Symbols - What does heaven look like
Transmutation
When this term is used symbolically it is an alchemical term. The basic meaning is to change base metals into gold, but this is not a literal process. Thus transmutation isn’t some magical chemical process whereby one can change one metal to another [although many less spiritually inclined spent their whole lives thinking that this is what it meant and that the alchemists had found some secret process].
The transmutation is spiritual. One is changing oneself via the stages of the spiritual path from ‘base metal’ – a complete beginner – by gradual process of refinement and purification – to gold.
The alchemists also added another layer of meaning applicable when one used the sexual techniques as the means of obtaining experience – transmutation meant the ability to transmute physical ecstasy to spiritual ecstasy.
