Chapter
11

The Black Phase

In This Chapter

• The three phases of the Great Work

• The calcination operation

• The dissolution operation

• Personal calcination and dissolution

The exact sequence of operations alchemists used to accomplish their transformations was one of their greatest secrets, and the actual order was often deliberately scrambled to mislead the uninitiated. Instead of specifics, the alchemists spoke of three overall phases of their work, and each phase contained several different operations.

This color-coded process of transformation went from an initial Black Phase to an intermediary White Phase and culminated in a Red Phase. This same sequence of colors occurs in working with the metals. If the four base metals (lead, tin, iron, and copper) are melted and fused into a new alloy, the resulting surface color is black. If this black alloy is heated with the noble metal silver and then heated in mercury, it turns white. If all has gone well, the final iridescent red-violet color appears in the metal, which indicates a small amount of genuine gold was formed.

While we can often find detailed descriptions of the operations leading to the appearance of these color markers in the writings of alchemists, the processes are veiled in mystical and allegorical language that makes them very difficult to understand unless one is an adept. That suggests the alchemists were also talking about spiritual or psychological exercises they performed along with their laboratory work. These were the actual colors that appeared in the laboratory work, as well as the same colors that dominated the images and visions of the corresponding spiritual work.

Alchemists referred to the three general phases of the Great Work by their Latin names, so if you plan to do any further reading in alchemy, it’s very helpful to know these Latin terms. They called the work of blackening the Nigredo, pronounced nee-gray-doe; the work of whitening the Albedo, al-bay-doe; and the work of reddening the Rubedo, ruh-bay-doe.

Jungian psychologists use these same Latin terms to refer to the stages of psychological transformation. The Nigredo refers to the depression accompanying the dark night of the soul that underscores the need for deep change on the personal level. The Albedo represents the spiritual purification that results from the suffering of the Nigredo. And the Rubedo is the sense of empowerment and confidence that results from psychological integration in the final phase of personal transformation.

The Blackening

The work of “blackening” was the longest and most difficult phase in alchemy. The alchemists said that by comparison, the White and Red stages seemed like child’s play. They considered the Black Phase of Nigredo a tortuous stage of the work in which the substance at hand suffered and was forced to surrender many superfluous characteristics in order to reveal its true nature.

Dross is an alchemical term that refers to the scum of solid impurities that float on top of molten metal. It usually consists of dirt, nonmetallic contaminants, metal oxides, and other chemical waste, which can easily be skimmed off the surface and discarded. Dross is always solid material, as opposed to slag, which is liquid or oily impurities that surface in melted metals.

The goal at this initial phase of transformation is to reduce the subject to its bare essence or most fundamental ingredients. All the dross, impure, and extraneous material must be removed, or they will contaminate and destroy the later stages of the work.

The alchemists called the overall process that occurred during the Nigredo as mortification, which meant to them “facing the dead part.” In the lab, mortification results in a powder or ashes in which the characteristics of the former substance can no longer be recognized. In personal alchemy, mortification is characterized by feelings of shame, embarrassment, guilt, and worthlessness as one confronts the base, repugnant material he has hidden away inside himself.

The operations which take place during the Black Phase are two processes that involve applying the Elements of Fire and Water. After these operations are completed, the purified essences of the matter at hand are separated out and saved for further work in the next phases.

The Calcination Process

The initial fire operation in alchemy is called calcination, which means literally “reduced to bone by burning.” Bone is essentially calcium oxide, and the word comes from an ancient method of obtaining calcium oxide (or lime) by heating limestone. The word calcination and related words like calcify and calcium come from the Latin root calx, which means limestone or bone. After calcination, the substance becomes dry and hard and is no longer affected by common fire.

The cipher the alchemists assigned to the process of calcination was the ram horns of the astrological sign for Aries. Aries is the most fiery of all the signs, and the Great Work of alchemy begins in the spring when the sun is in the house of Aries. Skulls and skeletons are also used as symbols in the drawings of calcination and represent both pure white calcium oxide and the hidden structure of materials revealed by fire. Other images of calcination include funeral pyres, scenes of hell, torture by fire, crucifixion, birds rising from flames, and frightening confrontations with dragons or demons.

Another popular symbol for calcination is the salamander. Because salamanders were observed scurrying in and out from under bonfires as the cold-blooded creatures sought warmth beneath the burning logs, the idea took hold that salamanders were born in the fire and frolicked in its flames.

The alchemists referred to this process of dehydration by fire as the “dragon who drinks the water,” and the fire-breathing dragon is another symbol. Calcination, also referred to as calcining, drives off water and other volatile compounds and brings about a decomposition of the material.

Heating ores directly in a fire was also an ancient way of obtaining metals. This open-flame heating or roasting is a kind of calcination in which material is heated in an open flame with plenty of free-flowing air, which also helps oxidize impurities.

Generally, any process that involves the heating and breaking up of a solid to drive off water and other volatile compounds can be classified as calcination. In the lab, it usually meant heating a substance in an oven, crucible, or over an open flame until it was reduced to ashes.

In their laboratory work, alchemists recognized two kinds of calcination, which they called actual and potential. Actual is typical heating in a fire produced by a fuel such as wood, coal, oil, or gas. Potential calcination used acids and corrosive chemicals, which the alchemists felt were a kind of liquid fire that carried the potential of flaming fire within them.

Beyond chemical calcination, alchemists recognized philosophical calcination, which is the reduction of living things to their material basis by application of heat. They associated this phenomenon with a loss of the life force carried in bodily fluids and gave examples that featured the dehydration of living tissue.

One example of philosophical calcination is human cremation, which results in a dehydration of bodily fluids and tissue that leaves only bone fragments and ashes behind. Another example occurs when animal horns or hooves are suspended over boiling water for a long period. Thick liquid called musilage drips out of the horns or hooves, leaving a dried mass, which is easily reduced to powder by grinding. In both cases, the powdery material resulting from philosophical calcination was considered quite different from the ashes left over from common chemical calcination. The ashes of once-living things were sacred, and it was felt that they still contained the ultimate essence of the living person or thing.

Personal Calcination

At the same time alchemists worked in their laboratories on the calcination of the metals or other compounds, they were also working to accomplish corresponding calcinations on the personal level and suffered through the same transformations as the substances with which they worked.

By applying the operations of alchemy to the human mind, alchemists became the first psychologists. For them, personal calcination was similar to what happened in the laboratory, except on the personal level the heat was generated by the fire of their own consciousness and life experiences. The resulting drying up of one’s “inner moisture and volatility” represented the loss of his emotional and psychic energy as he matured. In other words, as we mature and are heated by the natural forces of existence, we tend to lose contact with our own life force.

TREAD CAREFULLY

Never try to apply the operations of alchemy to just one level of the work. Remember that the alchemists believed their operations were universal and applied to all levels of reality—the physical level of chemicals and the body, the level of mind and personality, and the unseen spiritual level. For a transformation to be complete and lasting, it had to be successful on all three levels of reality.

The truth is that personal calcination takes place whether we want it or not. This natural humbling process takes place as we grow older and are assaulted and overcome by the trials and tribulations of life. Decline of self-esteem, loss of standing in families and at work, personal embarrassments, failure to be loved, loss of material possessions, and all the other harsh realities of life gradually crucify our pampered egos. By the time people reach middle age, many feel they have lost a precious part of themselves and are leading inauthentic lives.

The alchemists saw personal calcination as a loss of spirit in a person, although modern psychologists view it as a loss of ego or personal identity. The result is the same: diminished mental energy and an increase of darkness or depression in one’s life. It’s as if our souls finally despair trying to survive in a world of spiritual drought.

What fuels the fires of personal calcination? Our ego. In psychological terms, calcination is the destruction of the false ego we have built up in response to pressures from our parents, friends, schools, church, and government. We have built up the impurities within ourselves, the blackness that veils the true light of our being. Personal calcination begins when we realize that the things we have accepted as true and important may not, in fact, have any relevance to what is real in our lives.

One of the fundamental ideas in alchemy is that anything superfluous or impure must eventually be removed or destroyed to reveal the true essence of something. The basic problem in human psychology is that we identify with our superficial personalities and not our true essences. We invest all our energy in our egos, which are artificial constructs that often don’t reflect who we really are. So the first step in personal transformation is for us to turn up the fire of consciousness in the inner laboratory and focus it on our thoughts, habits, assumptions, judgments, and relationships to see what is real and true in our lives.

In alchemy, the symbol of the King referred to what we now call ego or personality, and alchemical drawings of personal calcination show the King being boiled alive, cremated, or sitting inside a sweat box or sealed vessel. The idea here is that the ego King must be sacrificed for the good of the whole person. As in the Grail legends, the kingdom of one’s personality will wither and decay until the rightful King is restored to power.

In describing the suffering of the King, the seventeenth-century German alchemist Daniel Stolicus wrote: “The fiery man will sweat and become hot in the fire. Also will he resolve his body and carry it far through moisture.” Stolicus was referring to the conclusion of the fire operation and the promise of healing and cleansing in the next operation, which is an application of the Water Element in the work.

Calcination of the King.

The Process of Dissolution

The next operation which alchemists used in the Black Phase was dissolution, sometimes referred to simply as solution. Dissolution is the transformation of a substance by immersing it in water or other liquid. In the lab, it is the liquefaction of a solid or the absorption of a solid into a liquid. It usually involved dissolving the ashes from calcination in water or liquid chemicals. The water in which the ashes were dissolved took on magical properties, and the term elixir from the Arabic Al-iksir literally means “from the ashes.”

Fascination with the powers of the Water Element dates back at least as far as the female alchemists of Alexandria, who developed equipment for performing dissolution and distillation. To the astonishment of ancient experimenters, solids disappeared into solvents as if they had been returned to their original, undifferentiated state. They saw this as reduction to the First Matter, a purification they likened to a return to the womb for rebirth.

The astrological sign associated with the dissolution process was the Water sign of Cancer, which the Egyptians called the sign of the Scarab. Symbols of dissolution include lakes, floods, underground streams, quicksand, reflecting pools, tears, melting, menstruation, washing in tubs, fish swimming on the surface of water, and other allusions to the Water Element. Glass vessels, clay pots, cauldrons, and other womblike vessels of transformation also refer to this process.

Drawings of women riding great fish, taming wild animals or dragons, or naked women walking quietly in the forest are images of dissolution that emphasize the deep connection between nature and the darker feminine side of our being. While the King derives his powers of light and active energy from the sun, or solar archetype, the Queen’s source of power resides in the darkness and potential energy of the moon, or lunar archetype. Psychologically, therefore, the King represents the conscious mind and thoughts while the Queen represents the subconscious mind and feelings.

THOTH’S TIPS

Understanding the differences between the King and Queen will enable you to more readily recognize these opposing forces in yourself. The King is the aggressive masculine ego and powers of reasoning, and the Queen represents the forces of passive acceptance and feminine ways of knowing, like feelings and intuition. While the King and Queen represent opposing qualities of our personalities, they are really two aspects or faces of the same thing, which is our true self.

Personal Dissolution

Just as the King was the primary icon of personal calcination, the Queen is the primary icon of personal dissolution. Images of dissolution may feature the King sitting in a boiling cauldron, swimming naked, or drowning in a lake. The Queen may be shown sitting with the King together in a bath or relaxing by herself in a tub of water.

Dissolution of the King.

Personal dissolution further breaks down the corrupted and artificial structures of the personality by immersion in the dark waters of the unconscious. This is a forbidding realm with slumbering dragons or other monsters guarding great treasures. Other symbols of the unconscious realm in alchemy include depictions of poisonous toads, basilisks (winged serpents), menacing fish, great whales, and confrontations with stags or scenes of rabbits diving down into holes in the earth.

Alchemists sometimes referred to the energies found in this forbidding psychic realm as “the water which does not wet the hands.” These dissolving waters can take the form of inner voices, visions, dreams, or just odd feelings that reveal a world of shadowy energies existing simultaneously with us in our everyday life. This buried material and rejected energy surfaces during dissolution because the conscious mind of the King relinquishes control after suffering through the fires of calcination. Direct confrontation with the primordial energies of the unconscious during dissolution further humbles the beleaguered ego King and results in a surrendering of stubborn beliefs and projections.

Projection in alchemy is the mixing or casting of the transmuting agent (or Philosopher’s Stone) into molten base metal to instantly transform it into gold. Psychological projection is the extension of our thoughts or emotional energy into the world at large.

During the early stages of personal alchemy, projection is a dangerous thing. When we are angered or revolted by things we see in the world, it is because that same negative quality lives subconsciously within us. We end up expending tremendous psychic energy projecting these rejected qualities into the external world while keeping them hidden from view within ourselves.

The blackening caused by dissolution was often expressed as the darkness of depression and melancholia. However, alchemists considered personal dissolution a completely natural process. Instead of running for Prozac, the true alchemist must work with the darkness and suffer through it in order to emerge transformed. By bringing this threatening material to light in therapy or personal work, the alchemist rises above the “poisonous vapors” of the subconscious and learns to integrate the dark side into a reborn self.

This may seem like a scary process, but it’s a necessary step in personal transformation. We all have built up a personal trash heap of rejected material that is incompatible with our chosen conscious attitude. Psychologists call this part of our personality the “shadow,” which is the inferior or rejected part of our personality. Slowing down and paying attention to feelings allows this material to surface and come to light, where we can examine it and transmute its dark energy in positive ways.

How exactly do you transform the threatening darkness of a negative experience? First, you need to stop thinking about the individual incident behind the negative emotion and try to work only with its pure energy—what the alchemists would call its vital principle. If you can dissolve the connection between the emotion and the shadow material that fuels it, the energy will be free to use for healing or further transformation.

One way of doing this is a method of dissolution called cibation. Cibation is the addition of water or other fluids to dried-out substances at precisely the right moment in the experiment. Psychologically, this involves coldly and deliberately reviewing painful, hardened memories without letting them upset you, and then holding the memories in your mind until the emotions behind them finally break to the surface.

If you let yourself fully re-experience these emotions, sometimes a lump will form in your throat or tears will well up in your eyes. The idea is to let yourself go and cry as long and as hard as you can. Crying therapy is a valid technique used by therapists to overcome eating disorders, sex problems, drug abuse, insomnia, anger, and many other problems, but the uncontrolled crying must take place at precisely the right time to work. Medieval alchemists were the first to understand this process and actually believed that the salt in tears was the remnants of crystallized thoughts and memories broken down by crying.

Other effective methods of personal dissolution include paying attention to dream symbolism, mental images, slips of the tongue, and other meaningful coincidences. Keeping journals of thoughts and feelings also helps bring the shadowy material to light.

If successful, the initial operations of Fire and Water have eliminated the dross of the substance, whether it is of a chemical or psychological nature. The goal of calcination and dissolution is to eliminate contaminating materials and reveal the most basic constituents or essences of a substance. The job of the next phase in alchemy, the Albedo, is to separate out these essences and recombine them at a higher level of purity and power.

The Least You Need to Know

• The work of alchemy is divided into three phases of transformation: the Black Phase (Nigredo), the White Phase (Albedo), and the Red Phase (Rubedo).

• Calcination, an operation of the Black Phase, involves heating a substance in an open flame.

• Dissolution is an operation of the Black Phase that involves dissolving the substance in water or other liquid.

• Because the operations of alchemy also apply to psychological transformation, many modern psychologists use the same terms in their therapy as the alchemists used in their lab work.

• Personal calcination involves burning up artificial psychic structures and ego complexes using introspective techniques.

• Personal dissolution frees subconscious energy trapped in mental habits, rejected material, rigid beliefs, and projections.