The Order of Spiritual Alchemy: 2/8 Instructional Papers

[ecosophia]

I'm posting this a day early this week, because tomorrow I'll have an announcement to make that I know a lot of readers have been waiting for...

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As mentioned in an earlier post, I've decided to make the teachings of the Octagon Society, the first of three levels of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, freely available here. If you didn't read that post, please do so -- it explains what the OSA was and is, summarizes its history, and explains what the teachings are meant to accomplish. You can also find all the earlier OSA posts here.  Since the lessons are meant to be done in sequence, if you're just joining us now, please go back to the beginning and start there.  

The tools you'll need for this work, as explained earlier, are a notebook and a pen, along with patience and privacy. One piece of advice: read the whole lesson from start to finish at least twice before you begin the work. It was quite common for people back in the day to read only part of the lesson, misunderstand it, and either get the instructions scrambled or fly off the handle completely. We are dealing with emotionally difficult issues here, and it's worth taking the time to be sure you understand the instructions.

The papers below will give you plenty to work on. Next week, I'll post the work that will qualify you for the fourth rank of the Octagon Society, the 4/8.


The Octagon Society

2/8 Instructional Papers

 

Congratulations.  You've completed one quarter of your alchemical journey in the Octagon Society.  You've accepted yourself just as you are.  You've accepted other people in your life just as they are.  You've analyzed the people and things that make you feel sad and you've taken steps to increase the happiness in your life.  You've attained the rank of 2/8 in the Octagon Society.  As a 2/8 you now have access to our lessons for the first three laws: the Law of Acceptance, the Law of Happiness, and the Law of Joy. 

 

The Third Law, the Law of Joy, says we can achieve a joy-filled existence in spite of all the negative things that can happen to us.  You can achieve a joy-filled existence in spite of all the negative things that can happen to you.  

 

Most people in this world of manifestation are filled with far more fear and anxiety than joy.  They awaken, live, work and sleep in a world far more fearful than joyful.  They move through the world in a state of fear rather than a state of joy.  In many ways, fear governs their lives.  They're afraid of dying, of not having enough food, money or clothing, of not keeping a good job, of losing their homes.  They're afraid bad things will happen to them and there's nothing they can do about it.  Their lives are filled with fear and not joy.  This is the Law of Joy:  your capacity for joy is measured by your ability to let go of fear. 

 

The Law of Joy has eight separate and distinct steps to be practiced in order to attain the rank of 3/8.  As you work your way through these tasks, set aside the knowledge than nobody can make you feel fearful or joyful.  You have control of these emotions, not them, but for the time being it’s important to let go of that awareness and feel, as most people do, that other people can make you fearful. 

 

• List the things your father did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

 

• List the things your mother did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

 

• List the things your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews  and cousins did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

 

• List the things your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your  ancestors did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

 

• List the things your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

 

• List the things your enemies and antagonists did to you to make you feel fearful or anxious

 

• List the things all other persons whatsoever did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious

 

• List the things you do that make you feel fearful or anxious

 

1.  Step One is to list the things your father did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious.  Make this list as complete as possible.  This is the first task and it can be completed in the same manner as you approached the First Law, the Law of Acceptance.  

 

The second task is to consciously decide how you'll handle these same situations in the future regardless of the people, places and things concerned.  Your decision is not specific to your father but general to all other situations similar to the events you've listed in regard to your father.  The decision is how to remain joyful in many situations that previously caused you to feel fearful or anxious.  Once you've completed both tasks to your satisfaction, move on to the second and subsequent steps.

 

2.   Step Two is to list the things your mother did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious.  Make this list as complete as possible.  This is the first task and it can be completed in the same manner as you approached the First Law, the Law of Acceptance.  

 

The second task is to consciously decide how you'll handle these same situations in the future regardless of the people, places and things concerned.  Your decision is not specific to your mother but general to all other situations similar to the events you've listed in regard to your mother.  The decision is how to remain joyful in many situations that previously caused you to feel fearful or anxious.  

 

3.  Step Three is to list the things your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews  and cousins did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious.  Process these items and complete both tasks in the same manner you handled the first two steps.  When you've completed both tasks to your satisfaction, proceed to the next step.

 

4.  Step Four is to list the things your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your  ancestors did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious.  Process these items and complete both tasks in the same manner you handled the first two steps.  When you've completed both tasks to your satisfaction, proceed to the next step.

 

5.  Step Five is to list the things your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious.  Process these items and complete both tasks in the same manner you handled the first two steps.  When you've completed both tasks to your satisfaction, proceed to the next step.

 

6.  Step Six is to list the things your enemies and antagonists did to you to make you feel fearful or anxious.  Process these items and complete both tasks in the same manner you handled the first two steps.  When you've completed both tasks to your satisfaction, proceed to the next step.

 

7.  Step Seven is to list the things all other persons whatsoever did to you that made you feel fearful or anxious.  Process these items and complete both tasks in the same manner you handled the first two steps.  When you've completed both tasks to your satisfaction, proceed to the next step.

 

8.  Step Eight is to list the things you do that make you feel fearful or anxious.  Process these items and complete both tasks in the same manner you handled the first two steps.  When you've completed both tasks to your satisfaction, you have completed the work required for advancement to the rank of 3/8. 

 

 

How to Increase your Joy

 

Your happiness increases in direct proportion to the number of things you love to do.  That was explained in your last lesson concerning the Law of Happiness.  

 

Your acceptance of yourself and others increases more and more as you release to the Divine the people, places and things that cause you pain and suffering.  That was explained in the first lesson concerning the Law of Acceptance.

 

Your joy is increased in direct proportion to your ability to face your fears.  That's your current lesson concerning the Law of Joy.  Whatever you fear reduces your joy.  It reduces your quality of life.  It makes your life more difficult.

 

You can face your fears in life or in your imagination.  Either way works.  If you're afraid of high places, you can visit high places, let go of all your tension and concerns, relax and face your fear of high places.  Or, in the comfort of your living room, you can breathe deeply and relax.  Let go of all tension and all the cares of the world.  Then imagine yourself in a high place and face your fear of heights in your imagination.

 

What you imagine will become true.

Comments

[d_mekel]

Oh boy. I feel like anxiety is a world I live in, yet I also don't worry, fear, or care too much about what I can't control. It's an odd feeling.

Just started happiness yesterday. I feel like the issues I'm writing about steadily overlap, but it also flushes out things I missed or didn't think of.

[ecosophia]

There's a lot of overlap, but it's helpful to look at these issues from different angles.

[(Anonymous)]

Is your announcement related to a new book?

[ecosophia]

Wait and see!

Printable Versions

[(Anonymous)]

Was there any luck getting printable versions of the OSA materials? (I think some readers were looking into it too, so I'm asking this broadly.) When I tried printing from Dreamwidth it cut off some of the material and I didn't see a quick way to fix it.

If push comes to shove I can copy/paste the material and clean up the formatting manually, but there's no sense in dozens of people doing duplicative work if someone's already done it.

Re: Printable Versions

[ecosophia]

I'm sorry to say I simply haven't had time to get to it. Have you tried highlighting the text and then copying and pasting it to a text or Word file?

Re: Printable Versions

[open_space]

If you want a "pretty" version --just a little formatting really-- I've been compiling these lessons and can share them in booklet form once JMG finished posting them here if people would be interested in that.

Re: Printable Versions

[temporaryreality]

I'm also up for making them available via mimeograph when I'm up and running (currently prepping my first publication).

[(Anonymous)]

I must admit, this is turning into quite a journey. I thought "JMG says to spend one to two weeks on each lesson, but it can't really take that long!" Needless to say, it is, and I'm a couple weeks behind. I've been printing the lessons out and putting them into a loose-leaf binder so that they are close at hand when I'm ready for the next lesson even if I'm not at the computer.

I've found that some things seem repetitive to me. For example, if I were ready to start today's lesson and listed something my father did that made me anxious, it might be the same thing I listed earlier as something I blamed him for, or something that made me feel bad. Is this to show how even one item, interpreted as a negative event in one's life, can have multiple influences on oneself? And also that just when you think "Oh, I've dealt with that issue" you are forced to look at it again, from a slightly different angle? Perhaps this was brought up in previous comments on the lessons, but I haven't always had the time to go through them all. I have time off this week, so am trying to catch up with things!

Joy Marie

[ecosophia]

Yes, exactly. It's helpful to go through these things from different angles; as you'll see, there's some degree of synthesis of the different perspectives as we proceed.

[stcathalexandria]

I worked on the preliminary assignment on Guilt this past weekend and one thing I thought I had worked through decades ago came roaring back. It showed up every assignment but for this one one it was with big flashing lights and cymbals crashing. I can imagine G*d forgiving me before I can forgive myself. I feel a need to beat myself up and its been interesting to ask what I get out of that behavior. Letting it go by handing it over to G*d and releasing it is so freeing.....and then I find myself wanting to grab onto it again and begin the self-flagellation.

I'm writing about it all and processing it so I can move to the lesson 0. I'm thankful that the work doesn't require perfection but progress.

[ecosophia]

You might do some journaling about why beating yourself up is part of your comfort zone. (I'm not making fun of you, btw -- I mean this quite seriously. Many people end up with an emotional comfort zone including things that others find very uncomfortable indeed!)

[adara9]

Oof, right there with you. During Blame, I was collecting all the stuff I blame myself for throughout the 2 weeks, and then when I got to "me" realized it was only supposed to include the things that hurt me! Finally got some of that stuff out during Guilt, and it unlocked a huge cesspool of fear. (Which I see I'll get to write about in a couple of weeks, as I'm about halfway through Acceptance right now.)

Unlocking & Releasing

[cs2]

This is definitely unlocking tension, in the form of emotional issues, that had been wanting to be released for years. I'm seeing overlap from my time in cognitive behavioral therapy, like this is a path I've tried to find before. I'm currently finishing up Guilt, and whenever I read through and say that the gods accept me despite this mistake, phew, it's such a relief!

Re: Unlocking & Releasing

[stcathalexandria]

I see the overlap too with CBT and finding that I logically got past things before and now have the opportunity to do it in another way. It's been an interesting journey through the lessons. Simple directions and not easy.

Re: Unlocking & Releasing

[ecosophia]

Interesting. Can you point me to a good source or two for cognitive behavioral therapy? Since it looks at this point as though the Order of Spiritual Alchemy will become active again in the near future -- there's clearly plenty of interest, and I've corresponded with John Gilbert's widow and gotten her enthusiastic approval for the project -- it might be worth seeing if there are useful techniques to borrow. Also, if you and Stcathalexandria have any suggestions to offer, that would be very welcome.

[weilong]

I've finished the three preliminary lessons. Are we supposed to contact you at this point, or just go on to the 0/8 work?

[ecosophia]

Ahem. I've commented several times already that there's nothing to send in. If you complete the full course, there's an examination, and we'll work out the details when we get to that.

[weilong]

My apologies. I went back through the posts looking for something about that, but I didn't think to check the comments. I will proceed.

[ecosophia]

I apologize as well, for the grumpy tone of my response. Yesterday was not a good day, but a night's sleep and a good long meditation have fixed that.

I hope you will leave this material up

[(Anonymous)]

I still haven’t had a chance to get started, due to many tasks and to the fixed number of hours in a day. I hope to make a workable schedule and get on the job; it would really be a bummer to find the instructions had been sucked back up into the astral and disappeared.

Re: I hope you will leave this material up

[ecosophia]

It'll be available in one way or another. The previous Chief Guardian, John Gilbert's widow, has handed that title over to me, and so once again -- twice in one lifetime! -- I have the interesting experience of being handed a mostly defunct esoteric order and being asked to slap shock paddles on its prostrate body and get it breathing again.

I'll keep everyone posted, but my current thought is that these lessons will be publicly available on an eventual OSA website, and those who complete them and pass an examination will be eligible to advance to the higher levels of the OSA on paying a modest fee for lifetime membership -- the money will of course go to pay for the website and other expenses of the order.

To make this happen, I'll need people who complete the Octagon Society lessons and are willing to put in a modest amount of time and effort to get the OSA running and keep it on its feet. Given the enthusiastic response, I don't think that's going to be a problem -- but we'll see.

[(Anonymous)]

I started the first preliminary exercise a couple days ago and have completed step 4.

Still not sure if I'm doing it right. I don't have many specific memories they are sort of a soup that's been blended. Right now it feels like complaining at length but some stuff did come up. The most interesting was a recollection but not a recollection where a 'memory' surfaced except distorted with my mother red and snarling. Nothing specific about the memory and it was more of a representation of a couple memories, using the soup metaphor again, like catching a unnoticed flavor in a nasty concoction.

[ecosophia]

Complaining at length is fine. Go through the three preliminary lessons as best you can, take a look back over the work, and see what you learned about yourself and your life.

Many people who get that kind of fragmentary snarling-base memories discover that they're bad memories from very early childhood or infancy. I've had some of them to deal with. Let things surface at their own pace, and the healing will begin.

[kylec]

I've been getting very good results from the Law of Happiness, still in progress. As a supplement, I decided to make a list of things that DO make me happy, and are within my control. So for example, prayer, or having a good homecooked meal would both wualify, but receiving a compliment would bot, since it's beyond my control.

I made three columns and assigned point values. One point for simple pleasures. Ten points for things that bring me a brust of joy or a stable sense of happiness for a time. One hundred point for things that are deeply fulfilling. I intend to use this in conjunction with the results of my exercises. Not only can I go to this list to reframe unhappy situations, but I can make sure to engage in these acts regularly.

Something I noticed right away is that all of the 100 point things seemed to be long-term practices, e.g. Druidry. And each of those had smaller parts, like performing a crisp seasonal ritual that earned 10 points, and a morning meditation that earned 1 point. Now I'm going to go back and tier this list, to make sure I am noticing all of the small component things that make me happy and combine to create those 100 pointers. And I will also notice where certain 1 and 10 pointers that do NOT have a corresponding 100 pointer can be combined and developed (possibly with new happy acts) into the stars of a constellation of deeper fulfillment.

[ecosophia]

Excellent! Would you be willing at some point to write up a short essay on how you made the list and what that experience did for you? One of the things John Gilbert used to do back in the day was encourage members of the OSA to expand the Order's work and provide additional tools for other members.

OSA Practice and Blame

[deng]

Hey John. I'm nowhere near this far along in our OSA practice. But I do want to say that it has been helpful working with and through all the covid BS at work and the vax mandates that are costing many of us our jobs soon. One thing I've run into with the practice is how deeply I've glossed over and even forgotten things in the past that bothered or effected me. I thought I'd discovered a significant 'blame' issue I attributed to my wife. It turned out to be so superficial it was comical. I thought issues with my parents had been dealt with before and actually mostly were. What I ended up discovering, remembering really, was the deep deep pain of my grandmother's passing that I've come to realize is the defining wound in my life. That the person who loved me and I loved back the most was so cruelly taken was unforgivable to me. That the lonely walk by a river where I raised my middle finger to heaven and cursed God forever as a child was nearly forgotten is incredible. That is a blame the devours all others. That the pressures of work combined with my attempts at our practice have unearthed this issue is something I am grateful for. Thank you. Den

Re: OSA Practice and Blame

[ecosophia]

That's one of the kinds of things these practices are meant to uncover and help you deal with. I'm glad to hear that it's working for you -- and that you're working with it.