Hello and welcome to another episode of Mindfulness Plus.

I'm your host Thomas McConkey.

Thanks so much for listening today. Mindfulness Plus is a podcast where we practice paying attention.

And a bit contrary to common sense, paying attention takes practice.

And when you get better at paying attention, you will see your life change in really surprising and profound ways.

So that's what we're up to here. I hope you're in the right place.

So if you've been to any of my workshops, any of my retreats, if you've heard me talk, you've probably heard me talk about the Alembic.

So what's an Alembic?

Well, in the Western Hermetic tradition, one of the backbone practices is alchemy, this practice of transmuting lead and base metals into gold. To do this,

alchemist used a vessel, like a crucible, that they called an alembic. And the alembic, in order to transmute lead into gold as the teachings go it needed to be very

sturdy and robust had to be able to withstand high temperatures and high pressures

and if you could put certain elements in this

Alembic and cook them hot enough, long enough, as the teachings go, you would get gold.

So it's interesting, you know, we're in the year 2019 currently, and we are in an age where we have exposure to all sorts of wisdom teachings from around the world dating back to ancient times.

So I like to be discerning about which teachings are valuable for what.

I'm particularly interested in the take-home value of a given teaching.

So when we talk about alchemy, if you're like me, you'd be wondering, well, have I ever

seen anybody transmute lead into gold?

Is this practical advice?

Well, it's interesting, Carl Jung and one of his successors, James Hollis,

they pointed out, as they were studying the hermetic tradition, that perhaps an alembic is something not strictly literal.

For those who know about turning lead into gold, hey, can you lend me some monies?

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