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volatile alkali/circulatum

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty volatile alkali/circulatum

Post  solomon levi Sun Aug 03, 2008 1:31 pm

Spagyrics is pretty basic: seperate the three principles, purify and recombine.
So the trick for each of the three kingdoms is to find out what their principles are.
The plant kingdom is the simplest.
You have one salt that is the primary basic salt of this kingdom - potassium carbonate.
Burn any plant to ashes and the bulk of those ashes will be potassium carbonate.
As for the mercury, it is one thing in each kingdom. For example, all plants have the same mercury - ethyl alcohol.
And lastly, the sulphur of a plant is its essential oil.

So basically, you can buy pretty well purified potassium carbonate, essential oil and ethyl alcohol (Thunderbird).
The only mystery is how to recombine them and what proportions.

I've read: 1 salt : 2 oil : 3 mercury
I've also read: 1 salt : 3 oil : 7 mercury (interesting, the occult #s, the law of 1, the law of 3, the law of 7).
(These proportions are for the plant kingdom)

So now how to combine them... one of the mysteries of alchemy is how to make the fixed (salt) fly (volatile).
Well, the secret is out. In Newman and Principe's "Alchemy Tried by Fire", they chronicle the 17th century Alchemist
George Starkey's efforts to make the fixed alkali (potassium carbonate) volatile (united with essential oil).
The secret is a completely natural circulation that takes place simply by leaving the co-mixed materials outdoors
and yet protected from rain and debris, insects (bugs love this stuff!). Read about it here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=eQERmMdykZEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=tried+in+the+fire&sig=ACfU3U0nSvtycAq-sOkm-5fRbEtRX2PrKA#PPA136,M1

Go to the contents and click the chapter that says: the volatilisation of alkalies and Starkey's grand design for medicine.

This is an amazing secret, turning any plant, no matter what toxicity, into good medicine.
It is also the path of the plant stone (dry way) or circulatum (wet way).

After reading that, compare to Urbigerus' Circulatum Minor, the third method of creating it.
Read about that here:

http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~panopus/essentia/essentiaii2.htm


Now you have the keys. Compare the two works, notice the differences, choose your path, experiment.
Good luck!

solomon levi
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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty purity

Post  solomon levi Sun Aug 03, 2008 2:23 pm

I realise questions of purity may arise.

Well, you should have steam distilled essential oils. If you think you can make them more pure than you can buy them, or
you like to do it yourself and have your energy impressed on it, go for it.

Potassium carbonate: you can buy this at clay/pottery/ceramics supplies shops. If you want to purify it you can find processes
for this in many books. Here's a good one:
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/steve_kalec.html

Ethyl alcohol. Again, you can read how to purify this in many books. Isn't it interesting that the same salt of this kingdom
is used to remove the excess water from spirit of wine.


Notice in Starkey's work, you don't want extremely purified spirit of wine except in the process of seperating the principles from
your circulatum after they've stratified. Volatile alkali will dissolve in an aqueous solution of spirit of wine (brandy, vodka) but not
in dephlegmed spirit of wine. So the dephlegmed spirit of wine is used to get your circulatum back, but not added to volatile alkali
to make circulatum.

If you search this enough, you'll find this circulatum can also extract tinctures from metals. Third Eye It won't dissolve them, but will
extract tinctures, because it is not the proper menstruum for this kingdom. But it's not too hard to make a calx of any metal
and extract its sulphur with your circulatum. You can see that Starkey did the dry way of fusing the potassium and the minera,
and then adding turpentine and allowing the circulation.

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty some pics

Post  solomon levi Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:32 am

here's a couple photos just six days after union:

volatile alkali/circulatum Thurs_10
volatile alkali/circulatum Thurs_11

and this morning, the 18th day... Crystals appearing !!!

volatile alkali/circulatum Lava_010

I believe the consumation is finished when the entire contents become crystals.
Then you have to decide whether to make the stone or the circulatum;
or split it in half and do both!

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty Magic Numbers

Post  deviadah Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:41 am

solomon levi wrote:I've read: 1 salt : 2 oil : 3 mercury
I've also read: 1 salt : 3 oil : 7 mercury (interesting, the occult #s, the law of 1, the law of 3, the law of 7).
Interesting... these are magic numbers!

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty Re: volatile alkali/circulatum

Post  solomon levi Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:36 pm

in this photo, i'm trying to show that the crystalisation is happening in the salt as well,
not just on top of the oil. This is just as Stirkius described.

volatile alkali/circulatum Day_1910

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty Re: volatile alkali/circulatum

Post  solomon levi Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:00 am

Here's the potential circulatum after 5 weeks.
I actually decanted some excessive turpentine because I need to transport this to my new place.

volatile alkali/circulatum Voila_10

Nearly all has become salt. When you push on it with the spoon, you can see the whole
from top to bottom is like ice - solid. But so far this is an unsuccessful experiment :
when I put some of the salt in water, it leaves an oily residue and Sharkey (I love all his nicknames!)
says the test is that it wont leave any oil. I tried it out anyway in some Vodka.
After 15 minutes the plant (ground ivy) has not been attacked to any noticeable degree and it should
decompose to mush in 7-8 minutes.
So I'll wait some more....

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty Re: volatile alkali/circulatum

Post  WCH Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:22 am

Every number is magical. While I see the significance of 1 : 3 : 7, I think a holier sequence would be 1 : 4 : 9 -- the first three squares, ratio of the sides of the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, symbol for both the infinite and the perfect, as well as personal development and Will. A friend of mine wrote a paper not too long ago arguing that the dimensions of the Monolith are intended to continue to spiral into infinity... that is, it properly has the dimensions 1 : 4 : 9 : 16 : 25 : 36 : 49 etc, that being a very potent symbol for individuation, only that it's being represented in three dimensions (not infinite dimensions) and therefore only the first three enter into it.

I suppose ultimately it would depend on what you want the combined potion/tincture/elixer/whatever to accomplish. 1 : 4 : 9, however, I'd think would be most closely tied ratio to the Great Work. Whether the ratio is effective in spagyria I don't know for sure, having not attempted it... although it's close to 1 : 3 : 7, so if that works, I'm sure it would as well. Since it's easily produced mathematically, and involves sacred geometry, it would be very easy to code into architecture or sculpture or whatever, which is a plus for those of an esoteric mind.

If 1 : 3 : 7 almost works, but needs a slight adjustment, I would suggest that 1 : 4 : 9 is nearly essential as the next ratio to try, being both a similar ratio, and "more perfect."
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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty dephlegmed spirit of wine

Post  cashew21 Sun Nov 23, 2008 6:51 am

solomon levi wrote:
Notice in Starkey's work, you don't want extremely purified spirit of wine except in the process of seperating the principles from
your circulatum after they've stratified. Volatile alkali will dissolve in an aqueous solution of spirit of wine (brandy, vodka) but not
in dephlegmed spirit of wine. So the dephlegmed spirit of wine is used to get your circulatum back, but not added to volatile alkali
to make circulatum.
.

Sorry to be so myopic, but I find this use of dephlegmed spirit of wine confusing. How is it used to get the curculatum back but not added to make circulatum? What are the processes used? Thanks

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty Re: volatile alkali/circulatum

Post  solomon levi Mon Nov 24, 2008 11:46 am

cashew21 wrote:
solomon levi wrote:
Notice in Starkey's work, you don't want extremely purified spirit of wine except in the process of seperating the principles from
your circulatum after they've stratified. Volatile alkali will dissolve in an aqueous solution of spirit of wine (brandy, vodka) but not
in dephlegmed spirit of wine. So the dephlegmed spirit of wine is used to get your circulatum back, but not added to volatile alkali
to make circulatum.
.

Sorry to be so myopic, but I find this use of dephlegmed spirit of wine confusing. How is it used to get the curculatum back but not added to make circulatum? What are the processes used? Thanks


Sorry. I can see how that was confusingly said.
Strong alkalis will not mix with dephlegmed spirit of wine or Everclear - the alcohol floats
on top of the alkali. They can be made to mix by shaking and allowing to seperate and the alcohol
draws a tincture from the alkali which holds the sulphur of whatever materia you're working with.
This is what one does in some preparations of entia - a strong alkali solution (potassium carbonate)
is added to an herb and it draws the sulphur/essential oil out of the herb, and then the alkali is extracted with highly rectified alcohol. If the alcohol or the alkali are not strong enough, they will mix and then you
cannot simply decant your tincture (tincted alcohol).

So in Starkey's process, he added a weak spirit of wine to the volatile alkali to make a liquid
stone/circulatum in which any herb is placed and the essentials extracted.
To renew or recycle the circulatum, it is distilled with dephlegmed alcohol which will accept everything
but the volatile alkali, which comes out pure and ready for re-use.

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volatile alkali/circulatum Empty Re: volatile alkali/circulatum

Post  solomon levi Sun Dec 07, 2008 3:50 pm

Here are some pics of the crystals formed from the volatile alkali.
I didn't distill - this just evaporated over time.
I'll do some tests on them and post the results.

volatile alkali/circulatum Rick_s18

volatile alkali/circulatum Rick_s20

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