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Alchemical Imagination & Metaphors of Substance - Paul Ferguson - 07-17-2026
"Alchemy is popularly viewed as a secret way of turning worthless base metal into gold, and then a precursor to modern chemistry.
This is often taken as a metaphor for psychological development.
This book describes an innovative "third way" for both the education and exercise of an alchemical imagination that embraces both material matters and psychological insight: alchemy as lyrical poetics, or the intensive production of embodied metaphor.
Alchemy here is viewed as an immanent set of metaphor-driven "best practices" for indwelling complex and contradictory earthly matters in a sensual, artistic and humane manner. Or, again, it describes best psychotherapeutic practice."
https://www.hive.co.uk/product/alan-bleakley/psychotherapy-the-alchemical-imagination-and-metaphors-of-substance/29190966