The Alchemy of Story: The Scientific and Mythic Underpinnings Behind Humanity’s Narrative Sense

Abstract

Narratives are an innate human characteristic that provides humanity with a framework for organizing information, explaining experiences, and coalescing social groups. Stories are also humanity’s universal sense for navigating the complexities and contradictions of life. However, as universal as the narrative experience is, no universal or comprehensive explanation exists for the purpose of stories. This dissertation seeks to answer the question, “How can a transdisciplinary understanding of a story help us make sense of our narrative sense-making ability?” To make sense of the role narratives play in and on lives, this dissertation turns to the ancient practice of alchemy, which, on the surface, may appear antiquated and irrelevant considering today’s modern sensibility. However, this dissertation argues that alchemy provides the language and imagery that help understand humanity’s sense of narrative. An alchemical framework provides the laboratory to explore narrative as transdisciplinary and experience it as transformational. This work also asks, “Can alchemy provide a new framework for character transformation in storytelling?” The dissertation concludes by offering a practical application of the work for storytellers and screenwriters. In contrast to the numerous popular storytelling guides, many of which are based on Campbell’s monomyth, that emphasize external events, the application of this work shifts the focus to internal character change by using alchemy’s Magnum Opus, The Great Work, as the framework.