Dew definition confusion

How to obtain the spirit of this “philosophical dew” ?


From: Collectanea Chemica, ed. by A.E. Waite

42. Q.—Cannot the phlegm be collected apart from the salt?
A.—It may, if the Ph. dew be not first putrefied.

43. Q.—How great a part of the water is to be reckoned phlegm?
A.—Nine parts of ten, or thereabouts, distilled from fresh Ph. dew are to be rejected, the tenth part (as much as can be extracted in form of liquor) is to be kept; from that dried Ph. dew which remains in the bottom by a gentle fire (which will not cause sublimation), let the salt be extracted with water, so that there be as much water as half that Ph. dew whence this feces was dried; whatsoever is imbibed by the water, let it be poured off by decanting; let it be strained, or purged, per deliquium; then filter it through a glass. Let fresh water be poured on, and reiterate this work till the salt become pure, then join this vastly stinking salt with your last spirit and cohobate it.


According to the above you can either use fresh Ph. Dew, distill 9 of 10 parts and discard it = phlegm = excess water. Keep the last 10th part which comes over = spirit.



Or you putrefy Ph. dew , best it seems is the open air, away from direct sunligh, in a large vessel covered with coffee filters to keep out bugs and dirt for about a month. This is what I am doing right now.

So if you distill this putrefied Ph. Dew the spirit comes over first and about the first 1/6 ? of the “philosophical dew” should be kept = spirit. The excess water = phlegm can be evaported and is of no use.


So either distill fresh Ph. dew and keep the last bit that comes over or distill putrefied Ph. Dew and keep the first part that comes over?!?! Any insight on that?

According to this, the Ruesenstein method makes the best of both worlds (-:

We first evaporate (smoke) the FRESH dew until it's a liquor (that could mean way more than 1/4, possibly even 9/10, like with the non-putrefied Water mentioned by Wilfried), and THEN we let it putrefy to further enhance the Spirit, and only afterwards perform the extraction (-:

The Ruesenstein method says nothing about smoking off 1/4, but it DOES say to smoke it down to a liquor. Of all the dew batches I worked with, none became a thick liquor after boiling off only 1/4.

Very Interesting ..AB I got the same results too after boiling 1/4 off.. it looked somewhat heavy and somewhat liquor like.. but not Honey thick.... Next time i will boil it untill it Looks thick instead of just boiling 1/4 off Auggie

More info about the spirit:

THE BEST WAY TO MAKE THE SPIRIT OF Ph. Dew IS THUS:

Let the Ph. Dew stand eight or ten days, in which time it will putrifie and ferment; then distill very gently, and that which cometh first is the spirit. When it beginneth to come weak and insipid (which you will know by tasting a drop) then cease, for all that is good is come over. Thus you shall have near half your quantity of Ph. Dew in good spirit.

Hello Wilfried,

Gualdo says you should boil the dew first before putrifaction. If you putrify first the spirit would be very weak. If you gave me your e-mail, I'd have some more information for you in German.

Frank

Yes Frank, thanks for the advice, I have read Rueßenstein.

Gualdo speaks about real dew while the philosophical dew we are speaking about here in this thread is GW.

So the question remaining is if the same holds true for our GW.


Here is another part from art distillation concerning that matter:

SPIRIT OF Ph. Dew IS MADE THUS
Take of the Ph. Dew of a young man drinking much wine, as
much as you please. Let it stand in glass vessels in
putrefaction forty days. Then pouring it from its feces,
distill it in a glass gourd in sand until all be dry. Then
cohobate the said spirit on the caput mortuary three times.
Then distill it in a gourd of a long neck and there will
ascend, besides the spirit, a crystalline salt which you
may either keep by itself, being called the volatile salt
of Ph. Dew, or mix it with its spirit which will thereby
become very penetrating if they be digested for some days
together.
Note that the pipe of the head must be wide or else the
volatile salt will soon stop it.
Note that this salt is so penetrating that it penetrates
the body of the glass.
This spirit by rectification may be made so pure and subtle
that it will burn as fire and dissolve gold and precious
stones.
This being often applied to any place pained with the gout
eases it presently. It also quickens any part that is
benumbed.
The salt volatile is Helmont's famous medicine for the
jaundice.



First: We already know to keep the first 1/6th of the putrefied, decanted and distilled Ph. Dew. = spirit

Then we cohobate this spirit with the dried carput mortum left behind from decanting the Ph. Dew or are we supposed to cohobate the spirit with what is left in the distilling flask???

This is the confusing part for me:

Then pouring it from its feces,
distill it in a glass gourd in sand until all be dry. Then
cohobate the said spirit on the caput mortuary three times.

According to Nick the spirit is to be poured (cohobated) on the dried matter which we were decanting our Ph. Dew from. This is what I will be doing.



Anyway I am distilling right now. My distillation system is closed. It is closed because otherwise it would smell awfully bad (would it???) . Since it is a closed distillation the heat applied to the distillation flask is only moderate (about 160°F) to prevent bursting of the glassware. I am also using 2 water cooled condenser applied after each other. So far so good, the problem tho: it takes ages ... I am on the 3rd day distilling right now and have maybe 1/10 totally clear spirit of our Ph. Dew so far. (I hope so)

My distillation flask can hold only 1 liter, it is filled with 1/2 liter of Ph. Dew. And of this 1/2 liter I distilled 1/10th part so far as described above.

My big batch of Ph. Dew which I photographed above holds about 3 liters. Into this batch I will pour back each time of what is still in my distillation flask (5/6) after I have distilled 1/6 of it.

This I will repeat until I have 1/2 liter of spirit in my receiver.
This I will keep, and maybe rectify a few times (distill again).

After that I will evaporate (the remaining 5/6) of the big batch of which alltogether 1/6 part has been distilled (= spirit).
Half of the dried matter I will calcine and half of it I will just gently dry.

As you can see in my big batch above the precipitated material is pretty clear/whitish, what I will try instead of evoparting the big batch is to decant as much as possible and evaporate to dryness what I couldnt decant. That way the caput mortum may be quite less contaminated with impurities. (although it could be that the decanted part is needed)

Now comes the crystallization part.
The big question here is if normal water should be used at first to dissolve the captu mortum or more like what can be dissolved and filter the soltuion a few times. (Or should the the spirit already be used at this stage ???... )

After that the idea is to put some of the filtered and dried matter (which should already be crystals) into a flask and add to it our spirit a little bit heated up just so much as to dissolve it. After that I'll let it gently cool at room temperature and after that I put the flask with the solution in ice water for a few minutes. This should grow beautiful crystals. Lets hope they are red.



I thought instead of noting down this work on some paper I could post it here right away.
Nick stated everything already pretty clearly and thank you so much for that, however small obstacles seem to appear here and there and I think its nice to either read or state them in order to share ideas how everyone else can overcome them and also use their equipment to the fullest.

Wilfried

Some pictures of the distillation equipment and distilling the spirt of Ph. Dew:











This is the spirit distilled so far. Totally clear. The dirt you see is outside the receiver flask.



Wilfried

I highly recommend to anyone doing the Dry Path to use the Open Circulation (the true Seal of Hermes) with your Waters and evaporate/imbibe/evaporate/imbibe again and again (see "Chemical Moonshine") until you have a conjoined paste, just like in Starkey's "Elixir of Volatile Salt" (except that he uses materials from the plant kingdom and we are using our own Waters, which are Universal).

You will be amazed to see how this paste grows and becomes more conjoined and marrried with itself after every imbibation/evaporation cycle. This is the marriage of the Salt and Sulfur in our Matter, mediated by the Spirit (Mercury) as it evaporates along with the phlegm.

I'm only at the 6th imbibation, and I intend to do no less than 10 before I dissolve the whole mass into the Spirit distilled from other batches of putrefied Water.

Starkey's and Van Helmont's method for the Plant Alkahest is to dissolve the conjoined paste in dilluted SV, filter out what doesn't dissolve and then evaporate the SV to leave behind the much sought after Mercurial Crystals. Our Universal Method says to dissolve this 'CM' paste in the Spirit of our own Water, evaporate until supersaturated and then crystallize in the cold. The salty skin mentioned in the process (indicating saturation) may form at the BOTTOM of the vessel (stuff falling out of solution).

We may, however, have other alternatives to this.

We are after the purified and conjoined Salt & Sulfur matrix, and I personally wouldn't really mind if it's in Crystal/Powder/Jelly/Whatever form. We could just evaporate the Spirit and have our dry matrix.

Maybe we could even use dilluted SV to dissolve the paste? ? ? Or maybe even just dry the paste really well (without burning it ! ! !) and use it as it is, without dissolving it at all ? ? ?

I'm a big fan of simplicity (-:

I also have a small batch of May Dew going through this process (Red Paste & Spirit set aside), so I might give it a go before I try the larger quantities of my own Ph. Water....

During the warmer season, the temperature was good enough to maintain the cycles, but now it's colder and I'm giving it a little help during the day with a hot plate set on mild heat.

And one final revelation:

For the imbibations, I only used Water that formed an irridescent surface skin within a few hours after collection. This is the 'test' I've been refering to all along, since I believe it indicates a higher content of Sulfur - and I only want the best stuff for my work (-:

Comments are welcome (-:

And here are some pics of a nice crystal formation, recrystallized from a small quantity of the aforementioned paste, using SV as the solvent:

This book linked to from that other alchemy forum is very interesting and probably helpful in this path. I am not a member there however I read it from time to time.

LINK


The iridescent layer is hidden in every batch, AB.
Add quicklime to a batch and it will appear every time and can be collected every 2 hours for 10+ times.

An earlier path which Nick described 2 years ago involved us to gather this iridescent oil and mix it with the caput mortum of a dried batch without quicklime in it.
For me the iridescent oil which should be collected as an oil crystallized into a white solid insoluble in water.

At this point I have to thank Nick so much again because due to this path he did get all of the IAO members to actually do the work themself and we did because mainly it didnt involve toxic substances and metals. Quite a few of us of the IAO had some minor succes whith this path which gave us all the power and will to dig deeper and stay focused on alchemy.

Anyway ...

Could it be that this iridescent layer is the spirit we are after? the volatile alkalis?

Wilfried

Hi Wilfried (-:

Wilfried wrote:

The iridescent layer is hidden in every batch, AB.

I am aware of that, but still I chose the batches posessing enough 'levity' to raise the oil naturally. This oil layer remains on top during the entire evaporation, and finally unites with the fixed salt at the bottom, more and more after each imbibation.

Wilfried wrote:

For me the iridescent oil which should be collected as an oil crystallized into a white solid insoluble in water.

Same for me, and I still have some of those white crystals. Actually, a small part turned red in open digestion, but most remained white. They are also insoluble in water but soluble in SV.

Wilfried wrote:

Quite a few of us of the IAO had some minor succes whith this path which gave us all the power and will to dig deeper and stay focused on alchemy.

I'll second that!

Wilfried wrote:

Could it be that this iridescent layer is the spirit we are after? The volatile alkalis?

May well be... Have you tried to test their volatility by heating them and looking for their melting/decomposing point? Also, have you tried to separate the white sediment from some well settled Ph. Water and heat it up and open it just enough to see if it receives into itself the water-insoluble crystals from the iridescent oil?

I theorize that the Sulfur we are after needs to become fixed/fully incarnated. Maybe the oil is drawing enough fixed salts from the Water to cristallize/incarnate, although I do believe that a properly fixed sulfur should be water soluble (but don't take my word for it, it's just an opinion at this point).

I believe there is more than one way to incarnate this volatile sulfur. Evaporating through unglazed ceramic (credit to Nick for that) may also work for giving it a fixed body. I've even read about methods of evaporating wine through bread (-:

I am currently developing a device (pictures soon) consisting of a relatively narrow glass vessel sealed with a well fitting ceramic cover, so I can control the direction of the evaporation without having to deal with the mess of evaporating omnidirectionally through a vessel made entirely of ceramic.

I'll third that! As I recall we were to take the irridescent oil, clean it, and digest it in water in a sealed container at baleno marie until it becomes yellow, orange, and then red. Then we were to take the white earth which settles to the bottom of the container and clean that and then unite it with the red. Then we are supposed to get needle like crystals. Actually I think your pictures look pretty close to that AB. But lately I've been getting these diamond shaped red rocks forming in the bottom of my collections. I think they are very good for my spirit. I absolutely love this path like my life depends on it! But of course I love a lot of things that way.

Field,

We need to venture to see that spring you were telling me about soon! It's getting frost on the pumpkin time, it will be frozen soon........

Hyram

Field wrote:

But lately I've been getting these diamond shaped red rocks forming in the bottom of my collections.

I suggest to check if your red rocks are truly red on the inside, or just clear but externally painted by the redness of your matter. After my first evaporation, I too had 'red rocks" - but most of them were actually quite clear and not really united with the red (but only appeared so). Only after further imbibitions and evaporations did they start to truly unite.

This is what my "red rocks" looked like after the first evaporation. They do appear red, but most are merely painted...

Field wrote:

I absolutely love this path like my life depends on it! But of course I love a lot of things that way.

Now this is what I call the heart and spirit of a true Alchemist (-:

Hyram,

My condolence friend because I don't live in the Land of Enchantment anymore. But I think some of the health effects of the spring are due to arsenic found in the waters. Many of the effects seem to be similar to that stuff they give horses to make their coats shinier. More on this later, but hopefully we can still visit the spring sometime in the near future.

AB,

The insoluble crystlas I get look like this

those are from a few years ago though so I will try to dig up the more recent pics. By the way, I like your crystals too. Those kind you can deliquesce under the moonlight

regards,
Field

Ok, here is a picture of the more recent material which I have made. These stones are basically insoluble in water but I did notice that when I left these stones in distilled water for a long time I could definitely taste something different in the water so some of it must have dissolved. The effects were very pronounced. How is the work coming AB and Wilfried? Interested in hearing what you all are up to.

Hi Mr. Field (-:

Were your red crystals obtained from the surface oil/skin, or by some other method?

I intuitively assume that you are in fact extracting the fixed sulfur of our stone, since it's supposed to be insoluble in water. However, after you fix your sulfur into the Salt matrix, the salt should eat it up and the whole thing should be soluble in water.

I am currently getting all sorts of amazingly beautiful re-crystallizations, of which I will write more (with pictures) after I've done a few tests on them.

A suggestion: Try to dissolve your crystals in highly rectified alcohol, decant or even filter from the residue, let the alcohol evaporate naturally and see what happens (-:

Also, you may be curious to find out the melting point of your red crystals... My educated intuition tells me it shouldn't be much higher than that of water...

Ok AB, I will try to see if I can't get some more of this material to test what you are saying. Part of the problem is that I only have very little to work with, but if I am dilligent I am sure I can get more. However, my feeling is that these stones will also be insoluble in alcohol. To answer your question, they simply form on the bottom of the container. Try wiping the bottom of the container with your fingers before you fill them. The oil and skill cells may help give them a place to deposit to. And I will also test the melting point.

I am still slowly distilling the spirit.

Today I checked the PH of all the flasks involved in this work.
(3 alltogether)

1) is the big batch covered with a coffee filter
PH = 9.00 (this value is probably a good sign that its putrefied long enough)

2) is the the flask im distilling from (distilled from it 3 days long)
PH = 8.85

3) is the receiver flask with the clear spirit
PH = 9.28


I dont know if the ph meter I am using (electronic) is meant to be used to measure the PH of the "air" however when I tried to check the 3rd flask with the spirit the PH meter wasnt long enough to reach the bottom of the flask to test the solution (spirit).
When I first tried to reach it the PH went up above 10.20 (the air in the flask where the spirit is) but the solution (spirit) in the bottom of the flask has a PH of 9.28.


What is important to note is this:
LINK

The pH scale is logarithmic and as a result, each whole pH value below 7 is ten times more acidic than the next higher value. For example, pH 4 is ten times more acidic than pH 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than pH 6. The same holds true for pH values above 7, each of which is ten times more alkaline (another way to say basic) than the next lower whole value. For example, pH 10 is ten times more alkaline than pH 9 and 100 times (10 times 10) more alkaline than pH 8.


Wilfried

AB and others seem to be confusing what I have labelled "Philosophical Dew" with actual dew from a field outside. You guys keep referencing the Ruesenstein path, which has nothing to do with "Philosophical Dew" that I was originally talking about in the Dry Path, so I cut all these posts off that thread and put them here.

Wilfried posted pics of Philosophical Dew, then AB responds with refferences from Ruesenstein which has nothing to do with Philosophical Dew, then after that it's just more confusion and speculation all the way down the list.

The simple Dry Path I posted in the other thread is from the book "Potpourri Alchemia" and is very easy to follow. There is no need to make things so terribly complicated. All you are doing is spinning around and around in speculation and convincing yourselves the path is much harder than it actually is.

Hi Nick, and welcome back. I'm sorry for your loss.

This is not the Dry Path/"Potpourri Alchemia" thread, but it appears to be realated to different ways of working with the Philosophical Dew (you have changed the original thread title, so I can't tell).

I have clearly stated in every post to which Water I am refering, and the mention of Ruesenstein's Dew was to give an additional point of reference for various processes, since the different waters appear to be closely related in many ways. Please delete that post if you feel it is confusing.

That being said, it's worth noticing that the Ruesenstein process is titled: "TINCTURE MADE FROM THE PHILOSOPHICAL WATER OR MAY DEW", and I think it's not too far fetched to consider the possibility that he might refer to other waters as well...

Also, for now, I can testify that in my own experience, quite large amounts of Prima Materia are needed to obtain a workable quantity of active ingredients, in both the Dry Path (red crystals) and the Ruesenstein dew path (gold-dissolving spirit).

The last thing I want is to create confusion, so I'll carefully censor my posts in the future...

Best of luck to everyone here (-:

Rectifying my spirit for the first time at a gentle heat below boiling point, about 170F.

The volatile salt can be seen in the condenser, it wasnt at all that appearant when I first distilled the spirit from my putrefied philosophical dew.

The spirit in the flask is normally clear, mine is slightly yellow because some Ph. Dew was mixed. That is no problem since I am going to rectify it a few times anway.





Wilfried

Yeah Wilfred,
Good the idea to work per discensum.
At this moment I’m gently smoking out OPhDew, reducing it, to start the production of crystals in the cold. A skin is appearing on the surface, the matter doesn’t stink at all: it doesn’t boil but only smokes out in a real BM with a little oil on the surface of the gently boiling water.

For what concern the unslaked lime I try to distill with it OphD but it’s a nonsensical complication. May be my lime is weak and we should calcine it strongly before the use to renew it’s power: just some drops of spirit passed by the lime heating and, after that, I must heat strongly with the plate to move the distillation that was, anyway, little.
But the spirit that has been distilled is alkaline in the maximum grade:14.
And stinks a lot.

There’s that very interesting text of Maquer where Margraff, Boerhaave and Schlosser explained what they found in OphD: well, Schlosser (Leyden 1753) were not so impressed by the colour of the crystals and intended to wash them.
Lefevre, as I already said, explained that the power of them is increased by the age of the subject (10-15 years old) and by the use of wine (or tartaric acid? or brulé “dis-alcooled” wine?) that’s shown by the most intense red of the crystals BUT, Lefevre says, that they have some power anyway as a medicine or for the other concerns; and he insist that OPhD should be fresh and not fermented .

Zosimo

I use bigger glassware now (4l flasks) and have included a glass valve. Attached to the valve is a plastic tube which goes outside through a window. I can realease pressure in my distilling setup due to this without the problem that the whole room will awfully smell.
forgot to take a picture of that, but it works like a charm

Here are some more pictures of distilling putrefied ph. dew:



What is really interesting is that I have bubbles covered in iridescent oil in my distilling flask.
The iridescent oil is constantly moving on top of these bubbles which gives a beautiful show.












Wilfried

Wilfried wrote:

Wilfried

the bubbles their like hexagons!

like a bee hive



very stable structure!

what happened to this experiment?