Seven Stages of Alchemy

Positions

1. 1

   Calcination - Burning

   Question: What must be burned away?

   Fire stage. What ego structures, beliefs, or attachments need to be reduced to ash? The destruction that precedes rebirth.

2. 2

   Dissolution - Liquefying

   Question: What is dissolving?

   Water stage. What rigid forms are breaking down? The melting of calcined remains into fluid potential.

3. 3

   Separation - Filtering

   Question: What must be separated?

   Air stage. Distinguishing essence from dross. What is worth keeping and what must be discarded?

4. 4

   Conjunction - Uniting

   Question: What opposites are joining?

   Earth stage. The sacred marriage of opposites. What inner polarities are coming together?

5. 5

   Fermentation - Enlivening

   Question: What new life is stirring?

   Inspiration stage. The death that brings new life. What is being reborn from the union?

6. 6

   Distillation - Purifying

   Question: What is being refined?

   Purification stage. Repeated cycles of evaporation and condensation. What essence is being concentrated?

7. 7

   Coagulation - Embodying

   Question: What form is emerging?

   Gold stage. The Philosopher's Stone. What new, integrated self is crystallizing? Spiritual made physical.