Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, - that of alchemy, operational success.

Alchemy posed as a sacred science, whereas chemistry came into its own when substances had shed their sacred attributes.

Alchemy is the process of changing lead into gold. Inner alchemy (personal transformation) occurs when we clear our clutter — internal and external — and let go of things that no longer serve us well. This creates balance and space, a place that nurtures contentment, which I believe is true success.

What alchemy there was in human beings.

What is the alternative to religion as we know it? As it turns out, this is the wrong question to ask. Chemistry was not an “alternative” to alchemy; it was a wholesale exchange of ignorance at its most rococo for genuine knowledge. We will find that, as with alchemy, to speak of “alternatives” to religious faith is to miss the point.

True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.

The science of human nature… finds itself today in the position that chemistry occupied in the days of alchemy.” Alfred Adler

It is significant comment on the victory of science over magic that were someone to say ‘if I put this pill in your beer it will explode,’ we might believe them; but were they to cry ‘if I pronounce this spell over your beer it will go flat,’ we should remain incredulous and Paracelsus, the Alchemists, Aleister Crowley and all the Magi have lived in vain. Yet when I read science I turn magical; when I study magic, scientific.

Science is magic that works.

No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.

Creating gold from dross is alchemy; making lemonade when you’re given lemons is leadership; making lemonade when you don’t have any lemons is great leadership.

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

Consider the case of alchemy: it fascinated human beings for over a thousand years, and yet anyone who seriously claims to be a practicing alchemist today will have disqualified himself for most positions of responsibility in our society. Faith-based religion must suffer the same slide into obsolescence.

Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.