Unlocking the Secrets of Alchemy for Transcendence and Personal Growth

Alchemy is the path from ignorance to transcendence, but it’s not what you think. This isn’t about spiritual lobotomies or becoming some floaty, blank-slate love-and-light guru with zero personality. And it’s not about bypassing your pain or vaporizing your identity. It’s about burning down the false ego, then forging what remains into something useful, something loyal. Everyone talks about killing the ego like it’s some demon you need to exorcise. But here’s the truth: your ego isn't your enemy, and you don't need to kill it, you alchemize it. It’s just not supposed to be driving the damn car. You need ego, it gives structure, direction, and flavor to your human experience. But it was never meant to run the show. In alchemy, the ego becomes the servant to the higher Self, not the dictator of your delusions. So, if you’re ready to stop performing spirituality and actually embody it, then it’s time to break, burn, fuse, rot, and rise, because that’s how gold is made.

An illuminated manuscript-style illustration for the SCG Witchery blog post on "Unlocking the Secrets of Alchemy for Transcendence and Personal Growth." The image depicts a robed alchemist in a detailed laboratory, surrounded by symbolic elements of the Gnōsis AEI methodology, including mystical diagrams and alchemical apparatus. The artwork reflects the themes of spiritual witchcraft, transmutation, and the journey toward self-sovereignty.

The 7 Stages of Alchemy: How to awaken your Inner God

Stage 1: Calcination - Burn the Ego

Theme: Ego Death, Destruction, Shadow Trigger

Planetary Ruler: Saturn

Element: Fire

Metal: Lead

This is the firestorm that breaks you. This is where it all begins, by lighting your ego on fire and watching it scream! Your old identity has to go, and break free from limiting beliefs, attachments, and ego, leading to a more refined and conscious state. It’s the death of your false self, your persona, your masks. It hurts. It’s supposed to. You’re not “ascending” you’re breaking open. This is where reality smacks your ego in the face and says, “Burn. bitch. Burn!” But here’s the twist: you don’t eliminate the ego; you just demote it from CEO to trusted bodyguard. It’s strong, loyal, and necessary, but it takes orders from the Higher Self now. You’re not dying, I promise, you’re refining. But yeah, it’s going to feel like death. Enjoy the spiritual cremation.

Stage 2: Dissolution – Drown the Illusion

Theme: Emotional breakdown, surrender, unconscious release, Self Discovery

Planetary Ruler: Jupiter

Element: Water

Metal: Tin

Welcome to the meltdown. After the fire of calcination, you get a full emotional flood. The flood of all the shit you’ve repressed, bypassed, or spiritually duct-taped suddenly bursts through. It’s called growth, and spiritual evolution. This is the “Dark Night of the Soul” phase, where your inner child screams, your trauma journal gets a sequel, and the universe cancels your coping mechanisms one by one. You’ll cry. You’ll unravel. And no, you can’t “affirm” your way out of it. The good news? You’re not broken. You’re just dissolving into something honest. Let it hurt. Let it leak. Your inner god is floating somewhere in this mess, possibly holding a cocktail and laughing.

Stage 3: Separation – Cut the Crap

Theme: Discernment, Clarity, Willpower, confront your dark aspects

Planetary Ruler: Mars

Element: Air

Metal: Iron

You finally come up for air like, “Wait… WTF even is me?” Welcome to the spiritual sorting hat. Your spiritual compass starts dissecting the chaos, trauma, religious programming, and all the bullshit you've been spoon-fed since birth, and you begin tossing the crap that never belonged to you in the first place. Out go the inherited beliefs, expired identities, toxic situationships, and religious guilt complexes that were basically just divine gaslighting. You’re not enlightened yet, but your bullshit barometer is getting sharper than your eyeliner. This is where your will wakes up, stretches, and says, “I’m done being possessed by ancestral nonsense. Let’s clean house.”

Stage 4: Conjunction – Fuse What’s Real

Theme: Integration, unification of opposites, harmonize conscious and unconscious

Planetary Ruler: Venus

Element: Earth

Metal: Copper

This is the marriage of opposites. Shadow + light. Masculine + feminine. Logic + intuition.

You begin to operate as a whole. Not a divided performance, but a functional, aligned soul.

This is the alchemical “phoenix egg”—where the self you’re becoming starts to breathe. Your higher consciousness has awakened and the unification of the inner opposites forces the "mirror self " to become whole.

Stage 5: Fermentation – Rot to Rise

Theme: Spiritual resurrection, awaken spirit, access inner purpose

Ruling Substances: Mercury (soul), Sulfur (spirit)

The ego is dead, so after everything false has decayed, and after your ego's funeral, something holy begins to grow in the wreckage. This is when the divine starts whispering through your bones. The shadow’s been faced. But something is still missing, your inner spirit. This stage is funky, volatile, creative. Your soul starts speaking louder than your trauma. New inspiration hits. Strange dreams. Divine downloads. You are composting the old… and the divine is fermenting inside you.

Stage 6: Distillation – Refine the Signal

Theme: Purification, connect to higher self, harmonize shadow-self

Planetary Ruler: Moon

Metal: Silver

Substance: Sulfur

You’re clearer now. But clarity needs refinement. This is about purifying your perception, aligning your actions, and honing your soul signal. In ancient temples, this meant retreat. In modern life? It might mean deleting 90% of your feed and ghosting people who only knew the old you. This is when the incorruptible self begins to lead.

Stage 7: Coagulation – You Are the Gold

Theme: Manifestation, embodiment, integration

Planetary Ruler: Sun

Metal: Gold

Substance: Salt (spirit in matter)

This is it. The Philosophers Stone. You're no longer chasing truth, you are truth. The sacred isn't something outside of you anymore. You are now a fully formed, spiritually sovereign being, and the world feels it. Your inner self manifests into your outer world. You give form to your will. You've passed through fire, flood, shadow, rot and silence, and what's left is the distilled essence of divinity wearing human form. This isn't perfection. Its completion. Because your inner God, the one you left in the fog of ignorance has awakened. This is transcendence. You are now a God-tier, trauma tempered, illusion-free badass.

Congratulations you have unlocked God mode. No glowing orb needed.