Luna, the Moon, occupies one pole of the fundamental duality that structures all of alchemical thought. In the alchemical system, Luna denotes simultaneously a celestial body, a metal (silver), and a philosophical principle: the feminine, cold, moist, volatile, and receptive aspect of nature that must unite with its masculine counterpart Sol to produce the Philosopher's Stone. This triple identity, where planet, metal, and principle collapse into a single concept, is characteristic of alchemical thinking and reflects the Hermetic axiom of correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm that the Tabula Smaragdina expresses: "That which is below is like to that which is above."

In the Mercury-Sulphur theory that Maier inherited from the Jabir corpus and the Latin Geber, Luna-silver represented a metal in which the cold and moist properties predominated outwardly, approaching but not yet achieving the perfect equilibrium of gold. Silver was therefore understood as an advanced but incomplete stage of metallic maturity, a near-perfection that needed only the addition of the solar tincture to become gold. This understanding mapped onto the broader symbolic framework in which the feminine Moon needed union with the masculine Sun to achieve completeness, a union depicted throughout alchemical literature in images of the chemical wedding, the embrace of king and queen, and the production of the hermaphroditic Rebis.

De Jong traces Maier's lunar symbolism to the Senior Zadith tradition, where Moon and Sun must unite to produce the perfected Stone. In Maier's cosmological framework, as articulated in De Circulo Physico Quadrato, the Moon occupies the position of mother in the Tabula Smaragdina's generative schema: "Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon." The Moon-mother provides the moist, receptive matrix in which the Sun-father's active seed is nurtured and brought to maturity.

In the Atalanta Fugiens, Luna is encoded throughout the emblem sequence as the volatile, fleeing principle. In the frontispiece, Atalanta herself represents the volatile mercury in its lunar, feminine aspect, fleeing from Hippomenes (Sulphur-Sol) who must catch and fix her through the stratagem of the golden apples. Emblem VII depicts the contrast between winged and wingless figures, which De Jong identifies as the fundamental opposition between volatile Mercury-Luna and fixed Sulphur-Sol. The winged figure ascends, representing the evaporation of the light, moist elements in the retort; the wingless figure remains grounded, representing the heavy, fixed elements that stay at the bottom. This contrast recurs in Emblem XVI and Emblem XLIII.

De Jong further connects the lunar principle to the color symbolism that runs through the emblem sequence. The Moon is associated with whiteness, and the albedo (whitening) stage of the opus represents the purification of matter to the lunar state. The white, foliated earth of Emblem VI is lunar matter prepared to receive the solar seed. The progression from nigredo (black, associated with Saturn and lead) through albedo (white, associated with Luna and silver) to rubedo (red, associated with Sol and gold) traces the matter's journey from imperfection through lunar purification to solar perfection.

In the Hermaphrodite emblems (XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXVIII), the lunar principle appears as the feminine half of the two-natured being. The Philosophers speak of "female" where the coldness and moistness of the Moon is present, and of "male" where the heat and dryness of the Sun is present. The transformation of the Hermaphrodite through fire, converting its feminine (lunar) nature into a powerful masculine (solar) nature, encodes the final stages of the opus where volatile mercury is fixed into the stable, incorruptible Stone.

In chemical terms, silver's association with the Moon dates to antiquity and reflects both its white, lustrous appearance (reminiscent of moonlight) and the empirical observation that silver compounds undergo changes when exposed to light, a property that seemed to confirm a real connection to the lunar principle. Modern chemistry recognizes no causal relationship between the Moon and silver, but the associative logic of the alchemists produced a coherent, if ultimately incorrect, system of correspondences.

For the lay reader, Luna is the alchemists' way of naming everything in nature that is receptive, mutable, and responsive to influence. Where Sol is the active principle that impresses form, Luna is the passive principle that receives it. Their union is the central drama of alchemy, and the fifty emblems of Atalanta Fugiens can be read as an extended meditation on the many ways this union is attempted, achieved, destroyed, and perfected.

Meanings Across Registers

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

Alchemical

Silver in its philosophical sense: the receptive, reflective metal that must be conjoined with Sol to achieve the complete work.

Medical

The brain and lymphatic system; the cool, moist, phlegmatic principle governing the body's receptive and reflective capacities.

Spiritual

The receptive, contemplative faculty of the soul; the mirror that reflects divine light without generating it—imagination and intuition.

Cosmological

The Moon as cosmic mediator between celestial fire and terrestrial water; governess of tides, menstruation, and all cyclical change in the sublunary world.