Alchemy sees Nature as powerful, intelligent, and creative-but slow moving in her evolution of self-consciousness. By carefully observing and imitating Nature's methods, the alchemist is able to speed up the process of inner and outer evolution through the three realms of mineral, plant, and animal without violating any of Nature's laws. For example, left to herself, Nature might take several million years to turn vegetable matter into oil, tar, coal, and finally a diamond. While this is fine for Nature, whose lifespan is eternal, for a human being with a limited amount of time on earth, such a process of waiting is impractical, and the human must obtain speedier methods if a diamond is desired for certain alchemical or Qabalistic practices. Even if it is not a diamond that we need but a tincture for healing purposes, we do not wait for a tree to fall and be burrowed out to form a natural chalice and then wait for the rain and wind to blow the right leaves into it, creating a natural medicine that we then have to wander through the forest to find. Instead we pick our herbs, soak them, strain them, and drink our tea when it is done. The process is the same, only quicker and more efficient.
For the aspiring alchemist, the majority of work will take place in the plant kingdom, as the plants worked with are nontoxic, the temperatures used are low, and the work carries the same technical risks as making dinner on a stovetop. If you can boil water, you can do plant alchemy.
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
The Three Essentials
• Making a Simple Spagyric Tincture
Inner and Over Work of Alchemy
In alchemy, everything is composed of three parts: sulphur (soul or individualized essence), mercury (life force), and salt (physical body). It is the work of the alchemist to separate and recombine these three basic principles as often as necessary until they are in perfect proportion and harmony with each other. When this harmony is achieved, the creation of a "Stone," or physical object used in the physical and spiritual transformation of the alchemist, will result. Remember, the plant carries all that it needs to evolve, although the process, if left to nature, will be slow moving. Alchemists have a limited lifespan compared to the substances they work with; they seek to speed up the process of evolution in the plants and minerals they utilize and, in doing so, speed up their own evolution as well. This recognition of physical mortality, combined with the length of time needed to accomplish the Great Work, as it is called, led many alchemists to seek the Elixir of Life so that by extending their lifespan they could complete the task they had assigned themselves.
When working with plants, the physical body of the plant itself is the salt, its essential oils are the sulphur, and alcohol (and occasionally water) is the mercury. Thus, the aspiring alchemist seeks to separate these three parts and recombine them, giving rise to the word used by Paracelsus, spagyrics (pronounced "spah-jir-iks"). Spagyrics is Greek for "separate and recombine" and is the term given to plant work, or the Lesser Circulation. The Greater Circulation consists of metallic and mineral work; its process follows the same principles as plant work, and it is generally undertaken only after a certain degree of plant mastery has been attained.