Spagyric essentially means herbal alchemy. Thus, a spagyric tincture is an alchemical preparation of herbs in tincture form.
We’ve made a video explaining it for you.
Is Alchemy Real?
While alchemy is laughed at by hyper-rationalists, even as they praise scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton (the “discoverer” of gravity and Newtonian Laws…who also happened to be an alchemist).
Saying that alchemy was just the forerunner of chemistry is not quite accurate. And while there are certain metaphysical elements to alchemy, there is also a real laboratory science to it too. One which has not really been investigated scientifically, though it certainly could be, so it is not a pseudo-science, despite what some claim.
Spagyrics, that is herbal alchemy, is considered the entry point to alchemy. It is much easier, and safer, to work with herbs then working with toxic metals such as antimony, which apparently is what killed Newton! (Perhaps he was a much better scientist than alchemist.)
Without going deep into alchemy, there are three principles.
- Salt – Body
- Sulfur – Soul
- Mercury – Spirit
These principles are not to be confused with the chemicals sulfur, mercury or salt. The whole idea is separation and unification of these principles, which is a more holistic way of looking at what is in a substance, rather than identifying individual chemicals as we do today.
How a Spagyric Tincture Compares to a Regular Tincture
In easy terms, a spagyric tincture is more potent than a standard tincture.
A spagyric tincture differs from a standard tincture one key way: it contains the salt, or body, of the plant, which a normal tincture simply throws away.
When a standard tincture is made (Read more at: How to Make Herbal Tinctures) the menstruum (alcohol) is pressed from the marc (the herbs). Then the marc is discarded, and the menstruum is what is used as the tincture.
In a spagyric tincture, the marc is not discarded. Instead, it is burned and ground repeatedly until it yields a fine, typically greyish powder. This process is called calcination.
I do this in a kiln I purchased specifically for this purpose. It gets very hot in there!
This ash is then dissolved in water to separate the soluble from insoluble minerals.
The insoluble (called caput mortuum or death’s head) are discarded. The soluble minerals are slowly evaporated down to crystalline form. These are then added back into the tincture.
Some fascinating colors some from this process. This picture of Ginseng salts doesn’t do it justice for the amazing colors that came forth.
And crystals do form in this process, which is amazing to watch. You can see a bit of that in the video above. As you might imagine, just reading about the process now, this is equipment, labor and time intensive, hence why it’s not done by most.
In alchemical terms, by putting the salt back into the sulfur/mercury, this puts the body back into the tincture. This makes it so that it works on your body even better.
Even if you don’t buy into all the alchemical philosophy behind this, at the very least these “salts” contains all kinds of minerals, including many trace minerals that were present in the plant material that get put back into the tincture.
Why We Have Some Spagyric and Some Regular Tinctures
At Lost Empire Herbs many of our tinctures are spagyric. This includes:
This does not include our Pine Pollen Tincture (though from time to time we do have a spagyric version available for VIP members). Part of this depends on scalability and different sources of herbs. Ideally, we’d want all of our tinctures to include the salts, but at this time, it isn’t so.
It’s also important to note that spagyric tinctures from Lost Empire Herbs cost more than regular tinctures that are out there. But this premium price comes with premium quality that you won’t find almost anywhere else.
We have plans to bring you more spagyric tinctures in the future, as well as even more advanced spagyric preparations too.
The spagyric tincture is only the starting point…
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Could ya recommend a good kiln that is low cost for a beginner?
Checkout https://www.olympickilns.com/. Really depends on size you’re going for and other factors.
Forgive my absolute ignorance on this, but do the herbs lose any of their positive helpful properties by being subjected to the heat? As opposed to companies advertising cold-pressing? I know this must be an apples to oranges comparison, but it’s just a total lack of knowledge on my part. I lived in western China for several years on the edge of the Tibetan plateau and know the traditional medicine shops made all sorts of tinctures, but I was still strong and healthy and never needed anything so I never tried any of it. By I’m very curious about this process you’re using. I want to know more.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the herb and the components in question. A very typical method of extraction is hot water as in an infusion or decoction. With a tincture, using alcohol to extract, there is generally no heat with the exception of certain methods like a soxhlet extraction. Like so many things the answer is it depends.
Hi Logan,
What temperature is your kiln set at and for how long to calcification the Marc?
600 degrees and five hours or thereabouts. That’s one round, and it takes burning then grinding several times, depending on which herb, for the calcination to be finished.
I would love the classes you talked about
When a normal company tells me they just developed something more this or that; I usually just go yawn. When Lost Empire Herbs tells me this, I pay attention. I am especially looking forward to seeing how this works for me with herbs that I really don’t plan on using as a tonic. Thanks again, Jim Lunsford
Happy to stand out from the rest :)