Unity of opposites

Balancing the seesaw with differing number of balls on either side by the movement of triangle results in the unity of opposites, said to arrive at unity on triangle

The unity of opposites (in Latin: coincidentia oppositorum or coniunctio) is the philosophical idea that opposites are interconnected by the way each is defined in relation to the other. Their interdependence unites the seemingly opposed terms. This idea is typical of Hermeticism, Theosophy, Kabbalah, and Freemasonry.

Quotes about

• In the higher degrees of Scottish Freemasonry, there are two mottos whose meaning is related to some of the considerations we have outlined above: one is Post Tenebras Lux and the other Ordo ab Chao; and in truth their meanings are so closely connected as to be almost identical, although Ordo ab Chao is perhaps susceptible to a broader application. In fact, they both refer to initiatory "enlightenment", the first directly and the second consequentially, since it is the original vibration of Fiat Lux that determines the beginning of the cosmogonic process as a result of which "chaos" will be ordered to become the "cosmos". In traditional symbolism, darkness always represents the state of undeveloped potentialities that constitute chaos; and correlatively, light is related to the manifested world, in which these potentialities will be actualised, that is, to the “cosmos”, an actualisation that is determined or measured, at each moment of the process of manifestation, by the extension of the “sun's rays” that depart from the central point where the initial Fiat Lux was uttered. Light is therefore effectively “after darkness”, not only from a "macrocosmic" point of view, but also from a "microcosmic" point of view which is that of initiation, since, from this point of view, darkness represents the profane world from which the recipient comes, or the profane state in which he initially finds himself, until the precise moment when he becomes initiated by “receiving the light”. Through initiation, the being therefore passes “from darkness to light”, just as the world, at its origin (and the symbolism of “birth” is equally applicable in both cases), passed “from darkness to light” by virtue of the act of the creative and ordering Word; and consequently initiation is truly, according to a very general characteristic of traditional rites, an image of “what was done in the beginning”.

• René Guenon, Considerazioni sull'Iniziazione, Ch. XLVI - Su due motti iniziatici (in Italian)

• In absolute clarity, one sees as little as in absolute darkness. Pure light and pure darkness are two voids, they are the same. Only in determined light—and light determined by darkness—therefore only in light obscured as in determined darkness—and darkness is determined by light—therefore only in illuminated darkness can anything be distinguished.

• Hegel, Science of Logic, quoted in gazzettafilosofica.it, 23 February 2026.

• Deus est Diabolus inversus.

• Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Theosophical Society

• The oxymoron is preferred by the mystic because it allows him to express something ineffable, because it is the best tool for talking about the unspeakable, because in the world of duality it creates the coincidentia oppositorum, which Nicola Cusano (1401-1464), in the context of his theology of the Incarnate Word, considered almost the least imperfect definition of God. The mystic, in his talk of God, punctuated by “improprietas”, “voces obscurae, horridae, inauditae”, seeks to touch the divine linguistically through a paroxysmal accumulation of oxymorons.

• Massimo Baldini, Elogio del silenzio e della parola. I filosofi, i mistici e i poeti, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli (CZ), 2005. ISBN 88-498-1129-2.