The Alchemical Series

Nigredo, Albedo and Rubedo

Nigredo: Blackening and disintegration. Symbolically head of the raven or the crow.
Albedo: Whitening and cleaning. Symbolically the swan or the dove.
Rubedo: After the mystical marriage of the sun and moon, the reddening and completion. Symbolically the resurrected phoenix.

Surrealism and Alchemy
Leonora Carrington and Alchemy

Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art by Susan Aberth (2004).
Susan Aberth describes how Leonora Carrington’s technique of painting with egg tempera hand-mixed with pigments was her own form of practical alchemy; and how for Leonora and Remedios Varo the kitchen became their personal laboratory for the preparation of food.

Carrington’s painting Grandmother Moorhead’s Aromatic Kitchen (1975).

Alchemy In Theory And In Practice

The Middle Pillar by Israel Regardie (2nd edition 1970).
“Not until man recognises that he is himself a microcosm of the macrocosm, a reflection of the universe, a world within himself, ruled and governed by his own divinity, can he escape from the wheel. It is the achievement of this one realisation which all schools of mysticism, magic and various forms of occult teaching refer to as The Great Work.”

Spagyrics by Manfred Junius (3rd edition 2007).
“The Alchemical work always takes place in three stages: 1. separation, 2 purification, and 3. cohobation (recombination, or the Chymical wedding). In the spagyrist’s view, these actions lead to increase and a release of certain curative powers in the initial species”.