Ancient wisdom, modern medicine: Park City entrepreneur launches spagyric alchemy business

Owen Weinman stands near the pyramids at Giza in Egypt — a trip he says helped spark the Egyptian-rooted name and origin story behind his online spagyric herbal tincture business, Zep Tepi Solutions. Photo: Owen Weinman

Owen Weinman's Zep Tepi Solutions brings a 500-year-old alchemical tradition to the online marketplace.

PARK CITY, UT — When Owen Weinman spent a month in Egypt in 2017, something shifted. Standing alone inside the Pyramid of Khafre for nearly an hour — a fortunate quirk of timing — the Park City resident felt a spiritual pull he’d been chasing his whole life finally snap into place.

“That has always been my Mecca,” said Weinman. “It’s just always felt like a really strong spiritual place to me.”

What followed was years of dedicated study, hands-on laboratory work, and an apprenticeship under one of North America’s foremost practicing alchemists. Now, Weinman has channeled that journey into a business: Zep Tepi Solutions, an online apothecary offering handcrafted spagyric tinctures rooted in the ancient alchemical tradition he traces back to the temples of ancient Egypt.

What Is Spagyrics?

The word “spagyric” — derived from the Greek words spao (to separate) and ageiro (to recombine) — was coined in the 16th century by the Swiss-German physician and alchemist Paracelsus. Weinman describes it as the healing and medicinal branch of laboratory alchemy: physician-applied alchemy, where plants are broken down into their component parts and then reassembled into a more potent whole.

In classical alchemical philosophy, every substance contains three principles: the sulfur (the soul or the medicinal properties)the medicinal properties), the mercury (the vital force or spirit), and the salt (the physical body or matrix). A standard herbal tincture extracts the sulfur and mercury from a plant — the medicinal compounds dissolved into alcohol — and then discards the remaining plant material. In spagyric preparation, Weinman goes further.

“You take the plant material itself, once you’re done, and you incinerate and calcine it to a white ash,” he explained. “Then you extract this ash and create an alkaline salt — the body of the plant itself — and add it back into the tincture.”

That process, he says, “catalyzes an esterification reaction that is significantly more bioavailable than conventional herbal extracts.” The medicine, Weinman said, penetrates deeper into the body, crosses cell membranes more easily, and remains active longer.

“Most doses for spagyric tinctures are just several drops,” Weinman said. “They’re much, much more potent.”

The Name

Zep Tepi is an ancient Egyptian concept meaning “the first time” — a term used to mark points of origin, whether the birth of a person, the dawn of a civilization, or the beginning of the universe itself.

“It’s kind of the origin point I try to reconnect with through my work,” Weinman said.

The Journey

Weinman grew up in a spiritually minded household in Park City—his mother, Lisa Needham, owned Park City Yoga Studio—and he spent years exploring what he describes as new-age ideas without finding a tradition he felt compelled to pursue deeply. The 2017 backpacking trip to Egypt changed that. When he returned home, he began reading about Egyptian spiritual practices and followed the thread to alchemy: a discipline that, by historical account, passed from ancient Egyptian temple practices into Greek Alexandria, then into the Islamic world, and eventually into medieval Europe.

Back in Park City, Weinman set up a small home laboratory. His practice was personal at first — equal parts spiritual discipline and scientific experimentation. He later traveled to Washington state to study with Robert Allen Bartlett, a lifelong alchemist and educator who teaches hands-on courses in herbal, mineral, and metallic alchemy.

After completing that training, Weinman was hired as director of laboratory operations at a spagyric laboratory in Ogden run by alchemist Phoenix Aurelius. Over two years, he worked with hundreds of plant species and produced hundreds of finished preparations. When Aurelius eventually closed the business and relocated, Weinman decided to launch his own.

“I decided that I should create my own business and be able to offer these remedies to people,” he said.

The Products

Zep Tepi Solutions launched its website in late 2024 and sells finished spagyric tinctures through zeptepisolutions.com. Products range from single-herb preparations to what Weinman calls “strategic formulations” — multi-herb blends targeted at specific health concerns.

Among the current offerings: a Fresh Cilantro Spagyric Tincture marketed for heavy metal detox, drawing on cilantro’s documented ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and chelate metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and aluminum from the nervous system and tissues. The Sekhem Vitalis Rx is a multi-herb blend formulated to support healthy testosterone balance in men and women. The Master Mushroom Elixir combines lion’s mane, reishi, cordyceps, chaga, and maitake mushrooms. Other formulations focus on nervous system support and anxiety relief.

Zep Tepi Solutions operates exclusively online for now, though Weinman says his long-term vision includes a physical healing arts center where practitioners of multiple modalities could work under one roof.

“Right now, it’s just me fulfilling online orders,” he said. “But that’s the dream.”

A Note on Science

Weinman acknowledges that spagyrics occupies a space that can seem esoteric to the uninitiated. He’s quick to point out, however, that many of the figures associated with the scientific revolution — Isaac Newton among them — were practicing alchemists, and that alchemy is widely recognized as a precursor to modern chemistry and pharmacology.

All products on the Zep Tepi Solutions website carry the standard FDA disclaimer that they have not been evaluated to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure any illness or disease.

For more information or to place an order, visit zeptepisolutions.com.