Version. 0.1
Act 0 — Neophyte
The divided soul in the fallen world
The protagonist begins as an unknown man in a fallen realm. His inner powers (thought, will, feeling) are split and in conflict, leading him in circles through fear, desire, and confusion. He senses a forgotten destiny but has no knowledge of who he is.
The call and the wall of the Mysteries (VITRIOL)
Exhausted by the wandering, he reaches a high stone wall around a hidden hill, marked by the ouroboros. An inner voice declares the VITRIOL formula: descend into the interior of the earth to find the Hidden Stone.
He arrives at the Porta Alchemica, the Gate of the Art. He passes the gate; worldly identities fall away; his three inner powers become threshold guardians that will later be reconciled.
Entry into the mountain and prima materia
Inside the enclosure he descends through dark forest and living earth into a cave under a black sun. Here he meets the prima materia: swamp, dragon, miners, toad, philosophical tree, mercurial fountain. This is the raw, chaotic substance of his own nature and destiny, the base matter that contains the seed of gold.
Sealing in the philosophical egg and lighting the athanor
He is shut in the sealed vessel, the philosophical egg, and placed in the athanor. The regimen of fire begins: gentle, then moderate, then fierce, according to seasons. The four elements in him are seen as unbalanced, and the whole work is framed as a long regulated transformation under fire, water, air, and earth.
Act I — Nigredo: The Black Work
Calcination and the Black Sun
The first real work is calcination. Pride, rigid certainties, and false structures are burned down to ash. The Black Sun rises in his inner sky; the Caput Corvi appears as the sign of total darkening. Life as he knew it is reduced to ruins, and the inner landscape becomes a wasteland.
Some adepts speak of the Dry Path, the fierce rapid fire, and the hero glimpses those who attempted it and perished.
He learns the Two Astronomies: the sky above and the signatures in Nature below mirror each other. Herbal, mineral, and stellar intelligences begin speaking through correspondences.
Putrefaction and mortificatio of the old king
Putrefactio follows: controlled decay in the sealed tomb. The “old king” (old ego, old ruling pattern) and the old queen die under Saturnine conditions. The Wolf devours the King: his noble aspect is attacked and consumed by crude nature so that its true tincture can be freed. This is symbolic death of the former identity.
Confrontation with the toad, dragon, and green lion
The gross poisons emerge as the toad and the dragon in the cave. He meets the dragon as both guardian and embodiment of his own raw forces. The Green Lion devours the Sun: instinctual nature dissolves conscious light to liberate the hidden solar seed. The body is cut apart; Osiris and Dionysus motifs appear; this is radical dismemberment of the old unity.
Separation and clarification of the principles
Under solutio, separatio, sublimatio, distillatio, and cohobation, his nature is broken down and sorted. Volatile is separated from fixed; subtle from gross; two Mercuries are distinguished (body-mercury and spirit-mercury). Rectification purifies the ascending spirit; trituratio and digestion make all parts intimate and workable. The three principles (sulphur, mercury, salt) appear as a three-headed dragon that must be reconciled.
Inside the vessel, the Secret Fire awakens, the interior heat which is neither flame nor element, and the Mercurial Water rises invisibly as the true solvent.
First conjunction and sacrificial death in the bath
The Solar King and Lunar Queen, now purified enough for union, meet in the mercurial bath. They enter together, unite, and die in the water. This is the first coniunctio at the nigredo–albedo hinge: a sacrificial marriage that kills the old duality and creates a new undifferentiated state.
Reconciliation of the inner powers and first whitening sign
Thought, will, and feeling, formerly blind and conflicted, are each tempered by the furnace and begin to align with the Operator’s rhythm. The hare-mind becomes still. The Regulus of Antimony appears as starry crystallization. The blackness begins to shift; the soul rises as a white bird from the tomb. Nigredo ends with a hidden brightness: a first, inner White Wedding inside the black work.
Act II — Albedo: The White Work
Washing, balneum Mariae, and the young prince
Repeated ablutions follow. The blackened matter is washed many times until the waters run clear. In images, the old king dissolves in the mercurial sea while a younger, golden prince stands forth as his successor. A white bird perches on a golden sphere above him. This marks the emergence of a new, purified royal principle.
He learns the geometry of the Work—circle, triangle, square—each operation imprinting a new proportion into the soul.
Steam bath, sublimation, and purification of mercury
Balneum Mariae and balneum vaporis soften and open the compound. Sublimatio and distillatio carry the purified mercurial spirit upward; cohobation returns it repeatedly onto the body. A three-headed eagle or multi-headed sublimated figure represents mercury raised and purified several times, uniting body, soul, and spirit at a higher clarity.
Mercury personified as the White Queen
Mercury appears as the White Queen enclosed in the philosophical egg: lunar, aqueous, immaculate. She is volatile yet enclosed, nourisher and mediator. This marks the capture and purification of the mercurial principle, now ready to unite with perfected sulphur.
Peacock’s tail and full whitening
The peacock’s tail appears: a brief display of many colors, signalling the transition from deep work to stable whiteness. After this, the colors resolve into pure white. Ravens become doves; swans rest on a silver lake. The soul sees its reflection without distortion. The albedo is firmly established.
Fixing the volatile and stabilizing the fountain
The inner fountain of mercury is confirmed as a self-running source. The White Eagle (volatile spirit) and Red Lion (fixed sulphur) begin their reconciliation. A portion of the volatile is fixed; a portion of the fixed is volatilized. The image of catching birds in the Philosophers’ Tree shows the repeated sublimation and fixation of mercurial spirits until they serve the work.
Immaculate coniunctio and the first full vision of the Rebis
When silver is without stain and the fountain is stable, the King and Queen meet again, now in a garden rather than a tomb. Their union is the Immaculate Conjunction: a non-violent marriage of equals. In or after this, the Rebis appears as a two-headed androgyne, a first clear image of the unified soul. A white ruler is crowned; the “white king” or “white queen” governs in clarity.
Planetary ladder and Diana’s tree
The work ascends through seven planetary regimens (Saturn to Moon), each reorganizing a different level of the psyche and subtle body. Diana’s Tree, a metallic crystallization, shows the work has become organic, able to grow. Albedo concludes as a stable white state that can now receive solar ferment.
Arbor Dianae rooted itself in the vessel, showing that the work now possessed vegetative life, capable of spontaneous growth.
Act III — Citrinitas: The Yellow Work
Fermentation and dawn of solar wisdom
Fermentatio introduces a leaven of perfected gold or silver into the white stone. The stone is “inspiritated” with solar life. Citrinitas appears as a stable yellowing: true dawn, where light is anchored in the body rather than seen only in vision.
Astralization and middle nature
Heavenly dew and starry manna descend; the compound becomes receptive to the firmament. The “middle nature” is consolidated: body, soul, and spirit cohere in balanced proportion. The stone becomes astral and mediating—no longer bound to heaviness, yet not lost in abstraction. The Mel Philosophorum appears: a honey-like essence secreted from the perfected matter, sign of inner sweetness and harmony.
Tree of the Philosophers and the alchemical garden
The Philosophers’ Tree stands rooted in the vessel, bearing leaves of silver and fruits of gold. The alchemical garden appears as a landscape in which all forces are harmonized and each virtue has its place. This expresses the inner life of the now-coherent psyche.
Coagulation, tincturing, and first mobility of the stone
Coagulation gives a new fixed body to the essence. Tincturing gives this body the power to color and transform other things. A portion of the fixed is volatilized, giving the stone mobility without dispersion. The inner world becomes fluid and stable at once.
Congelatio occurs: the subtle body takes a stable crystalline form before reddening.
Red King in the flask and crowned Rebis in fullness
Perfected Sulphur appears as the Red King, crowned and luminous, supported by the conquered lunar principle. The crowned Rebis, fully developed, stands as half-male, half-female, with triadic serpents and integrated bestial forces beneath. This is the fully integrated soul at the citrinitas–rubedo threshold.
The “Red Wedding” and birth of the philosophical child
Sun and Moon, King and Queen, now perfected, consummate their union in the fullness of day. From this union proceeds the philosophical child—implicit at first, then increasingly explicit. The Red King is vested in new garments by the White Queen: spirit receives a new, stable vehicle in preparation for final coronation.
Act IV — Rubedo: The Red Work
Fixation in fire and salamander in the flame
In rubedo, the volatile no longer flees fire. The salamander lives joyfully in the flame. This is the complete fixation of consciousness in spirit: stability in intensity, steadiness under maximum energy.
Phoenix and pelican: sacrificial renewal and nourishment
The Phoenix burns and rises again as a figure of voluntary, cyclical self-renewal. The Pelican pierces its breast to feed its young with its own blood, then is later fed by them. Together they express a closed circuit of sacrificial nourishment: the stone renews itself in giving.
Crowned hermaphrodite and filius philosophorum
The crowned hermaphrodite is enthroned: royal perfection of the united polarities. Within this perfected royal state, the Filius Philosophorum appears as the child of the work—sometimes as an infant, sometimes as a youthful king—embodying the completed medicine in personal form.
Stone, elixir, and universal medicine
The Red Stone and Elixir of Life are now explicit. Potable gold, milk of the Virgin, and universal quintessence are different expressions of the same perfected tincture. In story terms, the Prince discovers he himself carries or is the Stone that heals metals and humans.
Act V - Adamado
He undergoes the Operation of the Sun: formation of the solar body that endures fire without shadow.
Multiplication, augmentation, and exaltation
The stone is multiplied by repeated cycles, increasing its power without being consumed. Augmentation scales its influence; exaltation refines it beyond mere material perfection into spiritual luminosity. The work becomes capable of transforming not only individual life but entire environments and collectives.
Projection and visible transmutation
Projection demonstrates the power outwardly. The stone is cast on molten lead, which becomes gold. Applied to the sick, it heals. Spoken through the adept, it raises what is dead. This is the public proof of the inner work.
Return of the adept as living stone
The protagonist returns through the same symbolic gate into the world, but he is now the living stone.
Hidden philosopher in the world
He walks the world as a hidden king or fool, outwardly ordinary, inwardly carrying the universal medicine. To those who seek, he offers the way; to others he remains unnoticed.