Magnum opus (alchemy)

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In alchemy, the Magnum Opus or Great Work is a term for the process of working with the prima materia to create the philosopher's stone. It has been used to describe personal and spiritual transmutation in the Hermetic tradition, to refer to laboratory processes and chemical color changes, as a model for the individuation process, and as a device in art and literature. The magnum opus has been carried forward in New Age and neo-Hermetic movements, which sometimes attached new symbolism and significance to the processes. The original process philosophy has four stages: nigredo, the blackening or melanosis albedo, the whitening or leucosis citrinitas, the yellowing or xanthosis rubedo, the reddening, purpling, or iosis The origin of these four phases can be traced at least as far back as the first century. Zosimus of Panopolis wrote that it was known to Mary the Jewess. The development of black, white, yellow, and red can also be found in the Physika kai Mystika of Pseudo-Democritus, which...

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