White Queen

## White Queen White Queen

**The White Queen** is the feminine counterpart to the Red King in alchemical allegory, representing the lunar, mercurial, volatile principle in its purified state. The White Queen appears in alchemical emblems as a crowned woman dressed in white or silver, often holding lunar symbols or standing on the moon. She represents silver, the moon among metals, the volatile and mutable principle, and the feminine aspect of the philosophical matter. Her union with the Red King through the chemical marriage is essential to the Great Work, producing the philosophical child that will mature into the Philosopher's Stone.

The White Queen's attributes emphasize her lunar, feminine, receptive nature. Her white color represents the albedo stage of the work, the whitening that follows the nigredo and precedes the final rubedo. Her crown signifies her royal nature, her nobility and purity. Her association with the moon connects her to silver, to the element of water, to the passive and receptive principle. In the chemical marriage, the White Queen represents the volatile mercury that must unite with the fixed sulfur (the Red King) to generate the Stone. She is the philosophical water, the menstruum, the matrix in which the seed is planted and nourished.

In alchemical philosophy, the White Queen represents the perfected feminine principle, the lunar mercury that has been purified through repeated distillations and sublimations. She embodies the qualities of volatility, mutability, coldness, moisture, and receptivity. Her union with the Red King represents the conjunction of opposites: the volatile mercury receives and contains the fixed sulfur, the cold and moist balances the hot and dry, the feminine receives the masculine seed. The chemical marriage produces the hermaphroditic child, the rebis, that combines both natures. The White Queen thus represents both the purified mercury that serves as the matter of the Stone and the feminine principle that receives, contains, and nourishes the seed of perfection.

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