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1:21:06but you can create something that is phenomenally perfect. You can create a perfect noun, a thing, but you cannot create a a perfect web in the same way. So, nature is working. Um, I think I've thought about this a lot because there's a justification here for whether or not one should interfere karmically with via magic, via the technology of changing phenomena, you know, in a way that is that employs a different set of rules and therefore invokes a different set of invokes a different species of merit. there's an ethical imperative to this uh when you're doing
1:21:51things like that. So, that that's something that I've thought about a little bit that I just wanted to kind of offer up uh for for food for thought, right? I don't necessarily know that I have a hard view in there, but I think that um lots of things to think about, particularly for alchemists, particularly for magicians, for people, for human beings in general. Um some of it might be obvious, right? But still worth um still worth thinking about. Now Sky, I I I I lost you on the second
1:22:20question. Could you repeat that for me again? Evolution versus adaptation. What would be the differentiation? I feel like I feel like they're the same thing. What do you think, Daniel? Well, I think you're you're speaking about it and it's a good point that you're making, too. It's like uh like the difference between right and wrong. It gets very very confusing it seems as we evolve. It's like it just it gets they get closer and closer and closer together and it it's difficult
1:22:49to determine sometimes. Um like you said this is an ethical issue but something you said it kind of it kind of sparked a thought you know and it's this idea that um there's adversity in life which I think is kind of like a first medicine which it it stimulates us to to do something about it right and this adversity we could think about you you talked about you know life eating life and you know one thing's trying to eat and survive and the other thing's trying to defend itself and not die
1:23:23and it eats its own things. It's like there's this friction going on in adversity and and when we're problem solving that or when nature is problem solving that like it seems like maybe it's that adaptations are happening first. It's like okay, we adapt to a situation um and maybe we relieve ourselves of some sort of issue in the moment. But when those adaptations are repeated over and over and over and over again, I think that's what stimulates what I would consider evolution. And
1:23:57we see that again in the lab work where you know we can we can incite a certain level of change by doing a process once. Um, but like when we talked about with the metallic work, like you know, distilling this alcast off and returning it to the open salts over and over and over again, like you do that seven times or 30 times or something and and you know the end product is almost indistinguishable from if you had only done it once, right? Maybe it's where you know when adapt adaptation becomes habitual and perpetuated that it it starts to actually create tangible
1:24:40lasting and then later on replicated change. You know it's not like you know this monkey did this one thing once and then it was never done again. And it's like no, it was repeated in that individual and then it might be repeated in the species and offspring and then eventually you know such a great change occurs where you know something doesn't even really is almost like a different thing you know and I think it's an interesting thing to consider just in I mean we're talking about evolution here right like the like Darwin's theory essentially here survival of
1:25:14the fittest and you know adaptations eventually leading to what is claimed to be transmutation, right? You know, one animal turning into another. We got, you know, like be like weird mammal creatures like like turning into whales and all, you know, actual changes of like like one species to another. I mean, yeah. I mean, can you believe that the [ __ ] dinosaurs, you know, turned into like chickens? Chickens and birds, you I just think to my every every time I see like a bunch of seagulls like flocking over uh you know a ripped apart McDonald's bag of stale fries
1:25:53I I swear to God I just shake my head and go how the mighty have fallen. Yeah we're moving we're moving backwards. Well that's the thing right in this cycle it's like you know things are moving ahead and things are moving backwards. It's like you got to keep that that polarity going, right? Um those those opposing forces again, you know, bring this back to the question um and this idea of of adversity, right? That like Saturn is the adversary, right? Like so that base lead metal that symbol it makes so much sense. It's like at the very bottom of of of anything
1:26:31that is you know the very first state you know it starts with adversity and and and let me bring let me let me be a little platonic about this or a little Socratic about this. Sky asked, "Okay, what's the difference between adaptation and evolution?" And so what we would what Socrates would likely do would say, well, there's no context because these two things, you need to contextualize this question because as Daniel pointed out, we can talk about this Darwinistic survival of the fittest. And I think that there's a lot there having to do with adversity.
1:27:11That's how you started off this this you know that that portion of your um uh your thoughts and now we kind of come full circle to Saturn as the adversary. Now, I kind of know the types of questions that Sky asks me, you know, because we've been doing this for a long time, and he knows me enough to be able to sort of, you know, the way that they they have like um they have like uh I don't know, these these little fences for cows to like bring them to the kill shelter that, you know, like Sky can kind of maneuver me in that way. But I think one of the things for me is is
1:27:49is what I had alluded to earlier is that nature is operating with a different set of rules. So in other words, somebody like me as opposed to a hard, you know, Daniel, I've studied with you and we're going to continue to study together and I've learned alchemy from you. I've learned alchemy from Phoenix. I've learned alchemy from Sky. So I'm not discounting myself as an alchemist, but I'm I'm not going to place myself with you guys. You know, that's [ __ ] absurd. But so I'm
1:28:17I'm not necessarily that level of an alchemist, but I am a magician and I am an initiator and I and I'm I've gone through these initiatic processes. So my one insight would be this, right? What is the context you're asking about in terms of, you know, adaptation and evolution? Because evolution has a very different set of rules when we're talking about something like spiritual evolution or the evolution of the soul. Uh because of what happens when um you begin to move in that
1:28:58direction rather than material evolution. where material evolution has to do with survival, whereas spiritual evolution has to do with yielding. It's much more of a of there's there's more of a yield there than an assertion than a you know there's there's a a different kind of strength. And one thing that I want to point out about Saturn that a lot of people get wrong or not get wrong but see one way we tend to associate Saturn with death, right? He's the adversary. He's
1:29:31entropy. You know, he is boundary restriction. He comes with the scythe, you know, to harvest the soul. But what I said earlier about the soul having to die to the spiritual to be incarnated to the material. Well, some people look at Saturn at their death, as him coming, reaching with his hand and grabbing and taking you. But the people that I think have experienced spiritual initiation realize that it's Saturn finally retracting his hand and allow allowing the soul to be reborn and leave this law this this realm of material laws that actually are antithetical to the nature of
1:30:17the soul. This is this is the Platonic position. This is the hermetic position. uh the Gnostic position and I would say it's the current uh initiatic western esoteric tradition where it's there's a different set of rules there's a different vantage point a different perspective when we talk about material of the evolution of a substance and a thing or the evolution of nature uh and the evolution of a of of the human soul. So I I don't know what you were talking about, but I think I I said enough there to clarify for anybody that was well would it I mean if I if I
1:30:59was to say in relation to the soul or you know just if applied to consciousness in general if you were to apply adaptation to consciousness or or evolution to consciousness would that be a sufficient context? That's I don't know. I mean, I it's hard it's hard for me to extract my, you know, I I tend to think that if you're if you're adapting to something, for instance, when I was playing college lacrosse, we had to run until we [ __ ] puked at 5:00 in the morning. We had this this this this athletic trainer named Mark. He was from the Air Force Academy.
1:31:46This guy beat the living [ __ ] out of us. Not I mean, he didn't actually lay hands on us, but he just made us go. And he would tell us, "A warrior doesn't give up. A warrior adapts and moves forward." And it helped. I I found ways to when I had a cramp, I would literally like make my hand like a claw and dig it out as I ran, you know, and like finding these ways to adapt. But on the other hand, you know, there's this you you're coping with something like Dan said,
1:32:18there's there's there is an adverse feeling and an adverse uh kind of effect. I think maybe the product of that if we're talking that that you know aspect of consciousness becomes evolution. My consciousness evolved. it it had a higher threshold for pain and it had a greater um hold it had more discipline you know and I evolved in that manner from making those adaptations but I think you know we could take we could take it a lot of different ways you know as we take any any part of this conversation we could kind of like could be an
1:32:55episode in and of itself I was thinking almost uh evolution's perhaps the integration of adaptation I think that's a good way like I think it goes back to your other question. It's almost synonymous with uh transformation and transmutation, right? Transformation is like adaptation and transmutation is evolution, you know, and like you just said, Sky, it's like, you know, when or I made the example too. It's like you know if something is done once okay maybe that's a tempor a temporal uh adaptation to a situation but if that is repeated over and
1:33:35over and over again in an individual then that's passed on to you know offspring uh you know of a you know plant or animal or whatever you know eventually there something new is born of those changes that are being it's almost like a habitual or hereditary integration type thing. Mhm. I I think it's kind of it's somewhat difficult. It's almost like saying where where does hot end and cold begin? You know, it it's a spectrum. I think you know like the like the process of change and
1:34:11like where do you go from where's the point of the old thing and the new thing? And again, I think it's very easy and maybe it's why it's used as an example to say, "Oh, this was lead before and now it is gold." That's a very very hardlined example which I think makes a really strong point. Um whether it be true or not almost doesn't even matter in the you know the philosophical value is there. It's a stark example of like this is that and this is this like this thing used to be black
1:34:43and now it's white. You know like this thing used to be lead and now it's gold. Like it's like you know going from one polarity to to the other. uh but there's that journey in between right which is necessary to get from point A to to Z and that's that's the whole trans transformative aspect or or um you know adaptation um aspect of it. So yeah I think these are those are kind of synonymous terms adapt transform evolve or transmute. All right I want to get to uh cloudwater extraction.
1:35:21What's going on with cloud water extraction right now? Oh, fancy cloud water. Cloud water. Yeah, it's I I love this concept. Um, this is a concept that comes from uh Hollandis and I mean other people write about it in different terms and things, but it's the idea that you essentially you gently extract the endogenous water from a plant. So you're, you know, you've got a plant, it's got this natural water content to it. Even a dried plant will have water content to it. Fresh plants, of course, more. Uh, and so you are gently distilling this out. You know,
1:36:07not never hot enough that you'll actually burn the material that you're working on, but you're gently sweating out this moisture. uh and this moisture this this water is then used as a menstrm to then go back and extract that same plant further. Um so you know you're distilling out this again it's this process of distillation and cohovation. You distill something out and then you take that distillate and you put it back on the physical substance that remains behind in the distillation.
1:36:42Um I think it's, you know, when I think about why why would it be called cloud water for me the most stark um reasoning for it is that sometimes it looks cloudy. You know what you what you Yeah. It looks it looks milky. I mean that's it's like you're you're calling it as as you see it, which is often the case in in um alchemical descriptions, you know. um they can be very contextual just you know but calling it as they see it right so the cloud water really I think in a if we were to give it some like a modern definition it's really like a hydrosol you know
1:37:22like when you if you distill an essential oil the the water that distills over is the hydrosol um and that that water um can be full of um the essential oil of the plant and these oils oils um can make it look cloudy. Um depending on how you work, you may not draw off all the essential oil and maybe you're only getting a little bit of it. And because um this water in the plant also will contain some, you know, volatile compounds like again indogenous alcohols and ketones and things. um it's able to bring with it um and and bring into into dissolution um nonwater soluble oils,
1:38:11right? Like when you often see this when you distill an essential oil in a hydrosol, the hydrosol when it first comes over can look super cloudy and eventually it clarifies and and you know that cloudiness really what it is is like oil droplets, tiny tiny tiny little oil droplets that are making the the solution look milky or cloudy. And if you let it settle um it'll separate. The oil will, you know, generally float to the top um and the hydrosol will clarify. But that's what this cloud water is. It's essentially like a hydrool of a plant
1:38:45uh which forms a unique uh and potent solvent which you can then use to extract the plant. You know it's like this beautiful idea that everything is whole in itself and that you know everything has within itself the tools required to to evolve. back to that evolution term, you know, that you don't need uh anything outside of something, you know, one thing, a plant, yourself, um you know, an animal like that. Everything needed for that thing to, you know, unfurl and reach its highest
1:39:25uh potential. Um all those tools are tucked in your tool belt already. You don't need to look outside yourself. And I love that concept and that that's what I think I maybe I love the most about um this way of working that that Holland just describes is it is very much playing on that concept where right off the cuff like you don't have to reach to alcohol or vinegar or anything else. It's like you take that plant, you know, pull out its moisture and then use that very same moisture to go back and further extract that plant. All right. So, contrary to popular belief,
1:40:04an elixir originally referred to a solid, not a liquid. I was wondering, can you please elaborate on that? And if any if you have any references to where this is historically talked about or anything like that. Yeah, this is uh oh, it's an interesting point because yeah, most people today think of an elixir as like some sort of sweetened medicine. um generally a liquid um but um originally yes it referred to a powder essentially. So we could go back to Arabic alexir um sometimes that is loosely translated to um from the ashes in in an alchemical state alchemical
1:40:53perspective. Um it also speaks to the Greek word zerion. These are all these words are all talking about powders, you know, of varying varying forms, you know, sometimes it's speaking to uh like the black uh makeup that was used in in Egypt like like eyeliner, but uh depending on the context and al alchemy is always highly contextual um the elixir is often and well at least originally referring to a solid substance which is produced a medicine which is produced as a solid um and often a powder. So that's you know that that's the that's the origin of it. um it's changed
1:41:41significantly over time and I think there's a lot of argument about it because again these terms are they're just there's no standardized terminology for this although there's like there are some basic rules um which most people adhere to um alchemically speaking um terminology is is so highly contextual so an elixir for one person is something completely different for another person. Um, both could be right at the same time and describing entirely different things, but factually speaking, um, an elixir originally was referring to a powder and not a liquid.
1:42:27Do you do you think that the vernacular will or or could be improved by being systematized? Do you think that would do ultimately do more damage or or just not really um contribute beneficially to the modern alchemical culture? Because there is definitely um I think personally this will be remembered as a period of of um a very a distinct period of alchemical work. Right. right now, what we're kind of in in the thick of right now with people like you and and and other alchemists. You think that that's something that that that should be pursued? You think it's kind of maybe
1:43:12a waste of time or what are your thoughts? Kind of a little bit of both really. I I think what like what you're speaking to is like this time right now because it's so easy for people to communicate in a way that was never possible before. I think a natural result of that is that there will be more standardization of terminology. People will tend to get on the same page. There's always going to be disagreements, but it's easier for people to to to kind of jump on a bandwagon and say, "No,
1:43:42this is this and that is that because it's easier for us to communicate." And I think in certain contexts, um, it's got utility, right? like if I'm in in let's say clinical practice, the terminology describing this medicine or that medicine is very very important. You know, it's like we could say um I can compare this to like common names of plants compared to Latin like scientific naming of plants, right? You can have like 20 different plants that share the exact same common name,
1:44:15but they're different things, right? So in a clinical setting, we don't want that type of like margin of error where it's like you told me to take this and I took that but it was not that, right? So we want we want exactitude in this case. So there's there's certain situations like clinical practice where that's that's got a lot of utility to it. Um, at the same time it it kind of comes back to this whole like fate and free will thing where there's there's this individual
1:44:47process that everybody is going through to to to you know evolve themselves. Um, and so that subjective experience I think requires um that looseness. You know I think I I think there's value in both. There's there's value in both. there's there's value in using many many different terms to describe the exact same thing um or one term to describe the same thing. It it depends on the the context. Um yeah, I've thought about this quite a bit. I think probably because I I come to
1:45:25this, you know, as a clinical practitioner. So often times it's it's like, you know, for my own self, I I need a set of terminology to use because I need to be able to communicate to people that come to see me um and take my advice um to help themselves. um I need a fairly standardized terminology to make sense of it. They need to know what I mean when I say take this and that. Um but outside of that context, um I don't know. I guess I question like how valuable that really is. You know, this is a concept that comes up in a book I've got called uh Hermetica Arcanum,
1:46:11which is by Jean Despier, I believe his name was. And he talks about this just like this kind of, you know, there's so many different ways to describe process of alchemy. And you know, you can have completely conflicting views yet those two different viewpoints ending up at the same end goal. So like who cares what you called it, right? It worked. Like if it if it works, it works. It doesn't matter how you how you call it. So there's I think there's arguments to be made both ways.
1:46:46And I'm not o overly concerned about standardizing um or making an effort to standardize outside of my own personal clinical practice. Um but then at the same time I think that it quiets the noise, right? It definitely makes it easier to understand if there's an agreed upon set of rules, which essentially there is. Um but you know, how much we dial that in is is the question, right? Um, so I'm I'm I'm unconcerned really about it, but it's interesting to look at it both ways.
1:47:23Do you tell your patients to mingle the blood of the lion with the gluten of the eagle or depends on the the patient? Yeah, I I I understand exactly what you're talking about, too. you know where it's like look if it works and we end up at at um the same or a similar sort of outcome product conclusion then you know I think I think that in in something like that like for instance and I just again I don't consider myself an alchemical expert I consider myself somebody who's an expert in in magic and and theology and that sort of stuff so I I don't I wouldn't seek
1:48:10to systematize other people's vernacular, but what I would try and do was create would be to create more communication and dialogue between get get people talking with one another so at least we understand each other. You know what I'm saying? So I need to know your like think of math, right? Right. We order of operations is a big one, right? because you get this big [ __ ] mess of an equation with all these parenthetical sort of things and so how do you figure it out? Well, in the States is PEMDAS, right? But in the in in in the UK it's something like I think Bodmas or
1:48:52something like that. They have a totally different but if you use the the order of operations regardless of the words regardless they come they they actually work out to be the same answer. Mhm. you know, but the important thing is to be able to to transpose and discuss with one another. Okay, what what does your term mean? I think that that would be important for me as as a as a practicing ceremonialist. And if I were if I ever did work in the mil in a clinical millu like you do, my my clinical millu was in physical therapy, which is extremely standardized. Um,
1:49:33right. because it's there's there's uh oversight, you know, and then and things like uh uh uh Chinese medicine and things like that. I would I would want to have some understanding of what the other, you know, terminology kind of meant so that I could um just be able to have a level of fluency in the community and and and we'd be able to sort of help each other, right? Because that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to kind of bounce ideas off of each other and and exchange ideas with each other. And I think um a unified vernacular can can help. But
1:50:14I do agree with you. I really do agree with you. I don't think that everything has to be reduced to one system of standardization because it's then after that it becomes monolithic. It be it's really hard to innovate and discover new things too rigid. It Yeah. It it you know it trying to it's again alchemy is is everything right. So it's like okay this is the set of rules and and and words you know from this limited human experience I think we are we are of course going to make
1:50:49errors if we try to do that but you know in thinking about this like I'm going back to your comment about the time right now and thinking about that and it's like you know these different practitioners before it wasn't just that they were disconnected and so they didn't have the same terms that's part of it and you know different streams of alchemy but there's also an intention to confuse by using many different words to describe one thing. Um, you know, or one, you know, one word to describe many things. Um, there's intention to to obuscate. Um, and to me
1:51:28it feels like we're in a time of of and maybe this is just me, but a time of apocalypse, like a time of of revealing, right? where where where things are clarified. And so I think naturally again it's just happening because we have this connectivity through ease of communication and travel being being able to connect with one another on this stuff. So out of that is naturally born something a little bit more um standardized. Um, and a second thought I had too is that for me what's most important is that I because I because I interact with the public with my work, you know,
1:52:09I want to share this work with other people. What's important to me is that they understand what I'm saying. Even if what I'm saying is not what somebody else is saying, I I need to say what I'm saying and use the terms that I'm using in a way um that people can understand and relate to it. Um I don't want it to be a mystery um you know to to people like if they're coming to me to try something or they're coming to me um you know as a a a clinical patient you know I I I want them
1:52:39to understand what I'm trying to say and what I'm trying to do with these medicines. So um yeah it it becomes more of a sure there's like a greater you know um public uh aspect of that but it's also kind of on a onetoone scale where it's just like I want to make sure that everybody that interacts with me understands um what I'm saying you know which is not always easy because I'm an I'm an alchemy nerd and it's really easy for me to go really far out on a limb and just deep deep dive
1:53:14you know, I'm I'm in this all the time. Like, I'm constantly thinking about this and doing this and going deep. And so, it's very easy to stimulate me to just go deep into a a rabbit hole. Um, whatever rabbit hole I may be going down at that time. But yeah, that with terminology, and that's what I've tried to do with, you know, a couple articles on the different terms that I give my different medicines. I don't think everybody has to use them. I don't encourage people to use them if they
1:53:40don't feel like it makes sense to them. It's it's the terms that I use that make sense to me. And yes, it does build upon other authors and teachers I've had. Um there is some sort of there there's there's it's it's it's a sensical system that I've put together, but it doesn't have like everybody doesn't have to use it. And and I'm using it to clarify things. Again, back to this point of like revealing um what was usually hidden. I think you know we're we're changing as humans and um
1:54:16you know in a temporal sense we don't always need the same rules. you know, as much as you know, I think alchemy still can be vilified or um you know, there's a risk there's certain inherent risks to it and I think it's you know, anything that's a powerful truth, you have to handle it um with care. Uh but at least in my experience with it, I feel like it's really important to reveal uh alchemy for what it is as best as I understand it. I that feels instinctual to me, but
1:54:50we were talking about instinct earlier. It feels like an instinct. Uh and at least at this point, I could regret it at later. You know, that happens in life, but I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong to um openly speak about some of these things which, you know, in a different time would not be openly spoken about. Beautifully said. I've got a couple more a couple more questions. Um, I wanted to ask you, you had a post and it was like uh some kind of vial. I don't know if it was
1:55:27like gold oil or something in it. It said ether and fixed fire element and then it said watery drags left from rectification. I was just curious what what does dregs refer to? Oh, it's Well, it depends on the context of course, but like you know, dregs could be like the bottom of the barrel of like, you know, a beer keg or wine. Like it's like not the good stuff basically. Oh, okay. Not the good stuff to if I could simplify that answer. Yeah, that sounds good. And then, um, I wanted to ask you about stone feeding. Um, that's probably one of my last questions is yeah,
1:56:10stone feeding. What's what's what's it all about? Well, what the hell is that? Explain that, Dan. We've touched on it already, right? We we we talked about it with um it's the same process really that we talked about with with the metallic work. This this whole like opening a metal and then you have this open body and you know, you feed it the spirit. you distill it off and give it back. You know, that's one way of of feeding um a stone of many different kinds. You know, there's
1:56:42there's there's stones and then there's the stone. You know, there's there's the the end of the the work, the the philosopher stone, the great work, but then there's all these other different variations of that work. And they they really they mirror each other, of course. Um really it's just this process of you've got a body uh and it's dead in its first state. You know, you've separated and purified you you've killed something usually in this work basically. You've pulled something
1:57:13apart. You've separated that animating soul and that spark of life. Sarified it. Yeah. You've Yeah. Exactly. You've you've taken it apart, you know, you've you've chopped it up. Yeah. And um now you got to put it back together again. You know, you've taken the parts, you know, you've separated them, you've refined them, and now you want to put it back together to create like a a new incarnation that's um um evolved from its original state. And there's a couple different
1:57:43ways of going about it. And I mean I mean there's a gazillion ways really, but I'll mention two um obvious ways. One is, you know, often people refer to it as like feeding a baby where you've got these you've got a salt of some sort and you very carefully feed um the sulfur or the mercury, these these two liquids usually um drop by drop. Sometimes one at a time like sometimes it's depends on the work. It could be sulfur first and then mercury or some people mix the sulfur and
1:58:20mercury together. But either way, um the main concept is that you've got this this uh empty vessel, this body ready to receive this source of life and you are drop by drop feeding it. Um just giving it just enough to satiate it. Um, and you know, that's the philosophy of it. And the reality of it is, you know, you're you're adding these drops of, let's say, an oil or spirit, um, until the salt can no longer take anymore. You don't want to drown the baby, you know. So, you
1:58:52want to give it just enough that it's wellfed. Um, and then let it digest, you know, just like eating a meal, you want to eat just enough. You don't want to eat too much. That causes problems. Or drink too much, it causes problems. Um so that's one way of feeding the stone, this very slow drop by drop method. Um, and the other is what we kind of talked about earlier where um you can uh you can do this process of of cohabilation where you've got let's say a larger amount of
1:59:28this liquid that's being fed to the salts uh and you're gently distilling it off. So you're you're you're satiating this this uh receptacle, the body, the salt, in a different way. You know, you're you're reducing the liquid by distilling it off and then the salt eats up as much of as much as it can. And then you repeat the process over and over and over again where you're just you're distilling it off the the liquid off the salts and then you're taking that distillate and you're
1:59:57putting it back and with each pass um that salt is is fixing more of these volatile constituents and evolving, you know, so where eventually um basically the whole meal is eaten, you know, where there's no longer, you know, all of that that life force um both universal and individual that you're feeding those salts becomes completely and perfectly amalgamated with the salts. You get you reach that point of perfection where um these opposites fixed and volatile meet in the middle uh and and are said to be then immortal or inseparable um which would be that's you know
2:00:41the the great work to create the philosopher stone the the end journey is to get to that point of of completion. So th those are two different ways that I could think of that are commonly described of um you know this process of of feeding a stone. Okay. And so in that same post I was referencing it says the fixed oil being extracted from the dregs of the first rectification of the volatile oil and spirit. So the first rectification, so my curiosity was how many rect how many times do you rectify? As many as you need. It depends. Is it like intuitive or like is there a general I mean
2:01:23there can be some intuition to it, but it's like until you get the gut the job done well, right? If you're not working very well, um it could take many many many many times. Uh, but if you're really accurate and you know, you know, you're you've dialed your skill in, uh, it doesn't take as much work. It's kind of goes back to what I was saying about the simplicity of things. It's like as you advance the, you know, the answers to your questions, um, and the the medicines for these these, uh, you know, stumbling blocks that you run into.
2:01:59it's like they just become easier and so much more simple as you advance. Um, so it depends. It just really depends how you're working and what you're working on. Um, but you know what I'm referring to there, you know, again, we're talking about this this difference between like fixed sulfur and volatile sulfur. It's like when you distill, the most volatile readily passes over in that distillation, whereas the fixed stays behind, you know. So, in that post, sounds like I'm describing
2:02:29um separating that um fixed oil probably from I'm assuming water. It could I'm not sure exactly what post it is, but it's probably fixed sulfur in some sort of water or less volatile liquid that's left behind. And I'm you can then separate that and and and do further purification of that fixed sulfur. Thank you. Ike, do you have any last questions, any responses, anything else before we wrap it up? So, what I'm hearing from this conversation is essentially that we are going to start our own
2:03:06Hogwarts and Dan is be potions master. I'll do defense against the dark arts. Sky, what do you want to what you want? Uh, I'll just I'll just model in the background. I'll Okay, I'll dance. No, this is great, man. I love talking to you. I love talking to the both of you. This is a great energy. Um, we should do this again. Yeah, absolutely. This was a fun conversation. It was a a bit of a marathon. We could I know I could talk to you guys forever, each each of you individually, and even worse when we're all together. It just, again, we're talking
2:03:44about alchemy, so it's like nothing is really out of bounds. It's really hard to like put some, you know, some bumpers around it, you know, to to say, "No, this is this is the topic." Because it really does stretch into anything and everything for curious people like ourselves. Uh that makes for infinite conversation. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. It was cool being able to hear um a lot of the laboratory, you know, chemical nature of things and then to get Ike, you to kind of depict a lot
2:04:21of the, you know, western esoteric spiritual teachings of things and how that all relates and how they kind of coincide so beautifully. So, it's a very it's a very wide it's a very broad conversation, but I think ultimately a very satisfying one because there's stuff in here that, you know, hardcore maybe seasoned alchemists or alchemy nerds as as Dan put it, uh, are going to really have a bunch to chew on. And then on the other hand, you know, I've always found alchemy nerds to be great because they also want to hear about
2:04:58the philosophical and and spiritual stuff as well because they understand how that ties into their work. But that's also there for other people that are listening to the podcast that don't, you know, are kind of new to the the vernacular of alchemy, which can sound crazy. Feeding a stone, that sounds crazy. It is crazy. re realistically if if if you're not doing both, you're not doing it right. That's to me like there there's got to be, you know, and that's something maybe sometimes
2:05:30like there's a criticism of my approach because I often describe chemistry. Um really my interest in chemistry is is from a you know a spiritual inclination, right? It's just better understanding these bu building blocks that we're working with in order to understand meaning in life which is you know quite quite a task to take on right so for me uh and that's why I love alchemy in its holism it's like you need to have both sides of the coin you know there's the physical side of
2:06:04it and there's a non-physical side of it there's the external side of it like in the lab work and there's the internal side what's happening inside yourself uh and when something's missing like it's off, you know, you're you're never going to reach completion with a missing variable like this, right? So, you you really need to have both both sides of this. And yeah, it's great to have um other people to bounce this stuff off of so you can, you know, it's so universal. You can find so
2:06:32many different examples of saying the exact same thing. And that is very very helpful for for I think a wide audience, you know, to be able to latch on to be like, "Oh, I understand that." you know, because maybe Ike's, you know, explanation of um, you know, the platonic um, viewpoint on what I was describing that could allow somebody who has zero chemistry um, background to go back, listen to what I said maybe, and say, "Oh, no, I get that now." Cuz for me, that's how I started understanding chemistry. It's like, I wasn't good at chem. Like, I'm a high
2:07:09school dropout. I didn't have a background in this. And it was, you know, spiritual teachings, philosophical teachings which made it easier for me to understand and have a reason to understand chemistry, right? So it's these things feed back and forth in into one another. Beautiful. Um, well, Daniel, where can people find you if they want to check out uh, you know, maybe they want to read your blogs or check out more of your work or uh, what you have out there for people? Where where would you direct them? Um, yeah. So,
2:07:49there's my social media. So, I've got kind of my personal journey with alchemy and herbalism. Um, that's alamia. Ararcadia. And then my business page, my spaderic apothecary is secretfire apothecary and my website is secret-fire.com. And there you can find blog articles and um a pretty good selection of my speric apothecary that I'm offering publicly. Excellent. Ike, do you have any uh thing going on right now that you want to throw out there? Um uh well I've got a shitload of stuff going on but we'll save that for another
2:08:37day. I I love Dan. I we just worked on something recently where uh we worked together on this basics of uh speric alchemy that's going to be coming out in the new year because I actually have to take like four months and you know base this stuff on lunar cycles and things like that which is that's my [ __ ] bag. That's right up my alley. But it's going to take some it's going to take some time to actually produce and get out there. But I'm really happy about that collaboration. So,
2:09:08uh, be on the lookout for that. My collaboration with with Dan Wisman. What about you, Sky? What's going on, man? Got anything you want to tell people? You just did an awesome uh you just did an awesome interview with with with Eric Purdue. Eric Purdue. Yes. That was a fun one. I'm I'm pretty stoked about it. So, yeah, that's coming out. I'm going to probably release that Friday. So, hopefully I'll release this before Friday so that people can hear this and then listen to that one.
2:09:35So, we'll see. Well, that's on you. But, uh, he did, um, that new edition of the three books of a cult philosophy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the one of the more popular ones that's out there is by a guy Donald Tyson, who's from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Oh, is he? Yeah. Yeah. He's from Halifax. Yeah. Yeah. He did that way back, man. He was one of the first guys to put it out there with I think he might have done it with Lou Allen or Wiser. Yeah. Yeah. Eric's cool. He's got a
2:10:08really good personality. So that that episode is a is a pretty fun one. So I'm excited for people to listen to it. All right. So I got I got I got a question for Dan off camera real quick. So we Let's Yeah. Thanks everybody who has uh listened to the podcast. We appreciate you greatly. Um, if you guys want to learn listen more of myself, you could check out philosophical minds podcast uh over there podcast at YouTube. Daniel, check them out at secretfire apothecary.com and uh Instagram
2:10:44handle. What was your Instagram handle again? Uh, alchemia.cadia and secretfire apothecary. Boom. Beautiful. We appreciate you all greatly and thank you. Until next time. Thanks guys.
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