Sulfur - An Introduction
Philosophical Sulfur, the Red King, the Fat of Paracelsus.
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| No, not his fat! |
Sulfur is less present in the popular consciousness of magic outside its infernal role as “brimstone.” Mercury poisoning is exciting, romantic even. The first emperor of China went mad drinking “dragon blood” in immortality elixirs, hatmakers went berserk, and we’ve had to remove mercury from a host of consumer goods over the past century in conjunction with widespread reforms in manufacturing and consumer protections. That, and mercury, looks pretty darn cool.
For lack of a better term, mercury is sexy. Sulfur isn’t sexy.
We at Damigeron’s Dungeon aren’t vain enough to think we can convince you that sulfur is sexy. However, we do believe that understanding sulfur might help your writing.
Physical Sulfur - Elemental Sulfur (16S), “Brimstone,” 🜍 or 🜏
Sulfur is a nonmetallic chemical element, a yellow crystalline solid at room temperature. It is an incredibly reactive, multivalent element, capable of reacting with nearly every other element save the noble gases. It is the fifth most abundant element on earth, readily available in native elemental form. Because of its abundance and reactivity, sulfur is a bioessential macronutrient.
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| Elemental Sulfur. Image taken from the Heartland Sulfur website. |
Sulfur forms more than 30 elemental allotropes, more than any other element. Its best-known allotrope is S8, where eight sulfur atoms form an octagonal molecular structure. S8 melts at 115.21 °C (239.38 °F) and boils at 444.6 °C (832.3 °F).
Sulfur is water-insoluble but soluble in some nonpolar organic solvents, such as carbon disulfide, benzene, and toluene. Sulfur breaks down slowly in water, forming hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acid.
Sulfur’s reactivity is worth underlining. Sulfur is as close to a perfect analogy for volatility as one could find, as sulfur’s chemical action extends to even the notoriously non-reactive metal iridium, forming iridium disulfide. Many sulfur compounds produce a strong odor, making them essential to skunk stink, halitosis, and garlic. Hydrogen sulfide is responsible for the characteristic smell of rotting eggs and several unpleasant biological processes. No other material ancient peoples engaged with at the human scale formed so many compounds or revealed itself in so many places. It’s little wonder that it forms one of the three analogies of the tria prima.
Sulfur Harvesting
Native sulfur is often found in association with sulfate minerals, where anaerobic bacteria synthesize it back into elemental form. A common example is gypsum deposits in salt domes, like those along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
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| Sulfur Vat, Freeport Sulphur Co., Hoskins Mound, Texas (1943) |
Geologic processes, such as fossil-based deposits in the US, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine, can also produce native sulfur.
Sulfur can be extracted from common natural compounds such as pyrite (iron sulfide), cinnabar (mercury sulfide), galena (lead sulfide), sphalerite (zinc sulfide), stibnite (antimony sulfide), and lapis lazuli (blue color comes from a trisulfur radical anion).
Sulfuric Acid
Sulfuric acid (H2SO4), also known as mattling acid or oil of vitriol, is one of the most important industrial chemicals in the world. It is an essential precursor chemical used to produce countless other industrial chemicals. As of 1989, ~85% of all elemental sulfur harvested was used to produce sulfuric acid.
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| From geeksforgeeks.com |
The sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the emissions of coal or petroleum plants reacts with the water in the atmosphere, converting to sulfuric acid and producing acid rain, which can become a significant environmental problem.
Flammability
Sulfur is flammable, melting into a red liquid on ignition and producing a bright blue flame. This flammability earned the moniker “brimstone,” which means “burning stone.” This property has probably been known since prehistory and has been used as a ritual fumigant since early antiquity.
This flammability is at the root of a geological anomaly: blue lava, also known as Api Biru. This strange phenomenon is well documented at the Kawah Ijen volcano on the island of Java, which is an active sulfur mine. That said, this phenomenon is not unique to this site.
This is just a sulfurous fire that superficially resembles lava. Genuine blue lava would require a temperature of 6,000 °C (10,830 °F), which is impossible to achieve on earth’s surface.
Black Powder
The Chinese developed the first gunpowder from a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur.
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| Chinese Black Powder |
Bioessential Macronutrient
Unlike mercury, which has zero nutritional value and is always poisonous, sulfides are essential to life on Earth. Sulfur’s abundance, reactivity, and water insolubility make it a bioessential macronutrient. Numerous amino acids, vitamins, and other organic compounds are sulfides, including keratin, the essential structural protein for skin, hair, and feathers.
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| This is all sulfur. |
Toxicity
Elemental sulfur is of low toxicity to humans. However, vaporous sulfur and sulfur dust oxidize into sulfuric acid on contact with the membranes of the eyes or skin, causing irritation. Overconsumption of sulfur can create a burning sensation in the digestive tract and diarrhea. Direct consumption of sulfur as a folk remedy has also led to life-threatening metabolic acidosis.
Various sulfides can be highly toxic, usually due to other elements bonded to the sulfur, such as the arsenic sulfide, realgar.
Realgar
Realgar, also known as “ruby sulfur,” “ruby of arsenic,” and sandarake to the Greeks (English sandarac), is an orange-red arsenic sulfide (α-As4S4) that burns with a bluish flame and releases sulfur and arsenic vapor. It takes its name from the Arabic rahj al-ġār (“powder of the mine”).
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| From Royal Reward Mine, King County, Washington. |
It was traded throughout the ancient world as a red pigment for paint.
The Mandarin name for realgar is xiónghuáng, literally “masculine yellow,” in opposition to the “feminine yellow” of orpiment. (We’re sure an enterprising writer can do more with this information.)
Realgar was also used to remove hair and fur from animal pelts, similar to mercuric nitrate (see the Toxicity section of our Mercury article).
Realgar was used in fireworks to produce the color white before being replaced by aluminum, magnesium, and titanium.
Realgar is highly toxic and has been used as an herbicide, insecticide, and rat poison.
Bull’s Blood
The Ancient Greeks used realgar to produce a medicine called “bull’s blood.” Famous Greek physicist Nicanderof Colophon recorded the effects of overdose on bull’s blood, which matches arsenic poisoning. Further, bull’s blood is attributed as the poison used by King Midas and the general Themistocles in their suicides.
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| Themistocles, Athenian politician and naval strategist, 524-460BC. |
Medicine
Sulfur has a long history as a topical medical treatment, especially as a medication for scabies and ringworm. This treatment extended to acne, eczema, and psoriasis. It is known to be effective, though the mechanism of action has yet to be determined. It may have something to do with sulfur slowly transforming into sulfuric acid.
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| Available at Walmart |
Culture
Sulfur was used by nearly all ancient civilizations, and it is recorded in India, Greece, China, and Egypt.
Insecticide
Sulfur was employed in the ancient world as an insecticide and insect repellent.
Fungicide
Sulfur has a long history as a fungicide. This extends beyond topical medical use to agriculture and the treatment of crops.
Matches
It was an essential component in match production.
Magic
Purification
Under the label “brimstone,” sulfur is a material inextricable from Western notions of Hell. This is in part because of sulfurous emissions from volcanic activity, but its symbolic dimensions are what we’re interested in.
Sulfur was (and is) used as a fumigant during religious rituals despite the rotten-egg smell and the burning of the membranes that come with its use. It was valued mainly because of these qualities, as it was a potent repellent to vermin, which brought the ritual/spiritual corruption of disease to temples and religious sites. Suffumigating a temple against flies sanctified the place from their taint and thus became a reagent of purification.
Pair this with the sulfurous emissions of volcanoes, which are gateways to the underworld, and the underworld becomes a fiery place where sulfurous flames purify the souls of the dead!
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| Glowing Ash Rising from a Volcanic Vent. Photo by Marin Rietze/Science Photo Library |
Philosophical Sulfur - The Volatility of Matter
Philosophical sulfur is the reactivity or masculine animation of matter. It is evaporation and dissolution. It is the expansive force, counter to the contraction of mercury and salt. Like mercury, the analogies of sulfur are tortured and contradictory, but the general through-line is stable and, once understood, can be of great value to the writer.
Material Analogies
Red Earth
Thanks to its many brilliant red sulfides, the yellow element is identified by red earth, red powder, red tincture, and rubedo. Its association with the ruby no doubt comes from realgar and cinnabar. Still, this association goes the other way, tying sulfur to the carbuncle and its mystical manifestation, the Philosopher’s Stone. This is further reinforced by the belief that the red earth was also the philosophical gold from which that magnificent stone emerged.
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| Red Earth |
Fat
Paracelsus described the philosophical sulfur through the analog of “fat,” likely due to sulfur’s color. Paired with the alchemical name for sulfuric acid, oil of vitriol reveals a host of other fat/oil associations that can be extrapolated or exploited.
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| Beef Tallow |
Planet
Sulfur was identified with the planet Sol (the Sun) and all the associations that it brings.
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| The Sun |
Anthropomorphic
Male
The anthropomorphization of sulfur is wholly male in the Western alchemical tradition, confined to identification with male mythological figures and icons. The most significant of these is the Crimson King, Rubedo.
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| Rubedo, the Crimson King |
Rubedo went by many monikers: the Red Man, the Red King, the Mighty King, Brother, Father, Adam, and so on. In all these, he is identified with essential masculinity, as evident from his identification with Adam, the All-Man.
The realized masculinity is expressed in the man-king-sun, who personifies the shaping reactivity inherent in the base matter of the world, combustibility, and growth. He is the guide through the gate kept by Albedo and the father of the child of enlightenment.
Phytomorphic
The red rose characterizes sulfur. Flowers are traditionally a feminine emblem, but this is overlooked in favor of the phallic qualities of the rose’s thorns.
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| Dat Rosa Mel Apibus Attributed to Johann Thedor deBry (d. 1598) |
Zoomorphic
Sulfur takes on the form of the red lion, a prefiguration of the realized lion's golden solar glory. This is in continuity with other leonine emblems, like the green lion, which is both the state of the prima materia before the opus begins and, more materially, the device of aqua regia.
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| The Red Lion |
Sulfur is also the cock. An emblem of masculine vigor, the cock announces the arrival of the sun as the realized philosophical sulfur presages the revelation of the Philosopher’s Stone.
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| The Cock |
Using Sulfur Safely - Suggestions for Writers
As you can see, the above icons are considerably less vibrant than the multitude of associations held by sulfur’s spouse material. Sulfur is too often relegated to infernal brimstone or to esoteric mediations of less accessible works (looking at you, Fear and Hunger). That does not mean that it is any less useful to the clever creative with a more mainstream audience in mind. Here are some sample ideas we’ve come up with.
Expanding the Idea
Sulfur is the material analog of the expansive force instead of the contraction of salt and mercury. This material can answer how magical words and figures move from the scroll or page of a spellbook to realization in the story’s reality.
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| How the hell do these things actually work? (From here) |
Magic in the Medium
Consider a strip of bark bearing sacred words cut into it in the form of runes. Presumably, there is magic in the strip of bark rather than simply bearing some magical instruction. Does the strip of bark require some particular action to activate, or is the breath of the caster enough to grant the spell animation? If the latter, then the strip of bark has no magic; it is merely a canvas for knowledge and, therefore, unsuitable as an expendable magical tool, as scrolls so often are in fantasy storytelling.
Taking the other road, where there is magic in the medium, the magic words need to find their expression not from the spellcaster but out of the medium. Igniting it over sulfur, smearing a sulfurous paste into the words into the cut of the runes, or otherwise infusing the bark with concrete or abstract sulfur imparts the words in the bark with reactivity to expand beyond the bark.
By such activation, the spellcaster releases the spell from the bark medium and, through gesture and breath, may direct the expanded spell to expression!
Up in Smoke
Divinatory powers are a hallmark of fantasy and supernatural horror. These need not be limited to hydromantic rites or teenage girls’ hallucinations. If there’s one thing this compiler thanks the Spiritualist movement for popularizing, it’s the idea of object reading (psychoscopy). In object reading, the medium claims the ability to psychically discern information about a person by contact with one of their possessions. This forms the germ of our idea.
The magician, eager to resolve a mystery, finds themselves at a dead end. Their only material clue, a personal possession of the unknown quarry, may be sacrificed by burning in or sublimation in volatile sulfur. By such means, they expand the secret history of the clue into the air. By shapes in the smoke, magical holograms, dramatic visions, or the spark of intuition, the magician acquires some information that takes the investigation to its next step.
If you want to be morbid, you could do the same with people!
Animating Will
The artificial magical constructs known as “golems” have a long history dating back to Jewish folklore. A human form crafted from clay or mud has the Hebrew word shem (“name” or “breath”) placed on the forehead or mouth and is brought to life to serve in the capacity of a slave. There are many variations in the folklore about what motivates the destruction of the golem, from fear that it will work the sabbath to falling in love, but the most significant that has permeated up through Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and into science fiction related to artificial intelligence is the created man’s resentment at not being human.
The relatively short history of modern fantasy has moved past the folkloric preoccupation with the golem-creation-as-hubris narrative, mainly relegating them to the comfortable position of stock magical automata. In this capacity, golems are not bound by traditional folkloric construction, coming in a wide array of materials with disparate methods of animation and control.
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| The iron and flesh golems from the D&D 3rd Edition Monster Manual. |
If we were to automate the golems in our story with alchemical thought in mind, their animus would necessarily be composed of both impressionability (mercury) and will (sulfur). The impressionability of its animus is its capacity for programming and absorbing instruction.
“But Damigeron,” you say, “Aren’t automatons characterized by a lack of will?”
Yes and no. This is not the will of a man or even an animal, merely the motive to react to and pursue orders. Without a sulfurous dimension to its animus, the golem would only absorb order and instruction and be unable to act because it could never decide how to execute the order. Even literal interpretation of instruction requires sufficient motivation to interpret and act and is subject to infinite (if subtle) permutation. If golem animation is framed this way, all golems must have a sulfurous component on all levels of sentience and sapience.
Accepting this formulation, the writer now has the opportunity to play with that animation. Is the sulfur material or abstract? If it is material, is quantity relevant? Is quality or source relevant? If abstract, where does this abstract sulfur come from?
This dimension of the artificial animus is now a thing that can be explored and even interacted with. Maybe a novel source of sulfuric animation is employed in a standard construction, and the automaton acquires independence because of a production failure? Perhaps novel sulfur is used intentionally to produce different effects and behaviors, distinguishing peacekeeper golems that stand sentinel in the streets from golems of war. Maybe the artificial nature of the golem animus leaves it vulnerable to manipulation, and a clever magician figures out how to turn the constructs of his opponents into bombs with a word and a snap of his fingers?
Addendum: Novel Sulfur (Added 03/23/2024)
It occurred to us that we have failed to provide sufficient examples of novel sulfur. These would be reagents that color the expansive force or shaping animus with their own peculiar character.
While numerous sulfur compounds can be sourced from animals, such as horsehair and tiger’s claw, or from plants (far too many to list here), we will instead point to the world of minerals. The potential sulfurous magical qualities of gypsum, lapis lazuli, and pyrite will be explored in their own future articles.
* * * * *
Clear Cosmology
The Elements - Air [Pending]
The Elements - Fire [Pending]
Man
Man [Pending]
Head - Brain/Mind [Pending]
Head - Insanity [Pending]
Fluids and Effluvia [Pending]
Animals
Birds [Pending]
Carnivorous Mammals [Pending]
Magical Practice
Alchemy - The Chemical Wedding [Pending]
Magical Materials
Tria Prima - Addendum: Mercury and Sulfur Compounds [Pending]
Metals [Pending]
Plants - Rose [Pending]
Lapidary
Gypsum [Pending]
Lapis Lazuli [Pending]
Pyrite [Pending]
* * * * *
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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_lava )
-( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realgar )
-( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur )
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