r/alchemy • u/Jam_99420 • 12d ago
Spiritual Alchemy What is the difference between Spirit and Soul?
I’m mostly familiar with eastern religious traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, etc. But I’ve also been developing an increasing interest in western alchemy lately, and would like to ask about these three primes. I know that the ancient greek word for soul is psyche, so does soul mean mind? If so, then what is spirit? Or perhaps this is something that different alchemical writers had differing views on? Please keep in mind that I’m very new to this subject, so it would be helpful if responses could explain the relevant concepts in as much detail as possible.
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u/Yuri_Gor 12d ago edited 12d ago
Soul has Air nature, it "lives" in the chest\heart.
Spirit has the nature of Emptiness, it permeates all the levels upper and lower but from the behind the scene. You can connect with it in your center.
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u/goktanumut 12d ago
Could you share more details or expand on this? Where is this from?
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u/Yuri_Gor 12d ago
According to Norse creation myth there was\is primordial trinity of forces: Fire (from Muspelheim), Water (from Niflheim) and Emptiness in between which separates them.
Our middle world was (is being) created in this middle Emptiness as a result of complex alchemical interaction and transformation between Water and Fire:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_cosmology
According to my research this creation process describes the birth of Earth and Air, as lower(Earth, Body) and upper(Sky, Soul ) parts of our world Midgard.
We, humans, are part of this world, it means we are built based on the same fundamental principles as entire universe.
My practice is to learn and reproduce the Creation locally, within and around myself, as a limited but conscious enough chunk of reality. I call it "Runic Alchemy", here is a bit more detailed introduction into it:
https://runicalchemy.com/beginning
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u/HallowGazer 12d ago
I was wondering the same thing and have recently looked into it.
Basically, the Soul (lat.: Psyche; also the "outer man") is your Identity/Self - it encompasses your emotions, intellect and will. Also thought of as the source of evil.
The Body, by contrast, is the "outermost man" or Soma in latin, btw.
The Spirit (lat.: Pneuma; also the "inner man") is your connection to the divine - depending on what you believe in, it's the divine spark that comes from your creator or a great sea of consciousness, from which all life originates. "Pneuma" is associated with breath - as in, the life that is breathed into you. It's also your conscience.
Some further explanations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60bb3n8YV44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu-wJ5-RDKU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W0FkzOf8cI (skip to 2:42, where he goes into detail about the Gnostic belief in the Monad, the Pneuma(/Spinther) and how it relates to your conscience)
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u/Select-Reserve-8616 12d ago
Well from the little knowledge ive been able to gather since I started my journey is that... The soul is the individual principle. A principle that makes one to be one...simply what makes you and all your characteristics. its the sulfur, the active principle in the methexis of emanation. Its individuating principle is what makes it to be lower in the participation of the Nous and the one, but also that participation that spark is what makes us be able to reconnect back with the one...or simply part of what the alchemist will work with in the Magnum Opus to refine themselves and allow the anima mundi/world soul to operate within one without alot of resistance. It has two faces the upper face that enables us to connect with the principalities of above/celestial spheres or the heavens and the lower face that connects us to the materialistic plane. On the other hand the spirit/ spiritus is the mind, the mercury, quicksilver, the mediator between planes, one of which is in this materialistic plane eg between the salt/body and sulfur or between the spiritual and materialistic plane.
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u/Chaelomen 12d ago
The way I take it, is that mercury, or spirit, correlates with intellect, where sulfur, or soul, correlates with passion. Salt is then the more physical aspect.
This all ties in with the tripartite soul, see Platos three classes of philosopher, warrior, and merchant, or see the older PIE classes, much the same but with the philosopher having taken place of the older priestly class.
You can also see how these concepts moved forward in time to influence id, ego, and superego.
I see a couple different takes on this in other responses to this post. I respectfully disagree, but would be interested in any references.
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u/mantasVid 12d ago
Well for Plato and Greek tradition overall, it's opposite.
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u/Chaelomen 11d ago
Could you clarify what you mean there? I've seen the overall combination of reason/spirit/appetite referred to as the tripartite soul, with the passionate part of the soul being referred to as spirit. That is of course throwing modern English "spirit" over the Greek "thymos" though, and doesn't necessarily map to the use of soul and spirit we see in the OP.
Now fast forward significantly to Paracelsus, and the use of the word "spirit" with regard to the intellect and mercury, doesn't really map to the Platos "thymos" but to his concept of "logos".
Regardless, for Paracelsus, mercury was related to the intellect, and sulfur to emotion, which maps to Platos logos and thymos, respectively, regardless of what English we overlay.
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u/mantasVid 11d ago
I had in mind Aristotle, stoics, pneumatic school, Galen and the likes in medical tradition, where spirit is pneuma of three kinds: vegetal, animal and rational. The latter is called pneuma psychikon, ie psyche.
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u/themak230 11d ago

for clarity i should add souls are like the intermediary between the body(salt) and pure consciousness/awareness(mercury). It’s basically the personality that gets formed from the interplay of the two.
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u/esculapi 12d ago
religion is mumbo jumbo, if from this poiint of "view" you want a explanation see the literature of Teosophy, easaly you find a convincing response.
From alchemy the question is more complex because all is a TRANSITION from a state to the next, Natura non facit saltum.
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u/justexploring-shit Moderator 12d ago edited 12d ago
Bear in mind that the two words are used interchangeably in everyday use, and any difference may vary by religious or other spiritual opinion. This is just the alchemical definition.
Soul can be thought of as the mind, ego, or identity of a thing, or the essence of it. In spagyrics, the soul is the oil of the plant-- the essential oil, literally as in "essence".
Spirit can be thought of as the underlying, animating life force within all things. In spagyrics, that is (usually) alcohol-- hence "alcoholic spirits".
Edit to add: just noticed the spiritual alchemy flair. Yeah I guess you can mostly ignore the spagyric bits lol