Context and Guidance
Another factor which contributes to the current lack of success in interpreting alchemical texts is the loss of the proper context: a group of students under the discipline of a guide with firsthand experience of the fruits of alchemical practice. Such a guide would need a solid working knowledge of a sufficient range of alchemical texts, be able to support all interpretations of these texts through reference to the literature of the Hermetic/Alchemic Tradition, and have intimate knowledge and experience of the states, stages, and stations mentioned in the texts. It is probably needless to say that the opportunity for such study is exceedingly rare in these times, and never common in any time.
Categories: Guide, Guided & Guidance
alchemy, context, guidance, hermetic
How does the context of a group of students under the discipline of a guide contribute to success in interpreting alchemical texts? Or is it not the *group* as such, but the guide with the firsthand experience that is the key?
Groups serve as a collective memory of sorts. That is, each member of a group brings a new context in which a text must find life. Each member’s reading of a text will be subtly different (depending upon capacity, history, and training) and the embodiment of the text in (and by) each reader will develop that reader in unique ways. This is of value to each individual composing the group if they take the time and apply the concentrated attention necessary to register the states of the other readers, before during and after readings.
The guide (with firsthand experience) is (as you say) also necessary to the group and to each individual. The guide provides not only basic exegetical guidance regarding technical terms and phrases, but also assists the group in harmonization by providing guidance regarding how the text applies to each participating member and to the group as a whole (both theoretically and practically). The guide also cautions against attachment to the various states that may be engendered through engaging the text and assists individuals and the group in staying on the path and avoiding sidetracks.
However, a guide can only do for a group what the group, and the individuals composing it, will permit. So a certain minimum trust is required. Often times those involved extend insufficient levels of trust, or extend trust for the wrong reasons or purposes. This is something that must be monitored and periodically adjusted.
Could you say more regarding the matter of trust? Or is it that you have defined the dilemma i.e. one proven premise is insufficient trust, the other is inappropriate trust and somewhere in the horns of that dilemma we prove ourselves?
With regard to ‘insufficient trust’ in the guide, this is often indicative of insufficient trust in oneself, and insufficient basic trust in the fundamental availability of guidance that exists independent of any specific guide. Such a lack of trust curtails development. One can hold a person to be untrustworthy, and this is a genuine concern, but lack of Basic Trust itself is entirely an interior affair and little development is possible where and while this is the case.
As for ‘inappropriate trust’, this concept covers a great deal of ground. It can indicate a willingness to trust another to do that which one can only do for oneself. It can indicate being willing to entrust a another with your money, property and life, when all that is necessary is to trust that person enough to provisionally accept their guidance on certain matters pertaining to theory and practice until one is able to verify the veracity of that guidance for oneself. It can also refer to being willing to give up autonomy in favor of dependence upon an ‘authority,’ whether such authority is vested in a person, an institution, or even an ideal.
While the inference that these constitute the “horns of the dilemma” between which “we prove ourselves,” is not exactly the case, such a view is not so far off the mark that we cannot provisionally allow it to stand as a functional summary position.