THE VOLPIERRE PROCESS

The Volpierre Process

March 10th ‘09... 50g powdered antimony metal + 20g powdered native sulphur + 420g iron filings, all ground together in a mortar and placed outside under full moon to absorb dew over night. Iron filings were strongly magnetized for 2 days with a large ceramic magnet before use.

March 11th ‘09... Mix only slightly moist from dew. Was then placed via a funnel in a 5 litre Schott lab jar and another 50ml previously collected dew was added to the mix and allowed to macerate for a few hours.
5 litre jar of mix taken into the open and with appropriate safety protection, 150ml conc. HCl added and screw cap quickly replaced to keep fumes within the jar. 5 minutes later, 100ml conc. H2SO4 added > extreme ebullition of toxic fumes occurs and bottle is capped with difficulty, some noxious fumes escaping despite capping. Bottle becomes extremely hot, but reaction subsides after 15 minutes, all acids appearing to be absorbed into the mix which now clearly shows flecks of sulphur on the gray, semi-dry surface. Another 50ml of dew then added to mix and sat overnight at approx. 40°c. to macerate.
NOTE: THIS IS A DANGEROUS PROCESS DURING MULTIPLE ADDITIONS OF THE CONC. ACIDS OVER SEVERAL DAYS, SO PROPER CARE AND SKIN, EYE and NOSE PROTECTION NEED TO BE APPLIED.

3.12 and 3.13.09... 75ml conc. HCl + 50ml conc. H2SO4 added to mix today (half quantities of yesterday) so that a less violent would occur. The sulphuric acid reaction still produced heavy fumes, and bottle placed back at 40°c after reaction subsided.

3.14.09... The crusty semi-dry black surface was broken up with a wooden stirring rod before another 75ml conc. HCl + 50ml conc. H2SO4 added to mix today, and bottle placed back at 40°c after reaction subsided.
Reaction today was clearly less violent as the elements are becoming more broken down and dissolved.

March 12th-25th... Both acids added daily at the overall rate of 120ml HCl and 90ml H2SO4 until the total volume including metal slurry was 2.7 litres. The mix was then left to digest at 40-50°c to await the formation of the Red Lion liquor.



Picture 1: At the 5th day... dark gray slurry forming with green black acid soln. above.



Picture 2: At the 8th day... mid-gray slurry with green yellow acid soln. above.



Picture 3: At 15 days on completion of acid addition... mix is brown green with light gray slurry.



Picture 4... At 22 days, after just 1 week of digestion after completing acid addition, a thin creamy layer above a dark line has formed on top of the metallic slurry, out of which are growing a garden of needle-like crystals.



Picture 5... Now at 2 weeks of digestion and the top creamy layer has more than doubled in size above the line of the metal slurry. It is still growing and contains crystals. What does it mean? Hopefully a part of the process towards producing the red lion liquor.

A QUESTION FOR NICK...... So far, so good. How long do you think I will have to wait to see the RED LION liquor form? What suggestions or ideas do you have for this process in order to get success?

Thanks a million for your mentoring..... Don

Luce here is a little gift for you:

http://rapidshare.com/files/216777970/Volpierre.rar.html

dejan07 wrote:

Luce here is a little gift for you:

http://rapidshare.com/files/216777970/Volpierre.rar.html

Thanks dejan,

I already have those 2 files. The one error shown in them both compared to the hard cover Golden Manuscript original is that they say to digest the mix at 370-380°c. This of course should be 37-38°c, and regular modern commercial acids can be used instead of the old, more natural preparations of the acids.

LVX... Don

Quote :

and regular modern commercial acids can be used instead of the old, more natural preparations of the acids.

Hi Don,

Good luck with this path. It’s not to confuse you, I am just curious. Where did you get that information from that you can use commercial acids, when the Volpierre instructions clearly state the process did not work with commercial acids.

Frank

frank wrote:

Quote :

and regular modern commercial acids can be used instead of the old, more natural preparations of the acids.

Hi Don,

Good luck with this path. It’s not to confuse you, I am just curious. Where did you get that information from that you can use commercial acids, when the Volpierre instructions clearly state the process did not work with commercial acids.

Frank

Good question Frank.
Once again Nick provides the answer from one of his earlier posts about dew.

“But the reason modern acids fail to be effective is because alchemists used natural waters, usually rain water when making their acids. And they allowed their materials to deliquesce and absorb moisture from the air, which at the same time draws in the astral fire like a magnet.”
However, then Nick goes on to suggest that by adding putrefied dew to modern acids during work with metals, we overcome this problem.

Thanks Don,

I wish you were right. Let’s see whether this theory is correct. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I still dry distil salts to make acids.

Good luck to you again!

Frank.

Don,
Thank you for sharing the photos, it seems the reaction is proceeding well for you. Hopefully it will soon go to red. It's very cool to see photos of the process.

It should be possible to see if it has gone to completion correctly based on what the manuscript says about the colors near the end (it being "alive" or "dead" based on a particular coloration when shaken).


Again thank you for sharing,

Bill

How your process is going?

dejan07 wrote:

How your process is going?

Hopefully good dejan.

If you check my original post you will see I have just added an update with a new photo.

Cheers.... Don

Dear Brothers,
I canìt see the link "rapidshare".
Can I see those Volpierre documents ?
ThankYouverymuch.

Zosimo

Zosimo wrote:

Dear Brothers,
I canìt see the link "rapidshare".
Can I see those Volpierre documents ?
ThankYouverymuch.

Zosimo

G'Day Zosimo,

You can find those 2 Volpierre docs at http://geocities.com/central_powers/download_volpierre.html

Cheers... Don

HI Luce!

Why do you assume the 370 F to 380 F is wrong?

I don´t get it

You said you have another manuscript for this process?

Another question, Is it the same to use antimmony powder + Sulphur

as using Antimony Trisulfide like its indicated in the book?

In the book it says it may take 4 months to do the process

Are you trying to speed it up?

Hi mrgiller,

Thanks for your questions. I am glad that some people are interested.
First of all the original manuscript is a little booklet from a series of 4, called 'Golden Manuscripts' published by Frater Albertus in the 1970's. This particular booklet is called "The Hermetic Art" by Volpierre, Translated by Frater Albertus in 1974. On p.28 we are told to "place the glass container in a sandbath at a temperature of 37°-38°C."
Later copies say 370-380°C (you mention 370-380°F). The mistake in copying was made by mistaking the ° sign for a zero, besides which at 370°C, acids would explode in any bottle.

You also ask, "Is it the same to use antimony powder + Sulphur as using Antimony Trisulfide like its indicated in the book?"

Good question. I do not know the answer for sure, but at the time I did not have any stibnite but did have some antimony regulus and native sulphur, so I used this.
I figured it should work and yes, likely speed up the process which would be good.

HI Don,

Yes I agree that 370 would be very dangerous, good point. so it makes sense what you say. So the books to download should have an errata. Imagine if someone will try this and get all these chemicals exploding near.

As for your pictures for what I read so far it seems you`ve got Iron Salts
from the look of that whitish powder on the bottom.

anyway,


Hope to see your pics of this thing turning red.

The green crystals are the iron chloride, and when the solution turns red, it should also still have green hues when the red liquid leaves a trail on the sides of the glass after you swirl it around.

I'm not sure the reaction is going to be the same when using antimony metal and sulfur. Because stibnite + HCl = antimony chloride + sulfur dioxide fumes. But when you dissolve raw sulfur, I don't think it will convert to raw sulfur dioxide.

Also it's important to mix the sulfuric acid and HCl just before adding it to the mix. Don't add the HCl acid, then wait to add the sulfuric acid later; they need to be added together.

The container also needs to be closed during the heating, but it seems you have an open beaker.

Thanks for the comments, Nick.

The container actually is a big screw-top lab jar, not a beaker.
But it's true I added the 2 acids one after the other. I didn't mix them first.

Have you got any idea when I could expect a conversion to a red solution, assuming I haven't dudded out with this brew? In other words, how long should I wait before I try again with stibnite powder and premixed acids?

Any suggestions much appreciated. LVX... Don

Picture 6... The Volpierre brew after 8 weeks of digestion at 45°c. Steady bubbling activity has continued and the creamy salt layer has now almost reached the liquid surface. Compare with Picture 5. Notable here are a series of developing blue-black striations like layers of colored sand. The process does seem to be alive, well & changing.

Don wrote:

The one error shown in them both compared to the hard cover Golden Manuscript original is that they say to digest the mix at 370-380°c. This of course should be 37-38°c, and regular modern commercial acids can be used instead of the old, more natural preparations of the acids.

That's why on my geocities page for the past 2 years or so, where you can download my Volpierre notes, I had this statement there the whole time "IMPORTANT NOTE: The temperature of the flask only needs to be 37 to 38 degrees celcius (98.6 to 100.4 F). In the PDF file it has 370 to 380 but the zero is supposed to be a degree symbol °"

Also remember if you are going to use commercial acid, you need to add dew. I very much doubt your solution will ever turn red because you started with antimony metal instead of stibnite. If you do start with natural stibnite, you must be very careful because it often contains deadly arsenic which will be freed by the acids dissolving the stibnite. And the arsenic probably helps transform the iron into the stone.

With this process, it's not the antimony that becomes the stone, it's the iron. The antimony just becomes antimony oxychloride, which is simply another extremely corrosive dissolving agent, which dissolves the iron by direct chlorine ion transfer. Then you have hydrochloric acid, and sulfuric acid, with arsenic to top the cake. So 4 different chemicals are present which all attack the iron.

What Volpierre decided to leave out in his description of this path, is the information about transmutation at the end. He sort of leaves you to believe the finished stone will automatically work to transmute base metals to gold, but he neglects to inform the reader that you must first make the projection powder by heating the stone with gold for many hours until a red powder is formed.

Thanks Nick for the extra information about this path. I plan on trying it out along with all of the other paths. Every path has something to learn and it's good to have you to help us.

Further progress on my Volpierre path... it may not work but the reaction mix is sure looking pretty...



Picture 7... The Volpierre brew after 11 weeks of digestion at 45°c. Lots of needle-like crystals have now formed right up to the surface and the acid menstruum has a distinct orange-red hue.



Picture 8... Closeup shows the crystals and the reddish solution more clearly.

wow that looks awesome luce7

That is great! I was going to go down this path but decided not to. What is the next step of this process?

I haven't been in a hurry to take the next step, but I will do so shortly.
The Red Lion juice is poured off and like it says in the Volpierre text , you begin distillations. First the hydrochloric acid, then the phlegm, and finally the sulphuric acid at high heat. The residue needs to be treated specially, and precautions will be needed distilling these acids.

Looking forward to seeing your work as it develops. Best of luck with the distillation of the acids. I hope you will have everything you need at your disposal and that the process will go smoothly.

For a long time I've been working to figure out the method which is faster than the Volpierre and is located in the back of the Potpourri Alchemia book. It can also be found online.

It's Roger Bacon's path which uses a special Aqua Regia made from 6 salts heated together, which produces nitric, hydrochloric, and sulfuric acid fumes all at once, but no appreciable amount of sulfuric acid actually forms by this method, just a little sulfurous acid. The 6 salts are:
2 parts -iron sulfate (Vitriol)
1 part -ammonium chloride (sal ammoniac)
1/2 part -aluminum potassium sulfate (arinat -- alun french for Alum)
1/2 part -aluminum sulfate (Alumen crudum -- Entali)
1.5 parts -potassium nitrate (niter)
1 part-sodium chloride (Sal commune) common salt

*I also predict a similar result can be achieved by dissolving all these salts in sulfuric acid that has been slightly heated up to 100F with a heating pad, and then condensing the fumes with an ice-cold water graham condenser. Nitric acid can be made that way by dissolving nitre in sulfuric acid, which I've seen myself, so I know all the acids will be produced by that method, but the burning of the sulfates would produces a different effect than dissolving them in sulfuric acid obviously, and that might screw things up.

This Aqua Regia is able to completely destroy metals and make it impossible for you to ever recover them, so you have to be careful not to let the stibnite dissolve too long in the acid or it will ruin the work right from the start. For example, if silver is left to dissolve overnight in this acid, you will be left with a yellow material that can't be converted back to silver by any means. (Edit: Actually I found the reason the silver can't seem to be converted back to the metal form by heating it up again is because it has formed silver chloride, and when you heat that up, it just forms a dark yellow liquid which cools off to form a soft colorless material, known in alchemy as "Lunar Cornea" or sometimes spelled "Luna Cornua" in the Potpourri Alchemia book)

Making this acid is very dangerous, but it's a very simple process after you dissolve the stibnite. You simply digest it with strong acetic acid, then clean it from all acidity and dissolve it in wine spirit alcohol, and redistill the oil several times until it unites with the alcohol. Then you very gently distill the alcohol to separate it, and you are left with a shinning oil that glows like a hot coal. So it's multiplied to the maximum just by digestion with alcohol and then separation.

What's incredible is how fast this oil can produced and how volatile it is. Instead of being the solid glass-like stone you would make from gold, it's a pure ethereal type oil which hasn't yet been fixed. From this point it's a little tricky to specify it to gold and make a solid stone which can be used for transmutations, but that's exactly why it appeals to me, since I could put this process in my book, and people would be able to produce this wonderful shinning mystery of nature, yet nobody would know how to do transmutations with it.

I plan to have a photo of the glowing oil as the cover for the new book.