Stage One

Calcination is the first stage of the alchemic process. It is usually represented by some sort of breaking down through burning, or crushing (as in wheat to make flour, or grapes to make wine) or breaking apart. Whatever the method, there is a release from the old form to a state of potentiality. What is revealed in Calcination is the essence of matter as pure and impure substances.

In one’s journey Calcination is a catalyst for change. This catalyst may be brought about by events beyond your control like a natural disaster, or when faced with a physical or mental health challenge, an addiction, or an accident. It may be brought about by a sudden change in a relationship, a loss of a job, a betrayal or loss of a loved one. What was once stable is now on shaky ground, whether it be a relationship, financial, political, or environmental. You feel vulnerable, even victimized and the future feels very uncertain. There is a loss of being in-control and it is disconcerting to say the least.

For others there is less trauma or drama but more of an emptiness, a longing for something more meaningful in life. The very meaning and joy in life has broken down. Depression and generalized anxiety often accompany this state. You can’t quite put your finger on it, and you struggle to express the feelings or even the reasons for these feelings. It feels soulful, at some sort of deeper level. You can feel guilty for failing to have something tangible, an excuse to justify your state of mind.

The symbolic picture we have assigned to Calcination is the crack in the canyon letting in light and Leonard Cohen’s quote, “there is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” Whatever the catalyst, the choice before you is either to resist the change or to follow the light that is meant to come through the crack. This can be very hard. The temptation is to be in denial or try whatever it takes to revert back to ‘normal’; to patch over the crack. However, the light is the promise of shedding a new light on the situation; a new light on how to acknowledge the breakdown as necessary to moving forward.

To follow the light that a breaking down offers is to be a seeker of yourself. It is the ‘awakening’ as catalyst for your journey of becoming. You awaken to this new potential of yourself coming through a personal storm.

Stage Two

Dissolution is the second stage in the alchemic process. Following the breaking down of the Calcination stage (often characterized as the crash and burn or yearning stage), there is a choice to be made. You harden or you soften. What this means is that you either resolve to go back to fix what broke or you move forward to open yourself up to new possibilities. In the pseudo-science of alchemy, this is the stage of dilution. You add water to quell the fire. And then you add more water as a softening agent.

Quite simply you cannot change what is hard and rigid. The significance and symbolism of water as both life and fluidity is why the drop of water has been chosen pictorially to represent this stage. The single drop of water causes a ripple of change. When you accept the breakdown as a learning opportunity, it essentially becomes that ripple of possibility within you. Through the tears (water) and the pouring out of grief that often accompanies a breakdown, there is that moment when you wonder whether the way out of the crisis or dilemma is to allow it to change you. What have I got to lose?

We hold on to beliefs, habits and behaviours with such determination and rigidity, that the crisis or dilemma of the breakdown is often the only thing that cracks open the possibility that perhaps something within us must change. We can remain victimized by events or ultimately transformed through them. The determining factor is our fluidity. How set in our ways are we? Can we soften and open ourselves up to what may not be familiar? What if on the road of life we turned left rather than right? What if rather than focusing on the external, we turned inwards for the path forward? What if we let go of the expectations others have set for us and decided that the answers lie in the deeper truth of who we are?

This is quite often a humbling experience. It takes the openness of a beginner’s mind. This is after all a new journey. We learn and grow to the extent that we allows ourselves to open up to new revelations without the filters of skepticism. The trick is to open up fully to the learnings and then, and only then, decide if you are willing to embrace what is offered. It is a kind of bargain you make with yourself. I will flow with this openly and willingly for a specified time without judgement. I will reserve judgement until I have sufficient experience and understanding to assess this path and mold it or modify it to my needs.

Stage Three

Now the work of healing begins. After the breaking down and softening, purification begins. This stage is called Separation because in the alchemic tradition, this is when each of the base elements is separated from each other for examination. One-by-one each element is cleansed, and impure elements are removed. This is made possible as the softening done in the preceding Dissolution stage, rendered these elements malleable to change.

With respect to the alchemic application to soul work, this is when the impurities of the soul were identified and removed to lighten and enlighten the way to a more purified life.

Pictorially, we have chosen to represent this stage with the stacked stones. In forming this stacked structure, each stone must fit and be in balance with all the others. Each stone is separate but connected to the others to honour the wholeness of the structure. A stone that does not contribute to the integrity of the design, is carefully removed, or modified.

In “The Alchemy of Becoming” methodology, this is when you identify emotions that have become ‘trapped’ in your body. These trapped emotions compromise the healthy functioning of our bodies and our minds and generally impact our sense of worth and well-being. They contribute to dis-ease, habits and patterns in our life that do not serve us. The work here is to identify where we have trapped emotions that require releasing and clearing.

Understanding how this works starts with the acceptance that we are an open container of frequencies. We are an amalgam of different energy frequencies forming the living solids, liquids, and unseen subtle energies that comprise what we think of as our physical body. However, thoughts, emotions, and feelings comprise what is referred to as ‘subtle’ energies that animate our bodies. Emotions and feelings define who we are as individuated personalities. Some of these frequencies are high and others are low. Some frequencies in our ‘container’ are light and others are dense. The set point of the highs and lows is what is referred to as our unique ‘vibrational signature’.

These trapped emotions come from life experiences or past life experiences that have not been fully processed and released at the time they occurred. It is akin to scarring. The methodology is a process to identify these emotions one-by-one and remove the scarring. The memory giving rise to the trapped emotion is not removed but the scarring is completely healed. This is a powerful process of identifying low frequency emotions in a particular sequence, unique to you and is fully explained in Book 1. Those that have gone through this process are amazed at the mysterious way this is revealed and the actual physical and emotional feeling of lightness that comes with this work.

Stage Four

After the work of separating out and cleansing and purifying each of the elements, this stage of Conjunction reassembles the elements into one. The elements do not reassemble as they were originally constituted. As each element has now changed in terms of its essential properties, the elements reassemble as a new constituted and elevated form, meaning a more purified version of its former self. Everything shifts and indeed the original form undergoes a deep transformation to a new version of its former self. The elements have to organically seek how they now must fit together with this new integrity. There is a melding of the elements to integrate and identify as a whole once again.

In the spiritual tradition of alchemy, this is where the impurities of the soul have been cleansed, promising increased health, vitality and youth in body, mind, and soul. However, this transformation takes time. Think of it shifting every aspect of the self from the physical, vital (prana, life-force), mental, emotional, and spiritual. These aspects of self are all connected and interconnective systems communicating with each other. Conjunction is a deep malleable state within a protective cocoon to allow this transformation to take place undisturbed and uninterrupted.

Conjunction is the where the real alchemic process of transformation takes place. All that precedes Conjunction is preparation and all that follows is refinement and mastery of the transformed state. Conjunction is often depicted as a cocoon in which the caterpillar is rendered into a liquid malleable state to be transformed into the butterfly. From the outside the cocoon seems dormant even lifeless. However, on the inside it is teeming with a life force encoded with the information of transmutation. Pictorially, we have chosen to represent Conjunction with a white vortex of light signifying the dynamic shifting of vital energies that lie within. The dormant exterior of the cocoon belies the magic of what is transpiring on the inside. The cocoon will be discarded having served its purpose, but the energies within have transformed the once ground-dwelling caterpillar to the flight of the butterfly.

Stage Five

When the purified elements come together in the preceding Conjunction stage, they do so as a new unified form. But here, as a new form, elements that no longer serve the integrity of this new form become evident. Such elements could well have served a purpose in the old form but now they may not have a place. So it is at this stage that an additional method to purify was added. No longer are you purifying each separated element, but you are extracting what is superfluous to the whole new structure. This is the refinement called for in Fermentation.

To stimulate this process, an elixir is added to agitate the refinement. In the physical world these were agents like yeast added to the liquified grape to make wine, and in more modern times enzymes are used as transforming agents.

For the initiates of the Philosopher’s Stone, Fermentation was known to be a treacherous phase. Complacency often followed the Conjunction stage and if they did not find the elixir they often regressed and were doomed to repeat the first four stages. To ensure that this did not happen, the initiates sought this elixir through spiritual practices such as meditation and visioning ceremonies. It was through these deeply inward practices that they found the resolve to let go of what no longer served them in their new, more enlightened form.

In the Alchemy of Becoming methodology. It is life itself that becomes the elixir. In Conjunction you reorder and now in Fermentation it is your life that must be reordered to match your frequency upgrade. Life must entrain to you. Pictorially we have chosen to represent this stage with the outstretched arms of one embracing life as the grand elixir of the Fermentation stage. If you allow your former life to remain unchanged, it will pull you back down to its frequency. That is not to say that every relationship or commitment must change, but each major aspect of your life requires examination. It is not change for change sake, but to align to the new truth and integrity of self.

Stage Six

In the ancient alchemic tradition, Distillation is the final purification process that reduces a substance to its essence. In the chemical sense, this is done through the application of heat to vaporize certain substances in a liquid mixture followed by a cooling process to render what has been vaporized back into a now condensed and purified liquid form. This ensures that only the purest and most desirable substances are effectively extracted from the base mixture. Distillation is still used today in many commercial processes such as the production of wines, beer, and spirits and also in the production of distilled water, gasoline, alcohol, paraffin, and kerosene to name a few.

In the spiritual sense, this stage was meant to reveal any vestiges of emotional or mental impurities that had been deeply buried in the ego personality. Soul and spirit were thought to be purified in the vapors of heavenly waters through surrendering life’s challenges to the higher Divine. This was thought to force the confrontation of oneself through the reality and test of being part of the collective, without being unduly swayed or compromising one’s authenticity. Distillation assists in the steadfastness of your authentic self and in so doing, will accelerate your growth.

Stage Seven

The final stage of Coagulation refers to the process of solidification as when we cut ourselves, the blood congeals to stop the bleeding and to form a scab. In spiritual alchemy, coagulation is the solidification of the true self as distilled essence back into a solid and permanent form. Divine essence is infused within the physical form. As such, it is the reconciliation of polarities such as spirit and matter, body and soul, masculine and feminine, to form a unified whole. This is the union of the purified self with the greater whole or the union of the microcosm of man with the macrocosm of the universe.

The ultimate purpose of the Coagulation stage is the alchemist’s final achievement to create the Philosopher’s Stone. The reference to the ‘stone’ may not have been a stone per se, but a powder or ‘Materia Prima’ that could turn ordinary metals such as iron, tin, lead, zinc, and copper into precious metals like gold and silver. The substance was thought to act as an elixir of life, with the power to cure illnesses and even grant immortality. The quest to produce this substance was the most sought-after goal in alchemy, and the quest to find this substance built a considerable base of knowledge that would spawn the fields of chemistry, pharmacology, and metallurgy.