The Alchemy of JK Rowling

Chapter 44 - Weasleys

Paul tells us the body is a temple.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? So glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

The sole purpose of liberating alchemy, and hence of Harry Potter, is to bring back the Holy Spirit into the temple of the body. This human temple in our present state is much degenerated and not at all in accordance yet with Paul’s statement. The preliminary process of alchemy is the transmutation and purification of the body to make it suitable for the Holy Spirit.

The human temple has seven beautiful flowerswhich proclaim God’s glory in the liberated human being. They also perform essential work in the alchemist’s transmutation. These ‘flowers’ are known as chakras and are actually force-centres in the etheric and astral bodies. They receive and distribute various types of energy for the person’s needs, from energy to stay healthy to spiritual energy. They are connected to the endocrine glands and various plexuses. They look like convolvuli and are actually little whirlpools of energy on the surface of the etheric body. Their stem originates in the spinal cord.

In the ordinary earthly human being the chakras are seven fetters that tie him down to the fallen universe in which we live. They rotate extremely fast and suck in energy from our ‘Nature of Death’ as Jacob Boehme calls it. Alchemy slows the chakras down and then finally reverses their rotation so that they suck in energy from the Divine Universe, the Sixth Cosmic Plane. When all the chakras rotate in the opposite direction to their previous one, liberation is achieved. The Holy Spirit enters and death has been vanquished. It is apparent from their location on the spinal cord and from their colours and various other references that they are personified in Harry Potter by the Weasley family. Sometimes their symbolism refers more to the chakra itself, and sometimes more to the endocrine gland connected with it.

It is obvious that the chakras and their glands are in the right order of age, starting with Ginny at the bottom of the spine, but with Bill at the top instead of Arthur and Molly. The reason for this will become apparent.

I will deal with each member of the Weasley family in a separate chapter and conclude this chapter with a chart that clarifies the order of the chakras and the Weasleys.