Psychology and Alchemy on the path to ‘know thyself’

There’s a running joke among psychologists that we all become them just because we are ‘crazy’ and want to understand ourselves. It’s a bit tongue in cheek, but for me, there was certainly some accuracy to that statement. I’d like to think that I was never crazy, but you'll have to ask my ex-boyfriends to confirm 😂. 

All jokes aside, I was certainly drawn to more deeply ‘know myself’ through the study of human behaviour: not only how I behaved within my own mind, but also how my mind then interacted with the complex nature of others’ minds.

I knew there was more to the way that people worked, and have explored the mind for many years through the lens of psychology. Through now almost 10 years of graduate study in the subject, I have learned deeply about the areas that psychology helps humans to overcome their limitations, and also, paradoxically where psychology falls short in assisting people to ‘know themselves’.

Have you ever wondered how some people go through years and years of therapy but seem to have the same problems?

Maybe it’s even happened to you. 

You find a cool therapist, they suggest that you keep working together, and at first, psychology gives you awareness, understanding and insight that you never had. You get clarity about the dynamics of your mental landscape, perhaps potential reasons for why you behave the way that you do, feel the way that you feel, or interact with others in unhealthy ways.

But then, therapy hits a ceiling. Imagine therapy as your 1995 Toyota driving as fast as it can in 5th gear: sometimes it gets you far enough, fast enough, but other times you need something…. better. Faster, stronger, and more effective.

Enter metaphysics. 

Before really diving in here, I want to give a disclaimer that I doubted the potential of metaphysics in reaching breakthroughs before I experienced them firsthand. I owe this to the fact that alongside my psychology studies, I also studied several New Age spiritual modalities which used crystals, breathwork, meditation and even subconscious reprogramming to help people to shift. While these popularized techniques occasionally supplemented my psychological breakthroughs, it was never anything particularly impressive or that sustained me long enough that I was convinced it really worked.

When I began studying in the lineage of King Salomon with the Modern Mystery School, I started to understand the deep and transformative power of inner alchemy. Psychology can help you to name what is going on, but it has nothing to do with the calcination, dissolution, fermentation processes (and all the other hidden alchemical processes that happen through metaphysics) that actually transmute and transform your mental world... The truth is that in revisiting traumas and negative experiences over and over and over again, we are actually held back from reaching further growth in our healing process.

The path of the initiate is an alchemical process of purification and is the path to ‘knowing thyself’. ’Knowing thyself’ in this lineage reaches levels deeper and more profound than one could ever reach with psychology. 

As initiates, we alchemically transform not only the mind (as in psychology), but also the soul and the spirit. The evidence speaks for itself, as initiates are often able to let go, move on, grow, shift and step into themselves quicker and more effortlessly than most people.

As initiates clean up the negativity and limitations within, we leap to the next level so quickly and so effortlessly that it’s almost like it’s magick.

Oh, wait, it is.