What do Sun Wukong’s teacher Subodhi, Tai Chi, medicine, gunpowder, and Isaac Newton have in common? They were all once part of a field of study that is one of the parents of modern science: Alchemy. A system of knowledge once seen as so powerful and dangerous that the Catholic church and monarchs everywhere even tried to suppress it. As a result, many students acquired alchemical texts and knowledge through shadowy underground networks and secret societies, with the most valuable teachings reserved only for the most loyal adherents or, as was the case with Wukong, those who proved themselves worthy by passing coded tests. While not overtly stated in Journey to the West, awareness of alchemy’s already tarnished reputation might be another reason why Subodhi makes Wukong swear never to reveal who his teacher was once it becomes apparent that the Monkey King wouldn’t be using his newly acquired skills for good alone. While these methods succeeded in hiding alchemical education from the authorities, they also shrouded it in mystery.
What is Alchemy?
Relatively unknown today and often derided as being a huge waste of time, alchemy was once a legit pursuit of academics and hobbyists across the Eurasian, Middle-Eastern and African continents. Like today’s scientists, alchemists conducted research into the world around them and consulted the works of those who came before to solve problems that would contribute to the betterment of humanity. In fact, many of the early chemists, physicians, and philosophers–Isaac Newton being the most famous–were also alchemists. Unlike science, which strives to be nothing more than a methodology for understanding our world, Alchemy had fairly specific aims. They were (according to Khan Academy):
- to find the “elixir of life” (it was thought that this magical elixir would bring wealth, health, and immortality);
- to find or make a substance called the “philosopher’s stone,” which when heated and combined with “base” (nonprecious metals such as copper and iron) would turn it into gold, thought to be the highest and purest form of matter;
- to discover the relationship of humans to the cosmos and use that understanding to improve the human spirit.
Similar to how European alchemists sought to use the teachings of philosophers like Plato and Aristotle to turn lead into gold, many followers of Taoism, China’s indigenous religion, also tried to use their understanding of the “Tao” or “way of the natural world”* to achieve the same goals (although Chinese alchemists tended to focus more on 1 and 3).
So how did we get alchemists in the east and west, looking for the same things?
At its core, alchemists of all stripes are about change for the better, whether the goal is to change one’s physical body, physical surroundings, or spiritual nature. The desire to improve our lives, even to live forever, is a universal one. While we like to think of East and West as being two distinct entities, i.e. Asia and Europe, history shows that the lines between the two were rarely so clear. Trade existed all along the Silk Road throughout much of human history. And long before Marco Polo, the vast of Rome and China were fighting the same enemies, like the Hun.
So if alchemy was once everywhere, what happened?
In the same way that teens become embarrassed by their parents for having strange and outdated ideas, the scientific community eventually distanced itself from their alchemical forefathers for much the same reason. Many alchemical beliefs, like the conviction that you could turn lead into gold, turned out to be false given what we can now observe of lead and gold’s molecular structures. Anyone who claimed they could do it turned out under scientific scrutiny to be conmen and hoaxers. Other aspects of alchemy, like its spiritual practices and claims to immortality, cannot be replicated in numbers large enough as to be tested using the scientific method. Worst of all, many so-called “elixirs of immortality”, with their high concentrations of poisons like arsenic, cinnabar, and mercury, produced the opposite effect–killing many a Chinese emperor, nobleman, and wealthy commoner. Good thing Wukong’s teacher taught him to make his body immortal through breathing practices and meditation rather than ingesting magical meds!
Over time, the parts of alchemy which were useful to science became distilled into areas of study like chemistry–with which the word alchemy even shares the same roots–while parts of alchemy which were harder to quantify became gradually relegated to softer sciences like psychology, repackaged into New Age thinking, or, as with other now-discredited sciences like phrenology, all but forgotten.
Magic by another name
Futurist and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” While much of traditional alchemy is now seen to be little more than the kind of magic that psychics and magicians perform, many alchemical concepts and discoveries have proven to be more useful than mere tricks. Through rigorous study of the allegorical symbolism contained in many alchemical texts, Carl Jung gained a deeper understanding of the connection between the mind and the path to consciously bettering oneself that he called individuation. “Only after I had familiarized myself with alchemy did I realize that the unconscious is a process,” he wrote “and that the psyche is transformed or developed by the relationship of the ego to the contents of the unconscious.”
If alchemical principles can help us understand the process of individuation, then they can also be used to induce it. Just as many alchemical texts were intentionally written to transform the consciousness or soul of its readers as they experienced the book’s deeper meanings, so too can Journey to the West (as well as most great fiction) be considered an alchemical text. Like the immortal who helped chapter 1’s singer-woodcutter elevate his mood and alleviate his suffering by prescribing a song to sing, alchemists recognized medicinal properties not only in the chemicals we ingest through our mouths but also in everything from the art we take in through other senses to the actions we perform with our bodies. Practices like Tai Chi, Yoga, meditation, and acupuncture all have alchemical origins. In the same way that many children later realize the wisdom of their parents after becoming adults themselves, modern science is gradually rediscovering the potential of many once-shunned alchemical practices.
Stay Golden
Today, people are as likely to call themselves alchemists as they are worshippers of the Viking thunder god Thor. But anyone who’s tried to change their world or themselves for the better has engaged in one form of alchemy or another without even knowing it. While we have yet to figure out how to achieve the Monkey King’s unbreakable body, we can, like Jung and countless others, decode great works of literature like Journey to the West and use its lessons to cultivate the next best thing: an unbreakable spirit.
More information on Daoist internal alchemy and Wukong’s training can be found at Jim McClanahan’s excellent blog, Journey to the West Research. It also contains a well-considered breakdown of what Subodhi taught Wukong.
For more analysis and a summary of chapter 2, listen to episode 2 of Journey to the West: the Podcast below:
*This is a poor translation of what is meant by the tao at best, since the tao isn’t supposed to be describable in words, only experienced.