Immediately the author states in the preface “there are no fixed doctrines in alchemy”. The author says that people should do whatever “feels right and good”, that they should develop their own philosophy, which she calls their own “philosopher’s stone”. Immediately, this book really frustrated me. This is the issue I have with many pagan books. No doctrine? So what you’re saying is you have nothing to teach me… so why right a book? Why waste my time and money?
It’s actually worse than that sadly! Because she has written a book about “alchemy”. Some people find alchemy hard to study and they will pick up this book assuming it will teach them about alchemy. By the end they will not understand alchemy, but will think that they do. They will lead other along that false path. The issues I have with the information in this book are countless. There are a number of errors, Ms Kindrid’s best guesses are presented as fact and she continually conflates her own sense of unity and her own Wiccan practice with every kind of spiritual progression in alchemy. It presents a difficult read, with inaccurate information about Wicca, Alchemy, a disregard for the truth, her own unverified personal gnosis presented as fact, entire races are presented as having a single homogeneous philosophy when it comes to Alchemy when they are just as diverse if not more diverse than Western Alchemy.
She has written a book that is very misleading. Too many people will stop here and not learn alchemy proper. This is a shame. I suppose I should be glad that she kept the history of the tradition secret and known only to a select few which was always the intention. Less and less people will study properly alchemy thanks to books like this and I am scared that alchemy, which has played such a huge part in our magical history, could be lost! This book and others like it are dangerous to our spiritual traditions and directly responsible for the loss of knowledge as it is passed down.
A Difficult Read
In a reading group, a lot of people found this to be a difficult read. I think this was because of the author’s style.
This author struggles to keep to the current subject. She often goes off on long journal entries, which only have a vague relevance to the current chapter. Frequently my friends have found themselves saying “will you get to the point” and “what was the point of the chapter”.
Also she has so little to say on most subjects so she suddenly needs to jump into another subject to have more to say. For example for separation, she jumps to air, then jumps to sound vibrations in the air, then jumps to the sound of drumming and then shamanic journeying. Naturally it is very hard to keep concentrating when you jump from subject to subject without giving you any new information. It leaves a person wondering where this going.
Complete Disregard For The Truth
This author shows a continuous disrespect for the truth. So often with regards to spirituality there is more consideration for the effect of a statement being taken for truth, rather than the truth of the statement itself. For example, the Oracle in the Matrix. She says “don’t worry about the vase” and as she says this the main protagonist, Neo, turns to looks at a vase and in doing so he knocks it over. Following a long conversation about the future and the nature of Neo, she reminds him of the vase finishing with “what’s really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything?” So it could be that he was never going to break the vase, but in believing he was going to break the vase, he did so. Could this work for some spiritual truths? Something might not be true, but there is a benefit in believing the lies.
This view however has encouraged some pagans to go around making statements with flagrant disregard for truth. Arguing that the effect of the statement is more import than the honesty in it. Some pagan moots operate on the principle “I won’t call you on your b. s. if you don’t call me on mine.” A view which perpetuates unhelpful self-delusion.
Glennie Kindred takes this disregard to new levels. By writing books about her spiritual doctrine she puts herself in the position of a teacher and leader of the community. Then from that position, she presents her self-delusions, misinformation, grandiose sweeping statements and massive over-simplification as fact.
She shows a real failure to think critically. Comments like “All smiths were considered to be Shamans.” could not possibly be true. There are still smiths in this world and some that are atheist sceptics and want nothing to do with shamanism.
This disregard for truth is very concerning in someone who is respected by so many. It concerns me that pagans have a poor choice in their ability to discern truth and just follow anyone, like lemmings. The whole point of being pagan is not needing to follow any person.
Unverified Personal Gnosis Presented As Fact
We all have our own spiritual experiences. This author presents her as fact. Anyone with any participation in pagan, magickal or occult tradition knows that two people can attend the same spiritual rite and do exactly the same ritual actions invoking the same spirit and often have two very different spiritual experiences. Therefore there is an unwritten rule that you don’t present the aspects of your inner experience as fact. If they might not be true for someone else, then… well… frankly… they might not be true. Then you present them as “your experiences”.
If people were meant to just learn from their own intuition then no book on teaching is of use to anyone. A book on teaching would lead people away from practising using their intuition. If instead people should learn traditions and history, they should read history. What then is the purpose of a person who relies on intuition writing a book about history? The only reason that remains is to write a book is as if it were a rite of passage to establish a reputation and that’s what so much of this book is. Whole passages are taken from the author’s own journal presenting their actions with big words. This a flagrant exercise in masturbating her own ego rather than a book designed to guide the community.
Entire Races Conflated
Her description of “Chinese alchemy” confuses Traditional Chinese medicinal theory with Feng Shui and massively oversimplified exoteric Daoist alchemical techniques which have been shared with Simplified Yang style Taijiquan. It is over simplified and refers to both the Jing and breath control as “energies” and demonstrates a lack of any reading into Chinese alchemy. She talks about how “Chinese alchemy” is done as if it all one cohesive practice rather than recognising the many different practices which make it up. Anyone who has looked at Damo’s Brain and Marrow washing technique knows that getting Qi flowing was not the full extent of the technique. Assuming all Chinese people practising alchemy do it one single way is actually quite racist.
Her brief mention of Indians using Yoga and Tantra as means of achieving alchemy as if each were a unified system of practice which she greatly simplifies into a single yogic practice, before mistranslating “breath control” as “prana”. She shows she has no understanding of either.
She mentions the “7 Chakras” which she says come from “the Hindu and Buddhist Metaphysical tradition” when actually they originate from various sects in the Hindu Shakti tradition, many of which practised working with them differently so there is not one single definitive practice. In the earliest referenced text about Chakras there are only 6 (the top “chakra” most likely being a state rather than a wheel).
She also speaks about them as if they are part of the subtle body and speaks about them being opened or closed. Contrary to popular opinion, the earliest practises show that they were perfect symbols laid over the subtle body not actually part of it. Also contrary to much of the western b.s. new age teaching, Chakras can’t be “unbalanced” or “closed”, they are in every way perfect. The body however can be a poor reflection of the Chakras in it’s microcosmic reflection of the universe.
I question why she bothers to write about things she has no knowledge of? Doesn’t she know that in doing so she will mislead people?
Egotistical
She writes a lot with “I” and “me”, going on about herself a lot. This makes some passages sound really egotistical. She gives us long tales about her experiences, but in non-repeatable situations, like the time she was with a flaming lamp in Glastonbury that had come over from Japan. How is a person supposed to repeat this and experience it for themself? If you were to write about something that other people want to experience, the focus should be on how to experience it, not what the experience did for you. I am concerned this author does not want other people to grow in the ways she thinks she has grown. She wants they to remain stunted to maintain her false sense of authority over the community.
Large sections are from her journal. They consist of long descriptions her just doing whatever she feels like with whole chunk of psychological psychobabble that she probably doesn’t understand. They are boring, self-congratulatory and an insult to people with psychological health issues.
She likes to use big words like “metaphysics”, she uses it twice in the first two pages, but doesn’t seem to have opened a philosopher’s book on metaphysics. “Interface” comes up a lot too and “Matrix”. I feel this is designed to alienate her experiences from the reader congratulating herself. Her lack of reading has resulted in a lack of vocabulary to explain what she is experiencing.
Sounding so egotistical makes her hard to read. I end up frustrated with her ego getting into the way of teaching. In fact this book is all her the whole way.
Lack of knowledge of Alchemy
My biggest issue with this book is the lack of information on alchemy and the presentation of false information as fact.
To begin with I am offended on behalf of Hermes Trismegistus that she keeps calling him “Hermes Mercurius”. I know she thinks she knows better than 2000 years of tradition, but call the spirits by their f**king name. Even if Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes the thrice-great) wasn’t originally his name and even if the deity after which he was named, Hermes, is the spirit of Mercury, the alchemical author has been called as Hermes Trismegistus for 2000 years not Hermes Mercurius. I recognise that Hermetics is a bit too male and we don’t want to kowtow to the male patriarchy, but there’s no need to start referring to Hermes Trismegistus as “she” or he/she. More frequently he is referred to as Thoth rather than Mercury. Also most Christian alchemists seem to think of him like a pagan prophet rather than a deity if so, he has been thought of as a man at least since at least 230AD when this was written and it likely reflects an attitude that was around for long time. To call Hermes Trismegistus by a different name or with non-binary pronouns could be quite offensive to him or anyone from his culture. It’s no wonder she runs so shy of actual alchemy.
Her concept of the quest for the alchemists gold was “To experience our wholeness, oneness and unity with all life”. This is not something normally mentioned in relation to the gold. If anything it would be the alchemical marriage, which Kindred describes as the union of consciousness and unconsciousness. This is a massive oversimplification. Nearly every single section she talks about feeling connected to everything and letting go of negativity. It’s the same experience over and over like she doesn’t have any other experience so she just conflates them all. Alchemy like I said is not just one homogeneous field and neither is it a homogeneous experience.
Sometimes she waffles about something that was another person’s metaphor for the experience. Not understanding that it was a metaphor she speaks about it like she experienced it objectively, which tells me she hasn’t had the experience she was talking about. Her inner peace is her elixir of life because it brings her health. I guess if you can’t find the elixir of life you should settle for having a Jolly or as she suggests dipping crystals into water, leaving out in the moon light and drinking it. This would be quite capable of making a person sick by ingesting heavy metals and water which has become contaminated so I don’t know how this is supposed to improve her health.
The planets were not always considered “gods” or “goddesses” through much of alchemy’s study in fact most alchemical diagrams indicate a believe in some sort of monad. The planets are often draw as spheres like shields surrounding the earth and the diagrams indicate they were full of spirits like angels. When you hear references to rising on the planes or going to outer and outer spheres. So she has misunderstood another aspect of alchemy by conflating it with her own practice of calling upon Wiccan deities.
Her comment about the mystic brother and mystic sister seems to be her superimposing her own Wiccan practice of the Great Rite over the alchemist; I can find no evidence for this. Alchemy did seem to recognise some sort of polarity in the reactions of chemicals that its students felt the need to represent some chemicals as female and some as male in the contexts of the chemicals relationship to each other. However in different context sometimes the same alchemist would represent the same chemical as the opposite sex so it wasn’t a set idea and there was no evidence to suggest that they actually dressed up, pretended they were chemicals and had sex. It seemed to represent something about the relationship between chemicals and this could be mirrored in man’s relationship to god, but alchemy didn’t involve physical sex. She also states out right that sexuality was the reason for the church’es fall out with alchemy. The church didn’t fall out with alchemy, it fell out with certain alchemists often because they wrote heretical things. Some used christian symbolism to encode their ideas and then sometimes ended up drawing something slightly blasphemous. Authors such as Francis Bacon would have his writings burned. Giordano Bruno was burned for heretical teachings like not believing in the trinity. There is no mention of sex so Ms Kindred has probably made this up too.
The author conflates her own feeling of “union” with every other spiritual success and erroneously equates them all. She goes on about love, healing and harmony as if that’s the only experience. Alchemy has a plethora of experiences not all lovey dovey. Alchemy works with chemicals of all sorts include those that were volatile, corrosive, acidic and rumoured explosive processes. Let’s just say these probably don’t all equate to a simple state of harmony.
I can only conclude that she has little to none knowledge of alchemy and attempted to write a book about it anyway.
Not accurate to Basic Wicca
Also she seems to have not only bent the teachings of alchemy out of shape to fit with her wheel of the year, but she also deviates from the typical Wiccan wheel of the year to try and fit with Ripley’s 12 gates of alchemy (the origin of which I’m sure eludes her).
She mixes up the words pentacle and pentagram unable to tell the difference between the two and she seems to think the pentagram in a circle was used by the ancient Celts to mean “the dark Goddess, the womb, the sacred temple of Life, the primal ground of creation where the secret key to all things lay hidden.” This is entirely b.s. there is no evidence that the ancient Celts draw this symbol or had any spiritual meaning associated with it. This woman needs to stop talking about her flights of fantasy like they actually happened. I wouldn’t mind so much if she was to say “based X evidence I have decided to draw the conclusion that…”, but she knows no evidence. I wouldn’t mind so much if she were to say “it would be nice to accept that …” or “modern witches like to draw a connection…” but she would rather distort the truth and present it.
She mentions using Bergamot for Fire when Scott Cunningham would put it with Air. Not that he is an expert or necessarily correct… But just because something has red flower does not exclusively make it a fire plant. She’s just jumping to quick conclusions rather than cracking a book again.
I feel like she only sticks to what she knows when it suits her and once again deviates from the truth to fit her current narrative.
Plagiarism
The majority of this book appears to be Glennie Kindred’s other work Earth Wisdom which has nothing to do with Alchemy which is why this has so little actual Alchemical research.
The rest of its seems to be taken from a Dennis William Hauck book interestingly she gives recommended reading, but the only books on alchemy that she recommends do not have the content she used to write this book, I guess she’s trying to preserve some appearance of secret knowledge to maintain her ego.
She fails to include a Bibliography. So we can’t be sure of the origin of her information. In the academic world this is considered plagiarism.
Psychology without Psychology
She often includes whole sections about psychological growth, but sadly she includes what she does without including how she did it. In my experience to say to a person “let go of your anger” isn’t normally enough. My friends have often responded, “how do I let go?”. It is my experience that often you need to go to the root of why they are clinging to it and find a part of themselves that is vulnerable and convince it that is doesn’t need to cling. Give it strength. Glennie Kindred writes:
After a while I realize what I want to do here today. One by one I toss the flowers I have brought into the water, each time naming what I am releasing with Love an compassion. I forgive myself, I forgive others, and I let go of all my turmoil and anxiety, my anger, my self righteousness.
I wish many of my friends and I could just let go of our anxiety. If it were that easy, it wouldn’t be the number 1 medical condition in the Western world. A book like this flies in the face of many of my friend who struggle a daily with their mental conditions. The psychological development necessary to do this involves more than just putting petals in spring water. It is actually an insult. Suggesting something they struggled with for years when the answer was so simple, belittling their condition and their struggle. While it might be healthy to regularly ritually meditate on these things a book which sets these things get done so easily isn’t welcome in my world.
Conclusion
This book is not worth your time to read it. Even if it was free. If you have a copy hand it into a second-hand book shop. Maybe write “the entire contents of this are inaccurate and not worth your time to read” in side the front cover.