Spirit of Tartar

Greetings to all practicing alchemists!

I post here an experiment I've been trying lately on Spirit of Tartar

Wine alcohol was distilled 3 times till it became almost 95%. Then, potassium carbonate was added and by distillation, almost 100% alcohol was produced, the phlegm (water) which stayed on the potassium carbonate was evaporated. Then, the alcohol was returned on the potassium carbonate and the distillation-cohobation was repeated for 10 times. Finally the dry potassium carbonate was put in a small flask, heated on naked fire and gave a dull white fog which condensed with difficulty into a clear liquid (seen on the pic, on the walls of the glass tube.). I think this is not water because I heated the potassium carbonate at low fire for two hours before going to naked flame.


(pic: the white fog and some droplets of it condensed on glass. It condenses very difficulty, low B.P.?)

I would like to find a way to test if this liquid is a useful Alkahest, or what is useful for, before moving on to "mass production".

Relative sources:
-"The secret of the Adepts", recipies: "The Tartarified Spirit of Wine", "The Spirit of Crude Tartar of Guido", "The Spirit of "Crude Tartar of Paracelsus"
-"The Spagyrical anatomy of wine" in book "Art of Distillation" (John French)
-"Tartar Alkahest" in book "Real Alchemy" (Robert Bartlett)

I love potasium carbonate... but it also scares me a lot, because of the annoyances of drying it. It does retain water with such avidity, that it solves itself in water in enormous quantities, rises the boiling point of water enormously, and can only by dried completely at high temperature, after exploding into bits as the last remnants of water keep getting out from it.


Spirit of wine (and acetone more easily) shall extract a yellow tincture (a pinky orange, after a long digestion) from potasium carbonate, and in such a case this "oil of tartar" (not by deliquium) could come over after the spirit and the phlegm.


All this gossip just to say that it looks like water

I usually dry the potassium carbonate at moderate heat and leave it for many hours. Then, the splashing is avoided, or kept to minimum.
Today, upon drying some potassium carbonate left from my previous experiment, I noticed that it sublimes on the walls of the vessel, or better, it goes together with water.



Is this the volatilised potassium carbonate? But I think normal carbonate behaves like this also.

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Spirit of wine (and acetone more easily) shall extract a yellow tincture (a pinky orange, after a long digestion) from potasium carbonate, and in such a case this "oil of tartar" (not by deliquium) could come over after the spirit and the phlegm.

I have come across such a yellow oil following the same experiment described at the first post. It floats upon the clear liquid. I don't know why sometimes it gives the yellow oil and sometimes only a clear liquid. I speculate there was difference in the amount of carbonate or the quality of the alcohol.



Actually, I remember when starting the distillations, the alcohol was colored yellow. After 3-4 cohobations it was discolored. Probably the yellow substance remained with the carbonate and was evaporated later when carbonate was heated strongly.

Here is another pic of the yellow oil inside a glass beaker. This one, formed inside the alcohol which was used for the distillation. I have left it aside and it evaporated leaving behind this oil. I think I'm pretty lucky to observe this.



Still I don't know if this oil is useful or not. I tried to dissolve some gold leaf in it but yet, no results. When I refine and repeat the process, I'm planning to write a step by step guide on how it is made so that I am in accordance with the rules of this forum.
Now, I'm a bit baffled on how to continue. I'm studying this source now (http://www.triad-publishing.com/min_6.html) and I wonder if I should distill it in order to obtain the Alkahest or the Alkahest is lost and this is the Sulfur of tartar left behind or probably those don't apply to my case.

Why don't you just make Paracelsus' Alkahest from lime instead? It also uses potash at the key ingredient to release the Alkahest from the lime in the final step.

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Why don't you just make Paracelsus' Alkahest from lime instead? It also uses potash at the key ingredient to release the Alkahest from the lime in the final step.

I haven't come across (or don't remember) a recipie for Paracelsus' Alkahest. But I think this one that comes from the book "Art of Distillation" (John French) may come close to what you suggest here:

ANOTHER DISSOLVING MENSTRUUM
Take of the best rectified spirit of wine with which imbibe
the strongest unslaked lime until they be made into a
paste. Then put them into a glass gourd and distill off the
spirit in ashes. This spirit pour on more fresh lime, and
do as before. Do this three or four times and you will have
a very subtle spirit able to dissolve most things and to
extract the virtue out of them.

I'm hesitant to change my plans but I already have the ingredients and may try it if I find some more info. Is the Paracelsus' Alkahest recipie in the R.A.M.S. Volumes?

Wow, I thought everyone knew about Paracelsus' Alkahest.

Google books has a photocopy upload of a Paracelsus book from Harvard College. Here is the exact link to the process with lime and potash and alcohol to produce an incombustible oil that is claimed to be the Alkahest.

The Spirit Of Lime

This makes sense because Paracelsus is the one who invented the term Alkahest, and it's derived from the word Alkali and his process uses two alkaline salts.

Thanks for the info. Going to study it and update my practice. Many later recipies on this issue seem to draw their origins from Paracelsus' sayings.

Probably out of the pulse of the forum, but that's what I'm working on now, hope it won't bother you much. So:

1) 120 gr of natural Tartar was put into a 500ml distillation flask and distillation started with the help of gas flame.
2) Soon, a watery liquid condensed into the condenser and flask (probably just water). I threw it away.
3) Fire was risen and suddenly a thick white fog filled the system. Very difficult to condense. The whole system was closed airtight and the distillation continued for some hours.
4) Finaly, inside the receiver, two liquids have formed; a yellow one at the bottom and a black floating.
5) The condenser, contained some crystals also. Here some of them, washed:



6) The distillate was distilled again in low fire. It separated to a clear fraction, a yellow oil and a black residue. The clear fraction is the Alkahest.
7) The Alkahest dissolves Sol and gets a dark yellow color.



I wonder what kind of compound is contained in this liquid able to do this thing. The boiling point is fairly low. I think it is organic. It is not aqua regia for sure. Cyanate salt maybe (but then, I would smell it)? The crude distillate smells like phenol (highly toxic) but the Alkahest has a nice odor.

Congratulations!
Little do you know, in that bottle of dissolved gold, you essentially have the Philosopher's Stone already!

All you need to do now is distill out the Alkahest so the gold becomes an oil, then digest that oil according to the instructions of the Dew process. After 40 days in Baleno Mary, it should go through the color changes and end as a blood red, which will become like a cinnabar powder when you put the oil on a sand bath for 2 weeks. And thus you will have the stone of the 1st Order.

That's all you did is heat raw tartar? No use of lime or alcohol? I have indeed seen the white fog you describe when heating tartar when I tried to calcine tartar to make potassium carbonate, and it filled the lab with the smell of burnt paper. And the tartar turned black and bubbled, then became hard and nasty.

I had no idea you can just collect and condense that smoke to obtain an Alkahest for metals! I will try this out immediately!

Perhaps the Paracelsus method with lime and alcohol is just a cleaner way of doing it, but he used already calcined tartar.

But as the PON courses teach, there are many Alkahests made from many salts, and each has the power to dissolve different metals and stones.

Oh man, I just realized this is the reason why the Ruesenstein document on the dew distillation process says to smoke the dew first! He must have smoked it by burning tartar and letting the dew absorb the smoke.

But to for a much cleaner method, Paracelsus used already calcined tartar (potassium carbonate) and used pure alcohol to absorb the white fumes and needed lime to help get the Alkahest out of the potash, because apparently just heating the potash won't give up the Alkahest. It seems that when calcining the tartar, most of the Alkahest escapes in the smoke, but a small amount remains behind which can be forced out of the potash using caustic lime.

But also in alchemy text, usually when they indicate to use the "clear and pure salt of tartar" they mean calcined tartar (potassium carbonate) so there is some confusion that arises. But if the Alkahest can be obtained from both, then we can see why a couple different methods were developed to obtain it from tartar, calcined or not.

But perhaps the dew is needed for the gold solution to actually putrefy and go through the color changes to become the completed stone. Maybe the Alkahest from tartar is only complete with morning dew, and indeed it seems to be the key that unlocks the DRY PATH which instantly makes the Alkahest from the DRY salt of tartar!

If this works, then nobody on this forum will have to wait 9 months to make the stone by the slow digestion path.

And think about this --- what if the Cappucine monk got his recipe for the procedure from a document that said something like "the salt is the key to unlock the dew, and without it your attempts will be in vein" so the monk concluded that sea salt must have been what the document was referring to, but in fact it was the salt of Tartar that was the key?

I bet we could also just take pure denatured alcohol, and heat tartar and lime together in the distillation flask, with alcohol in the receiver and that flask in ice, with ice water going through the condenser of course, and the white smoke can be better absorbed by the alcohol and will be cleaner than just condensing the smoke by itself.

>Congratulations!
Little do you know, in that bottle of dissolved gold, you essentially have the Philosopher's Stone already!

Hm, you think heh? Actually, a part of me still thinks that this is only a highly corossive toxic compound.

>All you need to do now is distill out the Alkahest so the gold becomes an oil, then digest that oil according to the instructions of the Dew process.

Unfortunatelly, I could not proceed this way with this Alkahest, distillation does not seem to lead to the red oil. If possible, I would like to see a photo of this oil obtained by other path (acetate or calx of gold) in order to make color comparisons and verify that I have the correct product.

>That's all you did is heat raw tartar? No use of lime or alcohol? I have indeed seen the white fog you describe when heating tartar when I tried to calcine tartar to make potassium carbonate, and it filled the lab with the smell of burnt paper.

Yes, I just followed step by step Robert Bartlett's instructions in "Real Alchemy".

>I had no idea you can just collect and condense that smoke to obtain an Alkahest for metals! I will try this out immediately!

Take care of the very toxic fumes. Outdoors is not enough as I learned by myself. Especially near the end of the process I think phenol is produced, judging from the smell. And then, you must clean carefully your equipment from all those toxic compounds. Phenol is very toxic by inhalation or skin absorption and, among others, may cause permanent CNS damage. Effects can be delayed up to 18 hours after exposure to a small amount of it.

>But also in alchemy text, usually when they indicate to use the "clear and pure salt of tartar" they mean calcined tartar (potassium carbonate) so there is some confusion that arises.

Yes, we usually say that this salt is potassium carbonate but it seems it is not exactly that. Potassium carbonate from a "live" material may be different from store bought.

>But perhaps the dew is needed for the gold solution to actually putrefy and go through the color changes to become the completed stone.

Actually, the tartar had accidentally drawn some moisture before going into the process, but I think this is not so important.

Nice, I'd be glad to see sb replicate the process.

A free copy of the book is here http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/alchemy/Franz_Hartmann_-_Paracelsus_and_the_Substance_of_His_Teaching.pdf

Very interesting..
We could be on the verge of a major breakthrough.
I happened to have a copy of the book Real Alchemy by Robert Bartlett.
In the book he writes the following about the Tartar Alkahest:
"If a living mineral is extracted, the Alkahest may be recovered by a gentle distillation and reused. In fact, it is said to become stronger with frequent use. The oily residue that remains behind in this distillation is dissolved into rectified wine spirits and allowed to stand. Decant the clear liquid tincture for use" (page 105-106)

Here is some good information about distillation of Tartar that i wanted to send you via E-mail but you blocked my IP adress.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/5641907/Distillation-Alchimique-du-Tartre

Dejan:

It's in French. I guess I'm going to have to find me a hot little french girl to translate it over a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.

MO-1

Can you say Google(translator)?!

Instead of a girl just download this document in pdf or text format,copy the text per right mouseclick,go to Google translator and paste the text into the translator box...

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

Just because the gold doesn't turn instantly red when you distill away the alkahest, that doesn't mean it's not the correct oil of gold.

dejan07 wrote:

Here is some good information about distillation of Tartar that i wanted to send you via E-mail but you blocked my IP adress.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/5641907/Distillation-Alchimique-du-Tartre

In that process, he seems to be making a medicine of Tartar and is unaware an Alkahest can be made from it which dissolves metals.

Such a shame.

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Here is some good information about distillation of Tartar that i wanted to send you via E-mail but you blocked my IP adress.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/5641907/Distillation-Alchimique-du-Tartre

I haven't blocked the IP address, I don't know how to do that in a yahoo account. This text you provide has very good images on the work.

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Just because the gold doesn't turn instantly red when you distill away the alkahest, that doesn't mean it's not the correct oil of gold.

Probably you are correct here. The specific Alkahest maybe didn't have enough power or just is not in a great amount. I should repeat the distillation but I am not confident at all with the crapy equipment I have, concerning safety. Maybe someone more adventurous or better equiped will make it to the suppossed oil successfully.

I still wonder, has anyone here seen this mythical oil in his experiments on other paths (acetate, calx, ..)?

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In that process, he seems to be making a medicine of Tartar and is unaware an Alkahest can be made from it which dissolves metals.

Such a shame.

Also Bartlett says that this Alkahest has great healing powers. But in the french text, he uses it homeopathetically only.

Please forgive my ignorance of alchemical terminology but I am unsure what the term natural tartar refers to. Is it potassium sulfide or something else? I would very much like to understand and follow your work. Please let me know.

Sincerely:

Silverdragon07

potassium bitartrate
tartar

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Please forgive my ignorance of alchemical terminology but I am unsure what the term natural tartar refers to.

Actually, I'm wrong here. The term "natural tartar" doesn't exist. I just wanted to say tartar from a natural source (wine). K's post provides correct info on this substance.

Thank you for your response. I will attempt to duplicate your experiment as soon as finances permit. Meanwhile I would like to see the results from anyone else who duplicates the experiment. This forum is getting exciting. Peer reviewed and duplicated experimentation is what science is all about and this is the first place I've seen such a thing occur with the arcane science and art of alchemy.

Sincerely:

Silverdragon07

Super dejan07

Thank you for this very instructive and well illustrated link.