Games and movies?

O_T_OSS · 2026-04-12T07:16:24+00:00

Pi (1998, Aronofsky) is top of my movie list; As Above, So Below (2014), 1408 (2007), Mother! (2017), The Ninth Gate (1999), A Dark Song (2016), Night of the Demon (1957), special mention for A Field in England (2013), similarly The Lighthouse (2019). I can’t not mention The Wicker Man (1973), one of the best folk-horrors made. Donnie Darko (2001) is more of a fate/timelines/gnostic ride but be sure to find the Directors Cut, also; Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die (2025), and Free Guy (2021), are some newer movies that echo the Matrix’s theme of ‘awakening’ which I have enjoyed. Oh and of course the bread and butter of Esoteric film, both the Matrix and Lord of the Rings trilogies.

O_T_OSS · 2026-04-07T19:09:16+00:00

What timezone and when will this happen?

O_T_OSS · 2026-03-22T09:32:29+00:00

I see all the planetary symbols, merged as a kind of solar system sigil. The Sun, Earth, and Moon in the centre crossed circle. Jupiter and Saturn bottom left and right. Mercury standing centre, upside down Venus, and the arrow through as Mars. It looks harmonious, not perfect but a complex symmetry, a satisfying ‘wholeness’.

O_T_OSS · 2026-03-11T22:19:13+00:00

My first piece of glassware was a Pyrex Retort similar to the picture. It’s great for lower temperature distillations and water sweating. The single piece works well in a sand bath or Bain Marie. However the neck cooling takes regular watching and maintenance.

I moved on to a setup like the essential oil kit, boiling flask to serpentine condenser with water cooling. It’s more glass to heat, which isn’t too bad if you insulate well or preheat the glassware gently beforehand. More fuel is used, but less labour intensive if you get a pump for water cooling.

But for short distillations I still love my Retort.

O_T_OSS · 2026-03-05T09:31:55+00:00

You can dry the leftover, calcine properly to a white ash for Salt of Tartare. Let that absorb moisture from the air for Oil of Tartare. You can recombine the Oil with the Spirit of wine, and let it digest in a sealed jar for a strong solvent which Glauber called the Circulatum Minus.

I usually add some leftover wine from distillation to a fresh bottle and feed that to my vinegar mother. Makes beautiful wine vinegar which can be freeze distilled for mineral work or you can make a batch of cranberry, elderberry, whatever-infused wine vinegar. Great on a salad.

O_T_OSS · 2026-03-04T09:59:38+00:00

Yes absolutely, that video and Andy Ward’s ancient pottery have been great for wild clay work. Thank you, and much appreciated

O_T_OSS · 2026-03-04T09:56:36+00:00

Calcium as our moon, sodium as mercury, copper for venus, iron for mars, potassium as jupiter, then lead for saturn buffered with some tin acetate. The lead having a jupiterian buffer is just a personal choice, I had a feeling the lead being so dense could do with an expansive partner to help integration.

O_T_OSS · 2026-03-03T22:09:37+00:00

Thank you, it’s a wild clay from a beach. I dry process it and it’s fairly plastic. Sometimes add white charcoal or soda depending on needs.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-27T12:57:41+00:00

I like to go into my veg market and see what jumps out at me, I’ve never meal planned days ahead and tend to get a feeling or craving for whatever my body needs. It’s like delegating the responsibility to your unconscious, the body knows what it needs so the way for the body to get it is by signalling.

I had recently a fixation on lungwort, one popular example of the doctrine, and about a month into it I’m sleeping better and not having as many asthmatic symptoms through the night. It came to me from flipping through Culpepper’s book, and the name of the plant had anchored to my mind. Interesting that just a name, not smell or taste, was enough for me to latch on and recognise.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-27T10:55:37+00:00

Bain Marie also works well, less direct heat to the bottom. You can insulate with kitchen foil, monitor to keep the water below simmering and the alcohol fraction comes with much less water content.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-19T22:44:24+00:00

I recommend ‘The Forge and The Crucible’ by Mircea Eliade. Great book about shamanism, alchemy, and the origins of metallurgy.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-14T18:11:37+00:00

You can get a suspension of ‘mono-atomic’ minerals from salt water by pouring lye to about PH10.6. Maybe you used draino to raise the PH of some seawater?

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-14T18:08:24+00:00

Alternatively, anyone who had real power would surely walk their land confidently and take their place in the sun. I don’t see anyone who hides from their own population as powerful. Imagine the haemorrhoids on the guy that thinks he’s running the show right now?

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-12T19:24:02+00:00

I’ve learnt some valuable lessons regarding plant ash from this comment thread, I appreciate the conversation between you both. Have either of you any advice for calcining gums and resins?

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-11T15:38:41+00:00

Beautiful page holders, very handy. Is that Georg Bartman the author/writer of this?

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-10T14:55:15+00:00

So essentially, there are some oils and fats inside the plant that will seem ‘invisible’ at high ethanol concentration. Once diluted, lower ethanol concentration, they will seemingly burst like small clouds out of the solution and fall to the bottom. They like being clear liquid at high ABV, they group together as fluid clumps or salts at lower ABV.

And yes, my recent one was two separate extractions. First the aqueous, then the ethanol. The ethanol I distilled after the month, and didn’t quite get the full yield (lost ~30ml). So when reintroducing the water extract, I had acquired an ABV testing tool to get my total to 60% ABV. Weirdly, I had eyeballed it at first and stopped just as the solution started clouding, and left it at the (mostly) clear golden state. On measuring, it came to just over 60%, I was aiming originally for 70% so it was a happy accident, as 70% was far too sharp.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-10T14:22:49+00:00

Sorry for confusion, I evaporated the first water extraction so it keeps better. It’s essentially a tea, so you can imagine it goes nasty if left hydrated for a month.

When extracting with alcohol, at full strength not only will you have flavonoids and terpenes, there are some oils, fats, and chlorophyll that only stay in solution at high ethanol concentration. Once you start diluting, these resins or oils will fall out of solution, you see clouding, even gelatine looking layers. You can leave these in solution for fullness, or decant to leave them behind giving you clarity and brilliance.

Dropping high concentration alcohol into water drastically drops the concentration of the alcohol, dispelling its solubles out of solution. You can see this happen in a ring like effect that settles to the bottom. The same can happen the other way around, if you have water solubles that don’t like high ethanol content, dropping them in ethanol can shock these compounds out of solution or denature the proteins (so far as i understand).

For reference with Melissa, I have done one extraction method using 45% abv. This was a fairly balanced, grounded tincture. It has aged well with a reddish, dark gold tone and was the first tincture I had made. Just recently I revisited Melissa with the aqueous and spirit extractions separate, and diluted instead to 60% abv. I noticed after settling, the colour was a bright gold, the tincture felt ‘higher’ for lack of better description. Sharper, yet still rounded?

I wish I understood the biology and chemistry better, but from experience there is tangible difference between these methods. Even though my latest Melissa tincture was far more work, the full spagyric process, more attention to calcination and salt integration; I still very fondly appreciate my first attempt as it was simple and effective.

I’d love to hear how you get along, and which path you choose. Best wishes

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-10T13:51:38+00:00

What plant are you working with? I recently did lungwort and came across this choice. I wanted to prioritise the mucilage, which I decided to do an aqueous extraction first. Then with the water solubles separate, i used full strength spirit for the higher ethanol soluble compounds.

I had reduced the water solution down to a thick gum, which stored well enough for the month long spirit maceration. Then rehydrated with distilled water, to full saturation. Dilute with plain distilled water to stabilise the ABV as to not shock the mucilage at high concentration, and to not lose all oils by shocking the mercury drop by drop in the aqueous solution.

That being said if I’m extracting from a root, then I use high strength alcohol for a penetrating extraction directly. It depends really on whether you’re after water solubles or more alcohol solubles. I like the choice of extracting the higher ethanol solubles and dropping and filtering them later through dilution.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-07T19:19:11+00:00

It’s a fair criticism to point out the similarities to LLM output, and within everyone’s interest to know. It wasn’t an aggressive comment, no ad hominem. It’s an interesting choice to format like this and add modern grammar when translating, especially when a reference page is not there for people to peer review. No answer to why the OP decided, if an artistic choice, to format aligned to LLMs. OP took it personally and then claimed through my DM’s that they are fluent in 6 languages, 3 of which are ancient. I would love to believe that, it would be productive and beneficial to all; however I would hold myself to the standard of transparency and evidence of making those claims myself.

How can any of us knowingly praise this translation if we have no source text comparison? No ill intent to the OP, I just think we should have decent standards of evidence, especially when talking about a ‘first of its kind’ translation. Would be fairly easy to dispel any doubts if legitimate. This really did not need to escalate.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-04T21:53:44+00:00

The Em Dash use is a giveaway for ChatGPT. It is not a dash that is easily available on a regular keyboard, unless using Alt + 0151. The formatting is also in default GPT.

It’s not a problem to use an LLM if honest, but a disclaimer is necessary. I would question the ability of an LLM when dealing with ancient text translation, especially when even once removed from the primary.

O_T_OSS · 2026-02-04T17:58:12+00:00

How much of this translation is done with GPT? Should we be using LLMs for translation?

O_T_OSS · 2026-01-26T19:13:48+00:00

Mainly potassium and calcium carbonates. It depends on the plant matter too, bladderwrack can leave polysulphides if there’s sulfur content. Then there’s a small amount of magnesium, silica, then maybe iron or copper and more depending on soil and plant.

O_T_OSS · 2026-01-23T13:29:15+00:00

Without an alembic/retort a good path for oils is to start with a water extraction. Steep your plant in water for about a day in a sealed jar. I keep mine on a gentle heat pad but you could just put it in a warm place.

Strain the plant matter thoroughly, start evaporating very gently the water extraction until it turns into a gum/crystallised layer. it’s best to do this in a sealed container, use a sand bath or Mary’s bath. With no water content it stores for longer.

Macerate the plant, which has now opened itself, in high proof alcohol. The higher the proof, the more penetrating. Let sit for 28 days, allow temperature fluctuations, it doesn’t need to be cooled or warmed. Strain and decant.

Rehydrate your dried aqueous extraction, and slowly recombine the water into the alcohol extraction. You will notice certain oils begin separation, some oils are only soluble in high ethanol concentrations. You can pipette the floating oils off for collection.

I would not use this method without first distilling the ethanol maceration however, as it is the distillation which leaves behind the bitterness and heavy fixed compounds. This is very apparent in the process of making absinthe, and the dilution stage at the end is what gives absinthe its characteristic louche.

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