system
A chat on 4chan
human
How close is therapy related to alchemy? Could therapists be seen as alchemical magicians?
gpt
Completely different. Alchemy (the technique of Hermeticism) is a spiritual practice. Therapy is psycholigical, not transcending to higher realms of being. More importantly, initiatic Traditions take as the starting point a completely healthy individual and raise him to the level of 'supraindividual,' accessing states of 'supraconsciusness'. Therapy starts with an unhealthy individual and tries to make a healthy individual, necessarily never delving further than the waking consciousness or sub-conscious (Freud).

At least this is going by the strict, Traditional and original definition of Hermeticism/Alchemy, other definitions of the latter will of course overlap more or less. This is why Jung's interpretation of alchemy is so ridiculous btw.