This is the second of a series of posts about the literary alchemy of J. K. Rowling, a discussion jumpstarted by a post by ‘Iris’ at a Strike fan website, an article that championed a Jungian perspective on this subject. The first post in this series, Literary Alchemy – A Primer for Those Interested in J. K. Rowling’s Artistry, both explained what the ‘Iris’ post asserted and reviewed much of the critical literature that the brevity of the S&E Files article prevented her from discussing. See that post for links to this material.
The conversation between Nick Jeffery and John Granger above was recorded in the same spirit as the first post was written, namely, simultaneously a welcome to Strike fans and Rowling readers who have learned about literary alchemy only recently and an introduction to the work of the last twenty five years on this subject. Upcoming posts in the series will include a counter-point discussion in the debate Rowling is fostering about whether a psychological or spiritual perspective is better for understanding art and life and a review of the alchemical signatures that crowd Rowling-Galbraith’s Hallmarked Man.
This post is largely links to sources for points Nick and John discuss in their naturally enthusiastic and contrarian conversation, question by question. Enjoy!
1. Welcome to the Conversation! (Nick) I just sent out an article about literary alchemy, John, in response to an article written by ‘Iris’ and posted on the Strike-Ellacott Files website, a piece titled ‘What is Literary Alchemy? Spotting symbols that map Strike and Robin’s growth.’ What advice or guidance would you give to, say, Cormoran Strike readers who are brand new to the subject?
* There are three types of alchemy and it is important to understand the common ground they share and the differences between them;
* The first type is alchemy proper, which is to say ‘metallurgical alchemy,’ the sacred science of purifying metals and the adept’s soul via the creation of a Philosopher’s Stone that will transform lead to gold and exude an elixir of life, the drinking of which will bestow immortality;
* The second and third types of alchemy derive from interpretations of metallurgical alchemy’s aims and the symbolic texts detailing the work in the hermetic laboratory;
* Literary alchemy is the use of metallurgical alchemy’s language, colors, sequences, and symbols in plays, poetry, and story to foster an edifying and transformative experience in the artist’s theater or reading audience;
* Psychological alchemy is Carl Jung’s use of metallurgical alchemy’s texts during and after WWII to illustrate his ideas of the integration of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the human mind;
* Metallurgical alchemy was practiced in China, the Levant, India, and Europe within the revealed religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity until its degeneration in the late Medieval period and eventual evolution into the strictly materialist chemistry we know today;
* Literary alchemy has been a continuous stream in literature from Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the Metaphysical poets through to Dickens, Yeats, the Inklings, Joyce, Nabokov, and J. K. Rowling;
* The academic study of “alchemy in literature” was the province of Baconian and allegorical readings of Shakespeare (cf., Beryl Pogson, Peter Dawkins, Martin Lings) until the late 20th Century and the advent of academic specialists in ‘Hermetic Studies,’ e.g., Stanton Linden, Lyndy Abraham, and Charles Nicholl (cf., Cauda Pavonis: A Journal of Hermetic Studies, 1982-2000).
* Jung and his followers used their psychological interpretations of metallurgical alchemy as allegories of the soul to interpret mythology (cf., Erich Neumann, Marie-Louise Von Franz, Robert Johnson);
* Jungian analysis of story using Jung’s ideas of subconscious archetypes within a collective unconscious was popularized by Joseph Campbell in his guides to Joyce’s Ulysses and his more well known works on mythology (e.g., The Hero With a Thousand Faces);
* ‘Isis’ in her S&E Files article, ‘What is Literary Alchemy?,’ suggests that Rowling-Galbraith is writing an allegory of soul transformation in the Cormoran Strike series using metallurgical alchemy’s symbols and sequences as understood by Carl Jung and his disciples rather than as used by English writers since the 13th Century;
* It’s a challenging theory, the depth of which is hard to grasp without an appreciation of the types of alchemy, what they have in common, and their differences in approach and subject matter.
2. The Lake: (John) What I found most fascinating in your post, Nick, was your best guesses about where Rowling would have learned about literary alchemy. She claimed in 1998 that she’d read a lot of alchemical texts from which she set the “magical parameters” of the Hogwarts Saga; if you had only three chances to name one of those books, what would you choose?
* Charles Nicholl’s The Chemical Theatre;
* Titus Burckhardt’s Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul (or Mirror of the Intellect: Essays on Traditional Acience and Sacred Art);
* Lyndy Abraham Summerhaze’s Marvell and Alchemy or her Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery;
* Martin Lings’ The Secret of Shakespeare
3. Carl Jung, Alchemy: (Nick) I see you’re chafing at the bit, John, with book titles I haven’t mentioned so let me name-drop the author not on my list because, as you pointed out, he wasn’t really a literary alchemist so much as a psychologist who discussed alchemy as a means of illustrating his own ideas about the ‘Great Work.’ You’ve written, though, that literary alchemy as with metallurgical alchemy is a subset of soul-allegories or Psychomachia. Don’t Jung’s ideas jibe with that?
* Yes and no!
* Jung’s ideas of the soul and archetypes (or archetypal forms) are based on late 19th Century Volkischer German ideas, which is to say, modern and materialist (some say ‘vitalist’) premises. His hostility to Christianity and Judaism was grounded in his acceptance of Darwinian evolution and derived philosophically from Nietzsche (see Richard Noll’s The Jung Cult and The Aryan Christ).
* He conflates the spiritual with the psychological, consequently, and embraces integrated individual psychological health as the telos of human existence, none of which is consistent with traditional metallurgical or literary alchemy (see Titus Burckhardt’s Mirror of the Intellect, Philip Sherrard’s ‘An Introduction to the Religious Thought of C. G. Jung,’ and Harry Oldmeadow’s ‘C.G. Jung & Mircea Eliade: ‘Priests without Surplices’? Reflections on the Place of Myth, Religion and Science in Their Work.’
* Psychological alchemy, insomuch as it is ‘Jungian,’ is well removed from the other two types of alchemy. Which is not to say that Rowling is not a Jungian and hence a Jungian psychological alchemist.
4. Back into the Lake: (John) You covered in your article, though, Nick, the several reasons to think it possible, even probable that the evidence from Rowling’s life suggests she is using Jungian ideas in her literary alchemy. Iris over at S&E Files obviously thinks that is the case. What are the for and against ideas with respect to Rowling being a Jungian?
There’s Plenty of Evidence That Rowling IS a Jungian Writer:
John Granger’s discussion in Troubled Blood: A Jungian Reading
* Robin’s name-dropping Jung in conversation about astrology;
* The Jungian notes sounded throughout Strike 5: Archetypes, Synchronicity, Persona;
* The connection between Jung’s illustrated ‘New Book’ and Talbot’s ‘True Book;’ and
* Pointers to Cupid-Psyche myth as understood by Jungians (see below)
The Advent of Prudence Dunleavy, Jungian Psychologist, in Ink Black Heart
* Hard to imagine a more sympathetic portrait of a Jungian than half-sister Prudence!
* She clearly was the genius behind the Rokeby reconciliation in Hallmarked Man
The Cupid and Psyche myth underpinning the Strike series
* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus (note the discussion here of the Jungian understanding of this specific myth)
* Ink Black Heart: Strike as Zeus to Robin’s Leda and as Cupid to Mads’ Psyche
* ‘Rowling Points to Myth of Cupid and Psyche in order to Console Strike Fans Disappointed with Hallmarked Man‘
* The Hallmarked Man‘s Mythological Template (Nick Jeffery, John Granger)
Anything Else? Oh, yeah —
* Rowling studied mythology in her ‘Classical Studies’ program at UExeter and almost certainly encountered Jungian interpretation of myths there (e.g. the work of Neumann, Johnson, Campbell).
* Rowling told Val McDermid if she had not become a successful writer she would have sought training and certification as a psychologist.
* Her work reflects a broad reading in psychology (cf., Louise Freeman Davis’ ‘J. K. Rowling and the Phantoms in the Brain,’ ‘Cormoran Strike and the Itch that Cannot Be Scratched’) and it is likely that she has read her fair share of Jung and Jungian authors during her studies.
* Rowling benefited from psychological therapy and exercises herself when suffering from depression, the experience of and recovery from which she depicted in story via the Azkaban Dementors and Robin Ellacott’s treatment for PTSD in Lethal White.
And There is Plenty of Evidence That Rowling Is NOT a Jungian Writer:
* Rowling has never been asked or revealed how she learned about literary alchemy; this includes, of course, any reference to Carl Jung, whose work was not focused on literary alchemy per se but a psychological interpretation or explanation of metallurgical alchemy’s symbolism.
* All that Rowling has revealed about her experiences as a patient seeking help with depression are about Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which treatment modality owes nothing to Jung or to Jung’s students.
* It is possible that Rowling encountered esoteric metallurgical alchemy, the precursor to literary alchemy, in her study of astrology, the complementary traditional sacred science to alchemy, a skill-set with which we know she was accomplished. That route to alchemy would have led her to Perennialist interpretations of alchemy, most notably Titus Burckhardt‘s Alchemy, Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul; the paperback cover of the Penguin Metaphysical Library edition of that book (1974) features an androgynous giant named REBIS standing on a dragon and a winged golden sphere (i.e., Rubeus, Norbert, Snitch).
* As mentioned above, it is more likely that she encountered literary alchemy in her study of Shakespeare. The year she was studying for her A Levels, she traveled to see a production of King Lear which has prompted the idea that it was on her list of texts to prepare for her tests. The most challenging interpretation of Lear then in print was Charles Nicholl’s The Chemical Theatre (1980), a book that explains almost every scene in perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy as a parallel step in the Great Work of alchemy. If the budding astrologer was fascinated by this allegorical interpretation of the Bard, the most popular work in print at that time that championed reading Shakespeare as the author of soul allegories was Perennialist Martin Lings‘ The Secret of Shakespeare (1984).
* Literary Alchemy is a tool set employed not only by Shakespeare but by a host of Rowling favorite authors to include Dickens, Nabokov, Lewis, and Tolkien. This view of alchemy, that is, as an allegorical depiction of the soul’s transformation that affects that same cathartic experience in its theater or reading audiences, is the one found in Rowling’s work, which is well removed from psychological alchemy, an analytic art which, though it springs from metallurgical alchemical texts, does not aim at the transformation at work in the sacred art or the science of traditional alchemy.
* Rowling’s use of chiastic structures and psychomachian allegory, tools that complement literary alchemy in spiritual perspective and aim, make a Jungian rather than a literary and Perennialist view of alchemy seem unlikely.
* Alchemy: Jung, Burckhardt, or Maclean? John Granger, April 2007
* Rowling’s Soul Triptych Psychomachia: Is It From Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’? John Granger, September 2024
5. The Debate at King’s Cross: (Nick) So, John, you’ve mentioned Jung quite a few times in your posts about the Mythological framework of the Strike series and even written about the Jungian ideas of animus and anima with respect to Cormoran and Robin’s relationship. You seem fairly confident, though, that Rowling is writing from the traditional esoteric ideas of alchemy a la Shakespeare rather than Jung’s. Why is that?
* Everything you just said!
* As noted, Jung’s ideas are modern and psychological while the stream of literary alchemy in English Literature is almost exclusively more Medieval and pointedly spiritual;
* The Most Notable Exception: Angela Carter’s The Passion of the New Eve (1977), that reads like a Jungian ‘Red Book’ slide-show (think Bombyx Mori) or a transgender Odyssey written for feminists. Rowling has never mentioned her to my knowledge but it would be surprising if she hadn’t read this book more than once. What Alana Bolton Cooke wrote about Carter’s Passion could be said about Rowling’s literary alchemy if she is a Jungian writer (or about Galbraith’s fictional Elizabeth Tassel?):
Angela Carter in The Passion of New Eve (1977) uses the exoteric phases of alchemy and Carl G. Jung's theory of esoteric alchemy as a means of demonstrating allegorically the idea ofrebirth and renewal. The purpose of this allegorical method is to produce an 'alchemical' change of thought in the reader about sexuality and gender associated with women's repression and liberation.
In the novel Carter develops themes and ideas explored in her essay, The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History (1979), an analysis of the Marquis de Sade's pornography and its affect on the roles of men and women in society. The clash of opposites involved in combining alchemical symbolism, feminism and pornography within the fiction can be seen as representative of the state of chaos present in alchemy before the beginning of change.
The circular narrative and alchemical structure of the fiction creates a literary version of the alchemical process as it brings together opposites involved in chaos, represented by events and characterisation that the protagonist, Evelyn/Eve, experiences, until, in the manner of alchemy, harmony is reached. The harmony created represents women's empowerment.
Carter uses Evelyn's individuation process to encourage growth within the reader by altering patterns of thought to bring about change through self-confrontation and self-knowledge. The structure of Carter's fiction, thus, corresponds to the process of esoteric alchemy contained within the structure, imagery and symbolism of exoteric alchemy. The fiction is designed to stimulate the unconscious of the reader and make conscious hitherto unknown and repressed thoughts about gender and sexuality to bring about change in the lives of men and women.
* I think what Rowling said she was trying to do with Harry Potter’s meeting with Dumbledore at the dream-like King’s Cross strongly suggests she is aware of the two approaches and wants readers to discuss them – but that she has made her own choice, however conflicted she may be.
* In her 2008 interview with Adeel Amini, Rowling said that her hope for Harry’s post-mortem conversation with Dumbledore at King’s Cross was to stimulate “a debate” among readers about whether it was a psychological moment, that is, a fantasy in which Harry understands what he’s been missing all along, or a spiritual event in which he is actually speaking with the late Headmaster:
Enough Potter-plot, I think. Moving on to a slightly more contentious issue, Rowling has categorically said that she does believe in a higher power, a statement reinforced by her childhood church-going (“Till I was 17,” she clarifies). It must be difficult to reconcile her religious beliefs with those that denounce Harry Potter as anti-Christian, I wonder aloud. Rowling’s expression does not change a fraction. “There was a Christian commentator who said, which I thought was very interesting, that Harry Potter had been the Christian church’s biggest missed opportunity. And I thought, there’s someone who actually has their eyes open.
“I think he said it before the publication of the seventh book, and with the publication of the seventh book I think that clarified a lot of people’s view on where I was standing. But I should emphasise that I am not pushing a specifically Christian agenda, and indeed till the very last moment in book seven, one can interpret what happens to Harry after he presents himself with death as him going into an unconscious state in which his subconscious reveals to him what he already knew.” I hum in faux-comprehension of what she’s referring to; luckily my clued-in companion is nodding wildly. Proceed.
“Any re-reading of Chapter 35 will show you that there’s nothing that the Dumbledore he sees tells him that he couldn’t have guessed for himself or already realised, and of course there’s a key piece of information that Dumbledore doesn’t articulate that Harry has realised. So you can deliberately interpret it that way, or you can say that he did go into a state of limbo beyond which there was another life, and that idea was expressed repeatedly, and most explicitly at the end of book five, Order of the Phoenix, where Harry understands that there is an ‘on’, that you do go on.
“I wanted there to be a debate there, so of my three main characters - when they come into the room which examines death at the Ministry of Magic - Hermione, the ultimate sceptic and a hyperrational person, hears nothing behind the veil and is scared of it. Ron is just uneasy; Ron is someone who does not grapple with anything deeper than beer, if he can avoid it. Harry’s drawn to it, and therein lies Harry’s slightly reckless, almost morbid streak, because Harry does have a hint of that dangerous adolescent trait which is the attraction to death.” Heavy.
Obviously with this ambiguity, you do get a fair degree of misinterpretation as well; there is a certain section that does dislike Harry Potter intensely. “Oh, vehemently,” says Rowling, before muttering under her breath “…and they send death threats.”
* I think that “debate” she’s trying to foster is between the psychological, call it ‘Jungian’ “just inside your head” subconscious perspective, and the authentically spiritual view of her work (well, of art and human existence, too, of course). And that this debate is one she has had for most of her life. Check out her comments about the “greatest missed opportunity” and explain to me how that doesn’t line up with her preferring the spiritual, albeit “not explicitly Christian,” to the psychological and humanist.
7. Jungian Readings of Rowling’s Work: (Nick) John, you’re familiar with what has been written by Potter Pundits because of your PhD critical literature surveys; what are the better ones about Rowling and Jungian psychology and what do they emphasize?
Here are seven off the top of my head (and Thesis ‘Works Cited’ drafts):
* Grynbaum, G.A. (2000). The Secrets of Harry Potter. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal: Reviews From a Jungian Perspective of Books, Films and Culture, [online] 19 (4) pp. 17-48
* Patrick, Christopher and Sarah (2007), ‘Exploring the Dark Side: Harry Potter and the Psychology of Evil,’ in Mulholland (ed.), The Psychology of Harry Potter, BenBella Books, pp 221-232
* Gerhold, C. (2011). The Hero’s Journey Through Adolescence: A Jungian Archetypal Analysis of “Harry Potter.” PsyD. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
* Rectenwald, Bob (2019). ‘Carl Jung’s Impact on the Work of J. K. Rowling’
* Skipper, Alicia and Kate Fulton (2021) ‘Out from the Shadows into the Light: Persona and Shadow in Harry Potter‘ in Anne Mamary (ed.) The Alchemical Harry Potter: Essays on Transfiguration in J. K. Rowling’s Novels, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2021, pp 79-96
* The Unfolding Journey, Jung’s Shadow Self in Harry Potter: Confronting the Darkness Within (YouTube video)
* My own Troubled Blood: A Jungian Reading
Bob Rectenwald’s piece is the best of the six I didn’t write but it shares the several faults all the Jungian pieces make:
* the first failing of even the best Jungian readers is the assumption that Rowling is a Jungian, which is an open question;
* the next is that Jung’s ideas (and Joseph Campbell’s) are indisputably true; and
* the last is, when alchemy is mentioned, the critics do not clarify either the commonalities of or the differences between literary alchemy, psychological alchemy, and Jungian analytic psychology.
* Note, though, that Rowling, while aware of such Jungian tropes as the Hero’s Journey, tweeks it shamelessly, adding a symbol of Christ and resurrection scene in every Potter story (cf., How Harry Cast His Spell, ‘The Harry’s Journey,’ pp 21-28).
* Read her brief PotterMore piece on alchemy and note that it is written in such a way that it can be read as confirmation of either a psychological or spiritual perspective on alchemy and art:
One interpretation of the ‘instructions’ left by the alchemists is that they are symbolic of a spiritual journey, leading the alchemist from ignorance (base metal) to enlightenment (gold). There seems to have been a mystical element to the work the alchemist was engaged upon, which set it apart from chemistry (of which it was undoubtedly both an offshoot and forerunner).
This “original writing” by Rowling, especially the words “spiritual” and “mystical,” suggests that she is a Perennialist rather than a Jungian, at least with respect to her understanding of alchemy. But the debate is still possible with Jungians who read those words as cyphers for the subsconscious contact they hold we have with archetypes.
8. Back to the Alchemy: (John) I think the real question of whether Rowling’s literary alchemy is predominantly literary and spiritual or psychological in orientation comes down to the postmodern confusion about the immaterial aspects of the human person, which is to say, the soul (or mind, psyche) and the spirit. Rowling’s recent work may seem prosaic or secular to a casual reader who compares it to the relatively otherworldly and “obviously” symbolic Potter books, but she loads each Strike book with Shakespearean romance of soul and spirit, i.e., alchemical dramas, and hermetic tropes.
I’m writing a piece now about the lions, dogs, incest, and the red man and white woman in Hallmarked Man, each of which are touchstones of alchemy. I think, though, that your work with Rowling’s favorite books and her epigraph sources, Nick, point to a strong spiritual rather than psychological foundation in Rowling’s work —
* Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
* Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
* The Victorian Women Poets in Running Grave
* Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
* Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
* The Jungian love of the I Ching, Running Grave’s epigraph source
9. Jung in Running Grave: (Nick) Rowling’s favorite writers, from Shakespeare and Nabokov to C. S. Lewis and Victorian Women poets, all clearly believe in a world-transcending spiritual realm. Given the quantity of the Jungian scholarship in Rowling Studies that Iris referred to and you’ve mentioned, it’s curious -- if Rowling is aware of it and is resistant to it -- that she doesn’t push back against it explicitly in her work. Can you think of a character that seems something like Jung in the books, someone as bad as Prudence Dunleavey is good?
I can think of three:
* United Humanitarian Church’s guru Jonathan Wace in Running Grave: his “psychologizing of religion,” the comparative religion avenue to denial of any true faith, the psychological critical analysis of a patient using mythological tropes (”Artemis”), the cult leader, and the abuser of women and children -- he’s a ringer for Jung!
* Paul Satchwell, one-eyed serpent with a one-track mind, in Leamington Spa, a true Jungian artist working psycho-sexual motifs graphically on canvas:
Naked figures twisted and cavorted in scenes from Greek mythology. Persephone struggled in the arms of Hades as he carried her down into the underworld; Andromeda strained against chains binding her to rock as a dragonish creature rose from the waves to devour her; Leda lay supine in bulrushes as Zeus, in the form of a swan, impregnated her.
Two lines of Joni Mitchell floated back to Robin as she looked at the paintings: “When I first saw your gallery, I liked the ones of ladies…”
Except that Robin wasn’t sure she liked the paintings. The female figures were all black-haired, olive-skinned, heavy-breasted and partially or entirely naked. The paintings were accomplished, but Robin found them slightly lascivious. Each of the women wore a similar expression of vacant abandon, and Satchwell seemed to have a definite preference for those myths that featured bondage, rape or abduction. (Troubled Blood, 542)
* And then there are the Masons, kind of an old school Jungian cult in Hallmarked Man. Like the UHC and “harmless” fraternal and charitable group with Christian touches but which doesn’t change a man or human nature per Hardacre (and which harbors the rich and powerful like Lord Branfoot).
* Coupled with Prudence, the Front of Jungian Beliefs, we get the front and back of Jung in Rowling’s work, a characteristic touch of Rowling nuance as she did with Islam in Hallmarked Man.
10. Conclusion: (John) I’m obviously not a Jung fan and I don’t think Rowling is writing Jungian psychomachia in alchemical symbols a la Angela Carter, but I see how people would come to a contrary conclusion; Rowling’s ‘spiritual not religious’ public statements and political positions with respect to Same Sex Attraction and abortion line up much more easily with New Age and Jungian types than with any kind of orthodox Christianity.
The great thing about essays like Isis’ at S&E Files is that it brings more people into the conversation of what literary alchemy is and the various approaches to it. You’ve been reading about literary alchemy for several years now, Nick; what do you think the person whose first encounter with the subject was the S&E Files article do to hone their alchemy detection skills?
* “Read your books and online talks, John!”
* How Metallurgical Alchemy Worked and How it Became Literary Alchemy (from Deathly Hallows Lectures, Chapter 1):
Alchemy, in a nutshell, was the science for the perfection or sanctification of the alchemist’s soul. This heroic venture I need to say straight off is all but impossible today because the way we look at reality, at ‘things’ per se makes the Great Work itself almost an absurdity. Unlike the medieval alchemists, we moderns and postmoderns see things with a clear subject/object distinction, that is, we believe that you and I and that table are entirely different things and between them is there is no connection or relation. The knowing subject is one thing and the observed object is completely ‘other.’
To the alchemist that is not the case. His efforts in changing lead to gold are based on the premise that he as the subject will go through the same types of changes and purifications as the materials he is working with. In sympathy with these metallurgical transitions and resolutions of contraries, his soul will be purified in correspondence as long as he is working in a prayerful state within the Mysteries (sacraments) of his revealed tradition.
Now, historically there was an Arabic alchemy, a Chinese alchemy, a Kabbalistic, as well as a Christian alchemy; each differs superficially with respect to their spiritual traditions but in every one, the alchemist was working with a sacred natural science or physics to advance his spiritual purification. This was only possible because he looked at the metal he was working with as something with which he was not ‘other’ but with which he was in relationship, artifex and artifact in sacred art imitating and accelerating the work of the Creator creating a bridge, so that, as lead changes to gold or material perfection, his soul was going through similar transformations and purifications.
The common ground is the logos in every created thing, to include persons (cf. John 1:9), which are all continuous with the Logos fabric of reality. As much as the alchemist identifies with this metaphysical ground, purifying himself of the ‘old man’ or ego-driven individual and identifying himself with the spiritual Heart or light within him, that light will become his dominant quality, hence his “illumination” or “enlightenment”. And lead or solid darkness turning into gold, hard light.
How does this edifying magic become the scaffolding for Harry’s adventures? Largely through the genius of William Shakespeare. Hermetic wisdom and alchemical efforts were such commonplaces in Elizabethan England that Shakespeare and his contemporaries recognized, I think. that the magic of staged drama is essentially alchemical. If we groundlings are all watching what’s going on up on the stage and everything is working the way it’s supposed to, the subject-object distinction dissolves inasmuch as we identify with the characters and their agonies through our logos-imaginations. As they go through their changes, like the metals in a crucible, we identify with them and pass through the same cathartic moment.
As the great dramatists of that period realized, “if what we’re doing is alchemical, why don’t we use alchemical imagery and language, too?” And, voila, literary alchemy is born. This stream of English literature in which narrator or characters and the reader or audience in correspondence pass through the stages of the alchemical work, the black the white and the red (basically dissolution, purification, and then perfection) runs through the next five centuries of poetry, stage work, stories and novels. You may not have recognized it, but its a big part of things you have read.
* Literary Alchemy: Sacred Science, Sacred Art, and ‘The Alembic of Story’:A Perennialist Explanation of J. K. Rowling’s Signature Hermetic Symbolism
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