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Alchemy

ShaggyFin said:
This is all heavily Norse.
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What we're essentially talking about here is esoteric religion, which knows no cultural bounds. The idea that the divine resides within us, and that each of us can actively harness this spark of holy light at the core of our being for personal transformation, has been shared across different groups of people for millennia. It's a practice that's inherently synergistic and receptive to influence, the way, for example, music is. The metaphors and symbolism used to illustrate and teach this basic idea have varied, of course, and typically made use of the language and symbols already familiar to people from that culture. The use of alchemy constitutes one of these metaphors. Quite a lot of Western esoteric / mystery schools have used the history, terminology, and symbology of the original alchemists to give initiates an idea of the sort of ambition the traditions seek to cultivate. I think this works well for some people, especially people who feel inherently awestruck and connected to something larger by peering into the West and/or Middle East's distant past.

But this is definitely not everyone's cup of joe. For a contrast, try googling "spiritual transhumanism", and meet several online-based groups for people steeped in modern cyber-culture, who clearly seek the same sort of personal connection to the divine within, but get their sense of awe and mystery stimulated much more readily by pondering the future than the past.
 
rangrz said:
I still don't see the "Norway" in Egypt.
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The transmutation. The universal tree. Alchemy itself (which you guys are NOT solely speaking about), Alchemy of the soul. Is ALL part of Norse philosophy.
 
^ I don't doubt for a minute that the Nordic peoples have developed local mystical and esoteric traditions that fit exactly the patterns you describe, and draw upon historical alchemy and the exotically elusive culture of ancient Egypt for inspiration, in addition, of course, to local indigenous influences. But the implication that alchemy itself is quintessentially Nordic, or at its root the cultural and intellectual property of the Nordic peoples, doesn't sit well with me.

One could potentially make a case that the Nordic contribution to most English speakers' notions of esoteric religion have been substantial, and deserve mention. This is like saying that the medieval French people and language deserve as much (arguably much more) credit for the Latin acrolect found in the modern English language as the the ancient Romans. Or that Japan (not India) deserves credit for most Westerners' understanding of Zen, because we got most of what we know of the tradition and practice from Japanese people.

One could also potentially argue that the Nordic esoteric traditions have preserved a uniquely rich, undiluted, or accessible introduction for Anglos. This is like preferring Tibetan Buddhism over other Buddhist traditions because it has preserved the most features of the now-gone Sanskrit-language lineages.

But I'm not exactly sure which, if any of these, you're arguing, so you'll have to clarify :)
 
rangrz said:
But the universe has not evolved in the sense of physical--->biological---->human. For one, Human is subsumed into biological which subsumed into physical. The other reason is that, well, there still exists a lot of physical, non-biological, non-human stuff in the universe. No?
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Of course there is a lot of stuff in the universe that is lower-level than humans. But we are the universe's finest creation, its magnum opus thus far (assuming there are not more advanced forms of life on other planets, which there very well may be). It took a long time to get to this point in the universe's evolution, and all the non-human stuff out there is the cradle of our humanity - it could not be done away with because it is a part of us and we are a part of it.

But, you're right in that it would be more accurate to say that the universe has evolved from physical -> physical + biological -> physical + biological + human

This increasing complexification and sophisticated nervous systems allows the universe to experience itself in ever more interesting ways (not sure "interesting" is the right word - nuanced? exquisite?).

I'm curious to see your response because I know you will take issue with it lol.
 
I don't take a whole lot of issue from point of view, which is your point is valid from an anthropocentric point of view (or else, from a point of view focused on 'consciousness') But I'm not sure I agree with people being the universes finest creation, in a few ways. a) The universe (or even biological evolution) have no direction, plan, or sentience and it's not meaningful to say we're a "creation"...We're just the result of a bunch of more less mechanistic, stochastic processes. Is the criteria of being its finest, its magnum opus not subjective and arbitrary? How we are it's magnum opus. All the output of radiowaves from humanity has an extinction distance of at best 3 year lights. (Which is to say it's not even in principle detectable from further than that.) a Quasar can be seen truly huge distances. (30ish billion light years, after keeping in mind the inflationary expansion of space means that it's actually much bigger than 13.7 billion light years radius despite it only being that old.) Humans and everything we do is astonishingly fleeting and feeble compared to a lot of the other the stuff in the universe.
 
Alchemy has its ancient roots in the concept of transmutation, particularly of the self/spirit dynamic. Later philosophers described it as a material alchemy wherein you can change a worthless object into something valuable like gold, but that was a shift of focus from its original meaning. You see, in order to change a physical object to something else you must also possess a powerful command and understanding of your own internal nature. As the outside is merely a reflection of the inside, the material feats would necessarily follow form with the spiritual and energetic feats. The thing is, once you can transmute your own being, material pursuits are rendered irrelevant. The whole point of inner alchemy is to show you that your true nature is immaterial.

"Alchemy" as described from the Greek Helenic period onward refers to what we would now call chemistry, but that is different from even earlier references. To understand what the more ancient systems might have looked like you would have to consult the Neidan Taoist philosophy. It deals with transmuting subtle bodily and spiritual substances into higher forms with the end result of advanced states of consciousness, enlightenment and immortality.
 
rangrz said:
The universe (or even biological evolution) have no direction, plan, or sentience and it's not meaningful to say we're a "creation"...We're just the result of a bunch of more less mechanistic, stochastic processes.
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Okay I will argue that THIS view is subjective and arbitrary. The mechanistic worldview is an oversimplified representation, and it came out of humanity's own experience with the development of material tools and technology. For instance, the deistic idea of the universe being like a clock which was wound up and started at the beginning of time, and which has been ticking away through the workings of gears and springs ever since. Obviously, science has come a long way since then and has developed a much more sophisticated representation than a clock, but the trend of using our own inventions as analogies for the universe has continued. For example: using the computer (hardware, software, computation) to model human cognition.

This begs the question, why are we using our artificial constructions as analogies? As you pointed out, our accomplishments pale in comparison to the universe's at large (the universe produced US after all) - so why not use natural processes as metaphors for the working of the universe? Alan Watts has pointed out that religions based on the Old Testament owe their conception of the universe to God making man out of dust and breathing life into him - similar to a potter creating out of clay, and our language reflects this ("my parents 'made' me"). Meanwhile, Eastern societies prefer naturalistic language with words like "grow" instead of "make." Watts liked to say that just like an apple tree "apples" (as a verb), Earth "peoples."

Besides its oversimplification, my main beef with using our own technology to model the universe is that by doing so everything becomes a tool to be manipulated - the earth and even people are simply machines to be exploited to produce resources to fuel our own internal combustion engines. The universe is a dead lump of matter, or as Freud put it, "blind energy."


I will use a more naturalistic analogy: humanity is like a flower blooming on the edge of time in the universe. And yes, everything we do is fleeting - like a flower.
 
Foreigner said:
Alchemy has its ancient roots in the concept of transmutation, particularly of the self/spirit dynamic. Later philosophers described it as a material alchemy wherein you can change a worthless object into something valuable like gold, but that was a shift of focus from its original meaning. You see, in order to change a physical object to something else you must also possess a powerful command and understanding of your own internal nature. As the outside is merely a reflection of the inside, the material feats would necessarily follow form with the spiritual and energetic feats. The thing is, once you can transmute your own being, material pursuits are rendered irrelevant. The whole point of inner alchemy is to show you that your true nature is immaterial.

"Alchemy" as described from the Greek Helenic period onward refers to what we would now call chemistry, but that is different from even earlier references. To understand what the more ancient systems might have looked like you would have to consult the Neidan Taoist philosophy. It deals with transmuting subtle bodily and spiritual substances into higher forms with the end result of advanced states of consciousness, enlightenment and immortality.
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I believe alchemy was closer to "Study of alloys" than it was "general science" right? Or was that just during a certain time period?

I like you're explanation of inner alchemy though. :D
 
ShaggyFin said:
I believe alchemy was closer to "Study of alloys" than it was "general science" right? Or was that just during a certain time period?

I like you're explanation of inner alchemy though. :D
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It probably started off as the study of alloys, via the copper/bronze/iron age and the obvious requirement that these early peoples developed some sort of proto-science and engineering to enable them to smelt, alloy and work metals. But it was more or less general chemistry and even general science. Things like distillation of alcohol, making paints and pigments and cosmetics, early pharmaceuticals, (both the ineffective, and the early effective ones like tincture of cannabis and tincture of opium) acid/base chemistry (think about making soap...) making glass and stained glass early medicine (seperate from pharma, like the earliest attempts at surgery and dentistry) and aspects of physics like optics/lenses, thermodynamics and fluid mechanics (ovens, chimney designs, etc) tended to be the sorts of things studied by/worked with by alchemists. Probably the best acheivement of alchemy and ironically, it's death stroke, would be the publication of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Newton. He was heavily into alchemy, but his work as more or less marks the transition from alchemy to modern science.
 
rangrz said:
the publication of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Newton. He was heavily into alchemy, but his work as more or less marks the transition from alchemy to modern science.
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I always thought of alchemy as more of a metal only science. But I definitely see how they would be the first ones to be using cabbage to acid/base test, or mixing things in a vial (except witches making herbal brews) and Distilling.

And bringing up Newton reminds me of something. He was actually NEVER trying to discover gravity. He was using the Bible and math from it to discover the date of the apocalypse, and gravity was an accidental discovery on his path. And he actually DID finish his calculations and I believe he said it was going to be in the 40's or 60's or something. Maybe even 1800's, I don't remember. I just remember they had a whole special about this on like history channel or something.
 
Here is an example of a (famous) alchemist who's work with chemistry extended well beyond metallurgy. Things involving distillation and re-fluxing of chemicals, production of nitric acid, stuff involving waterproofing textiles and flame proofing paper, etc.

As I said about Newton, he was batfuck insane and really into alchemy. That of course does nothing to detract from his laws of motion being one of the best and most important scientific discoveries of all time.
 
^the true value of alchemy came to be by scientists trying to make gold out of urine, and haphazardly creating mauve, the first synthetic dye. after enough attempts yielding no gold and more mauve they realized the gold as figurative, and that the soul is comparable to gold on a molecular level in the way gold, and iron, can assume many forms; when heated with fire they take the form of fire, and return to their natural state again once cooled.
 
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