Rising Dawn in ourselves with eyes closed!

The Aurora Consurgens, “Rising Dawn”, is one of the most enigmatic and symbolically rich texts of medieval alchemy. Attributed to the great mystic and doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas (although authorship remains debated), this alchemical treatise weaves together Christian mysticism, biblical exegesis, and proto-psychological insights through the language of alchemical symbolism. What makes the Aurora Consurgens so compelling is its persistent reference to light (specifically inner light) as the sign and goal of the soul’s transformation.

In alchemical terms, light is not merely a physical phenomenon but a spiritual reality that arises as the prima materia, the chaotic, base substance of the self, is purified and transfigured. The “dawn” is not of the world, but of the soul. The emergence of inner light marks the soul’s rebirth and the reunification of the opposites, masculine and feminine, divine and human, conscious and unconscious. This awakening is seen not through the outer senses but through the visio interior, the inner vision.

Mystics throughout time have testified to the phenomenon of luminous perception in altered states of consciousness. In the Aurora Consurgens, we read passages that describe shimmering brightness, radiant figures, and divine illumination, symbolic of the soul reaching its highest potential. These are experiences that correspond directly with modern accounts of phosphene perception in deep meditation or sensory deprivation. The lumen naturae, the natural light of the soul, appears not as an intellectual idea, but as a vivid sensory reality in the ultrasubjective hyperspace of consciousness.

In our current terms, this can be linked to what we call the “ultrasubjective hyperspace”, a dimension of inner experience where sensory and symbolic data merge. Here, the light is not seen with the eyes, but with the mind’s eye. It is not metaphor, but direct experience: the soul becomes a mirror in which the divine light shines.

Modern neuroscience might correlate this state with specific patterns of brain activation, in particular, the quieting of the default mode network and increased coherence in visual and limbic regions, but for the mystic and the alchemist, this light is divine. It is the reflection of Sophia, the feminine aspect of divine wisdom, often depicted in alchemical images holding a sun or radiating from within the earth.

The Aurora Consurgens reminds us that true gold is not metal, but awareness. The shining light in the alchemical flask is the same as the one rising in the consciousness of the meditator. And just as the alchemist tended to the fire beneath the alembic with care, so must we cultivate silence, presence, and devotion to allow this inner dawn to arise. Shunyam Adhibhu