Of salts and solvents

I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread about salts and solvents, so that it can be easily cross referenced for study ,and connect the dots.... There have been many developments lately relating to these subjects. All I ask is to not post any processes that may be dangerous to experiment with, for the safety of those whom are inexperienced. Please give the philosophical name, the scientific name, slang name, where you found it (books), and anything else you want. Please do not post a process for a material that is ILLEGAL to possess example: Nitric Acid.


Here are a few to get this started:

Salts:

Sal Volatile. Ammonium Carbonate Glaubers Work, he speaks of using "his Sal Ammoniak", from this I deduced ammonia salt, he then said it can be found in many warehouses but "his Sal Ammoniak" is special. I deduced that he was speaking of Sal Volatile made from his urine, It is also known as baker's ammonia which was very common in the middle ages. You can not buy ammonium carbonate from a store as it is illegal to possess, it is instead made from 2 other ammonia salts. So it must be made from urine. There are several other instances of the use of this salt to form a stone. I believe that this may very well be a great salt for these processes.

Microcosmic Salt. an acid sodium ammonium phosphate, found in blood and natural waters.

Caustic marine alkali. Caustic soda. Sodium hydroxide. Made by adding lime to natron.

Common salt. Sodium chloride.

Glauber's Salt. Sodium sulphate.

Quicklime. Calcium oxide.

Slaked lime. Calcium hydroxide.

Butter of Antimony. White crystalline antimony trichloride. Made by Basil Valentine by distilling roasted stibnite with corrosive sublimate. Glauber later prepared it by dissolving stibnite in hot concentrated hydrochloric acid and distilling.

Chalk. Calcium carbonate.

Gypsum. Calcium sulphate.

Natron. Native sodium carbonate.

Soda ash. Sodium carbonate formed by burning plants growing on the sea shore.
Vitriolate of Tartar. potassium sulfate

Sorrel Salt. acetosella, salt of lemon, potassium hydrogen oxalate

Nitre. Saltpeter, potassium nitrate

Sal Eratus. potassium hydrogen carbonate

Kurrol's salt. a potassium phosphate, with ion-exchange properties

Diuretic salt. potassium acetate

Epsom salts. magnesium sulfate

Tartar of Wine. potassium hydrogen tartrate

Sal Ammoniac. ammonium chloride

Sal De Duobus. potassium sulfate

Sal Nixum. potassium hydrogen sulfate

Sal Sapientiae. mercury(II) ammonium chloride

Plimmer's salt. sodium antimony tartrate

Wood-ash or potash. Potassium carbonate made from the ashes of burnt wood.

Caustic wood alkali. Caustic potash. Potassium hydroxide. Made by adding lime to potash.

Liver of sulphur. Complex of polysulphides of potassium, made by fusing potash and sulphur.

Caustic volatile alkali. Ammonium hydroxide.

Nitrum flammans. Ammonium nitrate made by
Glauber.

Sal Aeratus. potassium hydrogen carbonate

Solvents:

Acetone. dimethyl ketone

Spirits of Wine. Ethyl Alchohol distilled from wine

Aqua Fortis. nitric acid

Vitriolic. sulpheric acid

Oil of Vitriol. Sulphuric acid made by distilling green vitriol.

Corrosive sublimate. Mercuric chloride. first mentioned by Geber, who prepared it by subliming mercury, calcined green vitriol, common salt and nitre.

Homberg's salt. boric acid

Acid of salt. acidum salis, marine acid, muriatic acid, spirit of salt, hydrochloric acid

Acid of Sugar. oxalic acid

Aqua Regia or Aqua Regis. literally "water of the king", a mixture of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acids

Aqua Vitae. literally, "water of life"; concentrated aqueous ethanol, typically prepared by distilling wine

I would like to see more people add to this thread, about the ways they are used and for what purpose and processes so that we can get a larger picture of exactly how the stone is made. Then from there we can come up with the fastest strongest possible process to use over and over again.

goatz wrote:

Then from there we can come up with the fastest strongest possible process to use over and over again.

Nothing is faster than the dry path which doesn't use any solvent at all. Solvents are only for the wet path, and actually they are a misleading way of making the stone.

And you are not going to find a "solvent" that works to make the stone faster than dew by the Ruesentein method.

By making list of all the different "solvents" used in all the different round-about methods to the stone, you are only going to loose yourself in a maze inferior paths.

I understand. Than I will concentrate on the Rusenstein methods only until I find the process of which you speak.

Have done 80 hrs of research in the past 8 days and my eyes are bleeding, and my head is throbbing. What others find obvious and simple eludes me, I knew nothing of alchemy, but my heart told me to trust Nick, which is very unlike me. I have spent countless hours trudging through alchemy texts and doing my damnedest to make sense of it all, but I am beginning to think my own ineptitude is too great to overcome this matter. I need a break, and am beginning to wonder if I was even meant to do this, not that I want to quit, but I am getting so confused by all of the alchemical jargon, riddles, and incomplete recipes that want you to figure it out yourself. I have had to make all of my own lab equipment from basically junk, and all I want to do is help people who need it. I don't have the desire to make even one gram of gold for selfish purposes, I'm really only interested in the elixir. I'm done ranting, I will be gone for a few days to pick up what semblance of sanity I have left.

Hey Goatz, I know how you feel... Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt ;-)
But really you cannot make sense of old alchemy texts unless you already understand the alchemists philosophy..
That said, you need only the right sources to begin with.. Then the rest will follow.
I recommend the book Real Alchemy by Robert Bartlett. And then the Alchemy courses by Jean Dubuis. Somewhere in this forum somebody posted a link to the torrent of the PON Alchemy courses. Study those and the doors of the temple will fly open before you.
And remember that a lot of old books on alchemy were meant to mislead people and they cannot be trusted.

maybe you would like to study the theoretical part of Franz Bardons "Initiation Into Hermetics" (~ page 8-38). but don't do any magical training yet

Goatz, I can't understand why you are complaining about reading a bunch of alchemy processes and not understanding them. I've already done all the work for you-- after my next edition of the book comes out, there will be at least 3 very easy to understand paths in there.

So why do you believe you have to spend day and night reading random alchemy books that are difficult to understand? And the irony is, even if you do eventually understand those books, none of them will be faster or superior to the ones in my book. So what's the point?

I read alchemy books because I enjoy putting myself in the author's place, back in time hundreds of years ago, working hard to make the stone without help from anyone. Their stories are very inspirational, and they write about chemistry in a way so spiritual, it makes you regain your appreciation for it, instead of just following boring step by step instructions with no emotion in them.

If you don't enjoy reading alchemy texts, then don't. What is it you think you will not have if you don't force yourself to read all those books?

I highly suggest the only book you read is "Potpourri Alchemia" because it has the most amazing paths to the stone, plainly written, including the dry path (but he doesn't reveal just how incredibly fast it can be done).
I even have a hard copy of that book which I got printed at qoop.com because it's that amazing of a book. It contains a collection of manuscripts which Hanz Nintzel didn't have any place for in the RAMS files, so he put them all together in a book. Really it makes no sense that he "couldn't find a place for them" because the RAMS collections is just a bunch of books and manuscripts anyway, so what does he mean? I think he collected all the best books that contained the best methods, and chose to put them all together in a "master collection", which he then titled Potpourri Alchemia because of the rich variety of texts it contains.

Truly, if you were only going to read a single book in the RAMS collection, I highly recommend this one. It's 250 pages of treasure, and only costs 12 bucks US to have printed at qoop.com

Compendium seems to be a real treasure too

Nick,

When can we expect your new book to be out? I for one, am getting anxious!

Blessings,

Hyram

NDC wrote:

It's 250 pages of treasure, and only costs 12 bucks US to have printed at qoop.com

How exactly do you get a book printed at qoop.com ? The only option I see pertaining to this would be the Publish app but you need to own the copyright or have permission and qoop forces you to share so many pages with the public when you try to do it that way. Could you please explain in more detail when you have the time my friend.

Thanks

Qoop lets you have your own private collection of books that nobody else can see. Included in my private collection is the Potourri Alchemia book. I don't think the owner's of RAMS would have any problem if I want to make hard copies of the books I paid for; it's no different than printing out the books on your home printer.

Eventually I plan to make hard copies of every single book in the RAMS collection, so I can have a nice big alchemy library for my future children to get lost in.

Hyramposey wrote:

Nick,
When can we expect your new book to be out? I for one, am getting anxious!

Click on the download link at the homepage of the Alchemy-Illuminated website.

i clicked on the eclipse link and got version 2 (Jan 09) of the dew pdf. It appears to be updated at the end but i haven't made full comparison. I would have expected you to put a new revision date on it.

I think nick means to click the book on the main page where the videos and link to the forum are. Not the one with the clouds and music. The page that talks about the book has the answer.And yes I'm glad the original letter is in the book now. I think I know why nick included it to if you know what I mean.

per the page http://alchemy-illuminated.com/documents/not_ready.html the book is not yet ready