The Hermaphrodite (also Rebis, from the Latin res bina, 'double thing') is the dual-sexed figure that represents the completed union of masculine and feminine principles in alchemical iconography. Deriving from the Greek myth of Hermaphroditus, the beautiful youth who was merged with the nymph Salmacis into a single body combining both sexes, the alchemical Hermaphrodite stands for the coniunctio oppositorum — the conjunction of opposites — achieved in the vessel when Sulphur (hot, dry, male, solar) and Mercury (cold, moist, female, lunar) are permanently fused into a unified substance.

Maier devotes three emblems to the Hermaphrodite: Emblem XXXIII, XXXIV, and XXXVIII. Emblem XXXIII, with the motto 'The Hermaphrodite, resembling a dead person, lying in the dark, needs fire,' presents the figure in its most vulnerable state — lying as if dead in the darkness of the nigredo, awaiting the reviving warmth that will complete its transformation. The epigram states that 'all the power of the stone lies hidden in the fire, all the power of Sulphur in the gold, the power of Mercury in the silver.' Emblem XXXIV places the Hermaphrodite lying on a tomb, and Emblem XXXVIII identifies the two-topped mountain of Mercury and Venus with the Hermaphrodite's dual nature.

De Jong traces the Emblem XXXIII discourse to the Turba Philosophorum, specifically to Bonellus's speech about the nature that resembles a dead person when its moisture has been taken away and requires fire until the spirit of the body returns (De Jong, pp. 230-232). The Hermaphrodite is equated with the Phoenix — the unique bird that renews itself in flames and rises revived from ashes. This identification is alchemically precise: both Phoenix and Hermaphrodite represent a substance that achieves perfection through its own apparent destruction by fire.

The discourse of Emblem XXXIII develops an extended analogy between the Hermaphrodite's sex change and the alchemical transformation: where cold and moisture (lunar, female qualities) dominate, the philosophers speak of female; where heat and dryness (solar, male qualities) dominate, they speak of male; and where all four properties are present simultaneously, they speak of a Hermaphrodite. The transformation of woman into man by adding warmth is the transformation of the cold, moist, volatile substance into a hot, dry, fixed, powerful one — the production of the Tinctura. Maier even cites a contemporary surgeon, Caspar Tagliacotio of Bologna, who surgically transformed a hermaphrodite into a man, though he insists that the philosophers achieve the same result through fire alone.

Miner connects the AF Hermaphrodite images to a broader iconographic tradition extending to William Blake, whose own dual-sexed figures draw on the same Hermetic-alchemical vocabulary. The Hermaphrodite's persistence as a cultural image testifies to the power of the alchemical coniunctio as a metaphor for psychic and spiritual integration — a reading that Jung would later develop extensively.

Alchemically, the Hermaphrodite represents the philosophical substance after the conjunction but before final perfection. It needs fire to complete the transition from a mixed but unstable union (where both natures coexist without being truly fused) to a perfected unity in which the opposition itself has been transcended. The progression from Emblem XXXIII (dead, needing fire) through XXXIV (on the tomb) to XXXVIII (the twin peaks) traces the Hermaphrodite's journey from dormancy through revivification to full integration.

For a general reader, the Hermaphrodite is perhaps the most visually striking expression of alchemy's central idea: that perfection lies not in one extreme or the other but in the union of opposites. The figure who is simultaneously male and female, alive and dead, fixed and volatile, embodies the paradox that the philosopher's stone resolves.

Meanings Across Registers

De Jong shows that alchemical terms operate simultaneously across material, medical, spiritual, and cosmological dimensions.

Alchemical

The Rebis or two-headed figure: product of the chemical wedding of Sol and Luna, depicted in Emblem XXXIV lying on a tomb—the perfected union of Sulphur and Mercury.

Medical

The ideal of complete bodily equilibrium in which masculine and feminine humoral qualities are perfectly balanced, transcending the dominance of any single temperament.

Spiritual

The integrated psyche: the union of animus and anima, conscious and unconscious, that Jung identified as the goal of individuation—drawing directly on alchemical imagery.

Cosmological

The primordial androgyne of Platonic and Hermetic cosmology; the undivided unity that existed before the separation of heaven and earth, male and female.