Michael Maier and the Atalanta Fugiens (Emblem 38): The Rebis and the Absolute Union
In the 17th century, the German physician and alchemist Michael Maier articulated a vision of the alchemical process so profound and "Highly Systematic" that it remains the definitive record of the Chemical Union : his Atalanta Fugiens . Within the thirty-eighth emblem— "Rebis, ut Hermaphroditus, natus ex duobus" (The Rebis, like the Hermaphrodite, is born from two)—Maier establishes the fundamental Syntax of Totality —the ability of the purified spirit to anchor the absolute light of the Divine Mind through the absolute union of the Active and the Receptive principles. This represents the state of Henosis (union) where the subject and the object are fused into a singular, radiant unity. To understand the thirty-eighth emblem is to confront the law of Geometric Reciprocity . Maier teaches that the human being is a "Composite Being" currently in a state of "Atmospheric Fragmentation" due to the separation of the masculine and the feminine p...