The alchemists believed that consciousness is within everything—that the world is aware and alive, and that the stones are alive in the same way. They even called the great goal of their work the Philosophers’ Stone! Alchemy is a cosmology within which the phenomena and potential of our spiritual engagement with stones made perfect sense. And alchemy could also provide a picture of where our involvement with stones and their energies can go. the metaphysical interest in stones is now worldwide, involving millions of people. It has been over thirty years since the crystal fad began; and it has not behaved like a fad. It is more like a spiritual movement—a current within a worldwide tide of transformation. Alchemy has always been a practice aimed at transformation. The alchemist’s desire is to improve or perfect something—whether it be a physical substance, one’s body or one’s own soul, or all together. In the alchemical para- digm, substance and soul are not separated.