The World is Your Alchemical Laboratory

By William Bezanson

Have your ever thought of what a wonderful place exists for you to do experiments, to test your ideas, to verify hypotheses, and to do all sorts of other inner work? This wonderful place is the world, and what it can be is your alchemical laboratory for doing a whole array of spiritual experiments and other forms of inner work.

In earlier writings the world was defined to be the Earth plus Spirit. The Earth is the physical world that we live in, including our physical bodies, our homes, our work, and our food. The Spirit is the unseen, non-physical world that we live in, including our spiritual bodies, our souls, and our minds.

The Importance of Having an Alchemical Laboratory

An alchemical laboratory is a place where we can perform wondrous experiments by creating physical phenomena with our mental activities. Alchemy is manipulating natural forces to further the divine purpose. You can be a healing channel for God’s love to people that you want to heal. You can be a spiritual facilitator for any cause that you care about. You can even work “magic” in peoples’ lives; by which are meant seemingly unexpected physical results for physical needs or wants.

Alchemy involves manipulating or channeling the four alchemical elements through your being out to the causes upon which you want to have effect: Air for fresh ideas, Water for flowing solutions around obstacles, Earth for solidifying new results, and Fire for creating new situations. The first three may be used readily, but the fourth one, Fire, is best used only under guidance of experienced mentors because it is so powerful and dangerous unless used with proper training.

The key point here is that the world is your alchemical laboratory. You are the experimenter, and your world is your laboratory. Try keeping a list of the people and causes that you want to have effect upon in your laboratory. This would be a prayer list in Christian terms, a healing list in mystical terms, or a component list in laboratory terms. You may want to categorize your targets (people and causes) by short, medium, and long-term healing; or by Air, Water, and Earth elements; or however your group – if you are working with a group for healing – wants to do its categorizing. Keep notes as the healing proceeds and move your targets from one category to another accordingly. Learn from the techniques used to guide your healing for future targets. Compare notes with others in your group, or in other such groups.

Before long you will see certain patterns emerge, so that you will be able to apply laboratory and inductive methods. For example, you will be able to apply a scientific (inductive logic) structure on new targets. First, form a hypothesis of the healing type and category needed. Second, conduct your healing as needed, say by daily visualization of Air or Water flowing through yourself to the target for healing. Third, observe results and modify your healing method as needed, such as by grounding the healing with Earth. Continue observations. Fourth, form conclusions that you may communicate to others in your group. Fifth, decide how to terminate the experiment: by ending it, continuing it, or restarting it with a different hypothesis.

Considering the World as Your Alchemical Laboratory

A structured course of healing as sketched out above can form the basis for your “alchemical laboratory.” And it can make a definite and profound impact on your “world.”

In my own case, I work in a Rosicrucian group for my daily healing sessions. We are geographically separated, but united by method and our healing list. We categorize our targets by Immediate, Continuing, and Long Term groupings. We request changes by email as needed, and review the list at our monthly meetings. One person acts as coordinator and custodian, sending out monthly updates.

For yourself, you could work privately or in a group. The latter has advantages of mutual support and advice, while the former has advantages of privacy and self-made rules.

As for what you do in your healing practice and in your alchemical laboratory, it is up to you to decide. In my own case I follow, with a few variations, the absent healing process as taught by the Rosicrucian order that I belong to, namely the Confraternity of the Rose Cross. That process was explained in an earlier article and in my latest book. Briefly, it involves a meditative procedure of visualizing health, healing, and success for the names on one’s list, releasing those names to God, sensing the healing energies flowing out through one to the people or causes, thanking God for using one as a health enabler, and putting some coins into a container for anonymous donation to a charity as a token of gratitude.

The alchemical process under consideration here is a transformation of the world’s physical and spiritual constitution through applying the alchemical elements. This process may be used for any transformation, for example, not only for healing, as described here, but also for job searching, problem solving, strategic planning, working on global situations, and other causes and endeavors.

That is my process, evolved and adapted as part of a group. You are welcome to develop your own. The key points are to want to do such alchemical laboratory work, and to develop a structure and discipline to do it regularly and effectively. You have the natural ability within you to do such work, if only you will make it happen. The fact that you are reading this article suggests that you are aware of your natural ability and that you have the will to make it happen.

Reference: (“How to Pray“, OMTimes Dec B, 2013, p. 38)

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About the Author

William Bezanson is a retired engineer who writes on systems design and world stewardship. His latest book is I Believe: A Rosicrucian Looks at Christianity and Spirituality (Burnstown Publishing, Burnstown ON, 2014). He lives with his wife in Ottawa, Canada. His website is www3.sympatico.ca/bezanson1