When working on a story and a character arc, one thing I like to do is figure out what stage in the alchemical journey the character is in. 

I find this especially helpful when I’m stuck and trying to figure out the point of a scene and how the character changes in the scene. 

One thing I like about the alchemical journey is it’s non-linear. There is a progression that ends in the Great Work, but in life sometimes you find yourself in fermentation and sometimes you find yourself back in calcination. 

Oftentimes the alchemical stages do follow one another. For example, a period of fermentation often does give way to a period of distillation. And from scene to scene you can chart that change. 

However, just as often, you can be in one stage then be thrown into another totally different alchemical stage. For example, maybe you have a character who has a nice life and is feeling the fruits of conjunction, then her house floods and now she is experiencing calcination. 

Because a story is one of change, it doesn’t matter where in the alchemical journey your character starts or where they end. Just as long as they’ve undergone a change. 

If following this, it is important to think of who your character is when in the first stage: calcination. Because this is the “prima materia,” we need to know who or what the character is working with. In terms of calcination, the reader needs to know what belief system, world view, or thought the character is going to change through the progression of your story. Maybe your character is facing grief over the death of a loved one. That would be their period of calcination. 

For another example, you can look at Torrey Peters wonderful Detransition, Baby in which the character Reese begins the novel in a state of dissolution and then goes through calcination and separation, to finally end up at conjunction. 

So ask yourself: What alchemical stage are you in? What alchemical stage is your character in? 

Alchemical Stages: 

Calcination: where we begin, related to the deity and planet Saturn. Calcination initiates us into the Great Work. Think of a terrible experience you’ve had in your life, one that causes us to become someone else. That’s calcination. A state of calcination might be the state your character is in after enduring a trauma. 

Dissolution: related to the deity and planet Jupiter. These are the watery realms and the realm of the unconscious. This is also a place of desire: what do you (or the character) want? A state of Dissolution would be the state your character is in when they really want something, be that a lover or anything else. It’s a state of dissolving into that desire. This is also a state of breakdown.  

Separation: related to the deity and planet Mars. After dissolving into the desire, this is where all the good things are kept and the bad things thrown out. This state is associated with anger, because it is anger that cuts through to find the truth, to create boundaries, to create individualism. This would be the state in which your character gets into a fight with someone, or perhaps is searching out the truth. 

Conjunction: related to the deity and planet Venus. This state has to do with union (or reunion), and is associated with love, compassion, empathy. For a character, this could be a time when they’re united with a lover, or re-united with their family. 

Fermentation: related to the deity and planet Mercury. When someone is in fermentation, they’re often in a standstill of some sort. In religious talk, fermentation is “the dark night of the soul.” In common parlance, we’d say the person is depressed. For a character, this is sort of like the funk before a large realization. 

Sublimation: related to the moon. This is a magical state that has to do with sudden realizations, dreaming, intuition, etc. For your character this would be their “aha moment” – the point in which they realize what they must do to make things right. 

Radiation: related to the sun. This would be similar to a state of enlightenment (for a religious figure). For a magician, this might be the attainment of divine will, or the philosopher’s stone. For a character, this might be where their desires have attained fruition. 

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