The Alchemical Egg and William Mistele's Approach to Magical Training

 

I was reading Daniel Joseph’s book Diving with the Whale this morning and came across a passage that inspired me to write about a big mistake some people make in their training, as well as how William Mistele’s approach to magical training can help you avoid this mistake. William Mistele’s approach to magical training, by the way, is to go through the process slowly so you get things right the first time around. He mentions this in several of his writings, and also explains that “serious mistakes can set you back several lifetimes.” This is true. Serious mistakes, such as abusing akasha or drastically messing up your magical equilibrium by skipping steps, can in fact set you back several lifetimes. Now, the specific mistake I want to discuss in this post is breaking one’s alchemical egg. This mistake usually just sets people back one lifetime, not several lifetimes, so it’s not as bad as the mistakes that set people back several lifetimes. That said, I still consider it a big mistake, and it’s still better to avoid it.

To understand what it means to break one’s egg, one must first understand that magical training is a form of inner alchemy, as I've discussed already in my article about Saint Rita of Cascia. The egg I am referring to, then, is the alchemical egg, or “vas bene clausum.” Knowing that magical training is a form of inner alchemy and that your three bodies constitute your alchemical egg will help you understand how to train as well as how not to train. The alchemists were adamant that the Great Work is a delicate operation and things can easily go wrong. Therefore, they emphasized the immense importance of patience when trying to bring the transmutation process to successful completion. This emphasis on patience is reflected in Bardon's own words. As he writes in KTQ, “On the way to perfection there should not be any haste. Everything takes time and needs the necessary maturity for its perfection.” 

The consequences of impatience can be dire. I will share one story that I hope will illustrate that this is no baseless warning. Here in the United States, most schools have a summer vacation. Students leave school around the beginning of June and then return to school near the beginning of September. In other countries things might be done differently, but the story I'm going to share centers on an aspiring magician who was a schoolteacher here in the U.S. This aspiring magician decided that during summer vacation one year, he was going to try to work through the entirety of IIH. If you’re wondering right now how this is possible, it isn’t. However, because he didn't have to go to work during the summer, and because he didn’t really understand what undergoing an alchemical transformation entails, he thought he could practice several hours a day and work through the whole book before he had to start teaching again in the fall. Of course, as even a novice alchemist can tell you, if you try to rush the alchemical process in any way, such as by practicing several hours a day right off the bat, then the alchemical egg you are using is going to break. And that’s exactly what happened to this aspiring magician. Sometimes, the egg fractures slightly and heals over time so you can try again later in your life. But if you really overtrain, then the egg is going to shatter and you will have to wait until your next incarnation when you have a new egg. In the schoolteacher’s case, his overtraining resulted in his nervous system becoming fried; this is probably too much damage to heal naturally during the course of his life, so he will likely have to wait until his next incarnation. If you’ve by any chance read both the first edition and the second edition of my book The Spirit of Magic, you may have noticed that there is a section about overtraining in the second edition but not the first edition. I added that section as a result of this incident, so that those reading the book would hopefully avoid making the same mistake as this schoolteacher.

Daskalos’s system of training, by the way, is very similar to Bardon’s. Therefore, I often find it helpful to read books by Daskalos or those who studied with him, such as Kyriacos Markides and Daniel Joseph. Daskalos often warned his students about the dangers of overtraining. In the first chapter of his book Diving with the Whale, Daniel Joseph reiterates those warnings. The following passage from that chapter, which is the one that prompted this blog post, gives some real-life examples of people who overtrained and suffered the consequences.

Daskalos had cases where, while performing Eastern meditations, people had damaged their nervous system, which caused nervous disorders and schizophrenia. And I had a more recent case where someone was practicing advanced Eastern breathing techniques and it caused hemorrhaging in their lungs. Fortunately, they stopped this dangerous technique and started using the recommended patterned breathing in our system and they fully recovered.

We also had a case where a young person had read books about Ramana Maharshi, Shiva Bala Yogi, and other such Hindu masters. This boy tried to meditate for hours and hours like an advanced yogi but only succeeded in having a serious mental breakdown. Now the point of telling all this is summed up in a Taoist saying, which states: “If you try to cut wood like a master woodworker, you will only succeed in hurting your hand” (Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 74).

These are very good examples of people breaking their eggs. In the case of the person who fully recovered after he ceased his unwise manner of training, his egg did not crack so much that it was beyond repair. But the schoolteacher I mentioned earlier did break his egg to such an extent that it was beyond repair. Perhaps an adept, and by this I mean a genuine adept, of the same caliber as Daskalos or Bardon could repair an egg broken to that extent, but I am no such adept, nor am I a living saint like Saint Paisios of Mount Athos, who often healed people of terminal illnesses and incurable conditions through his prayers. As I mentioned earlier, those who do break their eggs beyond repair will get a new egg in their next life, so this mistake, unlike more serious mistakes, will only set them back for one lifetime. But again, it is better to get things right the first time rather than the second time in your next life. The immense value of William’s approach to magical training can really be seen in the following words of Solomon.

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. (Proverbs 3:13-18)

William Mistele’s approach to IIH, which entails taking things slowly in order to get things right the first time around, is by far the wisest approach. It is the approach that minimizes the chances of making the sorts of mistakes that set you back a lifetime or several lifetimes, and it maximizes the chances that you will attain adepthood within your current lifetime. However, it is an extremely unusual approach because unlike some other approaches, it requires patience, an important virtue that at one point was appreciated by all students of Bardon's system, but these days is very rare and sometimes even considered a vice! May we all acquire the virtues needed to follow the wisest approach to our training.