" The Terror of The Situation " 

The terror of the situation could be summed up a number of ways, and I've already outlined some of the dangers of sleeping to you. You see you do not understand the vastness of the lying on the objective scale. Come to that most of you don't understand the vastness of the subjective lying, and most of you are caught in a web of deceit of your own making. If you can imagine what it is like to be flying in a cloud (all the windows look like they've been sprayed silver) and you are relying on instruments alone which unknown to you are giving faulty readings, that is what our situation as sleepers is like. We think we know where we are going but we do not, and because we have been sleeping so long, reality looks pretty damned scary to us if we wake up and take a peek. Most people quickly go back to sleep because it is just too scary and lonely for them to stay awake. But it is still much better to awake now, because there is a mountain hidden in the cloud and you are heading straight for it!

Ok... we've talked about waking up, and I've already introduced you to your first tool to help you in this regard... "self observation".. you need to put this into practice immediately. At first you will not get very far, you will notice, if you are candid with yourself about it, that you very quickly forget to self observe, and in fact revert to being "identified" with anything and everything around you. How is this possible when you have made a decision not to identify, but to self observe?

The secret lies in the fact that "you" are not who you think you are! In fact you are a number of yous that you do not think you are, because you see your ego (the creation of false personality at the best of times) is deeply divided, as I have already said, and you are in fact not one indissoluble " I " but a whole load of little iiiis and groups of iiiiis... So one " i " makes a decision to self observe but another " i " who is left later with the responsibility of carrying it out, in fact has no wish to self observe, and may not even know of the decision and so you quickly forget... This forgetting business is in fact our worst enemy. We are always forgetting, and we do it all the time.. It's bloody terrifying!

So how to awake then, when every time we realise we are asleep we quickly forget again?.  Well it is possible, but make no mistake it is extremely difficult and your chances of success alone are virtually zero. More tools are needed and I am going to give them to you. You must understand that the Alchemy of which I speak is priceless, and whilst schools of higher learning did once exist, they cannot exist in times of great abnormality, which is why there are none in the world today. Their influence can still be felt though, or at any rate "found" if you are diligent... Which is why I am going to tell you a bit about Esoteric Schools now, inasmuch as it may prove useful for our Alchemical purposes anyway, and I shall shamelessly make use of knowledge that is not my own but the product of much ancient higher wisdom... Much has been condensed by others and then again by me, but that is because what I give you is the knowledge I have made my own after twenty years of intense seeking through all these sources.

Ok keeping in mind that we are discussing the terror of the situation, which lies in the eventual outcome for us if we continue to sleep, and that as a result of our abject and deeply understandable fear of that, we wish to dedicate ourselves to awakening. To escaping from the prison of sleep. In order to do that we must have some knowledge of the layout of the prison, the obstacles to escape, we need a map, so we seek out signposts and clues that have been left behind by the rare few who have succeeded in escaping before us... And this would seem like as good a place as any to bring religion into this... Or more precisely to state that I shall to a large extent keep religion out of it, because I am writing a handbook only, for the would be Alchemist, and whilst I believe that Jesus provided more clues and signposts than most for the diligent seeker, (or at any rate the most accessible to most of today's seekers) I am writing for a 2001 audience who are going to be largely faithless, so I am going to come at this from the school angle, because this method requires reason and proof as opposed to faith, which is a wonderful thing if you have some, but I'm not asking you to have faith in me or my method, in fact I state at the outset that I expect you to prove and test for yourselves the veracity of everything I say. To do otherwise would be "chancing your arm" because it would be putting your faith in men. The value of the words is in the words alone, and you cannot know me, but you can know my words and because you have the ability to understand words you may establish for yourself, and through yourself, the nature of my message. It is my great hope and prayer that your diligence will produce the reward I foresee for you.

The Three Main Types of Men in ordinary Life. 

There are basically only three kinds of folk in ordinary life, and there is not one jot of difference between them in terms of one being more conscious than another.. These are the three kinds of sleeping people who populate our world, and all are in an equally terrifying position.... flying through the clouds on faulty instruments, so how do we define these three types and the alternatives?

Man No 1.  Physical man, governed largely by physical impulse and the perception of material need.

Man No 2.  Emotional man, influenced mostly by emotional reaction, and favours heart over head.

Man No 3. Intellectual man, lives largely in his brain, and prefers reason over emotion.

There are commonly three "Ways" for these three types, each one corresponding to the type. They are ways to enlightenment or if you prefer "Alchemical Methods"

Way No 1.  The way of the fakir, development comes via physical mastery.

Way No 2.  The way of the monk. He finds his Shangri-La by learning to control his emotions.

Way No 3.  The way of the yogi. If he can master his intellect / reason, he will develop.

These are the three common "ways" 'known' to man for escaping the prison of sleep, but there is a fourth way, which funnily enough is known as "The Fourth Way" and I have already referred to a book of the same title in the last chapter, which is by  P. D. Ouspensky. It is still available. Buy it.

Now "my" way is not "The Fourth Way" but it is definately a part of it. The Fourth Way is very broad and is sometimes referred to as the "Way of The Sly Man" so you can call me "A Sly Man" if you like!   :-) :-)

Well now Alchemy is all about development, we are talking about escaping from our base nature and tendencies and developing into something better. Turning our lead into gold in fact. The process of refinement. Now there are four more kinds of men who are extremely rare, because they are awake, and these can be referred to (as in the Fourth Way) as Men Nos 4, 5, 6, and 7, with a man No 4 being the first stage of development after sleep and a man No 7 representing all that is possible in a man.

We shall talk more about these higher stages of development later, but for now we must consider ourselves men No 123 who are trying to awake and become men No 4... There is an interim stage of development which we shall shortly be exploring but for now such is the "Terror of Our Situation".

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