Book SummaryThe Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Alchemist

The Alchemist is the story of an Andalusian shepherd boy’s journey of spiritual awakening. The boy gives up everything to embark on a long journey across the desert toward the Egyptian pyramids, to look for a treasure he has dreamed of. He follows omens and the wisdom of spiritual guides he meets along the way. He encounters obstacles and trials, and he learns lessons from them about taking risks, conquering fears, and listening to his heart. In this story, Paulo Coelho teaches us about learning the universal language of love, to connect with the Soul of the World and use its power to transform our lives.

Coelho is a Brazilian novelist who has published over 30 literary works, from the 1980s to the present. In 1986 he walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage road and had a spiritual awakening that he wrote about in his book The Pilgrimage and that inspired the direction of his work going forward, including The Alchemist. To date, The Alchemist, published in 1988, is Coelho’s best-known work and was an international bestseller.

In a 2009 interview with the Syrian _[Forward...

The Alchemist Summary The Shepherd Boy

The Alchemist begins with an Andalusian shepherd boy, Santiago, who dreams of traveling. He’s expected by his parents to go into the priesthood, but he chooses instead to become a shepherd so he can wander the countryside. He prefers constant travel because when you stay in one place, he says, too many people get too involved with you, and therefore expect you to conform to how they think you should live.

Through this backstory, Coelho establishes that Santiago is one who follows his own path in life. We learn through this character, and others along the way, how important it is to not give in to others’ expectations and to be true to yourself and find your own destiny.

Recognizing Your Purpose

In The Purpose Driven Life, Christain pastor Rick Warren describes your purpose in life as the calling God has decreed for you. He specifically argues that your purpose isn’t really about you, and that your reason for existence is to serve God’s purpose for you. In contrast to the ideas Coelho presents in The Alchemist, the Christian perspective on this is oriented more toward a reward in the...

The Alchemist Summary The King

The old man in the plaza, who turns out to be a king named Melchizedek, strikes up a conversation with Santiago, and through this conversation, Coelho teaches us about the importance of following the signs that will guide you to your destiny.

Follow Your Calling

The major insight Coelho reveals through the king is that everyone has what he calls a Personal Legend. This is essentially your calling in life, which you feel as a passion drawing you toward it. It’s that thing you most dream of doing in your life. People feel this pull most strongly in childhood, the king explains, as children are more in tune with the spiritual realm and are not afraid to dream big. However, he says this pull subsides as we grow older and become conditioned to live according to societal expectations. Eventually, many reject their calling entirely, believing it to be unachievable and unrealistic. However, the king explains...

The Alchemist Summary The Merchant

Through the next important encounter in the story, Coelho shows us what can happen when we encounter obstacles on our path, and what becomes of those who don’t follow their life’s calling.

When Santiago arrives in Africa, before setting out toward Egypt, he’s robbed of all his money. This is the first major obstacle along his way. He becomes discouraged and begins to doubt everything he’s believed in. But he realizes that he needs to earn money to either continue on his journey, or return home, so he acquires a job in the shop of a crystal merchant, where he ends up working for a year.

During that time, Santiago has many conversations with the merchant, some of them about following his calling. The merchant tells the boy that he’s always dreamed of going on pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca; it’s his calling in life. However, when Santiago asks why he doesn’t go, the merchant admits that he prefers that it stay a dream. He feels that if he actually achieves it, he’ll have nothing left to dream of, and therefore nothing to live for.

The Arrival Fallacy

In Happier, positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar...

The Alchemist Summary The Englishman

Through the next character we encounter, Coelho teaches us about tapping into our collective spiritual power.

Traveling on the desert caravan along with the boy is an Englishman, who’s seeking to learn alchemy, the magical art of turning lead into gold. While the Englishman is explaining alchemy to the boy, he tells him about the Soul of the World and its universal language.

The Divine Spirit

The Englishman discusses alchemy as the magical art of transformation, rooted in what he calls the Soul of the World—the divine spirit of the universe. He explains that in order to enact magical transformation, you need to be connected to the power in this divine spirit. He says that everything living is always changing and being transformed, but the more connected you are to the divine spirit, the more you have the power to transform things to your will. And the more the universe works in your favor.

Connecting to the divine spirit involves learning to communicate with it, the Englishman explains. He says that **on the spiritual level...

The Alchemist Summary The Desert and the Oasis

A major theme of the story is overcoming obstacles, and Coelho shows us through the metaphor of traversing the hostile desert that perseverance in the face of obstacles is crucial in following one’s calling.

The desert itself appears almost as a character in the story, as it’s the space within which transformation and connection to the divine spirit happens. It symbolizes the “tests” Santiago has to go through in order to reach his destination and fulfill his calling. The desert is harsh and unforgiving on the surface, but when the boy learns to look deeply, to commune with the nature around him, and to speak the language of the divine spirit, he becomes aware that there’s life everywhere and that that life will guide him to his treasure. With this, Coelho also shows us that we can find beauty in all of life, if we look deeply.

The Symbolism of the Desert

The desert has a symbolic association in Christianity with the trials and temptations of Christ, and we see that mirrored in Santiago’s journey in The Alchemist. It has also been associated with spiritual transformation. A group of...

The Alchemist Summary The Alchemist

Santiago’s meeting with an alchemist at the oasis brings us to the penultimate point of the story. It’s in the boy’s interactions with the alchemist that Coelho teaches us the nature of true love, as well as what it means to learn the universal language, immerse ourselves in the divine spirit of the universe, and believe in the power of transformation.

True Love

When the boy tells the alchemist about his mission to pursue his dreams and about his reluctance to leave because he’s fallen in love, the alchemist warns him against falling into that trap. Here, Coelho teaches us, through the alchemist, that true love will never hold you back from following your dreams—this is the difference between love and possession.

The alchemist describes to the boy exactly what will happen if he decides to stay in the oasis with Fatima. He says they’ll be married, and Santiago will become successful and respected in a new career, and then over time he’ll be confronted with the nagging feeling that he still isn’t fulfilled. If he continues to ignore it, the pull toward his dream and the universe’s signs will gradually fade, until he’s resigned and lives the rest of his life knowing he...

The Alchemist Summary The Treasure

In this final portion of the story, Coelho teaches us that we must be open to finding our destiny in unexpected places, and that it must be found before we can truly live the life we were meant to live.

When the alchemist leaves him, the boy continues alone on his path toward the pyramids, with the transformative power of alchemy as his strength. He has learned that not only can he speak with the wind and the sun, but those are parts of him—he is the wind and the sun and the desert and the stars. Everything is one, united by the universal soul and language of love.

Everything Is One

The concept that everything in the universe is one inseparable whole is a core principle in the Vedantic tradition of India (among other belief systems), which says that our perception of separateness is an illusion. And the most recent science in quantum physics agrees. At the subatomic level, science has shown that particles are “entangled” in such a way that they cannot be defined as distinct entities. While science would define the basis of that to...

Shortform Exercise: Identify Your Calling

King Melchizedek tells Santiago that our calling in life is usually more clearly felt when we’re children, and we lose touch with it as we grow older. So, if you’re struggling to discover what your calling is, you may need to look back into your childhood.

What did you dream about doing when you were a child? If you can’t remember, think about when you were a teenager, or young adult. Write down anything you can think of.