The initial stage of the alchemist’s journey is the stage of lead. This is represented by the bottommost step of the Mithraic Ladder. It’s also represented by the colour black. The transmutation of lead into tin is the transmutation of a black metal into a grey one.
In the Roman pantheon, the stage of lead was represented by Saturn, the god who devoured his own offspring. Madness and death are two of the key themes of this lowest stage, which represents the unimproved consciousness. Overcoming madness and death are two of the main ways that a protagonist can transmute lead into tin.
The primary orientation of the stage of lead is survival. The drive for survival naturally creates a hardened, brutal, mirthless sort of person. This is why lead is the lowest level. The survival stage is the same one that all of the other creatures on this planet are born into. The man of lead is, to a major extent, a wild animal still. He might be able to to speak but his frequency is still one of brutality.
Diligence is the primary virtue through which a character at the level of lead can transmute themselves into tin. Through repeated and dedicated application of will, a person can achieve something and thereby overcome the resentment that characterises the level of lead. This repeated application builds the belief that there is something worth working towards in this life. This might only be a small amount of positivity, but it can be enough to get off the bottom of the Mithraic Ladder.
The survival pressures in your story don’t have to come from without. The character of lead can struggle with their own self-destructive impulses. At the lowest level of the Mithraic Ladder, struggles against addiction, self-destruction or suicide are common. That the energies of death flow from the inside as well as the outside is one of the lessons of the level of tin.
It’s not until the survival pressures start to relax that a character can develop above this lowest of the seven stages. A character who starts to pass their survival challenges easily will soon start to become joyful. This transformation into joyousness is the same as transmuting one’s consciousness to the frequency of tin. The joylessness of pure survival is replaced with something higher.
The alchemical process of transmuting lead into tin is a process of enlarging. Hence, the stage of tin is represented by the larger-than-life Zeus. The process of becoming like tin can be represented by enlargement. A skinny, starving man of lead indulges in food and thereby becomes much bigger: so could an author portray this change in caricature.
If a character in your story is met with repeated survival challenges of a similar type, such that after overcoming enough challenges they start to develop a sense of mastery, then that sense of mastery ought to bring joy with it. Being the master of previously terrifying survival challenges ought to bring a sense of playful relief, the essence of the level of tin.
Such a character will also stop taking themselves so seriously. A character at the level of lead will snap and snarl if someone jokes with them, but one at the level of tin will join in with the joking. As joviality is the primary emotion of the character of the level of tin, an ability to banter is indicative of the successful transmution of lead into that soft, light grey metal.
One of the areas in which this transformation will be the most noticable will be social. People tend to avoid the men of lead, because their desperation and suffering is frightening and intimidating. But as a character of lead transmutes their frequency into that of tin, they will find themselves making more friends as they become more approachable.
Someone undergoing the transformation from sullenness into joyfulness can be said to have ‘brightened’. This will be apparent in their aura, not just their face. They will smile when they used to frown. Their gait will appear lighter. Brightening is the fundamental change when lead changes into tin. As tin is brighter than lead, characters of tin will be happier than characters of lead.
In order to brighten, the character has to see the value in joy. They have to learn, whether through their own realisation or simply through experience, that joy and the attainment of joy have inherent value. Through repetitively doing something they enjoy, a character can overcome the pain and trauma of the level of lead and to manifest the joviality of the level of tin through their actions.
The transmutation will be complete when the character can look back on their old self and see something lesser. When they realise that joviality represents a higher level of being than the saturnine wild beast of the level of lead.
Physically, the transmutation from lead into tin can be represented by getting fat. The man of lead is scrawny and lean because he deals with the everyday presence of starvation. The man of tin, by contrast, lives on the level of feasting and merriment. His body can represents that by becoming portly and ruddy-cheeked.
Environmentally, the typical place of the level of tin is the tavern. The journey from the wilderness to the tavern is the archetypal expression of the journey of transmuting spiritual lead into spiritual tin. The unrestrained joy of partying at a tavern is a typical expression of the frequency of the level of tin. The phrase “feast or famine” captures the energies of the levels of tin and lead.
An example of the transmutation of lead into tin would be Benno Furmann’s character Bodo in the film Der Krieger und die Kaiserin. Bodo begins the story traumatised, frightened, angry, and ends it joyous, relaxed and confident. Although tin is still a relatively low level, it’s a lot better place to be than lead is.
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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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