From: Thyagi@cup.portal.com (Thyagi Morgoth NagaSiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Alchemy
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 21:47:27 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world
 515.405@news.uwyo.edu>
  <C16CFC.I6H@HQ.Ileaf.COM><1993Jan21.082614.409@news.uwyo.edu>
  <JOSHUA.93Jan21144500@bailey.cpac.washington.edu>

93!01.21 e.v.


[Where's the science?]

Josh Geller writes:


In article <1993Jan21.082614.409@news.uwyo.edu> rtravsky@news.uwyo.edu (Rich 
Travsky) writes:

>   In article <C16CFC.I6H@HQ.Ileaf.COM>, rap@HQ.Ileaf.COM (Roger Powell) 
>   writes:

>   > Life extension:

>   > This one I can't really see. The thing is, life extension is perceived 

>   I suppose the thing to do here is try and decide just what is it whose 
>   life is being extended: the physical body, or something incoporeal. 

the western literature is fairly explicit about this: the physical life
is what is being extended. there are even said to be two forms of this.
in one, the adept (who, curiously, all seem to be male; if anyone knows
of a tradition of an immortal female adept they should please inform me)
is seemingly 50 years old or so indefinitely. in the other, the adept
allows himself to age until he's 70 or so, and then reduces his apparent
age to 20 or so. this process involves the hair and teeth falling out
and regrowing and the body going through sort of a metamorphosis in the
space of a couple three weeks.

see my previous remarks re skepticism.


Response:

The literature may be explicit because that is all that was ALLOWED
to remain (i.e. that which claimed amazing PHYSICAL things).  Why
would such restriction upon this information be levelled?  I think
that this was because objectivist 'scientists', in an effort to
maintain their 'truth' (read DOGMA), have intentionally participated
with the Church in destroying (or allowing to disintegrate) valuable
alchemical documents which did NOT make such claims.

It is quite important that we have ancient documents which discuss
the nature of Dragons and the processes of life-extension.  However,
if we begin to assume that these documents are in any way literal
simply because they PORTRAY themselves as literal, then we set
ourselves up for the destruction of the scientific method, abused
as it is in the present institution.

I'll restate this a bit more clearly so people can see what I'm
arguing:

1) What proof shall we accept that a person has 'extended' their
life in some fashion?  What criteria shall we accept in order
to justify accepting this literally?

2) Same goes for 'lead-into-gold'.  How shall we determine,
precisely, that this 'transmutation' has taken place?


The problem here is that no credible scientific data has been
accumulated to establish the truth of either of these claims.
Until there is some I feel we are much wiser to assume that they
are simply metaphors for nonphysical phenomena.

Do I hear a counter-argument?  Yes, skepticism is very fine and
good, but when we have evidence that many people DID die early
due to 'alchemical potions/pills of longevity', why need we
reserve the tentative judgement that these are STORIES, rather
than facts?  (i.e. subjective rather than objective data)


Thyagi Morgoth NagaSiva
Thyagi@HouseofKaOS.Abyss.com