John Granger, Alchemy, Sara Palin and HP

[Diana Tregarde]

I heard John Granger (no relation to Hermione, he says)! speak a few years ago. Our Katie in the Box started a thread on what makes Magic(k) magic? and that got me thinking about John Granger and his two books, 'The Hidden keys to Harry Potter' and 'Looking for God in Harry Potter'. And I got to thinking, have any of you read John Granger's books? I loved his first book opened my eyes to the marvelous symbology JKR uses, which Mr. Granger says is intentional, given her classical literature background. His second book is on my Christmas wish list.


Wikipedia says about John Granger:
Granger first became interested in Harry Potter when his daughter was given a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He read the book with the intention of pointing out to his daughter what was wrong with it but instead was impressed by the Christian imagery, classical references, and 'acerbic criticism of muggledom'. The interest developed through debating the books in the C. S. Lewis society and giving lectures about them to the point where the lectures became the basis for a book, 'Looking for God in Harry Potter' (Tyndale, 2004). This deals with the books from the perspective of Christianity and Christian imagery included in them and has sold more than 50,000 copies. He has described Voldemort as 'the most powerful indictment of the humanity of our times of any book I have read' in popular literature.

'The Hidden keys to Harry Potter' (Zossima, 2002) discusses the symbolism used in the first four Harry Potter books, links with the literary traditions of Tolkien, Lewis and others, and considers the story from the perspective of a traditional series of trials refining and strengthening the hero. It summarizes the story up to that point, and suggests how the plot might develop in the remaining books.

Granger has taught Harry Potter courses on the online Barnes and Noble University since 2004. He has also appeared as a guest in favour of the Harry Potter books on several radio and TV shows, including CNN. As a proponent of the Christian imagery in the novels, he has become involved in the debate criticising them as encouraging paganism and witchcraft.

Describing himself as "one of the leading authorities on the Harry Potter books as read in the context of English literature," his specialist interests are the post-modern qualities and Rowling's use of literary alchemy in the Harry Potter novels.

Anyway, so I went to Mr. Granger's website. He has a blog on the first page, and on the right, are comments, then Archives by month, and finally an index of categories. www.HogwartsProfessor.com

His entry for yesterday:
...If nothing else, the white heat of Presidential politics in Denver and St. Paul has filled my inbox with e-owl inquiries about what I’m up to these days and if I knew that Gov. Palin had tried to have Harry Potter banned from the Wasilla library when she was mayor of this small town in Alaska — and that she fired the librarian when her request was refused....

The full article is here: http://hogwartsprofessor.com/?p=445#more-445, and Mr. Granger goes on to say the 'facts' in his owl mails are distorted, well the full article is available, and well worth reading for his call to clarity and truth discovering.

I've book marked his site, and plan to read more.
Discuss?  

[PadfootsPet]

I had never heard of him, but I am so incredibly happy to see someone pointing out the Christianity in the books, rather than the narrow minded Christians who try to get it banned. Blah! I was voting Obama before, but Palin trying to get Harry Potter banned, well that just sealed my vote!!  

[Empress_Kat]

Oh Sarah Palin. What will you come up with next?

Granger sounds intelligent, but it would take a lot of intelligence to have me convinced that JKR put anything too deep into her books. I love them to bits, but as far as symbols go... well, it is ridiculous to mention her in the same sentence as Tolkien or Lewis.

I'll try to seek out a copy of his books, though, and see for myself.  

[SuzelovesJamesPotter]

Okay, what? I didn't hear she was trying to ban the books. If she did, I'd scream and cry. That is so stupid. Gosh, I am ticked off now.  

[LadyHealingHands]

Empress_Kat

Oh Sarah Palin. What will you come up with next?

Granger sounds intelligent, but it would take a lot of intelligence to have me convinced that JKR put anything too deep into her books. I love them to bits, but as far as symbols go... well, it is ridiculous to mention her in the same sentence as Tolkien or Lewis.

I'll try to seek out a copy of his books, though, and see for myself.

First off, Diana Tregarde, thanks for introducing John Granger to our Haven membership! I too, saw him --his presentation at the first HP for Grownups Convention - Nimbus 2003- was my very favorite, and was voted the best out of all the presentations.

Empress_Kat, John makes a very strong case for JKR's intelligence and deliberate use of symbolism. I trust with the following, you'll be happy you sought out his books and visit his website.

I have the transcript for the talk John gave (we had a very warm and long talk together pre-and post presentation), and though it's long, with the recent revival of the post about fundamentalist views, I'm going to post the entire presentation here.

It's worth reading.

I don't have time to format it - I've got a friend in the hospital for cancer surgery this week, so my time on Gaia is limited. Here goes:

Part One of Three:
Alchemy, Doppelgangers, and the Irony of Religious
Objections to Harry Potter
by John Granger
paper presented Nimbus 2003, Disney World, Orlando Florida

Introduction
Let me begin my talk today by thanking those of you who rose early enough on a Saturday morning to hear a talk on ‘Harry
Potter, Alchemy and Literature’. When I read that I had been scheduled in this ‘slot’, I was simultaneously disappointed and
relieved: ‘disappointed’ because I imagined in my vanity that being a featured speaker meant that I would speak to a large
audience, ‘relieved’ because it seemed improbable that anyone outside of friends obliged to make an appearance would be here
today. It is flattering and frightening that a few others have joined my friends here this morning instead of catching another half
hour’s sleep or a bus to Disney World!
I must also thank the Nimbus 2003 gang, especially Penny Linsenmeyer, for flying me here to speak. Certainly I am not an
accomplished academic as many of the speakers here are and my thoughts about these books are not popular with many fans, with
most of those who dislike the books, or with the inhabitants of the Ivory Tower. I have to acknowledge the act of courage on the
part of my sponsors in acting on their conviction to invite me; I will do my best to show they were right in thinking I had
something to add to this conversation.
So who am I and what will I be trying to say this early Saturday morning? As you have heard, I am John Granger and I am
the author of The Hidden Key to Harry Potter. What you don’t know is that I am almost certainly less of an authority on these
books than most of the people around you, at least with respect to how many times I have read the books or how closely I have
studied them. The only thing of value, I think, which I bring to the discussion of these books is a perspective, a perspective that
perhaps I share with Mrs. Rowling.
This perspective is that of a classicist. Like Mrs. Rowling, I have an honors degree in Classical Languages and a love of
English literature, the Great Books, and even the great ideas. Mrs. Rowling looks at the world diagonally relative to most of us and
sees the magic; I believe this diagonal vision springs from her classical education and ideas of truth, love, and beauty - and her
consequent discomfort with modernity and disdain for modern ideas and institutions.
In my talk this morning, then, I hope to share with you one classicist’s perspective on Mrs. Rowling’s use of alchemy in the
Harry Potter books. Unless I am much mistaken, understanding these books as alchemical writing - in the tradition of such usage
among the English ‘Greats’ - will explain otherwise bizarre events, plot turns, and names in the novels. I think, too, that a right
understanding of alchemy will shine some light on the questions of whence the worldwide popularity of these books, in what way
Christian objections to them are ironic, and why the almost uniform approach of scholars to the books as cultural artifacts to be
dissected is an exercise in self-parody.
So let’s begin.


Socrates’ Challenge
Anyone talking to a 21st century group about alchemy finds himself in the position of Socrates in his Apology before the
Athenian jury. Socrates was charged, you recall, with corrupting the youth of the city and for supplanting the gods of the city with
gods of his own invention. He was found guilty, despite his remarkable speech in his own defense, and put to death. He
complained in the opening of his defense that he was not so much afraid of the charges brought against him in the trial as he was
of his “earliest accusers” who “took hold of so many of [the jurors] when [they] were children and tried to fill [their] minds with
untrue accusations against [him]”, most notably Aristophanes in his comedy, ‘The Clouds.’
Socrates told the jurors his biggest problem was that “I must try, in the short time that I have, to rid your minds of a false
impression which is the work of many years” (Apology, 19a). As I prepare my notes on alchemy, I recognize Socrates’ challenge -
and I have to hope for a better or, at least, a less lasting verdict! What modern people know of alchemy in my experience is almost
inevitably wrong and, frankly, horribly wrong, so wrong that the use of alchemical imagery in English Literature from Chaucer to
Shakespeare, Donne to Blake, from Shelley and Yeats to C. S. Lewis, Joyce, and Robertson Davies - not to mention Mrs. Rowling -
must seem absurd.
So I have three tasks before me. First, I must in a very brief time explain what alchemy is and what it isn’t (despite what
your chemistry teacher, pastor, guru, or Jungian analyst may have told you alchemy was). Next, I must do a hurried survey of the
English ‘Greats’ to document their usage of alchemical imagery through the centuries and explain why the language of this
supposedly material or scientific procedure was so fit for expression of grand themes and meaning. And, last, I must explain how
and why Mrs. Rowling uses alchemy in the Harry Potter novels - and still have time for my conclusions and your questions. I hope
you are all wide awake and had a good breakfast!
Alchemy: What It Is and Isn’t

I grew up in 20th century America and was indoctrinated with my peers by inoculation with the popular misconceptions
that define our age (as popular ideas, cosmology, and blind-spots define every age). Perhaps the most important spell or charm
that entrances us as modern people is the belief that nature, and specifically, matter and energy, are all that exist. This belief,
sometimes called ‘scientific materialism’ or ‘naturalism’, right or wrong, is what important thinkers like Phillip Johnson have
called “the de facto state religion of the United States.”
As a good student and child of my era, I was a confirmed naturalist and held the physical sciences - biology, physics, and
chemistry - in the highest regard. Though I was a Classics major in Prep School and in College, I also studied AP Chemistry and
College chemistry at University. I knew the scientists were the high priests and power brokers, and I struggled to learn their
language and their secrets.
One of the first things you learn in chemistry classes, by asides and by osmosis, is that chemistry grew out of a kind of
medieval voodoo called alchemy, which pseudo science tried to isolate a philosopher’s stone that could turn all metals to gold and
bestow immortality on the alchemist. This is still the predominant idea of alchemy in the popular mind; “alchemy is stupid
chemistry.”
Publicity for a book coming out this November, The Last Sorcerers: The Path from Alchemy to the Periodic
Table by Richard Morris (Joseph Henry Press, 2003) puts it plainly:
What we now call chemistry began in the fiery cauldrons of mystics and sorcerers seeking not to make a better world
through science, but rather to make themselves richer through magic formulas and con games. But among these early
magicians, frauds, and con artists were a few far-seeing “alchemists” who, through rigorous experimentation, transformed
mysticism into science.
In this picture, too, is the second misconception about alchemy. Not only is it bad science and the way of charlatans,
alchemy is also about cauldrons, sorcery, mysticism, and magic. Alchemy certainly was a secret science but not in the sense that its
current reputation for being an occult practice would suggest.
The third misconception comes to us via Carl Jung, one of the 20th century’s most famous psychoanalysts, who devoted
decades of his life to the study of alchemical texts, imagery, and the meaning of these archetypes in the collective consciousness of
humanity and the dreams of individuals. Jung and his many followers certainly had a clearer appreciation of alchemy than do
disdainful naturalists and those who live in fear of the occult - but their psychological understanding of alchemy and position that
the alchemists were ‘Gnostics’ is a case of historical projection of one’s own empiricist and anti-religious beliefs into the past. Or so
the accepted authorities on alchemy now say (see especially Titus Burckhardt’s discussion of Jung and alchemy in Alchemy ,
Penguin Books, 1972, pp. 8-9 and Mirror of the Intellect: Essays on Traditional Science and Sacred Art, Quinta Essentia, 1987, pp.
59-66 and 132-141).
If alchemy wasn’t ‘chemistry for idiots’, witchcraft, or an initiatory path into the archetypes of our unconscious mind, well,
what was it? It was a spiritual path to return fallen man to his Edenic perfection.
To understand how a science of metallurgy and physical bodies could cause the purification and perfection of the
alchemist, body and soul, requires turning the modern world-view upside down. The alchemist, as all traditional people or nonmoderns,
understood man as essentially spirit (as man is created by the Spirit), then soul, then physical body rather then the
reverse. He believed the obvious, i.e., that the lesser thing comes from the greater thing and never greater from lesser. His personhood
or humanity he knew was a joining of soul and body without seam - and his tragedy was that he was ‘fallen’, i.e., that he had
had lost his spiritual capacity or ‘intellectus’ by means of which Adam walked and talked with God in the garden. Alchemy was
the means, in conjunction with the Mysteries of the Church (or temple or mosque - there are alchemies in each
of the revealed traditions), that he could regain this lost capacity; the substance changing from lead to gold was his soul
and the riches he would glean were spiritual riches (i.e., immortality).
He was able to do this by effecting a similar change in metals. Because the traditional world view does not hold that there
is a chasm between subject and object, that is, that objects do not have independent existence from their observers and vice versa,
an alchemist understood the substances with which he worked as being related to him as night and day, male and female, sun and
moon, and the other complementary antagonistic pairs which reflect the polarity of the Creative Principle or Word (think ‘yin &
yang’). This relationship amounted to a correspondence; as he purified himself in obedience to the work, the work would
advance and his soul or bodily consciousness would go through correspondent changes. This was not magic or work independent
of nature but an accelerating of the natural work by observance of supernatural, even contranatural Principle.
Titus Burckhardt, who with Mircea Eliade is the authority on the history and meaning of alchemy, wrote:
Alchemy may be called the art of the transmutations of the soul. In saying this I am not seeking to deny that
alchemists also knew and practiced metallurgical procedures such as the purification and alloying of metals; their
real work, however, for which all these procedures were merely the outward supports or ‘operational’ symbols,
was the transmutation of the soul. The testimony of the alchemists on this point is unanimous (Alchemy, p. 23).
‘To make of the body a spirit and of the spirit a body’: this adage sums up the whole of alchemy. Gold itself, which
outwardly represents the fruit of the work, appears as an opaque body become luminous, or as a light become
solid. Transposed into the human and spiritual order, gold is bodily consciousness transmuted into spirit or spirit
fixed in the body…. This transmutation of spirit into body and of body into spirit is to be found in a more or less
direct and obvious manner in every method of spiritual realization; alchemy, however, has made of it its principal
theme, in conformity with the metallurgical symbolism that is based on the possibility of changing the state of
aggregation of a body (Mirror of the Intellect, p.132).
As metals change from rough ores and solid states to more and more pure conditions by change of sates (to liquid and gas
and re-condensation) and combination with catalysts and purifying agents, the alchemist affected changes in himself by
corespondent changes in his bodily consciousness while attempting the work.
The Western alchemist by attempting to ‘kill’ the ingredients, to reduce them to the materia prima, provokes a
sympatheia between the ‘pathetic situations’ of the substance and his innermost being. In other words, he
realizes, as it were, some initiatory experiences which, as the course of the opus proceeds, forge for him a new
personality, comparable t the one which is achieved after successfully undergoing the ordeals of initiation ( Eliade,
The Forge and the Crucible, University of Chicago Press, 1978, p. 158-160).
[Eliade points out that Jung was write to have supposed that alchemy had a soteriological role for the alchemist (The
Forge and the Crucible, p.11) but in Jung’s assumption that the alchemist was primarily a gold seeker who experienced
individuation (by contact with the archetypes of change in the collective unconscious) is 180 degrees off. Jung restricts the work to
the psychic or animic sphere and to the unconscious or subconscious part of this sphere; alchemy is essentially a super conscious
or spiritual work that happens through correspondence with archetypes that are above not below individual consciousness (cf.,
Burckhardt, Alchemy, pp. 8-9).]
So what was alchemy? It was a traditional or sacred science, ancillary to the work of the revealed tradition and its means of
grace, for the purification and perfection of the alchemist’s soul in correspondence with the metallurgical perfection of a base
metal into gold. It requires a view of man and of creation or cosmology that is opposite and contradictory to that of the physical
scientist and chemist of today, of whom alchemists had only disdain; they thought of men who were interested in matter for its
manipulation as “charcoal burners” and anything but wise. To an alchemist, the chemist neglects the greater thing in the lesser
thing - and in himself.  

[LadyHealingHands]

Part Two:
Alchemy, Doppelgangers, and the Irony of Religious
Objections to Harry Potter
by John Granger
paper presented Nimbus 2003, Disney World, Orlando Florida

Alchemy and English Literature
Alchemy as a sacred science was never an American adventure. This science went into precipitous decline and corruption
at the time of the Renaissance through the Enlightenment when it was eclipsed by the materialist view and priorities of modern
chemistry. Though there was a glut of publication of alchemical work in its decline, this is evidence of its corruption because the
work is only passed from master to apprentice and books contain only the most arcane and hidden guides to the work,
metallurgical and spiritual.
American readers, consequently, are unaware of alchemy except as the chemists, the illegitimate and disowned children of
the alchemists, want us to remember them. This is perhaps no great loss, except for its reinforcement of our naturalist state
religion, but it does have one consequence that touches on Harry Potter fans. English Literature is rich in alchemical language,
references, themes, and symbols from Chaucer to Rowling; to be ignorant of this language and imagery is to miss out on the
depths and heights of Shakespeare, Blake, Donne, Milton, even C. S. Lewis and James Joyce. Mrs. Rowling, as I will demonstrate
in a moment, is not ignorant of literary alchemy. The Harry Potter books individually and as a series are built on alchemical
structures, written in alchemical language, and have alchemical themes at their core.
Before I just touch on the use of alchemy in English Literature and attempt to explain why an arcane and sacred science
plays such a big part in the history of English letters, let me give you three quick references so you can learn more about this on
your own.
First, get yourself a copy of Stanton J. Linden’s Darke Hieroglyphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the
Restoration (University of Kentucky Press, 199 cool . It is the academic review of all the treatments of alchemy in literature - to
include the number of playwrights and writers who satirized and disliked the charcoal burners as well as the adepts - from the late
Middle Ages to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
[Though he does not discuss this, the writers of the twentieth century who revive alchemical usage, Joyce, the Inklings,
Eliot, are the men who revive interest in and appreciation of the writers of this period (C. S. Lewis, for example, writes the ‘Oxford
History of the English Language’ volume for the 16th century, celebrates the world view and intention of its authors in his
Discarded Image, and, after Charles Williams, writes explicitly alchemical novels in his Space Trilogy).]
Next, find Lyndy Abraham’s A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery (Cambridge University Press, 199 cool . There are several
guides and dictionaries of alchemy but Abraham’s is the champion and I will refer to it often this morning. In addition to first class
entries on stages of the work and specific citations of alchemical references used by authors over many centuries, there is an index
for the serious student of, say, Shakespeare or Blake, for easy access to this remarkable resource on alchemy in literature.
And, last, or almost last, ask for a sample copy of ‘Cauda Pavonis’ (Latin for ‘the peacock’s tail’). As they describe
themselves, “Cauda Pavonis publishes scholarly material on all aspects of alchemy and Hermeticism and their influence on
literature, philosophy, art, religion, and the history of science and medicine. Our approach to Hermeticism, is of necessity,
interdisciplinary and not limited to any particular historical period, national emphasis, or methodology.” For more information,
contact the editor Prof. Kate Frost at the University of Texas or the assistant editor, Roger Rouland
.
[And, while I’m listing resources, here’s web site for those of you who may want to learn more about alchemy, with or
without literature: http://www.levity.com/alchemy/index.html. The site is a mixed bag but it is a very big bag!]
I give you these hurried references because there is not time this morning or this weekend truth be told to do justice to
‘Alchemy in English Literature.’ If you’re familiar with the topic, these resources are a great helps to a deeper appreciation, and, if
this is all new to you, they are accessible introductions.
For just a taste, though, of how understanding alchemy opens certain writers, here is an entry from Abraham’s Dictionary
of Alchemical Imagery for ‘red tincture’. The ‘red tincture’ is the red elixir of the philosopher’s stone that when thrown upon base
metals changes them into gold. As Abraham explains:
It was thought that just one ounce of the tincture could transmute over a hundred or a thousand times its own
weight of weight of base metals into pure gold. Shakespeare used ‘tinct’ in its alchemical sense in Anthony and
Cleopatra when Cleopatra says to her ‘base’ attendant Alexas: ‘How much unlike art thou Mark Anthony!/ Yet
coming from him, that great Medicine hath/ With his tinct gilded thee’ (1.5.34-36). Milton likewise used this
metaphor when, in the creation scene in Paradise Lost, the stars multiply their light and Venus ‘gilds her horns’
from the sun’s quintessential source, ‘By tincture or reflection’ (7.364-9) (Dictionary, p.169).
William Blake, too, assumes his readers know their alchemy. As Alexander Roob explains in his Mysticism and Alchemy:
The Hermetic Museum (Taschen, 2001), the two complementary and antagonistic principles of the alchemical work are where he
begins his artistry:
William Blake identified the male principle with time and the female with space. The interpenetration of the two
results in diverse reverberations of individual events, all of which, taken as a whole - totality, the micromacrocosmic
body of Christ in the image of the “human and the divine imagination - occur in a state of relative
simultaneity. Each individual element opens up, in passing, into the permanent present of this fluctuating
organism and in the process attains its “fourfold”, complete form, which Blake calls “Jerusalem”. This vision
generated the kaleidoscopic, narrative structures of his late poems, which reveal themselves to the reader as a
multi-layered structure of perspectival relations - aimed against the prevailing idea of a simple location of events
in the absolutes of linear time and space (p.25).
Alchemy, then, is key to understanding Blake’s last illuminated poem, Jerusalem, and his several paintings of Newton
whom he singled out for his mechanical and rational view. James Joyce in turn refers to both these works of Blake and other
alchemical ideas and images in his Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake (Alchemy & Mysticism, p. 482, 630). These are difficult writers
and the best; to understand them requires at least a grounding in alchemy. If I had the two hours I thought I had, you would be
hearing about Shakespeare and C. S. Lewis as brothers in letters and in alchemy. Alas. No time for Taming of the Shrew , Romeo &
Juliet, or That Hideous Strength!
Even if the alchemy-literature connection is all news to you and you will go the grave believing alchemy is just for New Age
nits or Historians of Science, I’m going to ask you to play along with me. Pretend, please, as if you accept it as gospel truth that
English Literature from beginning to Rowling is front loaded with alchemical devices and images. Why, if this is the case, I
hope you will ask, should this be so? What is the connection between alchemy and literature that makes these images the
preferred tools of the best writers for centuries?
I think the connection is probably most clear in drama. Eliade even suggests that the alchemical work grew out of
initiatory dramas of the Greek Mystery religions (Forge, p. 149). Shakespeare doesn’t just make asides to alchemy in his plays;
many if not most of them are written on alchemical skeletons and themes. The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and
Cleopatra, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labours Lost, & The Merchant of Venice come to mind; see
Jean Paris’ ‘The Alchemistic Theatre’ (Shakespeare, Grove Press, 1960, pp. 87-116), and Martin Lings, The Secret of Shakespeare
(Aquarian Press, 1984). Frances Yates’ The Art of Memory (University of Chicago Press, 1974, p. 365) argues persuasively that
Shakespeare built the Globe Theatre on Hermetic principles for the proper staging of his alchemical dramas. Why?
If you recall your Aristotle on what happens in a proper tragedy, the audience identifies with the hero in his agony and
shares in his passion. This identification and shared passion is effectively the same as the experience of the event and the audience
experiences katharsis or ‘purification’ in correspondence. Shakespeare and Jonson among others use alchemical imagery and
themes because they understood that the work of theatre in human transformation was parallel if not identical to the alchemical
work. The alchemical work, of course, claimed to be greater than an imaginative experience but the idea of purification by
identification or correspondence with an object and its transformations is ‘spot on’ with the purpose of theatre, to risk a
Britishism.
Alchemical language and themes are the shorthand of great English novels, drama, poetry and prose. The
success of an artist following this tradition is measured by the edification of their audience. By means of
traditional methods and symbols, the alchemical artist provides delight and dramatic release for our souls
through archetypal and purifying experiences.
Let me say that again slowly.
Alchemical language and themes are the shorthand of great English novels, drama, poetry and prose. The
success of an artist following this tradition is measured by the edification of their audience. By means of
traditional methods and symbols, the alchemical artist provides delight and dramatic release for our souls
through archetypal and purifying experiences.
That may be harder for some of us than the whole idea of alchemy as a sacred science. If you’re like me, you grew up with
the idea that entertainment was diversion and anything but life changing. It turns out this ‘diversion’ idea, really only in currency
for the last seventy or eighty years, is a gross misconception. Anthropologists, historians of religion, and professors of literature
will tell you that the rule in traditional as well as profane cultures such as ours is that Story, in whatever form, has an instructional
or initiatory purpose.
Eliade in his The Sacred and The Profane is explicit in saying that, in a profane culture especially, entertainments to
include reading fiction serve a religious function; they remove us from our ego-bound consciousness for an experience or
immersion in another world or subcreation. C. S. Lewis in Preface to Paradise Lost asserts that this is the traditional
understanding of the best writers, namely, that their role in culture is “to instruct while delighting.” Alchemy and literature are a match because they both endeavor in their undegenerate or orthodox state to transform the human person.

Joanne Rowling, Alchemy, and Harry Potter

On Monday of this week I was sent a discussion from ‘Harry Potter for Grown-ups’ of The Alchymical Wedding of
Christian Rosenkreutz as a source and model for the Harry Potter series. The authors, Ivan Vlabatsky and William Truderung
draw many fascinating parallels between the 7 days of one and the 7 years of the other (HPfGU posts #56254 and 56297).
Vlabatsky concludes, astonishingly I think, that Mrs. Rowling probably has not read and re-written Andreas' drama but that she
was inspired by the same "Masters of Compassion" who inspired Andreas, the authors of “the New Testament, the epic of
Gilgamesh, the legend of King Arthur, the Tao Teh Ching, etc.” These Masters, I learned Monday, “are the gate keepers who
constantly keep the door of liberation open for those seeking freedom.”
I cannot answer the question of whether The Alchymical Wedding is the source and model of the Harry Potter series.
Certainly it bears serious attention, even for those who worship at the altars of the Masters of Compassion. If she did, she won’t
have been the first to do so. Shakespeare, for example, some have said, writes scenes almost direct from The Alchymical Wedding
in his Merchant of Venice (Paris, op.cit, pp. 98-99). Whatever the answer to this specific alchemical question, however, other
larger questions about Mrs. Rowling and alchemy will remain. I’ll do my best to answer some of these questions here, specifically:
• How can we tell if Mrs. Rowling is intentionally using alchemical imagery?
• What signs of the alchemical work are evident in the books individually and as a
series?
• How does understanding the alchemical themes and images of the series
improve our understanding of the books and their power to charm and delight young and old around the world?
Here at last is the part you came for; let’s jump in!

How can we tell if Mrs. Rowling is intentionally using alchemical imagery?

A question I am always asked when I say Mrs. Rowling is writing alchemical literature in the tradition of English
Literature is how I know she is. The implication, sometimes voiced, is that I have an agenda to show she is doing this in order both
to support my thesis that she is writing within the traditions of her genre (rather than being an ex machina monster or goddess
that fell from the sky) and to demonstrate a side-thesis, that, in being a traditional English writer she is almost certainly a
Christian writer, whatever her orthodoxy. These questioners I have found will accept no proof as sufficient reason to accept my
common sense observations and alchemical thesis other than Mrs. Rowling’s testimony that she is an alchemist, the illegitimate
daughter of C. S. Lewis, or a secret Bishop in the Church of Scotland.
As far as I know, and I am far from current on the track of reading Mrs. Rowling’s various interviews, she has made no
such confessions. She has insisted that she is a Christian and that her faith is important in understanding her work (see, for
example, `You can lead a fool to a book but you can't make them think: Author has frank words for the religious right’, Max
Wyman, Vancouver Sun, 11/25/2001) but I think her fans will need her to walk the stations of the Cross as a penitente through the
streets of Edinbirgh or on the via dolorosa to be convinced she isn’t putting on a show.
If the author has not said, though, that alchemy is at least part of the magic of Harry Potter, how can we know or test the
books to see if it is or isn’t? I suggest the following tests for evidence in support of the alchemical thesis:
• First, the evidence should be fairly clear - we shouldn’t have to be practicing
alchemists ourselves to see the connections and the evidence shouldn’t need to be tortured and twisted to fit the
procrustean bed;
• Second, the books should show both a design akin and parallel to the stages of
the alchemical work and a bevy of imagery and symbols that are taken from this same work; and
• Third, this evidence should not have another as likely or believable explanation
from traditional or conventional literature.
Which three tests takes us to our second question!

What signs of the alchemical work are evident in the books individually and as a series?

Test One: Is the Evidence fairly Obvious or is it Procrustean?
I give you three pieces of evidence to demonstrate that the alchemy connection screams from these books and is not
tortured or even teased from them:
1. Book Titles:
a. The title of the first book in the Harry Potter series, as you all know, is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s
Stone. Only Arthur Levine’s brilliant marketing decision - the brilliance of which I’m not sure even he appreciated at
the time - to change the title to Sorcerer’s Stone obscures the alchemical title. If the man in the street knows anything
about alchemy, it is that alchemists pursued the Philosopher’s Stone to turn lead into gold. Even P. G. Wodehouse
wrote a Jeeves novel based on the Philosopher’s Stone!
b. Warner Bros. has reserved the title Harry Potter and the Alchemist’s Cell for the sixth or seventh novel;
again, not hard to see the alchemy in that - it’s on the cover of the book.
2. Alchemical Characters:
a. Albus Dumbledore, we learn on the first train ride to Hogwarts by reading his Chocolate Frog card - which
distinction we learn in Order of the Phoenix he treasures above all his titles - is an alchemist of some reknown, even a
partner of the famous Nicolas Flamel. This relationship, it turns out, is the key to unraveling the mystery of what is
hidden at Hogwarts in Harry’s first year.
b. Hermione Granger’s name, as several of the names in the books as we’ll see in a moment, has an
especially obvious alchemical reference in it. ‘Hermione’ is the feminine form of ‘Hermes’, who beside being the Greek
messenger god (Mercury), was also the name of the great alchemist ‘Hermes Trismegistos’ in whose name countless
alchemical works were written through the centuries.
3. Harry’s Transformations from Lead to Gold
The alchemical work is about changing the soul from lead to gold, failing to virtue; is this evident in the title character’s
transformations in each book? Yes, it is.
a. Philosopher’s Stone: as the novel opens, Harry is an orphan child who lives in fear of his Aunt and Uncle
and without any knowledge or delight in who he is. By book’s end, he shows himself a champion of remarkable
courage and daring - and reconciled to both his parents’ death and destiny as a wizard.
b. Chamber of Secrets: Harry begins the book as a prisoner both of the Dursleys and of his own self-doubts
and self pity; at the heroic finish in the morality play acted out in the Chamber, he is the liberator of Ginny and
vanquisher of Tom Riddle, who is an incarnation of selfishness and self-importance.
c. Prisoner of Azkaban: Harry blows up Aunt Marge on Privet Drive because he cannot overlook her slights
of his parents; in the crucible of the Shrieking Shack, he rescues the man who betrayed his parents to Voldemort by
offering his own life as a shield to him! Unforgiving judgment to Semi-divine Mercy in a year.
d. Goblet of Fire: Harry begins the book consumed by thoughts of what others think of him, his external
person; by book’s end, after trials with Ron, the Hogwarts student body, and a dragon, he is able to shrug off without a
dent or tear a Daily Prophet hatchet job beaconed to all corners of the wizarding world.
e. Order of the Phoenix: Harry is consumed by a desire of news at the beginning of the latest book. He
struggles to listen to television reports, agonizes over the lack of reports from friends, and wanders his neighborhood
in search of newspapers in trash cans. At the end, he is aware of his need to turn inward and discover and strengthen
his inner life; his extroverted dependence on the outer world and events has become his point of vulnerability by
which Voldemort manipulates him (and causes Sirius’ death).
Test Two: Are both the design and predominant imagery of the books alchemical?
In a word, ‘Yes’. This will require some knowledge and reference to details and to stages of the alchemical work the
average reader cannot be expected to know but the design and imagery of the Potter series are indeed from the alchemical work.
1. Design
a. Sulfur/Quicksilver - Ron/Hermione: Let’s start with a pretty straightforward one. The Alchemical work is
a series of purifications of a base metal from lead into gold that is accomplished by dissolving and recongealing the
metal via the action of two principial reagents. These reagents reflect the masculine and feminine polarity of existence;
‘alchemical sulfur’ represents the masculine, impulsive, and red pole and ‘quicksilver’ or ‘alchemical mercury’ the
feminine and cool complementary antagonist. Together and separately these reagents and catalysts advance the work
from base metal to corporeal light or gold.
Harry’s two friends are Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron, the red-head, passionate boy and Hermione,
the brilliant, cool young woman are Harry’s never fail companions. They are also living symbols of alchemical sulfur - Ron
- and mercury - Hermione, again being the feminine of the Greek name for Mercury. Together, and, more obviously, in
their disagreements and separation, Harry’s friendship with Ron and Hermione transform him from lead to gold (as
discussed above).
[For those involved in the ‘ship-ping debate about whether Hermione is meant for Ron or Harry in the end, this
point suggests the eventual love match of Ron and Hermione. “Medieval alchemists adopted from the Arabs the theory
that all metals were a synthesis of mercury and sulphur, whose union might achieve various degrees of harmony. A
perfectly harmonious marriage of the mother and father of metals might produce gold” (Mark Haeffner, Dictionary of
Alchemy, Aquarian Press, 1994, p. 147). When Ron and Hermione stop quarreling and hook-up, Harry’s perfection is
near.]
b. The Stages of Alchemy - The Cycle of each book: Maybe you knew about the action of contraries in
alchemy and about mercury and quicksilver; it is the background, after all, to all the twins in Shakespeare and the
remarkable pairings of men and women in his better plays (think Taming of the Shrew!). Probably fewer people,
though, know the stages of the alchemical ‘Great Work’ and what happens in each. What has often been described as
Harry’s annual hero journey is in fact the cycle of the alchemical transformation - and each stage of the work, in case
you need a road sign, has a character named for it in the Harry Potter books.
The first stage of the alchemical work is dissolution, usually called the nigredo or the black stage. In the black,
initial stage, “the body of the impure metal, the mater for the Stone, or the old, outmoded state of being is killed, putrefied,
and dissolved into the original substance of creation, the prima materia, in order that it may be renovated and reborn in a
new form” (Abraham, op. cit., p. 135). Sirius Black is named for this stage of the work.
The second stage of alchemical transformation of lead into gold is the albedo or white work. It follows the
ablution or washing of the calcified matter at the bottom of the alembic, the washing of which causes it show the ‘peacock’s
tail’ (cauda pavonis) or the colors of the rainbow before turning a brilliant white. “When the matter reaches the albedo it
has become pure and spotless” (Abraham, op. cit., p.5). Albus Dumbledore is the character with the ‘white’ name; ‘albus’ is
Latin for ‘white, resplendent.’ Frequently used symbols of the albedo stage of the work in pictorial representations and
descriptions of it are Luna (Latin for the moon) and a lily.
The third and last stage of the chemical work is the rubedo or the red stage. “When the matter of the stone has
been purified and made spotless at the albedo it is then ready to be re-united with the spirit (or the already united spirit
and soul). With the fixation, crystallization or embodiment of the eternal spirit, form is bestowed upon the pure, but as yet
formless matter of the Stone. At this union, the supreme chemical wedding, the body is resurrected into eternal life
[my emphasis]. As the heat of the fire is increased, the divine red tincture flushes the white stone with its rich, red colour…
The reddening of the white matter is also frequently likened to staining with blood” (Abraham, op.cit, p.174). Rubeus
Hagrid has the red name; ‘rubeus’ is Latin for ‘red’ (the Latin for ‘black’, of course is ‘niger’ so Sirius’ name is translated to
English for obvious reasons). A common symbol of the red work and the Philosopher’s Stone is the red lion.
I offer for your consideration the possibility that the formula for each book thus far is a trip through these stages.
Briefly, the black work or dissolution is the work done on Harry at Privet Drive by the Dursleys and in the dungeons by
Snape at Hogwarts. The white work is Harry’s study time or year at Hogwarts under the watchful eye of the white
alchemist, Albus Dumbledore, in combination with and painful separation from Ron, Hermione, or both. The red work is
the crucible scene underground or in a graveyard in which Harry always dies a figurative death and is saved by love in the
presence of a Christological symbol. The resurrection at story’s end each year is the culmination of that year’s cycle
and transformation. The cycle then closes with congratulations and explanations from the master alchemist and a return
to the Dursleys for another trip through the cycle. [For more on this, please see Chapter 6 of The Hidden Key to Harry
Potter and the individual chapters devoted to each of the first four books.]
c. The Alchymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz: William Truderung has drawn remarkable parallels
between the years at Hogwarts that we have and the first four days of Johann Andrea’s Alchymical Wedding, a drama
of the cycles and stages of the alchemical work told as a story. Here, for example, are Truderung’s comparisons with
the first day of Christian’s adventures and Harry’s first year at Hogwarts:
First Day:
- CRC is living in cramped accommodations, with minimal food
- a terrible storm arises
- during the storm, an `otherworldly' being appears, and delivers a
letter to him
- the letter is heavy, sealed with a curious symbol with a Latin
phrase, and written in gold letters
- upon opening, the message is an invitation to attend a wedding,
which CRC was at birth entitled to attend
- near the end of the first day, CRC descends (in a dream) into a
dark dungeon, containing a peculiar stone
- CRC is presented with seven `challenges'; six inside the dungeon,
and one at the entrance above it, and during the final challenge
inside the dungeon receives a wound to the head from the stone, but
is rescued by his mentor, a wise old man
The seven HP challenges: Fluffy (entrance above the dungeon); the
Devil's Snare; the Keys; the Chess Game; the Troll; the Potions; the
Mirror (inside the dungeon)
HPfGU, post #56297
I think without much prompting even the casual reader sees the remarkable similarity and story between Philosopher’s
Stone and The Alchemical Wedding. The parallels continue through Day and Year 5, to include an injury to Christian’s hand in his
fifth day adventure (read The Alchemical Wedding: http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/chemical/chemical.htm). I cannot vouch
for this theory because I have not studied it but I am obliged to mention it as a remarkable possibility when pointing to alchemy as
a design for the series. (The Alchemical Wedding is a seventeenth century story, be fore-warned; even if borderline heretical, I
think the unprepared reader will be taken aback by its forthright Christian tone and content.)
d. The Nigredo
Closer to my heart is the possibility that alchemy is the explanation for the structure and bizarre events of Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix. I went out on a limb in my book and predicted that HP5 would be the white stage of the alchemical
work or albedo and that it would culminate in the death of Albus Dumbledore after he told all to Harry about his destiny. Need I
say I was wrong? I thought that the wizarding world couldn’t get much blacker or Harry more burned down than he was in Goblet
of Fire so that the nigredo or black work was over.
Again, need I tell you how wrong I was? Order of the Phoenix from its hot and dry beginnings and sojourn in the House of
Black to the police state of Dolores Umbridge (‘grieving resentment’ or ‘grievous shadow’ - ‘a woman who blocks the sun’?) and the
death of Sirius Black in the Department of Mysteries is the nigredo volume of the Harry Potter series. Harry, literally and
figuratively, is burnt up, broken down or dissolved, and bled until everything that he thought he was - Quidditch seeker, Ron and
Hermione’s superior, pet of Dumbledore, lover of Hogwarts, son and spitting image of a great man, victim of the Dursleys, valiant
enemy of Snape, even his being the hero and man of action in time of crisis - are taken from him or revealed as falsehoods. The
boundaries of his world collapse; the Dementors come to Little Whinging and Aunt Petunia knows about them. Privet Drive is no
longer a sanctuary, however miserable, and Hogwarts is no longer edifying or any joy to him. The world is no longer separated into
good guys, Muggles, and Death Eaters - and Harry has been reduced to his formless elements.
A kind friend and serious student of alchemy and literature in the United Kingdom, Alison Williams, has written me to say
that she thinks the predictions I made in Hidden Key are ‘spot on’ - only a book early. I, of course, think she is brilliant! Whether
the white stage is to follow this black novel however (and a climax in book 7 turning on Hagrid the Red), there is little doubt that
Order of the Phoenix is Rowling’s nigredo masterpiece; I felt shattered and undone and released from ideas of self and place
throughout the book - and a new person at the end, as is our Harry.
2. Imagery and Symbolism
I hope this will suffice at least as an argument, if not a demonstration or proof (which is hardly possible short of Mrs.
Rowling’s confesion), that the Harry Potter books are built on an alchemical formula or structure. I have to fly on to alchemical
imagery and symbolism if I hope to be done by lunch today - unless you all want to continue on the beach? No? Then let’s hurry
along.
We think of symbolism, after being trained by mechanical teachers and lifeless texts, as cardboard signs; ‘this represents
that.’ “The white whale is a symbol for God, Mrs. Johnson,” we al learned to say in 10th grade English. Alchemical and real literary
symbolism, however, is a different beastie entirely than what we hated in school. An authentic symbol is a means of passage and of
grace between what is real and the shadow world of time and space. As Martin Lings, author of Symbol and Archetype, wrote in his
book on the mysticism and alchemy in Shakespeare’s plays:
Symbolism is not arbitrary, but is based on the very nature of things, on the make-up of the universe. According to
all cosmological and metaphysical doctrines, whether Eastern or Western, earthly phenomena are nothing other than the
shadows or reflections of spiritual realities. The symbolism of a thing is its power to recall its higher reality, in the same
way that a reflection or shadow can give us a fleeting glimpse of the object that casts it; and the best symbols - the only
ones worthy to be used in sacred art - are those things which are most perfect of their kind, for they are the clearest
reflections, the sharpest shadows, of the higher reality which is their archetype (Secret of Shakespeare, Aquarian Press,
1984).
The great authors of the English tradition are no dummies. Shakespeare, Milton, Herbert, Donne, Blake, Joyce, Lewis,
Charles Williams, Tolkien - the reason they write in alchemical symbols is because they are what Lings calls “the best symbols”,
“the clearest reflections… of the higher reality.” These symbols do the job literature and drama set out to do.
Joanne Rowling is no dummy either. Her books are quite simply stuffed with alchemical images for our edification and
transformation in the alchemy of reading. Here are three quick examples: the images in Goblet of Fire, in Order of the Phoenix,
and the gang of doppelgangers in all the books.
a. Goblet of Fire images from alchemy:
The events of the Tri-Wizard Tournament and Harry’s preparation for each trial by fire, water, or labyrinth are
wonderfully engaging and fantastic in the root sense of that word. You should know, too, that each is from the alchemical work. A
quick review of the tasks and search of guides to alchemical imagery in literature reveals the role in the Opus Alchymicum of
dragons, the egg, the prefect’s bath and water trial, the labyrinth and the graveyard resurrection and fight.
i. dragons: symbols of matter at the beginning of the work being resolved into philosophical
sulphur and mercury (Abraham, p. 59)
ii. the egg: “the alchemist’s vessel of transmutation in which the birth of the philosopher’s stone
takes place…; also known as the griffin’s egg” (Abraham, p.66)
iii. the bath: “the secret, inner, invisible fire which dissolves and kills, cleanses and resurrects the
matter of the Stone in the vessel” (Abraham, p. 17)
iv. water immersion/flood: “One of the alchemist’s maxims was, ‘Perform no operation until all
be made water’ (Eliade, Forge, p.153). “A symbol of the dissolution and putrefaction of the matter of the Stone
during the black nigredo stage” (Abraham, p.7 cool
v. labyrinth: “the dangerous journey of the alchemist through the opus alchymicum…. While in the
labyrinth of the opus, illusion and confusion reign and the alchemist is in danger of losing all connection and
clarity” (Abraham, p. 113)
vi. grave: “the alchemist’s vessel during the nigredo” In alchemical lore, frequently a copulating
couple are buried and die but, in their death, their spirits are joined and the Hermaphrodite body rises from
the grave. This is the alchemical ending of Romeo & Juliet and why their deaths resolve their families feud
(Abraham, p.90)
All the alchemical images of Harry’s four Tri-Wizard tasks are preparatory for the black stage of the great work or
nigredo, to come in Order of the Phoenix. How did I miss it? (It was the reason I thought the nigredo was over!)
b. Order of the Phoenix images from alchemy
Maybe you think I just got lucky with Goblet of Fire? Here is a quick look at the alchemical symbols in Order of the
Phoenix:
i. Nigredo As mentioned above, the real Black work happens in Order of the Phoenix. Harry has
been undone by his experiences - he knows his parents aren't gods, he can't play quidditch, his own lack of
self-awareness causes his godfather's death, he can't act at will, he can't get information, God/Dumbledore is
strangely absent, the world hates him, he suffers privately for the truth ("I will not tell lies"), and his friends
are honored before him. This dissolution (nigredo), though, is not his purification (albedo) and so we are left
at book's end with only the formless dregs of Harry's character, which, frankly, aren't pretty.
ii. the Black King: Kingsley Shacklebolt is not a token black character but an alchemical reference
to the “black king.” The king of the alchemical work must die, usually by drowning, and “at this stage the
matter is at its blackest black and is known as the black king” (Abraham, p.111).
iii. Dung: Sirius and his friends call Mundungus Fletcher (‘world-filth arrow maker’) “Dung” as an
affectionate nickname. Given the subject of this book, it is also a hoot that dung was the heat source for the
first stage of the alchemical work and even “became a name for the matter from which the miraculous,
rejuvenating elixir or Stone was made” (Abraham, p. 62). Expect big things from Dung.
iv. Luna: “Luna is the bride, the white queen, consort of King Sol. She is the moist, cold, receptive
principle which must be united with Sol, the dry, hot, active principle in the chemical wedding” (Abraham, p.
120). A girl friend for hot and dry - burned to a cinder - Harry? Just in time: Luna “symbolizes the attainment
of the perfect white stage, the albedo, where the matter of the Stone reaches absolute purity” (Abraham,
pp.119-120). Look for Harry and Luna to be a couple in HP6 - much to Hermione’s and Professor
McGonagall’s disgust.
v. Caput Mortuum: One of the weirder images of Order of the Phoenix is the heads of dead house
elves lining the stairway at the House of Black (‘house’ by the way is alchemical language for alembic or
vessel). I first thought Mrs. Rowling was pointing graphically to the sufferings of house elves and their
disdainful treatment of these ‘Kreachers’ (which leads to horrible consequences for everyone). Which she may
well be doing - but ‘head of the dead’ is also symbol for - what else? - “the initial stage of the opus, the black
nigredo” (Abraham, p. 31). How appropriate for wall hangings in the House of Black!
vi. James/Lily: James Potter and Lily Evans at last become three dimensional in Order of the
Phoenix and we get to see the reason or at least one experience that causes Snape to hate Harry so much.
Harry gets to watch his 15 year old father, of whom we are told again he is almost a mirror image, and learns
that his dad was something of a conceited bully whom his mother at that age despised. ‘Lily’ is synonymous in
the alchemical work with ‘Luna’ (see above and Abraham, p. 117-1 cool . No doubt we will learn in the next books
how James was tried in the fire to win the lily that reflects the achievement of the second stage of the work.
‘James’, incidentally, is an alchemical name; St. James is the patron saint of alchemists (Roob, op. cit., p.700).
vii. Phoenix: And how about the title of this book and the sacrificial bird of this title, the loyal hero
that prevented my prediction of Dumbledore’s death from coming true in HP6? Sure enough, the phoenix is
an alchemical “symbol of renewal and resurrection signifying the philosopher’s stone, especially the red stone
attained at the rubedo, capable of transmuting base metals into pure gold” (Abraham, p. 152). The raven, in
contrast, is symbol of the nigredo, as by now you might have guessed with the several Ravenclaw players
featured in Phoenix.
And, believe me there are more! A quick run through one Alchemical Imagery dictionary threw light on all the following
subjects and symbols featured in the Potter series, each with an alchemical meaning that deepens Rowling’s decision to use them
in her story:
others : bee (Dumbledore), blood, bolthead, castle, cervus fugitivus (stag), raven (raven’s head), cupid,
eagle, griffin, lazy Henry (Harry), house, melancholia, metamorphosis (Tonks), night, orphan, red man and
white woman (quarreling couple - Ron and Hermione), king, serpent, ship, Sol, skeleton, sulphur, quicksilver,
tears, toad, unicorn, wolf, and worm
c. Doppelgangers
OK, enough about the alchemical imagery. If you think I’m making it up, well, I have sent all the arrows I have from that
quiver.

Before leaving alchemical imagery, though, I want to mention ‘doppelgangers.’ This staple of 19th century Gothic and
romantic fiction is of a creature or pair of creatures that have complementary figures or shadows, which shadows reveal aspects of
their character otherwise invisible. Think of Stevenson’s Jekyll & Hyde, Stoker’s Count Dracula, Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein and his
monster, and the Count of Monte Cristo. Rowling points to these shadows in her principal characters in a variety of ways:
i. As Animagi: How many animagi do we know of in the books? James, Sirius, Peter, Minerva,
Rita, for starters, and I’ll add Albus who certainly as a former Master of Transfiguration at Hogwarts and
alchemist has mastered this trick (I bet he’s the tawny owl that appears in several places). Nymphadora Tonks
as a shape changer (Metamorphmagus) deserves a special mention.
ii. Half-breeds/mudbloods/monsters: Half-breeds and mudbloods as well as two natured
monsters include Hagrid, Olympe, Fleur, Lily, Tom Riddle, Hermione, Remus, Tonks again and Severus
(assuming he is a vampire). Harry, because he grew up as a Muggle, has an honorary membership here.
iii. Threshhold characters (the ‘Liminal’): these are the folks in Potterworld that live in two
worlds or so far to the periphery of their own worlds that they cannot fit into the usual categories (good guy or
Death Eater, for instance). Snape leads this group, Dobby is a close second, Firenze, Hagrid, Remus, Peter,
Neville, squibs Argus and Arabella, Mundungus, and Percy - if he seems to have crossed the threshhold in
Phoenix - fill out the set.
iv. Twins, Pairs, and Brothers: George and Fred, the Weasley troop, Hagrid and Grawp, the
Creevey brothers, Sirius and James, Crabbe and Goyle, Ron and Hermione, Slytherine and Gryffindor, Lily
and Petunia, Lily and Narcissa (flowers of the same family), Peter and Neville (a cross-generational pair of
look-alikes), Harry and Dudley, and Harry and Neville (joined by the prophecy). And those Parkinsons!
v. Harry/Voldemort: Order of the Phoenix begins with three mentions of Harry’s feeling that his
skull has been split in two and one has to imagine it must crack right down that jagged scar. It turns out that
Harry’s head really is divided and he has an unwelcome guest. He isn’t carrying a passenger like Quirrell or
possessed as was Ginny but Harry has a double nature or shadow in his link to Voldemort - and his inability to
turn inward and confront this shadow is the cause of the tragedy at book’s end. Like his dad at 15, he was
willingly blind to the ‘back’ of his ‘front.’
vi. Magical Creatures: Double natured beasties featured in the Hogwarts Gallery include
Centaurs, Griffins, Hippogriffs, and the Sphynx with a special mention due to the phoenix , thestral, and
unicorn (because they are not what they seem, namely, bird or horse or even bird/horse/dragon).
That so many characters have a twin who is their likeness or antagonistic complement and so many others who live a
double existence between worlds makes this aspect of Potterworld - itself divided between Magic and Muggle domains - oddly
invisible to many. It’s everywhere and consequently ‘nowhere.’ I suggest for your consideration that this pairing or unity in
division is a central theme of the Harry Potter books and that it has an alchemical meaning.
The activity of alchemy is the chemical marriage of the imbalance “arguing couple” of masculine sulphur and feminine
quicksilver. These antipodal qualities have to be reconciled and resolved, ‘die’ and be ‘reborn’ after conjunction before
recongealing in a perfected golden unity. Certainly the similarity of this language to the Christian spiritual path is a remarkable
one - and understandably. The symbols of the completion of the alchemical work are also traditional ciphers for Christ, the
God/Man, in whose sinless two natures Christians are called to perfection in His mystical body, the Church.
But the old and the new man cannot live together in the same person or world - and this is Harry’s war with his
doppelganger or twin-in-spirit, Lord Voldemort. Love has overcome death in each of the books’ ending thus far; I expect this will
be the series’ end as well.  

[LadyHealingHands]

Part Three:
Alchemy, Doppelgangers, and the Irony of Religious
Objections to Harry Potter
by John Granger
paper presented Nimbus 2003, Disney World, Orlando Florida

3. Themes
I discuss four principal themes in Hidden Key: prejudice, death, choice, and change. How do these themes appear in the
light of alchemy? I think Rowling’s meaning crystallizes around the alchemical perspective of these ideas.
a. Death
Death is the necessary part of the alchemical work; only in the death of one thing, from the alchemical perspective, is the
greater thing born. (Alchemists frequently cite John 12:24 and Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection, Abraham, p. 2 cool . But Love,
the action of contraries and their resolution, transcends death; it is what brings life out of death, even eternal life and spiritual
perfection. This is a direct match with Rowling’s message about how to understand death and love.
b. Change
Alchemy is about transformation from lead to gold, the spiritual work of human life. Each Harry Potter novel is a
depiction of the process by which Harry is transformed - and each time we read and identify with his experience we as readers are
changed by this alchemy of literature, too.
c. Choice and Destiny
Harry’s changes have always come as consequences of his heroic choices; Dumbledore has never failed to let us know in
his farewell talks that it is one’s choices that determine who you will be not just your birthright (if you have any). But the
complement of choice or free will is fate and destiny - and this complement to choice appears in Order via the Prophecy of which
Harry (or Neville) is the fulfillment. Rowling is resolving the traditional chestnut of fate and free will alchemically; Harry has a
destiny in this prophecy and, I think, as Heir of Gryffindor, but he will only fulfill this destiny through his ability to make right
choices. This again echos the Christian/alchemical message that we are created as images of God, but, in order to become His
likeness, we must die to the old, fallen man in us, and choose rightly the means to our perfection.
Test Three: Better Explanations available?
So we arrive at long last to the last question of our tests of the evidence for or against Joanne Rowling being an alchemical
writer in the tradition of the English ‘Greats’. Are there better or just simpler explanations than all this arcane imagery from a
sacred science not recognizing modern distinctions of subject and object, spirit and matter? I can think of four contenders for an
easier way to see it.
1. Mrs. Rowling’s imagination: This is the simplest alternative and the suggestion of ‘Hans from Holland’
mentioned above, namely, that Mrs. Rowling’s use of alchemical imagery is either a happy coincidence or a case of artists in
different places and times being inspired by a the same playful muse. Frankly, I think this perspective is borderline misogynist
(I struggle to imagine someone saying it about a man of Mrs. Rowling’s educational pedigree) and insulting to her genius as an
author. Really, “it just happened”? Why not say she just “got lucky”?
2. Imaginative literature ‘compost’: Mrs. Rowling has said in several interviews that her books’ inspirations are
drawn from the compost in her mind of all the books she has read. Certainly this includes all the imaginative literature and the
Great books, poems, and plays of her native tradition. She did not say, however, that her inspiration went without careful
sifting and plotting (some seven years before the first book was written). Her characters, plots, themes, and imagery were not
items that she picked from the top of her imaginative pile without discernment. Again, no accidents - and not simpler or better
than the argument from alchemy and tradition.
3. Classical Literary ‘compost’: No different than the above compost except that this pile reflects Mrs. Rowling’s
classical education. Yes, Homer and Virgil are in the pile, too, and other non-Englishmen, but the further back we go in time
the more traditional and alchemical the view of the cosmos and the human person. Rowling definitely battles on the side of the
Ancients in Swift’s Battle of the Books.
4. Inkling and Christian references: Certainly the argument I like best is the one I made in Hidden Key to
Harry Potter. The argument there is that Rowling is an Inkling wannna-be and a throwback to the tradition of Greats prior to
the twentieth century who wrote edifying Christian entertainments and literature. This, however, is not substantially different
than the alchemical argument because the reason writers use the alchemical symbols and imagery is because it so powerfully
presents Christian truths for readers to experience imaginatively (as prelude to experiencing them liturgically).
Conclusion: I do not think there is a simpler or better explanation for the preponderance of alchemical references,
themes, structures, images and symbols in the Harry Potter books than the common sense notion that she is writing brilliantly
alchemical literature. Please note I am not saying alchemy is everything about Harry Potter you need to appreciate to understand
what the books are about; that would be ridiculous. I am saying, however, that understanding alchemy and its usage in the
tradition and in these books will take one a long way in appreciating the heights and depths of Mrs. Rowling’s genius

Conclusions
Let me wrap this up quickly with a challenge for you as you leave here and head off to your other lectures, presentations,
and panel discussions. I think the question we must all be asking at every talk we listen to here is this: Why are these books so
popular? What need do they fill? What longing do they satisfy? No book in our time or any other time that I know of (with the
possible exception of Dickens’ serials) has ever created such a following and diverse readership. As thinking people, we need to
understand why this is so.
I will take up my own challenge and conclude by asking myself: Does the alchemy connection answer the question of why
the books are so popular? If so, what is the alchemical answer to the many-times $64 million question? I think the alchemical
connection does answer the question. It points to the facts that:
1. Joanne Rowling clearly understands both ‘alchemy in literature’ and the ‘alchemy of literature’:
like Harry in Riddle’s diary, we fall into her books and are carried through a Magic Mountain roller coaster experience of
Harry’s alchemical transformation and the kaleidoscope of symbols, themes, and imagery from centuries of literary usage.
2. The reason the books are so popular is that they satisfy the need in us, born in a profane culture without heroes or
avenues of transcendent experience - a materialist world in which such experience is not considered possible by “serious
people” - of at least an imaginative experience of human transformation and perfection. We get this experience in our
identification with Harry and we are better for it, more human even, for having been for a while at least in the alembic vessel
changing from spiritual lead to gold, dying and rising from the dead. In brief, Joanne Rowling’s novels are so popular
because her works transform human person via imaginative identification, experience, katharsis, and
resurrection.
I will open the floor to questions on this last note. The great irony of Christian objections to Mrs. Rowling’s books because
they undermine or violate the tenets of the Christian faith is that the Harry Potter books offer initiation, not into the occult or
worlds of invocational sorcery, but rather into the symbolist world view of revealed faiths (and sacramental religions specifically)
and the dominant symbols and doctrines of traditional Christianity (as argued in my book). Ignorance of alchemy and the larger
traditions of English literature (not to mention the Christian understanding of the relations of faith and secular culture) have
brought many to turn away a great help, perhaps providential, in the trouble and struggle we have to prepare our children for fully
human, which is to say ‘spiritual’ lives.
Thank you for your attention this morning. If you buy my book, I’m giving away a free copy of this talk and my autograph!
The line forms on the left…


I bought his book, and that's how I came to have his transcript!
The Order of the Phoenix had just come out a week or so before the conference.  

[Empress_Kat]

LadyHealingHands: I'm sorry to hear about your friend, and I hope everything goes well.


Wow. That was quite a read. Well, I do certainly think that Granger knows what he's talking about. However, I still can't give Rowling the credit he thinks she deserves. It's the 'deliberate' bit that gets me. Yeah, she uses alchemical symbols. That's because, as Granger says, those are the best symbols. I mean, Rowling wrote in many 'Doppelgangers' in the form of transformation, twins, and connected characters. How this proves she knew what she was doing? How could she have written in so many characters without them being connected?

Name any decent book that could not have an equally long list of symbols, themes, and alchemical design. It has ceased to be about alchemy, so much as... that's what there is. There isn't anything else. I'm going with the 'imagination meets compost' theory he mentions. I'm not saying Rowling isn't a clever lady, the books just aren't as deep as Granger suggests.

Finally, before reading this article, I wasn't aware of much about alchemy. However, most, perhaps all of the themes and designs are thing that I would write into a fantasy book, because they are the kind of things that I know instinctively (an instinct built on much reading of literature) belong in a fantasy book.

Quote:

1. Mrs. Rowling’s imagination: This is the simplest alternative and the suggestion of ‘Hans from Holland’
mentioned above, namely, that Mrs. Rowling’s use of alchemical imagery is either a happy coincidence or a case of artists in
different places and times being inspired by a the same playful muse. Frankly, I think this perspective is borderline misogynist
(I struggle to imagine someone saying it about a man of Mrs. Rowling’s educational pedigree) and insulting to her genius as an
author. Really, “it just happened”? Why not say she just “got lucky”?
2. Imaginative literature ‘compost’: Mrs. Rowling has said in several interviews that her books’ inspirations are
drawn from the compost in her mind of all the books she has read. Certainly this includes all the imaginative literature and the
Great books, poems, and plays of her native tradition. She did not say, however, that her inspiration went without careful
sifting and plotting (some seven years before the first book was written). Her characters, plots, themes, and imagery were not
items that she picked from the top of her imaginative pile without discernment. Again, no accidents - and not simpler or better
than the argument from alchemy and tradition.
3. Classical Literary ‘compost’: No different than the above compost except that this pile reflects Mrs. Rowling’s
classical education. Yes, Homer and Virgil are in the pile, too, and other non-Englishmen, but the further back we go in time
the more traditional and alchemical the view of the cosmos and the human person. Rowling definitely battles on the side of the
Ancients in Swift’s Battle of the Books.