What is this true nature that is any and all of these things? This becomes the salient question, and it is what I have been referring to as the philosophers’ stone.

There seems to be common agreement that alchemy developed as a ‘spiritual science’, a science of mystical formulae for the transformation of the soul.Īll of the quotes below, except the last one, are from The Alchemy of Freedom: The Philosophers’ Stone and the Secrets of Existence The Great Work of Spirituality These two paragraphs from Wikipedia give a good sense of alchemy:Īlchemy (from Arabic: al-kīmiyā from Ancient Greek: khumeía) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Africa, China and throughout Asia, observable in Chinese text from around 73–49 BCE and Greco-Roman Egypt in the first few centuries CE.Īlchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of “base metals” (e.g., lead) into “noble metals” (particularly gold) the creation of an elixir of immortality the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease and the development of an alkahest, a universal solvent. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to permit or result from the alchemical magnum opus and, in the Hellenistic and Western mystery tradition, the achievement of gnosis. In Europe, the creation of a philosopher’s stone was variously connected with all of these projects. The most popular common understandings of alchemy are couched in terms of metallurgy, turning lead into gold. Alchemy can be said to be the science of transmutation which in spiritual parlance would include both transcendence and transformation.

Alchemist meaning