Tag: alchemy
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Ora et Labora: Invocation in Alchemy
Because of their obscure imagery, alchemical texts have come to mean a great many different things to a great many different people. Amidst all these interpretations, there are two specific (opposing) schools of thought that are worth talking about. They are worth talking about because both are incorrect. The first view is that alchemy is…
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Making Venus Talismanic Ink
I’ve done some experimentation in the past with making carbon-based inks. Recently I’ve kicked off a new project to make talismanic planetary inks. Inks where the pigment used is an oxide of the planetary metal itself. I was inspired by a recipe for copper oxide ink found in Jason Logan’s excellent book Make Ink. The…
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Ink Making III: India Ink
This week I continued my experiments in ink making with India ink. India ink is an extension of the carbon black inks that I have made in previous experiments. It is traditionally made using soot or lampblack as a pigment and shellac as a binder. Because shellac is more challenging to work with than gum…
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Building an Alchemical Incubator: Modern Heat for Ancient Work
In our series on spagyric alchemy, we mentioned the benefits of letting an alchemical preparation extract or mature at a consistent temperature. In herbal spagyrics, and doubly so for more advanced types of alchemy, there is a distinct benefit to being able to hold the work at some prescribed temperature for a long period of…
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Planetary Hours: Unlocking Celestial Timing for Magic
I’ve referred a couple times now to planetary hours, or doing a working “in the day and hour” of a particular planetary power. What is a planetary hour, and how do we find them? In short, a planetary hour is a particular time that is viewed as having a special affinity for some celestial power.…
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Ink Making II: Carbon Black Ink Revisited
In the last ink-making post, I shared an experiment making carbon black ink – specifically with vine charcoal. The results were disappointing; the ink was pale, and struggled to flow evenly from a glass dip pen. This time I tried a couple different things. First, I doubled the amount of pigment in the ink, increasing…
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Spagyric Alchemy III: Bringing It All Together
Over the course of the last couple posts, we’ve been discussing the field of alchemical spagyics: the application of alchemical principles to create plant-based medicines. In the first post, we talked about the high level theory of alchemy – solve et coagula – and different theoretical models for how that separation can be effected in…
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Spagyric Alchemy II: The Selection of Ingredients
In last week’s post, we talked about the general theory of alchemy – solve et coagula – and how it relates to the vegetable kingdom in the form of spagyric alchemy. We covered a number of different theoretical frameworks for how alchemical separation can be effected, but stopped short of actually delving into the specifics…
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Spagyric Alchemy I: Theory of Herbal Transformation
For centuries, alchemy has been seen as a transformative art – a mystical science wherein base lead is turned into gold, the mundane elevated into the extraordinary. While the scope of alchemy as a whole is huge and sprawling, many texts recommend students start first with spagyric alchemy: the application of alchemical principles to extract…
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Materia: Lemon Balm – Melissa Officinalis
Overview Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is an herb of gentle power, offering profound rejuvenation to body and spirit alike. Its cooling, drying energetics, combined with its uplifting nervine properties, make it a soothing remedy in times of turbulence. It calms the anxious mind, brightens melancholy, and eases digestive discomfort born of stress, embodying the nurturing…