The practice of alchemy aimed to manipulate the world through the philosopher’s stone - a symbol for mastery over the four elements: fire, water, earth, and air. Alchemy’s goal of mastery over the physical world has largely been replaced with science and technology, particularly after we harnessed the power of electricity. With this focus on electricity, the author argues that the Magnum Opus, or the lifelong pursuit of the philosopher’s stone, has largely died. The four elements of fire, water, earth, and air have been discarded for a substitute: electricity. Perhaps electricity is the philosopher’s stone that enables us to master and manipulate the four elements in previously unfathomable ways. We can convert the energy from water, wind, fire, and earth into electricity which is responsible for most modern necessities, including our communication systems.
Science has helped us gain mastery over the world through measurement tools that create a collective framing of the world around us. In other words, it allows us to falsify beliefs, which enables us to build a collective knowledge of the world via negativa. For simplicity’s sake, we can say that science and technology have offered a path towards mastery over the physical world.
A substantial portion of reality is governed by your beliefs. Any time new evidence emerges from the latest trending topic blaring on the newscycle, we can see this play out. This realization dawned on me during the public release of the footage from the George Floyd murder case. I observed divergent realities emerge: those who believed in Chauvin’s innocence saw the lawful restraint of a highly erratic and inebriated man with the appropriate amount of force. Those who believed Chauvin to be a murderer saw a frightened man victimized by an unjust, racist, and corrupt law enforcement system.
Seeing such a stark contrast in conclusions despite exposure to the same video was a fascinating, yet frightening phenomenon to witness. People saw what they wanted to see, proving that people’s realities are governed by their beliefs, despite the conventional belief that objective evidence points us towards an objective truth. In this situation, science offers no help. It can inform us of the involvement of drugs and generalize what constitutes lethal force in different population groups, but it cannot tell us whether a law or its enforcement is just in a highly nuanced situation. Science cannot categorize Floyd or Chauvin’s intentions nor their emotional states. To make a long point short, there remain a large portion of beliefs that exist outside the expertise of science. Hence, our reality and morality is not governed by an objective truth as told by science or religion, but by deeply personal, subjective truths.
How does this pertain to alchemy? If reality is contingent upon our beliefs, the Magnum Opus can be attained through the manipulation of deeply personal beliefs and emotional states including significance, motive, and meaning. Science and technology has manipulated our collective beliefs of “the physical world”, but highly personal beliefs remain a separate frontier that remains unexplored for many. The manipulation of personal or nonscientific beliefs can fall into a litany of classifications depending on the intent, audience, or originator: psychological warfare, deceit, subversion, social engineering, propaganda, programming, etc.
As I’ve discussed in my Novitate paper, beliefs can be formulated from causal or acausal sources. Or to draw a parallel to Iain McGilchrest’s work, beliefs are built by either the linguistic, verbal, detail oriented left brain or the symbolic, mute, holistic right brain. To remain pointed, this essay will retain its focus on Word Alchemy, or programming that targets the linguistic left brain.
In our paradigm of Word Alchemy, the four elements become metaphors for linguistic elements we can master, that when expertly harmonized, they produce a music that bends reality for those affected by it:
Air lifts us towards the idealistic, futuristic, intellectual, complex, or big picture
Earth grounds us with a calming presence. It is pragmatic, reasonable, simplistic, and detail-oriented
Fire blazes with authority, conviction, and passion. It spreads easily because it tends to be transformative, mimetic, and influential.
Water flows with its audience. It is adaptable, reflective, and satisfying
The reader may surmise that Air and Earth are opposites in content while Fire and Water are opposites in style. In my line of work, Air and Earth would be akin to New Product Development and Sustaining projects, respectively. Those in New Product Development focus on building the future of the business and paying tomorrow’s bills, while those in Sustaining focus on the work needed to sustain existing products and pay today’s bills. Likewise, Air types tend to think about the future while Earth types tend to be grounded in the here-and-now. An overreliance on Air may look like neglect of today’s problems, too much complexity or overengineering of a situation, and grandiose ideas or theories with little practicality. An overreliance on Earth looks like an inability to see the forest for the trees, stagnant thinking (e.g. “This worked for the past 15 years, why won’t it work today?”), and oversimplification of nuanced situations.
Fire and Water are opposites in a different category. Water tends to be adaptable to the ideas, body language, and tone held by the audience. As Bruce Lee said:
“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
In this metaphor, water is your communication style while the vessel it resides within is your audience. Fire is its opposite, it molds people to its message through passion, conviction, and influence. An overreliance on Water tends to be uninspiring and milquetoast while too much Fire looks like insensitivity and an inability to freely collaborate or exchange ideas. Put into Marquis de Sade’s paradigm, Fire is dominant while Water is submissive.
With four elements resting on the axes of content and style, we can personify four distinct quadrants.
Starting in the top left corner, we have The Noodler. He is full of great ideas because he sources them well from others: he understands his audience’s pain points. The Noodler runs into problems because his ideas tend to fizzle out. They lack conviction, so they are easily swayed by the opinions of those that communicate with more Fire. The end result for The Noodler is sad: he can relate to others and present a thoughtful future, yet his lack of conviction stagnates his progress while leaving his audience uninspired. He may also neglect to connect the intellectual dots for his audience, leaving the audience stuck on the ground while he floats above them in his theoretical, complicated world.
Moving back to Earth, we have The Relator. The Relator has a soothing voice that can ground the inflamed. Relators put people at ease by adapting to their audience and keeping the message simple. They know what you want, so they give it to you. The Relator could also be called The Mirror because of their ability to reflect people’s desires back to them without offering a glimpse into a separate worldview. Leveraging this balance of Earth and Water is like playing social chameleon which makes for an excellent communication style in political environments, particularly when in a subordinate position. The Relator fails to inspire since many do not see his ideals beyond “being likeable” nor does he share or speak with passion. The Relator is viewed no more and no less than a friendly guy who goes with the flow.
Adding some heat, we have the The Straight-Shooter. You might recognize The Straight-Shooter through phrases like, “I call a spade a spade. What’s the problem?” They speak with conviction on pragmatic matters with little regard for how it is received. These simple messages tend to spread rapidly a la “Make America Great Again.” When expressed by someone in a position of power, such simple and blunt messaging tends to influence people through fear. The Straight-Shooter is highly effective at getting things done, but he hasn’t made many friends in the process. This communication style has its advantages and disadvantages that don’t need to be spoon-fed to the reader, but we’ll let this topic rest with an African Proverb:
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Lastly, if we add some loft to The Straight-Shooter’s communication style, we find The Tech Leader in the upper right quadrant. This communication style can best be personified by the following statement: “Get on the train or GTFO the tracks.” The Tech Leader differs from the Straight Shooter in that he presents his message in a complicated, long-winded manner while The Straight Shooter keeps it blunt and pragmatic. The Tech Leader’s message can ironically be more influential to an audience that prides itself as being intelligent. The audience will enthusiastically clap along to signal their intelligence because The Tech Leader’s passionate message sounds great, but the audience members covertly doubt themselves if their intellectual caliber pales in comparison to their self-image. Considering the target audience might illuminate why such a communication style is prevalent with tech leaders. The Tech Leader’s communication style works well if you have an audience you wish to dazzle with complexities and jargon. If clarity is your goal, an overreliance on your conviction and complexity can work against you if you don’t consider the narrative your audience needs to truly understand your message.
Achieving Balance:
As the reader can surmise, the four elements can be used in varying degrees to achieve any intended outcome. However, let’s return to the context of this essay - our chase of The Philosopher’s Stone.
Knowing the basic elements, we can approach this one of two ways: holism or reductionism. A reductionist approach revolves around tweaking each element to find the ideal balance. The author could spend the remainder of the essay diving into reductionist tactics to tweak your balance of communication elements, but we have already discussed the prerequisite knowledge needed for the reader to begin tweaking this balance. Furthermore, as I’ve previously discussed, I generally prefer to solve problems by manipulating the overarching picture or adjacent influences, so let’s use our precious time together to explore word alchemy through a holistic lens.
Precision
Jung recognized how language can manipulate reality, so he leveraged Word Alchemy quite simply in his word association experiments. Since he was constrained to a clinical environment (or a nice walking trail for some of his patients), he could not observe their day-to-day reactions. Instead, he relied on “linguistic substitutes for reality” to confront his patients with new situations. The Association Experiment was simple: he would present a series of words to his patients, and for each word, he instructed them to respond with the first word that came to mind. He looked for delays or odd responses, because either would indicate the patient felt confronted by the word.
This experiment works because the patients didn’t react as if a string of words were given to them. Rather, they reacted as if what the word represented was in front of them. Those with neuroses associated with what a word represented would pause or offer a peculiar response.
Let’s dive into the implications of this for a moment. This means that words are a symbol for something, we all know this, yet we tend to react as if the word is the thing. We tend to mistake the map for the territory. Use vulgar language and the audience will act as if you are literally showing them something vulgar. Describe the same topic with softer language and it will be received better. This means that the words you select make a large difference in what the audience interprets. For most, words are exactly as Jung described: a linguistic substitute for reality.
As such, the use of precise language plays a critical role in manipulating reality. Consider the language you use after you don’t achieve a goal: “I failed” vs “This is a temporary defeat.” One leads you towards thoughts of self-deficiency, identifying with failure, or even permanent defeat. The other leads you to believe you hit a minor bump in the road on a journey to a positive place. Both serve as different maps describing the same territory.
Many people refer to this as spinning a situation, with tones varying from positivity to disgust. It can also be referred to as framing. Frame or spin a corporate problem challenge as an opportunity and you shift people’s perception of the issue at hand as well as their perception of you. It feels exciting to work on a new opportunity rather than solve someone else’s problems or complaints. Personally, I’d prefer to work with someone who connects people to exciting opportunities rather than someone who laments about the problems they must deal with.
Another way to describe framing is by manipulating the context around a topic. In the physical world, framing could be exemplified through a glass of salt water. The contents of this glass may be refreshing to someone after a strenuous workout or sauna session1, but a joke to someone stranded at sea. Framing uses linguistics to transport the audience to a new vantage, viewing the topic at hand in a different context.
Precision in our language can be achieved in two ways: removing or adding words to our vocabulary. We will start by exploring some words potentially worth removing.
Precision Via Negativa
In order to shape the audience’s reality, you must shape their beliefs. Most people tend to have guards around their beliefs, particularly those they identify with. If you present information that contradicts beliefs wrapped into an individual’s identity, you can be certain of defense mechanisms exploding in your face. Such an explosive response can arise in innocuous situations quite easily - even if your intent deviates from the chase of The Philosopher’s Stone.
The author recently experienced this by sharing an opinion he naively believed to be commonly held, dare I say even a truth. The author expressed how certain differences between individuals creates a recipe for a failed relationship down the road, which seemed as tactful as a bull in a china shop since the audience identified strongly with a conflicting belief of an ideal relationship and its future. The response was by no means volatile, but it needlessly upset someone, and we can safely assume my credibility with this individual dropped as a result of this exchange. I ultimately view this outcome as a lose-lose, defined by some as stupidity or more softly, foolishness. The author could have circumvented this outcome by more wisely leveraging The Four Elements or more specifically, using precise language.
A particular use of precise speech that generally prevents such mishaps can be achieved by learning and speaking the language of E-Prime, a variation of English invented by D. David Bourland Jr. Those that use E-prime remove all variations of “to be” (i.e. is, was, am, are, etc.) from their vocabulary. E-Prime can help since it softens messages and circumvents any identity driven defense mechanisms. Let’s consider how “This is lame” vs “I generally prefer that over this” might trigger different responses. If the audience identifies with the topic at hand (e.g. “I am a fan of this” or “I believe in this”), the Standard English statement can feel like a threat. Standard English ascribes an omnipresent essence to the topic at hand while E-Prime describes an observation about the speaker’s preferences.
Robert Anton Wilson has invented a word that supplements E-Prime well: sombunall. Instead of using absolute words like all, always, and never; we can supplement E-Prime with the probabilistic sombunall - a contraction for “some but not all.” Absolute words perpetuate the assumption that we live in a binary world where the options are black and white, 1 and 0, or yes and no. If I dare go out on a limb and break the rules of E-Prime, the world we reside within is highly nuanced, especially since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. A complex world deserves probabilistic language that accounts for everything in between 0 and 1. The spirit of sombunall can keep our language grounded in the 21st century. It shouldn’t surprise us when archaic absolute statements bring out the lower level tribalism within each of us. Absolute statements belong in a simpler time. 2
By excising absolute language and all forms of “To be” from our vocabulary, we can better relate with our audience - we bypass any identity driven triggers that block the receipt of our message. This concept appears simple, but the difficulty lies in applying these concepts without sounding like a complete dweeb. Let’s explore additional tools available to us on our path to The Philosopher’s Stone.
Precision Via Positiva
If we do not have a word for a concept, it remains outside of our purview. We may know it subliminally but we cannot think of it consciously without the appropriate language. This aligns with McGilchrist’s understanding of the left (verbal) and right (nonverbal) brain. Intelligence aside, a limited vocabulary indicates weaker left brain functionality which may be an impedance to those communicating within a left-brain dominated (i.e. Western) society. In this paradigm, consciously learning new words and concepts unlocks a new world of communication, granting you the ability to create more precise “linguistic substitutes for reality.” One of the overarching intentions of this newsletter is to put certain abstract concepts into words so they can be consciously considered - to bring light to the unconscious.
An expanded vocabulary greatly improves your capacity to communicate precisely, but without calibration with your intended audience, it can obfuscate your message. Obfuscation can happen when the target audience doesn’t share the same vocabulary as the speaker, like playing jazz in a hillbilly bar, or when your mental definition or associations with a word differ from mine. When words have different meanings to different people, we can call this semantic noise. I had a run-in with semantic noise when it created a miscommunication with a coworker: I shared a preference for “negative feedback” over positive reinforcement.
From her perspective, she could have mistakenly drawn the conclusion that I focus on the negative or that I tend to be fueled by negative energy, when my intent was to share that I operate more like a homing missile - where I prefer to identify and address areas that need course correction rather than reinforcing what already appears on target. Semantic noise arose because she associated “negative feedback” with emotional negativity or dread while I associated “negative feedback” with an emotionally neutral cybernetic feedback loop, hence the homing missile analogy.
If you read this author’s work, there is a high probability you enjoy the works of other essayists. The need to address semantic noise explains why many essayists introduce a topic with a variation of the following message:
“X is defined by Merriam-Webster as Y, which has Z implications. If we carefully consider X through the lens of Z, we can see how X is much more than Y and actually has implications in areas beyond Z.”
Additional Framing:
We discussed how your word choice or choice of “linguistic substitutes for reality” changes the frame of reference your audience operates from, but framing can transcend simple vocabulary. We can manipulate the context of a topic and thereby the perception of a topic by reframing the antecedent thoughts that lead to it. Consider the relationship between an apprentice and his wise mentor. When the apprentice asks his master for advice in a situation, the master can approach this in a variety of ways. He can provide explicit direction, he could give instruction and explain its underlying thought process, or he can ask a series of questions that forces his protege to arrive at their own conclusion. Generally speaking, which approach do you think would be most beneficial for our naive apprentice? Do you learn better when you engage your mind to figure something out or by eating from the hand that spoon-feeds you? Perhaps the journey holds more value than the destination, particularly if we consider how everyone operates from a different personal context.
Framing through the antecedent context can be achieved most blatantly through asking leading questions. We can also reach this goal through narratives. Topics that live within the context of a “feel-good” narrative can lead the audience to associate the topic at hand with good feelings in different contexts. Narratives play a pivotal role in communication for the obvious reason that they can captivate your audience by engaging their emotions, but also because they set the frame for the intended message. To state this inversely, the presentation of raw data fails to captivate audiences because it does not engage the emotions nor provide a frame to place the information within.
Conclusion:
So far, we have found a few techniques to narrow our sights on The Philosopher’s Stone:
Calibrate your use of The Four Elements to your audience - e.g. keep it grounded for a pragmatic audience
Remove words that trigger defense mechanisms from your vocabulary - e.g. eliminate absolute statements from your vocabulary
Calibrate your vocabulary to your audience - e.g. don’t play jazz in a hillbilly bar
Build an arsenal of words at your disposal - i.e. expand your vocabulary to clearly articulate yourself
Frame your opinion in a favorable context through narratives and leading questions - e.g. your approach is the only logical path forward
Word Alchemy is important to understand at a minimum, to recognize how other people manipulate reality for themselves and others through their words. For those seeking influence, it is a useful tool as well, however a fine line exists between exuding power and forcing others into your corner. Such a distinction largely hinges on intent or antecedent attitudes driving your communications. Dr. David Hawkins wrote a book on this topic and created a table that helps distinguish between language that insinuates power vs force. Some are clear opposites while others appear more ambiguous. Some examples from Power vs Force include:
Abundant vs Excessive
Intentional vs Calculating
Leading vs Coercing
Principled vs Expedient
Selective vs Exclusive
Serving vs Ambitious
Significant vs Important
Spontaneous vs Impulsive
Unifying vs Dividing
We ought to consider whether our intentions, the content of our message, and the specific verbiage used to curate our message uplifts those around us or degrades - whether we help people envision the better tomorrow that lives within our minds or bully others into our worldview. One pursues a win/win while the other eventually finds itself covered in the mud of a win/lose or lose/lose. Thomas J Bevan stated it well:
To focus on and orient your decisions and actions towards finding the win/win scenario is the definition of intelligence. It is also how you live a good life and leave a worthy legacy. Win/wins are acts of creation, lose/lose’s are acts of destruction. The former adds to the collective store of good (whether that be wealth, beauty, good cheer or any other boon you can think of) while the latter takes it away.
Language is a tool that grants us countless opportunities to find such win-wins. By wielding The Philosopher’s Stone, we increase our agency to leave behind a worthy legacy. Philosopher’s Stone aside, the author hopes this essay illuminates the simple truth that your words matter, that they can shape not only what is possible, but what is real to you and me.
No? Just me? Well I tried
He said with absolute certainty