The human mind has access to and utilizes the potencies found within three realms of consciousness. The outer-physical world, a subliminal-middleware state, and a suprasensible-collective.
As modern-day humans, we spend most of our lives focused on the outer-physical world. In the material world, we bake our bread, fix our cars, earn money and prestige, and find advancement in business or other endeavors. From our perspective, it is predominate with our attention fixated at this level.
Yet, of the three worlds mentioned, the physical world is like the proverbial tip of an iceberg comprising a mere fraction of the total truth and has the least substance of all three.
The domains that make up your Esosphere1 comprising the subliminal-middleware, and the suprasensible-collective, are what give the physical world substance and deserve more of our attention.
Common phrases from our collective vernacular like you are what you think, you reap what you sow, or the outside is a reflection of the inside. Informs us that we have a co-creative relationship with this inner substance, and its fecundity instigates through repeated patterns of thought, especially emotions.
Einstein2 and Jung3 both lauded the key to the Esosphere residing in humanity, our imagination! That statement might sound fantastical in itself but do me a favor. Look around wherever you happen to be, and realize this everything you see not put there by Nature began as an act of imagination in someone's mind.
There is plasticity to the imagination that we have utilized to mold our physical existence. True, science has not learned to measure it yet, but we all benefit daily from the fact of its existence.
We find ourselves at the intersection of realizing we use this fantastical substance to shape physical reality and experience and recognize that we know little about it.
Since we can't weigh or measure it, and the substance, for the most part, is unknown to the majority of humanity, it's safe to say our minds use only a fraction of the potencies found within the Esosphere. And yet we stand transfixed, staring only at the marvels in our physical world that emanate from it rather than the source.
Inner work accepts that our daily life and its myriad of experiences built from and indeed is but a reflection of our Esosphere.
Most of the inner world, though, is like an unlit basement. That basement is full of machinery that keeps the physical world functioning. When was the last time you gave commands to the atoms comprising your desk to maintain its shape? Or remind your heart to beat or Boyle's law to be operational? The basement contains that and much more, but it also includes the machinery of the tribe, the rules, and regulations of family, society, religious customs, etc., that we use to shape our daily experience. Because of that last part, the basement is also full of forgotten discarded things, stored memories of pain, sorrows, fears, embarrassment, etc.
Inner work is a practice to bring the light of awareness to the environs and circumstances of your Esosphere.
In computers, middleware allows outside programs (conscious mind/physical world) to interface with and utilize the CPU's power (suprasensible-collective). It acts as an abstraction layer or middleman between developers of programs (conscious mind) and the CPU. In this role, the middleware will do whatever ordered. There is no logical analysis of the request sent to it; it will compute an array of numbers accurately just as readily as it will create an infinite loop that causes the computer to seize up and stop functioning. Many people find their lives stuck in an infinite loop, unable to understand or break the execution of the cycle.
Because our subliminal-middleware is susceptible to control/influence from the myriad of machinery used to keep running the physical world, conflicts about allowing or not allowing a particular internal potency to operate are often muddled. And gives opposite results than what we consciously profess wanting to have happened in our life.
The only way to deal with this situation is to go into the basement. But here is the catch Just as the One Ring could not be destroyed by any artifice or craft possessed by those of middle-earth, so too is there no light source (intellectual jujitsu) you can perform to out smart, outperform, or figure out the solution to the lesson from the outside. One has to in essence lean into the shadow, and doing so is completely antithetical and counterintuitive about how to go about solving the dilemma to most people.
I am reminded of the scene from “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Luke: There is something not right here, I feel cold, death.
Yoda: That place is strong with the dark side of the Force, a domain of evil it is, in you must go.
Luke: What’s in there?
Yoda: Only what you take with you.
Unlike our young Jedi, there is no Lightsaber to take with you. And, just like Luke, if you did have one and attacked what you found in the cave, you would find that you were hacking and slashing at yourself. One does not become whole by amputating various parts of one's self.
The only thing you can take with you is what at first shows itself to be the dim light of your self-awareness. After repeated crossings, you begin to experience the inherent luminance of your Esosphere.
Despite what some mythologies put forward about vanquishing dragons or eliminating demons, inner work has nothing to do with that. It's about seeking understanding of those various parts of ourselves we have little experience dealing with consciously. It truly is about having an inner dialogue with the various distinct entities that make the society of your mind. Then, with understanding, perspective broadens naturally, and what has been seen only as a problem will show the inherent solution in a new light. Energy is energy; the same energy that animates the dysfunction today is the same energy that will freely flow in its productive use when understood. Alchemy is about transmutation!
When enough of the inherent luminance of the Esosphere is made apparent to your self-awareness, changes naturally occur in your life. You have a more direct uncluttered access to the suprasensible-collective or collective unconscious of the universe, which is the source of all information, inspiration, and creation.
I read something the other day that said, "we can deck ourselves out in sacred geometry tattoos, wave sage around, fill our homes with crystals, and go on psychedelic trips all we want, but if we aren't doing the dirty inner work it's all pretty useless and literally just a novelty at that point. Be careful not to use spiritual tools as illusionary cop-outs for putting in real work, and painting a false image that your actually tuned in when you're still trying to escape."
The above quote identifies why we all need a Guide when doing inner work because it is too easy to follow our natural predilection not to turn inwards. Actual inner work is not spiritual cotton candy; it takes courage because you have to feel into things you don’t want to feel. All of that stuff hidden in the shadows is what my mentor called ‘Angels in the Basement.’ Though at first glance, we do perceive them as less than angelic. Once people start getting into the nitty-gritty of inner work, folks will do just about anything, no matter how non-productive, to get out of doing inner work.
A Guide is necessary to help you keep on the path and ensure you have the requisite experiences for growth and that you do not cavalierly discard or gloss over a critical event. Indeed the conscious mind fears its usurpation by that which resides at the center of all things. It will do anything to trip you up and take you off the path or convince you to feel good about your supposed advancement. One needs an active Guide for inner work, which should be one-on-one work.
Inner work is a spiritual practice in that it is subjective, but it is not religious. I define spirituality as the dexterity through which one accomplishes any task to the degree to which one can allow the One Life to flow through them unobstructedly. Conversely, morality should come from a deep intra-conversation with the self, and you can't achieve that through books or dogma.
Suppose in our modern society you feel or think you are unsure of your place or direction in life, feel like a lonely outsider, have an excessive desire to please people, frequently get into fights with others, and lack confidence and self-esteem. Your habitual mental habitation is almost constantly negative and self-critical; you have chronic health issues, a hopeless or empty malaise. Find yourself frequently on the hamster wheel of the same mistakes, problems with sadness or trust, are a magnet for the wrong people in your life, find yourself sabotaging your efforts, have potent emotional triggers, then you need inner work.
There are many modalities of inner work, and while they all share some standard practices, the one I utilize uses Hermetic precepts.
The use of specially prepared herbal and mineral substances is unique to the Hermetic approach of inner work. Though made from common herbal species, when prepared according to alchemical tenants, these products profoundly affect those who ingest them. In my experience, even simple herbal extracts will produce nocturnal astral erudition in the person who confected it. Properly made herbal tinctures and higher products will affect those who ingest them irrespective of their involvement in inner work; the product level determines the percent of the effect.
The highest herbal products, I would say, are the liquid Quintessence or solid Plant Stone(ps). In my experience, these Alchemical Oblations™ have acted as a catalyst that allowed lucid dreaming comparable to an acid trip. The onset of the effect is not as quick as acid nor as intense as Ayahuasca. Still, alchemy does afford those who practice under its conditions the ability for deeply illumined interior experiences. In my experience, the information gained from these inner experiences translates fully to the physical world.
The utilization of these products mandates the application of 'conscious intent.' Inner work based on Hermetic methodologies is not some haphazard affair. You're not taking something to tune out and see what happens. Hermetic Philosophy has a complete paradigm that coaches the voyager into internal excursions to broaden one's inner awareness and understanding of self.
The Alchemical process is natural, no different from planting a seed. As long as the proper conditions are met, Nature takes its course. Application of 'conscious intent' is done by realizing that you are the matter upon which this process's will is wrought. By performing specific practices, you prepare the matter and consciously assist this nascent stage in revealing the inherent luminance of the 'emotional discomfort' and 'non-productive perceptions' of the session work.
Like the shamanistic vision quest of indigenous peoples of North and South America, the Western initiate uses the spiritual arcanum of plants. The preparations used in Alchemical Gnosis™ do not contain psychoactive compounds that work through the body's chemistry to bring about interior sight. Yet these herbal preparations allow the user to safely and consciously enter the Esosphere, experience its reality, and share in its knowledge.
1. Eso: An element in some words of Greek origin, meaning 'within.' Sphere: A celestial body, such as a planet or star.
2. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
3. All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
