The symbol for sulfur stood for more than just the chemical element. Together with mercury and salt, the trio made up the Three Primes, or Tria Prima, of alchemy. The three primes could be thought of as points of a triangle. In it, sulfur represented evaporation and dissolution; it was the middle ground between the high and low or the fluid that connected them.

The symbol for mercury stood for the chemical element, which was also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum. It was also used to represent the swiftly moving planet Mercury. As one of the three primes, mercury reflected both the omnipresent life force and a state that could transcend death or Earth.

Modern scientists recognize salt as a chemical compound, not an element, but early alchemists did not know how to separate the substance into its components to come to this conclusion. Simply, salt was worth its own symbol because it is essential for life. In the Tria Prima, salt stands for condensation, crystallization, and the underlying essence of a body.

There were several possible element symbols for the metal copper. The alchemists associated copper with the planet Venus, so sometimes, the symbol for "woman" was used to indicate the element.

Lighting the Eye of the Dragon by TalonAbraxas

the court of Lucifer by Otto Rahn

Saints Who battled Satan by Paul Thigpen

In Bed with Death: A Story of a Man Who Lived with the Body of His Loved One for Seven Years

Her name was Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. A young black-haired Cuban woman and Tanzler met for the first time in 1930 in the Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida. The young woman’s mother brought her in to see a doctor: at 21, she was dying of tuberculosis. After their first meeting Tanzler got sick, too: from then on and to the end of his days he was lovesick for this woman. Silk soaked in wax and plaster that replaced the decayed skin, bones connected with piano strings and wire, body stuffed with rags, a wig from hair cut before death and glass eyes — this was what Carl Tanzler’s love looked like for the seven years he lived with her after her death, before the idyll was destroyed by angry relatives of the deceased woman.