Western Alchemy and the Kalachakra Tantra
Damiani engaged in an intensive study of alchemy because he saw it as a process of authentic ontological transformation of the self rather than the transmutation of material substances (although he did think some of the alchemical masters succeeded in accomplishing the latter). He read all of C. G. Jung’s works on alchemy but was critical of Jung’s psychological interpretation of alchemical texts. Drawing extensively on Jung’s alchemical writings, including Mysterium Coniunctionis, as well as from Atwood’s A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, Plotinus’s Enneads, and Buddhist texts like The Sublime Science (Uttaratantra), Damiani integrated Western Hermetic traditions with Plotinian Neoplatonism and the Buddhist Kalachakra tantra.
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He saw these traditions as all working on the same problem: how is the soul being transformed through its focused attention to its embodiment and immersion in the cosmos? The classes on this topic were simultaneously on alchemy, Jung, Buddhist tantra, the development of the subtle body, mystical experience, symbols, and the creative imagination. And bits of occult lore about what it’s like to undergo various mystical experiences are spread throughout.
See the following two series that focus on both alchemy and Kalachakra: