Reddit reviews Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader

>So, since you seem to know a good bit about this, could you recommend some alchemical literature, and perhaps some advice about how to glean as much as possible from reading them?

So that I could glean as much as possible, to begin (and this is a no-no to some people), I read a few alchemical dictionaries. I started with a symbolic dictionary like this one, then got Mark Haeffner's alchemical dictionary, and moved to Lyndy Abraham's dictionary of alchemical imagery. Reading these saturated my mind with these symbols and their meanings.

I noticed you like music - you might look into some of the operas of Monteverdi. He practiced alchemy, was friends with many alchemists of his time, and certainly incorporated the art into his music. Also check out Music in Renaissance Magic. While alchemy isn't covered explicitly nor the term mentioned explicitly in the text, the concepts are all in that volume in a different guise.

As for literary texts, have you read much Yeats? Nearly all of his poetry has an alchemical tinge, and his alchemical triptych of short stories influenced me greatly. This may sound silly, but John Granger's introduction to alchemy via the Harry Potter series called Unlocking Harry Potter (written prior to the final HP book) is quite good. His later Deathly Hallows Lectures is good too, for similar reasons, though I'm not sure he truly grasps the profundity of the last few chapters of this book. If you're into hermeticism you'll (I hope) like especially his Lectures.

Have you read Boehme? He influenced most of the developments in alchemy post-17th century, and I consider him essential to understanding Qabalistic alchemy since his time. Manly P. Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages is a good introduction to alchemy and alchemical thinking, but Hall comes off a bit wacky sometimes.

After you get a foundation in the symbolism and such, just read. Visit Adam Mclean's Alchemy Website and check out what he has there. Read The Mirror of Alchemy, read Golden Dawn letters, documents, treatises. Read Crowley, read Regardie, Dion Fortune, and Atwood. Try to read in a way that sends you back in time to trace the development of the tradition. It's difficult to jump right into a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century (or twelfth- or thirteenth-century) alchemical text without the schema/foundation in your own contemporary dialect. I really believe you have to ease yourself slowly into the tradition moving backward in time.

The last recommendation I have for you to glean the most from alchemy is to keep a dream journal, either a notebook or a digital recorder of some kind.

I feel like I'm not being helpful. Let me know whether I answered you.

> Do you feel you gain something more than this, either through the meaning of what is read, or the process of deciphering it?

Yes, definitely, to both. What is gained cannot be expressed in rational dialogue, however; it can only be gained, conceived, and communicated through symbol.

John Granger (real human, no relation to Hermione) writes books about Harry Potter and alchemy such as Unlocking Harry Potter.