Albedo · Mythos · Chapter 1 of 48

2.1.1. The Seven Deadly Sins

What changes when familiar moral labels are treated as patterns to understand rather than stains to condemn?

Book section: Mythos Video: 48:56 Theme: habit and purification Published: 14 March 2026

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The Seven Deadly Sins Explained

The Seven Deadly Sins Explained | Karma, Consciousness & Modern Alchemy

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Book orientation

The chapter in brief

Albedo begins by changing the relationship to difficult habits. Where Nigredo approached rejected qualities as shadow to be acknowledged, this chapter describes them as sediment: conditioned tendencies that can be understood and gradually relinquished. It places the Christian list of pride, wrath, lust, envy, gluttony, greed and sloth beside selected terms from Buddhist psychology, especially greed, hatred and delusion. The purpose is diagnostic rather than punitive. Karma is described through the metaphor of conditional mechanics, and purification as removing the conditions that keep a pattern active. These correspondences belong to Dr Simon Robinson’s modern alchemical synthesis; they are not exact equivalences established by either Christian theology or Buddhist tradition.

Transcript-led guide

From moral judgement to close observation

The recording asks a practical central question: can a person examine a painful tendency without turning it into a verdict about who they are? It opens with the image of a crowned woman calmly riding a seven-headed dragon. The image supplies the organising metaphor: the aim is neither indulgence nor violent self-conquest, but a clearer relationship to the energies represented by the seven heads.

From there, the discussion marks the transition from Nigredo’s language of shadow to Albedo’s language of sediment. A habit may have history and momentum without being an unchangeable identity. The video then presents karma as conditionality rather than divine punishment. Its comparison with a physics equation is best read as an analogy for patterned cause and consequence, not as a scientific claim about karma.

The middle of the recording develops a “negative-first” method: identify what obstructs clarity before trying to manufacture a virtuous identity. The seven vices are grouped around greed, hatred and delusion, then explored through everyday examples. Pride becomes comparison; wrath becomes reaction to a mentally constructed image of another person; lust and gluttony become attempts to obtain lasting completion through experience or consumption; envy is distinguished from possessive jealousy; greed seeks security through accumulation; and sloth is reframed as possible resistance rather than simple laziness.

The closing movement uses the Theravāda map of fetters and four stages of awakening to argue that subtler patterns can persist after more conspicuous reactions have weakened. The traditional map and the video’s sevenfold correspondence should not be collapsed into one system. The practical challenge is simpler and more immediate: notice the conditions feeding a response, without shame, and avoid converting insight into a new claim about the self.

The Mechanics of Purification infographic: Albedo, karma as conditionality, and an interpretive comparison of the seven capital sins with greed, hatred and delusion — The Mechanics of Purification. A visual summary of the chapter’s modern comparative framework. The correspondences are interpretive rather than traditional one-to-one equivalences. Select the image to open the full-size version.

Argument map

How the video develops its case

Leave the courtroom

The opening reframes unwanted habits as observable processes rather than proof that a person is morally defective.

Move from shadow to sediment

Nigredo’s acceptance of rejected qualities becomes Albedo’s quieter work of recognising what no longer needs to be maintained.

Read karma conditionally

Action and consequence are presented as arising through conditions, while the language of mechanics remains a teaching analogy rather than physics.

Clear before decorating

The recording favours understanding an obstruction over constructing a compensating identity of goodness, purity or humility.

Trace seven patterns to three roots

Pride, wrath, lust, envy, gluttony, greed and sloth are compared with patterns of grasping, aversion and confusion.

Observe without making a self

The conclusion turns the map into practice: identify a conditioned reaction precisely, then resist making it into a permanent identity.

Book and video

Three layers of the material

The chapter establishes

A compact symbolic map, two comparative tables and short treatments of the seven tendencies as material for Albedo’s work of clarification.

The video expands

The dragon image, contemporary examples such as status-seeking and information consumption, and a sustained shift from guilt to observation.

The synthesis proposes

A dialogue between Christian vice language, Buddhist categories and modern psychological description. It is a study framework, not a claim that the traditions teach one identical system.

Video chapters

Follow the discussion

Working vocabulary

Glossary

Albedo

The whitening stage in the course’s alchemical sequence. Here it names clarification after Nigredo: learning to discriminate among mental patterns and weaken reactivity. This is Dr Robinson’s modern contemplative use of alchemical symbolism, not a single definition shared by all historical alchemists.

Nigredo

Literally “blackening” in alchemical language. Within this course it is the preceding stage of descent, breakdown and encounter with shadow. The video contrasts its emphasis on acknowledging disowned material with Albedo’s emphasis on clarifying conditioned habits.

Capital sins

In Catholic teaching, pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth or acedia are called “capital” because they can generate other vices. The video adopts this Christian list as a comparative diagnostic map while changing its theological framing.

Karma

A term meaning action, used in Buddhist traditions especially for intentional action and its consequences within dependent conditions. The video stresses impersonal causality rather than divine judgement. Its “physics equation” language is metaphorical and should not be read as a scientific account.

Akusala-mūla

The “unwholesome roots” in early Buddhist teaching: greed, hate and delusion. They describe ethically and experientially unskilful bases of action. The chapter uses them to organise the seven vices, but that seven-to-three arrangement is the author’s comparative synthesis.

Lobha

Greed, attachment or grasping in Buddhist psychology; one of the three unwholesome roots. Its scope is wider than financial greed. The video uses it to gather several forms of seeking, consumption and possession, while retaining separate discussions of lust, gluttony and greed.

Dosa

Hatred, aversion or ill will; one of the three unwholesome roots in early Buddhist teaching. It includes a spectrum from irritation to hostility. The video connects it with wrath and envy, though those English categories are not formal one-to-one translations.

Moha

Delusion, confusion or not clearly understanding experience; the third unwholesome root. In this chapter it provides the broad background for pride and sloth. That allocation is interpretive: Buddhist lists classify conceit, ignorance, restlessness and sloth-and-torpor in more specific ways.

Māna

Usually translated as conceit in Buddhist teaching. It includes measuring oneself as superior, equal or inferior to another, so it is subtler than boastfulness. The chapter compares it with pride and emphasises that a self-image of inferiority can still depend on comparison.

Kāmacchanda

Sensual desire, commonly listed as the first of the five hindrances to meditation in early Buddhism. It is broader than sexual lust, but it is not simply a Pāli translation of the Christian vice of lust. The video focuses on seeking completion through sensory experience.

Vyāpāda

Ill will or harmful intent, commonly listed among the five hindrances and the lower fetters in Theravāda accounts. The chapter connects it with envy, but envy has its own complex meanings in ordinary language and philosophy; the pairing is a functional comparison.

Taṇhā

Craving or thirst in Buddhist teaching. It is a broad driver of grasping rather than a technical equivalent of gluttony. The video uses gluttony to explore repeated consumption that cannot satisfy the need from which it arises.

Thīna-middha

Sloth-and-torpor, one of the five hindrances: a paired condition of mental dullness and heaviness. It is not identical to the Christian vice of sloth or to every experience of fatigue, low motivation or impaired concentration. The recording interprets some inertia as resistance and recommends gentle continuity rather than self-attack.

Continue within the course

Related pathways

Albedo – Part TwoThe main orientation to the whitening stage and its four sections.
Mythos | Albedo | Spiritual Alchemy CourseThe section landing page for all twelve chapters in The Deconstruction of Narrative.
2.1.2. The CosmosThe next chapter widens the inquiry from habitual patterns to the worlds consciousness appears to inhabit.
2.1.8. The White StoneA later Mythos chapter on non-reactivity and the danger of turning spiritual virtue into identity.
2.2.7. Unwholesome KarmaA closer treatment of intention, unskilful action and conditioned consequence.
2.2.8. Wholesome KarmaThe companion chapter examines the value and limits of constructive karmic patterns.

Reference points

Traditions and distinctions

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1865–1869Defines the capital sins within Catholic moral theology and explains why they are called “capital”.
Itivuttaka 50: The RootsA short early Buddhist text naming greed, hate and delusion as the three unskilful roots.
Dhammapada 5A translation of the verse on hatred being laid to rest by non-hatred or love, used at the chapter opening.
Aṅguttara Nikāya 3.34: CausesConnects greed, hate and delusion with the origination of intentional action and its results.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: EnvyA scholarly overview showing why envy, jealousy and resentment require more nuance than a single everyday distinction can provide.

A two-minute observation

Name the mechanism, not the person

Choose one mild reaction from the last day. There is no need to revisit anything overwhelming.

State only what happened, without explaining another person’s motives.
Name the feeling and the impulse that followed.
Ask whether grasping, aversion or confusion helped keep the reaction moving.
Notice what changes when the pattern is described as conditioned activity rather than “what I am”.

This is an exercise in description, not a test of purity or attainment.