I took a new magical name, in addition to my regular magical name, Antichristos, upon crossing the abyss. I’m not the kind of magician who takes new magical names at every stage of initiation, although I’m not knocking the practice. But this new phase did seem to require a new name, a new focus. The name I chose was VITRIOL. 

Vitriol is a name for sulfuric acid. Alchemists prized this oil of vitriol for its ability to dissolve all metals except for gold. They called it the Green Lion, for its capacity to devour all that is impure. They turned the word Vitriol into a famous acronym: Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem. This translates to “Visit the interior of the earth and by rectifying, find the occult stone.” 

This name and acronym expresses my aspiration. I want to dissolve and destroy everything in myself that is not, metaphorically, gold– what is not pure, that is not of the highest value. That is the business of crossing the abyss. 

I’m not a practical alchemist, like our wonderful beloved pastor Jarys. I’m solely a metaphorical alchemist, a spiritual alchemist. The philosopher’s stone I seek is my truest, highest self. My divinity, my apotheosis. 

The word V.I.T.R.I.O.L. traditionally decorates the freemason’s chambers of reflection. I am not a Mason per se, but I did take the first degree in a Masonic-inspired order, and so I found myself in a chamber of reflection, staring at a skull. That’s the other traditional ornament of the chamber of reflection, by the way. You just sit there and stare at a skull. I’d kinda known that was coming because I read, so the experience didn’t shake me at all. I just sat there happily anticipating another initiation, another spiritual death and rebirth. 

“Visiting the interior of the earth” is about spiritual death in my reading. Alchemy traditionally has three stages: putrefaction, purification, and perfection. The colors black, white and red were generally assigned to those phases. I have some feelings about assigning black to the putrefaction stage and white to the purification stage, and I feel we could do some racial rectification around that symbolism. For a symbolic alchemist especially there’s no reason not to swap the colors around– I believe in physical alchemy the colors correspond to what you should be seeing on the actual material you’re working with. Putrefying things in general often turn white too, though. 

Black or white, the putrefaction stage is ultimately positive, if painful. Unnecessary bits of you die. In purification, those bits and pieces fall off. The snake sheds his skin. Purification, whether white or black, is also painful and raw, since it’s mainly a subtractive process. Things are taken away from you. But in the end, one feels freer. 

The red vibrancy of “perfection” is something that I, being only human, only get fleeting tastes of. But I’ve tasted enough to know it’s worth seeking that philosopher’s stone, that juicy red apple of knowledge and enlightenment. 

Hinduism also has an esoteric black, white and red color system, corresponding to the three gunas or “qualities.” The Hindu world is also not without its colorism, though I as a white westerner hesitate to comment too much on that due to my people’s history of colonization in India. I merely mention it since it may at first glance seem to be reflected in the gunas and how they are valued. White, not red, is generally considered the highest and most desirable in this system of gunas: it represents satva, the guna or quality of purity. Rajas, the red guna, is associated with action and passion. Tamas, the black guna, is associated with darkness, chaos and entropy. Many Hindu sects can seem to devalue Rajas and Tamas– westernized Yoga groups even more so. For my amusement, and to witness the shitshow, I took a “which is your dominant guna” quiz on a crappy American yoga website. I was told that Rajas predominates in me and that I should calm down and eat less meat. The gunas are definitely linked to dietary advice, and are part of the reason many Hindus have traditionally been vegetarian. 

Left-Hand Tantra, however, elevates Kali, the black Goddess, the Goddess of Tamas, to the highest position and makes her the supreme being, the ultimate God of gods. I have the privilege of taking a course on Hindu Ecowomanism focused on Kali this semester, and when that is done I hope to have a more nuanced understanding of Kali, Tamas, and Left-Hand Tantra, especially the Kaula sects. I will however venture to make some preliminary comments, based on my current imperfect understanding. 

Kali is sometimes theorized to have originated as a goddess of lower castes and darker-skinned ethnicities within India. Her left-hand worshippers re taboo-breakers par excellence. They broke caste-based rules of association, assembled in “impure” and tamasic locations such as the cremation grounds. They ritually defied dietary restrictions by consuming wine, meat, fish and restricted grains, and broke more taboos by partaking in sacred sexual intercourse. This antinomian behavior was intended to free the practitioner from attachment to illusory categories of pure and impure, sacred and profane. Drinking from human skulls and smearing the body in crematory ashes was also practiced. Consumption of blood and urine may also have sometimes been involved. It’s hard to tell exactly what was going on because these sects were highly esoteric, as was the language of their texts, so certain things may have been metaphorical. However, it’s certain that the Kaulas practiced sexual intercourse with Yoginis, fierce feminine spirits with both human and animal attributes. They did this by visualization in meditation– somewhat similar to how some of us might practice astral sex with spiritual entities– and also by intercourse with women who were channeling or possessed by the Yoginis. The Yoginis were transmitters of gnosis, and it was necessary to please and satiate them sexually to obtain their blessings.

I bring all this up because the term “Left-Hand Path” originates with these practices and was brought West by Helena Blavatsky in the 19th century. There are some big differences between Tantric Left-Hand philosophy and the Left-Hand Path in what we dubiously call Western esotericism, and I have written about them elsewhere. However, the more I learn about Left-Hand Tantra, the more I believe that its influence has permeated our practices in uncited and unconscious ways. I believe it is necessary to excavate this influence and give credit where credit is due. I believe there is a way to do this that will lead to what Dr. Rita Sherma calls “mutual illumination without misappropriation.” Hindu traditions are theologically very open, extremely generous with the tools and spiritual technology that they believe reflect ultimate reality. It is the context of colonization, not the spirit of the beliefs themselves, that leads to problems. What was meant to be generously given to all has been taken and twisted so disrespectfully that it can no longer be shared with trust. 

I’m still sorting all this out, but I think its more ethical and honest to be open with my influences, even if some of the ways they have come to me have been questionable. I was unaware of Tantric influence in my practice until I started studying Tantra on an academic level. I’d never participated in Western neo-tantra and knew pretty much nothing about it. I had no idea my practice was Tantric until I recognized glaring similarities and realized they could not be coincidental.

It isn’t correct to perfectly correlate the gunas to the alchemical stages, however given the origins of alchemy in the Middle East, geographical proximity and the broad influence of Vedic philosophy probably means there is a historical connection. And on a theological level, I think there’s a connection between the Tamasic practices of the Kaulas and the putrefaction, purification and perfection stages of alchemy. The application of harsh substances and shocking stimuli dissolves something within us. Somehow, if done correctly, taboo-breaking and transgression ends up melting certain impurities within the soul, setting us a little more free– just as the judicious application of sulfuric acid may expose gold. 

I am still exploring how these processes work. My personal practice is rough. I like to push myself. I benefit from subjecting myself to ordeals. Without divulging too much about my sex magic, I’ll just say that I like to play in the muck. I wallow in taboo. I do things that shock me and make me wonder about myself. Blasphemy, catharsis, violence. I bring in my own trauma and grapple with it in bed. I want blood and tears and fluids everywhere, and when I bathe in them I feel purified. Don’t worry, I only go there with people who, like me, really really wanna go there. And, well, with demons, in the astral. 

It’s not just sex, though. It’s the rough and tumble initiations, the emotional rollercoaster of shadow-work, the endless cycles of spiritual death and resurrection. Putrefy, purify. Putrefy, purify. On and on. Doing things that seem more and more insane, yet feeling saner in between. Getting to peace and stability by putting myself through hell, tempered endlessly by hot forge and icy water. 

Sometimes I’ve wondered how far I can really go with that path. I mean, at some point you’ve gotta be done, right? The blasphemy must lose its kick at some point. At some point, you’ve probably broken all the taboos that it’s a good idea to break. Antinomianism, which means law-breaking, can’t be an end on its own. That way lies shitty edge-lordery and other badness. But that hasn’t been my experience so far. It keeps getting richer. I keep digging deeper into the interior of the earth. I keep excavating more gold. The alchemical process of having an experience that looks from the outside like it should be awful and traumatic, and yet getting something so precious from it, doesn’t get old. Maybe it will always excite me. But seriously, how much V.I.T.R.I.O.L. can you pour on? Isn’t it all just gold at some point? Doesn’t it stop having an effect?

Well, I’m not there yet. The other day I asked Lucifer if he thinks of himself as perfect. He said yes. Then I asked him if he thinks he’s a work in progress. He also said yes. 

Maybe we’re all as perfect as we can be at any given moment, the sum of all the traumas and hard lessons that life has thrown at us, and all the work we’ve done or haven’t done yet to process it. Give yourself credit for being right where you’re supposed to be.