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By Raoul Tollmann, founder of AlchemiaNova
Here are some typical alchemical processes that yield distinct classes of alchemical preparations, presented in ascending order in terms of difficulty in manufacturing and the resulting potency.
At the entry level, we find spagyric plant preparations. There is a wide variation to the level of sophistication within this class of remedies. Tibetan Medicine suggests picking fresh plants at an astrologically auspicious moment , usually when the ruling planet of the plant is visible in the sky, and the herbalist who gathers the plant is to say a prayer over the plant, locking in the spirit of the plant. This in itself is a magical operation and needs to be learned from someone who can transmit such knowledge. For those who do not find such an opportunity, purchasing a particular plant from an herb store instead will possibly be the only option. Next, the dried plant is either fermented in grape juice with the addition of winemakers’ yeast, or extracted in brandy for one month. After the maceration has taken place, the tincture is strained, kept in a bottle and the residue gets dried. Next follows the process of calcination or exaltation by fire: The dried residue is heated in an open cast iron pan with access to air – this needs to be done outdoors as smoke evolves. Once the residue has been converted to a pale ash, the ash is gathered and boiled in a heat resistant glass dish with distilled water. The alkaline water gets filtered, and evaporated to just dry, preferably in direct sunlight. On the bottom of the dish we find a few crystals, mainly potassium carbonate with some specific trace minerals of the herb. But depending upon which one of the seven hermetic planets is the ruler of the particular herb these crystals will solidify in the form of one of the seven platonic solids. The crystals are reintroduced into the tincture in which they readily dissolve. At this stage, we have produced a genuine spagyric tincture. Apparently, we have spent more time and effort than contemporary herbalists do, so the question needs to be asked: is it worth it, does our effort get rewarded? The answer is certainly yes, and we can verify this in two ways. First, and most importantly, we ourselves are the ultimate touchstone for all we do in the lab: Taking the finished product ourselves is the most important assay, the human being is the most sophisticated tool for an evaluation of the quality, refinement, potency, fragrance and overall score of the tincture produced. If we have worked well, one teaspoon of a spagyric tincture should roughly match the effect of one tablespoon of a commercial preparation. Second, there is a measurable difference between a regular herbal tincture and a spagyric one: The ORP or ‘oxidation reduction potential’ of a spagyric tincture matches that of the bodily fluids and the spagyric tincture can thus be taken up directly into the bloodstream through the mucous membranes in the mouth. Regular herbal preparations exhibit an ORP of normal food or tap water and need to go through the process of digestion in order to be taken up. In this process of digestion, they are largely broken down into simple molecules that do no longer act as carriers of the specific energies of the herb, no matter how standardized and guaranteed the label said the tincture was.
Working with herbs in the spagyric tradition is what everyone should be able to master relatively easily, this can be fun and the reward are preparations that will consistently outperform the many tinctures on the shelves of health food stores. Plenty of books teaching the basics of herbalism are available and should be consulted by the novice as a starting point.
A huge step up from working with the plant kingdom is the preparation of metals, minerals and gemstones. Nutritional science today has firmly established the need and use of many trace elements. Minerals and trace elements are at the very core of regulating the many biological functions of the organism. In veterinary medicine, simple mineral salts are often used. Some mineral supplements also contain these. Alchemy and also homeopathy show that minerals in a most finely divided state are best taken up and utilized. The Schuessler cell salts, triturated with lactose, are a good example. What belongs here is a brief discussion of toxicity: Many regular metal salts exhibit quite substantial levels of toxicity even at a low dosage and are thus limited in their use. The goal of alchemy in working with metals is first of all to reduce or entirely eliminate this toxicity, so that the benefits of the chosen metal or mineral can be reaped without undesirable side effects. The conversion of toxic metals into edible preparations starts in alchemy with the production of the so-called ‘calxes of metals’, called bhasmas in Ayurveda. These calxes are either complex oxides in the form of micro-clusters, or the metal gets converted into the monoatomic form.
Most chemistry books today still state that water-soluble metal salts dissociate in water into a state of free ions. This information is outdated. Already in the 1950s, electron microscopy had reached a state that allowed to actually take a peek at the molecular and atomic level – today these microscopes are called nanoscopes and provide fascinating pictures of atoms in lattices that do not support the common accepted model of the atom in chemistry textbooks; the surprising find was that metals such as in gold chloride or comparable dissolved salts in water tend to stay in clustered aggregates and are surrounded by a cloud of chlorine, in our example, mimicking a true solution. Thus, the relatively new branch of cluster chemistry was born. The question became relevant: What happens if we attack the metal clusters and reduce their size? Remarkably, metal clusters will reform in their shape, depending on their size, and will eventually break up and rearrange themselves into single atoms or monoatoms. This transition from the state of metallic aggregation to single atoms is usually accompanied by a partial or total change of the physical and chemical properties of the metal at hand, which loses its metallic nature and becomes a monovalent or zerovalent atom. Once formed, these edible monoatoms are a distinct phase of matter and will re-aggregate, forming a material with a look comparable to ceramic crystals when examined under a microscope.
These monoatoms are less reactive than their metallic counterparts, and are found in nature. They cannot be returned to the metallic state by standard metallurgical means, and it is this test that can show if we have indeed produced the edible, often highly psychoactive monoatomic form of the element or if we have merely produced metallic oxides. In Alchemy, this ‘new’ phase of matter has been known and understood for a long time. Monoatomic elements are the ‘true calxes of metals’ that cannot be ‘revivified’ by conventional means, as alchemy books from the Middle Ages state. Another, more parabolic way to describe this phase of matter was to call it the dead ash of a metal out of which the phoenix rises, alluding to the idea that the metal had to first die in order to be reborn in a new form. Ayurveda recognizes this phase of matter by the same token: It is called a bhasma that passes the test of apunarbhavatva or ‘non-revivability’.
The masters of old have not only left behind a collection of alchemical texts, but also artwork as testimonies of their achievements: Modern researchers from the Technische Universität München were quite astonished to find in their analysis of the gold-ruby glass of the famous Lycurgus Cup in the British Museum, which dates from Roman times, the presence of monovalent gold as the coloring agent.
Monoatomic gold, to give an example of old and new production techniques, was manufactured in the Middle Ages by amalgamating molten gold with heated mercury, then amalgamating further with sulfur and distilling the mercury sulfide off. Our method is to dissolve gold powder in molten sodium metal and then to detonate the mass with water. Precipitating monoatomic gold out of the resultant solution with nitric acid will yield purple monoatomic gold, the ‘purple coat of the king’ as it was called in the Renaissance.
Metallurgical chemists may interject that an attempt to precipitate gold out of alkaline solution by a mineral acid is likely doomed to fail or produce only partial precipitation. Yes indeed! It may be hard to swallow for many that this process requires a direct interaction of the alchemist’s mind with the matter at hand, and that each individual may get a different quantity of purple gold out of the exact same volume of solution. Some may not get any, as I had the opportunity to observe. Furthermore, we should mention in passing that some of the monoatoms produced in the labs of contemporary universities are reported to not be stable. It is again the interaction of the alchemist’s focused will with the material at hand that needs to stabilize the material. Some web-based businesses offer monoatomic gold with the warning that you may experience headaches when taking it. Beware! These unfortunate producers have not mastered the art of stabilizing their products properly. Academic chemists will possibly discard this idea as pure fantasy, but alchemy, correctly performed, delivers stable substances that do not fall apart on their own. Alchemy is after all more an art than a science, and one that has always attempted to bridge the seen and the unseen!
Some contemporary authors have unfortunately equated monoatomic elements with the Philosopher’s stone. This idea does not hold up when we examine the facts closely: Calxes of metals are only at the first level of mineral alchemy, not the grand finale. Monoatoms are present in nature and therefore in our food chain, as solids in the soil and plants, and as monoatomic noble gases in the air we breathe. Monoatoms exhibit transformational potential, but do not have transmutative powers when projected upon molten base metals, the test for all true so-called oils and stones of the Great Work.
Coming next week: The Great Work
Related Resources:
- Alchemy
Turning lead into gold? Immortality? Proto-chemistry or spiritual transformation? Discover the spiritual tradition that gave birth to modern science. - Ritual
Magick
Ritual Magick, also known as Ceremonial Magick, one of the most mysterious and misunderstood spiritual traditions, dates back in various forms to the beginnings of human culture, and has been continually practiced through to the present day- inspiring movements as diverse as Wicca, Theosophy, and the New Age, as well as such diverse disciplines as Chaos magick, Aeonic magick, and Thelema. - Hermetic
Tradition
Named after Hermes Trismigestus (Hermes the three times great), the Greek moniker of the Egyptian God Tehuti (Thoth), alleged author of hundreds of mystical tractates, the Hermetic tradition is an eclectic spiritual tradition that encompasses elements from from many religions.
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