J. K. Rowling seems to have had the words ‘Solve + Coagula’ tattooed in a script much like her handwriting on the inside part of her right arm just above the wrist. When Nick Jeffery discovered this and told me about it, I posted a quick note here at HogwartsProfessor which TheRowlingLibrary tweeted out to its global audience and The-Leaky-Cauldron retweeted to its minions at the far reaches of the galactic fandom empire and beyond.
Which has meant I have been buried in e-owls asking the question, ‘”What does solve et coagula mean?” Beatrice Groves has written something on the subject which I assume will be definitive but MuggleNet.com has been down (way down, as in “transitioning to new ownership”) so I don’t know when her solve salvo will be available.
To fill the breach, here are some notes on the alchemical axiom solve et coagula from Charles Nicholl’s The Chemical Theatre and Lindsey Abraham’s Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, two of the definitive texts on literary alchemy. After the jump!
Nicholls wrote in the introductory chapter to The Chemical Theatre that alchemy’s Great Work is in essence the action of dissolution and congealing, expansive dissipation and contracting recomposition, which is what the words solve et coagula mean literally:
Loss and restoration of form: this is the basic rhythm of alchemical transformation. It is expressed in the formula, ‘solve at coagula’: an injunction to dissolve and congeal. Chemically this is typified in the process of sublimation, reducing a solid to vapour (solve) and them condensing the vapour to purified solidity (coagula). Another formula reads: ‘fac fixum volatile et volatile fixum’, make the fixed volatile and the volatile fixed. This appears in Trismosin’s Aureum Vellus (1598) as:
Si fixum solvas faciasque volatile
Et volucrem figas, faciet te vivere tutum.
William Backhouse translates:
If thou dissolve the fixt & make it fly,
And fix the bird, thou shalt live happily.
Backhouse expressed the same idea more enigmaticall in his own poem, ‘The Magistery’ (1633):
The Eagle which aloft doth fly
See that thou bring to ground;
And give unto the Snake some wings,
Which in the Earth is found.
This interplay of fixed and volatile, solid and vaporous, is central to alchemy, for the alchemist saw it as an interplay between the bodily and spiritual aspects within matter. The Mirror makes this clear in its description of solve et coagula:
Solution and congelation shal be in one operation, and shall make but one worke….And this solution and cogelation which wee have spoken of, are the solution of the bodie and the congelation of the spirite, and they are two, yet have but one operation. For the spirits are not congealed except the bodies be dissolved, as likewise the bodies is not dissolved unlesse the spirit be congealed.
Here we see that the process of removing or breaking down metallic form is essentially a resolving of bodily matter into spirit. The keynote of the alchemist’s perfecting intention is spiritualization, and dissolution is the body’s route to spirit:
the spirit wil not dwel with the body, nor be in it, nor by any means abide with it, untill the body be made subtil and thin as the spirit is. But when it is attenuate and subtill, and hath forsaken his grosnesse and corpority, and is become spirituall, then shall he be mingled with the subtill spirits, & imbibed in them, so that both shall become one and the same & they shall not be severed, like as water put to water cannot be divided.
Inextricably linked with this purifying loss of form is the coagula which congeals the spirit back into material form. Thus, says the Mirror, ‘this work or masterie is a coniunction or marriage of the congealed spirit with the dissolved bodie’. The process is a transforming circle, the substance returning once more to solidity, but now divested of ‘grosnesse and corpority’. ‘Corporeall things in this regimane are made incorporeall, & contrariwise things incorporeal corporeall, and in the shutting up of the work, the whole body is made a spirituall fixt thing.’ This ‘spirituall fixt thing’ is one definition of the Stone: matter suffused with spirit. Another term often used is ‘corpus subtile’, or subtle body. Philathes expresses this paradoxical condition:
It is called a stone, not because it is like a stone, but only because by virtue of its fixed nature, it resists the action of fire as successfully as any stone….If we say that its nature is spiritual, it would be no more than the truth; if we described it as corporeal, the expression would be equally correct; for it is subtle, penetrative, glorified, spiritual gold. it is the noblest of all created things after the rational soul, and has virtue to repair all defects both in animal and metallic bodies, by restoring them to the most exact and perfect temper: wherefore it is a spirit of quintessence.
It is in this work of dissolving and subliming, of reducing physical substance to spirituality, that the alchemist’s fire looms so large. (pp 46-47)
Abraham’s entry for solve et coagula in her Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, the standard guide to both metallurgical and literary alchemy, reads:
Dissolve and coagulate, one of the oldest axioms in alchemy, first found in Greek manuscript quotations of Maria Prophetissa (Patai, ‘Maria’, 183). The alchemical process of solution (or dissolution) involves the converting of a solid (a body) into a fluid substance (a spirit), while the coagulation is the turning of a fluid into a dry solid. Zoroaster’s Cave states: ‘Our Great business is to make the Body a Spirit, and the Spirit a body’ (74). The opus alchymicium consists of a repeated series of dissolutions and coagulations – the dissolution of the old metal or matter of the Stone into the *prima materia (original stuff from which it was created) and the coagulation of that pure materia into a new and more beautiful form. With each cycle of solve et coagula the matter in the alembic becomes purer and more potent. A well-known alchemical dictum is ‘Dissolve and congeal again and again, dissolve and congeal, till the tincture grows in the stone’ (AE,15). The alchemist must never cease in the process of dissolving the stone which has just been coagulated. Subtle in Jonson’s The Alchemist informs Mammon that the ‘medicine’ (i.e. Stone) is exalted by ‘giuing him solution; then congeal him;/ And then dissolve him; then again congeal him; For look how oft I iterate the work,/ So many times I add unto his virtue’ (2.3.104-7). The solve or dissolution is associated with the moon (moisture and coldness), while the coagula is associated with the sun (dryness and heat). Dastin wrote in his ‘Speculum philosophia’: ‘for in the beginning of thy operation, help the work in dissolution, by the Moon, and in coagulation by the Sun’ (in FC,41). The moon and the sun here refer to the two contrary actions of the mercurial waters (see stream)
Frequently the processes of *separation (division) and *coniunctio (union) are identified with the solve et coagula. When the metal or matter for the Stone is killed and dissolved (solve), its soul and spirit is separated from its body (separatio). The body is cleansed of its impurity and the soul (or soul/spirit union) may then be reunited with it. The re-entry of the soul/spirit into the purified matter at the coniunctio gives it form, coagulates it. At the simplest level, the solve is the softening of hard things, and the coagula the hardening of soft things (or the giving of form to amorphous matter). In order for a complete merging or union to take place between body and spirit at the *chemical wedding, the body (a hard substance) has to be spiritualized or made soft, while at the same time the spirit (a soft substance) is materialized or made hard. This is sometimes termed the volatilization and the fixation of the matter. Many alchemical texts claim that these two processes happen simultaneously. The Golden Tract stated: ‘with this solution there takes place simultaneously a consolidation of the spirit’ (HM, 1:40). Artephius wrote of the ‘Sunne” and ‘Moone’, the alchemical lovers (the male and female seeds of metals) which are killed after they have been united in the *chemical wedding: ‘their solution is also their congelation for they have one an the same operation, for the one is not dissolved, but that the other is congealed’ (161). See inversion.
In a nutshell, solve et coagula, ‘dissolve and conjoin,’ is the axiomatic action or process of every stage in the alchemical purification of gross matter into a Philosopher’s Stone. Because the Great Work is at least as much, perhaps primarily, about the cleansing of the alchemist’s soul as it is about turning lead or ‘hard darkness’ into gold, ‘solid light,’ the alchemist, too, ‘lets go,’ if you will, of all attachments, and is spiritually or psychologically purified in his reconstitution, that is, as he ‘pulls himself back together.’
The natural question after grasping this definition is why Rowling would choose to write this on her right arm in indelible or water soluble ink. “Great question,” as the panel moderator says to the audience member during Q&A. Sadly, for an authoritative answer, we’ll have to wait for Rowling’s next interview and hope that she approves the question and deigns to answer with something more revealing than “I’ve always liked the phrase — and I lost a bet with my oldest daughter and had to get a tattoo, so….”
My guess is that Rowling understands that she is a literary alchemist and that her job as such is to immerse the reader in her alembic of imagination, light the fire in her story athanor (hermetic furnace), dissolve the psychic attachments we have which narrow our understanding and our capacity for love, and then to reconstitute us as more courageous and less prejudiced images of God. In formalist language, this dissolution cum reconstitution is ‘defamiliarization,’ a blasting away of mental ruts and habits that prevent us from experiencing everything and everyone as they are, miracles of existence in play in many dimensions, rather than as we have come to pigeon-hole and misread them in the ennui of our everyday life.
Solve et coagula is the action of all spiritual growth, the ‘Chemical Theatre’ Nicholls tells us every alchemist believed was taking place in his laboratory vessels, our breaking up and being re-born in a more supernatural or enlightened (illuminated!) condition. Perhaps Rowling wears this phrase on her right wrist both to remind herself of her work as an hermetic writer and that she herself is a spiritual experiment in progress who needs to ‘let go’ and ‘re-make’ herself consciously in each moment. It’s an excellent reminder to her serious readers!
I covet, of course, your comments and correction.
Brilliant explication
I believe that I am beginning to get my mind around the concepts of alchemy, which I find quite difficult. I do appreciate your tutelage.
And I look forward to Bea’s “solve salvo.”
You realize she’s paying homage to the baphomet. It’s the same tattoo the baphomet has written on it’s arms. The baphomet is the devil that satanists worship. Fact check me and tell me I’m wrong.
She’s a satanist, don’t believe me? Check out what’s tattooed on the baphtomet, the satanist goat god. But you will still follow her, because you don’t believe.
Heavenly days…that is a tattoo on the arms of Baphomet a representation of Satan
Guess where this phrase Solve et Coagula comes from? Those are the words tattooed on the arms of Baphomet who is another image of Satan. Any similarities here between Rowling and Baphomet?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet
It’s demonic- look up Baphonet, the devil, whose tattoo is of this same inscription
to support what clayton and michael said, here are excerpts from wikipedia’s baphomet:
Baphomet, as Lévi’s illustration suggests, has occasionally been portrayed as a synonym of Satan or a demon, a member of the hierarchy of Hell……In 2014 The Satanic Temple commissioned an 8.5 ft (2.6 m) statue of Baphomet to stand alongside a monument of the Ten Commandments at Oklahoma State Capitol,[72] citing “respect for diversity and religious minorities” as reasons for erecting the monument.[73] After the Ten Commandments monument was vandalized, plans to erect the Baphomet statue were put on hold, as the Satanic Temple did not want their statue to stand alone by the Oklahoma capitol.[74] The Oklahoma Supreme Court declared all religious displays illegal,[75] and on 25 July 2015 the statue was erected near a warehouse in Detroit, as a symbol of the modern Satanist movement.[76][77] On August 16, 2018 the Satanic Temple unveiled a Baphomet statue in Little Rock, Arkansas, where another 10 Commandments monument had been installed in 2017, citing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.[78]
Solve et coagula – also tattooed on the Baphomets arms
@Michael Todd you do realize that the Bible is nothing but the victims of the occults and that the Bible was Rewritten for the benefits of the occults?and that is all about rituals and spells and stuff of alchemy as Alchemist is known as a wizard, witch & esoteric astrology is also another form of Witchcraft and what they do to their victims, also baphomet is just a medaphor of someone that is a capricorn. Zodiac signs. That is exposing the systems evil so they try to pull reverse psychology on the masses like in the past. That’s why this evil system still exist with the illuminatis bloodline still in it.This is the same with the serpent. Zodiac birth sign. check it out look up your horoscope you see everybody got their zodiac sign that’s what the Bible’s talking about that’s what esoteric astrology is all about it’s the key to the truth. it’s all the same thing like alchemy talking about turning metal into gold like expained above. But it’s outcome of their goal is more sinister. Like the metal is me and I have a whole bunch of work that is worth lots and lots of money of millions of dollars which is the gold by them stealing my work and selling it after they did a ritual or spell on me to try to enslave me. As again I’m the metal and my talent is to gold and that’s the medaphore of Turning Metals into gold. Do ur research
Could this not be the instructions for how to disapparate? Or perhaps on a different plane, and using the words of Albus Dumbledore, “I don’t need a cloak to become invisible.”? Recall that he was a friend of Nicholas Flamel who may have taught him how to un-body his body and congeal it again.
Or maybe a likening to other literary artists and characters such as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, or the words of C.S. Lewis about understanding the properties of bodies.
And whether it is of Heaven or of Satan, the Lord said judge not that ye be not judged.
In closing, Marilyn Manson released a new album on 9/11/2020, which contains some references to Solve Coagula.
Just some thoughts to chew on.
@Anon says You are so deceived! Problem is that people like you won’t receive TRUTH. Who told you those lies about the Bible? Have you ever ACTUALLY read the bible? Why not try reading the entire Bible and THEN judging for yourself? You’re most likely too proud or afraid to do so. Don’t speak or judge the bible until you READ IT for YOURSELF not just by hearsay. It is childish and ignorant to simply go by what others say rather than verifying the “facts” yourself. What if they’re wrong? What if YOU are wrong? Satan is the master of deceit. He hates humankind because we have hope for salvation through Jesus Christ which HE DOESN’T. He’s goal is to steal, kill and destroy while we’re on earth to keep us from going home to our true kingdom….our true HOME.
Hail Satan and bathomet. Solve coagula.
This is an example of humans thinking were more important than we really are like if there were gods they would need us for something or need our souls or need us for anything we believe we are so important that these higher beings that live for eternity and have mystical magical powers somehow need to influence us into doing their bidding because there something that humans can do that an Almighty deity with omnipotent powers can’t do ,it’s just bullshit it’s stupid There’s no goat god ,,,,,humans are not needed for these things to do their bidding if there were gods like that somewhere they would have better things to do than worry about a bunch a hairless apes on a big blue ball whipping through space in 1,000,000 miles an hour. Having any believes in this stuff makes you a dumb pos. Science may solve our problems but no fake ass fairy tales ever will. We can’t advance still believing in stories made up by a bunch of psychos
Its a magical axiom. From certain systems of magic. from which satanism and freemasonry borrowed. But its much older than either. she likely isnt a satanist. Paranoid christians need to shut the F up. Not everything is about your relegion that no one really cares about. If you want to look for devils, look at your own churches.
I think the concept is a very old one. dissolve to purify, then reform with improved characteristics. It’s been used by good organisations/people and misguided ones too, over the centuries. Just because something has been kept hidden from regular folks, does not mean it is a bad concept. I would have to research and explore it more before i could give a full assessment of the value of the concept. Seems like a neutral idea that can differ in the practice of different individuals. Their intent would be relevant.
J.K Rowling’s own life was Solve et Coagula. The phrase is a commentary on her own life; everything fell apart and was re-made, better. Written as an alchemist; a nod to both magic and the ability of a writer to transform words into worlds.
There are many “spell-ing” words – one cannot be surprised that J.K. Rowling has anything to do with “spells” – Baphomet has been expressed by the Knights Templar in the 1300’s but few realise it has only been made trendy by Aleister Crowley in the 20th Century. It stems from the rulers of this realm – the Freemasons that seek to “know thyself” from every angle (Mastery of Thyself) – There is a price to fame and fortune in a Masonic Beast System. You must become….. We were created a certain way for a reason. Self control. Not only do the deliberate transgender seek to step around The Creators Natural Law – but it is a price they must pay for sharing the privileges of a Secret Society.
Soooo, we’re talking Hero’s Journey, Rising of the Phoenix, Return of the Prodigal Son, breaking down, purifying and reformation. A resurrection, if you will. Rebirth. A build back better and Order out of Chaos. Your baphomet connection unfortunately, imo, is playing out in front of my eyes today in 2021 as a radicalized progressive power grab by a ruling class against the citizens. Using an illusion of duality through a two-party political system, freedoms and God given natural rights are being taken. We are born free. Govt does not give one rights. Sadly, most are simply complying and giving up their rights freely under the guise of safety and protection from an illusion when the true need is protection from this out of control govt that has been allowed to devour for profit. It’s like a bully on the pkayground. Everyday you wake and the news(govt bully) pounds you with falsehoods to keep you just fearful enough to comply(give up your lunch money). Stand up to your bully or just repeat the cycle everyday and empower the bully. What a shame. It only takes one generation. Distract the elders with ‘bread and circuses’ while you change history to fit your narrative through institutionalized brainwashing. Voila. Mind controlled zombies ready to ‘rat out’ even their parents. Right out of the Nazi playbook. Himmler, Hitler and also Marx would be so proud.
Baphomet is not the devil. You people believe anything you see without doing further research.
I fond this book called the Crawling King, and a photo..and on the photo on one arm it say Solve and on the other arm it says Coagula then on one of his hands there is a 99 and on each knee an eye there is all kinds of stuff in this photo it’s big in a frame with glass and the book is brand new I wish I could show you them..don’t know what to do with thrm
Kudos! Excellent piece on the innocuous alchemical axiom “Solve et Coagula,” which simply embraces the Magnum Opus of spiritual growth and enlightenment, not satanic concepts by any stretch.
Those who seek to do evil (divide and destroy), such as the worshippers of Baphomet, coopted the phrase, as most any thinker would expect. As noted above by Garrick, the progressive agenda seeks to divide by creating chaos, hence we are fast becoming a tribal nation as opposed to a United one. Solve et Coagula is a process that promotes peace in the face of extreme adversity.
We’re experiencing creative destruction. In the final analysis, the group-think sheeple will not win. They never do.
Solve Et Coagula is more like the key components in an algorithm. It’s designation as good or evil is determined by the individuals intentions and perceptions of the thing. It is bigger than any perceived “doctrine”. It is more like a marhematical equation or a pattern that says 1+1=2 and so on. So seen in this context it is what happens in a scientific scenario as described in alchemy or equally in a metaphorical spiritual sense or equally in a philosophical sense. But it is also what is described in the Holy Scriptures. For example “the words of the LORD are pure words, as silver tried in the furnace of the earth 7 times”…people are the words, living epistles if you will. So to say the phrase is satanic or magical or even Christian….they are all correct. Because the algorithm applies equally as a process for transforming, transmuting something from one state to another resulting in a purer, cleaner, refined end product. So if you feel it is evil, then you are correct. If you feel it is good, you are also correct. Because some group attached its symbology as a sacrament, such as the Baphomet and the church of Satan, does not mean it is evil. When we look at it this way we are seeing it through the lens and filter of the thing we attach to it, rather than the deeper truth of what it represents.
First of all thank you Rachel for a sensible and neutral response. This idea of alchemy is a new one to me, but one IBH character this seems to apply to is Flavia. Her life falling apart around her but she’s coming out of the chaos stronger. Charlotte’s attempts to wreak havoc in the lives of both Robin and Strike backfire (not unlike the killing curses Voldemort casts on Harry) because Robin admits to herself she is in love with Strike and Strike begins to face his own hypocrisy, as well as feeling something break within him when Charlotte reveals her indifference to the safety of her own children.
There is a strong tendency to interpret solve coagula in individual terms, as the hermetic journey of a single person toward a purified version of him or herself. But I wonder if Greek individualism hasn’t obscured its deeper roots in late Paleolithic religion, the transfiguration of the shaman and the early appearance of secret societies, where hidden knowledge of the spirit realm became a source of social power, cementing early appearances of stratification in previously egalitarian Paleolithic communities. If so, solve coagula might best be seen as a kind of universal process of religious identity-building, whereby a Christian becomes a Christian, a Muslim a Muslim, a Jew a Jew and so forth. This social interpretation recognizes the fact all personal transformations occur in a social context, that models are extremely important, and that the final coagulation results in “purity” only in the sense of conformity to a pre-established ideal…
You are ALL missing the point about Baphomet. He was the creation of 19th century French Occultist, Eliphas Levi. Babs encompasses all that is divine and profane. . The Caduceus is clearly seen in his groin area, representing the regenerative properties of the All-in-One. Just because modern “Satanists” appropriated the image, it does not make Baphomet the Devil. Other theories state that Babs was worshipped by the Knights Templar.