Spiritual alchemy is concerned with freeing the spiritual self that is trapped within you by the unrefined parts of yourself—your fears, personal beliefs, self-loathing, etc. I’ve had the most amazing breakthroughs in spiritual development by using my emotions to induce a change in my circumstances.

I first learned about one system for this process from a Reiki master in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was suffering from debilitating fear at the time, mostly linked to Damien’s safety, raising money to pay lawyers, and even losing my job. It seemed my every waking moment was overtaken by anxiety, and my emotional distress had become too severe to endure.

The Reiki master taught me how to use essential oils to trigger an alchemical process that, after a few weeks of intense work, brought about enormous relief. You can use any essential oil you wish for this ritual.

• Apply a few drops of essential oil to your temples as you think about being anxious or fearful. Really experience these feelings fully while breathing in the scent of the oil.
• After a few moments, apply the same oil to your temples again, and summon the feelings of extreme happiness.

That’s it.

When I decide to do something, I go all in, so I did this every hour during the day, and a couple of times during the night. It took a few weeks, but my life was transformed and the relief was enormous.

There is something magickal that happens when you do this; it’s alchemical, meaning that the lead of your anxiety turns to gold, or peace. Over time it causes an association with happiness when you apply the oil to your temples, and eventually the feelings of fear subside altogether.

You can use this ritual to address many of the things that throw us out of balance and off center. If you’re doing work on bolstering your finances, try thinking about the feelings of lack, the fear of not having enough money that plagues you. When you apply the oil a second time, imagine just how exuberant you’ll feel when you have more than enough; imagine what you’ll do with your new wealth, how you’ll celebrate it, how you’ll experience the relief of money flowing to you and through you. It also works for anger, or a broken heart. It has to be expected that sometimes the process can take a long time—but it always works. It’s all about reaching for a better frame of mind over and over.