alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim wo ...

, albedo is the second of the four major stages of the Magnum Opus, along with

nigredo In alchemy, nigredo, or blackness, means putrefaction or decomposition. Many alchemists believed that as a first step in the pathway to the philosopher's stone, all alchemical ingredients had to be cleansed and cooked extensively to a uniform b ...

, citrinitas and rubedo. It is a Latinicized term meaning "whiteness". Following the chaos or ''massa confusa'' of the

stage, the alchemist undertakes a purification in albedo, which is literally referred to as ''ablutio'' – the washing away of impurities. This phase is concerned with "bringing light and clarity to the prima materia (the First Matter)". In this process, the subject is divided into two opposing principles to be later coagulated to form a

unity of opposites The unity of opposites is the central category of dialectics, said to be related to the notion of non-duality in a deep sense.

or ''coincidentia oppositorum'' during rubedo. Alchemists also applied it to an individual's soul after the first phase is completed, which entailed the decay of matter. In

Medieval literature Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (that is, the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of t ...

, which developed an intricate system of images and symbols for alchemy, the dove often represented this stage while the raven symbolized nigredo.

Titus Burckhardt Titus Burckhardt (24 October 1908 – 15 January 1984) was a Swiss writer and a leading member of the Perennialist or Traditionalist School. He was the author of numerous works on metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, esoterism, alchemy, Sufism ...

interprets the albedo as the end of the lesser work, corresponding to a spiritualization of the body. Claiming the goal of this portion of the process is to regain the original purity and receptivity of the soul.

Psychology

Psychologist

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, ph ...

equated the albedo with unconscious contrasexual soul images; the

anima Anima may refer to: Animation * Ánima (company), a Mexican animation studio founded in 2002 * Córdoba International Animation Festival – ANIMA, in Argentina Religion and philosophy * Animism, the belief that objects, places, and creatur ...

in men and animus in women. It is a phase where insight into shadow projections are realized, and inflated ego and unneeded conceptualizations are removed from the psyche. Another interpretation describes albedo as an experience of awakening and involves a shift in consciousness where the world becomes more than just an individual's ego, his family, or country.

In popular culture

* Albedo is a character in the game ''

Genshin Impact ''Genshin Impact'' is an action role-playing game developed and published by miHoYo. It was released for Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, and Windows in 2020, on PlayStation 5 in 2021, and is set for release on Nintendo Switch. The game feature ...

''. He is a synthetic human, created through alchemy. The game mentions the use of the Magnum Opus for his creation.

References

*Nigel Hamilton. "The Alchemical Process of Transformation." 1985.

Notes

Alchemical processes {{psych-stub