Talk:Abramelin oil

Time Passes, Old Archives Remain

I'm back.

I took a wiki-break in order to do my own work and to have time to get over my personal anger.

I'm sorry -- who are you, excatly? 06:37, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I was angry because the Abramelin Oil page, which i had written (both under this user name and as User:69.108.137.220 [[1]] had been criticised as original research (OR) and thus a violation of the WP:NOR guideline, but when i admitted that the entire page consisted of OR and tried to delete my contribution as OR and revert it back to stub form, i was reprimanded for "vandalism" to the WP. That illogical catch-22 situation still annoys me, more than a year later. Readers may draw their own conclusions about the issue by comparing my OR text (now hosted at my own site), with the various WP versions.

• The WP page before i touched it:

http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Abramelin_oil&oldid=51730032 Commercial link removed

• The WP page as retrived tonight, September 1st, 2007

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Abramelin_Oil

For a real good laugh, you might enjoy reading the final (to date) WP editorial comment on why -- in THIS case -- the WP:NOR guidleine would be violated and i would be told to move along:

"Because it's a good article. Why would you want to remove anything? Just b/c wp says it may be removed doesn't mean it has to be removed. -999 09:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC) [[2]]

I guess i should take that as a back-handed compliment.

The editors who asserted their right to castigate me for contributing OR, but then fought like devils to keep my OR at WP anyway are still editing, and the uneasy WP policy of calling writers "editors", even when they are writing completely original research, is still in effect as well.

Catherineyronwode 12:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I would like to point out some errors in this article. First, it is apparently assumed that the phrase "according to the apothecary's art" means distillation. In this case, it doesn't. It means percolation. This is a procedure in which a special piece of glassware called a percolator is used. This is quite a simple matter in comparison to distillation. The vessel is conical and the bottom has a glass gizmo that by turning one can stop and start the flow of what is in the cone (the name of this gizmo escapes me right now). The percolator is loaded with crushed but not generally powdered material to be macerated and then the menstruum, often alcohol but not always, is added. The stop is closed at this point. After the herbs have macerated for however long is determined appropriate, more menstruum is added to the top of the percolator. The stopper at the bottom is opened, and the amount allowed to flow out is equal to the amount added to the top. IOW, the new menstruum displaces its equal volume of menstruum that has become saturated with the herbs that have been macerating. This is how it is possible to actually carry out the recipe as described in either the German or French manuscripts. There is no distillation involved. If you have ever tried mixing the ingredients named in the recipe without using percolation, you get glop. Percolation is the "secret." How do I know? One of my hobbies is reading historical material on making medicines (and perfumes), and I have made this oil many times because I sell it and have done so for years.

I should also say that infused oils have never been distilled in perfumery. The heat necessary to distill would cause the oil to oxidize and stink. Instead, macerated oils are simply filtered. Ancient perfumers didn't use essential oils at all; they didn't have them. They didn't generally have knowledge of distillation.

I noticed also in the archives repeated statements that "thousands" of occultists have used the Crowley version of the oil without it burning their skin or having any ill effects, the implication being that any criticism of the Crowley version is an attack on Crowley. This does not coincide with my experience as a merchant of Abramelin oils. I personally am quite a Crowley fan generally, but not of this oil of his. I have nevertheless made the Crowley version for private customer requests and it has been reported back to me that it does indeed burn the skin of most people (which coincides with my own experience), and for some it is intolerable. I don't sell the oil made according to Crowley's recipe precisely for this reason. I have been told that the remedy in practice for Gnostic Mass is to dilute the oil. I also have my suspicions that some who claim to sell the Crowley version are in fact selling an oil made from fragrance oils, because good cinnamon bark eo and myrrh eo are both very expensive, whereas the fragrance oil equivalents are quite cheap and are furthermore not irritating to the skin. I have no proof of this, only my own comparison of the wholesale costs of myrrh eo and cinnamon bark eo and the price of some supposed Crowley versions. All this is to say that "thousands" of occultists might well have not experienced any ill effects from what they thought was Crowley's version because it was in fact NOT the Crowley version; it was diluted or made from fragrance oils. I should say also that I am by no means a sissy when it comes to using "forbidden" (by IFRA) essential oils and on the contrary am known for constantly ripping the envelope open on that score and scoffing at alarmist concerns about eos. But it is a simple fact that cinnamon eo burns the skin of most people, even in small amounts. Harry53 (talk)Harry —Preceding undated comment added 19:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC).