![]() The much heralded marriage of the King and Queen produces a state of consciousness best described as a feeling intellect, which can be raised and purified to produce a state of perfect intuition, that Egyptian alchemists referred to as “Intelligence of the Heart.” This special kind of intelligence or way of knowing is at work in the alchemist, for he is born of the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine consciousness.īetween legs of the alchemist dangles the Cubic Stone, which is labeled Corpus (meaning “body”). The Queen stands for the influence of feelings and emotions, which are ultimately the chaotic First Matter of the soul. The King symbolizes the power of thought and planning, which are characteristics of spirit. In simplest terms, the King and Queen represent the raw materials of our experience – thoughts and feelings – with which the alchemist works. The bow and arrow she cradles in her left arm symbolize the wounds of the heart and body she accepts as part of her existence, for feminine consciousness accepts the world as it is, with all its pain and suffering. ![]() The melancholy, introverted Moon Queen holds the reins to a great fish, symbolizing her control of those same hidden forces that threaten the King, and behind her is a chaff of wheat, which stands for her connection to fertility and growth. The fact that light casts shadows is inherent in masculine consciousness, and it becomes a source of demons that plague us throughout our lives. We have given this undesirable part life energy in the very act of rejection. This dragon is created by the fiery nature of consciousness any time we forcibly reject part of the contents of our psyche and relegate it to the shadows. The jovial, extroverted Sun King holds a scepter and a shield indicating his authority and strength over the rational, visible world, but the fiery dragon of the rejected contents of his unconscious waits in a cave beneath him ready to attack should he grow too arrogant. “Its father is the Sun,” says the Emerald Tablet, “its mother the Moon.” ![]() He is really the offspring of the marriage between Sol, the archetypal Sun King seated on a lion on a hill to his right, and Luna, the archetypal Moon Queen seated on a great fish to his left. The alchemist also stands balanced between the masculine and feminine powers in the background. Although he is firmly planted in the world of matter, the alchemist has easy access to the powers of spirit. In his right hand is a torch of Fire and in his left hand a feather symbolizing Air. His feet protrude from behind the central emblem, and one is on Earth and the other in Water, indicating he is grounded in the real world. The schematized body of the alchemist is shown in perfect balance with the Four Elements as depicted by his arms and legs. It was not until the Renaissance, when the idea of the divine nature of man, that the drawing was first published. Of course, this idea was considered blasphemy to the medieval Church, which explains why this drawing was circulated secretly in so many different forms during the Middle Ages. Therefore, within the triangle we see the face of God, and the drawing clearly implies that the face of God and the face of the alchemist are the same. The downward-pointing triangle superimposed over the face of the alchemist represents Water in its highest sense as divine grace or the gift of life pouring down from Above. Like looking into a mirror, this is where the adept fixes his or her attention to begin meditation at the center of the mandala. In this sense, the Azoth represents not just the chaotic First Matter at the beginning of the Work but also its perfected essence (the Philosopher’s Stone) at the conclusion of the Work.Īt the center of this striking drawing is the face of a bearded alchemist at the beginning of the Work. ![]() Thus the word is meant to convey the idea of the absolutely complete and full meaning of the First Matter and its transformations. The “A” and “Z” in the word relate to “alpha” and “omega,” the letters at the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet. The word “Azoth” in the title is one of the more arcane names for the First Matter. The version we are using is based on an illustration first published in 1659 in the Azoth of the Philosophers by the legendary German alchemist Basil Valentine. The “Azoth” (shown above) is a meditative emblem that appeared in several different forms during the late Middle Ages. As a visual guide to the operations of alchemy, we will use an alchemical mandala actually used by the alchemists in trying to understand the relationships between the processes of transformation.
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