Mercury - An Introduction
Philosophical Mercury, the Mercurius, the dew, the fountain, the water of life.
Despite our best efforts to simplify matters, 2000 years of abuse has muddied the waters (pun intended) on this touchstone of alchemical understanding. To navigate the confusing web of contradictory associations that this liquid metal has been saddled with, a few points must be understood:
- Ancient and alchemical reasoning is based on naked-eye observation of phenomena;
- Sense was made of naked-eye phenomena by analogy;
- These analogies were communicated through a game of cross-cultural telephone;
- The analogies were contorted to fit the results of centuries of alchemical experimentation when they didn't fit the narrative; and,
- Return to point 3.
The alchemists were fundamentally wrong on chemistry, so their tria prima formulas failed to demonstrate their enlightened patterns (or bring them vulgar riches). To make the results of their operations fit their models, the alchemists tortured the notion of the Mercurius past its breaking point. Between their bad science, the jealous guarding of findings, the secret codes, and the admixture of deep reference and surface-level visual analogy (not to mention widespread mercury poisoning), it’s no wonder that the matter of mercury is as confused as it is.
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| "It collects here in this bottle and becomes a woman, or some kind of goose." |
Our goal here is not to rehabilitate Alchemy as a science or to convince the reader of the merits of more modern philosophical Alchemical practice, but to take advantage of the archaic observation of mercury and the conclusions that were drawn.
In other words, we’re mining the there there.
Physical Mercury - Element Hydragyrum (80HG), “Silver Water,” ☿
Mercury is a toxic, dense metal named for its curious liquid state at room temperature. It has a freezing point of −38.83 °C and a boiling point of 356.73 °C at one standard pressure atmosphere. In liquid form it has a high surface tension. Mercury consistently expands in response to heat and pressure, making it an ideal measurement medium for thermometers and barometers. It conducts heat poorly but electricity reasonably well, making it useful for switches and relays.
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| Elemental Mercury |
Mercury does not react with most acids, though oxidizing acids such as concentrated sulfuric acid, nitric acid, or aqua regia dissolve mercury into the associated sulfate, nitrate, and chloride. Mercury spills can be cleaned with sulfur flakes, powdered zinc, or activated carbon.
Mercury is also the only classical metal to retain the name of its planetary association, as “mercury” was regarded as a preferable chemical name to “quicksilver.”
Amalgam
Mercury readily dissolves other metals, forming an alloy known as an amalgam. The production of amalgams dates back to at least 500 BC. Only a few metals are resistant to amalgamation, most in the first row of transitional metals: scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, iron, cobalt, nickel, and platinum. For this reason, Mercury has traditionally been stored and traded in iron flasks.
Amalgamation dissolves the structure of the solute metal. For this reason, mercury is not permitted on aircraft without special security considerations, as it eats through the protective oxide layer of the aluminum and corrodes it rapidly. Supposedly, allied spies used a mercury paste to sabotage Luftwaffe planes during WWII.
Mercury’s ability to amalgamate with other metals was first used for industrial-scale silver extraction in 1554. Bartolome de Medina employed it to amalgamate silver out of ore in Pachuca, Mexico, and after that, it was essential in the industrial processing of New World silver. Later, it was used in hydraulic gold mining, though this practice was discontinued in the 1960s.
Today, mercury amalgams are still used in dentistry for fillings.
The creative possibilities of amalgam are better understood in combination with the properties of the solute metals, so we explore them in our article on classical metals [article pending].
Mercury Ore and Extraction
Mercury’s most common natural ore is cinnabar (mercury sulfide, HgS), the source of the pigment vermillion. The primary sources of cinnabar for Europe during the past 2500 years have been the mines in Almaden in Spain, Monte Amiata in Italy, and Idrija in what is now Slovenia. More on cinnabar in our article on mercury/sulfur compounds [article pending].
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| Raw Cinnabar Ore |
To extract the mercury, the cinnabar is heated in a current of air, and the vapor is condensed:
HgS + O2 → Hg + SO2
Mercury vapor is highly toxic and one of the more common forms of historic mercury poisoning.
Toxicity
Liquid-state mercury can be absorbed through the skin and mucous membranes or ingested. It also reacts with hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere, becoming an airborne pollutant.
The minor symptoms of mercury poisoning include sweating, tachycardia, increased saliva production, and hypertension. More intense symptoms include reddening or pinking of the nose, cheeks, lips, fingers, and toes, transient rashes, muscle weakness, kidney dysfunction, sensory impairment, and increased photosensitivity.
More alarming (at least to this compiler) are the neuropsychiatric symptoms: insomnia, memory impairment, and emotional lability (emotional incontinence). These are frightening when paired with peripheral neuropathy, which can come in paraesthesia (abnormal skin sensation), itching, burning, pain, or even formication (the feeling of bugs crawling under the skin). The other symptoms can also be hair loss, teeth, nails, and desquamation (shedding or peeling skin).
The phrase “mad as a hatter” comes from mercury poisoning. 18th- and 19th-century hat makers separated fur from animal pelts and matted them together into felt for hats using an orange solution of mercuric nitrate (Hg(NO3)2·2H2O) in a process called “carroting.”
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| The Mad Hatter, engraving by Dalziel (1865) |
Lewis Carroll’s “Mad Hatter” character is a play on the phrase rather than a depiction of mercury poisoning. Make no mistake, though, nearly an entire profession was plagued with this horrific condition. And it is far from unique to hat-makers! Alchemists were known to suffer the same for obvious reasons. It also applied to lighthouse keepers, who had to contend with social isolation and mercury exposure from the pool the Fresnel lenses rested on. The first emperor of China, Qín Shǐ Huáng Di, was similarly driven insane by the mercury-based immortality elixirs his alchemists fed him.
Medicine
In both China and Tibet, mercury was believed to be an essential ingredient in the elixir of immortality and could, therefore, prolong life more generally. They also held that it could maintain general health and even heal fractures. Mercury found historical use in medicine, some of which has been carried (dubiously) into the modern day.
Mercury(I) chloride, called mercurous chloride or calomel, has been traditionally employed as a diuretic, topical disinfectant, and laxative. Mercury(II) chloride, also called mercuric chloride or corrosive sublimate, was used as a treatment for syphilis. However, it was so toxic that the symptoms of syphilis and mercury poison were often conflated.
In the 19th century, a mercury-derived medication called blue mass was prescribed in pill and syrup forms for constipation, depression, toothache, and to ease childbirth. In the 20th century, mercury was prescribed as a laxative and dewormer for children before being banned. It is still occasionally prescribed in diuretics.
Culture
Cosmetics
Mercury has a long history in the production of cosmetics. The Egyptians and Romans used it in their makeup, and today, it’s used as a depigmenting agent in modern bleaching creams.
Landscaping and Conspicuous Wealth
Mercury has a long history with displays of wealth. The tomb of Qín Shǐ Huáng Dì was allegedly crafted as a map of his domain, with the rivers of his unified China flowing with mercury.
The second Tulunid ruler of Egypt, Khumarawayh ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun (r. 884-896), is reported to have built a basin filled with mercury, where he would be rocked to sleep on a bed of air-filled cushions. Across the Mediterranean in Islamic Spain, it was used to fill decorative pools.
Mercury was also found in elite tombs and ritual caches dating to the Classical Maya period (100-700AD) and earlier. This was in quantities of 3.2-21.2 oz (90-600 grams), though the purpose may have had a cross-divinatory purpose in addition to wealth display.
Leveling
Liquid mercury seeks equilibrium, which has made it an essential component in leveling tools of all sorts. It is instrumental in transit telescopes, which need an absolute vertical and perpendicular reference.
Mirrors
Mercury amalgam was used in silvering mirrors (which is also why old mirrors don’t reflect the images of vampires). Mercury can also create a cheap parabolic mirror by holding the mercury on a disc and rotating it. This mirror cannot, unfortunately, be tilted, so it is restricted to a perfectly vertical orientation.
Lighthouses
The Fresnel lenses of old lighthouses floated and rotated in a mercury bath, which acted as a bearing.
Firearms and Explosives
Mercury(II) fulminate is an explosive agent commonly used as the primer in firearm cartridges.
Other Uses
Mercury was employed in developing daguerreotype film and as a wood preservative.
Magic
Immortality
The immortality elixirs fed to Chinese emperor Qín Shǐ Huáng Dì were made from mercury and powdered jade.
Divination
Maya-region archeological finds of liquid mercury, such as those in elite tombs, under ballcourts, and the massive 2014 find under the Temple of the Feathered Serpent at Teotihuacan, are often interpreted as having a divinatory function. This stems from Mercury’s reflective properties and the region's long-standing history of hydromancy and cataptromancy. Given that the Classical Maya did not have metallurgy, the reflective properties of mercury alone would have been novel and mysterious.
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| Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Teotihuacan. Photo by Diego Delso. |
Animation
According to Aristotle, the mythical engineer/inventor Daedalus made a wooden statue of Aphrodite move by pouring mercury into the statue’s hollow interior.
Philosophical Mercury - The Impressionability of Matter
Philosophical mercury, the Mercurius, is the impressionability or feminine animation of matter. It is fluidity and transformation, volatility, the Aristotelian "cold," the intellect, the yogic flow of internal energies, and the liaison between the spirit and the material. These mixed material/spiritual properties were understood as analogous to mercury, but they were abused through numerous other devices considered synonymous despite the disparity of their features.
Material Analogies
Water
The Mercurius had many names related to its first analog, mercury, hydrargyrum, quicksilver, argent vive, or “living-silver,” and mercurial water. The relationship was expanded to aqua pontica and aqua permanens, the divine water, the water of life, the dew, the fountain, the white elixir, and the white mercury. As bodily fluid, it is called phlegma, which incorporates it into the theory of humors.
Despite being traditionally sexed female, it is identified by the dual-sex devices of the sperm and the menstruum. The former is derived from its visual/matter-state analogy and as a “messenger” or delivery mechanism for alchemical “seed.” The latter is from its more heavily explored feminine qualities.
This dual-sex nature was reinforced by its role as an emblem of productive chaos. As primal chaos it was held that the Mercurius contained both male and female “seeds” of matter, requiring the mediation of sulfur in the chemical wedding.
This ambiguity is paralleled in the East. In China, it was associated with water, lifeblood, blood of the womb, and semen. In India, it was the semen of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
Earth
The Mercurius is also identified as the white stone from which the red stone of the philosopher emerges.
Air
It is identified with the direction west and the wind from that direction, the zephyr, and the deity of the same name.
Planet
Mercury was identified with and named for the planet closest to the sun, whose rapid orbit around it made it astrologically challenging to predict. This speed across the sky was associated with the metal’s liquid flow.
Anthropomorphic
Male
Mercury was associated with the deity for which the planet was named, Hermes/Mercury. Hermes was a messenger god associated with intellect and later occult matters under the partially Christianized figure Hermes Trismegistus. Hermes syncretizes with the Egyptian god of scribes, Thoth. This anthropomorphization of mercury was occasionally glossed to the less flattering “flying slave,” which may have been in reference to Zephyr, the god of the west wind.
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| Hermes Ingenui, 2nd Century, BC Copy |
It was also associated with the lesser sea god, Proteus, one of Homer’s “old men of the sea.” He was a god of prophecy, the personification of the changeability of the world’s waterways, and came to be associated with mutability, versatility, and the assumption of many forms.
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| Illustration of Proteus by Andrea Alciato, from The Book of Emblems (1532). |
Female
The Mercurius assumed an identity unique to alchemical practice in the guise of Albedo, the White Queen. Also identified as Queen Luna to sulfur’s King Sol, she was the female half of the Alchemical Wedding, the framing device of alchemical operation. In imagery more familiar to the Christian, philosophical mercury was identified with Eve and the holy virgin and more universally with the roles of sister and mother.
Queen Albedo is the most definitive person of the Mercurius, the face of the alchemical stage leading up to enlightenment. She is a gatekeeper to be negotiated with, cajoled into unity with her counterpart, King Rubedo, and, in gratitude, births the gift of understanding.
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| Here we see Albedo lasciviously touching hands in public with her husband, Rubedo. From Philosophia reformata (1622), emblem 2, by Johann Daniel Mylius |
Phytomorphic
Appropriate to the female anthropomorphization, the plant analogs of the Mercurius are the white lily and the white rose.
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| From Pixabay, on pexels.com. |
Zoomorphic
Feminine
Mercury is identified with the hen, which, being an egg-layer, also lays the egg of the universe, the all-thing that is the Philosopher’s Stone.
Masculine
Mercury is identified as the gander, the male goose, inverse to the hen. This is both a phallic symbol and one of the emblems of Hermes.
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| From Getty Images. |
More interesting, though, is the association between the Mercurius and the white hart. The stag is an unmistakable masculine emblem but also feminine relative to the hunter, as the spear penetrates prey. This animal is significant in pagan mythology and folklore.
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| The White Hart badge of Richard II. |
One folk belief may bring the alchemical association into greater focus. One of the permutations of the Great Work of Alchemy is the pursuit of the panacea, the universal medicine (itself a synonym for the Philosopher’s Stone). The folk belief holds that stags seek out and consume snakes and other venomous reptiles to initiate terrible sweating, purging their bodies of toxins. Once in this state, the stag enters a river or other body of water to wash the toxic sweat from its body and emerge clean and pure. This belief mirrors the language of alchemists’ treatment of various materials in the operation.
Further, this may reference the myth of Cyparissus, whose mourning over slaying his best friend, the stag, was immortalized by his transformation into a cypress tree (a convenient parallel to immortality bestowed by the Philosopher’s Stone).
Androgynous
Mercury is identified with the serpent, an emblem of feminine chaos and a phallic symbol. It was heavily associated with the dragon, a masculine emblem in China.
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| Ouroboros from the manuscript Codex Parisinus graecus 2327 (1478). |
Using Mercury Safely - Suggestions for Writers
INSPIRATIONAL HOLY GRAIL - Holistic Wizardry
The emblem of the white hart bridges the gap between classical mythology, local folklore, and the pseudoscience of alchemy. We have yet to see a better model for holistic magical influence on magical practitioners. The ability to connect the mechanisms of their magic with the ancient stories and local flavor is an invaluable tool for making your spell-casting characters feel like living members of your fantasy world.
Holistic Magical Action —> Material or Action x (Old Myth + Local Flavor) = Worldbuilding and Character and Plot Progression
Materials like mercury have a veritable library of analogous emblems like those previously discussed, but the same goes for gestures in imitation of myth, legend, and folklore. The extension of the right hand may imitate the dominance of the conquering Pharaoh or the striking of the smith’s hammer Thor’s slaying of a Jotun. Because of the universal patterns (and often shared heritage) of myths, we often find the same actions and emblems appearing in folk tales and fairy stories, subject to more pronounced regional variation. The appeal to setting mythology establishes or reinforces broader currents in worldbuilding, with the folkloric connections being more particular and framing your character as somewhere rather than anywhere. Further, the material is set up as something to be used, facilitating plot progression, and the action is a doing, which is plot progression. While one could hypothetically spin their wheels in the exposition of actions, there is no way to justify the explanation of an action without moving forward; it demands immediate follow-up.
Use this as a template for other materials or actions. Reverse-engineer setting folklore and mythology or devise your own mechanisms from the old stories. It also frees storytellers from binding themselves too closely to a single source of inspiration. Exploit the hell out of this!
Mercury Toxicity and Madness
Mercury poisoning is an excellent template for the onset of “madness” for a wizard or other caster in your story or anyone else over-exposed to mercury. When you join the neuropsychiatric symptoms and the feedback loop of the body falling apart with magical knowledge or executive state action (in the case of a ruler like Qín Shǐ Huáng Dì), an unpredictable, irrational, and devastating danger is introduced to the story.
Further, philosophical mercury is mercury by analogy. If the analogy is extended, a magician could have philosophical mercury poisoning, pairing the neuropsychiatric and physical symptoms with impressionable animation. What that means will, naturally, be dictated by how the magical system of your setting functions, but some ideas come to mind:
- The magician’s formication manifests as actual bugs under the skin, with the bugs in question being thematically relevant to the magician’s research or as communication vectors for malicious intelligences (demons).
- The photosensitivity and desquamation pair together, making the magician susceptible to sunlight as a vampire.
- The operational failure is impressed upon the magician’s soul, compelling him to repeat the procedural step of the error, feeding back into the problem until there is no longer a man there but a meat automaton performing the same lab experiment over and over until death.
Contradictory Images
The numerous contradictory emblems of the Mercurius can be converted from a problem to the basis of a character set. This can be played subtly, involving emblems of noble houses, physiognomy, and more oblique characterizations. It could also be played on the nose, like this season’s antagonistic faction in a bad-guy-of-the-week show.
These emblems can also be romantic manifestations of character growth in the narrative environment, parallel to traditional alchemical practice.
Iron and Platinum
Mercury is traditionally held in iron, but if the philosophical mercury can be separated into a distinct substance, it may require a more exotic metal closer to the state of material enlightenment: platinum. Because platinum was understood as a higher-order alloying (or possibly a hypostasis) of gold and silver, and therefore just short of the Philosopher’s Stone, that makes platinum objects ideal tools for alchemy-inspired spellcasters, being resistant to warping by the Mercurius.
In either case, the resistance of iron and platinum to amalgamation in Mercury raises exciting prospects for how the material interacts with magic. Perhaps iron is a bane to fae creatures because of its resistance to their mercurial nature, and platinum can produce the same effects.
The Lighthouse as Temple
The lighthouse is a location that has been successfully exploited in horror fiction. It is a place of isolation, surrounded by the chaos of the sea. Lighthouse workers must thanklessly battle the elements to keep the light going and prevent disaster, an essential service that thrusts them into the liminal zone between civilization and the void.
Lighthouses already have the obvious feature of the titular light, a conceptual flame of guidance and comfort in the storm, and of enlightenment in the dark. Leaning into the early Fresnel lens technology, the mercury bath that acted as its bearing also reinforces the lighthouse's liminal qualities, marking it as a place of transformation.
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See Also:
Clear Cosmology
The Elements - Water [Pending]
The Elements - Air [Pending]
Man
Man [Pending]
Head - Brain/Mind [Pending]
Head - Insanity [Pending]
Fluids and Effluvia [Pending]
Animals
Birds [Pending]
Hooved Mammals [Pending]
Reptiles/Amphibians [Pending]
Monsters, Dragons, and Cryptids [Pending]
Magical Practice
Alchemy - The Chemical Wedding [Pending]
Magical Materials
Tria Prima - Addendum: Mercury and Sulfur Compounds[Pending]
Metals [Pending]
Gemstones - Jade [Pending]
Plants - Cypress [Pending]
Plants - Lily [Pending]
Plants - Rose [Pending]
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Bibliography
-Drury, N. (2004). The Dictionary of the Esoteric: 3000 entries on the mystical and occult traditions. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
-Drury, N. (2005). The Watkins Dictionary of Magic: 3000 entries on the magical traditions. Watkins.
-Tresidder, J. (2008). The Watkins Dictionary of Symbols. Watkins.
( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/24/liquid-mercury-mexican-pyramid-teotihuacan )
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element) )
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning )
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