The Tower of Alchemy: An Advanced Guide to the Great Work [Paperback]

David Goddard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

The Tower of Alchemy is the first book published in the West to openly reveal the teachings and practice of the Hermetic Art in plain language. In this advanced manual, the alchemical symbols and motifs cease to be a bewildering maze and become helpful signposts on the Path of Liberation. David Goddard clearly explains the interior practices that are the essence of the Great Work itself. By assimilating the knowledge and practicing the exercises contained in this book, you will find that the once-confusing alchemical illustrations are now illuminated mandalas. Using classical Qabalah, and traditions as diverse as the Grail legend, Yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism, Goddard allows students access to the higher Mysteries. His specific teachings and guided practices will enable you to attain the secret to all spiritual works, which can culminate in the completion of the Great Work.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Red Wheel / Weiser (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578631130
• ISBN-13: 978-1578631131
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #738,609 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the finest and most practical esoteric books in print, November 11, 1999

By 

Darin Baker (Phoenix, Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tower of Alchemy: An Advanced Guide to the Great Work (Paperback)

It is clear to me that David Goddard is someone who really knows what the Great Work is about and wants us, the readers, to know too. His book, The Tower of Alchemy, is filled with intensely valuable occult principles, which are so often omitted, distorted, or unknown by other authors. In fact, a great deal of these teachings have been, up until now, only available to accepted students of the very best mystery schools, and even then, only after many years of diligent study. The author also provides the reader with a series of profound exercises, which take the aspirant well beyond the scope of intellectual theory by actively involving the various levels of the personality in the practical application of the Ageless Wisdom. This is not the sort of book to be read once and set back on the shelf. It reveals a living tradition, whose aim is real transformation, not the mere accumulation of facts. I whole-heartedly recommend The Tower of Alchemy. It is a wonderful and rare opportunity for advanced spiritual unfoldment.

A friend of mine, who knows much more about these things than I do, once remarked to me as I was looking through several boxes of books in his library, "I'd trade them all for The Tower of Alchemy. There's more in it."

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tower of Alchemy, October 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Tower of Alchemy: An Advanced Guide to the Great Work (Paperback)

A strange book in that it is only about alchemy in the widest sense. It is the sort of sense touted by BOTA when they talk about alchemy NOT being about test tubes etc and real alchemists only performing exercises in the their minds. This is not entirely true as alchemy does form into two camps -- speculative and practical. Both have good claims to being valid spiritual paths.
Tower of Alchemy, which belongs to the speculative school of Alchemy, is also the course material of SOL of which the Author was a supervisor. As such it reads like a supervisor's notes of that course. Fortunately David was a good supervisor and some of his realisations on the course have appeared in this book. Unfortunately it does not attribute anything to SOL or the course's writer WE Butler (other than a thanks in the acknowlegements). Anyone who has done the course knows the amount of effort Butler put into it and what a good magican he was. Such people will know that specific symbols from it, names of characters, shapes of the castle, certain symbols etc which should have been copyrite have found themselves into Goddard's Tower. For example the name of one of the guides is Oros a name which appears in the course and Tower and nowhere else.
At the end of the tower exercise you are 'crowned'and replace a regent. This was not part of the original course but a later addition by WE Butler's successor Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki. However it too appears (unacknowledged) as part of the Tower.
I have to question the ethics of someone who rewrites other people's course material and then presents it as their own. Goddard has done this with Tower of Alchemy and his earlier Sacred Magic of the Angels where he also lifted Madeline Montalbon's magical system and presented it as his own.
However I do not believe, like other reviewers, that this book was written for the money, but more to establish his presence as a teacher from which he can run his courses.
That being the case the material is very useful as a practical meditation system which works in a similar way to the middle pillar. That it worked within the framework of the SOL course is debatable and I would have thought that it would be easier for a student to perform the middle pillar regularly to get as much from this book.
The other objection I have is that the material mixes Eastern and Western systems far too much. There is a hint that the writer seems to have been typical of many who upon reading a few books has thought they have found Western paralels within the East systems. Yet anyone who has experimented with both systems knows that you are not really comparing like with like. The West has taken far too much Eastern termology into its Mystery Tradition as it is.
The style is in my view a little pompous and imperious and a little inaccessible. Which is strange because David's lectures are extremely accessible.
My biggest gype with the book is it is lack of originality and the fact it is so clearly a rip off of the SOL course material. I would hope that the author's next book will not just be a lift of material that has been given to him as part of a school he has joined.
Certainly buying this book would be a short cut to having to joining that school and as such I still recommend it.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, well-written text., October 21, 1999

By 

Matthew A. Brass (Columbus, Ohio, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tower of Alchemy: An Advanced Guide to the Great Work (Paperback)

The Tower of Alchemy is a well-written practical addition to one's metaphysical library. The text presents spiritual teachings and practices in a thoughtful and concise manner, and provides appropriate background information and caveats where necessary and appropriate. Although it is clear from the outset that the practical disciplines are part of an advanced practice, and readers are cautioned not to undertake them without first mastering basic disciplines, the teaching portion is of great value in its own right regardless of the readers level of practice, for it outlines in understandable terminology an integrated spiritual philosophy which synthesizes Eastern and Western metaphysical elements into a consistent whole. As a study text, Tower of Alchemy is invaluable. The directions given in the practice section are clear and relevant to the teachings to which they are attached. Exercises are sequentially ordered and build upon one another. Appropriate cautions and warnings are observed throughout the text, there is a mature concern for the safety of the reader/practitioner that duly warns but is not overprotective. As with all practices of this kind, the choices are left to the practitioner. Timelines for the completion of each segment and descriptions of progress and challenge indicators are also given, as a way of giving the practitioner a set of guideposts to get a sense of where they are in the process. The only area that I feel could have used more elaboration was what constitutes the preliminary practice necessary to effectively undertake the disciplines in Tower of Alchemy. While this was addressed in a general sense, enough to establish that there is a body of work to be done before effective use of the practices can be accomplished, slightly more direction would have been useful. Overall, an excellent work.