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John Reid's Course on Practical Alchemy - II. Chapter 7.

The proof of spagyric products not being alchemical is the fact that they can be concocted solely from the manufactured ingredients bought in stores. All we need are salts, 190-proof ethyl alcohol, and steam-distilled volatile oils. Be that as it may, these stones and their production do teach us some rather valuable lessons.

I will not bore the reader with the already familiar instructions of how to separate an oil from an herb, how to cause the herb's fermentation and rectify the resultant alcohol, or how to go about incinerating, collecting, and purifying the water-soluble salts of the plant. By now all of these procedures should have become second nature to the student. In fact by now you should be developing some tricks of your own and preferences for modes of operation.

Therefore collect your spagyric essentials from any plant you choose or buy them from a store. The best salt that I have found to use is solar-dried sea salt. This salt already contains a considerable amount of solar sulfur because of the manner of its being dried. This aspect of the solar sulfur can be increased in these salts by setting them outside at two to three in the morning to deliquesce. The salts should be placed on a plate or Pyrex pie dish. This procedure should be done on the day of the planet that rules the plant from which the essential oil was obtained. The best conditions for this work are warm, humid clear nights. Slightly overcast nights can also yield satisfactory results. In the morning around six go out and check the salts; if all or most have turned to liquid all is fine. Leave the salts to dry in the sun until midday. In this way as they crystallize they suck in and trap more of the sun's energy.

Take the salts inside and grind them fine, weigh them, and then place them into a crucible. Place the crucible into the kiln and set the controls to maintain a temperature of 200 to 300 degree centigrade. This roasting of the salts causes their pores to open even wider.

The salts should be left in the kiln until the appropriate day of the following week. When it is time to take the salts outside again turn the kiln off. Using a pair of tongs immediately take the salts out of the hot kiln. Pour the salts into a warm mortar and regrind them. Take the salts from the mortar and place them into a warm Pyrex dish and spread them thin. Immediately take the salts outside and place them in a clear undisturbed spot. The salts will absorb the atmospheric moisture much more quickly this time. Repeat the entire above procedure of roasting and grinding two more times. The only variance is that in the final operation, turn the kiln off at 12 midnight. Allow the salts to cool in the kiln until 6 a.m. Take the still-warm salts out of the kiln and place them in a warm mortar. Grind the salts fine and weigh them. Pour the salts into a mason jar in as even a layer as possible. Pour enough of the essential oil over the salts so that there is a slight excess of the oil floating above the salts. Seal the mason jar and place it in an incubator at 40 degreec Celsius. There the salts should remain undisturbed for a week. At 6 a.m. on the appropriate day of the following week check the salts. If they have drunk up all of the oil, add some more. When the same amount of oil floats on the top of your salts as you put in a week before, the salts have taken up all they can hold. Begin adding your ethyl alcohol in the same manner as you did the oil. Keep the process up until no more alcohol will go into the salts. When this is done your stone is finished. You can increase the virtue of your stone by grinding it and subjecting it to a gentle calcination. Put the stone back through the whole procedure and you will have a wonderful medicine. You can cure your stone by allowing it to digest in the heat of the incubator for six months to a year. If done properly, the stone at this time will work to separate the spagyric sulfur from a macerating herb.