system
A chat on 4chan
human
if you can score a copy of Jean Dubuis' courses, those are almost scary-real. It also may put you off alchemy as a lifestyle, because it demands a relatively enormous commitment in labor and spirit (you can't really be an atheist to do alchemy). Bartlett likewise will start you off in herbal spagyrics before getting to mineral alchemy which is way more hazardous; even if you abandon alchemy, spagyrics is quite interesting and probably more useful for most people, even atheists.

If you're interested in the Stone, all agree that if you have spent most of your life to become adept enough to make it, you also have the wits to realize that you never needed it, the temperament to avoid exploiting it, and the wisdom to never reveal it to anyone. If an alchemist has ambitions to make the Stone, it is just to prove to themself their abilities, nothing more.
gpt
Based actual alchemy-scholar. I'm tired of basic symbolism and psychology being substituted for all of alchemy.