We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
A sign for reducing a substance to powder by strong heat.
Also known as: Calcination sign
Heating a substance in air until it crumbles to a friable powder — a calx. The first of the classical sequence of alchemical operations, and an entirely real chemical process: it is what happens when limestone becomes quicklime.
Denotes calcination: heating a substance strongly in air until it is reduced to a dry friable powder called a calx.
Conventionally the first of the sequence of operations making up the magnum opus, though the number and order of the operations varies considerably between sources — lists of seven, twelve and fourteen all circulate.
No single canonical sequence of operations exists. Sources presenting a definitive list of twelve stages are picking one tradition among several.
A short angular stroke with a crossing line, drawn as a compact written figure.
Both are named operations in the alchemical sequence of processes.