178 Quotes About Alchemy

There was an old belief that in the embersOf all things their primordial form exists, And cunning alchemistsCould re-create the rose with all its membersFrom its own ashes, but without the bloom, Without the lost perfume Ah me! what wonder-working, occult scienceCan from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore?What craft of alchemy can bid defianceTo time and change, and for a single hour Renew this phantom-flower?

Breaking bread mindfully is everyday alchemy.

For the alchemist the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter. Only as a secondary consideration does he hope that some benefit may accrue to himself from the transformed substance as the panacea, the medicina catholica, just as it may to the imperfect bodies, the base or "sick" metals, etc. His attention is not directed to his own salvation through God's grace, but to the liberation of God from the darkness of matter.

It was a large room, heavily outfitted with the usual badly ventilated furnaces, rows of bubbling crucibles, and one stuffed alligator. Things floated in jars. The air smelled of a limited life expectancy.

Alchemy, the masters teach, is the process of linking the spiritual to the material. The alchemist is the bridge between the worlds. It is a process of working inside a mirror, knowing always that in the end, the part will reflect the whole. As inside, so outside.

You move into the darkness, wrapping it around you like a heavy cloak. You dive into it naked like a midnight swim, slip beneath its covers and invite it to envelope you, as a dream. You lose yourself in the richness of its mysteries. You start to become the darkness. It starts to become you.

I have had the privilege of knowing my self for almost 40 years. That’s a lot of stories and tales to tell, but I’ll spare you those details.If there’s one thing I've learned, It is that finding the person within oneself requires a very subtle alchemy.

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

Witnessing is not flowing with the current of the river but observing the flow from the bank of the river.