Creating Baron Urbigerus's Vegetable Menstruum Part 1

Introduction

Some time ago, I stumbled upon a curious article by Professor Manfred M. Junius - a wonderful researcher and practitioner in various fields of Hermetic philosophy. The text of the article is essentially a commentary and explanation on working with a vegetable solvent authored by a 17th-century German baron, Urbigerus. The purpose of this menstruum is clear - obtaining the philosophical oil of a plant via the cold path.

This oil itself should be a very potent spagyric preparation, as the cold path implies that very subtle attitude toward the substrate, which corresponds well with the concept of a "feminine" approach—gentle and reverent as opposed to thermal processing. In spagyrics, this has one of the key meanings: vegetable matter does not tolerate coarseness.

Having some experience working with elixirs and tinctures, of course, I could not pass by this recipe due to a truly childlike wonder—the crowning achievement of the work was supposed to be a certain solution, into which, by immersing any* green plant, literally in a matter of minutes, a film would appear on the surface of the solution—that very purest oil, while all impurities would mysteriously fall to the bottom.

Although the process itself did not seem like a walk in the park to me, rather the opposite—I had to walk a long and thorny path for the first time—a special cohobation, a month of preparing the matter, and more—still, the decision was made to conduct this experiment.

Preparatory Stage

The device of the menstruum itself is extremely curious—prepared Mercury, saturated sufficiently with Sulfur and Salt. It sounds like a standard approach to preparing an elixir. In many ways, it is, with some exceptions.

Mercury in our work is rectified wine spirit, while sulfur is of a dual nature—volatile and non-volatile. Volatile sulfur is turpentine obtained from coniferous resin; non-volatile is rosin, the same resin. Salt is highly purified tartar body.
The essence of the work is to saturate the Mercury in a certain way, completely filling its internal structure with the above-mentioned, to make it fiery—which will give the desired result. The overflowing matrix of Mercury will no longer be able to accept etheric compounds and oils and will cast them to the surface. The sharpness and fieriness are set by the wonderful salt.

Our preparations will be as follows. We will take rosin and turpentine in a ratio of 1 to 2. One can experiment with different proportions; I managed to achieve results even with proportions of 1 to 4. But 1 to 2 seems to me the most worthy solution. Rosin—abietic acid—will be our agent for saponifying the salt, and turpentine will be what enters the Mercury and nourishes it to fullness.

Rosin and turpentine will be food for our future infant. We will prepare the food as follows: mix both in the indicated proportions in a water bath until fully blended. A thick amber-colored solution will result. The rosin must first be crushed into a powder.

We will heat the pre-purified Tartar Salt well and let it cool just slightly to avoid ignition upon connection. The amount of Salt should be acceptable. To obtain 250ml of vegetable menstruum, I would recommend no less than 50g of purified Salt. Then the fieriness of our Mercury will be acceptable.

After that, we can perform the first connection—into the dry Salt, we will add a certain amount of our food so that it just barely covers the layer of Salt. The main thing is not to overdo it. Storage should take place inside a tightly closed container protected from sunlight.

Before us is an infant—whom we must feed daily until it is quite full and refuses the next meal, and besides feeding, it is necessary to "turn" it daily (stir the substance) so that it does not stagnate. I advise treating it with love, similar to a mother's love—the result truly depends on this. If the infant has not eaten its fill within 3 weeks, it means a mistake was made somewhere.

In the next part, I will describe in detail how our Elixir will be born from the infant.