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Subheadings:   Mental Force    Spiritual Power    The Metals Must Be Pure    Seven Metals Must Be Present    Fluxing the Metals    Transmuting Lead    Transmuting Tin    Transmuting Iron    Transmuting Copper    Transmuting Mercury    Transmuting Silver    Transmuting Gold

Birth Charts:  Eva Braun Chart    Henry Agard Wallace Chart

Chapter 4

Transmutation

TRANSMUTATION is always suggested by any mention of alchemy. The mind at once pictures thoughtful men with lettered parchment and quaint books at hand on which are to be seen strange symbols. They are surrounded by retorts of peculiar design, furnaces, cupels, test tubes, filters, and outlandish chemical containers. Such is the setting once furnished by material alchemy. And material alchemy may still be practiced, although with better tools. But such alchemy is for gain of material possessions; while the one with which we are here concerned is to change transient mental force into a permanent spiritual body capable of exercising true spiritual power.

To indicate how spiritual alchemy differs from other forms of this Hermetic Art, let us take as example some event of life. Success, for instance, when viewed from the material plane is something greatly to be prized. But to the mental alchemist it may be something of immense value, or something that had better be left alone, depending entirely upon how it affects the organization of the astral body.

If it is accompanied with violent feelings of discord that set up antagonisms between different thought cells in the astral body, the mental alchemist considers it a misfortune; for he knows that these mental inharmonies will later attract into the life other physical events of greater disadvantage than such advantages as the success has now gained. If, however, the success is associated with harmonious mental states, the mental alchemist considers it beneficial; for he knows that the mental harmonies thus organized in the astral body will later attract still further gain. But as even a loss may be so viewed mentally as to engender harmonious mental states, and thus later attract gain through the psychokinetic power of the thought cells set in motion; he does not look upon the success itself as good, or the loss as evil. Either may be made a source of mental harmony or mental discord, a source of future physical and mental gain or loss. Therefore, to him, the important thing is not the event, but the attitude toward the event as affecting the mental organization of the individual.

To the spiritual alchemist, likewise, it is not the event that is good or evil, but the attitude toward it. Events are also the materials with which he works; they are his metals. But instead of considering their effect upon the mental organization in reference to its power to attract other events in the future, he considers their effect upon the soul. He views them not as affecting the material fortune, but as affecting those elements of character that not merely persist beyond the tomb, but that may be given a vibratory rate intense enough to affect spiritual substance and through union with other high-rate energies derived from experience, build up an immortal spiritual form.

Mental Force

It is easy to perceive that each experience has an effect upon our physical lives. It also has an effect upon our mental makeup. When we become aware of it, our consciousness receives additional energy. By its likeness to other mental factors, or entering the mind coincident with them, and by its association with the feeling of pleasure or pain, it is built into the mental organization as a definite energy persisting in the astral body. As such an energy it has a power of attraction toward external conditions and events that correspond in vibratory rate to it. That is, it exercises an attractive power toward events that have the same quality and the same harmony or discord.

Each such experience is also an additional factor of information which may be so organized into the mentality as to increase the ability to think. The ability to think depends upon the number of separate experiences, including those mental and emotional as well as the merely physical, that have entered the consciousness, and upon the way they are organized. Upon the ability to think depends the mental force.

A thought is a set of motions within the astral brain. If these motions, or vibratory frequencies, are transmitted through electromagnetism to the substance of the physical brain, the thought rises from the unconscious into the region of objectivity. The individual is then objectively conscious of a thought that may have been present for either a long or a short time in his unconscious without his being aware of it. Or if there is a sensation coming from the physical world, the rates of the physical brain it sets in motion are transmitted through electromagnetism to the astral brain where they are registered and compared with other rates of motion set up by previous experiences. Such a comparison when it rises into objective consciousness through its motions being transmitted to the physical brain, is said to be a definite perception.

Every thought is thus composed of numerous factors, each factor being definite motions set up by previous experiences that persist in the astral form. These experiences may have been with the physical world, or may have been derived in great measure from mental processes; for thinking itself is an experience. But from whatever immediate source derived, a thought is a complex organization of modes of motion derived from experience that cooperate because of their association.

They are not isolated units, but complex organizations of motion. The wider the experiences, the more material for thought there is at hand; but to utilize this material requires practice in properly organizing the various motions in the astral body into systematic groups. It is not sufficient to have innumerable physical experiences if you would possess mental force. You must also cultivate the ability to organize them by means of mental processes into clear-cut ideas.

Yet as every experience of life adds new motions to the astral form, and these motions when definitely organized into thought become the source of mental force, it follows that every experience of whatever nature may be made a mental asset that adds the energy of its motions to the mentality. But whether an experience becomes a constructive factor in the mentality, or a destructive factor, depends entirely upon the mental attitude toward it. If it is viewed only as a source of pain, or as something merely interfering with the desires, it sets up discordant and disintegrative vibrations in the astral body that tend to attract material misfortune. But if it is welcomed as a step in progress, and the pleasant features sought out, it sets up harmonious and integrative vibrations in the finer form that tend to attract material fortune. To transmute otherwise discordant mental elements into those that are harmonious and beneficial is the work of the mental alchemist; for every experience of life, by using the proper process may be made to add energy to the mental organization in a way that increases the mental force.

This force at any given time depends upon the vividness and intensity of the thought. The vividness depends upon the ability of the thinker to separate the factors of which the thought is composed from other mental elements not concerned in it. This is accomplished through concentration. The intensity, however, depends upon the number of separate mental factors utilized, the energy contained in each, and the completeness with which they are joined to act as a single organization of thought energy.

Thus it is that mental force results from utilizing the experiences of life as integrative factors in the process of building clear cut mental pictures. If such a force is to result in physical phenomena, or in any way to operate directly upon physical substance, it must be vitalized with electromagnetic energy. Electromagnetic energy also may impart motion to the substance of the astral form, and so strengthen the astral force; but electromagnetic energy is not necessary for thought to act upon the entities of the astral plane, or to act upon the astral brains of those yet on the physical plane and influence them in their actions.

Spiritual Power

It should now be clear that mental force has no more to do with motives than physical strength. Morals play only minor roles in either; and on the astral plane as well as on the physical plane an entity may exert great mental pressure, even though actuated by evil motives. Thought is a force that may be used either for good or evil, and is a potent weapon of black magic as well as a healing balm ministered by brethren of the light. It may be used to destroy the soul, or to build up and vitalize a crystal raiment in the region of eternal day.

As thought, however, its duration is limited, unless its vibrations are raised above the astral plane. The astral is more enduring than the physical, but it too must pass away. There comes a time when the planetary cycles dissolve the astral world, as well as the physical. And under the influx of planetary forces the form of man, as it persists on the astral plane after death, at its appointed time crumbles into dissolution. And when this second death shall come, thoughts and consciousness, objects and individuals, occupying the astral plane dissipate as vanish the mists of morning before the rising sun.

Is this then the end? Not so, unless the life has been sordid and the soul bound to lower realms by selfish aims. Normally, in the course of the life in the astral realm after physical death, there is a continuation of varied experiences. Opportunity is afforded for the development of spiritual qualities that perhaps had only begun to germinate while on earth. And after a time, through the processes of growth, the attitude is developed that constitutes the aim of our spiritual alchemists. Thus there is no extinction of thought or of consciousness; for these have raised their vibrations sufficiently to affect the more enduring spiritual substance. The thought organization, and therefore the consciousness, has been transferred to, and persists in, the substance of the spiritual world.

The spiritual alchemist, however, does not wait for a long schooling in the lands of the beyond. Through the processes of his art he builds up now, while still on this earth, a virile spiritual body organized by harmoniously associated spiritual thoughts. And because the more interior the plane from which an energy emanates, provided it can find a point of contact for communicating its motions, the more potent it becomes, the spiritual alchemist exerts a truly wonderful influence in the world. Saintly men have ever performed, and apparently without effort, things that to others seem miraculous. Their thoughts are not merely the force of mental factors existing on the astral plane, but are finer and more potent energies of a still interior plane. This is the difference between mental force and spiritual power.

The Metals Must Be Pure

But before mental force can be transmuted into spiritual power, its metals must be carefully purified. The dross, which is the effect of an experience considered from the external plane, must be separated from the pure metal, which is its effect upon the soul. The first task then, in the practice of spiritual alchemy, is carefully to analyze every event and circumstance of life as it presents itself. This separates the dross from the metal. The metal is finally purified by taking a proper attitude toward the experience and acting resolutely upon it. However carefully metal and dross are separated by mental analysis, it takes action to get rid of the dross.

Success and failure, health and sickness, wealth and poverty, triumph and defeat, love and disappointment, life and death, friendship and enmity, all are conditions that may come into the life and have an effect upon the soul. This effect is the real metal. And under each of these circumstances there is a proper mental attitude and a proper course of actions that separate dross from real metal and discard every impurity.

To be egotistical in success or discouraged by failure, to use health for selfish aims or to bemoan illness, to live in undue luxury or to become embittered by poverty, to be tyrannical in victory or to cower in defeat, to be licentious in love or disheartened by its loss, to desire life above honor or to fear death, to value friends above integrity or to stoop to sordid acts to injure enemies; all these attitudes and acts keep the metals of which they are composed in a state of impurity that effectually prevents transmutation.

But to be modest in success and undaunted by failure, to use health to work for all and to be patient in illness, to be charitable with wealth and kind in poverty, to be magnanimous in victory and unhumbled by defeat, to be pure in love and strong in its loss, to be useful in life and fearless in death, to be honorable with friends and just to enemies; all these mental attitudes and the acts springing from them, remove the dross and impurities and present the metals composing them in a state of purity that offers no resistance to transmutation. Each is potentially gold, and when thus purified is a pure mental force that readily may be converted into spiritual power.

It should be understood, however, that merely bringing either physical metals or the corresponding experiences of life together in proper proportion does not insure that they will melt and properly fuse. Their correct proportion only greatly reduces their melting point and facilitates their fusion. But to bring about the proper fusion, as explained in Chapter 1 (Serial Lesson No. 49), they must be heated in a reverberatory furnace. And as there explained, the most effective reverberatory furnace that can be used by the spiritual alchemist is fed by unselfish love.

It is the dominant vibratory rate of the individual which determines the inner-plane level on which his soul functions. And any thought or experience which tends to raise the individual’s dominant vibratory rate helps feed the reverberatory furnace necessary for transmutation. The dominant vibratory rate is little influenced by knowledge. But it is powerfully influenced by emotion.

Thoughts, feelings and actions which spring from a desire to help others, rather than gain some profit for self, are fine fuel for the reverberatory furnace. Such constructive efforts and the emotional states accompanying them generate some of the highest vibratory rates known to human life. And those who live by the universal moral code—A SOUL IS COMPLETELY MORAL WHEN IT IS CONTRIBUTING ITS UTMOST TO UNIVERSAL WELFARE—most consistently furnish fuel for the reverberatory furnace; because not just a few of their thoughts, feelings and actions are motivated by the desire to benefit others, but because they persistently hold this feeling. Further explanation of just how the reverberatory furnace works is set forth in Chapter 4 (Serial Lesson No. 168), Course XVII, Cosmic Alchemy.

Seven Metals Must Be Present

Yet however pure the metals, no complete transmutation is possible unless all seven are at hand in ample quantity. Without a heart, representing the Sun and untransmuted gold, the physical body of man cannot function. Without a skeletal structure, representing Saturn and lead, a material organism suggests the resistance of a jellyfish. Without a venous system, representing Venus and copper, higher forms of life cannot function on the external plane. Nor do they function energetically without an arterial system, representing Jupiter and tin. A nervous system, represented by Mercury both as planet and metal, is essential to any worthwhile thinking on the material plane. A muscular system, representing Mars and iron, is essential for such physical movement as enables man to work. And all organisms on earth depend upon a fluidic system, represented by the Moon and silver, for growth and the replacement of worn out tissues. So likewise, if man is to have transmuted gold, the ingredients of which it is composed must all be there. A spiritual body is not a fit vehicle for the soul if some of its essential organs are wanting. To provide these there must be adequate experiences of all seven types.

The wonderful results sometimes produced by holy men and regarded as miracles by the multitude are not the workings of the tremendous will and mental intensity so pleasing to writers of occult fiction. While true that yogis, fakirs and magicians produce startling phenomena by concentration, and by utilizing astral energies through frenzied intensity; the more worthwhile results spring from a still interior plane. Real adepts and truly saintly men produce even more remarkable and useful conditions with very little exertion upon their part. Their spiritual bodies are so thoroughly organized and built up that the slightest desire fully realized within imparts motions to the astral form from the spiritual body. These energies, because inaugurated from a higher plane, impart a tremendous force to astral substance, which acts through electromagnetism upon physical substance immediately to bring about the desired result.

But to exert such spiritual power upon the physical and astral planes is not the chief aim of the spiritual alchemist. He works also to transmute all the experiences of life into a glorious and immortal spiritual form. And to build up such a form, all the elements must be present in proper proportion.

Even as a sound and vigorous physical body requires that all the organs and parts be present, so also a sound and vigorous spiritual body may not be constructed with certain types of experience missing. It is a common thing to hear people express pity for a person deprived of arms or a leg, nor do we expect much efficiency from such a cripple. Let us also feel pity in at least equal measure for the man or woman in whose life those experiences are lacking that develop courage and executive ability.

Or suppose an individual has had experiences that develop parental affections and domestic fidelity, but has missed those that develop combativeness. Nature may have neglected to furnish him with iron at this particular point in his cyclic journey; but he should realize that without it complete transmutation is impossible. Therefore, with this knowledge, he should determine to possess iron, to develop courage and initiative, and thus to gain the metal which as yet he lacks.

If there has been a shortage of copper in the life, there will have been few experiences to call out the affections and the love of the beautiful. Realizing this, an effort should be made to supply the deficiency. The attention should systematically be directed to the artistic. If it seems unwise to permit the affections to be drawn out by any particular individual, then some work may be selected in which affection may be amply expressed toward mankind as a whole. No environment is so destitute but that it offers opportunity for expressing affection and beauty. Thus in any situation the spiritual alchemist can gain the copper so necessary for the completion of his work.

For that matter, the ores of all the metals are ready at hand and we have but to reach out and take them. But we all too often become contented with some ores to the neglect of others. Thus do our lives become lopsided. There may be plenty of experiences with tin, with the acquisition of wealth and its distribution, but almost none with silver, or family life. There may be plenty with iron, or strife, and almost none at all with the responsibilities that constitute the ores of lead. We may even become elevated to power, and thus acquire untransmuted gold, without gaining any adequate amount of those intellectual processes from which is derived mercury. But we need not remain devoid of any essential ingredient; for there is always opportunity to acquire them. They are the seven types of experiences that enter into any well-rounded life; all of which are essential to build up a perfect spiritual body, which is the ultimate object of transmutation.

Fluxing the Metals

Not only should the metals be acquired and purified in ample quantity, but the best results are obtained when there is a definite relation between the volumes placed in life’s crucible. Silver should equal iron, copper should equal lead, and tin should equal mercury. In these proportions they constitute the natural fluxes of each other, and they more readily raise their vibrations to an intensity affecting the spiritual plane.

The examples we have of the power of two minerals to heighten their vibrations when together, or to lower their melting point when thus fluxed, are multitudinous. All, I am sure, have witnessed the effect of pouring water on quicklime. The temperature is raised until much of the water passes off as steam. Or if baking soda is added to sour milk in the making of biscuits, minerals that were liquid increase their vibratory rates until they become gaseous, giving a lightness to the bread. But if there is too much sour milk in proportion to the soda, or too much soda in proportion to the sour milk, then it is not a satisfactory flux, and the resulting bread is unpalatable.

The aim in the use of such combinations is to have just enough of the acid to balance the alkali, just enough of the positive to balance the negative. And this principle is constantly applied in the smelting of ores.

Many ores that come to a smelting plant are so refractory that they defy the heat of the hottest furnace. But these same ores, mixed with a proper flux, that is, with an equal weight of an ore of opposite polarity, are easily melted. Quartz, for instance, is unusually resistant to heat. Dolomite, also, is very refractory. But pulverize them both and mix together so that the amount of acid in the quartz has the same weight as the amount of alkali in the dolomite, and the ores melt at a low temperature, and permit the metals they may contain to flow into a molten mass at the bottom, from whence to be drawn off into molds.

Utilizing this principle of polarity, adding positive ores to those negative, until they just balance, is the chief secret in smelting. It is likewise an important factor in spiritual alchemy. In smelting, if either positive or negative element greatly predominates, the ore refuses to melt, even though great heat is applied. And in spiritual alchemy, if one metal is greatly in excess of its polar opposite, there is difficulty in raising the vibratory rates properly, and even so, some essential part of the sought for product will be missing.

Therefore, in the processes of spiritual alchemy, it is well to give due regard to this principle of flux; and care should be taken when it is apparent that there is beginning to be an excess of some particular metal, even though thoroughly purified, that a similar amount of the metal of opposite polarity be sought out, purified, and added to the transmuting composition.

To recognize the proper flux for each alchemical metal, although there are other methods of determination, the one most convenient is to use the test of astrological correspondences. Take the solar system as our model. The Sun is the center, about which revolve three minor planets and three major planets. The Sun, representing gold, needs no flux. Its vibrations can be raised to those of transmuted gold merely through the use of power for spiritual purposes. On one side of gold we find lead, tin and iron; Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. On the other side we find copper, mercury and silver; Venus, Mercury and the Moon. Saturn is a masculine planet and must be balanced by the feminine Venus, that is, copper and lead should be present in equal volume. Jupiter is a masculine planet and must be balanced by Mercury, which essentially is neither male nor female, but convertible. Thus tin should equal in volume the amount of mercury. Mars is a masculine planet and must be balanced by the feminine Moon. Iron and silver should be acquired in like amounts. Any excess of positive metal over negative metal, or any predominance of negative over positive, offers resistance to raising the vibratory rate, and consequently hinders transmutation.

Transmuting Lead

Heavy responsibilities, drudgery, monotonous labor, financial loss, financial gain through careful planning, system applied to effort, disappointments, prolonged sickness, delays, obstacles, persistence, patience, sorrows, restrictions, and death are some of the more common forms of lead.

Because of their dull and heavy nature the ores of lead are not hard to classify. But because selfishness is so strongly entrenched in human nature they one and all are difficult to purify. Yet they may be purified by careful reflection upon their uses in the building of character and regarding them in such a way that each will be seen as an opportunity to build something specific and valuable into the soul.

But even when so purified, and the dross of appearances completely removed, they have a low vibratory rate. Furthermore, in some lives there tends to be an excess of lead. As a consequence, in order to melt it, or dissolve in the spiritual light, an adequate flux becomes necessary. This flux is furnished by an equivalent amount of copper.

Heavy work and responsibility should be balanced by amusements and relaxation. Sickness and sorrows should find solace in love and affection. Obstacles and restrictions should be displaced from the mind by periods given over to social intercourse. Loss and death should find compensation in friendship. These provide the opposite polarity which overcomes the resistance of lead to transmutation. Therefore, whenever the alchemist has on hand a superabundance of lead, let him energetically cultivate the affections, compassion, refinement and sympathy.

When lead is pure, material motives give place to those more spiritual. Yet even so, the thought of spiritual gain to the self is apt to linger. So long as lead is unfluxed with copper its vibratory rates are difficult to raise. They are sufficiently intense to impart motion to the substance of the astral plane, and thus add energy to thought force, but they are not fine enough to affect spiritual substance. Yet by mixing lead with an equivalent amount of copper the vibratory rates of both are heightened, and when the heat of the reverberatory furnace is applied transmutation readily takes place. Only when the rate is raised sufficiently to affect spiritual substance can lead become a component of the spiritual body. Only then does it become an ingredient of the imperishable spiritual gold.

Now if asked why spiritual lead and spiritual copper when combined in equal quantities have an intensity of vibration that imparts organized modes of motion from astral substance to spiritual substance and thus builds up certain necessary structures in the spiritual body, it must be answered that it is through the same principle that enables a metallurgist to reduce an acid mineral when united to an alkaline mineral to a molten state from the solid form with a temperature that would not perceptibly affect either alone. In the molten state both minerals have attained to a markedly different molecular vibration, and their glow indicates there has been set up in the electromagnetic field, a finer than material substance, intense vibratory rates that previously had no existence.

But to insure the transmutation of lead it should be treated with the heat of the reverberatory furnace. That is, in addition to purifying each leaden experience by considering it as an opportunity for the soul to develop its latent powers, each should be considered in reference to its value in universal progression. Each weight and each responsibility has an effect upon the soul, and it has an effect upon the progress of the race. Enthusiasm for universal welfare, and the use of each leaden experience as a factor that in some manner benefits the whole, adds the necessary element of feeling. The emotions that arise from such devotion to carrying out the divine plan add the heat that completes the transmutation.

Transmuting Tin

Genial warmth, financial gain, religion, philosophy, patronage, full feeding, joviality, favors received and granted, conceit, impure blood, sports, wealth, optimism, and a hearty constitution are common forms, or ores, of tin.

Tin, because it normally has a rather high vibratory rate, is not difficult to transmute. It must be purified, of course, by a discernment of the effect of each circumstance on the soul, and by taking advantage of each to accomplish something for the advancement of the inward character. Religious aspirations, actions of good will, devotion to charity, the reverence of the mighty works of Deity, all have a vibratory rate sufficiently intense to require very little acceleration to complete their transmutation.

Yet at times there is an excess of tin that should be fluxed with an adequate amount of mercury. Good fortune and opulence should never be divorced from the exercise of intelligence. Religious aspirations fail to attain their objective unless guided by reason. Unless there is plenty of mercury also, devotion readily becomes fanaticism. The good that one might do, for want of efficient direction, may flow into channels of destruction. Wealth gives opportunity for dissipation, but mercury reveals its folly.

Whether rich or poor, a city dweller or a rural resident, or in any other circumstance of life, there is always opportunity to gather and purify mercury. Every condition that confronts you is a problem to be solved. There is a right way to meet each event of life, and the effort adequately to solve these problems is a fruitful source of alchemical mercury. Therefore, if nature has brought you tin in abundance, see to it that you gain an equal amount of mercury. Analyze closely your own actions, learn to discriminate between the true and the false, exercise resolutely your intelligence in all matters that you do, or that come to your hand. Thus do you acquire the proper flux for an excess of tin.

But even in the exercise of beneficence, the effect upon the soul alone should not limit the viewpoint. There is a wider vision that perceives the effect, even of acts of charity and of endowments to so-called worthy causes, upon the progress and development of a larger society.

The effect upon the soul when separated from the external effect of appearances purifies the tin; but when it is used also as a means to further universal construction, to aid society in its advancement, the reverberatory heat is applied that completes its transmutation.

Transmuting Iron

Accidents, fires, antagonisms, initiative, constructive effort, fighting for the right, courage, energy, activity, mechanical trends, strong desires and passions, acute illnesses and operations, lavish expenditures, law suits and enmities are some of the common kinds of iron.

Iron, while one of the most useful metals, unless fluxed with an equal amount of silver, determinedly resists being dissolved in the spiritual light. It has a coarse, though violent, vibration, that communicates strong energies to astral substance, but fails to make an impression on the finer substance of the spiritual world. It is one of the most potent sources of mental force, but unless properly fluxed affords almost no spiritual power.

Should there, therefore, be something of an excess of the events furnishing iron, there should be a resolute attempt to acquire an equivalent amount of silver. Effort should be made to establish and enjoy a home. Interest should be taken in providing food, not merely for yourself, but for others. Shelter and raiment should acquire a larger importance. And if there are no children, dependents should be acquired, cherished and painstakingly cared for.

No matter how impoverished the circumstances, no matter how restricted the circle of acquaintanceship, there is always opportunity to acquire adequate silver. The parental instinct can find expression in the solicitude of a child for its dog. A hermit in his mountain cabin can look to the welfare of the squirrels and birds. Deer will come, in time, to eat from his hand. Even the flowers in our cultivated gardens are responsive to the tender thoughts and ministrations of those who lovingly supply their wants. Everywhere can be found dependents, not forgetting the needy poor and the otherwise helpless among humanity.

The housewife who prepares and serves to her family two or three meals a day, is collecting silver. So is the man of the house who toils at office, factory or farm with the thought in mind of being a good provider. If his thoughts are on what money will buy for himself, or on the attainment of honor, he is not acquiring silver. But if his attention is much engrossed by supplying the needs of his family, if on his return from work he brings food or clothing, or suggests that they be ordered by others, he is adding silver to his alchemical supply.

In addition to being purified, by separation from the dross of the external effect of violent, aggressive and constructive activities, and fluxing with an equivalent amount of silver, iron, like lead, needs considerable heat from the reverberatory furnace. Its vibrations, as they are acquired on the physical plane, are little adapted to imparting motions to anything finer than astral substance. Therefore, not only the effect on the soul, but the effect on society at large of all such activities should be kept in mind. Not merely the attitude, what does war do to my soul? but also the attitude, what does war do to mankind? should be a foremost consideration.

Machinery, industrial development, the erection of huge manufacturing plants, because they lighten or increase my physical burdens, and because they restrict or expand my periods of leisure from irksome employment and thus influence the time I can devote to other things, have an influence upon the development of my soul. What that influence is depends, of course, entirely upon my attitude toward these situations. I can gain in soul advancement or retrogress under any of the conditions met in modern industrial life. Recognizing this, and making gain from each experience, is to purify the metal and get rid of the dross. But if I am to complete the transmutation, in addition to purifying and fluxing with silver, I must also try to perceive the effect of each event on the progress of universal society. And I must fervently bend my energies to directing all such activities into channels of universal good. Such zeal to assist constructively in universal progression furnishes the heat with which to finish the transmutation of iron.

Transmuting Copper

The gain or loss of husband or wife, the relation with friends, love affairs and scandal, social advancement or disgrace, jealousy, beauty, artistic appreciation, amiability, conjugality, mirthfulness and the expression of the affections are some of the more common kinds of copper.

Copper, like tin, when once purified is one of the easiest of metals to transmute. It has about it an inherent warmth that raises its vibrations to a point where with very little additional heat they communicate their motions to spiritual substance. Love is convertible. It is desire, passion, attraction, affection, fire, enthusiasm, God. It ever exerts a molding influence upon the form, whether that form is physical, astral, or spiritual. It is the attractive force that manifests throughout nature, and that holds the form together. To live there must be a desire for life, although this desire may reside almost exclusively in the unconscious mind. People sometimes say they no longer desire to live, but unless the desire to live was stronger than the desire not to live they would die. Either an individual or a race that fails to love life strongly soon perishes. Likewise, the love for a spiritual life and the things of the spiritual plane are requisite for continued spiritual existence. But aside from this, the vibrations of love, when unselfish, tend to affect spiritual substance and build up the spiritual body.

Nevertheless, as with other good things, there can easily be an excess of copper. It manifests chiefly as a tendency to seek the line of least resistance. Disagreeable duties are shirked. Problems are avoided rather than faced. Hard work of all kinds is avoided, and there is a tendency to spend too much of the life pleasure seeking rather than in the accomplishment of worthy enterprise. Joy and amusement have their place, but such excess of copper, before there can be constructed a complete spiritual body on the inner plane, must be balanced and fluxed with an adequate amount of lead.

Lead is not hard to find. It may be had in quantity anywhere. There is always work to be done by those with the will to do it, especially hard, disagreeable, and monotonous work. Yet it is a great affliction to the soul to be born and raised with a silver spoon in its mouth, waited on hand and foot, always with someone else to face the difficulties and shoulder the burdens. It is a great affliction unless it comes to realize the necessity of acquiring a suitable flux of lead, and refuses to be thus weakened through over sheltering. Even a plant, if it is to grow hardy and strong, must learn to endure the hardships of rugged existence. So also, if it is to have a powerful spiritual body, the soul with an unusual amount of copper must be fortified with a flux of lead.

Wherever men live, there await responsibilities and burdens. Anyone can see them, although not all are eager to shoulder them. Hardship, privation and unremitting toil for the sake of others is an ample flux for excessive copper. And the copper itself is quickly converted into spiritual values and thoroughly transmuted when its effect, in each instance, as affecting the progress of the cosmic whole, is realized and considerately planned.

Transmuting Mercury

Intellectual activities, educational advantages, teaching, writing, travel, contacts with literature, clerical mistakes, errors in contracts, mathematical work, accountancy, stenography, and acting as agent of another are the more common ores of mercury.

It is a metal of unusual variability and restlessness, and a most essential factor in the handling of other metals. Unless it is present, even lead is frustrated; for plotting and scheming, either constructive or destructive, comes to naught unless carried out intelligently. Iron needs it also; for combat and building alike depend for effectiveness upon intelligence. Nor can we live in a truly religious manner, or otherwise cultivate tin properly, without the exercise of reason. The gold of power, the silver of domestic responsibility, and the copper of worthwhile friendships, alike are made more valuable by the presence of the mental keenness of mercury.

An oversupply of this most adaptable of the metals is possible only through lack of an equal amount of its natural flux. We cannot have too much intelligence, nor can we overdo the exercise of reason, except when we allow them to monopolize the life to the exclusion of other metals, and especially tin. Unless adequate tin is present, intellect readily assumes to itself a surety and infallibility that is not borne out by a record of its past performance. It becomes arrogant in the belief that it alone is capable of rightly directing the conduct of men, and of solving the problems of the universe.

This attitude, which material science has often held, unduly narrows the vision to the scope of the physical world alone, and denies that which cannot directly be apprehended by the five senses. But because of this narrow vision, science is compelled every decade or so to shift its platform to embrace conditions that previously had been ignored or denied. When intellect presumes too much, or whenever there is excessive mental activity, before the mercury will transmute it becomes necessary to supply an equivalent flux of tin.

This tin may be had anywhere, and opportunities for its gathering are presented to each individual every day. A smile of kindness is not beyond the accomplishment of the most erudite man of science. A story that will evoke a laugh can readily be picked up and passed on, although remembering and telling it is an art to be cultivated. Prayer, now and then, even though silently uttered, costs little in the way of effort; and to pass the time of day with either a street sweeper or a banker is not a great price for tin. And as the financial means permit there should be gestures of more concrete munificence.

Finally, when properly fluxed with tin, the metal should be treated in the reverberatory furnace. To provide this heat, each gain in knowledge, and each mental advancement should be felt to be additional equipment which there is strong desire to use in the interests of universal progression.

Transmuting Silver

Domestic relations, the home, children and other members of the family, dependents in general, food, shelter and the various commodities that make life endurable furnish those experiences that are the commonest forms of silver.

Where such contacts evoke tender emotions and the desire to nourish and protect weaker individuals, they are transmuted with little further effort. But such as come grudgingly, or that engender resentment, need careful purifying and treatment. In any event, the addition of an equivalent amount of iron hastens the process and gives the product a well-balanced composition.

Not only is iron everywhere present, but more often than not it is forced upon us by others. It should never be obtained with a sense of enmity or hatred, but with the sense of firmly standing for that which is most beneficial to all. To permit others to impose upon us unduly not merely weakens our power of resistance, but through building up the habit of taking advantage of people, actually injures the character of the person doing the imposing. Yet in energetically struggling to advance those causes that are for universal welfare, in protecting the weak, and in repelling invasion, neither anger nor the desire for destruction should actuate the person, but instead there should be present an energetic determination merely to establish conditions that are for the betterment of society. This furnishes an ample flux for silver.

In the reverberatory furnace, the home life and the domestic relations throughout, should be recognized as steps in the plan of universal construction. Parenthood here should be perceived as the shadow of a still wider and more potent influence having for object the care and development of others.

Transmuting Gold

Honor, position, station, employment, authority or lack of it, leadership, power, egotism, credit, the relation to boss or employer, and political efforts are the more common contacts of life that furnish those experiences that may be classified as untransmuted gold.

These do not require to be fluxed with other metals, but they do need to be purified with unusual care. Furthermore, whatever station of power and authority is attained in life, whether humble or exalted, carries with it some opportunity of influence for cosmic advancement. Even loss of employment or discredit injures the soul only when there is an error in viewpoint. Yet because of such experiences a better understanding may be had of the needs of others in similar circumstances. Some opportunity to exercise an influence for the betterment of human life is ever present, and when grasped and such power as at hand is exercised, gold is quickly transmuted, and together with the other six transmuted metals completes the building of an imperishable and perfect spiritual form.

Birth Charts

Eva Braun Chart February 6, 1912, 12:30 a.m. 11:33E. 48:09N. Data from her birth certificate, reproduced in July 21, 1947 Life Magazine. 1931, became Adolph Hitler’s mistress: Sun sesquisquare Neptune p, Venus trine Mars r. 1936, posed for a patriotic picture: Sun conjunction Mercury p. 1945, last of April, with defeat of Germany at hand, Hitler married her in burning Berlin, and with her consent three hours later put a bullet through her head and then one through his own: Mars sesquisquare Uranus p, Mercury square Pluto r, Mercury opposition Moon r, Moon semisquare Mercury r.

Henry Agard Wallace Chart October 7, 1888, 7:00 p.m. 94:30W. 42:20N. 1910, received B.S. and became associate editor of Wallace’s Farmer: Mars sesquisquare Saturn p. 1914, married: Mercury sextile Mars p. 1924, editor of merged Wallace’s Farmer and Homestead: Sun square Saturn P. 1933, Secretary of Agriculture: Mercury conjunction Mercury r. 1941, Vice-president of U. S.: Jupiter sextile Sun r. 1945, Secretary of Commerce: Mars trine Neptune r. 1948, defeated as candidate for President on Progressive Party Ticket: Mercury opposition Neptune r. 1950, renounced Progressive Party as communistic: Sun conjunction Jupiter p.

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