The Art of Alchemy
Psychology, Creativity, and Transformation
Hey friend,
I hope you've been well!
Alchemy is a subject that in modern times is seen as nothing but a precursor to Chemistry, filled with pseudoscientific rituals trying to turn lead into gold. In some ways, this is definitely true.
On a Psychological level though, the art of Alchemy is starting with our bad habits, character flaws, and shadow contents, and turning them into gold, or turning them into positive traits that are channeled into healthy directions.
Turning your aggression into fitness or martial arts. Turning your anger into a creative passion, writing music that channels that emotion into a song, a book, or even a movie.
I will try to lay out and simplify what I have learned from studying Carl Jung’s books on Alchemy the past few years.
The Elements
In Alchemy the necessary elements are as follows
Prima Materia/Lead - The stuff we are beginning with, the base metals, the trait we want to work on, the debt we want to get rid of. This is the shadowy material we want to bring into the light
The Vessel - This is the container for our transformation. If it is your weak body that you want to transform, than your fitness routine/gym would be the vessel. As a music producer, the vessel is your craft of music production.
Fire/Sulphur - This is the symbol for purification, heating up the material to burn off the impurities. This is your daily routine that you hold yourself to, eventually leading you to achieve the goals you set for yourself. Without that inner fire, you become cold, wet, damp, and lazy.
Silver/Luna/Moon - Silver/Luna is the symbol for the moon, and the feminine aspects of the masculine psyche. In the psychological sense, and in our context, this is getting in touch with your inner feelings, your emotions, and letting it fuel your creativity. This is where your beautiful melodies come from as you tap into your intuition and let the music flow through you.
Gold/Sol/Sun - Gold is the symbol for the dawning of Consciousness. It is also the Sun. This typically symbolizes the enlightenment, or attainment of your highest ideal. In our context this is absolute mastery of your craft.
The Coniunctio/Conjunction - This is the unification of the opposites, the ultimate goal of Alchemy. This is incorporating your masculine and feminine together, your emotional and rational together, your feelings and your thoughts together. The idea is that you are not one-sided. You can think with your rationality but also feel deeply. You can engage with the spiritual but are also grounded in the scientific. We do not want to be too one-sided, we want to unify our opposites. We look into our darkest fears and bring them into the light. We don’t shy away from the things that make us uncomfortable but go forward straight into them and learn from our mistakes. This is hard and most people get caught in their own biases, making excuses why they are fine the way they are. Integrating your opposites means looking at the things in yourself you like the least, and understanding how to bring them into consciousness, or in other words, to stop ignoring them and actually integrate them. I have a tattoo on my forearm that reads “In Sterquiliniis Invenitur”, which essentially means “what you most want to find will be found where you least want to look.” It is the idea of going to the dragon’s cave and facing him directly, and it is there you are rewarded with the gold.
The Process
What I like to do is make a list of the things I know to be doing wrong, where I am really messing up in my life. The more specific the better. Once you have a list, you now have a decent grasp of the work that needs to be done. This is the hardest step, as admitting you actually have a problem is harder than it sounds. Radical honesty here is important.
Take a note of the things that annoy you in other people. The things that make your blood boil in your worst enemies, or even just the thing your friend does that always annoys you. These are traits buried in your shadow, and acknowledging them in yourself is a huge step to integrating them.
We often project our shadow onto people around us, and it usually follows one of 2 patterns.
We get upset when people do things that we also do but don’t want to admit
We get upset when people do things that we wish we were doing, but haven’t yet started.
For the first point, what I like to do is take this list and ask myself, “Do I also do that annoying thing though?”. The answer is almost 100% of the time, yes. If there wasn’t a small bit of that in ourselves buried in our shadow, we wouldn’t be so annoyed by it in the other person. We would likely not even notice that trait in the other person because we are busy with our own life. But when we also do that annoying thing, that person becomes a mirror and we notice the trait and it sets us off complaining about them.
The more traits you can notice in yourself that annoy you in other people, the more you will start to pull back those projections, and you won’t really find them as annoying anymore. I have found that the more I catch myself judging someone in the moment and immediately say, “hold on, don’t I do this also?” the quicker I stop complaining about that exact trait. Eventually you become more objective and start to understand how people might be having a bad day, or maybe they just had a fight with their spouse, who knows.
On the second point, when someone is doing something we wish we were doing, we often criticize someone who is successful in the field we wish we were successful in. I have seen this countless times. “What does she have that I don’t? Why is she up on that stage and not me?” Umm… because she is talented, put herself out there, networked and released a ton of music on big labels, and earned her spot. What have you done, besides complain about how you deserve it more? I have seen this pattern in a few old friends of mine and it’s really sad to watch. They get consumed by their own fragile ego, never learning and never progressing, just always projecting. Sadly they no longer make music anymore, victims of their own attitude.
What we need to do is be more introspective, take note of both those traits we don’t like and the things we wish we had, and learn to integrate those into ourselves. If you are projecting on someone who is successful, find ways to get more skilled at your craft, get better at networking, marketing, sales. They didn’t get there by accident! Skills and connections are often the things that make the biggest difference. What skills do you need to develop to be the success you dream of? Those skills are the Vessel, and you need to put yourself into some fire and burn off all of your old excuses, holding yourself accountable and developing those skills you lack. This process can be done over and over again with each skill or trait you want to develop or fix.
The 3 Conjunctions
The more you work on incorporating these opposites, you will come to a point where what you think and what you feel are aligned. This is the first conjunction. This is aligning your rationality with your emotions. This is done by contemplating and acknowledging our shadow traits, the things we don’t want to look at or admit. At this stage we are integrating our aggressive side so that we have it under control, giving us the ability to be assertive, without letting our aggression get the best of us.
The second conjunction is aligning your masculine and feminine parts, your conscious with your unconscious. You no longer project your shadow constantly as you understand that these are things you also do too. At this stage, what you say and what you do are aligned. You actually walk the walk. Your philosophy is aligned with your actions. This step is hard and may take a long time!
The third conjunction is to stop thinking of the world as separate from you. You understand that the world is a reflection of your inner self. When you are in a bad mood, everyone around you seems to be a jerk. At this stage you understand what it means to “start with yourself first, be the change you want to see” as the world around you starts to reflect the attitude that you are putting out. This is why people like Jordan Peterson say to “clean your room before criticizing the world”, he understands that the battle between Order and Chaos begins with ourselves. We learn how to take care of ourselves better, learn to how to manage our finances correctly, learn how to be a good partner, a good citizen. We learn that in order to criticize someone else, or the world for that matter, we first have to look within.
Psychology and Alchemy
I am aware that much of this is very different from what you have likely heard about Alchemy. Much of what the Alchemists were doing had strange psychological parallels. Their texts sound very cryptic and unreadable, and it wasn’t until studying Jung and a few of his students did I understand how these ideas could actually be applied to our everyday life.
These ideas don’t only have to be a way to spiritual enlightenment and the attainment of the Philosophers Stone. These can also be used as a framework for self-development. I find that the idea of the Vessel is a crucial one, as without a container, our efforts go in many directions at once. If we give ourselves one solid goal, and put all of our energy (fire) into it, we actually see results. For me, this was paying off debt this summer. I took the pile of debt and imagined it as a big black mountain in front of me that had to be conquered. I read multiple books on finances and sacrificed an entire summer of free weekends and “fun” to pay off a mountain of debt. It was hard, but I kept my foot on the floor and kept myself in that fire until it was all gone. I have zero regrets, in fact, I am incredibly proud that I stuck to it until the very end!
All of this is symbolic of course. You can choose to think like this, or you can choose to disregard it. This is just a framework that I have found useful, that makes life a bit more interesting!
If this sounds at all interesting you can check out this book for more!
