WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.860 modern-day chemistry is the child of alchemy. They just removed a couple letters from the word, 00:06.340 --> 00:11.380 you know, and a lot of people that we attribute to the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. 00:11.940 --> 00:16.400 Isaac Newton considered himself an alchemist. All these people, all these natural philosophers 00:16.400 --> 00:21.200 descended from this tradition, and they were working with Syracan alchemy. 00:21.600 --> 00:27.420 This is the True Health Report, where critical appraisal fuels true freedom. 00:34.020 --> 00:39.400 Hello, everyone, and welcome to the True Health Report. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Kaufman. 00:40.200 --> 00:45.320 Today I have a very interesting guest, and we're going to cover a topic that is often maligned 00:45.320 --> 00:52.180 and somewhat controversial, but really a key subject. Whenever we're talking about science, 00:52.440 --> 00:58.240 this is really the foundational principles that are behind all of the modern materialist 00:58.240 --> 01:04.260 scientists, and there has been an intellectual resurgence of this subject, and of course I'm 01:04.260 --> 01:12.660 talking about alchemy. Today I have a guest, Owen Weinman, who has never before appeared in a public 01:12.660 --> 01:20.120 forum like this, but we have had a relationship behind the scenes for quite a while now. He 01:20.120 --> 01:28.900 is extremely impressive for a young man and has pursued a path that is certainly not a popular 01:28.900 --> 01:38.520 path for the youth of our day, and we can call him a practicing alchemist, a spigericist, or a 01:38.520 --> 01:46.920 spigeric chemist, but really he is a very interesting and I almost want to say enlightening, 01:46.920 --> 01:54.720 because you will feel richer after having spent some time with him. So, Owen, let me bring you 01:54.720 --> 02:03.080 on to the stage. Welcome. Hey, Andy. Thank you. That was one of the kindest introductions I have 02:03.080 --> 02:09.320 ever received. Thank you. Well, let's prove to the audience that it's well characterized and 02:09.320 --> 02:16.160 deserved by having a little chat. So, Owen, why don't you kind of give us a little bit of 02:16.160 --> 02:23.340 your personal journey and how you came into this kind of space and maybe what were the 02:23.340 --> 02:30.600 influences or experiences that led you on the path? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, my name is Owen. 02:31.020 --> 02:37.380 I'm a practicing operational alchemist based out of northern Utah. I run a business and a 02:37.380 --> 02:42.820 spiritual practice called Zeptepi Solutions focused on spigeric and alchemical medicine, 02:43.840 --> 02:54.880 and yeah, my main path with this, I guess, began with Egypt about nine years ago. I spent a month 02:54.880 --> 03:02.080 in Egypt as part of the larger six-month backpacking abroad trip that I did and that had quite a 03:02.080 --> 03:07.640 substantial effect on me. I went to a lot of off the beaten path sites in Egypt, like 03:07.640 --> 03:14.600 Hermopolis Magna and Akhadan. And I even had the middle pyramid, the Coffrey Pyramid to myself for 03:14.600 --> 03:21.220 45 minutes, which is probably one of the few people in history that has had one of the three 03:21.220 --> 03:29.060 great pyramids to themselves for a specific period of time. But yeah, that started a process 03:29.060 --> 03:34.220 in me of researching alchemy more in depth. So, Owen, are you saying that, 03:34.220 --> 03:40.300 first of all, on your trip, you were alone like there was no one else inside the pyramid but you 03:40.300 --> 03:47.500 for nearly an hour? Yep, I was entirely alone. Wow, that's quite fascinating. I imagine this 03:47.500 --> 03:53.720 kind of was a random occurrence. You didn't rent out the pyramid. No, not at all. I bought a basic 03:54.340 --> 03:59.720 tourist ticket. I showed up and the guy who has the key to the pyramid, this isn't the 03:59.720 --> 04:05.420 Great Pyramid, this is the second pyramid next to the Great Pyramid. And yeah, the guy came up with 04:05.420 --> 04:10.880 the key. He was speaking broken English, so I didn't understand if he was saying three years or three 04:10.880 --> 04:15.580 months, but he said it was the first day and I heard three years that it was being opened after 04:15.580 --> 04:21.400 renovations and I was the first person there. I got there early. Wow. And yeah, he opened it up 04:21.400 --> 04:27.020 and I was the only person inside. I can send you pictures or videos later on if you'd like 04:27.020 --> 04:34.220 and yeah, I'd laid down in the sarcophagus at the center of the pyramid and I just felt the desire 04:34.220 --> 04:41.380 to start singing and chanting and it was incredible. The whole pyramid was reverberating with my voice. 04:42.320 --> 04:48.780 Wow, that's quite fascinating. Are you familiar with John Stuart Weed and his studies on the 04:48.780 --> 04:56.760 pyramid? The name sounds familiar. Is he like with John Anthony West? No, I'm not sure about 04:56.760 --> 05:06.200 those other people, but he's the gentleman who was kind of a pioneer of, now I'm blanking on the 05:06.200 --> 05:10.960 name of what it's called, but you know, when you have a sound tone and it makes a pattern like in 05:12.920 --> 05:16.220 particles, say that one more time. Symatics, is that? Yes, 05:16.520 --> 05:21.300 simatics, right. So he actually invented the simoscope, which is a way to demonstrate 05:21.300 --> 05:28.940 cinematic patterns in water rather than using sand or particulate material, but he started off that 05:28.940 --> 05:36.000 he's an acoustical engineer and he was doing sound research in the pyramid and in the sarcophagus. 05:37.020 --> 05:42.320 And so it's interesting that you guys both had kind of a similar experience. I think it'd be 05:42.320 --> 05:47.900 of interest to you to hear that story. It's on one of my past webinars that featured him, so 05:47.900 --> 05:54.960 we'll have to make sure that you watch that afterwards. But I'm curious because even your 05:54.960 --> 06:05.300 story begins with kind of an Indiana Jones type of adventure, but we're in an era where most 06:05.300 --> 06:11.180 young people don't go off backpacking for six months like they once did. Maybe still some 06:11.180 --> 06:16.320 Europeans and Australians do that, but certainly it's not common in the United States. So 06:17.020 --> 06:24.440 how did you become even interested in those or know of those places in Egypt and what led you to 06:24.440 --> 06:30.900 such a sojourn? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, and it's unfortunate. I think 06:31.600 --> 06:37.020 travel is one of the most valuable experiences a human being can have on this planet. 06:38.840 --> 06:44.280 And yeah, I mean that desire to see the world. I've always had that since I was young. 06:45.460 --> 06:49.980 I did some international volunteering with the organization here in Utah when I was younger. 06:50.560 --> 06:55.460 I went to Madagascar and Guatemala with them. And that's going to most of the places like 06:55.460 --> 06:59.900 Madagascar, which is one of the poorest countries in the world and giving them vocational and 06:59.900 --> 07:05.680 educational lessons, building a school there, giving them supplies, allowing them to 07:05.680 --> 07:13.500 take out small business loans from us as well. And yeah, then from there, I went to college. 07:13.500 --> 07:19.440 I didn't like college. I found that I felt that I could get more education out in the world. 07:19.680 --> 07:23.180 So I did that. And then on several different international trips. 07:26.080 --> 07:32.000 But yeah, that's then as far as like the spiritual and the esoteric goes, I've also always 07:32.000 --> 07:37.420 just been immersed in that. Mainly the new age when I was younger as well as we're into. My 07:37.420 --> 07:43.840 mom owned an operating yoga studio here in Park City for a long time. So from a young age, I was 07:43.840 --> 07:50.220 very immersed in all of the new age philosophies and ideas and then took it deeper without me 07:50.220 --> 07:58.700 in Switzerland. And after Egypt, I went on to... Well, Owen, I'm curious. I'm glad, 07:58.920 --> 08:04.180 certainly, that you took it deeper. But do you have an opinion on the new age movement 08:04.740 --> 08:12.920 presently? Yeah. I'm personally not too impressed with it. I think it is 08:14.080 --> 08:20.580 good at introducing people to concepts and ideas if they then choose to find something 08:20.580 --> 08:27.200 they like and then take it deeper. I find that it has a very surface level of view of a lot of 08:27.200 --> 08:32.380 things. But in that respect, it's also great at introducing things to people as an alternative 08:32.380 --> 08:40.080 to what exists as a gateway. Yeah. Well, that's certainly reasonable and it definitely has some 08:40.080 --> 08:47.560 questionable origins for anyone wanting to look into that further. But you could similarly describe 08:48.140 --> 08:54.900 some platforms like Alex Jones, for example, as a way that when people are first started to 08:54.900 --> 09:00.760 realize some of the lies that we face in day-to-day life that they seek and may find 09:00.760 --> 09:06.160 a path that's not really exactly the right path, but it helps them get to the right path. 09:06.480 --> 09:12.540 So it sounds like it had that effect on you as well. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. 09:13.480 --> 09:20.340 So when did you first start to explore the alchemical traditions and philosophies? 09:21.580 --> 09:30.240 Yeah, I would say I began that process about nine years ago, just kind of practicing on my own. 09:31.060 --> 09:35.140 I had a very small laboratory at the time in my apartment. 09:35.720 --> 09:41.880 And was this related to your trip to Egypt or studying of Egyptology? 09:42.540 --> 09:48.720 Yeah, it was. I mainly, I trace alchemical thought and theory back to Egypt, to the 09:48.720 --> 09:53.300 temple and priestly practices of Egypt. So that's where I kind of began with it. And then 09:53.300 --> 09:58.720 I kind of saw that this philosophy of Egyptian spirituality, religion, was taken 09:59.440 --> 10:05.240 into Greece and then into the Arabic countries and then into medieval Europe 10:05.240 --> 10:09.000 and expounded upon. And that's kind of what the lineage of alchemy is. 10:10.760 --> 10:19.300 Yeah, absolutely. And do you think that during the time when it was in the Arab world, 10:19.640 --> 10:25.100 but not in Europe, because there were, I believe, several centuries that occurred during, 10:25.840 --> 10:31.460 do you think that there were documents or texts that were in Europe but purposely kept 10:31.980 --> 10:34.020 hidden from the populations there? 10:34.800 --> 10:40.780 Absolutely. And I, there were probably Arabic alchemical texts that were kept from the Europeans 10:40.780 --> 10:48.240 too, because I think the Islamic alchemists had a more direct lineage to the Egyptian material, 10:48.300 --> 10:52.400 especially because Egypt was an Islamic caliphate for a long time. 10:53.400 --> 10:59.900 Yeah, and even in Europe, I'm sure there were, it's a secretive practice. It always has 10:59.900 --> 11:04.080 been nowadays, it's definitely making resurgence and being more publicly available. 11:06.740 --> 11:16.460 So what, can you tell us exactly what alchemy is and how it's distinct from the common perception? 11:17.660 --> 11:20.920 Sure thing. And yeah, just before that, because that's definitely a good trajectory. 11:21.540 --> 11:25.400 I just would like to add, if there are any credentials that one can have in this realm, 11:26.200 --> 11:32.260 I studied with Robert Allen Bartlett in Washington through his three in-person courses, 11:32.940 --> 11:37.380 his prima secundia and tertia courses, those are all in-person intensives. 11:37.700 --> 11:42.720 And then I was the laboratory manager for Phoenix Aurelius for two years, 11:42.980 --> 11:46.720 and he and I still have a very strong friendship, I consider him a great friend. 11:47.200 --> 11:53.060 And during that time, I made hundreds and hundreds of spajeric items of medicine 11:53.060 --> 11:56.760 and also worked individually with hundreds and hundreds of different herbs. 11:57.180 --> 12:03.340 Yeah, and I originally, we met through Phoenix, who is also a friend of mine, 12:03.780 --> 12:09.140 and he is the one that convinced me that you really knew what you were doing. 12:09.420 --> 12:13.420 And obviously, if you were managing his laboratory, that's definitely, 12:13.800 --> 12:17.440 he's extremely particular for you folks who may not know him. 12:17.440 --> 12:23.900 So if he trusts someone with that level of responsibility, that definitely says a lot. 12:24.160 --> 12:28.520 And my experience with you has validated that as well, Owen. 12:29.280 --> 12:37.620 So clearly you have a lot of experience and practice at working with materials 12:38.670 --> 12:44.480 through the process of alchemical transformation into medicinal substances. 12:44.480 --> 12:48.380 And that's what you're doing now, and we're definitely going to talk about that. 12:48.800 --> 12:52.640 But let's explore a little bit of the background of where that comes from, 12:52.640 --> 12:57.460 because it's a lot different than how pharmaceutical companies make their concoctions. 12:58.640 --> 12:59.580 Absolutely, yeah. 13:00.800 --> 13:04.480 Yeah, and so there is alchemy and there is spajerics. 13:04.820 --> 13:07.820 And they're both two sides of the same coin. 13:08.560 --> 13:10.520 Because first we could talk about alchemy. 13:11.520 --> 13:18.180 It's an inherently murky thing to try to pin down with one definition sentence. 13:18.680 --> 13:24.700 But if I were to try to, I would say alchemy is a more holistic approach 13:27.240 --> 13:31.580 to mankind's relationship to nature and material reality. 13:32.220 --> 13:38.700 It's kind of a path of self-initiation into nature, by nature and through nature, 13:39.640 --> 13:46.160 and taking those natural principles into the hands of human ingenuity in the laboratory 13:47.100 --> 13:51.940 and testing things out and experimenting on these natural principles with the goal of 13:52.680 --> 13:57.400 bringing things to a higher state of perfection and as well in the individual 13:57.400 --> 14:02.780 practitioner as well. Because human beings are in a very unique position to be able to do this on 14:02.780 --> 14:11.580 this planet. And compared to modern allopathic practices, it still is very much attached to 14:12.280 --> 14:18.280 it hasn't thrown out the spiritual nature of reality, the macrocosm and the microcosm. 14:19.280 --> 14:26.210 So I think that is a pretty good description here. Let me add a few things and kind of 14:26.210 --> 14:32.750 punctuate some of the things that you said. So one is that it's not a materialist science. 14:33.990 --> 14:40.830 So that it acknowledges that there is more than just the matter of the earth, 14:41.050 --> 14:45.490 in which is really a lot more consistent with our observations. And that's really 14:45.490 --> 14:50.690 another thing about alchemy. And you could say it's also a way of just conceptualizing 14:50.690 --> 14:57.650 everything in nature or really everything in the world. But it relies only on our ability to 14:57.650 --> 15:04.990 observe through the five senses. It doesn't require technology necessarily. We don't have to use 15:04.990 --> 15:12.370 microscopes or molecular assays or magnetic resonance or any of those fancy technologies, 15:12.370 --> 15:20.710 everything we can observe. And the alchemical process of transformation or transmutation 15:21.550 --> 15:29.210 is, which is usually referred to as changing lead or a base metal into gold or a precious metal, 15:29.530 --> 15:34.770 is that's really a way to turn people off to the subject, so to speak, to say, 15:34.810 --> 15:40.730 oh, it's just some fake magic or whatnot. But in actuality, I mean, we observe things 15:40.730 --> 15:48.450 change all the time. And a very simple example that Steve Young often uses is just making a cup 15:48.450 --> 15:54.330 of tea. And you can start with just the dried tea leaves or you could even start with the tea plant, 15:54.970 --> 16:00.330 that first you have to grow that and there has to be things in nature that change the seed 16:00.330 --> 16:05.170 into the plant. Then you take the leaves, fresh off the plant, and then you put them 16:05.170 --> 16:10.670 through a drying process, which is probably a calcination process of some kind with the sun. 16:11.330 --> 16:16.850 Then you have the dried, then you pulverize them, then you mix them with the water or the steam, 16:17.210 --> 16:23.730 then you separate them out, and then you mix in the sugar and the cream. So you're combining 16:23.730 --> 16:28.230 and changing these things from one thing into the other. Eventually, you end up with a cup of 16:28.230 --> 16:38.430 tea, but you started with a seed, soil, the sunlight, maybe a tea ball or a steel thing 16:38.430 --> 16:42.950 just to keep the tea leaves separate, things like that. But you come out with something 16:42.950 --> 16:46.890 totally different in the end. So it's not nothing magic. I mean, it is magical in a sense, 16:46.950 --> 16:53.950 because if you break it down step by step, it's pretty incredible. But it's real and 16:53.950 --> 17:00.770 we observe this every day. We put food into our body, and it changes into our body parts, 17:01.310 --> 17:07.110 or part of it changes into feces or urine. And that's not what we didn't put those things in, 17:07.210 --> 17:14.870 but yet our body mechanized this transformation. And we can use alchemy not only to describe that, 17:15.270 --> 17:22.230 but we can use it to make our own creations. Absolutely, man. Yeah. And alchemy, that 17:22.230 --> 17:30.550 that would be an extraction of the philosophical principles of that plant. In sphigerics, I'm sure 17:30.550 --> 17:37.570 I know you're familiar with the salt, sulfur, and mercury, the three essentials that Paracelsus 17:37.570 --> 17:45.550 created. And yeah, in something like brewing tea, it's a water-based extraction of the sulfur, 17:45.790 --> 17:51.390 the sole principle of that plant. And when that plant's growing, it's in the alchemical 17:51.390 --> 17:57.450 theory is everything comes from one thing. Everything is descended from oneness and out of 17:57.450 --> 18:04.290 chaos. This multiplicity of reality arises. It's very mystical in that sense. And yeah, 18:04.330 --> 18:09.330 so when something grows out of the ground like that, it contains the macrocosm of everything, 18:09.530 --> 18:16.430 the environment it's growing in. I know a lot of people think it's woo, but the stars are 18:16.430 --> 18:22.890 incorporated in that as well. And when you philosophically extract things, you are incorporating 18:22.890 --> 18:28.790 all of these things and making them into a more humanized form that then you can partake in. 18:30.310 --> 18:35.090 Right. That's right. Because if we started chewing tea leaves right off the plant, it would 18:35.090 --> 18:41.690 probably irritate your gums and not taste good. It sounds like nettle. You tried to eat a bunch 18:41.690 --> 18:50.450 of nettle? No, I haven't. They have competitions for that in England. They have nettle-eating 18:50.450 --> 18:59.270 competitions. Real to see who's the toughest, just like with hot peppers per se. But let me 19:00.010 --> 19:05.150 actually just take the woo-woo out of what you're talking about with respect to the stars because 19:05.710 --> 19:14.610 a way to look at the night sky or the stars is, and it's been described this way as a sky clock 19:15.130 --> 19:23.030 because we know that all the stars rotate around the north star in the annual solar cycle one time. 19:23.630 --> 19:30.110 And we also know that plants have a season that they grow and when you harvest them. 19:30.110 --> 19:39.130 And it's correlated to a certain time of the year, which can be seen by observing the position of the 19:39.130 --> 19:46.730 star. So the position of the stars with respect to the plant is extremely important as part of 19:46.730 --> 19:52.070 this natural cycle for it to grow. And if you don't plant it when the stars are in the right 19:52.070 --> 19:58.870 place, then you're not going to have the same result at the end. So we don't have to 19:58.870 --> 20:06.770 go into astrology or anything that people might consider woo-woo to actually make this 20:07.930 --> 20:15.570 observation. And in fact, in my community, during COVID, we started having campfires and people who 20:16.370 --> 20:23.330 were not completely buying into the operation would come. And of course, a lot of these folks 20:23.330 --> 20:28.730 were farmers because if you're out there on the land and you're observing what's happening 20:28.730 --> 20:35.650 in nature, you would be less likely to be fooled by the report of something fake going on in nature 20:35.650 --> 20:43.450 like a pandemic. So one of the topics that came up was related to this had to do with the celestial 20:43.450 --> 20:48.690 bodies and the lunar cycles. That is something that the farmers were not really paying attention 20:48.690 --> 20:52.350 to. Like they knew they would plant at a certain time of the year. They might consult 20:52.350 --> 20:56.710 the Farmers' Almanac, but they weren't observing the stars and the lunar cycles 20:57.330 --> 21:02.450 in their planting. And some of them started to experiment with this. And I don't think they read 21:03.350 --> 21:09.990 all kinds of alchemical texts to do this. It was mostly just by a few knowledgeable people with 21:09.990 --> 21:15.310 some knowledge, but they started to notice different things about how the plants grew, 21:15.630 --> 21:20.390 that they actually responded to being in tune with these natural cycles. 21:21.110 --> 21:22.770 Has that also been your experience? 21:23.630 --> 21:32.210 Yeah, that has. I don't do as much farming. My girlfriend is an organic farmer. But yeah, 21:32.270 --> 21:37.390 I mean, things like the Farmers' Almanac and all of these folk traditions, I mean, they're not 21:38.190 --> 21:44.770 based on frivolous things. These are based on collective centuries of human experience. 21:45.330 --> 21:52.190 And yeah, these people found that when the moon is in certain signs, 21:52.650 --> 22:00.250 the lunar cycle is very pertinent to the plants. I mean, that's very provable. And especially when 22:00.250 --> 22:06.530 it's in certain signs that are more applicable to certain parts of the plant, like the flower, 22:06.530 --> 22:10.670 the fruit, the root, you know, there are different seasons for that. 22:12.390 --> 22:19.670 And yeah, I mean, it's becoming something. I mean, I don't know if it can be measured 22:19.670 --> 22:24.770 scientifically, but to me, it makes a lot of sense because I mean, even the planets in our 22:24.770 --> 22:30.770 solar system, those are absorbing electromagnetic radiation and putting it off. And we are 22:30.770 --> 22:35.010 receiving that at all times, even just gravitational influence from other planets. 22:35.010 --> 22:41.290 There's whole aspects of nature that can't be measured and observed scientifically that 22:41.290 --> 22:46.230 throughout human history have just been fact for a lot of people. And I don't think that's 22:46.230 --> 22:52.810 something to throw out. That's right. And we can actually, if you study it, you can 22:53.570 --> 22:59.790 see that there's quite a lot of validity to many of these cycles. I mean, even in basic 22:59.790 --> 23:05.090 astrology, so many things ring out and we can't observe them, but you're right, 23:05.230 --> 23:11.530 it's not necessarily through what might be considered scientific observation. 23:12.110 --> 23:19.770 But we can certainly tell about people's tendencies and such and how they could be 23:19.770 --> 23:26.710 related to the changing of the celestial bodies when the solar and the lunar signs 23:27.470 --> 23:33.390 and such. And I've always been impressed when I've seen this done in real life 23:33.810 --> 23:40.230 with skills, knowledgeable people, and with a little bit of honesty from whoever is being 23:41.370 --> 23:51.110 looked at. So when you seek out to make spigeric medicines, how do you account 23:51.110 --> 23:54.130 for these natural cycles in your production? 23:55.630 --> 24:01.090 Yeah, so you can get very complicated with it, or you can take a more streamlined approach. I 24:01.090 --> 24:06.350 choose the more streamlined approach. I use a system that's called, you can find it, 24:06.450 --> 24:12.130 it's called Vedic astrology or sidereal astrology. Tropical astrology is what most people are 24:12.130 --> 24:18.530 probably familiar with, like in the newspaper, the sun signs and stuff. And that is, 24:19.250 --> 24:23.110 that's valuable for a lot of people. I'm not going to talk shade on it, but it's not 24:24.270 --> 24:31.630 based on nature. The tropical astrology takes a 360 degree circle and divides it evenly by all 24:31.630 --> 24:36.930 the 12 constellations. And when you look up at the night sky, that's just not how it plays out. 24:37.230 --> 24:43.010 Constellations are bigger than others. And so sidereal. And there's a guy on YouTube, 24:43.270 --> 24:47.390 Athen Kamenti, who I highly recommend people checking out. He calls it true sidereal astrology. 24:48.050 --> 24:53.310 And yeah, it's based on the actual size and placement of the constellations in the night 24:53.310 --> 25:00.090 sky, based on your geographic location. And the way I use that mainly for Spajeric practice, 25:00.730 --> 25:07.970 an example would be if the moon is ascending or descending and the elemental personality of the 25:07.970 --> 25:14.530 astrological sign it's in, like if it is in an earth sign, that would be a time to work with 25:14.530 --> 25:20.970 roots. And if it's in, you know, a fire or air sign, that would be a time to work with the 25:20.970 --> 25:27.150 flower or the fruit of plants. It also has relation to different operations that you might perform 25:27.150 --> 25:33.870 alchemically, like distillations, calcinations, fermentations, extractions, filtrations, things 25:33.870 --> 25:40.790 like that. And all those processes you just mentioned, are those part of the alchemical 25:40.790 --> 25:48.310 steps of transformation? Yes. Yeah. They are steps towards transformation. You'll see them 25:48.310 --> 25:55.390 referenced a lot in texts, specifically talking about the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, 25:55.470 --> 26:01.430 but they are also basic, everyday laboratory operations that you can perform on a number 26:01.430 --> 26:07.570 of different materials. Right. So these are things like if you were working in a chemistry lab 26:07.570 --> 26:12.830 or a biology lab, you would be doing many of these processes as well, but they 26:12.830 --> 26:21.290 originally come from alchemy. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, modern day chemistry is the child of alchemy. 26:21.810 --> 26:26.710 They just removed a couple of letters from the word, you know, and a lot of people that we 26:26.710 --> 26:31.790 attribute to the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, Isaac Newton considered himself 26:31.790 --> 26:36.490 an alchemist. All these people, all these natural philosophers descended from this tradition, 26:36.510 --> 26:41.630 and they were working with special alchemy. So let's talk a little bit about 26:41.630 --> 26:47.070 actually the difference between alchemy and chemistry because, you know, of course, when I 26:47.790 --> 26:54.090 studied chemistry fairly extensively and did work in some chemistry labs in my undergraduate 26:54.090 --> 26:58.970 years. And when I started learning alchemy, I was a little bit struck about, you know, 26:59.030 --> 27:03.630 how similar certain things are. But here is what is definitely distinct is that 27:03.630 --> 27:08.930 atomism and, you know, modern theories of physics, which play into chemistry, 27:08.930 --> 27:15.430 create this, you know, symbolic understanding of what's going on when you try to mix substances 27:15.430 --> 27:21.890 together or make new substances in a chemistry way. You're always going back to those atoms 27:21.890 --> 27:26.970 and the molecular arrangements. Now, alchemy has a very different way of understanding, 27:26.970 --> 27:33.930 you know, the elements, right? So they're the way they exist in nature and not necessarily 27:33.930 --> 27:38.910 the way we think of them, although most of the way we think of things is more 27:39.530 --> 27:46.390 of an extraction or separation of things in their natural form. But they're distinct. 27:47.670 --> 27:53.570 So, and, you know, also we have things like, you know, with metals, for example, in metallurgy, 27:53.610 --> 27:58.270 we have alloys, right, where we take pure metals and mix them together to make something 27:58.270 --> 28:03.110 different. But in alchemy, some of the metals that we think of as pure metals actually 28:03.930 --> 28:10.370 are looked at as combinations of certain base metals. So can you speak to kind of this, 28:10.510 --> 28:17.010 you know, different way that the symbolic, you know, underpinning of the basic unit 28:17.010 --> 28:20.410 of material is different in alchemy versus chemistry? 28:21.190 --> 28:28.890 Absolutely. That's a great question. And I'm not chemically trained. I'm not a chemist. 28:28.890 --> 28:36.290 I don't consider myself one. But I'm familiar with the basic concepts. And yeah, chemistry is more 28:36.290 --> 28:43.510 concerned with isolating things and creating extractions and purifying things to like the 28:43.510 --> 28:51.230 basic atomic molecules. And alchemy is more, and sphigerics especially is more 28:51.230 --> 28:57.710 of a holistic structure where they, you know, view substances as containing different 28:57.710 --> 29:03.250 admixtures of the four elements. And the way that we can access those and manipulate the 29:03.250 --> 29:07.870 elements is through the three essentials, or the trioprima, as Paracelsus called them, 29:08.550 --> 29:15.610 sulfur, mercury, and salt. And a lot of alchemical operations are different manipulations 29:15.610 --> 29:19.750 of these three principles in different proportions, purifying them in different ways. 29:20.550 --> 29:26.750 And sulfur would be considered the like the soul or the consciousness portion, 29:27.470 --> 29:32.930 individuality portion, like what gives something, it's medicinal value, it's 29:32.930 --> 29:36.970 for human to be like it's personality, your hair color, your skin color. 29:37.590 --> 29:44.170 And in the vegetable realm, we find these as an oil that we can extract from plants. 29:45.040 --> 29:49.370 And the mercury, and these are philosophic concepts, they're not talking about 29:49.370 --> 29:57.010 actual metallic mercury or sulfur. But mercury would be the spirit or the vital force of a substance, 29:57.910 --> 30:03.610 the animating principle, and that in the vegetable kingdom is extracted as a liquor or an alcohol. 30:04.570 --> 30:08.850 And then there is the salt. Right, so that's through fermentation and distillation. 30:09.370 --> 30:16.030 Yes, exactly. Yeah, you would ferment a plant and the mercury for a realm is going to be 30:16.850 --> 30:22.150 the same across that realm, like in the vegetable kingdom that will manifest as a liquor 30:22.150 --> 30:24.890 that we can ferment out and then distill and rectify. 30:25.490 --> 30:30.950 Right. And so this is just for the audience. When you look at a bottle of liquor at the 30:30.950 --> 30:36.730 liquor store, it'll say spirits or distilled spirits. And that is actually the alchemical 30:36.730 --> 30:41.910 category that it is because it's right, the spirit and the mercury are interchangeable 30:42.410 --> 30:48.110 words. And we're talking about like, think about mercury, the God, rather than mercury, 30:48.250 --> 30:51.950 the metal when we're talking about that, although we're not referring directly to the God, 30:52.030 --> 30:57.870 but there's a correlation there. Absolutely, yeah. Mercury, the planet, the God and 30:58.410 --> 31:03.810 its correlation to Hermes, who was combined with the Egyptian totes all come from that, 31:04.590 --> 31:12.130 the connection between realms, the messenger of the gods, we're, in this case, it's a spirit. 31:13.910 --> 31:18.190 But yeah, and then there is the physical body structure that you can deal with the salt, 31:18.430 --> 31:24.610 which is the matrix that something exists in. And in plants that exists as after calcination 31:24.610 --> 31:28.650 and purification that exists as a potassium carbonate alkaline salt. 31:30.170 --> 31:35.510 Right. And that when you say calcination, you're talking about applying heat to the material. 31:35.890 --> 31:44.310 Yeah, you're basically burning a material so you can find what exists in it that is resistant 31:44.310 --> 31:47.310 to fire. What cannot be burned away? What is the most pure in it? 31:48.410 --> 31:53.550 And are you burning the body, I mean, the sulfur away, 31:55.270 --> 31:59.230 the residual sulfur? You would usually extract that out first, 31:59.330 --> 32:03.510 but there are operations, there is a volatile sulfur and there's a fixed sulfur. 32:04.730 --> 32:10.650 And to get out of the fixed sulfur, the salt you would burn and 32:10.650 --> 32:13.610 calcine the fixed sulfur as well. There are different preparations where 32:13.610 --> 32:17.570 you can use the fixed sulfur as is for remedial value. 32:17.570 --> 32:22.870 All right, so we may be getting into a little bit of complexity here, 32:23.050 --> 32:31.930 but the idea is that there isn't just one way to do this. It allows a lot of individual expression 32:33.070 --> 32:38.190 and intuition in the process. Yeah, it's an art in science. 32:39.690 --> 32:46.770 So in other words, I think what you're saying is that the goal, at least with medicines, is to, 32:46.770 --> 32:54.090 for example, take a plant or an herb that we know has medicinal properties of some sort. 32:54.790 --> 33:01.230 And then you're going to separate out the different aspects of it, right, which in alchemy we call 33:01.230 --> 33:07.930 philosophies. And you're going to process those in a certain way, right, to a certain purity, 33:08.050 --> 33:12.850 that there's variability depending on the individual. And then you're going to 33:13.650 --> 33:19.810 recombine them in ways that there is a lot of individual variability. And all along the way, 33:20.050 --> 33:28.450 the goal might be to try and bring out or magnify the desirable properties that you want from that 33:28.450 --> 33:34.330 plant, including palatability, like we talked about before with, if you try chewing on 33:34.850 --> 33:39.430 nettle versus making tea from it. One is going to be a lot more pleasant 33:39.430 --> 33:46.390 and compatible with our bodies than the other. Absolutely, that's exactly correct. I mean, 33:46.410 --> 33:53.650 even the word spigeric itself is a combination of two Greek words, spahio and ahiros. That 33:53.650 --> 33:59.670 means to separate and recombine. Or there's the Latin alchemical axiom, solveit, coagula, 33:59.810 --> 34:06.130 which is to separate and recombine. Yeah, and that's the main procedure. And in that, 34:06.130 --> 34:11.670 in between that, there is purification. So you separate out something into its base components, 34:12.090 --> 34:17.130 then you purify those substances and perfect them, bring them into a higher state of perfection, 34:17.390 --> 34:24.330 and then you recombine them in various ways to see, seeing fit what medicine or what 34:24.330 --> 34:27.010 item you're trying to create, what effect you're trying to have. 34:27.750 --> 34:33.130 So then in summary, we can say that it also differs from chemistry in the sense 34:33.130 --> 34:39.330 that chemistry may separate things and purify them, but it doesn't ever recombine them 34:39.330 --> 34:48.230 into something new. It looks at the reductionist approach. The smallest attainable unit 34:48.230 --> 34:55.070 is what is considered the valuable medicine. In alchemy, it's really the whole 34:57.210 --> 35:04.670 plant or the whole material back together, but now transformed to elevate it to a higher level. 35:05.350 --> 35:07.250 Absolutely. That would definitely be a good way of putting it. 35:07.730 --> 35:13.770 And I think that you can make all kinds of cultural analogies based on that that help us 35:13.770 --> 35:20.310 understand better the world we currently live in. Yeah, it's applicable to many different 35:20.310 --> 35:26.650 things. The more you look into alchemy and this type of philosophy, it's very holographic 35:26.650 --> 35:32.370 and fractal in the sense that you start looking around and you'll see correlations in 35:32.950 --> 35:38.210 everything like cultures, the way... Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. 35:40.070 --> 35:45.630 So Owen, you have recently started a production of a new tincture, and this is 35:46.190 --> 35:54.530 somewhat of a collaboration between us because when I began researching about illness related to 35:54.530 --> 36:01.710 heavy metal poisoning, I came across an amazing herb, cilantro, which has been shown in a lot of 36:01.710 --> 36:08.890 clinical studies to be extremely beneficial. So tell us a little bit about cilantro or 36:08.890 --> 36:15.110 coriander as the other name for it and what type of product you're making with this. 36:15.630 --> 36:24.510 Absolutely. Yeah. So I have created a cilantro-spigeric tincture utilizing fresh plant material, 36:24.770 --> 36:33.870 and what makes a spigeric tincture better in a lot of ways is that when you recombine those aspects 36:33.870 --> 36:40.870 that we were just talking about, especially the alkaline plant salts, it catalyzes a reaction 36:40.870 --> 36:48.090 which creates these molecules called ethyl esters. It's an esterification process, and what this does 36:48.090 --> 36:54.390 is it takes the medicinal value of the plant itself and it makes it more bioavailable, 36:54.930 --> 37:01.610 lasts longer in the body, penetrates deeper. It can cross cell membranes more easily, and 37:01.610 --> 37:07.710 the dose for them is significantly lower than traditional over-the-counter herbal remedies, 37:08.430 --> 37:15.050 whereas most of those, the dosage is in tablespoons or dropperful. Most spigeric 37:15.790 --> 37:21.310 wet-path liquid remedies are going to be in the dose of drops instead of dropperfuls. 37:22.050 --> 37:27.690 And so yeah, I took that approach and I created a spigeric fresh cilantro tincture 37:27.690 --> 37:32.950 because the main reason that heavy metals are removed from the body with the help of 37:32.950 --> 37:38.390 cilantro is due to its sulfur principle or its volatile essential oils and terpenes, 37:38.630 --> 37:44.830 and those are most present in the fresh plant material. And these are, cilantro is an incredible 37:44.830 --> 37:51.030 substance. The terpenes are what's called lipophilic, which means that they can penetrate 37:51.030 --> 37:58.210 fatty tissue cell walls, and they can also cross the blood-brain barrier and get into the 37:58.810 --> 38:02.490 nervous system where they can chelate and bind to heavy metals and extract them, 38:02.670 --> 38:10.430 things like lead, aluminum, cadmium, and mercury. And this is very similar to what we see with 38:10.430 --> 38:16.070 something like turpentine that's also highly lipophilic and also has some ability to help 38:16.070 --> 38:21.990 remove heavy metals, but cilantro has been looked at in several animal studies with 38:21.990 --> 38:28.050 really impressive results because what we see there is not only, like they basically poison 38:28.050 --> 38:33.630 animals with lead, for example, there are a couple of studies using lead, and they have control 38:33.630 --> 38:39.890 animals and some that they give cilantro tinctures to. And not only does it remove most of the 38:39.890 --> 38:45.390 lead, it also reverses or prevents organ damage, like it's been shown to do both. 38:45.950 --> 38:55.890 So because we know lead will do organ damage. So that's why I think we both were interested 38:55.890 --> 39:01.510 in this material, but what you said is very interesting. So if we step back and say, well, 39:02.030 --> 39:09.050 a regular tincture is made pretty simply by, usually people will get some moonshine or ever 39:09.050 --> 39:16.890 clear, some grain-based alcohol or corn-based alcohol at whatever strength is available at the store 39:17.410 --> 39:24.230 and soak fresh cilantro in there for maybe a week or two, then filter out the cilantro 39:24.230 --> 39:31.770 fibrous material and boom, they have the tincture. And that's only the one step, 39:32.630 --> 39:38.370 and of course it's not done the way that you would do it, Owen, but it's only one step 39:38.370 --> 39:46.090 in the spadieric process, which would do a lot more. And I want you to describe that 39:46.870 --> 39:51.930 in just a moment, but there's another really important consideration because cilantro, 39:52.350 --> 40:00.090 in my opinion, has this property also in the soil that it's grown in. So if it grows in 40:00.090 --> 40:08.070 contaminated soil, it will help remove those metals from the soil. So you have to be careful 40:08.370 --> 40:17.390 what cilantro you use to do this process, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the cilantro that I use 40:17.390 --> 40:24.970 is wholly organically grown. It's very high quality, I sourced it very well with that in mind. And 40:24.970 --> 40:31.690 yeah, as compared to what you might find at an herbal apothecary, most of those places, 40:32.130 --> 40:36.630 if they don't even really consider to use a higher-proof alcohol, sometimes they use vodka, 40:36.630 --> 40:43.510 so there's a significant amount of water content, which drastically reduces the shelf life. 40:44.790 --> 40:50.830 Spadieric tinctures, as I was taught to make them, have virtually no shelf life and they only get 40:50.830 --> 40:56.970 better with age. And a preparation like that would only be containing two of the principles, 40:57.350 --> 41:01.490 the sulfur and the mercury principle and the salt, the body aspect, like the incarnate 41:02.050 --> 41:05.890 biologically active part of it in this physical reality that's entirely missing. 41:05.890 --> 41:10.270 Yeah, and with my preparation, all the ingredients I use and everything I make 41:10.270 --> 41:17.730 are either organic or wild harvested. For this process, I use an organic cane spirit 41:17.730 --> 41:23.990 and organic cilantro. Everything is as high as quality, of course. 41:24.230 --> 41:27.770 So the cane spirit, we're talking about fermented and distilled 41:27.770 --> 41:34.210 sugar cane here to make the spirit. And then, do you redistill it? And if so, 41:34.210 --> 41:35.830 how many times, generally speaking? 41:37.610 --> 41:43.450 So the source that I get it from is very pure and very good. I've been working with them for a 41:43.450 --> 41:51.350 long time, even since back when I worked for Phoenix. I occasionally will make and incorporate 41:51.350 --> 41:57.690 spirit of wine into some products. That's a little cost-prohibitive, but that will 41:57.690 --> 42:00.910 be distilled a number of times until it's pure. 42:01.850 --> 42:05.390 Oh, so you're saying the starting material you get has already been 42:05.390 --> 42:06.810 distilled more than one time? 42:08.410 --> 42:15.470 It's at 95% concentration, so they have distilled it to multiple times or very efficiently. 42:17.610 --> 42:24.510 And whereas vodka would be something like 60% or 80%? 42:24.870 --> 42:25.630 Sometimes 40%. 42:26.930 --> 42:30.630 Right, sorry, I'm thinking of the proof, right? So it's usually 80 proof 42:31.330 --> 42:36.810 40% alcohol versus what you're talking about 95% alcohol to start. 42:37.430 --> 42:43.330 So you think about the alcohol as like a solvent for the sulfur of the cilantro. 42:43.950 --> 42:50.110 So if you have more water in there, it's going to change the solvent properties because water is 42:51.070 --> 42:58.390 more polar than alcohol. So you're going to extract slightly different things from the plant. 42:58.390 --> 43:02.750 Absolutely. And most commercial preparations used dried cilantro, 43:03.190 --> 43:06.950 so there's very little sulfur principle even left in their starting material. 43:08.170 --> 43:12.010 Right, because it's all been volatilized or evaporated out. 43:12.870 --> 43:18.530 Yeah, it's a very sensitive sulfur. I've worked with it freeze-dried as well. 43:19.850 --> 43:23.770 And even in like the freeze-dried supplement that comes out, I don't know if you ever 43:23.770 --> 43:27.370 have used a freeze-dried before, but you know, when you turn it off and drain out the liquid, 43:27.370 --> 43:31.830 that's sublimated out of the substance. When you work with cilantro, that 43:31.830 --> 43:37.950 supplement smells heavily like cilantro. So in my mind, there is, even with the freeze-drying 43:37.950 --> 43:43.870 process, there is still a lot lost in terms of volatile oils. So my mind- 43:43.870 --> 43:48.350 You could probably do an alcohol extraction with that liquid. 43:49.690 --> 43:53.450 Yeah, when I was working for Phoenix, we did a number of experiments on that. 43:53.450 --> 44:00.530 And it was kind of shelved because we didn't really get anywhere. It's a strange substance 44:00.530 --> 44:08.150 to work with. It's mainly like the plant vegetable juices mixed with some of the volatiles. 44:09.270 --> 44:12.070 Yeah, it's an interesting, there's definitely more work to be done there. 44:13.150 --> 44:17.350 Well, you bypass that work by using the fresh material though, don't you? 44:17.880 --> 44:24.170 So you can know that whatever comes out in the spirit is the whole 44:26.090 --> 44:32.030 sulfur component. Absolutely. The maximum amount of the medicinal quality that we're looking for. 44:32.750 --> 44:40.930 And then once you've incubated the cilantro in the spirit to extract out the sulfur, 44:41.050 --> 44:41.850 what's the next step? 44:43.570 --> 44:51.170 Yeah, so then there are filtration steps. I use vacuum filtration, which is a beautiful technology. 44:51.390 --> 44:57.330 I think if a lot of the old alchemists saw the laboratory apparatus that we have access to, 44:57.450 --> 45:00.370 thanks to modern chemistry, they would be pretty jealous. 45:01.570 --> 45:05.830 Right, because without the vacuum, it would take a little bit longer. 45:06.950 --> 45:12.210 Yeah, that vacuum filtration with bucaneer funnels allows you to use 45:13.030 --> 45:17.270 really good filters that if you normally pour something into it, it would take 45:17.970 --> 45:23.250 forever to filter through because it's such a good filter. But you apply vacuum to pull it 45:23.250 --> 45:29.690 through so you can affect it much more quickly. And that, I mean, filtration and separation is 45:29.690 --> 45:35.190 its own alchemical operation. And this achieves a near perfect version of that. 45:35.690 --> 45:42.270 So when you're filtering out the biomass from the tincture itself, from the combination of the 45:42.270 --> 45:50.890 mercury and sulfur, that is a perfect separation of the body, the extracted body from it. 45:51.270 --> 45:56.850 The biomass or the mark, as herbalists call it, is then incinerated to a black ash. 45:56.850 --> 46:02.950 Now, do you have to dry it first before you incinerate it? Or is it because it's still 46:02.950 --> 46:08.650 probably wet on the filter, right? It helps to have it still wet. And as soon as you, 46:09.030 --> 46:11.930 the sooner the better, because it's still soaked in that high-proof alcohol. 46:12.350 --> 46:18.630 So you just touch a match or a candle to it. Oh, I see that the liquid is alcohol. So it's 46:18.630 --> 46:24.030 flammable. Yeah, it's a fun process. Definitely perform outdoors and away from 46:24.030 --> 46:29.790 your neighbors because it produces a lot of smoke. How I usually do it, I ignite it in a 46:30.330 --> 46:36.410 dish, a flame-proof dish over a camp stove. And I let it burn down to a black ash. And then 46:36.410 --> 46:40.110 usually by that point, all the alcohol is burned off. So there's not going to be any 46:40.110 --> 46:45.770 actual fire anymore. Some operators will pour more alcohol on. But when making 46:46.410 --> 46:50.830 spigeric remedies as opposed to alchemical ones, efficiency is also important. And 46:50.830 --> 46:59.250 so I use a camp stove underneath to then calcine it. I turn that black ash into a white ash or as 46:59.250 --> 47:04.570 close as I can. And then that goes into my kiln. I grind that in between the steps of grinding 47:05.190 --> 47:10.730 to make sure that it's- Like in a mortar and pestle? Yep. I have several. I have a collection 47:10.730 --> 47:16.990 of mortar and pestles. And they're my friends. And yeah, then it goes into my kiln. I get 47:16.990 --> 47:25.010 it to as white ash as possible. And then that ash, most stuff you might find online, 47:25.810 --> 47:32.370 this is the final step. People then just add the ash back into the preparation, which I- 47:32.370 --> 47:37.470 No, that's not correct. Yeah, I advise caution with that because that can introduce carcinogens 47:37.470 --> 47:45.290 into the medicine. But there's some carbonaceous material from the combustion 47:45.920 --> 47:50.150 in there. Yeah, absolutely. You're burning something extremely high temperatures. It's 47:50.150 --> 47:57.530 carbonizing. But yeah, then that ash is extracted with either water and then vinegar sometimes. 47:58.310 --> 48:05.910 And then that extract is then filtered again. It's evaporated. And you get a crude salt at 48:05.910 --> 48:10.590 that point. You get crude potassium carbonate with still some- 48:10.590 --> 48:13.810 So it basically crystallizes as it's drying out, right? 48:14.530 --> 48:19.270 Yeah, sometimes when it gets to pure states, it will form beautiful crystalline structures. 48:20.090 --> 48:25.730 And then the axiom-solviate coagula, the salt work as this is called, it's really just about 48:26.990 --> 48:31.710 dissolving it and then recombining it over and over again and doing repeating this process many 48:31.710 --> 48:39.090 times until you get like a 99.9% pure salt of salt to the vegetable kingdom. And then that 48:39.090 --> 48:44.310 is the pure material that you use to then combine back with your tincture. 48:45.230 --> 48:52.850 So about how many times would you have to repeat the calcination and then dissolve it in water and 48:52.850 --> 49:01.570 dry it out process? It depends on how- I mean, just kind of ball parking what the range is to 49:01.570 --> 49:05.910 because I want to convey the degree of labor intensity involved. 49:06.950 --> 49:13.450 Sometimes it can take up to five or six times and then there's a final crystallization to ensure 49:13.450 --> 49:19.590 purest property where you dissolve the final salt in water and then slowly evaporate that out. And 49:19.590 --> 49:25.850 as the volume decreases, it crashes out of solution and crystallizes on top of the water. 49:26.430 --> 49:30.830 And when something crystallizes, it can only do that if it is that pure substance. 49:30.830 --> 49:36.550 It'll crystallize as pure gas and carbonate and you can scoop that off and use that. 49:37.230 --> 49:41.150 And then you're going to add that back to the alcohol tincture? 49:41.610 --> 49:48.330 Yeah, I get that. You heat that up to at least 500 degrees Fahrenheit because heat is important 49:48.330 --> 49:55.370 in this esterification reaction when you put it back in. And then that reaction takes about two 49:55.370 --> 50:01.130 weeks. I'll put that back in an incubator to circulate over gentle heat and continue the reaction. 50:02.390 --> 50:06.270 So you heat up the salt or you heat up the liquid? 50:07.050 --> 50:07.370 The salt. 50:08.230 --> 50:13.490 Okay, and then you add it to the liquid and then you keep heat and keep stirring that or 50:13.490 --> 50:20.150 recirculating it? Yeah, if you have it in a sealed vessel with a gentle heat, you can 50:20.150 --> 50:25.990 build an incubator. It'll very gently distill it over a long period of time. It'll just distill 50:25.990 --> 50:29.850 and then condense. So it's like a recirculating apparatus? 50:30.810 --> 50:31.650 Yeah, absolutely. 50:32.630 --> 50:37.590 We used to have that in one of the chemistry labs I worked at. We had that for THF. 50:38.610 --> 50:41.510 Even reflux, like modern very chemical reflux, yeah. 50:42.410 --> 50:48.530 Yeah, but it just kept because that just sucks water out of the air. So it's to keep it 50:48.950 --> 50:50.570 anhydrous as much as possible. 50:51.390 --> 50:57.050 Yeah. Yeah, there are many correlations. I think it'd be interesting for chemists, 50:57.130 --> 51:01.790 like modern day chemists, to look into this stuff and just be like, oh, that's where this 51:01.790 --> 51:02.990 comes from. I do this every day. 51:03.810 --> 51:07.790 Well, even if you see just the some of the artwork from the alchemists, 51:07.870 --> 51:11.930 like showing them in their laboratory, you can pick out the glassware, right? I mean, 51:11.930 --> 51:16.910 even you're describing a buccanar funnel. That's something I used in a chemistry lab, 51:16.910 --> 51:25.290 I'm sure. You have various other glassware that is the same, whether in fact, you may even buy it 51:25.290 --> 51:32.250 from Fisher Scientific, right? But we can trace that back before modern chemistry that 51:32.250 --> 51:35.310 it's the same, many of the same processes that we're at. 51:35.310 --> 51:40.990 A lot of modern distillation apparatus, the alchemists invented first things like 51:40.990 --> 51:45.570 alembic heads and retorts and denser columns and stuff like that. 51:46.470 --> 51:54.450 That's right. Well, very, very, very fascinating. So now tell us a little bit about the final 51:54.450 --> 51:56.830 product that you have and where it's available. 51:58.210 --> 52:04.410 Yeah. So this product is available on my website, zeptepi solutions.com. 52:04.430 --> 52:07.250 Right. And we'll put the link in the show notes, of course. 52:08.110 --> 52:14.170 Sure. Sure. Yeah. And on that website, my main bread and butter are more 52:14.170 --> 52:19.750 speedier at formulations, which are going to be what you might find as a compound medicine, 52:20.170 --> 52:27.010 which are different herbs that I take to address a certain issue or health concern from 52:27.610 --> 52:32.370 different aspects that these herbs can do and combine together in a compound medicine. 52:33.030 --> 52:38.990 And I have several different things available on my website. I only make things that I want 52:38.990 --> 52:42.990 to take myself. That's kind of how the creative process and how I come up with a lot of these 52:42.990 --> 52:48.010 things. There's something that I have that I would like to take or maybe a health concern that 52:48.010 --> 52:53.650 I would like to address and I create something for myself. And it's something that I can then 52:53.650 --> 52:56.810 share with the world as a medicine for the body and the soul. 52:58.430 --> 53:04.870 Oh, and when you're working with different types of plants, do you get a feeling from 53:04.870 --> 53:10.330 the material that's different from species to species? 53:11.370 --> 53:18.850 Oh, yes. Yeah. Particularly, if you work with one kind of plant over and over again, for me, 53:19.070 --> 53:25.210 that's been Yaro. I'm working currently for my personal alchemical spiritual practice. 53:25.390 --> 53:31.570 I'm working on a plant stone with Yaro. And that involves distilling essential oil, 53:31.990 --> 53:37.770 steam distillation on loads of Yaro that I go out in wild harvest, fermenting the 53:37.770 --> 53:42.350 leftover hydrocoction from that to create alcohol just like constantly working with it. 53:42.390 --> 53:48.070 And yeah, you'll develop a friendship and a sense and a relationship with 53:50.390 --> 53:55.370 the consciousness and the soul of these plants that exist wherever they're found. 53:55.630 --> 54:03.170 They all share the blueprint that they came from to grow from. And yeah, I've worked with 54:03.170 --> 54:08.250 a bunch of herbs. And so yeah, they all, I can definitely feel different intelligences from them. 54:09.230 --> 54:14.090 Well, this is very fascinating stuff. And I think we could probably wax on and on 54:14.730 --> 54:21.850 about that, because it is so fascinating. But oh, and it's really been an interesting journey 54:21.850 --> 54:29.170 hearing about your background, covering some of the basics and even a little bit more 54:29.170 --> 54:36.250 philosophical aspects of alchemy and then getting into, you know, your creative artistic and 54:36.250 --> 54:43.170 scientific process of making these substances. So thank you so much for coming on and having 54:43.170 --> 54:47.130 this discussion with me. Thank you, Andy. It's always a pleasure hanging out with you, man. 54:48.750 --> 54:51.210 All right, folks, we'll see you next time. 54:53.930 --> 54:58.550 Even if you're doing your best to live clean, you're still being exposed. 54:59.170 --> 55:04.370 From off gassing furniture and plastics in your food to synthetic fibers, 55:04.670 --> 55:11.450 personal care products, and even medical imaging procedures, especially fat-soluble chemicals, 55:12.050 --> 55:16.810 these toxins don't respond to your average detox. They settle deep in your tissues, 55:17.190 --> 55:21.950 and you need the right tools to clear them out. That's why I created the 55:21.950 --> 55:29.730 Ultimate Detox Protocol, a free 30-day roadmap that teaches you a serious nature-based detox 55:29.730 --> 55:36.730 using pine, targeted nutrition, and a focused daily plan. You'll choose the cleansing diet 55:36.730 --> 55:43.630 that fits your needs, support your elimination pathways, and take action against the toxin load 55:43.630 --> 55:48.450 that's been holding you back. Many people who've done this protocol have reported 55:48.450 --> 55:55.190 major improvements in energy, focus, digestion, and even long-standing symptoms they thought 55:55.190 --> 56:00.930 they'd have to live with forever. Unfortunately, I can't share the full scope of results people 56:00.930 --> 56:07.570 have experienced using this protocol, not on this platform. If I did, the video would surely 56:07.570 --> 56:14.970 be taken down, but trust me, it is incredibly powerful. Download it for free at the link 56:14.970 --> 56:21.950 in the show notes. Your health is your responsibility, and this is the best place to start. 56:22.430 --> 56:26.490 Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next True Health Report.