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Everybody Must Get Stoned

The Great Work of the art of alchemy is the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, a symbol of wholeness and integration. The Stone is also the prima materia. The liquid form of the Stone, called the Universal Solvent, dissolves all old forms like a rushing stream, and is the self-organizing matrix for the rebirth of new forms. It is thus a metaphor or model for the dynamic process of transformation, ego death and re-creation.

The Stone is a return to the prima materia. The Philosopher's Stone is like a psychic lodestone or vortex. It 'magnetically' orders the contents of our consciousness around it through reflexive feedback loops in chaotic yet meaningful fashion. It is a 'strange attractor' in the lives of those engaged in the quest for alchemical transformation. The Stone whispers to us in our slumber. It brings us into its orbit.

This instinctual attraction toward processes that dissolve the ego and liquify consciousness leads to transpersonal experience via symbolic death/rebirth. As alchemists we experience deep states of emotional turbulence in initiation ordeals and in the merger of subject (soror mystica) and object (frater). The massa confusa of the vortex of pure information becomes gradually differentiated as we work through the alchemical stages.

The alchemical operation Solutio, called "the root of alchemy," corresponds with the element water. It implies a flowing state of consciousness, "liquification" of consciousness, a return to the womb for rebirth, a baptism or healing immersion in the vast ocean of deep consciousness.

It facilitates feedback with Source or the groundstate of consciousness via creative regression. De-structuring, or destratification by immersion in the flow of psychic imagery through identification with more and more primal forms or patterns leads toward creative emergence of a psychedelic, expanded state. This creativity can become a stabilized trait of the individual.

Chaos Theory, as well as alchemy, provides a more than metaphorical language for describing the flowing dynamics of the chaotic process of psychological transformation. Chaos has always been recognized as a primal condition from which things emerge and into which they dissolve when they become obsolete. It sets the stage for holistic repatterning. Creativity and healing are emergent properties of self-organizing systems.

Chaos Naturae

Chaos is a pure cosmic principle. The language of chaos theory augments, validates and supports the arcane terminology of alchemy. We can unpack its metaphors in the analogical language of alchemy. It gives us a unitarian language to discuss the alchemical process in contemporary terms. As a chaosophical natural philosophy, alchemy is an art with its origins in magic.

Chaos theory provides a philosophical basis for exploring the relationship of psyche and matter since they share a common dynamics. It allows us to formulate a theory of consciousness and healing based on an organic model of transformation, rather than a mechanistic or cybernetic process, as other contemporary theories.

Chaos, matter and attraction lie at the heart of chaos theory and complex dynamical systems. Chaotic systems display certain characteristics including complex feedback loops, self-organization, holistic behavior, and inherent unpredictability. Because of its holographic nature, a chaotic system cannot be decomposed.