Alchemy and the Alchemists

About this book

The philosopher's stone, an elixir of life, a substance that can dissolve all others: alchemy promised transformations far stranger than turning lead into gold. R. Swinburne Clymer reads these ambitions as signs of another process happening within the person.

Clymer draws on Rosicrucian interpretations of the furnace, metals and purification to describe spiritual discipline. The traditional pursuit of gold becomes an account of changes in character and consciousness. He keeps the alchemists' old symbols in view while giving them the meaning of a personal path towards renewal.