The Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy: An Herbalist's Guide to Preparing Medicinal Essences, Tinctures, and Elixirs

Same book as Spagyrics, The alchemical preparation of medicinal essences, tinctures,and elixirs... same author Manfred M. Junius....great book

I recently began taking some natural medicines along with my husband, so I thought I would try making my own. Though I am still in the early stages, I feel confident that The Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy has given me a solid base from which to start.Great book. Worthy of anyone's time that is interested in learning more about the different types of herbs out there, what they do and how to create your own daily supplements.

Excellent book. Fast delivery!

I think this is probably the single best book on how to get started with any kind of practical work, however, I have one complaint about it: The author shows you how to do everything with high-priced equipment, that you really don't have to have. The fact is that the ancient alchemists/spagyrists usually didn't have all that equipment, and it's probably smart to at least start off with simpler items before you invest a thousand dollars in this stuff. I think he would have done the art more justice if he had given lower-cost alternatives to the equipment in this book. Get this book, and supplement your reading with lots of material from Adam McLean's website, various alchemy forums and the Philosophers of Nature books if you have the money. Also question what all of them have to say, and compare, because all of them have their quirks.

Manfred Junius has given us a handbook that is not only instructive, but gives us at least part of the system he devised for making sense of the vast canon of writing that seeks to inform the Spagyric alchemist. I found his writing reasonably clear and helpful in starting the work. He shows us what to do. After discussing the extraction of Philosophical Principles from plants, Junius generously shows us line drawings of assembled laboratory glassware that will accomplish the extraction task. He also opens the door to how the old alchemists thought about this part of the Great Work.Perhaps the most remarkable idea in the book is on page 34, where he says, an "acceptable analogy would depict the correspondence between proton (Sulfur), electron (mercury), and neutron (Salt)". The three Philosophical Principles - Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt - are of immeasurable importance to the alchemist, but is he telling us they are really the three major subatomic particles? I don't think the professor is sending us scrabbling to learn Feynman Diagrams, but all chemical substances are, at the most fundamental level, defined by their atomic structures. We are invited to compare the interactions of the subatomic with the development of medical essences, tinctures, and elixirs.Unlike most of the alchemists worth reading, Professor Junius is "Generous" - willing to tell us exactly what he means most of the time - and not one to write only in obtuse allegory. We learn things from Professor Junius, but the work does not have all the answers. Along the way we learn new questions that are yet unanswered. The book is a true handbook in that there are many tables, definitions of symbols, and both line drawings of traditional and modern laboratory equipment. I would recommend Junius to both the new-comer and the experienced practitioner.

There's no need to pay inflated prices for this out of print version by Manfred Junius, it has been reprinted as Spagyrics: The Alchemical Preparation of Medicinal Essences, Tinctures, and Elixirs.

Junius' Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy is one of the finest and most complete books on working with plants from an alchemical perspective (or spagyrics) available today. It is filled with information and experiments that will take years if not lifetimes to exhaust. Extensive instructions take you through the process of making tinctures, plant stones, elixirs, the plant magistry of Paracelsus, and the Lesser or Minor Circulation for the preperation of elixirs. All of the work can be done with a few pieces of easily obtained laboratory equipment that can be used with inexpensive electric or gas heating sources. It is a book you will want two copies of - one for your bookshelf and the second for your laboratory. Required reading - and doing - for anyone serious about undertaking an alchemical journey.

This book systematically presents both the theory and philosophy of spagyrics and the corporeal application of said philosophy in an accesible proletarian manner, perfectly fit for the lay-seeker who isn't attuned to the sometimes involute terminology that attends dated alchemical manscripts. There are countless exserts from spagyric texts from such illustrious illumined exponents as Johannes Isaac Hallandus, Paracelsus, Basilius Valentinus (and more) which are generally followed by a delicatessen recapitulation by Manfred M. Junius, who breaks it down into manageable simple terms. Don't despair, for those tyros going into this book not knowing a lick of the ideas and axioms of the alchemical work will most unequivocally come out transmuted into knowledgable cognoscente of the natural science of Khem. Rove hand-in-hand with Paracelsus collecting morning dew from the manorial sward of your higher genius.

Wonderful, responsive and generous professionals.

Absolutely brilliant!!! It explains the process so you feel empowered and the gifts received from reading this book is priceless. This book is a keeper!!!