Clare Goodrick-Clarke - Alchemical Medicine for the 21st Century: Spagyrics for Detox, Healing, and Longevity

For Nicholas, who first introduced me to Paracelsus and Samuel Hahnemann, and who has been my constant companion through many transmutations.

Acknowledgments

I record my debt to Manfred Junius, who was so generous with his knowledge, and to his alchemical partner, Siegfried Folz.

In memory of our alchemical laboratory work at Rotz in the Czech Republic under the instruction of Manfred Junius, I thank Michal Pober, founder of the Alchemical Museum in Kutn Hora; Brian Cotnoir for his humor, immense knowledge, and inspiration; Paul Carpenter, Art Kompolt, Steve Kalec, Guy Ogilvy, Mike Dickman, and all the other participants for friendship, wit, and wisdom.

Special thanks are due to Adam McLean, a pioneer who has done so much to facilitate the knowledge and understanding of alchemy.

Thank you to Ralph White, organizer of the New York Open Center Esoteric Quests in Europe. Each one has been a remarkable and transformational journey.

Disclaimer

I am not a medical doctor. I do not diagnose, heal, treat, or cure diseases. I recommend that people concerned about their health should see their medical practitioner for diagnosis and treatment, and follow appropriate advice. This book is intended for information purposes only and there can be no promises or guarantees about the results of using plant therapeutics.

Contents

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Yarrow

Calendula

St. Marys Thistle

Ceanothus

Chamomile

Hawthorn

Horsetail

Fennel

Cleavers

St. Johns Wort

Iris

Lemon Balm

Rosemary

Sage

Elderflower

Dandelion

Stinging Nettle

INTRODUCTION

The Healing Art of Spagyric Medicine

It is curious that in this most advanced, affluent, highly educated era of human history, there is so much illness, much of it chronic and incurable. Often, orthodox medical intervention is not even directed toward the cure of the patient but only toward the life-long drug management of a condition (for example, asthma, diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis). The argument that we have more illness because we are living longer does not hold up; longevity does not necessarily result in diseasemany people live very long lives in perfect health. We have more and better food, clean running water, and an understanding of hygiene unknown to our forebears, which should greatly increase our chances of achieving a long and healthy life. But unfortunately many spend years of their lives feeling not quite well, with no clear cause for their distress.

In 1900, there were three main causes of death: pneumonia or severe influenza, tuberculosis, and enteritis. All that has now changed. Since 1940, heart disease, stroke, and cancer have taken the place of these fatal diseases. Chronic ill-health and debilitating conditions are a huge cost to the happiness of human life. The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion describes chronic disease (heart problems, cancer, diabetes) as the leading cause of death and disability in the United States, accounting for 70 percent of all deaths. One in 10, or 25 million people, in the United States have chronic disease. There is general agreement that these diseases are preventable and that their incidence can be lowered dramatically by means of changes in diet and behavior, but this is seldom reflected in the way patients are treated for these conditions once they have manifested.

Pharmaceutical drugs are routinely prescribed to patients with the recommendation that they must stay on them for the rest of their lives, and yet underlying conditions and causes, whether physical or mental and emotional, are not addressed. Our conditioning leads us to see disease as something to be fought; the fight for health is a war in which the enemy (disease) must be eradicated, excised, or beaten. The means to this end often involve the pharmacological blocking of natural responses, surgical excision, and genetic modification. Most modern medical interventions fall into these categories. The medical paradigm is to go against, for which we use the term allopathy.

Such an approach seldom leads to cure, and a growing number of people today do not wish to take pharmaceutical drugs, which burden the body with synthesized chemicals and suppress natural responses. Despite the billions of dollars spent on drug development, it is now widely recognized and reported that pharmacological use is itself a source of disease, with many thousands of people affected by iatrogenic illness every year.

Though modern Western pharmaceutical drugs tend to cause energy deficits, Ayurveda (the ancient medical system of India), Traditional Chinese Medicine, and most current alternative medicine systems (homeopathy, acupuncture, reflexology, crystal therapy, to name but a few) work to promote energy, recognizing that the balanced flow of energy through the systems of the body is one of the keynotes of health.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that perhaps as much as 80 percent of the global population relies on long-established traditional medicine, most of which is herbal medicine. During the last twenty years of the last century, phytochemicals have been identified and analyzed as a new prospect for health maintenance. Bioactive substances in herbs and food plants have been found to play a significant role in protecting us from heart disease and strokes. Mainly, there has been a focus on food plants, but the range of investigation extends to a huge array of herbs around the world that have been regarded over centuries of tradition as healing agents. These plants contain biochemicals of highly specialized forms. Moreover, the complexity of phytochemicals in any one plant may have more significance than we thought previously. Some phytochemicals exist in plants in infinitesimal doses, but their synergy with each other in the same plant may be the important clue to long-term benefit. We stand at the threshold of a new era of medicine and at a point where it may be useful to engage with what has been known in the past about the importance of phytomedicines in all their various forms.

Energy comes from our food, of course, and from sunlight, good-quality sleep, and exercise, but also from phytotherapeutics. Plants contain nutrients and highly specialized volatile oils and resins in tiny amounts whose value in contributing to human health has not yet been fully understood. Like herbalism, spagyrics is a system of medicine based upon the energetic qualities of healing plants that contain substances that can help tune the human physiology and metabolism.

The word spagyric (German spagyrik) comes from two Greek verbs: spao (to separate) and agyro (to unite), in accordance with the alchemical maxim solve et coagula, et habebis magisteriumdissolve and bind, and you will have the magistery. As the two Greek verbs suggest, the process of separating and combining implies a synthesis in which the finished whole is greater than the sum of its parts.