Symbols ana a

Eleven
cpe four
elecnencs
AOC) suLfur
♦
rn another of its aspects, however, the cross also leads us from the "Two” to the "Four” by way of the beams and quarters that result from the intersection. The cross, then, is the cross of the four Elements: Fire above, Earth below, Air to the right, and Water to the left.¹ The state of arrest and petrification, which is the mystery of Salt, leads us beyond itself from Fire and Water to the signs that give the hermetic sense of the other two Elements: Earth V is a stoppage or syncope in the direction of the "fall ” that is characteristic of the waters V; and analogously, Air A is a stoppage or break in the ascending direction of fire A. So that from the Two, through the Third (Salt), proceed the Four: the tetrad of the Elements.^{118 119}
Fire A Water V Earth V Air A
According to this aspect of the symbol, the central point of the cross expresses the point of unity of the four Elements, the originating superior and anterior to their four differentiations given by the four directions. Thereby it expresses the Quintessence, the incorruptible and simple principle that, according to the tradi­tion, is the substratum, the principle of life and the nexus of reciprocal union formed by the four elements.
Here we must point out that, like the elements, the hermetic Quintessence—the equivalent of the Pythagorean 6A/cdc, the Hindu aktisha, the Qabalistic avir, Taoist ch'i, etc.—is not considered a speculative abstraction or some contrivance of the ''physics" of yesteryear, but a reality to which corresponds a specific spiritual experience. And the symbolic central point of the cross, as soon as it is "known to the magical hero and understood," says Della Riviera,^ "becomes the root and origin of all magical marvels.”
In accord with the more operative than speculative orientation of hermetic alchemy, the sign + is rarely encountered in isolation. More often it forms part of other symbols expressing the principles and powers that stand over the four Elements, although it also enters into elemental combinations. Thus, for example:
Sulfur £ Mercury ^
This Mercury must not be confused, of course, with Original Mercury. It is a Mercury that is still impure and "terrestrial." Its symbol ^ expresses the state of the elements + in a nature W subject to the lunar law of transformations (superior position of the Moon with respect to the symbol of undifferentiated substance O).
The symbol tor Sulfur ^ gives us, on the contrary the condition of a Fire A in domination over the elements (A over +). Sulfur ^ should not be confused, however, with Sulfur in a pure or "native" state, which in the beginnings of alchemy was given a different symbol T, the same as Aries, symbol of the masculine principle of every generation and direct manifestation of the power of Gold. Only to such a principle are expressions referred like this of Zacharias: "The Agent, whose nature shows the power and strength over matter to that which it is united, is Sulfur’’;^{120 121} or again, "Sulfur is the principle that gives form.’’¹²² The true Sulfur "of the wise” is an incombustible Sulfur. And another impressive alchemical expression that indicates the unalterable quality of "not catching fire” is this celestial and royal barrier: "Our sulfur is a sulfur that does not burn and that Fire [understood as an equivalent of "Poison"] cannot devour."⁶ The expression "Oeiov &irvpov” is seen in Pseudo-Democritus in connection with the formula: "Nature dominates nature,”⁷ and the Syrian texts also speak of a noncombustible sulfur rhat "arrests the fugitive";** it is a dominating activity, exempt from every instinctive element or inner principle (spirit ml Sulfur, says Philalethes) of action and life, but proceeding from the superiority and fixity of the solar center. On the other hand, when Sulfur is designated by ^, it expresses, strictly speaking, the same power, but already in an impure state, because it is chained to matter and a form that it still animates and in which it constitutes potentially the "divine” principle (the double meaning of Oeiov, "Sulfur” and ''divine"). And in addition, it is the teaching of the whole tradition that "the perfection or imperfection of metals [that is, of the individualized essences extracted from the symbolic 'mineral’ or Earth] is deter­mined by the withdrawal or [by the state of] participation of their Agent, that is, the Sulfur.”^{5 123 124}
Twelve
soul, sp1r1c,
add bood
Before proceeding we should pause a moment: in our correspondence oi human nature to the principles we have been contemplating in accordance with the pro­nouncement : "Everything that exists in the macrocosmos, man also possesses.” Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt are found in the (crimundial) universe and in man, in whom the three "worlds” are manifested as soul, spirit, and body. It should be noted henceforth that soul and spine do not possess the same meaning here that they do in our time.
In this context the "Soul” is the supernatural element peculiar to the personality The "Spirit,” on the other hand, is to be taken as the whole package of psycho­biological energies constituting something between the corporeal and the noncorporeal and that together may properly be said to constitute life, that is, the animating principle of the organism. Having said this, let us declare that man carries hermetically in his soul, the presence of the solar and golden force ©; in his spirit he carries that of the lunar and mercurial force and finally, in the body, the force of Salt © is expressed—that is to say, directly linked to the "Fall’’ are crucifixion and imprisonment, while with the "resurrection” comes subjugated power, "burning water," fixed by spiritual law. This is why Bernard of Treviso says in Parole delaissec: "There is a trinity in unity and a unity in trinity, and there we find Body, Spirit, and Soul. And Mercury and Arsenic as well.” And Boehme writes: "Everything that grows, lives, and moves in this world is in Sulfur, and
Mercury is its life. And Salt is the corporeal essence of Mercury’s hunger.”¹
Such correspondences can easily be found in the texts; it suffices to bear in mind the symbolic equivalences so far assigned and some others that can be intuited, and to be on the lookout for rhose contexts where, under some other point of view, the same symbols acquire a meaning that can sometimes take the direcr opposite of rheir usual ones.^{125 126}
From the ternary correspondences in man we can pass on to the quaternary, which refer to the Elements. First of all we must mention the power of the Earth element. Here, to understand completely we need to recall everything that has been said about those neutralizations of opposing principles that create the "body” aspect of beings. In one of its aspects, the opposition takes place between the universal and the individual and causes a blockage of the consciousness resulting in the perception of an exterior, material world.
In the "petrification” of the spiritual world created by the bodily senses, in the breaking of contacts, in perception conditioned by the dualistic law of 1-not-l (which, as we Have, said, is the main obstacle to modern understanding of the traditional sciences), it is the power of Salt that operates. But Salt, Body Stone, and Earth, in the aspect of the hermetic symbolism we are discussing, are equiva­lents. So the power of Earth in man will be that which forces on him, via the physical body, the materialistic vision of the world.¹²⁷
From this there follows a fundamental point: the ordinary man does not know the other three Elements—Air, Water, and Fire--as chey actually are in themselves -the common man knows only the ability to perceive what these Elements undergo when they manifest through the Earth element—that is to say, as they are translated in the processes of the corporeal perception. Water, Air, and Fire, as everyone knows them (that is, as states of physical matter), are no more than correspondences—so to speak—tangibly symbolic of the true elements called “liv­ing” by the hermetic masters. In themselves, they are other existential states, other modalities of consciousness, quite separate from the body, that can transpose all the principles of things according to their noncorporeal nature, just as in the corporeal existence, in the terrestrial body, all principles are analogously transposed and known by their manifestations in the Earth element, in the most universal sense, this earthing of the metals (i.e., the individualized principles) is sometimes called impurity, dross, or shadow.
The other elements beyond Earth, which together constitute the “Philosopher's Heaven,”¹²⁸ can only be apprehended by a consciousness different from that which comes from the body even if such consciousness has been perfected by all the expedients of modem science. The principle of this other knowledge is “Like is known by like,” and here again the premise is that in the essentiality of man are also contained the essences of all the other elements, that is, the potentiality of other states of consciousness apart from that under die spell of the Earth element. And here we arrive at the quaternary classification of man in the wholeness of his being.