primum ens melissae

[solomon levi]

Hi. I saw some posts on the ens of melissae before but I can't find them now.
Anyway, I've made mine and will keep you posted.
I remember in the reading that the poster said it didn't produce the marvelous effects ascribed to it.
I understand that the herb has to be gathered under the jupiter months, sagittarius and pisces, for it
to possess those powers. Mine wasn't, but I'm trying to boost it by other means. I did gather it
thursday at sunrise.

This morning I had a really good buzz from the elixir and the "supplements" that lasted over an hour.
I guess I can reveal the "supplements" - I was going to wait to see if they were effective first.
I'm also taking a tincture of oat grass and doing the five (six) rites.

If you're not familiar with the five rites, I'm referring to a book called "the fountain of youth" by peter kelder which describes
these Tibetan Yoga excercises.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_tibetans

I've done the five rites in the past and they have an amazing effect themselves.
Oat grass is really good for virility, sexual energy, and according to Castaneda and Gurdjieff, all energy is sexual energy.
I don't know if Oat grass has the same effect for women.

I have a theory about entia (plural for ens). Ens means "entity", and entia are for initiation. This is my first ens, but I expect that
an ens will invoke the "entity" or deva of the plant which will give you information about the plant and its corresponding level
of initiation (i.e. planetary, elemental, kabbalistic).

[BeautifulEvil]

I've yet to get to this, but for a while I've wanted to grow some Melissa. Unfortunately, I may only be able to order some, but I have a really great vendor (their herbs are very fresh, and well packaged/protected to minimize degradation).

Lemon Balm is a useful plant, and provides MANY medicinal benefits. It's also a fairly good sleep aide, but can acts as a stimulant under certain conditions.

[solomon levi]

Sleep aid. I concur. No dreams at all. When I've taken it, I go deep into dreamless sleep and
wake up without any realising of time having passed.
But as I fall asleep, I am very aware. While I sleep I am aware of everything in the environment,
almost ready to go out of body.

I realise these are two different brain patterns. I think initially, the first two days
was being very aware, and then the following times were very deep sleep.

[BeautifulEvil]

I should probably get around to making an ens of melissa. I've long suffered from insomnia! This is why I'm basically ALWAYS online, posting at all hours of the night.

Anuway, I wanted to know if you have any photos of the process?

[solomon levi]

Hey. I just took a photo of the end product today!
But no, not the process.
There isn't much interesting about the process.
I just add potassium carbonate to rain water; sometimes I let the tartar deliquesce some of its own water first.
The water will drink a lot of tartar. I don't know if there's a saturation point - it really goes on and on.
So I just add until it seems good. It will appear saturated for a while, and then drink more later.
But it doesn't need that much. I'll try to measure next time.
Then add a plant and shake it and leave it in the sun or some warmth for a couple or few days.
It gets darker the longer you leave it.
Then I pour off the liquid through a filter and add the Everclear to that. I put a few tablespoons of
tartar in the Everclear to be sure it's strong enough but this may be unnecessary.
The alcohol floats above the lye water, so you have to shake/mix them often.
Again, the longer you leave them, the darker the tincture. My alcohol got as
dark as the lye so I couldn't tell them apart without a strong light behind them.
Then I just pour off/decant the alcohol and the tincture of the ens is ready.
The alcohol can be evaporated off to have just the ens.
I don't know if that's better - I don't want to waste the alcohol.
Maybe it distills off.
The ens would be more concentrated than the tincture. I don't know if there's other benefits
to evaporating off the alcohol. The ens must be diluted before consumption anyway, in water or wine.



I tried to capture the ruby redness of the tincture, but it shows orange in the pic.
This is a picture of the tincture of the ens of melissae after poured off of the lye water.

Oh yeah - the plant will keep tincting when fresh lye water is added to it. They say throw it away, but I didn't.
It keeps tincting and is just as dark as the first if left for longer periods. Why waste it.

[BeautifulEvil]

This is a post I found from an old alchemy forum:

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 06:19:38 -0500
From: Beat Krummenacher

Dear Greg,

I have manufactured the ens melissae personally. Its color is yellow-gold.
The smell and the taste are pleasant and somewhat sweetish. However from my
experience the ens does not work as strongly as it should. A complete
spagyric essence is much more effective. Such essences are much more
delightful and more fine in their smell and in their taste. Why?

I have thought about why the process does not lead to an essence with the
predicted effects. In my opinion the reason lies in a misinterpretation of
the manufacturing direction. In reality potassium carbonate is used on
chemical examination to disintegrate the dried balm. As extractive solvent
one takes absolute alcohol. Both matters have significance in alchemy, but
almost certainly are not the both substances Paracelsus has used.

Consider: The salt magnet of the old ones was not potassium carbonate. Of
course they used calcined tartar as raw material, which however was
caustified by using further substances and first thereby was made to their
salt magnet. If one c austifies the tartar, so one receives an essentially
more alkaline salt, which owns a much stronger magnetic effect. In addition
Paracelsus might have used the volatile mercury from the dry distillation
of acetates as his extractive solvent. You may not forget, that the
alchemists widely have spoken of the spirit of wine, but have meant thereby
their spirit of philosophical wine.

Hence the repetition of the manufacturing process with the stronger salt
magnet and the spirit of philosophical wine might lead to the genuine ens
melissae. Whether this hypothesis is correct, I can not say at once. I soon
shall begin at any rate with the experimental examination of this
hypothesis.

Kind regards
Lapis

The volatile mercury from the acetate process is a philosophical acetone, which would possibly yield a more impressive product. He mentions that calcined tartar (potassium carbonate) might've been used, but he later goes on to say it should be more alkaline. I'm not sure if I agree with these notions, but I find mention of the philosophical mercury from the acetate process to be interesting. Many alchemists of old knew of acetone and it's wonderful extraction/solvent potential, although chemistry recognizes it as a fairly recent discovery. I think a philosophical mercury from magnesium acetate may prove to be interesting, especially since magnesium is very useful to the human body. It's also said that the philosophical acetone has wonderful medicinal properties, regardless of it's slight toxicity (in fairly hefty doses, and honestly, ethanol is also slightly toxic).

Good image though, the color mentioned is golden-yellow, but your ens is definitely more towards the reddish-orange spectrum. I've thought a proper ens should have a deep green hue to it, but I suppose it all depends on the freshness of the herb - not sure. Although I'm not saying yours isn't proper, but it's possible the chlorophyll might've degraded. Anyway the link to the post I mentioned is here: http://www.alchemywebsite.com/p-meliss.html.

[solomon levi]

Mine was green at first, but I left it longer and it turned red.
I thought that would be better/stronger. Maybe not?

Yes, any alkali can be used. Sodium hydroxide would be more alkali.
Hmmm.

If the volatile alkali truly does produce an essence as Starkey said,
what is happening when we fire the potassium carbonate and then add the turpentine?
Could acetone be produced from this in small amounts?

[BeautifulEvil]

Mine was green at first, but I left it longer and it turned red.
I thought that would be better/stronger. Maybe not?

Actually, I believe the potassium carbonate starts to break down organic molecules after so long. This also depends on the alkalinity of the salt. So it's possible some of the more subtle and fragile molecules were decomposed due to the alkalinity.

Yes, any alkali can be used. Sodium hydroxide would be more alkali.
Hmmm.

Where would they get this from? I haven't looked into natural sources of sodium hydroxide, or how to make it from philosophical agents. I have only lab grade sodium hydroxide, but I would like to make philosophical sodium hydroxide for alchemical purposes. I guess they could always make sodium oxide, and then add it to water to produce the hydroxide. Then evaporate to obtain sodium hydroxide. Ah, so I just researched it some, and sodium chloride can be calcined to produce hydrogen chloride, and sodium oxide. Extract the salt from the residue, and voila! This is a DUH on my part, I should've recognized it sooner.

If the volatile alkali truly does produce an essence as Starkey said,
what is happening when we fire the potassium carbonate and then add the turpentine?
Could acetone be produced from this in small amounts?

This is a good question. I don't know the answer off hand, but I will definitely give it some thought. I doubt acetone could be produced like this, but I do not know for sure. I think the potassium carbonate starts to break down the turpentine or something, but trying to predict the products would be virtually impossible since it's a runaway reaction.

[solomon levi]

I just get my NaOH from the hardware store.
Used to get red devil 100% lye.
They've removed it from many stores because people use it for crystal meth or something.
But I found another 100% lye at Lowes.

Calcium hydroxide would be another option. Shouldn't be difficult to make if you have sea shells.

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