“Medicine should be based upon truth and not upon verbal sleight-of-hand.”
“God gives us not art that does not bear in itself, the necessity of its fulfillment.”
“What sense would it make or what would it benefit a physician if he discovered the origin of the diseases but could not cure or alleviate them? And since the fit manner of preparation is not to be found in pharmaceutics, we must explore further; that is to say, we must learn from alchemy. In it we find the true cause and everything that is needed. Although alchemy has now fallen into contempt and is even considered a thing of the past, the physician should not be influenced by such judgments… I am directing you, physicians, to alchemy for the preparation of the magnalia, for the production of the mysteria, for the preparation of the arcana, for the separation of the pure from the impure, to the end that you may obtain a flawless, pure remedy, God-given, perfect, and of certain efficacy, achieving the highest degree of virtue and power. For it is not God’s design that the remedies should exist for us readymade, boiled and salted, but that we should boil them ourselves, and it pleased Him that we boil them and learn in the process, that we train ourselves in this art and are not idle on earth, but labour in daily toil. For it is we who must pray for our daily bread, and if He grants it to us, it is only through our labour , our skill and preparation.
Spagyrics
Spao / ageiro to separate and combine/unite to draw out, the gather. Spagyrics was Parcelsus’ “labor”, uniting all that was separated.
"The basis of matter was the alchemical trinity of principles – salt, sulfur, and mercury. Salt was the principle of fixity (non-action) and in-combustibility; mercury was the principle of fusibility (ability to melt and flow) and volatility; and sulfur was the principle of inflammability."
The three primal alchemical properties and their correspondence in spagyric remedy are:
Mercury = water elements, representing the life essence of the plant, the very alcohol extract of the plant is the carrier of the life essence.
Salt = earth element, representing the vegetable salts extracted from calcined ashes of plant body.
Sulfur = fire element, virtue of plant, representing the volatile oil essence of the plant.
Paracelsus stated that the true purpose of alchemy was not for the vulgar purpose of gold making, but rather for the production of medicines.
Distillation: extracts the essential oil /THE SULPHUR / AND THE ALCHOHOL/TINCTURE OR MERCURY
In contemporary terms, this would be the extraction of the essential oils with vapor: TINCTURE gaining the 'sulfur'. Then fermentation of the remaining plant and distilling the alcohol produced thus gaining 'mercurius'. Extraction of the mineral components from the ash of the marc (the refuse left after maceration pressing)which would be the 'salt'. Diluting the essential oils in the alcohol and then solving the mineral salts in it would produce the final potion
MERCURY: Aliveness Breath FLOW liquid (activated healing impulse, yang energy, sympathetic nervous system) / excess : inflammation
SALT ground/Earth/solidity (ash) cools, condenses gives hardness and form/ moon, night YIN, parasympathetic excess: degeneration
SULPHUR informational, resonating fields, volatility , unity harmony of the autonomic biophotons TCM relation between governing and conception vessels