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.

“We cannot sacrifice something unless we have first possessed it. Anger can be overcome only by someone who has experienced it first within himself. Instead of trying to evade such emotions, we must transmute them in ourselves. By transmuting anger, we rise from the Sentient Soul, where noble anger can flame out, to the Intellectual Soul and the... See more