Words, Babble and Alchemy

Language is both the great tool and the great trap of human experience. Through words we explain, share, and explore the world; yet words also divide, obscure, and distort what they attempt to describe. The more abstract the concept, the more easily words become noise — a kind of babble masquerading as knowledge.

In the alchemical tradition, words often serve as veils rather than clarifications. The symbolic language of alchemy is intentionally paradoxical, poetic, and multilayered. This is not to confuse the seeker, but to protect the teaching from literalism. Alchemy speaks in riddles to guide the serious student beyond words, into direct experience.

Modern spiritual discourse often suffers from an excess of babble: endless discussion, debate, and intellectualising that generates fascination but rarely transformation. The mind becomes full, but the heart remains untouched. True alchemy seeks not more words, but fewer — the distillation of thought into silence, where real transmutation occurs.

Language can point, but it cannot deliver. The philosopher’s stone is not found in books but in the crucible of personal practice and surrender. When the endless commentary of the mind falls silent, the alchemical fire begins its true work.

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.”
— Tao Te Ching