Three Stages of Transformation

The above describes seven stages of transformation. Spiritual alchemy in places abbreviates all this into a more compact scheme. From roughly the time of Christ until up to the 15th or 16th centuries, it was defined as four essential stages, based on four colors mentioned by Heraclitus, via the following Greek-Latin terms: melanosis or nigredo (blackening), leukosis or albedo (whitening), xanthosis or flavum (yellowing), and iosis or rubedo (reddening). By the 1500s the stage of ‘yellowing’ was gradually dropped, on rare occasions replaced by ‘greening’.

Nigredo: Nigredo means ‘blackening’. Traditionally it referred to the challenging and often discouraging first phase of the alchemist’s work, in which they would be compelled to face directly into the chaotic void—what the Old Testament referred to as the ‘face of the deep’. Nigredo represents the first stage of awakening, characterized by a breaking down, or a challenging encounter with the parts of our ego that are clearly in the way of our inner growth. The process of nigredo begins as we truly and sincerely begin to walk the path of transformation. The first step faced by all who desire to know themselves is to face the ego, and in particular, its means of sabotaging our inner flowering and overall success in life. In the seven-stage scheme presented above, nigredo may be said to encompass the first two stages, calcination and dissolution.

Albedo: Albedo means ‘whitening’. In this phase, the alchemist brought to completion the work of nigredo—the confrontation with the chaotic, undifferentiated void—by separating things and creating division, i.e., two substances in opposition to each other. This phase of the Great Work thus involves the creation of division necessary for the further unification of these opposites (for e.g., Spirit and body). It is here that the symbol of Mercury plays a crucial role, representing the guidance and assistance that appears to come from outside of the personality and ego-system, and that brings about the corrective balancing and integrating of the opposites, a process referred to by the term mysterium coniunctionis. Albedo also refers to the inner light that arises in the face of genuine suffering and the breaking down of old conditioning brought about by the first stage. The white dove is a common symbol for this stage. Albedo corresponds to the above stages of separation, conjunction, fermentation, and distillation. It is in this stage where a kind of rebirth happens for us, once we have dispensed sufficiently with the old conditioning of the ego, via the stages of encountering the void, creating coherence and clarity via division into opposites, and re-unifying these opposites.

Rubedo: Rubedo, meaning ‘reddening’, is the final stage. Whereas nigredo and albedo were concerned with the chaotic void and division, rubedo is entirely concerned with unity, with the result of this unity being the Philosopher’s Stone. The figure of Mercury herein undergoes a symbolic change, no longer being seen as the cause of the process of synthesis of opposites, but now as the goal itself, leading us back to the state of integrated wholeness and unity. However, this wholeness is not a mere return to the Primal state (something Freud, for one, defined as ‘infantile regression’). Rather, we re-capture the primal unity of the child-like state, while at the same time achieving something much more, the mature wisdom of a sage.16 Rubedo thus points toward genuine self-realization occurring while still in a physical body. It corresponds more or less to the last stage in the seven stage scheme, that of coagulation. This stage is the main objective behind all inner practices of spiritual transformation (although it may be confidently said that very few truly reach this stage in their lifetime). Nevertheless it remains the goal, the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel of embodied existence that we all seek, even if not always consciously.