Inner Alchemy Inner Alchemy By Taylor Ellwood Megalithica Books Stafford UK Inner Alchemy By Taylor Ellwood © 2006 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. The right of Taylor Ellwood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988. Contact Taylor at [email protected] or email him at http://www.thegreenwolf.com. Cover by Nemo Boko (http://nemo.org) Art Direction and Typesetting by Kid Charlemaine Editor: Lupa Set in [to be inserted] First edition by Megalithica Books, 2006 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A Megalithica Books Edition An imprint of Immanion Press http://www.immanion-press.com [email protected] ISBN [to be inserted] 3 Also by Taylor Ellwood Creating Magickal Entities (with David Michael Cunningham and Amanda R. Wagener) Pop Culture Magick (available through Immanion Press) Space/Time Magic (available through Immanion Press) Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond Vanilla (With Lupa – available through Megalithica Books) Media Magic: A Pop Culture Grimoire (available through Megalithica Books) 4 Dedication To my Lovely Lupa, for showing me the inner alchemy of love, and Jason, for reminding of what‘s really important, and to the magic, for keeping me on track with this book. 5 Acknowledgements I‘d like to thank Storm and the good people at Immanion Press for publishing this book and allowing me to manifest my vision of getting experimental, on-the-edge books on magic published. To Nemo for coming up with a brilliant cover for this book. To Maryam for continuing to be my best friend and being so supportive of me. To Zac Walters, for continually inspiring my own approaches to this subject with his work. To Susan Davis, your advice helped me through several moments of crisis in 2005. To Sage Nightstar for stalwart support and high standards. To Michael Szul and Jason Galt for excellent friendship. To D. J. Lawrence in the spirit of entrepreneurship. To Steven Savage for his excellent book recommendations and patience. To my beautiful wolf woman, Lupa, for the magic, editing, honesty, and love. I am blessed by all of you. 6 Table of Contents Introduction by Lupa – Foreword – Chapter one Inner Alchemy 101 – Chapter two Body Basics – Chapter three The Five Senses – Chapter four Body Fluids – Chapter five Neurotransmitter and Metabolism Magic – Chapter six DNA Magic – Chapter seven Basic Energy Work – Chapter eight Intermediate Energy Work– Chapter nine Advanced Energy Work– Chapter ten Textual Alchemy– Chapter eleven Learning to be Conscious– Epilogue – Appendix A – Appendix B – Appendix C by Zac Walters – Appendix D by Taylor Ellwood & Lupa – Appendix E by Lupa - Appendix F - 7 Introduction By Lupa Stasis is only an illusion. We pride ourselves on permanence in American culture. Our buildings are created to last for years; we buy cars that we want to keep running as long as possible; medical science ever seeks the Fountain of Youth (and, therefore, immortality). We strive, at least in theory, for the end to change, so that we may never have to face the sorrow of loss. Yet our actions belie us. We tear down buildings that are only a few decades old in order to make way for the newest designs. Increasingly vehicles are made cheaply, particularly in the U.S., in an attempt to get people to buy more cars (we see this in a lot of consumer items.). And while we may give lip service to health, we still more or less support habits that shorten the lifespan and lessen the quality of life, such as abuse of drugs (including nicotine and alcohol) and extremely high levels of stress. Our changes as a culture are erratic and unhealthy. We blindly charge through existence. Our culture is a stampede trampling other cultures, other species, and indeed the very environment before us. Yet unlike herd animals which eventually stop once they‘ve realized the danger is past, we not only continue to run, but in doing so propagate the dangerous signals that continue to trigger our flight instincts, ad infinitum. Post-industrial humanity has forgotten how to flow with change. Observe the weaving of Nature. The cycles may seem to be the same year after year, yet in the long run each season brings a miniscule move forward in the macrocosm. You don‘t see any other species of animal or plant working to stop this process. Natural beings are comfortable in their environment, drawbacks and all. Humanity has great potential to consciously evolve as a species. Yet this conscious evolution starts on the individual level. We are not mere slaves to our imprints and habits; to blame our histories, both physiologically and psychologically, is the modern-day equivalent of saying ―The Devil made me do it‖. We too often limit ourselves to what our egos declare: ―I AM‖ and rarely tread outside of those safe boundaries. And we extend the illusion of secure limitations to our external life as well, to the point where, bondage fanatics that we have become, we are mummified in our wishful thinking. Yet every scene must come to an end, no matter how enjoyable, and often we find that we are unable to cope with the rude awakening of being freed. We‘ve been bound for so long that our muscles have atrophied and we no longer know how to use them. Most just give up and lie about like Gary Larson‘s boneless chickens. Many, if not all of you, reading this realize that it doesn‘t have to be this way. There are numerous resources available for those wishing to rebuild weakened muscles, as it were. Some of them, such as the works of Robert Anton Wilson, John C. Lilly, and B.K. Frantzis, are referenced within this book. While these, and other sources that Taylor draws upon may not necessarily be to your liking, there is no dogma within these pages restricting you to his preferences; that would be counterproductive. Inner Alchemy is about the starting point of conscious evolution—the microcosm. We, and all living beings, can be thought of as the building blocks of the Universal Organism. And, as with the cells in our bodies, we as cells can be healthy or cancerous, 8 affecting the rest of the body in turn. Change begins on the cellular level every time. Taylor has realized this, and provided the reader with the tools necessary to begin this change in our own cells, that we may become better cells ourselves. Many of these tools are unique, rarely, if ever, discussed previously in a magical sense. As science discovers more and more material that supports what magicians have known all along— biophotonic light, the processes behind the placebo effect, quantum reality—it provides us with new language with which to continue our growth. We are able to take the medieval alchemy, and update it for the 21st century. Inner Alchemy is a work for today. Some of the ideas are incredibly controversial—but if we don‘t explore them, we let our stasis and our illusions of safety get the better of us. You may not agree with all of them, but I believe it is important, at the very least, to acknowledge them as the attempt towards conscious evolution that Taylor has brought together in this work. If we do not even try to move, then we are left right where we started, end of story. Stagnation = Death. Keep moving! Lupa 22 May, 2006 Seattle, WA 9 Foreword Of all my books, Inner Alchemy was the hardest one to write so far. It wasn‘t so much the material or the research, as it was the personal growth that was demanded in the process of writing it. It‘s fair to say I faced emotional depths within myself that I had never encountered before. And sometimes I dealt with the daunting task of reading a mountain load of books on this subject that seemed to always threaten to bury me in research. A lot has changed in my life since I started writing this book. I left my graduate program, tired of trying to bash my head through a brick wall of academic stagnancy that wouldn‘t show flexibility where it was needed. I ended one relationship, and found another with my wife, Lupa. But more than any of the external changes, I‘ve come to find an emotional coherency and clarity that I‘ve lacked for most of my life. The journey for all of this was not easy and involved facing many of my inner demons, and it is an ongoing process. But it is a process wherein one finds a bit more balance, a bit more hope every day, through the journey of refining the inner alchemy of the self. A few matters to note. I prefer to use the word magic over magick. The bibliography is in APA style, and the internal citations are also in APA. The pronouns used are gender neutral. And I cite the lesser known authors of magic over the popular ones, so as to increase my readers‘ awareness of these authors and what they have to offer to each of you. I don‘t agree with all of the people I‘ve cited and I doubt they‘d all agree with me, but their writings are worth exploring so check them out! And I‘ve included a lot of non-occult sources as the material in this book goes outside the range of traditional occultism. Also a disclaimer: The methods in here are devised by me, but neither my publisher nor I are responsible for how any of you use them. If you have a medical condition, make sure consult with your physician and/or therapist before doing any of these exercises. Finally, as always, the focus of this book is on experimental magic, specifically with a goal to inspire other magicians to continue innovating and pushing magic past where it has been. Be creative and don‘t be afraid to reinvent the wheel, because you just might come up with a better version! 10