“First of all, the Stone is black, because the Alchemist must enter the underworld, in order to pull the light away from the darkness. The immaculate whiteness of the light is hidden within the blackness of the Stone. This first phase belongs to the state of putrefaction. The Stone then reddens, liquefies and thickens before gaining its true whiteness. The Stone passes through true alchemical transformations. It blackens, it whitens, it is purified, it is adorned with red and white. It passes innumerable transformations during the entire lnitiatic process.” -Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Alchemy
“The crude matter of the Great Work must be found within ourselves. We perfect the substance (the crude matter) according to the art. This substance is the Sacred Fire of our organic laboratory. This substance, being semi-solid and semi-liquid, has a pure, clear, white and red Mercury and a similar Sulphur. Moreover, this substance possesses two types of Salt: one fixed and the other volatile. This crude matter of the Great Work is the semen of our sexual glands. With our science and by means of the fire, we transform this marvelous substance in order for it to he millions of times more perfect at the end of the work.” -Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Alchemy
“Al (as a connotation of the Arabic word Allah: al-, the +ilah, God) means ‘The God’. Also Al (Hebrew) for ‘highest’ or El ‘God’. Chem or Khem is from kimia (Greek) which means ‘to fuse or cast a metal’. Also from Khem, the ancient name for Egypt. The synthesis is Al-Kima: ‘to fuse with the highest’ or ‘to fuse with God.'” -Samael Aun Weor, The Mystery of the Golden Blossom
Alchemy is the process of creation and purification of the soul in order to fuse with the divine. The stages of alchemical transformation are a process that occurs on the vital, psychological, spiritual levels in a person who has devoted themselves to the revolutionary initiatic path. Internal alchemical transformation of the soul is possible for anyone who makes the correct and necessary efforts. Alchemy is about transmuting the lead of the personality into the gold of the spirit. The ego must be dissolved, the spiritual bodies birthed, and love of humanity demonstrated through sacrifice and service. The following stages are depicted mostly in images meant for reflection on these processes.Calcination
Heating/Cooking
“The ancient Alchemists stated: ‘Let your fire he tranquil and gentle, let it be kept as this each day, always uniform, without being weak; if this is not so, it will cause great damage.'”
-Samael Aun Weor, A Treatise of Alchemy
Dissolution
Separation
“I want you to know that when in relation with people, when coexisting with our relatives or with our fellow workers, etc., our hidden defects spontaneously emerge, and if we are in a state of alert perception, alert novelty, we see them just as they really are in themselves. Any discovered defect must be judiciously submitted to analysis through in-depth meditation, with the purpose of comprehended it in a unitotal, integral manner.“
-Samael Aun Weor, Hell, Devil, and Karma
Conjunction
The marriage of the human soul and the spiritual soul.
“The Innermost, the Lord, has two souls.The first is the Spiritual Soul. The second is the Human Soul. The two souls must work under the direction of the Lord, yet this is only possible in Masters. While the Human Soul works, the Spiritual Soul plays. The Spiritual Soul is feminine, and the Human Soul is masculine. In the Masters, the Spiritual Soul is usually pregnant with fruits that, when they are born, must be elaborated by the Human Soul.” -Samael Aun Weor, Buddha’s Necklace
Putrefaction
Putrefying/Fermenting/Dying
Distillation
Purifying/Sublimating
Distillation is the process of concentrating a substance into its most pure form. Sublimation goes even further and creates a vapor state out of a solid.
“After the whiteness, you cannot deceive yourself, because you will reach a grayish color by increasing the fire. This is the Ash. This is the Salt of Alchemy. The Salt is divided into fixed Salt and volatile Salt. Later, after seven distillations of the vessel, the King appears crowned with the red diadem in. Behold all the initiatic processes that we must perform in our alchemical laboratory. [ ]
You must pull the light from the darkness in the underworld so that you may reach your Father Osiris, the Innermost, your Real Being, the Lord of the Ansi garment. The Alchemist must plough the malignant hack of Apep, the tempting serpent of Eden. The Alchemist must pull the fire from the evil The Alchemist must pull the immaculate whiteness from the darkness. You must practice Sexual Magic with your spouse, in order for your black Stone to shine with the fire and for it to then become white, immaculate, and pure.” -Samael Aun Weor, A Treatise of Alchemy
Coagulation
Fixing, or birth, of the spiritual bodies
“During the sexual act, the white elixir and the red elixir, the gold and the silver—that is to say, the man and the woman sexually united—have the power of transmuting the metals of our personality into the pure gold of the Spirit. [ ] The man is the Red King, and the woman is the White King. Our Philosophical Stone is black, red, and white. Our work in red and in white is the loving union of Sexual Magic.” -Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Alchemy
