A spagyric essence includes the essential oil, the spirits (alcohol
usually), and the salt of an herb. First the essential oil is distilled
off with steam. Usually the same herbal material is distilled three
times, using the same distillation water each time. The essential oil is
removed and the water is saved.
That water is added back onto the herb and all capped with a
fermentation lock and digested or warmed in gentle heat until
fermentation occurs. Fermentation does produce a lot of different
chemicals than were there originally, as in wine. When the fermentation
is complete, the spirit that was produced by the plant is distilled off
and redistilled or rectified a certain number of times, no more than
seven usually. The liquid that remains is called the phlegm and it is
set aside and saved.
The wet herb is calcined. It does indeed produce a lye, and this is
purified further with the use of circulation, adding the phlegm back
onto the salts and circulating either with a pelican or a soxhlet
extractor, and run it through numerous times. Then the liquid is allowed
to evaporate. The salts are recalcined, ground, exposed to the air to
absorb dew, recirculated, recalcined, etc. usually numerous times until
it is pure white.
Finally the spirits are poured on the salts and then the oil is added.
This is allowed to digest for a certain period of time. Then the liquid
is poured off what remains of the salts, if anything does. In some
methods, this is repeated until nothing solid remains on the bottom of
the flask after this last digestion. Most alchemists do not consider
spagyrics to be true alchemy because both the separation and the
recombination are so crude and mechanical. However, it does produce
something way more potent than a regular tincture, decoction, or even
and essential oil.
Only a single drop of this spagyric essence is added to a glass of wine
for ingestion. I have never heard of anyone being hurt by using this
material. I know it is produced by several companies headed by
alchemists and sold in Europe (and here, usually in very diluted form or
in the form of a vibrational tincture of the spagyric essence). Remember
that pH changes are used to produce allopathic medicines and make them
more easily used by the body. A really drastic pH will rip up organic
chemicals, but the alcohol is added on first, so that is not likely to
happen. From what I know, a salt version of a substance is more easily
absorbed by the body than a base version. The latter is generally smoked
instead, although this is not done in alchemy.
You can read all about the methods of working spagyrically with herbs here:
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/johnreid.html
Plant alchemy has been an interest of mine for a long time. So I get
longwinded about it.
Harry Roth
|