Alchemy and the Stages of the Work

Alchemy is the oldest and strangest of the Hermetic arts. For some fifteen hundred years its practitioners labored over furnaces and flasks in search of a substance, the philosophers' stone, that would perfect whatever it touched: base metal into gold, sickness into health, the mortal into something more. They wrote about their work in a language of kings and queens, dragons, ravens and peacocks, so that the same page can be read as chemistry, as theology and as a portrait of a mind in the course of being changed.

Where alchemy comes from

The art took shape in Egypt in the first centuries of the common era, where the practical skill of metalworkers and dyers met Greek theories of matter and the Hermetic vision of a living, sympathetic cosmos. The earliest alchemist whose writings survive in any quantity, Zosimos of Panopolis, worked around the year 300 and already describes the art as both a craft and a means of purifying the soul.

From the eighth century the art was greatly developed by scholars writing in Arabic, who gave it much of its apparatus, its theory of metals and its very name. Latin translations brought it to Europe in the twelfth century. It flourished there until the late seventeenth, when the new chemistry kept its equipment and discarded its philosophy. The Emerald Tablet was cited throughout as the art's founding text.

Furnace or soul?

Was alchemy really about metals, or was the laboratory language a veil for a spiritual discipline? The question has been argued for two centuries, and the honest answer is: both, in proportions that varied from writer to writer. The historical alchemists did real work with real substances. Many of them also understood the work as a devotion in which the operator was changed along with the matter, and said so plainly.

The purely inward reading, in which the furnace is the body, the fire is attention and the lead is the unregenerate self, became prominent in the nineteenth century and is the form in which most modern students meet the subject. It is a legitimate development with deep roots. This site follows it, while reminding the reader that it is an interpretation and that the old books were also about what they appear to be about.

The three principles

Medieval alchemists taught that all metals are composed of two principles, sulfur and mercury. In the sixteenth century Paracelsus added a third, salt, and the three together are known as the tria prima. They are not the substances sold under those names. They are principles present in everything, and in the human being they were matched with soul, spirit and body.

The work consists in separating the three, purifying each and joining them again in a better proportion. The formula for this is the most famous in alchemy: solve et coagula, dissolve and coagulate.

The four stages

From the earliest Greek texts the progress of the work was tracked by a sequence of colors appearing in the vessel. Four were named at first. Later writers often dropped the yellow and counted three.

1. Nigredo / the blackening

   Death and dissolution

   The matter is broken down, burned and left to putrefy until it is uniformly black. Its emblems are the raven, the skull and the eclipsed sun. Inwardly this is the collapse of a false picture of oneself: disillusion, grief, the meeting with all that has been denied. The alchemists warn that it cannot be skipped and should not be hurried, and they call the blackness the beginning of the work and a sign that it is going well.

2. Albedo / the whitening

   Washing and clarity

   The black matter is washed and distilled again and again until it turns white. Its emblems are the dove, the swan, the moon and the white rose. Inwardly it is a time of cleansing and calm, in which a person becomes able to see without the old distortions. It is a real attainment and also a danger, since the white stage is cool, detached and easily mistaken for the end.

3. Citrinitas / the yellowing

   The dawn

   The white begins to warm toward gold as the solar principle awakens. Its emblem is the rising sun. Inwardly the clarity of the white stage ceases to be merely reflective and acquires warmth, meaning and direction. Understanding ripens into wisdom.

4. Rubedo / the reddening

   Union and completion

   The matter turns a deep red and becomes fixed, able to withstand any fire. Its emblems are the phoenix, the red king, the rose and the marriage of sun and moon. Inwardly what was separated is joined: spirit and body, insight and daily life. The Tablet's condition is met and the power is turned into earth.

The seven operations

Alchemical authors divided the work into operations, and no two lists agree. Some count seven, some twelve, some more. The sevenfold scheme below is the one most used by modern students, and it conveniently matches the seven planets and their metals.

The philosophers' stone

The goal of the work was a substance described in riddles: a stone that is not a stone, common and despised, found everywhere and recognized by few. It was said to transmute metals, to heal, and to confer long life. In the inward reading the stone is a condition of the person: a stable center that is not shaken by circumstance and that improves whatever it touches. The old writers add that the one who has it is known by quietness and generosity, and never by display.

They also say, with remarkable consistency, that the stone cannot be made by technique alone. Patience, humility and what they called the grace of God are named again and again as ingredients.

Working with alchemy

You do not need a laboratory to study alchemy, and you should not attempt to reproduce the old recipes. Historical alchemists handled mercury, lead, antimony and strong acids, and many were poisoned by them.