Spagyric Process
According to Manfred Junius in his book Spagyrics, The Alchemical Preparation of Medicinal Essences, Tinctures and Elixirs, Spagyrics is a word that was invented by Swiss medical doctor and alchemist, Paracelsus in the 1500’s. He merged two Greek words together, “spao” and “agiero” meaning “to separate and recombine.” This word describes the ancient Spagyric process of separating the essential compounds within a plant, purifying their individual parts, and recombining them back together into a more refined and potent state.
We begin with sourcing our herbs from the higher quality suppliers available. The herbs are cut and dried and then further processed and macerated in alcohol. The infused spirits represent the Mercurial essence or Spiritual property of the plant.
After 4-6 weeks, once the Mercurial Spirit tincture has finished macerating, the alchemist thoroughly strains the plant matter from the infused spirit, setting the Spiritual essence aside, and then simmers the macerated mushrooms for 45 minutes to one hour in filtered mountain spring water, ensuring lid is tightly closed to trap and reuse the steam distilled in the process. In this manner the alchemist attempts to replicate a less volatile extraction, representing the Sulphur essence or Soul properties.
After thoroughly straining the plant matter from the infused tea, the lab operator then takes the physical plant materials left, setting aside the Sulphur Spirit infusion, and processing them via calcination. This is where the herb is burned down into a fine ash and purified over consistent firings, until the herb has been effectively transformed, representing the Salt essence or Material properties of the herbal medicine.
These three primordial essences of the plant—the Spirit/Soul/Matter and Mercury/Sulphur/Salt and Tincture/Tea/Ash—are then recombined and left to extract the crystallized minerals from the alchemical ash for 2-3 weeks further. In this way best efforts are made to extract the original essence/resonance of all three parts of the plant and then recombined back in the proper proportions to ensure that the material body/Salt (minerals), soul/Sulphur (essential oil) and spirit/Mercury (water/alcohol) are reunited in the highest expression of purity, unity, and harmony.