how do the hermetic and alchemical writers incorporated in our older texts interpret the symbolic transition from the rough ashlar to the perfect

Early monitorial catechisms interpret the rough ashlar as the uncultivated mind of man in infancy, which is brought through education, moral instruction, and a life of piety into the state of the perfect ashlar, tested by the square of God's word and the compass of conscience 1.

Mystical commentators such as W. L. Wilmshurst expand this emblem into a process of internal spiritual regeneration 2. Wilmshurst contrasts a superficial, literal understanding of the ritual—which he terms the "rough-ashlar stage" of Masonic comprehension—with the genuine work of self-building 2. In his reading, the rough ashlar represents the candidate in his unrefined state, bound by his grosser nature, physical appetites, and passions 2. The transformation into a finished cube or perfect ashlar requires disciplined self-scrutiny and purification 2. The chipping and polishing of the stone symbolize how adversity, toil, and suffering serve a beneficent purpose, acting as the necessary means by which Eternal Wisdom develops latent spiritual potential 2. Through this work, the individual soul is wrought into a true square, becoming a living stone fitted for the restored heavenly temple 2.

The provided sources treat this transformation through moral instruction and mystical self-perfecting, but do not contain explicit hermetic or alchemical readings of the ashlars.