Arts · Alchemy · The Great Work

The Great Work

The work is one process, and its stages are named after the colour the matter shows. Start with the sequence the books actually describe, which is not quite the four tidy stages the phrase “the four stages” promises, and watch what the writers do with the black.

The colours, in the book's own words

whereon, in the first operation of our stone, it is called putrifaction, and our stone is made blacke: whereof one saith, When thou findest it blacke, know that in that blacknesse whitenesse is hidden, and thou must extract the same from his most subtile blacknes. But after putrefaction it waxeth red, not with a true rednesse, of which one saith: It is often red, and often of a citrine colour, it often melteth, and is often coagulated, before true whitenesse. And it dissolueth it selfe, it coagulateth it selfe, it putrifieth it selfe, it coloureth it self, it mortifieth it selfe, it quickneth it selfe, it maketh it selfe blacke, it maketh it selfe white, it maketh it selfe red.
The Mirror of Alchemy, Chap. VI — London, 1597

In plain English The work is named by the colour it shows. It begins in putrefaction and blackness, and the book insists the whiteness is already hidden inside the black rather than added to it.

There appeares also before whitenesse the peacocks colour, whereon one saith thus. Know thou that al the colours in the world, or y^t may be imagined, appeare before whitenesse, and afterward true whitenesse followeth.
The Mirror of Alchemy, Chap. VI — London, 1597

In plain English Between the black and the white every colour appears at once — the peacock's tail. It is a stage in the work, not a mistake in it.

“y^t” is the printing's own abbreviation for “that”, kept as it stands.

After whitenesse, thou canst not erre, for encreasing the fire, thou shalt come to an ash-colour: of which another saith: Doo not set light by the ashes, for God shal giue it thee molten: and then at the last the King is inuested with a red crowne by the will of God.
The Mirror of Alchemy, Chap. VI — London, 1597

In plain English After the white comes an ash colour and then the red, which the book gives as a coronation. The work ends in red, and the ending is described as a gift rather than an achievement.

The stages as they are usually named

The Latin names below are the ones modern writing uses. Each carries the claim that sources it, and its status: three of them are what the 1597 book states, and one is an addition the book does not make.

  1. Nigredo black

    The blackening. The work's first operation, which the Mirror of Alchemy calls putrefaction and says already holds the whiteness inside it.

    The Mirror of Alchemy names this colour as a stage of the work.

    The Mirror of Alchemy, Chap. VI · Glossary: Nigredo

  2. Albedo white

    The whitening, reached after every colour has appeared at once — the peacock's tail.

    The Mirror of Alchemy names this colour as a stage of the work.

    The Mirror of Alchemy, Chap. VI · Glossary: Albedo

  3. Citrinitas citrine contested

    The yellowing. A stage in the later four-colour scheme, but the Mirror of Alchemy names citrine among the colours that come and go before whiteness, not as a stage of its own.

    The four-stage scheme is later than the books it is read back into. The Mirror of Alchemy lists citrine among the colours that come and go before whiteness, not as a stage of its own, and this row says so rather than completing a tidy four.

    The Mirror of Alchemy, Chap. VI · Glossary: Citrinitas

  4. Rubedo red

    The reddening, which ends the work. The Mirror describes it as a coronation: the King invested with a red crown.

    The Mirror of Alchemy names this colour as a stage of the work.

    The Mirror of Alchemy, Chap. VI · Glossary: Rubedo

What is being worked on

The work begins with the prima materia, the first matter, which the books describe by what it is not, and ends with the philosophers' stone, which is not a stone but the medicine of the definition on the overview: one substance that finishes whatever it is cast upon. Between them stand the principles the matter is made of and the operations it is put through.

Whether the thing in the vessel is only ever matter is the question the spiritual alchemy page takes up. Notice that the 1597 text has already made the move that argument turns on: the blackness is not a failure to be got past but the state the whiteness is hidden inside, and the red is given rather than achieved.