Alchemy - Sacred Secrets Revealed

Much of Alchemy is misunderstood and shrouded in mystery within magical and fraternal orders, it is our goal to unravel some of the aspects which remain hidden behind conventional history.


First of all what is alchemy?

“Al·che·my

The medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir.” -Google

Many of the great minds of history studied and practiced Alchemy. It was responsible for sacred knowledge, sacred geometry, science, chemistry, medicine, healing, enlightenment, spirituality, and so much more.

Much of the history of Alchemy is scattered and viewed as only the science of attempting to changing regular metal into gold. Although that practice was probably attempted on the physical level, Alchemy has higher symbolic lessons about enlightenment and the transmutation of the soul.

The study of alchemy is as much a spiritual practice as it is a scientific study.  

Check out this excellent 8 video playlist with the history and teachings of the hidden Art & Science of Alchemy! I've found these to be the best around.

Mr. Crowley

Although Aleister Crowley was certainly anti-Christian, he was not anti-Christ. Like many scholars he simply recognized that religious organizations and paradigms do not prevail forever in pristine form, particularly if they fail to evolve and morph as man himself does. Through the ages the institutions of Christianity had become antihuman. Therefore, they need to be replaced by sane, modern ideologies for modern times. Those who see in Crowley nothing but a blustering iconoclast do well to remember that his penchant for deconstruction was balanced with a ability to conceive brilliant solutions to the problems bred by fundamentalist doctrines and dogma:

Crowley desired nothing less than the creation of a full-fledged successor religion - complete with a guiding Logos that would endure for millennia, as had the teachings of Jesus - Lawrence Sutin


Crowley's attacks reached their peak when he penned the slogan of the New Aeon - “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” This misunderstood motto - adopted by hippies, anarchists, neo-pagans and pop icons - has nothing to do with political revolt and sexual license. It was not meant as a slogan for reactionaries bent on secular revolution, but for Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve dedicated to cleansing the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual doors of perception.


"Do What Thou Wilt" does not mean "do what you please" though this degree of emancipation is implied...we can no longer say a priori that any course of action is "wrong." Every man and woman has an absolute right to do his or her own true will – A. C. (Secret Conference)

"Do What Thou Wilt"...is the apotheosis of Freedom; but it is also the strictest possible bond – A. C.

The motto “Do What Thou Wilt” implies attunement between the ego and Imperial Self; which cannot be achieved until the pseudo-self undergoes deconstruction. This deconstruction cannot occur until man separates himself from collective factors responsible for creating and perpetuating the pseudo-self. This separation cannot occur until man has developed sufficient psychic strength - or Will - to go his own way. Aloneness is usually wanting until a man's character is deepened by suffering, which is less likely in a conformist society that suppresses legitimate expressions of emotion and dissuades individuals from addressing the darker sides of life. Therefore, instead of attunement with the Imperial Self we have immersion in the Collective. As Crowley knew, the so-called “I” is not necessarily identical with the Imperial Self. The “self” or “I” of a spiritually inferior man is merely a pastiche of everyone’s attitudes and beliefs, the product of a pathogenic society. To such a creature, the idea of independence, aloneness and psychic sovereignty is contemplated with dread, and men who embody these states are despised and ridiculed on sight.

Whatever your sexual predilections may be, you are free, by the Law of Thelema, to be the star you are, to go your own way rejoicing. It is not indicated here in this text, though it is elsewhere implied, that only one symptom warns that you have mistaken your True Will, and that is, if you should imagine that in pursuing your way you interfere with that of another star. It may, therefore, be considered improper, as a general rule, for your sexual gratification to destroy, deform, or displease any other star. Mutual consent to the act is the condition thereof – A. C. (The Law Is For All)

“Do What Thou Wilt” sounds reprehensible only to those conditioned by religious and societal dogma, and those who wish to enslave the hearts and minds of humans by externally imposed, collectively endorsed morals and values. For such as these, Crowley will always be a veritable “Anti-Christ.” Certainly he was mischievous, irreverent, audacious and self-absorbed. Certainly he was capable of ridicule and hyperbole. Nevertheless, he was certainly of superior character, insight and intention to recent think-tank-funded "people's champions" and media icons who encourage psychic regression and enslavement with chic pop-culture platitudes. His message is an anathema to the hippy and "New-Ager" as much as it is to the buttoned-down Evangelist and Wall Street slicker.

Aleister Crowley was dedicated to all men and women being free to do their own true wills in accordance with their own true natures. He was not...the most evil man in the world, devoted to the vile practices of Black Magic. He was, on the contrary, a devotee of love and will who sought to enlighten humanity


We see then, that we can never affect anything outside ourselves save only as it is also within us. Whatever I do to another, I also do to myself. If I kill a man, I destroy my own life at the same time...Every vibration awakens all others of its particular pitch – A. C. (Magick in Theory and Practice)

What most forget is that true freedom ultimately involves considerable personal responsibility. To attune with the Natural Order and bring one’s being to harmony requires discipline, goodness, virtue, morality, honor,  integrity, principle, probity, honesty, trustworthiness, uprightness, decency, and good character.

The Goat of Mendes aka Baphomet

The icon which most people now believe to be a depiction of the devil is Eliphas Levi's 'Goat of Mendes drawing.' This is a relatively modern image, created and drawn by Levi who was a knowledgeable and influential French Kabbalistic Magician whose work in the late 19th Century is said to have started the modern occult revival. In his book 'Transcendental Magic' from 1860 Levi (who had been a Roman Catholic priest) explains that his image symbolises the position of non ascended / non aware humans, linked more to their bestial nature than their god like consciousness. The animal kameas chosen to represent the elemental forces which create our environment.

The Goat sits in water and bears a fiery torch of knowledge between its horns. One arm points to Heaven bearing the inscription' Solve' or' to set free' and one to Earth bearing the legend 'Coagula or (Coagulation / Density / to impede). This image includes the waxing and waning moons and is of Alchemical importance. It is also said to reflect the teachings of the Templars about gnosis, the ability of man to know God directly once he has overcome his animal self. Although the Knights Templar group was an off shoot of the Catholic church and spent hundreds of years crusading against the Moslems (and therefore had nothing to do with paganism) the group fell into disfavour and was suppressed in 1320 following information given by renegade members about supposed heretical practices.

The persecution of the Templars occurred just as the European witch-hunts were gathering pace and so evidence about their supposed devilish practices was incorporated into the developing demonology. The Templars named their icon (of which no drawing, painting or effigy has ever been found) - Baphomet. Levi's drawing was an attempt to give form to this idea 600 years after the event. The image is often described as the 'Goat of Mendes', 'The Witches God' or 'Satan'. None of these is correct. Basically Levi’s drawing represents the animal nature of mankind, which the thinking person has to transcend in order to develop.

One thing is clear; Levi’s image (on which Dennis Wheatly and Hammer Horror films built their fortunes) is NOT a devil figure and was never meant to be. For Levi's model is a Hermaphrodite. In particular, it has breasts. The lack of breasts is a give away for fraudulent versions. Film depictions usually show the 'devil' as being all male and thereby they miss the symbolism entirely.

Levi's figure has nothing to do with witchcraft for it is based on Judaic and Quabbalistic philosophies which are not the same as the use of the goat in Paganism. It is plain that the use of the Goat as a symbol in Paganism the world over is related to its relevance in the day-to-day mundane life of the locality, not to any religious belief in a Devilish deity. As with all knowledge, the truth if any one thing resides in its opposites. The Christian Missionaries have lied to the people for thousands of years and controlled their minds and actions in the process. There was never any Devil other than in their own warped imaginations and any act of Devilry was solely down to them.

To give you some idea of how prevalent and benign the Goat icon was I quote from Barbara Walker in her 'Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects' in which she says: 'Sacrifices of goats identified with men or gods were common in ancient Greece. The oldest Athenian religious festival was Apaturia, which featured Dionysus in a black goatskin. In Rome the sacrificial god of the Mamuralia was a man dressed in a goatskin who was lead through the streets and flogged as a symbol of atonement. The goat people mythologized as satyrs and fauns were originally men identified with the sacred goats, on whose images the mediaeval goat-horned goat-hoofed devils were modelled. Scandinavians were admonished by their Christian overlords right up to the seventeenth century for their pagan 'goat games' associated with religious holidays and yet these symbols persist. To this day Scandinavians make a Yule Goat out of straw to serve as a year-end sacrifice. Folk dance patterns have absorbed the ancient 'caper' which literally means 'goat dance' from the Latin word for goat. The same source also gave us caprice (capriccio) and Capricorn and the Isle of Capri was once dedicated to the goat lord.