Book Review - The Alchemy of Inner Work
Author: Lorie Eve Dechar and Benjamin Fox
Category: Personal Development, Relationship
Quiver Score: 4.5/5
The Alchemy of Inner Work, by Lorie Eve Dechar and Benjamin Fox, is an exposition of an inner healing art that is incredibly valuable to practitioners. Yet, each of us – regardless of trade, title, or label – is ultimately our own healing practitioner, and this book is a gold mine of useful information that requires no external knowledge and only a willingness to explore inner terrain. “From an alchemical perspective,” Dechar and Fox inform the reader, “the light…you seek does not shine down from above, but rather rises up from the darkness below.”
Alchemy often stirs in the mind images of grey-bearded wizards in earthen-walled laboratories of centuries past mixing potions of plants, minerals, and bugs and striving manically to turn lead in to gold. As archaic as that may seem, modern inner alchemy is not wholly different as one stirs the emotions, memories, and sensations within to convert the dark matter of the soul into healing light. “The great insight of the early alchemists,” write the authors, “was that every person is born with the capacity to intentionally cultivate…light. But this capacity…does not function involuntarily. It requires…a willful engagement that shifts attention from the outer to the inner world, a readiness to focus not on your thoughts…but on the spacious awareness of the heart.” Modern alchemy is thus inner work – something many of us dare to probe while others push the leaden thoughts deep within while seeking external levity.
Although I am no stranger to the concepts of inner alchemy, The Alchemy of Inner Work is the first book I have read that is fully dedicated to unearthing the fundamental tools and practices of this healing art. With my interest in ancient wisdom and personal transformation, I feel completely aligned with the material that Dechar and Fox present to the reader to make this an extremely practical book. They structure the fundamental tools of transformation – dreams, plants, archetypes, and even acupuncture points – into self-contained chapters found in the “Laboratory” part of the book that the reader can experiment with at will depending on personal interest.
Not favouring matter over mind, the authors also provide a deeply philosophical opportunity for the reader’s inward journey. “Alchemy counsels us to go deeper than we believed we could go…to trust…even when we cannot see...to hold on to the belief that there is a glint of gold waiting somewhere in the darkness.” The lead that those wizened, bearded alchemists of antiquity sought to transmute into gold is the material within all of us, the prima materia, of our greatest tragedies and deepest suffering that holds within the capacity for our most significant growth – “to transform the suffering…into meaningful messages that hold the potential to illuminate the divine purpose of life.”
I find a measure of a good book is the visceral feeling I get when reading it. The Alchemy of Inner Work at times gave me chills, stirred wonder, and left me eager to mix into my own ongoing transformation. Dechar and Fox have presented the information in an illustrative yet concise manner, and even from the seemingly mundane, leaden words, the reader can extract gold.
For those who choose to read it, this book is a priceless alchemical tool for inner transformation, one that boldly leads us from the head to the heart. “Change in your life begins when you shift the focus of your attention away from the outer world – the others who are wronging you and the events you cannot control – and instead drop down from your thinking mind into the…spaciousness of your heart.”
