Rubedo (Reddening)

"Rubedo is a Latin word meaning "redness” that was adopted by alchemists to define the fourth and final major stage in the Magnum Opus. Both gold and the philosopher’s stone were associated with the color red, as rubedo signalled alchemical success, and the end of the great work. Rubedo can be interpreted as achieving enlightened consciousness and the total fusion of spirit and matter…In the framework of psychological development (especially followers of Jungian psychology) these four alchemical steps are be taken as analogous to the process of attaining individuation: In an archetypal schema, rubedo would represent the Self archetype, and would be the culmination of the four stages. The Self manifests itself in “wholeness,” a point in which a person discovers his or her true nature…

For Jung, the self is symbolized by the circle (especially when divided into four quadrants), the square, or the mandala."

Lyrics

 * 1 "“[The process of creating the philosopher’s stone] originally had four stages…After the 15th century, many writers tended to compress [the stage] citrinitas ("yellowing”) into rubedo and consider only three stages…
 * Psychologist Carl Jung is credited with interpreting the pseudo-scientific alchemical process as analogous to modern-day psychoanalysis. In the Jungian archetypal schema… citrinitas is the wise old man (or woman) archetype, and rubedo is the Self archetype which has achieved wholeness."
 * 2 "Perhaps a reference to the moon above the bhavacakra."