Spagyric

Spagyric, sometimes called herbal alchemy is the production of herbal medicine by alchemical procedures. These procedures involve fermentation, distillation and the extraction of mineral components from the ash of the marc. Paracelsus in his book 'Liber Paragranum', deriving from the Greek words 'spao' and 'ageiro', the essential meaning of which is to 'separate and to combine'. He formulated that nature in itself was 'raw and unfinished' and man had the God-given task to evolve things to a higher level. As an example: The 'raw' medicinal plant would be separated into the basic components he termed 'mercurius', 'sulphur' and 'sal' and thereby cleaned of nonessential components. 'Mercurius', 'sulphur' and 'sal' were then recombined forming the medicine.