Salt (🜔 Body)

Salt (🜔) is the third of the Tria Prima introduced by Paracelsus — the principle of body, fixity, and crystalline form. It is what remains in the crucible after calcination has driven off everything volatile: the irreducible material substrate. Paracelsus taught that every substance in nature is composed of Sulfur (soul), Mercury (spirit), and Salt (body), and that disease arises from their imbalance. In the Oxford Cabinet's account of the Tria Prima, Salt represents the ground or matrix in which Sulfur and Mercury act — without Salt, their union has no vessel to inhabit.