Published on Tetragrammaton, January 2025
Part 1 – The Subtle and the Gross
When it comes to magic, alchemy, or the transformation of matter, can be taken literally or metaphorically. According to the Bulgarian philosopher and spiritual movement UWB founder Peter Deunov’s teachings on Kabbalist philosophy, life on Earth is spirit condensed into matter and so to practice magic inherently involves both literal and metaphorical alchemy.
His disciple author Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov used the Latin phrase ‘solve et coagula’ to describe the alchemical process, meaning to dissolve and coagulate. Catherine MacCoun, author of On Becoming An Alchemist, uses the Emerald Tablets language of ‘separating the subtle from the gross’ to describe the same phenomena. “Alchemical magic never defies the laws of nature.”, she writes, “Instead, it observes the workings of those laws at an earlier stage than is evident to the physical senses. Whatever manifests on the physical level begins with an idea or intention. While matter is too dense, too heavy, to be altered by the mind alone, ideas and intentions are the mind’s natural medium.”
If physical reality is too dense to be altered by will alone, then using our will to cause such change to occur must inherently involve some dissolution of this density. In order to work with the ‘gross’ body by way of the subtle, according to Deunov’s teachings, involves the life-long alchemical process of consciously disintegrating condensed matter. As Aïvanhov wrote in Fruits of the Tree of Life, “All that is dense, compact and heavy represents unorganized matter in which energy is held prisoner. And the more energy one imprisons oneself with, like those who overeat, the more harm one does to oneself. We must, on the contrary, liberate energy.”
The Universal White Brotherhood believed that using our consciousness to transform the gross into the subtle simply was the great secret of mastering life itself. There are seven stages of alchemy which are recognized as being both physical and spiritual. MacCoun describes each phase in terms of the base matter to be alchemized and the result of what that matter is ultimately transmuted into.
The first is calcination, which technically means burning something to ashes, but according to her interpretation also means suffering caused by attachment to what will inevitably be lost. She posits that every human life is marked by a series of losses that burns away all which is not our true essence. The result of this calcination of ‘false roots’ or over-identification with the material world is self-confidence by way of strengthening the connection to who we truly are.
The next stage is dissolution, where physically ashes are dissolved into fluid, and existentially, our desires are dissolved into devotion. MacCoun believes this process occurs when we get impatient waiting for our desires to be fulfilled. That gap between our wants and attainments begs the question of whether our desires are true and useful, an essential step in coming to know our true selves. The result is that ultimately we not only get to know ourselves, but also learn to let go of attachment to outcome, which paradoxically results in more favorable outcomes. Our desires themselves transmute from gross to subtle.
Separation occurs next, which involves the physical extraction of matter left in the dissolved substance. Metaphorically, separation refers to extraction of the true self from the personalities acquired through of various life experiences and trauma responses. The base matter is territoriality, which can be anything defining us in relation to others that we have an ego-driven instinct to protect. The transmuted result, then, is integrity, and MacCoun contends that separation is our phase of spiritual adolescence because we can’t become magical adults without maturing beyond egoic impulses to defend our existential territory.
The fourth stage is conjunction, a combining of the results from the previous three stages. In the physical sense, the process has altered from changing a substance through natural processes to changing a substance using a combination of the other substances generated in each stage of the process. Existentially, it refers to being able to hold opposing forces, transmuting vulnerability into compassion by way of the heart. Rather than trying to make sense of conflict in our heads, we hold it in our hearts and offer hospitality to the opposing forces, compassion.
Fermentation happens next, which physically involves leaving the substance alone in the dark until it putrefies. In existential terms, this is the “dark night of the soul” that transmutes the base material of obsolete desires and ambitions into magical will. One’s inner life overtakes the outer life because an aspect of our will is an obstacle to what our spirit wishes to express through our physical reality.
Sublimation is the penultimate stage, where the physical substance is heated up until the essence rises to the surface. On a personal level, this is the phase where we realize we’re disconnected from our true intentions. The transmuting of thoughts into deeds starts with the internal panic or “heat” of recognizing when our mentality is misaligned with what we’re doing. After this phase, our will becomes wise because it’s more connected to our spirit. The subtlety of our true essence moves beyond gross matter, freed by being subjected to each stage of the alchemical process.
MacCoun named the final stage radiation, which is where ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ is formed in medieval alchemy. This essential concept will be covered in part II, but both physically and existentially this phase is one of coagulation. The base matter is arbitrary magic and the transmutation is sacred magic. According to MacCoun, Aleister Crowley’s famous quote, “Do what thou whilst shall be the whole of the law,” is the very definition of arbitrary magic. By contrast, Deunov’s Universal White Brotherhood believe that magical results are achieved by treating everyone and everything as sacred, that we must always be infusing positive vibrations into both the subtle and gross in order to direct our will.
Unlike physical, linear alchemy of a single substance, any number of these existential processes can occur simultaneously, and through our lifetimes. In part II we’ll explore the true meaning of The Philosopher’s Stone, the supposed secret key to successful alchemy.
Part 2 – The Philosopher’s Stone
“The Philosopher’s Stone is not a stone, but a state of consciousness.”
– Manly P. Hall, author + founder of The Philosophical Research Society
In ‘The Subtle and The Gross’, we explored each phase of alchemy, both in the literal and existential sense, and here we can bring these two meanings together. The subtle refers to the spiritual substance which is condensed into gross matter, and makes up the physical world we live in. Alchemists and magicians contend that the gross, on the other hand, can be altered by way of the subtle, and as Manly P. Hall said, it all begins with a new state of consciousness.
The final stage of alchemy leads to the formation of the so-called Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary substance in physical alchemy that has the ability to transmute base metals into gold. On Becoming An Alchemist author Catherine MacCoun tells us that physical and metaphysical alchemy are achieved through a synthesis of the material and spiritual realms, and the Philosopher’s Stone is the union of the two. As we consciously merge the subtle and the gross within ourselves, so we create the conditions for alchemy and magic to become possible in the material realm.
MacCoun writes, “Between you and anything that you may wish to influence there is a relationship. If either party in a relationship changes, the relationship itself is changed. In turn, any change in the relationship changes both parties. So if you wish to change something, the first thing you must do is discover the true nature of your relationship to it. Then you will be able to see how to change it by changing yourself. This is the basic logic of alchemy.”
Our existence in the world of the gross is what she calls “the horizontal realm,” and it has a limited vantage point and capacity to affect change within space-time. True alchemy brings in what she calls “the vertical,” or the subtle realm of spirit, which has infinitely more data available than what we have access to in the physical, horizontal world. She believes that the vertical is influencing the horizontal all the time. Understanding the true relationship between these worlds, and then consciously merging them, is how we cultivate the power to create change in our reality. The Philosopher’s Stone is attained when spirit and matter consciously coagulate, a process that is ongoing, but once begun forever elevates our capacity to bend the horizontal world to our will. This is how we change the world by changing ourselves.
Alchemy, also referred to as The Great Work, is described in On Becoming An Alchemist as, “The process of reincarnating into your own life.” We described the phases of that process in part 1, as well as the characteristics and mechanisms of each phase. But the underlying essence of the merging between the spiritual and material, the vertical and horizontal, was intentionally withheld because it requires consideration of the vertical world. We can only reincarnate into our own lives by first accepting that our consciousness exists beyond the physical and that we have the ability to hold more of that consciousness within form.
Richard Rudd, creator of the Gene Keys, has his own description of this process. As of the publication date of this essay, we are currently in the 38th Gene Key of transcending struggle through perseverance to achieve honor. Richard says of this key, “We’re born to struggle, to fight, to move ever-upwards. We are form forced from within to try and free ourselves, to learn to fly – to be free from struggle, to be effortless like the birds in the sky or the dolphins leaping through the ocean waves. But even these creatures struggle, everything does. It’s the nature of evolution to go on expanding and surmounting itself. In humans, struggle can either free us or trap us.” The process of alchemy describes a process of struggle, but one that ultimately frees us when we become conscious of it.
MacCoun’s work describes a mechanism we can consciously use within our physical and energetic bodies to persevere in the fine art of transmuting struggle into The Philosopher’s Stone by redirecting the flow of subtle energies. Below is what she calls a “muggle configuration” of the human energy body, which has a fraction of our total consciousness operating within the horizontal. The rest, which many spiritual traditions refer to as our “higher self” operating beyond the limitations of horizontal spacetime, is still up in the vertical.
⬆️
Ideal
⬆️
Thought
⬆️
Word
💚
Territory
⬇️
Desire
⬇️
Fear
⬇️
Without conscious work to evolve this configuration, we are wired to project all our fears, desires and territoriality out into the horizontal. Many of us then look to a vague, theoretical notion of the vertical – to religion, spiritual traditions, or new age practices. We project our words, thoughts, and ideals out there, all while neglecting to send any energy to what she contends is the true center of consciousness, our heart-center. Our hearts may feel love in a passive sense, but they express little more than “inept good intentions and niceness.” The next diagram illustrates what she calls alchemical energetic alignment.
Ideal
⬇️
Thought
⬇️
Word
💚
Integrity
⬆️
Devotion
⬆️
Confidence
⬆️
Life’s struggles, if we let them, alchemize fear into confidence, desire into devotion, and territoriality into integrity. Becoming conscious of this process, our relationship with the vertical, spiritual world, and the merging of the two is the union of the subtle and the gross which eventually turns our own heart-centers into The Philosopher’s Stone. Redirecting these energies both in meditation and in our horizontal, waking life accelerates our evolution and thus our capacity for affecting change in the world. Meditation, when undertaken with confidence, devotion and integrity, gives us access to the vertical. This takes the form of elevated states of being and profound insights arising in our minds of new ideals, thoughts and words.
When we cultivate a relationship with the vertical and the heart becomes the meeting point between intention and will, we are merging heaven and earth. MacCoun ends her so-called technical overview of the process of redirecting energy to our hearts by reminding us that “like a diamond, it is indestructible, cutting and radiant. It loves bravely, shrewdly, mightily and magically. It has become The Philosopher’s Stone.”