Alchemy is an age-old ‟science” which goal was to produce the Philosopher’s Stone, a much lusted-after object for centuries. This Stone was supposed to transform base metals into gold, and, beyond the dust thrown in the uninitiated’s eyes, it allowed to manufacture of the Elixir of Life, a substance that gave access to immortality.

Relegated to the rank of superstition, Alchemy nevertheless had its moment of glory, and certain scientists studied it with attention, sometimes advocating it like Leibniz or Newton.

What is the connection between Alchemy and Doctor LEFEBURE’s Phosphenism? To understand it, one must look into this obscure Art full of symbolism and fake revelations that would protect the great secret of the Alchemists. Was the famous Philosopher’s Stone really what the texts revealed, or did the Alchemists fool their readers, as usual, expecting only a brighter mind to understand their symbols and the true meaning of their quest?

Persons interested in Dr LEFEBURE’s works will probably notice things that are invisible to others in a treaty of Alchemy. The Sun and the Moon appear in many texts on Alchemy. Their importance is huge. They are represented everywhere. This also true with Phosphenism. Doctor LEFEBURE has granted a primordial role to the sun, the main source of light: at the origins of all religious or initiatory movements, there is solar worship.

Alchemy also mentions ‟astral light”, literally ‟light coming from the stars”. In what way could it ber important for the realization of a stone? We have to admit that this stone is but a symbol. In the framework of Phosphenism, we understand very well the importance of light, as did the Alchemists…

Even more surprisingly, in 1557, Roger Bacon, an alchemist, wrote the famous ‟Miroir d’Alquimie”, a book that can still be found in secondhand bookshops and which cover represents a character harnessing the light of the sun with a mirror, to project a ray of light on matter. This exercise reminds of certain practices of Phosphenism that use the reflection of the Sun.

‟For the alchemists, according to Fulcanelli, spirits are a real influence, though almost immaterial. They have a mysterious action, unexplainable, impossible to understand, but efficient, on the substances subjected to their action and prepared to receive it. The light of the moon is one of these hermetic spirits…” (Les Demeures Philosophales, 1973). And, what if this ‟substance prepared to receive” was but the Alchemist himself? The text then assumes a whole new signification! It says that light has a strange but real action on the body which receives it, the thesis which Dr LEFEBURE advocates throughout his works: light transforms human beings.

Other Alchemists suggest that the purpose of the Philosopher’s Stone is the transformation of the Alchemist himself. Gold being a metaphor of perfection.
The jigsaw takes shape. The pieces are imbricating into each other. Each author adding to the previous, one can notice that it is really a question of light and inner transformation, the two components of Phosphenism as defined by Dr LEFEBURE.

Had the Alchemists inherited the secrets of the Egyptians, as it is believed by some? Were these secret Phosphenic? It is more than probable…

In 1976, the European Council defined the rights of the sick and the dying:

• the right to freedom
• the right to dignity and the integrity of the personality
• the right to be informed
• the right to receive appropriate treatment
• the right not to suffer

The works of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross have done a lot to change the public’s mentality and to increase the standing of the accompaniment of the dying. Indeed, our materialistic society has lost the spiritual meaning of death and tends to hide it. Accompanying the dying is present in many traditions. In our society, it has become a simple therapeutic act, when it is acknowledged at all. Our society needs to learn to accept death, as the unavoidable end of existence.

Many traditions believe in a process of examination of consciousness that takes place after death. Similarly, the persons who have experienced states of near-death often relate that they have conducted a recapitulation of their life before being resucitated.

Accepting death is not fatalism, on the contrary. Leaving life peacefully is beneficial. The individual does not hold any grudges, nor does anyone have a grudge against them. Their demons have been exorcized and they feel ready to die.

Today, psychologists, nurses and doctors do a wonderful job accompanying the dying. They have replaced the priests who used to administer the Last Rites. Nevertheless, we believe this preparation should be done by a medium, as only a specialist of the world beyond can guide the dying individual in a relevant manner.

This conception of death is new to us, but all traditions recommend a state of peace and serenity to experience the final Initiation. When they talk about the deceased, the Tibetans say: ‟He who knows the answer to every question”.

The increasing number of testimonies on states of near-death, due to the progress of the techniques of resucitation, have brought a lot of information to doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists. These phenomena have raised many questions about death in the medical circles. The testimonies relate the existence of ‟another side” that is not oblivion but a universe rich in colours and sensations, a universe as alive as ours, if not more. Naturally, this means that consciouness is still present, during and after death, a concept in all ways opposed to our materialistic conception of death. ‟Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything goes through transformations.” Lavoisier’s famous sentence can suggest the immortality of consciousness. This understanding of death cannot be the fruit of an intellectual construction, but of an individual experience.

Initiation puts the individual in touch with the spitritual universe. Once an individual has been through it, he or she does not need to fear death any more as it now has a meaning, a value. The initiate understands the nature of death through first hand experience: death is not an annihiliation, it is a renewal. Experiencing Initiation can help people to comprehend the mechanisms that rule the passage into the world beyond and can help guiding the dying. It is certain that those who have experienced but a single phenomenon of exteriorization of their consciousness, approach death with a different state of mind and with the certainty that consciousness transcends material existence.

Out of body experiences can occur in a waking state or while asleep, spontaneously or thanks to initiatory training. They can also result from an illness or a state of near-death. Nevertheless, being projected into the ‟world beyond” does not cause death. Death can be defined as the final breaking of the link that unites the body with consciousness.

It is perfectly possible to obtain spiritual perceptions while fully conscious, this is what initiatory training allows by making certain organs work, mainly the epiphysis and the cuneus. The epiphysis or pineal gland secretes the hormone that regulates sleep: melatonin. The cuneus, located on the level of the occipital hump (the zone responsible for vision), is the organ that is responsible for the perception of spontaneous phosphenes, hypnagogic images, the images of dreams and visions.

In the accounts of near-death experiences, people mainly relate visual scenes rather than the other sensory perceptions. They do exist though and one can notice them during experiences of extension of consciousness: perceptions of rhythms (sways, rotations, shakings), perceptions of movements (the sensation of floating, of flying at tremendous speeds, of ondulations), perceptions of sounds (noises, voices, celestial musics). There seems to be an equivalent of the organs responsible for the subjective visual perceptions on the auditory level (producing clairaudience) and on the level of the organ of the sense of balance (producing the perception of movements of the subtle body: sensations of floating, of ascending, of descending, of whirling).

There is actually an inner or subjective equivalent of each physical sense. Doctor Francis Lefebure, a French physician and researcher, has discovered these inner senses by studying cerebral physiology thanks to the phosphenes. The phosphenes are subjective visual sensations. He gave the name of phenic system to this set of inner senses.

The phenic system

• The phosphene corresponds to the sense of sight.
• The acouphene corresponds to the sense of hearing.
• The olfactophene corresponds to the sense of smell.
• The gustatophene corresponds to the sense of taste.
• The tactuphene corresponds to the sense of touch.
• The pneumophene corresponds to breathing.
• The gyrophene corresponds to the sense of balance.
• The myophene corresponds to muscular activity.
• The osteophene corresponds to the elastic properties of the skeleton.
• To all these phenes, the subjective perception of time should be added.

Thanks to his discoveries on cerebral physiology, Dr Lefebure designed a set of techniques of Initiation and personal development: Phosphenism. Practicing these techniques is an simple way to produce out of body experiences. Thus, the persons who practice Phosphenism can discover a new aspect of themselves and the universe.

Phosphenism and accompanying the dying
Thanks to the practice of Phosphenism, it is possible to help the dying by guiding them at the moment of their death:

• by projecting the subtle energies that can densify the double and create a state of hyperconsciousness;
• by projecting rhythmic thinking on the dying person, mainly by the oscillation of the point of concentration in the shape of a cross;
• by describing them the different phases of the great voyage, listed thanks to the testimonies of the people who have experienced states of near-death;
• by helping them to conduct an examination of their consciousness;
• and, finally, by inciting them to go towards the light…