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Alchemy and Transmutation in Storytelling

June 27, 2026 //
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(Sensitivity Context: I, too, worry about the colors used in alchemy. They could possibly be taken in a racist context. However, while there is no denying racism in the Middle Ages, what research I’ve done really does point to chemistry, burning things down to the ash, and so on. So I’ll keep using the colors as useful, but let’s all agree that none of us want any connection to people in these terms.)

Stories, at their deepest level, are transformations. A character begins as one thing and becomes another. A world dissolves and is remade. A truth is lost, then rediscovered. 

Long before modern narrative theory, alchemy offered a symbolic map for exactly this process. 

Alchemy describes transformation through a sequence of colors. The simple version is black, white, yellow, red. (Yellow isn’t always included, but it’s relevant for our purposes and more frequently included the farther back you go.)


Carl Jung later recognized these stages not as primitive chemistry, but as a profound symbolic language for psychological transformation and individuation, the journey toward wholeness.

When we map these stages onto storytelling, alchemy becomes narrative structure. 

1. Nigredo (Black): The Descent, Collapse, and Threshold Crossing

Color: Black
Keywords: Death, dissolution, shadow, chaos 

In alchemy, nigredo is the stage where the substance is broken down, decomposed, and reduced to its raw essence.

In storytelling, this is the moment everything falls apart. The hero’s world collapses. Identity fractures. This is often where the threshold is crossed. The character leaves the ordinary world and enters the unknown. In Campbellian terms, the end of Act I.

Using a Jungian lens (which is useful because so much of storytelling is anchored to psychology), nigredo corresponds to the shadow entering: the repressed, denied aspects of the psyche are now part of the story.

2. Albedo (White): Purification, Insight, and Reorientation

Color: White
Keywords: Cleansing, clarity, reflection, awakening 

After the darkness comes washing. In albedo, the material is separated into what is essential from what is not.

In narrative terms, this is the rebuilding phase. The character begins to understand what has happened. False beliefs are stripped away. New insight emerges but is still fragile. This is often the midpoint or inner turning point of a story. 

With a Jungian lens, the albedo reflects the integration of unconscious material, especially encounters with anima/animus or inner opposites. The psyche begins to reorganize itself around a deeper truth. The character is no longer who they were, but neither are they who they will become. 

3. Citrinitas (Yellow/Gold): Illumination and Emerging Self

Color: Yellow (sometimes golden or solar)
Keywords: Insight, awakening, dawn, integration-in-progress 

Many simplified systems skip this stage—but historically, citrinitas represents the dawning of consciousness. In story terms, this is where the character begins to embody their transformation. Insight turns into action. A new identity starts to stabilize. It’s the difference between knowing and becoming. But it’s only beginning. The changes are somewhat understood, but aren’t fully integrated. The character has not yet become something truly new.

With the Jungian lens, you would say that this stage reflects the emergence of the Self, which is a deeper organizing principle beyond the ego.

In the story, you might have a “leveling up” montage here. Or you might have a series of wins where against tough odds, the character is really making some progress using the new things they have learned. This is the time of illumination. The caterpillar is emerging, but her wings are still wet.

Okay here’s where we have to pause for a minute to address…

THE END OF ACT II.  

This is the dark night of the soul. The point where it looks like it’s all over. The part where the character symbolically (or sometimes literally) dies. If you stop here, the story really would be a tragedy.

If we look at alchemy and colors, the dark night of the soul corresponds to the crisis between citrinitas and rubedo, where emerging truth cannot yet sustain itself and forces a final transformation. All of the changing that the character has done is not enough. Whether you follow this pause with divine intervention or one last heroic try or whatever, the citrinitas in alchemy is only a partial transformation. It looks like a full transmutation of substance, and then it all goes wrong and falls apart. I think that’s helpful to keep in the back of your mind when writing a story. There comes a time when everything goes dark. I imagine the alchemist so excited by the emergence of (she thinks) gold and then putting her head in her hands in despair because the transformation goes wrong, and the whole experiment ends in toxic smoke or goo rather than gold or eternal life.

4. Rubedo (Red): Integration, Embodiment, and Return

Color: Red
Keywords: Completion, unity, incarnation, wholeness 

Rubedo is the final stage. It’s the “reddening” and is associated with gold, blood, and the philosopher’s stone.

Of course this is the climax of the story. It’s where the character does not just understand change, they are changed.

The Jungian philosophy here is that rubedo represents individuation fulfilled, the integration of conscious and unconscious into a unified self. For Campbell, this is where the hero returns home with wisdom. In narrative story structure, the individual really does become a new person and crosses back into the world changed.

Denouement

One final thought on alchemy. One of the reasons why I think that alchemy works so well for storytelling is that it isn’t only about gold and eternal life (though they are certainly about that) but they’re also about purification of the soul. There is a ton of symbolism (some pretty funky) that uses symbols of natural elements and people in the process of change as a secret way of describing what was to become chemistry. So literal change and spiritual change get all mixed up together with symbols. Which makes it rich fodder for the imagination, the subconscious, psychology, and all the things that are the realms of story.

Consider keeping an eye on some of your stranger dreams. They might just include colors or at least transformations that remind you of alchemy. I would argue that is because alchemy captured some of the truth of human psychology and not the other way around.

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The Shape of Ritual, The Shape of Story

June 13, 2026 //
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What happens next?

Many stories ask this question. Possibly even most stories ask this question. Think of your thrillers, your page-turners, your beach reads—but sometimes deeper things too. We want to rush to the end. The sequence, the clock, the progression pushes us forward.

Now think of about rituals.

They center around things like the moon, the sun, the harvest, the seasons, life stages. These things don’t move forward at all. In fact, some of the things that make ancient civilizations the most sympathetic to me, anyway, are those natural (nature-based) and human things that have nothing to do with progress and everything to do with return. A Roman baby bottle made of terracotta has a blessing on it to (we can only hope) prevent breakage. A girl sleeps in the right place under the right sky to dream of her future husband. An early Icelander (aka Viking) places an object with a rune on it and ties it to a woman’s thigh to protect during childbirth. I can understand these things, these rituals.

The moon has been young for a very long time.

Ritual is a place we return to, but here’s the thing, it’s not redundant or boring. It’s liminal, because each time, it’s not the actions that change, it’s the meaning.

Enter Lord of the Rings.

Remember how Frodo takes a little jaunt out hiking at night, but then he finds a place to rest at Farmer Maggot’s and again at Crick Hollow and again at the Prancing Pony? Come to think of it, Rivendell and Lothlorien are also places where our heroes rest after adventures, after times of stress. If you drew the book, it would be one long stretched Slinky toy. We go off, we encounter danger and stress, and then we get somewhere safe. But for people who like the book, it’s not boring. Why? Because those times of rest and release aren’t doing nothing. They’re not a vacation or a spa. They’re a time of meaning-making where we reflect on what we just went through.

Lothlorien

This is probably the most poignant liminal time of rest and release in the story. (Don’t worry, if you have a different scene you’d fight for, I’d listen to you. But Lothlorien is still a good one.)

What’s just happened? Big stuff. They went through the mines of Moria where they found Balin’s tomb. (If you love The Hobbit, this was pretty emotional.) They almost got lost. Frodo was sort of impaled by a spear. They get chased by a mass of orcs. And then the Balrog. If you know your lore, you know that these guys are trouble. So much trouble that this one kills Gandalf.

The whole party is exhausted and ruined by grief.

So, Aragorn takes them to his (very nearly) grandmother-in-law’s house. Galadriel. And basically, nothing happens. They talk. They eat. They sit around and rest.

Except that this is where they are all tested. This is where the seeds of Boromir’s betrayal are planted. Frodo and Sam learn about the enemy and see what Galadriel would have become if she had taken the Ring. It’s actually a busy, busy section, but only in their hearts, minds, and souls. They reevaluate everything that has gone before, and it takes on new meaning. The Ring was dangerous, sure. But now Sam knows that it is directly tied to the future of the Shire in a very real way. Frodo begins to understand the Enemy at a new level.

Can you describe The Lord of the Rings using Campbell’s Hero’s Journey? Sure. It has the right stuff:

·      Call to adventure

·      Refusal/hesitation

·      Crossing the threshold

·      Trials

·      Descent into darkness

·      Return

Except that at the end, there is no victory, at least, not for Frodo. He is gradually transformed, wounded, diminished, and altered. The story’s central question not about conquering the villain. The story asks, “What happens to a person who bears this burden?”

Now let’s look at how it maps to a ritual narrative structure:

Separation (from the Shire and from an innocent worldview)

Liminality (This is the whole middle of the book. They are constantly having who they are stripped away and are reevaluating what things mean. Not just Frodo—but he is extremely stripped of his identity by the time he reaches Sammath Naur. As in, that’s the whole point of the book: he’s not Frodo anymore, he’s been taken over by the Ring.)

Return (The Shire is changed forever. So is Frodo.)

That liminality section is pretty vague and big. How does it work? Repetition. Stress and release. We do the same pattern, but it means something new each time.

First Repetition

At Bree and Weathertop: Can I resist putting on the Ring? Barely.

Second Repetition

At Rivendell and afterward: Can I carry this burden? Maybe.

Third Repetition

At Amon Hen: Must I carry it alone? The question deepens. The answer is both yes and no.

Fourth Repetition

The Dead Marshes: The burden is now psychological and spiritual. What is the Ring doing to Frodo? Nothing good.

Fifth Repetition

Shelob: The burden becomes suffering and death. Will Frodo fail? Yes. (Note on this: Another time we can talk about eucatatstrophy in Tolkien, but for now, just know that Tolkien’s philosophy is that we are all fallen and doomed to a tragic end, BUT you keep going anyway because it leaves the door open for a miracle. That’s how he answers some of the Christian conundrums between salvation and works.)

Sixth Repetition

Mount Doom: The question finally reaches its center. Can any creature possess absolute power and willingly surrender it? No. No they can’t. Not even Frodo can do it. But enter eucatastrophy and salvation both in spite of and because of doing all we can do.

So, Tolkien sets up these repetitions through stress and release patterns that keep spiraling through. They circle around the question of the Ring again and again, not pushing forward, but taking something big and complex and looking at it through different lenses.

Some of the stress and release moments:

Old Forest → Tom Bombadil

Weathertop → Rivendell

Moria → Lórien

Helm’s Deep → Isengard

Shelob → Field of Cormallen

Tolkien repeatedly allows recovery after crisis. This sometimes frustrates readers expecting plot-driven pacing. But from a ritual perspective, it makes perfect sense.

There are lots of reasons why The Lord of the Rings feels like an old book that comes from tradition rather than one author. One of those is that a plot-driven narrative is not always how stories were constructed in old stories.

Circles and spirals feel old to us because they are. As old as the moon. But not all moons mean the same thing. Rituals help us to know what the moon means for us now and helps us change what the moon means on another night.

That’s the kind of story that a ritual narrative structure tells. And honestly, that’s my kind of story.

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Getting Over Campbell: Moving from the Monomyth to Ritual

June 6, 2026 //
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A woman stands in a ritual circle with standing stones and candles around her.

When people talk about story structure, Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey often takes center stage. It’s become a kind of narrative shorthand, especially in film, fantasy, and game design. But not all meaningful stories are really about heroes conquering the world. Sometimes stories are more subtle than that. While Campbell was an anthropologist who looked at how the man goes out to slay the beast and comes back changed, other anthropologists (still men, alas) looked at how ritual is invoked to bring meaning to the changes that happen whether we choose to go out of the village or not. Birth, maturation, marriage, death. Some stories are about crossing thresholds, being unmade. The one who returns is not the changed hero, but a new person.

Let’s start with Campbell, just in case you haven’t been initiated into the Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell’s concept, sometimes called the monomyth, describes a recurring pattern he identified across many world myths. While it has many elaborations, the core arc looks like this: 

1.     Departure

– The hero begins in an ordinary world.

– A call to adventure disrupts the status quo.

– After some resistance, the hero crosses a threshold into the unknown.

2.     Initiation

– The hero faces trials, enemies, and allies.

– A central ordeal brings the hero to symbolic death or extreme risk.

– The hero gains a reward: knowledge, power, or an object.

3.     Return

– The hero returns to the ordinary world.

– The reward is brought back to benefit the community.

– Order is restored or improved.

Don’t get me wrong, Campbell’s structure is great when you’re focused on external action. But when you’re talking about changing inside, about identity, about relationship, it’s not so good.

Enter ritual narrative structure. Let me guess, you’ve never heard of it, right? Most people haven’t. Somehow, Campbell had better marketing, I don’t know, but honestly, Arnold van Gennep published his work first, all the way back in 1909. And then Victor Turner published several books in the 1960s, and while he took the anthropology to story places, the theater especially, it just…didn’t hit stories the way Campbell did. I’m tempted to say that gender constructs had something to do with it. Probably Freud was in there somewhere, because anything in the middle of the 20th century that has to do with gender and goes wrong is probably Frued’s fault.

            But I digress. If you are like I was, you are not just interested, but desperate to hear about a story structure that has to do with cycles, with thresholds, with the rituals that make meaningful life and community work.

The anthropology work is based on rituals that mark life transitions: birth, adulthood, marriage, death and more. (I won’t get into it here, but if van Gennep had been a woman, he would have included menopause like Sharon Blackie does, but that’s for another day.) He observed communities in Africa mostly and noticed a shared structure he called rites of passage. These rites have three stages: 

1.     Separation: The participant is removed from their previous social role or identity.

2.     Liminality: A threshold state: “betwixt and between.” Old rules no longer apply, but new ones aren’t yet formed. Identity is unstable, ambiguous, or dissolved.

3.     Incorporation: The participant goes into the wilderness and dies; a new person/identity returns. The change is recognized and socially acknowledged. The journey is about becoming.

When Victor Turner came along he expanded van Gennep’s ideas, focusing especially on liminality. Turner described liminal spaces as rule-breaking, symbolic, dreamlike or dangerous, often overseen by tricksters, guides, or monsters. Think about a shamanic tradition of going to the underworld to find the soul pieces that are lost or severed. It makes me think of the Popol Vuh stories from Mexico. They’re pretty weird and shamanic and liminal. We’ll get into them another day, but they’re worth a perusal at least at a Wikipedia level.

One important point about when a person crosses the threshold into a liminal space. Hierarchies collapse. Think about quests where people who are “higher” and “lower” work together. Remind you of any Numenorian kings and hobbits? Or maybe a unicorn and a…what would you call Molly Grue…a strumpet? You don’t get to be the most important person because of birth or money in liminal spaces.

Another important point, you don’t necessarily fight. You may not conquer. But what will happen is that who you are when you entered is stripped away from you. Sometimes all at once, sometimes in phases or bits, but you change. Sound like real life? What happens when you’re a teenager? What happens if you go through a traumatic experience? You don’t conquer, but you do change, and you come out the other side not by killing a monster, but by finding meaning in your new reality. Anyone who has ever experienced cancer and lived knows what I’m talking about.

So here it is:

The Ritual Narrative Structure

When we apply ritual theory to storytelling, we get a structure that looks something like this: 

1.     Separation: The protagonist is pulled (or wanders) out of a familiar identity. This may be quiet, accidental, or unwanted.

2.     Liminal Descent: The protagonist enters a strange, symbolic space. Time, rules, and logic may distort. Guides and antagonists often blur together. The protagonist loses certainty, innocence, or selfhood.

3.     Transformative Ordeal: Not a “boss fight,” but a moment of recognition, grief, or surrender. The old self can no longer continue.

4.     Return or Re-entry: The protagonist exits the liminal space. The world may look the same—but the protagonist is not. The change may be bittersweet, partial, or irreversible.

Once again, these are stories about identity. Who are we, how do we relate to each other, and what does life mean? Let’s look at a couple of stories that you could map with Campbell, but honestly, they fit better with ritual.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Of course I’m talking about the novel. No, I don’t hate the cartoon, but if you’ve experienced both, you know.

Separation:
The unicorn leaves the immortal forest, abandoning timeless innocence.

Liminality:
The unicorn becomes human. She began to be stripped of her identity when she first heard that she is the last unicorn. When she becomes human, she is neither truly immortal nor mortal. Mortality, fear, desire, and regret flood in. The world is strange, painful, and morally ambiguous.

Transformative Ordeal:
Love, loss, and self-awareness permanently alter the unicorn. What is gained cannot be unlearned. She is no longer like the others, for no unicorn was born who could regret, but now she does. She, an immortal being, regrets.

Return:
From the moment she learned that she was unique as the last unicorn, there was no turning back. She is going to be different forever, but both joy and sorrow live in her. She will remember Prince Lir when humans are fairy tales in books written by rabbits.

And what about the elixir of life from the Hero’s Journey? There isn’t one. She paid a terrible price willingly. She saved the unicorns, but not herself.

Labyrinth: Jim Henson’s amazing film from 1986

On the surface, Labyrinth looks like a quest. In practice, it is almost a textbook ritual narrative. 

Separation:
Sarah escapes a frustrating adolescence and wishes away responsibility.

Liminality:
The Labyrinth is a classic liminal space: nonlinear, symbolic, ruled by tricksters, full of false choices and identity tests. Allies mislead as often as they help.

Transformative Ordeal:
The confrontation with Jareth is not about defeating a villain, it’s about rejecting a fantasy of power and eternal childhood.

Return:
Sarah comes back to the same world, but with a new internal stance. She doesn’t leave the fantasy world behind her, but now she understands how to love these things as an adult rather than be ruled by them as a teenage child.

So when do you use a ritual narrative structure? When your story is about:

·      Grief

·      Coming-of-age

·      Gender

·      Identify

·      Mortality

·      Loss leading to wisdom

Then consider a different structure, one that is about crossing thresholds, and by the way, look for the next post because while the Hero’s Journey has a big circle, the ritual structure has circles too, or spirals, or—-well, we’ll look at it next time.

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Newt’s Emerald

August 25, 2019 //
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Newt

Regency for the younger and/or sillier crowd.

Of course Garth Nix is a solid writer. You might have heard of the Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen books of the Old Kingdom series or maybe even the Keys to the Kingdom series that begins with Mister Monday and continues on through the week. All good books, but very different from Newt. In fact, if you look on Garth Nix’s website, you’ll only find one book under his “Fantasy Romance” section. And this is it.

On her eighteenth birthday, Lady Truthful is due to inherit the family heirloom: a magical emerald. Only problem is, when they bring it out to look at it, the gem is stolen. When her father is taken ill and her cousins are suddenly rendered not-sensible in their approaches to handling the problem, Lady Truthful–or Newt, as she is know to her family–must seek help from her magical aunt (and a magical mustache of disguise) to search for the culprit herself.

If only that pesky, good-looking detective-ish government agent with a mysterious secret of his own would quit trying to help. Or maybe she’s fine with him helping. But of course, her own secrets might be a problem at this point…

What I love about the book is that it unabashedly embraces all of the regency and adventure tropes with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. There might be a rejected proposal somewhere in this book, but it’s a little bit hard to take it too seriously. On the other hand, the characters are likably imperfect the whole time. And you have to love a powerfully magical great aunt who boosts her thinking power by wearing a magical fez.

This is a perfect book for a lazy Saturday morning or a road trip audio book.

 

 

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