The Alchemical Imagination: Creativity as Catalyst for Radical Transformation

The Alchemical Imagination bridges ancient alchemy with contemporary creativity, offering readers a revolutionary set of histories, exercises, and techniques to renew their creative power and themselves.

An expert teacher of modern alchemy across disciplines, Eliza Swann distills this arcane science into an accessible series of philosophies and techniques to help us find a deeper connection with our own creative spirit. With a modern, queer, femme perspective in a voice that is lively, fresh, and grounded in more than a decade of teaching alchemy in universities and community organizations, Swann brings the alchemical worldview to 21st-century artists. Tracing the principles of alchemy through its applications in proto-chemistry, healing arts, psychology, visual art, and literature, readers will develop the tools needed to arrive at their own Great Art.

Learn to cultivate inspiration through various practices, including visualization, meditation, singing, writing, and poetry―all combining to nurture a contemplative mind attuned to the hidden laws of nature. This book explores these methods in depth, with each section ending in prompts and exercises to guide your own studies. Applying these lessons will revitalize your creative process, breaking through stagnation and self-doubt while strengthening your vision. As you deepen your practice, alchemy will awaken within you, sparking unexpected shifts and revealing profound insights through surprising encounters.

The Alchemical Imagination is part workbook and part historical journey through the lives and practices of the great alchemists―a journey that will compel you to renew your creativity and yourself.

Eliza Swann is an interdisciplinary artist, intuitive, writer, and educator based in New York City. They are the author of The Anatomy of the Aura, which bestselling author Yumi Sakugawa called “beautiful and life-affirming,” and the founder of the Golden Dome School, an alternative school that explores the mystical dimensions of art. The Alchemical Imagination draws on Eliza’s ten years of teaching alchemy in universities and cultural institutions, including a long-standing popular interdisciplinary art and alchemy course at the Pratt Institute. 

Eliza received a BA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Central St. Martins in London. In 2023, they were selected as lecturer-in-residence at the Philosophical Research Society and have also been an invited lecturer at Central St. Martins, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Hammer Museum, the Pratt Institute, and the New School. Their writing has appeared in BOMB, Arthur, Contemporary Art Review LA, Momus, and Perfect Wave. They contributed essays to Taschen’s Witchcraft and A Confluence of Witches. Their work has been supported by PEN America, the Foundation for Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Pratt Faculty Development Fund, the Feminist Center for Creative Work, and the Wassaic Project. As a visual artist, Eliza has exhibited artwork internationally, most recently at the University of California Santa Cruz, and the Feminist Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles, California.