In alchemical and Hermetic traditions, suns are used to symbolize a variety of concepts, much like the Sun in astrology. Suns can correspond to gold, citrinitas, generative masculine principles, imagery of "the king", or Apollo, the fiery spirit or sulfur,[1] the divine spark in man,[2] nobility, or incorruptibility. Recurring images of specific solar motifs can be found in the form of a "dark" or "black sun", or a green lion devouring the Sun.
Sol niger (black sun) can refer to the first stage of the alchemical magnum opus, the nigredo (blackness). In a text ascribed to Marsilio Ficino three suns are described: black, white, and red, corresponding to the three most used alchemical color stages. Of the sol niger he writes:
The black sun is used to illuminate the dissolution of the body, a blackening of matter, or putrefaction in Splendor Solis,[3] and Johann Daniel Mylius’s Philosophia Reformata.[4]