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Published by Inner Traditions
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
• Describes the initiatory stages of Kriya Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism with high-level yogis and lamas
• Shares the author’s experiences of spontaneous dream initiations, astral travels, Kundalini awakening, and an out-of-body journey through the Bardo to a past life—which led him to pursue spiritual studies in Asia
• Reveals the profound parallels between Western Alchemy’s search for the Philosopher’s Stone and the Indo-Tibetan quest for Spiritual Liberation
Guided by a profound series of dream initiations, astral travels, intense kundalini activation, and an out-of-body journey to a past life, Kevin Turner embarks on an around-the-world quest in pursuit of the secret fire of alchemical enlightenment.
Detailing his intensive studies to discover the meaning behind his spontaneous nighttime initiations, Turner finds resonance with Goethe’s alchemical quest and Descartes’ assertion that the pineal gland is the seat of the soul. Turning to Eastern traditions, the author finds exact descriptions of his experiences in books on kundalini yoga and answers to his questions about death, rebirth, and the soul’s Immortal Light in writings on Tibetan Buddhism—as well as profound parallels between the alchemists’ search for the Philosopher’s Stone and the Indo-Tibetan quest for Liberation.
Realizing his calling to accelerate the evolution of the soul, Turner travels to Asia where he meets the last living disciple of Sri Yukteswar, Swami Paramahansa Hariharananda Giri, who initiates him into Kriya Yoga. In his pursuit of the Eastern alchemical tradition, he then travels to the Himalayas in Nepal to study with Shamarpa Rinpoche at Nagi Gompa Monastery. Turner then journeys to Taipei to study Taoist alchemy and Tai Chi before returning to Europe to renew his studies of Western alchemy.
Deeply personal and spiritually uplifting, Turner’s story of initiation into alchemical traditions of East and West offers insight into the initiatory process known as the "Great Work" and powerful guidance to others on the spiritual path toward enlightenment.
• Shares the author’s experiences of spontaneous dream initiations, astral travels, Kundalini awakening, and an out-of-body journey through the Bardo to a past life—which led him to pursue spiritual studies in Asia
• Reveals the profound parallels between Western Alchemy’s search for the Philosopher’s Stone and the Indo-Tibetan quest for Spiritual Liberation
Guided by a profound series of dream initiations, astral travels, intense kundalini activation, and an out-of-body journey to a past life, Kevin Turner embarks on an around-the-world quest in pursuit of the secret fire of alchemical enlightenment.
Detailing his intensive studies to discover the meaning behind his spontaneous nighttime initiations, Turner finds resonance with Goethe’s alchemical quest and Descartes’ assertion that the pineal gland is the seat of the soul. Turning to Eastern traditions, the author finds exact descriptions of his experiences in books on kundalini yoga and answers to his questions about death, rebirth, and the soul’s Immortal Light in writings on Tibetan Buddhism—as well as profound parallels between the alchemists’ search for the Philosopher’s Stone and the Indo-Tibetan quest for Liberation.
Realizing his calling to accelerate the evolution of the soul, Turner travels to Asia where he meets the last living disciple of Sri Yukteswar, Swami Paramahansa Hariharananda Giri, who initiates him into Kriya Yoga. In his pursuit of the Eastern alchemical tradition, he then travels to the Himalayas in Nepal to study with Shamarpa Rinpoche at Nagi Gompa Monastery. Turner then journeys to Taipei to study Taoist alchemy and Tai Chi before returning to Europe to renew his studies of Western alchemy.
Deeply personal and spiritually uplifting, Turner’s story of initiation into alchemical traditions of East and West offers insight into the initiatory process known as the "Great Work" and powerful guidance to others on the spiritual path toward enlightenment.
Excerpt
Chapter: 1
Cave of Fire
Work therefore with . . .
the secret, hidden and invisible fire.
ARTEPHIUS, TWELFTH-CENTURY ALCHEMIST, THE
SECRET BOOK OF ARTEPHIUS, PART 6
That I did not deserve to die could not save me. As I attempt to write down all that has happened, be forewarned—if you are comfortable with your current worldview, read no further. Death marks not an end but a beginning. I shake as I grip my pen, If this must be written in blood, so be it . . .
In my twenty-first year, by chance, by fate, by intention, I’m drawn into a continuity of awareness in deep sleep to a series of initiations for which I can only find correlations in alchemy. With each inhalation, the bellows bring cool air in, and on exhalation warm air moves out. I seek to extend the time of each of the four phases: inhalation, pause, exhalation, and pause again. In time, I pass directly into dreams without losing a continuity of consciousness. These aren’t common dreams but ones of unusual lucidity and power. The first initiation came in the form of repeating, progressive dreams:
I descend steps hewn from stone to a cave with inner chambers. I
walk until I find a room where I see a freestanding stone pillar upon
a raised platform. From the top of this stone pillar pours a blazing
magma. I’m fascinated, held entranced and cannot turn away.
Behind me, a male and a female seal me into the chamber. As the
room fills with burning lava, I’m alarmed—surely, I’ll soon be burned
to ashes! I awaken before the molten fires reach me . . .
VITRIOLVM: Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando
Invenie Occultum Lapidem Veram Medicinam
Visit the interior of the earth and by rectifying [purifying/refining], you will find the hidden stone which is the true medicine.
ALCHEMICAL AXIOM, FIRST NOTED IN BASILIO
VALENTINO’S AZOTH, 1613
Despite the increasing rigors of architectural studies at the university, I’m again and again drawn in my deep sleep to descend to the underground chamber, to my inner stone room of rumbling fiery magma emerging from the earth. Night after night, I’m entombed by the pair to face my impending death alone, yet always I awaken before the lava reaches me (only later did I research and discover the alchemical quotations and illustrations seen throughout this account).
Lightning . . . gave to the flames of the volcano a bloodlike appearance
. . . Vesuvius [volcano] roars. . . . Wrapped in darkness, I seemed to
descend into an abyss. I know not how long I remained in that situation.
THE MOST HOLY TRINOSOPHIA
Weeks pass before a new stage unfolds. I’m yet again led by an unseen power to descend into the cave to the pillar of exuberating fire. I’m again sealed in by the pair, but this time I say an inner farewell to all I know in this life, and decisively gather my courage to stare down the primal magma: The only way out of this is through! I wade barefoot directly into the burning lava spreading over the stone cave floor.
Curiously, the molten fury offers no pain, and I feel only the rise of a dry heat within me. The room fills to the ceiling with the glowing lava. I calmly surrender as I’m incinerated into ashen embers. Slowly, this dark ash cools into stone, and I become heavy black stone—timeless, deeply at peace. This repeated over several nights until I awoke one morning with a fresh mind of clear light, full of curiosity.
A lake of fire presented itself to my sight. Sulphur and bitumen
rolled in flaming waves. I trembled. A loud voice commanded me to
pass through the flames. I obeyed, and the flames seemed to have
lost their power. For a long time I walked within the conflagration.
THE MOST HOLY TRINOSOPHIA
A new plateau of remembrance is reached, and though the dream stages continued, I no longer found them frightening. I look forward to being sealed in, swallowed into my nightly fiery deaths and stony, cataleptic rest, as I feel more myself each time it occurs. I’m calcified and dissolved over and again until finally came the Separation of the White from the Black:
Humming within the immobile stone of the physical body, I feel and
know myself to be like a thin skeleton of highly vibrating white light.
I am the wavering filament of pure luminescence. The fixed is now
volatile, and like an electric wisp I’m now as slippery and translucent
as light through a window. Lifting away from the stone, I am free! I
vibrate and float around the room as a filament of white lightning.
An indescribable joy fills me; I am utterly myself. I soon find myself
standing down on the street before my home, light shimmering
everywhere off the wet surfaces after an evening rain shower. A
gentle peace fills my soul, and I roam my neighborhood in delight.
Solvite Corpora et Coagulata Spiritus
Dissolve the body and coagulate the spirit.
THE OUROBORIC CYCLE,
AN AXIOM OF MEDIEVAL ALCHEMY
We dissolve the living body with Apollo’s fire—
So that what was before a Stone may become a Spirit.
EPIGRAM CONCERNING THE PHILOSOPHERS’ STONE BY ALEXANDER DE S. TO GULIEMUS BLANCUS, FROM
A GOLDEN AND BLESSED CASKET OF NATURE’S MARVELS
BY BENEDICTUS FIGULUS, 1608
The midnight forays away from my home became more frequent. Nightly now, I allow my body to drop into the cement-like heaviness, soon reidentifying as the white filament of light. I will myself away from my tomb of stone, released from the heavy, dark ballast of the physical body. The joy of such freedom almost made returning to my fleshy body a burden, feeling encased in a primate form, but in time I learned to balance these two ways of being.
The symbol of chemistry is drawn by the creation of its adepts, who cleanse and save the divine soul bound in the elements, and who free the divine spirit from its mixture with the flesh.*
ZOSIMOS OF PANOPOLIS
Chapter: 2
Pineal Portal
In the Sounding of the Trumpet:
"Mercury contains all that the Sages seek . . .
It dissolves, softens, and extracts the soul from the body."
EDWARD KELLY, STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
That spring of 1982 a three-year process of profound inner initiations commenced in my deep sleep, leading me to eventually abandon my familiar land to roam over the world in search of the sacred key, the Stone all philosophers seek, "the quintessence of the Sages, the living mercury which has in itself the heavenly spirit, the most precious of all treasures" (Sophic Hydrolith, part 4, 1678).
Weeks after these dream initiations began, the cave of fire was no longer required. Melting into ashen stone while still remaining awake, conscious of the silvery tendril of soul now released, I enjoyed a certain freedom in my local neighborhood for some weeks. Then one evening a new development occurred:
As my body lay in a heavy stonelike catalepsy, I again reindentify as
a long silvery wisp of electricity. However, this time I, the silvery
wisp, am drawn upward into a tiny point of liquid metal light at the
center of my head. I hear a high-pitched siren growing into a
thundering freight train or a heavy waterfall, then becoming many
bells struck all around me—now emanating from the center of my
head. Louder and louder it becomes until I can no longer bear it.
Immersed in intense fear, the process ends.
Every few nights this repeats: my silvery, electric-light self is inexorably pulled upward through my spine, condensing into a point in the center of my head with the terrifying, piercing sound of metal bells, a high-pitched air-raid siren, or at other times the deeper and more terrifying sound—that of a great rumbling train with its deafening whistle blowing. Time and time again this came, but intense fear arrested the process, such that I would fall into an oblivion of unconsciousness.
Until one has become accustomed to it, the actual process of passing through the "Door" in the pineal gland produces an effect of extreme mental confusion and a terrible fear. Indeed, one feels that one is heading straight for death or insanity.
OLIVER FOX
Nightly now, within my cooling body of stone, I’m withdrawn into my charged spine—an inner pillar of power, then drawn upward, approaching the terrifying rumble at the center of my brain. One evening I simply could not stem the flow into the center of my head. Again, I know the only escape is in and through, so I surrender to the inevitable and with all my courage I focus and fall into the roar as it reaches a ringing crescendo, collapsing into a silvery point at the center of my skull. Pop! As only a point of awareness, I'm pulled up and out the top of my head, away from my body. . . .
Led by the blazing star, the candidate throws himself into the midst of the waves. With his lamp upon the crown of his head (the spirit fire lifted into the pineal gland) he struggles for mastery over the currents of the etheric world.
MANLY P. HALL
Cave of Fire
Work therefore with . . .
the secret, hidden and invisible fire.
ARTEPHIUS, TWELFTH-CENTURY ALCHEMIST, THE
SECRET BOOK OF ARTEPHIUS, PART 6
That I did not deserve to die could not save me. As I attempt to write down all that has happened, be forewarned—if you are comfortable with your current worldview, read no further. Death marks not an end but a beginning. I shake as I grip my pen, If this must be written in blood, so be it . . .
In my twenty-first year, by chance, by fate, by intention, I’m drawn into a continuity of awareness in deep sleep to a series of initiations for which I can only find correlations in alchemy. With each inhalation, the bellows bring cool air in, and on exhalation warm air moves out. I seek to extend the time of each of the four phases: inhalation, pause, exhalation, and pause again. In time, I pass directly into dreams without losing a continuity of consciousness. These aren’t common dreams but ones of unusual lucidity and power. The first initiation came in the form of repeating, progressive dreams:
I descend steps hewn from stone to a cave with inner chambers. I
walk until I find a room where I see a freestanding stone pillar upon
a raised platform. From the top of this stone pillar pours a blazing
magma. I’m fascinated, held entranced and cannot turn away.
Behind me, a male and a female seal me into the chamber. As the
room fills with burning lava, I’m alarmed—surely, I’ll soon be burned
to ashes! I awaken before the molten fires reach me . . .
VITRIOLVM: Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando
Invenie Occultum Lapidem Veram Medicinam
Visit the interior of the earth and by rectifying [purifying/refining], you will find the hidden stone which is the true medicine.
ALCHEMICAL AXIOM, FIRST NOTED IN BASILIO
VALENTINO’S AZOTH, 1613
Despite the increasing rigors of architectural studies at the university, I’m again and again drawn in my deep sleep to descend to the underground chamber, to my inner stone room of rumbling fiery magma emerging from the earth. Night after night, I’m entombed by the pair to face my impending death alone, yet always I awaken before the lava reaches me (only later did I research and discover the alchemical quotations and illustrations seen throughout this account).
Lightning . . . gave to the flames of the volcano a bloodlike appearance
. . . Vesuvius [volcano] roars. . . . Wrapped in darkness, I seemed to
descend into an abyss. I know not how long I remained in that situation.
THE MOST HOLY TRINOSOPHIA
Weeks pass before a new stage unfolds. I’m yet again led by an unseen power to descend into the cave to the pillar of exuberating fire. I’m again sealed in by the pair, but this time I say an inner farewell to all I know in this life, and decisively gather my courage to stare down the primal magma: The only way out of this is through! I wade barefoot directly into the burning lava spreading over the stone cave floor.
Curiously, the molten fury offers no pain, and I feel only the rise of a dry heat within me. The room fills to the ceiling with the glowing lava. I calmly surrender as I’m incinerated into ashen embers. Slowly, this dark ash cools into stone, and I become heavy black stone—timeless, deeply at peace. This repeated over several nights until I awoke one morning with a fresh mind of clear light, full of curiosity.
A lake of fire presented itself to my sight. Sulphur and bitumen
rolled in flaming waves. I trembled. A loud voice commanded me to
pass through the flames. I obeyed, and the flames seemed to have
lost their power. For a long time I walked within the conflagration.
THE MOST HOLY TRINOSOPHIA
A new plateau of remembrance is reached, and though the dream stages continued, I no longer found them frightening. I look forward to being sealed in, swallowed into my nightly fiery deaths and stony, cataleptic rest, as I feel more myself each time it occurs. I’m calcified and dissolved over and again until finally came the Separation of the White from the Black:
Humming within the immobile stone of the physical body, I feel and
know myself to be like a thin skeleton of highly vibrating white light.
I am the wavering filament of pure luminescence. The fixed is now
volatile, and like an electric wisp I’m now as slippery and translucent
as light through a window. Lifting away from the stone, I am free! I
vibrate and float around the room as a filament of white lightning.
An indescribable joy fills me; I am utterly myself. I soon find myself
standing down on the street before my home, light shimmering
everywhere off the wet surfaces after an evening rain shower. A
gentle peace fills my soul, and I roam my neighborhood in delight.
Solvite Corpora et Coagulata Spiritus
Dissolve the body and coagulate the spirit.
THE OUROBORIC CYCLE,
AN AXIOM OF MEDIEVAL ALCHEMY
We dissolve the living body with Apollo’s fire—
So that what was before a Stone may become a Spirit.
EPIGRAM CONCERNING THE PHILOSOPHERS’ STONE BY ALEXANDER DE S. TO GULIEMUS BLANCUS, FROM
A GOLDEN AND BLESSED CASKET OF NATURE’S MARVELS
BY BENEDICTUS FIGULUS, 1608
The midnight forays away from my home became more frequent. Nightly now, I allow my body to drop into the cement-like heaviness, soon reidentifying as the white filament of light. I will myself away from my tomb of stone, released from the heavy, dark ballast of the physical body. The joy of such freedom almost made returning to my fleshy body a burden, feeling encased in a primate form, but in time I learned to balance these two ways of being.
The symbol of chemistry is drawn by the creation of its adepts, who cleanse and save the divine soul bound in the elements, and who free the divine spirit from its mixture with the flesh.*
ZOSIMOS OF PANOPOLIS
Chapter: 2
Pineal Portal
In the Sounding of the Trumpet:
"Mercury contains all that the Sages seek . . .
It dissolves, softens, and extracts the soul from the body."
EDWARD KELLY, STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
That spring of 1982 a three-year process of profound inner initiations commenced in my deep sleep, leading me to eventually abandon my familiar land to roam over the world in search of the sacred key, the Stone all philosophers seek, "the quintessence of the Sages, the living mercury which has in itself the heavenly spirit, the most precious of all treasures" (Sophic Hydrolith, part 4, 1678).
Weeks after these dream initiations began, the cave of fire was no longer required. Melting into ashen stone while still remaining awake, conscious of the silvery tendril of soul now released, I enjoyed a certain freedom in my local neighborhood for some weeks. Then one evening a new development occurred:
As my body lay in a heavy stonelike catalepsy, I again reindentify as
a long silvery wisp of electricity. However, this time I, the silvery
wisp, am drawn upward into a tiny point of liquid metal light at the
center of my head. I hear a high-pitched siren growing into a
thundering freight train or a heavy waterfall, then becoming many
bells struck all around me—now emanating from the center of my
head. Louder and louder it becomes until I can no longer bear it.
Immersed in intense fear, the process ends.
Every few nights this repeats: my silvery, electric-light self is inexorably pulled upward through my spine, condensing into a point in the center of my head with the terrifying, piercing sound of metal bells, a high-pitched air-raid siren, or at other times the deeper and more terrifying sound—that of a great rumbling train with its deafening whistle blowing. Time and time again this came, but intense fear arrested the process, such that I would fall into an oblivion of unconsciousness.
Until one has become accustomed to it, the actual process of passing through the "Door" in the pineal gland produces an effect of extreme mental confusion and a terrible fear. Indeed, one feels that one is heading straight for death or insanity.
OLIVER FOX
Nightly now, within my cooling body of stone, I’m withdrawn into my charged spine—an inner pillar of power, then drawn upward, approaching the terrifying rumble at the center of my brain. One evening I simply could not stem the flow into the center of my head. Again, I know the only escape is in and through, so I surrender to the inevitable and with all my courage I focus and fall into the roar as it reaches a ringing crescendo, collapsing into a silvery point at the center of my skull. Pop! As only a point of awareness, I'm pulled up and out the top of my head, away from my body. . . .
Led by the blazing star, the candidate throws himself into the midst of the waves. With his lamp upon the crown of his head (the spirit fire lifted into the pineal gland) he struggles for mastery over the currents of the etheric world.
MANLY P. HALL
Product Details
- Publisher: Inner Traditions (February 4, 2025)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9798888500705
Raves and Reviews
“Written with depth, humor, and wit, The Secret Fire of Alchemy is a masterpiece in the field of spiritual alchemy—a link in the shining Golden Chain of the sacred knowledge of spiritual completion and liberation. In the spirit of C. G. Jung, Turner simultaneously explores the time-honored Eastern tradition of self-realization and the Western quest for the lost keys of alchemy. His relentless search across continents and lifetimes opens doors closed for centuries; reveals little-known connections between Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and Western esoteric lineages; and bears witness to the wonder of a Pan-Eurasian mystical tradition.”
– Sankara Bhagavadpada, Ph.D., Vedic astrologer and author of Self-Realization through Self-Knowing
“In this beautifully written book, Kevin Turner uncovers the alchemical Great Work hidden in the inner reaches of Kriya Yoga as well as in Tibetan and Taoist practices. Turner is like a Tibetan tertön who rediscovers and reveals hidden spiritual treasures, revelations known as terma in Tibetan. His encounters with great teachers in Asia are shared with sincerity and courage, allowing us to participate in his inner journey and deepen our own. A joyful, living book.”
– Guido Ferrari, director of Tao: The Watercourse Way at Wu Yi Mountain
“In this deeply esoteric and well-researched account, Turner recounts his personal odyssey of spiritual evolution, the connection between Eastern mysticism and Western alchemy, and the rediscovery of the inner Stone of the Philosophers. Turner’s dream initiation sequences are rare and among the best recorded in the alchemical tradition. Turner also has coined several new terms that I hope will find their way into broader discussions of human consciousness.”
– Sabine Lucas, Ph.D., Jungian analyst and author of Past Life Dreamwork
“This book is a generous gift to the world of seekers, worthy of respect and gratitude; there is so much to contemplate here, not only about the path, but the strength of character it takes to walk it.”
– Jack Elias, CHT, author of Finding True Magic
“According to Jung, the paradox is ‘one of our most precious spiritual possessions,’ for ‘only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.’ Nowhere is the truth of this statement more evident than in the tradition of alchemy, whose links to Kriya Yoga, kundalini, and shamanism are explored by Kevin B. Turner in his new book. Drawing on the author’s personal experience over many years, as well as displaying a remarkable erudition of the literature in the field, this richly illustrated study is as fascinating as it is informative and is almost an initiatory experience in itself.”
– Paul Bishop, professor at the University of Glasgow, UK, and author of The Dionysian Self
“The Secret Fire of Alchemy is a fascinating, engaging account of the author’s out-of-body experiences, full-blown kundalini activation, telepathic connections, shamanic experiences, and enlightened insights during his courageous pilgrimage across various continents and cultures. Kevin’s compelling book inspires us to expand our own understanding and experience of the vastness of human consciousness.”
– Nancy H. McMoneagle, former president and CEO of the Monroe Institute
“Kevin Turner, a curious, intuitive pilgrim of many intertwined paths, engagingly recounts significant encounters and observations along his path to ‘becoming.’ His inner and outer journeys reveal insights into the esoteric worlds of Eastern mysticism and Western alchemy, and his ouroboric cycle of spiritual successes and humbling defeats makes for an alchemical reading experience like no other.”
– Robert Hinshaw, Ph.D., Jungian analyst and faculty of the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich
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