Sense of Soul - The Secret of the Alchemist

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

If you choose to listen to any Sense of Soul Podcast Episode, choose to listen to this one!  We welcomed Colm Holland, the author of the newly released book, The Secret of the Alchemist, which reveals how the hidden teachings, can help you find your own personal legend! Join us as he unpacks The Alchemist by Paulo Cayleo, and compares real life stories.  Colm was one of the very first to read the amazing book , The Alchemist, in English! He along with his publishing team pushed to ignite the sale of this book in English, which today has now sold over 85 million copies!  Please check out Colm Holland at his fb! Order his book The Secret of the Alchemist and check out his 40 day meditation at his website here www.colmholland.com.

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we are so honored and I'm so excited to introduce Colm Holland. He was a member of the HarperCollins team, which published Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist in 1993. He was so enlightened and inspired by this book, he made a choice to implement what he had learned into his own life and go on a journey to find his own personal legend. Not only did he do this, but then he wrote his own book called The Secret of the Alchemist. Hi, Shauna. Hi, how are you? I'm good. Hi, Shauna. Hi, how are you?

I'm good. Good morning. Hi. Hi, Mandy. We're so excited to have you. You know, what's really funny is that, you know, we knew we had you coming on, so I was going to re-read The Alchemist. Well, re-reading The Alchemist isn't like rereading any book it's one of those books where you feel like it's alive

and every single time you read it you get something new out of it yeah and speaks to you with your own experiences and where you're at in your life so I feel like it that book is something I could reread and probably find something new coming out of it. Is that how you felt? Yes. It was interesting when I, because I was one of the first people to read it in English. In 1993, Paulo Kehler was unknown. Nobody knew, had heard of him, including myself, even though I worked in publishing, because he wrote in Portuguese. He's Brazilian, and the book had been a reasonable success in Brazil, and HarperCollins bought the English language rights to the book. The book had just been translated.

It was produced in galley form, and it would get mailed to me. I was in Australia, in the Australian office at the time, and it would land on my desk together with a pile of other books. But when this particular book landed, I had no idea who Paolo Caylor was, can you believe, even though he's now one of the world's most famous authors. What drew my attention to it was the cover. So I broke the rule, which said you should never judge a book by its cover, because I loved the cover. So I broke the rule, which said you should never judge a book by its cover, because I love the cover. And if you Google the original cover of The Alchemist, you'll see that it's completely different to the one we have now, which is the orange one with the pyramids quite

often or castle looking thing. It was purple, it had a shepherd boy and the central figure was an Arabian dressed figure with the all-seeing eye of God on his forehead don't know why just grabbed me so I dropped the book into my briefcase instead of when I normally have a rule of my to myself that don't take work home at the weekends because I had young kids at the time but I did and it was in my own backyard that I first read that book and I was just going to skim read it and as you just said it's impossible to read that book even for the first or second time in in a skim read way so I didn't skim read it I read every single word in detail and the sun literally set on the last page as I read it and I just knew primarily I think because of the journey that I'd been on personally my own spiritual journey

which I was 40 years old if you can do mental arithmetic you know how old I am I was 40 years old at the time and I'd worked quite hard to become what I thought was a spiritually aware person and I guess that's why they put me in charge of these books because I had a sense for it. Just a few months before we published Marianne Williamson's A Course in Miracles, we published work by Joseph Campbell, we published work by Dr. Wayne Dyer, famous Dr. Wayne, love his stuff. All these people were fairly well known, but not Paolo. So on Monday morning, I rang my colleague in California and I said, you know, I woke him up, actually got him out of bed. Serzim Wright, forgive me, his home and phone number. number and I said I want to talk to you about the alchemist he said yeah can't it wait until I'm at the office said no no no seriously I've been

waiting all day because I'm in Australia you've just got up I'm about to go to bed but here's the thing I forget hardcover let's go straight to paperback and let's oh you know I want I don't know 20,000 first print run we should print 200 000 globally it won't that won't be enough and he said are you drunk and i said listen it's it's monday you know no but he knew i was normally really mr conservative so even with those other books I mentioned, I only ordered a couple of thousand. So here I am ordering 20,000, 10 times more. And then the rest is history. Of course, Paolo Calos, the alchemist, has sold more than 85 million copies, and that's just copies sold.

He also makes it available for free on the internet so our calculation is it's possibly being read by over 300 million people at least twice at least 70 languages yes yes the record for the most foreign language editions of a living author. He's only just been beaten by one other book globally for most copies sold in the English language, which is J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Isn't that interesting? There's a thought. Both books are about alchemy. And here's another interesting thought. Not many people know this, but Tolkien, Lord of the Rings,

was based on alchemy, which is also one of the best-selling fictional books of all time. So, hey, guys, are we on to something here? Is there something about this alchemy thing? I have goosebumps, so something must be happening. Yeah, there's something about this alchemy thing. A very something must be happening yeah there's something about this alchemy thing a very long story short paolo came to australia he visited me in sydney he wanted to thank me and our publicity manager so he took us out for a meal to a sydney restaurant

he said uh i only want you guys there i don't want you bring your spouses love to meet your wives husbands whatever um and we we met and we had a lovely evening. And he said, I want to give you guys something, both of you something to take away from this because you're the first English speaking publishing staff to really believe in my book. And I'm really grateful and will always remember this. And by the way, he has endorsed my book

on his facebook and twitter page recently which i'll talk about he remembered me so he looked at naomi my publicity manager wonderful naomi and he said i asked my wife and god what i should give and he pulled out this little ring box and he put it on on the on the table at the restaurant and she opened it and there was this gorgeous little dress diamond ring worth a couple of thousand dollars you know this was not a little this was the real McCoy and she burst into tears of course and we all clapped and she deserved it but no other author had ever given her a gift like that. So then he looked at me and I'm thinking, so this is a giveaway. I'm thinking, oh, gold Rolex. That'd be nice. Shallow. Shallow column Holland.

How shallow is that? And he looked at me and he said, so I asked god what i should give you column and god told me that i should spend a day of my life doing my alchemy magic just for you so that whatever you want the i've asked the universe so that whatever you want doesn't matter what it is will come to pass You just need to decide what you want. And I was thinking gold Rolex is what I... Thank you guys, love you, gotta go, early flight back to Brazil tomorrow, been a wonderful time, see you later. And on the way home I'm driving up the freeway with my wife and I look at her and I said, so what did you think of that?

And she kind of laughed. She knew me well enough. And she said, oh, I bet you were disappointed. And I said, well, you know, it was okay. It's okay. And she said, well, anyway, it's not what I think, is it? It's what you think that matters. Within three months of that moment, I had begun to reread The Alchemist. I was beginning to hunger and thirst for what is it about this book that has made it so successful?

Is there something in this book? And the more I began to question the book and research and delve into it, stuff began to happen. And this was the beginning of a new dimension in my life. So at the very heart, I was disillusioned. I was very discontent with my life in my career. I'd sort of reached the peak of what I thought I could manage to reach on my own efforts. What I really wanted to do was to leave publishing and actually start my own business. But within three months of meeting Paolo, I was instantly promoted two steps up, partly because of the success of The Alchemist and the fact that I picked it, but also because the two guys who were above me left the company and got promoted to even higher positions in other firms. So that left a hole and I was promoted into those.

But after about a year, I left, I resigned, and I actually found for the first time the courage to take the leap and sort of risk my family's financial well-being and start my own business. And within three years, I had the largest digital agency in Australia. The magic worked huh? Hey not through any great belief not through any great work or stress on my part although running a company with 85 staff for anybody who's done it as a small business where you're only as good as the last client is stressful enough but yeah I looked in the mirror one day in the bathroom and I said how did you get to this point Colin

so for all the all of those of you out there who have often retrospectively decided what got you to this point it was definitely that night with Paola so that inspired me to study, to start to record the events in my life before and after meeting Paolo. So that's how I gauge my life. And what I realized, this is the significant thing, this will get us onto the story of the alchemist. In the middle of the book, the alchemist, those of you that have read it, the young character Santiago, who's left his home, who's lost everything, been robbed, has worked in a crystal shop and made some more money again, eventually gets to this oasis. And in the oasis, he kind of feels like he's arrived. He's talking to the soul of the world. He's aware of the language of the world. These are all the phrases

that are used in the story of the alchemist. So's kind of arrived and that was me when i was working in publishing i'd sort of reached that point and it's the point the most dangerous point in our lives not the most successful point in our lives because that's the point where you can lean back and say okay i've worked hard. I've got to this point. This is it. You know, I can kind of just relax off now and I don't have to pursue the real treasure. Guess who came on the scene at that precise moment? The alchemist. And that's when I began to my ears began to prick up when I read that.

And I thought, so what is this about Paolo talking about the alchemist, talking about alchemy as a subject? Every page of that story is full of it. And what did the alchemist do with Santiago the shepherd boy to challenge him to go after his real treasure what were the steps that had to take place there so I'll pause there if I want to talk about one thing that I personally took away in my early studies of the book the alchemist it was that moment when you cannot deny that this is more than a book about a boy trying to find his treasure and when I was writing my book and I was beginning to wonder about should my book be about my own spiritual journey and how I kind of bumped into the alchemist or should the book be about like a literary criticism of of the alchemist should that be this book or should the book be about like a literary criticism of the alchemist? Should that be this book? Or should the book what is the secret that is living within alchemy

this lost almost unknown forgotten previously forbidden knowledge that the world has managed to suppress and our society almost never talks about occasionally you'll hear a celebrity say oh there was real alchemy when we made that movie. Or, oh, that was an alchemic, you know, that was a real alchemy moment when this guy walked into my life and now we're happily married. You know, this sort of stuff like that. the real meaning of alchemy and how it's in instant reach of every one of us to actually add a completely additional new dimension to our lives that we maybe haven't considered before. I think that's what everybody needs in their life right now, especially right now. Especially right now. So would you like me to unpack for the for the listeners yes can you first unpack what the word

alchemy means sure so quick history um if you want more detail it's in the book quick history of alchemy alchemy dates back probably 5 000 years ago it was an egyptian mythology it originated this is really fascinating once so now we're going to we're going to um we're going to have loads of synergy going on between Paolo's book and what I'm going to say so guess where alchemy originated it originated in the exact area where the pyramids in Gaza is are now so that's where alchemy started so it's not it's not by accident that Paolo's story takes us to the pyramids. Paolo's using a metaphor in the fable that he's written to say that if we visit the ancient art of alchemy, in particular, the Arabic strain of alchemy, because there's several strains going

to India, to China, to Europe, but there is a North African Arabian version of alchemy, which is the one that Paolo talks about in his book. And it originated back then. In essence, it is an ancient mythology that teaches that we can all transform ourselves into our true self, into our real treasure. And they use symbolism such as turning lead into gold, for example, which is the one most of us, most of us got a mental image of an alchemist with a funny hat on sitting in the dark laboratory with things bubbling away, Bunsen burners going and the dark arts of whatever all taking place in there.

Look, trust me, this is the alchemist hiding behind symbolism. Ironically, scientists recently did manage to turn lead ions into gold ions in the hydrogen collider in Switzerland. And so that's all in the book as well. If you're interested in nuclear physics. When you were talking about wanting a gold Rolex, I was thinking it would have been really funny if he gave you a lead Rolex and told you to go turn it into gold. I think my watch is plastic actually.

I think I've got a marine waterproof plastic watch. I love it. Which if I lose, I'm not going to care about. You know, just, oh, I lost my watch. Doesn't matter. Cost me nothing. So the ability to turn something that we consider to be invaluable from a base material into something which becomes our greatest treasure.

That's the heart of alchemy. So if we apply that to what you all know, so whether it's in our meditation, whether it's in our yoga, whether it's in our Reiki, whatever practice we use, in the end, what are we striving for? I'm saying what we're striving for is to become our true self not somebody else but to become the real person that we were meant to be because that's the person who will know real happiness that's the person who will know true fulfillment and in my book I'm fixated with this thing called true empowerment so for me the greatest gold that we can all possess is the

ability to own our own power they say well what does that power look like so I define it quite quite simply in my book which says that the true empowerment that can be each of ours a birthright, really, is the ability to love unconditionally. And that is the greatest power in my short span of life that I've discovered that if I can possess nothing else, if I can own just one thing, can I please love unconditionally where I don't manipulate the outcome of how others are going to love me or not love me, where I don't put conditions on them in order for my benefit.

So all of the things, patience, kindness, goodness, forgiveness, forbear benefit so all of the things patience kindness goodness forgiveness forbearance all of the things that so many couples when they get married say to each other that what i discovered is that alchemy can bring us to that place more successfully in my experience because i've tried lots of ways to love unconditionally and failed miserably but by going through the process outlined in the art of alchemy which is very clearly outlined in paulo caylor's book himself i discovered that's been the the most successful method to arrive at that place of true empowerment. And it does involve transformation. So I'm sorry to say this, my path to true empowerment

has not come by just sitting quietly for half an hour every day and trying to clear my mind. I wish. I wish it was that easy. The alchemist called it the great work. Emphasis on the word work. And the word great, I think, really stands for hard work. So the hard work of alchemy is actually about going within

and facing the self that we would rather avoid. So the seat of anger, the seat of hatred, the seat of prejudice, the seat of deceit and manipulation and selfishness and all the things that we've all got, me included, you're guilty, Your Honour, as charged. We have to go and visit those places in our own unconscious believe it or not that's the true self that can be transformed to try and avoid visiting that true self in my experience anyway other people it may work but for me it hasn't just to think nice things about other people to try and be nice to other people it may work but for me it hasn't just to think nice things about other

people to try and be nice to other people to try and be nice to myself has been the hardest thing i've ever had to do and i've usually failed at it so by going and visiting the the darkest part of the unconscious the dark night of the soul d Dante's Inferno, if you like, where the fires of hell are burning brightly, and boy is it hot down there. Those are the places where I began to discover myself. Before Paolo, as I say, BP. I love that. And an AP after Paolo. The best. So BP was when I was about early 20s. I was failing miserably at being a nice person. I wanted to be a nice, kind person,

but I found that the more I tried to be a nice, kind person, of course, the more I failed miserably at it. And then I wonderfully discovered that there's a very famous psychologist, psychiatrist called Dr. Carl Jung, who was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, who invented all of the things we know about archetypes and shadow work and projection all those of you that have studied karl young which is one of my favorite omens and of course guess where karl young found most of this information he became a student of alchemy he wrote books on this subject everybody and if you go to the back of my book I've got a whole bibliography of Carl Jung's work that I've read in my study of understanding the unconscious because without Carl Jung we would be ignorant of the unconscious and I'm eternally grateful to him because we in the unconscious lives the dragon that raises its ugly head at the least and inappropriate times of our life usually times often when life brings grief for example times when tragedy occurs and we suddenly discover that the control we thought we had on our feelings

just slips through our fingers and all this other stuff suddenly emerges and takes over and it can be scary, it can be destructive, it can be sad times. We can do a lot of harm to a lot of people if we haven't taken ownership of our own shadow. There was a guy called Robert Johnson. Sadly, he died, I think he passed at 98 years old or 99, just recently in California. He was a Jungian analyst. Robert Johnson, he wrote a fabulous little book called Owning Your Own Shadow.

I was reading that about the same time as I was reading Paolo Cayley, The Alchemist. And it helped me enormously to know as I was reading Paolo Chaelo, The Alchemist. And it helped me enormously to know that I was on the right path. So what do you do with the unconscious dragon that lives in the psyche is a big question. And the reason I love the metaphor of alchemy itself is that they outline these stages. And the first stage is called the black stage. This is the process of transmutation, as they call it, or transformation, as we now refer to it.

So the black phase is allowing the psyche, your thought life, to reach rock bottom. And I decided to do it voluntarily. Some people say I should have just gone and seen a counselor and got over it. It would have been, maybe it would have been easy, but I don't think the end result would have been anywhere near as productive. Well, it would have been more expensive too. It cost me a year of my life. So whatever that's worth, that's what it, yeah, that's what it cost me a year of my life so whatever that's worth that's what it yeah that's what it cost me I used to so I just showed you guys a parish church in England well I actually worked near a church very similar and at lunch times during this period I would take my packed lunch

away from everybody else I was working with and I would go and sit behind the church and it was quiet. I only had cows as company. I was in the middle of the countryside at the time in rural England. And it worked because what I discovered was that as I made the effort and called on love. So I talk about loving the first person as an entity. I called on love to help me visit my dark side and managed to get to the point where all of the props all the things are the masks the props all of the things that I thought made me me and gave me an identity were destroyed and there's a wonderful guy called Thomas Merton.

He was a Catholic priest who wrote a book about this. And it's all about the dark night of the soul. St. John of the Cross, for those of you with a religious leaning, you might find that useful read if you haven't read Thomas Merton. And he had gone through the same thing. So I felt I had a companion in doing this and when you get to the point of when you think everything's gone and lost and there's no hope then you know you've arrived congratulations success yeah didn't know success was going to look like this yeah don't have anything else oh congratulations yeah well done so there you are at the rock bottom. Just down the road from me, there's a cottage called Rock Bottom

because it's at the end of a very sloping street. And every time I drive past, I think, I've been there. I've been to that house. I know Rock Bottom. The reason why I love the process of alchemy is it teaches that you cannot stay there. It's a good idea to get there, but immediately upon arriving there, you need to move to the next stage. And the next stage is called the white phase. And the white phase is critical. It brings you back to reality. So it says, okay, this is good. So now we know who you really are. Now we know the base material that we're working with.

So what I've found in my experience or what I find in talking and helping other people through this process is that what you discover is usually, in my case and in most cases, is a wounded child. There's a wounded child there's a wounded person there buried in the unconscious and in the story of the alchemist santiago of course has a dream in the broken down chapel in andalusia and that chapel is very significant because the origins of Santiago's journey began in a similar place it began in a place where all of his beliefs were destroyed and it came in a dream

and the person in the dream was a girl child it wasn't a boy it was a girl child who appears to Santiago and I don't think that Paolo put that in by accident by any means so it's that inner feminine in Paolo's existence that inner feminine child that we've all brushed under the carpet yeah we got rid of her ages ago including the guys we all you know we thought we all own that person and that's that story of the of the of the girl child that we've all tried to ignore is well documented in mythology including Shakespeare and if you read my book you'll find this girl child as well you know even appears in Greek and in Shakespearean mythology. In my case, it was a wounded boy. It wasn't until I went into the white phase that I even knew he existed.

And that's not a surprise to those of you. If it was anything like the wounded young Colm, he was pretty angry. He had a lot to say on the subject, but he'd never been allowed to say it. So every time there was a situation in everyday life with Colm as an adult he would say oh yeah I've got something to say on this topic and he would come out rise up and he would have his four penny worth as we say in England

on the subject and it was pretty destructive usually. So I took the trouble. I went into some therapy. I personally chose what we called at the time primal therapy, which is rebirthing. It's the same therapy that John Lennon chose with Yoko. They went to Los Angeles and he spent several weeks going through a similar and to all intents from what I've read, found it useful as well. There's not many people practicing it,

except I did notice on Netflix that Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop group, have you seen that? They went to Hawaii. They used some magic mushrooms. Yeah. They did what I did, only we didn't use the magic mushrooms. I missed

out on the mushrooms, guys. We did it with, we used hyperventilation, which was, yeah, you can get there really quick with hyperventilation. No problem at all. You can get there in five minutes or less. Wait, explain that. Like literally forcing yourself to hyperventilate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can get into hidden memories in hop, skip and a jump. The guy who I worked with who sadly passed, a guy called Dr. Frank Lake, who I've dedicated my book to, because it changed my life. That was like the first mega change in my life. Also my wife as well we did it together she found the young self in her too which was amazing we've got our golden wedding anniversary in two years time oh congratulations you're supposed to say calm you don't look old enough you're like that's a huge accomplishment

marriage is hard it is it is but i would say is hard, but one of the things that has made it work for us is that we've both committed to transformation early on, and we've both committed to unconditional love towards each other early on. And so I am the recipient of her unconditional love, which has made, she's been the rock there for me at times when I've just needed somebody to be there. And she says vice versa. So that's's very complimentary in the story of Santiago the crystal shop that he visits when he's lost all his money and he starts and goes in and starts cleaning the glass crystal by that we mean lead crystal was expensive cut glass with people drink or brandy glasses in Western society. In Arabic society, of course, they drink tea out of glass crystal. So in the story, that's what happened.

And the moment he starts cleaning, customers who've never been coming into the shop before instantly arrive and the shop becomes successful. What's the main component in glass crystal? Of course, it's lead. Lead is what makes it clear and i love that analogy that paulo drew on and so if you read most of the commentaries on the alchemist most of the literary commentaries miss that completely because they're not looking at the book through alchemy glasses i put my alchemy glasses on and re-read the story of the alchemist.

And it's just full and full and full of alchemy symbolism. What that means is that we can now allow love to embrace the things that we previously despised about ourselves. So when we accept that we're wounded, when we accept that we're full of pain, even though we didn't do it to ourselves, but we still have to take responsibility for it. Once we own it, take responsibility for it and take responsibility for the power of unconditional love will just come streaming in like a floodgate and go this is what i want for your life it everybody you talk to everybody who resonates with what i'm saying who approach me or contact

me facebook or whatever everybody's putting their hand up and going, you are so column. This is it. This is it. This is what I've been talking about for years as well. Yes, yes. Unconditional love wants you to enter into true empowerment. And unconditional love will be there with you in every step of the way it just so happens that the route the alchemist paved out acknowledges that as an essential ingredient in the process of transformation i don't know

tell me mandy tell me do you know anybody who has successfully transformed without the intervention of unconditional love because i i don't i've never found absolutely not and i honestly i don't think i could have found it had i not found it right here in my heart first for myself who i had the most conditions for yes love that one yes who i had the most conditions for aren't we tough gosh we are our worst we really put ourselves through the mill for no reason still do it you know and catch yourself do you catch yourself just you know in your idle moments hey you know what you should have done that you know goes back to that inner child that's that little little shit child that needs to go back in time

out that's where I'll put her. Go and sit on the step. Here's a lovely little synergy thing. By the way, my heart goes out to everybody who was abused in any way as a child. Sending blessings, sending love and compassion to you, anybody who was abused as a child. There's always somebody worse off than ourselves, of course. For me, my mother was an epileptic but undiagnosed and so when I was a toddler sadly if she began began to have a turn an epileptic she would know when the signs were coming on as a toddler she would put me in the cupboard under the stairs to protect me except there was no light in that cupboard and there was no way of getting out of that cupboard.

So I was locked in the cupboard. And then, of course, when I finally, many, many years later, read Harry Potter, who was also locked in a cupboard when he was adopted, big resonances going on. So when I went through the white phase, the memory came back. So I found myself in the

cupboard and my mother sadly passed. Love my mother. But she did it to protect me. But of course, the damage was just sheer confusion. I mean, as a toddler to one minute be, you've got this loving person who's caring for you and saying all these nice things to you and then the next thing you know you're in the dark you think you're being punished and then when I would hear all this terrible noise outside I've been screaming and who knows what was going on that just terrified me to death very quickly fortunately for me and her and the family she was diagnosed and it was all sorted out. But sadly, the damage had already been done as far as I was concerned. So I did not know this.

So as an adult, trying to make sense of the confusion that I had about love was really hard work. So love could be taken away at an instant. Love was unreliable. Love was at a whim. You're not really loved for yourself, for who you are. It's only if you behave yourself and do the right thing. All this confusion. So that's why I say at the very beginning of my book that the greatest challenge we all face is to understand and to know that we are truly loved for who we are not for what we can do and that was that was the big moment for me to

own that truth that it didn't matter how I was treated I am loved and that was the beginning of the healing for me so that was the white phase that I went through and Santiago goes through that then it's interesting that it's after the crystal shot, that Santiago goes into the desert and he's at that point I mentioned earlier where he's at the oasis because he's achieved an awful lot. And if what I'm saying resonates with you

and you say, yeah, I've done this. I've worked a lot in my shadow self. Yes, I've been to counseling. Yes, I've done this and I've reached this point and I'm managing things. I can manage everyday life and manage the kids. I can manage my career. I can manage myself without falling apart every five minutes or reacting to people

and trying to manipulate them or whatever it is we need to do to get love. I've stopped doing all of that. And that's great, but it's only half the journey it never actually ends at that point but it is the beginning of a major potential and this is why i just love the alchemist because if you've reached that point i guarantee i'll put money on it not that i bet but but he's going to come tap you on the shoulder at this point in your life. And he's going to say, do you want to go? Do you want to just go a bit further? Do you want to go find the real treasure? Or are you just happy to settle for this?

And that's literally what the alchemist says to Santiago in the story of the alchemist. And we're never going to find true empowerment we're never going to find our real self if we pause at that moment even the alchemist says to Santiago year one yeah you know life will still be good you'll find happiness you'll find fulfillment year two then a lot of what you've learned is going to be slowly fade from your memory. Year three, four, five, probably you're going to feel discontent and unhappy. And you may die in the process and never, never find that. It may be too late, but I'm here to tell everybody today.

Today means it's not too late. Before the end of today, you can say to the universe yes yes yes yes i i want to keep going i want that real treasure i want to live that fulfilled life that i my heart is telling me is still there to be lived it's not over and every day can be part of that new treasure that we can reach but it comes with a price and the price is that we have to take a new risk again to step out and resurrect the dreams that we've buried so whatever that that dream, and by the way, I don't differentiate between sleep dream and daytime wishes and aspirations. And they can be really mundane. So in my case, the aspiration that I needed the nudge to move forward was to start my own

business. Since then, it's been other things. So I needed a massive nudge to write my book. Because I don't know if those of you that have tried writing will know the pain that I've been through to write that book. But any creative project, I find this, it seems to be relevant to creativity as well. It seems to be connected to our fear of failing at being creative. For those of you that have tried any kind of creativity, I would say most of us, when we're at the point that we need an alchemist to tap us on the shoulder and say, I'll help you. If you want to go down that road i'll help you i was the vulnerability that comes with making exposing ourselves to others and if it's a public failure then that's something we normally avoid at

all costs is it not we we just don't want to go there because it's the shame attached to that and so on now i've failed at lots of projects i'll just add over my time. And some of them have been quite embarrassing. And I lost some money. But I would honestly say that writing the book was the hardest thing I've ever done. Because I've made that decision to expose my vulnerability to the world. And I can't think of anything that's more valuable than you exposing your vulnerability to the world. and one major important thing, it will have revealed the real you in all its vulnerability, in all its fragileness, in all of its innocence. And that's what the world needs

each of us to do right now is to stop hiding behind all of the layers and all of the facades and all of the things that we think we need to be to the world in order to be presentable to the world. Only you will know what it is that is your dream that you fear stepping out and fulfilling.

It's unique. It's going to be totally unique. But the process is not unique. It will be the same, which is you will need to step out and make that big change in your life and do expose the real you but don't forget you've already been through the black phase you've been through the white phase so this is the red phase in alchemy terms so the red phase is action you've actually got to do something not just think positively which is great wonderful to think positively deal with

negative thoughts yes you are going to have to do that maybe confide in a couple of people who you trust that it doesn't matter if you make yourself vulnerable yes do that that's good too but in the end you are going to have to step out and reveal the real you to the world, because that's the treasure of alchemy that we can each bring. And Paolo, in his book, says, and through the character of Santiago, when we do that, guess what we're doing? We're nourishing the soul of the world. So we are adding to the positivity and the life-givingness of the soul of the world, which we're all connected

in Jungian terms through the collective unconscious, which is another phrase for the soul of the world. The contribution of the vulnerable you to the soul of the world is the greatest thing any of us can do right now. It is the most positive thing we do. And if you read the story again, if you go back to the alchemist, there's this fabulous now. It is the most positive thing we do. And if you read the story again, if you go back to the alchemist, there's this fabulous scene. It's one of my favorite scenes of Santiago where the alchemist and he are captured again by bandits in the desert. And the bandits say, we're going to take all your money, all your treasure, we're going to kill you. And the alchemist says, well, that's fine. But before you do that that you might want to ask the boy to do a trick and the chief goes what trick and the alchemist says well the

boy is an alchemist and he can turn himself into the wind guess what the boy is thinking at that point what don't tell people that don't tell people that because i have no idea if that's how you feel when i'm talking about exposing a vulnerability, pursuing your real dream, it scares you to death. Then that means it's a real dream. Because if you could just breeze into it, forget that dream, go digging deeper because there's a deeper dream that needs to be resurrected and needs to be fulfilled. And so he goes and he basically

pleads with the universe, with the wind, with the desert, with the sun, and all of those things. And he eventually is introduced to love, which is interpreted by Paolo as the hand that wrote all this is the first time that he meets the hand that wrote all and the hand that wrote all represents the very source of real love the real origin of all of love that controls the world and runs the world and connects the world and each of us and I love this paragraph i'm going to just read this one paragraph briefly so when he's done all this and he understands that he is part of love and that he's he a boy is part of the universe the boy reached through to the soul of the world and saw that it was part of the soul of god and he saw that the soul of god was his own soul and that he a boy could perform miracles if i had to go in my obituary if either

of you are going to write my obituary be welcome but can you just make sure you include that he failed at this and he failed at that and he messed this up and he made a right old pig's ear of most things but he did do one thing is that he learned soul of the world was the heart of love and that that soul was his own soul because i couldn't be here talking to you guys today if i hadn't learned that lesson that's the empowerment many life-changing quotes in that book yes like i mean one after another after another after another it's you got a favorite i do have a favorite have you got it handy i do so i like a student when i was reading the book i had to just take non-stop notes and pause it and write did you guys experience that too page after page

you can't see this folks but they're looking at my study copy of the alchemist underline stars underline underline underline every page read our favorite quotes yes let's do it so my favorite quote is when someone sees the same people every day, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. Then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea on how people should lead their lives, but no one about his or her own. Melchizedek in the early part of the book yeah it's so true and not wanting to change all the people around you that's not loving unconditionally that's loving

with condition yeah yeah unconditional love does not mean that we have to put up with abuse you are not loving unconditionally somebody who is abusing you. You're just encouraging something that's really bad for you and for them. If you feel you are the victim of abuse of any description, please get help. Please talk to somebody. Yeah. You'll go or shall I go next? You go. I can't wait to hear what your favorite one is.

Okay. So it's Melchizedek again at the beginning of the book. And this is probably Paolo's most famous quote. So I'm cheating. When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Sorry, Mandy, did I steal yours? You did. That's his theme, isn't it? That's it. That's it.

That's it. Now, it's easy to read that glibly and go, oh, that's a truism. But to have that actual reality in your life is phenomenal. Like some days I just wake up and go, is this real? You know, I pinch myself and go, did that just happen? Did the universe just open that door? Seriously? And if you're not experiencing that, the secret is in that phrase. So you might say, why is that not happening in my life? Well, the key is in the first part of the phrase, when you truly truly want something the one of the things I find

that we most dishonor about ourselves is that we don't honor the things that we really want when you honor your real desires what you'll find about in my experience are two things is that they are amazingly life-giving. When I work with people, they say, what do you really want? That's my first question. And then they usually give me an answer and I go, okay, try again. And then they give me another answer and then I say, no, try again.

And 99% of the time, it takes several goes for us to really be honest about what we really want and what you'll find in my experience is that you what you really want is incredibly life-giving to yourself and to others and it will only bear fruit and be amazingly creative I mean just take my example of the Rolex watch what I really want how would you know? Well, first of all, your heart will tell you, and you mustn't ignore your heart. It will tell you, but also signs, synchronicity will be as plain as day. Yeah. All right, Mandy, what's your favorite quote?

Well, that was my top favorite. Oh my gosh, this is so hard. There's so many. There was one that says, it's not what enters your mouth that's evil, it's what comes out of it that's evil. I need that reminder. You know, I also just want to say that from personal experience and from what you've shared, something that just resonated with me was the soul of the world. I've never heard it that way. And I think that a lot of times that people look up to find God, look up to see the heavens. And you really very simply made sense of that to me that it's within, there's no division between the two. We as humans seem to really divide the two. And you helped me to put those two together and realize that that life for me can be here right

on earth. My brother was a soldier in the war in Iraq and was killed. A lot of blessings have come out of it. And I loved in the, how it talks about the people that have deceased are now the soul of the world. My brother is the soul of the world. And let me also tell you that my brother was in a very difficult phase of his life before he joined the army. And when he did join and when he was in Iraq,

he was living out his personal legend. To have him pass away after he found his personal legend is a beautiful thing, rather than if he would have stayed here and not have joined the army and passed away, drinking or driving. I loved that, how these loved ones that have passed away are now part of the soul of the world. I loved that. And they will help us too. Blessings, Mandy. The alchemists attribute most of their teaching to an original document, which was engraved on a thing called the Emerald Tablet. And in my blog on my website, I did 40 days of alchemy meditations, which you've got nothing else to do. I highly recommend. I started it on the first day of lockdown in the UK because I suddenly realized

I had some time on my hands and I've been putting off doing this blog for years. And I, so I wrote a blog every day for 40 days and you can read it there. Day one is I encourage you to memorize the first two lines of the Emerald Tablet, which speaks, Mandy, to what you say. So it goes like this. It is true and without any lying, certain and most true. That which is on earth is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is on earth, to do the miracle of the one only thing when you could integrate those two aspects of the self the heavenly the spiritual the earthly the daily you are manifesting love which is the miracle of the one only thing can you believe that was that was that was written at least 3 000 years ago

that integration is the secret of happiness in my experience uh there is no other route the soul for shanna and i is all about getting people to really get to know their soul do you think that people can get to this place without entering that darkness? No. Well, maybe. In my case, no. In the case of most of the people I've worked with, no. We're all travelers on a cosmic journey, right? Yes. Can we tell our listeners about your podcast? Because I love it. The Alchemy Lab. I only ever interview people

who are either on or going through or have been on a transformational journey. And so I do some interesting things normally in the middle of the podcast if you've listened to it. Oh, I'm just, I've just got a beaker here with some potion in it. That's cranberry juice. I usually say I'm creating a potion of some description, whether it's the elixir of life or whether it's the ability to turn lead into gold or whatever it might be. And so we usually use that as an analogy.

So that's why I call it the alchemy lab. I especially really enjoyed the most recent one. With Jeff Thompson. I loved the synchronicities of you guys meeting it was awesome so we've both got a book being published by John Hunt Publishing on the same day and we were both born unknown to each other in the same neighborhood in the same city in the UK he went to one school and I went to the the neighboring school within a mile of each other and we only just found each other a month ago after all that time what I love Mandy about it is the journeys the synchronicity of the two journeys we've both

taken different routes to end up at the same point which is that the most important thing in life is unconditional love from completely different angles about the same thing i'm foreseeing a lifelong friendship yes so you're book launching july 31st and where will people be able to get this book? In every good online bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Amazon. If you're in the UK, it's Waterstones. If you're in Australia, it's Angus and Robertson, Dimmocks. It's even in France, Portugal, Spain, Germany. We're listed everywhere. It's Scandinavia, South Africa, anywhere you live. You can buy it locally online.

Thank you for sharing just your wisdom, your life experiences, being vulnerable and authentic with your troubles as a child. We really appreciate you very much. Likewise. I just have to say what I've loved about our conversation today is how we've actually dived into the detail of the original book, The Alchemist, together. I've been on lots of podcasts, but we've never done this before. Never sort of unpacked the book itself and shared personally. And I've taken away masses from Shana and Mandy, both of you, today as well.

So I've been blessed very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your lives and helping all the people that you help. Thank you. Right back at you. Thank you so much.

Do you have a particular website people can go to? Go to my Facebook page, which is Colin Holland page on Facebook. Everything that you write is about love. And I love how much you love love. What else is there? Everything else is froth and bubble, really. There you go.

All about love in the end of the day. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.