Elements

Jung explored alchemy as a metaphor for the process of personal transformation, growth and healing. This is a huge topic, which I can't do justice to here, but our essence -- the prima materia -- manifests through the four elements. Each of the elements correspond to one aspect of our being.

Water: the Heart

Water corresponds to the emotional world, our feelings. Our heart is the realm of water, and the alchemical transformation of water is solutio.

Earth: the Body

Earth corresponds to our body, physical embodiment and sensation. This is the material realm, which our culture paradoxically maintains is the only reality while disconnecting from it into our heads. The alchemical transformation of earth is coagulatio.

Air: the Mind

Air is the realm of the mind, intellect and thinking. Behavioral psychologists often deny that there is any reality to this realm at all, and more recent brain-based psychologists see this realm as a side-effect of the physical brain -- a result, not a cause. I, of course, vehemently disagree with this view. The alchemical transformation of air is sublimatio.

Fire: the Spirit

Fire is the realm of spirit, of intuition, ecstasy and creativity. It is the realm of the numinous. Materialists deny the very existence of this realm, or consider it a hallucination. But sacred traditions the world over speak to its importance in our lives. The alchemical transformation of fire is calcinatio.