“Alchemy: the science of turning lead into gold. Or more often, the art of talking a lot of nonsense and charging handsomely for it.” — An old undertaker’s proverb (probably)
I’ve always had a fascination with alchemists. Maybe it’s the funeral director in me – the sense of cloaks, secrets, crucibles, and the unspoken transformation of matter into something finer (or decaying into something far worse). Alchemy straddles that delightful fault line between magic and madness, between science and sanctimony. It promises the impossible: eternal life, boundless wealth, spiritual enlightenment – usually delivered by someone who smells faintly of incense and fraud.
So imagine my glee when I found myself revisiting not one but three versions of The Alchemist, each offering its own flavour of lead, gold, and glorious delusion. Paulo Coelho gives us the mystic path to self-fulfilment. Ben Jonson mocks the very idea with riotous satire. And H. P. Lovecraft, bless his decomposing heart, shows us what happens when the transformation goes very, very wrong.
Let’s begin, as all transformation must, in the desert.
Coelho’s Alchemist: Sand, Stars, and Self-Help with a Camel
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – the book that launched a thousand yoga retreats and inspired every middle-aged executive who’s ever dreamed of leaving it all behind to sell crystals in Peru. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not without charm. Young Santiago, the Andalusian shepherd, dreams of buried treasure by the pyramids. But as he journeys, he discovers that he is the treasure, or the universe is, or perhaps the treasure was the friends he made along the way. Something like that.
It’s spiritual alchemy, really – the notion that one’s soul can be transmuted, if only one listens to the ‘Language of the World.’ There’s talk of omens, Personal Legends, and the Soul of the Universe – all very lovely, if a little bit like reading Rumi after one too many espressos.
I enjoyed it, I did – but I must confess, there’s something faintly irritating about the idea that the universe is conspiring to help me. Has it met me? I once reversed a hearse into a flowerbed at a crematorium, and not a single celestial body intervened.
Still, Coelho’s alchemist – a robed figure with gold in his hands and wisdom in his beard – is at least trying to uplift us. His alchemy is internal: transformation of the heart. If only he could do something about the price of Lurpak or the state of the NHS, I’d be more impressed.
Jonson’s Alchemist: Satire in a Plague House
If Coelho’s alchemist is the wise man in the desert, Ben Jonson’s is a con artist in a doublet, living it up in plague-ridden London while the upper classes froth with gullibility. The Alchemist (1610) is a riot – a caustic comedy of three chancers (Subtle, Face, and Dol Common) who promise gold, immortality, and magical cures to a procession of fools. Naturally, they deliver nothing but bunkum, theatrics, and extortion.
And yet – are they so different from Coelho’s wandering sages, really? Jonson was savage in his criticism, but I suspect he’d have had a field day with modern ‘life coaches’ and Instagram spiritualists. “Believe in your dreams!” they cry – just before charging £400 for a retreat in a yurt next to a sewage plant.
Jonson’s alchemist doesn’t believe a word he says – bit like our politicians. He’s a snake-oil salesman – again, bit like our politicians, – and his ‘clients’ – the lovelorn, the greedy, the puritanical – are every bit as corrupt – once again, well, you know who. It’s a game, a performance, a satire on class, hypocrisy, and human vanity. If Coelho’s shepherd follows his Personal Legend, Jonson’s characters chase their personal delusions all the way to the edge of farce.
And honestly? I found myself rooting for the conmen.
Lovecraft’s Alchemist: A Curse in the Castle
And then we come to H. P. Lovecraft, who takes all the fun and mysticism of alchemy and locks it up in a decaying castle, feeds it to the rats, and curses it with a generational vendetta. The Alchemist (written when Lovecraft was just 17, the little weirdo) is a gothic tale of ancient murder, family ruin, and inevitable doom.
Here, alchemy is not spiritual enlightenment or clever charlatanry – it’s horror. The titular alchemist has used his ‘art’ not to transmute metals or souls, but to poison a bloodline across centuries. Every male heir dies at age 32. (And I thought my thirties were rough.) The narrator, isolated in a crumbling fortress, uncovers the ghastly truth just in time for the curse to finish its work.
If Coelho is sunlight and Jonson is satire, Lovecraft is shadows, mildew, and madness. The transformation here is not golden or wise, but malevolent and irreversible. His alchemist is not a teacher or a trickster, but a revenant – vengeance made flesh, still lurking in the shadows of some ancient lab.
And honestly, of the three, it felt the most truthful.
So Then: What is the Alchemist, Really?
All three works are obsessed with the same question: Can something base become something greater? Whether it’s lead into gold, a soul into purpose, or a curse into climax, the idea of transformation haunts every version. But the outcomes vary wildly.
- Coelho says yes – and that the treasure is you.
- Jonson says no – but you’ll be fleeced anyway.
- Lovecraft says yes – but you’ll regret it bitterly.
What fascinates me is how each version reflects the anxieties of its age.
- Coelho’s 1980s mysticism speaks to a generation lost in consumerism, hungry for meaning.
- Jonson’s Jacobean comedy mocks the alchemical dreams of the Elizabethan elite, bloated with status and superstition.
- Lovecraft’s cursed aristocrat mirrors the early 20th-century dread of degeneration, decay, and the sins of the past.
And perhaps that’s why the alchemist endures – not as a character, but as an idea. A shape-shifter. A mirror. A promise, or a warning.
As for me, I remain a sceptic. My experience of transformation generally involves cremated remains, delayed paperwork, and a family argument over who gets the ashes. But I still keep a small, battered copy of Coelho’s book on the shelf. Not because I believe the universe conspires for my success, but because it’s nice to pretend – occasionally – that it might.
And if that fails, there’s always satire and horror to keep me grounded.
Postscript:
If ever I meet these three alchemists in some celestial pub – Coelho’s barefoot sage, Jonson’s smirking conman, and Lovecraft’s spectral lunatic – I imagine they’d argue about the definition of gold. And I, sat with my tomato juice and my Milly, would watch with glee. Because it’s not about the lead, the gold, or the method. It’s about the story. And in that, they’re all alchemists – spinning transformation out of thin air.
And charging for it, of course.
Wording 