Alchemy & The Physics of Life

with Practicing Alchemist Kevin Townley
& Special Guest Peter Lamborn Wilson

A two day workshop, Thursday, August 28th, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday, August 29th, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

During the middle to the close of the 19th Century, the world view shifted from alchemical to chemical. The famous 19th century alchemist Fulcanelli said chemistry is the science of effects while alchemy is the science of causes. This workshop will begin by examining the alchemical world view. From this vantage point the group will focus on the 12 basic alchemical operations which have practical and speculative applications. We will have a hands on approach and learn the processes of distillation, cohabitation and sublimation along with several procedures which will aid the student in understanding the interdependent nature of reality.

This preconference workshop will be very hands-on and for the most part outside, up at the mountain top of the Abode of the Message. The program will begin at 9 a.m. on Thursday, August 28 and end at 4 p.m. on Friday, August 29. Tuition for this event is $150. Accommodations will be through the Abode of the Message and rates can be found on the Tuition and Housing page.

Kevin Townley

Kevin Townley has been a student of the Western Mysteries \ Ageless Wisdom for 30 years. He began his studies in a Carmelite Seminary at the age of 13 and from there was drawn to study the Ageless Wisdom. He completed the 13 year curriculum with the Builders of the Adytum, a comprehensive study in the western Mysteries which includes the Qabalah, Tarot, Tree of Life, Alchemy and Astrology.

Kevin worked two years in a full time laboratory dedicated to the practical study of alchemy and spagery. He has conducted workshops on Qabalah, Spagyrics, Alchemy, and Tarot in the United States and in Europe, and co-founded the Hermetic School, The Philosophers of Nature, which has a seven-year curriculum in laboratory alchemy and Qabalah.

Kevin has taught classes on the Western Mysteries at The Colorado Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Boulder College, Sancta Sophia Theological Seminary and Naropa University. He has an integrative approach to the several esoteric subjects and blends these teachings in his classes.

Kevin is the author of The Cube of Space, Container of Creation, which has placed him as a world authority in the study of Tarot and the Cube of Space. He has also written Meditations on the Cube of Space, which is a practical application of meditative techniques using the Tarot and the Cube of Space. Kevin is currently completing books on the use of Tattwas, Working with Natures Finer Forces, and an investigation into the decline of AF&AM Masonry entitled, A Divided Brotherhood.

Peter Lamborn Wilson

Peter Lamborn Wilson is an author, translator, and poet, and founder of Seven Pillars’ Green Hermeticism track. Peter is a scholar of Sufism and Western Hermeticism and author of, among others, Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry, Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam and Escape from the Nineteenth Century. He has taught at Naropa University’s “Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics” and hosted a late-night radio talk-show, “The Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade”, on WBAI-FM in New York. In 2007, together with other Green Hermeticism faculty members Christopher Bamford and Kevin Townley, he published Green Hermeticism: Alchemy & Ecology (Lindisfarne).

Kevin Townley and Peter Lamborn Wilson
Green Hermeticism Flower Conference 2007