Suns in alchemy
In alchemic and Hermetic traditions, suns (
) are employed to symbolize a variety of concepts, much like the sun in astrology. Suns can correspond to gold, citrinitas, generative masculine principles, imagery of 'the king' or Apollo, the fiery spirit or sulfur,[1] the divine spark in man,[2] nobility, or incorruptibility. Recurring images of specific solar motifs can be found in the form of a "Dark" or "Black Sun", or a green lion devouring a sun.
Sol niger
Sol niger (black sun) can refer to the first stage of the alchemical magnum opus, the nigredo (blackening). In a text ascribed to Marsilio Ficino three suns are described: black, white, and red, corresponding to the three most used alchemical color stages. Of the sol niger he writes:
The body must be dissolved in the subtlest middle air: The body is also dissolved by its own heat and humidity; where the soul, the middle nature holds the principality in the colour of blackness all in the glass: which blackness of Nature the ancient Philosophers called the crows head, or the black sun.[3]
The black sun is used to illuminate the dissolution of the body, a blackening of matter, or putrefaction in Splendor Solis,[4] and Johann Daniel Mylius’s Philosophia Reformata.[5]
In popular culture
Sol niger imagery can be found in the recent works of musicians including:
- COIL
- Babylon Whores
- Boyd Rice
- Black Sun Empire
- "Alchemy of the Black Sun Cult", Goatwhore (2006)
- "Sol Niger Within", Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects (1997)
- "Black Hole Sun", Soundgarden (1994)
- "A Thousand Suns", Linkin Park (2010 album cover)
- "Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne" (attack of the demon Alciel)
- "Blackstar", David Bowie (2016)
See also
- Alchemical symbol
- Black Sun (mythology)
- Classical planets in Western alchemy
- Five Suns (mythology)
- Solar symbol
References
- ^ Pamela Smith.Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe. Routledge. 2001. p.41
- ^ Titus Burckhardt. Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul. Penguin. 1967. p.91
- ^ Marsilius Ficinus, 'Liber de Arte Chemica'. Theatrum Chemicum, Vol 2, Geneva, 1702, p172-183. Transcribed by Justin von Budjoss. [1]
- ^ Splendor Solis. 1582. Retrieved 2012-10-17
- ^ Stanislas Klossowski de Rola. The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century. 1988. p. 170, 180.
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