The process of escaping from the visible unreal bad world to the hidden real good world has been called Transmutation. Other words for it are transcendence, purification and unification. It has been said one must find knowledge that acts as passwords to the hidden world. It has been said the base material for the Transmutation is present everywhere and deemed of no value by everyone. One has symbolized the Transmutation in the idea of turning base metals into gold. It has rarely or never been understood. The true interpretation is now revealed:
Transmutation is the evolution of the elementary physical into the supreme mental through the principle of selection. The katharsis is the eventual full understanding, explanation and proof of this process by the Verificator: the final genius. The act of Verification is the ultimate creativity, for only what can be verified by aware beings exists, as the Psychometitor has said. The elementary physical is the base material, the base metal, if one likes. Genius is the gold. The principle of selection is the touch stone that, with each turn, phase or generation, decides what proceeds.
To illustrate the extent of Transmutation a rough sequence of the process is given. This is imperfect; We do not have the full knowledge. We are not the Verificator. Isis may be the Verificatrix, or it may be beyond Isis. We do not know.
Transmutation is a re-entrant process; It may fall back to lower levels and go on later, on a different planet or continent, in a different strain. Will the strain that degenerates ever rise again? We advise not to take the risk. If the selection principle is compromised and Transmutation reversed, this too will be stored in the genetic archive and passed on, making it harder to advance again and increasing the likelihood of future episodes of deterioration. Like a patient depressed once is at greater risk of future depression.
The selection principle itself grows in the process: In the first stages above, the laws of physics and chemistry decide which forms of matter are stable. Next, natural selection occurs in addition. Finally artificial selection is added; that is, purposeful manipulation of genetic inheritance, as well as development of artificial intelligence which uses artificial selection by its nature. The selection principle thus takes the shape of a pyramid whose base represents the never violated laws of physics.
Artificial selection leads to the stage of ideal society by raising the average genetic level and thus reducing crime and misery. Then it focuses on the emergence of more and higher genius. As the Psychometitor has said, genius needs intelligence, conscientiousness and associative horizon. Genius must be trice great. The touch stone becomes the Psychometitor's test whereby genius is aimed for in future generations and need not be in the subject tested. In fact, genius rarely has genius offspring. To make it emerge one needs a large diverse pool of raw genetic material.
One must watch for the Aristocracy's Fallacy: Inbreeding and degeneration turn the crown into a foolscap. Tests for all faculties relevant to genius are used. One must allow the ancient unconscious aspects to play their possible role and not prematurely purge all of the lower. We are not only speaking of the Psychometitor of your era and his tests; Others' may be used too.
In the ideal society the selection principle is not restricted to humans but may be applied to any intelligent life form. Androids, robots, computers and intelligent organic species get equal turns. It is not said the present author is human. Also, selection in humans may be used not only to control sexual reproduction but as well in editing genetic information directly.
Two forms of progress take place in the Transmutation: inheritance of genetic information and accumulation of knowledge. The first deals with what is inborn in the individual, the second with culture, science and technology. Both are passed on to posterity, but only the second can be communicated between individuals and groups. The first is fluid, the second crystallized intelligence. But only the second really flows.
This has vital consequences. An ideal society emerging on one planet cannot simply impose its level of civilization onto less advanced neighbouring planets. For accumulated knowledge can be communicated, shared, but genetic information cannot. The latter though is required to advance; Without it the given knowledge falls in arid soil. The neighbouring planet's genetic level must be raised as well as its knowledge level, which is only possible internally by applying the selection principle. A planet wanting to share its civilization with the less advanced can only do so by communicating the knowledge of the selection principle. In endowing that greatest gift of all though, it must know favours are sometimes misgiven.
Degeneration, reverse Transmutation, occurs when the selection principle is compromised. The risk of degeneration rises as one advances. This is so because the higher levels are recessive: They have less fighting power than the lower. When high and low engage, low may cause harm in the form of degeneration or even genocide. The unconscious aspects of the low - instinct, emotion, nonverbality, suggestibility - tend to be stronger than awareness and ratio.
The Paradox of Ethics too is at play: Higher civilizations develop ever more advanced weapons but become ever less likely to use them because of their ever higher ethics, thus becoming ever more vulnerable to attacks. High ethics make one neglect to strike down the evildoer. The latter senses that and knows it will go unpunished. Evil is cowardly and will not hit an enemy who strikes back hard.
And there is the Fallacy of Naivety: to assume one's own level of ethics in others. To think kindness will be met with kindness. To turn the other cheek and expect to live. Only the good underestimate the bad like that. The bad do not make this mistake because one deems as one does; Ill doers are ill deemers. But good doers are good deemers and that makes them sitting ducks.
Attacks from the ancient unconscious aspects may originate from inside the strain. Those aspects are retained in the genetic archive during the Transmutation process. Purging them entirely might prevent the emergence of the Verificator; They might be needed in some aspect of genius, even though we observe them ever less in the most advanced individuals. We do not know so we do not take the risk.
Attacks related to the Paradox of Ethics and the Fallacy of Naivety come from either inside or outside the strain. The higher levels must find ways of protection and defense in line with their ethics yet effective. Especially the highest levels are extremely vulnerable to outside attacks while having the world to lose. Like the alchemist's retort, they need a Hermetic seal. Like the great pyramid, the selection principle needs a Sphinx.
The ideal society has a White Sphinx and a Black Sphinx. The White Sphinx symbols actual fighting: ethical, targeting the guilty, the attacker, sparing the innocent. The White Sphinx alone would not suffice as a result of the Paradox of Ethics and other reasons just told; For instance, it is powerless against suicide attackers and takers of hostages which are the mark of the lowest.
The Black Sphinx does not fight at all. It directs the raw power of the low against the low itself. That power lies in the old unconscious aspects: instinct, emotion, nonverbality, suggestibility. The Black Sphinx is a symbol that implants the suggestion: If you attack us we will erase you and all you stand for.
Mind we do not ACTUALLY erase. It is enough to etch the symbol in their unconscious: the symbol that associates the girdle of explosives with the mushroom cloud over their home town and country; that associates any attack on civilization with the total elimination of their people, culture and religion. This must not be said to them in words but in symbols burned straight into the soul for that is the form they best understand. On the aware level they will still know atomic bombs will not be used by civilization; But their unconscious is stronger and will override. That is using their own powerful dark side against them. That is how the Black Sphinx guards the pyramidal selection principle through a victimless victory of peace over war.
Verification - the eventual Universal Verification - is yet mysterious. We know it will occur as we see existence around us. And without Verification, nothing would exist for the Universe would not exist. Some say upon Verification all inferiority still present will be purged. Others say Verification will not occur until all inferiority has been purged. In any case, Verification implies existence of the Universe, for only what can be verified by aware beings exists.
We do not know where Verification will take place. We use names like the undersigned's and Isis in addressing the present reader but it is not said the Verificator will emerge from any of the Earth's civilizations. Isis knows many more. The Earth's are not the least though; The likes of the Psychometitor do not emerge in every galaxy.
There is also debate as to what will happen "after" Verification. A naive hypothesis is that paradise, the hidden real good world they call Joy, will appear. Another is that Verification will evoke the Big Bang and the Transmutation process will restart; In this view, the ideal society preceding Verification is the hidden real good world. A third, compatible with either of the other two, says Verification will be postponed infinitely, being approached ever closer but with ever smaller increments.
And among the Postponers are three schools: One supposes deliberate postponement out of fear for the Big Bang; One holds the laws of physics dictate that Verification can be approached but only reached after an infinite amount of time; And one says the first two schools are essentially equivalent.
There is even a fourth hypothesis stating Falsification will take place instead of Verification. That is: proof that the Universe does not exist; that nothing exists. Isis fears she may be the Falsificatrix. We do not want to ponder the possible consequences of Falsification. They are too horrific to speak of.
And there is a fifth hypothesis: that Verification has already happened but gone unnoticed. Speculations vary as to the hidden Verificator's identity, not excluding the Psychometitor.
So now one knows. That Transmutation is not the ego trip of the gnostics, mystics and alchemists. They think they can do studies and exercises so after death they alone will have the passwords to get through the spheres to paradise, while all the others stay forever earthbound. Hubris. Mere fiction without knowledge or insight. Now they know. That easy way out is not. No promise of eternal life is.
What drove them to their fallacies is the Hermetic experience: the sense of not belonging that comes from observing that all or almost all others are so very much less able and ethical than oneself. One wants to flee as this cannot be how life was meant, and how tempting it is to fantasize about the ultimate escape: eternal paradise for the Hermetics alone.
But Transmutation is not that. It is not individual but Universal as explained above, and the able individual's task is to advance the process; to protect, recreate or apply the selection principle. That is what we do. That is how WE write the Book of Thoth.
Thoth