Sorcerer's Stone: A Beginner's Guide to Alchemy [Paperback]

The author of this book, Dennis William Hauck, is a practicing alchemist versed in both Eastern and Western techniques of alchemy and widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on the ancient art and the benefits it offers contemporary practitioners. Now, in Sorcerer's Stone, the first basic primer on the subject, he makes alchemy's secrets and powers accessible to everyone with the desire to experience physical, mental, and spiritual transformation. By providing clear explanations, moving meditations, and hands-on experiments making tinctures and elixirs, this beautifully illustrated guide passes on the knowledge and creative energy of alchemy's magnificent discipline-sending a golden arc of learning from thousands of years in the past into your life today.

Hauck present a fascinating history of alchemy - from the ancient Emerald Tablet to modern quantum chemistry - and elaborates on its arcane principles in an intimate, conversational way that anyone can understand. His portrayals of individual alchemists (like Flamel, Fulcanelli, and Isaac Newton) bring them alive and show how they built on each other's work through an "Underground River" of secret knowledge passed down through the ages.

Moreover, Hauck makes clear that alchemy is a means of personal transformation that enables you to meet your highest potential as a human being. Although the alchemists spoke in terms of vessels, furnaces, and chemicals, they were really talking about changes taking place in their own inner nature. They worked with the archetypal energies of metals to change their own "temperament" from lead to gold - to rejuvenate their bodies, integrate their personalities, and perfect the very essence of their souls. The bizarre drawings and cryptic writings of the alchemists refer to specific operations that work on all levels of body, mind, and spirit. Today, enlightened physicians and healers are demonstrating that alchemical methods can protect and rejuvenate the body and even heal brain and spinal cord injuries.

Complete with alchemical engravings from the Middle Ages as well as insightful charts and diagrams, this illuminating handbook will teach aspiring alchemists the true art of transformation. Chapters: What Is Alchemy? | The Golden Thread That Runs Through Time | The Principles of Alchemy | The Kitchen Alchemist: Making Tinctures and Elixirs | The Ladder of the Planets | Saturn's Child: The Base Metal Lead | Jupiter's Rule: The Courtly Metal Tin | Mars' Challenge: The Angry Metal Iron | Venus' Embrace: The Loving Metal Copper | Mercury's Magic: The Living Metal Mercury | The Moon's Reflection: The Lunar Metal Silver | The Sun's Brilliance: The Solar Metal Gold | The Operations of Alchemy | Personal Purification | Becoming an Alchemist. The book includes an extensive glossary and resource guide.

Many people are aware of alchemy as a precursor to modern lab chemistry, but less know of the alchemists' spiritual goals. Hauck's introduction to modern alchemy stresses this philosophy of personal transformation, where the practitioner's "leaden" personality is transmuted into the "gold" of an enlightened spirit. Hauck starts out with a chapter on how modern practitioner's view alchemy then moves on to a summary of the history and myths. The bulk of the book is devoted to applications. He gives a detailed discussion of the symbolism of the metals and planets, which includes a meditations and a few lab exercises. He ends by describing the chemical operations and how they correspond to spiritual, psychological, and physical changes that accompany spiritual development, again with exercises.

For the most part, Hauck does an excellent job descrbing the symbols and operations clearly for someone new to the subject. I liked how he includes examples of some of the wonderful old alchemical illustrations and carefuIly explains the symbolism in them. I also greatly liked his breif aside on how the film version of 2001: A Space Oddessy as modern alchemical symbolism. I mostly read the book for intellectual curiousity, and did not try the lab experiments myself, but I imagine that one would need a little more information or experience to successfully perform them than is offered in the book. Hauck also has the somewhat annoying tendency of occult authors to mix fact, legend and speculation together with little differentiation and less citation. Overall, however, I found it an understandable and interesting read for insights into what a modern alchemist believes and practices.

"Sorcerer's Stone - A Beginner's Guide to Alchemy" by Dennis William Hauck is a really nice book. It has something for everyone who is interested in alchemy and ties it all together. There is history, philosophy, theory, practical laboratory work for the novice, and psychological and inner exercises as well. Well written, illustrated, indexed, and with a very handy and detailed glossary, I recommend Hauck's "Sorcerer's Stone" to anyone interested in alchemy. You will be glad you read it, and re-read it again. On a personal level I have shared several lengthy emails with the author, and have spoken to several of his students (via the Flamel College with which he is affiliated), and everyone had kind and generous words to say about him. This alone says volumes.