Anima / Corpus

Soul above. Body below. The same word, reflected - because in the hermetic reading they were never two separate things, only one thing seen from either side of the mirror.

What's on the shirt

ANIMA sits upright; CORPUS is its exact reflection, inverted beneath the axis. Read it one way up and it is the soul; turn the shirt over and it is the body. Neither is the right way up.

The layout

Two words on a single axis, the lower one an exact reflection of the upper. Turn the shirt in your hands and neither is upside down. That is the whole argument of the maxim, made structurally rather than simply stated.

The Latin

From the Tabula Smaragdina - the Emerald Tablet, the founding text of Western alchemy, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus.

Above the axis: Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius - that which is below is as that which is above. Below it, mirrored, its own inversion.

And along the centre line, holding both halves together: ad perpetranda miracula rei unius - to accomplish the miracles of the one thing.

Set in the classical V-form, as it would have been cut in stone before the letter U existed.

The three symbols

Sulphur, salt and mercury - the tria prima of Paracelsian alchemy. Every substance in creation was held to be a compound of the three.

Sulphur (triangle over cross) is soul: the combustible principle, what burns and desires.

Salt (divided circle) is body: the fixed principle, what remains after the fire.

Mercury (crescent over circle over cross) is spirit: the volatile principle, the go-between. It sits in the centre because it *is* the centre - the only one of the three carrying all three elements in its own glyph.

MMXXVI - the year, set as a maker's mark.