Alchemy and the two versions of the Temperance Trump in the Portal ritual of the Golden Dawn.

In the Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn, The Temperance trump is associated to the alchemical sublimation process. I was curious enough to see how this association would stand up to being applied to the rejected version of Temperance, as shown in the Golden Dawn Portal ritual.

If we take the concept of sublimation in its classical alchemical sense, where matter is driven upward by fire, purified in ascent, and made more spiritual, the rejected Temperance image is the far more accurate visual embodiment of the process. In alchemy, sublimation is never gentle, never merely a balancing of opposites; it is a dynamic ascent, the moment when the volatile essence breaks free from the coarse body. The figure rising from the cauldron captures this perfectly. The vessel is the vas hermeticum, the heated womb where matter is agitated, refined, and forced upward by fire. From that vessel emerges the purified essence, just as vapour rises from the boiling bath. Nothing in the accepted angelic Temperance card expresses this vertical, driven ascent. It operates entirely on the horizontal axis of mixing, an elegant image of equilibrium, yes, but not of sublimation.

The chains linking the rising figure to the Lion and Eagle strengthen the sublimation reading even further. In alchemy the Lion is the fixed principle, the heavy red body that anchors matter; the Eagle is the volatile principle, the spiritualised vapour that seeks the heights. Sublimation is the struggle between these two natures, the volatile essence trying to ascend while the fixed body tugs downward. That tension is precisely what the chains symbolise. The rejected GD card depicts the exact alchemical drama that sublimation enacts: the volatile striving for liberation from the bounds of the fixed. The Fire and Water symbols in each hand reinforce the same message, because sublimation requires heat to drive the vapour upward and moisture to carry the essence into its airy state. What we see in that discarded design is a complete alchemical tableau, almost lifted from Mylius or the Rosarium Philosophorum.

By contrast, the accepted Golden Dawn Temperance card presents a different philosophical operation. Here the angel stands poised between land and water, serenely pouring a fluid from one vessel to another. The movement is lateral, calm, and continuous. Instead of ascent, it suggests proportion, measure, and mediation, the blending of two qualities into a balanced whole. This is the equilibratio that the Golden Dawn prized for the Portal Grade, where the task is to unite the partial forces of the Ruach before attempting the passage toward Tiphareth. It is not, however, the upheaval, heating, and upward emancipation that sublimation entails. As an initiatory emblem the accepted card is extremely elegant, but as an alchemical diagram it points toward reconciliation, not volatilisation.

So when the question is asked, Which Temperance image truly embodies sublimation? The answer is clear. The rejected card, with its cauldron, its rising figure, its chained kerubic beasts, and its elemental emblems, is the card that speaks the full language of sublimation. It presents the volatile breaking free from the fixed under the pressure of fire, the very heart of the sublimating act. The accepted GD Temperance, though profound in the context of the Path of Samekh, is rooted in equilibrium rather than elevation. For sublimation in the strict alchemical sense, the discarded design is the one that carries the authentic imagery. The latter version of the card being more compromised with additional layers of meaning.