The Three Prime Essences

"Every body consists of three ingredients. The names of these are Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt." - Paracelsus
"The One Divine Mother conceived and gave birth to the three deities. One, the Creator of the World; One, the Sustainer; and One, the Destroyer." - Guru Granth Sahib 30.

Tropical/Equinoctial Sul­phur: oiliness; softens and nourishes the internal organs, as the heart, brain, and veins; either governs the excess which arises from the two others, or it is dissolved ש Shin: king over fire, Heaven in the Universe, Hot in the Year, the head in the Soul Rajas: passion, unrest, attachment, attachment to action, cupidity, desire to work, rest­less­ness, the action-obsessed, agony, lust, & midspace.	Fixed Salt: alcali; every relaxing disease, as dysentery, diarrhrea, lienteria, etc.; works by purging, cleansing, balsaming, etc., and rules over putrefaction מ Mem: king over water, Earth in the Universe, Cold in the Year, the belly in the Soul Tamas: ignorance, unknowing, torpor, sleep, darkness, sloth, mis­un­der­stand­ing, delusion, the unreasoning, the lowest guna, & down.	Bicorporeal Mer­cu­ry: liquor; diseases of the arteries, ligaments, bones, nerves, etc.; it removes that which changes into con­sump­tion א Aleph: king over Breath, Air in the Universe, temperate in the Year, the chest in the Soul Sattva: purity, luminosity, happiness, knowledge, the light of wisdom, the knowers of wisdom, noble action, gentle, wisdom, & up.

Contents

• Sulphur
• Salt
• Mercury
• Sepher ha-Yetzirah (The Book of Formation)
• The Bhagavad Gita
• Paracelsus the Great
• De Occulta Philosophia, Liber Segundus: Chapter vi. Of the Number of three, and the Scale thereof.
• Works Cited

The Book of Formation - ספר היצירה (Sepher Yetzirah)

Chapter Three; 'משנה ט - Verse Nine

He made ש (sheen) king (מליך) over fire And He bound a crown (כתר) to it And He combined one with another And with them He formed Heaven (שמים) in the Universe (עולם), Hot in the Year, And the head (ראש) in the Soul (נפש): The male with שא"ם And the female with שמ"א.

The Bhagavad Gita

The Different Gunas

7. Rajas is the quality of passion, it causes unrest and attachment; it unites by creating attachment to action.
9. [...] rajas [refers] to action [...]
12. Cupidity and desire to work, restlessness and passion are born when rajas rules.
15. Death in rajas means birth among the action-obsessed [...]
16. [..] the fruits of rajas [are] agony [...]
17. [...] lust [is the result] of rajas [...]

The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus the Great

Paramirum, Liber I

Morbific Effects of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury.

With regard to Sulphur, its effect should be thus estimated. It never produces an evil effect by itself, unless it be astral, that is, unless a spark of fire shall have been cast into it. Then is power awakened by that spark. Is not the act of burning a virile one? Without it nothing is produced. So, then, if any disease declare itself from Sulphur, then, first of all, the Sulphur should be properly named. It is essentially a masculine operation. There are many sulphurs, such as resin, gums, botin, axungia, fat, butter. oil, vinum ardens, etc. There are some sulphurs of woods, some of animals, some of men, some of metals, as oil of gold, of Luna, of Mars; some of stones, as liquor of marble, of alabaster, etc. ; some of seeds, and of all other things, each with their own special names. There is afterwards the fire falling upon each, which alone is their star, and this, too, with its distinguishing name. And this operation is, in one respect, peccant matter.
Reduce to Sulphur all that is sulphureous, in the sense that it burns.

Appendix 1. Concerning the Three Prime Essences

Chapter I

sulphur either governs the excess which arises from the two others, or it is dissolved
oiliness,
devoid of salt and mercury

Chapter III

Sulphur operates by drying and consuming that which is superfluous. Whether this proceeds from itself or from others, it must be completely consumed by means of sulphur, if it be not subject to salts. Thus, a medicine for dropsy is made of the salts produced out of the liver of the Archeus to consume the putrefied and corrupt. But to remove the disease itself the strength of sulphur is necessary, to which diseases of this kind are subjected in virtue of their origin. Yet, it is not every kind of sulphur which will effect this purpose, and so it results from the nature of the element that every sickness produced by the nature of the body has its contrary from the nature of the element. This takes place both universally and particularly, and, consequently, from the genera of an element the genera of diseases may be recognised. One is always the sign and proof of the other.

The Book of Formation - ספר היצירה (Sepher Yetzirah)

Chapter Three; 'משנה ח - Verse Eight

He made מ (mem) king (מליך) over water (מים) And He bound a crown (כתר) to it And He combined one with another And with them He formed Earth (ארץ) in the Universe (עולם), Cold in the Year, And the belly in the Soul (נפש): The male with מא"ש And the female with מש"א.

The Bhagavad Gita

The Different Gunas

8. Tamas is born of ignorance: it unites through unknowing, torpor and sleep.
9. [...] tamas [refers to] stifling discrimination, to unknowing,
13. Darkness, sloth, misunderstanding and delusion are born when tamas rules.
15. [...] death in tamas means birth among the unreasoning.
16. The fruits [...] of tamas [are] ignorance.
17. [...] ignorance, misunderstanding and delusion [are the result] of tamas.

The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus the Great

Paramirum, Liber I

Morbific Effects of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury.

Moreover, with regard to Salt it should be known that it exists of itself as a material humour, and introduces no disease unless it be joined with its star. Its star is resolution, which gives it a masculine power. Salt, no less than the spirit of vitriol, tartar, alum, nitre, etc., exhibits itself tumultuously if it is resolved. Now, whence can such a nature be infused into humours, except by a star? About this physicians have formed a conspiracy of silence. Even if they had been guilty of no other blunder save that in all their causes and cures they had omitted the star, that would have been quite sufficient to prove that they had built their house on a foundation of moss and sand. You should know, also, that salts are manifold. Some are limes, some ashes, some arsenical, some antimonial, some marchasitic, and others of a similar sort. And from all of these are produced and begotten peculiar diseases according to the body of the salt; which diseases thereupon take the name and nature special to each.
What is from Salt should be reduced to such salt as is appropriate.

Appendix 1. Concerning the Three Prime Essences

Chapter I

This works by purging, cleansing, balsaming, and by other ways, and rules over that which goes off in putrefaction.
alcali
without mercury or sulphur

Chapter II

Salts purify, but after various manners, some by secession, and of these there are two kinds-one the salt of the thing, which digests things till they separate--the other the salt of Nature, which expels. Thus, without salt, no excretion can take place. Hence it follows that the salt of the vulgar assists the salts of Nature. Certain salts purge by means of vomiting-. Salts of this kind are exceedingly gross, and, if they do not pass off in digestion, will produce strangulation in the stomach. Some salts purge by means of perspiration. Such is that most subtle salt which unites with the blood. Now, salts which produce evacuation and vomiting do not unite with the blood, and, consequently, produce no perspiration. Then it is the salt only which separates. Other salts purge through the urine, and urine itself is nothing but a superfluous salt, even as dung is superfluous sulphur. No liquor superfluously departs from the body, for the same remains within. Such are all the evacuations of the body, moisture expelled by salt through the nostrils, the ears, the eyes, and other ways. This is understood to take place by means of the Archeus from these evacuations. Now, as out of the Archeus a laxative salt comes forth, of which one kind purges the stomach because it proceeds from the stomach of the Archeus, so another purges the spleen because it comes from the spleen of the Archeus; and it is in like manner with the brain, the liver, the lungs, and other members, every member of the Archeus acting upon the corresponding member of the Microcosmus.

Chapter IV

Every relaxing disease is generated from salt, as dysentery, diarrhrea, lienteria, etc. Every expulsion is caused by salt, which remains in its place, whether in a healthy or suffering subject. The salt in the one case is, however, that of Nature, while in the other it is corrupted and dissolved. Cure must be accomplished by means of the same salts from which the disease had origin, even as fresh salt will rectify and purify dissolved salt. The sulphureous cure follows as a certain confirmation of the operation in salt.
Sulphur softens and nourishes the internal organs, as the heart, brain, and veins, and their diseases also may be termed sulphureous, for a sulphureous substance is present in them.

The Book of Formation - ספר היצירה (Sepher Yetzirah)

Chapter Three; 'משנה ז - Verse Seven

He made the letter א (aleph) king (מליך) over Breath (רוח) And He bound a crown (כתר) to it And He combined them one with another And with them He formed Air in the Universe (עולם), The temperate in the Year, And the chest in the Soul (נפש): The male with אמ"ש And the female with אש"ם.

The Bhagavad Gita

The Different Gunas

6. Sattva unites with purity and luminosity; its points of reference are happiness and knowledge.
9. Sattva refers to happiness
11. When the light of wisdom penetrates every sense, sattva is predominant.
14. And if the atman meet death during sattva's predominance, it straightaway reaches the pure regions of the knowers of wisdom.
16. The fruits of noble action are sattva and gentle [...]
17. Wisdom is the result of sattva [...]

The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus the Great

Paramirum, Liber I

Morbific Effects of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury

So, too, understand concerning Mercury. This of itself is not virile unless the star of Sol sublimates it. Otherwise it does not ascend. Its preparations are many, but there is only one body. But the body of this is not like Sulphur or Salt, which have many bodies, from whence come different salts and different sulphurs. This has only one body, but the star changes this in different ways, and into various natures. So, then, from the same source many diseases are produced. Thus its masculine nature comes from the star, and by this nature it has its morbific effect.
What is Mercurial should be reduced by sublimation if it be adapted thereto.

Chapter IV

All diseases of the arteries, ligaments, bones, nerves, etc., arise from mercury. In the rest of the body the substance of corporeal mercury does not dominate. It prevails only in the external members.

Appendix 1. Concerning the Three Prime Essences

Chapter I

it removes that which changes into consumption
liquor
without sulphur and salt;

Chapter III

The same sign occurs in the case of mercury; it assumes that which separates from salt and sulphur. Hence are produced diseases of the ligaments, arteries, joints, limbs, and the like. Hence in these diseases we must simply remove the liquor of mercury. But the ailments themselves ought to be removed by those things which are favourable and conducive to them, when proof has been obtained of the speciality of the thing in Nature.

Chapter Three

The Different Gunas

1. Krishna said: I will now give you the greatest knowledge of all, through which the sages have achieved perfection.
2. They are not subject to rebirth at the time of creation, nor are they affected at the time of the world's dissolution.
3. The great Prakriti is my womb, and I place the seed in it; in this way, Arjuna, life begins.
4. Remember: whatever form of birth there is in this world, the great Prakriti is the ultimate womb, and I am the seed-giving father.
5. Sattva, rajas and tamas -- these Prakriti-produced gunas unite the body to the atman.
6. Sattva unites with purity and luminosity; its points of reference are happiness and knowledge.
7. Rajas is the quality of passion, it causes unrest and attachment; it unites by creating attachment to action.
8. Tamas is born of ignorance: it unites through unknowing, torpor and sleep.
9. Sattva refers to happiness, rajas to action; tamas, stifling discrimination, to unknowing,
10. Sattva occasionally rules over over rajas and tamas; rajas over sattva and tamas, and tamas over sattva and rajas.
11. When the light of wisdom penetrates every sense, sattva is predominant.
12. Cupidity and desire to work, restlessness and passion are born when rajas rules.
13. Darkness, sloth, misunderstanding and delusion are born when tamas rules.
14. And if the atman meet death during sattva's predominance, it straightaway reaches the pure regions of the knowers of wisdom.
15. Death in rajas means birth among the action-obsessed; death in tamas means birth among the unreasoning.
16. The fruits of noble action are sattva and gentle; the fruits of rajas agony, of tamas ignorance.
17. Wisdom is the result of sattva, lust of rajas; ignorance, misunderstanding and delusion of tamas.
18. The sattvika go up, the rajasika hang in midspace, the tamasika, caught in the lowest guna, go down.
19. When the sage sees no other worker but the gunas and sees also what is beyond the gunas, he reaches me.
20. The atman which transcends matter-involved gunas is untouched by birth and death, decay and sorrow, and finds immortality.
21. Arjuna asked: How does one recognize the transcender of the gunas? how does he behave, what does he do with his life?
22. Krishna replied: He does not dislike light, he does not dislike work, he does not desire them when he is without them;
23. He behaves detachedly; he knows the gunas are working, and he remains steady;
24. He remains serene in psin and joy, or when condidering a peice of earth, a stone or lump of gold; he remains serene in moments of glory and shame;
25. He remains serene in honour and dishonour; he has abandoned worldly undertakings. Such a man is said to have transcended the gunas.
26. My unanswering devotee transcends the gunas and is ready for union with Brahman.
27. For I am the abode of Brahman, the deathless and the unchanging, the abode of eternal dharma and supreme felicity.

Referenced in a footnote to The Manual or Treatise Concerning the Medicinal Philosophic Stone:

Paramirum, Liber I.

On the Origin of Diseases from the Three Primary Substances.

There are three substances which confer its own special body on everything, that is to say, every body consists of three ingredients. The names of these are Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. When these three are compounded, then they are called a Body ; and nothing is added to, or coheres with, them save and except the vital principle. Thus, if you take any body in your hands, then you have invisibly three substances under one form. We have now to discuss concerning these three. For these three substances exist under one form, and they give and produce all health. If you hold wood in your hand, then by the testimony of your eyes you have only one body. But it is of no advantage for you to know this. The clowns see and know as much. You should descend and penetrate beneath the surface, when you would learn that you are pressing in your hands Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. Now if you can detect these three things by looking, touching, and handling them, and perceive them separated each from the other, then at last you have found those eyes with which a physician ought to see. Those eyes ought to see these three constituents as plainly as the clown certainly sees the crude wood. Now this example may make you able to recognise man, too, in these three, no less than wood itself. That is, you have man built up in a similar form. If you see only his bones, you see as the clown sees. But if you have separated his Sulphur, his Mercury, and his Salt, then you see clearly what a bone is, and if that bone be diseased you see where it is faulty, and from what cause, and how it suffers. So, then, the men: looking at externals is a matter for clowns; but the intuition of internals is a secret which belongs to physicians. Now if these visible things must exist; and beyond their mere aspect medicine fails, then their nature must be deduced so that it may lay itself bare and be exhibited. Moreover, see into what ultimate matter these things are resolved, and into how many kinds. You will find these three substances divided from one another into just as many kinds. Now the clown cares nothing about all this; but the physician cares. The mere experimentalist neglects it, but not the physician. The quack thinks nothing of it ; but the physician considers a good deal. Before all else these three substances and their properties in the great universe should be understood. Then the investigator will find the same or similar properties in man also: so that he now understands what he has in his hands, and of what he is making himself master.

Morbific Effects of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury.

With regard to Sulphur, its effect should be thus estimated. It never produces an evil effect by itself, unless it be astral, that is, unless a spark of fire shall have been cast into it. Then is power awakened by that spark. Is not the act of burning a virile one? Without it nothing is produced. So, then, if any disease declare itself from Sulphur, then, first of all, the Sulphur should be properly named. It is essentially a masculine operation. There are many sulphurs, such as resin, gums, botin, axungia, fat, butter. oil, vinum ardens, etc. There are some sulphurs of woods, some of animals, some of men, some of metals, as oil of gold, of Luna, of Mars; some of stones, as liquor of marble, of alabaster, etc. ; some of seeds, and of all other things, each with their own special names. There is afterwards the fire falling upon each, which alone is their star, and this, too, with its distinguishing name. And this operation is, in one respect, peccant matter. Moreover, with regard to Salt it should be known that it exists of itself as a material humour, and introduces no disease unless it be joined with its star. Its star is resolution, which gives it a masculine power. Salt, no less than the spirit of vitriol, tartar, alum, nitre, etc., exhibits itself tumultuously if it is resolved. Now, whence can such a nature be infused into humours, except by a star? About this physicians have formed a conspiracy of silence. Even if they had been guilty of no other blunder save that in all their causes and cures they had omitted the star, that would have been quite sufficient to prove that they had built their house on a foundation of moss and sand. You should know, also, that salts are manifold. Some are limes, some ashes, some arsenical, some antimonial, some marchasitic, and others of a similar sort. And from all of these are produced and begotten peculiar diseases according to the body of the salt; which diseases thereupon take the name and nature special to each. So, too, understand concerning Mercury. This of itself is not virile unless the star of Sol sublimates it. Otherwise it does not ascend. Its preparations are many, but there is only one body. But the body of this is not like Sulphur or Salt, which have many bodies, from whence come different salts and different sulphurs. This has only one body, but the star changes this in different ways, and into various natures. So, then, from the same source many diseases are produced. Thus its masculine nature comes from the star, and by this nature it has its morbific effect. If, then, all diseases are comprised under these three heads, each with its own name and title, know that you must reduce to Sulphur all that is sulphureous, in the sense that it burns. What is Mercurial should be reduced by sublimation if it be adapted thereto. What is from Salt should be reduced to such salt as is appropriate. These, then. are the three general causes of disease, as we have grouped them together above.

Appendix 1. Concerning the Three Prime Essences

Chapter I.

Every thing which is generated and produced of its elements is divided into three, namely, into Salt, Sulphur, Mercury. Out of these a conjunction takes place, which constitues one body and an united essence. This does not concern the body in its outward aspect, but only the internal nature of the body.
Its operation is threefold. One of these is the operation of Salt. This works by purging, cleansing, balsaming, and by other ways, and rules over that which goes off in putrefaction. The second is the operation of Sulphur. Now, sulphur either governs the excess which arises from the two others, or it is dissolved. The third is of Mercury, and it removes that which changes into consumption. Learn the form which is peculiar to these three. One is liquor, and this is the form of mercury; one is oiliness, which is the form of sulphur; one is alcali, and this is from salt. Mercury is without sulphur and salt; sulphur is devoid of salt and mercury; salt is without mercury or sulphur. In this manner each persists in its own potency.
[...]

Chapter II.

Salts purify, but after various manners, some by secession, and of these there are two kinds-one the salt of the thing, which digests things till they separate--the other the salt of Nature, which expels. Thus, without salt, no excretion can take place. Hence it follows that the salt of the vulgar assists the salts of Nature. Certain salts purge by means of vomiting-. Salts of this kind are exceedingly gross, and, if they do not pass off in digestion, will produce strangulation in the stomach. Some salts purge by means of perspiration. Such is that most subtle salt which unites with the blood. Now, salts which produce evacuation and vomiting do not unite with the blood, and, consequently, produce no perspiration. Then it is the salt only which separates. Other salts purge through the urine, and urine itself is nothing but a superfluous salt, even as dung is superfluous sulphur. No liquor superfluously departs from the body, for the same remains within. Such are all the evacuations of the body, moisture expelled by salt through the nostrils, the ears, the eyes, and other ways. This is understood to take place by means of the Archeus from these evacuations. Now, as out of the Archeus a laxative salt comes forth, of which one kind purges the stomach because it proceeds from the stomach of the Archeus, so another purges the spleen because it comes from the spleen of the Archeus; and it is in like manner with the brain, the liver, the lungs, and other members, every member of the Archeus acting upon the corresponding member of the Microcosmus.
[...]

Chapter III.

Sulphur operates by drying and consuming that which is superfluous. Whether this proceeds from itself or from others, it must be completely consumed by means of sulphur, if it be not subject to salts. Thus, a medicine for dropsy is made of the salts produced out of the liver of the Archeus to consume the putrefied and corrupt. But to remove the disease itself the strength of sulphur is necessary, to which diseases of this kind are subjected in virtue of their origin. Yet, it is not every kind of sulphur which will effect this purpose, and so it results from the nature of the element that every sickness produced by the nature of the body has its contrary from the nature of the element. This takes place both universally and particularly, and, consequently, from the genera of an element the genera of diseases may be recognised. One is always the sign and proof of the other.
The same sign occurs in the case of mercury; it assumes that which separates from salt and sulphur. Hence are produced diseases of the ligaments, arteries, joints, limbs, and the like. Hence in these diseases we must simply remove the liquor of mercury. But the ailments themselves ought to be removed by those things which are favourable and conducive to them, when proof has been obtained of the speciality of the thing in Nature.

Chapter IV.

The physician should understand the three genera of all diseases as follows. One genus is of salt, one of sulphur, and one of mercury. Every relaxing disease is generated from salt, as dysentery, diarrhrea, lienteria, etc. Every expulsion is caused by salt, which remains in its place, whether in a healthy or suffering subject. The salt in the one case is, however, that of Nature, while in the other it is corrupted and dissolved. Cure must be accomplished by means of the same salts from which the disease had origin, even as fresh salt will rectify and purify dissolved salt. The sulphureous cure follows as a certain confirmation of the operation in salt. All diseases of the arteries, ligaments, bones, nerves, etc., arise from mercury. In the rest of the body the substance of corporeal mercury does not dominate. It prevails only in the external members. Sulphur softens and nourishes the internal organs, as the heart, brain, and veins, and their diseases also may be termed sulphureous, for a sulphureous substance is present in them. Let us take colic as an example. Salt is the cause of this, because this predominates in the intestines. In its dissolved state it produces one kind of colic, and when it is excessively hard it produces another kind; for when it passes from its own temperature it becomes excessively humid or excessively dry. In the cure of colic by elemented salts the human salt must be rectified. But if a salt other than from sulphur be applied, you must regard it as a submersion of salt and not a cure of colic. Similarly, in the case of mercurial and sulphureous diseases, each must be administered to its counterpart, not a contrary to a contrary. The cold does not subdue the hot, nor vice versa, in congenital diseases. The cure proceeds from the same source as the disease,and has generated the place thereof.

Chapter V.

The genera of diseases are also divided into various branches, locusts, and leaves. Yet is there one cure. The mercurial disease is an instance, for mercurial liquor separates into many branches, locusts, and leaves. So all varieties of pustules are subject to Mercury, because the disease is mercurial. But some are subject to common and others to metallic mercury, some to mercury xylohebenus, some to mercury of antimony. It is necessary, therefore, to know that liquor of mercury, which cures that which the salt of mercury dissolves, and it has also an incarnative virtue. For mercury is multiplex. [...] Consequently, the physician should know the tree of diseases and the tree of natural substances, but of these there are indeed many. There is the tree of salt, which is twofold, namely, of rebis and of the element. There is also the tree of sulphur and there is the tree of mercury. Accordingly, the physician must guard against inserting two trees into one cure; he must remember that Mercury must be administered for mercurial, salt for saline, and sulphur for sulphurous diseases. To each malady let the corresponding remedy be applied. So are there only three medicines as there are three forms of diseases.

[...]

Chapter VII.

Ginger is diaphoretic by reason of the salt out of the body whereof it is made. But that virtue belongs to the fire, through which generations boil up, as is held in philosophy, and by reason of this boiling up it removes obstacles, and reduces or elevates the humours of sulphur, salt, and Mercury to the second, third, and fourth grade of ebullition. And as it is constituted out of the igneous nature of salt, so it also ascends a grade, by which grade the humidities distil through the pores and guttas. Thus purifiers perform their work by the sole force of salt, as, for example, honey. The balm of salt is situated in honey, which, consequently, does not putrefy. For balm is the most noble salt which Nature has produced.
Attractive force is of sulphurous nature or essence. Mastic is a sulphur thus produced, and so also opopanax, galbanum, and others. Nor must we accept the axiom of physicians, that it is the property of heat to attract. We should rather say that it is the property of sulphurs to attract. Hot things only attract in so far as they burn, but that which burns is sulphur, which is not fixed, and hence evaporates like gums. Laxatives also attract like a magnet from those places where they are not. But the reason why salts attract is that salt is impressed upon sulphur and coagulated by means of the spirit of sulphur. Therefore, it attracts from places more distant than itself. Thus there are aperients of sulphur, whether cold, or green, or purple red, of any fashion whatever. For it is the nature of aperient sulphur to operate and to drive before it every moveable thing which it reaches. Nor is it true, as physicians say, that it is the nature of cold to cause evacuation.

CHAPTER VI
Of the number of three, and the Scale thereof.

The number of three is an incompounded number, a holy number, a number of perfection, a most powerfull number. For there are three persons in God, there are three theological virtues in religion. Hence it is that this number conduceth to the ceremonies of God, and religion, that by the solemnity of which, prayers, and sacrifices are thrice repeated. Whence Virgil sings,

Odd numbers to the God delightful are.

The same did cleanse, and wash with Water pure
Thrice his companions——

——I walk around
First with these threads, which three, and severall are,
'Bout the Altar thrice I shall thy image bear.

Knots, Amaryllis, tye, of colours three,
Then say, these bonds I knit, for Venus be.

She spake three words, which caus'd sweet sleep at will,
The troubled Sea, the raging waves stand still.

The number of three is perfected with three augmentations, long, broad, and deep, beyond which there is no progression of dimension, whence the first number is called square. Hence it is said that to a body that hath three measures, and to a square number, nothing can be added. Wherefore Aristotle in the beginning of his speeches concerning Heaven, cals it as it were a Law, according to which all things are disposed. For Corporeall, and spirituall things consist of three things, viz. beginning, middle, and end. By three (as Tresmegistus saith) the world is perfected: harmony, necessity, and order (i.e.) concurrence of causes, which many call fate, and the execution of them to the fruit, or increase, and a due distribution of the increase.

The whole measure of time is concluded in three, viz. past, present, to come; all magnitude is contained in three; line, superficies, and body, every body consists of three intervals, length, breadth, thickness. Harmony contains three consents in time, diapason, hemiolion, diatessaron. There are three kinds of souls, vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual. And as saith the Prophet, God orders the world by number, weight, and measure, and the number of three is deputed to the ideal forms thereof, as the number two is to the procreating matter, and unity to God the maker of it.

Magicians do constitute three Princes of the world, Oromasis, Mitris, Araminis (i.e.) God, the Mind, and the Spirit. By the three square or solid, the three numbers of nine of things produced are distributed, viz. of the supercelestiall into nine orders of Intelligencies: of Celestiall into nine Orbs: of inferiours into nine kinds of generable, and corruptible things. Lastly in this ternal orb, viz. twenty seven, all Musical proportions are included, as Plato, and Proclus, do at large discourse. And the number of three hath in a harmony of five, the grace of the first voice.

Also in intelligencies there are three hierarchies of angelicall spirits. There are three powers of Intellectuall creatures, memory, mind, and will. There are three orders of the blessed, viz. of Martyrs, Confessors, and Innocents. There are three quaternions of celestial Signs, viz. Of Fixed, Moveable, and Common, as also of houses, viz. Centers, Succeeding, and Falling. There are also three faces, and heads in every Sign, and three Lords of each triplicity.

There are three Fortunes amongst the Planets. Three Graces amongst the goddesses. Three Ladies of Destiny amongst the infernal crew. Three Judges. Three Furies. Three-headed Cerberus. We read also of a thrice-double Hecate. Three mouths of the virgin Diana. Three persons in the supersubstantial Divinity. Three times, of nature, law, and grace. Three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity. Jonas was three days in the whale's belly; and so many was Christ in the grave.

• Agrippa, Henry Cornelius. Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Edited by Donald Tyson. Translated by James Freake. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1997.
• Kaplan, Aryeh. Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation). York Beach, Me.: S. Weiser. Print.
• Lal, P. "The Different Gunas." The Bhagavad Gita. [New Delhi]: Roli, 1994. Print.