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For this lesson we will permit the students to experiment with and develop proficiency in the creation of the cloud while we go afield for a moment to discuss one of the major deterrents to successful alchemy. I refer to anxiety and the anxiety syndrome.
Strange as it may seem, most negative manifestations stem from anxiety, including the awful sin of masochism.1 Since it is generally acknowledged that humanity have a desire to be happy and that they have the right to pursue happiness, we ask this question: Would it not be wise for people in all walks of life to work toward the healing of those conditions which they bring upon themselves through their unfruitful anxieties?
We avow that there are lawful concerns and that men and women should make reasonable provision for their future and for eventualities which they know from personal experience may arise. But it is so unnecessary for them to become apprehensive about life in general, or even life specifically, to the point where their apprehensions unbalance their thinking, their emotions, and their entire psyche.
Anxiety is the great warp of life. It warps perspective without producing any perceptible benefit whatsoever. Anxiety is the cause of people's tendency to hoard the goods of this world. Like frantic squirrels they pile up their winter's supply of nuts. They accumulate an oversupply of every imaginable item, and they deprive themselves of happiness by their unwarranted concerns and their unnecessary and time-consuming preparations for every eventuality.
Just as we do not expect that the students will cease to be providential, so we do not ex-pect that they will become unduly involved in anticipating a doomsday that never arrives. Anxiety is a symptom of insecurity; it stems from man's incorrect concept of himself and from his lack of perspective. Many people feel unfulfilled, unloved, unwanted, and they are not sure of just what they should be doing with their lives. Their uncertainties under adverse conditions are easily turned into mental and emotional states of depression bordering on extreme self-deprecation.
Considering these facts and bearing fully in mind the power of creative energy, we have decided that before going more deeply into our study of alchemy, we shall advocate for all of our students an utter mental, emotional, and even physical catharsis. We shall achieve thereby a purification of the consciousness and being of man - an emptying, if you will, of unstable conditions so that our alchemical creation may take place under the most sterile and clinical conditions possible.
You see, it is so easy for a negative ingredient to creep into our formulae that we must take every possible precaution before we begin our experiments. Without first purging ourselves of all undesirable qualities, we would find ourselves, with the best of motives, amplifying our negatives instead of our positives as we proceeded to employ the wondrous power of alchemy.
This is one of the problems that arise among those who follow some of the so-called mystery schools where the ego is catered to at the personal level instead of being disciplined at the impersonal level. As these students develop "soul power," it is inevitable that they amplify their negative momentums along with the great positive qualities which they seek to manifest. For whatever is in their worlds when they are brought into direct contact with the sacred fire must expand even as their total consciousness expands.
In some cases the negatives completely cancel out the positives; and many times, because of earthly affinities, the additional boost of power that comes about as the result of experimentation will make a magnet out of their negatives even when they are completely involved in the divine search. Thus will their own negative momentums, hidden in the recesses of their subconscious minds, draw to themselves more of their kind from the thoughts and feelings of others. This phenomenon is often the underlying cause of disharmony in religious groups.
Now we earnestly desire to have the body of God upon earth forewarned about these conditions, for unless the deterrent forces which are imbedded in the psyche of man are brought under the power of divine grace and emptied of their content (i.e., of the misqualified energies which sustain their forms), they will peer as haunting specters waiting to devour the offspring of all benign activities and to literally turn man's light into darkness.
We would do the opposite. We would create in the lives of the would-be alchemists the transmutative effects that will enable them, through awareness and through dedication to the Christ Spirit of living harmony, to manifest all good things under divine control. Thus shall divine grace fill the temple of the mind and heart of the alchemist and make him truly a wonder-worker for God.
How many times have we seen concern for his fellowman take shape in the consciousness of the student. As he gazes upon world conditions or upon the problems of his own family, he is often almost obsessed with the desire to produce the miracle of saving grace for his loved ones as well as for those who are in need in the world around him. So strong does this desire become that his brotherly love is many times the central motivation behind his search for greater spirituality and self-realization.
Ours is not to discourage those who would serve, but to help them realize their objectives in peace and in honor. Therefore, "consider the lilies of the field, ... they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."2 The care of God for the birds of the air, the great abundance manifest in nature and in the "lilies of the field" shows the supreme value that God places upon each of his children. Let us look to him, then, to teach us how to meet the needs of our brethren here below.
Anxiety stems from a lack of faith in the ultimate purposes of life. The hard experiences that have come to many in childhood and in later years, creating stresses and strains and producing the fruit of bitterness, have prevented their development of that refined spirit which would enable them to shed their anxieties.
In reality, the lessons Jesus taught on the Father's watchful care for man and nature should give all the understanding that will heal their insecurity, their anxiety, and their personal pain involving the mind and self. This healing is brought about through the overpowering radiance of God's loving concern for every man.
I urge, therefore, that all students take into account the tender care and consideration of the universe manifest in the wondrous working of the physical body when it is not interfered with by human pollutants. And I urge that they then make an attempt throughout the coming days to heal the breach caused by their sense of separation - the separation of the individual from his true identity and hence from the Eternal One.
In him you live and move and have your being. Without him you have neither life nor identity.
Ask yourself this question: Is it wise for you to pollute the Divine Identity by the intrusions of self-will and self-indulgence? Ask yourself this question: Have you really given the Father a chance or has yours been an on-again, off-again, vacillating attempt to realize God?
There is nothing complex about the origin of the soul and its everlasting communion with him. To become as a little child, then, as we shall see in our next lesson, is to prepare the way for the greatest manifestations of alchemy.
Now, alchemy is not witchcraft; it is not variance. It is the exercise of a stable God-intended control over nature, and it involves far more than men imagine. Through alchemy the shedding of your anxieties can be accomplished, but first you must build a mountain of faith to counteract the negative thoughts of the world which are primarily responsible for man's failures.
How is this so? Each time individuals have a failure and lament it, each time they have a problem and sorrow over it rather than commit it unto the Father, each time individuals resent their problems and see them not as the return of karma or as a test but as an act of Deity whom they defy, they are building up in their own worlds frustration, resentment, anxiety, and confusion. And these momentums draw to their own doorsteps the negative conditions of the outside world.
If ever there was a secondary enemy to anxiety, it is confusion. This, too, can and should be healed by the fires of the Christ mind. For we know that the Christ mind is calm yet capable of focusing the fiery energies of the Creator to overthrow evil both in the self and in society.
But let us make clear that this is a fire whose burning is controlled by the mind. It can be slow or fast. It can leap like a young deer and take its freedom, its dominion, its God-control, or it can stand in midair like hieroglyphs of living flame and say to all that would hinder the alchemical manifestation, Pass no further!
I urge you to consider, then, the negative thought pools of the world with a view to disengaging your energies and your activities from involvement with the misqualified energies contained therein. And I urge you to make your God-determination that you are going to clean your consciousness inside and out of all residual substance which is there as the result of your contact with the cesspools of human consciousness.
Anxiety must go. It must be replaced by faith and solemn confidence in the outworking of the divine plan. This certain knowing, I say, is a happy state! When you begin to understand fully what I mean, you will see that the developing of this confidence in the real is one of the greatest ways in which all deterrents to successful alchemy can be vanquished. In fact, all deterrents to abundant living can be knocked down as you cease to fight "as one that beateth the air,"3 as Saint Paul once said.
You were born to win, and I say this to counter the lie that man was "born to lose." And if you will make this statement, "I AM born to win!" as an act of supreme faith, it will overcome the world's consciousness of failure - a deadly weight of sin if there ever was one.
It does not matter what problems you have faced, for even the most dire situations will yield to the mighty forcefield of God-potency that will be built up through your practice of spiritual alchemy. But why should man draw God's energies for alchemical experimentation and creation when his own world is still full of the miscreations of the mass mind and the weeds in his garden that will choke out his efforts and destroy the good fruit as well?
I do not mean that you should not continue your experiments with the cloud. I do mean that you should understand the duality of life and realize that anxieties must go. But in order for this to take place, you must make the conscious determination that it shall be done. And if you do, I promise you that your experiments will not only be purer and more successful, but also that they will produce happiness and the fruits thereof for yourself and the whole human race.
Oh, we have so much more, for each Master loves each servant-son!
[Taken from the book version, Saint Germain On Alchemy]