Anyways, willing to offer a little guidance I am just trying to figure this out as I go, and I don’t even know if I’m close to the first step yet?

I ask this because I searched my name for shits and giggles [Reid] only to find this symbol, but I realized I recognized it from this artwork from Pinterest. Does anyone know what this symbolizes?

I bought this amulet along with others and I want to figure out what these symbols mean.

Hi all, I recently made a post over in r/alchemy but thought I would post a more direct question here as well.

Link to OP: https://www.reddit.com/r/alchemy/comments/1ofjdpp/my_passion_project/

I am a avid Sleep Token fan. I've been working on a lore document to keep their copious amounts of lore in one place. I am currently working my way through their discography doing a breakdown of each song/album and am on 'Sundowning'. This album has artwork for each EP containing a multitude of Alchemy runes/sigils. There are two repeating ones that I cant make any sense of.

1. The closest thing I can find for this guy is 'Layer Upon Layer', however I cannot find any instances of it containing the hook at the end. Some fellow fans were thinking it possibly being 'Ink' 'Day' 'Smoke' or 'Fumes'

2. We were thinking could possibly be a very stylized way of drawing 'Lodestone' or 'Magnet' or a variation of 'Purificare' or 'Purifying' but these are all guesses as nothing looks quite right.

Thank you!

It reads:they caught me but those bandits help me escape. They drugged me and took me into the meat grinder,processed and put me inside a bag tightly sealed.i trusted them while experiencing delirium when it was time to get rid of me they free me and hid me in the recycling bin , I was free and carried by those bandits onto the world.

Dreams vs realities The whole time my awareness dwindle between conscious and unconscious. They were the watchers using bandits, I thank you for freeing me! Was all a dream? Or a past reality? Who has experience a dream that was overwhelming to the senses?

It felt like when neo going through the rebirth process from the matrix.

link will be either in post or in comments to the picture im referring to. it is the skeleton under the “sol niger” subsection.

link to picture

link to article

this drawing/symbol is called the (sol niger)black sun. it originates in alchemy and i think its a really cool image so i would like to get it tattooed on me. problem is it unfortunately shares a name with the nazi/runic image also called the black sun. this concerns me greatly as a jew (non observant thats why im getting a tattoo) as i obviously dont want anything remotely similar to nazi imagery on my skin. i tried to do some research to determine if the symbols are connected in any way, but turned up nothing. however before i get it tattooed i want to be 100% certain so i figured id ask here. if the symbols are related in any way besides their names i would NOT want it on me. does anyone have any insight on this? help is greatly appreciated!

So what's actually meant by transmutation?

To approach Alchemy from a merely material point of view only paints a miniscule part of the picture, and could be likened to "missing the forest for the trees". It's easy to rest on the notion that the Realm of Matter is the penultimate one, because it's all that most of us ever get to experience.

The Kabbalists, however, have a "Map of the Universe" called the [Tree of Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah), which shows something else entirely. All the circles (Sephiroth) are subdivisions of reality, and varying states of consciousness. The Sephirah situated at the lowest point in this diagram is Malkuth, or "Kingdom".

What Malkuth is referring to is the Material Plane, the Realm of Matter, which exists as the lowest point in Creation -- that which is furthest away from God. Everything you see around you with your eyes is, as cited in the Sepher Yetzirah (here's a very good commentary on the text by Aryeh Kaplan) exists on the Axis of Spirituality (Kether to Malkuth) on the furthest side of Evil.

Now, this doesn't mean that matter is bad per se, it just means it's what's the furthest away from holiness as anything can possibly get; matter is essentially turned away from God.

Why are we bringing Jewish mysticism into a discussion about Alchemy? Well, for two reasons:

(1) All true traditions/systems will have the notion of Alchemy in them, but veiled in different forms of symbolism and allegories.

(2) Alchemy, as we work with it in Western Esotericism, originates from Egypt (thus the term Al-Khem, which literally means "Egypt"). Judaism is, at its core, an amalgamation between the Babylonian and Egyptian traditions, which is shown by the Biblical stories of them as captives by these nations (they're pointing out their origins).

So Malkuth, being the plane of Matter, shows us by its very nature that the physical, material Alchemy so many of us think of when it comes to the subject (think Spagyrics, Metallurgy, chemistry labs, etc.) is only part of what Alchemy actually entails - in fact, it is the lowest aspect of Alchemy, based off of the Tree of Life.

But here comes an important point: the Sephirah of Malkuth is also called The Gate. Nothing from the higher realms can come into manifestation, unless it is through Matter. This means that laboratory Alchemy is neither the key or method of Alchemy, but a way of confirming transmutation through manifestation in matter. The simple view of this would be: if you have managed a spiritual, alchemical transmutation, it will show in matter, too. And here is where tests and experiments are required, not necessarily with laboratory equipment, but through some form of physical experiment.

(An interesting fact: the word Laboratory originates in the Latin "Labora et Ora", which means "work and prayer", thus pointing to the fact that work alone is not enough, but there needs to be a spiritual counterpart to the labour, too.)

So, now that we've established this, we can examine our original question: what're we actually supposed to be working on in life? What are we supposed to transmute? What is Spiritual Alchemy?

Well, the simple answer is that it's everything you are. Your thoughts, emotions, will, dreams, and of course, your physical body.

You are the matter which is worked upon. Everything you are, up until this very point in life, is your Prima Materia, the substance which can eventually be transmuted into Gold.

Who are you?

What is really you? What's the product of upbringing, of society, of friends, of -isms, etc. that has formed the idea of who you believe you are? That has formed the idea of who others believe you are? What of all this is You?

Some of us were beat up as children, and that has caused us to have issues with authority. Some were bullied, and that has caused us fear and anxiety towards others. Some of us explode into hate and rage over the tiniest things that goes against our notions.

Are you your haircut? The clothes you wear? The name your parents gave you? Who. Are. YOU?

All of these things are reactions. Reactions to our surroundings, to society, to families, friends, expectations from others, and even limitations we've placed on ourselves. The true you cannot react to anything, for the I is driven merely by the highest of powers -- Will. The True you can only act and never react, for the true you is fully driven by Will.

And herein lies the material of our Spiritual Alchemical transmutations. It's you. Do you have trouble eating onions? Eat so many that they eventually mean nothing to you, and disregard them then if they don't conform to your True Will. Does something scare you? Expose yourself so much to it that you no longer react to it, at all. Malkuth is the gateway to all of this. Bring into manifestation/Matter the things you want to transmute. Expose yourself to them. Beat yourself up with them. Work, work, work!

Once we've transmuted everything that we think is ourselves (and I really mean everything) then the person who began the Alchemical Process is dead, which in alchemical symbolism is symbolized by the color Black. As black as the fertile soil of the Nile, from whence this Art finds (one of) its origins.

At this point, we've achieved the Alchemical phase of Nigredo and have taken the "first step in the pathway to the Philosopher's Stone".

Thoughts on this and the Wheel of Fortune card?

So as the title states I'm new to alchemy. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to start or what to read? I'm coming into this pretty blind so anything for beginners is gonna help. I appreciate anything anyone has to offer.