Alchemy Gold Quotes

The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

But this Scroll too has magical properties. From the moment I first saw it, the paper warmed to my touch. I know it came alive as I held it. Did you know there’s a serpent on the back? Some say it’s a dragon. It winked at me. Its lashes are gold.

What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate—to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse—touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash.

The real alchemy consists in being able to turn gold back again into something else; and that's the secret that most of your friends have lost.

This is why alchemy exists," the boy said. "So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold. That's what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.

Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others - the empires and their native overseers. In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.

I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.

In olden times gold was manufactured by science; nowadays science must be renewed by gold. We have fixed the volatile and we must now volatilize the fixed—in other words, we have materialized spirit, and we must now spiritualize matter.

The glow flares bright—bright as the billion-year-old light around us. Bright as a sun. Almost every particle in the universe was once part of a star. First, hydrogen condensing and collapsing, bringing radiance to the void. Furnaces burning bright, then fading, giving all they had left back into the cosmos. Carbon and oxygen. Iron and gold. Vast clouds swirling with their own gravity. Coalescing and disintegrating. Generation to generation. The remnants of stellar alchemy, stirring into life, then consciousness. Crawling from the oceans. Taking to the skies. And from there, back to the stars that birthed them. A perfect circle.

If you have strength of character, you can use that as fuel to not only be a survivor but to transcend simply being a survivor, use an internal alchemy to turn something rotten and horrible into gold.

The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!

Witnessing is the alchemy of enlightenment. It can transform mud into gold.

When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing.

Alchemy is the process of changing lead into gold. Inner alchemy (personal transformation) occurs when we clear our clutter—internal and external—and let go of things that no longer serve us well. This creates balance and space, a place that nurtures contentment, which I believe is true success.

See everything, but judge nothing. Just choose your own path and let others choose their own. See everything, but judge no one. Just focus on your own path and let others focus on their own. See everything, but judge not what you see. You have your own inner worlds to conquer, your own inner gardens to water and to hone. You have your own inner gold to mine. See all, judge not, know thyself.

Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I'm meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.

If silence is golden, then Zen may be called an alchemy that transforms all things into gold by purifying them in the fire of the negation of all words and letters, names and concepts, logical methods and theoretical systems...

Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts the beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most deformed; it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes: its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of its forms.

the outcome, if successful, in both alchemy and individuation is a union of opposites—the coniunctionis or transcendent function—leading to alchemical gold, the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, or, in Jungian terms, the Self.

It's not the weather that's bad or good, it's whether you have good or bad mood. It's cloudy and cold, I feel happy and bold, As the storm unfolds, I turn silver in gold!

It was his hopeless hope that some time he would have an experience that would act on his life like alchemy, turning to gold all the dark metals of events, and from that revelation he would go on his way rich with an inextinguishable joy. There had been, of course, no chance of his ever getting it. Literally there wasn't room to swing a revelation in his crowded life.

I've now learned that when you share the darkest parts of your life, and find that thousands of people say 'Me too', it transmutes those black memories into spun gold. Sharing is like alchemy.

Fear is only the enemy if you let it keep you from moving forward. Put fear on your side and let it motivate you. This is the definition of an alchemist. To turn base metal into gold. Fear into Motivation.

Turn from that road's beguiling ease; return to your hunger's turret. Enter, climb the stair chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent and the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stone to show you how your longing waits alone. What alchemy shines from under that shut door, spinning out gold from the hollow of the heart? ("The Sea's Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart")

A storm came chasing the sky away. And virgin sands Drank all the water of the evening woods, God's wind blew icicles into the ponds; As I wept I saw gold,- and could not drink. - Delirium II - Alchemy of the Word

Know this: I, Mercurius, have here set down a full, true and infallible account of the Great Work. But I give you fair warning that unless you seek the true philosophical gold and not the gold of the vulgar, unless you heart is fixed with unbending intent on the true Stone of the Philosophers, unless you are steadfast in your quest, abiding by God’s laws in all faith and humility and eschewing all vanity, conceit, falsehood, intemperance, pride, lust and faint-heartedness, read no farther lest I prove fatal to you. For I am the watery venomous serpent who lies buried at the earth’s centre; I am the fiery dragon who flies through the air. I am the one thing necessary for the whole Opus. I am the spirit of metals, the fire which does not burn, the water which does not wet the hands. If you find the way to slay me you will find the philosophical mercury of the wise, even the White Stone beloved of the Philosophers. If you find the way to raise me up again, you will find the philosophical sulphur, that is, the Red Stone and Elixir of Life. Obey me and I will be your servant; free me and I will be your friend. Enslave me and I am a dangerous enemy; command me and I will make you mad; give me life and you will die.

Within the earth’s womb each metal grows slowly developing and transforming into its perfection, its highest manifestation – gold. Nature and God are striving towards perfection, everything moves towards One. Just as human strive to become fully conscious, so all the metals strive to reach their purest state – gold.

He tore himself away long enough to grin at her, a shy, boyish grin that splintered her heart. She couldn’t believe she’d ever thought him scowly, cold, and unreachable. He was the purest alchemy, lead to gold. Each time he looked at her, it was like he was looking at her for the first time, and each time he looked at her like that, she was lost.

Beware of the false light warriors, those who do something for a hidden fee. Working with spirit isn't for glorification, it's surgery of the soul. You can't bypass the the digging, to find the gold.

He turned away and I turned to him in vivid heat to look on the sun-dried world. The groves and towers were gone. The Word was gone. The sea had shrunk away leaving only the blue mist of after-rain. Ignorant of alchemy they put their faith in technology and turned the whole world into gold. The dead sand shone.

And yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Aesop makes the fable, that when he died he told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried under the ground in his vineyard: and they digged over the ground, gold they found none, but by reason of their stirring and digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man's life.

How they became friends was no great mystery, but now they remained so, braided together beyond their shared college quarters, this transcended the usual alchemy of optimism and obligation that kept friendships intact, kept people from fading into other categories: old friend, college friend, just someone I once knew. None of the four would ever be just anything to the others...

am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.

Second: I can use pain to become. I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.

In the past eighteen years, I have learned two things about pain. First: I can feel everything and survive. What I thought would kill me, didn’t. Every time I said to myself: I can’t take this anymore—I was wrong. The truth was that I could and did take it all—and I kept surviving. Surviving again and again made me less afraid of myself, of other people, of life. I learned that I’d never be free from pain but I could be free from the fear of pain, and that was enough. I finally stopped avoiding fires long enough to let myself burn, and what I learned was that I am like that burning bush: The fire of pain won’t consume me. I can burn and burn and live. I can live on fire. I am fireproof. Second: I can use pain to become. I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.

Is attention soul? If I pay attention to my mother’s sorrow, does that give it soul? If I pay attention to her unhappiness—if I put it into words, transform it, and make it into something new—can I be like the alchemists, turning lead into gold? If I sell this book, I will get back gold in return. That’s a kind of alchemy. The philosophers wanted to turn dark matter into gold, and I want to turn my mother’s sadness into gold. When the gold comes in, I will go to my mother’s doorstep, and I will hand it to her and say: Here is your sadness, turned into gold.

There is a kind of alchemy in the transformation of base chocolate into this wise fool's-gold, a layman's magic that even my mother might have relished. As I work, I clear my mind, breathing deeply. The windows are open, and the through-draft would be cold if it were not for the heat of the stoves, the copper pans, the rising vapor from the melting couverture. The mingled scents of chocolate, vanilla, heated copper, and cinnamon are intoxicating, powerfully suggestive; the raw and earthy tang of the Americas, the hot and resinous perfume of the rain forest. This is how I travel now, as the Aztecs did in their sacred rituals: Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia. The court of Montezuma. Cortez and Columbus. The Food of the Gods, bubbling and frothing in ceremonial goblets. The bitter elixir of life.

Aging, Effy realized, was the opposite of alchemy. What was now silver had once been gold.

Alchemy: In times of recession it's not wise to argue about the price of gold.

Marriage is a jewellery box which, by some mysterious opposite of alchemy, turns gold, silver and diamonds back into base metal, paste and quartz.

When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing,

The art of the alchemist, whether spiritual or physical, consists in completing the work of perfection, bringing forth and making dominant, as it were, the “latent goldness” which “lies obscure” in metal or man. The ideal adept of alchemy was therefore an “auxiliary of the Eternal Goodness.” By his search for the “Noble Tincture” which should restore an imperfect world, he became a partner in the business of creation, assisting the Cosmic Plan. Thus the proper art of the Spiritual Alchemist, with whom alone we are here concerned, was the production of the spiritual and only valid tincture or Philosopher’s Stone; the mystic seed of transcendental life which should invade, tinge, and wholly transmute the imperfect self into spiritual gold. That this was no fancy of seventeenth-century allegorists, but an idea familiar to many of the oldest writers upon alchemy—whose quest was truly a spiritual search into the deepest secrets of the soul—is proved by the words which bring to an end the first part of the antique “Golden Treatise upon the Making of the Stone,” sometimes attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. “This, O Son,” says that remarkable tract, “is the Concealed Stone of Many Colours, which is born and brought forth in one colour; know this and conceal it . . . it leads from darkness into light, from this desert wilderness to a secure habitation, and from poverty and straits to a free and ample fortune.

Why is gold called זהב (zahab)? Because there are three principles contained in it: the masculine, zakhar, and the ז (zayin) points to that; the soul, and the ה (he), points to that [obviously the feminine, since the consonant he in the mysticism of the alphabet has always been interpreted as such]; … and ב (bet) avouches its duration, as is written [in the Torah, which starts with this letter]: “in the beginning.

Let’s not forget gold. Kings wanted it. Alchemists promised it —had been promising it for centuries–, and if they achieved purity and perfection in anything, it was the purity and perfection of their failure to produce it.

Alchemy throughout history was about the transformation of base metals into gold and the promise of eternal life, but really it is about the journey of making something of your life and becoming who you are supposed to be.

Alchemy was (and is) considerably more than the attempt to turn base metals into gold. To an alchemist, all material things ripen toward perfection unless something gets in the way. The alchemist's mission is to remove the obstacles that keep material things from attaining their perfection. For metals, that perfection is gold; for the human body, health; for the human spirit, union with the divine-and all these and many more are appropriate goals for alchemical work.

First: I can feel everything and survive. What I thought would kill me, didn’t. Every time I said to myself: I can’t take this anymore—I was wrong. The truth was that I could and did take it all—and I kept surviving. Surviving again and again made me less afraid of myself, of other people, of life. I learned that I’d never be free from pain but I could be free from the fear of pain, and that was enough. I finally stopped avoiding fires long enough to let myself burn, and what I learned was that I am like that burning bush: The fire of pain won’t consume me. I can burn and burn and live. I can live on fire. I am fireproof. Second: I can use pain to become. I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.

Poetry is like an innocent young maiden who is extremely beautiful, and whom many other maidens, who are the other fields of knowledge, are careful to enrich, polish, and adorn, and she must be served by all of them. Her alchemy is such that the person who knows how to treat her will turn her into purest gold of inestimable value...she should not be allowed in the company of scoundrels or the ignorant mob incapable of knowing or appreciating the treasures that lie within her.

To Auriel, I will give the gift of gold. After the night of long and false captivity, the golden SUN is about to rise, and all this by the power of the Stone, lapis ex caelis; for be sure that as Auriel rises the LION shall fall. Qui non intelligit aut discat aut taceat.

Second: I can use pain to become. I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.

Mine is the best theology, the theology of utter hostility to all beings whose sufferings may mitigate mine. In this flattering theory, your crimes become my virtues,–I need not any of my own. Guilty as I am of the crime that outrages nature, your crimes (the crimes of those who offend against the church) are of a much more heinous order. But your guilt is my exculpation, your sufferings are my triumph. I need not repent, I need not believe; if you suffer, I am saved,–that is enough for me. How glorious and easy it is to erect at once the trophy of our salvation, on the trampled and buried hopes of another's! How subtle and sublime that alchemy, that can convert the iron of another's contumacy and impenitence into the precious gold of your own redemption! I have literally worked out my salvation by your fear and trembling.

Set any one to talk about himself, instead of about other people, and you will have a seam of the precious mental metal opened up to you at once; only ore, most likely, that needs much smelting and refining; or it may be, not gold at all, but a metal which your mental alchemy may turn into gold.

It was an interminable labor, and he had always known it to be as hopeless as alchemy. The gold, the great and glowing masterpiece, would never shine amongst the dead ashes and smoking efforts of the crucible, but in the course of the life, in the interval between the failures, he might possibly discover curious things.

You will find, as you get older, that the key to being happy is being able to turn those bad memories into treasured ones. I used to cringe at the thought of you being angry with us. Now, you couldn't give me all the gold in the world to take that memory away, because it reminds me of the type of person you were and still are.

Because real alchemists understand that the test tube is just a vehicle. Alchemy is about the process of transformation, my boy. Not of lead to gold, but of the spirit. Understanding the universe. Applying the secrets of the ancients to the follies of the present. The elixir, the philosopher’s stone: they’re not just recipes. They are life itself.

I take the view that we’re the sum of everything that happens to us, good and bad. It’s an alchemist’s interpretation, of course, seeing people as a compilation of ingredients combined and acted on by processes. The implication is, if you leave out one of the ingredients, even if, particularly if, it’s unstable or noxious, you get a different result.

It is absurd to think that the scientific views of a Muslim scientist are necessarily connected with his religious belief, or that he necessarily derives inspiration for his scientific work from faith. This was as true a thousand years ago as it is now. Alchemy provides an excellent example. Developed extensively by Jabir Ibn Hayyan and AI-Razi, and based on certain myths going back to Arius and Pythagoras, it was one of the most important Muslim contributions. Of course, today everyone knows that alchemy was scientific nonsense: there cannot be anything like the Philosopher's Stone, and the transformation of base metals like copper or tin into silver or gold by chemical means is an impossibility

the others, but he failed to catch anybody’s eye. He coughed, adding, “I suppose I’ve dreamed of what comes afterward—that is, what the gold might lead to, what it might become.” The man seemed pleased by this answer. “Reverse alchemy, is what I like to call it,” he said, “the whole business, I mean—prospecting. Reverse alchemy. Do you see—the transformation—not into gold, but out of it—

They had spent whole summers collecting other ingredients from the forest— micah, chalk, the resin of a pine tree, lichen, some wax, and a drop of dew. After a long and belabored search, Penelope had even discovered some locust wings in the piles of dust beneath her father’s unkempt desk. She had been mixing strange scientific and alchemical potions with her father for as long as she could remember.

What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate—to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teenagers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse—touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash.

Opinions differ on the details, but most serious students today recognize that alchemy was, and is, a spiritual pursuit, and that whether or not an actual outer physical transformation takes place during its operations, if these are carried out correctly, an inner spiritual one does. “Aurum nostrum es non vulgi” (“Our gold is not the vulgar gold”), Gerhard Dorn, one of Jung’s favorite alchemists, said. The “gold” the true alchemists sought was inner transformation.

To make a tarte of strawberyes," wrote Margaret Parker in 1551, "take and strayne theym with the yolkes of four eggs, and a little whyte breade grated, then season it up with suger and swete butter and so bake it." And Jess, who had spent the past year struggling with Kant's Critiques, now luxuriated in language so concrete. Tudor cookbooks did not theorize, nor did they provide separate ingredient lists, or scientific cooking times or temperatures. Recipes were called receipts, and tallied materials and techniques together. Art and alchemy were their themes, instinct and invention. The grandest performed occult transformations: flora into fauna, where, for example, cooks crushed blanched almonds and beat them with sugar, milk, and rose water into a paste to "cast Rabbets, Pigeons, or any other little bird or beast." Or flour into gold, gilding marchpane and festive tarts. Or mutton into venison, or fish to meat, or pig to fawn, one species prepared to stand in for another.

Occult Freemasonry likely derives from the Rosicrucian or "Rose Cross" rites popularized in Protestant regions of Germany...The core of Rosicrucianism is mystical parables and morality rites or liturgies that teach occult lessons for the enlightened. The central mystery is alchemy, or the belief that one can create gold from lower substances. This is the heresy of naturalism -- manipulating nature to produce something above nature -- just as Satan attempted to transcend his nature in order to become God.

Our difficulties require our most compassionate attention. Just as lead can be transformed into gold in alchemy, when we place our leaden difficulties, whether of body, heart, or mind, into the center of our practice, they can become lightened for us, illuminated. This task is usually not what we want, but what we have to do. No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way. The

The Alchemy of Affection by Stewart Stafford The language of Aphrodite, Rendering words as liquid gold. To flood the heart's chambers, Setting them in gilded aurum bold. When this opulent heart beats, Minted blood in golden boughs flows, In possession of treasure most precious, Whose true worth none of us knows. Magnates and moguls may scheme to buy, The devotion that is never truly theirs, Count your kisses instead of fortunes, To bequeath to your loving, rightful heirs. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

Ah, it is a strange thing - Love's little fingers on the heart, making tenderness out of bitterness and changing weakness into strength! When once a woman's eyes, with understanding love, have looked into the very depths of a man's soul, he need seek no farther for the Philosopher's Stone. As if by magic, the love of the many comes with the love of one. One flash of the love-light makes the whole world new, one chord of Love's music changes all sound to song, and one touch of Love's hand so glorifies the earth that it needs no other alchemy to make it truly gold.

Whatever the case, it works for him. He loses a wife, and wins another quickly. He loses a fish collection, and rebuilds a bigger one. He is promoted to higher and higher offices. The awards and medals start clattering in, for teaching, for ichthyology, for contributions to higher ed. An odd alchemy of delusion right before your eyes. Little lies transmuting into bronze, silver, gold. Forget millennia of warnings to stay humble; maybe this is just how it works in a godless system. Maybe David Starr Jordan is proof that a steady dose of hubris is the best way of overcoming doomed odds.

A new global religious narrative should be constructed centred on the principle that every human has the potential to become God, not in the far distant future but within just one or two lifetimes. The idea of humanity as inherently sinful should be replaced with the psychologically much healthier concept of humanity as inherently divine (hence not sinful). There should be no more humans on their knees, abjectly bowing to a God who threatens everyone with eternal punishment. Instead, the whole of humanity should be engaged in Global Alchemy – transforming the raw material of themselves into the most shining and precious gold of divinity.

She pushed the book toward them, and Harry and Ron read: The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There have been many reports of the Sorcerer’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).

Solomon resumes talking to the envoys of Sheba: "Go back and tell her what you have seen, how the rare substance she thinks we value can be scraped up anywhere as soil. Tell her the elaborate throne she loves looks more like a bandage over a hurt place. We admire Ibrahim, who left his kingdom so quickly. With us, one genuine kneeling down in total humility would buy hundreds of governments. Our currency is an eagerness to accept the gift of soul change. Nothing else. Sheba's sumptuous life is just a hole in the ground with children playing in it, pretending to be kings and prime ministers. We perform reverse alchemy, transmuting gold mines into abandoned sites!

In 1701, a braggadocian teenager named Johann Friedrich Böttger, ecstatic at the crowd he’d rallied with a few white lies, pulled out two silver coins for a magic show. After he waved his hands and performed chemical voodoo on them, the silver pieces “disappeared,” and a single gold piece materialized in their place. It was the most convincing display of alchemy the locals had ever seen. Böttger thought his reputation was set, and unfortunately it was. Rumors about Böttger inevitably reached the king of Poland, Augustus the Strong, who arrested the young alchemist and locked him, Rumpelstiltskin-like, in a castle to spin gold for the king’s realm. Obviously, Böttger couldn’t deliver on this demand, and after a few futile experiments, this harmless liar, still quite young, found himself a candidate for hanging.

But the ability to hold the means of exchange (in defiance of Say’s law) also awakens a passion, a “lust for gold.” “The hoarding drive,” he says, “is boundless in its nature.” Witness Christopher Columbus: “Gold is a wonderful thing! Its owner is master of all he desires. Gold can even enable souls to enter Paradise” (229–30). Here Marx, quoting Columbus, returns to the idea that once you can hang a price tag on something, you can hang it on anything—even a person’s soul, as his allusion to the Catholic Church’s infamous medieval practice of selling indulgences (i.e., papal pardons that promised entry into heaven) suggests: Circulation becomes the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as the money crystal. Nothing is immune from this alchemy, the bones of the saints cannot withstand it. (229)

Then, as Mag worried the crock into her basket, trying not to squash goats' eyes and violets, the young man reached across the counter and seized her hand. She gazed at him in wonder. He had thick, moist fingers, and she needed her hand to shift the eyes. 'Mag,' he said huskily. His heavy, earnest face was sheened with sweat and the bluish shadow of his first beard. 'How can you not see how we belong to one another? We've grown up together, like night and day. You are moon to my sun, you are silver to my aspiring gold - You would complete me -' 'Wait,' she pleaded. 'The crock is on the violets.' 'Marry me. Together we would become the marvel we seek, the transmutation of time into eternity -' She snorted inelegantly, and felt something peculiar flowing through her bones, an unaccustomed panic, a desperate urgency she barely knew words for. He thought he recognized her as human. 'You are mistaken,' she said coldly. 'And from what I've seen of both alchemy and marriage, all the marvels lie in the expectation.

spite of the suppression of the Gnostic heresy, it [the heresy] continued to flourish throughout the Middle Ages under the guise of alchemy.”30 For Jung, the alchemical process of extracting gold from base metals is a continuation of the Gnostic process of liberating fallen sparks from matter. Both processes are seemingly outward, physical or metaphysical ones which in fact are inner, psychological ones. Both represent a progression from sheer ego consciousness to the ego’s rediscovery of the unconscious and reintegration with it to forge the self. In alchemy the progression is from base metals to the distillation of vapor out of them and the return of that vapor to the metals to form gold. In Gnosticism the progression is from the Gnostic’s sheer bodily existence to the release of the immaterial spark within the Gnostic’s body and the reunion of that spark with the godhead. In both cases the state truly sought lies within human beings—between the ego and the unconscious—rather than outside them—between the vapor and the metals or between the spark and the godhead. The human state is simply projected onto the external world.31

You are wise, because you observe everything from a distance,” the boy said. “But you don’t know about love. If there hadn’t been a sixth day, man would not exist; copper would always be just copper, and lead just lead. It’s true that everything has its Personal Legend, but one day that Personal Legend will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new Personal Legend, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only.” The sun thought about that, and decided to shine more brightly. The wind, which was enjoying the conversation, started to blow with greater force, so that the sun would not blind the boy. “This is why alchemy exists,” the boy said. “So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold. “That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” “Well, why did you say that I don’t know about love?” the sun asked the boy. “Because it’s not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it’s not love to see everything from a distance, like you do. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reached through to it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

Everyone thinks alchemy is dead, but alchemists live among us—they are called editors: adept in the art of transformation, they practice arcane methods of selection, deletion and synthesis to take what is base and produce gold.

I knew all about the three branches of alchemy from Mama’s books: the aurumsmiths, who could create gold from base metal and so would never be poor; the philtersmiths, who could concoct the Elixir of Life and so would never be ill; and the vitasmiths, who could animate a homunculus, or - more terribly - a golem and so would never be alone.

Second, I love him because by means of love and ascetic discipline his soul conquered reality—hunger, cold, disease, scorn, injustice, ugliness (what men without wings call reality)—and succeeded in transubstantiating this reality into a joyous, palpable dream truer than truth itself. He discovered the secret so sought after by medieval alchemists: how to transubstantiate even the basest metal into pure gold…. [Through] the miracle of mystical alchemy, he subdued reality, delivered mankind from necessity, and inwardly transformed all his flesh into spirit….

She matched his steps, and by her body’s alchemy transformed his unfinished movements into gold.

Common quicksilver exhibits a great 'desire' to combine with related metals. With quicksilver, metal workers can make gold and silver liquid. Quicksilver amalgam has been used since early times to gild metal objects. After application of the liquid amalgam, the quicksilver can be eliminated by fire, and the gold remains. Gold can also be extracted from other minerals by washing with quicksilver.

The old stars-and-moons act was a good way to farm the unduly trusting. But the need to raise money in the first place seemed to call into question one's own ability to turn lead into gold. ("Enoch in Boston, 1713")

A jet of water moving with a sufficient velocity behaves like a rigid and impenetrable solid, whilst a revolving disc of paper exhibits elasticity and can act as a circular saw.[97] It appears, therefore, that the ancient doctrine of the alchemistic essence is fundamentally true after all, that out of the “One Thing” all material things have been produced by adaptation or modification; and, as we have already noticed (§ 60), there also appears to be some resemblance between the concept of the electron and that of the seed of gold, which seed, it should be borne in mind, was regarded by the alchemists as the common seed of all metals.

Essential to the order of things is the principle of correspondences. Hidden connections underlie diverse phenomena that impress the mind with similar qualities and associations, such as colour, shape, weight, movement and even names with similar sounds and spellings. The material world, operating as it does according to God's design, can be studied to understand His will (‘as above, so below’). The universe becomes a multilayered tableau of symbols. Chemicals and stars, for alchemists and astrologers, are symbolic and can be aligned with other symbols – mathematical, alphabetical, mythic and cosmic – all considered to be mystical. Humanity's divine spark inspires us to seek reunion with the Divinity. Toward this end, the Hermetist employs alchemy, astrology and magic too. Magical formulae are based on the correspondences already noted: a ritual to induce creativity might be addressed to the Sun and might entail lamps, gold, ‘Apollonian’ music and a sunny mood.

Spirit does not - as we have been told - keep trying to peel away from atoms of your body but is embedded in nature and you - yourself - are the crucible in which base metal can be turned to gold.

TURNING LEAD INTO GOLD: VALUE IS IN THE MIND AND HEART OF THE VALUER

Preoccupied as they were with the hopeless idea of ‘transmutation’ – the transformation of one element into another – the alchemists failed to experiment with the rebranding of lead. Perhaps they could have added a mystery ingredient or polishing technique to make it slightly shinier and named the result ‘Black Gold’.

To fund the war effort against France, Princess Marianne appealed in 1813 to all wealthy and aristocratic women there to swap their gold ornaments for base metal, to fund the war effort. In return they were given iron replicas of the gold items of jewellery they had donated, stamped with the words ‘Gold gab ich für Eisen’, ‘I gave gold for iron’. At social events thereafter, wearing and displaying the iron replica jewellery and ornaments became a far better indication of status than wearing gold itself. Gold jewellery merely proved that your family was rich, while iron jewellery proved that your family was not only rich but also generous and patriotic.

Poetry as Alchemy Poets are verbal alchemists mixing words, attempting to convert base experience into gold.

Chinese alchemy parallels European alchemy in postulating the change from watery lead (nigredo) to fiery heart (rubedo) and then to pure white (albedo) or gold (also known as the Philosopher’s Stone).22 Understandably, in ancient Greece, a “similar archetypal concept of a perfect being is that of Platonic man, round on all sides and uniting within himself the two sexes.”23

Leadership is an alchemy that combines your human skills with your professional capacities in order to use your full potential and to transform it in "gold". Read more: neculaifantanaru.com

Slavery, that was a kind of alchemy for such White folk, or so they reckoned. They calculated a way of turning each bead of a Black man's sweat into gold and each moan of despair from a Black woman's throat into the sweet clear sound of a silver coin ringing on the money-changer's table. There was buying and selling of souls in that place. Yet there was nary a one of them who understood the whole price they paid for owning other folk.

Gold is special. It always was and probably always will be, at least till the ancient dream of alchemy – turning lead into gold – becomes more than just a dream.

Klawe, a computer scientist and mathematician, was appointed president of Harvey Mudd College in California. At the time, only 10 per cent of the college’s computer science majors were women. The department devised a plan, aimed at luring in female students and making sure they actually enjoyed their computer science initiation, in the hopes of converting them to majors. A course previously entitled ‘Introduction to programming in Java’ was renamed ‘Creative approaches to problem solving in science and engineering using Python’.* The professors further divided the class into groups – Gold for those with no coding experience and Black, for those with some coding experience.* They also implemented Operation Eliminate the Macho Effect, in which males who showed off in class were taken aside and told to desist. Almost overnight, Harvey Mudd’s introductory computer science course went from being the most despised required course to the absolute favourite.

We kissed,” said Matthew. “That is all. But it was like alchemy, but with misery changed to happiness, instead of lead to gold.

Fantasy is the alchemy that turns this jumble of psychic ingredients into the pure gold of erotic arousal.

The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Sorcerer’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces

The universe is a self-playing game. We are the players. The universe is a self-solving equation. We are the active nodes of that equation. We breathe fire into the equations and animate and propel them. The universe is a self-optimising mathematical system. It’s the ultimate alchemical experiment. It turns bare, unclear monads (base metal; potential) into full, clear monads (gold; actuality). The universe exists to transform souls into Gods. The universe is an evolving divinity – a God factory – a dialectical system for producing mathematical perfection.

Sikhi has a concept of tyar bar tyar, meaning “always be prepared.” Figure out what you want, and prepare for it. Have faith in your power of alchemy to turn every opportunity into gold.

In school, we’re given the false impression that scientists took a straight path to the light switch. There’s one curriculum, one right way to study science, and one right formula that spits out the correct answer on a standardized test. Textbooks with lofty titles like The Principles of Physics magically reveal “the principles” in three hundred pages. An authority figure then steps up to the lectern to feed us “the truth.” Textbooks, explained theoretical physicist David Gross in his Nobel lecture, “often ignore the many alternate paths that people wandered down, the many false clues they followed, the many misconceptions they had.”15 We learn about Newton’s “laws”—as if they arrived by a grand divine visitation or a stroke of genius—but not the years he spent exploring, revising, and tweaking them. The laws that Newton failed to establish—most notably his experiments in alchemy, which attempted, and spectacularly failed, to turn lead into gold—don’t make the

It’s time to depart on the long, hard road to find our Higher Selves. It’s time to separate ourselves from the ordinary world that has ensnared us with its trivial concerns and easy, disposable pleasures that reach their sell-by date almost as soon as they are touched. It’s time to cross the threshold that separates the world of Common Day from the extraordinary world. The hero’s path is right there in front of us, all marked out for us, yet it’s a path that few will be taking. You want an extraordinary life? Then what are you going to do that is extraordinary? You want to be a hero? Then do something heroic. Take that first step into the Unknown Country and begin the process of transforming yourself from base metal into gold. The hero monomyth is the supreme act of alchemy that takes the prima materia (the primary material) – ourselves – and purifies and perfects it until it shines, glints and gleams like the gold of God.