The Alchemy of JK Rowling

Chapter 58 - 12 Grimmauld Place

Harry Potter was written to make it known to the world that Alchemy is a process in which the mortal, imperfect human being is systematically replaced by an immortal, perfect human being who conforms to the original plan of the Source of all Life. When this process has advanced to a certain degree, the new human being, who is referred to as the Inner Christ, has come back to life completely. The New Soul (Harry) has become conscious, the etheric body (Dobby) is a golden aura of breath-taking beauty, ensuring absolute health, the astral body is the most powerful magical instrument imaginable, and the mental body endows the new human being with Divine Wisdom. The chakras are all turning anticlockwise, ensuring the human being absorbs divine, inexhaustible spiritual energy, enabling him to carry out the divine plan. I have also mentioned things like the golden breastplate (Percy), the sharp, two-edged sword (Charlie), the Golden Crown of Omniscience (Bill) and the Holy Grail, all possessions of the new, heavenly Man, which we will all become one day.

However this new human being lives in the old physical body, with part ofthe old microcosm still functioning. This is what the teachings of liberation call, the old house. The new human being has a new, heavenly, indestructible physical body with which he can enter ‘The Kingdom of Heaven’, i.e. the Sixth Cosmic Plane. But he also has the ‘old cloak’, or ‘old house’. He could easily abandon this old physical body, of course, and leave this vale of tears for ever. But this is what a liberated human being, a Bodhisattva, does not do. Like Hagrid, he stays on earth in the old physical body, because people can see him in that body. He can tell people about liberation and teach alchemy. This is only a temporary affair, because the old body is usually frail by this time. This is symbolised in the Bible by the ‘three years’ of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus was a New Man who lived in an ‘old house’. One day this old physical body dies. It drops down like a dead leaf. In Harry Potter ‘the old house’ is symbolised by 12, Grimmauld Place. The 12 refers to the 12 old fading magnetic focal points, or 12 aeons. This grim old house is very full of dark magical objects, as you know. When J.K. Rowling calls anything dark she’s referring to things belonging to the fallen universe, and not necessarily evil in the sense we understand it. Nevertheless it is the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. This is obviously the symbol of the alchemist’s work to teach alchemy to humanity. This is the healing ministry which Jesus carried out in the New Testament. It’s interesting to see the children carrying out the work of cleaning and clearing the house of its dark magical creatures and objects.

This grim old place is the home of the ancient and noble Black Family. It is old because the microcosm is millions of years old. It is noble because it was originally created by the Divine Spirit. It is black because it has fallen from the Heavenly Kingdom into a horrendous universe full of suffering, anguish and death.

This old place has its parallel in The Angel of the West Window by Gustav Meyrink, where it is called 12 Elizabeth St.

At the end of Part 5 Sirius has disappeared. As I explained in Chapter 6, he is the new microcosmic self, who has preceded Harry into the Sixth Cosmic Plane, the Father’s House.

In the beginning of Part 6 there is a little bit of doubt about who has inherited 12 Grimmauld Place. Harry is told it belongs either to him or to Narcissa Malfoy, née Black. As you know I have identified her as the physical body. However it soon turns out that Harry, as the New Soul, is the new owner when Kreacher turns up on Dumbledore’s summoning.

Four people are intimately connected with 12 Grimmauld Place: – Sirius, the personification of the Divine Plan which created the original microcosm; – Regulus (the little king), the personification of the delusion of the fallen human being that he is the king of his own life and his own microcosm; – Harry, the New Soul, born from the eternal Lily in the heart; – Kreacher, the old etheric body, which has the task of keeping the old physical body alive as long as it is needed on earth.