Proper Equipment

In step five on the eHow book (How to make the Elixir of Life), it says,

A great bottle to substitute for the flask is a champagne bottle with a screw cap cork because it's designed to handle high pressure.

I've been to a couple of wine stores, and the vendors assure me that there are no champagne bottles with screw tops. Nicholas, did you mean a wine bottle?

birdofhermes wrote:

In step five on the eHow book (How to make the Elixir of Life), it says,

A great bottle to substitute for the flask is a champagne bottle with a screw cap cork because it's designed to handle high pressure.

I've been to a couple of wine stores, and the vendors assure me that there are no champagne bottles with screw tops. Nicholas, did you mean a wine bottle?

he ment champagne bottle with cork and screw screwed in cork.

Right here at the local Farm Fresh grocery store, there are several types of champagne bottles with screw tops with corks.

birdofhermes wrote:

In step five on the eHow book (How to make the Elixir of Life), it says,

A great bottle to substitute for the flask is a champagne bottle with a screw cap cork because it's designed to handle high pressure.

I've been to a couple of wine stores, and the vendors assure me that there are no champagne bottles with screw tops. Nicholas, did you mean a wine bottle?

If you want to split hairs, the good champagne region french stuff probably won't have a screw on cap but you can probably find some cheap American Brut that does. Or, hell, a sparkling grape juice bottle.

a simple google search for "champagne screw cap" will reveal that even quality wine makes are moving to screwcaps. Corks are treated and can taint the taste. Plastic corks lose their seal. But good old screwcaps rule.
Sort of like the disdain for boxed wine by the "elite." Turns out they keep the oxygen out better and more fine wines are using that formerly plebian box.
ALWAYS Google! NEVER listen to clerks.

Yes, I think I read the same article yesterday, but the screwcaps they speak of are for wine, and they replace both types of corks with a simple metal cap.

But I went to a couple of grocery stores and I think I have found the right thing. It comes on sparkling wine and the interior screw is of plastic. It's really not a true cork, but it is very tight.

Ha ha ha....I like that comment Philalethes.

Yeah, bird, the cap you describe is the one I used on my bottle. I was able to bring the temperature up over 300°F without it failing, but the top of the bottle really didn't get that hot. Which is probably important so the dew can form droplets again, and keep recirculating, like a repeated closed distillation.

Really you can probably use a normal champagne cork if you also use the wire holder to keep it from blowing off. I have a very tall 1.5 liter cobalt blue bottle of Platinum Riesling which would be great for allowing the dew to rise up and cool, the rain back down into the bottle. But this is a wine bottle, not a champagne bottle, so it would be risky to try using the champagne corking system on it.

Also a flask with a long condenser attached to the top might be ideal.

Actually, I found one champagne bottle with a fantastic top. It was a real cork with a top on it, and then instead of the flimsy wire "cage" to hold it down, there was a strong, reusable, metal contraption that remains around the neck of the bottle and even has a ceramic button which you push up and over, down on top of the cap.
But - the bottle was dark green, and I think you would need a clear or very light colored bottle to watch your process.
I was also wondering if the cork material would contaminate the elixir, and had the same question for plastic, but apparently not.

If you close the bottle/flask, and then heat it, it shall develop pressure. If you heat it, allow temperature to stabilize, and then close it, it shall have much more chances to stand.

There's also the trick to make a small vacuum by heating a bit more than necessary, throwing some air out by the evolving vapors, then closing, retiring immediately from the heating source, and letting it cool down to the temperature required by the practice. But it isn't always practicable / desirable.

Mac,

Quote :

If you close the bottle/flask, and then heat it, it shall develop pressure. If you heat it, allow temperature to stabilize, and then close it, it shall have much more chances to stand.

But for this work - dew and sea salt - that might lose us the spirit of the dew, as Nick has said:

"The problem with distillation is the escape of the gentle spirit that is in the dew. Our Philosophical Gold which is the sea salt is bound up and fixed in the salt, so there is no fear of loosing it. But with the morning dew, the Philosophical Silver is volatile and easily escapes, which is the reason the dew needs to be immediately bottled and sealed before it even reaches room temperature. "

The bottle needs to build up pressure for the process to work. In the original letter, Actum Leyden clearly states that you are too apply the lute to the bottle, then let it dry, then put the bottle on the gentle water bath of Balneo Mary.

He did not say to hermetically seal it. Usually when alchemists instruct us to hermetically seal the flask, that is done by heating it up to let all the air out, then heating the glass on neck to red hot and pinching it closed so the glass melts together and you have a truly hermetically sealed flask with a slight vacuum.

But that is not the case for this process. Everything about it is simple, including the sealing of the flask. He only used lutem (plaster mixed with egg whites) to seal the flask because his flask was just a wooden cork that couldn't seal in the air properly without lutem.

But these days we have much better bottles for this purpose.

The 9th of January I began the process to create the Alkahest from wine, as spoken of by Lully in "The Secrets of the Adepts." It will be a long wait for May and June to collect dew here in Minnesota. I felt that I had to do something. By all appearances the process is very similar. I'm hoping that there is some degree of Astral energy in wine as grapes are mellowed in the sun and bathed in the dew. Someone anonymously spoke in very high regard of Nick in an article called "I know the secret", giving details of making the Elixer of Life using wine by heating at Balneo Mary for a Philosophical Month.
At any rate, I opened a bottle of Cabernet and poured out the top 1/4 of the contents (for cooking of course) before resealing the bottle to allow an air space for proper circulation, as there is little space for the evaporation and condensation of the alcohol in a commercially sealed bottle. I hope this is not in error. The first attempt at this was started on the 15th of December. At that time I used a Cabernet with a cork stopper, which promptly forced the top when I brought the contents to Balneo Mary. The pressure was released and the bottle could not be brought back to propper pressure. The moral of the story is that I've learned the value of following instructions.
I am the greenest of initiates in this forum. I am also very grateful to Nick for the energy expended in wading through all the cryptic symbolism of the old texts in giving the gift of the Dew and Sea Salt path, the Disolve and Coagulate. I've been searching for this 'concept' all my life. I am your humble servant.

hmm do you think that a boiling flask with a rubber stopper can hold the pressure? probably not worth the risk if it can't.

Actually, Furion, it was a cork, and that was my first attempt while not paying full and strict attention to the written instructions. I've abandoned that course of action and am now using bottles with screw on caps. I have a collection of them from the sparkling fruit beverages and wines for cooking that we buy. The wine sellers I visit tell me that the running pattern seen on the side of the wine glass is called the 'leg'. With some wines the pattern is manifested by seperate rivulets, while in some wines it is a solid sheet. I've noticed in the cabernet that the alcohol condenses as droplets which runs in rivulets, while the Pinot Noir shows no pattern at all, presumedly condensing and running down in a solid sheet. I'll continue the current run until the 18th of February, which will be one Pholisophical Month, if not the 28th. The instructions say to then evaporate most of the water and the remainder of the alcohol to get a heavy syrup and then gently pour pure alcohol, probably Everclear, over the top to extract the Alkahest before fan evaporating the alcohol from the product. If I've done something wrong then I'll start again, learning from my mistakes. The dews of May and June won't be far away at that point. I can hardly wait.

Admin wrote:

In the original letter, Actum Leyden

Where is it? I have not read that one.



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Flash wrote:

The instructions say to then evaporate most of the water and the remainder of the alcohol to get a heavy syrup and then gently pour pure alcohol

Just be careful at the end, and stop right at the moment when all the water is evaporated, and what remains is a sort of deep-red pitch, otherwise it gets scorched easily. When you pour the alcohol on it, it extracts the "tincture" from the pitch, which shall have a wonderful smell.

The process Flash is talking about is from one of my older websites. In my opinion, it's a complete waste of time and wine.

Thank you, Nick.

This is precisely the reason I'm here, and yet another reason I'm grateful for your work, Nick. The clock is ticking for me; in truth it is ticking for all of us initiates. I've wasted so much time traveling down the wrong paths. By other means, I've 'created' 5 grams of gold from a 50 pound bag of common livestock salt where the assay says trace amounts, risking my life with deadly chemicals and hallogens, but realized no Elixir of Life. I've transmuted gold from silver by phonon resonance in small amounts; enough to spark the ol' juices, but not have not improved my health or magnified my mind. I'm tired of being in a fog, compared to what the Spirit tells me is possible from the true path of alchemy. I feel I have much to contribute to the world but will never have the time to do it with what remains of my life, as projected by the actuaries. But, actually, I ere. I don't truely count my time as wasted because I've been lead step by step and from process to process to the point I'm at now. The coming months will tell much and hold great promise.

Flash wrote:

I've transmuted gold from silver by phonon resonance in small amounts.

I was going to pm you on this subject (under the asumption that perphaps Nick might not want to allow this kind of discussions on his forum) when I realized private messaging is disabled.

Without going into great details I'll tell you about my interest in the subject, and then let Nick decide.

I assume that gold produced by mild methods is a "living gold", as long as it has not been melted. Thus, the gold you get from phonon resonance or any such method, would be perfect for the Great Work itself, better than a gold you can buy in ingots.

Also, the theory behind the practice just doesn't hold, in my opinion. I emailed Mr. Champion on this, but didn't get a reply so far. I shall not explain the mistake behind the theory (IMO, of course) unless Nick find appropriate to discuss these matters in his forum.

thanks

What about for Nicks method, do you think a boiling flask with a rubber stopper is enough to hold the pressure?

What do scientists actually use to for high pressure boiling flasks anyway?

Phonon resonance is pure horseshit, and Joe Champion is just a scam artist. That's all he's ever done his whole life is run scams to make money. He may have actually believed it could work, but he never did it himself, which is why he had no photos on his pathetic website, just some crappy drawings. He was obsessed with finding a transmutation recipe that worked, but never succeeded.

Furion wrote:

What about for Nicks method, do you think a boiling flask with a rubber stopper is enough to hold the pressure?

I would advise against using rubber because the Alkahest probably dissolves it, and even if it only attacked it weakly, it will still make your dew smell terrible like rubber.

Admin wrote:

Furion wrote:

What about for Nicks method, do you think a boiling flask with a rubber stopper is enough to hold the pressure?

I would advise against using rubber because the Alkahest probably dissolves it, and even if it only attacked it weakly, it will still make your dew smell terrible like rubber.

thanks

so what else can actually be used as a seal for a 250ml flask?

I know I can use a champage bottle, but are there any other alternatives?

The best thing if you want to use a flask, is to get one special made from Qglass.com that is quartz and has a quartz threaded screw cap..