Meet the source texts

• The writings of Paracelsus in his philosophy of medicine and laboratory practice are foundational. Here’s a link to a primer on Paracelsus.
• Authors like: (add centuries) holandus, glauber, valentine, philalathes, Ripley. Short description for each of what they did and contributed.

• texts like rasajalanidha, the churakesh amitha,
• At the heart of both european and vadic is a language for understanding the composition of matter and the composition of bodies through the language of elements, and channels of energy. Vadic approach compliments European approach by providing a slightly different lens and set of vocab the helps fill out what we want to describe from the hermetic tradition. There is a miraculous amount of agreement between these traditions despite very little contact, underscoring how much both civilizations were tuned into the same things.

Also the Taoist framework, building on traditional Chinese medicine.

• The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine. The Way of the Great Clarity. Chinese Theory of the Elements.
• One of the main practical diffs between these diff traditions was the technical route through which metals are turned into alchemical medicine. And we draw from both Eastern and Western traditions. In the W trad, something is completely unique to R, and what I think is the unique efficacy of R products, is the alchemical oils of metals. Oil of gold and oil of silver.

And these are produced by a complex procedure that is unique to each metal that involves the crafting of special solvents to bring a metal from the alchemical lens, through the mineral kingdom, and into the organic realm, to the point where the virtues of that metal are available to act therapeutically on the human system. This is a process that, in traditional alch lit, is written about in a kind of cypher, or code, and also contained elements that were intended to be passed down in secret from master to disciple.

My teacher’s teacher, the great Frater Albertus, was a german rostocrucian alch that set up the first teaching college in the US in the mid 20th century with a mission to train the next gen of alchs so that the healing knowledge would be more available to humanity in the 20th century. Why the change? Often compared to the esoteric secrets of tibetan buddhism. With the massive transition to modernity and the unique challenges of the modern world, it was deemed necessary to make the sacred knowledge of priests available to anyone who seeks it. They used to deem it necessary to keep it secret because it was powerful knowledge that had the potential to be misused.