Alchemy & philosophy · The Language of Alchemy, part 7 of 8 · 3 October 2026 · Charlotte Himsworth
The Rebis and the Marriage of Sun and Moon
Opposites united: the alchemists’ image of wholeness.
Many alchemical pictures show a king and queen, or a Sun and Moon, coming together in a sacred marriage. The fruit of their union is often drawn as the rebis, from the Latin res bina, “double thing”: a single crowned figure joining both.
Sol and Luna
The Sun, Sol, stands for the active, radiant, conscious principle; the Moon, Luna, for the receptive, reflective, intuitive one. Neither is better. The work needs both.
The alchemical wedding
Sixteenth-century emblem books such as the Rosarium Philosophorum (1550) tell the story in pictures: the meeting, the union, the death of the old forms and the birth of something new and whole.
The Principle of Gender
The Hermetic Principle of Gender describes exactly this partnership within every person: the active and the receptive, choosing and allowing. Wholeness comes when they work together rather than compete.
A practice
Ask: “Where in my life am I all Sun, pushing, or all Moon, waiting?” Choose one small step that brings in the other.