Q&A with Keri Mangis

  

 

 

Keri Mangis is the author of the new book The Essential Ingredient: Remaking Ourselves in Times of Crisis.  

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Essential Ingredient?

 

A: In short, the collective and cultural breakdown we are currently experiencing in America inspired me to write this book.

 

First, it was for myself. I needed a way to grasp what was happening—not just through a historical lens, but through a timeless one. It’s one thing to note intellectually that history repeats. It’s another to actively participate in the breakdown process and what comes after, consciously choosing to be one of the humans who build a new world.

 

Then, it was for others. My decades of spiritual study, and, most recently, my exploration of alchemy, gave me a blueprint that outlined the necessary stages of transformation.

 

It was different than what most of us have been taught about crisis. Words and phrases like "overcome," "independent," and "bootstrap mentality" had no place here as they don’t actually help anyone move through a collapse, only around it.

 

As a culture falls apart, so too do the stories and ideas that built it. People will need a way to sit with that disillusionment. This book will give them that.

 

Plenty of people can intellectualize this crisis from a safe distance. Others choose complacency, fall into cynicism or despair. Still others sit back, waiting for a hero to fix it.

 

This book starts by reminding the reader that they are not separate from this world, nor anyone else. And so if we have a sliver of a chance to remake this world into something better, we all need to get to work.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: There is a term in alchemy called the "prima materia." It translates to First Matter.

 

In the alchemical process of attempting to turn lead into gold, the idea was to first reduce lead all the way down, to its essentialness. Burn away all the impurities, reduce it down again and again until all that remains is so purely its essence. From that space, the alchemists believed, anything was possible.

 

This idea stuck with me as I was writing. Through healing, processing, wrestling with our conditioning and more of this work, we reduce ourselves down to our essentialness. The things that burn us are in fact returning us.

 

And then, all of us from our essentialness, we go into the next version of this world. We do not need something from outside ourselves to do it. We are the essential ingredient.

 

Q: Can you say more about what you see as the importance of alchemy in this book and in people’s lives?

 

A: Many people consider alchemy a failed experiment. They never did (as far as we know!) turn lead into gold.

 

But others consider that the alchemists were using that idea as more of a cover for the real work they were doing, which was on the human mind and consciousness. That when they were talking about lead and gold, they were talking about turning that which is old, useless, and valueless within us into something that shines and brings value.

 

Carl Jung saw that, too, as he applied many of these principles to his work in individuation with clients. And I thought: well, if we can apply it to an individual, what happens if we take it to the collective? That is the thought exercise of this book.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write this book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: Writing this book—and reading the books that helped to shape it—gave me a sense of peace and settledness. Instead of feeling alone and defensive, I feel connected to everything, and that gives me great comfort.

 

But none of that came through just wanting it. I had to pass through feelings of isolation. I had to experience great unsettling as old beliefs and worldviews that I had depended on, nourished myself on, fell apart.

 

For readers, I hope they come away with a sense of their own power and possibility—no matter what happens around them. I hope to remind them that they are not broken, even when things in their life break down. Wholeness lives within all of us.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: The Essential Ingredient is a comprehensive, wide-ranging book on the issue of transformation both personal and collective. What I am working on now is creating the necessary pathways into it—and there are so many.

Some might come to it through identity crisis, or an existential breakdown. Others might feel fear about the direction of the culture, and seek a way to stay steady. Still others might be navigating a personal loss or transition—a death, a divorce, a career that no longer fits—and seek a map that does more than just tell them to get on with it already.

 

Whatever breakdown people are struggling with in their lives, I am confident there is a message for them in this book.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I put together a media kit with more about why I wrote the book, how it is different from typical self-help, whether I consider it political, and more.

 

Beyond that, I would like to suggest to anyone who picks this book up: take your time. Done correctly, this book should have you questioning things you’ve long taken for granted. That’s good: that breakdown is where real change lives. There is no telling who you might become through the process.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb