This fascinating alchemical illustration depicts the King and Queen unified in an androgynous figure, symbolizing the conjunction of opposites, here, male and female, which symbolize spirit and matter. The image, typical of Renaissance alchemical manuscripts, shows the crowned figure with two heads sharing a single body, also known as the REBIS. This figure represents the goal of the alchemical process which is the precious stone or the experience of conjunction of opposites.
Alchemists were preoccupied with the development of consciousness. They knew that humans were not completely conscious. Although it is not extremely clear in the figure, the Rebis has one serpent in the right hand and three others in his left hand. Whenever the number four (here 1+3) appears in alchemy, it is a direct reference to the four elements which were, since the Ancient Greeks, the building blocks of both matter and spirit. In alchemy, the four elements represent the four directions of consciousness that C. G. Jung has renamed as Thinking (fire), Feeling (water), Sensation (earth) and Intuition (air).
The wings extending from both sides of the Rebis evoke the spiritual quality of the experience: alchemy was not about chemical ir material experiments but spiritual or more precisely consciousness development. It also represents the experience of conjunction of opposites which is a transcendent experience. The symbol appearing in conjunction of opposites is often reported as the merging of one with God, Nature, the Universe thus a symbol of conjunction of the opposites particle-whole. It is sometimes the merging of the exterior with the interior where the experiencer feels, for a moment, that the entire world is in his spirit. It is therefore a conjunction of spirit and matter. The philosopher's stone was the experience of conjunction of opposites arising from the development of consciousness.
The six pointed star above the heads represents the fifth element or the quintessence. It comes from the synergy of the four cognitive functions that have been differentiated and developed.
It is interesting to note the symbolic details that enrich the scene. The spiral staff turning counterclockwise (decreasing) in the figure’s right hand represents the decrease in the use of the most developed and dominant cognitive function, while the golden chalice in the right hand alludes to the Grail, a symbol of the mystical experience or conjunction of opposites.
At the figure’s feet, two dragons face each other, symbolizing the two states of the cognitive functions as opposites out of which one is always unconscious and unused. When the Thinking function is developed, its opposite, the Feeling function, is always unconscious and vice versa. The same is true with Sensation and Intuition. One dragon is under the tree of knowledge with sun faces (what is visible) while the other dragon is under the same tree with moon faces (what is invisible or hidden). The dragon head under the moon faces tree is bigger thus depicting the number of cognitive functions that are undifferentiated. Those details reinforced the symbolic depiction of the two states of cognitive functions.
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To learn more, please refer to my book The KEY to Understand C. G. Jung, available on Amazon.
Thanks to S. István for bringing this illustration to life.