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The six character types of the Paret Method School tradition derive from Paracelsus's Tria Prima — Sulphur, Mercury, Salt — as redefined by Oswald Wirth in Symbolisme hermétique (1909). Wirth recognized in these three alchemical principles not physical substances but prevailing qualities of the living: Sulphur as the active-igneous principle, Mercury as the mediator-volatile principle, Salt as the passive-stabilizing principle. The School has adopted this nomenclature as a reference grid for non-verbal diagnosis, recognizing that the same six patterns recur in independent traditions — the four Hippocratic-Galenic humors doubled by planetary influence, the three Indian guṇa (sattva, rajas, tamas) and their binary combinations, the six planetary types of the astrological-hermetic tradition, and in contemporary science the six states of Porges's Polyvagal theory.

The six types are not diagnoses: they are prevailing tendencies that a person moves through over the course of a day and a life. The value of recognition lies not in classifying the other, but in recognizing one's own habitual trance in order to move through it toward the integrated state, which the same alchemical tradition calls the Philosophical Mercury or Quintessence.

I. The three pure principles

The Sulphur type (Soufre)

Alchemical principle: Sulphur — heat, activity, fire, expansion. Hippocratic tradition: choleric or bilious temperament (hot-dry humor, fire element, bile organ). Prevailing polyvagal configuration: sympathetic system in mobilization. Indian guṇa: rajas — quality of action, movement, activation.

Non-verbal signs: direct and intense gaze, broad and decisive gestures, sonorous voice with sharp prosody, forward-leaning posture, sustained action rhythm. The Sulphur person perceives themselves as "in motion," ready for initiative, sometimes impatient with others' slowness.

Planetary tradition: the Sulphur type is expressed in two polarities — Martial (aggressive, conquering, combative) and Solar (expansive, generous, proud) — according to the prevailing astral influence.

Hypnotic access door: paternal (directive), with clear tasks and visible success indicators, accompanied by ventral signals of appreciation that prevent mobilization from sliding into threat rigidity.

Vulnerability: sustained hyperergia predisposing to burnout and subsequent hypoergic collapse; anger or action can become metabolically costly strategies without ventral regulation.

The Mercury type (Mercure)

Alchemical principle: Mercury — fluidity, mediation, volatility, intelligence in motion. For Wirth, the central principle of the Paracelsian Tetraktys. Hippocratic tradition: nervous or sanguine-volatile temperament (linked to the diencephalon, subtle sensitivity). Prevailing polyvagal configuration: well-regulated ventral vagus — social engagement, prosody, mobile facial expression. Indian guṇa: sattva — quality of balance, clarity, transparency.

Non-verbal signs: mobile and curious gaze, prosodic and modulated voice, light gestures, expressive face, rich conversational rhythm. The Mercury person relates easily, understands quickly, synthesizes, bridges people and ideas.

Planetary tradition: the Mercury type is governed by Mercury itself (the planet), and secondarily linked to the Sun for clarity and to the Moon for receptive sensitivity.

Hypnotic access door: ventral / "play" mode. Once safety is established, Mercury is guided with pleasure because its tendency is toward fluid communication.

Vulnerability: dispersion and over-adaptation — can lose its center in the attempt to respond to all solicitations; risks complacency as a masked dorsal relational strategy.

The Salt type (Sel)

Alchemical principle: Salt — stability, materialization, fixity, conservation. For Wirth, the principle of the body and incarnation. Hippocratic tradition: melancholic or phlegmatic temperament (cold, slow, earthy humors). Prevailing polyvagal configuration: dorsal vagus in conservative mode — deep quiet, sometimes shutdown. Indian guṇa: tamas — quality of inertia, heaviness, material stability.

Non-verbal signs: gaze that settles slowly or drifts into emptiness, low and deep voice, essential gestures, stable sometimes heavy posture, slow rhythm, prolonged reaction time. The Salt person is grounded, patient, constant; may appear unresponsive but is often the most reliable over the long haul.

Planetary tradition: the Salt type is governed by Saturn (stability, duration, weight of time) and secondarily by the Moon in its introverted phase (still water).

Hypnotic access door: mental (non-intrusive), with symbol, breath, body scan, and gentle ventral anchors that maintain social contact without forcing here-and-now attention.

Vulnerability: chronic dissociation, loss of initiative, overlap with depressive phenotypes (stabilized hypoergia); the way back is not shaking but gentle progressive re-engagement of the body via interoception.

II. The three binary mixed types

Sulphur + Mercury (Soufre + Mercure)

Configuration: mobilization regulated by ventral engagement. Polyvagally, this is the play state (V+S). Guṇa: sattva + rajas — clear action, lucid mobilization. Planetary tradition: the jovial type (Sanguin jovialis), where the expansive energy of Sulphur is tempered by the mediating mobility of Mercury.

Non-verbal signs: "energetic and guided." Upright but not rigid posture, firm voice with rich prosody, gaze that engages without scrutinizing, decisive yet harmonious gesture, ability to complete complex tasks while maintaining relationship.

Access door: paternal with ventral warmth — structure without warmth rigidifies it toward the pure Sulphur type; warmth without structure bores it.

Vulnerability: if ventral safety weakens, it slides toward the pure Sulphur type: the same energy becomes pressure, perfectionism, threat rigidity.

Mercury + Salt (Mercure + Sel)

Configuration: immobilization regulated by ventral engagement. Polyvagally, this is the state of intimate quiet (V+D). Guṇa: sattva + tamas — lucid quiet, grounded presence. Planetary tradition: the contemplative or tempered lunar-saturnine type, where the stability of Salt is illuminated by the clarity of Mercury.

Non-verbal signs: "quiet and receptive." Slow and deep breath, low but not flaccid muscle tone, relaxed face, soft settling gaze, low and warm voice. It is one of the types that enters deep trance most easily.

Access door: mental (symbol, breath, body scan) with gentle ventral anchors. The risk is that the dorsal takes over and one slides into the pure Salt type.

Vulnerability: can confuse deep quiet with avoidance of necessary action. Liberation passes through brief cycles of quiet → micro-mobilization → return to quiet — the somatic liberation sequence.

Sulphur + Salt (Soufre + Sel)

Configuration: co-active mobilization and immobilization without Mercury (ventral) regulation. Polyvagally, this is fixation (S+D, without V). Guṇa: rajas + tamas without sattva — activation clashes with inertia, action blocks, energy bottles up. Planetary tradition: the blocked or martial-saturnine in conflict type — the drive toward action clashes with dorsal inhibition, producing held anger, resentment, clenched jaw, chronic hostility.

Non-verbal signs: "fired up but blocked." Gaze scanning for threat, sharp or subterranean voice, high and short breath, tense jaw and forearms, rigid or repressed gestures. This is what the School's Springer papers call blocked hyperergia.

Access door: first restore Mercury (ventral). Instructions land as pressure until the ventral is online. Slower tempo, humor, explicit permission to stop, prosodic softening. Only then can one return to the task in short windows.

Vulnerability: it is the type that most benefits from the mesmeric crisis and the somatic liberation sequence, because the blocked energy can finally complete its movement in a field of safety.

III. The integrated type

The seventh type is not a stable character combination but the result of a practice: repeated and accompanied exposure to the state where Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt are co-present and coordinated through hypnotic, meditative, magnetic work, and the School's presence exercises.

The alchemical tradition calls this configuration Philosophical Mercury — the mercurial principle which, after being separated and purified, contains within itself both Sulphur and Salt in a higher unity. Paracelsus writes: "De l'Unité tirez le nombre Ternaire et ramenez le Ternaire à l'Unité".

Polyvagally, this is the Integrated State: the ventral vagus organizes sympathetic mobilization and dorsal immobilization as resources rather than as alternative states. The person can fluidly transition between action, quiet, and social engagement, without being stably captured by any configuration.

In the School's teaching, this state has its own operational name: Integral Presence. The Integral Presence™ protocol is the concrete practice that allows the student to recurrently recover the integrated state, progressively stabilize its access, and transfer it into action and relationship — professional and daily. The dedicated page presents the four elements of the protocol (Charges, Reference Point, Stop, Hara and Verticality), the distinction between presence and empathy, and the experiment of three identical sessions with which the School empirically demonstrates that the operator's state matters more than the technique.

In the Indian tradition, this corresponds to the balance of the three guṇa under the primacy of sattva — not the absence of rajas and tamas, but their lucid coordination. The topic is explored in depth on the page Guna e Tria Prima.

IV. The ethical dimension of the typology in the School

Recognizing the prevailing type is not for labeling oneself (as happens in popular applications of MBTI and the enneagram): it is for recognizing one's own habitual trance in order to move through it. The ultimate goal is not to be Mercury rather than Sulphur or Salt — it is to access the integrated state that includes them all without being possessed by any.

This is the decisive distinction between the therapeutic-initiatic use of typology in the School and the commercial use that many contemporary applications make of the same family of maps. The School classifies to liberate, not to fix. The continuity with the alchemical tradition is literal here: the Magnum Opus of Paracelsus and his successors is the work of separation and recomposition of the three principles, where the goal is not one of the three but the Quintessence that integrates them.

V. Convergence with historical and contemporary traditions

The six types are not a recent invention: they represent an intersection of typological maps that have recurred in human anthropology for at least twenty-five centuries, and which the School recognizes as convergent descriptions of the same phenomenological phenomenon — the tendency of the human organism to stabilize into a few recurring patterns of autonomic and relational configuration.

Three Indian guṇa (sattva, rajas, tamas) + their binary combinations → see Guna e Tria Prima.
Paracelsian Tria Prima (Sulphur, Mercury, Salt) + combinations → the original map of this page, systematized by Wirth.
Four Hippocratic humors (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic) doubled by binary planetary influence → seven or eight sub-types documented in Flux Magnétique (Marco Paret, 2017).
Six planetary types of the hermetic tradition (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon — six dominants plus one integration).
Eight logismoi of Evagrius Ponticus (4th cent.) reduced to seven in Cassian and Gregory the Great, and in many syntheses of the Philokalia to six plus one (see Logismoi).
Nine enneagram types organized into three triads of three, traceable in contemporary readings (Naranjo) to configurations of three centers (head-heart-gut) that intersect the three alchemical principles.
Jung's typology (sensation, intuition, thinking, feeling × introvert/extravert) — eight combinations recomposed into corresponding families.
Five-six personality factors in experimental models (Eysenck, Big Five).
Six polyvagal states (Porges, 1994; Sullivan, Erb, Schmalzl, Moonaz, Taylor, Porges 2018) — three pure and three mixed.

The School does not claim that these models say the same thing: it claims that they recognize the same phenomenon by describing it in the vocabularies of their respective eras. The compatibility of the maps is not reduction of one to another: it is phenomenological convergence.

VI. Practical use in the School's teaching

Recognizing a client's prevailing type in the first moments of the encounter — through non-verbal reading of gaze, posture, voice, rhythm, segmental muscle tension — guides three operational choices:

Choice of door. Mercury enters best through the ventral door; Mercury+Salt through the mental door; Sulphur+Mercury through the paternal door with warmth; Sulphur+Salt (blocked) requires ventral restoration before any door; pure Salt requires the mental door in small, progressive doses.
Rhythm calibration. Types with a predominantly dorsal guide (Salt, Mercury+Salt) require very slow acceleration; types with a predominantly sympathetic guide (pure Sulphur, blocked Sulphur+Salt) require early deceleration; pure Mercury easily follows the operator's rhythm.
Choice of liberation work. The mesmeric crisis and the somatic liberation sequence are indicated for types with a block on the Sulphur-Salt axis (S+D without V). They are contraindicated in stable Mercury+Salt and pure Mercury types, where the system does not need to liberate but to consolidate ventral engagement as a continuous practice.

Non-verbal diagnostic system: projection onto the PMA

The six character types presented on this page have an octuple projection in the School's non-verbal diagnostic system, the Paret Movement Analysis (PMA), and a complete typological synthesis in the Moving Enneagram of Paret. The PMA allows recognizing a person's prevailing type through three rapid tests of spontaneous lateralization — arm folding, hand clasping, ear preference — combined with observation of the dominant gesture (Volitional, Analytical, Caring) and postural axes (forward, backward, sinking, upper).

From the six types to the eight postural houses

The polyvagal-Paracelsian grid simplified to six types corresponds, in the PMA's octuple system, to the following projection:

Polyvagal-Paracelsian type	Corresponding PMA houses	Prevailing lateral code	Enneagram
Sulphur pure (sympathetic)	Tribal (extraverted choleric) + Challenger (extraverted sympathetic)	DSD + DDD	8-3 + 7
Mercury pure (ventral)	Idealist (extraverted ventral) + Relational (extraverted ventral-intuitive)	SSD + SDD	2 + 7-2
Salt pure (dorsal)	Sensitive (introverted melancholic-phlegmatic)	SSS	4-9
Sulphur + Mercury (V+S, play)	Tribal with ventral tone (sub-type)	DSD ventralized	mature 3
Mercury + Salt (V+D, quiet)	Cartesian (introverted analytical) + Creative (introverted intuitive)	SDS + DSS	5 + 4-5
Sulphur + Salt (S+D without V, paralysis)	Narcissistic (introverted hypervigilant)	DDS	1-6

The six types are therefore a polyvagal reading of patterns that the PMA's lateral-gestural diagnostics distinguishes with greater granularity into eight postural houses. The two descriptions are not contradictory: the polyvagal map presents the type in its fundamental autonomic configuration (which branch of the autonomic nervous system predominates), the Moving Enneagram presents it in its lateral-gestural-communicative configuration (which hemisphere predominates, which sensory channel, which relational style).

The three hypnotic doors and lateral diagnostics

The choice of the hypnotic access door described on the page Hypnosis, Polyvagal Theory and Somatic Liberation (maternal, paternal, mental) is operationally guided precisely by the PMA diagnosis:

DDS-DDD types (Narcissistic, Challenger) → structured paternal door with recognition of their role
SSS-SSD types (Sensitive, Idealist) → receptive maternal door with prosodic warmth
SDS-DSS types (Cartesian, Creative) → mental door symbolic and self-inductive
DSD-SDD types (Tribal, Relational) → authoritative warm paternal door, or mixed with playful elements

The PMA's four adaptation styles (Individualist D-S, Autonomous D-D, Consensual S-D, Depending S-S) further refine the choice: the same enneagram type may require a very different induction if it is Individualist or Depending. The page Paret Movement Analysis presents this operational framework in detail.

The diagnostic touch

Observation of touch (self-touch, offered touch, touch avoidance) integrates the lateral-gestural diagnosis and provides precise autonomic indicators. The page Touch and the Autonomic Nervous System presents the contemporary neurobiological dossier that grounds this reading: touch is an activator of the ventral vagus, oxytocin releaser, cortisol regulator, and — for the skin itself as a peripheral neuroendocrine axis equivalent to the central HPA (Zmijewski & Slominski 2011) — a bidirectional cutaneous dialogue between two organisms in contact. Hertenstein's decoder of the eight emotions communicable through touch (anger, fear, happiness, sadness, disgust, love, gratitude, sympathy) provides the PMA with a precise operational vocabulary for each of the six (eight) types.

The alchemical-hermetic roots of the typology

The grid of the six character types is not a recent construction: it is the polyvagal rephrasing of a typology that the European alchemical-hermetic tradition has known since Paracelsus. The nomenclature Sulphur / Mercury / Salt comes from the Paracelsian Tria Prima as Oswald Wirth redefines it in Symbolisme hermétique (1909); the same tripartition recurs in the three Indian guṇa (sattva, rajas, tamas) and throughout the European astrological-planetary tradition up to the 20th century. The page Alchemy and Magnetism documents how this typology has traversed the European initiatic tradition without interruption — UR-KRUR, Reghini, Kircher, the tradition of the Philosophical Mercury — and how it is inseparable from the discipline of magnetism and the practice of presence.

For the Paret Method School, recognizing one's own prevailing type is the first step of the real work. The recognition serves to recognize one's own habitual trance in order to move through it toward the integrated state — which the alchemical tradition calls Philosophical Mercury or Quintessence, hesychasm calls apatheia (freedom from the logismoi) and the UR-KRUR Group calls, in the pages Sub Specie Interioritatis and La Presenza, the "command-presence." The page The Awakening describes the completion of this process as a stabilized state. The magnetic techniques of the Paret Method — mesmeric crisis, Hermetic Caduceus, magnetic alignment, Tummo — are so many practical access paths, each calibrated for the different character types according to the three doors (maternal, paternal, mental) and their interweaving.

Sources

Alchemical-hermetic tradition

Paracelsus, De Natura Rerum (16th cent.); Opus Paramirum.
Oswald Wirth, Le Symbolisme hermétique dans ses rapports avec l'alchimie et la franc-maçonnerie, Dervy, 1909/2009.
Oswald Wirth, Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Âge (1927).

School publications

Marco Paret, Le Flux Magnétique et les Savoirs Anciens (2017), section VII «L'analyse des différents tempéraments» and section on the Trois Principes Paracelsiens.
Marco Paret, Hypnosis, Polyvagal Theory, and Somatic Liberation — A Non-Verbal Approach to Healing (Springer chapter, in preparation).

Historical typological traditions

Galen, De temperamentis.
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (1921).
Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos (4th cent.).
Sankhya-karika and Bhagavadgītā (chapters XIV and XVIII) on the three guṇa.

Polyvagal theory and scientific convergence

S. W. Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, Norton, 2011.
M. B. Sullivan, M. Erb, L. Schmalzl, S. Moonaz, J. Noggle Taylor, S. W. Porges, «Yoga Therapy and Polyvagal Theory: The Convergence of Traditional Wisdom and Contemporary Neuroscience for Self-Regulation and Resilience», Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12:67, 2018. [1]
H. J. Eysenck, Dimensions of Personality (1947).