Empathy has many vital effects. It is a basis for compassion. It is critical for forgiveness and healing. This post focuses on the importance of empathy in alchemical works, in the context of a metaphysics of panpsychism and panentheism.

Solve et coagula.
I am an individual, separate and isolated in my perception from other minds.
I am part of a whole, minds intertwined such that my experience is a particle that emerges from and toward a woven collective (not only of humanity, of All) consciousness.

In separating, empathy is import for individuation. Especially in these days of information overload, interconnectivity, and FOMO, the ability to empathize with one another enables oneself to better delineate one’s own self-actualization. Bombarded with information I may want to go this way or that way; with the ability to empathize with those who go this way or that way, I can better navigate those branches of reality and recognize ‘my way’ efficiently.

In coagulating, empathy is important for wholiness.

. . . work in progress . . .