Seven metals, seven planets

The teaching

As the old lore of planets and metals teaches it.

Seven lights, seven metals

Alchemy counts seven metals and gives each to one of the seven wandering lights of the sky, in the order of the heavens from the farthest to the nearest: lead to Saturn, tin to Jupiter, iron to Mars, gold to the Sun, copper to Venus, quicksilver to Mercury and silver to the Moon. Each pair shares one sign, written for the planet in a horoscope and for the metal in a recipe, and each pair shares a nature: what the planet is in the heavens, the metal is in the earth.

The metals are not fixed kinds but stages of one growth. They are made in the earth from sulphur and mercury, warmed by the heavens over long ages, and they ripen as fruit ripens, from the heaviest and dullest toward the brightest and most lasting. Lead is the beginning and gold the end.

Lead, tin and iron

Lead belongs to Saturn, the slowest and farthest of the planets, cold, heavy and dark. It is the oldest and least ripe of the metals, soft and dull, and in the refiner's fire it draws off the baser metals and leaves gold and silver pure. The books make it the matter of the beginning, the black of the first stage, the old king who must die. Its sign is a cross set over a crescent. Saturn's gifts, in the inner reading, are weight, limit, patience and time.

Tin belongs to Jupiter, the great and kindly planet, warm and moist, the giver of increase. It is a bright metal that shines like silver without its worth, and keeps its brightness long. Its sign joins a crescent to a cross. Jupiter's gifts are generosity, growth, good order and justice.

Iron belongs to Mars, hot and dry, the planet of war, and it is the metal of weapons and tools, hard, strong and quick to rust red. Its sign is a circle with an arrow, set in older drawings with a cross. Mars gives courage, force and decision; the smith tempers them, for iron untempered breaks.

Gold, the Sun

Gold belongs to the Sun, the centre of the seven and the source of their light. It is the ripe and perfect metal, heavy, bright and incorruptible: fire does not consume it, water and air do not rust it, and it keeps its colour for ever. Its sign is a circle with a point at its centre, the oldest emblem of the Sun and of what is complete. Gold is the goal of the work, and in the inner reading it is the wholeness that does not tarnish.

Copper, quicksilver and silver

Copper belongs to Venus, warm and moist, the planet of love and beauty, and its name comes from Cyprus, the island of the goddess, where it was mined. It is a warm red metal that turns green in the weather, and that green is the colour of Venus. Its sign is the circle over the cross, the mirror of Venus. Her gifts are love, harmony, beauty and the joining of what is apart.

Quicksilver belongs to Mercury, the swift messenger, changeable, taking on the nature of whatever planet stands near him. It is the strangest of the metals, liquid at the warmth of a room, bright as silver and quick to run from the touch, and it joins with other metals and dissolves them; the books make it the mercury of the wise, the go-between and solvent of the whole art. Its gifts are mind, speech, exchange and change. Quicksilver is a poison, and it is named here, never handled.

Silver belongs to the Moon, cold and moist, the light that shines by reflection. It is white, pure and noble, second only to gold, though it darkens in the air where gold does not. Its sign is the crescent. The white stone of the art turns metals to silver, and in the inner reading silver is the clear, receptive mind, the reflection that comes before the full light.

Three marks in every sign

John Dee, in his Hieroglyphic Monad, reads the seven signs as built from three marks: the circle of the Sun, the crescent of the Moon and the cross of the elements. Gold's sign is the circle and silver's the crescent, the two pure lights. The other five join one or both of them to the cross of matter, and Mercury's sign carries all three, crescent, circle and cross, which is why Dee makes it the root of his monad. Read this way, every metal is a measure of how far the light has entered matter.

The days of the week

The same seven rule the days of the week in an order of their own: the day of the Sun, of the Moon, of Mars, of Mercury, of Jupiter, of Venus and of Saturn. English keeps the Sun, the Moon and Saturn in Sunday, Monday and Saturday, and French keeps the others in mardi, mercredi, jeudi and vendredi. So the planets and their metals are met in every week, and the old astrologers chose a planet's day for any work done under its sign.

A ladder from lead to gold

Set in order, the seven make a ladder from the heaviest to the brightest, and some books lead the work itself through stages named for the planets, from Saturn's black to the Sun's red. The inner reading climbs the same ladder: lead's patience, tin's generosity, iron's courage, copper's love, quicksilver's quick mind, silver's clear reflection and gold's wholeness, each a quality to be ripened and none to be skipped.

The work starts in lead because it starts with what is heaviest, and gold is lead ripened, not lead thrown away. A reader who uses the ladder asks which metal a present trouble is made of and what it would be for that metal to ripen one step further.