Alchemical Origins of The Fourth Way
The teachings of The Fourth Way are not from a single source but are a syncretism of Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek mystery school teachings.
From the School of Pythagoras, Plato, and the Neoplatonists, The Fourth Way inherited the teachings of:
Conscious Labor and Intentional Suffering,
The Law of Seven
The Law of Three.
Non-expression of Negative Emotions
The Horse, Carriage, Driver, and Master Metaphor
The Three Foods
The Trogoautoegocrat (self-feeding, conscious universe)
Self-Remembering and Self-Observation
The Higher Centers
Higher Being-bodies
From Heraclitus, the notion that Man is Asleep; from the Cynics, the practice of Non-Identification.
But perhaps the most prodigious influences are the Alchemists and Hermetists, from whom The Fourth Way inherited the methods of self-transformation and the core of the work.
WHAT IS A FOURTH WAY SCHOOL?
In the realms of spiritual development, there are three common approaches:
The way of the mind
The way of the emotions
The way of the body
The way of the mind incorporates techniques designed to enhance mental focus and discipline; examples include spiritual disciplines that utilize meditation, visualization, and memorization.
The way of the emotions emphasizes faith and devotion as a method of transformation.
The way of the body strongly encourages physical disciplines, like fasting, sacred dance, (some) martial arts, and yoga.
Finally, The Fourth Way utilizes special techniques to directly transmute the energy of consciousness by simultaneously working on the mind, emotions, and body.
A Fourth Way school has no fixed outer form. Still, it can be recognized by specific features, such as a seven-step process that directly conforms to the seven stages of alchemical transformation. In general terms, these are:
Calcination - a 'burning away' of all that is false in oneself, including the acquired aspects of personality.
Dissolution - the purification of one's essential nature (essence).
Separation - the separation of coarse and fine and the storage of finer energies for later use.
Conjunction - the recombination of the finer substances collected in phase 3, resulting in a new kind of being (astral body)
Fermentation - the allowance of something higher to act upon you and the infusion of a new kind of force in your common presence.
Distillation - increasing potency of the finer substances collected in phase 5.
Coagulation - the formation of the mental body and the final stage of spiritual development that is possible in a planetary ecology.
Pierce!