1. Imagine that you are a vast sea of unmanifest potential, like that which Chaos or the Prima Materia represents. This is a dark, heavy, and dynamic energy that begins to stir and move outward from the center, like ripples from a rock thrown in a still pond.
2. Imagine this process of movement suddenly splitting in half, like a cell that divides to create another cell. Feel how this mass of energy, now comprising two connected cells or spheres, seems to pull in two separate directions. From this pull in two seemingly opposite directions, the creation of the poles of energy and matter is accomplished.
3. Spend some time on this part of the meditation. Feel how one side is very dynamic and energetic and the other is still, dense, and stable, and yet the two are connected to each other and inseparable.
4. Imagine now that the active, dynamic sphere begins to pulse again from its center and that this pulsing creates two new spheres within or from the sphere of energy. The sphere or pulse farthest to your right is elemental fire. It is dynamic and explosive. The sphere connected to it is elemental air, or the organizing principle of the universe.
5. Now imagine that the sphere of primal matter also begins to pulse outward and divide into two distinct yet connected fields of energy. The one closest to you is elemental water, or the emotional and liquid aspects of creation. Next to it are the dense, form-creating energies of elemental earth. This is energy at its greatest density. Stay with this basic image as long as you need to, even working with it over several days before moving on to the final stages.
6. Now sense that there are specific and discrete relationships between the various elements that dictate how they combine with each other. These combinations form the three essentials of sulphur, mercury, and salt.
7. Feel fire and air merge with one another-or primal energy (fire) merging with the expansive, directive, and organizing powers of mind (air)-to form sulphur, or self-consciousness.
8. Feel the dense, form-hungry energies of earth combining with the liquid energies of water to form the energetic (etheric) matrix for material life, or salt.
9. Feel the emotional energies of water and the directing energies of air combine to form the link between the two extremes of pure energy (fire) and pure form (earth), or mercury.
The purpose of this meditation is to help you attune to the great mass of energy that mercury represents, sometimes called Spiritus Mundi, or Spirit of the Earth. Qabalists also refer to it as the astral light, or Great Mediator. Mercury represents both the connective energy of creation and the energy of each domain (plant, mineral, animal) in which it is present. The function of this energy is to unite material bodies, or salt, with consciousness, or sulphur, making mercury the vast connective energy net of creation, as well as the energy itself.
1. Inhale, filling your body with energy, transforming it into a body of light.
2. Allow this body to slowly dissolve into a field of light as you continue inhaling and exhaling a brilliant stream of silver-blue energy.
3. As you inhale and exhale, feel yourself-your consciousnesscontinue to expand, just as if it were rippling out from the center of a circle, like ripples on a pond.
4. Continue this feeling, imagining that with each exhalation you are reaching deeper into the universal life force or energy, and that with each inhalation you are drawing more energy into your center from the depths of creation. Imagine and feel how this energy unites everything, gives rise to every form, endows it with consciousness, and animates it with life.
5. Continue with this for several minutes.
6. Write down any experiences or insights that may have occurred.
The vessel in which alchemical operations are undertaken is called an alembic and is described as being shaped like a glass egg. This shape allows for the ascent and descent of energies in a slow and natural fashion, and also hints at fertility and rebirth. The shape of the human aura or energy field is also described as being eggshaped, and this demonstrates the link between outer physical alchemy and inner transcendental alchemy and shows how one is used to support the other. Just after you have undertaken your regular relaxation breathing for meditation and have reached your head, visualize the following:
1. Imagine that you are inside a sphere or egg-shaped vessel of clear crystal or glass.
2. Imagine that you are a point of light, of pure consciousness, inside the vessel and that a mass of dark liquid fills the lower third. Move down and hover over the liquid for a second. Notice the surface move. Move down into the dark waters and descend as deep as possible.
3. As you begin to go deeper, you notice a feeling of warmth increasing. This is the fire that warms the vessel, allowing the process of distillation to take place. Reach the bottom and then ascend back.
4. When you reach the surface of the liquid, continue through the upper two-thirds, straight upward to the top of the vessel.
5. As you reach the top, feel yourself spread out along the glass sides, even as if you were fracturing apart, and slide down back into the water.
6. Feel these individual drops reunite with the whole at the bottom of the vessel, and ascend again as a single point back to the top of the vessel.
7. Continue this process of ascending and descending, separating and recombining, for several minutes.
8. When you are done, imagine that you are a point of consciousness in the center of the egg again. Exit or dissolve the egg, breathe deeply, and return to normal consciousness. Note the different effects this has on your meditation period.