Body Soul

The materialism of this eschatology expressed not body-soul dualism but rather a sense of self as a psychosomatic unity. The idea of person, bequeathed by the Middle Ages to the modern world, was not a concept of soul escaping body or soul using body it was a concept of self in which physicality was integrally bound to sensation, emotion, reasoning, identity-and therefore finally to whatever one means by salvation. ... 

When an Alchemist Speaks of Mercury, Sulphur and Salt, He Speaks of His Spiritual, Astral and Physical Bodies, Not of the Elements. Alchemy Unveiled Describes the Tribulations That a Human Being Has to Pass Through in Order to Purify These Three Bodies. However, to Achieve the Level of an Alchemist Requires Daily Study and Strict Daily Mental, Astral and Physical Exercises for Many Lifetimes. Alchemy Unveiled Will Lead the Reader on a Journey of a Complete Purification of the Body, Soul and Spirit, and for the First Time the Mystery of the Philosopher s Stone Is Openly Explained... 

Albertus, Frater. Body, soul and spirit. rhttp //homepages.ihug.com.au/ panopus/ convention73/bodvetc.html. 

SYMBOLICAL ILLUSTRATION Representing the Trinity of Body, Soul and Spirit... 

Man is the most perfect of animals in man there is a union of three parts, these are body, soul, and spirit. Metals also may be said to have a body, a soul, and a spirit there is a specific bodily, or material, form belonging to each metal there is a metalline soul characteristic of this or that class of metals there is a spirit, or inner immaterial potency, which is the very essence of all metals. 

In the last chapter I tried to describe the alchemical view of the interdependence of different substances. Taking for granted the tripartite nature of man, the co-existence in him of body, soul, and spirit (no one of which was defined), the alchemists concluded that all things are formed as man is formed that in everything there is a specific bodily form, some portion of soul, and a dash of spirit. I considered the term soul to be the alchemical name for the properties common to a class of substances, and the term spirit to mean the property which was thought by the alchemists to be common to all things. 

The alchemical process seeks to fan this fire..."carefully, with great judgment and skill." In laboratory alchemy, the Three Essentials of Body, Soul, and Spirit are most important because they provide us a means of manipulating the elements. Many alchemists indicate that the Primal Elements are too subtle even for the most skilled artist and that only Nature can work at that level. The Three Essentials are the fruit of the Elements, which Man can manipulate even at the physical level. 

To the alchemist, everything is alive and consists of a Body, Soul and Spirit or Salt, Sulfur and Mercury. This is true in the Vegetable Kingdom, the Animal Kingdom and the Mineral Kingdom. That the plant world and the animal world are filled with living beings is obvious to all. 

At the end of this process you will have twelve fractions representing the Body, Soul, and Spirit of each of the Four Elements ... 

It is the tincture withdrawn from the body. Soul also is said to be in Arsenic.]... 

PRINCIPIA CHYMIA — The Principles of the Alchemists are three in number Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, i.e., Body, Soul, and Spirit. Thence spring all things which exist they can be exhibited in all things, and into them all things can be resolved. 

And this white vapor, this white gold, to wit, this quintessence, is called also the compound magnesia, which like a man does contain, or like a man is composed of a body, soul and spirit. Now the body is the fixed solar earth, exceeding the most subtile matter, which by the help of our divine water is with difficulty lifted up or seperated. The soul is the tincture of... 

There are Heaven and Earth with all the constellations, the four Elements and the three Principals (Sal, Sulphur, Mercurius - that is the Body, Soul, Spirit) invisibly contained inside a Human Being. We must take into our hands the first and crude Subject of our Art, to draw our Mercurius, Sulphur and Sal, one after the other. After proper preparation, out of these, the Philosopher s Stone is made. 

Should this curse be terminated and the whole instance be rescinded, then the etheric Body of the Human Being, which became half material and enclosed in him, darkened body-Soul (Nephesh) must be dissolved again into its prima materia, that means, the Mercurial-Water. 

In the preparatory work, you must separate Body, Soul and Spirit from each other, purify and reunite them. Be only concerned about our water and the foliated earth, the Spirit cannot be seen he moves all the time above the water. The foliated earth is like a little island in a philosophical ocean. You must crush and close up this earth, then it will, because of being thirsty in prison, shatter by itself and it will, like a thick water, mix with oil. You must know how you unite this, as terra foliata, in proper proportion with the water. Pondus aquae esto plurale, terrae vero foliatae singulare."... 

Isabella s book was little in size but big on advice. One recipe instructed on how to join metaphorically body, soul, and spirit in a process combining fixed camphor, quicksilver, and sulphur so as to create a universal medicine. But to this Isabella also added instruc-... 

In a sense the same applies 10 body, soul and spirit, though in this case the distinctions made are rather... 

The Qabalistic system, which deals with Nephesch, Ruach and Neshamah, corresponds, therefore, far more accurately with the ideas of the Alchemists than the ordinary terminology of to-day, which, in most cases, is loose and misleading. With the Qabalists, as with the Alchemists, body, soul and spirit are regarded not as three things, but as different aspects of one thing. 

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