Stephan Harding - Gaia Alchemy: The Reuniting of Science, Psyche, and Soul

For Julian David, wise elder of Luscombe, great mentor, and friend.

And for Stephen Harrod Buhner, who so ably shows the way into deep Gaia connection.

GAIA
ALCHEMY

Few things are more important today than bringing humane values to the science, technology, and information sectors. It requires a person of vision and imagination. I have known Stephan Harding for many years and have seen firsthand how his genius and big heart help science evolve to the next level. This latest book, Gaia Alchemy, is a beautiful blueprint for transforming contemporary knowledge and returning soul to our planet.

THOMAS MOORE, AUTHOR OF #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER CARE OF THE SOUL AND SOUL THERAPY

In this time of global crises and evolutionary opportunities, its vital that we reclaim our innate human ability to learn from our animate Earth using our feeling senses, our imaginations, and our dreams. Western science, in contrast, has specialized in learning about our world, using logic, quantification, and the illusion of separation. Harding shows us how to alchemically unite and integrate these two modes of knowing and why its both necessary and rapturous, and he does so with brilliance, imagination, humor, grace, and, above all, heart. Gaia Alchemy is a world-shifting masterwork, an essential read for all twenty-first-century lovers and defenders of life.

BILL PLOTKIN, PH.D., FOUNDER OF ANIMAS VALLEY INSTITUTE AND AUTHOR OF SOULCRAFT, WILD MIND, AND THE JOURNEY OF SOUL INITIATION

Harding shows how Western empirical science, which is at the root of so much material progress but also the cause of blatant destruction, can find its way back into the heart of subjective living experience. Gaia Alchemy points to a new union of calculating and intuiting mind, of measuring and of contemplating beauty, and does so from a firm foundation in Western culture, not by borrowing from Asian or Indigenous cosmologies. Profound, erudite, timely, and immensely necessary, Gaia Alchemy builds a bridge between the head and the heart. A landmark work for the Anthropocene.

ANDREAS WEBER, PH.D., PHILOSOPHER, BIOLOGIST, AND AUTHOR OF THE BIOLOGY OF WONDER, ENLIVENMENT, AND SHARING LIFE

Desperate for a way beyond the reductive mindset of contemporary science, a keenly creative biologist excavates the medieval Great Work of alchemy, the immediate precursor of modern science. This book is a record of Hardings deeply personal quest to bring alchemys esoteric insights to bear on the catastrophic situation in which our planet now finds itself.

DAVID ABRAM, PH.D., AUTHOR OF THE SPELL OF THE SENSUOUS AND BECOMING ANIMAL

A brave book that offers a profound celebration of the marriage between science and soul, showing convincingly that there is no conflict between reason and intuition; in fact, they are good companions. A close collaborator of James Lovelock, who proposed Gaia theory, Stephan has been able to develop an original and authentic understanding of relationships between science and psyche. In this compelling book, rooted in rigorous science and poetic imagination, Stephan outlines a new paradigm for a holistic worldview. Read this book and it will inspire you to look at the world and see it whole.

SATISH KUMAR, COFOUNDER OF SCHUMACHER COLLEGE AND EDITOR EMERITUS OF RESURGENCE AND ECOLOGIST

A remarkable and lively synthesis of leading-edge science and the deep wisdom of the archetypal psyche. Hardings bold and engaging vision works its own alchemical transformation on the reader, guiding us from the lead of the dominant mechanistic and disenchanted worldview to the gold of an experiential understanding of Gaia as the ensouled body in which we live and have our being. This book will prove invaluable to those seeking a more integral approach to Earth System Science, to the psychologically minded who long for deeper connections with the living Earth, and to all who are called to participate in the Great Work of our times.

SEAN KELLY, PH.D., AUTHOR OF BECOMING GAIA AND COMING HOME

In this bold and extraordinary book Stephan Harding, an eminent ecologist, makes a surprising defense of alchemy as a tool with which to reconnect with the more-than-human world. Pursue the path of alchemy, he says, and we can restore ourselves to ourselves, and, even more importantly, to Gaia, the living soul of the planet. By offering exercises that anyone can try for themselves, Stephan opens doorways so that everyone can experience Gaian consciousness firsthand. At a time when so many are looking to Indigenous cultures for the answers to our ever-mounting ecological ills, it is refreshing to find someone offering homegrown tools, techniques, and methods that stem from the intellectual roots of Western culture. All the tools we need are to be found in the alembic of the unconscious, in the union of opposites between the scientific rational domain of logos and the deep waters of mythos. I can think of no better guide to steer us through this much-needed process.

ANDY LETCHER, PH.D., SENIOR LECTURER AT SCHUMACHER COLLEGE, PROGRAM LEAD FOR THE M.A. IN ENGAGED ECOLOGY, AND AUTHOR OF SHROOM

Gaia Alchemy arises like a phoenix out of the ashes of our terribly precise but ultimately life-denying sciences of reduction, abstraction, and objectification. Hardings storied and deeply personal account of his imaginal journey into Gaia alchemy is a timely invitation to each of us to cultivate ways of knowing and being adequate to the great Planet-Being with whom we live.

JONATHAN M. CODE, M.ED., LECTURER IN SUSTAINABLE LAND MANAGEMENT AT ROYAL AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY

Stephan Hardings teaching is always illuminating. In Gaia Alchemy, he shows how, through the relationship between science, alchemy, and depth psychology, we can reach toward an experience of nondual Gaian soul in our lives.

PETER REASON, PH.D., PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Stephan Harding tells an enthralling new story of Gaia, one where we begin with Gaia rather than ourselves. His unique union of science, myth, and alchemyinvoking both our rational and intuitive ways of thinking and exploring how they may and must come togetherbrings us into a new vision of a Gaia consciousness. A brilliant book.

JULES CASHFORD, JUNGIAN ANALYST AND COAUTHOR OF THE MYTH OF THE GODDESS

With the emergence of a Gaian science that restores mind to Earth, we have a new lens through which to divine alchemical meaning in geo-ecological processes. This is the dazzling new vista for the healing of both Earth and ourselves that Gaia Alchemy opens up.

FREYA MATHEWS, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY AT LA TROBE UNIVERSITY AND AUTHOR OF REINHABITING REALITY

Acknowledgments

Although writing a book is a solitary task, it cannot be done without the help and encouragement from family, friends, and colleagues. My first thanks go to my wife, Julia, our son, Oscar, and my stepmother, Lucy, for your patience and support during the two years or so it took to complete this work.

I also give thanks to the great teachers of holistic science with whom Ive pondered and studied the hidden depths of nature over many years at Schumacher College: James Lovelock, Brian Goodwin, Lynn Margulis, Margaret Colquhoun, Craig Holdrege, and Henri Bortoft to mention but a few.