Guerrilla Alchemy

A heretical preface to the workings of alchemy from the perspective of a “failed alchemist”

Take all here with a grain of salt.

Masaru Emoto’s experiments on water having memory is controversial, apparently, among academics and scientists. (Shocking I know.)

But what if the fundamental idea were not that water would always behave in predictable ways at all? What if, in the lab of his experiences, Emoto actually exposed forms that were there given certain stimuli and a consciousness capable of observation. A recipe for interacting with consciousness on a basic level…

Like so many experiments before it, it could be further data that would assign the role of consciousness as fundamental, as opposed to the materialist worldview.

We move in with the understanding that water has a type of memory for the sake of this writing that I am putting together.

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle… Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

– Bruce Lee

This paper… writing… piece?? isn’t actually about water. It’s yet another peek into the overflowing waters that are modern takes on alchemy. On transformation.

This is not an in depth critical analysis on medieval alchemical texts and woodcuts. It’s not a “how to” in the way of describing the basics of alchemical processes.

I hope that there will be some synthesis with what I have presented and what resonates for you regarding these subjects.

I won’t give my current reader the traditional definitions of alchemy or its genealogical motion from teacher to student through the ages. Those things can be found at length elsewhere. I’m also unqualified for such.

I am moving forward with the assumption that you have been inundated with historical examples of where it comes from and from who its practices have passed.

Alchemy might be…

It might be likened to a spiritual assault hidden inside a beautifully wrapped metaphor. There are many roads that can bring you to a subject as widely debated, misunderstood, and often co-opted (like I’m currently doing) as alchemical practice.

Transformative alchemy of the mind, body, and soul could be explained as the will to embrace the paradox of the individual, of which there are many, amidst the intuitive sensation of the oneness that can be found in practices such as transcendental meditation or some other such method.

It could hinge on the courage to dive within the self and confront what one actually “is”.

What does a reasonable man, woman, or other do when faced with the awareness that brings them to the point of no return? When the road of potential opens in front of them, cracked and imperfect, as a mirror of what we call life.

What you’ll need:

The tools of the trade are many. The first and most important being your own mental faculty and the questions you ask. There exists a lot of literature with corresponding elements of theory in transformation.

You can look to behavioral therapeutic techniques, depth psychology, divinatory disciplines (tarot, astrology), scientific disciplines, and even metaphysical theories and dogma. The web is large and all things appear to be connected. Alchemy exists, in my experience, in all things.

Ancient philosophical schools and comparative mythology seem to have led to this concept of man’s confrontation with this reality.

In each of these you will find alchemy. In each of them, you will spiral out away from the concept of change in the direction of either chaos or intelligent structure and form.

One question:

Does alchemy require a win in order to be successful? Is gold the only acceptable prize in those endeavors?

Johann Friedrich Böttger was an 18th century self-proclaimed alchemist who had claim to the recipe for creating gold.

Monarchs at the time sought to imprison him for his talents, and that they did. His fame would be his downfall.

Eventually, experimentation under confinement brought no gold. What it did bring was the beginning of European production of porcelain through his proprietary combination of materials and processes.

Porcelain was often referred to as white gold.

Böttger found all the fame one might want through a series of imprisonments, escape attempts, alcoholism that would eventually lead him to an early grave, and finally the creation of a material that became highly coveted.

The creation of such would virtually end the reliance on Asian sources for porcelain for the collectors among Europe’s elite.

There is a whole lot more you can read and learn from other sources on this, but I won’t apologize for not being an historian. The details matter less here than the arc.

All of this is to say that there is no straightforward accounting when it comes to transformation. Expectation rarely factors into the equation except to provide some mercurial mischief along the way.

But that misdirection and mischief is important.

In today’s world, without mischief, alchemy calcifies into self-help.

With too much mischief, it dissolves into chaos.

Balance is recommended.

You know what’s a good balancing agent? Learning a wide breadth of knowledge and experience.

As someone introduced to the world of alchemy through pseudepigraphal modern texts and parapsychological interests, I can say with relative confidence that balance can be brought by learning broadly and acquiring encounters with the self and understanding the symbols with which this takes place.

Why symbolism is non negotiable…

Imitation through instruction dilutes the lesson and corrupts the meaning. Experience is your friend.

Is there some uniformity that is deeply rooted in tradition and powerful in the symbols interpreted via different established lenses? Most certainly. But what do those symbols mean to you? It’s worth mentioning that few alchemists, antiquated or not, agree entirely.

There is no monolith. And even if there was, water could carve right through that stone over time.

Water wins by bending where it is absolutely necessary. It doesn’t do the accounting for what constitutes its win, and it has not defended its position on anything. And yet it possesses memory. Maybe not in the same way you do, but all the same, some form.

Cognition flows. Symbols do the containing.

But your mind (water) cannot have an encounter with real transformation while following logical steps and instruction. It can be programmed, but only by a landscape of repeated lessons, mantras, and practices that involve getting to know oneself, or in the case of propaganda and advertisement, doing the opposite while outsourcing the programming and experience to another entity altogether.

Who do you want to do the thinking for you?

Every spiritual system will atrophy. Every doctrinal process will become corrupt. But true encounters with one’s own mind and all of its constituent bodies remain pure.

Marketing is hollow. We become saturated with coaches and systems and branding. We want the cliff notes version of everything.

Seek direct experience and explanation for an alternate version of truth. But I warn you now: anyone who would guide you through a process of alchemy with any measure of rigidity in execution is hostile to your own path. It’s misleading by virtue of presumption.

“Every species, except the human, chose immediate, short-range success by means of specialization. But specialization always leads into blind alleys. It is only by remaining precariously generalized that an organism can advance towards that rational intelligence which is its compensation for not having a body and instincts perfectly adapted to one particular kind of environment.”

– Aldous Huxley

So all that I encourage, all that I venture to suggest, is to seek, to question, to accept and/or release. All at your own authority.

Because transformation is a skill. Highly individualized, courageously pursued by many, and has left a chasm of influencers and grifters in its wake.

Courses crafted to exchange responsibility dodging for digital compensation and dopamine spikes.

The mind is the water you place in any and every symbolic vessel.

The alchemical laboratory is a parking garage at 9am with a tear-stained t-shirt for no apparent reason. Or maybe a public restroom tending to a bloody nose and bruised ego.

Alchemy is done in the seat of the soul, when no one is watching, and it lands like an uppercut.

The recipe is a synchronized descent into every opposing position you’ve ever taken. And as your sleep patterns become erratic and your sense of certainty crumbles, you begin to see design. Beauty. Especially in the failure.

But the entirety is a seek. A drive. A purposeful pursuit. Don’t lose that part. Also, feel free to throw away every instruction manual after you’ve read them.

You will find the nigredo in time. And you’ll produce what can be construed as gold when you’re ready and given you become pliable enough to see it when it emerges. No metric needed from outside of you.

“Every transformation demands as its precondition ‘the ending of a world’, the collapse of an old philosophy of life.”

– C. G. Jung

That said, if learning about the technical aspects and historical framework of alchemy specifically, here are a list of resources for incorporating alchemy as a practice.

References / Sources

Zosimos of Panopolis – early Greek alchemical writings

Turba Philosophorum – medieval Latin alchemical compilation

The Emerald Tablet (Hermes Trismegistus, attributed)

Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim) – De Natura Rerum, Opus Paramirum, Archidoxes

Aurora Consurgens – medieval alchemical manuscript (BNF Latin)

Bruce T. Moran – Paracelsian medicine and metallurgy

Wouter J. Hanegraaff – Esotericism and the Academy; Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed

Carl Jung – Psychology and Alchemy

Hermetic Library – translations and reference material

Justin Sledge – Esoterica (YouTube channel)

Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam) – manuscript and print collections

M. David Litwa – YouTube channel and educational materials on alchemy-adjacent historical topics