The Transmutation Of Copper Into Iron

When consciousness descends below the Elemental Horizon, it begins to enter the realm of iron. In transmuting to iron, copper becomes discoloured. This discolouring represents the loss of a kind of basic humanity, the empathy that distinguishes the social from the antisocial. In so discolouring, a character’s consciousness descends to the border between the human and the animal realms.

The general thematic trend of this transmutation is from contentment to anger.

A typical example of a descent from copper to iron is that of the family man who loses everything. In a state of copper, he may have been relatively contented. But something happens to destroy that state of contentment, and in suffering the change the character drops down the Mithraic Ladder. A merchant or a sportsman who loses everything are other common examples.

The breakup of a romantic relationship is a typical way to descend from copper to iron, but this need not mean the death of a partner. It can mean a messy divorce, especially one stressful enough to cause anger to arise. It can also mean a falling out with a family member, old friend or workmate. It could be reflected in a loss of money.

An archetypal way for a family to fall out with each other is when an elder dies and everyone fights over the inheritance. Long-simmering resentments can boil over into drama if one character feels that another is acting selfishly. If one of the brothers or sisters felt that another one had been treated as the favourite, they might get really angry if the elder’s will wasn’t to their liking.

Another character’s successful Anabasis could serve as the trigger for the envy that caused another character to drop from copper to iron. Although envy is usually the preserve of the realm of silver, the lower levels are more than capable of feeling it too. A character of copper who become sufficiently envious could find themselves getting nasty.

If a merchant is your protagonist, that merchant might get robbed, and then have to decide whether to let the money go or to take it back by force. They might not like force – it might be extremely unnatural to them – but Fate compels them to fight in order to maintain their position. This could also be the story of someone forced to steal to support their family.

Socially speaking, the character transmuting from copper to iron tends to lose their sense of humour. This reflects the impatience that can be characteristic of the realm of iron. The phrase ‘hard-bitten’ can become appropriate. This can lead to a falling out with other characters if offence is taken.

Emotionally, a character descending to iron will become more wrathful. This can occur on account of frustrated lusts, which can become resentments. A deeply humiliating experience, or one in which a character is made to feel vulnerable or helpless, could tip a character from the realm of copper into the realm of iron. Revenge, especially physical revenge, is the sort of action a character descending into the realm of iron is liable to take.

Physically, the transmutation to iron brings with it a hardness and a greyness. Grey is usually associated with silver, and the transition to high social status, but it can also represent a fading of spiritual energy. This can be reflected in a sullen, low-energy appearance.

The character making this transmutation might start to dress less to impress women and more to intimidate men. They might start wearing black, shave their head, or even get a tattoo. Their body language might also reflect the change, becoming more tense, more challenging and aggressive. A female character might start smoking cigarettes.

A typical incident that might be emblematic of this transformation is that of a middle-aged man getting into a fistfight on account of some insult that a character on the Anabasis would have ignored. This is perhaps the archetypal fictional example of someone falling out of the realm of copper.

Intellectually, a character undergoing this transmutation will lose some of the wider social vision that had been achieved by reaching the level of copper. Instead of thinking of their family and long-term needs, the character will start to think more about themselves and short-term needs. As with the other steps of the Katabasis, they become more egotistical.

Some of the hobbies or luxury pastimes that a character may have engaged in will be forgotten in the transmutation of copper to iron. Such things might come to seem as frivolities to someone whose focus is tightening and hardening.

This is similar to how a character transmuting from tin to iron loses interest in frivolities, only in a tragic way. The character transmuting upwards from tin loses interest in childish games; the character transmuting downwards from copper loses interest in social obligations. It can thus be said that characters during the Katabasis mistakenly lose interest in their own lives, and this is reflective of the discolouration process.

In falling into the realm of iron from a higher frequency, a character can easily forget some of the moral lessons or realisations from earlier in life. In particular, they can forget the long-term value of behaving compassionately. This might have bad consequences for the character, but it can make for some great drama!

This transmutation need not have negative connotations, or at least not extremely so.

A character could, in so transmuting, become highly physically fit, as per the nature of characters of iron. It could be that, in the initial transmutation from iron to copper during the Anabasis, a character became physically soft and didn’t like it. Perhaps they longed to feel physically strong again when they got fat as a wealthy merchant. Viewed through the lens of iron, which prizes physical power above other forms, a fall to iron from copper might actually be a win.

It could also be that, in getting cast down from the level of copper to the level of iron, a character learns the rage that allows them to achieve things they previously couldn’t. This lack of rage may have prevented them from overcoming certain social barriers – and now they can break through them.

At this point it’s worthwhile to restate that the Hero’s Journey, in alchemical terms, need not be linear. The Katabasis refers to a general tendency: downward. But an interesting story will have a multi-dimensional character arc. The lover may be forced to become a fighter, but the fighter can redeem himself.

It’s also worthwhile to restate here that iron, despite being a low level compared to gold, mercury, silver and copper, is not the lowest, and a character of iron still has a lot of honour in comparison to those of lead.

Perhaps the most famous depiction of this transmutation in popular culture is Russell Crowe’s character in Gladiator. A greatly respected leader of men as a Roman general, Maximus Decimus Meridius is betrayed and cast down to the level of a mere gladiator, forced to fight hand-to-hand.

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!

Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2023
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2022
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2021
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2020
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017

If you would like to support our work in other ways, make a donation to our Paypal! Even better, buy any one of our books!

The Transmutation Of Silver Into Copper

The third stage in the katabasis is the dullening, which occurs when silver dullens into copper. Having already deteriorated below the level of spirituality in the previous stage, here a character loses some (but not all) of that pro-sociality which demarcates humans from beasts. Herein the vision narrows further, to the level of simpler pleasures.

This descent occurs within the intellectual or mental realm. If silver is high intellectualism, copper is a lower form. As with the other steps of the katabasis, this transmutation implies a narrowing of focus, in this case from social to sexual. This narrowing of focus comes with an increase in animalistic impulses and sentiments.

For the most part, the descent from silver to copper leads to an obsession with sex. Copper is still a fairly high level of the Mithraic Ladder, so the sexual degeneracy here does not imply crimes. A character descending to copper does not become a rapist or child molester. But it does imply the capacity to be brought low by sexual desire.

One of the most common ways for this to happen is for an intelligent person to develop an obsession with their own sexual value. If they start thinking too much about whether they can attract sexual partners, and too little about their social obligations, they can decline from silver to copper.

Developing habits of constant preening and strutting are typical behaviours for a character undergoing this transmutation. Vanity is therefore a common emotion for characters at this stage. The pro-social engagement of the stage of silver becomes slightly more selfish as it becomes copper. As such, a character transmuting to copper can come to neglect social obligations in favour of opportunities to impress the opposite sex.

As alluded to above, a character who degrades from silver to copper won’t undertake antisocial actions for sex – but they will take plenty of asocial ones. The kind of person who goes to university, and then gives up on taking their study seriously to get laid and to watch pornography, is archetypal of this transmutation.

A pornography obsession is emblematic of this descent, which is why a character making it may come to resemble Coomer from Clown World Chronicles. A strained, dope addict-like stupor, constant enervation and sensory dullness, coupled with an inability to appreciate actual women, are the signs of a porn addict.

Sex obsessions in general are emblematic of this level. A relatively high-frequency character who finds themselves engaging in pestering their wife or husband for sex could be making the descent to copper. This can happen to a character at just about any age. As such, it’s not necessary for a character to be old before it becomes possible for them to make the transmutation from silver to copper.

Characters at this level don’t just become dull spiritually, they become dull to talk to. The obsession with sex leads to the stereotypical “One-track mind”. This is especially true if it takes the place of what would otherwise have been meaningful cultural or scientific considerations. So the socialite of the level of silver, in degrading to copper, becomes boring when they used to be charming.

A character making this descent can reveal their degeneracy through an obsession with sexual innuendo and gossip. Where they once focused their minds on intellectual concerns, this discipline appears to falter leading into this stage. In faltering, it becomes degenerate and bestial, but only to a minor extent.

This transmutation can be motivated by a loss of faith in the intellectual world. A character who learns how corrupt academia is might lose their ambitions for intellectual achievement, and might sink that energy into getting laid instead. Another motivation can be a character’s realisation that they will never attain the heights of mercury. A character who understands that they will peak at silver might become resentful, and, in their resentment, allow themselves to slide down the Mithraic Ladder (at least as far as the level of copper).

Insecurity is a feature of all of the levels lower than mercury, and at the level of copper this insecurity typically expresses itself as jealousy. At this level, insecurity is managable but still reasonably powerful. A character of silver who begins to suffer insecurities related to their sexual market value can degrade into copper.

Although silver is generally associated with middle-aged people, this transmutation can easily occur in younger characters. It’s said of many young people that their lives were looking promising until they discovered girls/boys, at which point their academic aspirations were left to decay. This is a typical form of this transmutation.

For middle-aged characters, this transmutation can occur as part of a mid-life crisis. Male menopause can make a character insecure, and that insecurity can find expression in a desire to date younger women. The stereotypical middle-aged man buying a sportscar and trying to attract women in their 20s is probably undergoing this transmutation.

Taking a mistress is a typical example of behaviour at this stage, as is a woman who becomes a cougar and takes on a toyboy. This is doubly true if the relationship with the younger person leads to a loss of social status for the older one.

Another example of behaviour typical for characters making the descent from silver to copper is infidelity. Giving in to one’s lower urges to reproduce, at the expense of one’s marriage and social standing, pulls a character out of the realms of the precious metals and back into the prosaic. In degrading to copper, a character proves that there’s little truly special about them.

Fighting over women is also a feature of this stage, although the fighting tends to be social and not physical. Where the character of iron throws fists, the character of copper tends to throw words. If the transmutations to tin and lead involve major sexual degeneracies, the transmutation from silver to copper is about a large number of more moderate errors.

Herein it must be emphasised that the descent to copper does not imply that a character become a rapist or any kind of sexual abuser. That kind of behaviour is the speciality of the character of lead.

Neither is it even necessary for this stage to involve sexual relations or romance. The transmutation from silver to copper could be made by a character becoming cheap, stingy or miserly for some reason. Alchemical copper generally refers to the affairs of Aphrodite, but the term also covers the crude merchantry of trade.

A character who failed as a scholar and was forced to become a relatively lowly sales clerk could be a story of this level. So could an inventor who sells a fraudulent product, knowing that it isn’t as good as claimed. A lot of story arcs that involve a decent person selling low-quality products, because they need the money desperately, could fit under this transmutation.

One well-known depiction of this descent in popular culture is the character of Glenn Quagmire in The Family Guy. Quagmire is charming, intelligent and usually pro-social, but also perverted. This perversion prevents him from achieving the social status that his intellect might have suggested he reach.

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

If you would like to support our work in other ways, make a donation to our Paypal! Even better, buy any one of our books!

The Transmutation Of Mercury Into Silver

The second step of the descent down the Mithraic Ladder is the transmutation from mercury into silver. This is the opposite of the quickening process: retarding. At this step the high-frequency nature of mercury slows down to the point that it falls into the realm of silver.

If the descent from gold to mercury is the descent from perfection into the world of quantity, the descent from mercury to silver is the descent from the spiritual to the mundane. Silver is still a relatively high level of the Mithraic Ladder, and a character at that level will still be impressive to many others. As such, the nature of this transmutation is a subtle one. The drama of it could mostly take place in the character’s head alone.

The major impact of this transmutation is spiritual.

The transmutation from mercury to silver is chiefly marked by a loss of spiritual belief or faith. In descending to silver, the character of mercury falls out of the spiritual realm, and becomes a materialist again. Thus they lose any divine inspiration or spark they may have once had, and effectively become a high-ranking Normie.

This can come about through an excessive focus on materialist science. Although silver is excellent, and strengthening one’s energy in the realm of silver a worthy endeavour, an excess of it can be possible. This is particularly the case when it distracts a character from spiritual truths. An over-commitment to materialist science could lead to a character losing their faith.

It can also come about by social pressure. If a character of mercury engages socially with a large number of characters of silver, they might find that this social environment starts to affect their own frequency. An office of bureaucrats might strongly discourage any mercurial attitudes, so that any character of mercury becomes forced down to the level of silver to keep the peace.

Much of the drama of this stage is therefore social. In a way, it’s a tragedy – that of the masses pulling a great person down to their common level. Mercury can, in this way, degrade into silver both from internal and external causes. Internally, a character can lose their will; externally, a character can have their will sapped from them by a depressing environment.

Perhaps the most dramatic way for this to come about is through a great tragedy. A character of mercury who loses a child might stop believing in God. Another character of mercury might face a great betrayal from one or more close friends, leading to a humbling. A third might fail to make the intellectual grade at university, getting forced to accept an unremarkable life in an office somewhere.

An act of great intelligence but total absence of spirituality, such as arranging a murder and getting away with it, could reduce frequency in one hit. A great heist or embezzlement that yielded immense material rewards would be the typical example. The more harm this heist caused, the more totally it would cause a descent into the realm of silver.

So in much the same way that ascent to the mercury and gold require great feats of high-frequency action, descent from the mercury and gold require great feats of low-frequency action. This need not involve something as prosaic as a murder but could rather involve the higher machinations of a state. Giving an order to kill can cause such a descent, especially if it turns out to be an immoral one.

Although the nature of this transmutation is primarily spiritual, the Law of Correspondence still applies. As such, the descent to the level of silver is reflected in the grosser realms: it’s psychological, social, emotional and physical.

The nature of the psychological change is to lose ambition and will. A character of mercury wishes to conquer the world. A character of silver might be happy with their simple office as a bureaucrat in the imperial capital. The grandiosity and belief in destiny that characterises the mercury are lost. This loss might go unnoticed among those who observe that the character of silver is still very intelligent. But those aware of the subtler energies of the psyche might observe the difference.

Emotionally, a character descending from mercury to silver not only becomes more anxious but also more rigid. This is emblematic of the fact that silver is a solid at room temperature whereas mercury is liquid. The character descending to silver loses some degree of self-control and ability to author their own future. They they become more predictable.

A narrowing of vision can be found in characters who have completed the descent to silver. They no longer look at the whole of reality as one system, but only at a sub-system. Thus, they give up philosophy for prosaic concerns. Abandoning philosophy and esotericism for a physical science is emblematic of the transmutation under discussion here.

Artistically, a character can lose inspiration to create at this stage. Writer’s block is a typical experience for someone falling out of the realm of mercury and into the realm of silver. The inability to come up with new ideas is a consequence of no longer being able to see the World of Forms, a privilege reserved for the characters of mercury.

Physically, the change is noticed primarily in the gaze. It’s no longer the long-sighted gaze of the conqueror, but the near-sighted one of the scholar. The character of mercury looks for allies to conquer the world with – or foes to destroy. The character of silver looks to avoid the gaze of the character of mercury.

It can also be noticed in the bearing. The character of mercury carries themselves as a challenge to those around them; the character of silver carries themselves as if they have work to do. Anxiety is therefore the typical body language expressed by those descending from mercury to silver, and neurosis the typical attribute. The self-assurance of mercury is one of the first things to go as a character descends into the mundane.

In the sense that mercury contains all of the positive qualities of the lower metals, descending the Mithraic Ladder is a matter of losing those qualities, one by one.

Just because the character of silver is a step down from mercury and two steps down from gold, doesn’t mean that a character of silver is bad or low in any sense. Silver is still a precious metal, and the characters of silver still play important roles in society. Thus, this transmutation is far from a matter of falling out of society. It’s more of a personal transmutation that’s hard for outsiders to notice.

Perhaps the archetypal depiction of this transmutation in fiction is that of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov begins the novel a rampant egoist, believing that he has the moral right to assert his will on the world no matter who suffers, and he ends it an utterly broken man. The character of silver need not be broken in comparison to the character of mercury, but they are definitely more humble.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you would like to support our work in other ways, make a donation to our Paypal! Even better, buy any one of our books!

The Transmutation Of Gold Into Mercury

The first step of the Katabasis is the transmutation of gold into mercury. This involves imperfection, as the substance of the highest stage of the Mithraic Ladder must descend into the material world, and the world of petty human concerns. Thus it becomes human. This transmutation is therefore that of divinity into corporeal form.

Understanding the nature of this transformation is very difficult. As with the reverse transmutation, from mercury into gold, extremely subtle energies are involved. These energies are so subtle that the vast majority of people, in their ordinary lives, will never experience them. Thus, the nature of this process is difficult to write about.

The primary motive for becoming imperfect is boredom. This boredom is chiefly driven by the loneliness of divinity.

Most people don’t understand that living for eternity in perfect bliss eventually becomes agonisingly boring. Infinitely boring. So much so that consciousness is literally willing to dream up every conceivable type of suffering in order to avoid that boredom. No suffering is so great that it weighs heavier than boredom for eternity. Thus, the entire Great Fractal is created.

What an eternal, infinite, all-powerful and all-knowing consciousness would dream up for the sake of entertainment would be limitation – or at least the illusion of it (infinite consciousness could never really be limited). An example of that limitation would be incarnating as a human being on this planet.

Thus, consciousness would split itself up into an infinitude of fragments, each of which lived a different life (i.e. set of limitations) at any one time. Taken individually, each one of these lives represents an extreme limitation: from the all-knowingness of divine consciousness to being restricted to the sensations and perceptions of one body only.

One way to conceptualise this would be to imagine a white light and perfect bliss. After enough time, when such perfect bliss became boring enough, one might imagine that consciousness chose to temporarily forget its ultimately blissful nature about half of the time, such that the white light seemed to blink in and out of existence. Now there was an oscilliation between white and black – much more interesting than just white.

Imagine then that half of the white light darkened, but only slightly, and that half of the black light lightened, but only slightly, such that there were now four different shades, each blinking in and then out of existence in turn.

Then imagine that each of these four shades were split into a good half and an evil half, which wasn’t immediately obvious from just looking at them but which was felt after experiencing each of them for long enough. Thus these three divisions created both a good and an evil version of each of white, light grey, dark grey and black light.

These eight different energies could be themselves tell an interesting story, if they were rotated through in the right order. Imagine that when the stories of those eight energies get boring, they’re split up again into sixteen, and then again, and again and again, until consciousness has dreamed up everything that it’s possible to perceive, conceive, imagine or sense. All possible lives that can be lived, in all possible worlds, in all possible historical eras.

All of these lives are imperfections in the sense that their boundaries are defined by the limitation of divine perfection. Thus, in willing to incarnate in a physical form in the Great Fractal, consciousness experiences an impulse towards imperfection. This impulse is the basis of the Katabasis, and is similar to the Undergoing Will in Elementalism.

The transmutation from gold to mercury will be complete when the character develops an ego. This spiritual imperfection makes them a mere human again. The development of the ego is essentially the story of the Katabasis, as the most egotistical and narcissistic characters will usually find themselves among the lower rungs of the Mithraic Ladder.

The development of the ego will bring with it ambition, which is characteristic of the level of mercury. To fall to this level, divinity must decide that there is something it wishes to experience while incarnated in human form. In all cases, this experience is a subdivine one – and often immoral. Only a consciousness that had become bored of perfect bliss could wish for such.

The first actions towards the end of imperfection come when a character is tempted to behave without rectitude. This can involve almost anything immoral. A typical example is a desire that cannot be fulfilled without causing suffering.

Stylistically, the transmutation from gold into mercury corresponds to the dimming of the Sun. Any time when light falls into shadow reflects the nature of the Katabasis. This transmutation can also be represented by any sudden downgoing, such as a fall down some stairs, or a journey over the edge of a waterfall.

Physically, this stage is marked by the profoundest possible change: that of incarnation. A character will transmute from a potentiality within consciousness to a physical form. It is the overall nature of this incarnation that characterises this transmutation, not the specific form of the incarnation itself. So the specific details are not important here.

Mentally, this transmutation is marked by the shift from desirelessness to desire. In nirvana, the total absence of desire correlates with bliss. But when the desire for something else than eternal bliss arises – i.e., when boredom arises – the transmutation from spiritual gold to spiritual mercury begins (of course, mercury need not be the final stage of the descent).

Mathematically, the transmutation from gold to mercury is equivalent from unity to division. Singularity to multiplicity.

It has also been observed that a vial of mercury will divide into a multitude of smaller blobs if poured out onto a surface. This is analogous to how the gold of Brahman divides into the mercury of every individual Atman. The transmutation from gold to mercury can therefore be understood as a matter of manifesting ego.

This first stage of the Katabasis is probably the least interesting out of all twelve of the transformations in the Heroic Journey. Characters of both gold and mercury can be hard to identify with, given that both levels are far above the frequencies of ordinary people.

However, the nature of the transmutation of gold into mercury is emblematic of all of the stages of the Katabasis. As above, so below: the decay of gold into mercury is, in microcosm, what all of the other decays are in macrocosm. The boredom-induced temptation to place some sensation or perception above the demands of rectitude is behind every step in the descent from spiritual gold to spiritual lead.

Therefore, the transmutation of gold into mercury can serve a powerful metaphorical role.

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

If you would like to support our work in other ways, make a donation to our Paypal! Even better, buy any one of our books!