Frankistien? was an Alchemist, tried one of his potions, and turned
himself "Persian" BLUE.
Neil Trigger wrote:
>
> I found this post most interesting.
>
> I have read through Diana Fernando's "The Dictionary of Alchemy" and you
> seem to have missed out the relavance of "Quick Silver" - better known
as
> Mercury. This is a heavy metal as is lead.
>
> Has anyone heard the expression:
> "Mad as a hatter?" Well... it does NOT come from Alice in wonderland as
many
> people believe. It's actually due to the fact that hatters used to use
> Mercury to obtain a good ****ne on the hats they made. They actually
dipped
> the hats (by hand) into a vat of Mercury.
>
> Because they did not realise the dangers of such things, they used no
gloves
> as the mercury simply seemed to drip off their hands afterwards, but
each
> time, small amounts of the metal actually got absorbed through the skin,
> into the blood stream.
>
> As with any heavy metal it has an ac***ulative effect and the mercury
> actually made the hatters - literally - mad!
>
> Because mercury is so prolific in ancient alchemical accounts and (as
you
> say) the majority of successful alchemical experiments were of ancient
> origin - PERHAPS the old alchemists were indeed a little bonkers.
>
> --
> Neil Trigger
> Magic2k Webmaster
> http://www.magic2k.com
> http://www.magic2k.co.uk
> "xiwangmu" <yronwode.com@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:4UQ2d.14236$54.204823@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > 50040917 viii om
> >
> > takingcare2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Take Care):
> > # Is alchemy the feeling of chemistry in the air between two persons?
> > # The type where people in the room, with the two energy-flowing
> > # individuals, can also feel the heat of their attraction.
> >
> > conventionally that's called 'chemistry'. sometimes people
> > romanticize it or add something to its mystique by calling
> > it something more spiritual ('alchemy'), but this is uncommon.
> >
> > # ...find out if there is a word that is assigned
> > # to this type of energy reaction.
> >
> > traditionally 'alchemy' is the name given to transmutational
> > endeavours surrounding base metals (such as lead) or personal
> > aspects (one's unrefined character, or 'spirit') into some
> > presupposedly possible alternative.
> >
> > twin traditions through spacetime have developed within the
> > Chinese, Persian and European (at least) strands of alchemy:
> >
> > 1) transmuting lead or some other less costly
> > metal into gold.
> >
> > 2) transmuting one's spirit into something
> > admirable ('golden') or durable ('immortal').
> >
> > the first was all but abandoned with the arising of chemistry
> > and the typical feats that are supposed to have made their
> > respective alchemists into rich men. these seem to primarily
> > have been fictions, deceits, or instructional metaphors, and
> > have little to no historical basis behind them (the die-hards
> > of course hold out and still continue to achieve it anyway).
> >
> > the second is usually misunderstood or misplaced, and those
> > who pur****t immortality as the aim have never shown examples
> > or the examples are said to go off into a fantastic realm to
> > live, alike to numerous afterlife survival motifs. these seem
> > primarily also to be fictions, but there may be some grain of
> > truth to their attempts to rarefy and enhance experience. that
> > is, while alive, certain mystical activities may add some kind
> > of aesthetic or attenuated quality to the lives of those who
> > engage them. from what we've been able to tell so far, this
> > might be a product of psychosocial predisposition and general
> > mental function (demonstrated as 'the powers of the mind' by
> > administering what is commonly called the 'placebo test' in
> > association with case trials, providing of a sugar pill or
> > something else known by itself to give no discernable effects
> > as supposed and for which the tests are being conducted).
> >
> > usually the stories surrounding successful alchemists are long
> > ago and far away, though there are crafty modern exceptions to
> > this who ****eld their data carefully 'so as to avoid theft of
> > their formulae'. needless to say, no modern successes have been
> > satisfactorily duplicated so as to confirm their results. in
> > part this is one of the main problems with alchemy: some claim
> > that the personal nature of the formula (who one is, where one
> > is living, the timing, the conditions of weather, astronomy,
> > day of the week, one's religious purity, any number of other
> > causative factors are involved), so that repeats of successes
> > would be precluded or least extremely difficult at the least,
> > perhaps impossible outside very strange twin studies :>).
> >
> > it has been one of my longstanding holdouts, given my general
> > scientific upbringing, to suppose that alchemy was a means of
> > rarefying and attenuating experience, and that 'immortality'
> > was actually experience of this attenuated type, effectively
> > *lengthening the subjective aspect of experience rather than
> > its objective duration*. I have no confirmations on this as
> > yet and most of the alchemists I've met or spoken with via
> > telecommunications do not share this perspective on their art.
> >
> > I look forward to hearing from others whose opinions on
> > this topic are liable to be contentional and entertaining!
> >
> > mu
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