Examples are Virgin’s Milk, Lac Virginis, or Semen Solare. When investigating those terms, we fall onto James’ exploration into one of the critical terms of alchemy, which is described by its many names and symbols. Gorden James is an alchemist in the most authentic meaning, and has provided a new and meaningful glossary of essential terms on alchemy and takes alchemy one step further than Jung into its physical, spiritual, and psychological components.

Jung perceived alchemy in terms of psychology but seemed to have missed the very physical aspects that alchemy describes. After spending time on Jung’s work, I felt as though I had been provided a direction to find something that I had been searching for my entire life, yet something lacked. Though not seen on the surface of Jung’s collective works, with further investigation into Jung’s ideas, we can easily find other alchemical processes that make up most of Jung’s “original” ideas – including active imagination. Jung brought alchemy back into the mindset of Westerners due to his connection that alchemy was somehow this mental operation that allowed an individual to individuate. There are many books out there that explore each of these traditions from an alchemical perspective, as each in their way are paths to make the individual better, and encoding efficient practices in terms and words that are symbolic of their most authentic meaning.Ĭarl Jung is known for the intense attention given not only to eastern traditions but alchemy as a whole. Many spiritual and religious practices of today are based on these same ideas, and alchemy can be exampled from many different traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism (Yogic traditions), Chinese Taoism, and on and on. But in another sense, it can be the symbolic transmutation of the symbolic Lead of the soul into the symbolic Gold, which is beyond human understanding. On one level, alchemy can be seen as the transmutation of the physical Lead into Gold. Which for the most part, have nothing to do with turning physical metals into riches. The truth of the matter is that alchemy, like many other practices in life, are both physical and spiritual and operate on many different levels. Though alchemy today is often looked at as a pseudo-science of some crazed old men mixing dangerous metals to make elixirs to extend life or to make physical Gold, in my opinion, this seems to be far from the truth. Alchemy has been a topic that I have circled for many years, now in my academic work, as well as in my explorations into spiritual practices around the world.

Alchemistry milk