Editor: A spagyric remedy is a plant taken apart, each part purified on its own terms, then married back together at a higher order — root with seed, oil with water. Dennis traces the idea from Paracelsus through Steiner’s juvenilization, and carries it into the bench work: which solvent suits which part of a plant, why cistus and lemon balm invert through the year, and how the lifting gesture of the parsley family makes it a remedy for cold, cramped, depositing conditions.

The alchemical symbol ouroboros is a snake biting its own tail. It represents the eternal return of processes to a starting place after having gone through a whole series of changes. It also infers that the ending of things is also carrying the potential for a new beginning. In the language of Paracelsus, the great physician and alchemist, ouroboros represents the process of the creation of a spagyric remedy.  A spagyric remedy requires taking apart a plant in a systematic way, purifying each part separately and then working rhythmically to bring them back together again at a higher order. This union of the old and new is known as the alchemical wedding.

Similarly, in the language of Rudolf Steiner when an entity is aging and breaking down, there is something of its original juvenile state that is being released and can increase.  Steiner has called this process juvenilization. This describes the potential for a growing juvenile force to be present and even grow in an aging entity. In alchemical remedy formation the juvenile forces can be preserved in a controlled set of operations. This concept is at the heart of homeopathy.

Steiner has called this process of transformation juvenilization. This describes the potential for a growing juvenile force to be present and even grow in an aging entity.

These ideas point to the potential for making plant and even mineral remedies that can foster healing forces due to the inclusion in the remedy of all stages in the growth processes of the plant or the evolution of a gem. This means including as many stages of development as possible in the processes of taking the plant or mineral apart and then rhythmically marrying the purified substances together again.

To design plant remedies requires different strategies for extracting the different parts. Seeds are different than for extracting roots or leaves or flowers. When a seed extraction is married to a root extraction the ouroboros is biting its tail.  This makes a complete circle that includes the juvenile forces found in the root and seed that guide the development of the whole plant. When flower and leaf extracts are included the energetic template of the phenotype of the plant is enhanced.

For gem remedies, the molecular movements of metals in the fluids penetrating a mineral matrix are analogs to the action of the gem as a remedial substance. The initial mineral matrix and the fine metals present in the gem are the ouroboros of mineral remedies. Very slight differences in the temperature and metallic chemistry of the liquids in the mineral /metal interface determine the resulting gem. Tourmaline begins as black schorl, which has an iron-rich clay origin and ends up as a quartz-friendly pink tourmaline with no iron but a gem form rich in lithium and boron.

For medical science, the plant remedies produced by this methodology may not be accessible for analysis by current methods. However in the process of making spagyric remedies the characteristics of the various parts can often be seen in the reactions of the substances as they are transformed. Different parts of a plant require not only different solvents but different processes of extraction. An essential polarity between water-soluble parts and oil soluble parts requires an extraction process to be complex sequences of steps in order to separate the parts effectively. The herb cistus ladanifer (rockrose) is a good example of this.

In general, plants that are beginning to grow make heavy use of the water-soluble elements such as phenols to stimulate early growth. As the plant matures the chemistry eventually shifts to oil production and then to proteins for seed formation. These various stages in plant development require different strategies for extraction. Further challenges arise trying to marry the parts together again.  In lemon balm the late winter form is rich in water-soluble elements. In the fall the lemon balm becomes rich in oils. By contrast in the cistus plant, the late winter form is rich in oils and the summer form is rich in water-soluble phenolics. The cistus in particular requires a more involved extraction process that gets close to spagyrics.

In the winter cistus the resins and oils in the plant have to be first extracted from gums in the leaves by boiling them in an acidic solution such as Perrier water or something like spring grape sap taken before bud break. The acids pull out resins and oils from the abundant water-soluble gums. New additions of leaves are continually put into the boiling acidic hot water for a few minutes, then retrieved and new branches put in. Eventually a dark brown brew forms with a strong characteristic smell. The dark water is then put in a jar and placed in a Mary’s bath with an open lid. In the bath the water gradually leaves the solution until a thick molasses like syrup is left. The syrup contains both the water-soluble summer gums and the winter-produced oils and resins. Both are bound to each other and must be further separated. To do that the syrup is flooded with alcohol (vodka) and immersed again in the Mary’s bath to allow the alcohol to pull out the resins from the syrup. After a short time in the alcohol, the resins leave the gums and they fall out as a residue on the bottom of the jar. This means that the resins have married the alcohol in the vodka. Pour and filter the alcohol/resin solution off of the dregs, then put that again in an open jar in a Mary’s bath to pull off the alcohol. When the resin solution thickens as the fluids leave, a concentrated remedy results. This plant substance has been separated and purified through a process analogous to the winter and summer polarities of cistus. However, this process is not a full spagyric process because the seeds and roots of cistus are not considered to be effective in healing. Spagyric processes require a more complete picture of juvenilization.

In a plant like parsley, herbalists make use of the root, the leaves and the seeds for culinary and medicinal properties. The parsley family is the umbellifera or umbel-bearing group of plants. Their life gesture is to establish a firm alkaline root with a strong leaf rosette in the first year of growth. Then in the second year a strong flowering process lifts off of the rosette that produces abundant oily seeds. This lifting gesture is a family trait.

A combination of extracts from the root, leaf, and seed of parsley is useful when a lifting and warming influence is sought. Cramping and deposition of substances in the body are both considered to be cold processes alchemically.  They represent the inability of the organism to create volatile processes of warmth that are the key to effective metabolism. The lifting into warmth action of the parsley family is a remedy that addresses cramps and deposits such as arthritis or atherosclerosis. In imagining a plant as a remedy the spiritual entity of a plant like parsley is felt to represent an analog in its growth process to its action on the life forces of another organism. The key to the remedy is the wholeness of the spiritual archetype, that is, to take into consideration the whole growth pattern as an analog of its medicinal action. In the case of the parsley family the analog would be lifting cold conditions up into warmth. This action or gesture is useful in cold afflictions that cause substances to precipitate into deposits.

The key to the remedy is the wholeness of the spiritual archetype, that is, to take into consideration the whole growth pattern as an analog of its medicinal action.

But the idea of juvenilization can be taken much further. Parsley is the family name of a group of plants that includes carrots and celery. Some classifications actually determine that the carrot family or celery family can be used interchangeably with parsley family. That means that the growth patterns of carrots, celery and parsley are similar. In a certain way this division into three groups of plants can be seen as a deeper analog of the lifting dynamic of the warmth process. The carrots focus on root development, the parsleys focus on leaf/ stalk development with the celerys specializing in the formation of a bulbous leaf stalk formation. Many of these plants then terminate growth in the second year with fragrant essential oils in the seeds.  The root plants include parsnip and wild types like hemlock and Queen Anne’s lace. The leaf plants include lovage, chervil, coriander and cicely. The highly aromatic seed-bearing celerys include anise, angelica, caraway, dill, fennel, and coriander.

Designing a  more complete remedy for lifting deposits in the body might include an alcoholic extract of dried parsley root and crown as a basic ferment. The rosette formation common to these groups employs a very active area in the center of the first-year rosette. This is called the crown. It is a physiological feature that serves as the mediating point between the root and the above-ground parts. In these families, the crown is often a feature that is unique such as the fennel bulb, celeriac root, angelica crown, or lovage root. A ferment made from dried crowns, roots and leaves of these plants can provide a mediating alcohol for extracting seed oils of the same family. In a spagyric process the alcohol that is created in a ferment has a particular affinity for extracting oils from the seeds of the same plant. This kind of processing uses the ouroboros principle where the root and the seed of the same plant are brought into intimate contact with each other to form a more complete marriage of active principles. The root meets the seed and the snake bites its tail. In the living body the more complete action of such a remedy can engage a deposit that is sequestered in an organ with a more complete archetypal imagination of a warm lifting force starting from a root and evolving into a seed.

The root meets the seed and the snake bites its tail.

Experiments have shown that the marriage of these kinds of elements is more complete when a longer and slower digestion is employed. Digesting dried herbs in oil is an example of this process. Low temperatures just above body temperature and weeks long digestion times in oils helps the components to merge beneficially. Dried herbs when placed in oils such as black cumin seed or castor oil can be deeply extracted when slow digestion just above body temperature is used. The remedies are stable and with the addition of emulsifiers like sunflower lecithin have the ability to more effectively pass through the skin and into the blood. The use of a family archetype as well as an organ archetype rather than a single essential oil enhances the activity of the remedy and the ability of the body to take it up through the skin.