"Rosarius says: "I advise no one to approach this Art unless he knows the principle and the regimen of Nature: if he be acquainted with these, little is wanting to him except one thing, nor need he put himself to a great expense, since the stone is one, the medicine is one, the vessel one, the rule one, the disposition one."
Yet this one substance is so divided by the operation of Nature, and the skill of the Artist, that it is transmuted into our White Eagle, nor does the splendour of the sun illuminate more abundantly the spagyric matter with its beams; or, as Basilius Valentinus hath it, that, "thence is born a spirit white as scow, and another spirit red as blood, which two spirits are contained in a third hidden thing."
Hence King Aros well says: "Our medicine is composed out of two things having one essence, namely, through the mercurial union of a solid and a liquid, a spiritual and a corporeal, a cold and a moist, a warm and a dry, and in no other way can it be made."
And Richard the Englishman says: "The stone is one, the medicine one, which, however, according to the philosophers, is called Rebis (Two-thing), being composed of two things, namely, a body and spirit red or white. But over this many foolish persons have gone astray, explaining it in divers ways."
Rebis is two things, and these two things are one thing, namely, water joined to a body, by which the body is dissolved into a spirit, that is, mineral water, out of which it was first made; and this body and spirit make up one mineral water, which is called Elixir, that is to say, ferment; for then water and spirit are one thing, of which is composed a tincture and medicine for purging all bodies. And thus, according to the philosophers, we have the nature of sulphur and mercury above ground, while underground they become gold and silver.
Bernard, Count of Trevisan and the March, says: Our work is performed by means of one root, and two crude mercurial substances, drawn and extracted from a mineral, pure and clear, being conjoined by the heat of friendship, as this matter requires, and carefully cooked until the two things become one thing," &c.
Basilius Valentinus (Lib. Nat. et Supernal., c. 4) says: "I will make this known to thee in all truth [for the love of God], that the root of philosophic sulphur, which is a heavenly spirit, is united in the same material with the root of the spiritual and supernatural mercury, and the principle of spiritual salt—out of which is made the Stone, and not out of several things. That universal thing, the greatest treasure of earthly wisdom, is one thing, and the principles of three things are found in one, which has power to change all metals into one. The three things are the true spirit of mercury, and the soul of sulphur, united to spiritual salt, and dwelling in one body; they are dragon and eagle, king and lion, spirit and body, etc." [The Golden Tract: Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers. "The Hermetic Museum", Vol. I, by Arthur Edward Waite]
"Our substance, or Rebis, consists of two things, Spirit and Matter; but the two are only one, and they produce a. third, which is the Universal Panacea, purifying all things, the Tincture, which transmutes base metals into gold. Our Elixir is therefore one thing, made of two; but the two are one.
The water is added to the body and dissolves the latter into a spirit, and thus the water and body produce a solution. Some philosophers describe the Philosopher's Stone as being the true Spiritus Mercurii with the Anima Sulpnuris and the Spiritual Salt made into one thing, prepared under one heaven, living in one body; the Dragon and the Eagle; others call it a preparation made of spirit, body, and soul, and they say that the spirit does not combine with the body except by means of the soul, which connects both together, and yet the three are essentially one.
The omnipotent Creator, whose wisdom extends as far as his (its) own substance, created in the beginning, when nothing but himself existed, two classes of things, the heavenly and the terrestrial.
The heavenly things are the interior world, with all its inhabitants; the terrestrial things are the external ones, and have been formed of the four elements. The latter consist of three classes; namely, Animalia, Vegetabilia, and Mineralia, and they are distinct from each other; so that, for instance, the animal kingdom does not produce trees, nor the vegetable kingdom monkeys, etc. But each being has its own peculiar seed by which its own species may be propagated, but no other species is produced by them; the species, however, may be improved, purified, and ennobled to a certain extent, and by appropriate means, as every one knows.
Nature is a great alchemical laboratory in which a continual purification and sublimation to a higher standard takes place. The primordial matter from which all the various metals have grown, is originally only one, and contains within itself a Sulphur which, acting under various conditions, produced in the course of ages a variety of forms, differing in their exterior qualities, but being essentially only one. Thus a portion of this matter, going through a certain process of evolution, assumed the attributes of iron, and is called Iron; another one became Lead, etc." [A TREATISE on the PHILOSOPHER'S STONE By a still living Philosopher, but who does not desire to be known.
Copied and translated from old German manuscripts by Franz Hartmann
(Cosmology, or Cabala. Universal Science. Alchemy. c. 1888, Franz Hartmann)
Illustrations: Recveil de manvscrits chymiqves, c. 1760
Netherlands, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Universiteit van Amsterdam]
Rebis, literally “two things” is the final product of the alchemical Great Work, the Philosopher’s Stone, personifying the “union of opposites”, compositum de compositis (“Conjunction of compounds”): Male and Female, sulfur and mercury, light and darkness, day and night, Sun and Moon, King and Queen, active and passive, cold and hot qualities, dryness and humidity.
After man has passed through the stages of decomposition and purification, separating opposite qualities, these qualities are again united in what is sometimes called the Divine Hermaphrodite or androgyne, the reconciliation of spirit and matter. As an indication of this, Rebis was depicted as a figure with one body and male and female heads, which corresponded to the Sun and Moon or the Red King and White Queen.
Also the image of Rebis appeared in the work of Vasily Valentin “Azotus of the Philosophers” in 1613. The rebis was designated by the Y emblem.
Manly Palmer Hall
Rebis, literally “two things” is the final product of the alchemical Great Work, the Philosopher’s Stone, personifying the “union of opposites”, compositum de compositis (“Conjunction of compounds”): Male and Female, sulfur and mercury, light and darkness, day and night, Sun and Moon, King and Queen, active and passive, cold and hot qualities, dryness and humidity.
After man has passed through the stages of decomposition and purification, separating opposite qualities, these qualities are again united in what is sometimes called the Divine Hermaphrodite or androgyne, the reconciliation of spirit and matter. As an indication of this, Rebis was depicted as a figure with one body and male and female heads, which corresponded to the Sun and Moon or the Red King and White Queen.
"The three aspirations of the alchemist - the transmutation of metals, the discovery of the universal medicine, and the making of the diamond - are symbolic terms beneath which they concealed the three steps of alchemical philosophy. The lowest of the three was the transmutation of metals and the highest the making of a diamond. Between those two was the formulation of the universal elixir.
The transmutation referred to the reforming of the physical body. The making of the universal medicine was symbolic of soul growth, while the hardening of the diamond in the fire signified the attainment of spiritual perfection.
The alchemists divided the nature of man into three essential parts: spirit, soul, and body. These they declared to be, in reality, only three manifestations of one principle. In the same way they divided the elements of the philosopher's stone into three parts - salt, mercury, and sulphur; and these in turn they declared to be only three parts of one divine element - spiritual sulphur.
Man's physical body they symbolized by salt and the element of earth, because crystallization is a power which acts over both of these natures equally. Man's intellectual and soul nature they symbolized by mercury. Mercury has two natures: divine mercury and human mercury. In the same way, man's mind has two spheres of activity. His spiritual mind is creative, idealistic and synthetic. His material and earthy mind is destructive, animalistic, and analytic. These are opposites one to the other. In every case the lower must be transmuted into the higher if spirituality is to result.
Man's highest divine principle - his spirit - was symbolized by sulphur, because sulphur is closely allied to fire, whereas mercury more nearly resembles water. In fact, the philosophers called mercury "the living water", here again using Biblical terminology.
Whoever can adjust his life so that his physical nature, his intellectual nature, and his spiritual nature cooperate one with the other, resulting in a harmonious, unified personality, has achieved proficiency in the ancient science of alchemy, for alchemy is the chemistry of human life and the chemistry of body, faculty, and function as these react upon each other.
Philosophy is a masculine element; intuition is feminine. With intuition, the alchemist cannot attain his ends. Therefore he must woo intuition. In alchemy, intuition is symbolized by the moon, while philosophy and reason are symbolized by the sun. Hence one of the first steps in alchemy is the marriage of the sun and moon, or the union of logical and intuitional intellects.
These are most often symbolized by an androgynous figure, one side of the figure masculine and the other feminine; often with two heads, male and female. The male head is surrounded with the solar nimbus, while the female head is surrounded with the lunar halo. Intuition and reason are also called silver and gold."[Mental and Spiritual Alchemy by Manly Palmer Hall]
See Also