Everything I am sent about literary alchemy I read. Can you blame me? I am, of course, especially interested in thoughts on how alchemical images are used in Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. Later this week I will review one of the better things I’ve read on this subject, from a Jungian analyst’s perspective quite different than my own. Today, though, I want to share something I found while looking for alchemical thoughts to share here.

I can thank Professor Mum (thank you, Wendy!) for mentioning S. P. Sipal’s notes about the new covers, all of which were references to alchemy and processes in the Great Work. Following the urls Professor Mum sent, I learned that S.P. Sipal had written an essay on the alchemy in the series for a Galadriel Waters book called The Plot Thickens and, more recently, had posted an editorial on mugglenet.com called One Last Memory.

The alchemical points in this mugglenet essay are disappointing. S.P. Sipal does not understand what a Quintessence is, for instance, and what images and explanations s/he brought into play from Egyptian mythology and magic (a bunch!) I thought distracted from rather than supported her remarkable ideas about what really happened in Godric’s Hollow. These ideas are so good, though, that I look forward to reading the other alchemical things S.P. Sipal has written; the conclusions s/he comes to are so compelling it seems clear s/he just had a bad day with respect to the alchemy in One Last Memory.

I suspect that more than one English Literature Ph.D. has already been drafted on the subject of memory in Harry Potter. The subject begs serious treatment, especially with respect to Hermetic memory systems and Renaissance beliefs about memory in Florence and Northern Italy when magic was largely about memory (see Frances Yates’ The Art of Memory for more on this). S.P. Sipal does not begin this work or review even superficially the role of memory in the books — but, wow, what s/he comes up with in Sherlock Holmes fashion by revisiting the seemingly unnecessary trip the trio make to the fourth floor of St. Mungo’s in Phoenix. [Read more…]