The Three Principles
Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt as the basis of all things.
Alchemical philosophy identifies three principles underlying all manifestation: Sulfur (the active, fiery principle), Mercury (the fluid, connecting principle), and Salt (the fixed, stabilizing principle). Understanding these enables the work of transformation.
In Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt are contained all things.
The three principles operate on physical, psychological, and spiritual levels.
Paracelsian Tradition
Written about in
- What Hermeticism says about illness and the body failing
Sulfur, mercury and salt name the active, connecting and fixed aspects of anything that exists. Applied to a person they give alchemy a vocabulary for what has gone slack, what has gone rigid, and what has stopped circulating.