The American Scholar

Creative Destruction

WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT the Spagyricus Institute, also known as the Pacific Northwest School of Alchemy, no sign indicates you have made it. No house number. No sprawling green lawn. Those who attend the Spagyricus Institute, one of the few such schools in the United States, are not here to be pampered. Any good alchemist understands that you come to the art ready to work. In fact, our modern word laboratory comes from an alchemists’ mantra: ora et labora. Pray and work.

Everything is alchemical, or so a quick Internet search would suggest. Alchemy has become a modern buzzword—you can find the alchemy of herbs, the alchemy of

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