Preparing Tincture
There are many tincture recipes floating in the noosphere, and I don't want to provide an extensive summary of them. Instead, I'll focus on a recipe that will produce good tincture quickly and economically. This isn't hearsay: I've preyed at this tincture's altar and have been rewarded ten-fold. Those of you who know me know that I'm a trustworthy sort, so while this quick-fix recipe contradicts much of what it said about tincture preparation, I ask that you provisionally believe me, at least long enough to seriously consider trying it for yourself.
[A word about changes and substitutions: I don't mean to imply that everything in this write-up is required, or even optimal. However, I want to document that with which I have first-hand experience. There may be better ways of doing things.]
The One Does/One Hour Magic Liqueur
What is needed:
1) A Small quantity of the Devil's water (190-proof).
2) 3 grams of Mary's leaves, dried and of high-quality.
3) A microwave oven.
4) Some small microwave-safe containers/bowl/containers.
5) A top-loading, blade-style coffee grinder.
First, take your leaves and powder them in the coffee grinder. The finely ground/powdered leaf should be placed in a small, microwave-safe container and covered with about 20ml of ethanol. 20ml should nicely cover the leaf: if it doesn't your container is too large and shallow.
Next, you will need to bring the ethanol to boiling in the microwave. THIS REQUIRES EXTREME CAUTION! Microwave ovens vary in power and efficency, but this little-bitty bit of firewater can boil in as little as five seconds, and the power must be cut as SOON as it starts boiling! If you don't, it WILL end up boiling explosively, coating the inside of the oven, and potentially causing great domestic dissonance. [But if it does, 91% isopopanol is a very good cleaner for spilled sage. Make sure you have some before you begin, just in case.]
After the ethanol is bought to boiling, remove from the oven, stir, and allow to sit for five to ten minutes.
After the potion has set for the requisite time, carefully decant the sage-laced liquor, leaving as much Salvia mush behind as is possible. Add another 10 to 20 ml of ethanol to the now wet much, boil, stir, and again alow to sit for five to ten minutes.
Again decant the ethanol carefully and combine the two portions. (You may want to squeeze the much against the side of the container with the back side of a spoon, but don't expect to render too much additional solvent.)
Some people expend much energy trying to filter and clean their extractions and tincture, but this is unnecessary for this application. Instead, one can decant the liquid several times, allowing the material to settle a few minutes between pouring. You won't achieve perfect leaf-free ethanol, but you don't need to.
All that remains is to reduce the volume of ethanol down to about 10 ml. Again, this can be done in the microwave, but it must be done very carefully. I microwave until it just begins to boil, cut the power, remove from the oven, and gently blow on the surface of the alcohol until cool. I repeat this until the desired volume is reached (which may take 10 or 15 cycles). Be careful: 190 proof ethanol is a solvent (not a drink, even if it isfound in liquor stores) and the vapors can be painful. Close your eyes before blowing, and you may want to consider putting a little chapstick on your lips first.
That's it!
Extending the Recipe to Higher Volumes
It's easy to make more than one dose at a time by suitably increasing the volumes and weights. For example, I have found the 15 grams of material will make several doses, yet the quantities used are still very manageable. When making larger amounts I don't precisely measure the ethanol used as a solvent, but I do take care as to the volume of the final product. I like to reduce down to about 2 ml per gram of starting material, so the 15 grams would be reduced to 30 grams of tincture (which fits nicely in a 1/2 ounce tincture bottle). Note that at these volumes it is possible that the salvinorin content exceeds saturation, so it is important to shake well before using to pour quickly to try to minimize any active components which may settle out.
In one way larger quantities are much easer to work with: until the volume has been reduced to under 40 ml or so, the ethanol is much more forgiving to heat and much less likely to boil explosively.
Storage
Simple: Dark bottles, away from strong light.
Sublingual Dosing
The word "sublingual" literally mean "under the tongue." While I'm sure that the skin under the tongue is great for absorbing the magic molecules, it's just too damn sensitive; the ethanol causes too much pain and salivation. Salvation is great. Salviation is great. But salivation dilutes the tincture and decreases potency, so the net affect is such that you're probably better off avoiding that whole, sensitive area.
The following has been found to work wonderfully. I was a little skeptical when I was first told of it, but I have verified that it is very effective:
Prepare your mouth as per the FAQ at SageWisdom (i.e., brush your teeth, mouth, and tongue, and then gargle with a strong mouth wash). Dilute your tincture (for which see below) and place in your mouth. Swish is around a bit, making sure it touches the entire inside of your mouth and gums, but avoid the sensitive underside of the tongue. After you've swished, park the liquid as far back in your throat as you can, almost as if you were gargling. It will probably be easier to do this if you're laying down, or at least sitting such that you can tilt your head back.
Every few minutes take the liquid and swish it around some more, returning it to the back of your throat when done. If you want, you can swallow a very small portion when ever you do this. This helps to keep the volume down, and my belief is that it may actually help in absorption. It's possible that the esophagus is capable of participating.
Swallow the whole thing at the last minute, at the cusp between human and alien, animal and mineral. It'll stain like the mark of Cain, and you don't want a mouthful as you transform.
Diluting
This is the real deal, an important thing. The slick trick. Quick. Combine it with the above, and you'll be haunted by very little pain and discomfort.
Dilute your tincture with honey! While people normally dilute with water (which works), honey will help protect your mucosa, and -- as far as I can tell -- doesn't adversely affect absorption. In fact, from my experiments and the experiences of the wise soul who clued me into this trick, it may actually help.
For a dose, I find that a teaspoon of our local organic honey will do the trick. I haven't experimented widely, so it is possible that more or less would work better, but a teaspoon is a good place to start. Mix as well as you can, and spoon the whole thing into your mouth. It will burn at first, but the pain will quickly subside.
The honey may coat your mouth and tongue, so as you're occasionally swishing the magic mead you may want to clear off the surfaces by rubbing your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
Three Demonstrative Experiences
I don't normally speak much of my experiences in pubic: I'm a private person by disposition, and I hold the entheogenic experience to be highly personal. Be that as it may, I'm making extraordinary claims for Salvia tincture, so I think it is only reasonable to back them up.
What follows is a write up of three tincture experiences. In order to present the least biased perspective, they have not been chosen in any way. They are simply the last three experiences I have had.
----->The Cycle<-----
Taken: A single does of tincture prepared from 3 grams of leaf, diluted with honey.
When smoking Saliva, I'm usually transported to a very particular and peculiar place. I meet a type of entity there which I've variously described as "the community" or as "the semi-conscious elemental platelets of the universal blood-stream." While interesting, I've also found these experiences to be frustrating because these entities seem only semi-aware, and they are usually focused on some incomprehensible geometrical transforms. When I query them, they brush me aside and are uninterested or incapable of intelligible explanation.
This time out, I approached the experience in a very "shamanic" manner; in other words, I had goals. The specifics of these goals are personal and unimportant, but I wanted to explore alternate perspective on a potential course of action.
As the lady overtook me, I held my questions firmly in mind, but this became increasingly difficult. I quietly mouthed whispered the words, but eventually I could only get a word or two out. I vaguely remembered the questions in general terms, but it became too much effort to give them form and semantic expression.
But the entities! Where before they were half aware, mindless swarmers, I now saw them in their supernal aspect, and it was incomprehensibly beautiful. The geometric transforms had become cycles upon cycles, and within these cycles I sensed the pattern and meaning of creation. These cycles were creation. I was overcome with the contradictory feelings of utter alieness and utter familiarity that up until then I had only experienced with certain combinations of Amazonian herbs. I felt like I was looking Home, and I knew that I had been here many times before. One clear thought that I had was "I want to stay here as long as I can. This is perfect."
I came back into consensual reality and reentered the human sphere without incident, but the reverberation blissed me out for the rest of the evening.
In retrospect, I may have primed the experience in that earlier that evening I had been reading some of Regardie's commentaries on the Qabala. In them, the concept of multiple, hierarchical aspects of spiritual entities figures prominently, so it is perhaps not surprising that my psyche chose to perceive the swarm at a "higher, supernal level."
Time out: about 45 minutes.
----->Pin Pricks<-----
Taken: A single does of tincture prepared from 4 grams of leaf, diluted with honey.
It is always hard to come back to cold, hard reality after an entheogenic flight of fancy, so I decided to attempt a tincture in bed, after retiring for the night. My thought was that I would just drift off to sleep after the lady's charms wore off, allowing me to savor her jewels without the course and pragmatic concerns of everyday life. To these ends I took care of all my bedtime tasks, put the dogs to bed, filled my mouth with sagely goodness, and went to bed.
As I fell into that familiar alternate reality, I was hit by the infamous Salvia Sweats. My body felt flush, and small beads of sweat formed over my entire body. On one level it was horrible, but on another level I was nonplussed by my heightened state of awareness: I could feel and exprience every single drop of sweat separately but simultaneously. Whereas in normal consciousness one is limited to a few things held beneath the eyes of awareness, here I had one hundred things under scrutiny. I could feel the pattern the spots traced on my skin as one coherent whole. Along with the awareness came crystal clarity: every touch, every sound was perceived perfectly and with laser sharpness. I found the evaporation of the beads of sweat both painful and exquisitely, profoundly pleasurable.
One other thing of note: at one point a car passed by on the road outside, and as it was a warm night I had the window open. Aural hallucinations on Salvia are rare for me, but the sound of the car was transformed and was unrecognizable. Some part of me knew what it was, but the subjective experience of the sound was vastly tranformed. Feedback, echo chamber, time dilation...
I feel asleep without incident. My dreams were complex and deep.
Time out: hard to tell, as there was no point of reference.
----->The Still, Quiet Room<-----
Taken: A single does of tincture prepared from approximately 3 grams of leaf, diluted with honey. This was a portion of a batch I had prepared with 15 grams of leaf, so the dosage is approximate.
I normally take my entheogenic experience in a McKenna-esque "silent darkness. Uncharacteristically, for this experience I decided to listen to some meditative music in headphones as I journeyed (specifically, Laraaji's Day of Radiance which is that rarest of birds: a new-agey album which isn't sugary, crappy pabulum).
As I lay down and became besaged, I found myself -- literally -- over there. Parity reversed, mirror world, I found myself looking at the black screen before my closed eyes from the other side. Where the mind usually provide a point of perspective and a circumference delineating the extent of experience, I found myself looking at the room of my mind from the outside.
I didn't find the music euphoric, but it provided the perfect aural environment for the experience. Again, every note and silence was perceived in utter clarity and fullness. It was exactly right, and I existed in the perfect confluence of time and events. Synchronicity embodied.
As I examined the container of my mind from the outside, I found the point of tranquility and stillness. I don't know that I had ever felt such peace before. It wasn't so much that my mind had quieted; moreover, the monkey chatter was still going strong, but it was irrelevant. A wave of familiarity flooded me, and I was present enough to appreciate the rare and sacred state in which I found myself.
This was true and deep Meditation. Pure. Simple. Joy.
As the besagement wore off, I was able to bring the peace back with me! After about an hour there was little sage left in me, but as long as I kept my eyes closed I maintained the magic spell. When finally I decided to open them the magic dissipated, but a calm tranquility stayed with me the rest of the evening.
Time out: a little over an hour.
In Summation..
Sublingual sage is one of the most extraordinary entheogens conceivable. Everyone with Salvia experience owes it to themselves to try it.
