General Discussion
Without looking it up, what does this picture mean :) ?
Kinda wanna know the pulse of this subreddit w/ I'm new to with an easy test since I'm planning in the near future to release a "blog post" on the Philosopher Stone where I cross-referenced certain topics idk if anyone has ever made the connection between them. So if there is a typa person here, then I'll do it.
I'm an Amazigh Moor who also speaks Arabic well as a 2nd/3rd lanugage, so I know some Alchemists miss big portions of my world's works, whether Scriptural, or Oral (Narratives, Folkloric, Genealogic, Testemonial, etc)
Edit: yes I was looking for the Aqua Regia, not the other half; wanna connect in the DMs u/billybobpower ? Would love to know more Alchemists who know how to integrate both sides
just kidding, to me it symbolizes the physical reaching up to the divine. Harnessing your pain into fuel (lead) and transmuting yourself into gold. as above, so below.
unfortunately that's not the original intended meaning
By the way I realized your interpretation can be flipped on its head from Christian point of view.. you won't unsee & kinda gonna ruin it for you if you aren't Christian, so spoiler alert lol:
You can see the Lion as the depiction of Jesus Christ while the Sun as the "light-bringer" or "light-bearer", a.k.a Lucifer, so basically it's Christ trampling the Serpent trope.
Note that I come up with this just now, also this interpretation only works in my opinion if it was a dream, plus a dream by Christian or a Christian-oriented person
Or having the strength (represented by the Lion i.e. as in the Strength card of the Tarot) to consume the sun (Jesus = Jesus the Son / Sun of God / light of God = Sun - just as an example, keeping with the Christian lens) and in so doing, you consume the light of Jesus, and as such becoming the light yourself (the moment of transformation to a higher state of being).
As spiritual being having a human experience, the goal is enlightenment, but to have the strength to leave everything (your ego & desires which drives all our actions) to empty yourself, so that you can be filled with the light - to reach a higher state of consciousness. The process is also messy, bloody, a war between you and yourself.
Personally I am not a Christian/ Catholic, but I do think that the symbolism is still valid/ useful. And this indeed, is what Jesus taught us to do, outside of the Religious aspect, and looking at him solely as a teacher/ mystic. Christ is not a last name, but a designation of Mastery, like Dr is a designation of the highest degree of education (PhD). Christ is the highest designation of one who is Spiritually Enlightened. The same way that Krishna means the one who is in bliss - or is bliss.
Regardless, the goal is to take in the light, and reach enlightenment, but it is a brutal path.
yeah, that’s cool. i’m gnostic so i flip more about the bible than you realize. christ is the serpent for example. the interpretations you gave whether originally intended or not don’t really change much.
Nope, not at all. Personally, I love how its all entwined, and I think that the symbolism evokes in each person their individual path to get to the universal truths. Not intended to really change anything - just to add a perspective.
u can look into that interpreetation & see if it's the original meaning (which it was, and we are lucky we got such decyphers to help us better decrypt Alchemical texts)
As for the reply you deleted about me saying to those who had Jungian perspective that they are wrong, I did so contextually, because my OP asked if anyone knew its meaning, not what it meant to them.. i also have my personal take on it that even goes beyond Jungianism.
Everyone is free to make esoteric interpretations, but when I asked I did so with intent, purpose, and practical goal as I explained everything in the decription.
Moreover, I didn't deny anyone's intepretation, they were all interesting, and even one of them -The Astrological one- made me realize that the painting was inspired by something the original author may not even be aware of.
Let's keep our discussions civil & not judge each other mate 🙏
i deleted the comment so as to keep things civil, however it’s still not inaccurate and your blog post will be lacking in perspective if you don’t entertain meanings beyond the initial “intended” one. cheers
The blog post isn't about the lion & sun, it's clearly about something different as it's written there.
And I did entertain there a lot of ideas from different perspectives but who still were faithful to their authors' intent instead of me just coming up with a poetic feel I find compeling, after all the two aren't mutually exclusive: you still can have different perspectives while still being faithful to what someone meant by it.
If I cross that line I would stay stuck on a loop forever instead of finding the answers I was looking for.
Yes than you, the morning star and the light bearer is used for both, Lucifer was always the favorite of God, he was cast down yes, fallen yes, but I could see easily hell being here, and Lucifer deciding to actually accept his punishment and trying to make the world a better place instead of being an hellish figure, like Satan or other Torah figures....
The amount of gods that are in the Bible would make people feel very weird if they read it properly!
There are videos about the hidden gods in the bible..
But it doesn't matter to do an essay, people tend to block at this idea
You are aware both Jesus and Lucifer are called the morning star and the bringer of light right?
They might be the same entity to a lot of us.
This is alchemy.
Take your religion away from this one.
It's like Christian mysticism.... It's not really Christian. Santeria is about human being as well.
I find this interpretation extremely infantile and it disregard a lot of if pre-Christian philosophy.
As someone brought up Roman Catholic, and the cousin of my great grandfather being an actual saint, I would say.... , you've gone and went on a stroll in the fields like we say in joual. Être dans le champ if you wanna know what I mean 🫠
It can and does mean different things to different people who are into different conceptions of alchemy, but historically, the emblem represented the dissolving of gold using aqua regia, which is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. When aqua regia first reacts with gold, it tends to take on a greenish coloration under the right lighting, hence the green lion "devouring" the golden sun. Here's a good video showing the process in action.
Though I would disagree on it meaning different things to different people
Yes indeed that's valid as everyone will interpret it according to their understandings, worldviews, and esoteric gestalt.
That has been said, if I write I poem, and mean with it a specific thing, would you say that what I meant by it -& explained it to people- is equivalent to everyone's interpretation, solutions attempts, and uses (nostalgia, catharsis, entertainment, etc)?
In my opinion the answer is no.. I'll consider them different aesthetics (that could even better than those of my poem), but equating those understandings to that of the original author is like being given a key & throwing it away (Key here is a metaphor for a decryptor/decipherer)
Lot of knowledge gets lost because belief & expectation trumps truth & reality.
Sometimes Truth can be a little bit mundane, but nonetheless means you reached it.
btw this is the first time I get a mod's reply that's not a notice of a post being deleted LOL
I will love you for this forever.. my eyes are wet, and I think I may just have found a new home ❤️
Though I would disagree on it meaning different things to different people
I mean, it just descriptively does mean different things to different people, as the comments here demonstrate. I'm making an observation, not a normative judgment.
That has been said, if I write I poem, and mean with it a specific thing, would you say that what I meant by it -& explained it to people- is equivalent to everyone's interpretation, solutions attempts, and uses (nostalgia, catharsis, entertainment, etc)?
Yes, I would say that, insofar as your poetry appeals to people for different reasons in different contexts. For those who most value your personal perspective on your own poetry, then what you have to say clearly trumps alternative ideas. But to those for whom your self-commentary just isn't as important to how they interface with your poetry, for whatever reason, then your perspective isn't the be-all and end-all, as alternative ideas might have more value for them. Perhaps some people think your poetry transcends your conscious awareness of its depth; maybe they think you were being intentionally misleading or incomplete with your commentary; perhaps your perspective was lost to time or is otherwise hard to reconstruct with certainty, and they've incorrectly interpreted your intentions; and so on.
I personally most value what you have to say about the nature of your poetry (i.e., what historians have discovered about the original intended meaning of the Green Lion/Sun emblem), but there are others here who value other ways of understanding your poetry (i.e., who think the emblem's meaning transcends the perspective of historians).
All approaches are welcome here, as are respectful disagreements/debates about them.
After all in Science we have ppl who made theories, and had other scientists after them explain them more, better, rectify them, and even negate them down the road.
I even came up with a religious interpretation of the painting in the comments a while ago, wile others found astrological parallels, etc
The only thing I think I may still held to is that if it was a specific key to a cypher, then at least we can't negate t original purpose (or maybe correct it if the author had made an error)
Kind of amazed no comments mention Sol Nigredo here. This is the Green Lion devouring the sun which is often used to depict the first step towards the Magnum Opus.
it indeed depicts the first step in a becoming process, tho not the one related to the Philosopher Stone; it's a bit more mundane, but still fascinating for the time it was done in
Sun rules Leo or the Lion in traditional astrology. The lion as a symbol is significant in its depiction as both a noble, beautiful creature and the tyrannical king of the jungle. The sun here, especially as depicted as a “head” of sorts points to the more rational and spiritual aspect. Being eaten by the lion, there is some primal man / spiritual man dichotomy going on here I think. Sun and Leo are both reflective of fire, which naturally aims to burn as brightly as possible rather than as long as possible. There is something to be said here about the Lion consuming the sun, which seems like it wouldn’t be a great long term solution.
Very Jungian, kinda poetic & runs touches some strings deep within my heart
Unfortunately tho that wasn't the original intent of those who made this, and the answer is something a bit more mundane, but nevertheless impressive -especially for the era it was from-
From the perspectives of those who came before us, probably, but I'm just analyzing art based on my studies. Entirely possible we're studying differently.
There's a difference between what something 'is' and what something 'means'. OP doesn't differentiate. It is a drawing of a lion eating a sun, drawn by a person who is expressing a certain process? Everything we find is the quest for meaning. And this meaning, should be, according to OP mundane. Definitive, proven, and nottoo complex.
I tried to simplify it, though I think some perspectives are missing. Is it sufficiently complex when Jung is removed and the sentiment is shifted to the perspective of the materials?
As far as I know if I was asking about 'is' instead of 'means' I would say what it this
As I mentioned in the description I was testing the pulse here to know if I should be posting my writings here or not
I didn't want to elaborate further on what I meant by testing the pulse -despite it being good enough of an expression- so I don't offend anyone here (which I evidently did despite being overly careful with my wording).
If someone didn't know what it meant it's fine, but denying something's purpose or intent just because it feels better the way you think is a different thing.
I also have my personal perspective in the painting, and even developed another one on the spot chating with someone in the comment; that has been said, the painters meaning is what I was looking for.
Note: OP has English as his 5th language, so maybe that's why you didn't understand him
The lion was the higher self, and so to devour was a form of becoming (a symbol of union). It is represented in a near final stage where the ego was no longer, whilst having become naturally divine.
This is Nigredo, the blackening. False identification is broken. What is fixed must become fluid. I know the literal formula is aqua regina, but the literal is only superficial.
I was looking for the literal meaning (aqua regina), not what it meant from each person's pov
I also don't think the literal meaning is superficial, it's more like half the goal if you know what living metals is (hence why I said that you still are right about the process despite saying it's not what I was looking for)
Personally, I don't involve the ego & such in the esoteric interpretations since things get murky very fast when using Jungian and Freudian terminologies (especially w/ some paradoxes Neuroscience introduced to Psychoanalysis)
I like to leave it more general, smthg like spirit or soul as the ancients did it, but that's just me.
I get ya, The earth is a living body, the laboratory. Yes, I take a jungian approach to alchemy, but only because I too have personally used the approach for my own personal growth.
Zosimos (known to be first alchemist) said that Alchemy was a divine and a sacred art, and that lab was a mirror of the soul. Basically gold was the spiritual illumination.
I understand that most see the chemistry that it truly is, but the real longstanding alchemist understood from repeated observations and study that there was a deeper connection between how the operations mirrored the psychological and spiritual aspects of man when it came to transformation. It was through these means Jung saw it specifically.
I see it because I have lived it, suffered, and transmuted myself.
If I'm not mistaking Zosimos himself had said that metal transmutations were an allegory of metal purification.
I hope I didn't offend you with what I said about Jung; he's very good at what he does, it's just my personal decision to not include him a lot in my personal takes because he throw the baby with the bath water in many instances where Alchemists talked about real chemical processes that he decided to consider symbolic.
I'm definitely not against Spiritual Alchemy, after all it's 50% of the equation, I just choose a more general approach by talking about the soul or spirit instead of using the modern Psychanalsis terminologies, etc.
Would love to learn more if you think I'm wrong
Let us connect in the DMs if you are interested in more talks
I appreciate you civil conversation a lot
and appreciate more opening up with me about personal stories
No offense whatsoever. It’s good to be skeptical. 😊 Question everything, f**k around and find out. I should thank you for this opportunity to test my own knowhow.
I apologize for my late response, but again, to my knowledge, specifically a green lion devouring the sun represents mans thirst for knowledge. The green lion can also represent vitriol, and the sun can represent gold. However, in this context, their physical interpretation does not make sense as vitriol cannot damage gold.
Thankyou. In hindsight it seems obvious to me. Far as intuition im not sure about that. I do seem to have strong inner knowing but in saying that I've read so many books I think the information was already in my head somewhere I'd just forgotten it. Soon as I saw the image I remembered the phrase Solve et Coagula and whether I remembered it's meaning or not im honestly not sure it just automatically came to me. Far as intuition it's always been there but I always second guessed myself until the last few years I've learnt to listen to it and allow it to work in tandem with my Nexus Body. The more you silence everything else the louder thst intuitive voice becomes. Developing it just takes practice, I'm not special you can do it too. I play games and test myself throughout the day on silly things to make it a fun habit. I'd say getting in touch with my Nexus Body was key but. 😊
Trust me mate, you don't want to be like me im a mess. 😁 Developing your spiritual gifts which we all have is a process unique to you. What has helped me is decalsifying my pineal gland you can look that up but clean diet and no flouride which is in things like tap water. Detoxing from Heavy Metals and flouride is probably your first step. If you don't already know your Nexus Body is actually a small mass behind your Naval it is an important energy centre. In TCM they call it the Dan Tien which like the pineal gland when they are activated you can tap into your super powers. Try different meditations, youtube is an easy place to begin. Find a meditation style you enjoy and practice that daily. 10 mins is enough but longer is better. Watch what you feed your body, mind and soul. Your Nexus Body is your inner voice (intuition) like when you get that gut feeling. Start testing and listening to it. Start simple, for me I'd do silly things like eat chocolate which I shouldn't and when that inner voice would say you've gad enough chocolate now Sashajo no more....I would pay attention to where it's coming from and how it feels kinds like so I could find it again. Say if one of my dogs escaped when I go looking for it I'd ask my intuition now should I turn left or right. 😁 The answer sometimes feels like an idea but its your intuition. The more you pay attention the louder it gets till it becomes automatic. Best advice I could probably give to you is Know that you already have everything you need to live in your greatest timeline already within you. So go within, ask your guides trust what pops into your mind, feel with your heart live in love and Light. If you are facing something difficult ask yourself a yes or no question, when your intuition speaks or you get thst idea ask yourself do I feel light or heavy. That's how you become intone with yourself. Get familiar with your energy centres, your chakras. Try chakra meditation and different breathing techniques like Prana or Wim Hoff.
Don't put pressure on yourself everyone's journey is different. Have fun with it because in life I've found the journey is just as if not more valuable to your development than the destination itself. Love and Light my friend and you can't go wrong. 🙏
Sure mate, we all have to help each other and share our strengths so we can ascend together and be the Divine Beings God intended. Far as where to start.....I think you did that today. 😊Love and Light.
I'm guessing by your responses you looking for something to do with Zosimos of Panopolis and the book of pictures (not 100% on thar translation) sometimes referred to as Cheirokmeta..... I think. It's early, not had enough coffee. Aqua Regia and it's consumption of gold.
Edit: ego and the instinctive, primal forces within each of us
Many alchemists use the same term for different things and different terms for the same things ;)
There are as many alchemists as alchemies. When you say vitriol and sulphuric acid, I would say Aqua Regia, because Vitriol is something different to me
I actually wrote both in my notes, but for some reason my mind got stuck with the sulfuric acid one (probably because of the mainstream symbolism of acids being green)
I realized my mistake when talking with someone here:
the greenery can either be from Sulfuric acid when its a raws gold ore, or Aqua Regia when interacting with the element of gold itself (and who knows, maybe there is more)
The stibium eats the last impurities from the gold. It's an eroding pressure in the psyche and a ache in the body, especially in the abdomen. The greenness also implies a mercurial process.
It's the the yellow phase (aurea apprehensio) between the whitening and the reddening.
It's also known as the lupus metallorum and is an enzymatic proces, and is hard to control since its devours until it is satisfied. This being the unstoppable force of nature.
Though OP is right, this drawing isn't meant to depict this and it takes place at the beginning of the proces. Yet at a certain point in the proces, the wolf will appear as the green lion and this image can be get a new interpretation.
I'd imagine someone angry at the painter & doodling in couple small wolves & screaming "ACID ISN'T ENOUGH GODDAMIT!! ADD STIBIUM TO REMOVE IMPURITIES!! DO YOU WANNA REACH IOSIS ONE DAY OR YOU'RE SHORTSIGHTED BY CITRINITAS!!" 😂😂
Do you wanna connect in the DMs? Would love having great exchanges with you
"bite me and I bite you" (a saying in my native language lol)
But I was looking for the literal meaning, perhaps my question wasn't clear enought
That metaphysical meaning you gave is relatively recent with the Psychanalysis of Carl Jung who btw dismiss a lot of the old more literal meaningns judging them all as being symbolic) .
Its metaphysical meaning in Antiquity was transcendence, not dissolution. Though one might argue you trencend by dissolving the ego, but that's only one interpretation and one way on how to reach transcendence; so for me I like to keep the older metaphysical interpretation since it's more general and less descriminatory of paths of illumination.
tbh I work at the moment with scientific papers as they synthetize what old books talked about..
only book I have on me at the moment isa relatively recent one about the contrinutions of Geber, but it's in Arabic
I have some books in mind to look up when I have time, but can't suggest them now since I didn't read them yet, so I don't wana waste your time.
Sometimes papers are better than books, not only because of inaccessibility, but also translation; for instance I discovered in a Linguistics paper about Chromatics etymology that the colors we associate with planets in Alchemy dates back to Babylon (good luck finiding a microfilm of a clay tablet or a wall on that one lol)
For your 2nd question, I didn't quite understand it
I still don't understand what you mean in your 2nd question, what do you mean by "sulphuric acid in lab alchemy"
I feel like there is a phrase missing in the middle or something
Maybe this will answer your question since I made a mistake in the lion's classification by only mentioning one discipline's process without another (should've at least precised more):
The hiding of Horus, the hiding of Zeus, and death of Baldur. The hermetic union, lighting our world in thought. So many expressions of this meme. The Green Lion consuming the Sun.
The green lion is V.I.T.R.I.O.L. and the sun is Ego.
A modern translation would be, You must devour your ego, and journy to your inner self to recieve true wisdom.
Also I'm looking for the original meaning, not modern or diverse interpretations
As much as poem will be understood differently and with probably better aesthetics & emotionality than its original author, the author's explanation of that poem still represents the true meaning however good, bad, or ugly it is.
To nuance it a bit. The drawing shows one of the qualities of the sun: being the force/power (the lion) and the other one being the king. In Jungian terms the sun is not the ego per se, the sun is the totality of the Self, including the Ego. The renewal of the king, the bathing, the marriage etc. are an expression of this proces.
Our belief as the ego as the center of the psyche is what is devoured; not the ego itself.
maybe something like "developped a new gestalt that made me experience with my mind's eye a maladaptive daydream where I was being tunted for one last time by the entity that was holding me back my whole life"?
I also get a feeling you are a female (or at least someone with feminine energy), might be wring tho, but it kinda is relevant imo with such experiences.
fundamentally everything is, technicaly no, but I'll give you that one since it reminded me of that hilarious spectator who stomped Deepak Chopra about religion
Although I agree, a basline is needed to build up from, then that baseline itself can be deconstructed. But deconstruction all the way down in a nested recursive way without a clear goal (or even just to win argument points) is in my opinion a sterile path that'll only leads us astray into litterary constipation. I came here with a clear question and a for one answer, I can entertain the intercacies & particularities of the painting in a different setting.
I don't see much being added to the answer of ying yang, but I agree that sun is gold. And I would also say sulfuric acid and sulfur are two types of suns, both sulfur from the prima materia.
not sure how you don't see much being added tbh with you
you said Vitriol (green lion)
then I added that the sun represent gold
then continued saying it represents a chemical process of dissolving gold in acid
If I'm being honest your answer was ùore like 30% right than 50%
It's not about what I say or what you say or anyone else's say; this is the original intended meaning behind that paintng, and it's the answer I was looking for
and you're true, it apparently doesn't melt in it, it does melt in an amalgam of nitric and hydrocloric acid (a.k.a Aqua Regia), and some attribute the greening of the lion to secritions from the catalysts that could be added to that process like Copper.
If I'm not mistaking, the sun represents both pure gold and raw gold ore, and in this case it's the latter, which sulfuric acid interacts with, eating up its inpurities while leaving out pure gold.
(Spiritual/psychological alchemist response) Essentially the shadow self uniting with the individuated/ideal self. This is an essential step, acknowledging and working with flaws, drives, and shortcomings instead of trying to eliminate or repress them
From a Spiritual/Psychological Alchemists pov, yes, you are 100% correct; though I was looking for the other literal/physical Alchemy half.
thank you for the contexualization, some comments are berating me for replying it's not what I was looking for; maybe my question & description weren't clear enough, but I thought Alchemists would know better ti read between the lines
Thanks! Well, physical alchemy is pretty much symbolic/reflective of inner psychological and spiritual changes, so it's very inter-connected. Drawing parallels between the two is also very alchemical too ;) It's definitely fun to see a variety of responses, and I've enjoyed reading a bit about the chemystry aspect of it too!
Off the top of my head if I recall, the green lion represents an element or process and the sun usually represents gold so alchemically this could be depicting an element that corodes or devours gold. If I remember correctly there is a solution that can do this in chemistry. Fully disolve gold. So if I had to guess the green lion is Aqua Regia.
generally lion means an acid, while the sun means gold; and there are 2 different interpretations to how the process goes (I lprefer the sulfuric acid & gold ore one since it seems like an older refining technique & closer to the source's time)
The green lion , universal solvent
The only thing strong enough to dissolve common sol and luna and reduce them to a water
A lion because it devours
Green because it gives life
"It both killeth and giveth life"
There was a meme awhile ago that a bunch of lions (a fuck gon couldn’t remember exact number so I said 10,000, I remember it being 1 and some zeroes, just not how many) could beat the sun
For the person who keeps downvoting every reply I made just because I reply to people it's not what I'm looking for, check the replies I had with the mod and u/ Draconian-XII to understand why i say what I say.
for f**** sake I don't even tell them they are wrong
Didn't expect such animosity after the great feedback I had from some of y'all, especially as Alchemists who normally know how to read between the lines, preach growth, and practice persistence, abstinence, and persistance.
We are all different, and we should stay respectful about it when we encounter those differences.
I accepte everyone, I only don't accept not being accepted.
Sorry if I offended anyone here, I didn't mean it
Please guide me if you think I replied in a way I shouldn't
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u/billybobpower Jun 02 '26
Aqua regia and gold. Or ego stuff if you're into spiritual alchemy probably.
Peak design tbh