The word "elixir," I'm told, translates, as "from the ashes," so you should expect an elixir to actually be made from ashes. If you find a recipe for an elixir that doesn't involve ashes, be wary - the person is trying to make their herbal preparation sound cool by using a word he/she does not understand. The preparation may be fine, but, ya know, it makes me wonder...
Theory -
An elixir is a preparation based on Alchemical theory. It involves breaking down plant material into its three components - spirit, soul, and body, purifying each, then recombining them. The Alchemist then lends some of his/her life force to the preparation, bringing the plant back to life as a purified, living medicine.
The “spirit” of a plant is alcohol (which is why we still call alcohol spirits today), the “soul” of a plant is the oils, and the “body” is the actual woody material of the plant.
You can try making an elixir even if you choose to write off parts of the theory as purely symbolic.
I’ll give you two different methods – the easy one and the hard one. The easy one is easy, and the hard one is pretty hard – but, for an Alchemist, the making of an elixir would also be an extended act of meditation. If you choose to try it, do the work with that in mind and see what happens.
The Easy Method –
You’ll need:
* a bottle of drinkable alcohol (cheap, high proof vodka or Everclear are usually used, but you can change the flavor of your elixir by using other alcohols). Don’t use rubbing alcohol!
* a few handfuls of your herb of choice
* a mason jar and lid
* a source of steady, low heat (a heating pad, the top of your furnace, a place near a wood burning stove, something like that)
* a bowl or pot large enough to hold your mason jar
* a fireproof surface, like an old steel cookie sheet
* A source of high heat, like a blazing inferno, or a fireplace, or a propane torch
* Optional – a bit of sugar or honey to improve the taste of your elixir.
1. Pour about two cups of alcohol into the mason jar.
2. Add about one handful of dried herb, or about one and a half handfuls of fresh herb (adjust up or down for herbs of different potency. Feel free to experiment). The herb should be chopped or ground up as fine as possible.
3. Screw the lid on tight and shake it up good.
4. Put the sealed mason jar in the bowl, add water to the bowl up to about the level of the alcohol/herb mixture, and put on your heat source or in a warm place. The key here is warm, not hot. If the jar gets hot, it could burst. We want something of about body temperature. In fact, you could carry this around under your armpit if you are really committed. The purpose of the bowl with water (water bath) is to help maintain a steady temperature (incubation temperature). If the temperature drops a bit, the heat retained by the water will keep the jar warm. If the temperature goes up, the water will slow down the heating of the jar and prevent it from bursting. (Symbolically, think of the jar as an egg that is being incubated).
In Alchemical literature and illustrations, this particular part of the process is often depicted or described in terms of a burial. A poisonous serpent or dragon is put into a tomb with a woman, and the tomb door is sealed. The serpent’s poison tears the woman’s body apart, filling the tomb with blood – and kills both the serpent and the woman. The poison and the blood mix, creating a new component.
The serpent represents the alcohol (spirit - male); the woman is the plant from which the “blood” (soul – female) will be extracted. The tomb is the container (mason jar) where the action takes place – and an egg. Out of death comes life.
5. Leave the jar to incubate for a time period – always in multiples of three, which is the magic number in Alchemy. Three days, if you’re not really serious, although if you are carrying the jar around in your armpit, three days will seem like forever… Thirty days, for a minor work (approximately the incubation time for a chicken egg), for a major work, 3 x’s 3 – three sets of three months or 270 days (the incubation time for a human. We still break up pregnancies into trimesters…). Shake the jar up good every single day. Meditate on the serpent and that lady tearing each other apart in that tomb while you do it.
6. Draw off the blood – strain the plant matter out of the liquid. Set the liquid aside in the mason jar, with the lid on it. Don’t throw out the plant material! The plant material is the corpse, body, or “dead head”, and it has to go back into the process, after being purified. Squeeze out as much of the liquid as you can though. (By the way, if you stop at this point and toss out the dead head, you will have a tincture).
7. Take the corpse outside along with the fireproof surface or cookie sheet and a propane torch. Set the cookie sheet on a safe surface, like bricks or a driveway. Put the plant material on the cookie sheet, and flame it with the torch. You are now purifying the body with fire. Heat it over and over and over again until there is nothing left but white (or light grey) ashes.
For obvious reasons, this part of the process is often depicted/described in the literature as a cremation. The smoke that rises from the burning are (theoretically) the impurities left in the body after the spirit and soul have been removed. You will often see the smoke depicted as a poisonous animal, like a snake, rising in the smoke.
8. Save the ashes, and add them back into the liquid. Cap up the mason jar, and incubate it again for the required time period, shaking every day.
9. At the end of the time period, let any floaties in the liquid settle out, and carefully pour off as much of the liquid as possible into another jar. Let it settle again, then pour off the clean liquid. Do this at least three times, but nine times (3 x’s 3) is better.
10. At this point, you have now disassembled, purified, and recombined the three parts of the herb (spirit, soul, body). However, after all that cutting, burning, and reassembling, it’s as dead as Frankenstein’s monster. Now, also like Dr. Frankenstein, you’ll need to bring it to life – hopefully with better results.
11. Pour you elixir into a bowl. A copper bowl is preferred because copper is the metal sacred to Venus and the bowl represents the… uhm… reproductive parts of a lady… If you don’t happen to have a copper bowl, you can use something else. Pick something pretty though. A rusty tin can would be disrespectful.
12. Here’s where you’ll have to do a bit of mental work. Hold the bowl in your two hands in front of you, and at about neck level, close to your body. As you do this, mentally visualize and try to feel the warmth of your body moving through your hands into the liquid. It’s useful to do this outside at night under a full moon.
13. Gently blow on the liquid in the bowl, making little ripples. As you do this, imagine that you are breathing some of your life force into the liquid, bringing it to life (And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Gen. 1:2 – you get to be God, for once.).
14. Pour the liquid (now an official elixir) into a bottle and cap it. If you like, you can add some sugar or honey into it to modify the taste. Drink only small amounts at a time – theoretically, this should be very powerful medicine. At worst, it won’t be any more harmful than the herb you originally used.
That’s the simple method. The main flaw in the simple method is that you start with a spirit that came from an alien source – it isn’t the actual spirit of the herb you are working with. In the hard method, you have to make your own alcohol from the herb you are using…
I'll follow up with the hard way later ;D
Have fun!
Theory -
An elixir is a preparation based on Alchemical theory. It involves breaking down plant material into its three components - spirit, soul, and body, purifying each, then recombining them. The Alchemist then lends some of his/her life force to the preparation, bringing the plant back to life as a purified, living medicine.
The “spirit” of a plant is alcohol (which is why we still call alcohol spirits today), the “soul” of a plant is the oils, and the “body” is the actual woody material of the plant.
You can try making an elixir even if you choose to write off parts of the theory as purely symbolic.
I’ll give you two different methods – the easy one and the hard one. The easy one is easy, and the hard one is pretty hard – but, for an Alchemist, the making of an elixir would also be an extended act of meditation. If you choose to try it, do the work with that in mind and see what happens.
The Easy Method –
You’ll need:
* a bottle of drinkable alcohol (cheap, high proof vodka or Everclear are usually used, but you can change the flavor of your elixir by using other alcohols). Don’t use rubbing alcohol!
* a few handfuls of your herb of choice
* a mason jar and lid
* a source of steady, low heat (a heating pad, the top of your furnace, a place near a wood burning stove, something like that)
* a bowl or pot large enough to hold your mason jar
* a fireproof surface, like an old steel cookie sheet
* A source of high heat, like a blazing inferno, or a fireplace, or a propane torch
* Optional – a bit of sugar or honey to improve the taste of your elixir.
1. Pour about two cups of alcohol into the mason jar.
2. Add about one handful of dried herb, or about one and a half handfuls of fresh herb (adjust up or down for herbs of different potency. Feel free to experiment). The herb should be chopped or ground up as fine as possible.
3. Screw the lid on tight and shake it up good.
4. Put the sealed mason jar in the bowl, add water to the bowl up to about the level of the alcohol/herb mixture, and put on your heat source or in a warm place. The key here is warm, not hot. If the jar gets hot, it could burst. We want something of about body temperature. In fact, you could carry this around under your armpit if you are really committed. The purpose of the bowl with water (water bath) is to help maintain a steady temperature (incubation temperature). If the temperature drops a bit, the heat retained by the water will keep the jar warm. If the temperature goes up, the water will slow down the heating of the jar and prevent it from bursting. (Symbolically, think of the jar as an egg that is being incubated).
In Alchemical literature and illustrations, this particular part of the process is often depicted or described in terms of a burial. A poisonous serpent or dragon is put into a tomb with a woman, and the tomb door is sealed. The serpent’s poison tears the woman’s body apart, filling the tomb with blood – and kills both the serpent and the woman. The poison and the blood mix, creating a new component.
The serpent represents the alcohol (spirit - male); the woman is the plant from which the “blood” (soul – female) will be extracted. The tomb is the container (mason jar) where the action takes place – and an egg. Out of death comes life.
5. Leave the jar to incubate for a time period – always in multiples of three, which is the magic number in Alchemy. Three days, if you’re not really serious, although if you are carrying the jar around in your armpit, three days will seem like forever… Thirty days, for a minor work (approximately the incubation time for a chicken egg), for a major work, 3 x’s 3 – three sets of three months or 270 days (the incubation time for a human. We still break up pregnancies into trimesters…). Shake the jar up good every single day. Meditate on the serpent and that lady tearing each other apart in that tomb while you do it.
6. Draw off the blood – strain the plant matter out of the liquid. Set the liquid aside in the mason jar, with the lid on it. Don’t throw out the plant material! The plant material is the corpse, body, or “dead head”, and it has to go back into the process, after being purified. Squeeze out as much of the liquid as you can though. (By the way, if you stop at this point and toss out the dead head, you will have a tincture).
7. Take the corpse outside along with the fireproof surface or cookie sheet and a propane torch. Set the cookie sheet on a safe surface, like bricks or a driveway. Put the plant material on the cookie sheet, and flame it with the torch. You are now purifying the body with fire. Heat it over and over and over again until there is nothing left but white (or light grey) ashes.
For obvious reasons, this part of the process is often depicted/described in the literature as a cremation. The smoke that rises from the burning are (theoretically) the impurities left in the body after the spirit and soul have been removed. You will often see the smoke depicted as a poisonous animal, like a snake, rising in the smoke.
8. Save the ashes, and add them back into the liquid. Cap up the mason jar, and incubate it again for the required time period, shaking every day.
9. At the end of the time period, let any floaties in the liquid settle out, and carefully pour off as much of the liquid as possible into another jar. Let it settle again, then pour off the clean liquid. Do this at least three times, but nine times (3 x’s 3) is better.
10. At this point, you have now disassembled, purified, and recombined the three parts of the herb (spirit, soul, body). However, after all that cutting, burning, and reassembling, it’s as dead as Frankenstein’s monster. Now, also like Dr. Frankenstein, you’ll need to bring it to life – hopefully with better results.
11. Pour you elixir into a bowl. A copper bowl is preferred because copper is the metal sacred to Venus and the bowl represents the… uhm… reproductive parts of a lady… If you don’t happen to have a copper bowl, you can use something else. Pick something pretty though. A rusty tin can would be disrespectful.
12. Here’s where you’ll have to do a bit of mental work. Hold the bowl in your two hands in front of you, and at about neck level, close to your body. As you do this, mentally visualize and try to feel the warmth of your body moving through your hands into the liquid. It’s useful to do this outside at night under a full moon.
13. Gently blow on the liquid in the bowl, making little ripples. As you do this, imagine that you are breathing some of your life force into the liquid, bringing it to life (And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Gen. 1:2 – you get to be God, for once.).
14. Pour the liquid (now an official elixir) into a bottle and cap it. If you like, you can add some sugar or honey into it to modify the taste. Drink only small amounts at a time – theoretically, this should be very powerful medicine. At worst, it won’t be any more harmful than the herb you originally used.
That’s the simple method. The main flaw in the simple method is that you start with a spirit that came from an alien source – it isn’t the actual spirit of the herb you are working with. In the hard method, you have to make your own alcohol from the herb you are using…
I'll follow up with the hard way later ;D
Have fun!
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