What is the result of the ‘Great Work’? In our deepest instinctive layers where life melts organically with the world around us, the Prima Materia is found (Images 1 and 2). This is a powerful stream of vitality that is transformed by the special actions of the alchemist in ‘Quicksilver’, which gives him a ‘ray’ full of inspiration and provides insight into the matter from which he and the world is composed. This principle of the opening of a centre of ‘perception’ and ‘clear consciousness’ is repeated several times. The Quicksilver is sublimated in the mental area (Image 3) and precipitates, purifies and opens the emotional life (Image 4) and instincts (Image 5). Thus one part of the work is completed (Image 6). The lower nature of the adept is purified and at the same time he has received insight and has control over it. The alchemist needs this control of his volitional, emotional and intellectual life in order to take the following step: the development of sensitivity and directional power in the pure intuitive realm, the air area. Here also Quicksilver expands to a sea of consciousness (Images 7 and 8). When the Hermetic philosopher controls this power as well he is awarded the title
‘King of the Forest’ by Hermes (Image 9). He then has complete control over himself and the elements water, earth and air. This is the end of the first part: the “Small Work’ is completed, the White Stone is produced. The ‘Great Work’ takes place in the area of the fire (Image 10). Fire destroys matter and in order to gain control over fire the body, matter, needs to become temporarily passive, even seemingly dead. In the power of the element fire a new ‘inner man’ arises, a ‘son of the philosophers’ and also another fire-being, a spiritual guide, becomes visible (Image 11). He guides the ‘Son of Philosophers’ to an initiation in the ultimate ‘coniunctio oppositorum’, the supreme insight (Image 12). The son brings his experiences to his ‘nether part’, the body (Image 13), and as a result it is completely purified and transfigured. (Image 14). Finally the Father, the Son and the Guide - that is: body, soul and spirit - are seated on the throne in complete equality (Image 15) and together reign over their ‘kingdom’. In unison they form the symbol of Mercury: the Red Stone is produced.
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