HERMETICISM & ALCHEMY · LESSON 6 OF 7 · 16 MIN
Plant Alchemy — The Spagyric Art
Separate, purify, recombine — practical alchemy with herbs, following Paracelsus.
Spagyrics is plant alchemy: the art of taking a herb apart into its principles, purifying each, and putting them back together as something more concentrated and more "alive". The word was coined by Paracelsus in the 16th century from two Greek verbs, spaō, "to draw apart", and ageirō, "to gather" — the alchemical motto solve et coagula, dissolve and coagulate, in a single word.