Symbols - What does heaven look like
Alchemical colours
In the section on the Four seasons and the hours you will see that there are two routes to life’s journey which can be described using a symbolic chart that incorporates the hours and the seasons.
There are two paths that can be taken symbolically round this chart;
- The ‘normal’ path – the way of the South
- The spiritual path – the way of the North.
Reincarnation - Taking the normal route, symbolically Dawn/Spring is birth, Noon/Summer is mid-life and Sunset/Autumn is old age and physical death, the end of life. You then go through the ‘winter’ in disembodied form as your Higher spirit - and reincarnate with a new destiny and a new personality in ‘Spring’.
No reincarnation - You are born [Spring/dawn], you go through a normal mid life [summer/noon], and get to an ‘Autumn’ stage. But then the mystic traveller adds an extra stage to his life. He undergoes in bodied form what he would have had to go through in death. He or she goes through ‘Winter’ as a living person. It can be quite traumatic as one has to go through ‘the Dark Night of the Soul’, but if you succeed you appear at dawn free of any need to be reincarnated. You have achieved your destiny once and for all.
If you travel the spiritual path [and succeed] then you unite at the end with your Higher spirit whilst you are still alive – you actually become your Higher spirit during life and thus become a ‘god’ in life. This sequence is described in the Types of spiritual experience where the last stage is effectively annihilation.
The alchemists also described these stages but used colours to describe the stages. As the colour symbolism is very specific to this particular system one cannot assume that the colours have this meaning outside this very specific application.
- The Black stage – involves initiation, the calling and early testing of the person to see if they are suited to the task.
- The White stage is a time of ‘illumination’ – in effect a very intense time of learning, it is also a time of relative innocence.
- The Black stage - At midnight there is often a rather terrifying rebirth process, although where exactly this comes in the cycle is variable.
- The Red stage is a time of considerable sacrifice, with much ‘wounding’ as the personality is demolished, beliefs are stripped away, the ‘shadow’ of the person is made apparent to them and they become sublimated and more passive to the final stage. By the end of the stage, the ego has virtually disappeared. They have become a symbolic ‘servant’.
- The Gold stage - during the gold stage the person meets their Higher spirit, then merges with their Higher spirit
- The Green stage - Green is the colour of renewal and comes symbolically speaking at the very end of the stages. It is when the process follows to its ultimate conclusion and the person is annihilated. The person becomes their higher spirit.
Without being too prescriptive about the stages, the types of spiritual experience often found at each stage are as follows:
BLACK and WHITE |
Synaesthesia – one type of sensory input is converted to another type. Pure or enhanced perception – the physical world is seen but in an enhanced way – brighter colours, clearer, more vivid, scintillating light. Hallucination – an image or sound or similar sensory impression which is superimposed by the composer on the input from the sensory apparatus. Inter composer communication – the composer communication between two or more ‘things’ [people, animals etc] to share information. Vision – an image or scene, occasionally with other sensory input which completely overrides that from our 5 senses. Dream – an ordinary or a lucid dream. Invisible input – some input provided by the composer is invisible. It includes healing energy, prophetic insight, divine love and bliss, inspiration, wisdom, conscience, and forgiveness. Out of time – consciousness is temporarily transferred to your composer and you thus enter the world beyond your perceptions . This is a world of no time. Out of body – consciousness transfers to the composer and the will remains in the body with a lesser ‘tick-over’ role as it maintains the autonomic system and monitors for threats. |
MIDNIGHT |
Rebirth– a terrifying experience in which we are ‘rewritten’ in software terms – we ‘die’ figuratively speaking and are born again as a new cleaned up version of the software. |
RED |
Perception recall [the dive] – an experience in which you go through events of this life and possibly past lives to see what is preventing you from merging with your higher spirit. Also called ‘meeting your shadow’ because you in effect dive down to the subconscious. Exploring group perception – as above but using other people’s perceptions to get their side of the story. Kundalini – a precursor stage to moksha and nirvana, in which energy travels up and down the spine. |
GOLD then GREEN |
Ecstasy- the communication channels are opened to the composer. In this experience we ‘meet’ our composer, and Higher spirit but there is no merge. Moksha and nirvana – also called in mystic Christianity ‘Rapture’. You merge with your composer. This is often referred to as the ‘chemical wedding’. Annihilation– the personality is annihilated and ‘you’ as a personality cease to exist. |
Observations
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- Aurora consurgens - 08 An allegory of Sophia
- Aurora consurgens - 10 An allegory of Conjunction
- Baa baa black sheep
- Bacon, Roger - The Mirror of Alchemy – Chapter 06
- Bacon, Roger - The Mirror of Alchemy – Chapter 07
- Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit 15th century
- Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit 15th century
- Carl Gustav Jung and the integration of the conscious and unconscious aspects
- Count of St Germain - Dying wool and silk
- Dickinson, Edmund - When Phoebus with his rayes bright
- Flamel, Nicolas - from Alchemie de Flamel by D Molinier 1772
- Flamel, Nicolas - Uraltes chymisches Werk A Eleazar 1760 5th illustr.
- Gaudi - Professional work - 04 The Sagrada Família
- H Reussner - Pandora Basle 1582
- Khafajah - Clay plaque from Khafajah
- Khunrath, Heinrich - Vom hylealischen Chaos 1708
- Plensa, Jaume - Alchemist
- Rider-Waite - 10 Wheel of Fortune
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 18 The Green Lion devours the Sun
- Samavedas – Book 07 Chapter 03, X Soma Pavamana
- Scites - The Crowd
- Shah, Idries - A Perfumed Scorpion
- Shah, Idries - The Sufis - QaLB
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 08 - 1 It's my own invention
- Tree, Isabella - Sliced Iguana – 01 Isabella tries peyote
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 3rd Book of the Weights
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 5th Book of Magnesia picture 10
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 5th Book of Magnesia picture 6
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 5th Book of Magnesia picture 8 - Resurrection
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 6th Book about the Nature, Book of Imuths
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 7th Book of the Mercuries picture 3
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 8th Book of Operations
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Vision of Zosimos - 01