Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[Barbrey]

I haven’t found a text that explains what form sulphur takes after mercury is separated out.  They just say “sulphur”.

This was certainly the wish of many alchemists. At least, this is presented as a next, final process:

"Purified and recombined mercury and sulphur could be converted to gold by heating."

Or:

One of the other prevailing theories behind transmutation was that the “seeds” of the metals, from which they “grew,” are Sulfur and Mercury. These aren’t literal sulfur and mercury — they’re generic terms for the innate quality (for lack of a better word) of metals that could melt and appear like mercury, such as tin and lead, or metals that could burn like sulfur, such as copper and iron. Sulfur and Mercury represented two complimentary principles that had to be united and balanced out in order to produce the Philosopher’s Stone.

Yes, although I read an article that said this was wrong, they weren’t just principles. This is what I get for trying to tackle alchemy. I’ll find the article, it was fairly current I think. This four stage process goes back 2000 years; there was an original. Zosimos says Mary the Jewess invented it. And at that time it supposedly was indeed mercury and sulphur, the periodic table substances, in cinnabar, that were believed to lead to the philosopher’s stone. But I don’t want to mislead, so let me find the article.