Once upon a time, Travis Prinzi, the Young Lion of Potter Punditry, wrote to me to ask “what else” he could read that was written on a traditional, alchemical scaffolding. I recommended C. S. Lewis’ Perelandra because it seemed to me that, from Lewis’ use of the word albedo and the red-and-white “pie-bald man” to the Dance of Archetypal Contraries and the white coffin filled with red roses, it was a hermetic no-brainer. Mr. Prinzi wrote back not many days later saying how excited he was to recognize the alchemical signatures throughout the book, signs and symbols he gratefully and gracefully allowed I had taught him. I blushed then and blush now to say that I had missed many of the great catches he made.

I tell this story (forgive me, please, if you have heard it before) because another serious reader, this one in the UK and a George MacDonald scholar, claims me as his alchemical mentor — and, then, just as Mr. Prinzi did, he demonstrates that he has a much greater grasp of the essence and the mechanics of literary alchemy than his supposed master. For a delightful exegesis of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale, Cinderella, as an example of the power and flexibility of hermetic artistry, I urge you to read ‘unsettling wonder‘ at The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond.