In the 16th Century the Swiss philosopher Paracelsus identified the Tria Prima, also known as the Three Primes, three elements that he believed were the source of all life and also the source of all disease. By studying the three-fold nature of these elements the alchemist sought to purify the essence of life.
This portfolio imagines the separation and recombination of these elements in the alchemist’s quest for purification.
Mercury – Element 80
As mercury was believed to shift between solid and liquid states, so it was believed to transcend the cycle of life and death. Its fluid nature represented the connection between heaven and earth, the high and the low, the body and the soul.
Sulphur – Element 16
The expansive force of sulphur represented the soul of all materials and living things. Synonymous with consciousness, to understand sulphur was to understand the soul of creation leading to expansive thought.
Salt (Sodium) – Element 11
The contractive force of salt represented the body in the tria prima. It is the substance of the physical, the crystallisation of creation into base matter.
“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?” – Matthew 5:13
