ABSTRACT
The two are called ”Osiris and Isis, sun and moon, Sol and Luna, brother and sister, masculine and feminine, active and passive, giver and receiver, seal and wax, fixed and volatile, wingless lion and winged lioness, lion and eagle,” sun-tree and moon-tree, yellow and blue. Sulfur is also oil, crocus, soul, and “all-nature,” and mercury is phlegm. In Indian alchemy the list of synonyms is just as large, and it is called the Twilight Language. Learning those undependable names is part of the novice’s initiation into alchemy, and it quickly becomes clear that no meaning is the single best one. The key is that the opposites are true to the principle of opposition: they are not some arbitrary pair like salt and pepper, set up by convention, but the concept of pairing itself: sulfur is to mercury as husband is to wife.
