The original five phases of alchemical transformation explored in the book:

The Crow (the blackening):

Withdrawing from the external world to the darker inner world of the soul, through a process of combustion or carbonation through fire, the individual approaches metamorphosis, and through darkness seeks regeneration.

The Swan (the whitening): And then by fire and ash comes the false illumination in the pure spirit of the brilliant, blinding light of self-doubt, the inner world trapped on the surface between the etheric and the physical worlds.

The Peacock (the iridescence): Having witnessed that false dawn and hope’s annihilation, a kaleidoscope of confusion heralds the astral world and irradiated ego procreates and renunciation blossoms forth, the true beginning of transformation.

The Pelican (the distillation): Only through ultimate sacrifice does the ego transcend the physical body. Striking its contoured belly with the curved scimitar of its beak, the bird nourishes its prodigy and is thence consumed - transformation through, pain, trial and sacrifice.

The Phoenix (the sublimation): By eradication of self through sacrificial resignation, ultimate transcendence is complete and from the ashes of the pierced and charred corpse the spirit is ultimately resurrected in its enlightened purity and form.

The contemporary sixth phase

The Dotterel (The extinction): And countering this cycle of immortality, the bird pursued by the inevitability of climatic change, retreats further up its bleak mountain peak, forced into a tourniquet of ecological misfortune, it has no choice but to finally launch itself from the mountain top one last time, into eternal oblivion.