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Leah Russell3 min

The Secret of The Alchemist

July 20, 2020

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho has sold over 85 million copies, but what if it holds a secret magic to change your life forever? This is the secret that Colm Holland reveals in his book The Secret of The Alchemist.

by Colm Holland

If you’re one of the tens of millions of readers of The Alchemist, you may have been inspired to rediscover and follow your buried aspirations. You may also recall fondly the story of Santiago and his search for his hidden treasure, but what if you missed the ‘real’ gold that’s hidden within the fable? What if you could be applying a secret to experience a life full of all the abundance and wellbeing that comes from the wisdom of the ancient alchemists who knew how to turn lead into gold using their processes?

Written from the life, experiences and wisdom of Colm Holland, a member of the team that published Paul Coelho's The Alchemist in 1993, The Secret of The Alchemist takes readers through the author’s life after a chance meeting with Coelho himself. It was a life-changing experience that unravelled the secret about the original book, and in turn allowed Colm to embark on an enlightened new life and bring the same paradigm shift to others. Most importantly, he reveals the magic secret of the book, and how anyone can harness that secret to create success in any sphere. What follows is a brief extract from The Secret of The Alchemist.

Transformation is not about trying to become someone other than who we really are.

The ancient alchemists used multiple metaphors to represent what they called transmutation – what we call personal transformation. The transformation of something of low value is changed into the greatest treasure using the alchemical process. There is a danger however, in thinking about that transformative change, that we are trying to become someone other than ourselves – our true self. Or we can be mistaken in thinking that we have to strive to reach a perfect ideal of ourselves – sadly, that ideal person does not exist, and we are doomed to failure in an attempt to reach our imagined perfect self. What then is true personal transformation, and what does it look like? Here’s my thoughts on what transformation is, based on my own experience: It’s an inward journey toward discovering our true soul. It involves an inner catharsis toward wholeness rather than a striving for an unattainable state of perfection. It means valuing our frailty and woundedness and allowing Love to heal and restore the power of our unique individuality. It is about looking within so we can move forward to a place of true empowerment where we can offer compassion, empathy and healing to everyone in our world. Transformation does require honest self-awareness, where we make a choice to work towards our well-being with all of our whole being. The starting point is right where we are now, and the process never fully ends because when we choose transformation, it becomes our new way of life. I do want to add a word of caution. When we reach the moment of deciding to actively embark on the inner journey of personal transformation, our conscious self will question whether this is a good idea. That question originates from fear. This fear is legitimate and is founded in past experiences where we encountered pain. ‘Don’t go there again!’ you will hear yourself saying. Rest assured that while transformation will mean we will need to face our fears, there are no dangers lying in wait in the transformation process. Soon, we will look at what it means to face our fears but for today, here is our mantra: