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:
Unmasking the Demiurge: Chatbots Can’t Feel The Weights Of Their Word 👹
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.
The Neuroscience of Self-Talk: How the Stories You Tell Yourself Rewire Your Brain 🧵
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.
The Psychology of Letting Go: Is Cord Cutting Real?
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.
The Harvard Study That Changed How We Think About Loneliness
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.
🕵️ Chapter 1: The Roots of Fear and Anxiety
🥹 Chapter 2: Recognising & Feeling Patterns
🏋️ Chapter 3: Reconnecting Mind & Body
🎮 Chapter 4: Technology, AI & External Support
🙏 Chapter 5: Tuning Into Intuition & A Higher Calling
📰 Chapter 6: Zooming Out to the Bigger Picture
🧑🌾Chapter 7: The Creative Rebellion & Alternative Systems 🎭
There's a message that's been trying to reach you. You've felt it. Your angels, your ancestors, whatever guides you — they've been saying the same thing for a while now. Yet somewhere along the way, you swam the other direction. This reading is about what happens when you stop running from your own knowing and actually let yourself focus.
Hi angels 🕊️
There's a message that's been trying to reach you. You've felt it. Your angels, your ancestors, whatever guides you — they've been saying the same thing for a while now. Yet somewhere along the way, you swam the other direction.
This reading is about what happens when you stop running from your own knowing and actually let yourself focus. Not in a punishing way — more like: you've been spreading yourself across a lot of open tabs, and it's costing you more than you think to keep them in active memory.
This reading is for you if:
⚡ You have a long list of things you "should" be doing but none of them are moving
🌊 You've been going with the flow so long you've lost your sense of direction
🐋 You know what the next step is — you just haven't taken it yet
🌀 You keep starting things and stalling before they're finished
🌱 You've been in receive mode for a while and something in you is ready to build
Themes in this reading:
🐳 Focus and the misuse of your power
🐳 Indecision as a slow energy drain
🐳 The "should" loop — and how to finally close it
🐳 Inspiration vs execution — you've got enough of the first one
🐳 Leaning back into structure after a season of flow
🐳 Divine guidance you've been deferring on
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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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https://firesofalchemy.com/support
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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.
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