The Lovers

Yes Minos!! Everyday, every minute!

WOW WOW mouth agape
Firemaiden is speechless...
ahhh

so would the lovers card be the coagulating and the tower the dissolving?

firemaiden said:

so would the lovers card be the coagulating and the tower the dissolving?

Click to expand...

Yep.

Wait a sec...I thought that the Lovers was solve and Art was Coagula...or at least that Art was the fulfillment of the work begun in the Lovers.
Although I can see the Tower as being both a sundering (the building) and a fusing (the people burning into carbon), it seems to me that the really strong connection is between VI and XIV...

But Richard, why would a card which is about joining illustrate "solve".

Or maybe it is that both cards illustrate both, and the maxim is only complete when they both come together...

Would someone like to elaborate on the importance of this phrase in alchemy? and what it means?

I understand it to be - that the two basic processes of creation are separating and combing, combining and separating:combine the egg and the sperm, then the fertilized egg sets about separating, etc... Or: the universe was created from combining matter and anti matter, in a big bang, which set in motion the expansion of the universe --- which is still going on, and amounts to one big slow process of separation...

Combining, mixing, fertilizing, like art, mixing paint, or combining different metals, or separating -- purifying the colors, or the metals.

The combining and separating are also important processes of analytical thought:

==>bring thoughts together = compare, find similarities and analogies between ideas/myths/ images, etc. --

==>separate thoughts = to make distinctions and classifications.

We brought up dismemberment -- lol, that is separation...
and love - combining

choosing = separating...
etc.


So perhaps Art and the Lovers card both illustrate both parts of the maxim?

Good post, Firemaiden!
Yeah, I think the Lovers is the beginning of the coagula process and Art is the result.
Or else, in some way, the Lovers represents the elements before they are joined (admittedly JUST before they are joined) and thus would be the solve part of the equation.
If the first is true, I'm not sure which card(s) represents the separation, though...perhaps the Empress (salt) and the Emperor (sulphur)?
I freely admit that I know very little about alchemy, though...and Kiama's post about Art being the beginning of the process and the Lovers being the result has me wondering about the validity of ANY of this...
(That whole backwards thing is like a piece of gristle that I can't bring myself either to swallow or spit out...I've come up with a generally workable theory of it; the main thought behind it being "Oh, brave new world that hath such people in't!")

Richard said:

Wait a sec...I thought that the Lovers was solve and Art was Coagula...or at least that Art was the fulfillment of the work begun in the Lovers.
Although I can see the Tower as being both a sundering (the building) and a fusing (the people burning into carbon), it seems to me that the really strong connection is between VI and XIV...

Click to expand...

You're right! I read XIV dyslexically as XVI.

In the conflict of two like elements that produces a new state, I looked at the new state as a kind of coagulation.

Of course, the conflict would be more like dissolution.

Sometimes the glass is half full, sometimes it's half empty...

Mercurial Connections

The shaman is present because he is virgo, also rulled by mercury as well as gemini. The eagle and lion are symbols of America and the UK (Crowleys connection tith the OGD verfies this), just as a two headed eagle of Eastern Europe/Russia is present on the Emperess Card.

Being a solar gemini and a rising virgo with a retro mercury i was compelled to make this connection.

Merc in Gemini certainly works w/the swords b/c it's an air sign. Yes, I haven't forgotten this thread, however 'tis exam season and time to research wears thin..... nevermind the fact that my darn school library sys keeps all the Jungian material in the humanities library and all the alchemical material in the engineering library blocks away!! T_T

And yes, Minos! You must always be cute and brilliant

whew, it's been awhile

so someone reign me in if I'm wrong here...

To simplfy here, there are 3 stages to the opus, and 3 stages in the alchemical process: nigredo (black/green), albido (white/yellow) and rubedo (red/gold), each stage goes through a process of coagulatio (there's also calcintio, solutio, sublimatio, mortificatio, separatio, and coniunctio/conjunctio).

Rubedo is the final stage and the coag represents a marriage (king/queen), which is tied into the Philosopher's Stone. It's the coming of consciousness, in other words, which may be why Waite's Lovers depicts Adam and Eve, whose expulsion from Eden may be read as a metaphor of consciousness. I'm not sure we're looking at rubedo though.... But note the alchemical colours representing the 3 stages are emphasized through the royal couple.

Anyways, I guess that was a bit of a tease. Gotta wait for the library to transfer Jung's coniunction book. I only have Campbell's Portable Jung for 1st hand reference and it doesn't have much alchemy stuff.

i completely forgot to add the card right at the beginning of the thread.