The Four Styles of Transformation Part 2: On Transmutation — Aletheia

On the other hand, self-unfoldment, the unconcealment and unfoldment of wholeness into wholeness is regenerative. It is the very process of all living systems. This is a process that produces resourcefulness instead of only consuming resources. This is a process that generates more than it consumes.

Paradoxically, self-improvement tends to reinforce self-deficiency even as it attempt to address it. This is how incessant self-improvement and self-optimization can be a source of suffering. The alternative is self-unfoldment.

Improvement and optimization are a capitalists dream. To sell your products, sell people on the deficiency of their lives and the deficiencies in themselves. Despite short-term gains, in the longer term self-improvement projects generally don’t deliver as promised. Plus, they consume vital resources. In short, self-improvement is not regenerative.

Self-improvement is usually initiated in response to self-deficiency...In contrast to self-improvement, self-unfoldment starts with self-sufficiency. That is, self-unfoldment takes the view that who and what you are is whole and complete from the beginning.

Many interpreters of alchemical texts say that the processes they describe are metaphors for psycho-spiritual transformation not physical transformation. This was Carl Jung’s view.