Primum Ens Melissa - Labora 02

During the the time while we let the fresh pulped leaves of melissa officinalis macerate in the deliquesced potash, we can begin to distill our wine or alcohol.

If you are using wine, then you might need at least 10 bottles of red wine to achieve 1 litre of 98% strength rectified alcohol. This is the minimum amount of rectified spirit we will require.

Distillation will take time, but it will be a time well spent as you start to learn about the distillation process and its technicalities.

For the sake of convenience, we would recommend that you use brandy or Grappa. You will need to distill the distillate at least 3 more times to achieve the required strength and once you do, keep it a clean air-tight jar and store it away.

After a minimum 24 to 48 hours has passed, we can now carefully removes the leaves from the deliquesced potash. This will take great patience, and great skill. You will have to carefully sieve out the leaves from the deliquesced potash, you can use a plastic or nylon sieve but importantly you must ensure to press out as much liquid as you can from the leaves.

After you have that, add a little more new potash into the deliquesced potash, to maintain the strength of the solution. Now slowly pour your rectified alcohol over it, until it reaches a 2-finger height above the deliquesced potash. You should immediately see the rectified alcohol being tinted green. This is the Primum Ens Melissa, which according to Hartmann's formula, is green.

If it is yellow, amber or brown, then the operation is not successful.



Alcohol Tinted Green with Ens
after 5 minutes




Failed. Crude oils of Melissa

Once the rectified alcohol is tinted a deep green, carefully siphon it off and keep in a clean airtight jar. Now continue to pour more alcohol over the deliqusced potash, and repeat the whole process until all your alcohol is used up.

Once you have 1 litre of alcohol+ens mixture, distill the alcohol off. What you have left then is the concentrated dark emerald green Primum Ens Melissa



Concentrated Primum Ens Melissa

Concentrated Primum Ens Melissa
with different lighting angle 

"One of my most intimate friends prepared the Primum Ens Melissae, and his curiosity would not allow him to rest until he had seen with his own eyes the effects of the this arcanum, so that he might be certain whether or not the accounts given of its virtues were true. He therefore made the experiment, first upon himself, then upon an old female servant, aged seventy years, and afterwards upon an old hen that was kept as his house. First he took, every morning at sunrise. A glass of white wine that was tinctured with this remedy, and after using it for fourteen days his finger- and toe- nails began to fall out, without however, causing any pain. He was not courageous enough to continue the experiment, but gave the same remedy to the old female servant. She took it every morning for about ten days, when she began to menstruate again as in former days. At this she was very much surprised, because she did not know that she had been taking a medicine. She became frightened, and refused to continue the experiment. My friend took, therefore, some grain, soaked it in that wine, and gave it to the old hen to eat, and on the sixth day that bird began to lose its feathers, and kept losing them until it was perfectly nude, but before two weeks had passed, new feathers grew, which were much more beautifully colored; her comb stood up again, and she began again to lay eggs." - Lesebure, Chemischer Handleiter  1685


Primum Ens Melissa - Labora 01

Once we have assembled all the basic equipments, such as airtight glass jars, distillation train set and have procured our source of potash, alcohol and melissa officinalis, we can then get down to work.

Besides ensuring our equipment are all properly cleaned and dried, the first step is to deliquesce our tartar. This can be done in 2 ways as follows

1. Pour a thin layer of potash, about half an inch high, unto a clean shallow porcelain dish of 2 inch in height and leave it in a dust-free corner overnight. The potash will absorbed the moisture from the humid atmosphere, and in the morning you can simply pour what is collected in the porcelain dish into an airtight glass jar. Repeat until you have accumulated at least 500ml of deliquesced tartar.
2. Pour about 500ml of distilled water into a clean airtight glass jar, and add the potash by the spoonful until it is fully saturated. When potash is mixed with water, it will cause an exothermic reaction, so please be careful. The solubility of the potash in water is 112g/100ml at 20 °C.

We would recommend that the deliquescing of the tartar be done in advance, prior to gathering your fresh Melissa Offinalis. We also recommend that you try out the 2 methods above, for comparision. Once you have your required amount, keep it airtight. This is important.

Once you have the deliquesced tartar, the next step is to rectify your alcohol. It will take at least 3 to 5 careful and patient distillations to achieve a strength of 96% to 98%. We will require at least 1 litre of rectified spirit, so ensure you have procured enough alcohol. Likewise, this must be kept in an airtight glass jar and stored in a cool place.

Now that we have our solvent and menstruum with which to extract the ens, we will now gather our melissa officinalis. Gather as much as you can, choose the green and healthy leaves and work fast. This is preferably done in the morning before noon, to ensure the volatile principles do not all evaporate under the hot noon Sun.

The leaves are then quickly pulped and as finely as you can, either in a mortar or a food processor. We will have to work quickly as well in this. As soon as the leaves are pulped, put them into the airtight jar of deliquesced tartar until you have at least an inch of deliquesced tartar above the leaves and add a couple more spoonful of potash to ensure maximum strength of the solvent.

Place the jar near somewhere warm, undisturbed and preferably around 30°C. Leave it to macerate for at least 24 to 48 hours.

Newly macerated Melissa Offinalis in deliquesced tartar

Primum Ens Melissa - Materia

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
― Benjamin Franklin



The method which we will be detailing here will, of course, be the one that we have personally employed, which comes from Franz Hartmann's The life and the doctrine of Paracelsus. It is this particular method which we have followed over the years with good results and possibly the clearest. It is relatively simple, however, it requires some experience to get it right as it involves some knacks or little tricks which we have come to learn from a couple of failed attempts.

Therefore, if you are embarking on making this wonderful rejuvenative, do not be put off by failures, for even in failures you will learn many valuable lessons, essential lessons in spagyrical techniques.

Before we start on the process, let us begin by looking at the raw materials we should gather.

Melissa Officinalis

Lemon Balm Plant

Commonly known as Lemon balm, it is an perennial herb which has a wonderful nice lemon scent. It can grow quite easily under temperate conditions and can spread very quickly, almost weed-like, in your garden if left unattended.

An infusion made with fresh lemon balm leaves is a wonderfully refreshing drink in the summer. It is a favorite tea of ours, as it helps to calm and soothe the nerves, it is most comforting when you are having a cold or flu.



If you do not have the luxury of space to grow this herbs, you will have to check your local nursery. We will require fresh lemon balm leaves for this particular preparation, so if you are buying from your local nursery, try to make an arrangement with them to harvest it on the morning when you are going to collect. After harvesting, they wilt quite quickly, so we have to work fast.

We will need a minimum of 500 grams of fresh lemon balm leaves for this endeavour to worth any while.

Contraindication: Lemon balm is believed to inhibit the absorption of thyroid medications, such as Thyroxine.

Potassium Carbonate

Also known as Pearl Ash or Potash. Chemically K₂CO_3, it is a white salt, highly hygroscopic and soluble in water forming a strong alkaline solution. We have personally used lab grade and industrial grade potassium carbonate, both in our opinion, are comparable and can be used. We will need a minimum of 2 kilo grams of it.






Besides the above, you will also need a number of 500ml to 1.5 litre airtight jars, a distillation train set as well as a good supply of alcohol such as brandy or red wine. We would recommend high proof alcohol, so if you can get hold of grappa or as a last resort everclear, it would be easier to have at least 1 litre of  alcohol at 98% strength, for that is the minumum amount we would need to have at hand.

 



Primum Ens Melissa

‘The ‘Primum Ens’ of a thing is its first beginning, its Prima Materia; an invisible and intangible spiritual substance, which may be incorporated in some material vehicle. ‘He who wants to separate the Primum Ens from its Corpus must have a great deal of experience in the spagyric art. If he is not a good alchemist his labour will be in vain’ (‘De Separat. Rer.’)

The Primum Ens Melissa is a unique rejuvenative in the Vegetable Realm due to its simplicity and the educational lessons it provides to a novice of the Royal Art. It is this particular preparation that we have started off with many years ago when we began our apprenticeship in Practical Laboratory Alchemy, and we do encourage anyone wishing to take their first step in Alchemy to try it.

Let us begin by taking a look at the 3 published versions of this particular rejuvenative.

•  Arthur Edward Waite's (ed.) Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus the Great

"Take celandine or balm; beat them into a pulse, shut them up in a glass vessel hermetically sealed, and place in horse dung to be digested for a month. Afterwards separate the pure from the impure, pour the pure into a glass vessel with dissolved salt, and let this,when closed, be exposed to the sun for a month. When this period has elapsed, you will find at the bottom a thick liquid and the salt floating on the surface. When this is separated you will have the virtues of the balm or of the celandine, as they are in their first entity; and these are called, and really are, the first entities of the balm or of the celandine." 

•  Franz Hartmann's The life and the doctrine of Paracelsus

‘The Primum Ens Melissae is prepared in the following manner: Take half a pound of pure carbonate of potash, and expose it to the air until it is dissolved (by attracting water from the atmosphere). Filter the fluid, and put as many fresh leaves of the plant melissa into it as it will hold, so that the fluid will cover the leaves. Let it stand in a well-closed glass in a moderately warm place for twenty-four hours. The fluid may then be removed from the leaves, and the latter thrown away. On the top of this fluid absolute alcohol is poured, so that it will cover the former to the height of one or two inches, and it is left to remain for one or two days, or until the alcohol becomes of an intensely green colour. This alcohol is then to be taken away and preserved, and fresh alcohol is put upon the alkaline fluid, and the operation is repeated until all the colouring matter is absorbed by the alcohol. This alcoholic fluid is now to be distilled, and the alcohol evaporated until it becomes of the thickness of a syrup, which is the Primum Ens Melissae; but the alcohol that has been distilled away and the liquid potash may be used again. The liquid potash must be of great concentration and the alcohol of great strength, else they would become mixed, and the experiment would not succeed.’

• Anonymous A Compendium of Alchemical Processes

THE PREPARATION OF THE SO-CALLED PRIMUM ENS MELISSÆ

Take half-a-pound of pure carbonate of potassa, and expose it to the air until it is dissolved (by attracting water from the atmosphere). Filter the liquid and put as many fresh leaves of the plant melissa, or balm, into it as it will hold, so that the liquid will cover the leaves.

Let it stand in a well-closed glass and in a moderately warm place for a period of twenty-four hours. The fluid may then be removed from the leaves, and the latter thrown away. On the top of this liquid absolute alcohol is to be poured, so that it covers the former to the height of one or two inches, or until the alcohol becomes of an intensely green colour. This alcohol, or spirit of wine, is then to be taken away and preserved, fresh alcohol is put upon the alkaline liquid, and the operation is repeated until all the colouring matter is absorbed by the alcohol. This alcoholic liquid is now to be distilled, and the alcohol evaporated until it becomes of the thickness of syrup. This is the primum ens melissæ. But the alcohol which has been distilled away may be used again and again.

The liquid potassa must be of great concentration and the alcohol of great strength, else they would become mixt, and the experiment would hardly succeed.