Not So Common Table Salt

By Atom Bergstrom

Atom’s Blog

Adano Ley (Swami Nitty-Gritty), assigned …

SODIUM to Consciousness acting on Matter

CHLORINE to Energy acting on Energy

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According to him, the actual “chakras” are in the skin, not in the spine, so …

The Lumbar Center reflects (reflexes) Consciousness acting on Matter.

The Thoracic Center reflects Energy acting on Energy.

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So common table salt (sodium chloride) helps bind two Energy Centers together.

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John Jackson Manley (Salt and Other Condiments, 1884) wrote …

“Salt has been in use from the earliest times, and always largely sought after both by man and the higher class of animals. So eager indeed is man for it that at some time or other in almost all nations, when revenue was the most urgent, a tax was placed upon salt, since nearly everything would be sacrificed to obtain a portion of that material; and the saline earths, called ‘salt licks,’ are the greatest attraction to the wild animals of the prairie or the desert. Especially among the western nations salt has from time immemorial been regarded as so vital a necessity that no controversy as to its relish or sanitary value was ever for a moment possible. It was used from the first in some such way as water, quite as a matter of course, and with a tacit acknowledgment that it was absolutely indispensable for man’s existence. Indeed the desire for salt seems an instinct implanted in the animal creation, and there is a natural craving for it, when it does not exist in sufficient quantity in food. Wild animals will travel long distances and brave many dangers to get at the salt licks just mentioned; horses and cows are most healthy when provided with lumps of rock-salt in their mangers or pastures; and even bees will sip a solution of salt with avidity. Men will barter gold for it in countries where it is scarce, and for it husbands will sell their wives, and parents their children. In some districts of Africa salt is more expensive than the purest white sugar in Europe, and children will suck a lump of it in preference to sweetmeats. In the district of Accra on the Gold Coast of Africa, a handful of salt is the most valuable thing upon earth after gold, and will purchase a slave or two. Mungo Park [1771-1806] tells us that with the Mandingoes and Bambaras the use of salt is such a luxury, that to say of a man, ‘he flavours his food with salt,’ is to imply that he is rich; and no stronger mark of respect or affection can be shown in Muscovy, than the sending of salt from the tables of the rich to their poorer friends.

“But the existence of greater or less appetites for salt in all individuals surely indicates that this substance serves more important functions than that of merely gratifying the palate, a conclusion on which the most elementary considerations of human physiology fully substantiates. Common salt is the most widely distributed substance in the body; it exists in every fluid and in every solid; and not only is it everywhere present, but in almost every part it constitutes the largest portion of the ash when any tissue is burnt. In particular it is a constant constituent of the blood, in which it forms about half the total weight of the saline matters, and it maintains in it a proportion that is almost wholly independent of the quantity that is consumed with the food. The blood will take up so much and no more, however much we may take with our food; and on the other hand, if none be given, the blood parts with its natural quantity slowly and unwillingly. Under ordinary circumstances a healthy man loses daily about twelve grains by one channel or the other, by the secretions, the bile, and even tears, and if he is to maintain his health that quantity must be introduced. Common salt is of immense importance in the processes ministering to the nutrition of the body, for not only is it the chief salt in the gastric juice, and essential for the formation of bile, and may hence be reasonably regarded as of high value in digestion, but it is an important agent in promoting the processes of diffusion and therefore of absorption. Direct experiment has shown that it promotes the decomposition of albumen in the body, acting probably by increasing the activity of the transmission of fluids from cell to cell. Nothing can demonstrate its value better than the fact that if albumen without salt is introduced into the intestine of an animal no portion of it is absorbed, while it all quickly disappears if salt be added, or, to put it in another way — the necessity for salt may be explained by the composition of the gastric juice. The most powerful solvent acid which insures the digestion of food is known as hydrochloric. This is furnished entirely by the amount of salt, either chloride of sodium or potassium, taken with the food, or naturally contained in it. Unless a large quantity of this acid is present in the gastric juice, the other digestive principles are inert, or are not given out during the passage of food through the stomach. The immediate effect appears to be to stimulate the sense of taste and to increase the flow of saliva, but its preserving action is due to its power to attract moisture, by which it tends to harden whatever moist substance is brought into contact with it, and when it has obtained moisture it becomes soft, and loses its flavour. There is no other compound of chlorine which effects both of these purposes or could supplant common salt.

“Salt should be used in the cooking of all vegetables, and added salt seems almost a necessity to make them palatable when cooked. Said Job (vi. 6) ‘Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?'”
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