Making an Oleum, Version 1

I've already made up a base earlier and so I wanted to finish it off an make an actual oleum. Due to the up coming holiday I wanted to make oleum of Leviathan so I gathered the ingredients, tools and that made up base.



The dry materials consisted of sea salt and calamus root. I grounded the calamus but didn't bother grinding the salt - it is salt, I don't think I could get it finer.



I added everything to the double boiler and boiled it for about 15 minutes:



I then strained it through a fine mess strainer:



The mix in the strainer still looked like it had a lot of oil still in it so I put it into a clean, dry rag:



and squeezed it:



then I strained it some more:



I then added tincture of benzoin to the oleum to add to its shelf life:



Next was bottling time:



And the finished product:

Making an oleum base

I tried my hand at making some oleum for the up coming Second Rite of Leviathan. I thought it best to first make the base and then later make the specific oleum for Leviathan. I figure I won't make a lot of the oleum of Leviathan which will leave me enough base to make different oleums later.

I went with Base #1 from The Complete Book of Demonolatry since I could easily gather all the materials that I would need.

First I gathered my tools; a double boiler, since I would be heating up oil on the stove top; two 2 cup measuring jugs; a fine mess strainer; a mortar and pestle and a suribachi; some 2 dram bottles and some mason jars.



Next I gathered all the herbs I needed.



Since I was using some root I thought that it would be best to grind it up in the suribachi. It was tough work and I didn't powderize all of it, but I thought it was enough.



For the rest of the ingredience I just mashed them in the mortar. I don't think it was really necessary since they were pretty ground up to begin with.



I added them all together in a cup and mixed them up before adding them to the double boiler.



I then added a half cup of Grapeseed Oil. I went with Grapeseed since I've read it is a better oil to use, but I'm sure olive oil will work fine.



This is what it looked like when I got the herbs and the oil mixed:



I boiled it for about 15 minutes before straining the oil into a clean cup:



I didn't get a lot of oil from this so I put the strained herbs back into the double boiler and added more oil, and boiled the mixture again. I did this about 3 times in total. I have about 1 cup of once strained oleum base when I was done.

I wanted to strain it some more since there was some sediment sitting at the bottom of the cup.



I strained it a few more times, cleaning the strainer each time and then finished by straining it through cheesecloth.



When I was done, I was pretty happy with the end product. It doesn't smell oily at all but more like the herbs that I used to make it. This picture makes it look greenish but it has a more reddish tint to it.



I'll make the herb mixture for the oleums that I want and add the base to it, then boil it. I'll let you know how that goes!

Tincture of Benzoin

Tincture of Benzoin is used to prolong the shelf life of oleums and so is an important product to have on hand. Usually 4 drops per 2 Dram bottle or 2 teaspoons per cup is enough.

I wanted to try my hand at making it for myself and so followed the directions that I found in The Complete Book of Demonolatry:

1 part Benzoin
3 parts alcohol

Now all I could find was Benzoin Gum:



Since the baggie contained 1/2 oz I figured I'd just add the baggie and 1 1/2 oz of Vodka in a mason jar.



I don't think that was the best idea since this is what it looked like:



I thought that maybe if I has added the alcohol first and then the benzoin I'd get better results. So, I went to Shaddow Domain, the local occult store, and bought some more. When I got home with it I decided to see how much volume was in the baggie of benzoin. It turned out that I only added the same amount of Vodka and not 3 times like I should have. I fixed this, then added more Vodka and benzoin to the jar and this is what it looked like:



Dismayed with this I thought that maybe I would get a better product if I blended it. So I did and then strained it before putting it back into the jar.



A far better product! It did however make shit of my blender that took me forever to clean. The benzoin gum powder makes very gummy gum when mixed with anything liquid.

Anyway, next time I think I will just buy the tincture of benzoin already made up

Herb Suppliers

I recently bought some herbs so I can start making my own oleums. I had to buy everything that I needed from two different online vendors and I noticed a huge difference in the quality and the experience and so I thought I'd share.

I bought the lions share of what I needed at Mountain Rose Herbs and I would have bought everything but they didn't stock it. Their site is easily navigatable and even allows you to save your shopping basket so you can come back later to order. The herbs were well packaged in sealable bags and well marked with what the herb was and how it was cultivated, whether it was wild harversted or organic. After reading the literature that was sent with my order I'm really impressed with the lengths that Mountain Rose Herbs go to to make sure that they are supplying high quality products. I admit I didn't give it much thought beforehand, but now I'm far more conscious to getting herbs that aren't ladened with chemicals.

Along with the herbs I ordered, I also bought some same amber bottles, a mortar and pestle and a suribachi. For those who don't know what a suribachi is, it is similar to a mortar and pestle but the mortar is grooved and the pestle is made of wood.

I was surprised at the high quality of the tools given how much I paid for them.

For the herbs that I couldn't find on Mountain Rose Herbs, I turned to the Penn Herb Co. to find what I needed. While their site isn't the best and their prices were a little high (in my opinion), they did have a huge selection. The herbs I bought were decent quality, they just weren't to the level as Mountain Rose. In fairness, I'm sure I would have been more than happy with them if I didn't receive my order from Mountain Rose first.

Another difference I noticed is that with the cheapest shipping option, Mountain Rose offered tracking on the shipment while Penn Herb did not. Not a huge problem, but I do like checking on my packages.