What side orders are best for someone looking mainly for practical esotery and alchemy, also self knowledge?

Appendant and side bodies focused on esotericism, alchemy, and spiritual self-knowledge include several distinct societies and rites.

In the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia—and its counterpart in America—the focus is explicitly placed on literary, esoteric, and philosophical research 1. Formed in 1865–1866 by Robert Wentworth Little and Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, the society limits its membership to Freemasons and devotes itself to searching out the secrets of nature, investigating ancient symbolism, and studying philosophy derived from the Cabalah and the Hermetic doctrines 1.

In the Philosophic Scottish Rite, established in France in 1775 by M. Boileau, practical Hermeticism formed the core of the system 1. Derived from Pernetti’s Hermetic Rite at Avignon, it set aside traditional Temple symbolism to teach Hermetic and Pythagorean philosophy, culminating in the summit degree of Sublime Master of the Luminous Ring 1.

In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the grades above the Eighteenth and below the Thirty-third are classified as Philosophic Degrees 1. These degrees abandon the allegorical building of the Temple to cultivate a system of pure theosophy and moral self-knowledge 1.

In both the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (as the Eighteenth Degree) and the Royal Order of Scotland (as the Third Degree), the Rose Croix degree draws upon imagery associated with historical Rosicrucianism and Hermeticism 1. Albert C. Mackey distinguishes the Masonic degree from the earlier alchemical brotherhood, yet notes that the philosopher's stone of the alchemists and the spiritual temple of Freemasonry serve as identical symbols for self-perfection 1. Arthur Edward Waite similarly observes that alchemical terminology was historically redirected from physical metallurgy toward spiritual transmutation and the interior development of the soul 2.