Studying Alchemy

The most common question I have seen on forums is: “How do I start to study alchemy?”

This should be an unremarkable and benign question — yet, if we asked 100 ‘alchemists’ what the answer is, it is very likely we would get almost 100 different answers. Some would reference holy books, others would quote numbers or even shapes. Some might talk about what seems a bit like chemistry, yet even among these chemical alchemists there would be huge variation in response. Some alchemists will be serious and argue their points, others jovial, almost trivial, and might respond in riddles and more vagueness.

This ‘display’ of apparent confusion is a function of the nature of alchemy. If you can understand this, it will really help.

Firstly, alchemy is your personal quest for truth. There is a truth — a single and universal truth — yet, it takes several or more years to recognise this, and even longer to actually find it. You must keep searching for this truth until you find it.

Next, this ‘truth’ is unknowable initially, and even later on, very difficult to describe or express. Words, which obscure this truth, will tend to confuse the mind and move it away from this ‘truth’. Alchemy, the quest for this truth, therefore makes use of symbols and metaphor to maximise the efficiency of a fairly poor tool (language) that we use to transmit a very subtle and elusive instruction. Fortunately, it is not just one long slog, but rather a series of stages where the beginning of the next stage is marked by a partial revealing of this truth. Each stage brings a partial reveal, which itself imparts new perspectives and direction in one’s work.

This means that when a beginner asks, “What is alchemy?” they will get several quite different answers, depending on which stage the replying alchemist is at. And this is assuming that our cohort of ‘alchemists’ doesn’t include ‘pretenders’ or trolls.

Our paths — that is, the progress we make in our spiritual understanding — are all different. We all start off from differing positions. Furthermore, most are driven into this quest through a degree of suffering or disappointment with what life is “meant to be”. Many alchemists will begin their studies from a base of mental illness. Other alchemists might have experienced mystical experiences during illness or intoxication and now wish to understand these.

This means it is particularly confusing when others share details of their path, particularly the early parts, as generally these can be pretty diverse and rarely satisfy our wanting to know what alchemy is.

The purification of gold is a fantastic analogy. Rather than transmutation — the changing of one substance into another — it helps to consider it as a symbolic purification process. Alchemy, certainly as I understand it, occurs in stages where one gradually eliminates disrupting and tainted elements within one’s mind. This gradually ‘reveals’ an already present but hidden inner purity of mind. These stages, whilst involving the mind, are loosely similar to the chemical processes of purifying gold.

“The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.”
— Cicero