Salt

[deviadah]

Salt is composed primarily from sodium chloride. It is a mineral essential for human and animal life. In fact it is one of the most used and effective of all food preservaties.

Throughout history salt has played an important role. It has severed as money, the Egyptians used it to preserve their mummies, in many cultures salt was offered as a gift to visitors, it’s used in making pottery. In Shintoism salt is used for ritual purification of people or places. About 5000 years ago a treatise on pharmacology was written in China that discussed more than 40 kinds of salt. Most recent salt played a important role in India with the famous Salt March of Gandhi.

In alchemy salt is the lower consciousness, often portrayed as a square, but when raised through the operations of alchemy it is dissolved and crystallized into a higher form. Our tears are salty signifying dissolution (as is one of the alchemical steps) i.e. the breaking down of ones thoughts and feelings.

Albert Poisson calls salt in his Théorie et Symboles des Alchimistes a “state comparable to the ether of phycists.”

Water and mercury are connected to each other since both symbolize thought and imagination, as is fire and sulphur (willpower). One is feminine and the other is masculine and by union of these two we don’t have three, but one… Salt! As Maria the Jewess says:

…thus two are but one... Invert nature and you will find what you seek... Join the male with the female, and you will find what is sought…

Since fire is represented as a triangle pointing upwards and water as a triangle pointing downwards the unification of these form a hexagram, or the Seal of Solomon (also known as the Star of David).

To the alchemists, the inert Salts at the bottom of the vessel at the end of the Arcanum Experiment [an experiment that demonstrate all the principles of the Emerald Tablet] represented a resurrected and incorruptible body. This inert Salt is the glorified body of a perfected soul, the astral body which will enable us to be at home both in heaven and on earth, This is the greatest Force of all powers, because it conquers every Subtle Thing and penetrates every Solid Thing. - Dennis William Hauck from The Emerald Tablet – alchemy for personal transformation

The Salt of the Philosophers is the immortal and permanently enlightened and wholly incarnated state of consciousness known as the Stone. And it is this stone we should all strive to achieve…

What is your relation with salt in the alchemcial process? Or do you have other thoughts regarding what is symbolizes?

Resources:
Salt Institute
Lore of Salt, The
Wikipedia
Salt Volatilization Experiment


This image of a salt crystal’s surface is magnified 100 million times.

[Gunderic Mollusk]

What's interesting on at least sodium chloride salt is that as a seasoning, it acts as an inorganic comestible, whereas few foods lack carbon, save for water (perhaps someone else can find a symbolism in the dynamic between Water and NaCl?). Yet, with the Salt of Philosophers, eternity does abide, and perhaps the notion of the eternal consumable might be noted? Something that does not deplete, yet feeds, and does not directly come from life, but fuels life?

In Alain Dandielou's work on Hinduism, he mentioned a dynamic between the food and the fire, and in the highest sphere, the fire consumes itself, for it exists only as food, and yet still as "Fire"(the essence of consumption), symbolized by Shiva's interrelatedness to the moon. I'm sorry if this seems tangential...

[deviadah]

Well there is a school of thought that concerns the Elements of Food. For instance pasta is a fire food, and rice is a water food. This means you should eat rice when it is warm and pasta when it is cold. I don't think salt is neither fire nor water in this sense, but I could be wrong.

I don't think you are sliding Off Topic just yet... time will tell!

Till then keep bringing it, your posts inspire thoughts which is always a good thing!

[Gunderic Mollusk]

Thank you for the vote of confidence!

What I considered when pondering "food" is the passive state, yet it finds definition as "food" in the presence of consumption, and thus a dynamic exists. To burn is to require a fuel, for the chemical reaction of fire require that matter be present for it to burn.

But, with the Stone being eternal, and the Salt being an analog for the Stone, and with the Salt something that can be consumed, if only metaphorically, then the Salt can be a symbol for Eternal Sustenance. What I find interesting is that we indeed become "consumed" and "eaten" in our quest for the Salt. The purpose of finding it changes those who devote themselves to it, and thus it acts as both the fire that consumes and the mineral that nourishes. Ha!

What a thread you've begun, Deviadah! Our ability to share these notes in a community is such a gift to the Work.

[deviadah]

The purpose of finding it changes those who devote themselves to it, and thus it acts as both the fire that consumes and the mineral that nourishes... What a thread you've begun, Deviadah! Our ability to share these notes in a community is such a gift to the Work.

Thanks...

Well that is what the Great Work is all about. If you don't come out changed, re-born if you will, at the other end of it I do not think you have succeded. It also shows that what is the greatest treasure is also so obviosuly hidden right there under our nose. Instead of seeking for spiritual guidance at various churches or in books (or travelling across the world), all we need to do is turn inwards and search ourselves. Great powers lie there dormant, and one can really be clueless about alchemy to make them wake up, if one really wants them to.

We can't see that which we aren't aware of, that is why I think most people miss the true aim in life; to know thyself (and I am not talking about getting tips from Dr. Phil).

On a sidenote let me put forth this quote:

The fifth inner sphere refers to the Quintessence, the newly formed matter or Salt unveiled during Fermentation. Inscribed in this sphere are the three types of Salt (Elementary Salt, Salt of the Earth, and the Central Salt). go here to read it all

[siatris]

Well, I work a lot with Enochian magic and the INRI-formula is present in the watchtowers. I found the formula when doing some ritual work on the lesser angels in a sub quadrant. I got some very interesting visions during this ritaul which made me re-read Dee's diary. The angel tells Dee that the lower-right sub-quadrant are the spirits of the elements and then lists the order of the elements. The order was at first confusing, but after meditating on it a while, I saw that it was the INRI-formula.

The order was: Fire, Earth, Water and Air.

I was later told (during vision), that it represents the inner fire (spirit) heating the salt (the body) to seperate the mercury (emotions).

However, the formula found here does not result in perfect sulphur, but in something else which has yet to be identified. It should also be noted that the inner fire is some sort of lower form of sulphur; the hidden spirit within.

[deviadah]

Well from what I gather all of them have three mini-version within, so this means that within sulphur exists mercury, salt and sulphur, and within mercury exists salt, suplhur and mercury etc.

You are probably familiar with this, but I'd thought I post it anyway for those out there who would like to read some of Dee's work:

Monas Hieroglyphica by John Dee

...as if searching for the occasion to perform its function by a very secret and rapid spiral circulation and an incorruptible salt by which the first principle of all things is preserved, or better, that the substance which floats within the vitriol after its dissolution, shows the apprentice a primordial but very transitory specimen of our work, and if he is attentive, a very subtle and most effective way to prepare the work will be revealed to him. - from Monas Hieroglyphica

[siatris]

Well from what I gather all of them have three mini-version within, so this means that within sulphur exists mercury, salt and sulphur, and within mercury exists salt, suplhur and mercury etc.

I was not aware of this, so thank you for pointing it out.
Is this like the tree of life thing, like an unending chain of something, within something, within something? Or is it just present within the first layer?

The lower aspect of sulphur referred to would then be Sulphur of Salt or the Salt of Sulphur. Oh well back to the drawing board again for some contemplation and meditation.

[deviadah]

Ok this is how I see it in simple terms.

Since the trinity (salt, sulphur and mercury) represents the body, the mind and the spirit all three containn elements of the other ones.

Like you have your spirit, but in your spirit there are the traits of the mind and the body - naturally. There is a text on this that I have read, but I can't for the love of god (myself ) recall what book it was in...

I have to get back on that.

But if you are talking about the sulphur that exist within salt then I guess it would have to be the Sulphur of Salt!

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