Many things I like about Alchemy. 8.1.09
1. Alchemy -- I like the way the word sounds. It’s the sound of the in-breath (Al) and out breath (Ka-Mi). Try it.
2 Al-Kemi it means maybe or maybe black dirt or maybe both
3. The Technical, The Spiritual and The Intuitive: It’s a real fusion of head, heart and hand. It brings together
thinking, feeling and doing as equal partners. . I like that.
4. The alchemist is always a part of the experiment. S/he is the alembic in which transformation is happening
5. It’s a nice blend of right brain and left brain activity. Sometimes we need logic and clarity and the explicit; other times
only the intuitive, the mysterious and only the implicit will do.
6. It’s not dogmatic. There is not just one way or even one goal. Even “The “philosophers stone” is really…
7. There are 12 major processes and over a hundred other alchemical processes. Do you know how many permutations
and variations there are? Bletting, Calcination, Ceration, Cohobation, Congelation, Corporification, Digestion,Dissolution,
Distillation, Fermentation , Filtration, Fixation , Multiplication , Projection Putrefaction, Putrefying bacteria, Solution, Sublimation ,
8. Alchemy is the knowledge and experience of the mixing of matter and spirit. Contemporary alchemical process might
include such familiar processes as: glimpsing, nuance, flicker, accident, the ambiguous, the indistinct, the
fleeting, glances, sighs, coincidences, bibliomancy.
9. Alchemy welcomes affinities. It works with materials or qualities which seem opposed to each other. Really, they
are just related to each other. Here are many many many of them
10. As above, so below. That’s a fragment from an old document. It means that there are always two levels on which
transformation is happening So you can ask: What Else is going on here?
11. The alchemists “laboratory” was a labor + oratory--place to labor- do work, to pray (orate). Some images also
include musical instruments, implying a place to play. I like that. It reminds me of many artists’ studios and good
children’s play areas.
12 It understands Time in an old way. Time is not linear; it’s circular or a spiral.
13 Some things can be discovered; some things come to reveal themselves and other things stay a mystery.
14 Those images!
15 Alchemists had the best job description: “priest-scientist-magician” or a sacred intuitive technician
16. Alchemy make no distinction between organic and inorganic matter ; all matter is sacred and alive. It was a
form of practical animism, precursing the Biophilia Hypothesis and Gaia
17 Alchemy is hopeful. I like that. I like to know things can change; things always change; everybody, everything
transforms.
18 A powerful alchemical metaphor is the matrix or the web. All things are interconnected and the subtlety and
complexity of interaction is profound.
19 Alchemy is about turbulence.