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Practical alchemyBack to Alchemy Forum page.Are there many 20th century English authors (or translations) of practical Alchemy? I already have "Alchemist's Handbook" by Frater Albertus, and "The Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy" by Manfred M. Junius, both excellent books. I believe that "Herbs in Magic and Alchemy" by Chris Zalewski is also a practical book, but I have not seen it, yet. Are there others? Thank you. Sincerely, Doug Pitts
For those of you interested in doing practical herbal alchemy, there is a correspondence course called `The philosophers of nature'. The last address I have is P.O.Box 11218 Boulder, CO 80301, USA. This course seems based on the old Paracelsus model of Frater Albertus. It takes you through herbal then to metalic alchemy. Over the years my wife Chris and I have experimented on a large number of these herbal alchemical tinctures and in spite of all the hype, we have found that some of the old fashioned masceration tinctures or herbal teas work better. We have hundreds of examples over the years in our Herbal practice.There are times when these alchemical tinctures can be applied but they are for very special occasions and the practioner will have to use his or her own judgement. I have also known people who have taken antinomy oil and found it of no real benifit. Again I stress there occasions for alchemical uses but to take them `willy nilly' when you feel an illness coming on is not the answer. Also taking them every day just to keep health is also not the best way to approach them as well. To give an example of when to use them we have made an alchemical tincture from the herbal compound known as Essiac which is a well known herbal cancer cure in the 1930's in canada. Here in New Zealand this cure was tried out on over 200 people with limited or no success(when prepared as given in original directions). We have tried to use the alchemical nature here by bringing up its potency and the jury is still out on the results. So I would stress that one not take too much of the old herbals or alchemical texts say and experiment on them yourself. One other thing is that in various books on herbal alchemy they show a distillation train, generally speaking a retort is just as good. My wife Chris made the liquid stone from the manuscript `Circulatum Minus' of Urbigerus. This manuscript has been used widely in herbal Alcehmical work and Junius's book `Practical handbook of Plant Alchemy' has it included. It was also published by Frater Albertus and is also used in the Philosphers of Nature course.The liquid stone breaks any plant into the Sulphur, salt and mercury.
Greetings, Pat. Thanks for the plug.
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>>This course seems based on the old Paracelsus model of Frater Albertus. It There are some similarities particularly in processes in the early plant works. There is a distinct difference, however, which becomes a wider difference as the courses progress. The reason is that the courses were developed in Europe, by people who were aware of Albertus' work, but not limited by it. Also, it says more than Albert was willing to say. (In my opinion).
>>Over the years my wife This is good advice, I think. I think that spagyric herbal preparations can be very useful in medicine, but I would rather have a nice herbal tea for a mild digestive problem than a tincture of peppermint, for numerous reasons. I think that spagyric medicines offer great potentials in 'self initiation' and in ways of working with energy in the body. These same mechanisms can resolve physical ailments, of course, but I think that it is better to look to spagyrics for a 'soul' medicine than a 'body' medicine in terms of the level where it offers the greatest advantage.
Antimony oil - lots of potential for problems. If we think that herbs are non- standardized, due to differences in growing conditions, organic vs wild-crafted vs commercial, when harvested, etc., then mineral ores are more of a problem. I think that there are many variations in content of antimony tinctures, and various questions of toxicity and impurities, that make it impossible to say what is what. The Philosophers of Nature does not, by the way, recommend using such products, and is strictly an educational and research association. The interest is not in medicine-making, for example.
>> My wife Chris made the liquid stone from the manuscript `Circulatum Minus' This is a tremendous achievement! I know of a number who have worked at the process with varying degrees of success (or lack of same). I did see a sample from Junius, so I know that it works. Quite an amazing product, actually.
Glad to see you Pat. Regards,
Russ House From: zirdo@central.co.nz
When Chris and I first stared experimenting with Alchemical tinctures we decided to use them only in cases when there was a slow recovery rate. They take a long time to kick in so if you want to take them for the flu then forget it. I mentioned earlier of using Essiac as an alchemical essence. The full effect would take possibly about 8 weeks to 12 weeks to work. Also during this time the patient is given a herbal dose of teas or capsules to take the pressure off the physical organs. Since Chris and I both do Radionics we considered that the alchemical tincture is on the same level as a flower essence and would treat the subtle bodies and chakras.We tend to follow the school of thinking of the body having 7 subtle bodies-including the physical. We dowse out what subtle body and chakra the alchemical elixir effects.A good example of this is the because when you work at such a high level the alchemical tincture has to work its way through the subtle bodies and chakras befoe it reached the physical then it has to keep up the pressure. I think anyone with a long term illness -cancer or aids would benifit this way. A good test experiment would be then Essiac combination taken three drops three times a day for about three months would help . For those of you interested in the Liquid Stone experiment Chris did,. She wanted to see how it would work on one of the weakest plants so she chose Dandelion to make the liquid stone. Once the stone was made she used Rosemary for the separation.It was separating within an hour but gained strength and separated more correctly in the fourth hour.One other point on the timing of an experiment. We work out an astrological chart and marry that with our natal chart before we start. Some prefer not to do this but we do. Perhaps this is the reasons why the same experiment performed by two people where one fails. Will or kavanah(intention) counts though I suspect working with planetray energy patterns do help as well. One alchemist, Joe Lisiewski took part of an experiment from `Homers Golden Chain' and created life in a test tube. I do not know all the details but Hans Nintzel does. Joe mentioned to me that the quantity given in this Mss was not correct and he had to experiment to get it.
Pat Zalewski
From: eximer@netcom.com (Michael Prescott)
RE: J.Lisiewski,Jr His published work is covered in Essentia, Vol 1 Winter 1980: The Analytical Technique applied to the Water Work, also Essentia, Summer 1982: On the Generation of Animals (In which his creation featured cover story!)
The Bottom line: He applied scientific method to the arcane method described in Anton Kirchweger's version of The Golden Chain of Homer. He found some procedural points not well called out in the original,but found the practice essentially correct. See also: Hermetic & Alchemic Writings of Paracelsus, AE WAITE,Vol I, pages 120-135 but especially the footnotes on pages 123-125 regarding the caveats of such operations. Similar processes are also listed in other works, with various authors, under various guises.
RE: J.Lisiewski,Jr His published work is covered in Essentia, Vol 1 Winter 1980: The Analytical Technique applied to the Water Work He talks largely about the Gur and the distinction between the PRS instruction and that given in the Golden chain about filtering the rain water colected in thunderstorms. The importance of retaining the Natural electrical charge of the water, and removing pollutants. The charge can be replaced by a vander Graaff generator. he compared results with water that was filtered but not electrified. The electrified containers produced more Gur after 90 days wait.
Essentia, Summer 1982:- On the Generation of Animals This details the creation of the 3 kingdoms from the Gur. He electron bombarded the gur to sterilise it and ensure no prior bacteria. This article is really too long ( 5 pages) to summarize properly (unless people really want me too). In my copy of the Falcon Press `gems from the Equinox" it proclaims that Falcon publish Lisiewski "Physical Alchemy: a study in Para-Chemistry" I've never seen this anyone know if it was published, or what happened?
jon
From: zirdo@central.co.nz
Joe Lisiewski did a couple of lessons in alchemy for the falcon Press in their Golden Dawn correspondence course. This consisted of about 50 pages of instruction. I am unaware if this was the basis of a forthcoming book but I suspect it was. When I spoke to him he thought about going past the herbal and into the metallic but this never eventuated. A few days ago someone stated he used the Kirchweager translation of the Golden Chain. I was under the impression that he used the Bacstrom version. To the best of my knowledge the Kirchweager translation was not completed by RAMS until well after he made his experiments but I could be in error on this minor point. Joe used the Circulatum as an example of how to obtain a hard stone of the herbal Kingdom in the GD correspondence course. This manuscript gives the option of a hard or liquid stone at a certain point in the experiment. Pat Zalewski
From: T.Mcrae@mailbox.uq.oz.au (Tom McRae) >Essentia, Summer 1982: On the Generation of Animals >This details the creation of the 3 kingdoms from the Gur. He electron >bombarded >the gur to sterilise it and ensure no prior bacteria. If this in fact is the method of sterilisation Lisewiesky used I'm afraid it throws doubt on his claim to have created life in a test tube. Some of my scientific work involves use of an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope, first instrument of its type to be able to examine live material. Colonies of bacteria are routinely subjected to high intensity electron beams of 10,000 volts and upwards. Time lapse video recordings then show the colonies' growth. Notice that the bacteria DO NOT DIE. They reproduce as normal. When assessing this instrument I subjected several examples of living insects to exposures of an hour or more. All survived, even beetle eggs subsequently hatched out living viable larvae. High intensity electron beams do not attack live material unless chair related:-) I wonder if the experimenter placed an aggregate of his 'sterile' substrate on bacteriological media to confirm sterility. I don't know what life he claims to have created but it seems from the above that whatever it was would be capable of being recognised by any competent microbiologist. My guess would be Bacillus subtilus. The mystical, spiritual processes with which true alchemists are involved should not cloud their perceptions to the very real scientific methods essential in all research. Without such methods being employed during processes end results are always open to doubt. I am not a sceptic, as those of you who know me from other lists canconfirm, I do however have extensive knowledge of scientific methods in many fields. Regards Tom
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