t you just conform? Don’t you see it’s the easiest thing to do? Just go back to your home and ignore the smoke alarm chirping. This is where the Adults are talking, we know what Order is and why It Must Be.
This is your chance to scream. This is the chance to say everything you have held back. Get off your chest everything that has weighed you down. You aren’t the only voice here, but you can be the loudest. Put this book down, and take a brief moment to fantasize about the systems of Order you would collapse into a heaping pile of Death. If none come to mind, get a fast food job. Then resume fantasy. Then resume this book.
After you have killed Order, take a deep breath and truly breathe what is in the air. What Is Dying? Nothing! It’s already dead.
Chapter 7: Fermentation (What is renewing?)
This beautiful butterfly has landed on the corner of our book. You gaze at its wings and really wonder about what took place right before it came to this moment. Thinking about the goop that it becomes before emerging as something so elegant and well put together. You grip the book a little tighter out of jealousy.
You feel like that goop right now, don’t you?
Don’t let me put words into your mouth, how reliable of a narrator would I be if I did? I’m just taking my best guess at how you’re feeling. I’d love to know, genuinely, I’m afraid this just isn’t the right place to ask you that. Please write in the margins a brief snapshot of how you’re doing today. When you return this book because you didn’t get it, I’ll read it, and then I will understand you a little better.
I also look at you with the same wonderment and curiosity. What did you look like before you got here? What did you look like before you composed yourself enough to see me? What was the tear you wiped and claimed it was an eyelash in your eye? I’m showing you that I care about you when you are just goop and potential. I want you to see the beauty I see when I think about What You Are. We might not see you in the same way, I don’t know your mistakes and what you’ve done that you regret, I just see a person who went through a lot up until right now in this moment. And I want you to see how pretty you look in the sun.
What Is Renewing is right here in front of your eyes, well, eye. At the center of your forehead on the sixth floor. Look around, see what images come up when entering this room. I can’t tell you what it looks like, I’m not psychic. You are. What Is Renewing looks like that. And sometimes it looks like this, this, or even this on special occasions. Renewal is intentional, bold, and confident. Renewal is that makeover you never thought you could pull off, but totally do. Blink your third eye rapidly until you get so dizzy it’s unbearable to look at anything the old way again. This is your new perspective, I recommend. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then start beholding or it’s gonna run out of beauty. What Is Renewing isn’t so bad after all. It’s actually quite nice, lighter, more freeing. I’m glad Order isn't around to see this, he always hated the chaotic goop we all have to be eventually. Even if it’s ugly, what happens afterwards feels like the most genuine expression of Self we could have.
When What Is Renewing reveals itself to you, blush.
Chapter 8: Distillation (What is emerging?)
Poking it’s way out of the ground is a funny little thing, isn’t it? A protrusion that you just can’t find the words for. You’re becoming something. Something has changed inside of you and you don’t know what to do with it or where it’s going. Where is it going? It’s going up. From the ground up into the stars. Reaching and climbing for infinity, stopping and taking breaks to look at how far off the ground it is. What Is Emerging? It’s not that simple, it’s happening everywhere all at once, in different stages of development, not going on in one particular area, but can be found in almost everything. Emerging, dare I say, is sprouting out of something lower. But, that’s too easy! What Is Emerging? It’s a tree.
A tree? C’mon, I have got to be building up to some deeper metaphor. Something about roots and growth. Total bore and really cliché. Don’t you have any other symbolism for Emerging? Can you spiritual books go one goddamn minute without making a reference to a tree?
No, we cannot.
What Is Emerging is at the top of your head, on the seventh floor. We put it there to keep an eye on you. The more you develop, the taller this Emergence gets. The easier it is to spot you in a crowd. The higher you are, the more of a liability you become to those we keep low to the ground. How can you stop us from tracking your growth? I don’t know, wear a pretty tall hat to cover The Emergence. Play it off like you’re trying a new style and see if it convinces everyone. When they ask you about the Red String Diagram over your desk, just say it’s for a YouTube video. Everyone will nod and understand you’re doing this work for monetization and content. We will turn our all seeing eyes away from your Emergence as long as you put it through a clever marketing campaign.
You certainly know What You Are, you’ll know this concept intimately. You are above everyone telling you What You Are. You have Outgrown old labels and opinions of yourself. Maybe you blow a kiss to the mirror when you see your reflection instead of crying. You understand it isn't you versus everyone and it never was, it was you versus yourself.
Hah! I did it! I put the blame on you! Now you can go back to doubting yourself and your own perception. We designed this entire system to slowly chip away at your self worth and self image until you self-destruct! It was a clever tactic that we knew would get the results we needed. Thank you for torturing yourself for so long, it was just enough time to implant our program directly into your soul! Now all I have to do is edit What You Are to more accurately reflect What We Make You and then you will feel a complete sense of belonging.
What do you mean we can’t get in? You hear faint whispering. Emerging? What Is Emerging?
Chapter 9: Coagulation (What is solidifying?)
I’ve run out of floors and rooms in the body. Where was that map even taking you? I thought you reached the top? You’re still here? What more could you want from me? Did you know I wrote all of this in one sitting? I’m tired. What does any of this even mean? Why does this stupid system even matter when clearly one of the themes is that you can’t trust systems? Isn't that hypocritical? Can I even trust the things that I am writing? What are you reading? Who are you to me and who am I to assume any of this is accurate?
If you said yes to any of these questions. This Is Solidifying. Questions kill Order, and this book has proven to be the false Order all along. But don’t disregard everything I’ve said. Or go ahead and dismiss it. It’s really up to you. You have everything you need now to understand what to do. You know where you’re heading, I mean if you don’t by this point, start the book over. Once you hit this point again, consider if your glasses are dirty or the lighting isn't right. If you aren’t seeing what I’m showing you, I can’t offer much more help. [End Of Troubleshooting. You Are On Your Own From Here.]
Now that the author has given up trying to make sense of everything. What have you learned? What Is Solidifying? Is there anything I got wrong? How do you disagree? Hold all of these thoughts in your mouth, they’ll be important for the next time we meet. I want you to finish reading this with a deeper understanding of yourself. You can’t find the answers for your inner turmoil in a self help book. It’s gonna have to be a painful look inside of yourself. Don’t interpret that last sentence literally, I am not held responsible for DIY surgery done because a book told you to look inside of yourself. You’re just gonna find organs, by the way.
Looking inside to understand why I am seeing this outside. To see why my perception is different from yours. To see why I am the way I am and what I can do about those circumstances beyond my control. If I cannot be a self healing machine in the onslaught of life, will I ever truly be happy? Maybe, just with a dash of numbing, repression, and avoidance. Full list of side effects for doing so is still pending.
This is your own call, but I’d ask What Is Solidifying?
Chapter 10: Magnum Opus (Who are you?)
So… it’s been some time since you started reading this. Who are you? Who is the person that went through this book and reflected upon itself over and over again? When in a room full of mirrors, are you really looking at yourself or just another reflection of who is doing the looking? Who draws the line between I Am and I Am Not? Is it you? Was it you all along? Do you feel empowered to Do Something Now? It has always been your responsibility to Be You. I just hope you take yourself up on that opportunity. Go on, get out of here. You are going to end the endless search for happiness, and finally understand it was never your fault you weren’t happy, how could you be in those conditions? Happiness comes from being there for yourself, no matter what binds you get yourself into, you will always be there to get you back out. So now, if you wish, a little pact between you and yourself.
Repeat after yourself:
I Am who I Know I Am, I am Myself
I will continue to be Myself. Because I have earned it. I understand Myself to be what I always have been.
I love Myself, because I have known Myself for a long time, we just reconnected recently.
It will always be best for Myself, to be Myself.
End of Pact.
Good luck out there, I know it’s been rough. Just keep an eye on yourself, you’re gonna do great things.
Thank you for reading.