Elemental

I have story to tell you. 

A true story. 

It seem strange, perhaps. 

Part One - the Cross

I saw a Crucifix in a market store which along with imported African carvings sells incense, crystals, silk scarfs, typical Aladdin’s Cave fayre. What people often refer to as ‘hippy stalls’. 

There were actually two, a Celtic Cross and a Christian Crucifix with the long stem. Both were a cubit in size (a foot and a half, eighteen inches, about 46cm in modern metric). 

My being interested in Pagan and Celtic art I of course favoured the less traditional Christian cross. The market stall does not accept credit cards, takes cash-in-hand only. Of course I did not have the right amount of money on me at the time.

After the weekend I returned to buy it. My plan was to give it to my dad to donate to the parish Church which he is key-holder of. 

Unfortunately, the Celtic cross had been sold over the weekend. Instead I bought the Christian crucifix and was happy with that.

Part Two - the Voice

I got home. Having nowhere to store the cross without losing it in the chaos of my living space, which is an artists studio workshop, decided to hang it on the wall to remind me it exists next time I visit my dad. 

That’s when I heard the voice. It said only one simple word. An ancient word, a beautiful word.

“Alembic.”

I knew this word but just to make sure I looked it up in the dictionary. An Alembic is the original type of copper device used for distilling plant essences for herbal medicine. It is also used by hillbillies to make moonshine, and by pirates to make rum. 

Mediaeval European alchemists hid the knowledge of how to use these devices and all associated purposes for fear of persecution for witchcraft. The art was originally brought back from the far east during the Crusades against the holy lands.

Of course, I have no interest in making my own alcohol especially spirits which is not only illegal in this country but also powerfully bad for the liver and kidneys and general health. 

There is also the spiritual reason. 

This is not the first time I had heard a voice. It is not schizophrenia, it is spirit mediumship. I am a clairaudient. I have travelled to study with spiritualists of different religions, nationalities and experiences. There is a cohesion underlaying many of the schools. 

The reason alcoholic spirits are called spirits is because they perform the function of bridging as intermediary the gap between the world of the living and the world of the dead. There are two functions of this, both of which are practical. Some ghosts use spirits as sustenance. Alcohol helps human mind dissolve a rigid faculty which prevents us from communicating more openly and more often with the spirit world. 

There are many fake spiritualists, many of whom rely on the argument that there are dark spirits and light spirits and we should avoid the dark spirits. This is entirely unlike my own experiences. 

My understanding of the spirit world is that the spirits are us and we are the spirits. They are exactly like living people. Some are incredibly vastly more angelic and focused on enlightenment than others who are more selfish and destructive in their needs. 

The very best way to understand what spirits are like as a generalisation is to interact with them as if they are naughty children.

This particular spirit, is an advanced guide. Without any entanglement in distraction and bull crap, it directed me along a particular path. For the betterment of self and community. It is a potent knowing, through intuition and through simply knowing. 

This is why we assign the phonetic naming word ‘Noah’ to a man who, hearing voices and deemed crazy by his community, went and built a ship in the desert which everybody laughed at. Until it didn’t stop raining. 

It is very difficult explaining this to materialists and existentialists who do not believe in a spirit world interacting with us. Thankfully I have learned finally and often the hard way, I do not have to justify myself to anybody. Especially not to those who refuse to believe, accept and validate my own living experiences. 

Part Three - the Essence

I met a woman as cute as can be. A nature witch as creative with her arts and crafts as myself. She showed me her fire, every night beneath the stars she uses her black Chimenea. 

We live a distance apart. We speak every day thanks to modern magic of communication technology integrated into our culture. 

The fire of flint, the sword-in-the-stone which brings thaw therefore enables life to sustain through winter of death by sparking lighting to dry plant materials. 

My Norse ancestors living directly with nature deified the process, it is so important. Phonetic Thor with his mighty hammer Mjolnir is an anvil-shaped object found in many Neolithic archeological sites. This object is a core, same shape as an apple core, remaining after a flint node has been shattered to create portable blades so useful for crystal-age travellers. There can be no mystery to the practicality of survival. 

The sword-in-the-stone myth was reinvented again during industry. A blacksmiths forge smelting copper into bronze and later after addition of bellows, air element, smelting iron into steel. Metallurgical alchemies. 

Reworking of Earths bones into tools which define culture. Earths bones as flint, reinvented again as metal ore which is used now to harness lighting into digital tools which refract light, designer crystals, our consumer market internet cellphones, Merlins crystal cave. 

The alchemy of raw naked fire upon the soul. The alchemy of refining plant essences into essential oils by steam-heating them to create purest elixir. 

I researched the still of course, many types are now available. The type of metal has a chemical effect on the plant essence to such an extent it is visually noticeable in some sensitive yet powerful herbs. Patchouli oil is dark when processed through copper or is light when processed through a steel still. Despite steel giving a higher yield, copper naturally adds many desirable qualities to the juice, including it is antibacterial. 

Apart from hillbillies adding a thumper-drum as an extra stage to improve the purity and strength of their moonshine, a remarkable technological development; the only other change to this technology since the world of Arabian Nights is an alternate to the thumper drum, adding a longer neck to the top of the boiler pan for the same result. Stronger, purer essences. 

The Alembic is the same shape as the Chimenea. 

I believe this is what the voice was talking about. 

Part Four - the Recipe

On a high from discovering the possibility of creating my own herbal essences I did something I have not done for a long time. I prayed, selfishly for the money to come along so I could buy an Alembic of my very own. 

I swore I would help heal my community by giving herbal medicines to the sick - something I already am involved in by having grown a row of lavender along the public wayside near my house to replace nettles and thorny brambles which local children had repeatedly complained about hurting themselves. 

Having asked, I distracted myself by answering emails. Some junk email turned out to be a salesman attempting to make money from me by selling a book of his research. 

A Christian priest who was healing his church congregation by giving them Holy Oil the same recipe found in the Bible, Exodus 30:22-25. They have reportedly discovered it cures everything. When you read a list of what the ingredients do individually, it’s hardly surprising a combination of them covers a lot of bases. 

Of course I looked it up to discover the recipe for myself, instead of buying the priests book. I did a lot of research into that. It’s a worthy intellectual pursuit for many reasons. 

Holy Oil

6 parts Myrrh 

6 parts Cassia

4 parts Olive Oil

3 parts Cinnamon

3 parts Cannabis (Kanah Besom) *

*use cold-pressed Hemp Seed oil for legal purposes. According to Genesis 1:29 “God said: I give Mankind all plants to use”. The legal service is literally going against the word of God ** therefore it is satanic. 

** A British test case circa the Millennium 2000ad. A cannabis grower as his defence when prosecuted by the Police asked a Judge if he swore an oath of office to the Monarch who swore a Coronation oath of office to God, why were the underlings going against th bosses orders? The case was dismissed and the Police were ordered to refund the defendant the cost of his growing equipment and crop which they had confiscated. 

There is one location in all the world which processes food grade essential oils of all the types required to make Holy Oil. It is in India. They can distil, mix and even bottle any recipe I pay for and ship it out to anywhere I pay for with my own brand label on the bottles. 

The first snag is, they do a minimum order of 25 litres. The holy oil comes to 22 litres per batch. 

The second snag is, it’s expensive because the ingredients are from rare and expensive resources. 

The next day my dad sent me a text message: of the goodness of his heart he has decided to give me a few hundred pounds out of the blue. It’s enough to buy the Alembic. 

The Crucifix hanging on my wall. 

The voice of a Spirit guide. 

The Chimenea and the Alembic.

The recipe for Holy Oil.