In the beginning of my work in this homepage, I supported that alchemy is not a blind art, on the contrary, alchemy is The Art and Magna Scientia, in consequence the alchemist is a seeker, a true seeker with the main task figured in understand the nature in order to imitate her procedures in the improvement of matter, whatever of its origin’s realms.

That is to say, the alchemist must work with the entire knowledge of his actions, step by step, doing secure advancements in his task: The Philosophers Stone.

For this reasons he do not proceed in his developments at random. He must comprehend clearly, each one of his steps assessing each one of his judgments, taking the best decision always.

The first step in his journey is to know that branch of spagyrics concerned with the problem of determining the composition of substances and identifying them called Analytical Spagyrics.

The ancient Masters have had success because they got to know the matters, processing and products. May be they used another terms for designate some operations, but the essence is the same.

Our first step will be entering in contact with oxidation and reduction. The two main concepts that could explain and help to solve the most frequent problems that the alchemist have to confront in his daily laboratory experience.

Do you have had used aqua regia sometimes?

Do you understand its action and justification in use it?

You have being doing an oxidation.

Oxidation may be defined as a change in which oxygen or some other electro-negative radical are added, or hydrogen or some other electro-positive radical are removed.

Reduction is the reverse process.

The principal oxidizing agents used in alchemy are: Aqua regia, Aqua fortis (HNO₃) and Aqua oxygenata (H ₂O ₂).

The chief reducing agents are: nascent hydrogen (H₂), ( H ₂ S ) sulfhidric acid, tin salts as chlorides, and at elevated temperatures the organic matter.

Aqua regia is not only a good solvent but is also an excellent oxidizing agent. It is prepared by mixing I part of Nitric acid with 3 parts of Chlorhidric acid. If you will use it for a canonical process, you must prepare it by a different way that we will describe in its main alternatives in other section. For the moment let’s take the "chemical" aqua regia in order to explain its action.

When heated alone, it is said to yield ( NOCl ) nitrous chloride and Cl₂ (chlorine), but in the presence of an oxidizable substance all of the chlorine is available:

When we do this reaction in the Kamala Jnana way, dissolving cinnabar with aqua regia, we expect recover precipitate sulfur, and in reality we don’t get it. What happened?

If the action of aqua regia on a sulphide is long continued, the liberated sulfur will be partially or entirely oxidized to H ₂SO₄ sulfuric acid or oil of vitriol.

This shows us the utmost importance of the reaction times and allows to take the opportune actions to redirect the experiment.

Any oxidizable substance can be utilized as a reducing agent, since, in order to reduce, it must be capable of oxidation.

Nascent H₂ (hydrogen) acts as a reducing agent by either adding itself directly or by its ability to unite with, and thus remove, the halogens contained in a compound:

And this is one of the ways that we propose in order to isolate mercury from cinnabar in Kamala Jnana Way.

Stannous chloride ( SnCl₂ ), acts as a reducing agent, preferably in an acid solution, and we use it in order to detect the presence of HgCl₂ in Kamala Jnana way:

Hydrogen sulphide ( H₂S ), by virtue of the readiness with which it decomposes into H₂ (hydrogen) and S (sulfur) is a reducing agent. The hydrogen acts as nascent hydrogen, while the sulphur separates out in the solid state.

Nearly all-oxidizing agents are reduced by H₂ S (hydrogen sulphide) with the separation of sulphur, thus:

Hence, sulphides soluble in HNO₃ (Aqua fortis), like those of Saturn (Pb) (lead) and Venus (Cu ) (cooper), do not liberate H₂ S (hydrogen sulphide) because the latter at once acts on the excess of HNO₃ (Nitric acid) present with the liberation of S (sulphur).

Aqua regia and ferric salts (mars salts) are reduced by H₂ S (hydrogen sulphide) with the separation of S (sulphur), and in some cases, with a change in color of the solution.

In the next section we talk about the preliminary testing of solids.