Alchemy duality

Robert Boyle s writings suggest that the common denominator of alchemy is perhaps not one thing—not the English hermetic philosopher John Dee s Monas Hieroglyphica, for instance—but indeed a certain duality or a series of couples ambivalence, as in the dual symbolic—real value of gold. One of the couples in the alchemical—perhaps the dominant... 

Symbols and metaphors allow us to represent phenomena we do not fully understand and thoughts having no rational translations. Four centuries ago, the wolf represented the biting behavior of antimony (or its sulfide) on base metals. At a much deeper, subconscious level we may employ sexual imagery to convey perceptions of the male and female nature of things. For millennia, these dualities were projected to explain properties of matter that could be understood only symbolically. It is no wonder that the psychologist Carl Jung wrote extensively on the symbolism of alchemy. ... 

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