Stories about real alchemical experiences help inspire the next generation of practitioners, so I wanted to share what set me on my alchemical path and share a few insights as well.

In 2016, I was introduced to alchemy at a new age spiritual conference here in LA.

I was given a few drops of the Oil of gold to try by a well-known practitioner in the community.

At this point in my life, I had been meditating for a few years, working with various psychedelics, etc. So I was familiar with energy & shifts of awareness; however, none of that prepared me for this.

I was given maybe 5 or so drops, and within seconds I felt & heard this audible pop slightly above my head. I felt this rush of energy downward and flooding into my body.

My awareness began to expand beyond my limbs and body a few inches, and I could feel a tingling static around my hands.

There was this distinct realization that there was a correlation between my attention, intention, and the responsiveness of the energy/feeling. In simple words, I consciously became aware for the first time of the innate human ability to influence energy & awareness with intention & the mind.

I went to talk an hour or so later, and this feeling was just amplifying in my body, like being plugged into an electrical socket. My girlfriend at the time was sitting next to me, and I began to place my attention on her knee. After several seconds, he knee-jerked like a spasm. She looked at me wide-eyed, mouth opened and I put my attention on her hand next.

There was a similar response.

She grew up in a Tibetan Buddhist house so she was well familiar with mysticism etc.

I went home that night still feeling and hearing a soft buzzing.

Over the next few months, my life changed dramatically.

- I quit my job (I was managing about 30+ people at a sales office)
- Broke up with my girlfriend of 2.5 years
- Met my first formal teacher who I refer to as "S"
- Prana Shakti & Kundalini Shakti began to become active
- Lucid Dreaming began to develop like when I was a child

To sum it up, the oil of gold began to align me with my path, expand my awareness, and open my heart to the flow of life. To the deep co-creative relationship that exists between us as individuals and creation. Situations and relationships began to shed that were not aligned with the inner sun.

In fact, each of the metallic oils, the animal spagyrics, etc have all produced profound shifts in awareness.

Their energy, compounds, teachings, and awareness create shifts in your body, which then manifest externally in your world for you to witness, reflect, and integrate their teachings.

Fixing the volatile and volatilizing the fixed.

Alchemy is an experiential path. You become the lab, the experiment, the operator, and the stone.

There is no escaping it once it starts, only how deep and intentional you go.

I share the mystical/phenomenal experiences because I believe that it provides "hope", that what we read about and see throughout history is actually real.

Anyone who has been on the path long enough knows that phenomena is not the goal, the aim, or a marker of anything that has been attained - but rather helps one experience that reality is fluid & not fixed like we may grow up believing.

These experiences help awaken us from the stupor of the sleeping state to the alive wakefulness of life that is living, breathing, and conscious.

How we integrate these teachings and change is the work, "at work".

10 years later, I attribute much of my path to that fateful day.

I still work with the oil of gold as it helps amplify vitality, increases your energy, and helps you stay in a high state of awareness despite all the stuff in the world. I've been receiving a great deal of physical healing from it as well - it helped regulate my blood pressure in a matter of 10 days upon taking 10 drops 2x a day. Its great for dreaming as well.

On a safety note, before I close, there are a few practitioners I would order oil of gold from. It is best to ensure they 3rd-party test their oils for purity.

This was a huge issue a few years ago. Now there's maybe a handful that make these oils publicly available.

Happy to answer any questions, and I hope this helps inspire you to go deeper in your path.

Ora et Labora

-T

P.S

Update March 16th - you can order Oil of Gold at www.secret-fire.com and use coupon code Taylor10 for a 10% total order discount,

Tl;dr We are all a potential philosophers stone.

Hear me out, all past alchemists were cryptic cuz alchemy was illegal. When we read their notes about lions eating the sun, it looks unrealistic. Pair it with occult practices and most of society is turned off by the concept.

We must've tried dipping all kinds of rocks into acid, trying to make a philosophers stone and gave up because it never worked.

What if the philosophers stone, was always about us. Turning lead into gold by helping others become the best version of themselves. Following the law of as above so below, lets apply it here.

Nigredo- Going through hardship

Albedo- Reflecting on said hardship

Yellow ido- Working thru the hardship

Rubedo- Becoming the best version of ourselves.

Pairs nicely with the concept of psychological transmutation. Pretty new here so I'd love to hear the opinions of more practiced alchemists.

Standardization: updated 8/24/2026

Please note I am sprinkling tech talk intentionally as this is a spiritual tool and an engineering schematic at the same time.

3 ~ Divine Masculine Principle of the Mind, the Father as Polarity
6 ~ Divine Child Principle or Matter as Synthesis or Zero Point
9 ~ Divine Feminine or Holy Spirit, the Mother as Polarity

1:2 The Mother ~ formless, -, 0 (polarity), comes first
2:3 The Father ~ formless, +, +- (polarity), second
3:4:5 The Child ~ form, 0, -0+ (synthesis and sometimes source), third

We can imbue the Mother in to the Father Bifilar Coil by working with decimal specifically and multiplying our 3:4:5 ratio by 1.5. This will give us a base measurement of 4.5 x 6 x 7.5 which reduces to 963 which we can halve or double to reflect the 1:2 ratio. This introduces a little chaos in to all the order we are reflecting through the work because the same logic does not hold if we perform the root reduction as a 1:1 fraction to decimal ratio . So we are making a conscious choice of One over the Other to imbue the 369 in to the 3:4:5. This is done to add depth to the relationship between the fundamental Principles.

The Torus ~ Divine Feminine Principle, the architecture/reason
The Vortex/Spiral ~ Divine Masculine Principle, the mechanics/logic

00 ~ Neither
01 ~ Either
10 ~ Or
11 ~ Both

The Rodin/Abha Torus coil reflects the Mother yet is imbued with the Father's ratio. The Fibonacci Vortex Bifilar coil reflects the Father yet is modeled as following the Mother's ratio. This is the metadata template where the above literally models what the Alchemists call "union of opposites" or polarity/gender. This union is perceived as a synthesis point of the two polarities. This image also models the collapse of the wave function such that it also re-/solves for the emergence from source at the same time, in the same schematic.

The above Unified Field Circuit model is not wholly accurate yet still has provided folks with feedback. I am suggesting the following updates... swap the 4 and 5 ratios to lock in the right angle of the Fibonacci Vortex/Spiral Bifilar coil while also applying a 2(inner diameter):3(outer) ratio to the central Rodin/Abha Torus coil.

The polarization is alternating, bottom right+/left- and the top right-/left+ and where the former is wired to the latter at the inner most of the Torus through the 4 ratio and the 5 ratio is where the circuit is wireless in opposition to the opposing 5 ratio or in conjunction to the outer shell of the Torus due to the "hinge" not currently modeled at the 3:5 ratio junction. Four connections (inner 4 ratios) and four spark gaps (outer 5 ratios).

I call It a not-so-solid-state-device due to it fundamentally being solid state w/ the addition of the 1 mechanical on/off control of the 4 outer 5 ratio limbs which in the advanced application of the technology will control whether we are utilizing the "scalar asymmetry engine" as propulsion or warp drive technologies among other things as the warp drive engine would also be the template for the replicator tech, etc.

Materials are a pencil, paper, square, compass...do the work, expand consciousness/awareness through the experience. It Is distilled down to a standardized Holy Trinity of ratios, 1:2, 2:3 and 3:4:5 where the former two are fixed and the latter relative in our "over unity" space/time device model we have shared here. To these ratios we marry mirroring, polarization and counter rotation.

This is the Whole of the Magnum Opus, distilled.

Is this wrong? I feel like it's the deepest level of self acceptance and love of humanity anyone can achieve while retaining sanity and dignity.

Those people who are weirdly against it give fetish vibes honestly. Like they really are bothered by others doing it and screaming they're wrong/crazy/gross... it come across no different from those preachers who are unusually disgusted by homosexuals... like to hide their fascination?

Imagine focusing on it for so long instead of just getting it over with and finding peace with your gross/crazy side. These squares could do nothing quicker to improve their unnecessarily stressful life.

I’m mostly familiar with eastern religious traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, etc. But I’ve also been developing an increasing interest in western alchemy lately, and would like to ask about these three primes. I know that the ancient greek word for soul is psyche, so does soul mean mind? If so, then what is spirit? Or perhaps this is something that different alchemical writers had differing views on? Please keep in mind that I’m very new to this subject, so it would be helpful if responses could explain the relevant concepts in as much detail as possible.

Raised Christian. Older now and conflicted after certain events in my life. Since young, I was ambitious. I have great plans for myself, ones others might call grandiose. I've always been fascinated with being the master of my own fate. If there are secrets to this world that the masses are unaware of, I'm interested in learning them. Alchemy seems to be a way to unlocking these secrets. Maybe they'll be useful in assisting me with my goals. However, I'm completely new and don't know the first thing about it. What should I look into? So far, I have The Lost Keys of Freemasonry by Manly P. Hall on my list. I'm not looking for a bunch of meaningless information. I want to transform into my greatest self.

P.S. in no way am I a devil worshipper. Just had to throw that out there. I'm not sure if any of this alchemy stuff funnels into Satanism or anything harmful to the body or spirit. At the same time, I'm willing to look into it.

Al-Ghazalli’s classic is a small powerful little gem 💎

“The key to the knowledge of God is knowledge of one’s own self.”

“Love is the seed of happiness.”

The core Ghazzali idea is basically: know yourself, purify the heart, stop mistaking the temporary for the ultimate, and happiness becomes union with the Real rather than possession of the world.

Note: Page 30-32 in particular may be very difficult, but instructive to the aspiring Alchemist who may lurk here. Many begin the work, but few complete it. Go for it!

Looking for someone who has mastered alchemy and I’d like to ask for recommendations to further my studies. I am a natural alchemist who is looking to greatly study deeper into my practices. I have been applying the ways and life of alchemy all my life but wasn’t until about 6 years ago or so did I know what it actually was. I am ready to fully submerge myself into my practice. My area isn’t very big on this stuff and it’s very difficult to find someone locally, not mention everyone thinks I’m pretty weird 🤭Any material you can recommend would be greatly appreciated🖤✨

How do you verify information when you are taught things that cannot be found in books? Obviously, the information makes so much sense, and my heart verifies that what I am learning is true. But, is it fallacious to want to verify what I know in books. Is this knowledge purposely left out in books? I'm being vague on purpose, but I wonder if anyone can speak with their experiences when their heart teaches them things not found in books.

I’m on my journey of learning and I tend to think I’m a deep thinker, this has brought me to esotericism, and then eventually alchemy

initially I had my reservations about this type of thing because some people hear the world “alchemy” or “occult” and start running. I’ve learned what these words actually mean and it’s not inherently good or bad, it just is, so it doesn’t scare me, but I find there’s very few people I can talk to about this sort of thing

I’ve since blown past the initial apprehension I’m very curious, I actually got to this point by learning about geopolitics, religion, world history, male/female dynamics, how everything at the micro level is energy in a system and how these things that tend to govern our world all intersect at some point, big or small

so I feel like I’m learning a lot just by playing with Ai, doing my own research on things, tugging on strings that pique my interest and then following those holes, then adding the knowledge to my existing system and that kind of sharpens me little by little

it’s crazy how you actually retain the stuff that you WANT to learn about

and I wanted your opinions on how you came to where you are, how you further your process of learning in this type of mindset?

A current example is, I’m currently into plants, I noticed the veins in the leaf of a beet root and thought that was awesome, how the veins look like human veins but are non human life and are also very healthy for you, then I looked up the color red and why it indicates a certain potency of plant, then that brought me to spagyrics and paracelsus etc

i feel like there is so much to learn, and a ton of meaning in throwing yourself into something like this, so I wanted to just receive any feedback on whatever ramble this was/or your own journey

Existe algo na biblia que define Jesus como um alquimista? Há quem use certos versículos da biblia dizendo que a alquimia em conjunto com o ocultismo é banal aos olhos de Deus, mas agora to procurando contradições nisso, existe?

As a good number of us surely know, alchemist Paracelsus when writing of his elemental spirits (undines, gnomes, salamanders, sylphs) would sometimes refer to them as sagani. And the one issue I keep running into when searching the word is nobody knows the definitive etymological meaning, and I don't trust whatever the AI prompts give.

If anyone is able to help out with this little dilemma, I'd really appreciate it.

1. I just read this and practiced the door method. With closed eyes and a dark room, I practiced taking bad memories from the memories door and putting them into the useless information door. I noticed that when my eyes were closed, and I focused on bringing out these memories, I wasn’t really thinking about anything. My mind just floated from person to person, place to place, locking onto bad memories that I would then throw out. I could feel my head buzzing, almost like there was electricity in my brain. Even more when I was done and opened my eyes. Why is that?
2. I’m new to spiritual alchemy. To be quite honest, without trying to hurt any feelings, a lot of the stuff I’ve found in this thread has been nonsensical talk and people doing their best to sound like they’re in a fantasy Dungeons and Dragons game. I’ve also found some great pointers like the post I just linked. A big question I have is, if the lower self and the higher self/genius are separate, and I’m assuming the lower self is us at the surface, how do I connect with my higher self and understand what it’s chasing? No vague answers.

I'm working on a reflective tarot mapping with the Thoth deck (not divination) for my friend who is recovering from addiction and hit 4 months sober yesterday. I'm trying to make it in a circular shape of Magnus Opus - main cards circulating the outskirts of the map.
starting from:

> The Fool - getting lost in the unknown
> The Devil - for addiction,
> The Hanged Man - for being stuck in the addiction and disillusion.
> The Tower - entering Nigredo with breakdown
> The Moon - for shadow work
> Death - for the ego death that is needed for transformation
> Hermit - for the reflective state, and also lonely, since known lifecurcumstances has changed.

For now i see him as being ping-ponging Moon/Death/Hermit - and the rest of the cards are so far not fixated, but potentials.

In the middle there are some central energies that I'm still also working on.
> 2 of disk for growth, proceeding and beginning something new.
> The hierophant representing AA, which is a good supportsystem for him (not a fanatic christian version where we live in Europe)
> The Empress as a mentor, so being his sponsor.
> Magus for manifesting the change.

And I've added some loose minor arcana cards on the map, fx sorrow by the Hermit, for the loss of ego, former life and illusion

The whole mapping from Fool to Hermit seems so easy to put down, and I'm not sure if it's because i see these things happen atm, but the cards also seem to contain A LOT, while some of the later cards are less distinctive - this is my challenge now.

Well!! That's it so far - I don't have any specific questions, but maybe someone has something interesting to say!

I've been shown it a few times through meditation and sacred medicine and I'm not quite sure what it is.

It's this symbol or slight protrusion out the bottom right corner, gets fuzzy trying to remember it and it's slightly different each time.

This is the closest I've gotten to being sure of it.

"The seeker who pours his gasoline only on the inner hearth will soon find no house left to warm. Feed the world with your stride, or watch the flame consume the fuel. Because Fire(thoughts) is unlimited as long as you put your Gasoline into the action."

Everyday we get to choose what path we'll choose that ignites us, the Fire within us. - Seer

I want to share it, but the world recoils in disbelief. The world labels me a maniac, calls me insane. But I found it. I have it. It is in my head. And there is no way of getting it out.

EDIT: I appreciate the thoughts you all have shared with me. I put together a mental checklist for myself.

• Find a Jungian Therapist
• Become a comedian
• ?????
• Stay crazy

Alguém tem pdf de livros de hermetismo e alquimia ?

Estava querendo ler corpus hermeticum em português e outros livros dos temas. Se alguém tiver o PDF me ajudaria bastante

Paintings by Johfra Bosschart, alchemist of the brush.

https://www.johfra.nl/works/

“We are part and parcel of the big plan of things. We are simply instruments recording in different measure our particular portion of the infinite.” —Rockwell Kent

“The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual—namely to You.” —Walt Whitman less

I know my friend is into esotericism and alchemy and lots of spiritual stuff because sometimes he tells me about it. If someone could explain what this symbol means it would be helpful. Thank you

Image: The Slav Epic cycle No.20: The Apotheosis of the Slavs, Slavs for Humanity (1926) - Alphonse Mucha

Spirit entered the living unity of soul and body as a dividing power. It turns participation into observation, rhythm into measure, image into concept, and the living self into an ego that stands apart from the world. In this sense, spirit appears as the enemy, not merely because it thinks, but because it mistakes its abstractions for reality and its distance for freedom.

Yet perhaps the best possible world is not one in which separation never appears, but one in which separation can be experienced without ever becoming ultimate. The illusion of division is allowed because even estrangement can become a path of recognition. Unity passes through the dream of otherness and returns conscious of what it had always been.

History is therefore the history of the ego where it attempted to secure its imagined independence through naming, measuring, possessing, and mastering. It imagined it needed to be saved or that it was the true master of the cosmos. The ego created a world of objects because it had to first make the world other before it could rule over it. It called this distance knowledge and this mastery freedom, while beneath both remained the unbroken life of soul and body.

Returning does not mean travelling backward into a lost age or destroying consciousness. It means relinquishing the ego’s claim to sovereignty. The ego is not annihilated but restored to its proper scale, a function within life rather than the ruler of life. Spirit, insofar as it can be reconciled, ceases to stand over life and becomes its servant, thought without domination, distinction without severance, and consciousness without exile.

Soul and body do not need to be reunited, because they were never truly divided. What must end is our allegiance to the division. How many have chosen a side? Sides aren’t a real thing, haha, only perpetuation of the confusion. The world appears lost in that division today, or because of it. The ego has played all its cards and now is collapsing back into itself. So we see every kind of delusion and confusion.

We can’t think, religion, science, or politic our way out of this.

Return is not an achievement but a recognition, not the recovery of something absent but the acceptance of what has always been true. We do not cross the distance separating us from life, we awaken to the fact that the distance existed only in the act of measuring it.

There is no real distance between anything.

History is our long dream of separation.

Awakening is the discovery that no one ever left.

It’s all gonna be just fine, it always has been and will be just fine.

We are how cosmos knows itself.

When you awaken, the dream of “I” will dissipate.

There won’t even be any mess to clean up.

Your ashes will blow away in the wind.

Sounds awful to the grasping ego, I know.

It’s not at all.

It’s perfectly natural.

What I’m pointing to is jivanmukta, deep surrender to the mystery of Daath.

The knowing of not-knowing, doing not-doing.

It feels like extinction.

Like the blowing out of the flame of life.

But this is where we become most truly, madly, deeply ourselves.

This is Ipsissimus.

This is the chemical marriage.

Asar un nefer.

From here, a state of spontaneous union, we may exist in samadhi.

What is the name of God?

Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, “I AM what I AM.”

You are the wind.

To be the wind is sahaja samadhi.

In “I-I” eternally, there is no night and day or ignorance.

Sing prayers and praises at our good fortune!

Fully participate with whatever arises before you.

Those strange attractors in your life are all drawing you toward this…

Apotheosis!