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Whilst you wait for me to write the second part of my series on Baphomet, you might like to check out this video of Robert Allen Bartlett discussing laboratory alchemy.

You may also like to read this review of his book, Real Alchemy by Psyche on Spiral Nature or the review on Pagan Book Reviews. [...]

…means "Visita interiora terrae rectificando invenies occultum lapidem".

That’s basically it. The big secret which is said to protect itself anyway.

Terry Jones as a lady yelling: "Is he naughty or nuts to say that?"

Guess the true inner master has to find you worthy. Initiation can lead there after having gone through 800 degrees or you just get lost in the oblivion of the interesting on your way.

The rest of the occult is no more than a game.

For me, trust in myself always counted most when it came to this. Dont’t know if that’s a rule for everyone, might be other circumstances for other people.

I am currently working on alchemical.tv with Lolita. I’m not going to say much more than that about it at the moment because its pretty secret. Mwah heh heh heh
What I will say however is that some of what we intend to release will be on a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike [...]

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After a wonderful first year living together, Lolita Perdurabo and I decided to get engaged for alchemycal wedding. We first announced this engagement to our families whilst visiting Krakow around the Summer Solstice. Here Lolita found my engagement ring, and we held a party with her family. Later I bought her ring [...]

This is as far as I’ve been able to get with some Alchemical studies I’ve been

casually researching over the last few months:

Consider this piece of amateur biochemistry (I’m not a chemist so have no idea

if this would work in practise, but the reactions are from textbooks):

1) Production of Prima Materia / Western Sulphur

The Prima Materia is often refered to as Faeces (or Carbon Humanum) from

which maybe extracted Western Sulphur (acc to Paracelsus)

by Putrefaction and Distillation.

The component of shit that makes it smell is Indole, which can be extracted by

Distillation (Putrefaction may help?).

Indole can also be synthesised from Indigo containing plants (such as Woad or Asp

of Jerusalem) by treating its ppt Fermentation product with sulphurous Oleum (Vitriol / Sulphuric Acid + the oxides of Sulphur produced at high temperature).

It can also be produced by the putrefaction of certain Tryptophan containing food stuffs (egg

white and dairy products and some meats).

Alternatively it may also be Fractionally Distilled from the Coal Tar bi-product of the baking of

Coal into Coke in a furnace.

All of these are comparable to well known Alchemical processes.

2) The Fountain of the Philosophers / Fusion of Opposites.

The merger of a threefold flow from the Fountain or Spring is shown as one of the earliest stages in Alchemy and normally consists of the combination of three different waters (as shown in the Fountain from the Rosarium Philosophorum):

Aqua Vitae (’Mineral Water’) + Acetum Fontis (’Vegetable Water’ / ‘Vinegar’ / ‘Acid’) + Lac Virginis (’Animal Water’ / ‘Virgin’s Milk’).

The mixture is usually shown being drunk by ‘Alchemists’.

Acetum Fontis is the general term for an Acid and may be Aqua Regia (a mix of Hydrochloric and Nitric Acid), Aqua Fortis (Nitric Acid), Spirit of Salts (Hydrochloric Acid), Vitriol (Sulphuric Acid), Common Vinegar (Acetic Acid) or any unknown acidic product.

Aqua Vitae is the ‘water from the earth’ or ‘water of life’ and may be the pure Mineral Water of hot springs which releases Lithium Carbonate as a ppt when cooled with the aid of various catalysts (maybe it also included ’sugary water’, see below?).

Lac Virginis may simply be lactation milk (or any bodily fluid from a female) which among other things contains high amounts of Phosphorus.Some images show it mixed with blood, which contains a lot of things, but includes Dimethylamine (DMA), particular in those recently eating seafood (perhaps significantly the milk producing virgin sits on a fish or is mermaid in some images, often for no obvious reason).

If we speculate that the ‘Alchemist’ is really another male solar archetype, like the King, or Sulphur, then the ‘drinking’ may indicate Sulphur absorbing the Waters. Particularly the ‘Sulphur’ of the Alchemist themselves?

3) Missing Ingredients.

All we need to add to this mix is:

Copper (symbolically linked with female archetypes in Alchemy, classically Aphrodite / Venus). The young, heavenly Aphrodite Urania, was often considered a ‘virgin’, like Diana and Athena, in Greco-Roman Myth. Perhaps that also corresponded to a pure form of Copper or even to Copper Ore that was not processed?

Aluminium (a rare free metal in Volcanic Clay, and traditionally a ‘hybrid of Silver and Gold’ (at least symbolically)).

It was well known as a precious metal on a par with Silver and Gold in the late Middle Ages (sometimes even more valuable).

Note: the ‘mineral star’ in the Rosarium lies between the ‘animal sun’ and ‘vegetable moon’, which elsewhere indicate Gold and Silver. This thus often signified Mercury, but not always perhaps, Alchemical symbols are renowned for their multiple meanings.

Other ‘mineral stars’ are in contact with the Waters producing gases from which a double headed serpent appears to be the final product of mineral fusion.

Distillate of Sugar Cane, which was a major product of Moorish Spain in Middle Ages, but alas is not mentioned in any obvious Alchemical references (a secret ingredient??). Could it have just been regarded as another mineral (crystalline sugar was initially called ’sweet salt’)?

Perhaps its energy giving properties meant it was seen as another salt in the ‘Waters of Life’??

4) DMT Production.

Now with close reference to the above note the following:

Stage 1

When Hydrochloric Acid is added to Phosphorus (in the presence of Copper Oxide) at high temperatures (400 C) Chloride is produced that may react with the Phosphorus, producing Phosphorus Pentachloride (the Copper Oxide will also react with the acid, to produce Copper Chloride, a necessary catalyst for this high temp reaction, at a lower temperature while it is gradually increased).

(Fountain Vinegar + Virgin’s Milk?).

If Phosphorus Pentachloride is mixed with Oxalic Acid, under certain conditions, its produces Oxalyl Chloride.

Oxalic Acid is produced by the action of Nitric Acid on Sugar solutions.

(Sugar Water or Water of Life added to another Fountain Vinegar + (Virgin’s Milk+Fountain Vinegar) reaction?).

Oxalyl Chloride reacts strongly with Indole to produce IOC (Indole Oxalyl Chloride). A golden ppt.

(Western Sulphur absorbing the Water of the Fountain?).

IOC reacts further with Dimethylamine to produce IGA (also golden ppt?).

(Western Sulphur absorbing the blood aspect of the Virgin’s Milk?).

Stage 2.

Aluminium (found in Volcanic Mud) reacts with Hydrochloric Acid to produce Hydrogen Gas and Aluminium Trichloride.

The Lithium Carbonate in cooled Spring Water can react with excess Hydrogen Gas to form Carbonic Acid and Lithium Hydrate.

(Fountain’s Vinegar + Mineral Water (with Aluminium) producing two white ppts?).

Aluminium Trichloride plus Lithium Hydrate in solution forms LAH (Lithium Aluminium Hydride) a white ppt?

(The dual serpent?).

Stage 3.

The white LAH carefully combined with golden IGA produces DMT……

(the Lunar and Solar ppts combined?).

Critique.

Alchemical Issues.

Unfortunately we have a secret ingredient (Sugar) and a subjective interpretation of the Alchemical processes, terms and images, whose modified sequence isnt exactly matched in any Alchemical text I’ve yet found.

Solution? The secret ingredient and correct process is a secret not revealed publically, but only orally or via initiation??

Chemical Issues.

Although one mode of the synthesis of DMT is as described above (in terms of components), the biochemical process is slightly more complex as performed today, involving a variety of difficult techniques (cooling, constant stirring, use of ether solvents to wash, catalysts etc)

Plus the reactions as described are not guaranteed to work and could even produce lethal bi-products (n.b. Don’t try this at home!).

Solution? Again a more precise technique may have been revealed secretly.

Thus public Alchemy may be a mnemonic device to be combined with other private instructions.

Supporting evidence for Psychedic Alchemy.

Rye bread Ergot poisoning produced toxic psychedelic trips in the early medieval Alchemy period, the source was not known, but the effect became known as St Anthony’s Fire (after the temptation and psychic assaults on the Saint that led to his ‘enlightenment’).

A monastic ‘Order of St Anthony’ of the 12th and 13th centuries worked on caring for and healing the sufferers of Ergot poisoning, and seemingly transforming it into a religious experience. Their feast day was January 17.

January 17 crops up in many French occult mysteries, notably those used in the Priory of Sion hoax and the Rennes le Chateau phenomena (most famously the ‘Blue Apples at Noon’ riddle, actually a reference to an alleged spectacular light show in the church at noon on January 17, when light shines through a stained glass window of the resurrection of Lazarus (near a statue of St Anthony).

Which may refer to an Ergot cult?

Ergot use is quite dangerous, perhaps explaining a number of sometimes mysterious deaths often by ‘natural causes’ on this day among certain related groups.

Hermeticists long suspected the Kykeon potion of the Eleusinian Mysteries was a synthetic producer of mystical experience. Its formula was a mystery (modern evidence indicates it was based on Ergoline, but have failed to reproduce its effects).

It is possible that at least some Alchemists may have been searching for a safer ‘entheogen’ in the light of the Ergot cult and research into the true nature of Kykeon. Curiously in the late 14th century Nicholas Flamel claimed to complete his Great Work on Jan 17. B)-

This may not explain all forms of Alchemy but may do some.

All coincidence or is there perhaps some truth to this speculation I wonder?

Kao

I feel like I’m waking up after a long sleep.

I’d been slowly dropping away interests and activities that used to matter to me. “Magic(k)” and the “Occult” ceased to be meaningful to me and I sold off over 2/3rds of my Magic Library. I started becoming more and more reclusive. I started leaving my house less often. I reduced talking to people on line.

I found that my motivation to work on any of my projects had stalled. I stopped working on my book. Despite the fact that I hung my shingle to work with people as a Life Coach I didn’t put any effort into promoting the business or getting clients.

I basically lost all motivation to do anything.

I can come up with a number of reasons, or more honestly triggers, for this shift. A romantic possibility that I was a little too invested in collapsed. I suspect this was the main factor. A magazine project I was working on was abandoned by my partners on it. My magic related friends rejected what I was currently interested as irrelevant to them. I no longer had any overlaps for conversation about that aspect of my existence. This was the point where I said if what I was interested in wasn’t magic then I wasn’t interested in magic. A global journey I’d been planning got cancelled by my travel buddy. My closer friends moved away or stopped talking to me. And so on.

Before this downward trend I had been existing in a kind of manic intensity where the possibilities presented by my life were breathtaking. New ideas and revelations were coming thick and fast. And the self-transformative process I was going through was marked and positive. The last things I was working on before the uh black period was integrating Jungian Archetypes and a kind of ideosyncratic Taoism.

I started coming up again perhaps 2 weeks ago. I started a new project, writing a science fiction novel. I started my drawing program again and I’ve gotten decent at what I set myself up to practice. Despite this shift in direction I didn’t… notice it. I was still asleep.

I started reading a couple of crossover occult books again. Both were books that I picked up during the true beginning of the large cycle I’ve been in. The peak of intensity that set the vector I’ve been on for close to ten months now. Both were books that I hadn’t done much more than skim.

The first book was Meta-Magick: the book of Atem by Phillip H. Farber. NLP and Memetics as Magick using group exercises. Unfortunately there is not much that I could get out of the book without some other people to do the exercises with so I put that book down again for now. Synchronistically, though it linked me with an NLP forum where I randomly encountered the author. So the book is serving a purpose for me. I have a forum for NLP kinds of discussion now.

The second book was Towards an Archeology of the Soul: a paratheatrical workbook by Antero Alli and Friends. It’s a reworking of the ritual technology he developed in his book All Rites Reversed but stripped of the Leary/RAW hippie-ness and deepened with a dark Jungian frame. Exactly what I needed, a ritual technology for spiritual rather than sorcerous work using body and space with a Jungian self-alchemy flavour. I highly recommend.

I hadn’t seriously read the book because in that peak I mentioned earlier I projected rather heavily on it. Mostly a dark/negative charge. Relating in part to that romantic investment I mentioned. So it wasn’t until everything was as dark as the charge I’d put on that book that I could read that book. It wasn’t until I’d given up.

So it was early last week that I read the section named “The Alchemical Nigredo” and recognized where I was living. The shock of that recognition woke me up. This blackness wasn’t the end of my evolution and growth it was a distinct and necessary PART of that growth. And from my awakened perspective I could see how this black phase had already started ending itself.

The nigredo experience was not pleasant. I don’t think it would have been as unpleasant if I’d known what it was as I went through it but then I’m not sure I could have gone through it if I’d kept that awareness. It’s kind of amazing to me that I could forget and fall asleep like that given how important the nigredo concept has been to me in the past.

Also interesting to me is the synchronistic way I set up the books to trigger an escape route. The way I’m picking up exactly where I left off when I fell asleep… the way I couldn’t access the message of the books until they were needed. The… artfulness of how I set that up without awareness of setting that up. Just beautiful.