How Alchemy Didn't Work, or The Heinrich Khunrath Wannabe

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 181518

Goddlefrood:

I've been considering whether to rewrite and post the
below effort for a while. I had my mind made up by
something that arose during a discussion at hp_essays
over at Livejournal. I apolgise to those who may have
read it at LJ and its earlier, but distinct,
incarnation here. Hopefully it's a little different
from recent topics, if nothing else. It was also asked
of me that I put it here (and you know who you are,
Mike), make of it all what you will.

I have added little or nothing based on book 7 to what
appeared here around 10 months ago, what follows is
more of an intellectual exercise rather than any
attempt to show that the series is based on any
alchemical system; that there are links to aspects of
the alchemical system should be clear enough by the
end. However, alchemy can by no means be said to be
the way of explaining the series. The series did not
reach the end of the alchemical cycle, particularly
the more involved seven stage cycle. IOW, the series
did not follow Harry far enough for the alchemical
process to conclude. By my reckoning it reached around
two thirds of the way into the three stage process and
less than half way into the more involved seven stage
process.

I always thought there was very little in the
alchemical based theories to predict death and I'll
explain why in this essay. There are, for starters, a
multitude of alchemical systems. Herein I limit myself
to two relatively well-known examples.

(i) The three stage system.

Stage one - Nigredo - meaning blackening. This stage
of the alchemical process refers primarily to what
happens before there can be any progress towards the
goal. All that has been formed is broken apart and
becomes dark and dead. It would have been more
appropriate to compare the basic stage system to
Harry's reactions to death rather than to try to have
made it into a pattern of how the deaths roster
proceeded. Few, if any, alchemy essays and / or
speculations seemed to consider this, excepting my
own.

Basically, Sirius's death leads to a shattering of all
Harry's beliefs in the inherent underlying goodness in
the wizarding world. Black's death marked the end of
Harry's wonder of all things wizarding. From that
point on he is focused to his task of tracking down
and destroying Lord Voldemort and all his evil works.

Stage two - Albedo - it refers to the whitening or
enlightening of the process. Albus Dumbledore
throughout HBP had been preparing Harry for what lay
ahead. Harry is being taught and through that teaching
he reached the point by the end of HBP that he was
aware of what he must do to move forward in his quest.

The wise old wizard must be got out of the way for the
hero to proceed, this has been achieved and JKR has
also referred to it as something that had to happen.
The upshot is that Albus had to die, but not because
his name meant white, as Albedo on a literal
translation does not.

Albedo in fact has its roots in washing or cleansing.
Harry had gone through the process of cleansing
himself to proceed by both coming to terms with the
deaths of his mentors and by accepting what he must
do.

The final stage - Rubedo - has its roots in love,
despite it often having been interpreted as the
reddening phase for the alchemy based death prediction
theories (leading to Hagrid's death - which, as we all
know now happened). It was be through love that Harry
conquered Lord Voldemort. There doesn't seem to be
much real dispute about that and it had been a theme
that had run throughout the series. Love being the
power Voldemort knew not was his ultimate downfall.

Oh, sorry, no it wasn't. Despite the build up and the
many references to love, ultimately it wasn't love
that led to Voldemort's demise. It was luck, which was
foreshadowed a long time ago when Harry once said
something along the line of: "I didn't know what I was
doing, I got lucky."

Rubeus Hagrid was fine. Fred Weasley's death lends no
credibility to the Rubedo stage predicting the death
of someone linked to red. That Fred had red hair was
by the by.

(ii) The seven stage system

1. Calcination
2. Dissolution
3. Separation
4. Conjunction
5. Fermentation
6. Distillation
7. Coagulation

There are four, and possibly more, ways of
interpreting the seven stages of the alchemical cycle
as set out above. The four would be chemically,
psychologically, physiologically and societal. It is
the latter of these that is dealt with in what
follows. It may enable you (generic) to fit Lord
Voldemort's, and more importantly perhaps, Harry's
journey into a scheme that tallies with the seven
stage process as opposed to the three stage process
that has been referred to earlier.

As mentioned in section (i) an alternative way of
construing the three stage process can lead to a
conclusion that it is Harry's development through that
that could have been a key to understanding how his
journey towards his goal was to be achieved. Like I
said though, it only works up to the second stage and
the third stage rather puts the kibosh on alchemy as a
way of explaining what was going on in the series as a
whole.

Taking the societal method for the seven stage process
and transposing that onto the seven stages of
Voldemort could lead us somewhere interesting. With no
further ado here it is:

1. Calcination in societal interpretation is compared
to heroes or revolutionaries who attempt to subvert
the status quo. In terms of fitting that to PS/SS it
does not really work. However, if we go back to the
beginning of Lord Voldemort's first rise it may do so.
His goal appears to have been to oust the existing
regime and impose his own rule over the wizarding
world.

2. Dissolution is the time of purging the Earth of all
that is deficient and it seems to me that in his own
mind Lord Voldemort wanted to do just that. This is
quite easily divined from his spiel towards the end of
CoS as well as GoF. His two lengthiest speeches in
canon in fact. The first from his younger self and the
latter from his contemporary self after he had
regained a body.

3. Separation then equates to the formation of a new
order. This appears to me to be a reasonable
extrapolation of what Lord Voldemort wanted to do. It
starts once the process of ridding the wizarding world
of its chaff, as he saw it, had been achieved. The
ground has been prepared in stage two for stage three
to progress.

4. Conjunction is simply where the new society has
been created and is moving along the road to its final
form, as it kind of was post the Ministry's fall.

5. During the fermentation stage the new culture is
developing its own ideology in terms of arts,
sciences, magic development (as this is tied to the
fictional world of Harry Potter). In the typical
system espoused comparing the seven stages of societal
development this is also the point at which religion
becomes established in whatever form that might take.

6. It is at this point that it is no longer reasonable
to compare the sixth stage of societal development
(Distillation) to what Lord Voldemort had
contemplated. This is because the sixth stage is where
nirvana is reached through a process of society
commingling into one and striving towards a common
search for truth.

Momentarily I will attempt for my next trick to fit
Harry into the seven stage societal alchemy schemata.

It fits Harry rather better than it fits Lord
Voldemort, as I hope will become clear. It also
somewhat complements part (i). The difference is that
the reading of the societal version can be used to
project what Harry has to do from the end of Deathly
Hallows (excluding what I will loosely call the
Epilogue).

Thus distillation and the final stage of coagulation
do not easily fit in with comparison to Lord
Voldemort's story arc, IMO.

Up to a point, therefore, it was possible to fit Lord
Voldemort's story into the seven stage alchemical
cycle, but it falls down after stage 5 as far as I'm
concerned. It is my view that Lord Voldemort's chosen
path the second time around was very similar to his
previously chosen path. He repeated his errors and
that ultimately led to his second and permanent
downfall.

Before going on to Harry there is, if interested,
available a good outline of the seven stage alchemical
process from four perspectives, being chemical,
psychological, physiological and societal offered at
this site:

http://www.deeptrancenow.com/exc3_calcination.htm
(Magpie, this one works :-))

Perhaps someone else might be interested in using that
as a basis for a theory on how the process was at work
in the series, if it was at all. 

Back though to Harry. Making some comparisons to the
societal method led me to a similar, but distinct,
conclusion. Using the same system outlined above,
let's go back to stage one. This is, remember, based
on the societal version of the seven stages of
alchemy:

(i) Calcination compares to heroes or revolutionaries
who attempt to subvert the status quo.

Harry set out his stall early in terms of not
accepting help from the Ministry of Magic, for my
purpose the established regime. He had his own plan,
albeit one that relied a great deal on luck rather
than good judgment. On that basis he subverted the
method that had been used against Lord Voldemort
during his first rise as much as Dumbledore had with
the establishment of the Order of the Phoenix.

(ii) Dissolution is the time of purging the Earth of
all that is deficient.

This goes hand in hand with Harry's primary goal in
that to achieve that goal he must first overcome many
obstacles, which included, but were not limited to,
the destruction of the remaining Horcruxes and the
resolution of various conflicts with others who barred
his objective. These others were Lord Voldemort's
massed forces of darkness consisting of the giants,
the Dementors, the Inferi, the werewolves and the
Death Eaters - not all of whom actually did take a
part in Voldemort's offensive.

(iii) Separation then equates to the formation of a
new order.

This stage goes mostly to what will need to be done
once Harry succeeded in neutralising Lord Voldemort.
There should be a process of cleaning up the wizarding
world in general that may include a new Minister of
Magic or even a new system of Government entirely
within the wizarding world. It should also precipitate
more equality for less favoured magical beings and
improvement in relations between the magical world and
the real world in terms of potential co-operation
between them, but not in terms of realignment of the
two.

(iv) Conjunction is simply where the new society has
been created and is moving along the road to its final
form.

This in and of itself is self-explanatory and needs
little further expansion.

(v) The fermentation stage of the new culture is when
it develops its own ideology in terms of arts,
sciences, magic development. This is also the point at
which religion becomes established in whatever form
that might take.

That also seems clear enough. I had thought that JKR
would give some expansion of how religion within the
wizarding world worked, a forlorn hope as it turned
out.

(vi) Distillation. This sixth stage is the point at
which the society progresses further and justice and
truth have taken a firm grip so that the society can
finally be realised in its final form in stage seven.

(vii) Coagulation is the last stage at which point
there is a return to a paradisaical state and that
would have been a rather satisfying point to have
reached by the end of the story.

Post-DH it seems to me that in terms of Harry's story
arc comparative to the seven stage societal based
alchemical cycle the story only progressed as far as
stage 3. Some vague hints were there that progress was
being made towards a more enlightened and tolerant
society. Those pointers were sometimes so vague as to
be almost unnoticed, and in any event were of little
or no consequence. What happened next is something
that we are all left free to decide, always presuming
that Ms. Rowling does not want us to take her post-DH
statements seriously, as I do not.

Goddlefrood in whose VHO alchemy does not assist too
much in our understanding of the Harry Potter series
as it stands, whichever way one slices it. Care to
convince me otherwise?


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