The Magnum Opus: An Alchemists Guide to Dealing with your own Bullshit
The Magnum Opus, or the Great Work, is the process by which an Alchemist creates a Philosopher’s Stone, capable of turning Lead into Gold.
First, a Philosopher’s Stone is not an object that is made, but a person that you become. Alchemical Lead is not black toxic metal in our pipes but the heavy and the toxic that weighs down your heart and your spirit. Alchemical Lead is the old emotional scars that refuse to heal, and the old habits that used to keep us alive, but now keep us hurt.Conversely, Alchemical Gold is not the shiny metal in coins and jewelry, but completeness. It is wholeness. It is well developed and healthy traits that come out of deliberate and careful response to life’s challenges. Alchemical Gold is Growth. The Magnum Opus is the process by which an Alchemist finds and transforms their Lead into their Gold. There are three, four, twelve, and fourteen step processes, but I prefer the Seven Step process, often called the Planetary Metallic process. Each step has a laboratory process associated with it, as well as a Metal, Planet/ Roman God, and Chakra(this one is a little rough, but whatever helps you understand).
You could look at this as a magical process of developing and refining your spirit, allowing it to become its most divine self. You could also look at it as a psychological roadmap for processing trauma. I prefer to think of it as both.
Calcination is the process of burning until ash. It is fiery, it is angry, it is the beginning. If you do not yet know your Lead, you find it here. Functionally, Calcination is figuring out What’s the Matter, and throwing everything you have at it. This is the time for screaming and stomping. This should leave you feeling drained and hollow, but also invigorated. This is activation energy for what is yet to come.
“I was wronged”
“I’ll show them”
“Burn it down”
Dissolution is the process of mixing with water until dissolved. It’s a sharp contrast with Calcination, and is a time to cool down after all the hot emotion previously. It is primarily a process of sorrow and mourning. Mourning of who you could have been. Mourning the loss of the part of you that you fed to the fire. Mourning what has, and what has not. It also serves as a buffer between Calcination and Separation, allowing some time to cool off between feeling your hurt and making boundaries to prevent that hurt. You will probably cry. You might cry a lot. This is ok, and means it is working. Not crying is ok too.
“Separate earth from fire, the subtle from the gross, with great care and ingenuity”- The Emerald Tablet.
This is where we start to peel away at our lead. We have burnt it to ash, washed it clean, and now it is time to separate the superfluous from the heart of the Matter and figure out what’s REALLY going on. This is also the time for drawing boundaries. What must stay, and what must go. Now that you’ve emotionally processed your Lead, It’s decision making time.
In conjunction, we take the disparate parts that were previously separated and put them back together, this time with love and compassion. This is also where the process starts to turn outward, and it’s a great time to reach out to those who you care for most for validation and compassion. It’s not uncommon for folks in this stage to sound “I love you, man” drunk, or horny drunk, despite not having consumed any alcohol. I urge you not to act on that horny drunk feeling, not out of a desire to keep sex out of Alchemy (no way am I gonna do that) but to hold onto that energy and carry it through to the next process.
Fermentation is… odd, to say the least. In this step we take everything we’ve worked on, bottled it up, and shoved it in a closet somewhere. It doesn’t feel like anything is happening. You’re just… maybe a little bubbly. Maybe not. If you’re doing an alchemical fire circle, we go from dancing in circles around the fire chanting our feelings out to… the Time Warp? “Slap Happy” is a pretty good description of the phenomenon. I always have trouble here, because I feel like I should do something, but the thing to do is nothing.
Distillation is the process of getting the essence of the Matter. It’s a reflective process, often looking back at all the previous processes for themes and patterns, and putting it all together into a coherent picture. Look back. See where you’ve been. See how far you’ve come. Where does that road point?
Coagulation is sometimes called Crystallization. This is the manifestation of the entire process. You are complete. You are whole. Your Matter has been reintegrated into you, and you are now stronger for it. You know what to do. You know how to do it, or at least how to get started. You’ve processed your trauma, and you can move on with your life.
Now do it again. Maybe you have something else you need to work on. Often, one year’s gold becomes the next year’s lead, and it’s fed back into the fire. However you do it, the Magnum Opus is a cyclical process. You are never finished, you have only completed another cycle.
