Alchemy is so much more than arcane chemical experimentation, but a system of symbols and processes with a spiritual purpose.

For the student of self, a wonderful source of helpful, instructive symbolic concepts is alchemy.

The great psychologist Carl G. Jung spent many years studying the esoteric, intentionally abstruse mass of literature relating to alchemy, determined to demonstrate that the true goal of alchemy, ‘The Philosophers Stone’, was not a literal substance to turn base metals into gold, but a symbolic process to turn base man into Actualized Self: the process of individuation. <*8>

On this subject, Gerhard Adler wrote: “… the best alchemists knew that they were aiming at the gold within themselves. In all their writings, there is a clear indication that the aim is Self.

Jung himself said that alchemy was somehow the mirror image of psychology.” <*6>

One need only study a few of the alchemical…