The Six-Stage Alchemical Model
The Clinical Foundation of the Alchemical Cycle: Ascent and Descent
What is Alchemy?
Alchemy is the ancient spiritual roadmap of the soul. Often called the ‘art of transmutation’, it seeks to structure and elevate human experience from the leaden weight of unconsciousness to the gold of the Royal Mundane—where the divine is lived in the heart of the city. It is both a rigorous science of the inner world and a poetic system that speaks through the language of dreams, visions, and timeless symbolism.
While traditional alchemical models often conclude at the fourth stage, Alchemybluemoon recognises a further evolution. Beyond the individual ‘Inward Stone’ lies a journey into the Unus Mundus—the ‘one world’—where the personal soul merges with the Soul of the World. This map explores a Six-Stage Alchemical Model, a modern compass rooted in over 2000 years of collective wisdom from Egypt, China, Rome, Greece, and the Arabic and Islamic worlds.
Phase I: The Inward Stone
Structuring the inner world: achieving individual totality and psychological wholeness.
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Stage1: Nigredo (‘The Blackening’)
The Nigredo is the shock of the ‘dark night’—often triggered by a crisis in our daily lives that reveals our old ways of being have collapsed. It is a messy, chaotic period where we are forced to confront our ‘Shadow’: the leaden weight of unresolved history and denied truths. This ‘blackening’ is the necessary first step toward the Royal Mundane; we must allow our ego’s rigid structures to dissolve so that we can heal the split between who we pretend to be and who we truly are.
The Milestone: Awakening of the Heart chakra; the mid-life search for meaning and the courage to begin the descent.
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Stage 2: Albedo (‘The Whitening’)
Symbolised by the moon, the Albedo is the stage of purification where we begin to see through the ‘soot’ of the Nigredo. Having faced our psychological shadows, we emerge with a sense of inherent innocence. This is not a retreat from the world, but a new way of walking through the city with an authentic soul. By remembering our worthiness, we heal the split between mind and body, allowing a quiet, lunar clarity to wash over our lived experience.
The Milestone: Integration of the Heart, Throat, and Brow chakras.
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Stage 3: Citrinitas (‘The Yellowing’)
Often experienced as a ‘Crown Awakening’ (as seen in the Dream Gallery), the citrinitas is the stage of spiritual awakening, symbolised by the sun. Here, the ego transcends its individual self to surrender to a higher power. This leads to the Greater Coniunctio—the ‘Royal Marriage’, in which opposites such as soul and spirit, or sun and moon, unite. In this sublime state, we awaken to a union between the personal and the divine, healing the split between Soul and Spirit.
The Milestone: The awakening of the Crown chakra.
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Stage 4: Rubedo (‘The Reddening’)
The rubedo represents the journey of descent. We return to Earth to manifest the wisdom we have gained, bringing spirituality back into physical life. Referred to as the ‘Greater Work’, this phase is considered the most difficult because it requires a fully embodied, integrated spirituality. Success in this stage is the creation of the Inward Philosopher’s Stone.
The Milestone: Full embodiment and integration of all seven chakras.
The Threshold: Beyond the Individual Stone
As the energy of the individual body (Chakras) reaches full integration, the vessel breaks open to reveal the Universal Source (Logos). Having achieved psychological totality in Rubedo, the seeker reaches a paradox. The ‘Inward Stone’ is a vessel that is now full. To move into Phase II, one must undergo Sublimatio (The Second Ascent)—the thinning of the ego’s walls—to allow the individual gold to pour back into the Anima Mundi (Soul of the World).
As the energy of the individual body (Chakras) reaches full integration, the vessel breaks open to reveal the Universal Source (Logos). Having achieved psychological totality in Rubedo, the seeker reaches a paradox. The ‘Inward Stone’ is a vessel that is now full. To move into Phase II, one must undergo Sublimatio (The Second Ascent)—the thinning of the ego’s walls—to allow the individual gold to pour back into the Anima Mundi (Soul of the World).
Phase II: The Outward & True Stone:
The Great Descent and the Totality of Life.
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Stage 5: Aurarius (The Golden) The Outward Stone: Stations 1–8
While the Inward Stone (Stage 4) completes the perfection of your individual gold, Aurarius is the moment that gold becomes aware of its interconnectedness with the gold of all life. In this stage, the seeker moves beyond their ‘internal’ peace to a lived unity with the world around them. It is the shift from feeling like a drop in the ocean to being the ocean in a drop. As the individual dissolves, the Impersonal Logos is revealed—not as a distant end-point, but as the creative force driving all life. This shows the spiritual ‘unmanifest’ is actually a structural power that descends into the material world to give it order and purpose.
The Milestone: The dissolution of the separate seeker; the transition from the individual energy system (Chakras) to the Universal Source (Impersonal Logos).
The Milestone: The dissolution of the separate seeker; the transition from the individual energy system (Chakras) to the Universal Source (Impersonal Logos).
Stage 6: The True Philosophers’ Stone
Arriving at the radical truth of Reality living itself, all maps are surrendered. No longer a separate manifestation of the universe, existence simply exists as you. The True Philosophers’ Stone is the ultimate maturity of embodiment: a state where the ‘Green’ of the universal journey is fixed into the Brown Earth of daily life. This is the point where the map ends—a lived maturity in which the Life simply breathes through you, inclusive of all experiences and the silence behind them.
The Milestone: The realisation of the True Stone; the infinite expression of the Real.
Beyond the Fixatio: The Indeterminate Flow
The True Stone is not a static destination, but the point where the map is surrendered to the infinite fluidity of the Real. Whether manifesting as the quietude of the No-Trace State or the luminous clarity of Conscious Enlightenment, the Great Work concludes in an indeterminate flow. Here, the ‘Fixatio’ is not a freezing of experience, but a somatic precision-strike: the moment where the Extraordinary is so thoroughly integrated into the physical nervous system that Reality simply lives itself through the mundane routine of the city. The gate is not closed; it is finally, fully open.