The Nature of Divine Inspiration

Alkhemi Therapy is not a reconstruction of ancient Egyptian religion; neither was it practised in this form in ancient times. It is a contemporary pathworking system, designed to be relevant to life in the 21st century. It’s the result of more than two decades of intuitive shamanic work with ancient Egyptian sacred archetypes (deities) who volunteered their participation and consented to their wisdom being used in this way. 

There is currently no definitive, universally accepted scientific theory to explain how I received the information which forms the principles of Alkhemi Therapy, nor how its methods can bring about equilibrium in the human body-field. However, scholars have been debating and exploring the nature of consciousness for many years. Transpersonal psychology and “non-ordinary states of awareness” are recognised areas of study, and in fact I wrote my Master’s thesis on shamanic states of consciousness. I remain optimistic that scholarly research and subjective exploration may one day provide measurable answers to the question of how consciousness arises.

The development of Alkhemi Therapy has been a long and organic process, deeply entwined with my own journey. Information is revealed to me through a process of remembering and recognition. I learned early on that stress is the greatest adversary of inspiration, whereas relaxing into a light trance state would open “the doors of perception”. Eventually, I found that just bringing ancient Egypt into my awareness would form a bridge to a rich source of ancient wisdom.

Over time, as I surrendered to the process, the flow of information increased exponentially. As quickly as I could assimilate and incorporate the latest download of information, more would flow through, and I was continually editing and revising the manuals. I spent many happy hours poring over books and researching online, cross-referencing the information I had been given to ensure its authenticity. There were many times that I felt I was being taken down a side road away from the main task of completing a coherent and practical system, but each detour led to unexpected treasures. I began to scribble down notes and diagrams of ideas as soon as they came through; they would drift away like dreams if I didn’t quickly ground them into the present. I built up an extensive collection of notebooks and files full of “inspired” information which I gradually formed into the system of Alkhemi Therapy. Although the major principles of Alkhemi Therapy came from the sacred archetypes (gods and goddesses) through this process of inspiration and realisation, it was my conscious mind, drawing on my own skills and experience, which structured the information into a working system. My imagination gave it form and function, and my teaching and counselling experience shaped it into a format which has positive, practical applications for health and well-being in the 21st century.

The Beginning

In 1995, I returned to my home county of Yorkshire to attend a First Degree Reiki course with Reiki Master Karen Stratton. It was a gift from my mother who wanted someone to join her on the course. At the time I didn’t know anyone who had even heard of Reiki, let alone anyone who practised it, and I certainly had no idea how radically the course would change my life. By the time I took Reiki Second Degree three months later, I had chosen to divorce my partner of fifteen years and I was a single parent of my two small boys.

I knew I wanted to teach healing, but I didn’t feel drawn to the Japanese vibration of Reiki nor the rigid rules of Tera-Mai Seichem (to which I had also been attuned). In October 1999, my sons and I relocated to York so they could attend York Steiner School, and I contacted my original Reiki teacher to let her know I was back in Yorkshire. She had recently become a Sekhem Master and was running a course six weeks later. Although I didn’t know much about Sekhem, I had a strong knowing that this was right for me. I booked myself onto the course - “Combined First and Second Degree Sekhem” for Reiki healers. I immediately loved the powerful but refined feeling of the Sekhem energy and I knew it was going to be hugely significant for me.

Egypt

After the Sekhem course, things happened very quickly. Within weeks I was given what I considered a “chance of a lifetime” to visit Egypt. It was a “Five Goddess” course run by an English woman who was teaching Egyptian Mysteries in a rundown villa at the edge of the Giza plateau. This was no package tour - just a small advert in the classified section of Kindred Spirit magazine, and we had to make our own travel arrangements. Just days before we were due to leave, my friend pulled out when, tragically, his mother died suddenly. I had never travelled alone or outside Europe, but I had not a moment of doubt. My flight landed at Cairo airport in the middle of the night and I was met by the Egyptian husband of my host holding a placard with my name. An hour later, as we arrived at the villa, I saw the pyramids for the first time, illuminated with spotlights. Twenty years later the memory still gives me goosebumps. I was so intoxicated by the whole experience that I completely forgot to tell my family I had arrived safely and give them a contact number!

The villa was in Nazlet el Samman, the village which nestles in front of the Pyramids of Giza. Every morning, through my bedroom window, I watched the pyramids and sphinx appear magically through the hazy morning mist. My senses were overwhelmed day and night by foreign sounds, exotic frangrances and unfamiliar flavours: the heavy clouds of bahour (incense) which filld the meditation room; strings of jasmine flowers handed to me in the souk; apple flavoured tobacco smoked in sheesh pipes at the local coffee shop; fuul (beans) and fried aubergine chips for breakfast; refreshing mint tea served in glasses; the taste of desert sand in my parched mouth on our daily horse-riding excursions; tourist bazaars lined with bottles of Egyptian perfume oils and black basalt statues of Egyptian deities; Arab horses clattering down the street at all hours; donkeys braying, cats yowling, dogs barking; the rapid-fire Arabic of playful children in the street ouside; the muezzin sounding the call to prayer five times a day from several local mosques.

And the pyramids and temples! It was of little matter that my mind could not comprehend the hieroglyphs, my heart was ecstatic every time I entered a sacred site. The air felt heady and golden, and the stones radiated energy.

The Five Goddesses of the course title were Nut, Sekhmet, Nephthys, Hathor and Isis, with one day devoted the study and reverence of each deity. On the last night of my stay, we dressed in galabeyas and rode camels into the desert close to the pyramids. I competed the training with an Isis meditation under the stars. That night (May 4th, 2000) there was a Major Harmonic Convergence: Earth, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, all beautifully aligned in Taurus. My love affair with Egypt had begun!

That first visit felt like a dream come true, and as a self-employed single parent I honestly believed it would be a long, long, time before I returned to Egypt. But the Egyptian gods had other ideas! Five months later I was back, as an eager participant on Simon Treselyan’s Sekhem Mastery course - the first ever to be held in Egypt. The final stage of the course took place at the Mena House Hotel, in the shadow of the Great Pyramid. By chance, or destiny, I received a double Master-Teacher initiation when I volunteered to be a “guinea pig” for Simon as he demonstrated the full initiation procedure for the group.

I was totally inspired by the course and I couldn’t wait to start teaching. I initiated my first student (an enthusiastic family member) the day I arrived back in England!

After a couple of years of teaching Sekhem more or less as it had been presented to me, I realised that my students were increasingly frustrated by the course content. Many had already been attuned to Reiki and had come along to learn something new. They loved the energy, but wanted more ancient Egyptian information. I am particularly grateful to one student who had travelled from California to attend my Sekhem course. At the time I was mortified by her dissatisfaction with the incongruities of the system, but I later realised what a gift it was for me, the final push I needed to trust my intuition and make changes.

In November 2004, I attended Patrick Zeigler’s SKHM course in London. (In 1979, Patrick had spent a night in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. During the night he had a mystical experience in which he became attuned to a particular energy stream. By combining the energy with Reiki methods, Patrick created Seichim, later called Sekhem, then SKHM, and now All Love.) It was a fascinating weekend. Patrick works with Sekhem energy in a very different method to the one I had been taught - much less structured. Over the two days we had excited and earnest discussions about how Sekhem energy and its various systems had evolved. Although its not my preference to work in the same way as Patrick, I found him to be intelligent, intuitive and informed, and I was impressed by his integrity.

Whilst in Egypt I had been initiated as a Master teacher of the Egyptian Cartouche healing system. Despite an extremely interesting past life experience during the initiation (in which I was dancing in an ancient Egyptian temple), I was disappointed to find that the system did not use authentic Egyptian glyphs as symbols. I felt strongly that Sekhem should include the sacred archetypes of ancient Egyptian deities, but it was important to me that they were represented by their authentic hieroglyphic symbols. I began collecting and researching images of the glyphs that “called” to me, exploring and experimenting with them in meditation and healing sessions.

As I opened myself more and more to the process, I was guided to new material. Once I had the familiar “knowing” feeling that a symbol or deity was the right “fit”, I would research its meaning from an archeological and esoteric perspective. Deities and symbols presented themselves to me, and in meditation a temple formed around me in what I came to understand as a healing matrix. Everything flowed and fitted together: books fell open at the right page; friends and relatives gifted me jewellery and statues of deities, even though they had no idea I was working with those symbols; and realisations came through without any effort on my part. All I had to do was bring ancient Egypt into my awareness, and information would spontaneously flow. This often happened when I was with a client or teaching. It was a interesting experience to hear myself explaining concepts of which I wasn’t even yet consciously aware!

I was so enthusiastic about the new material that I began adding it to the manuals and courses. The power of the initiations increased exponentially, and students were delighted with all the new insights, but it meant that each group was receiving slightly different information. I decided to stop teaching until the system had fully evolved.

Meanwhile I had been making regular trips to Egypt. Since my first visit in 2000, I had taken every opportunity and used every excuse to visit the place I had come to regard as my spiritual home. Sometimes travelling on a very tight budget and without insurance, by this point I had chalked up eighteen trips. My devotion did not go unnoticed. Deities and Fates conspired, and all the signposts in my life were pointing uneqivocally to Egypt. It was not a logical thing to do, but it was the right thing to do: I gave away 90% of my belongings, put the rest in storage, and moved to Luxor with my youngest son (then aged 15) to immerse myself in the Egyptian Mysteries.

Life in Egypt

Living in Luxor was a truly magical experience. Egypt’s powerful energies magnify every experience and emotion, and I willingly surrendered to its influences, both ancient and modern. Every day was an adventure in exotic sensory overload. If, as I often say, a week in Egypt is like a year in therapy, then living in such transformational frequencies permanently was challenging to say the least. My shadow aspects made frequent appearances and at times I didn’t even recognise myself, but it was all part of my process and I was releasing a lot of “baggage”.

Living in such close proximity to ancient sites and sacred temples meant that insights came easily and I gradually became aware that each energy centre resonates with the energy of a particular ancient Egyptian deity. I’m not suggesting that ancient Egyptians worked in this way, and there’s certainly no evidence I’m aware of which suggests it, but as I explored the concept it became clear that working intentionally with the esoteric elements of a deity would have a beneficial effect on the corresponding energy centre. This psycho-spiritual model, or “spiritual anatomy”, became the foundation of the evolving system.

A couple of months after arriving back in England I returned to my hometown to become my mother’s full-time carer. Having responsibility for someone with dementia is time-consuming and extremely challenging, not to mention a fast-track spiritual learning curve. But I resolved not to lose sight of my vision: to continue developing an Egyptian healing system; and to establish a spiritual travel company in Egypt.

The Name

The healing system I was now teaching was radically different to the Sekhem I had originally been taught. In the interest of clarity, and to differentiate it from the original, I felt it required a new name. I had used “Medu Neteru Sekhem” for a while. Medu Neteru, “signs of the gods”, is the ancient Egyptian term for hieroglyphs, and it seemed appropriate because the system has hieroglyphs as symbols. But it also felt clumsy and obscure, and I knew it wasn’t “right”. To reflect the strong ancient Egyptian influence on my work, I had named my holistic health and well-being business “Alkhemi”, a word which came to me intuitively around 2004. This was inspired by the ancient name for Egypt - kemet/kemit/kmt, literally “the black land”, a reference to the rich, fertile soil of the Nile valley. (The barren desert by contrast was called deshret, “the red land”.)

The first Arabs to invade Egypt called it Al Khem, thought to be the root of the words “alchemy” and “chemistry”. Alchemy is commonly understood to be, the science of changing base metals into gold, but this is only the physical aspect. It is essentially and more significantly a process of refining the spiritual self: the art of transformation. Over many years of teaching Sekhem healing I had been amazed at how often the energy would bring about deep personal transformation. As the system developed, its transformational nature perfectly reflected the achemical process. To reflect this I called the evolving system “Alkhemi Sekhem”.

By late 2013, Alkhemi Sekhem had evolved to include even more deities/energy centres, and other therapeutic modalities used in ancient Egypt such as anointing oils, crystals, sound, and movement. There was an increasing amount of conflict in the Sekhem community around the trademarking of the word “Sekhem”, unpleasant negativity from which I wanted to distance myself. I decided to change the name once more, this time to “Alkhemi Therapy”. The English word therapy comes from the Greek “therapeia”, meaning “healing”, but in the 21st century it also carries the connotation of being a supported process, something which requires intention and commitment. This perfectly reflects the nature of Alkhemi Therapy, which could be interpreted as “an ancient Egyptian transformational healing system”, or “an ancient Egyptian transformational healing process”.

Evolution

It’s clear to me now that the signposts of my own spiritual path have been inextricably linked to the growth and development of Alkhemi Therapy. Like Hansel and Gretel, I followed a trail through the forest that lead me ever onwards towards the next crucial element. Over the years, whenever I was particularly drawn to a subject or discipline (shamanism; mythology; magical invocation; sacred ceremony; yoga and breathwork; star-gazing; drumming; sacred dance; essential oils; crystals and amuletic jewellery) I discovered that in some form it had been practised in ancient Egypt. As more ancient Egyptian practices were absorbed organically, Alkhemi Therapy evolved to become much more than a simple method of hands-on/off healing.

Early in 2008, a friend mentioned that she’d been taking yoga classes and I had an immediate and powerful image of myself teaching yoga in Egypt. This strong feeling of visual sensation has always been a reliable indicator for me of which path I should choose. With the sort of synchronicities that only happen when you’re in alignment with your highest destiny, I discovered Dru Yoga, and a few months later began the two year Dru Yoga Teacher Training course. This gentle but powerful form of yoga had an immediate and profound effect on my well-being. What had begun as part of my “Master Plan” for an Egyptian travel company, quickly became a daily spiritual practice that nurtured and sustained me during a very challenging period of my life. I began to understand the importance of conscious movement for optimum health and well-being. So many of the personal and spiritual development courses I had attended over the last thirty years (including Reiki and Sekhem) had advocated manipulating the body-field of a prone and passive client. Not one of them had acknowledged the use of movement as a way to release physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual blockages. I was astounded by the benefits of even twenty minutes of Dru Yoga. I realised that, despite the extensive sporting activites of my youth, I’d spent most of my life living in my head, and not truly being in my body.

Dru is a very mindful and holistic form of yoga, comprising graceful, flowing sequences combined with conscious breathwork and energy awareness. I was particularly impressed by the Energy Block Release sequences, or “EBRs”, which systematically work through the body to release tension and clear energy blockages.

It made complete sense to me that moving the physical body should be an integral part of any spiritual practice. I began to incorporate some gentle “intentional” and “conscious” movement into Alkhemi Therapy. Using my yoga training, and guided by intuition, I designed several short sequences that are so safe and simple they can even be performed in a chair. They are also excellent to prepare the body-field for coursework and the Empowerment Initiation Ceremony. Asking students to move their bodies can completely change the energy of a room, but it has other advantages too. Physical movement assists in the learning process - highly advantageous if you are trying to understand the complexities of Egyptian Higher Mysteries.

The process of adapting my yoga practice was very natural for me - it seems I instinctively see everything through an ancient Egyptian lens! I continued to develop postures and sequences that specifically relate to the spiritual anatomy of Alkhemi Therapy and, combined with tribal dance movements, these eventually formed Alkhemi Yoga.

Another string of synchronicites led me to embark on a one year shamanic course, and this proved to be a significant influence on my spiritual practice, and hence on Alkhemi Therapy. I’d been attracted to shamanism for many years. I admired its utterly grounded approach to spirituality and its fearless perspective on what many see as the shadow aspects of life.

Shamanism is the original Earth-based spirituality of all indigenous cultures and is similar to many pagan religions: the natural world is respected and revered; everything that exists is believed to be imbued with spirit (even apparently non-sentient objects like stones, rivers and mountains); and ecermony and ritual are used to interact with nature spirits and th general functioning of the Cosmos. What defines a spiritual path as specifically shamanic is the shamanic journey. The shaman, by travelling through a “gateway”, visits non-ordinary realms of reality where spirits (non-incarnate beings) live. Through the process of direct revelation, the spirits share their knowledge and wisdom with the shaman, who brings it back to the physical world to heal and nurture their community. The true shaman can always be recognised by their willingness to use their knowledge in the service of their community.

The paradox of shamanism is that although it requires an intimate connection with non-ordinary realms, it also has an extraordinary respect and concern for the material world in which it is firmly grounded. Practising shamanism has brought me to a profoundly spiritual relationship with the Earth and the natural environment. A shamanic practice is an opportunity to participate in nature and natural cosmic cycles in a very real and meaningful way.

I chose a course called “Walking the Sacred Wheel - the Shaman Within”. The work required students to travel around the Wheel of the Year (one solar cycle) learning the teachings associated with each moon (one lunar cycle). I had chosen this course specifically because it allowed me to approach the teachings within the context of my own spiritual practice, i.e. ancient Egyptian. I love and admire indigenous American and Celtic symbols and deities, but the sacred archetypes always present themselves to me in ancient Egyptian form, so for the practical coursework I used the symbols and deities I had been working with in Alkhemi Therapy. This proved to be highly effective.

As I moved though the coursework, creating ceremonies using ancient Egyptian symbolism, I began to see that the priesthood of ancient Egypt had practised a highly developed form of shamanism. I would even argue that the ancient Egyptian religion makes no sense unless approached from this perspective. For example, the Pyramid Texts on the walls of the pyramid of Unas at Sakkara, dated to 2400–2300 BCE, are the oldest religious texts in the world. They have traditionally been described as funerary texts for the dead pharaoh, but there is another more esoteric explanation. Jeremy Naydler in his book “Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts” suggests that the Pyramid Texts are describing actual mystical initiations made whilst the pharoah was still living, in much the same way as the shaman takes flight in an altered state of consciousness. I found other authors who had come to the same conclusion. William Fix in “Star Maps” likens the flight of the pharaoh to an “out-of-body experience“. E.C. Krupp in “Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings” interprets the Pyramid Texts as evidence of the pharaoh’s function being almost identical to that of a shaman.

….to be continued….