Our Logo
Our logo is the Hieroglyphic Monad of John Dee. This symbol is the subject of his 1564 text, Monas Hieroglyphica.
If the universe lay dormant as undifferentiated, primordial energy, dropping the monad into it would create our reality. This striking figure is in fact a symbol of totality and wholeness - it contains the symbols for the seven planets, known in western esotericism as the Chaldean order. Saturn ♄, Jupiter ♃, Mars ♂ , Sun ☉, Venus ♀ , Mercury ☿ and the Moon ☾.
These seven archetypal energies, which the Emerald Tablet references as being the “Above" (the heavens, consciousness, spiritual world, top of the flask) correspond to in some way to all things on Earth in the “Below" (on earth in animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, the body, physical world terrestrial, bottom of the flask). This is known in alchemy, astrology and in magickal practice as the Doctrine of Correspondences.This Doctrine of Correspondence is a map of the primordial archetypes of nature - we learn to become familiar with these archetypes through application of occult arts. We see these signatures in the heavens, in the earth and inside us. When working with a particular material or energy we perform operations which in turn, also have an inner correspondence. As we work on them, they work on us! Or as the 3rd century alchemist Cleopatra (not the famous pharoah!) would say - “All is One". So the Monad represents all the energies on Earth and in the universe as One.
Inside this symbol is also a summation of the Great Work of alchemy - the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, which is actually just the Prima Materia (First Matter) reborn on a higher octave. The symbol also shows us how to achieve this Great Work. From top to bottom we have the crescent, symbolising the moon ☾, below that we have, interlocking it, the symbol for the sun ☉. Below that we have the oldest symbol in history for the earth - what is also known as the sun cross 🜊 representing the tetrad of the four elements - fire, air, water and earth.
The classic formula for the Stone is said to be, in alchemical code - the Hermetic marriage of the Sun and the Moon, in a saline receptacle (salt or earth). Those familiar with alchemy will straight away see that this is the same as our spagyric Tria Prima (three essentials: salt 🜔 (the earth) sulfur 🜍 (“our Sol") and mercury ☿ (“our Luna"). But the formula is not quite complete yet! At the bottom of the image, tying it all together we see the glyph for Aries ♈︎. Aries is a fire sign, here embodying fire. Being at the bottom of the image too, it is symbolic of the athanor, furnace or Philosophic Egg - the receptacle which houses and cooks the three above mentioned components together, incubating and eventually maturing them through progressive stages of negredo (black), albedo (white), citrinitas (yellow) and finally rubedo (red). So in short, if you use fire or heat to cook and incubate the three essentials, you have the Stone!
Therefore this symbol which comes to represent the summation of the soul's path of return is fitting to highlight the rich spiritual traditions of the West which the conference aspires to share.