Propolis

Propolis is a resinous mixture that honey bees collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive. Propolis is used for small gaps (approximately 6 millimeters (0.2 in) or less), while larger spaces are usually filled with beeswax. Its color varies depending on its botanical source, the most common being dark brown. Propolis is sticky at and above room temperature. At lower temperatures it becomes hard and very brittle.

Medical uses

Propolis is marketed by health food stores as a traditional medicine, and for its claimed beneficial effect on human health.

Natural medicine practitioners use propolis for the relief of various conditions, including inflammations, viral diseases, ulcers, superficial burns or scalds.

Propolis is also believed to promote heart health, strengthen the immune system and reduce the chances of cataracts. Old beekeepers recommend a piece of propolis kept in the mouth as a remedy for a sore throat. Propolis lozenges and tinctures can be bought in many countries. Though claims have been made for its use in treating allergies, propolis may cause severe allergic reactions if the user is sensitive to bees or bee products.

Some of these claims are being clinically investigated and several studies are published in the biomedical literature. Since the chemical composition of propolis varies depending on season, bee species and geographic location, caution must be applied in extrapolating results (as above).

As an antimicrobial

Depending upon its composition, propolis may show powerful local antibiotic and antifungal properties.

As an emollient

Studies also indicate that it may be effective in treating skin burns.

As an immunomodulator

Propolis also exhibits immunomodulatory effects.

As a dental antiplaque agent

Propolis is a subject of recent dentistry research, since there is some evidence that propolis may actively protect against caries and other forms of oral disease, due to its antimicrobial properties. Propolis can also be used to treat canker sores. Its use in canal debridement for endodontic procedures has been explored in Brazil.

As an antitumor growth agent

Propolis' use in inhibiting tumorigenesis has been studied in mice in Japan.(wikipedia )

Here is my propolis tincture. A deep red colour.

The extraction of propolis is made easely and very quickly, whitout the help of heat. You just need a pure alcohol, water prevent the extraction. When diluted in water, propolis gives a white coloration alike Macis. The taste is good.

Make it *alive*, and not "technical"

I made several experiments with plants, and in my opinion, if the product is well done, I mean, a true Spiritus Vini, gently distilled and perfectly rectified (caput, corpus, & cauda draconis removed), and a good quality plant, you don't need to bother with salts, insoluble salts etc, unless you want to make a vegetable stone.

Effects can be more than surprising.

What do you want to add with ashes ? They contain nothing of the plant now, they are burned ! No energy remains, and energy can only be in the Sulphury part. Don't try to imitate an Alchemical process while doing Spageria. This is not the same thing.

Don't over complicate, just make a good job at first.

Another problem I have seen is in the so called 'ens' process. People use K2CO3, or potassium carbonate, but if you extract this salt, per se, you will have a golden Spiritus Vini. Which mean that, if you add a plant in the deliquescent alkaline water, you will spoil your Sulphur with another one that have nothing to do here...

Why using an alkaline salt if you are able to make a pure S.V ... why using K2CO3 upon easily extractible plants and not directly S.V ? I don't know, maybe in order to add a "moon" effect ? In this case, just link it to the moon once extracted. And don't dare to tell me that "the book said to do so ...".

Ignorance and greed

There is, of course, a lack of knowledge of Nature's Laws in the Art of Alchemy today (Science, the servant, like in Fairy tales, play now the role of false Princess, and stole the crown of Alchemy), that's not new, almost all the tradition were lost in two centuries, some peices being still under the eye of people, but not recognised, are waiting for an alchemized eye to contemplate their beauty and secrets.

A lot of people imagine that they will find in paper "lessons" what is needed to be learned, glad of their little experiments, with their brand new apparatus, they decide to open website and to sell products. They call that 'Alchemy', and it's just in fact, spagerics. But, "alchemy" is better for business since the word is used in Harry Potter Books... they all claim now to be big lab, making "Spagerics", or "Paracelsus' drugs" etc etc, and they never, never speak about the true goal of this art, and science. As lab they only understand technique, the science part "take that, grind it, extract it, filter it under vacuum, put the label and put online" (and no circulation of the tincture since electricity is not cheap)... that's so dead.

Dead products are also sold to people that understand nothing about all this stuff. Some "metallic elixirs" white and clear as pure water, containing nothing more than maybe alcohol or dew is sold. A tincture of silver, looking like a tincture of gold ? Both clear as water ... is that normal ? Of course, no. There is nothing in the flask. Metals dead for nothing. They are of course, de bona fide, because themselves never saw in their life the true colour of a metal, they imagine that they can have the soul of a metal without colouring the menstrum... magic trick. Not funny.

It would not be a problem if the tinctures they sell where not made after a "fermentation" of the product...inducing a process of putrefaction in a product will lead to a dead Sulphur, dead, I mean, "giver of death", Sulphur can only give what it has, of course, they don't know, do they have a brain, I wonder... the third problem is that they use improper products in order to make their tinctures. As they don't understand laws, they don't understand cycle and the effect of cycle upon matter and the composition of matter. Some guy selling "tinctures" were in fact caught selling coloured sugar water ... spagerics is not a placebo effect, it's not even a physical effect, it is, before everything, an energetic effect, a living effect. These productions must be alive.

For example, do you know you should not ingest obsidian tincture ? Do you know why ?

I let you find the answer.

Spiritual Initiation in Alchemy

We are talking here about True Alchemy, not particular Alchemy (and this is also different from Archemy or Science of Particulars).

Some of us have the goal, in Alchemy, to have Enlightenment, and for this we must have the Stone, which is only a way to produce this State. But we have to be aware that the Spiritual Initiation via Alchemical Path is very very uncommon and rare. It's far less uncommon in Zen, Advaita, Yoga, etc where far far more people reach these states of Being. This simply comes from the fact that Alchemy is an almost lost Science. We have only few rare initiates in this planet that knows the secrets of True Alchemy, and true disciples are rare.

Alchemy is one of the hardest ways to "get there". People imagine that since they have the technique of some process they will easily have the Stone, it is absolutely not the case at all, sometime they strive for nothing valuable, and they imagine that they finally have the Stone (because they have seen few colours, and it looks like a red stony matter), and are disappointed, most part of the time, the story end ... in a dead end, full of frustration and despair, and worse, in poisoning himself and others like in some "orders" where the 'Stone' is given by the guru to the disciples... True Alchemy is clearly revealed nowhere in texts. It's all hints, allegories and images, symbols, and it is needed to have a key to open the process and a real faculty to read between the lines and to decipher the symbolic code used centuries before.
If you want enlightenment via Alchemy, I invite you to revise your spiritual motivations profoundly concerning the possible fulfilling of this goal with this Art. One person upon a billion, even less, can reach enlightenment via Alchemy. It's far more direct by other paths, those who walk these paths of Material realization have a very special quality of soul, requiring a lot of Hermes in it. This is why oratory is required (which must be made of astrologia, theurgia, and study of symbols, texts, meditation (zen like) and also the different laws of Nature), and of course and practical side made with the laboratory, both are one and complete each other.
Most part of process revealed today are part of the said "particular Alchemy". Nothing Universal is involved, but these paths can lead to interesting medicines, transmutations, learning about the process, qualities of matter, laws of Nature, and mastery of inner archetypes, also balancing inner energies etc, and attaining minors states of initiation or purification. These paths are for example the Antimony path of Bacstrom, of "Flamel" as they call it in the PON, involving silver, gold, mercury and antimony (Flamel Path is not at all the path described here), or the Roger's Caro Cinnabar Path, all the different Alkhaests Paths also, the Golden Water Path or Via Antiqua, etc.

Alchemy has a lot of ramifications, like the roots of our old oak. And it is a complex subject.
I want to thanks all my friends in the Art for their support, help, contributions. Thank you my friends !!

The Oldest House in Paris

Text from http://www.parisdisc.com/synposis.htm (I have added the images)

 

See more photos in my Picasa album : http://picasaweb.google.fr/salazius/AubergeNicolasFlamelParis#

When Baron Haussmann remade the face of Paris, he relegated much of the medieval city to the wrecking ball.

"House of Nicolas Flamel, and of Pernelle his wife.

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To preserve the memory

of their charitable fundation

The town of Paris restored in 1900

the early engraving dated of 1407."

Yet despite his efforts, pockets of the past still remain, ready for discovery. If you are willing to search, you can still find them—including some of the oldest houses in Paris.

Actually, there are several contenders for the title, all of them to be found on the Right Bank rather than the Left, near the historic church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais (4th) and the former abbey church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs (now part of the Musée des Arts et Métiers, 3rd). They reflect the division, already well-established by the twelfth century, between the university on the Left Bank, a burgeoning commercial district on the Right Bank, and the seat of government (the royal palace) on the Ile de la Cité.

Take the house of Nicolas Flamel. The name may mean something to you, as he shows up rather prominently in the first Harry Potter story, and Victor Hugo refers ominously to him in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Flamel has gone down in history, or in the shadows of history, as a dedicated alchemist who discovered

the Philosophers’ Stone and its secret of eternal life. Since the Philosophers’ Stone was also capable of turning base metals into gold, subsequent seekers have not been surprised to learn that Flamel was a wealthy man.

In addition to any time he may have put in at his laboratory, Flamel was a successful manuscript copyist and dealer as well as a major community benefactor. In 1407 he built the sturdy stone structure at what is now 51 Rue de Montmorency (3rd), setting aside the top stories as a kind of homeless shelter, while turning the ground floor into a money-making tavern (which now houses a popular little restaurant, the Auberge Nicolas

Flamel). If you look carefully, you can make out some of the original carvings on the façade, including angels, Flamel’s initials, and a Latin inscription invoking the inhabitants’ prayers. Flamel, who only asked that his impoverished lodgers pray for him and his wife, was also a generous benefactor to the Church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, whose tower still remains at the corner of Rue de Rivoli and Boulevard de Sébastopol (4th). In remembrance of his good works, two tiny streets to the immediate north of the Tower of Saint-Jacques were named for him and his wife, Pernelle. Rue Nicolas-Flamel and Rue Pernelle (4th) still exist, and the spot where they cross provides a wonderful view of the dramatically lit tower by night. The house of Nicolas Flamel is certainly the oldest stone house in Paris, but the nearby half-timbered structure at 3 Rue

Volta (3rd), located in back of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, was long considered the oldest house in Paris.

Saint-Martin-des-Champs, which faces the old Roman road (now Rue Saint-Martin) from Paris to the sea, dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with roots that go back long before that. Like other abbey churches in the area, a small village grew up around its protective walls, and 3 Rue Volta may once have belonged to a leading dignitary of the village of Saint-Martin. Despite its obvious age, this contender’s title has recently been challenged: instead of dating from around the year 1300, experts now say that the house that presently occupies 3 Rue Volta may be a seventeenthcentury replacement for the original.

The last two rivals for the oldest-house prize thrust up their half-timbered structures at 11 and 13 Rue François-Miron (4th), behind the church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais, whose tower foundations date from the thirteenth century, and whose history extends several centuries before that. As with 3 Rue Volta, these houses line an ancient roadway of Roman origins, this one connecting Paris to points east. The tall gabled structures of 11 and 13 Rue François-Miron date from the fourteenth century and give perhaps the best feeling of what medieval Paris looked like. Although various ordinances and age itself greatly altered their appearance over the centuries, they have recently been restored to their former glory, with plaques proclaiming that No. 11 is the House at the Sign of the Mower (reaper), while No. 13 is the House at the Sign of the Sheep. At the corner, an old sign for the Relais Saint-Gervais adds to the atmosphere of this special part of Paris.

These are of course small treasures, in a city that fairly bursts with riches of a larger order. But for those who value the many layers of history upon which present-day Paris is built, these remnants of the past are a delight to discover.

Armand Barbault, Gold of Thousand Mornings

I propose you some photos, of unknown origin, maybe a french magazine, that shows Mr Armand Barbault, author of the "Gold of Thousand Mornings" in its laboratory.

"The importance of astrology. All delicate operation is leaded in accordance to astrology."

The gathering of plants, (previous page). Just before sunrise, like with dew, one take the chosen plants (the day before). Here Armand Barbault and his son, are examining a "Bouton blanc".

"Mixing of earth and plants, in the alambic full of earth to regenerate. It was devitalized before the previous coctions, they will add it plants that will bring vive forces. Adding of dew. Dew is filtered, and added to plants. This gives a kind of dense mixture that one will place in the alambic." (Here you can see Alex Barbault).

"The regenerated turb. After being heated, moistened during several month the matter introduced in the alambic, is removed a black matter which digested ... "

"... the plants, this is callen "regenerated turb". It will be blacken to the sun."

"Filtrering of the concoctions. The concoctions are filtered in order to gather the liquors and the earth liberated of its salts."

"At last the gold liquor. The liquor will be examined during a week in order to verify its purity."

An Unknown American Alchemist : George Rapp (1757-1847)

George Rapp

Here is a webpage that can be very profitable to understand who was this man :

http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Versluis.html

"Alchemical notations found by the author in George Rapp's own copy of von Welling's Opus Mago-Cabalisticum at Old Economy, Pennsylvania. This is the first publication of this discovery."

"Frederick Rapp also practiced alchemy, as did a number of others both inside and outside the Harmonist community itself. On 10 April, 1823, an old friend of Rapp's, A.F. Belser, wrote Rapp and alluded to an exclusive society of alchemical adepts that occasionally inducted those who were qualified into its ranks.[12] Later, in 1827, Belser again corresponded with Rapp, who by this time was engaged in alchemical research that was to become extremely controversial within the Harmony Society. "