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Social Alchemy: Creative & Participatory Dialogue Process

By Johann L. Botha and Jackie Elliott

Social Alchemy is the art of hosting transformational space together. An amalgamation of narrative-dialogical and creative-contemplative practices and attending to the change, transition, and transformation in our lives. This approach views life as change, and movement in various stages of metamorphosis, transformation, and transition, which we can participate in by the quality of the attention we bring to a situation. The aim is to attend in a creative and dialogical way, to the natural renewal and decay of life, to bring us back into harmony with our natural environment. We draw inspiration from alchemy as an experimental and observational process that reconnects the material body to the vitality of spirit to renew our related ways of being in the world.


A TASTE OF ALCHEMY

We may acknowledge Alchemy as a hermetic philosophy, a craft of metallurgy, or a rudimentary science of experimentation and observation as the pre-cursor to our modern-day chemistry, while at the same time not neglecting to become aware of the hidden inner life, psychology, emotions, and spirit of the alchemist. The western alchemical operations generally follow a three-part structure with Beginning, Middle and End.


Let’s start with the end in mind, in service of the telos that is the purpose and aspiration of the work. The end and purpose are often confused with the literal turning lesser metals to gold or brewing magical cure-all elixirs, which we treat as the fantasy of the work. There is very little, dare one say no reliable, evidence that suggest that anyone literally transformed lead into gold. Thus, Carl Jung understood that one should not take the end goal or “gold” of the alchemical work literally but as a psychological projection of the state of our psyche into a material form. For Jung (2014), in alchemy and the psychology of the individuation process. Sharp (1991) references Jung in saying that “The goal is important only as an idea, the essential thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime”. James Hillman (2015), an archetypal psychologist in the Jungian Psychoanalytic tradition, goes even further to say that we should not even see these goals as symbolic representation of psychological accomplishments. In a way Hillman recognises the gold-goal for what it is, a fantasy. Here in Social Alchemy, the goal is that which keeps us attending to our daily practice, mastering transformation not as a power over but as the ability to accompany the change and flux of life as it is, which in our view requires the exercise of our creative perception and imagination. To start the alchemical work, one needs to find the starting material or matter of concern working on you. This is called the “Prima Materia” often seen metaphorically as creative chaos in our lives. From the perspective of an Artist or Alchemist, the things that fall apart, corrupt and breakdown into chaos become the starting material to craft a new way to relate to self, others, and the world. The “Virgin Milk” of our ignorance, the “Dark Mountain” of unsurmountable problems or even the “Ash” of our burnt-out condition can become metaphorical starting materials in this transformational view of life. These concepts do not just hold abstract meaning but rather can illicit visceral images that engage our bodily senses, so that when we share their meaning, we bring more than just our minds into correspondence with one another. The middle part is the work, “opus” or often called “Magnum Opus” to signify the importance of doing this work. In Social Alchemy we attend to the daily reflective practice of our creative perception to bring our imagination in correspondence with one another and the world we share. Similar to myth making, storytelling beings with desires and needs for safety, security, belonging, status and accomplishment. There is a danger that we spin a web of narrative fantasy that does not correspond with others and the one world we live in. Fantasy may lead to world building which may lead us to think we live in different worlds rather than the one and same world we share. When out of balance, fantasy may cause separation, fragmentation, and confusion as we try and defend our constructed ideas of reality. Social Alchemy sees the value in our fantastical ability to create marvellous identities for ourselves, yet the work also seeks to open closed narrative positions in participatory dialogue with imaginative inquiry. Fantasy and Imagination are on the same continuum of creative perception. Fantasy works associatively to construct and rearrange new ideas or images, often with out of the ordinary associations like a “Frog talking to a Princess”, yet “frogs” “talking” and “princesses” is nothing new. The novel associations and linkages made can create new worlds of possibilities. Imagination rather than the construction of different worlds, is open and receptive to the possibility of life. Where life is viewed as a process of change and creation. This requires possibility, and with it uncertainty is born for it to have the freedom to continue creation. Imagination of this sort could lead to insight in the way and order of the cosmos, rather than seeking solace in different worlds of our making.


“Here in Social Alchemy, the goal is that which keeps us attending to our daily practice, mastering transformation not as a power over but as the ability to accompany the change and flux of life”

 

In the Opus there is various alchemical operations to draw inspiration from, possibly the most known creative process is to “Solve et Coagula”, to dissolve and coagulate the matter. In Social Alchemy we can interpret the use of narratives and stories as a kind of coagulation, identity formation process, solidifying self by weaving together our thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of events into a more fixed image that we and others can identify with. The clearer and pictorial the image, the more rigid and set it becomes. Thus, things like identity can easily become fixated on outdated ideas, which does not correspond well with the times, current scientific inquiry, or even with factual accounts of events. Then there is also the issue of bias and self-deception, to create flattering rather than true pictures of ourselves. In these and many more cases, we need self-dissolving practices like meditation and the type of dialogue that is not trying to make a point or picture of ourselves, but rather listen in and between and amongst all the points being made, akin to an alchemical solution that dissolve matters. It is not an either or. We are material beings who enjoy our unique characteristics rather than being a solution where all characteristics dissolve into a mix of equality.


This movement of being able to dissolve our self-image to create space for listening and seeing others as they are and yet to coagulate ourselves to be seen and heard in all our distinct ways of presenting ourselves,can keep us in dynamic balance and flow with life and each other. There are two streams of our social alchemical work that are worth mentioning here and we aim to bring together. The first is work as a craft and process working on matters that concern our material, embodied beings, and the second is working with Spirit. Spirit as the vitality and source of our renewal. In the remainder of the piece, we will only focus on the latter, to try and get a sense of the “spirit of the work”. This will help us speak more metaphorically and hopefully steer clear of getting trapped in the fantasy that we can deliver you a recipe to make gold, heal the world or become enlightened.


“Similar to myth making, storytelling beings, with desires and needs for safety, security, belonging, status and accomplishment”

 

THE SPIRIT OF THE WORK

The practice of what we call here the “spirit of our work” is bringing our attention to the sources of inspiration, aspiration and animating spirit, which serves as the well spring of our continuous creation and livelihood. The “spirit” is an elusive and a subtle idea often seen in opposition to “material things” which can be grasped. A grasping spirit would be counter to the spirt of generosity we hope to cultivate here. It is the spirit that moves us, guides us, or inspire us to do something. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Spirit is defined as the life giving “animating or vital principle” in all living beings. Spirit has the literal meaning of “breath” and so to be inspired means figuratively to breathe vitality in. On the one hand the vitality can be used to renew and re-create oneself at pivotal transition moments. On the other hand, our awareness is used to attend to the subtle animating principles of life to harmonise with it, rather than a self-interested guise and grasping to reinvent oneself for financial or status gains. The “spirit of the work” is a reminder that we don’t follow the letter of the alchemist’s word as a recipe for gold making or enlightenment. Our metaphorical use of alchemy serves as an experimental practice of our imaginations to open us up to relate the ways we creatively perceive the world, while being in correspondence with the natural order, change and flux of life.



What we currently have with Social Alchemy is an emergent hypothesis, a best guess, constructing ideas from various sources of our experience as narrative and dialogue practitioners. We could say that this hypothesis is itself a constructed fantasy, from various ideas and insights of those who’ve come before us. And like any hypothesis, it is only gaining insight after being tested to see if there is any truthfulness to our suggested way of dialogue. To start testing and exploring the spirit of the work, let us use the power of our associative intellect on the word “Spirit”. You (the reader) have a choice here, you can either follow our associative and fantastical thinking around spirit and help solidify a new identity, or you can try and remain open and receptive to the possibility the meaning of our words offer without trying to build on or solidify them.


“Our metaphorical use of alchemy serves as an experimental practice of our imaginations to open us up to relate the ways we creatively perceive the world, while being in correspondence with the natural order, change and flux of life”

Spirit as we currently understand is the animating or vital wellspring within us. The word “Spirit” draws its meaning from “breath”, “wind” or even “moving air”, subtle yet integral to continued living. Spirits is not only that which moves within to spur us on, but also moves among and through us like the wind through the willows. A sign of a healthy body is one where the air moves freely unhindered in and out of our being. To breath out your last breath, usually meansyou are dying – becoming inanimate. What happens when the “spirit” is not able to freely move but gets trapped inside? An association that comes to mind for us is being “possessed”. To some this word may conjure up a horror image where an exorcism is required, or an ambitious entrepreneur may recognise being possessed by an idea to create or pursue something. In the latter sense we could be possessed by the idea of gold making, fame or even the pursuit to become enlightened, this is not spirit trapped in our body but us besieged by a spirited obsession. In both cases we are trapped in it or it in us. Keeping with the horror fantasy, a ghost is a spirit unable to freely move away from person or place, haunting it. A cartoonish picture of a ghost in white sheets rattling chains comes to mind for us. Interestingly, the word “haunt”, also means to “practice habitually” and to “frequent a place”. With these meanings we can conjure up an idea that one could be haunted by unreflective habits, frequented by compulsive behaviour. Here the animating principle is not free but chained to us. Completing the repetition may bring relief for a fleeting moment from the tensions held by the compulsion, but it generates no vitality or renewal in us. No creativity, like an addiction there is energy only to repeat the same habit enchained. Conversely to be “inspired” is to be open and receptive for the spirit and vitality to be poured in and “aspire” is a conscious out breath of spirit, a “blowing upon” something you wish to actualise in your life. To aspire becoming a pianist, is to breath vitality onto your external practice, if you fail to breathe out, expressing the vitality in exercise, the potential will remain dormant as a dream inside you. What does all these patterns of movement of spirit conjure up in your imagination? The “spirit of dialogue”, following David Bohm’s (1996) inquiry into dialogue, is one where we are not trying to trap meaning, significance, and value in ourselves. The image he draws on is a “stream of meaning flowing among, through, and between us. This will make possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which may emerge some new understanding” (p.6). For Bohm, this is a creative act, and for us a way to participate in correspondence with continuous creation.


“Spirits is not only that which moves within to spur us on, but also moves among and through us like the wind through the willows”

 


We’ve briefly discussed the spirit of the work hopefully in a creative way to get a sense of the free moving, sharing of meaning, generosity and receptivity needed to participate in a process of tuning our creative perception. This spirit of generosity, participation and sharing may and does lead to our mutual renewal as we inspire each other with vitality and wonder. One can easily get trapped in the fantasy of personal renewal self-importance and self-interest known as the pursuit of the eternal fountain of youth. Thus the spirit of the work is to accompany the flow and flux of continuous creation in open receptivity and generosity with one another beyond a view of grasping for personal gain. One may wonder, is that just another fantasy?

Much still needs to be discussed around the matter of craft and process of the work that inspire questions like: how do we aim to use and balance the power of our imagination? What type of process work with the imagination are we actually suggesting here? It is important to emphasise the spirit of the inquiry that moves us is not a recipe or process to make gold. We do not have a recipe to brew a cure-all elixir , and regardless of this, we believe we should craft space for a creative correspondence with others and the world we share, so that we can become aware of our creative participation in life. What distinguishes Social Alchemy from other dialogue practices, is its emphasis on giving attention to our creative, imaginative and even fantastical faculties. It is becoming aware that we tend to construct new worlds and identities that have the potential to trap and separate us from one another, and our vitality to renew life. We would like to leave you with this intention: may we learn to attune the balance of our imagination to renew our eyes, renew our ways of relating with one another, in correspondence and harmony with the world we share.

 



 

References;

  • Bohm, D (1996). On Dialogue. 1st ed. London: Routledge.

  • Hillman, J. (2015) Uniform Edition Volume 5. Alchemical Psychology. Spring Publications.

  • Jung, C.G. (2014) Collected Works volume 12, Psychology and Alchemy. Bollingen Series XX, translated by R.F.C. Hull, edited by H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, and Wm. McGuire. Princeton University Press.

  • Sharp, D.(1991). Jung Lexicon. Inner City Books Online. https://www.psychceu.com/Jung/sharplexicon.html

 

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