Overview: This book deals with alchemy’s rich, multifaceted tradition from three perspectives - history, psychology, and nomothetic science - something rarely seen in other books on the same subject.

Verdict: Taking it from the beginning, quite literally, the word Alchemy comes from old French alquemie, alkimie, used in Medieval Latin as alchymia. Indeed, this name was itself adopted from the Arabic word al-kīmiyā.

Growing up I was privy to Tria Prima, the Three Alchemy Primes, which were Sulfur – the fluid connecting the High and the Low, sulfur was used to denote the expansive force, evaporation, and dissolution; Mercury — the omnipresent spirit of life, mercury was believed to transcend the liquid and solid states; and Salt — simply put, the base matter.

It is said that the very first Alchemist was Mary or Maria the Jewess, also known as Mary the Prophetess or Maria the Copt, and who was, if not the very first, definitely an early alchemist known from the works of Zosimos of Panopolis and other authors in the Greek alchemical tradition.

It is a fascinating subject matter to dive into and here in The Riddle of Alchemy, author Paul Kiritsis brings forth a quite breathtakingly engrossing, historically revealing prose on various cults, ancient practices and curious locales, and so much more.

Part I - Alchemy: Histories concerns the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural intercourse that occasioned the rich tapestry of alchemical tropes, themes, narratives, and pursuits, addressing the harmonious fusion of Hellenistic nature philosophy, Gnostic mythology, and Egyptian crafts and metallurgical practices in late antiquity - and much more, including the alchemy’s role during the Renaissance, its influence on Jacob Boehme’s theosophy, and its medieval imagery’s integral role in Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious.

Part 2 - Alchemy: Processes of the Mind looks at the alchemical opus and its stages in the context of analytical, developmental, and clinical psychology, offering psychological interpretations of the Splendor Solis plates and integrated alchemical interpretations of personality, personal growth, and the human condition.

Part 3 - Alchemy: The Noetic Science examines the empirical validity of alchemical theory and pursuit, addressing the viability of metallic transmutation, the theory of esoteric correspondences - the planet-metal connections - and how its animistic paradigm and principles of transformation might connect to more innovative, radical ideas emergent within the nomothetic disciplines.

About the Author - Paul Kiritsis, PsyD, MScMed, is a licensed medical psychologist living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has authored seven other books, including the creative compendium Confessions of a Split Mind (2017), the award-winning titles The Creative Advantages of Schizophrenia (2019) and A Critical Investigation into Precognitive Dreams (2020), and the collection of short stories Tales of a Spiritual Sun (2023).

He is an avid reader of books in neuropsychology, neurology, philosophy of mind, history, esotericism, and mythology. He lives in Redwood City, CA.

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