[Ed: Dennis taught this material in full over a weekend in Viroqua, Wisconsin, in 2009. The four lectures are available as Alchemy of Consciousness: Imagination as a Path of Healing.]

If we think about it most of our trials come out of the inner experience that we seem to have two contrasting modes of consciousness in us. An alchemist would call these two modes of consciousness the Sun and the Moon. These two complementary modes often are the source of inner conflicts. When we listen just to the Moon there is a feeling that there are no new potentials in our world, everything is predestined and all relationships are fixed. This is the alchemical consciousness of the Moon. In the picture we can see the face of the Moon in the corner in the upper right. The Moon brings fixity to the mind by being simply a reflecting surface for the more creative light of the Sun. Like the surface of a mirror that is filled with images, the Moon is simply a mirror of the Sun. The Moon is not a light giver. In the consciousness of the Moon we are bound to uncontrollably repeat patterns and memories. The Moon memories arise and start to flow within us and we respond simply by forming inner pictures or reflections of them without any conscious understanding of why they are flowing in a particular manner. This is depicted by the reflection of the Moon on the water to the lower left. The consciousness of multiple reflections is the mood of the Moon.

A little exercise that enables us to directly experience the mood of the Moon is the exercise of the fixed gaze. Take a manufactured object like a pen or button. Focus your gaze on it until you recognize a detail of the object. When you have recognized a detail or the detail seems to stand out against all of the other details in the object write the detail down on a piece of paper. Then go back to focusing on the object. Focus your gaze on the place where you noticed the first detail. Then allow your gaze to move to another detail and focus on it. Add the new detail to the list you are making. Continue this process each time imagining the first detail then the second until you have noticed four details. The experience of following a sequence of details is the major characteristic of the consciousness of the moon.

In contrast to the Moon, the Sun, seen in the corner in the upper left of the picture, is a generator of light. In the Sun new forms come into existence rather than being simply reflections of things that already exist. The consciousness of the Sun is found in the capacity of the mind to first recognize and then dissolve the sequences of unconscious images that arise automatically in us as we go through the day. By recognizing and then dissolving unconscious inner images, more creative inner pictures can be formed and developed. The Sun consciousness allows a person to correct incorrect memory patterns.

An exercise for developing the consciousness of the Sun is to practice what is called the open gaze. Take the same object that you used in the first exercise with the fixed gaze. Focus your gaze on it but as soon as you begin to notice a detail dissolve the detail by simply allowing your gaze to focus on the space around the object rather than the object itself. The open gaze is trained on the space around the object rather than the object itself. As soon as you notice any detail on the object, immediately dissolve it by looking at the space around the object instead of at the object. This is not an easy thing to do but it is a wonderful training for higher sight. Alternate the fixed gaze and the open gaze for a few minutes to help develop a strong and flexible inner eye.

The fundamental requirement of soul transformation is that we transform an automatic way of sensing into a more dynamic pictorial consciousness. The alchemists attempted to do this by making pictures of inner states and then meditating on them to enter into higher states of consciousness.