The King and Queen
Rex and Regina
The royal pair whose marriage makes the whole.
The King and Queen: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
In alchemy the opposites are often a king and queen, or the sun and moon, who meet, marry, die together, and are reborn as one. Jung read the royal pair as the conscious and the unconscious, the masculine and the feminine, joined in the coniunctio.
The king has a second story. Grown old, sick, or sterile, he must be dissolved, drowned, or devoured, and renewed, as a ruling attitude of consciousness must be when it has outlived its time.
The King and Queen: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The sacred marriage of king and land in old Celtic and Near Eastern kingship, the Fisher King whose wound lays waste the land, and the woodcuts of the Rosarium philosophorum (1550), ten of which Jung used to picture the stages of the transference.
From the Sources
Silberer writes that in the parable he analyses the mystical union appears twice: once when the king and queen are represented as the bridal couple, and again when the king, God, takes the wanderer up into his kingdom.
“In the parable the unio mystica appears twice represented, once in that the king and queen are represented as the bridal couple, and the second time when the king, i.e., God, takes the wanderer up into his kingdom.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part III, Section II, 'The Goal of the Work'. 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
In the Second Key, Basil Valentine writes that when the palace is built the King may enter and take his throne, but that the King and his spouse must be quite naked when they are joined together.
“When thus the palace has been constructed by the hands of many craftsmen, and the sea of glass has absolved its course, and filled the palace with good things, it is ready for the King to enter, and take his seat upon the throne. But you should notice that the King and his spouse must be quite naked when they are joined together”
The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged: Most Faithfully Instructing All Disciples of the Sopho-Spagyric Art How That Greatest and Truest Medicine of the Philosopher's Stone May Be Found and Held, 'The Golden Tripod': Basilius Valentinus, Twelve Keys, the Second Key, p. 328. Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678; containing twenty-two most celebrated chemical tracts; in two volumes, Volume I; London: James Elliott and Co., Temple Chambers, Falcon Court, Fleet Street, E.C., 1893 (Internet Archive OCR text). 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
- “Rex and Regina,” in Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
- “The Psychology of the Transference” (1946), CW 16
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Coniunctio, Rubedo.
Also among Wholes and Extremes
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The King and Queen.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/king-and-queen.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
The Androgyne (Rebis, the hermaphrodite) · Coniunctio (The conjunction) · Red (Rubedo) · Blood · The Phoenix (Bennu)
Nearby in the alphabet: The Island: A world apart, surrounded by the sea. The Key: What opens, and what locks. The Labyrinth: The winding way to a centre. The Ladder: The way up by stages.