Energy Intake in the Cauldron Position

Energy Intake in the Cauldron Position PragmAlchemy Exercise #1

Subscribe to Alchemize Your Life

👁 👁 NOTE: If you haven’t already done so, before proceeding with this or any other PragmAlchemy exercise, please be sure to read the PragmAlchemy Orientation.

POSITIONING Find a peaceful, comfortable space at home or another location where you can lie down fully outstretched in order to do this PragmAlchemy starter exercise for a minimum of 5 minutes.

Feel free to wear earplugs and/or a sleeping mask to shut out noise and light while letting yourself go deeper into the meditative aspect of this exercise. Both of these props, however, are completely optional.

1

Some days you might need or want one or both; other days they might detract from your experience. Just go with your instinct and release any need or desire to stick to a strict routine.

Note that you can perform Energy Intake in the Cauldron Position—the suggested warm-up for everything else that follows in this series—as often as you like. Having said that, 10 minutes is probably the upper limit for how long you should do it in a single session.

It’s easy to discount how powerful PragmAlchemy’s simple bodywork and breathing techniques can be, so do yourself a favor by working up gradually to longer sessions.

This suggestion comes into play especially as you begin mixing and matching additional exercises to create extended PragmAlchemy “workouts” and/or if you’re simultaneously experiencing Potentiation or other activations in the Regenetics Method.

Begin by setting your timer, if you’re using one, to the starter time of 3 minutes. Place your Ouroboros or a very tightly rolled-up hand towel on the floor, ground or other level surface in front of you flat and sideways (east-west) like a book positioned horizontally.

HORIZONTAL PLACEMENT 2

Ideally, the surface will be something like a rug, carpet or yoga mat with minimal padding. This will allow you to generate sufficient pressure down through your connective tissue all the way to your skeletal structure to undo fascial adhesions that restrict physical movement; limit blood, lymph and energy flow; and cause other problems.

Lie down with your navel centered on top of the Ouroboros or towel (your “touchstone”) and let your weight descend very, very slowly. If you have any trouble visualizing this pose, see the reference image below.

ENERGY INTAKE IN THE CAULDRON POSITION

You can stay up on your elbows some or all of the time, or allow yourself to gradually sink until you can go no farther and your full weight is resting on top of your touchstone like this:

3

FULL POSE

Note that whenever you’re on your elbows, you should be mindful to keep them aligned with your shoulders to avoid unnecessary torque on your upper torso.

For this exercise you also want to avoid contact with both the lower ribs and pubic bone, so be sure to locate the soft spot in the middle and let the Ouroboros (or towel) slowly “sink upward” into you.

Ideally, the Ouroboros will rest just above the front hips, but it’s okay to make contact with them as long as it’s not too painful. It’s also helpful (though not necessary) for the Ouroboros to push up under the ribs slightly.

This pressure, which can feel like a gentle “hook,” can help improve posture by creating more spacing throughout the “Cauldron” area.

VARIATION Another version of this exercise involves positioning your Ouroboros or rolled-up towel flat like before but, instead of sideways, vertical (north-south) like a book that can be opened and read.

4

VERTICAL PLACEMENT 5

In this variation you can still hook the top your Ouroboros under your ribcage if you like, but the bottom is likely to fit between your hips and apply pressure to the lower abdomen and bladder areas.

All other aspects of this exercise are the same for both versions. Feel free to alternate between the two as you see fit, as they each create somewhat different effects and provide slightly different benefits that you’ll probably begin to perceive soon enough.

BREATHING While moving into position and throughout this process, be sure to breathe deeply and slowly with your diaphragm through your nose—starting from your lower belly and filling your lungs as fully as possible from the bottom up.

Besides allowing for greater oxygenation of your system, such deep breathing also facilitates 1) facial “melting” or decompression; 2) elimination of toxins and traumas; and 3) nervous system toning, including regulation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which can improve digestion and the stress response.

Throughout this process pain, believe it or not, is actually your friend. PragmAlchemy is designed to work with, not against, pain to restore movement, flexibility, circulation, energy flow, and strength. The idea with this type of self-therapy—counterintuitive as it may sound—is to become a “pain searcher.”

Here it’s vitally important to distinguish between “good” pain and “bad.” The way to do this is to always, always, always pay attention to your breathing. Let your breath lead you as you search for the pain inside.

Good pain, which is tolerable, indicates that you’re addressing adhesions or other impediments at the level of your connective tissue, a.k.a. fascia. These restrictive adhesions (which can include scar tissue new and old) very often anchor themselves to bone, which means you have to reach the bone to release them.

The way you do this is to apply pressure over time (at least 3 consecutive minutes and sometimes longer). How much pressure depends on your pain level. Anytime you feel your breath catching (indicating bad pain), ease off until you can breathe calmly again.

At this point you’ll probably notice that the discomfort, while still present, is manageable. When not too acute, this discomfort is actually a positive sign that your hardened fascia is softening and will soon start to melt, or decompress.

This melting is what you want. It’s what creates space for deep cellular detoxification and renourishment through increased blood and lymph flow combined with greater penetration of the life force that you’ll be increasing with your attention and breath. More on that in a moment.

6

Each in-breath and out-breath should last roughly between 5-8 seconds, meaning that a complete breathing cycle should be somewhere 10-16 seconds. You might inhale longer than you exhale, or vice versa, or you might prefer an even rhythm. That’s up to you—and you can change how you’re breathing whenever you want.

Think of this process—from discovering your pain points to preferred breathing strategies—as your mind getting to know your body better and learning to read and heed its language in real time.

Your body wants to heal and fortify itself, but it needs you to listen to what it needs. Your job is basically to tune in with your “right brain,” your intuitive side, and learn to “get out of your own way” where your “left brain,” your analytical side, is concerned.

The pressure created by your touchstone will make diaphragmatic breathing slightly harder than under usual circumstances, so don’t worry if you’re unable to take a full breath.

One significant aspect of this exercise is that it incorporates a type of High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST), or pratiloma in Ayurveda, which tremendously strengthens the diaphragm.

This type of controlled breathing against resistance has been documented to lower blood pressure, prime the lymph pump that is the diaphragm, benefit the heart and lungs, and even help with heartburn and GERD. The psoas (or “Caduceus” in PragmAlchemy) is an important structural muscle framing your touchstone to the left and right in this exercise. This region can be quite sensitive even if you’ve worked on it for a while, so a little pain or discomfort is to be expected.

You might even feel an arterial pulsing directly under your touchstone. That’s completely normal also.

If lying on top of the Ouroboros or towel in a minimally padded scenario creates too much pressure, you can do this exercise on a softer surface such as a bed. You’ll still receive benefits, including both myofascial release and possibly even some decompression. Over time you may find that you’re able to transition to a slightly firmer surface and “up your game.”

If this approach still presents problems, you can even lie on your back or sit with your touchstone on your navel area and use the weight of your arms to add a bit of pressure to your abdomen.

After doing this for a while, you’ll probably arrive at a point where you can try lying facedown on something soft.

The goal is to create pressure on and around the area of your solar plexus. Pressure applied this way over at least a few minutes is enough to begin melting fascial adhesions and scar tissue that can restrict breathing and other movement as well as nutrient and eliminative flow into and out of the area.

7

WORK YOUR MICROCOSMIC ORBIT & PERINEUM Pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth whenever you’re performing this and all other PragmAlchemy exercises is extremely important. This positioning completes a central energy path sometimes referred to as the microcosmic orbit.

The precise position of your tongue doesn’t matter that much—so long it’s resting securely but comfortably against the hard palate. If you’re unclear as to the layout of your oral anatomy, you can reference a diagram of the mouth for clarity.

MIND YOUR TONGUE

8

By maintaining this tongue position, you keep the life force you’re pulling into your system from clumping together and stagnating, which can lead to inflammation, irritation, discomfort, and even Herxheimer reactions (a.k.a. healing crises).

While pressing your tongue and inhaling slowly and deeply through your nose from your diaphragm, make sure you also contract the area between your anus and genitals known as the perineum. Then, while exhaling, relax it.

As an old qigong instructor of mine once comically ordered his students, be sure to “breathe through your behind.” This will help you derive maximum physical and energetic benefit from your breathing cycle.

Don’t worry if breathing diaphragmatically, holding your tongue against the roof of your mouth and contracting your rear end all at once initially feels like “walking and chewing bubble gum,” as the saying goes. You’ll soon get the hang of it and, eventually, it will become second nature.

ENERGY VISUALIZATIONS In PragmAlchemy focusing your attention on specific energetic outcomes is just as important as applying proper breathing and myofascial decompression techniques.

For males, imagine the center of your personal power as an alchemical Cauldron just behind your navel at the midway point of your body. The male Cauldron is roughly the size of a baseball and can be slightly higher or lower than the navel.

If you have any trouble identifying it, don’t be concerned. Just use your inner feeling sense to intuit and imagine where it is and engage the PragmAlchemy exercises in good faith.

You’ll likely start to connect with this area more and more as it becomes energized. You might also, particularly at the start, sense it moving ever so slightly—up or down, left or right, forward or backward, or even a combination. This is normal.

For females, visualize your Cauldron as the full region of your womb. Do this even if you’ve had a hysterectomy, as this area maintains its etheric functionality to warehouse subtle energy.

9

THE CAULDRON IN MEN & WOMEN

Next, picture the area between your shoulder blades as an “intake valve” where life force naturally enters your body with every breath. Get in the habit of consciously visualizing this flow of energy throughout these exercises.

Note that compared to everyday or even deep respiration, the amount of energy you’re able to take in is greatly increased thanks to the pumping action of your restricted diaphragmatic breathing.

Feel the life force literally being sucked into you not just through your lungs but also through your hands, legs, feet, back, and even skin and bones.

See how this energy naturally and effortlessly flows from your intake valve during breathing into your stomach, your primary digestive organ whose secondary function is that of an energy purifier.

Visualize your lungs filling up with energized breath with each inhalation; and then, with each exhalation, expelling air whose energy has been extracted.

10

See the raw energy coming in with each breath as a cloudy or milky substance. This substance is absorbed through your intake valve into your stomach as you completely exhale what has now become clear air, emptied of power.

LIFE FORCE FLOWING AROUND & THROUGH US

For at least 3 minutes, until your timer sounds, breathe slowly and deeply through your nose from your diaphragm visualizing life force accumulating in your stomach. (If you’re not using a timer, you’ll just have to approximate. No worries—just take your time.)

Reset your timer to 1 minute—or proportionately longer the more time you devote to energy intake. In other words, if you decide to spend 6 minutes in the energy accumulation phase, you’ll need to spend 2 minutes in the second phase of the exercise: energy refinement.

During this second phase, while maintaining your position on your Ouroboros, your goal is to make your newly absorbed power your own and ready for your own use, without any negativity from its source. In order to do this, you must mentally adopt a “predatory stance” as you consume your energetic “prey.”

11

Pretend you’re an apex predator feasting on a fresh kill. Nothing in your ecosystem would dare to come near until you’ve finished your meal. This life force is now yours and no one can take it from you!

Such a fierce attitude allows you to reimprint negativity with your own positive intention, so please don’t be shy here. If you have any reservations whatsoever, consider this famous quote attributed to Goethe: “Anything you can do, or dream you can, begin it: boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

OWN YOUR FRESHLY ACQUIRED ENERGY

As the energy you’ve accumulated becomes more and more refined, it should start to resemble liquid gold in your mind’s eye. When it’s completely golden, visualize it ready to be drawn down into your Cauldron for storage.

At this point you can either imagine pushing this golden life force from your stomach down into your Cauldron, or you can visualize pulling it down from your Cauldron.

Either way, just imagine what it feels like and then simply feel yourself doing it. Be childlike here; just make-believe and release self-judgment if you have any.

12

Once every last precious drop of the energy is in your Cauldron, you’re ready to store it properly.

This is where you start concentrating, or “packing,” your newly acquired energy into what will gradually turn into your Philosopher’s Stone.

Setting your timer for a final minute, imagine pushing and pulling the energy into a compact little ball, the tighter and smaller the better. Visualize the ball glowing brighter and brighter red, like molten lava, as you pack it.

A minute spent packing should suffice for smaller energy helpings; larger amounts of power acquired through longer conscious breathing, for example, will require proportionately longer stints as in the refinement phase.

If your timer sounds before you’re finished, just turn it off and take however much time you need to feel a sense of closure with this exercise. You really can’t spend too much time packing, as this activity (by initiating a kind of beneficial “bio-nuclear reaction”) actually increases the amount of energy emitted by your Philosopher’s Stone.

POWERING UP 13

The process of creating the so-called stone—while working with subtle energy instead of physical substance—might be compared to coal under pressure slowly transforming into a diamond.

After many months spent processing raw energy, you might start to intuit the Philosopher’s Stone as a sort of quasi liquid crystal, something multidimensional but slowly becoming more seemingly solid.

We’ll return to the subject of the Philosopher’s Stone again and again over the course of the PragmAlchemy exercises, so know that you’re only at the beginning of a long (and very exciting!) journey. For now you can learn more by reading my new book, GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE.

GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE

Meanwhile, enjoy the numerous and varied benefits—which can run the gamut from improved health and wellness to greater cognitive ability and attention span—that increasing your personal power in this way usually brings.

14

DISMOUNTING YOUR TOUCHSTONE SAFELY To avoid injury while getting off your Ouroboros, simply inhale deeply from your diaphragm and, at the pause just before exhaling, push yourself up and off as you breathe out.

Congratulations! You’ve just done your physical body and energy body—which are ultimately one and the same—a major good turn. Eventually, they’ll thank you for it by returning the favor.

MOVING ON Whenever you’re comfortable performing this technique, you can move on to PragmAlchemy Exercise #2, Taking Wing with the Phoenix Heart.

DISCLAIMER The information contained in this text is for purely educational purposes and is not meant to provide medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, promises, or guarantees. See the full disclaimer.

Copyright © Sol Luckman. All Rights Reserved.

15