Spagyria& Alchemy

The plant should not be considered only from the point of view of the chemical reactions that take place in it. It is a living being, which extends its life within us...

If in plants there is the first step of the transformation of pure energy into life, it is the task of the Spagyrist, beyond the external forms of the organic constituents, to grasp in its functions and to know how to extract this wonderful principle, always present in every moment of its manifestation.

(A.Angelini, Alchimia, 3thd.year, Lesson2)

What does Spagyria mean, a term used for the first time by Paracelsus?

In the word Spagyria two Greek words are hidden: Spaò, to draw out, to divide; and Ageirò, to gather, to bind, to join. These two concepts form the foundation of every genuine alchemical work, hence the often quoted phrase “Solve et coagula, et habebis magisterium!” (Dissolve and bind, and you will have the magistery).

The alchemical work always takes place in three stages: (1) separation, (2) purification, and (3) cohobation (recombination, or the “chymical wedding”). In the spagyrist’s view, these actions lead to an increase and a release of certain curative powers in the initial species.

Spagyria is the application of alchemical working methods to the production of medicaments.

Without going into too much etymology, spagyrics is the application of alchemical methods to make tinctures and elixirs. In other words, spagyrics is the application of naturally occurring substances to heal people. Indeed, an alchemist deals with the things that Nature produces and tries to perfect them. «Spagyria» and «Alchemical Herbal Medicine» convey the same meaning. First, spagyrics is closely associated with Alchemical Herbal Medicine; otherwise, it is the study of the Vegetable Kingdom and its connection to the Whole, Oneness, and Cosmos. And second, it is the process of mastering the Nature itself and perfecting the therapeutic properties of vegetables.

How do spagyric plant remedies differ from nonspagyric ones?

Ordinary tinctures, infusions, and decoctions utilize, at least in part, the curative powers of the plants. The synergistic spagyric preparation activates the plant and liberates its Vital Essence with much stronger curative power. 

The kinetic principle of the substance must be released because it sustains and vitalizes the plant, its Vital Essence, Vital Vortex, and plastic system that is yielding and, at the same time, resistant.

Vortex assumes different denominations. According to the degrees suggested by the dynamic transformation of this substance called Vital Substance, these are as follows: instinct, tropism, memory, consciousness, and self-consciousness. The metallurgical process focuses first on energy use, whereas, Spagyrics exploits energy transformation into life. Since the pure vital energy existing beyond the external forms always presents in every moment of its manifestations (in Seed, Plant, Fruit). It is useless to say which of the two kinds of alchemy is the most effective. However, metallurgy is more direct and more difficult to be used as it requires more expertise. It is similar to the path of an arrow taken when an archer shoots to hit the target, not wanting to cause damage. Spagyrics acts gentler and less direct. It merges into the circle of functions through a more effective flow and supports the natural alchemical processes that reign everywhere. Gaining and extracting the kinetic energy that revitalizes the plant means not stopping at the external reality of forms, at the last seal printed in the material, or at the evolutional concatenation of effects. Spagyrics considers the study of the evolutionary chain of causes, passing from the biological concept of forms to that of the forces that determine it. In other words, the constituents of the plant are of no interest. That is, those that are today called active principles, which are the various molecules of the chemical products that the plant synthesizes. The concept of active principles comes from chemotherapy. It is not the life force that supports the chemical individually, but the mass, the matter, the stereoisomerism, the volume, and the weight of the chemical compound.

Starting from these premises, Spagyrics does not go to any comparison with modern herbal medicine that relies on the postulates of contemporary medicine and follows the same methods of modern scientific thought.

A well-known physician Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus (c. 1493-1541), prepared his famous medicines using primarily spagyric methods. It was a high level of the Hermetic Art and had nothing in common with vulgar alchemy disparagingly called the art of gold making.

Aton (Akhenaten), Egyptian Papyrus, Egyptian Museum, Cairo Egypt

From Ancient Times.

The beginnings of this true hermetic art are shrouded in obscurity up to now.

The hermetic-spagyric method of preparation was known to many ancient cultures. We find contributions to alchemical medicine ancient in China, India, and Ancient Egypt. There exist many parallels between ancient Indian and Chinese alchemy. In India, alchemical preparations are part of the southern Indian Siddha medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and Unanı medicine, which came later to India through the Muslims and represented a further development of ancient Greek medicine.

The alchemy of Western schools is based on the Egyptian traditions, where hermetism was taught in the temples of Memphis and Thebes. From the writings of Zosimos of Panopolis (Akhmin, A.D. 300), it becomes known that kings and priests supervised the alchemy practice in Egypt, and divulging alchemical secrets was against the law. The Hermetic Art, as a well-kept secret, was only handed down by word of mouth to selected individuals. 

The Arabs were the chief agents for transmitting theoretical and practical alchemy to the Europeans, who merged it with the Christian tradition. 

Among the historically accessible European sources, Paracelsus` writings are worth mentioning. Before the much older Indian and Chinese traditions became known in the West, they constituted the earliest information dated with certainty. The dating of earlier texts, including many Oriental ones, is uncertain, and their authorship is elusive. The substructure of the whole alchemical world of ideas is metaphoric, mythological and severely lacking in modern historical thinking that Westerners value so highly. It is no wonder that many Western alchemists constantly refer to Paracelsus, and several institutes bear his name. 

Spagyric is a method introduced and codified by Paracelsus.

Spagyric is most certainly the source and premise of both Hahnemannian homeopathy and current biotherapy. Paracelsus considered the doctor a significant figure in the society and opposed the tendency to relegate the therapeutic art to just technicality and sterility. He believed the physician must first be a philosopher to discover the root causes of a health problem. Consequently, due to Nature's immanence, the doctor cannot ignore the concept of Vital Energy, the motive of the universe and the Divine. The doctor must also try to scrutinize what cannot be seen and possess enough knowledge of astronomy to understand the influences of stars on minerals, plants, animals, and humans. Paracelsus considered cosmological knowledge fundamental for the doctor, as it allows the latter to see a human body as a miniature universe or a Microcosm that is an exact image of the external Macrocosm profoundly influenced by the latter. The stars influence everything: the composition of body tissues, the hormonal balance, the metabolic process, and the biological clock in a human body. 

The doctor must also be an alchemist, a master of the chemicals, to extract the true active essences at every level. Each substance has a raw-material structural active essence, the deepest vital essence.

Ink taken from an ancient book of Alchemy, circa 1380.

Alchemy is the art of separating truth from falsehood, essence from appearance, principle from effect. It is also the art of making the occult visible and the visible occult.

Paracelsus carried out his doctrine vigorously and opposed the aleatory medicine of the time directly and courageously. He was the doctor of miraculous healings that made him immensely popular in his day and brought many furious enemies, discrediting and defaming his name. He left many writings behind, which are hard to find and much harder to read. Therefore, due to the hermetic and symbolic language of those writings, gaining access to his healing art is extremely complicated.

"Wisdom, says Paracelsus, is not created by man, but it must come to him. You can neither buy it with money nor grow it with promises. Wisdom reaches those whose mind is pure", hence his burning controversy, which lasted a lifetime, with regular physicians who only grasped very superficial aspects of an illness. According to Paracelsus, all diseases, except those from purely mechanical causes, have an invisible origin (psychic, subtle). Understanding the reasons underlying these diseases allows for carrying out a causal treatment. For this, he urges the doctor to understand the nature of man, the position of man in the universe and first seek true wisdom. In his works, he explains how a bodily man is immersed in the sea of a subtle world without realizing it, as the fish does not realize it lives in water. It is a subtle psychic part of man that influences his body. Negative thoughts and experiences seriously affect the body and determine an inevitable corresponding reaction in the subject himself. Every doctor should know the power of mind over matter beyond what modern psychosomatics does, which evaluates only the coarser aspects of psychic manifestations.

Over the centuries, man has been increasingly moving away from primeval purity and has increasingly immersed himself in materialism, destroying the very structures of his body. As a result, simple infusions in the time of Galen replaced the herbal healing cures of the time of Hippocrates. From alchemical remedies to homeopathic and homeotoxicological medicines and so on. A man deteriorates his body, responds less and less to therapies, and manifests deeper, chronic, and devastating pathologies for himself and his offspring.

All official medicine tends to apply the laws of physics to what is foreign to it and affords to quantify, measuring everything according to materialistic and perceptible schemes, without hypothesizing the existence of something beyond the apparent. Alchemy does not represent the premise of modern chemistry, and the discoveries of the latter matter little. Aqua regia, the uses of mercury, silver and sulfide are just statements in traditional view of science. Alchemy presupposes metaphysics, supersensible knowledge, and transmutation of consciousness as the premise of metal transmutation.

The alchemical processes are a convergence of physical forces and spiritual power. Therefore, the spagyric remedies are prepared according to specific rules with attention not only to astral and spiritual flows but also to specific affinities of each substance. Because only understanding the location of a mineral substance or a plant extract within the micro and macrocosm can identify its healing properties.

The Spagyrist has to “stand in the Light of Nature,” to quote once more from Paracelsus...

Nadine Lauren Ph.D