Alchemica Sophia
The Path of Earth-Centered Spirituality
Welcome to the lineage of Biomancy, rooted in the feminine mysteries of Sophia, and the earth-centric traditions that reveal the ensouled magic of a living planet within a living cosmos, emanating from a deep mystery. Within the Alchemical traditions of Sophia, there is a pathway of ideas that have been strung across time like a brightly colored prayer flag, ushering us on a pilgrimage to gnosis.
Various colleges of initiates have stewarded this lineage across time, including the temple priestesses, the womb shamans, Ophites and gnostics, the oracles of sacred sites, the witches and folk magicians, the chantresses, keening women, medicine keepers of different traditions, the mystery school adepts, the Cathars, Templars, the medieval alchemists and scientists, and the artists, poets and bards who encoded the forbidden wisdom in music, art, myth, and poetry.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Often there is no linear structure to the way these teachings have been kept and passed along. It is more of a pollination or a spontaneous blooming in which ideas keep regrowing. So even though many different groups of people may be held within the garlanded archway of Alchemica Sophia, it does not mean their beliefs are always strictly synchronous. Biomancy as a gnostic tradition is a path of inner revelation, rather than external rules, teachings or set beliefs. It is an adventure into the mystery of existence that each person travels in their own unique way.
Sophianic Magic
For our Ancestors science and magic were not separate – they existed on a continuum, and it was understood that a magical and practical reality was entangled and interwoven together. These two realities, described as Middle World and Otherworld, quantum physics and Newtonian physics, were complements to each other and were part of the Sacred Balance of all existence, like two sides of a co-joining coin. One reality gave us stability and certainty, and was denser and slower to respond to magic, with a more fixed set of laws. The other reality was more fluid, residing in possibility and potential, where magical effects could happen instantaneously. This balance of possibility and movement with stability and certainty is the force that unites all life.
Alchemica Sophia lineage-weavers respected all aspects of reality in the weave, and had deep knowledge about working with both the denser principles of matter and the possibilities of magic, especially the creative feminine chaos magic that underlies all life, known as Shakti or Anima. It is at these magical intersections of chaos and order, where reality shapeshifts, that miracles occur.
The magical lineage that Biomancy draws inspiration from is based on the lineage of the feminine Mystery Schools, that taught about an ensouled world and body (rather than the disembodied philosophies of dualism). Biomancy is dedicated to this living lineage of wisdom, devoted to Sophia, which evolves and re-emerges to meet the needs of its time and to find new words for ancient ideas. Biomancy includes ecomancy and astromancy. As the entagled systems of body, ecology and cosmos cannot be divided. We are part of a resonant whole.
Bio magic and Eco magic is a reemergent pathway that will come to define our future. Biomancy sits within this lineage of wisdom and philosophy, bringing its own unique weave and perspective to these traditions. In alchemical traditions it is believed that each generation needs to reweave and reimagine the old stories and teachings, so they can evolve with a living spirit. Biomancy is the co-creation of Azra Bertrand and Seren Bertrand, and is led by Dr Bertrand with his unique blend of spiritual, healing and scientific training, and initiation in the mysteries.
Embodied Spirituality
Biomancy is dedicated to courting this living wisdom of Sophia, entangled in a participatory co-weaving of earth, including all her creatures and beings and the cosmos. This conscious great weave of creation is the source of the greatest gift - our embodied magic, our Bio-Magic. Biomancy places a feminine philosophy, ecology and cosmology as the centerpiece of the work of Biomancy, a feminine essence which includes all genders and expressions within its weave.
Biomancy is particularly interested in merging the magic of soma and psyche, so we can access the brilliance and potential of the invisible imaginal realms with the psychic somatic power of the body, in a new cosmic mythos. By uniting body and soul, the body becomes an imaginarium for the dreams of God. Our quantum biology is infinite.
Carl Jung
Embodied Spirituality
This European lineage has particular significance for Dr Bertrand, as one of his great maternal ancestors was Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762 – 1836), a German physician, writer and philosopher who was a friend to, and personal physician of, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Christoph Hufeland studied medicine and was educated at Weimar, where his father held the office of court physician to the grand duchess. He was interested in many esoteric subjects, including Chinese Alchemy and the spiritual science of longevity. He was also an early supporter of naturopathy and homeopathy, and proposed the vital life force that Reich also believed in.
His most widely translated book was Macrobiotics: The Art of Prolonging Life, which later influenced George Ohsawa, founder of modern macrobiotics (whose legacy, by happy coincidence, Dr Bertrand studied at the Institute of Macrobiotics, creating an accidental lineage ‘loop’.)
This fascination with the possibility of biomagic seems to run through his ancestral bloodline, and has been a lifelong fascination and dedication. Including the healing power of nature, as eco-magic.
Dr Bertrand also undertook a four-year apprenticeship with a physician who practiced darkfield microscopy, a modern form of blood divination – where a person’s wellbeing is divined in their blood. Blood magic was a core principle of our ancestors who knew that ‘the blood is the life’. Our blood is literally singing with secrets that science is only just uncovering. Our blood is a memory bank.
Along with his co-creatrix, Seren Bertrand, he believes this lineage is ready to rebirth, like a beautiful green snake shedding its skin, evolving to channel the beauty and joy of the feminine mystery. At its heart, Biomancy is not a subject to just study in libraries, but a way of being to live and embody a powerful, regenerative shining energy.
Our future depends on us reclaiming our magic. Our natural magic, our organic magic, our bio-magic. Life is rooted in magic. The incredible potential for love, life, wild creativity that lives within all of us. Biomancy is alchemy rooted into the future – birthed directly through the magic of embodiment and the shimmering possibility of creating a new way on earth that speaks to the modern world.
Biomancy is a living stream of practice, connection and wisdom, to reenchant our disconnection and separation from the flow of life, so we can come home. All our current issues are a symptom of disconnection. So restoring connection is the healing of our times.
The Holy Longing
Tell a wise person or else keep silent
for those who do not understand will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm waters of the love nights
where you were begotten, where you have begotten
a strange feeling creeps over you
as you watch the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness
and a desire for higher lovemaking sweeps you upwards.
Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying
and finally insane for the light
you are the butterfly, and you are gone.
And so long as you have not experienced this: to die and so to grow
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.
Johann von Wolfgang Goethe,
Translated by Robert Bly and David Whyte
Share the magic!
Alchemica Sophia Library
Biomancy Vision – My Year Out of Time
Healing with Time Magic
Biodelics – Awakening the Psychedelic Magic In Our Bodies
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