Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy: How to Prepare Medicinal Essences Tinctures & Elixirs

This modern handbook gives us an understanding of the forgotten but very valuable spagyric (plant alchemy) methods for preparing natural remedies. While ordinary tinctures and infusions utilize only a part of the great curative powers of plants, the methods of plant alchemy 'open' the medicinal plants completely, thereby releasing their higher healing powers. The author describes these methods in great detail, showing the reader how to prepare plant remedies alchemically. A mere practical methodology for these processes would surely be incomplete without a knowledge of the ideological world in which alchemistic and hermetic thought flowered. The author has endeavored to portray the nature of plant alchemy holistically, drawing on the rich imagery and symbolism of ancient source materials. Topics covered include the extraction of three Philosophical Principals (Mercury, Sulfur, and Salt) from medicinal plants, the influence of the stars, the Plant Magistery of Paracelsus, the Circulatum Minus of Urbigerus, the Elixir recipe of Labavius, the Clyssus process of Thurneysser, the Vegetable Stone of Isaac Hollandus, and alchemistic signs and symbols. The closing chapter is devoted to the foundations of health that are found in all great classical schools of medicine. With its emphasis on right balance and wholeness, genuine alchemy belongs to the best of these healing traditions, providing us with one of the noblest paths to a new synoptic view and to the medicine of the future.