The purpose of this small work is to shorten the thirty years traditionally assigned to the completion of one's work of becoming a true person-one who has fulfilled the timeless potential of human nature's innate perfectibility. Of the avenues dedicated to that work, one of the oldest and best-documented is that of Alchemy, the art of refining the base nature into the sublime-often symbolized as the transmutation of lead into gold. This conversion of base matter into the spiritualized matter of the philosopher's stone is equated, especially in esoteric Taoist thought, with the awakening, or enlightenment, experience.