Octagon Society

Order of Spiritual Alchemy, an introduction

Some of my readers might recall, I am the Chief Guardian of the Octagon Society, Order of Spiritual Alchemy. I’m not even sure how I came by that title, except maybe that no one else in the order wanted the title, but I feel honored nonetheless. Previous Chief Guardians were/are a heady bunch, a good deal more accomplished than I am; I have yet even to discuss publicly, in any detail, what the Octagon Society is. Sitting alone in the wilderness recently, it occurred to me, if I am to be the Chief Guardian of the Octagon Society, I should probably act like one, whatever that means.

Oftentimes when people hear about such an Order or Society, they think secret, as in the “Illuminati”, or Masons, supposedly manipulating society in the shadows. Whether or not there is any truth to that, about these “orders” is a different conversation; The Octagon Society is neither secret, nor will it ever be in any position to influence society on any grand scale. The order is 145 years old (perhaps much older than that), but there have never been more than a few thousand people involved, and really not more than a few hundred, at any time. There might not be 100 people involved, currently. I have never even met anyone involved, face to face, all our communications have been by email.

What is the Octagon Society, Order of Spiritual Alchemy? Spiritual alchemy is transforming the dross of trauma, psychosis, psychological dead ends, detrimental habits and biases, into spiritual gold/the life you want for yourself. These days, therapy is normative, talking about your problems is no longer taboo but rather popular, we are encouraged to process, do our shadow work. Much of the discourse of the society has become psychological, clinical in a real sense, we are all in the West now children of Freud and Jung. But too often, therapy becomes the thing, talking about your problems becomes identity, processing has no end and shadow work is a fine line between owning it and inflaming it. There are a lot of people out there who would have you processing the same issues for the rest of your days, the eternal victim needing eternal treatment. Trust the science, the experts know best…it’s best if you have insurance.

The Octagon Society says instead, trust yourself.

That is not to say we don’t need any help, I am merely saying, there is an inherent wisdom in the body, based on 350,000 years at least, of homo sapien, there is no healing or growth of any kind, for you, that does not start with you. You are the key to your self, mind, body and spirit.

The Octagon Society training is very much like self-psychoanalysis, taking a long hard look at your life to root out any detrimental issues and turn them into spiritual strength. There is nothing at all easy about that. Most people won’t do that work, not even with a therapist; doing it at home alone is beyond the ken for most.

The work involves an introduction, three preliminary lessons, and eight instructional papers. The eight instructional papers are about the eight Laws: Acceptance, Happiness, Joy, Peace, Forgiveness, Strength, Teaching, Unconditional Love.¹ John Michael Greer speaks clearly to the work in the language of spiritual alchemy, in the introduction:

spiritual alchemy…was intended to accomplish not the transmutation of lead into gold but the healing and transformation of the individual self into a higher mode of human existence. That system does not involve strange incantations or exotic practices of any kind, and it can be successfully practiced alongside other spiritual, religious, and magical paths. Its working instruments are a pen and a notebook—a lined spiral notebook of the sort sold as school supplies is entirely suitable. It requires fifteen or twenty minutes a day, which are spent remembering, reflecting, and writing.

This may make the OSA’s system of spiritual alchemy sound like a lightweight activity. It is not. I have done very few practices of any kind that are as challenging as spiritual alchemy. What you will be doing with that pen and notebook, if you take up these practices, is unpacking all your least favorite memories and coming face to face with all your most tangled and difficult emotions. This is the first stage of spiritual alchemy, the Nigredo (black phase) of the old alchemists. In the OSA it is called the stage of Entering the Fire; another name for it in alchemical lore is the Casting of the Molten Sea. On the far side are two more phases: the white phase or Albedo, which is called Baptism with Water in the OSA and is also known as the Making of the Rose Diamond, and the red phase or Rubedo, which in the OSA is called Entering the Mind of God and is also called the Achieving of the Philosopher’s Stone.

The goal of spiritual alchemy in the OSA system is quite literally to take apart the ramshackle structure of your thoughts and feelings one piece at a time, and put it back together in a way that is better suited to achieve happiness and success In alchemical terms, you will apply the classic method of solve et coagula—“dissolve and reunite”—to yourself, in order to transmute the lead of your current life into the gold of a life lived in conscious awareness of the divine reality that surrounds and penetrates all things. It is not a fast process. You will need to spend a good deal of time on each of the phases, and even after you complete the full sequence, you will need to go back through them again at intervals to get the most out of the practices.

One additional note. The lessons assume that you accept the existence of a divine being.

That last bit is a show stopper for some people, if the work involved is not. I lose a few subscribers here on substack, every time I talk about the divine, spirits, gods and God. Why however, is it necessary to believe in a creator, to study spiritual alchemy? Because this is a spiritual method for coming closer to God, about opening up to your place in the manifold universe as a creator yourself. We are all magicians of a kind, creating a narrative and understanding of who we are in relation to the Other, every time we open our mouth. In that sense life is like an artwork, a life long creative endeavor, building on the Word.

Surely you have met people who are a lot like automatons. Their language is one long cliche’, one long repetitive exercise in posturing according to popular and ideological ideals, but not even that intentional, like a narrative mask of identity largely dependent on propaganda to be modeled after - think “safe and effective”, “ask your doctor about (insert pharmaceutical),” “Yes a man can become pregnant,” “fact-checkers say…”, “economic changes are going to require people in manufacturing to learn how to code,” “drill baby drill,” or “if we just get (corporate) regulations out of the way and reduce taxes, resources will be abundant and the economy will be great again!” (Jack Smith the special prosecutor in the Trump case is a prime example, the little boy who never grew up, play-acting as Tough Guy and American Hero.) News has become little more than telling us daily what and how to think, what not to say or think. Such is the narrative, telling us how to be, what is acceptable behavior and what is not, what is expected of us as docile consumers. Of course, stories about life, what life is and how to be most present and alive, are necessary, built over long ages and many generations, to give meaning, context and depth to life. But oftentimes such narratives become an excuse not to think for oneself, not to question, not to be open to new ideas, a narrative mask called identity or ego.

There is another thing, beside the need to believe in a creator, that prevents people from following through with the lessons of the Octagon Society. That is, the idea that healing and real growth and expansion require we take responsibility for the bad things other people have done to us. This is a very controversial idea, but it is essential to understanding the work of spiritual alchemy.

The fifth instructional paper is called the Law of Forgiveness. Most people think forgiveness is the same as absolution, that the person who harmed you is absolved of the awful thing they did, in the act of forgiveness. But forgiveness recognizes first that you are never likely to get the resolve you want from the person who harmed you. If your healing from trauma is dependent on the one who harmed you apologizing, recognizing and acknowledging the harm they did - or being punished - then you are very likely never going to heal from that trauma.

Forgiveness starts and ends with you. If you are a mess in any way because of something that was done to you, then that person still has power over you. Forgiveness is recognizing that the one who harmed you is a child of God lost. Forgiveness is releasing yourself, healing that trauma, letting go, moving on and building a new life as you imagine and will it into being. You have that power, that power is your right inherent. Whoever harmed you need not take any part, or even be aware at all that you are doing that work. Leave that judgment as to absolution or not, up to God; be assured of the law of return, what evil one does will return on him or her many times over; take that trauma and turn it into the gold of healing, clarity, understanding, confidence and self-awareness - be at ease in this divine universe.

Trauma can also become part of identity, even the bulk of identity. If there is one thing most people are loathe to do, it is to “apply the classic method of solve et coagula—“dissolve and reunite””. Most people are not willing to shatter their identity as a means to re-architect it. Much of the left in America is trapped in that now, so deadly focused on identity as the be-all, end-all; it is a terrible thing indeed to build an identity around victim-hood, that cannot be questioned. All that is left to that, it seems, is to “worship the wound” or to aspire to be an oppressor or both. Such a double-negative duality - victim/oppressor - cannot possibly be true, yet many enthralled to it act as if it is the only truth.

It is also an issue for the dissident community. We are so focused on demons, on the pathologies of the woke/trans/globalist Imperium, we become consumed by it and are rendered incapable of imagining alternatives, willing a new way into being.

In my own work, I had to acknowledge that I had built an identity around being opposed to the elite meritocracy. I positioned myself as a victim of them, I spent a ridiculous amount of energy focusing on them, I felt a great deal of indignation about their behavior that was self-justifying, it mostly incapacitated me, the indignation becoming a thing unto itself. I had to let go, knowing there is little I can do about it except manage my response; to imagine a world free of such malign elite, that needs to be my focus, not the day after day evidence of their malignancy, but what do I do now to build my life free from that as much as possible, how do I position myself to be ready when they fall, to help my friends, family and community transition? How do I build and help build a healthy alternative to the trend toward authoritarianism? What do I need to do, to get right with myself, that I might be of greatest service, to friends, family, community, America, humanity this earth and God?

That is what spiritual alchemy means to me, to take the damage done to me by people and society, and transform it into mental, physical and spiritual strength. This is my private, solitary practice. I invite you to establish your own (though I trust to some degree, if you have read this far, you already have.) There are many ways of going about that; If you embark on the Octagon Society training, you need not do it alone, there are those of us who have done the work, who would be happy to help you through it. But it is mostly a solitary practice.

Magic is the art of changing consciousness in accordance with will, said Dion Fortune. I know of no more effective method of learning how to change consciousness in accordance with will, than the training of the Octagon Society, Order of Spiritual Alchemy.

1. Perhaps one of my contributions to the Octagon Society will be to add another Law: Wonder. The capacity to wonder is innate to childhood but is mostly stamped out by the time we are adults, even as the manifold universe is never less wondrous.