As mentioned in an earlier post, I've decided to make the teachings of the Octagon Society, the first of three levels of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, freely available here. If you didn't read that post, please do so -- it explains what the OSA was and is, summarizes its history, and explains what the teachings are meant to accomplish. You can also find all the earlier OSA posts here. Since the lessons are meant to be done in sequence, if you're just joining us now, please go back to the beginning and start there. Back when this course of training was available online, once you finished the three preliminary lessons, you were eligible to join the Octagon Society proper and begin working on the studies that would qualify you for the first of its eight levels. In the shorthand used in the Society, you came in as a 0/8 and, by working on the papers that follow, you qualified as a 1/8. There are no initiation rituals in the Octagon Society, by the way -- you advance by doing the work. The tools you'll need for this work, as explained earlier, are a notebook and a pen, along with patience and privacy. One piece of advice: read the whole lesson from start to finish at least twice before you begin the work. It was quite common for people back in the day to read only part of the lesson, misunderstand it, and either get the instructions scrambled or fly off the handle completely. We are dealing with emotionally difficult issues here, and it's worth taking the time to be sure you understand the instructions.
The papers below will give you plenty to work on. Next week, I'll post the work that will qualify you for the second degree of the Octagon Society, the 2/8. **********
THE OCTAGON SOCIETY
0/8 Instructional Papers
Having become aware you can transform who and what you are, you’ve set the intention to become what you want to become. Becoming aware and setting an intention are the first two steps in any creative process. The third is to believe in yourself, believe you can do this. You can do this. Believe in yourself.
In the Octagon Society we assign the rank of 0/8 to those candidates who have decided to do the necessary alchemical work to change themselves forever. Since you're reading this, you are now a 0/8 in the Octagon Society. As a 0/8 you have access to the First Law, the Law of Acceptance. As you progress through our ranks you'll have access to additional laws designed to help you on your journey.
Before you start, we have these words of advice:
1. While you have all the time you desire to complete your work on any given Law, we suggest you limit yourself to one to two weeks for each Law during your first encounter with it. You absolutely can't do everything the first time you work with each law. Do what you can. Stop when you have too much pain. Take a break and go on to the next step.
This is not a test of your endurance. Rather it's a spiritual process you'll be asked to go through several times over the next several years as you prepare yourself to attain the Philosopher's Stone, as you advance toward Adepthood. As you progress through these Laws, more and more will be revealed to you from your own subconscious and unconscious mind. You can work on those memories then or reserve them for later.
2. Plan on working through the Eight Laws revealed by the Octagon Society, the first time you do them, in eight to sixteen weeks. In our experience, the amount of benefit you achieve diminishes if you spend less than one week or more than two weeks with each law. There are exceptions. When you need to take a break, take a break.
3. Remember as you work through these Laws to love yourself as a unique expression of the Divine Creator of All That Is. Negative memories are just that, negative memories. They have nothing to do with who and what you are now. You are an individualized expression of the Divine becoming who and what you want to become.
4. Do the best you can do right now. Don't expect overnight miracles. (There will be miracles, but they take time). As you work through each Law, accept that you should only go as far as you can go right now.
For example, in the First Law we ask you to accept yourself and other people. It's going to be difficult for you to accept some people because of their behavior toward you. When this happens, accept that this is the best you can do for now. Accept that they're an individualized expression of the Divine and that the Divine accepts them in spite of their behavior. In effect what you're saying is: “I can't accept you just yet, but God (or whatever name you give to Deity) does.” Maybe at this stage of your life that's the best you can do. Accept that.
Just remember the Divine doesn't like their behavior any better than you do. Yet the Divine is willing to accept, forgive and love them. As you advance along your chosen spiritual path you'll be able to eventually accept, forgive and love them more and more no matter how despicable they may have been.
5. Experience teaches us we all make progress at different rates. It's not perfection we seek but progress. If you make progress with each Law, you'll accomplish miracles in your life. If you demand perfection with each Law, you'll just cause yourself misery and increase your pain.
6. We suggest you reread the article by one of the Past Chiefs of our Society entitled “Suggestions on Completing the Great Work,” which was included with the third preliminary lesson, and to read the article following this lesson, “Two Helps toward Completing the Great Work,” by John Michael Greer. You may also find it useful to use the Breath of Acceptance meditation, which also follows this lesson.
7. We seek progress and not perfection. When you've made some progress with one of the Laws, you're ready to move on to the next Law. Don't worry. You can always come back to any Law at any time and continue making progress, and you will be asked to go back through all eight of the Laws at certain later points in your work. For now, start with the First Law, the Law of Acceptance.
The First Law: The Law of Acceptance
The Law of Acceptance teaches that you cannot deal with the things that have happened to you until and unless you accept that they have happened. This may seem obvious, but most of us have trouble accepting our experiences, especially the difficult and traumatic ones. We try not to think of them, or distract ourselves from them, or out-and-out deny to ourselves that they happened. Yet they did happen, and all that we do by refusing to accept that they happened is to deny ourselves the chance to heal and learn. This is the Law of Acceptance: We can heal and learn from our experiences only if we accept them.
Acceptance does not mean approval. It does not mean that you have to like what happened. It simply means that you have to remember it, accept fully that it happened, and do your best to understand why it happened and what happened as a result of it. It requires you to face your memories squarely, accept what they have to tell you, and then go on with your life.
If you find that your work at this stage leads you to understand one or more of your experiences in a new light, that’s good. If you find that it leads you to forgive someone in your past, that’s also good. Neither of these steps are required, however. All you have to do is sort through your memories in a particular order, write down as much about them as you find useful, and then fully, freely, and without reservation, accept that they happened. In the process, you will be accepting the people who were responsible for them.
The Law of Acceptance has eight separate steps which are to be practiced in order to qualify for advancement to the rank of 1/8. Those steps are:
1. Acceptance of your father as he is and was
2. Acceptance of your mother as she is and was
3. Acceptance of your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousin(s) as they are and were
4. Acceptance of your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors as they are and were
5. Acceptance of your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees as they are and were
6. Acceptance of your enemies and antagonists as they are and were
7. Acceptance of all other persons and things whatsoever as they are and were
8. Acceptance of yourself, your mind, body, attitudes, beliefs, intentions health and actions as you were before and as you are now
1. Acceptance of your father as he is and was
For our purposes the term "father" refers to the male person who contributed most to your childhood. This may be your biological father, a step-father or other male figure. It may include other men or be a combination of several men. If this is the case, you may want to do
this task for each of them.
Your father, whether he is currently dead or alive, is a human being complete with strengths and weaknesses. He is a product of his environment and his heredity. He is a product of the prejudices and biases of his own parents and the society in which he grew up. He was and still is imperfect and he made and may still be making many mistakes.
Your father may or may not have loved you. He may or may not have done his best for you. He may or may not have meant well. He was and is a human soul in the midst of the give and take of existence, and the way he behaved toward you was part of his own journey through life. His choices and his mistakes were all products of who he was at the time.
Your first task is to sit quietly, become comfortable, take a few deep breaths and write down as many things as you can about your father. List the things he said and did that made you feel bad and explain these feelings. List the things he said and did that made you feel good and explain these feelings. Write it all down. This is your first task.
Make your list as complete as it can be for now. This may take you several days. Write as long as thoughts and ideas arise and as long as you're comfortable. Take a break when you need to take a break. The intent of this part of the task is to recall as many details as you can comfortably recall and write them down together with a description of your feelings at the time.
When you've written as much about your father as you can write at this time, you've finished the first task. Your second task is to apply the Law of Acceptance to each item on your completed list. Sit in a comfortable position, relax, breathe deeply, and think about each item on your list. Set your intention to accept your father for who and what he was at the time. Then go through each item on your list, reliving the emotions you felt at the time, the good and the bad, the happy and the sad. Consider it all and accept your father as he was and as he is now.
This is your second task. It may be accomplished in one or many sessions at your option. The sessions may be as long as you wish. This is not a race to win, it's a process to endure; a process of healing yourself by applying the Law of Acceptance to your memory of your father.
2. Acceptance of your mother as she is and was
For our purposes the term "mother" refers to the woman who contributed most to your childhood. This may be your biological mother, a stepmother or other female figure. It may include other women or be a combination of several women. If this is the case, you may want to do this task for each of them.
Your mother, whether she is currently dead or alive, is a human being complete with strengths and weaknesses. She is a product of her environment and her heredity. She is a product of the prejudices and biases of her own parents and the society in which she grew up. She was and still is imperfect and she made and may still be making many mistakes.
Your mother may or may not have loved you. She may or may not have done her best for you. She may or may not have meant well. She was and is a human soul in the midst of the give and take of existence, and the way she behaved toward you was part of her own journey through life. Her choices and her mistakes were all products of who she was at the time.
Your first task is to repeat the same process of writing down all the critical incidents in your life involving your mother. Use the same techniques you used when writing about your father. Your second task is to accept your mother. Proceed as you did when accepting your father. When finished, go on to step three.
3. Acceptance of your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins as they are and were.
Use the same two tasks and consider as many of these people as possible. Write down everything. When finished, go to step four.
4. Acceptance of your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors as they are and were.
Again, use the same process and when complete, go on to step five.
5. Acceptance of your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees as they are and were.
Include in this group all of the people you interact with on a regular basis. Use the same two-task process as before. When done, go on to step six.
6. Acceptance of your enemies and antagonists as they are and were.
This includes all the other people whom you perceive as not liking you, or people who are hostile towards you. Use the same two-task process as before. When done, go to step seven.
7. Acceptance of all other persons and things whatsoever as they are and were.
Include here any person you previously forgot and the people around you with whom you really don't have a relationship. Also include anything that isn’t a person that has had an important influence on your life. When done, go to step eight.
8. Acceptance of yourself, your mind, body, attitudes, beliefs, intentions, health and actions as you were before and as you are now.
We've intentionally saved the most difficult task for last. Having gone through this process for others makes it easier for us to go through it for ourselves. Use the same two-task process as before. Don’t rush this one; take your time and go easy on yourself. When you have finished this step you have completed the work to qualify as a 1/8 in the Octagon Society.
How to Increase Your Ability to Accept Others and Yourself
This much we know. Acceptance is very difficult for many of us because of the previous hurts, wounds and insults we carry. We experience pain and suffering because of these hurts, wounds and insults. To relieve our pain and suffering we need to accept ourselves and others as best we can at this time in our lives.
Begin by accepting the fact you are an individualized expression of the Divine. Expand this acceptance to include all other people, places and things because we are all individualized expressions of the Divine.
Call the Divine and ask for Divine influence in your life to overcome your pain and suffering. Ask the Divine to ease your pain and help you to accept yourself just as you are - a child of the Divine under Divine care and guidance.
Turn the other people, places and things over to the Divine and ask for Divine intervention into those things and your own pain because of those things. Release these people, places and things into the care of the Divine and ask the Divine to help them for the greater good of all concerned.
Consider using the Breath of Acceptance on a regular basis. This is described in a paper at the end of this lesson.
Two Helps toward Completing the Great Work
by John Michael Greer
One
Very often we tend not to notice just how deeply our emotions are connected with our material bodies. Each difficult memory and each painful emotion we carry with us stays in our muscles in the form of tension. As we work with the memories and emotions, the tensions unravel, and in the process they release chemical toxins—lactic acid and other compounds—which are produced by the labor of straining muscles but aren’t flushed out of the muscle tissue into the bloodstream and lymph because the tense muscles don’t permit free flow of fluids. This is why after a session of spiritual alchemy, you will sometimes feel as though you’ve just worked your muscles hard!
Gentle exercise can help clear away the toxins, and so can massage or self-massage. Perhaps the most useful thing you can do, however, is get into the habit of staying well hydrated. Start every morning with a mug of hot water, as hot as you can take it, and drink it in sips—this wakes up your digestive system and helps clear away fluids that have pooled there while you sleep. Later on, right after you complete your spiritual alchemy practice, drink a glass of water—hot, warm, or cold, however you like. You can put a little lemon or lime juice into it if you wish. Make this a habit and you’ll find that it makes the work somewhat less challenging for your material body.
Two
One of the things we learn in the process of spiritual alchemy is that the simple process of remembering past events while in a calm and reflective state helps take away their emotional burdens. A practice that has been used in Western inner traditions for more than 2500 years can be added to your practice of spiritual alchemy to take advantage of this effect.
Every evening, at some point not too long before you go to bed, take a little while to remember the events of the day just past. Recall them in reverse order—that is, begin with what happened right before you started remembering, then what happened before that, and so on, all the way back to the beginning of the day and any events that happened overnight. Don’t judge the events, or for that matter yourself! Just remember them, as calmly and dispassionately as you can.
Some students like to do this when they go to bed, and let themselves fall asleep while remembering; this is more helpful than it sounds, because the mind will keep processing the memories subconsciously while you sleep. Others find that if they try this it wakes them up; for them, it is best to do the practice half an hour or an hour before going to bed. Experiment and find which of these approaches works best for you. This practice of Recollection, as it is called, is one of the cornerstones of Western inner spirituality and it leads much further than you may expect at first glance. Try it and see.
BREATH OF ACCEPTANCE
This ancient technique for assisting with our transformation is accomplished in the following manner:
Sit or lay down in a comfortable position. Stay alert until you complete your meditation. Become relaxed. Relax your body, every part of your body: your toes, feet, ankles, calves, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, fingers, hands, lower and upper arms, shoulders, neck and face. Concentrate on being very relaxed while your mind is alert. Breathe deeply and relax.
Breath of Acceptance - Phase One
Now turn your attention to your breath. Breathe deeply and effortlessly. Let your stomach extend out as you breathe in. Pushing your stomach out as you breathe in opens up your chest cavity and allows you to breathe more deeply.
Watch your breath as it comes in and as it goes out. Watch your breath for several seconds. Do this for several days until you master the technique.
Breath of Acceptance - Phase Two
Continue to breathe deeply and relax. As you watch your breath flow in and out, listen to the sound of your breath. This is Phase Two. Watch your breath and listen to it for several seconds. We suggest you practice phase one of this technique a few days before continuing with the second phase. This practice is intended to help you breathe deeply and comfortably fill your lungs with air.
Breath of Acceptance - Phase Three
Phase Three is added to the first two phases and not done as a replacement. Rather it's the next step in a three-step process to perform the Breath of Acceptance. Breathe deeply and relax.
To begin the practice of phase three, perform phase one and two until your breath is flowing in and out easily. Then feel your breath as it moves in and out of your body. So during Phase Three you are watching, listening to and feeling your breath as you breathe in and out slowly, calmly and peacefully. At the same time remain calm, comfortable and relaxed and breathe deeply.
Breath of Acceptance - Phase Four
Phase Four is added to the first three phases and not done as a replacement. Rather it's the next step in a three-step process to perform the Breath of Acceptance. Breathe deeply and relax.
To begin the practice of phase four, perform phases one, two and three until your breath is flowing in and out easily. Then pause slightly between the in-breath and out-breath, momentarily holding your breath comfortably and effortlessly. While holding your breath allow your mind to go blank.
Breath of Acceptance - Final Phase
To begin the practice of the Final Phase, perform phases one, two, three and four until your breath is flowing easily and comfortably and your mind goes blank during the momentary hold between inhalation and exhalation.
The Final Phase is done in seven stages. The process is to imagine some person, place or thing that has harmed you in some way. This harm may have been slander, gossip, lies, abuse of any kind, indifference, hurtful words, actions or slights, or any form of verbal, psychological, mental, physical, financial, or spiritual violence. Imagine this person standing in front of you during that period of time between your in breath and your out breath.
Stage One of the Final Phase is to accept this person, place or thing. This is much easier said than done. Each of us needs to work through these issues as best we can. We begin by telling the other person, place or thing, as we imagine them during our meditation, that we know there were reasons for the things they did. Those reasons may not have been good reasons, and we may not understand them, but there was a reason for it all.
Next, accept that person, place or thing as a child of the Creator of all that exists. This much is true too. We are all individualized expressions of the One Creator and we all have a purpose in this life. Our purpose is to love each other, and to help each other learn how to love.
Finally, accept that what that person, place or thing did helped you learn something. We all learn lessons through our pain. We learn about ourselves, about others and about the Creator and the Creation. Learning our lessons is painful and this person, place or thing helped us learn something. This much is true too. Learning is always painful. It doesn't come easily. We learn from each other and we learn about ourselves from each other and we learn about the Creator and the Creation from each other. Do the best you can in accepting this person, place or thing. That's Stage One of the Final Phase of the Breath of Acceptance.
Stage Two of the Final Phase is to accept our own body, mind and spirit. We use the same approach as with Stage One but we imagine ourselves during that momentary pause between inhalation and exhalation. Then using the same process we accept ourselves as we are now. We accept our body as it is now. We accept our mind as it is now. We accept our spirit as it is now. This doesn't mean we accept these things for all time. It means we accept ourselves for who and what we are now. We accept the fact we made mistakes and we hurt other people. We accept ourselves.
Stages Three through Seven of the Final Phase will be discussed at the proper time in your continuing studies with the Order of Spiritual Alchemy.
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As mentioned in an earlier post, I've decided to make the teachings of the Octagon Society, the first of three levels of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, freely available here. If you didn't read that post, please do so -- it explains what the OSA was and is, summarizes its history, and explains what the teachings are meant to accomplish. You can also find all the earlier OSA posts here. Since the lessons are meant to be done in sequence, if you're just joining us now, please go back to the beginning and start there. 
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I'm posting this a day early this week, because tomorrow I'll have an announcement to make that I know a lot of readers have been waiting for...
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During one of the conversations on this week's Magic Monday open post, the conversation briefly touched on one of the esoteric orders in which I was initiated, the Order of Spiritual Alchemy. That was one of several orders I encountered by way of my late teacher 
