--- title: "Soul Mirror Chess by André Consciência" url: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/soul-mirror-chess-by-andre-consciencia/ date: 2025-01-16 modified: 2026-07-03 lang: en author: "Perseus Arcane Academy" description: "In the group for my course Magic and Mystical Introspection I posted a link with the following image and the subtitle: “On the power of Introspection: Observation of the first..." categories: - "Franz Bardon" - "Guest Post" tags: - "Franz Bardon" - "Hermetics" - "Soul Mirror" image: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pexels-pixabay-260024-1024x701.jpg word_count: 2489 --- # Soul Mirror Chess by André Consciência In the group for my course [Magic and Mystical Introspection](https://hermeticmagician.com/index.php/courses/) I posted a link with the following image and the subtitle: “On the power of Introspection: Observation of the first image translates into the second. Observation of the second translates into the first.” ![](https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/image-841x1024.png) This generated some feedback and soon I understood the necessity to give away one of my personal soul mirror techniques, devised from having worked in Gamification. # General View The initial display of the pieces on a chess board represents the black and the white soul mirrors, adapted to deal with specific first-level passive and active traits. The Queen, because she moves aggressively, is the active root trait, and the king, the passive root trait. The queen is one of those most influential traits that manifests all the time and is quite apparent. The king is one of those most influential traits that remains discrete while being the main instigator of many other more apparent traits. The pawns are third-level traits, and all other pieces represent second-level traits. First-level traits are, again, the most influential, and the third-level traits are the least influential. For quantification proposes, first level traits are 3 in the level of intensity and consequence from 1 to 3. Second-level traits score 2. Third-level traits, 1. The way the pieces are located among themselves shows how the traits are interconnected. # How to Start The game should be balanced in terms of the elements to prevent causing more harm than good. You should choose the pieces so as to remain with an equal amount of each element at the end. Let us say our King (value of 3) is Fire and our Queen (value of 3) is Earth. One of the second level pieces should be Fire and one Earth, two should be Water and two should be Air. If you place among the pawns (third level traits) three traits of Air, three of Water, one of Fire and one of Earth you have a balanced board. Do not choose the traits arbitrarily though, remember they are to be interconnected. If you are working with the Black Mirror, you will devise a White Mirror in which each piece is a good quality you can extract from your faults so as to start the alchemical game in the way to transmutation. As you focus on these good qualities, they will gradually take the space of their originators, and as you break the bad traits piece by piece on the board, you have a map in the chess of how other pieces will remain exposed and weakened. # Example ##### Black Soul Mirror Team King (3): Isolation (Earth) Queen (3): Irritability (Fire) These pieces are side by side because, in this hypothetical soul mirror chess, the state of isolation in which the player is at causes all external stimulae to be the cause of irritability. Irritability defends this state of negative isolation fiercely. In front of the Queen (Irritability) there is a Pawn (1): Agitation (Fire) In the diagonal, a Pawn (1): Annoyance (Air) To the side, a Bishop (2): Frustration (Water) Their connection to the Queen is more or less evident. Irritability causes agitation in the nervous system, intellectual annoyance and emotional frustration. In the diagonal to the Bishop (Frustration) there is a Pawn (1): Confusion (Air) And a Horse (2): Difficulty changing plans (Earth) Frustration causes confusion and, because it isn’t satisfied and can’t let go, it causes difficulty with changing plans as much as it is caused by this very same difficulty (remember both pieces – Horse and Bishop - have the same value, 2) The connection between agitation and confusion (both pawns side by side) is evident and needs no given theory in the present article. In the adjacent houses to the Horse (difficulty changing plans) left to address there can be found a Pawn (1): Difficulty concentrating (Air) Tower (2): Increased breathing rate (Air) To understand better the chain of influences let us now isolate the Tower. It has a 2 value and it is subordinate to Confusion and Difficulty Changing Plans (together scoring 3). The fear of change fed by the uncertainty of confusion and the confusion that comes with the fear itself cause the body to breathe in an accelerated and unhealthy manner. This all the more makes it very hard to concentrate. If you start having an easier time changing plans (eliminate the Horse) the Tower (increased breathing rate) may still be well supported by the two pawns in the adjacent houses (together they form the value of 2, the same as the Tower). As long as Confusion and Difficulty Concentrating are around, the rhythm of your breath will not be peaceful. To get to the Tower, you must destroy one of the pawns. When you take away Confusion, the Increased Breathing Rate will still empower Difficulty Concentrating, but it has become manageable. You can now come to master your breath and it will make it much easier to concentrate (and eliminate the pawn). If you manage to concentrate, as well, balancing your breath rate will become much easier. Now, let us move to the side of the King (Isolation). In front of him, there is a Pawn (1): Feeling Misunderstood (Earth) Diagonal Pawn (1): Depression (Water) Side Bishop (2): Loneliness (Water) This isolation makes our sense of existence on the material plane as something that has no place to call home; it causes emotional depression, and not belonging causes a feeling of loneliness. At the same time, depression and the feeling of being misunderstood seem to influence one another, take one away and the other will have less of a mirror in which to exalt itself. Unchecked houses next to the Bishop (Loneliness): Horse (2): Anxiety (Fire) Pawn (1): Avoiding Social Interaction (Water) Unchecked houses next to the Horse (Anxiety): Tower (2): Decreased Cognitive Process (Air) Pawn (1): Cancelling Plans (Water) It is easy to see the ascendant of the value and level 2 over the value 1 and level 3 pieces. Anxiety makes us feel like we are not prepared for social interaction. Only to a smaller degree does social interaction in itself make us feel anxious. Our decreased cognitive process, affected by anxiety and lack of social interaction, makes us feel like we are not prepared to follow up our plans with success, and we cancel them. To a lesser degree of influence, cancelling them and avoiding challenges doesn’t help our cognitive process get any better. Here is a map that allows for strategy and introspective knowledge. The White Pieces will be Key to turning the table. # How to Win The alchemical process starts here. To find the traits for the pieces in the White Team we have but to think that every fault is the corruption of a virtue, and also that every fault still has a positive function hidden in it. To make it clearer, let us make a fluid list for the Black Team. Tower (Increased Breath Rate) Horse (Difficulty Changing Plans) Bishop (Frustration) Queen (Irritability) King (Isolation) Bishop (Loneliness) Horse (Anxiety) Tower (Decreased Cognition) Pawn (Difficulty Concentrating) Pawn (Confusion) Pawn (Annoyance) Pawn (Agitation) Pawn (Feeling Misunderstood) Pawn (Depression) Pawn (Avoiding Social Interaction) Pawn (Cancelling Plans) From it, we build the White Team Tower (Alertness) – breathing quickly causes alertness, if we stick with this aspect, we feel in control and breath regulates Horse (Persistence) – resistance to changing plans both supports persistence and is its corrupted state Bishop (Hope) – Hope is behind frustration, but it is also what defeats it from the inside King (Protection) – Isolation is an impulse towards protection, and we can protect ourselves from isolation Queen (Courage) – Irritability makes us do courageous things even when we are cowardly, but it is this courage that can end irritability itself Bishop (Self-reliance) – Loneliness forces us into self-reliance, and self-reliance redeems the feeling of loneliness and the neediness for others. Without this neediness, we are prepared for healthy interdependence. Horse (Goal oriented) – Anxiety releases dopamine, which motivates us to take action to bring about the future we want. Played well, this is anxiety’s self-destruction. Tower (Freedom) – Declined cognition leaves us less attached to memory, language and judgement. Being a hard one, this detachment is still compensated by a feeling of freedom from social expectations. With this freedom, we will be able to engage with others feeling less threatened and this, in turn, will increase cognitive abilities. Pawn (Dispersing negative thoughts) – Lack of concentration is dispersion, dispersion yet disperses negative thoughts. As we increase our awareness towards this ability and increasingly clean our minds, our concentration will get better. Pawn (Dealing with chaos) – Those used to confusion adapt to it, the ability to navigate chaos is the end of confusion. Pawn (Sensibility) – Annoyance shows sensibility. If you make use of it, sensibility cultivates humbleness and empathy and annoyance loses place. Pawn (Being Active) – Agitation is the impulse towards activity and carries it in its bosom. Activity is the servant of presence, the opposite of agitation. Pawn (Self Understanding) – Feeling misunderstood reveals that we understand ourselves better than anyone else. If we really focus on this, we will realize we are understood better than anyone after all, since most do not understand themselves. Pawn (Being Analytical) – Depression makes it so we stop being distracted by other issues and focus on what is most important to us at the time. We analyze it over and over until achieving an understanding and release. STOP! I WANT YOU TO REALIZE THAT THIS ATTRIBUTION IS A MISTAKE. It is a mistake not because it is false, but because the original trait is from the water element, and we want to keep all transmutations within the same element. While being analytical is the natural process of depression, it is actually the cause of most of its pain, being the response of air to water and the way in which air attacks this imbalance in water. To heal water from inside we need another trait. Empathy (which depression always cultivates) is its upside in the water element, and it is a focus on empathy that relieves the emotion of depression. So... Pawn (Empathy). Pawn (Self-Worth) – Social withdrawal depends on a sense of self-worth to find its balance, and if not the necessary level of self-worth, it contains at least its seed and acts counting on it. This self-worth being fed to maturity, social withdrawal will no longer be a fault but a simple option to take or not to take. Pawn (Making Room) – Canceling plans means to quit. To quit means to make room for new things. But just because the room is there, it does not mean we have made this room. To do it means to act consciously. If we become conscious of why we quit, we make room to get busy with what really needs our “business”. This kind of making room is watery, it is true acceptance and receptivity to what is already there occupying the room. ##### Things to Consider: 1 – The White Team is Tabula Rasa. You engage in introspection daily at the end of the day and access the value each piece has presently. That is, how much are you engaging with these virtues and what influence do they have? You will want to become more and more aware of them, to engage more and more, and have them occupy the dedication you are giving to the corresponding dark traits. When one of the faults starts to manifest, you focus on its most useful trait and leave the rest behind. 2 – At the same time, the black team is organic, it responds. You will want to keep checking if the faults are diminishing. Sometimes, when you attack one piece, the other moves to defend it, or rather, another bad trait starts manifesting more and growing in the score value. 3 – You will want to strengthen most of your good traits (white pieces), less you, by analogy, get a black pawn to the side of the white team, becoming a value 2 piece or a value 3 (queen). 4 – While having chess as a map can give you a good strategy to get directly to the king and dissipate all other bad traits, you may run into difficulties. Sometimes it is good to take the time to eliminate the pieces to the sides, because the more you play, the better you get as a player. 5 – First, you will want to get all the white pieces to have at least the same value that the black ones have at the start of the game, pawns with value 1 recurrence and intensity, king and queen 3, and the other pieces 2. Then, when a white piece scores one above a corresponding black piece, you will see the black piece start to weaken progressively and lose the capacity to fight. 6 – Like in a chess game, you can’t simply attack the king or any other piece if this piece is surrounded by other pieces and no path has been opened. ##### Example In a lucky strike, your empathy starts to overcome your depression, awakening compassion in its livelihood (white pawn eats black pawn, in our case, erupts from it). In a chess game, the King would be able to eat this pawn. Isolation (the King) will be the enemy of your empathy (pawn), you may feel like withdrawing further, afraid of the impulse of empathy to engage with others and the additional suffering it can bring. Self-understanding encompasses now the feeling of being misunderstood (pawn-pawn). But irritability (Queen) may strike back, what is the use of self-understanding anyway if nobody else can understand us? But at this stage Irritability has become exposed to Courage. We understand ourselves and others through empathy, and we can afford to be courageous when we want to feel irritated instead. The white queen starts taking the black queen. The Black King of Isolation may grow stronger, it doesn’t move against the Queen of Courage as in a normal game, as the pieces here work through transmutation, but it may grow stronger in intensity: we understand ourselves and others and are courageous, but come to the disappointing realization we still find no reason to take any risks with the worthless world around us. Be that as it may, the Black King is exposed. If we strengthen the White King (Protection) and truly take measures, we have nothing to lose, there is no risk, no reason not to engage. This may not be as simple as it sounds, and strengthening other virtues may be necessary to enforce the White King and achieve this sense of protection. Finally, isolation being defeated, the other faults will be seen to flee and leave the board. --- ## Further Information ##### See our Guest Posts with many written by Andre ##### See Andres Teachers page ---