1.3.8. Sotāpanna

“The path of spiritual evolution is a progressive unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love.”

The Sotāpanna represents a crucial milestone on the spiritual path — the first taste of genuine enlightenment. This chapter explores how breaking through three fundamental illusions (fetters) leads to an irreversible transformation in consciousness. We’ll examine the different paths through which this realisation occurs, its documented effects, and what it means both practically and spiritually for the aspiring alchemist. Understanding this stage is essential, as it marks the point where theoretical knowledge transforms into direct experiential wisdom. The Sotāpanna is the name of the being who experiences the first stage of enlightenment.

Do not be put off by how vague enlightenment may seem. It is not only very real but documented to the exact mind moment it happens in Buddhism, and I am not kidding. There are many systems that have evolved to explain this phenomenon. Most are somewhat obscured by devotional themes, which can complicate its message.

Enlightenment is a process where the mind realises a number of fundamental truths.

These truths are so fundamental that once realised, they are so obviously true that one’s entire perspective changes relative to those who have yet to realise these truths.

These truths are obscured by what are called fetters (saṃyojana in Pāli).

A fetter is an illusion. An illusion is something that fools the mind or senses. Often, we can only see the illusion with a change of perspective. It is abrupt changes of perspective, say in sudden mental trauma or Zen Buddhism, that can give one the opportunity to see these fetters.

Once you have seen something is an illusion, you now know it’s illusory. So, once you realise or cut the fetters it cannot be undone — enlightenment is a one-way trip!

One becomes a Sotāpanna when one cuts (realises) the first three of ten fetters. It is said one is drawn towards either anicca (impermanence), śūnyatā (emptiness) or dukkha (suffering) as a focal point, and this quality is examined until it causes a loosening of mental ideology.

So, the individual who is to become Sotāpanna notices either emptiness, impermanence or suffering as a fundamental truth, and through this conviction can see the first three fetters that bind one to eternal incarnations.

For example, the first fetter is called personality view (sakkāya-diṭṭhi).

One type of Sotāpanna might have seen that there is nothing that is distinctly personal in one’s self-identity; we are utterly relational beings and thus notices emptiness of self in things.

Another might recognise that nothing is stable in life; definitions can only operate out of a past and not a present. Here one recognises the fundamental quality of impermanence.

The last might recognise the universality of suffering. Often this path might involve considerable despair and hopelessness. But once suffering is truly seen as universal, it loses contrast as all becomes suffering.

Sotāpanna means stream winner or stream enterer.

One enters the stream of consciousness when one learns to detach one’s identity from it. One recognises the delusional idea that a self dwells within; any self is simply a perspective of the now. One sees one’s behaviours, attitudes, reactions, ideals and everything as merely conditions of circumstance and lacking anything that uniquely identifies a me.

I suspect there are those who realise the first two fetters of personality view and attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbataparāmāsa) — addiction or even destitution might be enough, but without realising the third fetter they remain kind of lost — halfway between ‘normality’ and enlightenment. I suspect a sizeable fraction of mental illness might be accountable to this phenomenon.

The Sotāpanna has realised the first three fetters, and the moment this happens they undergo what is called a change of lineage (gotrabhū). Now, part of me wants to play this down, rationalise it, yet, in truth it is a remarkable moment.

From this point on, the individual has cut away part of what binds them to saṃsāra (cycles of rebirth). Such is the transformation and weakening of the fetters through achieving Sotāpanna that the individual can no longer suffer unfortunate rebirth, and in no more than seven rebirths they will achieve full enlightenment. Now whilst this sounds improbable, I will show you in time that the maths indeed work out. The problem is we need to cover quite a bit of work until you can understand how this can be true.

You cannot not notice the moment when this change of lineage happens, although you could easily equate it with a stroke or particularly mind-blowing drug experience. In fact, I think both jhāna (meditative absorption) and transcendental breakthroughs might well occur during psychedelic drug use, leaving confused and seemingly broken people afterwards if not recognised.

The term Sotāpanna is from the Buddhist scriptures, and I think it is important to mention here I feel that the third fetter, vicikicchā (sceptical doubt), which is essentially the loss of doubt in the scripture, can pertain to any effective method of enlightenment — i.e. here, this is the point of our leap of faith — but this faith need not be in Buddhism, but rather in the existence of a path, regardless of who described it.

There is a distinct process that takes one from normal consciousness towards the transcendental. The Sotāpanna makes the break towards and tastes for a single mind moment a milder version of transcendental consciousness. Although at this stage it is the weakest, its effect is profound, and for two or three moments of awareness one experiences the resultant awareness of these insights.

Change of lineage pertains to the lineages of a normal and enlightened person.

The lineage of a normal person is bound by fate. They believe they are a conditioned thing in a world of conditionality. In insisting that they exercise free will, they become bound by it. Again, whilst these comments may sound glib and farcical, the maths really does check out, and I hope you stay with me long enough for me to try to prove it!

Once one becomes Sotāpanna one has loosened one’s ties with fate (karma), although generally you wouldn’t know this at the time.

The single experience of a mild transcendental awareness and its resultant awareness acts as a refuge for future experience. This provides a detached perspective that was previously absent. This detachment cuts one’s ties with things that previously might have been important.

Clearly, you can appreciate how confusing this might be if it happens almost accidentally through drug use or mental illness. One has metaphorically died toward one’s old life, and this can be both distressing and confusing.

The weakening of attachment allows one to notice acts of greed or hatred and these become increasingly intolerable. There is a natural inclination to reducing one’s unwholesome karma through a distinct awareness of consequence.

For some, the moment of realisation comes after a particularly difficult period called the Dark Night of the Soul. Here, doubt in conditioned reality plagues the individual, who lacking faith is often in a tussle between mind and heart.

This is a course about alchemy. I can write about my understanding and bring in concepts already largely developed. This means that whilst the Sotāpanna might mean the first grade of Buddhist enlightenment, it describes a real phenomenon that is independent of whatever system describes it.

So, in alchemy, on achieving Sotāpanna the alchemist has merely identified the raw substance which now will need processing. To get to this stage requires faith and the development of what is called the faculty of I will know the unknown.

With the dissolution of personality view, the alchemist who achieves Sotāpanna has found that all within is dark, unworked and unsatisfactory. It can be a dark time as one recognises one’s part in one’s own suffering, and the utter helplessness of this situation is largely that which gives the Dark Night its bite.

Now the alchemist must work with this raw material — eventually reducing subjective experience to categories or skandhas (heaps) of phenomena. This involves developing understanding of karma through a new perspective, which now develops as the mind or dharma eye.

A certain shift in orientation occurs, and towards the end of Sotāpanna, a choice emerges. This will be explored in the next chapter.

The journey of the Sotāpanna is thus both profound and challenging, marking the beginning of an irreversible transformation. Like an alchemist who has discovered the prima materia (the alchemical first matter), the Sotāpanna has found the essential substance needed for the Great Work. This discovery, though initially unsettling, opens the door to deeper understanding and eventual liberation. The path ahead requires patience, wisdom, and unwavering dedication as one continues to dissolve the remaining fetters that bind consciousness to the wheel of existence.

This text is excerpted from the book Nigredo: A Course in Modern Alchemy. The complete book includes additional study guides, resources, and appendices. View the full book here.