What do the alchemical symbols mean?

Alchemical symbols are the shorthand the alchemists used in their books and notes: triangles for the four elements, the planets’ signs for the seven metals, and signs for salts, acids, vessels and operations. The best known are the four elements, the three principles (salt, sulphur and mercury) and the seven metals, each with its planet, from the Sun’s gold to Saturn’s lead.

The four elements

• 🜂 Fire: Warmth, will and change. The triangle points up, like a flame.
• 🜄 Water: Feeling and flow. The triangle points down, like falling rain.
• 🜁 Air: Breath and thought: fire’s triangle with a line across it.
• 🜃 Earth: The body and the ground under you: water’s triangle with a line across it.
• 🜀 Quintessence: The fifth essence: the pure spirit hidden inside the four elements.

The three principles

‘Salt is the body, Sulphur the soul, Mercury the spirit.’ Mercury’s sign is ☿, the same as the planet’s.

• 🜔 Salt: The body: what stays when the fire has done its work.
• 🜍 Sulphur: The soul: the fire and passion in a thing.

The seven metals and their planets

• ☉ Gold: the metal of the Sun.
• ☽ Silver: the metal of the Moon.
• ♂ Iron: the metal of Mars.
• ☿ Quicksilver: the metal of Mercury.
• ♃ Tin: the metal of Jupiter.
• ♀ Copper: the metal of Venus.
• ♄ Lead: the metal of Saturn.

Signs for the operations

• 🝤 Putrefaction: Rotting down: the dark stage where the old breaks apart so something new can grow.
• 🝡 Dissolve: Letting what is hard melt into liquid. In you: softening.
• 🝣 Purify: Washing away what does not belong.
• 🝞 Sublimation: Lifting the fine part up and away from the heavy part.
• 🝠 Distil: Heating, rising and falling again, until only the essence is left.
• 🝜 Layer upon layer: Stratum super stratum: building the work in layers, one on another.
• 🝟 Precipitate: When something hidden in a liquid settles out and becomes solid.

Vessels and fire

• 🝭 Retort: The round glass with a long neck where matter is heated and changed.
• 🝪 Alembic: The still’s head, where rising vapour cools and drips down.
• 🝥 Crucible: The pot that can stand the fiercest fire.
• 🝫 Bath of Mary: A water bath for gentle, even heat, named for Mary the Jewess.
• 🝬 Vapour bath: Heating with steam: the gentlest fire of all.

A few strange ones

What does VITRIOL mean?

• 🝎 Caput mortuum: The “dead head”: the useless leftover, thrown away when the work is done.
• 🜖 Vitriol: V.I.T.R.I.O.L.: “visit the inside of the earth”, a reminder to look within.
• 🜆 Aqua regia: The royal water, strong enough to dissolve gold.
• 🝖 Horse dung: Horse dung, prized for its long, gentle warmth.

In Lead to Gold

All 116 alchemical symbols are in Lead to Gold, to learn with flashcards. Finish a day and your Vessel forms one of them overnight, revealed at sunrise.

Last updated October 24, 2026.

Lead to Gold: Shadow Work, on Google Play

The alchemists’ Great Work, made into ten quiet minutes a day: twelve gates, a private journal, and a line of wisdom from the old masters. Free to download, for Android.

Get it on Google Play

Keep reading

• What does VITRIOL mean in alchemy?: VITRIOL is an alchemical acronym: Visita interiora terrae, rectificando invenies occultum lapidem. What it means, in the lab and as a call to look within.
• What is the philosopher’s stone?: The philosopher’s stone was alchemy’s legendary goal: a substance to turn lead into gold. What the alchemists believed, how it was made, and what it means now.
• What are planetary hours?: Planetary hours divide each day and night into twelve hours, each ruled by one of the seven classical planets. How the old astrologers worked them out.