How to Read Alchemical Symbols: A Practical Guide

The first time you open a serious alchemical text — the Rosarium Philosophorum, the Atalanta Fugiens, the Musaum Hermeticum — the page looks like noise. Triangles on top of crosses, circles with crosses through them, planetary signs, dragons, kings, crows, lions. The alchemists wrote this way on purpose, and the purpose was not just to be difficult. The alchemical literature is a literature of initiates, and the symbols are the working vocabulary of a sophisticated theoretical framework. Learning to read them is the first step in understanding the literature, and the framework is worth the effort (Forshaw, “The Nature of the Art,” in Alchemy and Medicine, 2015; Szulakowska, The Alchemy of Philosophy, 2016; Kahn, L’Alchimie et la Tradition, 2014).

The framework, in one paragraph

Before learning the individual symbols, the reader should understand the framework within which they operate. The alchemists worked within a qualitative and symbolic system in which every substance is associated with a planet, a metal, a day of the week, an organ of the body, a color, a humoral quality, and a stage in the magnum opus. The associations are consistent across the major alchemical traditions, and the consistency is the foundation of the system. A “green lion” is sulfuric acid, the dissolution of gold, the nigredo of the alchemical process, the active principle of Mars, the agent of putrefaction, and the dangerous first movement of the work — all at once. The alchemist who has learned the system hears all of that in the two words.

The pillar on alchemical symbols provides a comprehensive treatment of the system, and the long-tail page on alchemy and astrology examines the planetary and zodiacal dimension in detail.

The planetary metals

The most familiar of the alchemical symbol systems is the set of signs for the seven planetary metals, and these are the direct ancestors of the modern astronomical and astrological symbols:

Gold ☉ — Sun, Sunday, heart
Silver ☽ — Moon, Monday, brain
Mercury ☿ — Mercury, Wednesday, lungs
Copper ♀ — Venus, Friday, kidneys
Iron ♂ — Mars, Tuesday, blood
Tin ♃ — Jupiter, Thursday, liver
Lead ♄ — Saturn, Saturday, spleen

In an alchemical text, a sign refers to both the metal and the planet, and the reference is consistent. A recipe that calls for “the influence of Saturn” is asking for lead. A recipe that calls for “the spirit of Sol” is asking for gold. The alchemists extended the planetary system in several ways. They added metals without classical planetary correspondences (antimony, bismuth, zinc, platinum). They developed a system of planetary-zodiacal correspondences linking the planets to the signs of the zodiac. They developed a system of planetary-organ correspondences linking the planets to the organs of the body. The long-tail page on alchemy and astrology takes up the extensions in detail.

The four elements

The alchemists inherited the Aristotelian system of the four elements — earth, water, air, fire — and the standard alchemical symbols are:

Fire — an upward-pointing triangle (△)
Water — a downward-pointing triangle (▽)
Air — an upward-pointed triangle crossed by a horizontal bar
Earth — a downward-pointed triangle crossed by a horizontal bar

The same symbols appear in modern astronomical notation, and they are still used by some modern esoteric writers to represent the four states of matter. The fifth element, the quintessence or aether, was sometimes added to the system and represented by a circle or by the symbol of a star within a circle (Kahn, 2014).

The tria prima

The tria prima — mercury, sulfur, and salt — are represented by distinctive symbols. A note on dating: the full tria prima including salt is a 16th-century Paracelsian development. The earlier Jabirian system has mercury and sulfur only, and a reader who assumes the tria prima is the older framework will misread the medieval and Arabic sources (Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 2013, pp. 88-95; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 2004). The standard symbols are:

Mercury ☿ — the caduceus, the staff of the messenger god
Sulfur 🜍 — a triangle resting on a cross, sometimes with a small hook at the top
Salt 🜔 — a circle divided by a cross, the ancestor of the modern symbol for the Earth

The tria prima symbols are sometimes used in conjunction with the planetary signs, and the conjunction is important. Mercury in the tria prima is a different concept from mercury as a metal, and sulfur in the tria prima is a different concept from sulfur as a substance. The alchemist uses the two senses of “mercury” deliberately, and the reader who collapses them will miss the point of the recipes. The cluster on the tria prima provides a comprehensive treatment of the three principles and their symbolism.

The alchemical operations

The alchemists developed a precise vocabulary of laboratory processes, each with its own symbol. The most important are:

Calcination 🝞 — the heating of a substance to drive off volatile components
Dissolution 🜃 — the dissolving of a substance in a liquid
Separation 🜁 — the mechanical separation of components
Conjunction 🝕 — the recombining of separated components
Fermentation 🜩 — the addition of a perfected substance to a base substance
Distillation 🜌 — the vaporization and recondensation of a liquid
Coagulation 🜍 — the conversion of a liquid into a solid
Sublimation 🜞 — the conversion of a solid into a vapor and back into a solid

The symbols are often combined in a single alchemical illustration, and a single page of a richly illustrated alchemical treatise might show a dozen or more symbols in addition to the planetary, elemental, and tria prima signs. The reader who is learning to read alchemical texts should be prepared to spend time on a single image, and the time is well spent (Szulakowska, 2016).

The color stages

The four color stages of the magnum opus — nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo — are represented by a small set of distinctive images:

Nigredo — the black crow, the dead king, the rotting corpse, the raven
Albedo — the white dove, the white queen, the moon
Citrinitas — the morning star, the dawn, the pale yellow sun
Rubedo — the red king, the phoenix, the sun, the ruby

The color stages are an essential part of the alchemical vocabulary. The long-tail page on the color stages takes them up in detail, and the ability to recognize the symbolic images of the stages is a major step in learning to read alchemical texts.

The iconic images

A small set of vivid images recurs throughout the alchemical literature, and the alchemists treated them as a kind of visual commentary on the text. The most important:

The ouroboros — the snake or dragon devouring its own tail, representing the unity of all things
The green lion devouring the sun — the strong acid that dissolves gold
The king and queen, the marriage of Sol and Luna — the union of the opposites
The rebis — the hermaphroditic figure representing the perfected matter
The dragon — the prima materia, the volatile and dangerous aspect of the work
The homunculus — the artificial human being produced in an alchemical flask

The images are not arbitrary pictures. They are instruments of contemplation, and the contemplation is part of what the alchemical text is doing. The reader who treats the images as decoration will miss the point.

Practical advice for the modern reader

A few practical tips for the modern reader who wants to engage with the alchemical corpus, and these are the tips I wish someone had given me when I started:

Start with the basics. Learn the planetary signs, the four elements, and the tria prima. These are the foundation.
Use a glossary. Many alchemical substances have multiple names. A “green lion” might be sulfuric acid, vitriol, or a stage in the alchemical process. A glossary is essential, and there are good ones in Principe, in Kahn, and in the standard handbooks.
Identify the genre. Is the text a recipe collection, a commentary on the Emerald Tablet, a visionary account, or a devotional treatise? Each genre has its own conventions, and the conventions determine how the symbols are being used.
Look for the three registers. Is the text speaking about matter, the body, or the soul? Alchemical writing can move between these registers without warning, and the reader who does not notice the transitions will misread the text.
Watch for the planetary scheme. A reference to “Saturn” might literally mean lead, or it might mean the principle of coldness and fixity. The alchemists used both senses, and the context determines which.
Look at the images. Many alchemical texts are heavily illustrated, and the images often clarify the text in ways the words do not.
Be patient. Alchemical writing is dense, allegorical, and deliberately obscure. The first reading will not reveal all the levels of meaning; the second and third readings will reveal more. The alchemical symbolic tradition is, finally, a language to be learned, not a code to be cracked. The more the reader immerses in the tradition, the more the symbols begin to make sense on their own terms.