The Alchemist: Student Notes

Pablo Coelho Interview: SuperSoul Sunday

❖ Learning language by making mistakes
and paying attention
❖ The universe is there to teach the right
signs, even though you do the wrong ones
❖ Understood that the universe wasn’t
turning around him. Remember the days he is
alive and realized there was a lot of thing going
on in the outside world.
Oprah Prime: Pharrel on The Alchemist
❖ Reading Alchemist changed his life
❖ If you have the desire, the universe will reach u to where u are
❖ His family see him going up in places even before he started getting into the music
industry

Group #4 research:
What is alchemy? Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a
philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China,
India, the Muslim world, and Europe
What processes were involved? It was dependent on what you decide on
changing. The process involved removing of the upper part , sometimes by
skinning it off at the surface
Who performed it and why? It was practiced in Mesaptamia , Ancient
Egpyt, Persia, and China, Greece and Rome, Muslim civilization and
Europe in the 19th century. It is supposed to give access to our custom
supernode API that is built for production.
Who were the famous alchemists of the medieval period?
● Zosimos of Panopolis (late third century AD) ...
● Maria the Jewess (between first and third century AD) ...
● Jean Baptista Van Helmont (1580-1644) ...
● Ge Hong (283-343 AD) ...
● Isaac Newton (1643-1727) ...
● Paracelsus (1493-154
- Easy way to connect through fables ( ex. Tortoise and the Hare, The
frog and the scorpian, the lion and the mouse)
- Animals are a great use of symbolism ( easy to remember things)
- Simple things like a stuffed frog, could hold meaning to most than
others. Some may see a cheap toy but to others could mean its
something valuable.
- Value doesn’t always mean its expensive
- Myth was about being narcissistic. Loves himself too much and
doesn’t want to be committed into a relationship. After looking at
himself in a Lake so many times , he falls in and dies
- Shows what attention you give to others, its important to know that
people care about what you think. So try to see the reflection
between you and other people
- Metal to another substance ( alchemist) ( Magical and scientific
philosophy)
- In a way is symbolic and will show throughout the book
- Melchizedek is known a priest ( some say he’s actually Jesus).
Saying he’s from Salem an is basically a profit to Santiago
- Almsgiving ( prayers, five times a day), fasting ( holy month of
Ramadam )and pilgrimage ( taking a journey to Mecha
- Karan: 1972: the gret restoration the great masque of sana in lock
between a remarkable grave site. The site has no grave sites,
contains nothing besides paper documents ( sared book to be
believed as the book of God)
- Soul of the world: Religion is trusting and worshipping a hugher
power while being ok with going off one’s faith
- Phylosphy is knowing the reality of the existence
- Most of Jordan’s population are stereotyped as Nomads( most
famous for their hospitality), they always travel meaning they never
belong in one place.
- The basic theory of dream analysis? Freud’s dream theory is that the
represent wish fullfillments and motivations Dreaming comes
naturally, you don’t tell yourself to dream when you sleep
- Jung’s theory is a way to communicate to your body from your soul
wants/ needs ( not a desire, more of an internal conversation)
 - Religion: if you’re dreaming, its where an angel could be talking to
you
- A Levanter is a strong wind in the mediterranean region.
- Weather might prevent Santiago from continuing his journey or will be
lead to the next step of his journey
- Scrirocco Hot wind. Often dusty, blowing from North Africa across the
mediterranean
- Novel set in Spain ( looking at geographical map): crossing north
section of Africa and all the way to Egypt.

Book notes;
● Santiago is herding his sheep and realizes that he doesn’t want what
his family wants him to be. Even they sacrificed his education to
ecome a priest.

PGs. 14-26 ( Satiago meets the old woman and the Old man) April
27,2022
➔ What does Santiago learn from the Old Woman?
➔ What was he supposed to "take" with him after their interaction?
➔ What is the wisdom she shares with Santiago?

➔ Santiago talks about his dreams of being sent to Egypt

➔ Learns from the old women that God speaks through their
dreams in this way through the soul.
➔ What did learn after the interaction? Supposed to take wisdom
and travel to Egypt and find his treasure
➔ The old woman tells him that she can’t make his dreams
become a reality instead he has to make them himself
➔ Gypsies are stereotyped in a negative way in the book ( even
Santiago was scared of her at first)
➔ Longer Journey is better than an immediate
➔ His dreams had a deeper meaning
 ■ Read first part: pages 17-26 (Santiago and the Old Man); stop, discuss,
and take notes.

■ What does Santiago learn from the Old Man?

■ What was he supposed to "take" with him after their
interaction?
■ What is the wisdom the Old Man shares with Santiago?
➢ He old man tells Santiago the World’s Greatest lie is that a certain point in
our lives we loose control of what us coming to us, and our lives become
controlled by fate.
➢ Old man is the King of Salem ( Pre Reading, Maybe the profit?)
➢ I like how Santiago prefers to meeting new friends instead of sicking with
new ones because they make you change overtime as they soon become
more apart of your life.
➢ The Old man can only be seen by Santiago
➢ The old man is telling him not to give up his personal legend ( don’t settle )
➢ People don’t realize that you can start your own dreams at any age
➢ In his dream, it is shown that a child is bringing him to the pyramids, and
that they are the only beings that are honest.

Personal Legend(s)

➢ The world’s greatest lie <” we let fate decide our day to day lives”
➢ Manfestation of if they have that passion they’ll do whatever they can to
make it real
➢ Put in sacrifice in what you want to do
➢ We let the bad take control of our lives
➢ Coould’ve done more in life if we didn’t define all the bad in our lives,
living in misery ( pg 20)
➢ People don’t realize that people can’t achieve their dreams whenever they
want to ( pg 25, bake example)
➢ Everything will fall into place within our own paths
( Page 27-44)

➢ Snntiago decides to hold back from not telling the baker on his journey
and what he wants to do. ( which was a totala surprise)
➢ Santiago is scared of going on his own and pursuing his dream.
➢ He wants to be comfortable but he also wants to experience his dreams
➢ Rock symbolism, should be able to know what he has to do next, unless
he can’t look for those omens but he has those rocks and a back up plan.
➢ Urim and thummim ( white means “no” and black means “yes”)
➢ Rocks are used as a sense of security
➢ The concept of holding the oil but also being able to look around you
without dropping it
➢ “ look around and smell the roses”
➢ Beyond just having their own soul, theres a bigger soul tapping in the
entire universe that’s always checking in on you
➢ New place that he doesn’t know about, makes a judgement
➢ Wasn’t used to the culture and customs

While you read, please take note of Santiago's decisions and lessons.
Interactions with the crystal merchant
○ The Principle of Favorability
○ The Dream of Travel (The Dream of Mecca)
○ "Beauty is the great seducer of men" (58). Explain
importance.
○ "Sometimes there is no way to hold back the river"
(61).
○ Lessons remembered from the Old King

Notes from 46-61 pages

● Santiago is still in the market place

● He is happy that he is somewhere new regardless of what
happened with the theif
 ● The Crystal merchant asks Santiago to work at his crystal shop,
but in return he receives to leave for his treasure hunting
adventure to Egypt.
● The merchant tells the boy that there is no way he’ll be able to
make it to Egypt with the amount he earns in a year, which
makes the boy depressed wondering why he even went off in the
first place (pg. 50)
● More mentions of omens when Santiago started working for the
merchant ( two customers entered in, as a symbol of a good
omen to the Crystal merchant) (pg.48)
● All of the boy’s happiness had suddenly disappeared
● He continues to work there and says he needs the money for his
sheep
● Seems liked he has given up on his personal legend
● Part 2: the boy had worked for the merchant for three months
● Merchant believed that when Santiago came to his store was
assign of a good Omen for his shop
● He was worried the boy would return to his sheep leaving his
business to a bad path.
● Santiago speaks of “ Beginner’s luck” a lot with the merchant
● Merchant speaks of his religion: Arabic
● Wishes of traveling to Mecca but can’t since his business wasn’t
as successful as he thought it would be
● Merhcant believes his dream won’t be able to survive, but the
thought of his dream keeps him alive
● In the end he ended getting enough money and changes his
mind and goes back to travwling to Egypt to find the treasure (
pg60- 63)

Realization about the Old King (65-67)

● Interactions with the Englishman

○ Englishman's search for an alchemist
○ "When someone makes a decision" (70)
○ Umim and Thummim
● The caravan through the desert
● Believed the rocks given was one of the omens he had
received
● He thought he could always go back to be a shepard or a
crystal salesmen if his dream doesn’t become true
● So many hidden treasures in the world to discover
● The englishman; what we know, he has been in a university
studying all universal languages
● He understood all religions and studied Eseranto
● Looking for an arabian alchemist to see if a myth told by his
friend was true
● A stranger noticed the boy’s rocks, Urim and Thummim, not
very valuable but made of rock crystals (pg. 71)
● Apparently not part of that region of Andulsia
● “ the closer one gets to realizing his personal legend, the
more that personal legend becomes his truereason for being.
● When stepping foot in a bigger place makes you feel small in
a way that you aren’t used to
● Realizing what he’s leaving behind but is blinded by how
excited of how his journey will be.
● “ the alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the world. When you
want something with all your heart, that’s when youare
closest to the Soul of th World. It’s always positive force”
● Coming to what an alchemist in before we first started
reading, they describe how they stay i their labs, working with
metals and changing them to gold.
● The englishmen let’s the boy read his books, as well as
asking him his studies
● Santiago learned the world is like a Soul and whoever
understands that soul can also understand the language of
things.
● He also learned about how alchemists have their own
personal legends and wanted to discover the Soul of the
World, the philosopher’s stone, and the Elixer of Life
● The englishmen says that he wasn’t trying to contemplate on
the silence but trying to teach the boy a lesson about his own
life and to be awara of what might happen ( The war)
● It’s important to be living in the now and not the past nor
future
● Pg. 88: Camels are starting to sense danger up ahead.