It will now be apparent that the whole process of transmutation, as we can deal with it at present, concerns itself with the two fires which reached a high stage of perfection in a past solar system:

It is with these that transmutation concerns itself from the human standpoint, and the third fire of Spirit is not at this stage to be considered.

This conscious manipulation of the fires is the prerogative of man when he has reached a certain point in his evolution; the unconscious realization of this has led naturally to the attempts of the alchemist to transmute in the mineral kingdom. A few of the older students right through the ages have comprehended the vastness of the endeavor of which the transmutation of the baser metals into gold was but preliminary and a symbol, a pictorial, allegorical, concrete step. The whole subject of transmutation is covered by the work of the Hierarchy in all its three departments on this planet, and we might get some idea of the matters involved if we studied this vast hierarchical standpoint, getting thereby a concept of the work done in aiding the evolutionary process. It is the work of transferring the life from one stage of atomic existence to another, and it involves three distinct steps, which can be seen and traced by means of the higher clairvoyance, and from the higher planes. These steps or stages are: [484]

• The fiery stage - the blending, fusing, burning period, through which all atoms pass during the disintegration of form.
• The solvent stage, in which the form is dissipated and substance is held in solution, the atom being resolved into its essential duality.
• The volatile stage, which concerns primarily the essential quality of the atom, and the escape of this essence, later to take a new form.

Radioactivity, pralayic solution, and essential volatility might express the thought. In every transmuting process without exception these three steps are followed. Occultly expressed in the old Commentary they are thus stated:

The Masters, in concert with the great Devas, concern Themselves with this transmutative process, and each department might be considered as dealing with one of the three stages:

• The Mahachohan's department in its five divisions deals with the burning of the fiery lives.
• The Manu's department concerns itself with the form or the ring-pass-not which encloses the burning lives.
• The Bodhisattva's department deals with the return of the Son to the bosom of the Father.

Within the department of the Mahachohan, a secondary division along these lines might be outlined:

• The seventh and fifth Rays are occupied with the return of the Son to the Father and are largely centered in pouring forth energizing power when it becomes necessary to transfer the life of the Son from an old form into a new, from one kingdom of nature to another on the Path of Return. [485]
• The third and sixth Rays deal with the burning of the fiery lives.
• The fourth blends the two fires within the atomic form.