The Transmutation Of Copper Into Silver

The fifth stage of ascent up the Mithraic Ladder is silver. Alchemically speaking, copper brightens as it transmutes into silver. The colourful, ruddy copper becomes the white-grey silver as a person transcends a focus on materialist concerns such as nuclear family for (slightly) more abstract concerns.

This brightening reflects a broadening, and a raising, of horizons. The characters of lead, tin, iron and copper all look downward in a sense, because they’re most worried about dangers that arise from the Earth. But the character of silver looks over them all, to the distant horizons, and the rising and setting Sun.

A person of copper works to transmute themselves into silver when they start to take an interest in the welfare of those outside their immediate family. Once a person with a small family is asked to speak or act on behalf of a larger group, such as a village or clan, they start to raise their frequency of consciousness beyond that which is found in a state of Nature. They start to become actually civilised – not merely passive, but an active bearer of the light of civilisation.

A second method of transmutation is the accumulation of knowledge. The character of silver is traditionally the one that has taken an interest in history, geography and culture. They are able to look beyond their immediate environment and understand the context into which their family has been thrust by circumstance. As such, they are able to understand individuals much better than those who cannot take such a broad view.

They can also transmute by means of a third way: voluntary celibacy. Upon reaching the apex of the realm of copper, a person might find that they no longer feel they have much left to experience sexually. Perhaps they have lived out every fantasy they ever had by this time. They might then, rather than expending sexual energy in the pursuit of more offspring, sublimate it into something higher.

The decision to sublimate sexual energy into spiritual energy is one of the most powerful decisions a person can ever make. It is the key to attaining the level of silver (and above). The sexual energy is fundamental to physical life, and therefore fundamental to fighting and violence and the non-consensual assertion of will. By sublimating that energy into something higher, a person moves beyond the beast and towards the god.

Chronologically, when a person is in the copper stage, they tend to have children who are in the lead stage, i.e. just learning to survive. Of people who die, a high proportion of them die in the first twelve years of life, owing to all the survival challenges that have to be met and overcome for the first time.

When their children pass into the realm of tin, there’s no longer such a worry that they might immediately die. When it does, a person of copper might cast their mind to wider things than just their nuclear family – such as their extended family. In doing so, their horizons broaden from the home to the community, and a change can begin, from copper to silver. Deep knowledge can be attained by those who throw themselves into the task once they no longer need to worry about their children.

The character of silver is mostly concerned with the clan. They are the sort of person who would become a clan chieftain. Thus they must engage in politics to some extent. They will inevitably find themselves called to settle disputes between other family members.

Occupationally, silver is associated with jobs where a degree of brilliance is required, such as doctor or judge. If copper if the boss of the front-facing roles such as Army captain, silver is the major, a back-facing role in an important office. The transition to silver, then, is a kind of retirement, from the physical realm and its conflicts.

Silver is a precious metal. This reflects the fact that characters of silver play a precious role in maintaining civilisation. They are concerned with “the wider collective”. As such, a large number of the people involved in government bureaucracy tend to be characters of silver (even if their leaders tend to be characters of mercury).

A character of copper might discover that, thanks to the reputation they have developed from raising their children well, they are offered a position as an official in a government somewhere. Such a promotion might occupationally reflect an inner change from copper to silver.

Socially, the person of silver is much less preoccupied with sex. The person of copper is specifically trying to create a family, and so is obsessed with sex. The person of silver, by contrast, no longer feels an imperative to have children. Hence, the prime virtue that transmutes copper to silver is chastity.

Physically, the transition from copper to silver is marked by silver (or grey) hair. It can also be marked by becoming more slender. Characters of silver are most likely to have the long, willowy bodies typical of the upper classes. If the muscle man of the realm of iron first relaxes into the teddy bear of the realm of copper, upon then entering the realm of silver he might become neither muscular nor fat, but lean and slender.

It’s necessary to note here that merely getting old doesn’t guarantee a transition to silver. The nature of the alchemy here is spiritual and not material. A person can therefore have silver hair but still be stuck at an earlier level of spiritual development. For example, if a 55-year old is still mostly concerned with looking tough, they are stuck at the level of iron. If they are still mostly concerned with partying, they are stuck at the level of tin.

Neither is it necessary to be old to develop a frequency of silver. It’s generally true that, the higher the frequency of the consciousness, the later in life it comes to full fruition. However, a character of an unusually high frequency of consciousness can manifest aspects of silver at an early age. This is often seen intellectually through an interest in art.

An archetypal moment that is emblematic of the transition from copper to silver is when a parent starts caring more about paying for their child’s college tuition than they do about keeping them alive. Guiding the child towards life, rather than away from death, becomes the focus. In a way, then, they transition from the guardian of their offspring to an advisor of them.

Another such moment is when a person starts wondering if there’s more to life than just sex and children. Once a person doesn’t want any more children, they have to start asking some deep, existential questions that are typically postponed by the imperative to win territory and breeding partners. A character stops following instincts like a lower animal, and starts asking themselves questions about the meaning of life.

The essence of the transition from copper to silver is a brightening that hints at the presence of solar energy. The character of silver plays a minor role in upholding civilisation itself. As such, their lives are heroic in a subtler way than those of copper and iron. In the transition to mercury, the character of silver becomes less subtle.

This is an excerpt from Viktor Hellman’s The Alchemy of Character Development, the sixth book in VJM Publishing’s Writing With Psychology series. This book will show you how to use alchemy to create deep, realistic and engaging characters for your creative fiction.

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The Transmutation Of Iron Into Copper

The third upward transmutation is that of iron into copper. To move into the fourth stage of the Mithraic Ladder is to move to the central stage: there are three stages both above and below. Befitting this central position is that copper represents the coming together of men and women in bonds of mutual love. This doesn’t mean that the transmutation into copper occurs without drama.

In a state of Nature, men fight for reasons, and the primary reason is women. The hardening to iron of any of the male expressions of life is usually in order to win fights for territory and status, the two prerequisites of attracting women. This is why the man of iron is typically what has been selected for in all low-sophistication cultures throughout time. But as cultures progress towards glorious civilisations, people of higher frequencies than iron start to appear.

In transmuting to copper, a man of iron begins to colourise. Lead, tin and iron are all a shade of grey. Copper, by contrast, has colour, reflecting the fact that it is a semi-precious metal, unlike lead, tin and iron. The reddish hues of copper symbolise the fire of the soul that is now beginning to rise.

This stage of transmutation is just as applicable to women as to men. It might not be as stereotypical for a female character to become a person of iron, in comparison to a male one, but it can still happen – and perhaps would make for a less cliched story. Women might not be as good as men when it comes to fistfighting, but they are just as capable of becoming hard-bitten. Thus, a woman is just as capable as a man of being put in a situation where she must transmute iron into copper.

Copper is a stage in the mental realm, reflecting the fact that intelligence – not of much use in transmuting lead into tin or tin into iron – is of great use in transmuting iron into copper. It’s primarily intelligence that causes a person to see the value in being something more than hard. (this is a foreshadowing of the future transmutation to mercury).

In the same way that the character of lead must let go of fear of death to become a character of tin, the character of iron must let go of fear of weakness to become a character of copper. Iron is the will to physically dominate at all costs. As such, its transmutation into copper begins when a character comes to realise that there are more important things than physical domination.

Once a fighter decides to become a lover instead, they begin the transmutation of iron into copper.

A character can become motivated to make such a change when they realise that other people don’t really respect people of iron. They might fear people of iron, but not respect them. The people of iron don’t get invited to the highest positions, or the best parties, or offered the best jobs, because they tend to scare others too much.

The person of copper is oriented primarily towards their family. At the level of iron or below, a person is primarily concerned with looking tough, cool or terrible in front of their friends or comrades. Such interests fade away when a person is tasked with raising and protecting a family.

Physically, the transmutation of iron to copper is encapsulated in the “Dad bod”. The entire concept of a dad bod reflects the observation that, for many men, once they have children and no longer feel the pressure to be tough and to fight over women, the incentive to maintain fitness and leanness is gone. A female character can also, of course, become fat once they advance past the imperative to attract a romantic partner.

It’s also reflected in general appearance. The character transmuting from iron to copper stops wearing black and starts wearing colours. They stop wearing skulls as adornments and start wearing love hearts. Their entire vibe switches from trying to intimidate to trying to win love.

Copper is, of course, better for making weapons than the other metals than aren’t iron. This is reflected in the fact that characters of copper are still highly effective at fighting, they’re just past the physical fighting prime that was achieved in the frequency of iron.

A character of copper is also signficantly more social than a character of iron. When the character of iron starts to realise that, through polishing their social qualities, they can obtain pleasures that cannot be obtained through violence, they start to transmute to copper. Because copper is a semi-precious metal, a character of copper can seem like a kind of nobility to characters of lower tiers. The ensuing admiration can be what drives such characters to rise to the level of copper.

Reflecting this increased sociability, a character of copper can play with children in a way that a character of iron cannot. In fact, the reaction of children can demonstrate that a transmutation from iron to copper has taken place. A character of iron might not care if they lose a game to a child, because they’re indifferent. A character of copper doesn’t care about the loss, because, unlike the character of iron, they care about the child and its socialisation.

Psychosexually, the transmutation from iron to copper is analagous to going from having sex to making love. The character of iron doesn’t feel the need to make love – they doesn’t care too much about how the other person feels. The character of copper makes love, reflecting their superior capacity for empathy in comparison to the lower three levels.

A typical psychosexual transformation at this stage might be a woman who learns to control men of iron through her sex appeal. Copper learns to dominate iron, not through hardness and violence as iron dominates tin and lead, but through subtler means. Copper is that in civilisation which tames the beast. This is why copper can also represent small-scale trading and business.

Spiritually, the colourisation characteristic of copper represents the first real flowering of divinity. The lower three metals are all dull, the higher four are all colourful. Copper is the first of the colourful, representing a character’s first inkling of some higher order of divinity in the world.

Copper can be realised just as easily through masculine as feminine energies. However, in transforming from iron to copper there tends to be less fiery energy and more watery energy. This quenching of rage is perhaps the essential emotional and spiritual transformation. A character must learn to sublimate anger into something higher in order to pass beyond the frequency of iron.

Perhaps the best-known transmutation of iron into copper is that of Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings. Indeed, completing a great journey and winning your dream girl is an archetypal hero’s journey. Spiritual purification need not end there, however: a minority of characters go further, to the realm of silver.

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The Transmutation Of Tin Into Iron

The second transmutation on the path up the Mithraic Ladder is that of tin into iron. The jovial, laid-back energy of tin becomes the martial and grim energy of iron. This second transmutation completes the physical realm, and produces a character who is optimised for war and combat.

As a character enlargens when they transmute from lead into tin, they sharpen as they transmute into iron. This sharpening is the characteristic action of this third level. The character thereby becomes harder and more warlike. The person of iron is, of course, the warrior.

The transmutation of tin into iron begins when a character comes to see recreation and play, characteristic of the second level, as childish. No longer are the frivolities of tin seen as an esacpe from the cruel pressures of survival. A character starts to yearn for more than just recreation. A character aspiring to the realm of iron years to test themselves, to test their strength against opposition.

As such, the attitude of a character transmuting to iron sharpens as well. Iron is the frequency of maximum possible cruelty – but it doesn’t have to be cruel. It’s also the frequency with which a man protects his family. That might involve cruelty, but it can also involve acts of the most extreme physical rectitude. A character might come to learn this rectitude when they first have a family, giving them something to defend.

This stage can involve a character who has lapsed into gluttony getting fit and strong. Getting off the couch, and starting to lift weights, is an example of the sort of transformation that occurs in physical space at this stage. Thus the sharpening can involve pain – the pain of weakness leaving the body (as the US Marines would put it).

Motivation to get stronger comes mostly from the archetypal motivation of the stage of iron, which is honour. If a character comes to feel humiliated and dishonoured on account of being fat and unfit, the reader will easily understand that character’s motivation to become lean and fit instead. If a woman rejects them, or if they can’t climb a set of stairs, or if a child laughs at them, they might develop a powerful desire to get fit.

The transformation of tin into iron occurs primarily within the physical realm, being mostly a matter of sharpening the body. The two classic ways this can be achieved is through conflict against the environment or conflict against other people.

Conflict against the environment can come through means such as climbing a mountain, traversing a desert or sailing a vessel through stormy waters. The same way a blacksmith purifies iron by continually striking it, so can a person purify their body by continually taking one more step up the mountain.

Conflict against other people, in this context, primarily means battle. Many a man of tin has gone into battle with a distant grin, only to harden up quick when the man next to them got a spear through the chest. The deprivations of war will reliably harden a person more than anything.

The typical background of the transmutation of tin into iron is the gym. The fat of tin becomes the iron of muscle through repeated action.

This is especially true if the gym is a martial one. The line in Fight Club goes “A guy who came to Fight Club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood.” That line summarises the nature of the transformation of this stage. One puts the drinking vessel away and picks up the rifle.

A character who has transmuted their consciousness into that of iron will look at the pastimes that obsessed them in youth, and see childishness of no importance. Games in which defeat used to upset them now only evoke laughter. If a person can lose a game to a child with complete indifference, they might have passed into the realm of iron.

Although the transmutation of tin into iron is primarily a physical phenomenon, there are mental and spiritual aspects to it. A character that has mastered iron will be much harder to intimidate than one who has not. That character’s physiology will be like iron, in that they will not be nervous in the face of physical danger. They could stand on the edge of a precipice without feeling fear.

The character who has successfully developed a soul of iron will also be more inclined to think about eternity than the characters of lead and tin. To a character of iron, the character of tin seems like a degenerate and the character of lead seems like a wretch. The character of iron is the first on the ascent up the Mithraic Ladder to actually enjoy their life, i.e. not to suffer significantly.

The major mental transformations, however, are still to come, the mental realm being that which lies inbetween iron and silver. A character that completes the transmution into iron might have become an awesome fighter and the master of themselves, but they will only master themselves. Iron is still too low a level to command from. So a successful transmutation into iron will come with a new set of ambitions.

A famous example of this transmutation in popular culture is that of Rocky in Rocky 3. He starts the film fat and out of shape, and ends it super-fit. Another example is that of Conan in Conan the Barbarian. He gets put to work on the slave wheel as a boy, so that by the time he is a man he is exceptionally strong.

When the character of iron feels like they have truly proven their physical courage, they can begin the transmutation to copper.

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The Basics Of The Alchemy Of Character Development

Westerners are used to thinking in material terms, and we take the same approach to writing fiction. We tend to think our of characters as primarily material beings, who are challenged by emotions that are themselves evolutionary adaptations to survival challenges. As such, the life of a fictional character is mostly about the neurotransmitters that flow through their brain.

The fundamental viewpoint promoted by this book, instead, is that of viewing one’s characters as primarily frequencies – namely, the frequency of their consciousness. The higher a character’s frequency of consciousness, the lighter their soul, and vice-versa.

In this book, it will be explained, a character’s frequency of consciousness is the most important thing about them. It is the driving force that impels them to take action. It is the fundamental explanatory force that makes sense of the character’s station of birth, his basic motivations, intentions and aspirations.

Herein it is assumed that the reader understands the truth of the phrase ‘turn lead into gold’: namely that this phrase does not refer to physical lead and physical gold, but rather to the transmution of the soul, from spiritual lead to spiritual gold. The true alchemist is not interested in mere material wealth, but in much subtler forms of wealth. This includes the treasures of the world beyond as well as the more sublime emotions here on Earth.

To make a truly interesting story, the main character’s frequency of consciousness has to change. This tends to make for a gratifying reader experience, as long as the reader can identify with that main character. By the end of a good story, the reader ought to have an appreciation for the development that protagonist has undergone to make them what they now are.

In the most typical character arc, a low frequency of consciousness is transmuted into a higher one. This is the typical heroic character arc beloved of stories going all the way back to The Epic Of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh begins his story as a low-frequency hedonist, and ends it as a high-frequency man of his people.

Countless tales follow this same pattern. The protagonist begins the story as a more-or-less normal person, and, through various trials and tribulations, they become something special – stronger, smarter, wiser, better than before. It’s what Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey and it’s been known about since the oral traditions that predated literature.

This character arc is very common, however, so skillful authors like to throw some twists into the story. Sometimes the protagonist has to lose to make the story interesting. As such, the development of a character’s frequency throughout the course of a story doesn’t usually follow a linear upwards progression.

The basics of the alchemy of character development, as described in this book, are the basics of telling an interesting story. It’s all about alchemy – and hence this book is all about alchemy too. The logic is that the Hero’s Journey is primarily an alchemical journey, and that the joy the reader gets from a story primarily comes from the alchemy of character development, and the ups and downs of that development over the course of that story.

There are three main parts to this book.

The first explains the Mithraic Ladder, and its seven steps. The Mithraic Ladder is the axis along which alchemical development occurs. The bottommost step is lead, and the alchemist ascends through tin, iron, copper, silver and mercury to reach the top step, which is gold.

The second explains how a character can move up from one step to the one above. This is keeping in accordance with the principle that people like to read about main characters who overcome challenges and transform themselves while doing so.

The third explains how a character can move down from one step to the one below. This is in keeping with the principle that stories of linear progression are not very interesting, and so readers prefer stories in which the protagonist suffers setbacks, withdrawing temporarily so that they can rise again (or even descend further, in the case of tragedies).

The totality of this book is about how a writer can understand the Hero’s Journey from an alchemical perspective.

This is an excerpt from Vince McLeod’s The Alchemy of Character Development, the sixth book in VJM Publishing’s Writing With Psychology series. This book will show you how to use alchemy to create deep, realistic and engaging characters for your creative fiction.

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

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