Great Work Great Work The term Great Work (magnum opus) is a term used in Hermeticism and in certain occult traditions and religions such as Thelema. The Great Work signifies the spiritual path towards self-transcendence in its entirety. This is the process of bringing unconscious complexes into the conscious awareness, in order to integrate them back into oneself. Accomplishing the Great Work, symbolized as the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, represents the culmination of the spiritual path, the attainment of enlightenment, or the rescue of the human soul from the unconscious forces which bind it. Eliphas Levi (1810–1875), one of the first
Great Work met with the vastness of the unconscious. This experience can lead to great confusion and fear, in what the alchemists call the phase of "Nigredo", or blackness. This period of blackness during which the ego is dissolved is painful, but necessary for any growth to occur. After the ego is broken down through confronting its shadow, it can then be re-formed in a new way, which is represented by the alchemical process "Coagula." There is another perspective of the path to the accomplishment of the Great Work. Whereas the previous perspective deals with duality as a vehicle to transformation of