Spagyrics: What They are, How They're Made, and How They can Help

Spagyrics: The Ancient Art of Plant Medicine

Spagyrics is an old branch of alchemy focused on making herbal medicines. The word “spagyrics” comes from two Greek words: "spao" (to separate) and "ageiro" (to bring together). This process involves taking apart a plant’s key components—body (salt), soul (sulfur), and spirit (mercury)—then carefully putting them back together. By doing this, spagyric practitioners aim to make powerful remedies that capture the full healing power of the plant.

A Look Back in Time

Spagyrics dates back to Paracelsus, a Swiss doctor and alchemist from the 1500s. He changed the way medicine was practiced by using plants and alchemy together. Paracelsus believed that true healing came from understanding nature’s processes. He introduced spagyrics as a way to extract the vital essence of plants, focusing on balance and harmony in making medicines.

How Spagyrics Work

The spagyric process has three main steps: separation, purification, and recombination. These steps help draw out the plant’s most powerful properties, creating a remedy that’s more effective than ordinary herbal medicines.

1. Separation: The plant is broken down into three parts: salt (body), sulfur (soul), and mercury (spirit). This is done through:
   • Fermentation: The plant ferments, producing alcohol (the spirit of the plant).
   • Distillation: The alcohol is separated from the plant’s essential oils, which hold its healing properties (the soul).
   • Calcination: The leftover plant is burned to ash to get the salts (the body).
2. Purification: The separated parts are then purified to make them stronger and remove any impurities.
   • Spirit: The alcohol is distilled again to purify it.
   • Soul: The essential oils are filtered to concentrate their medicinal properties.
   • Body: The salts are washed and crystallized into pure, white salts.
3. Recombination: Finally, the purified spirit, soul, and body are combined back together. This creates a more potent remedy that contains the full healing essence of the plant.

Benefits of Spagyrics

Spagyric remedies are valued for their holistic approach. They don’t just work on the body but also on the mind and spirit. These medicines are used to help with problems like digestion, breathing issues, skin problems, and emotional imbalances.

Spagyrics are also much stronger than regular herbal tinctures, sometimes 100-400 times more potent. You only need a few drops instead of a whole dropper. They act quickly, often providing almost instant results, unlike tinctures that can take hours or days to work.

Besides their healing effects, spagyrics help you connect deeply with plants. For example, using a lavender spagyric during meditation can help you experience the plant’s true essence. They can also be added to tea or coffee for an extra boost, though they’re most effective when placed directly on the tongue.

Spagyrics taste pleasant and improve with age, like fine wine. They don’t spoil, but the alcohol may evaporate over time, so always keep the bottle sealed tightly.

A Living Tradition

Today, spagyrics is still practiced by herbalists, naturopaths, and alchemists who blend traditional alchemy with modern science to make high-quality herbal remedies. These practitioners focus on ethical harvesting and sustainable practices to protect plants and ecosystems.

Spagyrics offers a unique way to approach herbal medicine, honoring the balance of nature and the interconnectedness of all life. By separating, purifying, and rejoining the essential parts of plants, spagyric remedies promote healing in a powerful, holistic way.

To learn more, we recommend the book Spagyrics: The Alchemical Preparation of Medicinal Essences, Tinctures, and Elixirs by Manfred M. Junius. You can find it here.