Spagyrics
Origin: Greek: from spao = I collect and ageiro = I extract.
Spagyric products are old alchemical preparations of herbs into a more potent form. In olden days; adding the purified salt, oil and alcohol of a plant together was thought as a more spiritual preparation. Interestingly enough, full extracts of plants also tend to have more powerful effects.
In alchemy there are three things that make up everything. Sulphur (Soul), Mercury (Spirit) and Salt (Body). For plants this translates to the essential oils/organic acids (soul), alcohol (spirit) and the mineral salts (body) contained in the plant. These are the physical representations of the three philosophical aspects in herbal alchemy.
The Spagyric Process
Alcohol Extraction
Extraction of the plant is done via organic grape alcohol in a soxhlet extractor for fast, high potency tinctures (all distillations are done under vacuum so none of the heat sensitive components of the plant are destroyed). A jar and 40 day maceration can also be done instead of the soxhlet method.
Here the alcohol will dissolve the essential oils of the plant along with the alcohol soluble chemicals. Alcohol is the only solvent which extracts the plant's chemicals at the same ratios contained in the plant. Alcohol is also strictly produced from plants themselves. It is a solvent made by plants for plants.
Mineral Extraction
The tincture is poured off and saved in a dark place. The leftover extracted plant material is then burned, and calcined to extract the minerals contained within. Once the herb is burned to a white ash, the mineral salts will now readily dissolve in water. The ash is then mixed with distilled water to dissolve the minerals. The water is filtered and slowly evaporated to crystallize the mineral salts.
Recombination
The white salts are gathered and recombined with the tincture of the plant that was made prior. This completes the spagyric process. The tincture now contains all the acids, oils and minerals the plant originally had but now in a more potent and purified form. In this way, the energetics and the chemical aspects of the plant are maintained to the fullest extent.
A Little Chemistry....
From a chemical standpoint, the mineral salts neutralize the organic acids of the plant. This converts the acids of the plant to their ester form yielding soap-like compounds. What was once oil soluble, is now water soluble. This form is more bioavailable, making the plant's compounds more potent and effective.