The Hexagram
Seal of Solomon
Two triangles joined: fire and water in one.
The Hexagram: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Two triangles interlaced, one pointing up and one down, make the six-pointed star: to the alchemists, fire and water joined, the union of opposites. The word also names the sixty-four figures of the Chinese I Ching, to whose translation by Richard Wilhelm Jung wrote a foreword in 1949, with his thoughts on synchronicity.
The Hexagram: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The Seal of Solomon, the Star of David, the six-pointed star of the Hindu yantras, the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching.
From the Sources
Silberer adds that fire and water mean also the two famous opposites, symbolised as well by warm and cold, red and white, soul and body, sun and moon, man and woman.
“Fire and water, however, mean also the famous two opposites, that are symbolized quite as well by warm and cold, red and white, soul and body, sun and moon, man and woman.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part II, Section IV, "Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry" (bracketed gloss). Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971, an unabridged republication of the work published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York, in 1917 (Project Gutenberg eBook #27755). The text, read in part
Redgrove quotes Eliphas Lévi: the other side of a talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, the six-pointed star made of two interlaced triangles, with a figure at its centre.
“The other side of the talisman should bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the six-pointed star formed by two interlaced triangles; in the centre there should be placed a human figure for the sun talismans”
H. Stanley Redgrove, Bygone Beliefs: Being a Series of Excursions in the Byways of Thought, Chapter VI, 'The Belief in Talismans'. Project Gutenberg eBook #1271. The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- Foreword to the I Ching (1949/1950), CW 11
- Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Shapes
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Hexagram.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/hexagram.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Heart: The seat of feeling, courage, and conscience. The Hero: The one who goes into the dark and comes back. The Horse: Instinctive force, which carries. The House: The structure of the psyche, lived in.