alchemizt wrote:Calcium hydroxide seems to precipitate something that turns the liquid gray. Adding potassium hydroxide dissolves the precipitate and the solution turns black again. My only guess to what this means is that the Ca(OH)2 forms an insoluble calcium tannate salt. Adding the stronger KOH converts it to the potassium tannate salt which is soluble in water.
The calcium tannate hypothesis seems likely to me too. The KOH might also hydrolyse the more complex tannates into gallates, and calcium gallate could well be more soluble than the tannate.
“There is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call 'a field of force'. The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work."
― Jacques Bergier, quoting Fulcanelli