by John Gilbert, Ph.D., D.D.
No matter how you cut it, alchemical work is one of the most difficult tasks any of us will undertake in this lifetime. There’s just no easy way to get down into the muck of our soul and work on this prime material. There’s no easy way to change our previous ignorance (lead) into the true knowledge of who and what we truly are (gold) and knowledge of the Divine (gnosis).
The teachings of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy can be read in a few minutes but completing any of these tasks can take a lifetime. The problem is most of us would like to complete the Great Work in this lifetime. And we want to do it completely and perfectly the first time. Therein lies our problem.
The first law to which the student is introduced is the Law of Acceptance. It will take most of us the rest of our lives to accept ourselves, and everything that’s ever happened to us, and everybody that’s ever harmed, injured or ignored us. There are seven more laws and each of them could take a lifetime as well. Fitting eight lifetimes into one lifetime seems like an impossible task.
It is an impossible task if we seek perfection for each step as we grow. We probably won’t attain perfection of any one law in one lifetime. Those of us who insist on doing the Great Work perfectly will never attain our goal. Our lives will continue to be filled with imperfections of every kind (lead). We won’t advance beyond the First Law – the Law of Acceptance.
The secret in doing the Great Work is to seek progress and not perfection. Those of us who seek to improve ourselves by taking small steps again and again have a very real opportunity to attain our final goal. Those who seek to improve themselves by taking giant steps, will probably get stuck on the first step and progress no further. The secret is to take small steps and to move ahead with a purpose.
The Law of Acceptance doesn’t ask us to accept everything that ever happened to us right now. It doesn’t ask us to accept everybody utterly and completely right now. It doesn’t even ask us to completely accept ourselves right now. The Law of Acceptance is a set of eight tasks we’re asked to do.
Doing something doesn’t mean we seek perfection right now. It means we sit down and do it. We do it to the best of our ability right now and then we move on to the next task. We do what we can do; and when we’ve done as much as we can do in a week or two, we move on to the next task.
This doesn’t mean we’re done with the first task. Far from it, we know we haven’t attained perfection. We know we’ve made some progress. That means we’re done for right now. It also means we know we still have work to do. But the secret of the Great Work is that as we progress
step by step the work we’ve already done bears great fruit. We continue to accept ourselves and others more and more as we work on the next step and the next step and the next.
The Great Work starts off as a conscious and painful effort. It becomes more and more a part of our lives and the pain diminishes piece by piece as we continue to work through the eight laws step by step. Eventually it becomes a part of our lives and we unconsciously continue to accept both others and ourselves more and more. This happens not because we stayed stuck on the First Law, but because we did what we could regarding the First Law and moved on step by step to the others.
My first suggestion is to sit down with the material for the current law. Write down as much as you can write for about ten to fifteen minutes. Write it out in sentences and paragraphs or by cryptic notes. It doesn’t matter how you keep your records. Just write it down. Cry a lot or do what you need to do as you look over this list of negative events and people. Do the Breath of Acceptance and let it go.
During the day when you remember something else, make a note of it. If you can take a few moments to do the Breath of Acceptance right then, do it and get on with your life. In the evening you can add any notes to your growing list and do the Breath of Acceptance exercise for a few moments.
During the next seven sessions, take fifteen minutes each day to do the next task for the Law. At the end of the eighth session you’ll know you’ve made some progress. That’s the time to finish up the current law and get ready for the next one. You have a lifetime to come back to the current law and add to the list and continue doing the Breath of Acceptance.
My second suggestion is to reward yourself after you finish each law. Take the time to acknowledge you’re making progress. Pat yourself on the back. Take a walk. Relax and treat yourself. My personal favorite treat is to take a shower, wash my hair, shave, put on somesmelly-smelly and go someplace public. It’s as though I’m washing away all that negativity and bringing a new positive happy face into the world.
Something else happens. When I remove some garbage from my life and acknowledge it by doing these things, people seem to react to me more positively. More people smile at me. More people take the time to nod their heads and acknowledge me. Some perfect strangers even say something to me thus indicating their willingness to stop and chat if even for a moment or two.
The world treats me differently. It may be because I’m treating myself differently. Maybe it’s because I’m getting healthier. Maybe releasing some of the toxins in my body makes me easier to approach. Whatever the reason, I like it. It’s significant to me that the world treats me better.
Here’s some special advice for those of you who want to go through this process more quickly. Set aside about two hours to do the work for each of the eight laws. You’ll need paper and pencil and a box of tissues. This gives you an average of fifteen minutes for each task. Some tasks may take longer than the rest of them. Just sit down and start writing for the first of your eight tasks.
You’ll complete most of the work for each law in this initial session. Take the rest of the week to review your work. Add anything you want to add. This will just take a few minutes each day. At the end of the week take a couple of days to get ready for the next law.
My final suggestion is to get started on the Great Work as soon as you can. The Eight Laws taught by the Octagon Society have the potential to help you transform yourself into the person you want to become. They offer you the opportunity to get started on the process of changing your lead into gold. They offer you the chance to observe great changes in your life. They offer you the chance to try the first lesson for yourself.
Make no mistake about it, alchemy is difficult work. You dredge up all sorts of emotions you didn’t even know were there. But as you apply the lesson of each law to these emotions, you heal yourself, you change, you transform yourself into the person you want to become, you become a much more spiritual being.
In the final analysis you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the very best on your spiritual journey.