A living archive of Fires of Alchemy.
I spent years working inside hospitals, community health, mental health, and telehealth settings — watching people move through crisis, recovery, and reinvention. I've had my own run-ins with mental health too, so this has never been purely professional territory for me.
What I kept noticing was that the things causing the most suffering were almost entirely preventable. Not easy to change — but not mysterious either. We have decades of solid research into why people fall into certain patterns, and increasingly good evidence on how to move through them.
The Scrolls are where that knowledge lives. Neuroscience, psychology, lived experience — the research layer and the practised layer, held together. It's the same body of knowledge that underpins the tarot work, the courses, and everything else Fires of Alchemy produces.
Begin wherever you feel pulled. 📜
— Nick 🔥
Recent Posts:
The Gentle Metric 🧭
What if tracking your steps, your sleep, or even your weight wasn’t about control—but about care? The Gentle Metric explores how self-accountability, when rooted in compassion, becomes a quiet ritual of reconnection. It’s not about chasing numbers. It’s about noticing your rhythms, honouring your needs, and letting awareness become the first act of healing.
There's something here about the story you're telling yourself about being underprepared, underqualified, not quite ready yet. The energy on display indicates otherwise.
This reading holds a thread around purpose and direction — specifically, the cost of keeping your calling at arm's length aka the universe just wants you to give it a try.
Hi angels 🕊️
There's something here about the story you're telling yourself about being underprepared, underqualified, not quite ready yet. The energy on display indicates otherwise.
This reading holds a thread around purpose and direction — specifically, the cost of keeping your calling at arm's length aka the universe just wants you to give it a try.
This reading is for you if:
🐇 you've been telling yourself you're not ready, but you know deep down that you are
🐇 you've been feeling directionless, anxious, or like something's quietly off
🐇 you have a sense of what you're meant to be doing but haven't quite gone after it yet
🐇 you want to feel more confident but don't know where to start
🐇 you're holding on to a calling that keeps coming back no matter how many times you set it aside
Themes in this reading:
🎴 confidence as a practice, not a prerequisite
⚖️ cosmic justice and what it actually measures
🌕 the weight of unlived purpose
✨ celebration as a tool for self-trust
🌑 the subconscious, moon energy, and what's hidden just below the surface
🌙 Your confidence doesn't need a perfect origin story — it needs a reason to move
⚖️ Justice here isn't punishment or reward — it's alignment. The question is whether you went after the things your heart kept circling back to.
~
🃏 Book a Personal Reading with Nick
📱 Build your own Tarot Reading App (Free Course)
~
🪷 14-Day Unblock Your Life Kickstart (Free)
For more insight into my style of readings, the history of tarot and more - see my post below:
https://www.firesofalchemy.com/blog/tarot🃏
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Support my work including future readings and expanding the FoA Multiverse 🤝
https://firesofalchemy.com/support
—
Disclaimer: readings are provided for entertainment and personal insight purposes. Readings are not predictions of the future. This is not medical, financial or legal advice. Always use discernment to feel intuitively if the message resonates with you, leave it behind if you're trying to make it fit your situation for too long.
~
💫 🏕️
The intermission is ending. That quiet, in-between space you've been sitting in — the one that felt like fence-sitting but was actually preparation — the lights are starting to flicker and the courtesy sound is going off. You are being called to return for Act 2.
Hi angels 🕊️
The intermission is ending. That quiet, in-between space you've been sitting in — the one that felt like fence-sitting but was actually preparation — the lights are starting to flicker and the courtesy sound is going off. You are being called to return for Act 2.
This reading is about the kind of momentum that builds quietly and then lands all at once. A whole new hand of cards has been dealt for this next chapter, and the energy coming through is less about waiting for things to line up and more about trusting that they already have — then just going for it, acting as if.
This reading is for you if:
🎯 you've been doing the inner work in private and you're ready to see it reflected back in the real world
🎯 something has felt unresolved or incomplete, like a chapter that never quite got its ending
🎯 you keep sensing momentum but haven't fully committed to moving with it
🎯 you've got soul shards scattered across old jobs, old relationships, or old versions of yourself
🎯 you want to stop waiting around for the antidote and actively call your energy back
Themes in this reading:
🎯 momentum arriving in quick succession — bam, bam, bam
🌀 soul shard retrieval: reclaiming what you left behind in draining situations
🧹 purification — clearing visceral emotional charge that's still living in your body
🌱 purpose-led season: your internal shifts now showing up in the 3D
💡 ideas and inspiration returning once the stuck energy is cleared
🌟 main character energy — you've got the rare card, and you know how to use it
There are also past videos on clearing and chakra work in my profile if you want to go deeper on the retrieval process.
~
🃏 Book a Personal Reading with Nick
📱 Build your own Tarot Reading App (Free Course)
~
🪷 14-Day Unblock Your Life Kickstart (Free)
For more insight into my style of readings, the history of tarot and more - see my post below:
https://www.firesofalchemy.com/blog/tarot🃏
---
Support my work including future readings and expanding the FoA Multiverse 🤝
https://firesofalchemy.com/support
—
Disclaimer: readings are provided for entertainment and personal insight purposes. Readings are not predictions of the future. This is not medical, financial or legal advice. Always use discernment to feel intuitively if the message resonates with you, leave it behind if you're trying to make it fit your situation for too long.
~
💫 🏕️
You've been doing the work — energy clearing, boundary-setting, cord cutting. Yet your vibration is still not shifting. This reading is about why, and it's a bit confronting: the issue might not be your practices. It might be where you are physically.
Hi angels 🕊️
You've been doing the work — energy clearing, boundary-setting, cord cutting. Yet your vibration is still not shifting. This reading is about why, and it's a bit confronting: the issue might not be your practices. It might be where you are physically.
When the cords just keep re-weaving themselves no matter how many times you cut them, that's usually due to the environment you're in, the people, or both. Your intuition — which normally tells you exactly what to do next — has gone quiet, because this situation is like an energetic weight sitting right on top of it.
This reading is for you if:
🌿 you've been exhausted by the effort of just feeling okay
🌿 you do all the right things energetically and still feel like something else is bleeding in
🌿 your intuition has been unusually quiet or hard to access lately
🌿 you sense it's time for a change but nothing's explicitly gone wrong
🌿 there's a loneliness you've kind of normalised that might be bigger than you're giving it credit for
Themes in this reading:
🧵 why energetic clearing has its limits in the wrong environment
🌱 cord cutting vs. actually walking away
🃏 fresh start energy — blank slate, new surroundings, new story
🌙 chronic loneliness as a soul-level signal, not background noise
🔮 your intuition isn't gone — something is sitting on top of it
🌟 spirit recognition — you're seen, and you're closer than it feels
👁️ someone or something has been waiting for you
~
🃏 Book a Personal Reading with Nick
📱 Build your own Tarot Reading App (Free Course)
~
🪷 14-Day Unblock Your Life Kickstart (Free)
For more insight into my style of readings, the history of tarot and more - see my post below:
https://www.firesofalchemy.com/blog/tarot🃏
---
Support my work including future readings and expanding the FoA Multiverse 🤝
https://firesofalchemy.com/support
—
Disclaimer: readings are provided for entertainment and personal insight purposes. Readings are not predictions of the future. This is not medical, financial or legal advice. Always use discernment to feel intuitively if the message resonates with you, leave it behind if you're trying to make it fit your situation for too long.
~
💫 🏕️
🕵️ Chapter 1: The Roots of Fear and Anxiety
Why does your brain default to "all-or-nothing" categories when you're stressed? In this deep dive, we explore the neurobiology of "splitting," the high metabolic cost of complexity, and how to use the theatrical principle of "Yes, And" to build your ambiguity muscle. Learn why reclaiming the grey is the ultimate act of spiritual sovereignty in an age of digital polarisation.
Stuck in the wrong life? Explore the neuroscience of ego dissolution and why your body forces a 'mask-drop' to reclaim authorship over your story.
Discover the neuroscience of the Default Mode Network and cognitive dissonance. Learn why 'rock bottom' is a biological phase transition to a truer timeline.
Learn to step out of the reactive loop and into the rafters. This deep dive examines the neurobiology of metacognition and the societal 'brain drain' designed to keep your consciousness on autopilot. Discover how to transform hyper-vigilance into a navigational superpower and start authoring a timeline that actually fits.
Research by psychologist Ethan Kross found that the way you talk to yourself — not just what you say, but the person you address — produces measurably different outcomes for emotional regulation, performance, and clarity. Combined with Donald Hebb's neuroplasticity principle and Susan Nolen-Hoeksema's findings on rumination, the evidence points to something most people never consider: the inner voice isn't a neutral observer. It's a system built from repetition, shaped before you were old enough to evaluate it, and still running scripts you didn't write. This post unpacks the science — and what you can actually do about it.
Journaling is more than just writing—it’s a powerful tool for reclaiming your voice, breaking fear-based cycles, and reconnecting with your true self. Learn how self-expression can shift your mindset, unlock creativity, and transform the way you navigate life
🥹 Chapter 2: Recognising & Feeling Patterns
What if your oldest scar is actually your greatest strength? We’ve been conditioned to view hypervigilance as a malfunction, but the reality is more complex: your nervous system forged a high-performance radar to ensure your survival. It’s an unintended upgrade with a heavy metabolic price. In this Scroll, we examine the "Achievement Machine" that mines your alertness for profit and provide a metacognitive map to help you take the knife out of the wound—transforming survival wisdom into a tactical weapon.
A 2003 neuroscience study found that social rejection activates the same regions of the brain as physical pain — which means the difficulty of letting go isn't a character flaw, it's neurologically coherent. This post looks at what the research actually says about why we hold on, what chronic unforgiveness does to the body, and why a Harvard study on grief rituals found that belief in a practice has nothing to do with whether it works. If you've already done the work and something still hasn't shifted, this is for that gap.
Sometimes, it’s not your adult self who reacts—it’s the child within you, still longing to be seen. This post explores how our early experiences shape our nervous systems, why gentle parenting can unexpectedly trigger old wounds, and how a simple visualisation can open the door to reconnecting with the one part of you that never stopped hoping: your inner child.
🏋️ Chapter 3: Reconnecting Mind & Body
Most people have tried meditation and quietly decided it isn't for them. What they were never told is that the wandering mind — the thing they thought disqualified them — is actually the practice. This post covers what meditation genuinely does to the brain (the structural changes are measurable, and they're significant), how much you actually need to do for it to work, and what to try if sitting still with your breath hasn't clicked. It also maps the differences between meditation, mindfulness, stillness, mudras, journalling, and gratitude practice — because knowing which tool to reach for changes everything about how you use it.
We often overlook the healing power of the natural environment around us. Yet, studies show that simply spending time in nature—whether through forest bathing, tending to houseplants, or walking barefoot in the grass—can profoundly impact our mental health. By integrating simple practices like these into our daily lives, we begin to reclaim a sense of peace, reconnecting not only with the earth, but with ourselves. This is the magic of nature prescriptions—a gentle yet powerful remedy for the soul
What if tracking your steps, your sleep, or even your weight wasn’t about control—but about care? The Gentle Metric explores how self-accountability, when rooted in compassion, becomes a quiet ritual of reconnection. It’s not about chasing numbers. It’s about noticing your rhythms, honouring your needs, and letting awareness become the first act of healing.
🎮 Chapter 4: Technology, AI & External Support
There's a particular kind of apathy the modern media diet produces — and research suggests it isn't accidental. Studies show that heavy media consumption measurably distorts perception of the world as more dangerous than it actually is, and that consuming six or more hours of news coverage following a traumatic event produces higher acute stress than being physically present at the scene. This post maps why disturbing content, doom scrolling, and algorithmically-curated feeds cost more than most people realise — then goes further. There are two algorithms running your life: the one on your phone, and the older one running underneath your conscious thought. This covers both, and what you can actually do about either one.
In 1938, Harvard researchers began following the lives of hundreds of people across eight decades — tracking their health, their choices, and what made them thrive. What the data kept insisting on, despite every expectation, was relationships. Not wealth, not status, not cholesterol levels at midlife — relationships. This post unpacks what that finding actually means, why loneliness now carries a mortality risk comparable to smoking, and what it looks like to audit the connections in your own life with genuine honesty.
Open source tools aren’t just for coders—they power much of the modern world and can give you real choice in how you work and create. From private file syncing with Nextcloud to building apps and games with Godot, recording with OBS, blocking ads with Pi‑hole, and even running your own AI models, open source means freedom and shared innovation.
What if the reason you’re feeling stuck isn’t because something’s wrong with you—but because your brain hasn’t felt newness in a while? In this post, I explore how depression, boredom, and repetition are all linked through neuroplasticity—and how adding tiny moments of novelty can help shift your perception, stretch time, and remind you that you’re still alive and choosing. Trying something new every day helped save my life. Maybe it could help you too.
What happens when we treat AI like a magic mirror instead of a mind-reader? In this post, I explore the ethics, risks, and revelations of using AI in creative and spiritual work—from privacy concerns and environmental costs to the hidden biases built into its design. I share how I’ve been using AI to co-write Fires of Alchemy, why I still use AI-generated art (for now), and how the real magic isn’t in the tech—it’s in the intention you bring to it.
🙏 Chapter 5: Tuning Into Intuition & A Higher Calling
Your phone contains quartz crystals vibrating 32,768 times per second. The process that powers every plant on earth runs on quantum mechanics, confirmed in the journal Nature in 2007. Your heart generates an electromagnetic field measurable several feet outside your body, and research shows couples who share a bed synchronise their sleep architecture. Science keeps confirming what older traditions already knew — the world is layered, relational, and stranger than most of us were taught. This post moves through the physics, the biology, the frontier science, and the oldest human agreements about what the world is made of — and what that might actually mean for how you live in it.
This post explores how to consciously craft your own belief system by drawing from Taoism, personal experience, and a wide range of philosophies. It invites you to reflect on where your beliefs come from, how they shape your life, and how to rewrite the ones that no longer serve you. At its heart, it’s a reminder that your spirituality doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be true to you.
Tarot is not about predicting the future—it’s a tool for reflection, intuition, and personal insight. In this post, I explore how tarot (and even Pokémon cards) can act as mirrors for your inner world, sparking meaning when you’re open and grounded. I break down what “take what resonates and leave the rest” really means, how to use discernment when a reading triggers fear or anxiety, and why so-called “scary” cards like Death or the Devil aren’t bad omens, but invitations to grow. With personal stories, symbolic reflections, and gentle encouragement, this post offers a beginner-friendly, soul-guided lens on using tarot to deepen your connection with yourself—and the world around you.
📰 Chapter 6: Zooming Out to the Bigger Picture
We don't lie to ourselves on purpose. The brain rewrites memory every time we retrieve it — quietly, plausibly, in the direction of least resistance. Over time, the version becomes the truth. This post examines the science of self-deception: why we evolved to do it, how it escalates from small omissions into something we can no longer see past, and what happens when the people closest to us are quietly recruited into carrying our story with them. Drawing on evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, family systems research, and the documented failures of institutions from Robodebt to the Post Office Horizon scandal, it maps self-deception from the inside of one person's mind to the scale of governments, families, and social circles — and offers concrete ways to start catching it in yourself. Not to prosecute. To get curious about where the signal went.
Most people using AI to create content have already crossed a line they haven't thought about yet. This post traces that line from the hollow blog post — written in a voice that could belong to anyone — through to the crisis line, where the absence of a human in the loop has documented, named consequences. It covers the sycophancy research, the deaths linked to AI chatbots, and the 2026 school bombing where the same model used to write this post was embedded in a military targeting system.
In an age of information overwhelm, learning to discern truth from noise is not just a skill—it’s a form of self-protection. This post explores how media, data, and emotion can all shape our perception, often without us realising. From understanding the difference between primary sources and sensational headlines to tuning into your body’s intuitive wisdom, this chapter invites you to pause, question, and reclaim your inner compass. Because discernment isn’t just about what’s out there—it’s about what resonates within.
🧑🌾Chapter 7: The Creative Rebellion & Alternative Systems 🎭
I used to think I was just burnt out. But it wasn’t exhaustion—it was spiritual stagnation. This chapter is about what broke that loop: not a breakthrough, but a doing. Small, local, imperfect action as nervous system medicine. From inherited fear to embodied presence. From Upthreads to Earth Angels, this is the moment I moved.
What if the war between masculine and feminine was never meant to be fought at all? This post explores how polarity, shame, and inner balance shape our world—from hustle culture to homophobia—and offers a Taoist lens for integration. You’ll meet your Council of Two and learn to listen for what’s been missing.
What if we designed with love instead of fear? This Solarpunk Manifesto is a grounded invitation to imagine—and build—a future where cities breathe, nature returns, and common sense leads. From native wild lawns to Miyawaki forests, floating solar to circular economies, this is a vision of regeneration rooted in science, soul, and soil.
Something's already been set in motion — and this reading is here to help you figure out what to do with it. Whether you lit this fuse yourself or the universe did it for you, the energy right now is pressing. The message isn't about fear. It's about not holding onto a bomb that's already ticking.
Hi angels 🕊️
Something's already been set in motion — and this reading is here to help you figure out what to do with it. Whether you lit this fuse yourself or the universe did it for you, the energy right now is pressing. The message isn't about fear. It's about not holding onto a bomb that's already ticking.
The thread running through this one is capacity. The role you fall into. The things you do out of habit or obligation rather than genuine desire. The version of you that's always available, always holding things together — and the very real cost of staying in that position when your own energy's already running on empty.
This reading is for you if:
🧨 you've been sitting on a decision you already know you need to make
🧨 you feel like something in your life is about to change whether you're ready or not
🧨 you keep cancelling plans and telling yourself you just don't have the capacity
🧨 you fill a role — at work, in your family, in your social circle — that no one else seems to notice is draining you
🧨 you want more freedom but haven't been willing to blow anything up to get it
Themes in this reading:
⏳ rebuilding your capacity as an active practice, not a passive wish
⚡️ the relationship between your energy levels and your sense of freedom
🌀 letting go of the role you automatically fall into
🌱 the basics — sleep, food, movement, the right people — as actual foundations
💡 playfulness and whimsy as part of the healing, not a distraction from it
🔮 soulmate energy arriving more easily when your own baseline is stable
🌟 The more energy you put into yourself, the more powerful your next move becomes. Dialga's "take another turn" energy is real — you're not running out of time. You're about to gain a lot more of it back.
~
🃏 Book a Personal Reading with Nick
~
📱 Build your own Tarot Reading App (Free Course)
~
🪷 14-Day Unblock Your Life Kickstart (Free)
~~~~~
For more insight into my style of readings, the history of tarot and more - see my post below:
https://www.firesofalchemy.com/blog/tarot🃏
---
Support my work including future readings and expanding the FoA Multiverse 🤝
https://firesofalchemy.com/support
—
Disclaimer: readings are provided for entertainment and personal insight purposes. Readings are not predictions of the future. This is not medical, financial or legal advice. Always use discernment to feel intuitively if the message resonates with you, leave it behind if you're trying to make it fit your situation for too long.
~
💫 🏕️