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On Thursday September 17th, 6-8 pm
Auditorium of the C.G. Jung Center (New York)
FREE in person event (registration required)
What is the Philosopher's Stone, and why has its pursuit endured for millennia? This talk moves through the architecture of alchemy – its symbolic systems, material experiments and metaphysical ambitions. Along the way, we'll consider the many forms the Philosopher's Stone has taken: a substance, a process, a state of consciousness, an artistic or spiritual achievement. We'll look closely at the strange methods alchemists devised in their attempts to realize the Stone: from body modification, to the drawing of sigils and encoded diagrams, to the use of fermented substances believed to harbour latent vital forces.
Seen together, these practices reveal alchemy as a hybrid field where experimentation, imagination and devotion converge. The Philosopher's Stone hovers at the edge of impossibility, and it is precisely this condition that opens a space for radical creativity. The quest does not resolve; it deepens, expands and continually renews itself across time.
This talk invites you into an ongoing, unfinishable pursuit – one that transforms the seeker as much as the sought, and suggests that the true 'great work' may lie in our capacity to pursue the impossible.
Image - Cabala, ca. 1700, Manly Palmer Hall collection of alchemical manuscripts, Getty Research Institute
On Thursday September 17th, 6-8 pm
Auditorium of the C.G. Jung Center (New York)
FREE in person event (registration required)
What is the Philosopher's Stone, and why has its pursuit endured for millennia? This talk moves through the architecture of alchemy – its symbolic systems, material experiments and metaphysical ambitions. Along the way, we'll consider the many forms the Philosopher's Stone has taken: a substance, a process, a state of consciousness, an artistic or spiritual achievement. We'll look closely at the strange methods alchemists devised in their attempts to realize the Stone: from body modification, to the drawing of sigils and encoded diagrams, to the use of fermented substances believed to harbour latent vital forces.
Seen together, these practices reveal alchemy as a hybrid field where experimentation, imagination and devotion converge. The Philosopher's Stone hovers at the edge of impossibility, and it is precisely this condition that opens a space for radical creativity. The quest does not resolve; it deepens, expands and continually renews itself across time.
This talk invites you into an ongoing, unfinishable pursuit – one that transforms the seeker as much as the sought, and suggests that the true 'great work' may lie in our capacity to pursue the impossible.
Image - Cabala, ca. 1700, Manly Palmer Hall collection of alchemical manuscripts, Getty Research Institute